Like as we walk along you see pop-ups, like you have pop-up advertisements that are suited for you. So I do wonder, what is going to happen in the future of books, future of all types of entertainment. That’s when I start feeling like I am this curmudgeon, back in my day I wrote in my handmade journal and I mailed letters.
JH: Just briefly, are there any messages that you want to get across to teens or anybody about plagiarism or are you just ready to move on?
Megan McCafferty: I’ve always been ready to move on. I went out of my way not to talk about it publicly. I knew the more I talked about it the more it would keep the story alive. It was a huge distraction for me and I ended up not writing for about three or four months after it happened.
JH: I’m still a bit in shock that it even happened.
Megan McCafferty: That’s how I felt about it. It was shocking that it would happen to anyone. I knew that with this book coming out that I was going to have to talk about it a little bit more. I totally understand. If it hadn’t happened to me, and I actually know some of the other writers involved whose books were not as a big of an influence on the book as mine were (I know them all three of them). If one of them had been the primary like me in the situation I would have been just as fascinated as everyone else, I would have been just as curious and wanting to know about it. So I get where the curiosity comes from.
JH: I get where you are coming from. I can see how it would be totally irritating.
Megan McCafferty: The thing now is that it’s been more than a year since the time has passed and what did I do in that year? I wrote another book because I’m a writer and all I wanted to do was get back to work so that’s what I did.
Jill Hart: One last question. As a mom, how do you find the time to write?
Megan McCafferty: Writing the last two books has been completely different than the first two books. The first two books I wrote whenever I wanted to, day or night, when inspiration struck. I quit my job in magazines and I was working at home. I was still doing freelance assignments but they didn’t really take up too much of time so my fulltime job was pretty much to write this book, Sloppy Firsts. Then my son was born. I found out I was pregnant just as I was finishing Second Helpings and so I was like I’m going to take a break.
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net , which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States, and to Boston.com. Nice work!