The memories that never fade

and how they wind up in books

Last week, I participated in my first World Read Aloud Day. I virtually visited two fifth-grade classrooms who had read my debut middle grade novel, Shift, as a read-aloud in class. They had so many questions about science and the planet and writing. Once precocious kid asked how much money I made from Shift. His teacher advised him that maybe I couldn’t answer that, but I could and I did. “I don’t know yet,” I told him, “but I can still buy my own coffee.”

They wanted to know how much of the science in the book is real (all of it), if what I wrote about lobsters peeing from their faces was true (it is), and why I made Dax my main character (he was the first voice in my head). They wanted to know where my ideas came from and I told them ideas are everywhere: in the books we read, the people we meet, the things we do and the places we go.

Since they had already heard Shift read aloud, I surprised them by reading the first chapter of the second book in the series, Flow. When I told them they were about to hear words no one outside my publisher (and my husband) had seen, many mouths dropped open. Fists went up the air. I hear one or two kids declare “yes!” with enthusiasm. This is why I love writing middle grade. Most things are still cool to them.

The opening chapter in Flow is based on a memory I have carried in my heart and my head since 2014. It is still as fresh as the day it happened.

While on a cruise, we booked an excursion to Stingray City, a series of sandbars north of Grand Cayman. When I booked it, my brain conjured up images of a badly maintained facility where little stingrays raised in captivity were subjected to the endless pawing of tourists. Little did I know that this was the gateway to an emotional experience I will never forget.

When the boat taking us there started to slow, our captain, in very broken English, tried to explain we could jump off the boat and swim out to the sandbar. Or, he continued, we could use the ladder in front and step right onto the sandbar. His next sentences were crystal clear – be very careful where you step. You don’t want to startle the stingrays.

I glanced over at my husband. This is what his eyes were saying: What. The. Hell. Did. You. Get. Us. Into.

I stood up, looked over the side of the boat and I am sure my eyes bulged out of their sockets. My brain was trying to process exactly what I was seeing, fighting to over-rule the images conjured by my imagination.

My only exposure to stingrays was in a holding tank at a zoo. These were not the same things.

If you spread your arms out wide, that will give you an idea of the size of these wild stingrays. Majestic.

If you think of the softest leather you’ve ever caressed, that will tell you how soft the underbelly of a stingray is. Surprising.

If you think of the intelligence you can sometimes see in your pet dog or cat, that will tell you how amazing these creatures are.

I had no idea about any of these things. I also had no clue that stingrays like to be touched. More than that, stingrays like to be the ones doing the touching, and as I was coaching my husband on how to use the camera, I was suddenly surrounded by 8 stingrays, 3 of which decided it was completely appropriate to climb onto me. One on my back, two on either side of me.

When I visited Stingray City, I had no idea it would be in a book. Now, when I do something out of the ordinary while on vacation, I pay close attention to my senses. That’s how you bring readers into the story (I tell my memoir students the same thing). It was the most invigorating experience of my life. And so, I wrote it all into the first chapter. Every sensation and every surprise was passed down to my main character, Dax. It was important for me to get it right because I hope, one day, one of the kids who reads Flow will go to Stingray City and have their best day ever, too.

Happy Adventuring!

XO Dana

---

What I’m reading

I am fresh off finishing Kristin Hannah’s The Women and have a book hangover. It was a fantastic story from cover to cover. It’s been a feast of ARCs in my inbox, and this new novel by Chris Whitaker was waiting for me. I read, and enjoyed, We Begin at the End, and I know what to expect from this author: troubled towns, kids forced to make adult choices, broken families. Whitaker has a unique writing style that not everyone loves, myself included, but his stories and characters are so rich, it’s worth the effort.