Top Ten Questions and Answers
Got a question about Somewhere in Blue? Maybe I’ve answered it here.
1. This is your first book. How did you settle on this story line and what were the book’s beginnings? This novel began eleven years ago as a one-page assignment in a workshop writing course I was taking through George Brown College at a wonderful bookshop in Toronto called Mabel’s Fables. We were to write something for a young adult reader. I found myself drawn to the subject of loss, specifically a teen girl losing a father she loves. The character of Sandy emerged, and the description of her father lying in his bed, which now appears in Chapter 2 of the novel, was within that first page of writing. One year later, I returned to that first page and spun it into two chapters. I put the project aside for many years until I had the time to complete a first draft.
2. How do you get into the mind of a 16-year-old girl? First, I have the privilege of being a mother to two teen girls, one 19 and one 15, so between them and their friends, I see teen girls in action on a daily basis. Second, and more important, when I was 16, I was dating a boy I’m now married to and I remember how I felt with him. We dated for three years of high school and throughout university, and many of my memories back then are tied to him and they still very strong in my mind. In a way, because we are still together, all those years and how I was feeling (agonizing!) about everything I was going through are still very alive in my mind.
3. Why did you choose the Beaches neighbourhood of Toronto as the book’s setting? I don’t live in the Beaches, but it’s a part of the city I have always loved to visit. My husband and I will go for lunch on Queen Street, poke around in a few favourite shops, and of course walk the beach. Both my daughters participated in many cross-country races along the beach and park trail at Ashbridge’s Bay (in the book, Sandy ran in the same race when she was younger) so that’s a part of the neighbourhood I know especially well. I find walking on a beach beside open water extremely therapeutic, and I wanted Sandy to have that same comfort, so the lake would help her deal with her grief. I also knew I wanted the book’s climax to take place in the lake, so it made sense for her to live in this neighbourhood and have easy access to the waterfront.
4. How did you pick the names of the main characters? Names are so important to get right, and there are reasons for all my choices. Sandy was always Sandy. I wanted her to feel close to the beach, to almost feel part of it, and the fact that the word ‘sand’ was part of her name felt right. I also wanted a name that had a long form that Mr. Dipton could use with appropriate formality. I chose the name Dan because its letters appear in Sandy’s name. I wanted their obvious closeness to be reflected in the commonality of their names. Lennette’s name just sounded perfect – something “Southern belle-ish” that her mother would love but she would hate, and Lennie is not much better as it’s more of a boy’s name. The name Teresa seemed gritty and real to me, and spun out the nickname Reesie that I could hear Robbie using. Vivian had the crisp efficiency and formality that I was looking for. No one calls her Viv.
5. Do your characters resemble anyone you know? No. My characters exist only in my mind and I can safely say I’ve never actually met any of them! I certainly don’t know any cougars like Teresa or any teachers like Harold Dipton. However, as an author I do build characters with traits or quirks that I may have come across in someone I do know. One example is Dan. His skill as a listener, a quiet sounding board for Sandy, was something I responded to in my husband when he was 16.
6. When you started writing this book, did you already know how it was going to end? Or did Sandy’s character surprise you when it was time to write about her crisis? Once I started thinking of this project as a novel, I did know that I wanted her to somehow end up in the lake at the crisis point. What I didn’t know was the path to get her there. It was a challenge to build that path, as I find it easier to write inner thought and analysis than action, but action is what moves a book along. I wanted a slow, subtle downward slide, but Sandy needed to break at points, running away, throwing something, making a scene. Those moments punctuate her distressing downward trajectory, and those were the moments that had to arise from her character itself.
7. Are all the settings used in the book real places that are found in the Beaches neighborhood of Toronto? Many of them are: the Glen Stewart Ravine where Sandy and Dan walk by Ames Creek; the Gardener’s Cottage in Kew Gardens where Sandy spends a morning after sending Dan away; Ashbridge’s Bay Park where Sandy so often goes to walk. There are other settings I have had to play with a bit to make them work for the story. Queen Street and Kingston Road are certainly the main throughfares of the neighbourhood, but I have placed things like grocery stores and funeral homes and gelato shops where I needed them to be. I also took some liberties with the neighbourhood high school, Malvern Collegiate Institute, and “loaned” it some elements from my own Toronto high school, Leaside. I needed the school to have a main-floor cafeteria that overlooked an expansive playing field and track, and the lockers, hallways and the biology lab shelves I envisioned shattering were definitely the ones I remember from Leaside.
8. Can you explain how blue is such an important connector and image in this book? Blue flows through this book. So many things are blue: the walls of Sandy’s room, her prom dress, the lake water, even the sky that Dipton wants her to search for. There are psychological associations with blue that I wanted to tap into: its connections with calmness and serenity, coldness and melancholy all seemed to resonate with Sandy’s challenges. Sandy herself is lost in the blues of depression, and they almost overtake her, but in that whole gradation from blue sky to deep dark water, she does confront her loss by looking out toward the blue sky horizon.
9. Your characters aren’t wealthy socialites pushing the bounds of decorum with their antics, but more everyday, more middle-of-the-road. Why? I like creating characters who might actually exist in my own world, rather than the socialite scene which is well covered by other writers. For this first book, I think it was easiest to write about what I know and feel instinctively, and this world is one I could have been in when I was 16.
10. Water is a continuing metaphor in the book. Could you elaborate on this? I think I’ve always found the open water of a beach to be a powerful force over me. One of my favourite things to do in the world is walk an empty beach beside crashing waves. A beach helps me feel grounded, and I’ve always been able to walk a quiet beach and get a clear sense of my place in the bigger picture. There’s a comfort to that, and I think I gave Sandy that same sense, so she would have a place to go for some unspoken consolation, a place where she could confront her grief and connect with her father through her memory. The book begins with her at the shore, staring at the lake, and the water is a metaphor for her loss, extended through the story with the help of all the blue imagery. The water’s presence slowly becomes more powerful until it nearly pulls Sandy under. But she is stronger.