Interview: Jenny O'Connell

This is the second of six interviews with authors of MTV Books for teens. Please check back every day this week for another interview with another author!

Plan B by Jenny O'Connell features Vanessa, a high school student who has always been a do-gooder and a planner. In other words, she has a few itsy bitsy neurotic tendencies and the need for order. When her parents tell her that she has a half-brother close to her age, she is surprised. When she is told he is Reed, a television actor who is popular with her peers, she is shocked. When she discovers that he's coming to live with her family and attend her high school, her entire world turns upside down.

In the past year, there have been many novels that feature a hip, famous teenage actor trying to live a "normal" life. Plan B by Jenny O'Connell could have been just another of those stories - been there, read that - but thanks to a storyline that was more about family than fame, it is memorable and meaningful.

How long did it take you to write your book?

The first three chapters just took a few weeks, and then once it sold it
took me about four months to finish PLAN B.

Was your book written before or after you landed the book deal? Did you
or your agent approach MTV Books or vice versa?

PLAN B was sold on the first three chapters. My agent sent the chapters
out
to several publishers and when more than one said they were interested
the
book went to auction. MTV "won" the auction.

Why write for teens? Did you write your book specifically for the teen
fiction shelves?

My agent was approached by an editor who asked if I'd be interested in
writing teen books in addition to my adult books. I'd thought about it,
but
not seriously. I immediately went back and read all my favorite books
from
high school to see if it was something I could do. Then I had the idea
for
PLAN B and started writing.

What age range or grade levels do you feel your book is suitable for - or not?

I don't call my books "YA" because they deal with topics and situations
that
I think are more appropriate for teens. I didn't want to have to screen
out
what I thought a teenager would do or say for fear of it being
inappropriate
for a younger audience. I just wanted to write Vanessa in a way that I
thought was honest given who she was. So, in PLAN B, Vanessa is having
sex
with her boyfriend and does a few other things that some parents may
not
want younger readers reading about. I'd say seventh grade and up would
be a
good reading age for PLAN B.

What inspired the title of your book? Who named it, you or...?

I knew the title right away, a few pages into the book. It just seemed
perfect given Vanessa and her situation.

Do you watch MTV?

I watched MTV way back when they actually showed videos all the time. I
even
remember the first time MTV hit the air, and the commercials with the
astronaut planting the MTV flag on the moon.

Who are your favorite authors?

I don't really have any favorite authors where I HAVE to get everything
they
write. I like to find new books and see what's out there.

What are some of your favorite musicians, songs, actors, or TV shows?

Here's where I admit that I don't actually go to see movies - I haven't
seen
a movie for "grown-ups" in a theater since 1993. I'm just not a movie
person. And I don't watch TV until later at night, so they're pretty
much
hour long dramas. I do love Grey's Anatomy, it's always a nice way to
relax
before starting the week. That said, I don't have any favorite actors.
As
for musicians, I'm partial to women - Alanis Morisette, Maria Mena,
Corinne
Bailey Rae, Melissa Etheridge. I'm also a HUGE Van Morrison fan.

Would you ever write a sequel?

I've had a lot of requests to write the sequel to PLAN B, and I know
exactly
what would happen to Vanessa, Reed and Taylor, but there's no plans to
write
a sequel yet.

What are your favorite books of all time?

This is hard, but I'll give it a shot:

The Women's Room by Marilyn French

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Playing Away by Adele Parks

It's Okay If You Don't Love Me by Norma Klein

The Carrot Seed by Ruth Kraus

The Girlfriends Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank

What books did you enjoy reading as a teen?

I was addicted to Norma Klein books and used hers as my "inspiration"
when
writing PLAN B. All of Ms. Klein's books had intelligent girl
characters who
were flawed without being melodramatic, mature without being
unrealistic.
They always did things that seemed "real," like having sex with their
boyfriends, trying drugs, having ambivalent feelings about the people
and
things going on around them, but it was treated in such a "normal" way
without any sort of judgement placed on actions or thoughts. There was
never
really a lesson to be learned but there was definitely something to
think
about.

Your next YA work, The Book of Luke, is due out in
April 2007. Who is Luke, and what is his story?

Actually, it's not Luke's story, it's Emily's. Emily has pretty much
been a
girl who did what was expected of her, the "nice" one who never created
waves - although that in no way means she's boring or uninteresting. So
when
a series of events conspire to throw her for a loop, she decides there
isn't
any benefit to being nice. And she decides to prove she is just as
capable
of being mean as all the people she feels have screwed her - it just so
happens that all the "people" happen to be male. And that's where Luke
comes
in. Emily decides she should write a handbook for guys, an instruction
manual that teaches guys how to treat girls, something that they can
use as
a reference guide to avoid all the glaring Guy Don'ts so many of the
guys in
her school seemed to have mastered.

So when her friends decide that the nice girl is the one who should
test out
the Guide (after all, who would ever suspect the girl voted most likely
to
be nice would have ulterior motive), Emily has to prove she can change
Luke
Preston - the guy who embodies everything she despises about the
opposite
sex (he even devised the "jiggle scale" to rate the breast size of
Heywood's
female population. Emily's still wondering where she rates). This isn't
just
Emily's chance to not be nice, it's her chance to get even.

Of your adult novels, which do you think PLAN B's
readers should pick up next?

I'd probably say OFF THE RECORD because it's a fun look at what happens
when
a nice, normal girl becomes the center of attention - and that's the
last
thing she wants.

You've had a great deal of success writing modern
romantic comedies. Are there any fiction genres you've
yet to tackle that you'd like to write in the future?

Actually, no.

The phrase "chick-lit" - love it or loathe it?

When people ask I say I write women's fiction, not because I'm offended
by
"chick lit" but because I think chick lit has come to mean shopping,
shoes
and single girls desperate for a guy. None of my books have that in
them.
But I'm not embarrassed to write what I write, which is stories of
contemporary women and all the things they're dealing with, and if
someone
wants to call it chick lit, I won't argue with them. So, I don't love
the
term, but I don't loathe it either.

Congratulations on the purchase of your next book,
Insider Dating! Will you tell us a little more about
it, please?

INSIDER DATING is about Abby Dunn, a Boston-based financial whiz who
decides
to take her penchant for asset management to the next level by setting
out
to do for relationships what Morningstar did for mutual funds, creating
a
secret underground society where women share information on the
riskiest
investment of all - men. (Coming out in May 2007.)

You contributed an essay to the anthology It's a
Wonderful Lie: The Truth About Life in Your Twenties,
which is coming out in January 2007. What is the basis
of your piece, "The Best Laid Plans," and how easy or
difficult was it to revisit that experience or time
period?

As soon as I was asked to contribute to the anthology I knew exactly
what
I'd write about: that first relationship that you think is "the one."
As in,
the one you'll spend the rest of your life with, the one you can't live
without, the one you imagine walking down the aisle with. It was very
easy
to go back and remember when I was in that place with the person I
thought
was "the one." Now I see it through a different lens, one with lots of
humor, and I just want to smack myself and tell other 22 year olds to
mellow
out. Having your life planned out is not necessarily the best thing in
the
world.

Last but not least, let's talk about Everything I
Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy
Blume, the anthology coming out next year. What inspired the idea, and how did you get it
sold? Are you the editor?

I am the editor and I got to pick the authors who contributed. Many of
them
are my friends so it was a lot of fun to work with people whose writing
I
really enjoy and who are just fun people to laugh with. One day I was
just
thinking about Judy Blume and how every girl in my generation couldn't
wait
to read her next book, and I just thought, "everything I needed to know
about being a girl I learned from Judy Blume," and a book was born. The
essays are amazing, I loved reading every one of them.

Learn more about Jenny at jennyoconnell.com and jenniferoconnell.com