I first met Katie when she volunteered at the Whidbey Island Writer’s Conference. A fellow intern introduced her to me-I said "hi", then went back to what is typical conference behavior* for me, talking someone’s ear off about something vitally important I just learned while scanning the crowd for agents, editors, and anyone else I think I need to meet to further my career.

When we sat down the next week to begin training her for her internship she was quiet at first, with sharp blue eyes and a quick smile. She took notes, asked questions, and spoke up enough to let me know she “got it”. As her time with us went on, I found her to be an amazing multi tasker; writing up an email while nodding the answer to a question, and afterward asking for clarification on a point about something else she was supposed to do. I was amazed, and am so glad I got to know her.

She is 19 years old, studying English and writing in school and already learning as much as she can about the world of publishing. I decided early on that she would be the person I tried to relive my life through. I am sure by the time she left she was sick to death of hearing me give advice, “ Enjoy it now, take advantage of all that free time, no attachments, the freedom, wow,” or “What could I have accomplished if I was able to focus on my writing when In was 19**. You’re so lucky.”

If you’re like me and want to live the life of a young writer through Katie, you can follow her blog about writing, interning, publishing and also read some of her flash fiction at:

http://katieflanagan.wordpress.com

Just for fun, let’s imagine we’re doing this interview on a beach somewhere. The air is balmy, the sun is shining, we’re shielded by an umbrella made of palms that sway and rub together every few minutes. The warm sand between the toes and the brisk scent of the salt water lulls us, making conversation free and easy.

We’re sipping sweet fruity drinks with pieces of red fruit caught between the ice cubes.

Sarah: This is partly tongue in cheek but I am also catering to my readers who are like me and maybe honestly want to know.  What is it like to be 19? What is your writing schedule like, do you spend much time at parties, sleeping late, watching tons of movies, wasting time (I was great at that when I was 19).

Katie: I think I'm a very boring nineteen-year-old. I'm definitely not a partier, and I try to go to bed at ten each night so I can wake up at seven thirty or eight to get the most out of my day. I'll give you a sample day from the last school year, since I haven't quite gotten into the swing of it this year yet.

I'd wake up at seven or seven thirty, work out, have a small breakfast while checking my three emails and facebook and reading blog posts, go to classes, do homework in between and after classes, have lunch and dinner with friends (normally ones who were either in my class or lived in my dorm), finish homework, watch television, and check my email a LOT.

My biggest hobby is checking my email. Reading blog posts takes up a lot of my time. Also, I watch too much television. Right now I follow six shows (How I Met Your Mother, Chuck, Parenthood, The Office, Bones, and Ghost Whisperer). During the school year, I don't tend to read for pleasure all that much. The problem is I love to read a book in one sitting - otherwise I am distracted thinking about it***.

The latest I stayed up last year was to two am, and that was to read a romance novel. As for my writing, most of it happens on the weekend. I like to do my homework on Saturdays so that it's over with, so usually by Saturday night I have a few hours for writing (if I'm being a loner and staying home), and every Sunday I meet up with friends at a cafe to write (although I tend not to be so productive...we end up talking a LOT).

Sarah:    What classes are ahead for you this semester/quarter?

Katie: This quarter I'll be taking the Art of Fiction, which is a class that is offered by the Center for Writing Arts (a cooperative department between English department, Journalism school, and the Writing Place - for helping students write essays). It is offered every fall with a different visiting professor. I took it last year with Chris Abani, and it was absolutely life changing. I'm hoping this year with Zakes Mda will be another great experience. 

I'll also be taking Reading and Writing Poetry. This is a requirement for the English in Writing degree, and also a prereq for all the other requirements. 

My other  classes are Spanish: Individual and Society through Written Expression, which honestly I don't have any clue what it's about but it's a requirement for the minor, and Ideas of Physics: Energy, Sustainability, and Nuclear Power, to fulfill a science requirement.

Sarah:  How much time per day do you spend reading for pleasure, and for school?

Katie: This depends whether you consider blog posts and emails as reading for pleasure. I spend a good forty five minutes every morning checking my email and reading the blogs. Other than that, most of my reading is for school. I'm hoping to change that this year, though, because interning with Andrea Hurst and Associates forced me to get back into the swing of reading, reading, reading and I loved, loved, loved it! So I might be getting less sleep this year to get through all the books I brought with me.

Sarah:     Do you plan to intern every summer until you graduate?

Katie: I'm not sure about this. I know next year I want to intern with a publishing house to find out what that side of the business is like. Ideally, I'll like it. If I don't, I might reconsider my whole career plan (this is rather doubtful, but I want to keep a safety valve in my plan). If I do like it, then I'll have another summer to get more experience. I might try a different publishing house. I might try working at a bookstore or interning with Amazon. I might take a six week publishing course. One of my other life goals is to become fluent in Spanish. I firmly believe I have to spend a long period of time in a Spanish-speaking country to achieve that. The writing major doesn't allow me to study abroad, so maybe I'll use that last summer to go to Spain (there are programs that will place you in internships in Spain, so maybe I'll work with a Spanish publisher!).

Watch for Part II of this interview.

*Imagine a freshly groomed puppy dog. All excitement and pent up energy. Put him inside a circle where on all sides he has either a pair of clapping hands, a stinky stuffed animal, a piece of raw meat, a squeaky chew toy, and maybe a tennis ball. Which one to go for first? He may hit the meat, then the toy, then the hands, each time he gets what he wants but can’t wait to get back to the other equally entertaining distraction.

** I take comfort in something I read in  Damon Knight’s book on writing short stories. He suggested that writers not get serious about their writing until their mid thirties when they have some life experience behind them. I’ll take that because I have to, for me there is no going back. For young writers like Katie, I say go for it with everything you’ve got because all this time will be gone before you know it, and maybe by the time you have all that great life experience you will have learned the essentials of the craft while you’re racking up all that valuable life experience. You can hit the ground running, smoking your peers who have just sat down to get serious.

*** After reading this answer from Katie, something clicked for me. The great escape that reading provided for me my entire life was deeply curtailed when I married someone who didn’t read, and then later when I had kids. I wasn’t able to sink completely into a book like I did before. I even quit reading for a while and until now I haven’t been able to put my finger on why. It was hard for me to figure out how to read books and fit in other now essential tasks of my life, putting the characters in the book aside in favor of the living breathing people in front of me. 

Now I pile up three or four, dipping in whenever I can, losing the mood of the book sometimes in doing this, or starting a new book to at least get it going, knowing it will take forever to get through it. The one exception to this was the long plane rides to visit dying parents. On these trips I was able to sink in to a book, and on my last flight to see my dad I started and actually finished Steve Hely’s How I Became A Famous Novelist.  That experience confirmed that reading is still the best form of escape for me when I am able to indulge. Reading in spurts, as I have come to do, is probably the same thing as trying to get drunk  on the same bottle of liquor over a period of a week.