his is the part I'm always the worst at—talking about myself! So as you've figured out, my name is Elizabeth Rudnick and I'm a young adult author. I was a Senior Editor at Disney Press in New York City. I edited books on movies like Pirates of the Caribbean and Prince of Persia as well as Miley Cyrus's memoir, Miles to Go, which was a New York Times bestseller (imagine if Tweet Heart was too!) and a total blast to work on.

When I'm not working, I live on Cape Cod with a big mutt named Jack Dyson (because he has the ability to suck up anything in his way) and have a habit of watching hours of mindless television. I like to think of it as research!

Since I'm horrible at talking about myself, I figured I'd do what my character in Tweet Heart does, I'll answer questions posed to me by others. Here goes nothing...

How'd you end up at Disney?

A: It was a bit of a surprise actually! I attended Middlebury College in Vermont and was an American Civilization major with a focus in Literature. It was the perfect major for me. I got to read a lot, talk about things like baseball in American culture, find new authors to love, and for my senior thesis wrote on women in science fiction films. Can you get better than that? But while I was having a lot of fun, I wasn't really thinking long term. Until Professor Evans mentioned a course at Columbia for publishing. I applied, got in, ended up falling in love with children's books, met my future boss (and now great friend and fellow author, Helen Perelman), and the rest, as they say, is history.

Hardest part of writing?

A: Turning off the TV! Seriously, I have horrible self-discipline and while I like to say that watching television gives me a chance to get in touch with my audience, I really just like it. So it is a matter of just making myself sit down and dedicate myself to the book and characters. Once I'm there though, it is so fun to watch the world come to life.

What got you interested in writing?

A: I've always loved books. I remember once, in like second grade, we had an assignment to go home and take inventory of how many books we had and what kinds. When I handed my assignment in, my teacher pulled me aside and asked if it was a joke (this was the same teacher whose long nails I had tried to pull off because I swore they were fake so she had reason to distrust me). She could not believe that I had 250 horse books alone (that wasn't counting all the other genres on my shelves). But it was the truth. At that time, I couldn't get enough of the horse books and lived vicarious lives through the heroines of the stories who always ended up with a pony waiting for them all dressed up in a bow, or racing to first place to save the family farm. Getting lost in those books taught me that there was an escape in writing. That you could create worlds and satisfy wants and desires through the written word in a way that would never be possible otherwise.

What authors inspire you?

A: Ursula LeGuinn, William Faulkner, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, Ayn Rand, Orson Scott Card, Farley Mowat, Walter Farley, Elizabeth George Speare, Lisa Papademetriou, Melissa Kantor, Helen Perelman, Kathryn Williams, James Ponti...to name a few.

Do you have plans for a future book?

A: I would love to do more books about Claire, Lottie, Benn, and Will. With luck I'll have the chance and we can find out what happens to Lottie and Benn, if Claire and Will make it and what senior year brings. I'm also working on a few other YA ideas but they are a bit more in the idea stage—and sort of fantasy!

What do you read when you are reading for fun?

A: As you might have guessed, I sort of have a wide range of books I like to read. I will read everything from romance novels to Pulitzer prize winners. Depends on my mood. Some days, I want the brain candy of something light and fluffy and other times, I want something that is going to rip me in two, make me cry in either joy or pain but to just feel something. I even used to want them to have a section in the book store labeled "To Make you Cry"—sort of like a section that would be filled with the book equivalent of Beaches. Right now, I'm in the middle of three books—The Girl Who Kicked a Hornet's Nest, Await Your Reply, and The Guernsey Literary Society and Potato Peel Pie Society.

What advice would you give someone who wants to write?

A: To just do it. (Sorry Nike!) But seriously, if you love to write, write it down. Anything. Every idea that flits through your mind, any half-baked concept that you think "wow, wouldn't it be cool if there was a book about...". I have started to keep a notebook by my bed because I have the annoying tendency to wake up around 1am and can't get back to sleep again until 3am. Lots of good ideas float around my head in the wee hours and I'd forget them if I didn't write them down. Once you have the ideas, the next thing I'd say is to just believe. And if it never comes to anything, just be proud that you wrote anything at all. That is half the battle (and now I'm quoting GI Joe!).

How'd you come up with Tweet Heart?

A: It was sort of this fated combination of things. I had been dating a guy I thought I loved who once told me I made him feel twitterpaited (which of course made me go all weak at the knees) and then my roommate and I were talking and somehow, we came up with the title of the book. So there I was with a great title and a glimmer of a concept. Still, I got some great and positive feedback on that and so I figured I'd forge ahead. I thought back on my youth and what it would have been like if I'd had twitter then and the romantic disasters I would have most likely found myself in and slowly, Claire came into being. A girl who so desperately wants to be noticed and loved but doesn't trust or believe in herself. And then came her foil, Lottie, a girl who is way confident but just as lost. Then the boys sort of appeared in my head—based loosely on ones who got away and others I wish I had had. After that, it was just a lot of sitting down and writing—and rewriting...a lot. But my editor, Abby Ranger, was amazing and patient and helped me through some rough spots and in the end, Tweet Heart makes me feel twitterpaited (even if the guy who started this process doesn't anymore!).

Did you ever have a secret crush?

A: Um, sadly, my crush was about as secret as the Kardashian's dinner conversations. He knew about it. My best friends knew about it. The yearbook staff DEFINITELY knew about it. I think even my great grandmother once removed on my father's side who was 98 and senile knew about it. I wasn't very good at hiding my feelings. I'm still not very good at it. But he was always super good about it and we even went out in that sort of junior high sort of way where we held hands and made mad declarations and wrote poetry. This was all before texting or emailing or tweeting though—so it was a lot simpler. I still see him now and again and hear about him through friends. He's incredibly handsome, wildly successful, and a genuinely good guy so at least I feel like my crush was substantiated. Now...I have a new one. But that I won't tell you...yet.