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MEET CYNTHIA KADOHATA
by Bonnie O'Brian

Where do you get your ideas?

Cynthia Kadohata

My ideas for books come from all over – anything that sparks my interest.  It can come from something I read, something I see, something I feel.  If something strikes me as having possibilities, I turn it over in my head a bit and try to construct a possible story without committing anything to writing.  After that I usually reject it and don’t think of it again.  But sometimes the idea really sticks with me, and I get more drawn to it over time.  Those are the ideas I write about.

There are also “smaller” ideas, like an idea for a detail or a paragraph or a piece of dialogue.  This may sound a little weird, but sometimes when I’m stuck in the middle of writing a book and need the perfect detail or paragraph or whatever, I just lie or sit down and stare into space.  I feel like the idea is out there in the ether somewhere, and my brain has to sort of reach out and find it.  I feel like it doesn’t even come from inside of me but is something I find in the ether.  If I sort of meditate and open my mind, I will find the right idea.

What really triggers your imagination?

Unfortunately, my imagination is going quite often.  In fact, one of the hardest things for me about becoming a mother was that I had to stop imagining so much so I could live more in the moment and really be there for my son, Sammy.  I remember when I was a kid I told a friend of mine that I was worried I imagined too much.  I thought there was something wrong with me.  Of course, now that Sammy is growing older I have discovered that I need to start using my imagination with him.  Tonight we were playing Mario and Luigi (from the Nintendo game), and I got so involved with talking in a loud Italian accent that I think my son thought I’d lost my mind.  It’s meeeee – Luigi!

Do you enjoy researching or do you prefer working totally from your imagination?

I think that researching and working from your imagination are two sides of the same coin.  Research really sets my imagination afire.  And it’s really my imagination that tells me what I need to research.

Do you work on more than one book at a time?

No.  Early on, before I had published, I set a rule for myself that I had to finish everything I wrote before I moved on.  I just felt that was a good habit to get into.  So I would not start anything new until I had finished the previous story.  That meant I was always working on just one project at a time.

When is your next book going to be in book stores?

My next book, A MILLION SHADES OF GRAY, will be in stores in January 2010.  It’s about a young boy who is one of the elephant keepers for his tribe in Vietnam.  The action takes place in Vietnam after the American involvement in the war ended.  A Million Shades of Gray will be my third war book -- and my next book will be about the aftermath of a war.  Right now I’m really attracted to the profound ways people need to reach deeply inside themselves to meet the tremendous challenges of life during wars.

Do you like to include humor in your stories? Or adventure? Or mystery?

I used to make quite an effort to include humor in my stories.  When I first started writing, I would rarely write anything without attempting to utilize humor.  But right now I’m more into adventure than humor.

When you do school visits, what question do children ask you most?

 “Where do you get your ideas” is definitely the question I get asked the most at school visits and in letters from kids.  I can’t stress enough that getting ideas is mostly a matter of keeping your awareness in the “on” position as often as possible, so that when you happen across a story idea, you’re open to it.  If your awareness is in the “off” position, you might not even notice that some small detail or event offers a great idea for a story.

Has anyone ever written you a fan letter that you’d like to share?