SIX MINUTES WITH JESSICA WARMAN:

Author Jessica Warman stopped by LitPick for Six Minutes with an Author! Jessica is the author of Breathless, Where the Truth Lies, Between and The Last Good Day of the Year. Jessica is a master painter of walls and loves pecan pie!

How did you get started writing?

I don’t remember ever not wanting to be a writer.  It’s a little bit baffling to me, honestly, because I remember feeling driven to come up with stories and write them down from the time I was 5 or 6 years old. I knew what books were, obviously, but I don’t think I understood the concept of being an author yet. My dad had an old manual typewriter that he gave me, and I’d spend hours in my room with it, working on “assignments” that I’d given myself. It sounds simplistic, but writing was always just… what I did, and what I was always going to do. I think when I started reading chapter books in elementary school (stuff like R.L. Stine’s kid-horror books and Ann M. Martin’s Baby-Sitter’s Club series) and started having “favorite” authors… that was probably the point when I was like, “Okay – THIS is what I want to be when I grow up. I want to be someone’s Ann M. Martin or R. L .Stine.” 

Who influenced you?

My sixth-grade English teacher, Dave Gerstel. His class was focused entirely on creative writing, which was sort of soul-saving for me; I’d skipped the fifth grade, which left me ostracized by most of my old classmates, and the sixth-grade girls didn’t have much interest in being my friend, either. Socially, it was a nightmare. But then I got to spend forty minutes writing every day! And Mr. Gerstel, bless the guy, recognized my interest and whatever talent was there, and he was so kind and encouraging that I’m almost tearing up just thinking about him right now.

There are so many other people – my parents are both artsy/hippie-types, and they were always, always one hundred percent supportive. There was never any talk of having a “backup career” if I didn’t make it as a professional writer. Later on, in high school, I had the incredible privilege of going to a wonderful boarding school where my writing professors were all such genuinely caring, brilliant mentors to me. Matt DiOrio, Robin Follet, Chad Barnett… Probably 95% of my success is due to all of these wonderful people who nurtured and encouraged me.  I was a lucky, lucky kid.   

Do you have a favorite book/subject/character/setting?

I’m all about peeling back the illusions of wholesome, seemingly good and serene people/places/situations to reveal the hidden ugliness behind the façade. There’s always something. My favorite author is David Foster Wallace, who tackled similar concepts from all kinds of angles within his writing. To that end, I tend to be far more interested in characterization than plot. That’s not to say plot isn’t important – it is! – but an unappealing plot or setting isn’t necessarily enough to make or break a story for me. For example, I have zero interest in sports. Zero. But my favorite movie of all time is Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull, which is ostensibly about the real-life rise and fall of boxer Jake La Motta. Like 70% of the film is boxing, and I could not possibly care less about boxing… but that isn’t what the movie is about at all. 

What advice do you have for someone who wants to be an author?

Keep writing. Write every day. Don’t write for anybody but yourself. This is the most clichéd advice in the world, I realize, but there’s a reason why it gets repeated so much. As an author, a person has the opportunity to elevate his or her voice above the cacophony of constant communication that we’re all immersed in every day, so use that voice to say what you most want others to hear. 

Where is your favorite place to write?

I love writing in hotel rooms. I’m very much a solitary person, and I prefer to write someplace where there are no distractions. It’s not unusual for me to book a hotel room within a mile of my house just to spend a few days locked in, writing. I should probably rent an office somewhere nearby instead… but I love the anonymity of hotel rooms, and I also love minibars.  Maybe I can have a minibar in my office someday. That seems like a silly thing to do, though. 

What else would you like to tell us?

Ooh, I actually have something good for this! Here’s some advice from the rapper KRS-One: Be a producer. I tell myself this all the time:  Be a producer, not a consumer. I’d like to have that sentence crocheted onto a pillow. It’s life-changing advice. (Thanks, KRS-ONE!)

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Jessica, thank you very much for spending six minutes with LitPick! It was heart-warming to read how much your teachers inspired you and still mean to you.