The Story is About   +  Jillian Cantor

Jillian Cantor

Books:

• The Life of Glass

  

• The September Sisters

  

"Before he died, Melissa’s father told her about stars. He told her that the brightest stars weren’t always the most beautiful—that if people took the time to look at the smaller stars, if they looked with a telescope at the true essence of the star, they would find real beauty. But even though Melissa knows that beauty isn’t only skin deep, the people around her don’t seem to feel that way. There’s her gorgeous sister Ashley who will barely acknowledge Melissa at school, there's her best friend Ryan, who may be falling in love with the sophisticated Courtney, and there’s Melissa’s mother who’s dating someone new, someone who Melissa knows will never be able to replace her father.

To make sure she doesn’t lose her father completely, Melissa spends her time trying to piece together the last of his secrets and completing a journal her father began—one about love and relationships and the remarkable ways people find one another. But when tragedy strikes, Melissa has to start living and loving in the present, as she realizes that being beautiful on the outside doesn't mean you can't be beautiful on the inside."

Kristi asked me to write about how writing THE LIFE OF GLASS differed from writing my first book, THE SEPTEMBER SISTERS, and I have to say that it differed in every way imaginable! When I first wrote THE SEPTEMBER SISTERS I didn’t think it was a YA book (At that point, I actually hadn’t even read a YA book since I was a teen.), and the process of writing/revising/finding an agent/finding a publisher (with lots more revising in there) took around five years. In that time, I’d say I put that book through at least 20 different drafts (if not more.)

Then there was THE LIFE OF GLASS. I already had an agent and a publisher, and since THE SEPTEMBER SISTERS sold in a two book deal, I knew THE LIFE OF GLASS was going to be published before I even started writing it. I also had an editor and an agent involved from the very beginning, synopsis-writing stage.

Maybe it was because of all this, or because it was my second YA book, or because the book just clicked somehow in my brain, but writing THE LIFE OF GLASS was easier for me than anything I’ve written before or since. I probably should have felt pressure, having a book already sold but not yet written, but for me it was actually an incredibly relaxing experience. Instead of worrying about whether or not the book would sell, I was able to just relax and write! I sat down, in the spring/summer of 2008 and did just that. The story unfolded nearly seamlessly in my head as I went along. The words and the scenes came out, and they were all (almost) in the right order!

When I was finished, I sent the book to my agent and she had some suggestions for tightening up the first few chapters and expanding some scenes (which I did), and then I sent the book to my editor, who had a few more suggestions for tightening and expanding and adding a chapter near the end to tie up the Sally Bedford mystery (which I did), and then, the book was done. Over a period of nine months, I wrote, I revised, I finished. No endless laboring over revisions and rejections. I wrote a book, I got some feedback, it was published.

It was about as different as could possibly be from my experience with my first book, and in a way, looking back now, it almost feels magical. I’ve written two books since then, and neither of them have had that same sense of ease, that quick road to publication. Sometimes, I think it was just a story that I wanted to tell or needed to tell at the time, and I feel fortunate that the circumstances were right for me to tell it.

Thank you so much for inviting me to your blog today, Kristi!