Questions: Answered
I answered most of the questions I received in the last post in the comments- but I got a few today that I wanted to answer in a new post- mainly because I realized, as I was answering them, that my answers were REALLY FREAKING LONG. And also, these are all questions that I get asked fairly frequently.

What's it like going through college writing and studying something completely different from your writing? Like, was your writing more of a hobby all through college that you just ended up being successful at?

I've always loved writing, but in college, I was also very serious about pursuing publication. Was writing something I enjoyed, used as procrastination, and did for many of the same reasons that a person pursues any hobby? Yes. Was it something I would have done even if, for some reason, I'd known for a fact that publication wasn't an option? Yes. But was it ever really just a hobby to me? I don't think so...It was always something that I wanted to do professionally, and I spent a lot of time working toward that goal with a long-term career in mind. I loved every single second of it, but I also always took it pretty seriously- and, more importantly, I think, I always took myself seriously as a writer. I never thought "Oh, this is just a hobby, so what if it doesn't work out." I thought, "This is what I want to do, and if I'm not good enough now, I'm going to find a way to get better." Most people who knew me at the time either didn't realize I was writing or considered it a hobby- and many people still DO consider it a hobby. To me, it's fun, and it's one of my passions, and it doesn't feel like a job job, but I definitely consider it a career. Not my only career, but definitely a career nonetheless.

Re: what it was like to pursue writing and cognitive science at the same time- the way I see it, there are two parts of this question- the part about doubling as a student and a professional writer, and the part about my degree being in something completely unrelated to writing. So here it goes...

In terms of just being a student while juggling all of the writing stuff, 98% of the time, it was great. The other 2% of the time, I pretty much just hung on for dear life. Before I sold Golden, I usually wrote while the semester was in session and wrote and worked on submitting stuff when I was on breaks. It was relatively easy to find writing time- an hour or two each night after everyone else had gone to sleep. In terms of submissions, my mom actually helped a lot with the day-to-day stuff- all of my rejections and requests that came via snail mail came to my home address, and she would call me up, read them and then file them for me there. During freshman year, that was all I had to contend with; sophomore year, I submitted to my (now) agent and started dealing with things like revision requests and phone calls, but still, it wasn't super time consuming. The hour or two I carved out most nights for writing and winding down was enough time to write and revise on a decent schedule.

Junior year, after I sold Golden, it got a little tougher, because all of a sudden, there were deadlines! And sometimes they would overlap with due dates for papers or whatnot, and I just had to try to be really ahead of things in my academic life, because my writing schedule could be really unpredictable. I had deadlines written into my contracts, but they were pretty fluid, and sometimes, I would get a major revision letter a week or two before (or sometimes even AFTER) the revision was due, and I'd need to be able to devote major time to it RIGHT THEN, so I was in a constant state of trying to be ahead enough on other stuff that I could, at any moment, spend a big chunk of time writing.

There were several things that allowed me to do this without taking a cost to the school side of things. First, I figured out the kinds of classes that work best for me as a student. I like writing papers a lot better than taking tests; I prefer classes that have a small number of really big assignments to classes that have lots of little assignments. Just choosing classes that fit with the way I think and learn did a lot to decrease my stress levels, and it also let me work the way I needed to with the whole writing thing. It's a lot easier to write a final paper a couple of weeks before it's due than to try to study for a test long before you have to take it. My classes generally gave me a lot of flexibility on when things had to be done, and I also did a lot of independent study credits, because I was really into the cognition research labs I worked in and was able to get credit for that. I also managed to have three or four day weekends four semesters in a row, which was helpful once I started having deadlines for multiple books overlapping. Designing the perfect schedule- with classes you're super interested in, that have the kinds of assignments that are the least stressful and most productive for you as a student, that meet at times that make your life easier- is an art that is well worth mastering.

Long story short, in terms of actual finding time to do everything, it was relatively easy for me to add writing onto my normal college life without sacrificing anything else (including my social life, which I wasn't about to shove to the side). The biggest strain- pretty much the whole of the 2% I referred to earlier- wasn't in being able to actually do it all so much as it was just the STRESS that came along with all of the above. Final paper stress + what am I going to do after college stress + submission stress + deadline stress + crazy debut author stress + senior thesis stress + independent research stress... that was sometimes tough. I had plenty of time in my schedule for everything, but sometimes I had to fight to have enough mental space for it all. And that, I think, is where the second part of this question comes into play, because I don't know that I could have done that nearly as successfully if my major HAD been something related to writing or English. The fact that I was doing something DIFFERENT in college actually helped my sanity quite a bit, because whenever one aspect of my life was stressing me out, I could use the other aspect to de-stress. If I was agonizing over revisions, I could set them aside and say "I don't have to think about words or writing or characters at all. I can go gather data, run stats, and come up with a theory on XYZ." Conversely, if I was freaking out about school stuff, I could escape into writing. I felt like I was always using different parts of my brain, and that kept me from burning out on any one thing.



What were you like in high school?

It's really hard to say what I was like during high school- I feel like, to get a real answer to that, you'd have to ask people who knew me then, because I'm not exactly an objective judge. But I can answer a related question if I scramble the words around a little- "what was it like being you in high school?" And the answer to that is that sometimes it was fun, and sometimes it really sucked. Pretty much everything I remember was either a high or a low- there wasn't much in between...

In terms of what my life was like, I was always really busy. In fact, I was wondering the other day if I'm busier NOW, when I'm working on a PhD and also writing pretty much full time, or if I was busier in high school- and I'm honestly not sure what the answer really is. I was a varsity athlete (volleyball), a lifelong dancer (ballet), yearbook editor, involved with about a zillion clubs, and took so many AP classes that the only way the head of the upper school would let me take them all was to get each and every individual teacher's approval. I had a group of friends that I did things with every weekend, and I loved them and had tons of fun with them and loved being part of the group and thought they were all awesome people, but was never really sure how much most of them actually liked me. My best friend didn't go to my high school, and we didn't see each other that much, but when I was with her, I was silly and said everything that popped into my mouth and could have fun doing absolutely nothing. Most of the rest of the time, I felt pretty shy, but probably didn't seem it from the outside.



What are Yale and Cambridge like?

Hogwarts. Seriously- my first reaction to both the day I enrolled was "This place is Hogwarts." Cambridge a little moreso, because it's British, but I still think the description is pretty accurate for both...

Both have a college system (like the houses in Harry Potter), but at Cambridge, you apply specifically to the college you want to enter, and at Yale, you get randomly assigned to one when you get there. The colleges at both universities are the center of activity- each college has its own Master and Dean, its own library, athletic teams, dining hall, etc, and you live and spend a lot of time around the people in your colleges. Cambridge has a lot of "bops" (dances, sometimes with costumed themes that nobody but me ever followed) and big balls at the end of every school year; Halloween is huge at Yale, and there are a variety of other famous parties that happen throughout the year. Academically, I can't say much about Cambridge Undergrad, because I was there for grad school, but Yale was awesome. Lots of neat classes taught every year, graduation requirements that allow you to take a lot of classes outside of your major, just because they're neat, the opportunity to "shop" classes and try out as many as you want for two weeks before deciding what you want to take, and lots of independent research opportunities. Both are very pretty, but Cambridge is the most gorgeous place I've ever lived, hands down. Yale is an hour and a half outside of New York City; Cambridge is an hour train ride outside London. Both trips are pretty easy to take, and you can grab a Broadway or West End show, if that's up your alley. Lots of neat people, lots of traditions.



*Expels long breath* Here endeth my Very Long Answers.