This feels real because there’s so much of your heart in it. I used some specific memories to fuel some scenes, but Reha’s story is different from my own. the feeling of being torn between two worlds, of wanting to be like everyone else but needing to be myself, and of experiencing something devastating, but finding a way to get through it.
I also drew upon my experience of how I felt as an Indian-American growing up in the U.S. I poured so much of myself into this book! I got into the mood to write by listening to music from 1983-1984, and I referred to and included the titles of many of my favorite songs in the story. How much did your own memories light the fire for this story? For this story, the first draft was spare, and I added more poems to fill in gaps during revision. I had to do some medical research on leukemia treatment in the 1980s, and as a result I didn’t end up writing a section I’d originally planned on writing, because it wasn’t scientifically accurate.
Once I’d written all the poems, I figured out what order to put them in during revision. Some of the first poems turned out to be “keystone poems” that brought together the main themes of the story. I wrote the poems in whatever order they occurred to me. Six weeks! That is a lightning strike of a draft, Rajani! What changed over the course of revisions? What remained from the beginning? Once I turned in the other novel and started writing this one in earnest, it flowed out of me in about six weeks. I had another novel I had to finish first, so this book became my “Friday night date” where I would listen to music and allowed myself to think about this story. So I read every verse novel for kids that I could get my hands on, and figured out how to approach this story. But although I’d written lyrical picture books and poetry before, I’d never written an entire novel in verse. And so I figured I should write this story in verse. The idea for Red, White, and Whole came to me as a metaphor - the metaphor of blood, and all that it means in terms of biology, family, and community. How did this book come to be? Was it in verse from the start or did the form take shape later on? I asked Rajani if she’d tell me a little about the process of writing this beautifully crafted book, which has been so deservedly recognized (Newbery Honor, Walter Dean Myers Award Winner, Golden Kite Award Winner). I’ve been wanting to write this post ever since I first read Red, White, and Whole, Rajani LaRocca’s YA novel in verse about grief, loss, and coming of age as a desi kid in America.
0 kommentar(er)
