You have probably seen her walking down the halls in crazy socks everyday, but there is a side of Lindsay Graf-Juarez most people might not know about. She is the high school’s newest novelist having published “Addict” Her novel was published when she participated in a contest called National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo last year. NaNoWriMo is a contest in which participants begin writing on November 1st and try to write a 50,000 word novel by Nov. 30th.

Question: How long did you work on your novel?

Lindsay: “Over Thanksgiving break I stayed up every night until like four or five o’clock in the morning to get the story out.”

Question: How did you come up with the characters for your book?

Lindsay: “I remember trying to come up with this character and I remember this girl and her name was Alexa Roxanne. She liked being called Lexi, and over the month leading up to November I would learn little pieces about her, I could just feel her forming in my head and when it came down to the week of me actually writing it was just like she was talking. I could hear her voice. It was a pretty intense experience. My character Danny, who is the second main character in Addict is directly, completely, 100 percent based of this kid that goes to this school. His name is Tim Scebold. One day for creative writing we had to go into the lunch room and be like a ghost and so I sat down next to Tim and I described what he looked like. So I described him as Bob Saget in blond. So now he is famous forever in my book as Bob Saget in blond and he knows it.”

Question: Where did your inspiration come from for your book?

Lindsay: “Addict isn’t necessarily my mom’s story, but I know that a piece of my mom’s life is definitely in there. The struggle and just that pure sense of helplessness and loss of innocence is in my novel because I could see it happening to my mom and then I could finally feel it with my novel and characters.”

Question: What are your future plans as a novelist?

Lindsay: “I am currently working on a novel “Dead Strings”. Dead Strings is from another girl’s point of view. This one is a story about a girl who lost her father and she has a friend who is a pop star. It is about him getting her to see that you don’t have to hide your feelings and that life can be okay, but at the same time he’s kind of gaining her traits, so they’re trying to find a balance throughout the novel.  After finishing “Dead Strings” I plan to write a novel called “Like a Virus” which will be my first novel from a guy’s point of view. This one will be based on a World War III apocalypse and really explore religion too.”

Question: What are your plans for your crazy socks when you leave to attend college?

Lindsay: “Wearing random socks was just a high school thing for me. I will be attending the University of Iowa as an English- Creative writing major in the Fall, and I plan to get rid of my crazy socks because I want my name to be Lindsay that cool writer chick not Lindsay the chick who wears those weird socks.”