Guest Post: Mindi Scott, author of Freefall

Through The Teen Book Scene, I have had the pleasure of welcoming Mindi Scott to Sparrow Review! Mindi is the author of Freefall, which comes out today! I asked Mindi about how her reading experiences have affected her writing process. Here's what she had to say!

I recently went to a wedding where the minister told the bride and groom, “I hope that your love for each other will continue to grow and that you’ll look back and think of this as the day in your marriage when you loved each other the least.”

That really stuck with me. I could relate it to my relationship with my husband. And also . . . to Young Adult fiction!

You see, during my pre-teen and teenage years, I was a big-time reader. At any given time you could find me in bed with a book, on the couch with a book, on the floor with a book, on a lawn chair with a book, in the bathtub with a book. Books and me were BFFs and all that stuff.


Some of my favorites back then were by Judy Blume, Cynthia Voigt, Victoria Holt, John Grisham, and Melanie Rawn. In case you aren’t familiar, the genres represented are middle-grade/YA, historical romance, legal thriller, and fantasy.

Kind of a big range, right?

When I decided in 2004 that I wanted to write a novel—for real!—the first thing I had to narrow down was which genre to write. Obviously, I’d been interested in quite a few types over years, but what would be the best choice?

So, that summer, I was at the library constantly. I read piles and piles and piles of books of all kinds. I quickly came to the conclusion is that the stories that truly spoke to me were contemporary young adult novels, so I decided that that was where I would begin with my writing.

Now, here it is six years later, and I’ve come a long way as a writer and as a reader. Looking back on my pre-teen/teen years, and even that summer of 2004, I can truly say that my love for YA has grown SO MUCH since then. And it continues to grow every day! ♥

Thanks so much for stopping by, Mindi!