Author Interview w/ Meredith Zeitlin

Today at Uniquely Moi Books, I have the wonderfully kind and most lovely, Meredith Zeitlin! Meredith is the author of FRESHMAN YEAR & OTHER UNNATURAL DISASTERS. I have had the pleasure of interviewing her, finding out a little scoop on Meredith, and getting her to spill some info about her new book, which releases March 1st!


Ready? Here goes!


1.) When did you first have the idea for FRESHMAN YEAR AND OTHER UNNATURAL DISASTERS? 

Way back in 2004, I used to babysit for an amazing little girl named Zoe... who is now taller than I am, by the way. (Why?!?) Anyway, I would read her YA books while she did her homework... and with few exceptions, I found myself very bummed out by them. I thought they seemed cookie-cutter and not very well-written and, most importantly, not at all the sources of comfort I grew up with, which were filled with relatable characters who were awkward and desperately trying to figure things out. Instead these were all about super rich and sophisticated kids, the likes of which I certainly never met when I was fourteen. I'd spent a lot of time with Zoe and her friends, and also had plenty of fodder from my own high school experiences to draw on, so I thought: Why not sit down and start writing something? So after a great deal of procrastination (like, two years worth), I did just that. I sat down in my living room, started typing the first sentence, and just went from there - no real plan, just a voice in my head.

2.) Can you share with us, a most horrendous and embarrassing thing that happened to you in high school? 

 

 Isn't the book enough for you people?!!? Yep, it's true - about 90% of the stuff that happens to Kelsey is based on things that actually happened to me. Names and details have been changed, but for the most part, almost all the disasters are mine. But let's see if I can think of something that's not in the book, since you asked... 

I started at a new school my freshman year, an all-girls' private school. Being new is never easy, but it was especially hard because many of these girls had been friends since these were babies and cliques were pretty tightly formed. The first week, I was happy to have started making friends and, to get a couple of the girls in my homeroom to laugh, I started writing notes featuring improvisational limericks about the teachers. (I know, I'm an idiot - I admit it. But I was trying to be cool!) This would've been a big hit - IF one of the girls hadn't tossed them at the end of class as we walked out (cracking up pretty conspicuously) and IF the teacher hadn't for some reason I have never understood taken the notes out of the trash and read them and IF she hadn't been, unbeknownst to me, the MEANEST TEACHER IN THE WORLD. She somehow knew I had written the poems and never forgot it. Ask anyone in my graduating class and they'll tell you she absolutely loathed me. The worst part? She was the Lit teacher, and brilliant. Oh, cruel irony... and total disaster.

 

3.) I loved how you didn't go into bullying when it so easily could have. Was this intentional?

 

Well, I really did base Kelsey's experiences on my own, and while the Julie character in my life did bully me to an extent - pretty similar to what you see in the book - it was NOTHING like some of the stories that have been made public recently. I think that ultimately, this is a comic story, so something that got too serious or scary wouldn't have really worked for the book. I did want to show hints of that sort of thing (like with Julie, or the incident at the party with the guy who tries to push Kelsey too far sexually) because not everything IS funny in real life, but the tone of the book had to stay on the light side.

 

4.) Please share with us how you came up with some of the crazy and embarrassing things that happened to Kelsey. 

 

Like I said, almost everything that happens to Kelsey in the book is based on experiences from my real life, which happened at about the same time. I am, and have always been, disaster-prone. I just thought back - and sometimes asked my friends to remind me of things I'd banished from my memory! - and boom: I had a book.

 

5.) Did you have any other names for the title?

 

 Yes. The original title was “The World vs. Kelsey Finkelstein” - and that was long before I’d never heard of Scott Pilgrim! Later it was “This Just In: Kelsey Finkelstein is Freaking Out.” But editors have mysterious ideas about what will work, and they wanted me to think of something else...

 

6.) How did you come up with the name of the book?

 

 I did a LOT of brainstorming. My friends helped. I discovered the David Cross show, “The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret” (which is AMAZING, btw) and I thought that title was brilliant, so I tried to think of something with a similar feeling to it. I submitted lists of ideas. They all got a thumbs-down. Then my editor came back and suggested “Freshman Year and Other Unnatural Disasters” - a title I had submitted months earlier that they rejected! I said, “Definitely. It’s genius. I’m glad you thought of it.” And here we are today. Sometimes, you gotta play along.

 

7.) I loved how Kelsey always had a positive attitude no matter what happened to her. Can you share with us, your outlook on how important it is for teens to have a high self esteem?

 

I think it's very important and so incredibly hard to achieve high self esteem at any age, but especially for tweens and teens. The pressure is enormous to fit in and succeed and look a certain way... I certainly struggled with it myself. Even Kelsey spends a lot of time with a million thoughts in her head, doubting her choices and (especially after the incident with Sam at the party) thinking bad things about herself. Kels is really lucky to have a supportive network of people in her life, which helps her keep her chin up and keep trying. I purposefully gave her a lot of obstacles so that readers could see her come out the other side even stronger. I think that any way I - or any writer - can get the message to teens that it's okay to make mistakes, that NO ONE is perfect, that everything can be a learning experience... is worth exploring. I don't there's a magic trick that will make a teenager suddenly have good self-esteem, but I know that for me, when I was that age, reading books about characters I could relate to (who were also awkward or confused or trying to find their way) really helped me see that I wasn't the only one who was a hot mess. And that's the real reason I wrote this book: to put another character out in the world that would make some girl somewhere think: "Ok. I'm not the only one. I don't have to be perfect, and I can still totally get through this high school craziness."

 

8.) Was there anything you wish you had added or could change to FRESHMAN YEAR AND OTHER UNNATURAL DISASTERS?  

 

There were so many drafts of this book, and so many different KINDS of drafts - so I think over the course of the editing process, everything that could've been changed GOT changed. Kelsey originally had four besties, but that was considered too many friends, so poor Sara got bumped off. (Sorry, Sara!) For one draft my editor wanted a totally different narrative structure, so I rewrote the entire book in article form. Then that got scrapped. (The very FIRST draft was actually written in the past tense, with embedded dialogue.) One version had a subplot about Travis being a child star, which was fun but ended up being distracting. JoJo's storyline changed - she wasn't gay in the original version of the book, but the idea came to me and I thought it was just right for her character. Cassidy had a different way of speaking for a while that I fought against changing (I lost). Ben was about six different guys - he also had a sister at one point who was Kelsey's friend, and then her enemy... there were a LOT of changes on a very, very long editing road. I think after all of that, I'm really happy with the finished book exactly as it is. So no, I wouldn't change anything... because I kind of already did!

 

 

Thanks so much Meredith! I loved having you!

 

You can find Meredith on Twitter @zeitlingeist

And find out more about Meredith and her new book:

http://www.kelseyfinkelstein.com/

 

Let's not forget the Facebook fans!