How Mercedes Helnwein Sits Down & Writes
'Slingshot' is a crackling, voice-driven debut that takes on the wild highs and lows of first love.
"I didn’t think it was going to be anything like this when I finally fell in love. I thought it was going to be pretty simple. Like, I’d love someone and they’d love me. I thought that’s the way it worked.”
Grace Welles is stuck at a third-tier boarding school in the swamps of Florida, where her method of survival is a strict, self-imposed loneliness. And it works. Her crap attitude keeps people away because without friends, there are fewer to lose.
But when she accidentally saves the new kid, Wade Scholfield, from being beaten up, everything about her precariously balanced loner world collapses and, in order to find her footing again, she has no choice but to discover a completely new way to exist.
Because with Wade around, school rules are optional, weird is okay, and conversations about wormholes can lead to make-out sessions that disrupt any logical stream of thought. Nothing’s perfect, but that’s not the point. When they're together everything seems uncomplicated in a way that Grace knows is not possible.
Except it is.
So why does Grace crush Wade’s heart into a million pieces?
Acidly funny and compulsively readable, this debut is a story about two people finding each other and then screwing it all up. See also: soulmate, stupidity, sex, friendship, bad poetry, very bad decisions, and all the indignities of being in love for the first time.
Slingshot is perfect for fans of Rainbow Rowell and Mary H. K. Choi.
We talked with Mercedes about not worrying about all the reasons not to write, about approaching art versus writing, and about the vivid boarding school setting.
Q: Where do you like to write the most?
It used to be kitchens – because the access to tea and food, and people coming in and out and distracting me in the right kind of way.
I still love kitchens, but in the meanwhile, I also like a more set-up place, where the table and chair are the perfect height and I don’t hurt my wrists or neck. Probably my favorite scenario would be writing on a train though.
Q: When do you like to write the most?
Mornings.
Q: When it comes to drafting, do you prefer writing on a computer or freehand?
Computer.
Q: Are you more of a plotter or pantser?
I’m really bad at plotting anything, and when I try, it never ends up the way I planned. I usually just have an idea like, “Oh, it would be really funny if a person like this got stuck in this kind of situation and had to deal with this other person.” And it’ll be a super vague idea, sometimes just a scene, and somehow that turns into something workable through a journey of many faulty drafts. I guess that makes me a “pantser”?
Q: Stephen King has a great line in ‘On Writing’ that says “the scariest moment is always right before you start. After that, things can only get better.” That scary pre-start moment often inspires procrastination in writers. Suddenly, you have to clean your entire house, do the laundry and play Candy Crush for an hour before you can actually start writing. Is there anything you need to do before you can actually sit down and work?
I actually think things can also get worse once one starts writing haha, but he has a point.
Mainly what I need in order to start writing is just to make tea. I lived in the UK for a while and in Ireland (on and off) since I was a teenager, so yeah…tea. Nothing will happen without tea.
Q: Do you listen to music while you write? If so, what music? Is your choice of music inspired by the project you’re working on?’
Sometimes I do. And yes, the purpose of listening to music would be to have the correct soundtrack for whatever scene I’m writing. Everything for me is so visual that in order to write a chapter or moment I have to basically see the scene in my head like a film (I’m sure this is the case for many writers) and visualizing that is much easier with music. I think most of the emotions in films comes from the soundtrack. I listened to a lot of music while writing Slingshot.
That being said, once I get nit-picky about the wording and sentences and dialogues, I have to turn the music off because the lyrics would get in the way.
Q: Some writers believe you have to write every single day. Is that true of your process? How often do you write/how long for each session?
I like the idea of writing every day, but in my case it depends a lot on the current chaos level of my life – what projects I have to get done in the studio, what else is going on, what errands needs to get done, etc. Ideally, I try to write every morning until about noon – but even when I make the time to do that, it can be super unproductive sometimes and I’ll just switch to doing something else. I try to just clear the entire day if I’m getting somewhere with writing, and then quit early if it’s not going that great.
Q: What’s one piece of advice you’d give an aspiring author?
Not to worry too much about all the reasons why not to write. To have as much blind faith in yourself as possible and not to betray what you set out to do.
Q: Where do you normally find story inspiration?
Where the exact ideas come from varies a lot, but what makes me actually excited enough to start writing about something is always the potential for humor in an idea or subject matter. I think life is so absurd and weird, and I love when stories reflect that. I love comedy, I love humor in sad stories, in non-sad stories, in dialogues, in the use of language – it’s always what will get me on board an idea.
Q: You're an artist as well as a writer. How is your process for writing different from your approach to a piece of art?
Super different. Obviously with writing everything is so literal and takes so much thinking. When I draw or paint, all of the work is outside of my head and purely visual and emotional (or mechanical). So, while I work in the studio I can listen to music, audiobooks – it can be more relaxing. Not always. But it’s definitely nice not have to have to think sometimes!
Q: How does your art influence your writing and vice versa?
Well, I want to say they don’t interact with each other and are totally separate, but that’s not really true. While writing Slingshot, a lot of my artwork started to revolve around school imagery and kids and adolescence. I was thinking so much from the viewpoint of kids and going through all my diaries an old camcorder footage etc. that the theme sloshed over into my art. I didn’t really even notice that happening at first.
Q: Gracie's voice is so strong and both incredibly relatable and so abrasive. Did Gracie come to you fully formed?
It’s funny because I personally never found her super abrasive myself, but maybe that’s because I just understand her too well. I wanted her to be socially inept and actually kind of terrified of other people and all the things that can go wrong in relationships of any kind. Her being abrasive has a lot to do with that, rather than her wanting anyone to actually feel bad. Her heart is in the right place, but I think she just had to learn how to interact with people, and that took some people being stubborn enough to persist in getting to know her.
But in answer to the question – she was pretty much fully formed as a character early on.
Q: Slingshot takes place at a boarding school. What made you want to use this setting?
Probably because I went to a boarding school for a couple years, and life at a boarding school becomes such a weird bubble. I thought it would be an interesting setting, and all the kids would be around each other all the time, so it would be very easy to throw them together and make them deal with each other. There’s really no place to escape.
Q: There's such a great cast of characters in Gracie's life at school, all of who we see through Gracie's harsh view, but somehow they all are completely likable. Did you have a favorite character to write?
I didn’t want any of them to be bad people -- just kids who have their faults and good sides, and I wanted Gracie to start understanding them through interacting with them and be able to appreciate what was good about them. Derek was fun to write because I loved the idea of an asshole becoming so helpless, emotionally, and melodramatic. And I love that he is a trumpet virtuoso and knows all the Baroque composers.
I loved Beth too. She gave so much questionable advice with so much confidence. My favorite was probably Wade, though. It was hard not to really care about that kid.
Q: What is the last book that you read that you couldn't put down?
Later by Stephen King. I love his style of writing and language. It’s so soothing to read his characters talk and think.
Grab your copy of Slingshot from bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, or IndieBound. Enjoy!
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