myspace
friendverse
Is Top 8 a true story?
Nope. Thankfully! When I was in high school—back in the Pleistocene era—what we know and love today as the interwebs was juuust getting going. I know! Unimaginable, right? So I never had to deal with any hacking drama in high school. But when my friends and I were all getting into MySpace (and then Facebook, and then Twitter...) I totally got swept up in the drama of it all. And a lot of the things that happen in Top 8 (like Jimmy and Liz changing their screen names to say insulting things) came from things that happened to my friends.
Are you really sixteen?
Um, no. I’m not. I got this question a LOT from readers, and at first was just really flattered. Like, WTG, author photo! But then I realized that some people had gotten confused by the back cover. It’s supposed to be Madison’s bio – not mine. If you look at the inside of the back cover, there’s twenty-something me looking back at you.
How did you get the idea to write Top 8?
The idea for the book came out of a discussion with my editor. This was back in 2007, when MySpace was the place to be. We started talking about what a MySpace book would look like, and I found that I couldn’t stop thinking about the idea. I’d recently become obsessed with my own MySpace, and just started thinking about how the online stuff had utterly changed all my relationships. But I wasn’t sure how to incorporate that into a story. When I thought about using a mystery, and having a profile get hacked, the rest of the story just fell into place.
Who are the people pictured in Top 8?
The pictures are a mix of models and, um, my friends. I’m even in one of the profiles, but I’m not going to tell you which one. But if you guess, I’ll tell you if you’re right.
Is Friendverse real?
No, unfortch! I kind of created my ideal networking site. Maybe somebody will take a hint from it and make one like it some day!
Did you always want to be a writer?
Not at all. I hear from lots of readers who are writers and working on novels and creating stories and am always totally impressed. Because I was never that motivated in high school! Growing up, I loved to read, but never did much creative writing. Unless, that is, you count the papers I wrote on the bus on the way to school the day they were due. BTW, I don’t recommend this, particularly if your handwriting is as bad as mine. In high school, I was involved in my school’s theater program, and started writing short plays for our original works festival. But writing for the stage was my focus, not writing books. I was a theater/English major in college, with a focus was on playwriting. I only took my first creative writing course the last semester of my senior year in college, and was totally hooked. I spent a year after I graduated taking creative writing classes at UCLA, then I went to grad school for it, and have been writing ever since.
Do you have any advice for writers?
Read and write. A lot.
Um, thanks. Do you have any good advice for writers?
That’s the best I can do, honestly! I truly think that the best way to learn to write is to read. All kinds of books, all genres. Also, pay attention to what you like! Not the books you think you should be reading – the books that keep you up at night, the ones you read by cell phone light. What you really like to read is probably what you’re going to like to write. And I’ve found that writing is just like riding a bike or kissing or any other skill – you get better at it the more you do it. It just takes practice, like everything else. And I think it’s important to try different kinds of writing. I had been writing plays for years, but it had never occurred to me to write a novel. If you’re working on a novel, try a screenplay, or poem, or graphic novel. Writing is writing, and I find experimenting with different forms of it to be really fun – and it’s always great to try a style that you didn’t think you could do.
Are there going to be more Top 8 books?
YES!
The Top 8 sequel, WHAT’S YOUR STATUS, came out in July 2010. And the third book, UNFRIENDED, comes out July 2011!!
I also answer some more questions here! I did this video author interview at my publishing house in Fall 2008. It’s slightly embarrassing and probably provides more information than you actually wanted. And for the record, despite what my BFF says, my voice does not actually sound like that.
