The Moment You Remember, You Forget is Luna Novella #9. Release date 8th of February, in print and digital
Let’s start from the beginning. Who were the writers who inspired you to become an author?
As a kid, I adored Shel Silverstein and was obsessed with R.L. Stein’s Goosebumps series. I’d spend my days writing adventure stories on blank pieces of paper that I’d fold together and then illustrate.
What is the very first piece of fiction you ever wrote?
As a class project in elementary school, I wrote and illustrated a picture book—I’m sure it was about cats.
What is the hardest part of writing, in your experience?
The hardest part of writing—for me—is writing. I feel guilty any day that I fail to write for a set period of time. And then even when I finally get into a writing flow, it seems that the stories that come out of me tend to be short.
Tell me about your book. What was the inspiration behind it?
The Moment You Remember, You Forget is about a late-twenty year old woman who still has her imaginary friend. Her family accepts the fact that she has one, but it becomes increasingly unclear whether they can see him, too. The book really started out as a short story but the feeling of the story stuck with me long after I’d thought I’d finished the story. So I picked it up again and started fitting in vignettes about the family members and this sort of naturally built out a timeline far before and beyond the original short story. I had several imaginary friends growing up, and I like to say that I didn’t “lose” them until I was entering middle school. The memory is very distinct—I went to address them and they just weren’t there. The original short story was my attempt to capture this feeling by imposing the threat of it on my main character. The final story is my attempt to expand this threat into the overall realm of memory.
Think back at your debut book. How did you approach the ‘getting published’ process? Any tips, resources that you can share with our readers?
The Moment You Remember, You Forget is my first published book. I have published mostly short stories, nonfiction and poetry prior. The best advice that I have been given is to keep submitting because the writers that make it are the ones that do just that.
How did you find the publishing process, in general?
The publishing process can be quite discouraging because of the amount of rejections that you receive. It’s for this very reason that it is also the most rewarding. When your work finally gets picked up, you know that the editors value it and will consequently provide you with invaluable feedback because they are invested in showcasing what they consider to be a solid story in their respective publishing venue.
What is your take on social media, when it comes to being an author? Do you think that an author should have at least one channel of communication with the readers? During graduate school, we had the privilege of meeting a lot of literary agents and it seemed that most of them shared the same advice that building your platform matters. That publishers and agents will find you more appealing if you already have a large following. In my experience, I haven’t seen this really impact my writing career. In fact, I generally don’t like to watch too many interviews from my favorite authors because I do not want there to be a discrepancy between what they intended in their work and what I took away from it. This might be a selfish tendency of mine and a hypocritical one because I do like to maintain a few channels of communication with readers just in case they want to ask me questions or connect in general. I am just forever grateful to anyone who takes the time to read my work.
What do you think about Awards in publishing?
I love seeing work be honored. There is just so much great work out there that I wonder what is getting missed (due to lack of marketing, narrow scope of of content being reviewed, etc.) and this actually makes me incredibly sad.
What are you working on at the moment?
I am currently working on a children’s picture book. I also have an idea for a novel that I am still working out.
If you had to recommend an author and/or a book, who would it be?
There are just too many! Last year I read two books that I thoroughly enjoyed and I often think about—Pew by Catherine Lacey and Life Events by Karolina Waclawiak.
Tiffany Jimenez is from the San Francisco Bay Area. She earned her BA in Creative Writing from UC Santa Cruz, and her MFA from Saint Mary's College of California.
Other than being an ardent supporter of the imagination and the art of storytelling, she writes a lot, laughs a lot, startles easily, and loves potatoes
Visit www.TiffanyJimenez.com to read more.
About The Moment You Remember, You Forget:
Robert has been an imaginary twin brother to Lillian for over eighteen years. After the sudden and deliberate death of their older sister, Robert is forced to confront the inevitability of his own death as an imagined being. Interspersed between Robert’s grappling with the logistics of what he is, are the voices of his family members: Lillian, who needed an imaginary friend late in life; Lacey and Samantha, the older twin sisters who grow apart on purpose; and Jillian, the result of a teenage pregnancy, who feels she’s treated more like an imaginary being than Rob is. The Moment You Remember, You Forget challenges the perception of what is real by exploring the boundaries of love, dependency, and grief. Watch the YouTube Book Launch here.
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