Guest post by A Week of Mondays author Jessica Brody
ELLISON “ELLIE” SPARKS: An
idealistic, ambitious sixteen-year-old junior with a lot
on her plate.
Those were the first words I ever wrote
about Ellie Sparks. They were written in a synopsis for my publisher
when I was first trying to sell them on the idea for a book called A
WEEK OF MONDAYS.
Of course, you can’t write an entire
book about a one-sentence character. Just like you can’t live your
entire life as a one-sentence person. But every character has to
begin somewhere. And this is where Ellie began for me.
As an idealistic, ambitious
sixteen-year-old junior with a lot on her plate.
In my mind, this is who she had
to be. I thought, if you’re going to write about a girl who relives
the same horrible Monday over and over again, trying to “get it
right,” these are the adjectives that must describe her. She
has to be idealistic enough to think she can fix everything in
her life. Yet, she also has to be ambitious enough to try it.
And how else are you going to fill seven Mondays with interesting
storylines if the main character doesn’t have a lot on her
plate.
So there was Ellie. And there was me,
ready to write her, thinking I understood her. Thinking I knew
everything I needed to know about her.
This is the writing process for me. I
start with an idea of who someone is. I draw a box around them, like
an identity fence. I stuff them inside and I lock the gate. I tell
them, “This is who you are. Don’t try to change that. Don’t try
to be or do anything else. I don’t have time for detours. I’m on
a deadline.”
I never learn.
One of my favorite reviews of A WEEK OF
MONDAYS says, “Watching Ellie relive her horrible day is something
like peeling an onion. Each Monday, a piece of her people-pleaser
facade melts away, revealing more of her real self.”
I smiled when I read that because it
wasn’t until then that I realized exactly what had happened in the
writing of this book. I had done it again. I had tried to put yet
another character in a box, and she had slowly, word by word, page by
page, Monday by Monday broken free.
This book is ultimately a story of
self-discovery.
Seven days. Seven chances to completely
reinvent yourself. Wear different clothes, make different choices,
explore different paths, say different things, be different people.
Because sometimes it takes a whole week
of Mondays to figure out who you really are. And when you finally do,
you may find yourself thinking 'Thank God It's Monday' after all.
For the next five Mondays, blogger
friends across the internet will be sharing their best and worst
Monday. Follow along with us online with #TGIM and #AWeekofMondays,
because whether a Monday is memorable for good reasons or memorable
for bad reasons, we stand to learn a lot about ourselves.
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