Do You Have Trouble with Time?

Im a huge fan of the alice books! i re-read up to seven books a week during the summer.  she seems like my best friend! do you have trouble with time while writing your books? because in 1985 she is 12 and in 2001 she is like 15.  is the books now based on the late 90s or right now? it must be sort of difficult. Anyway, you can count on me to make my child read the alice books when i grow up!  i cant imagine growing up without her… all the things i learned without a mom

thanks!

As a matter of fact, I do have trouble with time in my books, and must drive the copy-editor mad, because I may have only two weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  But remember that beginning with “Alice in Rapture, Sort Of,” I began writing three books for every year of Alice’s life.  So she was aging only a third as fast as you were.  Most Alice books cover from January to May or June, then the summer, and finally Sept. through December.  If I tried to put a whole year of her life into one book, and stop at age 18, the series would have been over by now, and I don’t think you would have liked that.  Lately I have been trying to use the calendar of whatever year the book will be printed in, and the setting is always contemporary–the way life is right now, for this particular girl, not every girl.