On LurleneTV: Lurlene's Process

Here it is! The moment you've been waiting for! Lurlene takes us through HER PROCESS!:



I am all embarrassed because when I write, I too start with characters. I'm curious about this, though. Like, when she says she starts with the characters, does she mean she starts with Carrie, perfect child, wants to be stand-up comedian or is it more like CARRIE USED TO HAVE LEUKEMIA, NOW LET ME WRITE TEN PAGES ABOUT BONE MARROW ASPIRATIONS IN PAINSTAKING DETAIL? I'm curious. Where Lurlene is concerned, I feel that plot and character kind of run hand-in-hand and then leap all over the place like an untrained dog.

You guys, it totally freaked me out when that RANDOM DISEMBODIED VOICE asked a follow-up question!! WHO WAS THAT?

Favorite line:

"Right now I'm still just getting -- believe it or not, because I'm almost a quarter done [didn't she just say she was a third done?] -- I'm still kind of dancing with the characters."

One thing I thought about after seeing this, and was also pointed out to me by my friend Stacey, is that when I started this blog, I thought about the fact that Lurlene has, like, fifty books out, and I figured she must use a ghostwriter. But the more I hear her talk, the more I find that kind of unlikely. This is a woman who lives and breathes pro-cess.

Honestly, the thing that strikes me most about these videos so far, is that even though she writes these crazy death books where moms shouldn't work, Lurlene just seems like this regular lady. My roommate Dawn Rochelle said, "she seems like a normal, kooky aunt you’d have, who’d give you paper-maché earrings.” I concur, Dawn Rochelle, I concur.

Tonight on the Lurlene Channel

If you think starting a video with neon blue is enough to set the world afire, you'd sadly be wrong.



Sorry, guys, this is the most boring Lurlene video I've seen thus far. I mean, I don't know how many of you guys write, but basically if you jot down two paragraphs and show them to anyone who doesn't write, they will either ask who you based it on or when it happened to you. UM YOU GUYS I HAVE NEVER HAD CANCER OR BEEN IN A COMA YOU KNOW THIS!

So, like, I totally need to know what teenagers Lurlene's stalking that she thinks her books are realistic. Do you guys know ANY kids who talk the way Lurlene's characters do? Also, like, how creepy is the thought? You're just this normal high-schooler, and then over your shoulder you spot this middle-aged woman jotting down everything you and your friends say, except she's clearly, like, half-assing it and just kind of paraphrasing and summarizing. If you are that teenager, I am so sorry!

Basically I spent the whole video just wondering if Lurlene was gonna throw that apple at me.

Tuning Back into the Lurlene Channel

I hope you guys love neon green!!!!



Oh, man, you guys, so as soon as Lurlene starts comparing her books to her children with regards to the subject of picking a favorite, I was totally waiting for her to say, "so, you know, Sean!"

Alas!

I hesitate to admit this to you guys, because I wouldn't dare yet compare myself to Lurlene (I'm not being snotty, seriously, she's published and I am not, also she tends to FINISH projects whereas I...) but I actually totes get the whole "my favorite is what I'm writing now" thing. I mean, if it's not, how do you get any work done? No, instead you turn into Narcissus, but instead of staring at your reflection all day, you keep paging through your own work while shouting out stuff like "girl, you friggin' rock!" and soon a decade has passed and when people ask about your new projects you have to lie or run away.

So of COURSE Lurlene likes Jodi Picoult and EVEN MENTIONS MY SISTER'S KEEPER which is so effing a grown-up Lurlene book if I've ever read one! I mean, it's heads-and-tails above Lurlene in quality, but, please, it's about a girl with cancer and her family! (Also I really tried to like it, but there are about seventy-two points of view, and it felt like a cheap way out of actually portraying what each of the characters are feeling. WHY DON'T YOU JUST TELL ME WHAT THEY'RE FEELING, JODI, OKAY!)

Favorite line from this episode: A TIE!!

"The Harry Potter stuff is very interesting to me."

[on her favorite kinds of books] "Murder mysteries, who-dunnits... real thinking books about figuring it out, because my mind doesn't work that way."

Who is Lurlene?

Author bios vary a lot. Sometimes they take up a whole back cover, sometimes we learn little more than university attended or city born. With Lurlene, I knew to always expect basically the exact same bio, with the exact same picture:


I like how she's just chillaxing in that lounge chair. "Hey there, girlfriend," she seems to be telling me. "Sit right back and let me spin you a tale of death and disease." Um, all right, Lurlene, I'm onboard!

Lurlene McDaniel began writing inspirational novels about teenagers facing life-altering situations when her son was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. "I saw firsthand how chronic illness affects every aspect of a person's life," she has said. "I want kids to know that while people don't get to choose what life gives to them, they do get to choose how they respond."

Lurlene McDaniel's novels are hard-hitting and realistic [if there are two descriptors I would never, ever use to describe Lurlene's books, they're "hard-hitting" and "realistic"], but also leave readers with inspiration and hope. Her books have received acclaim from readers, teachers, parents, and reviewers. Her recent novels, Angels Watching Over Me and its companions, Lifted Up by Angels and Until Angels Close my Eyes, have all been national bestsellers, as have Don't Die, My Love; I'll Be Seeing You; and Till Death Do Us Part. Six Months to Live was included in a literary time capsule at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Lurlene lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Okay, the time capsule thing is waaaaay too good to resist; it is seriously the GREATEST THING EVER. I did a little digging around online and found out that this capsule is to be opened in the year 2089. And in the year 2089, people will wonder just what the fuck we were reading, and why cancer was alllllll the rage. I mean SERIOUSLY. THE HELL. This is the craziest thing ever, you guys!! Like, our grandchildren and great-grandchildren are going to witness this and cry for the level of literature their ancestors had to settle for.

Can you imagine? Seriously? You open a time capsule, looking for clues to your culture's past, and you pull out Six Months to fucking Live? Oh, holy hell, that's amazing.

So as a kid this is basically all I ever knew about Lurlene (except that time capsule thing, that's totes new info). And I must say, even though back then I thought these were really quality books, I thought it was kind of weird this whole thing took off for her just because her kid had diabetes. Now, listen, I'm not downplaying diabetes. Stacey McGill was my idol! But, like, it's manageable, you know? It's a whole different bag of bears than, say, cancer, right?

According to Lurlene's official web site (well, one of them):

McDaniel began writing about young adults when her son Sean was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at the age of 3. His illness changed the lives of everyone in her family forever. “I saw what life was like for someone who was chronically ill, and I experienced how it affected the dynamics of the family,” says McDaniel. She says she found that writing about the trauma and its effects was therapeutic.

I mean, I get it! Writing is totes cathartic; I've been there too, Lurlene! But you know? She didn't have a kid who died in a car wreck, or a kid who died from cancer, or a kid with AIDS. She had a kid who got this totally manageable illness. Yeah? I wonder how Sean feels that his diabetes spurred like fifty tomes of death, angst, destruction, and working mothers! Man, Sean, I'd be weirded out, if I were you.

On the site I also learned that Lurlene attended the University of South Florida in Tampa, where she actually got her B.A. in English. Dudes, for serious! I guess to be fair I've never found TECHNICAL fault with her writing. Also that was before her mind was opened up to the possibility of KIDS WITH DEATH, so who knows what she was writing back then.

Also I've gotta admit I'm always totes intrigued by ladies with jobs that involve them speaking out against other ladies with jobs!

Oh, so you guys want to know more about Lurlene's research process? Okay!:

To make certain that her books are medically accurate, McDaniel conducts extensive research. She interviews health care professionals and works with appropriate medical groups and hospice organizations, as well as the Tennessee Organ Donor Services. “I study medicine and traditional grief therapy techniques to give the novels a sense of serious medical reality,” she says. “I also study the Bible to instill the human element—the values and ethics often overlooked by the coldness of technology.”

I will say that I always felt like I was getting the full medical story with Lurlene. Hell, I probably could step in for a medical professional for Very Important Talks thanks to all I learned from the Lurleneverse.

As for the bible, I am not sure an ancient text is necessarily the BEST place to look for the human element ("the human element" totally sounds like a sci-fi movie, Y/N?), though to be fair it's not like I ever have caught her plagiarizing bible verses or anything. Okay, Lurlene, I'll give you a fair pass there.

Some readers—and their parents—have wondered why McDaniel chooses to write about sad situations. “I tell them that sometimes tragedy hits people—kids, too. They want answers. They want to know ‘why.’ By using novels, I show ordinary kids confronting and overcoming great odds.”

"Overcoming"? LOTS OF THE KIDS DIE.