Speaker 1: Hello and good morning, Robin. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2: Good morning, so nice to speak with you. I'm great,
Thank you man.
Speaker 1: You've got to tell me what your secret sauce is
in the way of being able to write a book
that is meant for ya readers, but as an adult
time going, Oh my god, give me some more.
Speaker 2: Well, First of all, caffeine has never heard, so that's
always a good luss for sure. I think you know
a lot of us. I've answered that question often on
throughout my careers. How can you be an adult that
understand kids or right about kids in a way that
resonates with them? Which is a huge compliment to ask
that question, of course to me. But I think it's
also regardless of our age, who are we? How do
we relate to the world's a little bit older and
a little bit wiser. But I don't think the questions
change very much. I think it's just who are we
in that moment and what sort of tools do we
have but that are disposable to answer them.
Speaker 1: I've put a lot of research into this thing called tweenedom,
and the thing that I that keeps coming up is
the fact that it's like, it's not that we're spying
on what it's like to be a teen today. It's
just that our internal body, he's on the inside, still
believe we're a certain age. I still say I'm seventeen
when people say how old are you, I'm seventeen inside
my mind, body, and soul. So and I think that's
one of the reasons why I love these books so much.
Speaker 2: Oh, I, you know it's funny. I will say to somebody,
we'll talk about middle school or junior high, whatever, whatever
you call it in your community, and it just immediately
everybody goes ooh, oh gosh, no school. You know, it
brings up this anxiety and terror of the being that age.
So I think it's in some ways like a bonding experience.
And you know, I hope kids go through life without
a feeling anxious or nervous about those things. But those
are also very valid emotions about, you know, new experiences
as well.
Speaker 1: I'm a mobile DJ. We just did a middle school dance. Oh,
let me tell you about that energy that was in
that gymnasium.
Speaker 2: Oh. I have cold sweats thinking about it.
Speaker 1: But you know what's fun about doing that is that
when when I do get the opportunity to sit with
them before as they're setting up the gym, or at
the end when they're cleaning things up. I'll bring up
authors like yourself, and it's so fat. They look at me, going, ah,
how do you know about Robin? What are you talking about?
And they really do? They to me that's part of
the connection thing between adults and tweens.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's funny. I think social media, even though hopefully
younger kids are not on social media yet, they're aware
of it. And I think the Internet exists as well.
Kids are aware of things in a way that like
maybe you and I weren't aware of growing up, our
world was a lot smaller. Now it's global within fifteen seconds,
and so I think we all do share a lot
of knowledge. Like I have had very in depth conversations
about Kream with my friend's ten year old daughter, and
I have had Taylor Swift conversations with my friend's nine
year old daughters, like very serious conversations about both things.
Speaker 1: The conversations you're having with these soon to be teens
or tweens, do you feel that that's what shows up
inside your books, Because I mean, you've got some lessons
in here about forgiveness, that if I walked up to
somebody and talked about forgiveness, said go, I get out
of here. But yet they find it in a book
and they're going to be listening to it.
Speaker 2: You don't have to be putting yourself out there per se, right,
you can just read about it. And I also think,
and I remember this so vividly as a teenager, and
I see it a lot now when I write for
older kids, older teenagers, the way you talk to your
friends is very different than the way you talk to
your mom, to your dad, to your family, and it's
very different than how you feel on the inside and
the way your brain talks to yourself. And I think
it's always really important to keep that in mind, that
what a kid says is sometimes very very different than
what they actually feel. And my job when I'm writing
is to remember that, to keep in mind the point
of view of my character.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I'm seeing a lot of
these days is I'm seeing a lot of twins as
well as triplets. I mean, I would love to see
the numbers of people that are going to read your
books and get back in touch with you.
Speaker 2: There are definitely more twins there's definitely a lot of
twins in my family as well. Where the idea came from.
And one of the reasons I wanted the main characters
to be twins, and they're both the dual narrators of
the book. They go back and forth chapter two chapter.
But I wanted to see what it looks like when
you grow up your whole life looking like somebody else,
sharing the same thing, acting, you know, not the same way,
but living the same life. And then once you hit
that age where you start to differ and you start
to have different interests. You know, Jack starts to have
a crush on a neighborhood boy and Aggie doesn't feel
that way yet. And who gets their period first? You know,
all of those different things. For their birthday, their dads
take them to a restaurant and they take them to
a store, and that's like their big birthday celebration. And
this is the first time where Aggie wants to go
to cheesecake factory and build a bear and Jack wants
to go to sushi and Sephora, and both of those
are valid. Both of those are totally fine, but it's okay,
how do you maintain that friendship and that relationship with
your twin when you're changing so quickly and there's really
not an answer to that. It's something that they'll probably
navigate for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 1: You just opened up a huge door, not necessarily with twins.
But I'm looked exactly like my brother, and I chose
different things so I wouldn't be compared to my brother
and became a radio person because my brother wanted nothing
to do with something like that. I wonder how many
adults we'll pick up this book and go I looked
exactly like my sibling, and I too went a completely
different direction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's wild how things like that that are so
formative in your childhood can shape you as an adult,
which was what makes writing books like this so much fun.
Speaker 1: Speaking of your writing, what is your discipline each day?
I mean, the first thing I have to do every
single morning is got I've got to write? That is
my discipline. What is your discipline?
Speaker 2: That is absolutely not my discipline, and I rich it was,
to be honest, that would probably be more productive. I
am definitely the kind of person who takes a lot
of time to will gather. I think a lot about
the book, and I'm driving, going for walks with the dog.
When I'm doing the dishes, I picture it over and
over and over in my head, and then once I
can see it almost like a TV show or a
movie that when I sit down and I write, and
I can write pretty big chunks of the book at
one time, and then I step back and I do
more days of thinking about it, not thinking about it,
taking a step back, and then diving back in again.
So I don't really have a discipline. I have tried
that several times. I have tried to sit down at
the same time every day train that brain muscle. I've
used spreadsheets to track my word counts, and all it's
led to is some really, really bad starts of books.
So I just sort of embraced how it works, because
the truth is it does work. This is my ninth book,
so I feel like whatever I'm doing, I'm just going
to keep doing that until it doesn't work anymore.
Speaker 1: The reason why bring that up is because I know
inside my heart that someone's going to be reading your books,
and they too are going to become an author, but
they're going to run away from it in the very
beginning because they don't understand that we can do exactly
what you just talked about.
Speaker 2: Yes, you know, when I do school visits, kids always
say local, how did you become a writer? Or what's
your day like as a writer, And I really try
to impress upon them if you ask that question of
every or you meet, you're going to get a completely
different answer every single time. And there's really no wrong
way to do this job. There isn't a playbook, there
isn't a guide book. Whatever works for you to make
you a creative person that can still perpetuate that creativity
where you don't burn yourself out, where you don't feel
like you've worked yourself into a hole or you've overworked yourself.
That's the way to do it. And I will obviously
offer writing advice if kids ask, but I always, you know,
present it with the idea of this is what works
for me. It doesn't have to work for you. And
I think that is one of the hardest and the
best parts of the job. There isn't a plan, But
if you're a person who doesn't always work well with
a plan, then this could really work for you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I always sit down with them and go go get
a writing instrument, call it your own, give it a name,
and after you've done writing your story, never use that
writing instrument again, because it belongs to that book. And
that's the way.
Speaker 2: I don't get it for your friends.
Speaker 1: And I do it that way with my mom blogs,
I mean my last book. I mean, I have not
used that writing instrument ever since.
Speaker 2: I feel like that way with locations. Like I wrote
a book far from the Tree in the coffee house,
and after I finished the book, I never went back
to that coffee house. I just couldn't do it. I
felt like I had done it already. And then I
wrote this book in my home office, which is a
problem because I need to nextly somewhere else that live
be't in my.
Speaker 1: House though, yep, yeah, because it's too easy to walk
away it is.
Speaker 2: It's oh, oh, the dog needs to go out of it.
Oh there there's a spoon in this thing. I can't
work with these kind of conditions, you know. And the
next thing you know, you're organizing the spicetrawer and nothing
gets done.
Speaker 1: So how did you get a softball team involved in
this storyline? When did that hit you? Was it in
the middle of the night.
Speaker 2: No, I really wanted to write about this idea of
girls coming together under the under the guys they just
have this that a disorganized football team, but it's a
way to keep them coming back together again and again
outside of school. And a lot of it was based
on the idea of my mom. When she was growing
up in the fifties. She was extremely athletic. She loved
to play sports, and she couldn't because at that time,
in the nineteen fifties, girls weren't allowed to play sports.
There wasn't soccer teams, there wasn't volleyball for you know,
it didn't exist like that, and so she wasn't able
to play. And I always thought, like, she's had a
wonderful life, and obviously she's had me. So I'm very
happy with the way things went. But you know, you
can't help but think, well, what other opportunities could have
presented themselves. Scholarships called scholarships, you know, anything like that,
the way that they were available to boys at that time.
And I just wanted to see girls, to be honest,
not only playing and having the ability to play, but
not realizing how special that is or how rare that
could be, No, not understanding that not everybody had that.
Speaker 1: Wow, the Girls of Skylark Lane. That in itself should
inspire people to write stories about their own neighborhoods and communities.
Speaker 2: I would hope. So I think the more the better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, where can people go to find out more about
all of your writing? Because I I want these middle
schoolers and adults to find your writing and give you some.
Speaker 2: So I the book comes out this week. You can
find it at your local independent bookstore. Always a big
fan of my local indies. You can also find it
online wherever books are sold. Have you.
Speaker 1: I'm probably going over the time limit here, but I
love going into those independent bookstores just to people watch.
It is the greatest experience because they're discovering things. Yeah,
I love it.
Speaker 2: My local bookstore has a huge staff picks wall, and
I'm always going in to read, like what is the
staff reading? Because I know it's going to be good.
Speaker 1: You got to come back to this show anytime in
the future, Robin. The door is always going to be
open for you.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you very very much. This has been a
wonderful conversation. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant today? Okay, I will do my best.
Speaker 2: I make no promises, but I will do my best.
Thank you, have a great day.