(And if anybody has any bright ideas about these blank blog pages, please send your techno-nerd suggestions... I'm copying directly from the word doc Nancy sent me this time, no changing fonts, spaces, etc, and maybe this will work. Fingers crossed!)
I'm excited to have my friend and fellow Tampa Bay writer, Nancy Cavanaugh, here today. Nancy's first middle-grade novel, THIS JOURNAL BELONGS TO RATCHET, launches this week. I loved this book! And apparently, so did a lot of other reviewers.
⇒A star from Kirkus is about as gold as you can get.
Pull up a chair. Or a tool bench. And let's ask Nancy about 11-year-old Ratchet and her home-school journal.
Augusta:
I
love the journal format of your book.
I’m curious. Did you write
the entries in the order they appeared or did you skip around? Did they change much as you edited it for
publication?
NANCY:
For
the most part, I wrote the book in order.
Going from beginning to end is just how my brain works. There were a few times though, when I’d
think of a scene I wanted to have happen later on, so I would jot notes down
about that scene, and I’d also decide what type of assignment I would use for
writing that scene. Over the years
while I was writing RATCHET, I revised A LOT, and once I started working with
my editor at Sourcebooks, Aubrey Poole, I revised a lot more. So yes, the book changed quite a bit
throughout all those revisions.
Augusta:
When
and where do you do your best writing?
Do you like music, crowds, food to surround you? Or are you a solitary writer?
NANCY:
My best writing time is probably late at night. It’s when I know I won’t get interrupted because everyone
else is asleep, and it’s nice and quiet.
As for the best place, I’m kind of a writing nomad. In my house, I write in different
places. Recently, I found this
handy dandy carry-all organizer that holds all my stuff. It makes it so easy for me to take
everything with me to any room in the house
Augusta:
I love that bag!
I
know you’re both a mom and librarian.
Were you inspired by other books you’ve read over the years? Do you have any favorites?
NANCY:
I feel like we’re all inspired by everything we read – the books we think are
good and even the ones we think aren’t so good. In writing RATCHET though, I was inspired by one book in
particular – WHAT I BELIEVE by Norma Fox Mazer. It’s a wonderful story told through free verse poetry, and
for some reason that book inspired me to think about writing a book in a
different format.
Augusta:
What’s
your fashion sense? Do you also
shop the second-hand clothing stores?
NANCY:
I
can sum up my fashion sense in one word – comfort. My criteria for what to wear is that it be first and
foremost comfortable. That’s why
you’ll see me wearing gym shoes about 95% of the time. As for shopping, I guess I can sum that
up in one word too – Kohl’s. I buy
about 95% of my clothes and shoes from Kohl’s. (They’re not even paying me to say all this; that’s how much
I love Kohl’s.)
(Here's Nancy looking quite comfy at her tool bench!)
Augusta:
Your writing about Ratchet’s dad’s shop and her helping out is such fun to read
and so realistic. Do you know your
way around a toolbox?
NANCY:
I
learned all my mechanic skills from my husband. He was a former industrial arts teacher, and the two of us
developed and taught elementary and middle school students a course on small engines. In the class, we took apart a small
engine and put it back together again.
Well, you know what they say, there’s no better way to learn something
than to teach it, so that’s how I learned what I know. My experience became the inspiration
for Ratchet’s expertise.
Augusta:
Will
we see this character again? Do
you have another book you’d like to tell us about?
NANCY: I don’t have plans for another
book about Ratchet, at least not right now. What you will see from me is more books written in
alternative formats. I love the
creative part of figuring out how to tell an entire story in a unique way.
Thanks for chatting with us today, Nancy.
Check out Nancy's website,
http://www.nancyjcavanaugh.com http://www.nancyjcavanaugh.com 
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