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Gilmore To Read: Emma Brodie's Ode To The 2000s · Gilmore To Say: A Gilmore Girls Podcast

0:00
[SPEAKER_00]: 5, 6, 7, 8, the least.
0:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi y'all, welcome or welcome back to Gilmour To Read.
0:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host Haley and I am so glad you're here today.
0:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And how lucky are we all today to have the darling Emma Brody joining us?
0:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Emma Brody is the author of Into the Blue My Current Obsession, my favorite book of the year, and maybe added to my list of favorite books ever.
0:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Not maybe, definitely.
0:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And that isn't just me.
0:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a Reese's book club pick as well as a New York Times bestseller.
0:35
[SPEAKER_00]: But before we get into my conversation with Emma, that a fan girl like you will certainly appreciate.
0:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to introduce our book club pick for July.
0:42
[SPEAKER_00]: We are switching from our romance specific book club reading a sexy to a where you read.
0:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I will follow July and the book club selection for July is Spectacular Things by Bectorie Stein.
0:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a little bit late to this book, this book came out last year and was actually recommended on the podcast by Aman Huriri Kia last fall.
1:01
[SPEAKER_00]: But I didn't read it until just recently and how absolutely right she was, how perfect this book is for our audience.
1:09
[SPEAKER_00]: This book begins with sisters Mia and Cricket low at very different monumental moments in their lives.
1:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Mia is giving birth to a daughter.
1:22
[SPEAKER_00]: But due to complications during her labor, Mia is in kidney failure and needs a kidney from cricket.
1:27
[SPEAKER_00]: But this would mean cricket would never be able to play soccer again, as she finds herself at the height of her career.
1:33
[SPEAKER_00]: It feels like it should be a very straightforward decision, but we hop back to the beginning of their story to realize just how deeply complicated this decision is.
1:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And that story starts with their mother, a teenage girl and soccer star in her own right, with immense promise, who finds herself pregnant and runs from her family to a small town to make a new life for her and her daughter.
1:55
[SPEAKER_00]: That sounds familiar, right?
1:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Thematically, there are so many elements that fit so seamlessly into what a Gomarkoll's fan might love to read in a book, but also introduces new obstacles of sisterhood, while traversing single motherhood ambition sacrifice and what we owe the people who built us.
2:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that you'll also like the writing style this because it's told third person omniscient, so you get perspectives from all of the characters and not just from one single point of view.
2:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think in that way it feels very good when girls ask because in that regard we're switching between perspectives and experiences and feelings that we as the audience that we as the reader are privy to that other characters are not.
2:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I really think you're going to love this one if you haven't read it already.
2:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I read this in about two nights because I quite simply could not put it down.
2:38
[SPEAKER_00]: We will have a luck to chat about this one in the club, and if you would like to join the club, head over to Patreon where you can do it for free.
2:44
[SPEAKER_00]: But back to today's episode a bit about Emma Brody.
2:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Emma Brody is an executive editor at Clarkson Potter.
2:50
[SPEAKER_00]: She graduated from Johns Hopkins University's Writing Seminar Program in her debut novel, Songs and Earth Imager, received the American Book Award.
2:57
[SPEAKER_00]: She lives on
3:02
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have not yet read into the blue, please find yourself browsing your local bookshop eminently or download the audiobook.
3:09
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an absolutely incredible performance by Julia Whalen, but you don't need to have read the book to enjoy this conversation.
3:14
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk about what it means to be a part of a fandom at a young age and when you're a little bit older, how formative Gilmore Girls was for how Emma wanted to approach her own writing career, how her love of 2000's pop culture weaves its own journey through this book and her career of flipping between
3:31
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're a writer, Emma has a lot of incredible insight from both sides of the pen, so I think that you'll want to listen to this episode with your own pen to really savor the advice that she's offering.
3:41
[SPEAKER_00]: It was even helpful in my own writing journey.
3:43
[SPEAKER_00]: There were parts of this episode that as Emma was talking, all I could think was, oh my goodness, I wish I could pause and relish into that immediately right now, and thankfully now we all can.
3:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So, without further ado, here is Emma Brody.
3:59
[SPEAKER_00]: So Emma, I'm really excited to talk to you today, mostly because I brought you here to answer to your crimes against my feelings, my emotions, and my sleep schedule because nothing has wrecked my sleep schedule quite like an Emma Brody book.
4:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And I told myself this morning that like this whole interview was going to go wrong, like I was not going to ask the right questions, like I wasn't going to be able to articulate how I feel.
4:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's mostly because I just want you to pull your book.
4:22
[SPEAKER_00]: an oscal blind by line for the last 50 pages of this book and that would be the whole interview.
4:28
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think it would only be fun for me to do that because I just love this book so so much.
4:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like it's the only way that I'd really be able to talk about it.
4:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I would be fun for me too.
4:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Would it be, oh my gosh, okay, we can do that instead.
4:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't right here.
4:47
[SPEAKER_00]: But in the last few months, like, it feels quite weird because I had heard of songs of Ursa Major, your debut novel.
4:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was like on my TBR, and then I read into the blue because one of my friends was like, you have to read this personal.
4:58
[SPEAKER_00]: like you were gonna love this and when someone says that you're like oh no this is book too hyped for me and it was not because you very quickly became one of like my new favorite authors to the point that it was like I was afraid of how much I love this book immediately after I finished it I was like I'm never gonna be able to read this book again I'm never gonna be able to read anything she writes
5:18
[SPEAKER_00]: But then like the next day, down under the audiobook because I was like, I can't leave.
5:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to go back.
5:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to go back.
5:24
[SPEAKER_00]: This book left me like bleeding on the floor, but still I had to, I had to go back.
5:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And as I say all of that, how do you feel about compliments like before we go into this?
5:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, how do you take them?
5:35
[SPEAKER_01]: With a dash of sure no, I can accept compliments.
5:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I've heard that the correct response is thank you.
5:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
5:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
5:45
[SPEAKER_01]: By 37 years on earth, I've taught me to say, thank you.
5:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, not the black to so that's where you find me.
5:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
5:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
5:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like a lot of people get really uncomfortable.
5:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Does it make you uncomfortable?
5:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure does.
5:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, sure does.
5:57
[SPEAKER_00]: But thank you.
5:59
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the correct response.
6:00
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the right response.
6:01
[SPEAKER_00]: But I do imagine it is quite uncomfortable, but
6:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I am not going to stop because it's truly like I'm sorry.
6:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully you'll take it with you and like maybe when you're having like some self doubt as you're writing your next book and like hold on to that because like I'm not over constantly with the self doubt.
6:17
[SPEAKER_00]: So yes, we'll take it bottle it up, keep it every day.
6:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll DM you one like every.
6:22
[SPEAKER_00]: like once a week just to have something something good because I could probably have this interview go on for six hours with just like things that I loved but like I told you before I'm not going to do too many spoilers about into the blue just because I loved it so much and I don't want to ruin it for anyone else who's experienced.
6:39
[SPEAKER_00]: or who has not yet experienced it.
6:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, I am talking about into the blue, your latest novel, your New York Times bestseller, congratulations on that.
6:47
[SPEAKER_00]: So big.
6:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And like I said, this is a book that was like I was afraid of how much I loved it.
6:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Also because my first interaction with you was saying that like if I loved this book last, I could talk about it more and then I was like, do you want to come on?
6:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I podcast after I just said that I can't talk about it.
7:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Because this book is so perfectly my a perfect book for me because it's a romance But it's about being a fan girl and a dreamer and being ambitious and feeling the grief of those three things It's about loss and family trauma and drama and storytelling and theater and finding your people and letting yourself change And how good it feels to love and be loved by something or someone and how that can also be the worst pain that you feel too Because I try not to tell people what this book is about when I go into it I just tell them how deeply it made me feel
7:33
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you have new to you readers, how do you pitch the story to them?
7:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, first, that was my dream.
7:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, like we have to, you have a long conversation about flap copy when you put the book out to the printer.
7:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would like wind to my editor and be like, can we just print the words, just read it?
7:51
[SPEAKER_01]: You like?
7:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Great suggestion, no.
7:55
[SPEAKER_00]: All suggestions are good, but that one wasn't on it.
7:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel you want that.
7:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So the book is an epic love story about AJ Graves and Noah drew who meet in the year 2000, the same year Gilmore Girls aired, and they're working at a video rental store and they forge this deep cosmic connection for the whole summer and then Noah disappears without a word.
8:15
[SPEAKER_01]: The story then picks up seven years later when they're working on the same TV show.
8:19
[SPEAKER_01]: and it follows them through a 13-year arc.
8:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So you get to see them become the people who make the stuff that goes into the video store, like he's an Academy Award-winning actor, she's a writer for SNL, and through it they can never escape their connection, and ultimately it's about both of them figuring out what lights them up as individuals, as a couple, and what it would actually mean to pursue a life where that is front and center.
8:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh, even just hearing you describe it.
8:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, I want to read it again right now.
8:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I described this as like anyone.
8:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, I try not to give to me plot points, but I described it as single POV agony where you can only be like the feeling can only be alleviated by finishing it.
9:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's just one of those worlds that you just don't want to leave, but you have to finish it because you have to, you have to be happy again.
9:09
[SPEAKER_00]: But for a
9:13
[SPEAKER_00]: this is a book that they might like or that they might want to pick up.
9:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I think so many things.
9:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's, I think similar to the way Gilmore Girls is, it starts out as a small town drama.
9:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Like they, they meet in a very small New England town.
9:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So the setting is off the bat, like very, very similar.
9:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like all of the cute little businesses in Gilmore Girls.
9:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Like there's this escapist aspect to everyone.
9:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Like they, they, they, I don't even know, you probably
9:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I don't know the total number now because like there's sometimes ones that pop up and I'm like, wait, we've never seen that before.
9:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I've come back like, and so it's like there, it's like this weirdly like culturally diverse, like they have these amazingly specific shops.
9:55
[SPEAKER_01]: They're all adorable and themed and have great names and I feel like, you know,
9:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Gladstone isn't as nice as stars hollow, but it the video store real world video has that sort of like cute punny name It's like the shop that has charm so I feel like it's sort of if there was like a venn diagram between stars hollow and gladstone Which is the town of the book.
10:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It would be real world, which is really what meat and work
10:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I also think it's super similar where like Rory has this relationship to like the house on the hill.
10:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
10:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Like she goes to the mansion, which is like her grandma's house.
10:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So Emily and you dora who's like the woman in the mansion on the hill into the blue, they are not the same person, but there is this sort of like state equality to both of them.
10:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the house on the hill kind of serves as an entree to the wider world for AJ and Ferrari.
10:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So in that sense, they both have this, they have a really similar journey where it's like, they go to the house on the hill and then from there, they're introduced to like high culture, essentially.
10:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think the setup is really similar and then like, it's interesting like, we were talking before we started recording like, I don't know the later seasons as well.
11:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So I know like where we was to college, I know she like ventures out a little bit career-wise, but it's mostly her in school.
11:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we don't really see professional glory, right?
11:16
[SPEAKER_00]: not into the revival like you talked about.
11:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like with AJ, we kind of skip college.
11:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So I feel like once that once they graduate high school, we see what happens with worry and then we skip with AJ.
11:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's like a lot of the trade off, but Gladstone does come back like with the revival, like the last part of the book is all back in Gladstone.
11:37
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I do think there's like a loop back.
11:40
[SPEAKER_01]: that's very similar as well and then and similarly like you know there's so many like what I recall from like the college years is like they found ways of bringing worry back to Star's Hollow or bringing Star's Hollow to Yale and I feel like that's also similar into the blue where AJ ages in Hollywood ages in New York but like her family and this like cast of quirky characters from the town continue to like be an
12:08
[SPEAKER_00]: That's probably another thing so that we talked about like plot, but reference wise.
12:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think that was one of the biggest things for me as a Gilmore Girls fan was just like, it was like an awakening to see the dialogue and to experience like how funny all these women got to be.
12:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And it wasn't the West Wing, it was like something else.
12:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
12:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like it was like both aspirational and accessible.
12:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think the book, I mean, the books are novel.
12:37
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not written in like a Quippy style, but it's very reference heavy.
12:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it really is.
12:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
12:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a whole, I have tons of questions for you about that.
12:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, so it's like I feel like that's a piece too.
12:49
[SPEAKER_01]: That's very Gilmourish where it's like if you get the rep if you don't get the reference like whatever you're not going to enjoy it last but if you do get the reference you like like I always felt like I got a point if I understood the joke.
13:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah and like that's kind of I think that what makes Gilmour girls and your book kind of like overlapping that way is that like each reread feels like you're noticing something different like I
13:12
[SPEAKER_00]: something in your life happened between rereads that made you understand something in the next one.
13:17
[SPEAKER_00]: The same thing with Gilmore Girls is like watching it as a 16-year-old.
13:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I was laughing at these jokes I didn't understand.
13:22
[SPEAKER_00]: But now as an adult, I'm like, wait, that's so funny because I have like, experienced this like media or something that has made me understand this and now it act, I'm laughing at the actual joke now.
13:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So I feel like in that same way, it's just like each reread or each rewatchy
13:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like in the audio reread, I was like, we, Brian McKenzie, did she name him after Brian McKenzie from Father of the Pride?
13:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Not consciously.
13:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
13:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I can person who's brought that to my attention, and I loved Father of the Brides.
13:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So that name was like fully in there.
13:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I had thought that it was the name of a boy I grew up with.
13:59
[SPEAKER_00]: See, but that's something that happens to me with Gilmore girls.
14:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, oh, that was something from my childhood.
14:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I saw, like, as an adult, like, no, no.
14:06
[SPEAKER_01]: No, that was from a TV show.
14:09
[SPEAKER_01]: No, the boy that I was thinking of was Brian Craig.
14:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
14:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, well, his cousin was Mackenzie, so maybe I did it like, like, Brian and Mackenzie, and then it's such a like, Wilton Connecticut name.
14:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And then like, yeah, no, it is 100% the name of the groom and father of the bride.
14:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I was not the father of the groom.
14:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
14:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to hear it, though, because, like, Julio Beland, who does the audiobook, like, chefs' kids, like, just the performance elite, like, if you, if you like audiobooks, or even if you don't like audiobooks, this is the one to listen to.
14:39
[SPEAKER_00]: But my mom's cleaning movie is Father of the Bride.
14:42
[SPEAKER_00]: So anytime, when we were younger, Father of the Bride Beyond, my mom would be cleaning the house.
14:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, like, hearing Brian McKenzieos, like, wait, what?
14:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it was like reading it didn't register, but hearing it was like, whoa, so I think that that's something too that like hearing some of these references also kind of click something because like reading it with my eyeballs doesn't necessarily register something that does when I hear it.
15:05
[SPEAKER_01]: That's interesting.
15:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
15:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
15:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was the Brian McKenzie of it all because it was like, wait.
15:10
[SPEAKER_00]: What is it?
15:10
[SPEAKER_00]: So then like in the like the audio reread, I only saw that actor.
15:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I think his name is like George or something like that.
15:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, and he is Brian.
15:19
[SPEAKER_00]: In my mind, it was an homage to him, even if it's not actually an homage to him.
15:23
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's just so many things like that that I feel like you that you notice from the 2000s, especially being a Gilmore Girls fan.
15:29
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think that another reason that I go more calls for you on my like this is because of your voice and I like I know that in this like you would never say that about your own writing, but you have like a very unique voice and your writing is just so like luscious and delicious and beautiful that it's just like a joy to read and I was so afraid to read songs and it's a major because I was like
15:49
[SPEAKER_00]: What?
15:49
[SPEAKER_00]: What if I don't love it as much and I like and I did like of course I did and I like I even felt like you're growth as a writer from songs and or some major to into the blue Because like thematically they have a lot of pieces that you can bite into in the same way and I just I loved it if you haven't read if you read into the blue and not songs and or some major you're missing out But I think that that's something about your writing is just it's beautiful It's dramatic it's personal it's funny it makes you feel terrible at times but I think that that's just
16:16
[SPEAKER_00]: They're like speaking to like your own craft and your own talent and like being able to make a reader really feel that deeply And I think that that's the same with Amy Sherman Paladino It's just like a very unique voice that when you experience any of her work It's so classically her and I think that even from just like your first book to your second book It's so easy to see that like where your future books will go to just because your voice is so Specifically Emma Brody.
16:41
[SPEAKER_00]: That's awesome
16:42
[SPEAKER_01]: you should put in an envelope where you think they're going to go because I have an amazing like ability to surprise myself and then ever everyone after is like this isn't a surprise.
16:54
[SPEAKER_01]: You are so transparent and I'm like no guys this is like and they're like yeah, no, no, we call this like years ago.
17:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Wait, I kind of want to do that, because when I was reading songs in her so major, I was like, oh, I see we're into the blue, came from this, which is kind of hard, because it's like a 1960s, feels very like dizzy Jones in the 6s, but still very, very different from that.
17:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's just because it's so emabrody.
17:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And then to like the pieces that I was picking out from it, that
17:20
[SPEAKER_00]: got put into into the blue.
17:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, oh, okay.
17:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, where would we go for a third one?
17:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I kind of want to predict it and then tell you all my wrong predictions when I read book three.
17:30
[SPEAKER_01]: What might not be wrong?
17:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It might not be wrong.
17:32
[SPEAKER_01]: It might be book four, right?
17:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like you should make the prediction.
17:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, you're so right.
17:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you never know, like that's the moment I'm in developing book three is it's like this like image carousel of like so many ideas and it's not time yet it's it's soon but it's not time it so it's like I can't tell if it's like are you this book or you this book or yeah Like it's all like percolating there and people come back like it's weird like people wander away and then like come back more fully formed so interesting okay I'm going to keep a little him a brody diary and then
18:06
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll see, like, cross things off as they happen, which to tell you, because like, I had like a very, very strong reaction to both of your books because I'm also, I'm drafting a book.
18:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like in the late, I'm like late drafts, hopefully fingers crossed, I've been writing it for years.
18:21
[SPEAKER_00]: But in both of your books, there were significant plot points from it that happened in my book.
18:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And there were some of them that I was like, oh, this is going to happen to this character.
18:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And why do I know that?
18:34
[SPEAKER_00]: That happens in my book and it's very very different like the circumstances are like extremely different But in the out of them something happens and I'm like, oh my god, are we am I like creatively in the same Creative bubble that the universe ends down is Emma Brody is that why I'm connecting to this so specifically But I'm just I'm so curious because like yeah, I'm a little Emma Brody diary and I'll check in
18:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll check in with book three.
18:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, what got highlighted?
18:57
[SPEAKER_01]: You're gonna, your mom's gonna be over your house, and she's gonna put on father a ride, and she's gonna be cleaning your house, and she's gonna be like, what is this dire?
19:04
[SPEAKER_00]: What is this direy?
19:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Do I need to contact someone?
19:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
19:08
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's so much of this book that, like,
19:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only aligns with Gilmore Girls, but just like what I told you before I'm trying to do with this club is like Mary that love of storytelling that exists in Gilmore Girls with books.
19:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And like I said, I was like quite nervous to like bring you on and talk to you about this book just because I love this book so much and I was like I don't know if I'm going to be able to
19:27
[SPEAKER_00]: do this concisely.
19:28
[SPEAKER_00]: This might be seven hours.
19:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I might have to have like answer so many questions or like I might not be able to decide on questions but it really was this one quote as I was going back through my annotations that like when it happened it really punched me in the guy and I was like this it would be such a disservice not to like have you speak to our audience after having this quote because it has to align with you in the same way that you wrote it that it did with me and I imagine our audience.
19:52
[SPEAKER_00]: and it's something that AJ says kind of in the, I guess like second half of the book when she's going to a con for the TV show that she's been a part of, which is the kind of talking about the legacy of the title of the book, which is into the blue, the TV show that she's a part of, which is a spin-off of the TV show that she loved and wrote fan fiction about when she was a teenager.
20:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And the line that AJ has is she remembered what it was to love a stupid television so
20:16
[SPEAKER_00]: so much that it became your world.
20:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And that like actually made me cry when I read it because of course of what I do now is so much in service to 16-year-old me who's an entire world was gonna more girls.
20:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that was everything like I used to get my box sets taken away as a teenager when I would like do something because like my mom knew that that was like the most important thing to me.
20:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And she would always say like you have to do your homework you're never going to get
20:44
[SPEAKER_00]: no that she's been proven wrong.
20:45
[SPEAKER_00]: But I just I loved it so much and I felt like it was something that would resonate with our audience.
20:50
[SPEAKER_00]: It's something that made me cry because like so much of what I do now is like thinking of teenage me.
20:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And I imagine that when you pinned that that was something that came from you, came from your heart, came from your experiences.
21:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I want to know more about like what were your stupid television shows, books, movies, that became your world that helped you to write this book.
21:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So so many so it's interesting like I feel like in fandom you get like people who really camp out on like one area like you love Gilmore girls and then you get people who are sort of like vagabonds yeah like wanders through different fandoms
21:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I've had both experiences where I would say like present day me 37 is a vagabond where like I roll into any like if I'm watching something I have theories I have questions I have strong opinions I will then go into whatever reddit and like read up and find other people who like validate my feelings and then I'll like pass through whereas like I think the the most intense fan experience I ever had was watching the first Harry Potter.
21:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was in seventh grade, I was extremely lonely.
21:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I had somehow managed to alienate like every girl in my grade.
22:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just a tough time.
22:05
[SPEAKER_01]: You're like, it's like the worst year.
22:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And just watching the movie like it came out in November.
22:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember just like, I think it's like Harry's lonely.
22:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's such a loyal person.
22:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And I had read the books like I forget which book we were on up until that point, but it was it was specifically the movie.
22:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I became like completely obsessed for maybe the next 14 months, where like it was all I could talk about.
22:29
[SPEAKER_01]: It became my entire personality, became my entire world.
22:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that was the point in my life where I would like wake up and the first my first thought when I wake up would be like what's happening on the message boards.
22:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It's interesting because I didn't even, I didn't have a like a fan fiction experience until I was a little older.
22:48
[SPEAKER_00]: No way, but I was like, we're Harry Potter.
22:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just about like I was just really into the world of the movie and I wanted to know like all about the all the different actors like young old all of it.
22:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so and I would talk about it constantly and it was this amazing thing where I feel like my fandom for Harry Potter and like what year is that through your two that that's 2001.
23:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is like, it's not the total dawn of the internet, but it's like, it's early days.
23:12
[SPEAKER_01]: It just was so much my personality that people thought it was funny.
23:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I ended up making friends because I would like be constantly talking about this in this way that was like amusing to people.
23:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
23:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it ended up connecting me to other people in real life.
23:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know if it was necessarily because we like, they all like Harry Potter, I think they just thought it was funny the way that I was so crazy about it.
23:34
[SPEAKER_00]: But funny in a fun way.
23:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, I'm not in like a make fun of you sort of way.
23:39
[SPEAKER_01]: No, yeah, I was like, yeah, I was, I was welcomed.
23:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Which is nice because I feel like that sometimes like when you love something so much, someone's seeing that they find it funny in such a way that they're gonna make fun of you for that, which like that was actually like in high school what I'm experiencing with Gilmore Girls, because I talked about it so much and I loved it so much and I watched it every day after school and some girl was like, that's so weird and I was like,
24:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And I never going to talk about that again.
24:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no.
24:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it is fine now.
24:06
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, you know, we're here.
24:07
[SPEAKER_00]: We have multiple podcasts.
24:08
[SPEAKER_00]: We have podcasts.
24:09
[SPEAKER_00]: We have podcasts.
24:10
[SPEAKER_00]: We've really shown her.
24:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I won't name her.
24:12
[SPEAKER_00]: But I will say I did name her because we're in there's a good Markle's document that you're coming out.
24:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And I really hope they cut it because I did name her.
24:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't care.
24:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, I don't know that I want her name out there.
24:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god.
24:26
[SPEAKER_00]: So she's fine now, you know, she's kids.
24:28
[SPEAKER_00]: She's doing okay.
24:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully her kids don't get bullied, but I hope that her kids become obsessed with Gilmore girls.
24:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And make her feel bad about that every day.
24:38
[SPEAKER_00]: If we're all right, she probably doesn't even remember, you know?
24:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
24:42
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just like those comments from kids like you were saying I can seventh grade.
24:45
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't even realize like some of the things that you said that have been like impacted people's lives like that.
24:50
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think in the same way that like with there's so many aspects of fandom that like people don't realize how much like a story or project can impact someone's life too because like you were saying like being a vagabond I feel like I have like some core pillars of like.
25:04
[SPEAKER_00]: camps that I return to all the time that I'm like mayor of several places, but I do also like I have a very obsessive personality which I imagine exists for you as well.
25:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Based on this book, I don't want to push that on to you, but I did assume.
25:18
[SPEAKER_00]: But like I can't, I can't actually interact with some things like when Superman then latest one came out.
25:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't watch it purposefully because I was like I will become obsessed with that.
25:26
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't have the time I'm kind of busy right now.
25:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to have to schedule a time in the future to watch that because I will
25:32
[SPEAKER_00]: obsessed with it.
25:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I hear that.
25:34
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I totally hear that.
25:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's a moment in the book where AJ like literally won't let herself watch whatever movie was Noah because she doesn't want it just constantly replaying in her head.
25:44
[SPEAKER_01]: No, and I, I, I feel like that's what I love about writing.
25:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it makes me feel like a fish that's found water in terms of like my obsessiveness becomes
25:55
[SPEAKER_01]: an asset where it's like it's I'm allowed to be as obsessive as I am and it's got like a great purpose like it's gonna like it's I will not move off of this word until it is the right word and I think like anything you can do where you're it's like I mean that's that's all of us right it's like our all of our strengths are all of our weaknesses and it's all just a matter of context
26:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So finding your context is like such a powerful thing and I think it's been really nice to be able to apply that to something and walk away from it and be like This created something beneficial for me for others and yeah, no one was hurt in this process No one was hurt.
26:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, I have to say that's not true because I was actually hurt in the process That's okay.
26:45
[SPEAKER_00]: You injured a lot of people
26:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Like pouring and bleeding, we're bleeding out.
26:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a cathartic hurt.
26:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the...
26:52
[SPEAKER_00]: It is one of those things that it's like, it's a pain that I loved feeling, but I need to be telling you.
26:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's for your health.
26:58
[SPEAKER_00]: It really was that I genuinely was like, I'm bleeding out on the floor and I'm a brody of standing over me with a knife being like, actually, it's gonna hurt a little bit more and like you're coming at me and I'm like, I don't know what to do, but it's like a trick knife and at the end you give me a little kiss on the forehead and I was like, but I'm still bleeding.
27:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Really, it's like the journey is like at no spoilers, but it's like are you an ac guitar fan?
27:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, like the first ac guitar book at the end where she's like having to like that was me writing the book was like having to like We'll just call it solve the riddle for those who haven't read, but it's like gutting herself.
27:33
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like that was me.
27:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like
27:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I had so many conversations with my team, with my husband, like before sharing this with a wider audience about, you know, like, I cried so much writing it, but my expectations were non-existent when it came to other people having a strong reaction, because like a lot of the conversations were basically like, well, this must be how every author feels when they write something.
27:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Most romances have a third act break up and every writer cares about their characters as much as I care about AJ and know well Like there's absolutely no question in my mind and they probably cry and they probably get upset when they fight and break up So I just assumed that it was sort of like the normal like yeah Of course I am like living half a life because I'm like grieving for these characters whatever
28:19
[SPEAKER_01]: but that's every writer.
28:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it was, and I knew, I knew I guess in the back of my head, I was like, it's different from my first book, but my first book is a very different clip.
28:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it's 50 chapters.
28:30
[SPEAKER_01]: They're all basically perfectly even.
28:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I was very strict with myself on songs in her Sumager.
28:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I like gave myself this many words to tell the story.
28:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think there is some cool innovation that happens, trying to fit a huge epic into that many words.
28:47
[SPEAKER_01]: and then within to the blue it was sort of like okay like visors off like as many words as it takes I'm gonna draft this so it's it's it's longer and certain parts of it take longer but I think because of that I was able to get at a certain resonance I wasn't able to in my first book
29:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So, in retrospect, I'm not surprised that this one like packs more of a punch, but like, I really did not think that that would transmit as intensely to readers as it has.
29:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, yeah, I'm like validated.
29:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, I feel less alone.
29:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like I've created my own support group.
29:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
29:24
[SPEAKER_00]: You're like, I would do this immense pain so that I can make other people feel pain and just all be here together.
29:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that was the other conversation we were constantly having.
29:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I don't read books like this.
29:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't buy books like this.
29:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't buy books that like, it's like, if everyone's crying, like, I run away.
29:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And my husband's answer was like, well, you know, chefs like to eat it, make Donald.
29:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
29:46
[SPEAKER_01]: What you eat isn't necessarily what you cook.
29:48
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was like, okay, I mean, I guess that can be true.
29:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess it actually is that you're creating a masterpiece gourmet meal.
29:55
[SPEAKER_00]: and your taste in books is McDonald's.
29:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's that's it.
29:59
[SPEAKER_00]: That is it.
30:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, which is like it's so complimentary and also so insulting at the same time.
30:08
[SPEAKER_01]: We re very differently so like I could be reading like a Pulitzer Prize winning book and Kevin would be like like that's that.
30:15
[SPEAKER_01]: What does that mean?
30:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Streams like, sorry, we can't all be reading weird things from friars, no one remembers in the 1600s.
30:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And we love that for Kevin.
30:24
[SPEAKER_01]: We love that.
30:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure there's a fandom for him in the 1600s.
30:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
30:30
[SPEAKER_01]: They are all in robes.
30:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
30:31
[SPEAKER_01]: They have no food.
30:33
[SPEAKER_01]: They're gone.
30:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone's barefoot.
30:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
30:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
30:37
[SPEAKER_00]: But like coming from like your careers and editor did that impact the way that you went about your first book versus your second book like you were talking about having strict chapters word count and then kind of just taking the bithers off.
30:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And like because this book doesn't have any chapters, it's all told in parts.
30:52
[SPEAKER_01]: being an editor, it's sort of travels in a spiral with being a writer for me and they're not always synced up.
30:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So it kind of depends like you could take like a cross-section of the spiral on a given day and my editor-ness and my writer-ness could be intersecting at a very different point than they are in like a different day.
31:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I was working at William Maro when I wrote my first book, which is a huge blockbuster commercial house.
31:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I liken them to a big 10 college.
31:22
[SPEAKER_01]: They are really good at getting books out and helping themselves.
31:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And my category that I work in, just anecdotally, is illustrated nonfiction.
31:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So I work on like coffee table books, I work on gift books, I work on stationary products.
31:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So for half of my career, I've been stationed in France where I'm the island, like I'm the person.
31:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm the only person who does those books and they bring me in as a specialist.
31:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And then for the other half of my career, I've been at Illustrated Houses where I'm one of several and that's like what we do.
31:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I've been like my first book, I was working at a trade imprint.
32:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was sitting in editorial meetings every week with fiction editors and hearing about the sales and hearing about the pressures and hearing about like their opinions and they're not always nice.
32:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was a very intimidating environment.
32:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
32:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it was like, I knew what I knew what I was up against in terms of like the attention span, the workload and then also just like the prejudices, the positioning the trends by the time I was ready to go out with into the blue I was back at Clarkson Potter, which is like the happiest place for me.
32:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I was there for five years when I was in my early 20s and I came back in 2024 as an executive editor and that's kind of the dream right to like go back to the place that you love like as a more senior person so I'm I'm like I'm much more sequestered where when I go to an Ed meeting in my group we only talk about our business we only talk about illustrated titles we only talk about what's trending in our space.
32:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's great because I don't want to hear about other fiction titles.
33:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I want to be the pretty princess.
33:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to be the person who like when you're the writer, it's like you should be your own focus.
33:12
[SPEAKER_01]: You shouldn't be thinking about what other people are putting down on their paper.
33:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Like not good work is going to happen that way.
33:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that part of what took me so long about writing into the blue because it was about two years before I started between books.
33:26
[SPEAKER_01]: was I had since moved to Little Brown, which I sort of like if Maro is like a big 10-school, Little Brown is like Brown University.
33:36
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like literary and they've actually undergone a huge Renaissance in the past couple years, but when I was there, it was still very much like
33:44
[SPEAKER_01]: this is Donna Tark's publisher.
33:45
[SPEAKER_01]: By the time I was like getting ready to leave, I was like, I don't know if I'm good enough to ever write a book again, and I'd had a book come out.
33:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, so I think like on a craft level, it's very, very useful to be an editor.
33:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think I've learned a lot from working on all the books I've gotten to work on.
34:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And in nonfiction,
34:04
[SPEAKER_01]: structure is very much king, which is where I work.
34:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So like everything I've learned about, you know, having to adjust plot and all of that has been through my own experience as a fiction author.
34:15
[SPEAKER_01]: But stuff like the power of a great plan, also like line by line work, also like building up a story like and a worldview.
34:25
[SPEAKER_01]: These are all things that have come into play on my own list.
34:29
[SPEAKER_01]: and then I also think there's just like an aspect of my own commercial sensibility that I've gotten to home doing pop culture books.
34:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I am the person who has like the most basic taste in a way.
34:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Like if you give me a band, like a boy band and you're like pick the one that's going to break out, I will be right every single time.
34:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So as far as like figuring out like what's going to trend, what's going to pop like I do tend to have like a good sense of those things.
35:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So with my writing, I'm not like sitting down and being like, oh, the 90s is going to be big when this publish is like I should write about that.
35:09
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think instinctively, if I'm in a good space in myself, I am sort of vibrating with the zeitgeist, and I do trust myself to be picking up on things that are gonna be good for other people.
35:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's like when it's working, it's like I'm channeling things that are gonna be good for you and for other readers.
35:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and that's so true because like the 2000s, really.
35:32
[SPEAKER_00]: that fan-girl era is really coming back.
35:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And I really do think it's in part because a lot of people who love that time period are like, where kids then are really like reflecting on it and like taking it into the art that they make and the art that they create.
35:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is definitely true of
35:48
[SPEAKER_00]: here and something that like feels really like we were talking about like loving the things that you love is that it feels like these have been like all cooking in your mind.
35:58
[SPEAKER_00]: All the things that AJ loves feels like this has been like living in your world since you were a teenager.
36:04
[SPEAKER_00]: and so looking at like AJ as a teenager, who we kind of meet like in her late teens, and thinking about you as a teenager.
36:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you have those like outlets that she did where it seemed like she was surrounded by people?
36:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Like she has her brother who's like really deep into his own fandom.
36:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And she meets Noah who
36:21
[SPEAKER_00]: They bond over a TV show and she kind of has this outlet and doesn't seem to be something that is discouraged from her because I feel like that's really easy to like discourage young women especially away from things like that that are like their outlets.
36:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that something that you experienced or were you really encouraged in your interests?
36:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Both.
36:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was very encouraged.
36:43
[SPEAKER_01]: My parents are both artists.
36:44
[SPEAKER_01]: That's my dad's painting.
36:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Really?
36:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I was thinking that's so beautiful.
36:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I love the pink.
36:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the pink and that is just so gorgeous.
36:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It's part of a set of four.
36:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I have two of them.
36:53
[SPEAKER_01]: One of my siblings has one of them.
36:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the fourth we don't know where it is.
36:58
[SPEAKER_00]: My gosh.
36:59
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what a great book.
37:00
[SPEAKER_00]: The mystery of the fourth.
37:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I know, right?
37:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, my art heist book.
37:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
37:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Art heist is one of my favorite genres.
37:06
[SPEAKER_00]: So Emma.
37:07
[SPEAKER_00]: So good.
37:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I actually need that from you.
37:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
37:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
37:12
[SPEAKER_00]: But that was one of my college obsessions.
37:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Emma, I actually need this from you.
37:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And Emma Brody art heist is actually my dream as a five seconds ago.
37:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would really like it to come true.
37:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, good.
37:22
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I mean, I told you all by did shopping.
37:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, oh my gosh, okay, I need my emibrodi journal.
37:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm putting it in the back.
37:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
37:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so my parents are both really creative.
37:32
[SPEAKER_01]: My mom's an opera singer and down when you can directly map on to like my first book.
37:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I've always had really great access.
37:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So I would say like with AJ, like AJ and I as teenagers,
37:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I think overlapped for about three months when I was 15.
37:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we kind of went in very different directions.
37:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I was much more physically comfortable with myself as a teenager.
37:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I was a dancer.
37:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I was like AJ's much more inhibited.
37:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like the opposite of that.
38:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So in a way, it's like, I'm actually much more similar to Noah.
38:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Ooh, like the thing where, so like Gilmore Girls, part of my Gilmore Girls is so special to me, is because I was not really allowed to watch TV as a kid.
38:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I was at my friend's house from ballet, and I watched Gilmore Girls, and I thought it was so cool, and I talked about it with my mom.
38:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And she let us watch Gilmore Girls.
38:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was like my first real show that I was kind of allowed to watch.
38:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So Noah, not watching MTV, like none of that.
38:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I think part of why a lot of these pop culture references are so glowy for me is because when I was a kid, I loved pop music.
38:44
[SPEAKER_01]: But I would have to listen to it on the radio and like, you know, this is like the classic millennial trope.
38:51
[SPEAKER_01]: pressed record on my cassette tape if a song came on because I wasn't like given that stuff.
38:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I have my mom's a classical musician and like I grew up in a house whole where it was like room ski course to cough.
39:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And like, you're like, we're a Britney Spears.
39:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And obviously it's like, it's funny.
39:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we have friends who have kids who are like so cheesy about what those kids eat in school and like you can't control it.
39:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the
39:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And like that was like me, but with all of pop culture.
39:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was like, I love Mandy Moore because she was like heavily featured in center stage, which is my favorite of course.
39:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like, there are things that I gave AJ of mine, but it's also like, I love Shania Twan, I gave that to Emily.
39:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like, it's sprinkled and with the writing of the fan fiction,
39:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I've never posted fan fiction that I've written, but I have written a sub-stack into the void for years.
39:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I have written newsletters, my whole life.
39:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I've written columns.
39:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So that experience of taking it so seriously would no one's paying attention.
40:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, her audience of like 20 people plus Noah.
40:04
[SPEAKER_01]: But like, she can't let them down.
40:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so that that I think maps now I love that I think that there's like a level of like intensity that like people like us with obsessive personalities that have like in all these areas of our lives because like I actually got started doing this talking about Gamarko's on TikTok and like I was like 200 views and I'm like oh my gosh 200 people watch this whoa I can't let my public down yeah
40:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't that intense, but it never stopped me that I was not getting any views and then one video went viral and then it's the rest of his history, but at that point I was just talking about go more girls to maybe like a hundred followers, and I was like, this is amazing, this is everything I wanted to do, and then it blew up and I was like, well, I still have that same intensity that I did when I had a hundred followers, I think that's just something that like you were saying that like even our post-it fanfiction, my question was,
40:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Have you ridden it?
41:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, I've ridden sexy Nancy Drew fanfiction.
41:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Unfinished.
41:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, everybody mystery.
41:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like the mystery of like when Ned is going to insert, but yeah.
41:14
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the last thing I thought we were going to talk about today.
41:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
41:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's here for you.
41:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
41:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, so I'm not that predictable.
41:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
41:21
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not.
41:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
41:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm nothing to cross off in the diary there.
41:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I do enjoy the infection.
41:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And like I think there's something...
41:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Numinous about it like it's like that desire to keep going and it's like you're kind of there You're not meant to be but you are and then it's also just like there's this like immediate comfort Because you already know and love the characters so well So like I think the depth of the connection comes from the fact that like you know page one of the fanfiction is actually like page 900 because yeah
41:53
[SPEAKER_01]: the actual thing you're writing the thick about is like so well established in your brain.
41:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think like with AJ and Noah, like part of it, part of their bond is like that deep trust.
42:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Like before anything is before anything really happens with them, their already sort of cementing this familiarity and like ability to read each other and like into each other that I think is sort of similar to like how you feel when you sit down to
42:21
[SPEAKER_00]: knowing the characters.
42:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's so interesting.
42:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Almost like the world-building that it takes to create like a new story that like it's already there for them.
42:28
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't have to take that time, but they do.
42:31
[SPEAKER_00]: They still do.
42:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And it just deepens even more.
42:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
42:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that so much.
42:36
[SPEAKER_00]: 2000s, that's kind of where I want to start, but given the time period of Gilmour Girls, there's actually a lot of references made to Jenna and Barbara Bush.
42:43
[SPEAKER_00]: That's like the Bush twins on Gilmour Girls, and I love that Jennifer Hager has stayed relevant to a Gilmour Girls audience especially readers as such a champion of books and American literacy.
42:53
[SPEAKER_00]: What was it like working with her as a champion of this book?
42:57
[SPEAKER_00]: the best, the best never.
42:59
[SPEAKER_01]: She is so smart and so serious and we she came on the first call I had with my Valentine team and I didn't know at that point so like context for this is that a different publisher within Penguin Random House published songs in her smager and they passed on into the blue.
43:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So we went wide within to the blue and I didn't know if it was going to sell it all.
43:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And so at this point, it's like, I have switched teams in multiple ways.
43:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I also switched agents.
43:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I had had a lot of really difficult conversations to figure out the best path forward for this book that I loved and had got it myself for and all the things rolled up to this call where it's like, Jen is going to be on the call.
43:42
[SPEAKER_01]: It could possibly go to her imprint.
43:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was this sort of interesting energy in me that was like I was like super excited.
43:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I really wanted to meet her like she has such an amazing reputation.
43:53
[SPEAKER_01]: But I also knew that like if it wasn't a fit for whatever reason like like a lot comes out in an editorial call like you hop on and the person's like I love this book, but I want to cut this character or like you hear these things that are like,
44:06
[SPEAKER_01]: You love this book?
44:07
[SPEAKER_01]: What?
44:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
44:09
[SPEAKER_01]: You love this book.
44:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that character.
44:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Hard to do yourself, because it's like this woman and her platform and her legacy and all of it are like super incredible.
44:17
[SPEAKER_01]: But if it's not the right fit, I will have to walk away from this.
44:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the things that I was really nervous about is like the sci-fi element can be very polarizing for people.
44:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And so for me, I was like, I don't know if she'll be into this and she got on the phone with us and was like very, very welcoming like put me at ease right away and then she jumped in and started talking about the crale and she used the word crale which like a lot of other editors had spoken to had been sort of bashful.
44:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And she just like both feet jumped in and I was like, I love this one, like she, she gets it and like we had we did a big developmental edit and she had we did cut characters like we had she had like deep ideas about like adjusting the book But they all felt very aligned with the health of the book and the emotional payoffs and like there was not one question about like making it less weird
45:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So I love her.
45:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I would like lie on the road for her and it's been an amazing two years of working together throughout the process.
45:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Like she's been part of all the cover conversations and then like with the marketing piece when we pubed obviously like she totally had our back and like we got to go on the today's show which is amazing and it's been wonderful.
45:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope she publishes all my books.
45:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope she's all just all the books in your diary that I'm right.
45:38
[SPEAKER_00]: She'll accept it, you know.
45:40
[SPEAKER_00]: She won't mind.
45:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that so much because that can be so scary like to have this like weird emotionally charged book and have someone especially feel self-conscious about like the size of my element Which I just love so so much because I don't normally read sci-fi but like I think in this way I like sci-fi movies, but I can think in this way it like integrated in such a way that felt so natural like it's like
46:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how you would take it out.
46:04
[SPEAKER_00]: That's so hard to be in such like an amazing opportunity and like wonder if like I'm gonna have to walk away from this like to save my book and my project but like to have someone that just immediately unexpectedly is like I'm so down for this because I saw her talking about your book talking about like one of her favorite books and authors is you and she was like why I've read that book like three or four times.
46:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like gosh, me too Jenna.
46:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that maybe she and I just need to sit with the last 50 pages and go line by line.
46:32
[SPEAKER_00]: As like major fans, and I just, I love that.
46:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that she only wanted to like improve it, but like in the way that you needed to see through to the end of it.
46:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Speaking of the 2000s, Gilmourkel's as you said came out in October 2000, into the blue story starts in June 2000.
46:47
[SPEAKER_00]: What were you writing in the year 2000?
46:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I was 12, so I had started a novel, which I never got off the first page, I think.
46:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I was 12, I was like, I'm gonna be novelist.
47:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And this novel is gonna have the best for sentence ever.
47:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think I just had a notebook that was like me erasing and rewriting this first sentence of the Great American novel.
47:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was what I was writing when I was 12.
47:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you ever finish it?
47:15
[SPEAKER_01]: The sentence?
47:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think I did.
47:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I saw a started world building.
47:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a whole, because as we know, as we've established, I also really like Harry Potter at that age where I was about to.
47:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a whole like world building story in my head, and I would like my sister and I share a room, and I would like tell her about it as we were falling asleep.
47:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was all working on my oral history.
47:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
47:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you just enjoy this or was she like exasperated?
47:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, she said she did.
47:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if she actually did.
47:41
[SPEAKER_01]: At the time, at least she's written a particular on history.
47:45
[SPEAKER_01]: But when you're like the little sister, you're like, you're like subjected to the, she says she, she says she like to, and I'm choosing to believe her.
47:52
[SPEAKER_00]: It's better for her image now that you're.
47:55
[SPEAKER_00]: and author, not the chair of a seller.
47:57
[SPEAKER_01]: She's a member plot points, which I think is sort of speak to like, she remembers.
48:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, she liked it if she, if she committed it to memory.
48:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So from wanting to be the great American novelist, a 12 with that first great sentence, where did you go from there in terms of, like, your writing desires?
48:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Because, like, you, your career went into editing, but it took a while to get to you being the one with the pen, or, I guess, at the keyboard, because an editor, I feel like, would be more like,
48:23
[SPEAKER_00]: have that pen marking things out, but how did both that journey for you?
48:26
[SPEAKER_01]: They were parallel journeys.
48:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So I never wavered.
48:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I think there's always a period, like often a period where people like talk themselves out.
48:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I never talk myself out of it.
48:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I never stopped being like, I'm gonna be an obelist.
48:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And so for me that was sort of a given.
48:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So then everything else I did was basically like a plan I came up with on the back of a napkin when I was like 21, which was like, get job in publishing, right novel, publish novel.
48:56
[SPEAKER_01]: really stuck with the plan.
48:57
[SPEAKER_01]: There have been times where it was like maybe I should have re-evaluated the plan, but like something would always happen, whether it was like a different job or whatever, where I was like, and I actually ended up really loving the part of that tutorial that I'm in.
49:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I love my job, I love my offers, I love my books are like not to brag, but they are the most like visually beautiful objects.
49:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's it's been a really great great experience.
49:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
49:20
[SPEAKER_00]: No, back about it.
49:21
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like easier for me to brag about their books than it is about my, yeah, like I am so freaking proud of my authors.
49:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So with that, because I'm not working on fiction, I like that was a strategic choice where I was like, I don't want to be jealous.
49:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to be competitive.
49:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it would be really hard for me if I was editing novels, which is a really creative job.
49:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Like my editor, Natalie Howellik is.
49:42
[SPEAKER_01]: very, very brilliant and like so creatively generous with me and all of her authors like she gives us so many ideas.
49:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think I would want to do that.
49:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that would make me really bitter.
49:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So the whole idea was like, I'm going to have a day job because I need to support myself that sort of compliments my dream while I can, while I work.
50:03
[SPEAKER_01]: and become a better writer because I think I had enough taste to know that I wasn't where I wanted to be.
50:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And then it took a long time and I wrote a lot of books I didn't publish like just to get better at it and to get to the point where I was ready to like be vulnerable and take that risk.
50:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And then songs in our some major was like I'm 30 like I need to shit or get off the pot.
50:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I've been saying I'm going to do this for my whole life.
50:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to try and yeah that was seven years ago.
50:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, oh my gosh.
50:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like that's so that's like knowing yourself so well that like making that path But I also just love how direct I also I honestly feel like that's very worried go more It's like this is what I'm gonna do and then I'm gonna do this and then I'm gonna do that But the difference is that like you very much followed that path
50:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And here we are.
50:52
[SPEAKER_00]: That's incredible.
50:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that so much.
50:54
[SPEAKER_00]: But going back to talking about into the blue, which just again, brilliant, love it, just thinking about your previous publisher who passed on it, like internally while you were telling that story I gasped.
51:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, I'm like, what a loss for them, because this is just such a delicious, beautiful book that like,
51:11
[SPEAKER_00]: if you haven't read it please please go read it.
51:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I feel like that's all I'm doing at this point is like begging you to read it because this book spans from 2000 to 2013 like we said it actually starts at the end in 2013 with I think one of the most essential prologues of all time my life raft and then it traverses the years with AJ and Noah and I have two questions kind of with that with the prologue
51:35
[SPEAKER_00]: What made you want to start with that nugget from the future in 2013?
51:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And then pop back to 2020 or not 2020.
51:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Ooh, when am I saying 2000?
51:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh, rather than starting at the beginning.
51:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you for these words.
51:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I wish I could send them back in a bottle to me at like several junctures on the timeline because starting this book was impossible.
51:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It was impossible.
51:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there are 13 different prologues floating around.
52:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, my instinct was actually to start the book on stage at UCB after the seven-year gap with them reconnecting and like, I'd still love that scene.
52:13
[SPEAKER_01]: But ultimately, like, we had a lot of cooks in the kitchen, a lot of different people advising.
52:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And the feeling was essentially like, we need to make sure that people realize this isn't a YA book, which I think is very, very valid.
52:25
[SPEAKER_01]: they do start out at 17 and 21 for a while.
52:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like it's like part one is 25,000 words.
52:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like it's like a quick blip.
52:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So the idea was to show something towards the end of the book that would convey the stakes show that they're like 30 in their 30s at this point and like kind of get at where this was going to sort of get people to invest to get through part one, which is very small town romance stars hollow.
52:51
[SPEAKER_01]: that was sort of the strategy behind it and like we tried so many things we tried we tried that scene we tried a scene that was like literally like four hours later than that like after they done the dress rehearsal we tried SNL from different perspectives i think i did one that was like AJ getting ready to go to a funeral at one point like there it's like there's like there's so many versions
53:16
[SPEAKER_01]: because it's really hard.
53:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, again, it goes back to that flop copy of like, please just read it.
53:21
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I'm so gratified that you love it so much because like that was one of the things we we worked the hardest on was figuring out just how to begin it.
53:28
[SPEAKER_00]: For me, it seems like so natural.
53:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it seems like it's so perfect.
53:33
[SPEAKER_00]: That like I needed that.
53:34
[SPEAKER_00]: There were so many instances in this book that I would like be reading it and be like, okay, let me go back to the prologue.
53:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, that is the year.
53:41
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what's happening with them.
53:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I feel okay again.
53:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I would like keep reading because I'm like, oh my gosh, this thing that just happened.
53:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm aching, I hurt something has gone wrong.
53:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let's go back to the prologue.
53:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Where is it?
53:52
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not happened yet.
53:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, work and I keep going.
53:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And it just like that really was me going back.
53:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, that's 2013.
53:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, we're not there yet.
53:59
[SPEAKER_00]: We haven't gotten to that time.
54:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the closer and closer we got to it, I was like, oh, no, I'm scared.
54:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Why are we like, why is it only 12 days?
54:06
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, what's happening?
54:08
[SPEAKER_00]: What is going on?
54:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, because I had ignored that a little bit.
54:11
[SPEAKER_00]: But like every time I would like kind of need this like hope to be re like invigorated inside of me as I'm like in deep despair.
54:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, okay, we haven't gotten there.
54:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we did get there and it hurt even worse.
54:22
[SPEAKER_00]: So I might get ever possibly imagine.
54:26
[SPEAKER_00]: like I just truly the last 50 pages of this book is like marvelous, like truly one of my favorite, like works of art is just the end of this book.
54:34
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just so, so, so good.
54:37
[SPEAKER_00]: But the other half of this question about the beginning of the book is what do you love most about the 2000s to want to start there?
54:44
[SPEAKER_01]: the answer that just immediately flashed in my head was video stores.
54:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I'm sure there are more answers than that, but like a lot of the way that I write is intuitive.
54:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Like there are a lot of people.
54:57
[SPEAKER_01]: There is many ways to write a book as there are people, blah, blah, blah, but like for me, a lot of it is feel in the beginning and then in retrospect, I can say like, oh, this is what I was missing.
55:07
[SPEAKER_01]: This is this is what this represents to me.
55:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew a video store was a place that I could spend a lot of time and that's the other things like you have to be willing to spend a lot of time wherever it is.
55:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think where I was creatively in my journey when I started writing this book was like I was feeling very self-conscious, I was feeling very restricted.
55:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a lot that I wanted to accomplish, but I didn't know how, so like those are all things you see in AJ towards the beginning, even though like none of our superficial details are the same, like I don't have four siblings, like none of that is me.
55:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not really good actor, like there's like it's it's interesting, but I also like I wanted her to have a safe hate
55:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was always part of my quest to have as good references as Gilmore girls and so I would like what I would when I when I lived about the videos where I would watch like two videos a day like I would go down and get videos and come back up and like I would return them immediately and it was just this like safe place I loved it so I think I think I wanted to be in a video store and so that was sort of the that was like let's start here.
56:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I love that so much.
56:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh.
56:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like in order for me to like predict Emma Brody diary entries like I'm just going to have to learn more about your lore because that feels like so perfectly poised to like of course you would start that book there.
56:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I think my friends, my friends are like not surprised about the video store for sure.
56:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I've gotten a lot in like of course she's in a video store too.
56:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course that's where Emma is.
56:37
[SPEAKER_01]: but it ended up the 2000 of it evolved, like I didn't know what you're initially, but then there were like the real thing that we're working around there two things, one of which is a spoiler, so I won't talk about it, but the other is the writer strike in 2007.
56:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So knowing that I wanted there to be like enough time between their separation and the show that like that pain level would be manageable because it's like the reader is smarting because we just found out what he did.
57:08
[SPEAKER_01]: But AJ herself has had seven years to practice to process and like she has moved on to the point where like it's sort of a fun pain again.
57:15
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like fresh.
57:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like, I always know there's a disparity between like whatever the reader's experiencing and where AJ is, but I wanted us to like get back to the fun level of yearning, not the like, oh, this is upsetting, because we need to be much more upset later.
57:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, like you're kind of like tampered a little bit just so that we can feel much more pain.
57:37
[SPEAKER_00]: We have no idea what's coming, but like being in the 2000s and like knowing that like eventually you lived above a video store and had like so much access to like so much media, so much pop culture and like wanting to have those references, going back to Gameral's being that first show that you were allowed to watch.
57:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Like what was your relationship with it?
57:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And like how did you carry that on as you started writing more?
58:00
[SPEAKER_01]: It always kind of loomed large in my mind.
58:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I brought these to show you.
58:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I had the novelization.
58:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was like, I was allowed to have, I was allowed to have books.
58:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So I got these.
58:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I like studied them.
58:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to, like, this is actually really similar to how I got into improv.
58:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I wanted to learn the magic trick.
58:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And at a certain point it just became clear that like their dialogue.
58:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, well, the real magic trick is that it's a writer's room full of writers.
58:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like in my head as like again, I'm watching this as a 12 year old.
58:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, how do they refer to all this stuff?
58:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought it was so inspirational to be able to do that.
58:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I want to have a giant reference base too.
58:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, that's the answer.
58:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to read a lot.
58:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, worry, and I'm going to be able to talk, like, more aligned.
58:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be amazing.
58:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, eventually, I don't know if you're this way.
58:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, as an oldest, I was constantly looking for role models.
58:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like, the role models shifted.
58:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I didn't just stay with them.
58:52
[SPEAKER_01]: But I had a huge phase.
58:54
[SPEAKER_01]: My mom probably wanted to smack me because I was like back talking.
58:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I was doing like all the conversational patterns that they do.
59:01
[SPEAKER_01]: But I didn't have like we didn't have a DVD player at that point.
59:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't have a way of rewatching.
59:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was sort of like going to church.
59:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I would like see an episode on a Tuesday and I would like, I would like absorb everything.
59:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And then like it would just kind of be gone.
59:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So within a few years, like you were able to watch all this on the internet.
59:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I feel like when I was 16 or 17, I started Pirating House MD, which I love.
59:27
[SPEAKER_01]: you can definitely see certain plot points that come from that.
59:30
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, it's like, it was when I was like a fresh Gilmore girls fan that wasn't really available.
59:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was like, I don't know, it was like an opportunity to like have this intellectual banter be the bar for what was cool.
59:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like,
59:45
[SPEAKER_01]: This is it like this is cool.
59:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I want this for myself.
59:49
[SPEAKER_00]: That like I relate to that to like so I feel like so much of like like my humor like really evolved from Gamark rolls and like basically Gamark rolls and when you're the poo is really like my sense of humor and like that's how like I feel like I like have learned how to talk
1:00:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that you have those books, though.
1:00:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm always so fascinated by them because they're exclusively from Rory's perspective, but what I find so interesting about it is something we talk about a lot on the podcast is that Rory doesn't share her internal monologue at all, like it's always Lorelei who is like talking about every single feeling she's ever had, but we don't get a lot of that from Rory.
1:00:23
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I reread these books as an adult, I was like, oh my gosh, we're going to get her perspective.
1:00:27
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's actually no, like, espousing on anything that she's thinking about, which just, like, all her, like, her experience of her world with, like, the dialogue from the show or from the episode that it's pulling from.
1:00:38
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's still so fascinating to look at, like, that pattern of speech, like, written, written form, because you were talking about, like, of course, your book is a novel, but it's not going to have that same, like, Peter Potter that is in Gilmore Girls, but it does exist somehow in this book.
1:00:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I know it's so interesting when novelizations, like I feel like I could talk to you for five hours, but it's like that's a whole other conversation, like the Star Wars novelizations.
1:01:02
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like they really are in both situations just totally bound by what happens in the show and you really can't embellish that much.
1:01:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like, I feel like you buy novelizations because you want that interiority even knowing like you're never going to get it because it's
1:01:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Where did you say that you fit into the Gilmore Girls fandom?
1:01:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you were talking about how like with Harry Potter, you were on like message boards and thinking about it that way never really like diving into fan fiction, but like how did that exist for you during that time period?
1:01:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And how has it changed, I guess, as you've moved on in your life?
1:01:34
[SPEAKER_01]: This is embarrassing.
1:01:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So I remember nothing's embarrassing here.
1:01:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Your question is like, I wasn't.
1:01:39
[SPEAKER_01]: But the thing that's embarrassing is that I remember going online, following an episode of Gilmour Girls and being like, I want to learn how to make jokes like that.
1:01:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And printing out a, like, I found, like, like, an early yachts blog that was just, like, jokes and, like, one-liners.
1:01:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And I, like, like, an uncle.
1:01:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I, like, printed them out and, like, studied them.
1:02:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was, like, this will help me be more alive.
1:02:04
[SPEAKER_00]: You were, like, I've got it.
1:02:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and they're like groany puns, which I still love to this day, but like it was, it was just like, like, that was probably the most like Gilmore girls fan type thing I did.
1:02:19
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're more of like a vagabond with this one, just kind of like flooding through and being team Jess as you said.
1:02:26
[SPEAKER_01]: vagabond yes but also like has such a formative place like I again like hadn't watched network television really so Jess is just like you know now I understand as an older person like he's just like not a formulaic bad boy but he is part of a tradition yes I had never seen that before
1:02:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So he at like the guy that like is only nice to you is super smart and misunderstood.
1:02:54
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like taller and handsome.
1:02:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I would like that was like an awakening.
1:02:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, oh my god, like that exists.
1:03:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Like yeah better than Dean.
1:03:04
[SPEAKER_00]: You're like why were we why were even worried about this this guy?
1:03:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I had no so it's like now I understand it's like it's not that it's like just was so special It's that like I had never like I at my mom also eventually let me watch the OC.
1:03:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's like right after
1:03:20
[SPEAKER_01]: That is not just, but it's like, they're part, they're like, they're in sort of the same area of the chart and it was like, that was like, oh, wait, they're two of you.
1:03:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so it's like, this is like, this is a thing.
1:03:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, this is more of a thing.
1:03:32
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like, so sheltered.
1:03:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I love that.
1:03:34
[SPEAKER_00]: That actually is maybe one of my favorite things about you is that Jess Mariano was like, your first bad boy.
1:03:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And like, I feel like in a way you always kind of associate that trope that stereotype with him and then get to always be him and I love that so much.
1:03:49
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think, I don't even think that's sheltered.
1:03:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that that's just like media when you're younger.
1:03:53
[SPEAKER_00]: That like you're experiencing these things for the first time and think that they're entirely unique.
1:03:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is not special to this story.
1:04:02
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like something that has come before it.
1:04:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And like a role that he's feeling, but when we're younger, they feel so particular to that story.
1:04:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, it's really true.
1:04:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's true to though that like those characters are important because they're truth tellers like they don't sure coat things and it's like it's like why is it in Rerson so big it's like he like I have so many opinions on that subject but like one of the things is like he doesn't baby violet like he will protect her but he like he wants her to like stand on her own
1:04:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like even in the reunion of Gilmour Girls, like Jess is the one who kind of tells her the truth.
1:04:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, I don't know if I kind of love that.
1:04:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:04:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Still hasn't lost it.
1:04:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:04:45
[SPEAKER_00]: He can't.
1:04:46
[SPEAKER_00]: He got some arm muscles.
1:04:47
[SPEAKER_00]: He gained some arm muscles, but he didn't lose.
1:04:49
[SPEAKER_00]: That truth-teller ability.
1:04:50
[SPEAKER_01]: He went on to be in things with Mandy Moore.
1:04:52
[SPEAKER_01]: He's at Milo's had a great Oh my gosh!
1:04:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at that, you nighting!
1:04:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh, that's so perfectly leads it to like the next question that I had for you because like I love hearing that you were like trying to imbue like a sense of pop culture and references into your stories because you loved that so much about Gamark girls like you get it or you don't.
1:05:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And I saw on another interview where you were talking about tracking AJ and Noah's progression through their own fame and through their own lives through pop culture references, like Britney Spears or Mandy Moore.
1:05:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you mentioned there's a Britney Spears reference and like each part of the book of like where she's at and I was like that's
1:05:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Truly, truly magnificent.
1:05:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I just love that you like had that in that way and like so what sort of like research were you doing?
1:05:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Like or did you already have this like well of things to pull from to include these references in this way that you'd been inspired by Go Markos?
1:05:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of it is from my own well, like a lot of it is things that appealed to me.
1:05:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of it is stuff that has continued to resonate.
1:05:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I'm a little younger than AJ, like I'm technically older than her as a woman, but like I was born in 89 and she was born in like 85, like she's she's four years older than me.
1:06:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So 80, she's kind of worried about you.
1:06:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
1:06:09
[SPEAKER_01]: She would have been very cool to me like everything she was allowed to do was stuff that I was like grasping for so it's like I didn't get to have a now like Yeah, oh yeah, and like that kind of thing so a lot of the stuff I kind of just knew like I was tracking Brittany was sort of like a like a little bit guesswork where it was like I think I remember this album was this year, but like let me go check it
1:06:33
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of the research was feel like smaller details, so like, I think this car was out, but let me check that.
1:06:40
[SPEAKER_01]: What was the McDonald's toy this weekend?
1:06:43
[SPEAKER_01]: What was the big VHS release this weekend?
1:06:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not always naming the dates in the book, but it's like, I knew what date it was, and there are amazing, amazing catacombs on the internet that are devoted to like,
1:07:01
[SPEAKER_01]: happened on a given weekend in 2000.
1:07:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was a big piece of it.
1:07:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Stuff like like knowing I wanted to have that like recurring like Britney thing.
1:07:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I was able to organically fit it in in three of the places and then I had to like, there was nowhere in part four.
1:07:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So I ended up slotting it into one of Udora's letters.
1:07:21
[SPEAKER_01]: and I tried so hard to figure out a way to have it come up organically, but I just like couldn't.
1:07:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So I divorced that one.
1:07:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Before I had seen you talking about Mandy Moore, I was quite confused because you think her in your acknowledgements of songs and or some major.
1:07:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, oh my gosh, she knows Mandy Moore.
1:07:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And you do not, which I just love.
1:07:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I love even more.
1:07:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you seen that interview that she recently gave about like her entire career?
1:07:46
[SPEAKER_00]: How was that for you as like a Mandy Moore stand?
1:07:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I've only seen snippets, but I loved the part where she was talking about candy and where she's like, talking about, I'm singing this stuff.
1:07:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I've barely kissed someone and like, if meaning loves, I guess I figured out how to dance.
1:08:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was just like, this is your perfect.
1:08:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, everything about use perfect and this is amazing.
1:08:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, my favorite thing is when stars who have long careers are able to kind of like look back on their early days and be like generous about it.
1:08:14
[SPEAKER_01]: That stuff like I don't want to hear about people who are like too cool for their early work, especially if it's like the early work that made them famous and I feel like Robert Pattinson has really come correct about this recently where there was like a whole phase of like we denounce Twilight and now he's like much more magnanimous about Twilight as he should be.
1:08:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's my favorite, and yeah, I just adore her.
1:08:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, she, I loved that she like stood up for herself.
1:08:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So she's five years older than me.
1:08:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I love that she stood up for herself to her record label, and like, this is happening while I'm a teenager, and I'm watching her.
1:08:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And she, like, records an album coverage.
1:08:55
[SPEAKER_01]: That is all, like, focus.
1:08:58
[SPEAKER_01]: including a Joni Mitchell song, which is how I first listened to Joni Mitchell.
1:09:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So I would literally would not have written my first book if it hadn't been for Mandy and coverage.
1:09:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's why I college turned.
1:09:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Perfect!
1:09:11
[SPEAKER_00]: No, because I read that, I was like, oh my God, she's friends with me anymore.
1:09:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it even more that she just is such a big inspiration.
1:09:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I just wish her well, yeah, she's my muse.
1:09:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I would be very well.
1:09:21
[SPEAKER_00]: We wish her nothing but the best.
1:09:23
[SPEAKER_00]: But stepping back into like the idea of songs and or some major into the blue and Gilmore girls, something that you mentioned before in what Gilmore girls can fans might like about this is all of them have a formative mansion is what I called them.
1:09:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Jane, AJ, they both go to a mansion that is connected to their ultimate love and dressed and get something there that they couldn't have gotten anywhere else.
1:09:45
[SPEAKER_00]: and the same for Rory is like she has access to something now being associated with this mansion.
1:09:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you rank for me which like the mansions of what you would want to spend the most time in?
1:09:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Love the three of them.
1:09:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably Drew House.
1:10:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I just, it seems peaceful, it seems unencumbered.
1:10:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like Noah's done a lot of work.
1:10:06
[SPEAKER_01]: on it.
1:10:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, you know, old houses are nightmarish.
1:10:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And I trust that.
1:10:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Like Jesse's mansion is like cold and austere.
1:10:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And like I think of it as sort of like a modern house.
1:10:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's got like it's like whereas like Drew houses is like a gilded age.
1:10:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Like they're it's very ornate.
1:10:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Whereas like Jesse's I feel like his was built in like the 50s.
1:10:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like all edges.
1:10:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's yeah, I don't want to spend any
1:10:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And then so that would be my third and then I would put Emily in Richard's mansion like in the middle.
1:10:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for the Friday night dinner cock to yeah, I feel like you would all be really nice, but I think that's my order to it's just it's called the shack in songs and it's a major and it's like very like tongue and cheek because it's not at all, but with every time I was there, I was like, wait, she loves a formative mansion and I when I like connected that was like, but not my diary.
1:11:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's like it's like I get that like yeah, so people are like what is your what is your genre and it's like in my head I'm like I guess it's like pop gothic.
1:11:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that so much So if you could cast AJ and Noah into Gilmore girls whether in Gilmore girls character that exists or making up a new role for them How would you fit them into that world?
1:11:21
[SPEAKER_00]: What a great question?
1:11:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like AJ and Lane are kind of like soul sisters a little bit like they both have this like closet artistic bent and it's like their families are very different like leans families so religious whereas AJ's family are like lapsed Catholics but I feel like they also have like their very judgment like AJ's family's very judgmental and like they really like are not into the art
1:11:46
[SPEAKER_01]: aspect of it so she it's not that she like has to hide it but it's like it's very clearly like not taken seriously and she's going against the green by pursuing this which I guess would make Noah the Adam Brody character.
1:11:59
[SPEAKER_00]: David Gowski.
1:12:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh what a dream.
1:12:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
1:12:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I could see it.
1:12:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, he's also just like a fine line.
1:12:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I guess, I guess that's him because I don't other than that.
1:12:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, like, Dave isn't like that huge.
1:12:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Whereas I think of Noah as like very large.
1:12:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's Dean, like Dean's the tall guy.
1:12:21
[SPEAKER_01]: But like, I don't know, I'm not really a Dean girl.
1:12:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like there's always like, yeah, I don't know.
1:12:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Interesting.
1:12:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
1:12:30
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard to place Noah.
1:12:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Like is there like like a shadow daddy and Gilmore girls?
1:12:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't I feel like no.
1:12:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Can't really put a bunch of wood on a blender.
1:12:38
[SPEAKER_00]: We could but we could also just place him.
1:12:40
[SPEAKER_00]: He could just be his own character.
1:12:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
1:12:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Recon havoc in hearts.
1:12:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:12:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
1:12:46
[SPEAKER_01]: He's working at the video store in my gosh.
1:12:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, starts all the video.
1:12:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it.
1:12:52
[SPEAKER_00]: He's taking the job from Kirk.
1:12:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Kirk's not employed.
1:12:55
[SPEAKER_00]: He has another job somewhere.
1:12:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure.
1:12:57
[SPEAKER_00]: But my question, my next question for you was no a drew or a just Mariano.
1:13:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no, uh, yeah.
1:13:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I have to.
1:13:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I have it with your man.
1:13:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually fan cast no a drew as a lot of characters like when the conversation for like Emily Henry's like book lovers or beat read come up.
1:13:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like,
1:13:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so Noah Drew should play Charlie or Gus like he actually would be the perfect guy Like he would be the perfect Charlie like he would just fit so well into I find myself casting him in like other books Like I'll start in the book.
1:13:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, oh my gosh.
1:13:25
[SPEAKER_00]: That's so Noah Drew, but in terms of loving someone from afar
1:13:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you rather than know a true style of no communication for seven to eight years?
1:13:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Or would you prefer the Luke Dane style of eight years keeping a horoscope in your wallet and being right in front of her face all the time, but not saying anything about it?
1:13:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like date Noah Mary Luke, if that happens, like my husband was like Luke, like he loved me for like a few years before we ever went out.
1:13:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And like we were friends, we were co-workers and like we like, in the he knew me like a while before anything ever happened.
1:14:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So like yeah, so that I've lived that one.
1:14:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that anyone's ever pined for me for that long, but you know if.
1:14:10
[SPEAKER_01]: that I know of.
1:14:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I have pined for people.
1:14:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So I know it's possible to do.
1:14:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So I guess that's the answer.
1:14:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like my personal style is the is the no talking and and pining very hard the whole time.
1:14:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And then what I've actually like engaged with and made a contract with.
1:14:27
[SPEAKER_01]: is the person who's there and like is in plain sight and like just has like secret you're earning that he doesn't tell me about until it's time.
1:14:33
[SPEAKER_00]: See that makes more sense because he's there he's been showing up he's been showing himself versus Noah Drew is a shadow daddy just kind of lurking one of those 20 fanfic readers on your fanfic page.
1:14:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Only the bonus chapter readers know that so I know you've read the bonus chapter.
1:14:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I forget what wasn't real because like honestly, I was like, this is no drew fanfic from the author herself.
1:14:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually haven't because I know that there's two bonus chapters and I actually can't read the other one because of the first one like crushed me so much like I read it in the parking lot.
1:15:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And I like got the book and I was reading it and I was like, oh, okay, I didn't I wasn't ready for that.
1:15:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when I found out that there's an additional scene shorter, I was like,
1:15:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Am I can't keep doing this?
1:15:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I also can't not do it.
1:15:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So like I will read it, but I was just like Please stop doing this to me actually The second one I will say is that an earlier point in the book and it's okay I'm much more immediate scene where it's like the one that you're talking about in the targeted edition is like It's 5,000 words you get like like back story That's not in the real book like it's a longer thing where is this is like it's describing one moment from his perspective
1:15:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so it's like it's like it's still the sort of like sad hot thing, but it's like you're not like I'm not like Dredging things.
1:15:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like okay.
1:15:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Just what's there?
1:15:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It's where my novelization if you will I still imagine that that's gonna get me
1:15:57
[SPEAKER_00]: every part of this is I did even remember that like those details weren't there because I think that what's so fascinating about this is it really is mostly from AJ's perspective yeah I do like that both in or some major and in this one you almost bring in a third party to like confirm for the for the reader that like this is not all in their head this is like something that is projecting outside of them.
1:16:19
[SPEAKER_00]: and I really, I really like that use in both of the books.
1:16:22
[SPEAKER_00]: But speaking to Ursumager and into the blue, I think that something that you do so well is world-building, because you have articles, you've daily coverage.
1:16:31
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a book, a whole book to our friends.
1:16:32
[SPEAKER_00]: There's songs that you're writing, music to sing, a script to adhere to.
1:16:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And how do you balance that?
1:16:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I know that if I get into the weeds with something like, I made a whole menu for my coffee shop in my book.
1:16:42
[SPEAKER_00]: that never actually appears and it has like the menu listed and why the barista recommends this one, but not that one.
1:16:48
[SPEAKER_00]: It just like doesn't matter.
1:16:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:16:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So like how do you balance like creating something that contributes to the work?
1:16:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And like not something that's like keeping you from procrastinating from building the world further and you're writing.
1:16:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that question.
1:17:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think it all contributes if it makes you love the world and feel like it's real.
1:17:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I tend to do the like and patch it version where I will like write the story first and leave blank places or put like placeholder or like this song now or whatever and then I'll write what I need like almost like to spec.
1:17:24
[SPEAKER_01]: afterwards.
1:17:25
[SPEAKER_01]: That's definitely how I handled the songs in our some major and then with the periodicals, it kind of depends on what it is.
1:17:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Like if like for there's like a rolling stone piece in our sense that's like a full chapter and I just wrote that like as I was writing the book.
1:17:39
[SPEAKER_00]: for into the blue, for the show.
1:17:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I had spent a lot of time thinking about the world of the show, which is sort of a combination of, like, avatar of the last Airbender, Firefly, and Star Trek, and Star Wars.
1:17:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like, I knew which pieces I wanted and how they would work together.
1:17:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's like one of those things where it's like, if you watch a lot of sci-fi, it's very intuitive.
1:18:00
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't, then it's a nightmare.
1:18:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like, that was a task of like, I'm just gonna write this as if it's someone who understands everything.
1:18:08
[SPEAKER_01]: and then retroactively translated for other people.
1:18:12
[SPEAKER_01]: But even for that it was like I knew going in that I wasn't going to be able to have the level of detail that I fully wanted just because it would alienate more people than I was willing to.
1:18:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So I didn't like write out scripts or anything like that.
1:18:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I did sort of Netflix style summaries of each episode which now appear at the beginning
1:18:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And my initial take on it was that instead of having those appear, I just had those in a notebook to know.
1:18:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I initially had it as different commentary before everything.
1:18:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So I had a podcast, I had an MPR piece, I had a voice documentary, and they all took place in different years.
1:18:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was like different voices from the fandom, the future fandom of this show that you're watching be filmed, commenting on it.
1:18:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was interesting because it's like on the one hand, that gave away that the show not only got made, but it like was a success.
1:19:08
[SPEAKER_01]: But it also like,
1:19:10
[SPEAKER_01]: It's functioned as this like very immediate Greek chorus on everything what they were doing, which like you still get in the third part with the fans and the message words and like in the cons, but the second part originally had that and my agent was like, no.
1:19:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, wow, and I think she was right because I just think it there are things that are straight up just fun to write for yourself And they're not fun to read and I'm I'm deeply like bone marrow aware that this is a thing because like not only did I do improv for three years I also did call Dr. Capella so it's like I am so aware that there are things that like are so fun to do But are painful to experience
1:19:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So I really trusted her on that and everything that I needed to include I was able to sort of slot in.
1:19:59
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think so far the way that I've worked on it has prevented me from getting too far into the weeds on like, but like if that's happening then it's like you're you are like building trust with the world as the creator and it's like you need to know so much more than the reader ever will.
1:20:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like that's like when these we talk about these bonus trappers, it's like that's what that's showing.
1:20:17
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like it's showing all the stuff that I know about his head, which I also hear even though I only give you a jays.
1:20:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like I do need to know all of that in order to maybe do what it needs to do.
1:20:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like yeah, there's never going to be an evenness there.
1:20:32
[SPEAKER_01]: There's always going to be this like one-sided thing where like you know so much more than the reader even after the book is done.
1:20:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like a menu is a part of that like knowing, knowing who functions how,
1:20:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard to unpack sometimes like the flap of the butterfly's wings, but it's like it's possible that somewhere in your story there's a whole interaction with that server and like you're not necessarily going to consciously know like why they're saying what they're saying, but it's like it all comes back down to like something that was in that menu.
1:21:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So trust the I trust the process.
1:21:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I trust your process.
1:21:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:21:03
[SPEAKER_00]: see because sometimes I like kind of beat myself up because I like spent like two hours making this.
1:21:08
[SPEAKER_00]: But like see this makes me feel a lot better because like I just know her more.
1:21:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And like even though she's such a side character she like just barely talks to the main character.
1:21:15
[SPEAKER_00]: But I know I know her personally.
1:21:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Well and that's a big thing and it's like I think you're imbuing it with a sort of hominess by doing that.
1:21:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you don't I don't know that you can necessarily track like one to one how that's gonna come through but it will come through.
1:21:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's interesting to like, I've never met Sarah Mass, but I would like I would give anything just to hear like ask for some questions and like hear her talk about what her process has been like on some of her books because like to me when I read read them like all the way through like the full series, both of Throne of Glass and Agatars like it seems like it's a lot of self trust where she puts these details in that seem insignificant and then eventually she uses the whole cow every time.
1:21:55
[SPEAKER_01]: which I don't know that she can possibly plan all of that in advance.
1:21:59
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like this huge exercise and trust with your subconscious.
1:22:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So I feel like it's similar with the menu.
1:22:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like trust yourself like you might not know right now, but like you will.
1:22:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you come across that server, my book you're going to be like, I wonder what's on that menu?
1:22:12
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
1:22:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly, now that you know, but like speaking of like all of the layers and so much of like what we're into into the blue and your process This book is so deeply emotional like the way that it like traverses just so many levels of different types of pain that come from love
1:22:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you a deep feeler?
1:22:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, how does that exist in your day to life?
1:22:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I know that you talked about being so emotional and feeling like that's just like on the resume of a writer, like on the job description to just be that emotional about your books, which I don't think is always true.
1:22:43
[SPEAKER_00]: But how does that exist in your day to day life to be a deep feeler in that way?
1:22:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like it's something that I've made peace with and also built a lot of defenses around to function well.
1:22:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I work a corporate job.
1:22:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm an editor so that means that I have to reject people and tell them when their work is bad.
1:23:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to have some pretty firm conversations which are not conversations I would ever want to be on the receiving end of.
1:23:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Even though I have been on the receiving end.
1:23:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like I can empathize with almost everything I'm doing.
1:23:17
[SPEAKER_01]: When I'm at work, I have to have boundaries.
1:23:21
[SPEAKER_01]: In my personal life, I also have to have boundaries, and the way that that has worked is that I've moved to an island.
1:23:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, where I mostly hang out with my husband.
1:23:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have a very vibrant world of friends, and I am someone who, like, I don't like group texts.
1:23:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't like small currency interactions like my best friend is coming here in like a month with her daughter and we're going to have like a mine meld for a whole weekend and then I will go down there in a month and see her and we will barely speak in between it's like that kind of things.
1:23:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it's like, I am often very close to capacity.
1:23:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't really afford to let it show almost ever.
1:24:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So my husband told her a lot.
1:24:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a therapist who I've been with for 13 years I'm obsessed with and she helps too.
1:24:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's just one of those things where like, I don't know that like if you don't read my writing, you might not necessarily know that I feel deeply and I'm kind of proud of that.
1:24:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it means that people can't like go after me.
1:24:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they know there's like a well of emotions to go after.
1:24:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I am very reactive and it's like I think it's like I've been at this job a long time.
1:24:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Like they know me from when I was like 23.
1:24:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think they do know that I'm faking a lot of the time.
1:24:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that whatever neutralness is happening is probably fake.
1:24:38
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I think there are probably people that are surprised by like what goes on into the blue.
1:24:44
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's not my business.
1:24:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't care.
1:24:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:24:47
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it honestly it made me love you so that much more and I think that's why I connected with you so much is because like I'm a very deep feel air like I But in the same way like it's not on like a day-to-day basis that like I try not to let too many things affect me like it's be how like my obsessive personality happens
1:25:02
[SPEAKER_00]: exist in my emotions too, but there is a level of it that I feel like can be like quite fun to be a deep feeler to feel things that deeply, so it made me wonder, like, what is your favorite emotion to feel very deeply as a person?
1:25:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And what is your favorite emotion to write a character feeling?
1:25:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll do the second one first because I know the answer, which is I love a third act recovery build.
1:25:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like that's really the moment you meet the character where you've done about half of the book and so you've seen a few different like arcs for them at this point and then they lose something they can't get back.
1:25:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And some novels are structured with the inverse where there's a big victory in the middle of the book.
1:25:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So far I've done like a big loss in the middle of both of my books.
1:25:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like that is the moment when like the artificial light goes out and they have to like find their way home by the moon.
1:25:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like that is when you meet them and I love it.
1:25:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I love a moment when a character is pushed to do something resourceful.
1:26:02
[SPEAKER_01]: because that's often when I stop being able to predict what they're doing and they really come alive for me too.
1:26:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So I love that part.
1:26:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So I guess the emotion that they're feeling there is like, it depends.
1:26:12
[SPEAKER_01]: It can be sort of like defiance or like, yeah, I love Rachel Sanger.
1:26:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Like a sort of survival thing of like you're making this choice.
1:26:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you like I think in both books like my characters have like had a certain like passivity up to a point.
1:26:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And then this is a moment when they can choose to be more proactive.
1:26:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't
1:26:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what a motion that is, but it's like a choice to live, like, I love that.
1:26:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:26:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I think, I think of like my favorite feeling to feel, I don't know.
1:26:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it really depends on the mood.
1:26:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm very fluid.
1:26:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm a triple Pisces.
1:26:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm, like, as you say, like, I'm great.
1:26:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, that was like that.
1:26:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I should have predicted that.
1:26:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I should have known because I'm a I'm a Pisces moon some a sad little water girl So that's why the saddest mice is moon two and a Pisces Sun and a Pisces Venus.
1:27:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:27:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, so my gosh Well, I'm also a sadgitaria so far in water here.
1:27:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I love genesis agitarias I love Sagitarias writers like Truly like Britney Spears is the sadgitarias.
1:27:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that is the day before mine
1:27:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
1:27:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:27:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Taylor Swift, Ali Hazelwood, Taylor Jenkins Reed, Jane Austen, like, yeah, love love a sound.
1:27:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, love a sound writer.
1:27:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
1:27:26
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the, this is the, the legacy that I need to live up to amongst all these writers.
1:27:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
1:27:33
[SPEAKER_00]: No pressure, no pressure.
1:27:35
[SPEAKER_00]: But getting back into Lorelie and Rory, I feel like they've so, both so deeply, really, T.J. graves.
1:27:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I loved what you were talking about the beginning, kind of relating their paths, kind of feeling a little bit parallel, kind of breaking off.
1:27:48
[SPEAKER_00]: seeing different sides of them, but they've all felt really aligned for me because they're all fan girls in some way.
1:27:53
[SPEAKER_00]: They love their movies, their books, their TV shows, some of them are snobbs about it, but like they just really, really love it.
1:27:58
[SPEAKER_00]: They all feel like original fan girls.
1:28:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And it feels also like a reflection of the type of person who's reading your book and like consuming gomarkles.
1:28:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that's the kind of person who shows up to this and shows up to it in the way that we do.
1:28:11
[SPEAKER_00]: but all three of those characters are all deeply flawed and do things that really hurt other people.
1:28:17
[SPEAKER_00]: What is it that you like about writing a character like that?
1:28:20
[SPEAKER_00]: First is watching a character like that.
1:28:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I mean this is a little bit the difference between reading and watching is like you understand more of the rationale usually as it's happening when you're reading.
1:28:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it depends
1:28:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Some interiority like you will occasionally read a novel where you just see someone do something crazy And then you don't find out until after like why they reacted that way But for the most part you're being kept surprised so I think it's like easier to understand Even if you can't your power list to stop it, but at least you know what's going on inside their head Whereas like when you're watching on a show and someone does something harmful It's much more the other thing where you're like
1:29:05
[SPEAKER_01]: you don't necessarily know what they're thinking you're just watching them unravel.
1:29:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And afterwards, you're like hoping there's a processing scene where they'll like go talk to someone and like share why they did this, but like you're kind of left in the dark and you're just alone with this like powerless feeling.
1:29:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, don't do that!
1:29:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah!
1:29:23
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah.
1:29:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, I totally relate to that too, because like in terms of like into the blue,
1:29:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything that AJ did bad like there were so many reactions that like I was like oh my how how how could you do that like how could you do that But then because we could just fan so many years with her you're like well, I see why you could do that and like maybe why it was the right thing to say even though That's something that you should have never said in your life.
1:29:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, graves.
1:29:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like ever ever like we're on the same page about that that like as my sister in law is reading this was like have you gotten to this part yet if you got into this part yet
1:29:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was like, I got to that part, but then when Noah kind of comes back, I'm like, okay, okay, okay.
1:29:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And like we see that, but one of the things that we talk about in young articles is kind of that, we are the ones who are rationalizing it.
1:30:06
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not rationalized on the show, but we are like, oh, this thing happened to them in this thing in this thing.
1:30:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're kind of like explaining why, like justice for these characters or this is why you should actually be more mad about this thing because it just doesn't exist in that same way
1:30:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's a lot easier to have an unlikeable character in literature than it is in TV and film because you're not like in their thought process along the way.
1:30:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but speaking of thought process along the way, one of like something that I like very early on when I was reading this, I didn't know that I was going to be talking to you, but I in the way that I read books.
1:30:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I like are always like kind of naturally talk to the author while I'm reading it that like, is this a thought that came from you like, or a question that's asked, it's like, how would you answer this and something that AJ said very early on when she received some positive feedback is AJ long to be talented most of all.
1:30:59
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you think that that said about her at the sort of her journey?
1:31:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And on the flip side of that, what do you long most to be?
1:31:07
[SPEAKER_01]: AJ's a middle child in a large family.
1:31:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And she's a twin on top of it.
1:31:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think her twin Emily's one of my favorite characters in the book.
1:31:16
[SPEAKER_01]: She's like the safe space.
1:31:18
[SPEAKER_01]: She's like when the sun is shining.
1:31:20
[SPEAKER_01]: She also like in a horror movie.
1:31:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like you know if Emily's there like things are probably going to be okay.
1:31:25
[SPEAKER_01]: She also has Down syndrome and so AJ both has this like beautiful symbiosis with her twin and also this like burden of of her gifts where she doesn't know why she she doesn't know why she was born with certain advantages while the person she's closest to doesn't have them so there's this like first to prove herself
1:31:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And then also this thirst for recognition because she's only recognized in this one capacity within her family, which is as the community relief.
1:32:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And she's, you know, she's got a full range of emotions.
1:32:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And no one ever looks at her except if she makes a joke.
1:32:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the rest of the time, she's just like does not compute like I don't see you here.
1:32:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think what talent means to AJ at that point is actually like, it means like visibility.
1:32:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It means like, if I'm talented, then people will see me for who I am and like the range of my feelings and I'll be deserving.
1:32:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'll be deserving.
1:32:27
[SPEAKER_01]: If I'm talented, then I'm deserving of these abilities that I have and I've made them count for something.
1:32:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think that's kind of like what it represents to her.
1:32:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, now I'm gonna sob.
1:32:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm thinking about, so what do I most want to be?
1:32:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess the answer, the quick answer, is just like, I just want to be happy.
1:32:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Like my whole life, like that's like, I just want to be a happy person.
1:32:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's interesting because I think I have some understanding of happiness.
1:32:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I know it's a femoral.
1:32:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I know it's not like a constant state.
1:32:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I'm much more often satisfied than I am happy.
1:33:03
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's still the thing that I would like to be.
1:33:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I would like to be grateful and joyful and satisfied and content with my choices and who I am on a given moment and where I am on the planet.
1:33:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like it's hard because it's like, I feel like it's a deep feeler chasing happiness can sometimes be quite difficult.
1:33:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's the thing.
1:33:24
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't chase it.
1:33:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You kind of have to just like, let's like, when I'm actually happy, it's often like, like, I hate holidays because I hate like the build up and the expectations.
1:33:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Whereas like,
1:33:35
[SPEAKER_01]: When am I truly happy it's like it's often just like a random day where like work isn't too terrible or like like my husband does something like really thoughtful and unexpected and it's like you just feel this sudden sort of like the butterfly lands on you and you're like yay
1:33:50
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't hold on to tight like otherwise you'll crush the butterfly but it's sort of like being the more receptive you are like the more off and you can have a little bit of that and that's like to me in the book like I find it really moving how many people find it sad because I know what that means is that they also felt really happy at various points because you cannot have that kind of reaction if you're not also feeling joy in the same way it certain parts.
1:34:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So I, like, I find that really cool.
1:34:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I was crushed because I was happy.
1:34:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we can't have one without the other.
1:34:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:34:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And what's also interesting too, is like this book made me like unbelievably happy, like, not just like in the plot, but like in the craft and just the experience of like going through this, which was also at like 230 in the morning while I was laying horizontal in my bed on my candle.
1:34:39
[SPEAKER_00]: So like, it was, like, looking at that, I'm like, that was like one of the happiest times I've had this year.
1:34:44
[SPEAKER_00]: But was I literally sobbing,
1:34:47
[SPEAKER_00]: all of my emotions bleeding out of me.
1:34:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I was, but that to me, I was like, oh, what a happy time of my life.
1:34:55
[SPEAKER_00]: So it really just, it's, it's a, it's a valent, but I have a couple of questions from our besties from our listeners who submitted to you because you have a large,
1:35:04
[SPEAKER_00]: loving fan base of people who absolutely love this, speaking of fandom, I feel like you get to be on the other side of it now.
1:35:09
[SPEAKER_00]: In the same way that AJ and Noah were, but a lot of people wrote in questions that have some of their names.
1:35:15
[SPEAKER_00]: One person said that they think about their life in terms of this book of like before and after they read this, because it just moved them so deeply.
1:35:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt like I needed to tell you that, but Lisa asked, what gummorgall's character would you just for at a con and the same like AJ and Noah go to all of their conventions?
1:35:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel so the first person that jumped into my head is Chilton era Paris.
1:35:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh, yes, yes.
1:35:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I only use like the half pony tail.
1:35:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I'm not doing it today, but that's like my go to hairstyle and like where he does it quite a bit too.
1:35:47
[SPEAKER_01]: But I feel like there's just something like authoritative about Paris in like the pleats and the jacket and like I don't know like that was my that was my gut reactions.
1:35:57
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to go with that amazing someone asked if you have advice for editing a novel as a book editor knowing that you don't edit fiction but like in your own process like what's the most helpful thing for you?
1:36:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a few pieces of advice.
1:36:11
[SPEAKER_01]: First is the one that no one ever wants, which is finish your draft and let it sit for at least a month.
1:36:20
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really hard to be objective on something that you just wrote.
1:36:23
[SPEAKER_01]: The best case scenario is to leave it alone for like two months and then come back and be in a position where it's like
1:36:31
[SPEAKER_01]: This sounds a lot like me, but I kind of don't remember writing it or writing this part of it and like that is the sweet spot where then you can go through and you'll be you'll be less precious and you'll sort of do what needs to be done I think it's best to read cold.
1:36:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And I write myself a letter like the way I would for one of my authors like I will write like a long editorial letter to myself like being like how would I say this and I also like we've comments I do I do a full edit because I think it's easier to get through again like that objective criticism and then also like the game plan piece if you're not toggling back and forth between here's the to do and then I'm going to fix it.
1:37:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like make the queries, but you don't have to come up with the solution in that moment.
1:37:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like call out like this conversation needs work.
1:37:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, you're done on that page now.
1:37:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Now go to the next page and like be like we need to cut two paragraphs here.
1:37:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And then don't cut them like just write the note.
1:37:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And next time you go through it, then you flip and you become like author you, author you answers the how of those questions.
1:37:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So go through you get the note that's like like the dialogue needs work.
1:37:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Now it's time to fix it.
1:37:42
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's like toggling back and forth.
1:37:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It's sort of like shutting down your computer and restarting it every single time you need to write a sentence.
1:37:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Like
1:37:49
[SPEAKER_01]: get through the whole thing, do your whole plan, and then switch and address the queries.
1:37:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I think the last piece is like, ultimately, like, you can only take things so far on your own.
1:38:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So, there's only so much objectivity any of us can have on our work, and there's only so many reads you can do a book before you go completely snow blind.
1:38:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't have like a prescriptive attitude about beta readers.
1:38:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I do think that writers know in their gut when something is or isn't good enough.
1:38:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you sense that you could use more help, you probably need it.
1:38:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's a good time to call in someone who you trust.
1:38:27
[SPEAKER_01]: and who you know will give you fair feedback and actually take time to read it.
1:38:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's the other thing.
1:38:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Like don't go to a friend who you think might be like jealous or anything that might get in the way like super busy.
1:38:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Like if someone's like don't set up someone to fail basically.
1:38:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So like
1:38:42
[SPEAKER_01]: go to someone who you know has the capacity to like really sit with the book and like not read it in three hours like read it in like you know the full like 12 it's going to take like to really like that's like a deep edit takes a long time so that's some like just starter started things and I'm sure I can't granular that's perfect.
1:39:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Whoever asked that question, I'm very glad they did because like that's extremely helpful for me because like one of the hardest things for me to do is to like toggle from editor to writer I'm like, okay, I need to fix this.
1:39:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna fix it now, but like that's such like a good thought to like that's later me I'm gonna put on her hat and she's gonna be mad at me, but she has to do the work.
1:39:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, that's I really really love that But on that same note Katie asked she is a writer and she asked what is a day in the life writing routine for you like
1:39:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I do not have a daily writing routine, so I have a day job and my day is very wide wildly.
1:39:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So I figure out sort of what a given day looks like at the start of the day.
1:39:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'll look and be like, how many meetings do I have?
1:39:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, how extroverted do I have to be?
1:39:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, when, when are they?
1:39:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I have a lot of meetings, I'll try to write before I go to work because I will be totally used up.
1:39:53
[SPEAKER_01]: If I don't, if it's like more of a like desk work kind of day, then I will often leave it to after like the evenings.
1:40:00
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's like, it's like, it's like having a yoga routine while you're like on a business trip, like that's sort of me writing.
1:40:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like, it's like, I always do morning pages.
1:40:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I always do them in the morning?
1:40:10
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
1:40:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I always take a walk.
1:40:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it at the same time every day?
1:40:14
[SPEAKER_01]: No, but it's like checking those boxes is sort of like the health routine and then writing depends on what's happening.
1:40:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And I will also say like drafting for me is a much faster process than like actually going in and like doing edits and making lines good like.
1:40:30
[SPEAKER_01]: when I'm drafting like I know what's happening and I'm just like following the characters that's that's very fast work but like trying to make one good sentence could potentially take an hour.
1:40:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like it's really like there are parts of it where it's like that's when I'm doing like four or five hours of work and night in addition to my job but people have like different cadences and different styles and I have many author friends who don't write the way that I do and they they will like work on a paragraph and when that paragraph's done it's done
1:41:00
[SPEAKER_01]: and then they go to the next paragraph.
1:41:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like if that's your bag, like that's totally fine too.
1:41:05
[SPEAKER_01]: This is just, you know, how it works with me.
1:41:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, and I love that.
1:41:09
[SPEAKER_00]: That's incredible.
1:41:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, that you're able to do like all of that work all day and then spend that time in the evening and afternoon doing that, because that's so hard like having the capacity and just like honestly the energy to do that is incredible.
1:41:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I do love it and like it's yeah, but it's it's long days and I think it's like often what ends up happening to is like I kind of just work every day like I'll like do a little bit on the weekends like for work I'll do a little bit on the weekends for writing and like that means that on a given day there's like it's just more of a balance.
1:41:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know it's like we don't have kids which I think is important to call out because like I'm not doing this in addition to like balancing motherhood.
1:41:50
[SPEAKER_01]: which is and I have many friends who are authors who do have kids so it's like it's totally doable but it's not like I'm aware that that's like a trade-off in a luxury in many ways too just like something off your plate to like not have to consider in all of this yeah but Jade asks what's your experience with improv because it's so clear that you have a lot of experience with improv
1:42:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I took improv classes for a couple of years when I first moved to the city at UCB.
1:42:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I did levels one through four, and then I took a grab-ed water class that I loved, which is when one actor has memorized lines from a play.
1:42:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And the other actor is not familiar with the scene and is an improviser and just has to respond.
1:42:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So one person has no choice in what they're saying and the other person has to like dance around them and it's really, really, really fun.
1:42:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And I really loved it.
1:42:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I had an indie team half birthday.
1:42:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I acknowledged them in the book, and we performed around the Manhattan improv circuit in random basements.
1:42:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was really great.
1:42:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And I loved it.
1:42:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I had friends and it was just an interesting group of people psychologically.
1:42:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think ultimately, I kind of always knew that it wasn't going to be a long-term thing in the sense that I'm such a writer.
1:43:05
[SPEAKER_01]: But I also knew I wasn't a sketchwriter.
1:43:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I'm a novel writer.
1:43:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So I might as well be here and experience this.
1:43:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think now I can say, like, looking back, like a lot of what I was drawn to is like, improvisers can just like drop into their subconsciouses.
1:43:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And I really wanted that kind of access and relationship to myself.
1:43:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think, like, that's what drew me in.
1:43:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I wanted to be able to do that, but I wasn't ready and also,
1:43:33
[SPEAKER_01]: the place that I do that is alone in my office.
1:43:36
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not in front of people.
1:43:38
[SPEAKER_00]: So I love your, I guess, relationship to the subconscious and how that exists into the blue.
1:43:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Because my sister, she's been on her actor journey.
1:43:47
[SPEAKER_00]: She's on crescent city.
1:43:48
[SPEAKER_00]: She was like, I don't know what to read after this.
1:43:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, what is something that's good?
1:43:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, I actually think you would like into the blue.
1:43:52
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm a British, she's like, I don't want to read contemporary.
1:43:54
[SPEAKER_00]: That was like, but they're like faded mates.
1:43:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Because they like exist in the subconscious space.
1:43:59
[SPEAKER_00]: That's like always been made for the two of them together.
1:44:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And it feels like some sort of like fantastical element to it, which you can lean into, or if you were not into fantasy, you're like, that's just, they just love each other.
1:44:11
[SPEAKER_00]: That's just them.
1:44:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's like so perfectly suited for both sides, the table, if you will.
1:44:18
[SPEAKER_00]: But someone asked, was the hardest part of into the blue to write?
1:44:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, all of it, like, well, because you know what's coming, like, and I think it's interesting, like, I love when people want to reread it because, like, there's so much that you can't possibly notice the first time when you're like racing to find out what happens, and I know that, like, I know because I've gone through it, like, dozens of times, like, that there's a lot of stuff that I like purposely left so that it's like, they're kind of like, when
1:44:49
[SPEAKER_01]: when you return and you you're not rushing.
1:44:52
[SPEAKER_01]: But at every time you go back to the beginning, you kind of know what's coming.
1:44:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like it's sort of like a different parts of the book you're carrying the burden in different ways as the creator.
1:45:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I think like it's a lot like like when you have an argument with someone and then afterwards you kind of go through it in your head and you're like, I should have said that.
1:45:11
[SPEAKER_01]: writing an argument is that where you both have the argument and then you have that like editorial like I should have said that but you're doing it like 50 times.
1:45:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like the argument just keeps restarting and over and over and it's like there were kind of like these characters were so alive to me and and their like their pain was so real to me that like there were times where we'd be like add dinner and my husband would be like are you okay and I'm hitting
1:45:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Had a tonic like staring ahead.
1:45:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, sorry, they're fighting in my head and it's like It's precious when I say it like that, but it is like it's like that show ghosts where like only one spouse can see the ghosts in the house and the other spouse Just kind of has to take their word for it.
1:45:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And I feel bad for Kevin because like I spoil everything like I tell him everything because I need his brain to help me think things through
1:46:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So then he gets to finally read it and he kind of already knows what's coming but anyway, it's like a whole thing.
1:46:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't have like one particular scene that like every scene that you are upset by, I was upset by a lot, so like don't worry about that.
1:46:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And it takes a long time to write it, so it's like, you know, the midpoint scene where there's like a big touch base conversation, we'll just say it in the most neutral language possible.
1:46:31
[SPEAKER_01]: That took a week the first time.
1:46:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I did it and it took another week and it's like you're living in what is an hour and a half long conversation, you're living in that headspace.
1:46:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, the theme of like you're playing with space and time, like that is what writing is, like, you're making a moment last and last and last, but you're also living in that moment, like, for a long time.
1:46:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, it's, there's a lot that was hard.
1:46:57
[SPEAKER_00]: It almost makes me feel bad that I devoured it in about four seconds that scene that took you like a week to do and like I was just like racing through it and then every time I read it It's just like I'm just so addicted to it that I'm just like burning through it that I feel like I should I should take that time that you took to it It's right and don't feel bad and it's like but that and that's the nature of consumption and creation like I feel annoyed every time So like I make dinner and it's gone in three minutes.
1:47:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like
1:47:23
[SPEAKER_01]: that took time.
1:47:24
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like the same thing right?
1:47:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, let's just let this nature.
1:47:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, back to the chef metaphor.
1:47:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:47:31
[SPEAKER_00]: So the last audience question I have is, how did you go about deciding the ending without spoiling it?
1:47:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you write multiple endings?
1:47:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you change it?
1:47:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Because there's a lot of versions of the actual ending that happens.
1:47:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll say scenes that like when we actually get to the actual ending, how did that
1:47:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It was part of the opposite of the beginning of the book which was like art by committee and we didn't billion million versions.
1:47:56
[SPEAKER_01]: This was the exact opposite.
1:47:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So I wrote the ending.
1:47:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew I wanted to do these plays from the beginning.
1:48:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's how the spoiler.
1:48:03
[SPEAKER_01]: It's in the introduction.
1:48:04
[SPEAKER_01]: But I was working up to it like from the beginning of the book.
1:48:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I knew that their ultimate conversation was going to happen on stage and it was going to be in this format.
1:48:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the question was how to make this something that is epic and that's something that's like tweet and precious and strange.
1:48:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think a lot of that has to do with what comes before, not just like what's there.
1:48:26
[SPEAKER_01]: But when I finally got there, this is like November of 2023.
1:48:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I stayed up until two in the morning and wrote it all in one sitting.
1:48:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I wrote all the plays in one sitting and I then like did a full rewrite in the months that followed and when I got to the plays again, I similarly in a few days like did a second rewrite and then they didn't really change.
1:48:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wanted to exhaust certain possibilities within the plays.
1:48:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And at the second draft point, I knew what was going to happen.
1:48:58
[SPEAKER_01]: When I did that first like staying up until two in the morning, like I also did not know how I was going to end.
1:49:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And I also was staying like narrating through it.
1:49:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And just like it really was just like I was not there.
1:49:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like I was like,
1:49:11
[SPEAKER_01]: in the forest.
1:49:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, like I was just like recording what I saw.
1:49:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And I knew certain things were going to happen up to certain points.
1:49:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I did not know what was going to happen from there.
1:49:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So, wow, it was not planned.
1:49:25
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just like they were that
1:49:27
[SPEAKER_01]: real and alive at that point.
1:49:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just like taking it down.
1:49:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
1:49:31
[SPEAKER_00]: See that's that's like the reverse where it's like just the fact that that like all came out and like it just stabbed me over and over again every single night.
1:49:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it just is just so it's so masterful.
1:49:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Like just like that ending is so beautiful.
1:49:46
[SPEAKER_00]: It concludes every single like piece of their story.
1:49:49
[SPEAKER_00]: So
1:49:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Just like marvelously.
1:49:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I loved it so so much so like the fact that that just like spilled out of you I'm like oh it was on your right like it was painful But it was like it's so satisfying and it's like because it's a battle of wills and it's a skirmish of words And it's like I'm in there too like like shaping it as it comes through But it's sort of like I don't know like
1:50:13
[SPEAKER_01]: it's sort of like being the last man in the assembly line when you're writing like that it's like they're sending stuff through and I'm just sort of like putting it in the box and like shipping it down like it was a real journey like it was a real experience getting to write like that and it's been like a few years and I still like kind of can't believe it so
1:50:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like there's always like as writers, there's those moments in those scenes that like come out of us like like something is being imbued into us that like you kind of like fantasize about again you're like oh my gosh what about that one night when everything just came out so seamlessly like can't I have one of those again like how do I get
1:50:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Well that's that's the journey and it's like it's spiritual, it's crazy, it's like you are open to forces larger than yourself when that happens and you cannot you know you're asking about being a feeling person It's like you can't exist at a hundred percent all the time like you can't live that open all the time But you can live that open some of the time and it is in insane experience.
1:51:13
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very cool
1:51:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, oh I love that this conversation has like been so helpful both in like being a lover of this book Being a writer like I just feel like this has been absolutely fantastic.
1:51:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I know I had so much fun too And you're so easy to talk to and these questions are amazing.
1:51:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much My next question was about what is next for you?
1:51:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Which I think that you mentioned is you're so percolating you're still flipping through the photo book in your mind of what what's gonna happen Do you have any idea dating yeah?
1:51:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I tear dating.
1:51:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that so much.
1:51:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Just trying to figure it out, hoping a, like a nice little download from the universe comes by something that I like was thinking about though as you were talking about I guess the download from the universe and just kind of putting that out there and as I was reading it, I felt like so deeply about the end of this book, but I also I have a history with working on Broadway.
1:52:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I was associate producer and Broadway.
1:52:04
[SPEAKER_00]: before the pandemic.
1:52:05
[SPEAKER_00]: But as I was watching it, I was thinking about who was the assistant company manager on the show that Noah and AJ are doing and how many requests do they get daily for tickets for this sold out show?
1:52:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that was like where my mind was going and all of that because it just felt so real.
1:52:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you just have just such a real way of writing that I'm just so excited.
1:52:25
[SPEAKER_00]: to see whatever you do next.
1:52:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe with your next project, we'll have some Emma Brody diary entries to pass along.
1:52:33
[SPEAKER_00]: If you ever need anything from the Emma Brody diary, you let me know.
1:52:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Amazing.
1:52:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know I was going to start it until this, but like, you know, I've been enrolled for another, like, that's cool.
1:52:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna go out and get a special notebook, you know?
1:52:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, just like, maybe get one that just says Emma and everyone will be super confused because that's not my name.
1:52:50
[SPEAKER_00]: But my last question is for you is one that I ask everyone.
1:52:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is, what is a book you would recommend for Chemicals Fans.
1:52:56
[SPEAKER_01]: how do you recommend a book for your world's fans?
1:52:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Like they've probably had every book that more reads in the show.
1:53:02
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no.
1:53:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I honestly feel like less people read, I mean, to generalize.
1:53:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like more people are into contemporary and bromance that listen to this.
1:53:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And there are definitely people who are reading classics and reading the books that were read, but I feel like it's definitely a venn diagram of different types of readers.
1:53:19
[SPEAKER_01]: What about it's different this time by Jost Richard?
1:53:22
[SPEAKER_01]: That one is like sort of an entry, yes.
1:53:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It's cozy and cover, yes.
1:53:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's like definitely like some great like Gilmorey drama and it, but I also felt really deeply while reading that book and like it's a long history like it's a similar like second chance
1:53:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's, I feel like the setting, like the west village is sort of like the star's hollow of New York.
1:53:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah.
1:53:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Why not?
1:53:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
1:53:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Taylor Swift used to live there, just like she still then stars hollow.
1:53:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Lee, right?
1:53:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
1:54:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, my darling, I'm already, thank you so much for this book, for this conversation.
1:54:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like a better person having left this conversation talking to you, like I feel so much happier, but also,
1:54:12
[SPEAKER_00]: just like deeply grieving, everything that I still don't know, like all of the prologues that I learned about that I'll never see about this book because I just think, yeah, I trust, I trust.
1:54:24
[SPEAKER_00]: But thank you so much for chatting with me.
1:54:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Congratulations on all your success and please, please, keep writing for me.
1:54:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I will.
1:54:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't wait to see the diary.
1:54:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I will send, I will send.
1:54:38
[SPEAKER_00]: My book Loving Besties, thank you so much for joining me for another episode of Gilmour to Read.
1:54:42
[SPEAKER_00]: If you'd like to join the book club conversation, head over to Patreon, Reak & Join for Free.
1:54:46
[SPEAKER_00]: In July, where you read all of follow is reading spectacular things by Bec Dory Stein, and my next podcast guest on Gilmour to Read will be at Rich bit.
1:54:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Until then, happy reading friends!