Who or what was your biggest influence in deciding to become a writer?
Becoming a writer was a bit of a fluke for me, and it’s all down to my mom. I’d written short stories and fan fiction as a hobby since middle school, but my mom—who’s always suggesting alternative careers for me—was on my case about writing a novel. I thought that was ridiculous, but one year I decided I would write a novel just for her as a Christmas present. I started in the spring and barely had time to get the book printed so as to give it to her for Christmas. In the process of writing that book, I got sort of addicted, and here we are!
Do you have a writing ritual?
Not an interesting one, I’m afraid! I prefer to write at the library because I find too many ways to procrastinate at home, and I usually listen to white noise because I can’t concentrate with music. Basically, all my rituals are about removing any possible distraction.
Can you give us a hint about what we can expect in your next book?
More Marina, James and Finn! The future didn’t turn out quite the way they’d planned.
Dying to know about Cristin’s inspiration for All Our Yesterdays?
Read on . . .
Dear 2011 Cristin,
You’re about to start writing a new book. I know this because I’ve already written it. Congratulations, you finished it! And despite your best attempts to do everything wrong at least once, it actually turned out okay in the end!
But because I love you and want you to have an easier time of it than I did, I’m going to give you a few tips that will save you a lot of hair pulling:
1. Watch Terminator II when it’s showing on TV one night and imagine what the story would be like if the killer robot was the good guy—and a teenage girl instead of a robot. This will get you started.
2. Although your two point-of-view characters are actually the same person, give them two different names. Otherwise you will confuse even yourself. When people ask why, make up some deep-sounding answer about how hardship strips Marina down to her essentials, making her shed her illusions, her hair and her name until she’s just Em. Really, it was just a lot less confusing that way and I know you’re going to get excited at the prospect that readers won’t know for sure if Em and Marina are the same person until the scene in the hospital parking lot.
3. Don’t worry so much about making Marina likable in the beginning. She’s a rich bitch with a heart of gold; embrace that. Once you do, she’ll come to life for you.
4. Your first draft of the book is going to be pretty boring. It’s okay, you’ll fix it. For one thing, you should add these things called “flashes” where Em and Finn pass out and relive something from their past. It will allow you to show a lot of things that happened to them during those lost middle years and to flesh out their relationship. Once you’ve done this, you won’t be able to imagine how you first wrote the book without them. In fact, those flashes will be so integral to the story that you’ll completely forget they were a later addition until someone asks you about it directly.
5. You know that theory you have about how on TV shows the intended love interest’s best friend/brother always ends up being a better, more interesting love interest for the heroine? But you don’t think there’s a way to make that work in a book? Give it a try anyway, you never know.
6. Just ask your agent about guns and law enforcement. It’s going to save you a ton of research time. Then bake her some cookies to thank her for knowing so much.
7. I know you sometimes look at pictures of your teenage self and wish you could just hug her and tell her that she’s not the total loser she thinks she is. I bet you can find a way to use that.
Okay, those are all the hints I’m going to give you. There are plenty of other things you’re going to mess up or get stuck on, but if I give too much away, you won’t learn anything. And you have to learn a lot, or else writing the sequel is really going to be tough. I should know; I’m in the middle of it right now. I’m hoping for a letter with some pointers to arrive from 2015 Cristin at any moment.
Love,
2013 Cristin
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney
First published in Great Britain in August 2013 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP
First published in the USA in September 2013 by Hyperion Books,
125 West End Avenue, New York, New York 10011-5690
This electronic edition published in August 2013 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © Cristin Terrill 2013
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved
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make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means
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may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
e-ISBN 978 1 4088 3520 3
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Cristin Terrill, All Our Yesterdays
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