The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide (9 page)

SH:
I’m always trying to figure out where the line is with author responsibility. What we write and then send out there
is going to affect people’s lives. But I have absolutely no control about how people will
interpret
what I write. If readers need to find a moral, or a lesson, in it, they teach it to themselves. And I don’t think I can control what it is that the readers teach themselves. Do you think that reading does more for you than just provide entertainment?

SM:
It does a lot for me—but I don’t hold the writer responsible for what I get out of it. When I read about someone like Jane Eyre, I say: “I want to be stronger. I want to know myself so well, and to know right and wrong so well, that I can walk away with nothing.” I just loved her moral sense. But I don’t think that Charlotte Brontë meant for me to use that as a guide to life. If you can find something inspiring in characters, that’s awesome, but that’s not their primary purpose.

SH:
And it can’t be, or it kills the story. The primary purpose has to be telling the story.

SM:
It has to be entertainment.

SH:
People often ask me—and I’m sure you get this, too: How do you come up with so many ideas? Once you start writing, the ideas just keep multiplying.

SM:
Yeah. I hate to travel, but I see so many stories in airports. We were in, I think, Chicago, waiting for a flight, and this whole story just played out right in front of us. There was a man and a woman, and she kept leaning toward him and touching him, and he was always shifting away from her just a little bit, and not meeting her eye. And it was so clear, the inequality in their feelings, and where I imagined their future was heading, I felt I could just run with it. When you spend time around people, you know, there are so many stories that it just can make you crazy when you want to write them all down.

SH:
Yeah, there’s never a problem with finding ideas; it’s just finding the time to write it, and the words to tell it.

SM:
For me, it’s time. I don’t usually experience the kind of writer’s block that people talk about. My kind of writer’s block is when I know what needs to happen, and I just have a stumbling block—some transition that I can’t get past.

The longest part of writing
Breaking Dawn
was writing right after all the action sequences. Bella becoming a vampire—that was very easy—but after that section I had to skip four months ahead. And that transition took me more time than any other section of the book. It’s only half a chapter long—it’s not very
many words—and the amount of time per word put into that section is probably ten times what it was in any other part of the book.

There are just some things that are not exciting, but I like to write minute by minute. And when I have to write, “And then three months passed,” it kills me.

SH:
[Laughs] I don’t believe in writer’s block. I sort of embrace it, which feels good. And it doesn’t mean that writing isn’t hard, and sometimes I can’t come up with the right way to do it. The way I get over it is by allowing myself to write really badly, and then I rewrite a lot. The first draft for me is the worst. I hate writing first drafts—it’s so painful for me—but the story time for me comes in the rewrite. I already have some clay there to work with, and then I rewrite. But your first drafts, I think, are different for you.

SM:
I love writing first drafts. I don’t think about what I’m doing. It’s hard for me to go back and reshape it. I can see it needs help, so I have more trouble—maybe because it doesn’t feel like clay anymore. It’s more like marble—I have to chip it off.

SH:
Then you know what we need to do? [Laughs] You need to write first drafts, and then I’ll rewrite them. And then we’ll be happy.

SM:
We’ll combine forces.

SH:
But then you’ll see the book that I’ve turned it into, and you’ll be like:
What?!

SM:
Well, then you’ll get the rough draft and think:
I don’t want to do anything with this!
[Laughs]

SH:
Would you ever collaborate with another writer? Do you think you could do that?

SM:
I don’t know if I could. You know, sometimes I wonder,
because it looks like a whole lot of fun. I really enjoy other writers, and their ideas and their processes. It’s fascinating. Maybe if it were something where we were switching off voices… But I just don’t think I could write another person’s character, because I have to really care to be able to write. If I don’t care about the character, I can’t finish it. Or if, for some reason, the character has become an unhappy place for me, then I just can’t go there.

I had one draft of about five chapters of a story that really was human—no fantasy, which is always a drawback for me—and then something happened in my family that made it a very painful place to be. It wasn’t something I had seen coming. I didn’t think it would ever have any relevance in my life that way. And it became too painful a place to work.

So I have to be in just exactly the right place to be able to write. With someone else’s character… I just don’t think I could care deeply enough about them to put out the effort that it takes to write a story.

SH:
The person who you are naturally—when you’re at home with your family, and you’re working—is going to be different than the person signing books and greeting fans. How do you balance those two personas? Have you created two different personalities?

SM:
I had to. The person who I am at home, with my family,
is shy, not comfortable around strangers, kind of a homebody. And so to be able to speak to large groups—to be able to meet a bunch of strangers, which is hard for me; to be able to travel outside of my comfort zone—I had to get stronger. I had to do things that weren’t fun for me and just suck it up, you know. [Laughs] Because the real me couldn’t even imagine having to do that, so somebody else had to do it. [Laughs]

SH:
Is it exhausting to live that public persona?

SM:
It is. It’s funny…. Just recently—I’ve got some friends who are friendly with some fans, and they had a party, and I was invited to it. And they’re like: “It’s just going to be really mellow. Don’t worry about it—you know, it’s just for fun.” But I knew I would have to go and be Stephenie Meyer. I couldn’t just be Stephenie. And I’d just gotten off the tour, and I just couldn’t face it right then. I needed to just stay home and be me.

SH:
I’ve found it’s hard for some people to understand that. For me, there’s nothing as exhausting as doing a book signing or a school presentation or something. And I think part of it is that I don’t think I am interesting enough to make it worthwhile for anybody to hear me talk—or to stand in line to meet me. And so I’m pouring my energy out onto these people, and trying to give them as much as I can. I mean, I’m sure you’ve had this, too—more than I have—where people will fly in from several states away just to meet you for those few seconds in line. And I think:
How on earth could I make this worth their time?

SM:
Exactly. And, in fact, I felt so much pressure not to be a letdown that, on my last tour, I brought along a rock star. And I felt so much better. [Laughs] Justin Furstenfeld from Blue October came and played some of the music that inspired my writing, and we interviewed each other onstage. I enjoyed what he did so much that I thought:
You know what? These kids are getting an amazing show. This is special—this is something that is worth them coming out for.
If I ever tour again, I will not leave the house without a rock star by my side. [Laughs] That is the new rule. Or…

SH:
A juggling act—a magician.

SM:
A magician would be good! Because, well, honestly, in person, there’s nothing really that great either of us can do. We write books, so our big finale is sitting in front of a little computer, in a little room. And it’s not something exciting to watch. It’s the story that’s the exciting part, and anybody can get that at the bookstore.

I’ve had the experience where I got to meet one of my personal idols, just because a friend pulled some strings and I got backstage at a concert. I lived off that for months. So I try and remember that, and think:
You know what? It means something to them, even though I can’t understand why it would be anything special.

SH:
You know, it is true. I really can be such a fangirl. And I get so excited when I meet with writers….

SM:
On the last tour I got to go out to lunch with Terry Brooks. The first real book I ever read was
The Sword of Shannara.
I was sitting next to this man who has so much experience—and so many years of doing this—and I’m thinking:
This book opened the entire world of reading to me. The gift that this man has given me, unconsciously, is nothing I could ever, ever repay
. It was just this really amazing experience.

SH:
It took me a long time to admit that I was a writer. I wouldn’t give myself permission to take the time—or to take it seriously—for a long, long time. But you started off in a different way. You already had three kids.

SM:
I did not call myself an author without making some kind of snide comment for at least two years after the book was sold.

SH:
Two years?

SM:
I had this really strong sense of paranoia—like it wasn’t real, that the whole deal was a practical joke—for a very long time. Because the contract negotiation took a good nine months, so for all of that time someone could have been stringing me along. It wasn’t until the check came—and didn’t bounce—that I really started to believe it.