Your Questions Answered

 I also i was wondering if you could tell me some of the things that have acutally happened to you that you put in the books. Oh i was wondering, what is the mood for the alice books? Were you mostly trying to get happy? Or intense? Thank you.

What mood do YOU feel when you read them?  The Alice books contain happy things, sad things, scary things….  One of the things that happened to me for real back in fourth or fifth grade was the Tarzan scene in The Agony of Alice…

We love hearing from readers in other countries.  As a quick writing tip, I often suggest thinking about the one thing that made you the angriest in your life, the most sad, the most scared, or what embarrassed you most.  Write a few sentences about it and then change it.  Make it happen to someone else in your story.  Change the beginning; add a new ending.  Add new characters.  Turn the incident over to your imagination and give it wings.  (No, I didn’t ever stick a vitamin pill up my nose, but I heard from a reader who did).

I started these books so long ago it’s hard to remember exactly how I came to write them.  I think I wanted to write about a girl looking for a role model, and she discovers it–not in the most beautiful teacher at school, but the kindest.   Some of the things really happened to either me or my friends, but most of the stuff in the Alice books just came from my imagination.

Question: Hey PN, I love your books. I cannot wait for the rest of the series…now I have a question. My period has been regular for seven months but I am five days late of my period and I don’t know why. I haven’t had sex, so I know I cannot be pregnant. I don’t know if something is wrong or maybe I just didn’t ovulate this month, but I am confused. Thanks Phyllis replied:  As I’ve repeated many times, I’m not a doctor, but there are so many things this could be, and by the time I post your letter, you may well be menstruating.  You’re right; you cannot be pregnant.  But you said your period has been regular for seven months, which means perhaps that you started your periods seven months ago or that they were somewhat irregular before that.  So your body is still new to these changes.  If you haven’t started your period in another week and you’re worried, why not confide inyour mom or another grown woman just to reassure yourself and if that doesn’t work, check with your nurse at school.  I’m guessing she will tell you that she hears about late periods a lot.

i’m 17 years old. my parents enforce the 10:30 curfew every friday and saturday night, and recently i asked them for something later than that, but they instantly shot me down. i have only been late once, and it was a matter of less than 10 minutes. i usually go out with my boyfriend, and he practically doesn’t have a curfew. is there any way i could convince my parents to let me stay out later?

It’s quite possible that your parents’ curfew has less to do with worries about you and your boyfriend than it does about drunk drivers on Friday and Saturday nights–that they simply want you off the roads.  Are they OK with inviting your boyfriend in when you get home and spending another hour together in the family room?  Whatever their reason, you need to have a talk with them.  Wait till your mom or dad is in a good mood, then say, “I’d like to feel I can discuss something with you, and if I promise to listen to you, will you promise to hear me out?”  Hopefully they will say yes.  Then, make sure you give your reasons for wanting to stay out later.  Does this not allow time to see a movie and have a bite afterwards?  Are you always the first one in your group who has to leave, and you miss out on some things?   If they won’t extend the curfew, what age do you need to be before it switches to midnight, or what do you need to do to prove you’re reliable?  And if their worries are about drunk drivers, ask if you can have more parties and activities at your home.

I would really appreciate if you wrote back. Shiloh inspired me to write because it made it seem so possible. I am not saying this is easy. I am at my 117 page typed so it is pretty long, so far. I feel like it is only beginning too.

What an editor is really interested in is the story:  Is it well written?  Does it have spark and originality?  Does it make you want to turn the page to see what happens next?  It doesn’t matter how old you are.  It matters somewhat how long it is, because it might turn out that it needs a lot of editing and would work better as a short story than a book.  But most of all, it needs to be written and revised and edited over and over and over again until there are no sentences or words that don’t have to be there, until every major character is well defined, until all the various scenes hold together into one theme, one whole.  This is not meant to discourage you, but rather to let you know that no matter how old or young a writer is, no matter where she lives, no matter whether you have been published before or not, if a manuscript is good enough, it will find a home with a publishing company.   Keep writing!  (I was inspired to write Shiloh because of a little mistreated dog I found in West Virginia).