Interview with Liz Rettig

www.lizrettig.com

First off, thanks so much for joining us for an up-close and personal interview for TeensReadToo.com! My name is Jen, and I’ll be your server toda…oh, wait, wrong job! Anyway, thanks so much for taking time out of your writing schedule—which I’m sure is busy!—and answering a few questions for your readers and fans.

Let’s get some of the typical interview questions out of the way first. When did you first know that you wanted to be a writer?

Always. Is that a typical answer? I suspect so.

Can you tell us a little bit about your road to publishing?

Like I’ve said, I’ve always wanted to be an author but I never sent stuff off to publishers because I didn’t have the confidence and I’d heard it was just too difficult to get published. Yeah I know, I know, totally dumb, right? Like hoping to win the lottery when you haven’t even bought a ticket.

Mind you, in some ways it was a mercy I didn’t try to get published earlier. My first attempt at a novel was a 40,000 word manuscript written in longhand about a woman abandoned by her lover who goes on to exact terrible revenge. So, no prizes for guessing who had just been dumped by her boyfriend then, but hey it beats stalking. Needless to say this effort was rubbish and ended up in the garbage.

Eventually though I wrote a story about a year in the life of teenager Kelly Ann who lurches from disaster to catastrophe as she attempts to find love or at least a boyfriend. My daughter and niece loved it so they encouraged me to send it off to agents. No one was more gobsmacked than me when the manuscript was snapped up by a top agent and published by Random House UK as My Desperate Love Diary. I'm pleased to say Kelly Ann's embarrassing antics have proved hugely popular so since then I've written another three Kelly Ann diary books: My Now or Never Diary, My Dating Disasters Diary, and the latest, My Rocky Romance Diary. Oh and a stand alone book called Jumping to Confusions which is my daughter’s favorite so far.

Tell us a little bit about either your latest or upcoming release. If you could only tell your readers one thing about the story that had to convince us to buy the book, what would it be?

My latest release is called My Rocky Romance Diary, the fourth in the series, when Kelly Ann and her friends are around seventeen /eighteen, so it’s a more grown up story but she’s still as daft as ever. At the beginning Kelly Ann is all loved up with her gorgeous boyfriend Chris when temptation arrives in the shape of the new boy Matt who’s dark, edgy and dangerously attractive. Mayhem ensues! My Rocky Romance Diary is funny, sexy, romantic – what more can you ask for?

Oh you’d like vampires too would you? Sorry, not this time. Now I like a good vampire story myself and I enjoyed the Twilight film - Messrs Pattison and Lautner are certainly very handsome young men - but hey, enough already! Time for some of these creatures of the night to crawl back into their crypts and make way for some more realistic teenage tales. Like, erm, My Rocky Romance Diary for instance. You’ll laugh. Honestly. And fall in love with one of the heroes. Definitely. Even if he drinks beer instead of blood and never sprouts a hairy coat. Oh but I was supposed to just mention one thing. Oops. Sorry.

What, or who, has been the greatest inspiration for your stories?

My life. I thought of writing an autobiography but then I’d have had to stay in hiding for the rest of my life too embarrassed to show my face. Instead I’ve cunningly disguised most of my humiliating gaffes wrapped up in fiction.

Let’s hear about your family, who I’m sure are thrilled to have a published author among them!

I have a large family; loads of sisters and brothers plus a husband and two kids and yes they were all thrilled when I became a published author. For a week. After that my kids started to complain about me swanning around signing books instead of making their dinner and washing their PE kits. Later my husband and siblings begged me to refrain from accosting remote acquaintances and perfect strangers at every social occasion with entreaties to, “Ask me what I do. Go on ask me.” Adding before they could react. “I’m an author, actually.”

Now for some fun facts. What’s your greatest comfort food?

Chips, chocolate and Maynards wine gums – and that’s just for breakfast. I’m a dietician’s nightmare.

What are the first three things you do when you wake up in the morning?

1. Daydream for a while (several rather handsome famous actors may feature in this.)
2. Try to visualize myself getting up and padding into the cold bathroom to shower. Fail.
3. Fall back to sleep.

The good thing about being an author and working from home is that you can do stuff like this. The bad thing about being an author and working from home is that you can do stuff like this. Self discipline has never been my thing.

If I came to your house and looked in your closet/attic/basement, what’s the one thing that would surprise me the most?

Me on my hands and knees begging you not to tell the world what a slummy housekeeper I am. My closets are stuffed with rubbish I couldn’t be bothered to tidy away properly: discarded clothes, empty wine bottles, muddy sneakers, half eaten chocolate bars etc - you name it. You might also see me trying to bribe you with large wads of cash not to put the shameful pictures on Facebook, or worse, YouTube.

Everyone asks the question about “if you could be a tree, which tree would you be?” so I want to know: If you could be a color, which color would it be, and why?

Black. It’s slimming, sophisticated and mysterious. Mostly it’s slimming.

Who is your favorite cartoon character?

Buzz Lightyear closely followed by the squirrel in Ice Age.

Which cartoon character is most like you?

Miss Piggy (from The Muppets) according to my family and several ex boyfriends.

If you could beam yourself to anywhere in the world (“Beam me up, Scotty!”), during any time in history, where and when would it be—and why?

That’s easy – it has to be ancient Rome during the empire. Why? Oh come on now! Lounging about on a couch all day eating grapes, drinking wine and feasting my eyes on all those fit gladiators in little leather skirts – do you really need to ask? Okay, I know it probably wasn’t really like that back then but, hey, a fiction author can dream can’t she? It’s her job after all.

So what’s your favorite type of music to listen to? Favorite musical artists? Do you listen to music while you’re writing?

Anything other than jazz. Unfortunately my husband loves jazz. Yes, I know jazz is clever, cool and sophisticated but after ten minutes of listening to it I’m ready to top myself.

I don’t usually listen to music when I’m actually typing but I do listen to (mostly cheesy romantic) music when I’m dreaming up the story in my head.

Do you have any favorite T.V. shows? Movies you watch over and over again? What was the last movie you saw at the theater?

I watch way too much TV. Mostly comedy. Favorites are: Modern Family, Big Bang Theory, the Inbetweeners, QI... I could go on. Like I said, I watch way too much TV.

Favourite films: Most recently, Toy Story 3 – a Spanish Buzz Lightyear dancing flamenco – Brilliant! Other favourites are Dirty Dancing, Twilight, Taken, Bourne Identity, Omen, Seven. . . I could go on. I watch way too many films too. I hope my agent and publisher don’t see this post or they’ll start to wonder when I’m going to get any writing done.

You have the chance to give one piece of advice to your teen readers. What would it be?

Enjoy being young - get out there and have fun! Now don’t get me wrong, of course you have to take care of yourself and make sure you’re safe. And yes it’s a good idea to complete your school assignments without copying most of them from your friends or dodgy Internet sites (especially as teachers are too clued up about this now and you’d probably get found out. Curses!) But honestly I think there’s way too much pressure on teens these days to be far more sensible and studious than their parents ever were. But ssh, don’t tell your parents I said that will you? Oh God you’re going to aren’t you? That’s me in trouble again!

One last question. What stories can we look forward to from you in the future?

I’m not sure yet but hmm, yeah . . . maybe something involving gladiators.

Again, thanks so much for joining us at TeensReadToo.com!













But yeah my family is proud of me. Just so long as I don’t get too “up myself”. Not much chance of that with my family.