Interview ft. Janee Thompson

Q & A with Janee Thompson Get to know more about that Author & that Book Book - Looking Beyond the Ordinary Get your copy today click the link below!!! ​

Interview

What is your writing process like? The very first thing I do is go for walks, daydream in the dark, or go for a drive to get my brain flowing with ideas. Then I tend to outline those ideas in chapters and map it out, leaving the chapter off where the reader would probably want to know what’s going to happen next. When I write these chapters out from the outline, I don’t start in a linear way. I start writing a chapter that I’m super excited about, and then I go back and write the others. So, for example, I could start writing chapter 5 first, and then go back to chapter 1 and build up to the chapter I was excited about. Then the last thing, I gotta have my music playlist. It depends on the type of chapter that I’m writing that determines the song/artist. What did you do with your first advance? I’m still waiting on it to come through! When I do get it though, I’m going to put it towards the business like paying for editing, book cover, etc for my next book! As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? Probably a fox because I’m a sneaky little writer… I throw curveballs! What did you edit out of this book? I absolutely love this question because there were so many things I edited out. The 8th grade me version of this book was all over the place at the middle and the end, but the beginning is literally the exact same. So I edited the middle and end out, and re-wrote it. There was actually going to be an additional sex scene in the published version of the book where Jarell’s mom caught them in action, but I took that out. And then there was another sex scene I wrote, but I felt like it would have been too much for a teen book so I took that out, too. What was your hardest scene to write? None of them! Every single chapter, I absolutely LOVED writing and it just flowed so effortlessly. I felt some type of way in every single one. I’ll say this. The one I cried the most and felt the most deeply about was the scene with Jarell and Jade hiking after his fight and he tells her what happened in his past. When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer? TWELVE! When I was writing B2K fanfiction (this book was originally fanfiction, fun fact.) Where do you get your information or ideas for your characters Jade and Jarell? My own personal experiences. Jade was the type of character who acts so arrogant, like she’s ALL that (she is, though), yet underneath, has her own issues. There were SO many girls like this growing up that I felt compelled to recreate a girl like this in the book. Jarell? We all know someone in our teens growing up who was always the punching bag of the group, who was always made fun of, but they never said anything back. And we wondered, why? And we never knew what their life was truly like. So I created a character for the reader to see inside the life of someone who never said anything back. Who was mysterious and everyone wanted to know, yet thought they wouldn’t be cool anymore if they expressed curiosity about this person. Describe who you are as an author in three words? Unapologetic, Black AF, and a realist Lastly, are you currently working on book two when will it be released? Yes! I am working on Book 2, and it probably won’t be released until next spring. I really want to gain some traction with this book first and get it into as many hands as I can before the next book. Mostly teens.