Intro: My name is Sarah Perlmutter, and I'm a middle school teacher and YA writer who loves post-apocalyptic stories as much as I love heartwarming high school rom coms.
I'm pretty much obsessed with my three dogs, Banjo, Lila, and Denna, and I am proudly their dog mom. When I'm not writing, teaching, goofing around with my husband, or playing with my dogs, I enjoy watching competitive cooking shows and planning for future mansions on Pinterest.
I have two Watty Award winning novels on Wattpad: THE BLAST and MISFIT THEATER COMPANY. I'm proud of these books along with my post-apocalyptic series called THE DEATHLESS TRILOGY, and I love connecting with readers about these books!
1) What is the most difficult part about writing for you? And how do you overcome it?
"The most difficult part of writing for me is getting over the quarter mark slumps. You know those rising action and falling action chapters in your works, right? They aren't as exciting or as fun as the exposition and climax. These parts tend to flow more slowly for me, so sticking to an outline really helps me drag myself through those plot points."
2) In life, what do you think is the closest thing to magic?
"Truly, the closest thing to magic is the creative process. There are moments in my writing when I truly feel connected to my characters, and what I write no longer feels as though it's coming from me. That happened to me in a really powerful way when I wrote the first chapter of I AM DEATHLESS, book 1 in THE DEATHLESS TRILOGY. I remember finishing the chapter and actually feeling like I had just had an out of body experience and needing to reread what I'd written, because it hadn't come from me. It was amazing!"
3) What were your goals and intentions in your most recent book, and how well do you feel you achieved them?
"I was a huge theater nerd in high school, and there was one show my friends and I did where we broke our theater teacher's rule about something we couldn't do on stage, but we got a HUGE laugh from it. That brief moment of rebellion always stuck with me, so I wanted to write a book for all of the other theater nerds out there who don't always get their own stories. I wanted to remind everyone that no matter how strange you may feel in school, you belong and you are perfect as you are."
4) If you were given the opportunity to form a book club with your favorite authors of all time, which legends or contemporary writers would you want to become a part of the club?
"I'd want Walt Whitman, Toni Morrison, Elizabeth Gilbert, JK Rowling, Suzanne Collins, and Shakespeare there. I love all of these authors for different things, and I think a book club with them would be the most interesting and diverse discussion of writing I could ever hope for."
5) Which book is the one you keep going back to again and again? And why?
"BIG MAGIC by Elizabeth Gilbert is a reset book for me, so I return to it when I need to remind myself why I need to live creatively and write. Adult life can be taxing and hard, and there are times when I think, "I don't have time to write! I'm not creative! I don't have any ideas!" But when I stop writing for too long, I become incredibly anxious. BIG MAGIC helps me overcome the fear of being creative and not knowing if what I'm doing is worthwhile. It's such a celebration of creativity, and I think everyone who lives creatively should read it!"
6) Do you have a favorite character that you have written? If so, who? And what makes them so special.
"I love Isla Blume so very much. She is so strong, but still so caring and empathetic. She is who I would hope to be in an apocalyptic situation."
7) Which of your books were the most enjoyable to write and why?
"I truly loved writing all of my books for different reasons. THE DEATHLESS TRILOGY was fun because it was so epic, but MISFIT THEATER COMPANY was fun because it was so lighthearted and close to home."
8) Where did your love of writing come from?
"I have NO IDEA, haha. I've always loved telling stories, and have been writing or telling stories since I was a little girl. I enjoy being a storyteller, and I think I was either born with it or had it thrust upon me after years of being read to and hearing stories."
9) What advice would you like to give writers who are struggling with their first novels?
"Just put it on the page. Don't worry about it making sense or being grammatically correct or making sense. You can't edit or fix an empty page, but you can edit the heck out of a hot mess novel, haha. Just write!"
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I'd just like to say thank you for answering these questions. It's so great learning about other writers and seeing how far they've come on this writing journey. It was so much fun reading your answers and to everybody reading this, I hope you check Sarah's books!