Get ready to learn more about the book Ride With Me in this discussion with sapphic author Jenna Jarvis.
Join us for an exclusive peek behind the scenes as we quiz Jenna Jarvis about Ride With Me, writing, reading, and more.
This book is part of the Road Trip category in the 2024 IHS Reading Challenge.
Why did you write Ride With Me?
I have a great love of road trip films and shows and books. I think there’s something about being trapped in a car with someone, especially someone you don’t know very well, that always makes for a good story. I really wanted to have my own take on that.
Who is your favorite character in the book?
I feel like both Emma and Lucy have a lot of me in them, but I had so much fun writing Lucy’s best friend Annie and I’d really love to give her a book of her own. She’s really not much like me, she’s much cooler than me, and she’s back living on a ranch which I don’t think I could ever survive, but we have the same taste in movies and love for our friends. Though we show it in different ways I really related to the way she needs people to help her out of the coping routines se finds herself in.
What was the biggest challenge writing this book?
Definitely the research: there were so many times I kept accidentally writing a British term or even a Scottish term without thinking of it. Fantasy is so much easier in some ways – the research can be focused in the directions I want it to. Here I had to think about driving through the United States, as a Scottish non-driver, so there were a lot more things I had to make sure I got right.
If you’re planning a sequel, can you share a tiny bit about your plans for it?
So in February 2025 I will be publishing a spin-off/follow-up to Ride With Me following main character Emma’s sister, Mick, and how she handles lockdown. It comes back to the same issues Emma has with their family, but from another lens, and in a completely different context. Where Ride With Me is Emma’s big spontaneous break for freedom, Ride It Out is about her much more workaholic sister experiencing burnout and being forced to slow down.
What is your writing process like?
I’m a bit of a pantser in terms of adding extra sections or directions I find characters growing in, but in general I have a pretty broad emotional plot figured out when I start writing a story. I will still leave huge sections of the general plot blank though with a kind of belief I’ll figure it out by the time I reach it, and I do usually write out of order.
Where do you usually write, and what do you need in your writing space to help you stay focused?
I love writing on public transport the most: I find it really focuses me to force myself on something moving with nothing else to distract me. Usually though I like to write outside if it’s ever sunny enough, and if not I’m curled up at a desk or on the sofa in my house.
Do you have a pet who helps/hinders your typing?
Both my dog Zoot (a three year old big fluffy samoyed) and my parents’ dog Beaker (a very grumpy old beagle) have been very patient at the amount of times I’ve been late walking them after I get too into writing. Zoot especially often sits at my feet or beside me keeping me company as I write and long walks with him give me a great reason to listen to all my writing playlists.
Also while I was editing Ride With Me my friend’s cat managed to delete the entire document by wandering over the keys – thank you autosave!
What is the most valuable piece of advice you’ve been given about writing, and by whom?
Probably just that writing something is always better than writing nothing. It’s a real discipline, which means that some days you will need to force yourself to it, and practice or messing around with another project is always better than complaining about a blank page. But also, to contradict that, anyone who tells you there’s only one way of doing things is probably trying to sell you something. Everyone has their own methods and reasons for writing: yours may not be like anyone else’s and that’s cool.
What do you do to get inside your character’s heads?
I love making playlists, for different scenes or relationships or characters. It really helps associating them with songs, it helps them feel more emotionally real to me and really does help me come to new conclusions about them. But I do base characters a lot on people I know and characters I love, cobbling together different experiences to make a new composite.
Do you feel bad putting your characters through the wringer?
I do feel bad for being an evil god about their lives, but also it does feel like my job to put them through it. The easiest way to making a good story better is finding how to make things worse for the character in it.
Have you ever hated one of your characters?
Though I still think I wrote him with some humanising qualities, there’s a character in Ride With Me who is definitely the most all-out villainous character I’ve ever written. I had fun writing him and I have loved everyone having such visceral reactions to hating him!
Describe your favorite reading spot.
Ooh I love being outside to read. Outside on the grass in the sun or by a pool if I can make that happen, but otherwise cuddled up in bed reading far too late into the night.
Do you only read books in one genre or do you genre hop?
I definitely genre hop. I’m a huge mood reader, generally reading whatever’s calling to me in the library or that a friend has pushed on me. Romance and fantasy are definitely my comfort genres, but because that’s what I write so much of I’ve been finding myself reading more that steers away from those. Horror and Non-Fiction have been great for me lately.
Have you ever thought you’d hate a book, but ended up loving it?
There’ve been a few classics I definitely had the wrong impression of before getting into. I’d never enjoyed full book in verse before Paradise Lost, but found myself really gripped by it.
