Today is the book birthday for The One and Only Bob. This is, of course, the highly anticipated sequel to The One and Only Ivan. In normal circumstances, the author of the "book birthday" would visit schools across the country, like a rock star on tour! I don't know if she would have visited where I live. Maybe. But because of COVID-19, she's had to put a halt on her traveling. Instead, Katherine Applegate had a "virtual" meeting about the book, and yours truly somehow managed to weasel her way into it! Katherine's writerly beginnings Surprisingly, Katherine Applegate was not a reader as a child. She admits it and says she makes a point to tell kids this at her school visits! Usually there's a gasp and (unfortunately) some clapping. She didn't have dyslexia. Reading wasn't hard for her; it was just boring. But then, as she tells the story, she found her "best friend book." It was Charlotte's Web. "You may think that's your best friend book, too," Katherine says, "but it's really mine." It's what got her to see story telling in a new light. My best friend book? It's hard for me to pick one! Unlike Katherine Applegate, I was an reader as a kid. Still am! I probably had best friend books all the time! But I'd say that The Summer of the Monkeys was up there for me. That and The Outsiders and Anne of Green Gables. If you write, you're a writer! Even though she wasn't a reader, Katherine was a writer. She wrote stories all the time! During the Q&A of the virtual meeting, someone asked her when she knew she wanted to be a writer. In answer, Katherine first of all explained that you don't have to be published to be a writer. When she was a kid, she wrote a story about a pig. She says there was probably a plot, but she doesn't remember it. But when she finished that draft, she says, "that's the day I became a writer!" Writer's block? No such thing! When asked about what she does for writer's block, she claimed that it doesn't exist! "I know it's not a popular thing to say," she admits. "But it's true." She went on to explain that they're just problems. Nothing more, nothing less. Writers, she says, are "narcissistic," so we think our problems are bigger than others, so much so that we have to give it a name: writer's block. "We don't have teacher's block," she reasons. "Mother's block or plumber's block. They're just problems." Once you can recognize it for what it is, then you can work through it:
Behind the scenes Because it's Bob's book birthday, we talked about Bob. He's, remember, the little dog in The One and Only Ivan. Even though Ivan was inspired by a very true story, Katherine had chosen to write his story in a fictionalized way. She felt that Ivan the gorilla needed a friend, so she gave him Bob. He started out as a cockroach. Then a mouse. She needed something that could slip into a small hole of Ivan's cage. Since she was fictionalizing the story anyway, Katherine decided to make the hole a little bigger and make Bob a small dog. She based his character on her own feisty and somewhat grumpy pup, Stan. The One and Only Ivan, as some of you may know, is now a motion picture! It's scheduled to be "out" in theaters August 2020. Of course, we don't know what that will look like in our uncertain circumstances right now, but as Katherine says, that's when it's scheduled to come out! Danny DeVito voices Bob in the movie. (What a cool idea! He's perfect for Bob!) They asked, and he agreed to also do the audiobook of The One and Only Bob! At the end of the virtual meeting, the hosts, SLJ, supplied an audio excerpt and a "Behind the mic with Danny DeVito." So much fun! My writing journey
I think going to book launches (even virtually) like this really helps me in my writing journey. It's not only something I can shoot for, but it reminds me that the authors of the books I love are normal people who also struggle with writing. It's tough to write a book! When Katherine was asked if she would be writing a third book about Ivan and Bob, she laughed and said, "Look, writing a book is like giving birth. You need a little time to recover." ha ha! When asked if writing this second book was challenging for her, she said, "Well, it took me eight years. That probably says something." But she did it. And I can, too.
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