Passion Blog Tour: Lauren Kate on Running Down a Plot!

Welcome to the penultimate day for Lauren Kate's Passion blog tour! Today here at Girls Without a Bookshelf, Lauren is going to share her other hobbies, apart from writing. Check it out -

Years ago, I went to a bookstore in Manhattan to hear Joyce Carol Oates read from her first YA novel, Freaky Green Eyes. From my view of her frail, birdlike physique, I found it hard to believe Oates when she spoke of running six miles everyday. She said running was this magical time when she plotted all her novels. At that point, I really didn’t believe her. Who could do anything while running other than count the seconds until you were going to be finished running?

I was not a runner then. But sometime in the years between leaving my hectic job at a publishing house in New York and beginning to write Fallen, I took up the sport. I found myself living on a tomato farm in Northern California. It was their first time in my life I’d lived somewhere with that much open space around me. One day, I started to run the boundaries of the tomato plots. I hated it at first. I hated it for months. I definitely did a lot of counting down the seconds until my run was up. But the seed of a dream to run a marathon someday had been planted in me, so I kept up the running.

I remember one day during the summer I wrote Fallen, I woke up worrying about Miss Sophia. Something about her character wasn’t all the way there. I got dressed for my run, laced up my shoes, went out the door into the hot California sun. I took off through the tomatoes vines. When I think of them now, I can smell their precise aroma in the morning—spicy and velvety at the same time. I ran a few miles and didn’t realize I wasn’t counting down the seconds, I was thinking about Miss Sophia. I was resolving what was wrong with her character. At one point, I stopped in the middle of the field and I knew with absolute certainty that Miss Sophia was not good, as I’d written into my first

draft. She was pure evil, one of the most evil forces in the book. I don’t know when my mind would have worked that out if I had not been running. Joyce Carol Oates had it right all along.

The plotting run became an almost daily ritual. I live in Los Angeles now—less space but still some beautiful trails—and I rely on those morning runs—with my dog, Milo, these days—to clear my mind and unlock the scene I plan to write that day. This morning, I realized something new about Cam about a mile and a half into my run. I came home ready to hit the keyboard and transcribe the scene. I still haven’t run that marathon, but I did a half-marathon last summer. Maybe I’ll save the marathon training for my next series when I have a whole new set of mysteries to work through on the trails.

Thanks Lauren! I've always wanted to run a marathon myself, but I'm too lazy to train. Whoops, lazy me :D

Are you excited about Passion? Check it www.ihavefallen.co.uk for more about the series, connect with fans at the facebook page www.Facebook.com/FallenNovels and check out the squee-worthy trailer below!




And don't forget to head over to Writing from the Tub on the last day of the Passion blog tour tomorrow!