Whatever Life Throws at You by Julie Cross features a smart-mouth teen girl, a rookie pitcher, and the Kansas City Royals.
Tell us 5 random facts about yourself.
1. I have three kids.
2. I’m currently enrolled in a college level math course that I’m not actually attending nor did I meet the pre-requisites for.
3. My favorite food is potatoes.
4. Every day I eat oatmeal.
5. Writing is fairly new for me; I didn’t start until I was 29.
Describe your novel in five words.
Fun, funny, sweet, sexy, and a little emotional.
When you sit down to write a new novel, what it the process like?
Well, nowadays, I tend to have an idea form along with the characters and their backstories long before I’m able to sit down and write the novel. Usually projects are lined up in order of when they were contracted or agreed upon, much like the customers awaiting help on the phone lines at your local cable company. So, initially, a book is forming only inside my head and then when it begins oozing out and I can’t possibly hold onto it any longer, I sit down and start writing. Then I need to give myself a good 50-100 pages before I begin thinking about structure or plot in great detail, before I do any planning at all. That is honestly my very favorite part of the process.
Whatever Life Throws at You is a mature YA contemporary. What were some of the differences between writing this story and writing your YA series Tempest?
Having a 19-year-old narrator in the Tempest series, the content level is very similar in both. With Tempest, it is basically a contemporary YA romance, then the sci-fi element is layered on top of that contemporary story. So the biggest difference with Whatever Life Throws at You, is that it was so much easier to write. The conflicts aren’t life or death and they don’t have to be. There is more room for character development, which is probably one of my greatest writing strengths.
Tell us a little about your favorite scene to write.
There is a scene in the book, not too far in, where the baseball stadium is under a tornado warning. Annie, my main character, having moved from Arizona and not experienced springtime in the Midwest before, discovers her fear of tornadoes quickly. And Jason Brody, the hot young rookie pitcher who will later steal her heart, has a very interesting and sexy method of distracting her during this storm scene. It involves a bathroom floor and a Spanish lesson.
This novel takes place in the world of professional baseball. Are you a baseball fan? What kind of research did you have to do to make the story believable?
I do love baseball and I’m a sports enthusiast in general, but I’m not one to follow a specific baseball team. So I steered away from naming current players for the most part. I did research mostly on specifics like salary caps and average pay for staff, number of games played in each stage of the season and of course the history of the Kansas Royals, in terms of their lack of post season presence. And who knew that would all change this year? First post season win in 29 years, I believe? I’m still a bit in shock over this huge milestone because it’s quite possible that something similar happens to the team in my book. That I wrote in the Spring of 2013.
What one YA novel do you wish you had when you were a teen?
Definitely Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher. Even though it’s technically a book about suicide, when I read it at 28 years old, it made me think about how I may have affected others around me without realizing it. It made me wonder if I hurt anyone in a way that stuck or just the opposite, did have a positive effect on anyone’s life.
What are you working on now?
Right now I’m working on a YA series for Simon and Schuster that is basically Friday Night Lights with hockey. It’s really fun to write and I’m having a blast creating a fictional town. The first book releases in the Spring of 2016.
Fill in the blank:
If I weren’t a writer I would be…………
Definitely, I’d still be a YMCA Program Director/Gymnastics Coach. That’s what I did before writing and for a long time I did both.
If I could have one supernatural power it would be………………
Invisibility.
My Hollywood crush is…………………………
Well…I’m not really a crush kind of person, but my middle school self was all about “Brandon” and “Dylan” from Beverly Hills 90210.
About ‘Whatever Life Throws at You’
Seventeen-year-old Annie Lucas’s life is completely upended the moment her dad returns to the major leagues as the new pitching coach for the Kansas City Royals. Now she’s living in Missouri (too cold), attending an all-girls school (no boys), and navigating the strange world of professional sports. But Annie has dreams of her own—most of which involve placing first at every track meet…and one starring the Royals’ super-hot rookie pitcher.
But nineteen-year-old Jason Brody is completely, utterly, and totally off-limits. Besides, her dad would kill them both several times over. Not to mention Brody has something of a past, and his fan club is filled with C-cupped models, not smart-mouthed high school “brats” who can run the pants off every player on the team. Annie has enough on her plate without taking their friendship to the next level. The last thing she should be doing is falling in love.
But baseball isn’t just a game. It’s life. And sometimes, it can break your heart…