The One That I Want: an interview with bestselling author Allison Winn Scotch

Have you ever played the What-If Game? You know, what if you’d never met your spouse? What if you never took that job? What if you could see the future? What if you could live your 20s again, would you do anything differently? The What-If Game, a fun, but perhaps dangerous game in which you ask yourself certain questions in order to re-imagine your life in a completely different way?

For New York Times bestselling author Allison Winn Scotch, the What-If Game is a literary device that has helped to make her one of the hottest writers going. Her second book, The Time of My Life, was a huge break-out bestselling novel, which was optioned for a Hollywood film. And her latest novel, The One That I Want, which is scheduled for release on June 1, 2010, is Redbook magazine's must-read for June.

In the book we meet Tilly Farmer, a 32-year old guidance counselor who seems to have the makings of a perfect life. She’s married to her high-school sweetheart and they are working on starting a family. It’s the life she’s meticulously planned since she was a young girl.

But all of that is about to change once Tilly visits a fortuneteller at a local fair, a childhood friend whose premonitions, more than just a silly reading, start coming true, altering her life in ways she could never have imagined, uprooting her perfect life and forcing her to choose her destiny: the life she has now with her husband or a life she never thought was possible. 

The real magic of The One That I Want, however, is not the What-If device itself. The real magic is Scotch’s ability to create authentic moments between her characters that push this fast-paced story to the edge and joyfully brings us along with it.

The One That I Want by Allison Winn Scotch is available in bookstores everywhere today, June 1, 2010. You can learn more about Scotch at her official website.

Allison has a special contest right now. For those who buy the book between now and June 4th, you can be entered to win a new blackberry, a video FLIP and other cool prizes. Learn more at her blog Ask Allison.

I had the great opportunity to sit down with Scotch to discuss her book and her life. Please take a few more minutes to check out the revealing interview below. 

Q. In your books you take on life choices as a theme, the what-if questions that are fun to ask and answer, but would be far more challenging to actually have to live with the consequences in real life. How do you come up with these questions? 

A. I really just think about what is going on in my own life, as well as homing in on what’s happening with my friends: what we’re talking about at our girls’ dinners, our complaints, our joys, our frustrations. I do fairly frequent temperature checks with myself and try to make little adjustments so I don’t get thrown totally off track. So I guess these questions come from the place of where I might be if I didn’t do these check-ins. It’s pretty easy to really go off the rails if you don’t pay attention.

Q. Do you know how it’s all going to work out before you start writing? 

A. No, in fact, I don’t even know if it will work in the first place! My first two books came really easily to me, but I tried to challenge myself with The One That I Want, and as a result, there were certainly moments when I didn’t think the book would work out, much less a specific ending. But I write without a map, letting the characters take me where they see fit. I think my job is to throw obstacles in their way and create a story, but I then let them guide the story. I usually know how things are going to end about 2/3 to 3/4 the way through.

Q. Your last two books have titles based on music. How much of a role does music play in your life and in your writing process?

A. Music plays a huge, huge role in my life, and thus my writing. Other than when I am actually working on a manuscript, I have music playing, and I literally cannot leave the house without my iPod. When I was younger, I aspired to be a singer-actress type, so I’ve always just gravitated toward songs, melodies and lyrics. For this book specifically, I sincerely don’t think I could have written it without the influence of The Killers, who were kind enough (and this blows my mind!) to also let me use their lyrics for my epigraph. As I said, The One That I Want was a tough book to write, and I listened to a few of their songs – Read My Mind, Human and Dustland Fairytale, among others – to dive into my characters’ heads when I was stuck. Let’s put it this way: I listened to them so often that my kids – who are 5 and 3 – know all of their lyrics.

Q. What is your writing process? How does a bestselling author and mom get so much done? 

A. My writing process, when I’m working on a manuscript, is to write a designated word count every day, usually about 1-2k, come hell or high water. It’s kind of like building a house brick by brick. If you add 5-7k a week, you can actually get the whole thing done a lot faster than you think. (I do skip weekends, those are strictly no-work zones.) The writing itself doesn’t take me too long each day, an hour or two, but I spent the rest of the time gestating in my head, so that once I sit down to write, it comes pretty quickly.

As far as juggling the mommy and writing stuff, I get asked this fairly often, and I always immediately say that I have a great babysitter, which is true. I don’t want anyone to think that I’m writing these books and working on my magazine articles during the wee nap times of my children because that wouldn’t be a fair impression. But that said, I treat my job like any other working mom would: namely, while my kids are at school or in their after-school activities, I sit in my office and I work; and then, come six o’clock, when it’s time for their dinner, I shut down the manuscript and hang out with them. It’s actually surprisingly easier for me than I think people think it is, and I’m so fortunate to have this flexibility. I can take my son to school, see my daughter at lunch, but then get right back to work; and I’ve been doing this ever since my kids were born. So, they’re pretty used to coming into my home office, hanging out for a few minutes, and then letting me return to my screen. I don’t know—I also don’t have the expectation of perfection around here. We’re sort of an easy-going, figuratively messy bunch, and we go with the flow a lot of times. I think that motherhood asks a lot of you, and you give it your best; and then you’re okay with that. I also believe in saying “no.” I say “no” to a lot of things when I just don’t have anything else to give.

Q. Father’s Day is coming. Should men read The One That I Want and your other books?

A. Well, my husband recently told me that this is his favorite of my books so far, and he is NOT a reader (at least of fiction), so does that count as a ringing endorsement? Look, the obvious angle is that I write more geared toward women, but I think of all of my books, this one is the most universal, in terms of gender. It explores some weighty things that male, female, what-have-you (though I guess those are the only options!), are relatable: a stale marriage, infidelity, alcoholism, dreams for a bigger life. That stuff isn’t gender-weighted. 

Q. What if traditional publishing went away? Would you still write just for the fun of it?

A. I’m sure in some regard, I would. My parent recently dumped all of my childhood stuff at my house (hello, nostalgia!), and I found journals upon journals, dating back to when I was about six. I’ve always loved to write, and I can’t imagine that would change, whether or not I was paid for it. Would I sit down and kill myself in crafting the perfect novel? Well, that I don’t know. But I’d always have something to say. 

Q. You used to work in PR and marketing before becoming a freelance writer for many years. How did you get into fiction writing and what was your big break?

A. I got into fiction simply because I had an itch that I wanted to scratch, to be honest. As you said, I was working as a freelance magazine writer at the time – probably for about five years or so – when I wanted to try to flex a different muscle. I adored what I did, but I’d really reached the apex of what I’d wanted to get out of it, so...I tried something different. I thought I wrote what was a brilliant manuscript, and shopped it to agents. I landed one, but she couldn’t sell it, and in hindsight, thank goodness. It was terrible! Just wretched! My big break probably came when she and I parted ways, which I know seems like a weird thing to say about your big break. But I’d written a second manuscript and having something to compare it to (my horrible first one), I actually knew that this one was good. She didn’t want to shop it to publishers, which kind of lit a fire in me. I got back on the agent search with a real fire in my belly, got a few offers of representation, and, to be honest, chose wisely. I nabbed a kick-ass agent who remains my agent to this day, and about ten days after she shopped that manuscript around, we received four offers from publishers. My break-out book was really my second one, Time of My Life, but as far as going big or going home, that was probably my moment.

Q. What book or books are on your nightstand right now?

A. I have a zillion ARCs to read for potential blurbs, but right now, I’m reading Husband and Wife by Leah Stewart, which I’m really enjoying, and The Swimming Pool by Holly LeCraw. Also on my nightstand: Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman and The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris.

Q. Other than the LA Books Examiner, are there any writers you feel deserve more attention than he or she currently receives? 

A. Definitely. I’m so glad to be asked this question because I always feel compelled to champion other writers who I adore. To that end, I’d say that if anyone likes my books, he or she absolutely, 100% must check out Laura Dave’s books, London Is The Best City in America and The Divorce Party. She seriously cannot write a word that I don’t adore. In fact, she’s become a good friend, but I’m not saying this out of nepotism! We met when I sent her a fan letter gushing over how much I loved London, and that I now consider her to be a confidante is the cherry on top. 

Q. Do you have a Kindle or an iPad? What do you think about eBooks? Are your books available for eReaders? 

A. Eeek, I don’t. I know, does that make me look pre-historic? I don’t know, I spend so many hours in front of a screen every day or checking my iPhone that I kind of feel like the last thing I want to do at night is curl up in bed with a Kindle. I see the allure, I do, and I’m sure that one day soon, I’ll be eating crow and tweeting about my obsession with my iPad or whatnot, but for now, I’m sticking with the real thing. My books are available via eReaders, and I say, if that’s how you like to read, go for it! Anything that gets people reading is good in my book. 

Q. On your blog Ask Allison, you offer advice and resources to aspiring writers. Seriously, how do you get so much done, and what’s next for Allison Winn Scotch? 

A. Ha! Okay, another tip for productivity is that I do things in chunks. So, this morning, for example, I did some book promo stuff and got all of that off my plate. Then I take a break and workout and run errands. Then I devote the afternoon to another chunk of stuff – in this case, I’m interviewing Ian Somerhalder from The Vampire Diaries, so I’ll do my prep work and then chat with him. The same is true for my blog: I write three or four entries at a time, get it off my to-do list, and that’s that. I really think if you’re organized – and get into a pattern – it’s not so hard. 

As far as what’s next, I’m almost done with the initial draft of my fourth book, The Memory of Us, which focuses on a woman who survives a plane crash but loses her memory in the process, and is forced to tape together the pieces of her life by the stories that other people relay back to her. I think it’s a nice companion to Time of My Life and The One That I Want—somewhere in between the two of them in terms of voice and gravity, and hope that readers agree when it comes out in June 2011!

The One That I Want by Allison Winn Scotch. (Shaye Areheart Books: June, 2010. 288 pages)

Read more great author interviews from Frank Mundo, the LA Books Examiner. 

Don't forget to subscribe to my emails and follow me on Twitter.