Page 17 - Real Style Fall 2019

RS: Talking about death, grief, sadness—that’s a lot to take on, emotionally. How do you, like Holly, keep yourself from drowning in it, in the writing of the story?
CA: It’s a sad day at the office, there’s no doubt about it. I cried a lot writing this book, as I did with PS, I Love You, but that excited me because it meant that I connected with this. [I had] to create this new group of people and decide how they were termi- nally ill, how they were going to die. I suppose what I did was not make the story about their illnesses. That was a decision I made early on, as I did with PS, I Love You. It’s about their life journey. You do have to park it, though, at 6pm or whenever you fin- ish and just go back to your life again.
RS: The group of characters that make up the PS, I Love You group in the book, why did you choose these characters? What did they repre- sent for you?
CA: I wanted to have a man who was Gerry’s age who has a brain tumor. I thought that would be im- portant for Holly, to have to deal with somebody so familiar to her. Then I have Ginika. She’s a young mother and all she wants to do is write one letter be- cause that is going to be her achievement, the thing that she can leave behind for her daughter. They all represent different age groups and are saying good- bye to different kinds of people and different rela- tionships.
RS: What were some of the wishes of PS, I Love You fans—things they wished you did, things they wished you didn’t, and did you consider any of these for the sequel?
CA: No. I think I was my own worst critic. You know, I was at times reading [PS, I Love You] from behind my hand, at moments being very proud of what I wrote and then at other times feeling a little cringey. It was a real study of my own book, which was bizarre. I suppose I was looking for holes that I could take further and have Holly give us more information, and I was looking for little seeds that I had planted that I could pick up and grow further
in the sequel. I was definitely looking for places to develop more, like what did I not say, where did I not go, what was a hint of something that I could have taken further. I was my own critic [and poking] holes in my own work.
RS: What was the inspiration for PS, I Love You, because at the time you were so young to be writ- ing a story like that.
CA: At the time, there was a huge fascination with my age and people saying if you haven’t lost some- one, how do you ever write about that. I think it’s just the way a writer is, you have that kind of mind where you think about all of the issues, you have a big imagination and you’re a compassionate person. But I suppose at 21 I had a similar experience as Holly, as I was setting out on the beginning of a new life. I had just finished college and it was really time to start my life. I was trying to figure it out, so there were similarities. I was going through a tough time myself, and I was kind of feeling sad. I wanted to lift myself out of that sadness and write something hopeful.
RS: You had incredible success off the bat, and so young—how does it feel, looking back now, as a seasoned author?
CA: I know that it was phenomenal; it was an amaz- ing beginning for me. I often think that the less you know of anything, the better. You just go into some- thing blindly and take all the risks without knowing what can go wrong. I had a meeting recently with my publisher and they had a big pull-out of what other books were coming out that same week. You know, there were hundreds, and they compared cov- ers and what stood out, and I was looking at all of these amazing books and just thought, if you looked at this stuff first, you would never write a book. It’s just too big, too intimidating. So I think I was just in- credibly lucky to just very naturally write something for myself. I took a chance and it struck a chord with people and I just grew and grew from there. Now every time I write I have to do the same thing, and write it the same way, because it’s the real way.
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