We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Susan Phelan. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Susan below.
Alright, Susan thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So, let’s start with a hypothetical – what would you change about the educational system?
I’m not sure what the answer to this question is, other than more funding, and even that isn’t an answer in and of itself, because where the funds go is at least as important as throwing money at the system. But I can tell you an area that needs addressing – more individualized teaching. This is very hard to have happen with the way things are set up, teachers have large classrooms, testing expectations, and pressure from both parents and the system, but in my mind it is one of the more critical areas that should be addressed.
Neurodiversity is a buzz word these days, but an important one. That, along with different learning styles, and kids coming into a classroom with different levels of understanding, can make it so that almost every student needs to be taught either something different than others, or be taught it in a different way than classmates. As a parent, I’ve seen this issue with my five children, three of whom were diagnosed with ADHD. I’ll give an example from my household.
One child of mine sailed through grade school. Because they were both smart and compliant, there were no issues apparent. Any small signs of ADHD were overlooked because concepts were easily mastered and they didn’t disrupt the classroom. When they hit junior high, the junior high hit back. Lockers, changing classes and teachers, and more homework became too much to handle and this child was soon failing at most subjects. When a diagnoses of ADHD was given, it was difficult for some of the teachers to both understand and comply with this child’s discovered needs to succeed. The situation ended up sparking the idea for my first middle grade novel, Miss Classified.
I’ll leave it to people smarter than I am to grapple with the changes that would help our children be taught as individuals. But I’d love to see all of our children graduate high school not only learning what they need to succeed as an adult, but feeling confident in their own selves, not matter in what area they find both their strengths and weaknesses.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Story is how I see the world. Tell me a fact with a place, name, and date, and I’ll forget it before the day is out. But tell me a compelling story, and I’ll not only remember it, but understand how it effects the world. My creative life is bound by story, and I always hope the stories I tell, or become a part of as an actor, will be ones that will uplift, enlighten, and/or entertain. It’s a small way to change the world, but small things are what lead to big changes.
In junior high I announced to the world, or at least to my gym class, that I was going to be an actress. I’m not sure I even realized it was what I wanted until the words came out of my mouth. I managed to be in several school or community theatre productions, other than one audition in NYC, but I never made it to the professional level until one of my daughters decided she wanted an acting agent. I love the film world and though I still love theatre, the time commitment is very heavy, so my stage work is rare these days.
My writing also came in later life. I’d always been a reader, but it took a long time to realize there were people behind the stories and that I could be one of them. My realization that I was a writer came when my youngest child was four and I had something I couldn’t define stuck in my head. It wouldn’t leave, so I decided to write it down to find out what it was. It was a picture book. Having read hundreds, perhaps thousands of picture books to my children over the years, the form had sunk into my brain. This particular manuscript is a mood piece and hasn’t found a home yet. Even if it never does, it brought me more fully into the world of story and my brain since that time has been filled with ideas and characters I must write down before my head explodes.
As my entry into both writing and acting came later in my life, this puts me in the position to help other women who might be joining the creative working world in mid-life. Many may feel the time has passed them by, or that they’ll never catch up to their peers. I’m here to remind them that it’s never too late and that we are not in this world to catch up with anyone, but to shine our own light as best as we can. One benefit to joining the creative world later in life is the depth of life experiences we bring, which can help our first attempts come out deeper than they may have at a younger age, as long as we allow ourselves the vulnerability for that to happen.
If I were to brand myself and my work, it would probably be Gentle Humor. Having grown up with I Love Lucy, and being married to a very funny man for many years, humor is always a part of my life. And perhaps it is my nature, maybe it’s in my reading empathetically about so many diverse characters in novels, or perhaps it is the experience of raising five children, along with numerous animals, but being harsh with my characters is one of my biggest challenges, so when I give them something had to do, there is always still a gentle hand behind it.
Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
There is an understanding among the general public about both actors and writers that anyone can do it, it’s easy work, and almost all writers and actors are rich. But the public sees only people like J.K. Rowling, John Grisham, Meryl Streep, and Tom Hanks. They don’t see the (sometimes literal) blood, sweat, and tears behind the art.
Blood – Actors and actresses sometimes ruin their physical health for a role. You’ve heard of some losing or gaining weight to fit what the director (or the actor) wants. Set days can normally be twelve hours before overtime starts. And while Christmas movies often look as though they are filmed in the winter, many are filmed in the summer and actors are wearing coats and scarfs in 100 degree weather. There are directors asking for unsafe stunts, strange contortions repeated over and over for camera. Then change the angle and start again. I once had literal blood when a breakaway vase was crashed on the bad guy’s head above me and a piece flew down and cut my lip ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1212054/?ref_=nm_flmg_t_10_act ). A get together of actors could spend an entire evening discussing sets and stunts that went from unpleasant to dangerous.
Sweat – Besides the literal sweat when you’ve got five minutes with a literary agent to pitch your book series, writers sweat over plot lines, word choice, and killing off a beloved character. They sweat when their agent tells them another publisher has turned down their manuscript, or their favorite editor is quitting the business in the middle of a book edit. Maybe this is why many of us wear sweatpants as our home office work outfit?
Tears – At least once I’ve gotten a part because I can cry on cue. But that’s relatively easy and the pain doesn’t last long. Both careers – writing and acting – are ones where to be the best you can be, you have to open yourself up, break down emotional walls, and allow yourself to stay in a state of vulnerability. When you can allow this to happen, that’s when the reader or viewer will see or feel something real and be moved. That’s when you’ll produce your best work. That’s when you have a chance to make the world a better place. Whether it’s through giving someone a much needed smile, or a much needed cry, you’ve had the opportunity to make a difference in the life of someone else. And that’s what it’s is all about.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
How about taking 15 years from starting a novel to having it accepted for publication? I was advised by a number of writers that it might be best to consider it a practice novel, set it aside, and start anew with something else. But something inside me knew it needed to get out into the world. So I’d send it a few places, get nos or no response, and start working on it again.
Eventually, I really thought it was ready, but I was still not getting any agents or editors interested in reading the full manuscript. The realization came that I was starting the novel in the wrong place. While I pondered for days on how to fix it, I had a dream that my character, Bly, was leading a funeral in the backyard for a pet lizard.
Now, normal advice would say not to start a novel with a funeral. The reader wouldn’t care yet about the characters and therefore would not feel bad for the main character losing their mother, father, or whoever it was. But the purpose of this chapter wasn’t to make us feel sorry for the character, it was to get to know her, know how much she cared for her family, and set up her relationship with her father. Hopefully by the end of the chapter readers would like Bly and want her to succeed.
Then I heard of a newer small publisher, Chicken Scratch Books, and they sounded like a perfect fit for Miss Classified. And it was the perfect fit. I got an acceptance email within a few weeks of sending the manuscript.
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