Trade Secrets

By Andrew Horan / Photograph by Jen Rosenstein

 

The Trade
With seven published titles, and last month’s premiere of a three-book series, award-winning Alyson Noël is the most prolific Orange County writer you probably don’t know—unless you’re a teenage girl.

She started writing—in her head—after discovering Judy Blume books as a girl. She wrote her first story to blow off a high school English assignment, turning in fiction instead of the required essay. But in the decades that followed, Noël, now 44, mostly thought about or talked about writing. Then the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks jolted her out of her comfort zone; she jettisoned her job as a New York-based flight attendant (the stewardess in her 2006 adult novel “Fly Me to the Moon” travels to mend a broken heart), and landed in the world of fiction as a young-adult novelist. In each story, a girl faces down real-world troubles—and learns she has the power to overcome.

How do you inhabit the mind of a teenager?
I never really grew up. I never feel like an adult, not that anyone does. I’ve accumulated a husband and a mortgage along the way—how’d that happen, since I’m only 15 in my head? Sometimes people say, “Oh, you must have loved your teens and high school,” but I really didn’t.

Why do you keep revisiting that time?
It’s so funny to me that I put myself back in that time of my life. I have a real affection for teens and what they’re going through. I know that while you’re going through something, it’s very real for you at that moment.

What’s most appealing about that time of life?
It’s a time of so many firsts. You don’t have a chance to have those firsts again, once you’ve done them. It’s a great time of discovery, rebellion. I have a crisp memory of that time.

Your tales aren’t sugarcoated—they offer a full dose of sex and drinking and evading the rules.
I try not to write morality tales as much as inspiring tales, to say that you can overcome, and I try to do it in a way that entertains. You feel this responsibility to teens, to give them a message that you will get through this time in your life, no matter how bad it sucks.

What gave you hope back then?
My parents were divorced. I had to work. We didn’t have child support or alimony. I was an honor-roll student, but my grades were dropping, I was lost in high school. I used to write short stories for English class, instead of my assigned Tolstoy essays about “Anna Karenina,” though I did read it and loved it. My teacher used to read them and grade them as if they were Tolstoy essays, and then one day he read one aloud to the class, and I thought, “Maybe I could do this.” It was a glimmer of hope.

You have a Web page, a blog, a MySpace page, a Facebook page, a Twitter account. How does all that inform your writing?
It’s a direct way to communicate with readers and teens all over the world. Gosh, if I’d had that kind of access to Judy Blume when I was in sixth grade. ... Now, a kid can read a book, Google you, e-mail you. My Web site gets 100-plus hits a day, my blog the same. You build a nice dialogue with readers. You build a community with kids who are passionate about books.

How much of that dialogue makes it into your novels?
I try not to do that. Most of the feedback I get is: “I love your character,” or “Something similar happened to me.” Every now and then a kid will tell me their full story, and I respect that and won’t touch it.

Music courses through your stories. How does that come about?
I make playlists for each story. They’re each really different, and I delete them when I’m done. They’re designed to get me in the mood and feel of a book that I want to write. I get the idea for a book, then I put together the playlist.

Do you Kindle?
I don’t have one. I know they’re really big in the publishing industry. But for me, I’m a reader. I love books. I like everything about having a book in my hands.

 

Andrew Horan is an Orange Coast contributing writer.