An Interview with Author Patrick Sanchez:  The Way It Is

by Elegant Plus Magazine

    Elegant Plus Managing Editor, Thea Politis, takes a few minutes to chat with Patrick Sanchez, the hot author who penned the voluptuous and entertaining current  Chick Lit hit  The Way It Is .    A native of the Washington, D.C. area he currently lives in Arlington, VA with his daschund, Gomez.  He loves to hear from his readers and you can drop him a line at:  PO Box 4493, Falls Church VA 22044.

EP: Patrick, glad to have you here. Tell us a little about what led you to write novels from the perspective of a woman, let alone a plus size woman?  And how do you get so well into their/our heads?

PS:  I actually sort of fell into writing from the perspective of women.  I wrote my first novel, Girlfriends, when I was still in my twenties and part of the whole bar scene.  I spent so much time in different bars and nightclubs and thought it would be fun to write about how ridiculous the single’s scene was and that’s where Girlfriends came from.  But originally Girlfriends was more about both women and men making they’re way and finding romance; however, when I sold the manuscript to Kensington Publishing, they requested that I work it into more of a women’s fiction, Sex and The City-type book (now referred to as “Chick-Lit”).  They thought the book would be more marketable that way.  So I did as I was told and scaled back the male characters and beefed up the female characters.  Luckily, Girlfriends was a success, so I decided to stay in the genre when I wrote my second novel, but I wanted to do something a little different.

When I started The Way It Is, I was in my thirties and rarely saw the inside of bars or nightclubs anymore.  I had grown out of the whole club scene and wanted to write about more mature characters (the characters in Girlfriends are in their twenties while the characters in The Way It Is are in their thirties).  I’d read a few books about large woman and noticed that most of them ended with the heroine losing vast amounts of weight and then finding love and having her whole life come together.  I thought it would be fun to write a book where the heroine never loses weight but, instead, learns to love herself for who she is.

I’m not sure how I “get so well into women’s heads” or if I even do.  Believe it or not, there is so much of me in all my characters.  I did do a lot of research and interviews when writing The Way It Is, but most of who the characters are just came from my gut and my instincts about how they would react in certain situations.

EP: Are your characters in The Way It Is drawn from real life people? If so, whom?

PS: I think all writers borrow traits and personalities from real life people and weave bits and pieces into our characters.  None of the characters are based on any one real-life person, but they do share some traits of people I know.  Although, like I mentioned earlier, there is more of me in all the characters than anyone else.  A lot of my own life and personal struggles where channeled into Ruby.  I thought a lot of Queen Latifah when I was writing about Wanda as both Queen Latifah and Wanda are confident and beautiful plus-size African American women.  I thought about Jennifer Lopez too when I wrote about Simone.  I certainly have no knowledge of Jennifer Lopez having an eating disorder, but I think she and Simone share the same raw determination to succeed.

EP: Ruby, one of your main characters, in the opening scene is enduring what has clearly been a lifetime of put downs about her size from her own mother. This is something many plus women can relate to. What is it about our  society, do you think, that makes this sort of cruel behavior towards our loved ones acceptable?

PS:  I think it’s all about equating being thin with being healthy and happy.  Even though their words hurt, I think loved ones may think they are ultimately helping their fat family members or friends by motivating them to lose weight.  I also think there is this misconception that it’s okay to degrade fat people because fat people “choose to be fat,” that it’s “their fault” and “if they just had some self control they could lose weight.”

EP: Not only are your main characters in different head spaces in regards to their weight — Ruby battles self-esteem issues and related “feel good” closet eating, Wanda is supremely confident in her own skin, and Simone is a once fat, skinny girl who battles her fear of becoming fat again — but they are also each of different races: Caucasian, African-American, and Latina, respectively.  Do you think that any of these weight related behaviors are typical of one American sub-culture or ethnicity or another?  Or were you trying to draw characters to which almost any woman in America could relate?

PS:  I absolutely wanted to draw characters to which almost any woman in America could relate, but at the same time I think there are some cultural differences related to size.  Although I know a number of African American women who diet themselves to death to try and be thin, it does seem that a larger number of plus-size black women seem to be comfortable with their size.  And it’s been my experience that large African American women are much more likely than their white counter parts to dress in sexy revealing clothes.

EP:  What was the significance of including the gay guy pal in the story? The gay community often struggles with many of the same “buff body” ideals that  women do in our society.  Is this significant?

PS:  Absolutely!  Not only are gay men just as obsessed with body image as straight women.  Gay men and fat women seem to share a bond.  It’s like gay men and Cher…for whatever reason where ever you find gay men, you find fat women.  We are both often treated badly by society, misunderstood, and crazy loons are always trying to make us into something we are not…something/someone that fits their ideals and complies with their agenda.

EP:  Do you like the artwork on the cover of your book? Does it capture the essence of your characters in the way you envisioned them?

PS: There are things about the cover art that I do like and things about it that I wasn’t thrilled with.  I like the bright yellow background and, although she is portrayed as impossibly thin (her neck is as big as her waist), the artist’s rendition of Simone was pretty much dead on; however, in my mind, I pictured both Ruby and Wanda much larger than they appeared on the cover.  I’m glad they were not represented as stick figures.  At least they appear as voluptuous women, but I still would have liked them to have been larger.

EP:  Your first novel, Girlfriends was a huge success.  And The Way It Is  looks like it is following suit. What was the difference in your experience in getting the two published?  How did you get the interest of the publishers the first time out?

PS:  When I finished the manuscript for Girlfriends (which I had called Misery & Company when I was shopping it around), I sent query letters and the first few pages of the manuscript to several agents with no luck.  After a little retooling, I contacted some additional agents and actually approached some publishers directly.  This time around I got some interest from two agents (in addition to about 30 rejects), but I also got a direct offer from Kensington Publishing.  The advance was tiny, but I was so thrilled to find a publisher I immediately accepted their offer.

When I was ready to shop around an outline for The Way It Is (after you publish one book you can usually get an advance based on just an outline for later ones) I hired an agent to represent me and negotiate my contract.  This time around the advance was much more substantial and the terms of the contract were much better.

EP: Thanks for chatting with us Patrick!  Readers, , if you like Chick-Lit, this one is a must read! To learn a little bit more about Patrick Sanchez, you can also stop by his web-site.

 NOTE:  Since this interview was first published in 2003, Patrick Sanchez has gone on to write Once Upon a Nervous Breakdown and Tight. 

Check out the hilariously funny  Once Upon a Nervous Breakdown Video below!

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=q89ijBycfHI]

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