Indie Author Spotlight - Kendell Shaffer - Interview & Giveaway

Kalifornia Blu

(A YA Contemporary Novel By Kendell Shaffer)

Arrested for skateboarding at three o'clock in the morning at the Venice Beach Skate Park, Kalifornia Blu's life takes an unexpected turn when her rock star absent mom doesn't show up at her sentencing hearing. To avoid a trip to Juvenile Hall, she tracks down her dad–whom she hasn't seen since she was eight. The sentencing judge thinks a bit of discipline will be good for Kalifornia and transfers her to a Police Academy Magnet High School, where the students wear LAPD uniforms, learn police drills and practice forensics. And, she’s forced to live with her ex-skateboarding, ex-guitar playing, ex-dad Zachary, in his run-down Venice loft with a 6 pm to 6 am curfew. It’s not an easy sentence for a girl who has grown up touring with her mom, living in five-star hotels all over the world. Curfew is tough, but Kal is tenacious. When she discovers her cop school partner, Jade, is being threatened by her ganglord cousin, Kal skitches (skateboard hitches) a Range Rover through the Venice canals to save her. She rescues a young girl from a gnarly living situation with Jade's help. It's a rough world she's thrown into, with some dangerous people... and a few new friendships, discovered in the most unlikely places.

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Kendell Shaffer grew up in Baltimore, the daughter of two ballet dancers. She moved to the Big Apple for college where she attended Tisch School of the Arts film school at New York University. After college, she moved on to Los Angeles where she produces and writes for television. Now a resident of Venice Beach, Kendell teaches screenwriting to teens at high schools throughout Los Angeles for the Writer's Guild Foundation. In addition to spending time with her family, she co-founded Garage Band Venice, a musical jam where kids learn to play music together in individual bands. She raises bees on her rooftop and plays the drums in her living room. Please visit Kendell at her WEBSITE. 

Welcome Kendell! Can you tell us your main inspiration behind this novel?
I was wondering what it was like for Frances Bean Cobain to grow up. I mean, even though she had rock star parents, Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain, she was still just a kid and needed to do kid things too, not just travel in limos. I thought about the privileges she had verses the normal life that she didn’t. I wanted to explore a character like that. Then I learned about magnet high schools in Los Angeles where kids who want to be cops can attend a police academy high school dressed in police uniforms and take forensics classes and learn police drills. I learned there was a law magnet too where kids who want to be lawyers can attend a law magnet high school and study pre-law. I thought that was pretty cool and I started to hang out and interview these kids. I soon realized they were all good kids who wanted to stay out of trouble. I thought it would be fun to throw a juvenile delinquent into their world. That’s when I came up with the character, Kalifornia Blu. I made her the daughter of a rock star who gets in trouble with the law and then I threw her into cop school with the cop and law kids. 

Was self-publishing your first choice? What was the most nerve wracking part of the process? 
Yes! I love the fact that I would be in charge if I self-published. I am really into social media so I thought that part of it would be fun. Once the book was printed I looked at it like a product I had to sell. I did all the publishing through Amazon Create Space and Kindle DIrect. Both were so straight forward and super easy. I think the paperback looks great and I am impressed with the quality of printing. I did get initial help from my editor, Winslow Eliot at http://writespa.com/ who offers author services. She was the one who convinced me to self publish and once she did, I never looked back. She’s John Locke’s editor BTW! The most nerve wracking part had to be the day that the book became available on Amazon and I thought I had to do all my social media blasts, take it to local book stores, send review copies out, follow up with everyone in my world... all in the first couple of days. I later learned that I could take my time in this process of spreading the word and that getting a buzz started takes time. I am much more relaxed about it all now. 

As a self-published author, did you choose to edit your novel yourself? What was the biggest change you made to the story and/or characters? 
I had the manuscript edited professionally by Winslow Eliot. After Winslow’s edits I went through and took out all the f-bombs. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be to replace them. I also revisited the sex scenes and really thought about how I wanted to handle that. I was inspired by Francesca Lia Block’s Weetzie Bat books and how two of her teen characters spent the night in a tee-pee. Francesca never talked about the two having sex, but you knew that they had. I liked the way I could imply that they had sex without getting into details. I also took out a reference I had about cutting. I didn’t think it was a good idea to casually mention something like that without really exploring cutting and what it means. And I took out a line where one of the character’s says, “that’s so gay.” I didn’t want anyone to think I was implying that “gay” was a bad thing. And then I revisited all the adult issues in the book and thought about them one more time from a teens POV. So the story didn’t change, just some of the ways I chose to tell it.

Do you have any unusual writing habits that aide your process and/or character development?
I am not sure this is unusual, but I love to do research. I spent a good deal of time hanging out with police academy high school students. I have been on drive-a-longs with cops, I spent three hours at the LA County morgue. And I’ve spent lots of time hanging out with skateboarders to learn their language and their style of dress, music, etc. My favorite research lately has been getting to know former punk rockers, most of whom are in their 50’s. I’ve spent some fun nights listening to them reminisce about old days in punk bands while dining on exotic food and drinking wine. 

Is there one passage or scene from your novel that you are most fond of?

Well, I like the first chapter, so here it is!

Chapter One 

The surf is high tonight, the shore break smashing loud, but down in the bowl I can barely hear it. I’m flat on my stomach, catching my breath. Kinda rough fall, but no real damage. It’s dark; no moonlight gets through the low clouds, but they glow from the city lights so there’s just enough light to skate by. This is the raddest skateboard park ever, right on Venice beach, carved into the sand. It’s got rails, ramps, steps, linked shallow bowls and one big, deep bowl just like a real empty swimming pool. It makes no sense you can’t use it at night. Anyway, it’s three o’clock in the morning, what are the chances they’ll catch us? They never have before.

I listen to Levi drop in, swoop around me and grind to a stop. Then his lanky body is leaning over me and sucking on my neck.

“Quit it.” I push him away.

I get up, grab my board, and clamber up the side. The ocean’s loud up here. I position my board on the lip, ready to drop. It’s perfect. Everything is perfect; the pitch-black ocean roaring like monsters, the lights of the city off beyond the boardwalk. Nobody around. Warm breeze. Levi gets himself out of the bowl and sets up next to me. 

“Blazing,” he says.

What? The bowl? Me? He takes off his shirt and tucks it inside his jeans. Oh, him. He’s lean and strong and his pale skin catches the light. He drops in first, down the side and up the other end on his PNX board. I’m right behind him squatting down low on my old-school Alva Tri Deck and loving the ride. We get into a groove, circling, whirling, swooping round and round. Insane.

“Whoooop.”

Levi jumps off his board. “Leg it, Kal. PoPo,” he yells.

It sounds again: “Whoooop.”

We both power up the side, landing on the rim. Sure enough, a police SUV is rolling at us over the sand, its brights bouncing in our faces. Levi takes off running, heading south, towards the graffiti walls. I head north. There’s two cops and they both choose me to chase. But I’m going over the skate park wall, down to the bike path; The SUV can’t move around here too easily, especially with all the palm trees. One of the cops jumps out of the SUV and starts chasing me on foot. The SUV blasts sand from under its wheels as it circles round, cuts me off, a female cop leaping out, grabbing my blonde dreadlocks. Oh shit. I squirm away and keep running. I am not letting her take me down. I am not getting arrested. 

Never look back. I learned that on the swim team: it slows you down. 

But I can’t hear her behind me anymore. I look back; she’s not chasing me. She’s on the ground holding her leg. She must have slipped on the sandy concrete. I’m going to get away. So why is she looking at me so smug? 

What an idiot I am ’cause I run right into her partner's arms.

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