This week we have another goo bit of the audio, and it’s transcribed!  Our own Stefanie finished it this afternoon, and had the following to say… “I like how aware Stephenie is of the fans. I’ve noticed this from the other portions of y’alls’ interview, too.  She’s knows what’s going on in the fandom.  Whereas another person in her position might deem themselves “too busy” to take notice of what’s going on, you can tell Stephenie’s got her finger on the pulse of the fandom… I also loved hearing her talk about being named a producer on BD.”

You can read/listen to it now!

LT: Do you see it everywhere? (Referring to Twilight.)

SM: Oh absolutely.  We were walking down the street—we were shopping the other day and there was a red apple in a storefront and Meghan’s like: “Stephenie!”  Yeah, I mean—

LT: Yesterday we were driving down the street and there was a boutique and it was called Elizabeth Masen and I just pointed it out and I was like: “Oh my god! [inaudible]”

(chatter)

SM: That’s kind of awesome.  I mean you do see those, but then there’s other things that then throw you.  But see I feel—I’m almost very sensitive about—like in The Haunted Mansion movie?  The character’s name was Edward Grayson.  It’s like: “Wait a minute, dangit!” You know, you get a little weird.  But yeah, you see it all over the place.  I get on a plane and there’s a little girl in an Edward t-shirt and part of me wants to be like: “That’s so cool, honey, you rock!” But then the other part: “Okay, I’m not gonna say anything.”

(chatter)

SM: “Don’t look her in the eye!”

LT: Sort of relating back, what you’ve created—I mean I’m sure you’re aware and you know, and I’m sure how overwhelming it is—but for example, there’s this girl on our site named Cindy who is a mother of three grandchildren, so she’s probably in her 50s I’m not exactly sure, and she had a traumatic injury and a brain injury like three years ago and as a result wasn’t able to read anymore and she stopped.

LT: She had no short-term memory.

LT: Yeah, she literally everyday wakes up and she writes Post-It notes to remember to come to our site.  She’s like that.  It’s crazy and she’s wonderful but her daughter said, “You need to read Twilight”, and she said, “I can’t.  I can’t read.  I can’t do it.”  So when the movie came out on DVD she watched it and loved it, and then started reading the book. And it took her like a year to read the book.  She read by watching the movie and reading the book slowly, everyday, was able to read it.  And then she actually doesn’t really leave the house because she said she looks normal but she’s not.  When people talk to her it’s really difficult, she can’t process certain things so she doesn’t like to go out because people think she’s weird.  So she was able to go and see New Moon in the theatre; it was like one of the first times she actually left the house.  And it’s just such a—I mean, she’s an amazing woman who’s, you know, just found community in our site.  But just thinking of her and then so many other stories we have of friends that—

LT: People email us thinking we’re you, or we’re Edward, or we’re Rob and we get these stories about escapism, or “you saved me from a bad marriage” or—

LT: A child who’s passed away.

LT: Yeah, a child died and you’re books were—

LT: Had just a tiny escape in your books—there’s such a legacy you’ve left for people.  I just…I mean, obviously want to tell you that and thank you for that, but then just—is it just overwhelming?  You don’t know what to say?  What do you…

SM: So overwhelming.  Part of you is so happy to know that somebody was happier because of you, and that’s a big thing for me because it feels like, you know, we’re all here to do a certain level of good, right?  And a lot of it I get to do by accident.  But it is nice because it was a very similar thing for me, not nearly as dramatic and there are a lot of people who have gone through a lot worse, but having my three kids sucked a lot out—you have to.  You have to commit to give yourself up for about two years per child, so for me it was six years straight and I had given up so much of myself and when the idea—you know I had this great dream—the day of writing it down, it was like this return to myself.  And it was so…such a powerful thing to feel like: “Ahhh, I can be me.”  And I don’t have to—it didn’t have to take away from my kids.  You know, sure they weren’t getting the full attention but they were cared for and I was there, but I got to be me again.  And I wrote so fast in those early days because it was just a rush, and when other people have a similar thing where—and it makes people creative; they start writing too, and they go out and they look for their thing that makes them happy and that’s awesome.  You know you want to—you hate when you do bad.  When people—when it affects them negatively, which I hear rarely too.  It’s hard to have a book, I feel like, that’s for fun affect you too negatively.  Hopefully it couldn’t.  But when it affects people so positively then none of the rest of it matters, right, because I made somebody happy; and how amazing it is to be able—so that’s a real gift to me, I feel like, because I made myself  happy writing it and all the rest is kind of accidental.  But that it makes other people happy too is the most amazing thing.

Elysa from TS: Deep breath!

SM: Was that too heavy?

(chatter)

Matt from TS: Alright, so basically at this point you’ve been pretty much asked every question under the sun at this point.  Is there any aspect or question of the saga that you wished received more attention, that you can give…

SM: Actually I feel like we got to do [that], because I haven’t been doing interviews for so long.  And it used to be that I could keep up with the fans—I don’t even like [the term] “fans”, I like “the readers” more—with the readers online and stuff, and then I got to answer very specific questions about characters, and I love that.  I love being able to talk about Fred and his back story and Aro and all that because most of the interviews the more—the bigger I got—the bigger the interviews and the less substance to them.  And it’s so frustrating because you know people have these questions! This is exactly why we’re here.  And yet, if I had gone on The Today Show or something it would’ve been great and they would’ve said, “So tell us how you got started writing” and my head might’ve exploded!

(laughter)

SM: But you watch, some of the interviews there’s a look in my eye—I’m very polite, but you can see the crazy is there ‘cause it’s like I know, I know what people are gonna ‘cause everyone’s disappointed; because the people who really care about my interview want to have the answer to these kinds of questions.  I haven’t had a chance to talk about Bree like this.  So today was really great for me because this is the first time I have gotten to discuss Bree; and that you guys all had such in depth questions—that is so cool because that means you liked it and that’s awesome!  It’s great when I can talk about the characters and I don’t get to talk about the movies too much.  I mean, with my girlfriends I do ‘cause they’re always like: “What happened?” and it’s fun!  But you know, it’s nice to be able to answer the questions that people are going to be happy to hear the answers to, and so that’s very cool. So I thank you all!

(laughter)

Kallie: Okay so then, because you talk about all the pressure: in the movies, in the busy, you know you really just like to be at home…If you could do anything, I mean literally could just stop everything for let’s say six months, just do anything, what would it be that you would take your time to do?  Would it be another story?  Would it be…

SM: If I could shut it all off for six months, it would be…I think I’d get another book done in that amount of time. [inaudible] It’s funny because for me it’s all about the story that’s keeping me up at night, and it fluctuates a little bit because the cannibal mermaids are…there’s such a story there.  It’s a departure.  It’s pure fantasy.  It’s math in the front piece fantasy and it’s a whole other world, and that might throw people, right?  But if I could write that in a vacuum and it doesn’t matter, I’d really want to write it for me.  And then there’s the sequel to The Host.

Everyone: Yes.

SM: Especially if we’re starting to work on the movies and they’re like: “Soooo, what’s gonna be in the next one?”  I think I have ten years to write before they’ll just do their own sequel. It’s like: “Okay.  Great”.  And then there’s other ones.  You know there’s a lot of little stories and they get me at certain times and I’ll see something that all of a sudden will suck me into that story and then I have to go write it down or I do forget.  My memory…I tell you.

Kallie: It’s the kids.

(laughter)

SM: It’s nuts.  I have holes.  I really think I’m worse than most.  I have to type it out and then it stays in there.  So then there’s a lot of different things but I do…I need the vacuum and it’s kind of hard for me because I can’t create that—there’s too many things that are important—and I could, you know, we were talking about sometimes I think, “Okay I just need to walk away from the movies.”  But then, what if [in] the tent scene Jacob wasn’t holding Bella?  It’s a big deal!  And even with the ones I lose at least I get those little moments that mean a lot to me.  And I am really…you know I’m very emotionally invested and I know that’s really unusual for an author; and I know—You know, a lot of people are able to do that and walk away, and I’m sure that there’d be people happy if I did, but for me I just—I am emotionally attached.

Kassie: It makes me love the movies more because you’re so involved.

Kallie: Can you imagine—the movies are getting better and better from what I hear and that’s very rare for a franchise of films and I think that that’s something that’s just awesome.

SM: I think it’s cool.  I mean, I do think that we—Summit—I mean, from the beginning, one of the things that I’m most grateful to Catherine Hardwicke for is that she took it seriously from day one.  She didn’t go in and make it a kind of a joke or whatever; she lived and breathed it.  And we didn’t have the budget for some of the special effects and we weren’t able to do everything. And there wasn’t a sense that maybe—I don’t know that they had the sense that we’d be doing all the sequels—so I think she was more focused on this one story and it was more encapsulated.  But from the beginning, they took them seriously, and while there’s always flaws that happen, they have tried to be—they’re probably more serious than I would have done them.  Mine would have had a lot more jokes ‘cause my characters…

Kallie: You can be there for the Masterpiece Theatre version.

(laughter and chatter)

SM: I was there that day.  I’m like: “What is he saying?!  What is that?”

LT: Who is this guy?

Fansite: We love him. [inaudible]

SM: I kind of the liked the guys in the background that had to sit there and then turn around and look.  They were pretty funny.  They were funny.  They were real loggers that they just—they weren’t actors.  It was cool.

Meghan: They pulled them off the street.

SM: They did.  It was really interesting.

Kallie: That’s awesome.  Thanks!

Fansite: Alright, we have a two-parter.  What made you decide to put the producer’s hat on for Breaking Dawn, and what do you think you bring to that last movie?

SM: I don’t think it’s gonna change that much.  I do feel like—I mean Breaking Dawn is tricky.  It’s real tricky.  Now I feel more like we have handle on it, because the scripts and with Bill Condon, I am more calm; but originally, I was very much on the fence as to: “Maybe we shouldn’t make this into a movie”, you know?  Some things really can’t be made into movies and come across exactly the right way, so it was a big struggle for me to go forward.  I knew that it would disappoint a lot of people and that was really one of the main impetuses was that people would be like: “What?!”  I didn’t want to disappoint people.  So I was concerned, so my plan was and still is to be there everyday, and so as a producer I can do that.  And so it’s really a lot about being in the room and you know it’s gonna be a lot of upheaval in my life but I felt like it was important.  And then it’s…you know it’s the last one so I kind of feel like: “Okay I’m gonna commit to it this year, I’ll get it done and then I won’t do that again”.

(laughter)

SM: But…and then, you know, I also—I get to be more involved in some of the—

(chatter and laughter)

SM: I think that we will have a little bit more of a say in the music, which would be a big deal.  We’d have—we’ll be…Instead of hearing about the decisions afterwards we’ll be there when they’re being made and that’s gonna help.  With Eclipse I was pretty much right on the line with producing.  I was very much involved with the script and a lot of the choices, and so it’s not a huge difference but it’ll be really an interesting experience.

(chatter)

TF: We let out a sigh of relief when we heard you were producing.

SM: Well I think that…I don’t know if those sighs were a little bit premature.  I’m not sure that I’ll have that much more that I can do, but I try.  I keep fighting.  I can’t quite make myself give up, so…

Fansite: We appreciate that.

SM: Well and you know the movies, they’re a separate thing and they’re really fun.  They can’t be exactly like the books, and so it’s about finding those key things that really make it have the feel of the books.  But I mean they have done a really great job, and not all of it I get right away because for me it’s like: “No, keep it closer to the story.”  And then afterwards I’m like: “Okay, this is just an alternate but it has it’s merits.” You know there are good things, like angry Edward, that isn’t there in the book and yet, that has a lot of value for you.  And so, there are things that they’re able to do that I can’t and so it’s a nice little compliment.  And like Taylor bringing the love for Jacob, that’s a good thing.  It’s a good thing.

…

THANKS TO STEFANIE FOR TRANSCRIBING!

To read our previous posts from the Stephenie Meyer Fan Junket 2010 click HERE!

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All Photos: Julie Adamson