The English Department’s Writers and Scholars series hosted debut author and 2001 Otterbein graduate Mindy McGinnis. Her book, “Not a Drop to Drink,” was published by HarperCollins Publishers and released Sept. 24. On Oct. 28, McGinnis came to Otterbein to speak with students and faculty about her writing, her process and getting published. Below are quotes from her open session and book reading as well as the stories behind what she said.
1. “I had a dream about teaching (a child) how to shoot a gun.”
This became the foreground for McGinnis’s recent debut novel, “Not a Drop to Drink.” The story follows, Lynn, a young girl who grows up in Ohio 30 to 40 years in the future. In this futuristic world, water resources are scarce, and people struggle to find and maintain their water supply. She got the idea for writing the story from her dream as well as “Blue Gold,” a documentary on the effects a diminished water supply will have on the economy, politics and the human race.
2. “Writing for teens, and writing about teens, is more dynamic. Who wants to read about someone going to the grocery store?”
As a young-adult literature librarian, McGinnis is surrounded by books related to her writing genre. When writing young-adult books, writers must be wary of their target audience. McGinnis said parents will be okay if their child reads about violence or bad language, but themes of sex is what stops them from buying a book.
3. “I read Stephen King at 11 (years old), and that’s probably what screwed me up.”
McGinnis’s agent referred to her story as “Little House on the Prairie” on crack. McGinnis said it could be “The Walking Dead” without the zombies or a teenage version of “The Road.” She said she was influenced by writers such as King, Margaret Atwood, Joyce Carol Oates, Rick Yancey and Donald Ray Pollock.
4. “I’ve never shot anyone, to be clear.”
A point McGinnis made a few times during her visit. The book details many deaths, but McGinnis adamantly stated that she has only skinned a deer before.
5. “I let the story write itself.”
McGinnis wrote “Not a Drop to Drink” in about three months. However, her unpublished work, “Chimera,” had been a work in progress for eight years. McGinnis said there were many times when she gave up on writing after a series of rejections, but she pursued. She said that she could stop herself from writing, but she couldn’t stop stories from arising inside her head. She joked that had she not wrote those characters down on paper, they would die in her head and the smell would radiate from her head. McGinnis said the name Lynn came into her head naturally. When she looked up the name in the name dictionary, she discovered its meaning: “water bearer.”
6. “You put your book out into the world and let people have their opinions.”
With the internet comes anonymity, and with that comes the ability to say anything without visibility. Anyone can write a bad review of a book. Against the advice of her agent, McGinnis reads her reviews. She compared it to passing a note in class, asking a crush to check “yes” or “no.” She said she just had to know. One person claimed they tried to feed her book to a crocodile.
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