Monday, 1 July 2013
Brook Cottage Books is thrilled to be part of the Fiction Addiction Book Tour for How You Leave Texas by Alana Cash.
About the Author:
About the Author:
Alana
Cash is an adventurer. She's been on
ride-alongs in New York City patrol cars. She’s kissed a man inside Norman
Bates’ Psycho house. She trekked alone through war-torn Serbia. She’s used her experiences as inspiration for
her work as an acclaimed writer and filmmaker. Some of her favorite
accolades are:
- She was one of 60 US teachers profiled on the
PBS series, "A Writer's Exchange," for her talent as a teacher
at the University of Texas Informal Classes
- Her feature film, "Tom's Wife," based
on her novel of the same name, won awards all over the world
- Her documentary "Anna Freud: Under
Analysis," part of documentary trilogy on women in science, was
translated into German for broadcast in Austria, Germany & Switzerland
She’s
a native Texan and makes great chili.
WEBSITE: WWW.ALANACASH.COM
Thank you Alana for agreeing to sit in the interview chair today. Lets get started with the interrogation interview.
JB: How you leave Texas is about four
young women leaving their various hometowns etc. in search of something better.
Are any of their characters based on anyone you know?
Alana: Absolutely. The story with the
most characters based on people I know/knew is “Frying Your Burger” – Zach is
someone I knew. Charlie Goodman, the
angry producer is someone I knew (I knew several people like Charlie – one man
used to fire his entire office staff every month). Charlie’s secretary, Kiki, is someone I
knew. In fact, all the people at the
studio are based on real people. And all
the homeless people in that story are based on real people. The characters in the coffee shop – Mehta,
Roberta, Jane – are all made up. Danny
is also made up.
“Krystal’s Wedding” – I identify with
Krystal. I moved to LA (not New York)
when I was very young and was on my own.
And, I did find a mentor who encouraged me to finish my degree at UCLA. I don’t come from an alcoholic family, my dad
was always very serious and sober, but my mother did like to borrow money. And I did eventually move to New York and I
was as enamoured of the City as Krystal was – living in history – and knew
someone very much like Krystal’s roommate, Gina.
I don’t know any of the characters in
“Camille’s Net Worth” or “Dam Broke.”
JB: Where did you
get the idea for the book from? Is it something that you’ve been
thinking about for a while?
Alana: All the
stories in the book started with questions with the exception of “Frying Your
Burger” which is a satire on my experiences in the film industry.
JB: From start to finish, how long
did it take you to complete How You Leave Texas?
Alana: Years. I rewrote “Frying Your Burger” five
times. It was originally very stylistic
and over 300 pages. I was too close to
it and with each rewrite, I removed more and more extraneous scenes and became
more objective in telling the story.
I also spent a long time writing
“Camille’s Net Worth.” The original
story started with the question of what a woman would do if she got divorced
and had no retirement plan? She would
plan to retire in jail. However, once I
actually developed Camille’s character – her relationship to her husband, her
wonderful and supportive family and friends, the answer changed. However, for years Camille had been living in
denial of the state of her marriage and denial of her own desires. You don’t just flop out of that, the way out
is the way in, so she had to learn the lessons of denial. When you deny yourself, others will also deny
you. As a person, I wanted Camille’s
revenge against her husband to be a great adventure and I went off on a tangent
with Camille becoming a vagabond on the run.
While that was an interesting story, it didn’t feel real to me as a
writer. So I set the story aside for a
long while. When I returned to it, I cut
the story where it went off on that tangent.
From the cut-off point, I rewrote it to its more realistic conclusion.
“Krystal’s Wedding” was also a story
that I wrote and returned to. Originally,
it was just too sad with too much victimhood.
I cut the story in half, then rewrote the story with a nice character
arc for Krystal and lot of descriptions of New York which made it far more
appealing to me.
I wrote “Dam Broke” from start to
finish in an hour.
JB: Did any of the characters suddenly develop in a different way than
you had originally planned or did you stick pretty much with what you had
planned for each of them?
Alana: In Camille’s Net Worth,” it
was in developing her character that the actual story changed – not the other
way around. In “Krystal’s Wedding,” I
realised that if Krystal had the gumption to go to New York alone, she had
enough intelligence to know when to fold her hand with Hudson’s family. So, I cut the wedding and rewrote the end of
the story.
JB: I love the title of the book. Was it always going to be called How
You Leave Texas or did you play around with a couple of ideas for a title?
Alana: I was goofing around trying to find a title and my son asked me
what all the stories had in common and I said all the women leave Texas. And he said, why not call it, “How You Leave
Texas.”
JB: Lots of authors tell me they write every day. Are you that type of
writer or do you write when inspiration strikes?
Alana: I wasn’t writing every day until recently. I have to think about things a lot before I
have any juice for writing. But now that
I’m blogging, I’m writing almost every day.
I have guest bloggers and I edit their work too. It’s kind of a challenge to meet my own
deadlines (Thursday and Sunday posts) but it’s so much fun to write about
things that are true and always from a point of love. http://howyoulovetexas.blogspot.com
JB: You’ve had one of your novels, Tom’s Wife, made into a feature film.
How did that come about and where you happy with the end result?
Alana: I wrote and directed the feature, TOM’S WIFE and it won a lot of
awards. It turned out pretty well, but I
did not enjoy the process and never wanted to make another film (I had
written/directed three documentaries before that).
JB: What’s next for you? Do you have a new book planned?
Alana: I am currently working on a series of short stories about a girl
growing up in a military family (which I did).
Oh boy.
And I love the blog.
JB: Any advice out there for any budding writers?
Alana: Don’t waste your time fretting about publishing or
acceptance. Write from passion and enjoy
it.
JB: From reading your bio, I see you like to go on little adventures
yourself! Any more planned?
Alana: I’m thinking of taking a stand-up comedy class and taking
tap-dance lessons. I have the shoes
already, still looking for the sense of humour. .And I’m planning a trip to
Venice and Rome with my son. And, I’m planning to rent a house in Mexico for a
month or so and really learn to speak en Española. And today it occurred to me
to make home made ice cream and sell it from a truck.
Well lovely readers, I don’t know about you but Alana Cash and her
enthusiasm for life has worn me out! Thank you Alana for appearing on the blog.
Lots of luck with How You Leave Texas. As part of this tour there is a giveaway for 5 Camis and five t-shirts so just click on the Rafflecopter link to be in with a chance of winning.
How
You Leave Texas is a volume of three short stories and
a novella about four young women who leave Midland, Austin, Fort Worth and
Mayville, Texas for New York, California, Jakarta, and in one instance,
jail. The young women seek escape from
boredom and sorrow and they find it. Hilarious,
tragic, and revelatory, the stories are about extraordinary women with ordinary
lives
Synopsis of individual
stories:
Dam
Broke – On the night of their high school graduation,
Annabelle and Mickey ride a scooter in pouring rain as they reveal closely held
secrets. (6 pages).
In sixth grade, I abandoned the
reading glasses for a blond wig and a fake mole above my top lip. Mickey
started wearing sunglasses indoors and carrying business cards.
Camille’s
Net Worth – On the day she turns 40, Camille’s life goes from
bored to worse in uncontrolled demolition.
She accepts an exciting job opportunity and travels back and forth to
Indonesia. The job isn’t what is appears,
but the irony of how things turn out causes Camille to laugh until she has
tears rolling down her face. (42 pages).
“I’m not going to spend much time
repeating myself,” Camille said, “I want you to remove whatever you want to
keep from this house. You can store your stuff in a rental truck if you need to
until you find a new home, but you will be gone from here by midnight and never
return.”
“You can’t do that!”
“If you are not gone by midnight , I will set fire to the
house.”
Krystal’s
Wedding – Krystal leaves her seriously flawed family in
Midland, heading for New York City, where she takes a few slippery steps. Krystal’s mother encourages her to find a
husband in order to escape her loud roommate in Hell’s Kitchen and her boring
job. However, Krystal actually gets her footing in New York and in life when
she is offered a new, fulfilling direction (21 pages).
Krystal felt safer with Hudson
there, but it must be as clear to him and his family as it was to her that
theirs was a match of china and paper plates. As Krystal faked a sip of the
champagne with a name she couldn’t read because it was printed in twirly
letters in French, she wondered how hard his mother would try to prevent Hudson
from getting too serious …
Frying
Your Burger – Nicky and three irreverent friends
spend mornings at a coffee shop tossing repartee on love, sex, and
religion. For a short while, Nicky is
caught up with a sexy Hollywood player, becoming a pawn in the battle of egos
between two movie directors trying to ruin each others careers. The affair flares, then fizzles, but Nicky
lands on her feet (108 pages).
I went into the room marked Cashier and got into a long line. And
there he was. Grinning that grin. He should have had a license for it. It was
that bright. I stood next to him in my white t-shirt and white pants looking
like someone straight out of the “hospital
orderly fashion catalogue.” It was all I had clean that day.
Oh, we so need to remind ourselves of this: 'Don’t waste your time fretting about publishing or acceptance. Write from passion and enjoy it'. Alana I think you have found your sense of humour. You have to have one in this business. Hugely entertaining post. Well done you! And thanks for sharing, JB! :) xx
Great interview ladies.
Thanks for being a part of Alan's tour JB.
Shaz
x