Author of The Parent Trip (Bella Luna)

When did you start reading, and what did you like to read as a kid?

I’ve always read pretty much anything I could get my hands on. Cereal boxes, clothing labels, assembly instructions—I still read the shampoo bottle every time I wash my hair. It’s a sickness I’ve had since I was a kid. I knew The Lady and the Tramp by heart when I was five—my mother was very proud of this. I’d walk around the house quoting from it; “’I’ll wear no man’s collar,’ was his proud boast,” was my favorite line. When I got older I would actually save up my allowance so that I could take the bus to the mall and buy books. And I didn’t grow up in the city. Where I lived, nobody took the bus. Except me. I should write to the City of Ormond Beach and thank them for keeping it running exclusively for me all of those years.

When did you think about becoming a writer?

My first “real” job was selling advertising space for a small magazine. I hadn’t realized before this time that a lot of people really can’t write. And I’m talking about people who get paid to do it. Some of the copy at this magazine (which I won’t name) was so bad that I offered to rewrite it for free. After a while, I was offered $25 a piece for my original articles—no more rewriting!—and I felt like I’d won the lottery. It finally dawned on me that maybe I could make a living doing something I loved to do. Talk about an epiphany.

How do you write?

I just sit down and do it. I don’t outline or sketch elaborate diagrams on gigantic dry-erase boards or do any of the other seemingly-wise things I’ve heard other writers do. I start at the beginning, work my way through the middle and eventually wrap it up. Then I reread and rewrite and endlessly tweak and generally obsess. I write all the time when there’s not a keyboard around, I have an odd habit (some might call it quirky, charming even, if you happen to know and love me) of transcribing conversations, songs and sometimes just random phrases onto imaginary keyboards. I play air-keyboard! I never thought of it that way before. I’m really good, too. You should come watch me some time.

What do you hate about it?

The only thing I don’t like about writing is also something I relish about it: The permanence. It is so powerful to see something in print that you wrote many, many years before—it’s also gut-wrenching when you realize you can’t go back and change it. I can’t count the times I’ve reread something I’ve written and wound up pounding myself on the head and moaning, “I can’t believe I started that sentence that way! What was I thinking?” Whoever coined the phrase ‘life is short’ probably wasn’t a writer.

Any particular story to tell concerning the writing of this book?

I thought I noticed people around me acting strangely while I was writing The Parent Trip, which is non-fiction. One day my brother said something particularly funny and when I laughed, he lit up and said, “Is that going to make it into your book?” I was like, “Oh! Now I get it!”

What is some good advice that you’ve received concerning writing?

Write like you speak. The biggest ‘mistakes’ I see writers of all levels making are over-writing (for instance, saying “my egregious error” instead of “my stupid mistake”), and trying to be utterly, painfully ‘correct’ at every grammatical turn. Yes, we all know that you aren’t supposed to end a sentence with a preposition—but that’s how we talk. Nobody says, “About what is that book you’re reading?” It’s, “What’s that book about?”

What’s some advice that you could offer young writers?

Don’t end a sentence with a preposition. Unless it sounds better that way.

What are you working on at the moment?

I am working on the sequel to The Parent Trip, loosely titled The Toddler Trip. After that, I’m planning The Kindergarten Trip, The Tween Trip and The Teen Trip. If all goes well, I’d like to wrap the series with The Funeral Trip. I stumbled across this idea the other day in Costco. Did you know they have caskets at Costco? Caskets!

At my Costco, the pearly pink display model is stationed between the checkout and the exit, which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Here I am walking out the door with $600 dollars worth of nonperishables, all of it in bulk and half of which will last me well into the next decade. Do I really want to be contemplating my mortality at this minute? I think there’s a book there.

• Visit Jenna’s website here