david, welcome to the enchanted inkpot! it was a true pleasure
to read your debut, Soul Enchilada. your novel has all the elements
of what i feel makes for a wonderful fantasy read. whenever a writer
is struggling with voice, i love to recommend your novel. it was so
much fun to finally meet last july at the ala convention. i admit, when
i saw you, i wondered, how did HE write with such ease of a teen
who is half chicana and half black?

tell us, how did Bug come to you as a character, and how did
you channel her so well?

Thanks for the warm welcome and the very flattering words!
Bug’s voice is the first thing that came to me when I started
writing the short story that became Soul Enchilada. I wish I
could say that I labored over it for months, but writing with
Bug’s voice is like turning on a tap. How she got into that tap
is a longer story.

Once upon a time, I went to an inner city high school, so I
grew up with girls like Bug. After college, returned to teach
at the same school, and I was often the only white face in the
room, and sometimes, the only male. So you could say that Bug’s
voice is an amalgamation of all the tough, outspoken but
vulnerable teens I knew—with a little of my smart mouth sprinkled in.

we share the same fantabulous editor, virginia, at greenwillow books.
and i admit, i read your revising process with her for Soul
Enchilada more than once. that was very kind of you to share with other
writers! can you tell us a little bit about your own writing process? are you
very systematic in your approach, more organic or somewhere in between?

I’m more a creature of habit than systematic or organic. If a pattern
of behavior works once, I repeat it and refine it. Soul Enchilada was
not the first novel I’d written and revised. When it was time to revise
Soul, I already had a revision pattern that I was comfortable with.
Virginia and I seem to both work well in “passes.” First, we fix the
big things, like plot and characters, then move to pace and conflict,
then dialogue and description. Then I fiddle with words at the sentence
level until she makes me turn it in.

thank goodness for revising in passes. i remember when i finished
my first pass and thought, that wasn't so bad. then i got my second
editorial letter. haha!! i'm a great believer of research to help ignite
and inspire storytelling. there is some fun and interesting mythos
in Soul Enchilada. could you share some of your research for the
novel with us? el paso really came to life for me as well from your
storytelling--did you ever visit?

Thank God for the internet and critique partners! No, I’ve never been
to El Paso. Or the Abyss, for that matter.

The research for Soul falls into two distinct categories—the mythology
behind the story and the real-life city of El Paso. For the mythology,
I read widely from religious texts and other Faustian stories. For
inspiration, I used passages from the Bible, Paradise Lost, Babylonian
folklore, Hebrew demonology, and a variety of myths. I re-read the
classics “The Devil and Tom Walker” and “The Devil and Daniel Webster,”
as well as many other songs, stories, and movies. If you read closely,
you’ll find references to most of them in the text.

For El Paso, I used Google, Google Maps, Forums dedicated to El Paso
where locals complained about traffic and the weather, online
newspapers, etc. For the sensory images—what it feels, smells, and
tasted like to be in El Paso, I asked my critique partners who and
visited EP as children to share their memories with me.

all fantastic ways to immerse in the story. i haven't had the chance
to visit china either, and used movies and giant books with
gorgeous scenery of the country to help inspire me.
what are your thoughts about being a writer for the young adult
genre? what excites you about young adult books, and what do
you hope to see more of in the future?

My undergraduate degree is in creative writing. My master’s
work including several writing workshops, and I attended several
literary workshops and retreats. I was trained to write literary
fiction, not genre, which was dismissed. The most frustrating
thing about the genre of lit fiction is how constraining it is.
The word anathema is thrown out a lot, meaning you can't do that.
I got very tired of being told “can’t.” So when I returned to
writing fiction after an indentured servitude to academic writing,
I chose to write for young adults, where nothing is anathema. Want
to write a traditional novel? Go ahead. Want to write an epistolary
novel? Go ahead and make it netspeak if you want. Want to mix text
with visual media? Sure! Teen readers are very accepting of
experimental storytelling. The only rule is to tell a good story
and make it true for your audience.

That’s what excites me about young adult books, which have a
very bright future. I can see a time when, because of this freedom,
YA writers will ignite changes in all other forms of writing.

tell us a little about Black Hole Sun, your second book coming
out in the fall with greenwillow books. what was your experience like
writing the contracted novel? did you find the process to differ from
when you were a yet to be published author?

Black Hole Sun is a future dystopia story about a 17-year-old
mercenary soldier and his crew, set on Mars four hundred years
from now. It’s the kind of novel I wanted to read when I was
fifteen, so I guess you could say I wrote it for my reader-self.
The process of writing Black Hole Sun was dramatically different
from Soul Enchilada. Soul started out as a short story with a
clear voice. The hard part was turning the voice and the story
into a novel—all by myself. With Black Hole Sun, the premise was
the first thing that emerged, and I had to work on finding a main
character and then finding his voice. And I didn’t work alone.
Virginia, my editor, was with me every step of the way, from the
first time I emailed her the logline, through that very messy
first draft, and every draft that followed. It’s like walking
through a tunnel with a guide who has night vision. It was a lot easier!

ahh! i can't wait to read this, david!
last but not least, what is your favorite pastry? =D

I have to choose? Ack! Hmm. Hmm. If I had to choose, and I guess
I have, it would be cinnamon rolls. The small variety with lots
of cinnamon. And warm.

*thumbs up* in approval. yum!
thanks so much for stopping by the inkpot, david.
congratulations on writing a fabulous debut with Soul
Enchilada!

to learn more about david and his books, visit his website.

cindypon.com
Silver Phoenix: Beyond the Kingdom of Xia
April 28, 2009 / Greenwillow Books