The story behind Sky Jumpers

I had the wonderful opportunity recently to take part of the event "Speed Dating the Texas Bluebonnet Books" at Texas Library Association's annual conference, where I talked about the inspirations behind Sky Jumpers. I thought I'd share it here, too.

There are three things that inspired almost every aspect of Sky Jumpers— the setting, the genre, and the main character. For this book the thing that came first was definitely the setting.

Six years ago, I was on an airplane, flying home from Disney World with my family on a day when the entire country was covered in clouds. For 3 ½ hours, I stared out the window at the wrong side of the clouds, imagining how it would feel to jump out of the plane and have the clouds catch me. And how amazing and thrilling and peaceful that would feel. I couldn't shake the feeling, so I started imagining what could've happened to our world that would've left behind a layer of air dense enough to catch someone's fall. And then, instead of looking like clouds, I imagined what would kind of conflicts would happen if it were both deadly and invisible. And the Bomb's Breath was born. Over the next 9 months, I spent a lot of time developing the setting and world building, creating characters, and coming up with the plot. Once I started hearing my main character's voice when I thought through the plot, I started writing.

I wanted Sky Jumpers to take place in an area that was wide open and empty, to mirror the population after the bombs hit. So I chose Nebraska. But I also needed mountains by the town, so that the people who lived there could be near both the protection and danger that the Bomb's Breath provided. So I thought about what was most unexpected and ironic- that the people would live inside the crater made by the thing that wiped out most of the earth's population. I live at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, in a safe, protected, happy valley. So, to me, being nestled in a valley surrounded by mountains means safety and protection. I wanted that same safety for Hope’s town, and then for that safety to be threatened.

When I was a kid, I saw my first post-apocalyptic movie, and I was sold on the genre. I love the concept that since there are so few people left in the world, that very NORMAL people have to be the ones to step up to heights greater than they’ve ever had to before. Very normal people have to become the heroes.

Although I wanted Sky Jumpers to be post-apocalyptic, I didn’t want it to be dystopic. I think dystopic environments are so appealing to teens (and to me!), but I think things are a little different for middle grade readers. They have their whole lives ahead of them– the whole world ahead of them– and they want to know that the world is going to be one worth living in, and that they're going to flourish there. I love introducing kids who might not have experienced post-apocalyptic stories to a world that has a lot of hope, and to know that they can make a difference in whatever world they’ll grow up in.

Hope’s personality is all her own, but the concept of her came from my daughter. When she was in first grade, she really struggled with reading, and everyone freaked out. (Which, for the record, was AWESOME. Because then she got the help she needed early on, and is a great reader now.) At six, she could hold her own when bantering with even adults. At six, she started playing football (very well, I might add), and had no problem at all being the only girl in a league of only boy football players. At six, she could do mental math faster than anyone else in her class. But at six, she couldn’t do the one thing that mattered most—she couldn’t read well. And none of the other amazing things about her mattered, because reading mattered more than anything. The concept kind of fascinated me, and I knew I wanted to make a character who couldn’t do the one thing that mattered most in her town.

Sky Jumpers takes place in the town of White Rock, forty years after the green bombs of WWIII wiped out most of the population and virtually all technology. They've had enough time to build things, so they're past the point of fighting to survive, and have moved on to looking toward the future in an effort to regain some of what was lost. Hope, grew up with the way things are being "normal," because that's how they always were for her. But there are people in her town who were alive before the bombs, and know what it was like to live with all the technology we have now (and more). So, unlike the first time when technology advanced, people actually knew what was possible, and wanted to try to find a way to get to that same point again. Inventing is extremely important to that plan. And my main character, Hope, can't do it.

Hope has a lot of strengths— leading others, knowing when to take risks, and being loyal. But her, along with her town, don’t seem to notice those strengths, sometimes, when you're bad at the thing that matters most, your strengths can get overlooked.

I think that’s a very universal thing. Sometimes we worry so much about our weaknesses, and how prominent they are, and it keeps us from seeing the truly remarkable things about ourselves. And everyone has truly remarkable strengths. Not only do they make us unique, but they're what give us the power to change the world.

I talk about this a lot in my school visits. And I hope that when kids read Sky Jumpers, that they realize that they have some pretty great strengths, too, and that those strengths will help them to really change the world.

How I Became a Writer

I recently went to Texas Library Association's annual conference in Austin Texas. While I was there, I had a chance to tell a group of amazing librarians my "How I Became a Writer" story. I thought I'd share here.

I was not one of those people who knew from the time they were able to hold a pencil that they wanted to be an author. Early in our marriage, my husband always said to me “You should write a book.” And I would give him the most baffled, confused look. One I'm sure was pretty close to the look I would've given him if he'd have said, “You should be Batman.” or “You should be a unicorn.” 

It wasn’t until my baby started Kindergarten that I knew. I was making dinner one night when a hilarious story popped into my head about the teenage versions of two of my friends. So I wrote the story, which ended up being about 100 pages, and gave it to both of them as a gift. That’s when I realized how incredible it is to create characters— an entire world, even— using nothing more than thoughts in my head. And then to be able to actually share that world with someone else. It’s an amazingly powerful thing.

The story was called PIVOTAL, and ironically enough, writing that story became a rather pivotal moment in my life.

I had been reading middle grade books to my kids at bedtime for several years. When I read PIVOTAL to them, that’s when I KNEW I wanted to be an author. I wanted to write books for kids— books that parents could read out loud to their kids at bedtime.

From that moment, I didn’t wade into the writing world. I jumped off into the deep end. When I decided that was what I wanted to do, I started reading everything about writing I could find online and in books. I started researching writers conferences. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote.

Yet I knew that writing and writing and writing wasn’t going to be enough. Unless I was learning enough that I was improving my craft with all that writing, writing itself wasn't going to move me further along. I knew that the amount I needed to learn was unfathomly vast, and that I needed to find a way to learn it.

Not long after, a friend of mine handed me the book MISTBORN by Brandon Sanderson. When I finished, I was, of course, blown away. (As most people are when they read MISTBORN.) I read the bio, and saw that he taught creative writing at BYU. I was not a student at BYU, and they weren’t the type of University who would accept my application to take just one class. Taking a class from him was downright impossible. Yet I looked ahead at the road I wanted to be on. I knew that everyone had a different way of getting on that road just as surely as I knew that taking this path was the exact way for me to get on that road.

And I wasn’t about to let a little thing like an impossibility trip me up. So, with my heart in my hand, I went to one of Brandon Sanderson’s signings (before the first Wheel of Time book came out, so his lines weren’t hours long yet), and chatted with him about writing until he invited me to audit his class. (You can imagine what an emotional moment this was. I’m not too proud to admit that the second I stepped out of the building, I cried.)

Going to his class was a pretty incredible thing. In a few months, I learned what would’ve taken me years to learn outside of his class. He also put us together into writing groups, and that’s where I met the people who I would spend the next four years meeting with weekly, getting feedback on my writing. He also introduced me to a lot of great writers conferences, where not only did I learn greatly about writing, but where I met an entire writing community. I am very indebted to Brandon. It was a pretty sweet thing when, after I got my book deal, he invited me back to his creative writing class to talk about my publication story.

I continued to squeeze in writing and learning about writing into every free moment I had. It was within that first year after Brandon’s class that I got the initial idea for Sky Jumpers. I let it percolate for nine months while I was working on other projects. I knew from the start that the idea was solid, and if I worked hard enough at my craft and at this book— if I was persistent and didn’t give up until I knew it was as good as possible— that it had a real chance.

And I wanted it to have that chance. I sent it chapter by chapter through my writing group. Then I had dozens of beta readers give me feedback. I used to work at an elementary school with fourth graders who struggle with literacy and math. One of the teachers I worked with read the book to her class, and I got to be at the back of the room working one on one with kids while she was reading it. Recess was right after read aloud, and I got to see at what points she would close the book and they’d run out to recess, and at what points she’d close the book, and they would beg to stay in from recess if she would read more. Not only hearing my book in someone else’s voice, but hearing on the playground what they talked about and what they played was invaluable.

Sky Jumpers was on its eleventh draft when I decided it was finally ready for me to query agents. I had spent 5 months working on my query letter. I know! It’s a long time to work on something that’s only ½ page long. But it paid off— I got my first request for my manuscript nine minutes into querying, and that agent offered representation. I signed with a different agent who also offered, and shortly after, Random House bought it in a pre-empt eight days after it had gone on submission.

As a kid, I grew up in a place with untamed places to explore, lots of siblings, parents who let us be daring, and a brother on each side of me who were both daredevils and brilliant. (I don’t know if you’ve experienced the combo of daring and brilliant and boy, but basically it means that we got into so really dangerous situations. It also meant they were able to get us out of most of those situations accident free. ;)) Put all those things together, and I was basically living one gigantic action / adventure. I know that’s why I’m drawn to writing action / adventure books— it’s so easy to tap into the thrilling experiences I had as a child.

And I definitely feel like my elementary school years were the most memorable. And the most exciting. And the most enjoyable. And the most magical. That’s probably why I will never tire of writing for kids who are those same ages.