Today we have Rhonda Hayter here, the author of the incredibly charming middle grade novel, The Witchy Worries of Abbie Adams. I am so excited about this book. I’m telling you, it’s the funniest MG I’ve read in a while. It’s got magic and science and history and it’s so much fun! Everyone go out and buy it because rumour has it, it’s potentially a series. But it needs our support to make it happen!

This is what my 9 year old niece said about it: I loved reading the book of The Witchy Worries of Abbie Adams. I thought it  was very interesting and magical. That writer had very interesting descriptions.

And my niece is one savvy reader, folks! Just to help spread the love, I’m giving away my ARC. Why would I do that when I love it so much? So I have an excuse to buy it when it comes out in April. Because I am a kind and generous person. All you have to do, is leave a comment or email me through the contact page. It’s open to US and Canadian residents, and I’ll take entries until Tuesday, midnight, March 9th.

And now for the interview!

Rhonda Hayter was born in St. Jean, Quebec. She was an actress for some time, appearing in plays on tour and in New York and Los Angeles. Now, she works as a story analyst for a famous movie producer.  When she and her husband found themselves with two little boys, one of whom morphed into a werewolf one day, The Witchy Worries of Abbie Adams was born. Rhonda lives in Los Angeles with her family. This is her first book.  You can find her at www.rhondahayter.com

And a blurb about the book:

Abbie Adams is a regular eleven-year old girl with normal problems, like a really strict fifth-grade teacher. (Meet Miss Linegar. Rhymes with vinegar.)  She’s chronically behind in homework, struggling to remember all her lines in the drama club play, and tormented  by having to keep a big secret from her very best friend. And on top of all these problems, she’s also a witch and has to deal with outsized crises, like her little brother morphing into a werewolf and trying to eat his first-grade teacher. Abbie’s foremost challenge is to maintain the delicate balance between witchy and human life, as she maneuvers her way through all the difficulties that any girl might face, while grappling with magical complications.

What’s the coolest writing thing that’s happened to you since you sold your first book.

Selling my first book again!!  I sold it to Raincoast Books in Canada in 2007 and it was all ready to go to the copy editor when Raincoast decided to close the publishing arm of its distribution business and orphaned me.  That was a bad day.  The following September I was thrilled to sell it again, to Harcourt here in the States.  That November before I had signed my contract, my agent called me up and asked me if I had been reading the business news. The hair on the back of my neck stood up.  Harcourt was undergoing all sorts of upheaval due to the economy. They had stopped acquiring, the vice-president had quit, things were being restructured…and I got a bad, bad feeling.  A month later my editor called with the news that she was leaving Harcourt. My heart stopped beating in my chest…but thankfully she took me with her to Penguin and no CPR was necessary. Now the book is finally coming out in April 2010….knock wood.

Do you use an outline when writing, or just let it flow and write as fast as you can?

My first book, The Witchy Worries, just rushed madly out of me …but about two-thirds of the way through, I had painted myself into so many corners that everything just stopped dead.  I also had about ninety-seven subplots.  Then, I sat down and outlined what would happen next and finished up that way. In my next draft, I edited out the extra subplots.  (They’re delicious warmed up later.) Now I come up with an idea, think of my first line, and doggedly outline, even though I don’t necessarily stick to the original outline as the book progresses.

What author or book have you recently discovered that you want the world to know about?

Sherman Alexie and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. It’s deeply sorrowful, but you laugh all through it. I heard him speak at the SCBWI conference here in Los Angeles last summer and he had the same effect on all of us there.  We were continually erupting in laughter, while tears rolled down our cheeks.  People leapt to their feet to applaud him when he was done. It’s his first YA book and it won the National Book Award. My fourteen-year old loved it as much as I did.

What were your favorite books when you were a teen?

I was all about the sci-fi, baby. Isaac Asimov and I Robot, Robert Heinlein and Stranger in a Strange Land, Ray Bradbury and The Martian Chronicles…and everything else Bradbury wrote. Last year he spoke at the West Hollywood Book Fair and I took my kids to see him. I found myself incredibly moved to lay eyes on the man who had filled so many of my hours with magic when I was a teenager.  In fact, I burst into tears.  My kids were kinda embarrassed.

What’s the best piece of advice anyone ever gave you (or you learned from a book)?

It’s advice that I gave myself and now I give it to every writer I know.  And here it is:  When you’re in the process of writing and you feel compelled to show your work to someone else, tell them that they’re only allowed to tell you one thing…that it’s absolutely brilliant.  (They can pick out particularly wonderful things to compliment you on if they want to, but that’s it.) That confirms what you have to tell yourself as you go along, so that you don’t lose your inspiration to your nasty, mean-spirited inner critic.  Then, when the book is completely written, you don’t know what else to do with it and your tender heart is better protected, you can give it to a few people whose opinion you completely trust, and ask for honest notes. Of course it’s nice if they tell you it’s brilliant too, but you’re emotionally prepared for it if they don’t.

What’s the most embarrassing thing that happened to you in high school?

Well it was actually in eighth grade but it was embarrassing enough to last me a few years.  My family was living in rural North Carolina and late one night, my dog came in through the screen door and curled up in bed with me.  In my deep sleep, I got the sensation that something was wrong… that possibly the house was on fire…but I was too tired to give it much thought.  Some time later, my dad burst in and started inexplicably yelling at my poor sweet dog. This rank injustice wounded me and after he left, I took the dog into my arms to comfort her and went back to sleep…still wondering hazily whether the house was on fire. In the morning, all was revealed. The horrific, pungent and inescapable smell that I had mistaken for house smoke was skunk…the skunk that my witless, formerly lovable dog had stupidly killed and apparently eaten. On the bus to school, everyone roared with disgust and complained about the terrible odor, but miraculously, no one attributed it to me!  Sitting in class, the stink permeated every corner of the room.  When they opened the windows at the back of the class, the people sitting in front of me complained that it made it worse…but still no one realized I was responsible.  At lunch, I raced to the gym, flung open my locker, saturated myself with clouds of Right Guard and shakily convinced myself that there was yet some hope of escaping this day’s humiliation undetected. Then, out in the school yard, my seven-year old brother raced up to me and deafeningly proclaimed, “Everybody says I smell like skunk!!!”  All across the yard, heads swiveled toward us.

What do you read in the bathroom?

Strunk’s Elements of Style and every time I do I discover a new way I’ve been using grammar improperly.
Thanks, Rhonda! And don’t forget to enter to win!