16. The Road to Publication: A Roundtable Discussion with Jeanne Blasberg & Susie Orman Schnall

I'm having an inspired conversation with two of my sisters in publishing for our books releasing this spring and summer. And there's a giveaway!👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻

Together with authors Jeanne Blasberg and Susie Orman Schnall, we're breaking it down and talking about the real, real behind: 

• The writing process
• The publishing industry
• What it took to get our books out into the world

THERE'S ALSO A GIVEAWAY!!📚
To enter a giveaway of 10+ new releases in fiction:
1) Leave a rating for this podcast
2) Take a screenshot of your rating
3) Email it to me at nicole@nicolemeier.com

U.S. residents only. Must be 18 yrs and over to enter. One winner will be chosen at random by May 28, 2024.

Where can find Jeanne Blasberg:
Website: https://jeanneblasberg.com
Instagram: @jeanneblasbergauthor

Where you can find Susie Orman Schnall:
Website: https://susieschnall.com
Instagram: @susieormanschnall

Nicole Meier: Website | Instagram | Programs | Free Novel Writing Guide

Transcript

STEPS TO STORY EP 14 - Interview with Jeanne Blasberg, Susie Orman Schnall and Nicole Meier

[00:00:00] Nicole Meier: Hello, listeners. I am thrilled to welcome you to a very special episode of Steps to Story. Inside this episode, I'm having an inspired conversation with two of my sisters in publishing, which means we share a publisher for our books releasing this spring and summer. Together with authors Susie Orman Schnall and Jeanne Blasberg, we're breaking it down and talking about the real, real behind the writing process, the publishing business, and what it took to get our books out into the world.

[00:00:30] Nicole Meier: Stick around, this was so much fun.

[00:00:40] Nicole Meier: Welcome to Steps to Story, the show that helps aspiring authors turn their ideas into action and transform their dream of writing a book into a reality. I'm your host, Nicole Meier, multi published author and certified book coach. I spent the first part of my fiction writing career desperate for guidance that was unavailable to me.

[00:01:02] Nicole Meier: I wrote draft after draft, flying by the seat of my pants, with lots of passion, but little guidance. Thankfully, there was a writing community that opened its arms and welcomed me. This community sustained me. But when it came to strengthening my novel writing process, I was determined to find a better way.

[00:01:23] Nicole Meier: One that didn't involve piecemeal strategies and confusing courses. Now, more than a decade later. I'm serving my younger self who yearned for support while writing a book. If you're an emerging author seeking guidance, this podcast is for you. Are you on the list to get my novel writing guide? I designed this workbook to take you through five essential strategies that will level up your novel writing process.

[00:01:52] Nicole Meier: Grab your free copy at NicoleMeier. com forward slash crafting greatness. That's NicoleMeier. com forward slash crafting greatness or at the link in the show notes.

[00:02:14] Nicole Meier: Okay. Welcome. Welcome. Before we begin, I'd love to share a bit about my two guests today. The first is Jean Blasberg. She's an award winning and best selling author and essayist. Her most recent book, The Promise of a Daughter, just released in April. Her other books include The Nine, which was honored with the 2019 Forward Indies Gold Award in Thriller and Suspense and the Gold Medal and Juror's Choice in the 2019 National Indie Excellence Awards, among others.

[00:02:46] Nicole Meier: Her debut novel, Eden, won the Benjamin Franklin Silver Award for Best New Voice in Fiction and was a finalist for the Sarton Woman's Book Award for Historical Fiction. Jean was named a Bookends Fellow in April 2021. She co chairs on the board of the Boston Book Festival and serves on the executive committee of Grub Street.

[00:03:09] Nicole Meier: Both a teacher of writing and a lifetime learner, Jean founded the Westerly Writers Workshop to offer writing workshops in memoir and fiction. Jean reviews contemporary fiction for the New York Journal of Books, her essays have appeared in the Huffington Post, the Boston Book Blog, DIY MFA, Grown and Flown, the Jewish Book Council, Squash Magazine, Adopting.

[00:03:33] Nicole Meier: com, and many others. You can catch up on her latest reviews on her blog. And, when not in New England, Jean splits her time between Park City, Utah and growing organic vegetables in Verona, Wisconsin. Now I'd love to introduce Susie Orman Schnall. She is the author of five novels about ambitious women. Anna Bright Is Hiding Something is her latest and it releases June 4th.

[00:03:58] Nicole Meier: She is also the author of We Came Here to Shine, The Subway Girls, The Balance Project, and On Grace. She's also a screenwriter currently shopping her first pilot and feature length screenplay. A mother of three sons, Susie grew up in Los Angeles, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, and now lives with her husband in New York.

[00:04:19] Nicole Meier: When she's not reading or writing, you can find her doing a crossword puzzle, playing around on Canva, or hiking to the top of a mountain. Welcome. Welcome. Okay, I'm so excited to dive into this discussion today because it is book launch season for the three of us. And what I would love to do, authors, is to let you first say hello, and then I'm going to have you just launch right into my first question, which is what inspired your new book?

[00:04:49] Nicole Meier: So without further ado, I am going to ask Jeannie first, if you want to answer that. 

[00:04:56] Jeanne Blasberg: Thank you, Nicole. It's so great to be here. Jeannie Blasberg, my new book is Daughter of a Promise and it just came out a week ago, so I'm really in the thick of this book launch thing. As the title might imply, Daughter of a Promise is about a young woman and it's a coming of age story.

[00:05:16] Jeanne Blasberg: And what inspired it? I think that's a great question. I have written some other novels. But I think I always had in the back of my mind that I wanted to revisit the feelings I had at a time in my life, early twenties, just graduated from college, first job, eyes wide open, working at an investment bank. I was an art history major.

[00:05:43] Jeanne Blasberg: I was barely keeping my head above water. I was in awe of what was around me and New York City and my first opportunity to live in Manhattan, but I was also in fear that I was going to mess up at work every day. And that went on for a little over two years. So my main character, Betsabe Ruiz, is feeling a lot of those feels and.

[00:06:08] Jeanne Blasberg: Even though it was almost, I don't, God, I shouldn't even say that, close to like 30 some odd, almost 40 years ago for me. Those feelings have stuck around, and as I have older adult children and I watch them going into the working world, I just remember this, the ulcers. So anyway, that first job, Itis, was kind of an inspiration.

[00:06:31] Jeanne Blasberg: And then I just have to mention, I like to do retellings, biblical stories retold are some of the things I like to do. And so I actually turned this into a. retelling of the David and Beth Sheba story. So it's a love triangle. It's an iconic love story between a young woman and a very powerful man. I'd say those were the two main inspirations, and I kind of used both of those to the best of my ability.

[00:07:03] Nicole Meier: I love that premise. I love the inspiration, and I love the retelling. I mean, really, that just hooks me right away. And I'm a big fan of learning things while I read a really engaging story, and it feels like your book delivers all of that. And you have launched already by the time this episode has aired, and you have had great reviews, right?

[00:07:25] Jeanne Blasberg: I'm so thrilled. A great review to me means I've connected, like I've expressed myself well, and I've gotten across what I was hoping people would get across. Great writing doesn't always bang people over the head. You leave the space open for the reader to make their own interpretations and connections.

[00:07:49] Jeanne Blasberg: And I feel like they're making the ones I wanted them to make and they're resonating with the story. So the reviews are amazing only because I feel so validated in that the topic's interesting to other people and they're kind of getting the message I hoped they might get. 

[00:08:07] Nicole Meier: That's so great. And it's so great for writers out there to hear that too, because I always say, make sure you understand the message you want your reader to walk away with.

[00:08:14] Nicole Meier: And it sounds like you totally have accomplished that so far. So congrats to you, Jeannie. Thank you. Okay, Susie, I would also love for you to jump in here now and just remind us the title of your book and talk about the inspiration and all the good things. 

[00:08:30] Susie Schnall: Great. Hi, Nicole. Thank you for having me. I'm Susie Orman Schnall and my novel that comes out on June 4th is Anna Bright is Hiding Something.

[00:08:40] Susie Schnall: And it is a cat and mouse novel set in the worlds of Silicon Valley female founders and New York City new media. And it focuses on a biotech founder who is coming out with a new product and is about to launch her multi billion dollar valued company. But she's committing fraud and nobody knows it yet except for a young journalist in New York City who uncovers the fraud and works to take Anna Bright down on the eve of Anna's IPO.

[00:09:11] Susie Schnall: So it's really fun, it's really modern, it's a workplace drama. With a little bit of mystery, but a lot of fun and very relatable, I've been talking about it as a cross between Hulu's The Dropout and Netflix's Inventing Anna. So it's just really fun and I'm excited for people to get to read it because it's in the news these days, which relates to how I came up with the idea for this book, which is that This is my fifth book, and I've written workplace fiction.

[00:09:45] Susie Schnall: Now, some of that has been historical fiction, and some of that has been contemporary fiction, but they've all been based on ambitious women. And that's kind of the through line for all of my novels, is that they're women who are facing professional and personal challenges in the workplace and in their lives, whether it's in the 1930s and 1940s, as with my last two books, or in the modern day with my first two in this.

[00:10:08] Susie Schnall: Fifth one. And I got the idea for this as I was deciding what to write after my last book, which is called We Came Here to Shine and was set at the 1939 New York World's Fair. I was really into all of the stories that were abounding about female founders. And I know people have an issue with that term, female founder, just like they had an issue with the term work life balance.

[00:10:34] Susie Schnall: Because we don't call men, men founders, we call them founders, but there is a special category for women in terms of the way that their business is analyzed and in the way that funding is analyzed for how much money is going from venture capital funds into these women led businesses. And so I really do need to differentiate when I call them female founders.

[00:11:01] Susie Schnall: Or women entrepreneurs, but what inspired it mostly was reading the book, bad blood, which some of you may have read, which is about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos. And I was captivated by that scandal for so many reasons. One, because I'm so not an Elizabeth Holmes. Jeannie is talking about those days, years and decades ago when we were working in corporate America and I was head down, follow the rules, do my work, pay my dues.

[00:11:29] Susie Schnall: I would never have lied in my job and to see a woman like Elizabeth Holmes, who is so bold and just doing what she did always blew my mind. And I was fascinated by that. I also am a recipient of Fortune's daily newsletter, which is called the broadsheet, which is all about women in business. And there's just so many interesting stories.

[00:11:51] Susie Schnall: And I decided that I wanted to take that concept and put it into a novel. And that's how Anna Bright is Hiding Something began. 

[00:12:02] Nicole Meier: So relevant and timely and smart. And I'm so hooked by this because it does capture what's happening in sort of the business culture, especially in the United States, but also What I love, love, love about both of your books is that it is smart fiction.

[00:12:20] Nicole Meier: That's what I'm seeing now. You know, with women's fiction, upmarket fiction, contemporary or historical, I'm seeing much more what I call smart fiction. We are really getting into the lives of those strong female characters. And I just love the landscape that you're painting and then all of the drama that comes along with it.

[00:12:40] Susie Schnall: Thank you. And I should say that even though it centers a scandal driven woman, my book is really a love letter to all of the founders, all of the female founders who are killing it, who are working their rear ends off. to create businesses of value, to create products that we want to use. And they are working so hard and they are up against so many odds in terms of how much funding goes to men versus women.

[00:13:09] Susie Schnall: And so there's a lot in the book that just celebrates the women who are doing it well. So great. Love 

[00:13:15] Nicole Meier: it. Okay. Thank you so much for sharing that. Okay, listeners, so because my book is also coming out this spring, I would love to share my answers to these questions, too. My book is coming out May 28th, and it's called City of Books, and it is all inspired by sort of real life events, meaning that in the spring of 2020, at the height of the pandemic, The famous Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon, shut down.

[00:13:45] Nicole Meier: And to anyone that hasn't been there, it's an institution, it's famous, it's something like 68, 000 square feet. And it's actually been written up as like the Eiffel Tower of the Pacific Northwest because when people get off the airplane in Oregon, that's sort of the first destination they go see. So I, as a reader and a writer, was devastated when they shut their doors.

[00:14:05] Nicole Meier: The pandemic hit Portland particularly hard and I live in Oregon, so I was really close to all of the action. So this caused me to imagine a story where booksellers work really hard to save a fictional bookstore. So while it's loosely based on Powell's, the characters in my book work at a different bookstore, but they all sort of band together, and my message is that community can kind of solve all problems, and that's what really what I leaned into into this book.

[00:14:37] Nicole Meier: And, of course, it's every bibliophile's dream to spend the night in a bookstore. So I have kind of a band of unlikely heroes that get together and decide to save their institution, which is their bookstore in Portland. That's the quick summary of it, it comes out May 28th. And without further ado, I'm going to jump into the next question.

[00:14:59] Nicole Meier: So my next question, and I'll start with you, Jeannie, is how is this writing process different from your others? And that could be other published books or other stories you've written, I'd love to know. 

[00:15:10] Jeanne Blasberg: Well, thanks for asking this question, Nicole. I feel really proud of myself because My first novel took, I will confess, it took about 12 years to write my second novel.

[00:15:24] Jeanne Blasberg: The process paralleled a little with the first novel. The first novel went in a drawer for a while, but it took about six years and now I with Daughter of A Promise. I really started in full force in 2019, and here it is, 2024 and it's already out. So I'd say it, I'm getting better, but I think one of the reasons this process was different.

[00:15:46] Jeanne Blasberg: Was because after the first draft was completed, I applied to a fellowship program at Stony Brook and I was accepted to the small program and really got feedback in terms of ripping it apart and rewriting it, I guess a lot earlier and a lot more thoroughly than I had with the first two novels. I feel like the first novel, I was a little bit in my closet for a while before I ever showed it to anyone.

[00:16:17] Jeanne Blasberg: And by the time I showed it to anybody, I had probably written a million words and I was a little rudderless. I had great characters and setting, but I really needed help with the plot and like, what was the heart of the story? And I guess as I've written. Now, and more importantly, taking a lot of classes.

[00:16:39] Jeanne Blasberg: I'm like a perennial student at any class that sounds interesting and fits in my schedule and also a seeker of writing groups and mentorship. So I'd say with that in mind, and also my experience now reading more critically and seeing how other folks achieve something and accomplish something in a book, just like it.

[00:17:04] Jeanne Blasberg: reading with a critical eye as opposed to just reading for pleasure as I had before. I'm getting better at this thing. Although writing is never efficient. You never get so good that it's easy. And that's kind of cool. But I would credit the fact that I had two classmates in this fellowship. We each tore each other's books apart and then gave each other the support to rewrite.

[00:17:30] Jeanne Blasberg: And then for six months, I had a mentor, author named Scott Cheshire, who lives in New York City and wrote a great book in 2014 called As High as the Horse's Bridal. But anyway, he really got what I was hoping to accomplish and worked with me in terms The reason this story has to be told now is what's the vehicle for telling it?

[00:17:57] Jeanne Blasberg: Is my protagonist going to be completely reliable or slightly unreliable? And what's the vehicle in which this is going to be told? And I feel like he really helped me tighten up the heart of the story was and why it was urgent for my narrator to be telling it when she was telling it. And I think, I don't know, I just can't say enough about getting.

[00:18:22] Jeanne Blasberg: Or for me, the benefits of getting advice earlier and more deeply and like the real slashing and burning as opposed to kind of the nice writing group critique. That was really different for me for this 

[00:18:39] Nicole Meier: one. I love that you brought up all of those topics. And first of all, congrats on the fellowship. I mean, it sounds amazing, but really, I strongly believe in all that too, right?

[00:18:48] Nicole Meier: Getting your community of trusted people together, whether that's the mentors or the course leaders. Or, uh, really trusted sort of beta reader slash critique partner, Because it's not as something we want to do anymore. The whole idea of artists creating in that solitary bubble is sort of passe to me. So I love the idea, and I love that you shared that with everybody.

[00:19:10] Nicole Meier: That. You really have this group of people championing your work, but also helping you strengthen it. So that's awesome. 

[00:19:17] Jeanne Blasberg: Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I don't think I'm the only one who benefits from this type of work process. I certainly didn't have the community with the first novel, or at least for the first few years of the first novel.

[00:19:31] Jeanne Blasberg: I also love giving feedback, and so I can't say enough about the privilege of when people share their work with me in a writing group or in a class, and I'm able to give feedback. It really is like, oh, I see what they're doing. They're doing and I could actually do that better too. So the whole process of just being critical and analytical and thoughtful around other people's writing has helped me with my writing as well.

[00:20:04] Jeanne Blasberg: So cool and so wise. Thank you 

[00:20:05] Nicole Meier: for sharing that. Love it. Okay, Susie, we're on to you. I would love to know how your writing process was different this time around, or if it was. And what that looked like. 

[00:20:18] Susie Schnall: Mostly I would say that because my last two novels were historical fiction and this was contemporary fiction, I would say that the research aspect of it was different.

[00:20:31] Susie Schnall: And I'm going to qualify that because whereas I did a ton of research for my last two on the World's Fair and on the Miss Subway's contest, which was an advertising program, um, in the New York City subway system and really needed to get the clothes right and the language right and the food right and the whole what New York City was like during the 30s and the 40s for those two books.

[00:20:54] Susie Schnall: Luckily for this one, I was working in the modern day, but I was working in an industry that I'm not familiar with that is not native to me, you know, the biotech industry. So I didn't have to do the same sort of historical research, but I had to still do research to understand these dynamics at play with the new media business in New York City and the startup culture in Silicon Valley.

[00:21:21] Susie Schnall: And what was really interesting for this book is I had to invent a product and I am not an inventor, I'm not an entrepreneur and what I needed to create a product that would have qualified the company in the book, which is called Bright Life, to be able to raise hundreds of millions of dollars. And so that took a lot of time for me to find out what hasn't been invented yet, but wasn't entirely science fiction that could sound a little reasonable to my reader.

[00:21:52] Susie Schnall: And so I kind of verge on this line between something that hasn't been invented yet and still is a little bit unreal. But sounds realistic enough. And that was really tricky, but really fun. And then I also had to really learn the world of IPOs and venture capital valuation. Luckily, my husband is in finance, so I was like, what would be a realistic valuation for a company of this size and this type of product?

[00:22:20] Susie Schnall: And so he was really helpful with that. And. What's funny is that from when I first wrote the first draft and had the valuations of the company and how much this woman would be worth till when I did my last draft. draft reading through the last edit, we upped it like doubled the valuation of the company because what was realistic two or three years ago would not be realistic for something to have this much hype, this company to be this well known in the industry with that sort of valuation.

[00:22:47] Susie Schnall: So That being said, you don't have to really understand business to read this book. It doesn't get too jargony. It comes at it from making sure that I'm honoring the truth of the industry, but not to the point where you have to be a finance major to understand it. Cause I am. Far from that. So I would say that the biggest difference was in the type of research that I did.

[00:23:09] Susie Schnall: My process was definitely the same. I'm a plotter. I outline my books before I start, all longhand on yellow legal pads. I need to understand who my characters are. I use books like Save the Cat and Story Genius by Lisa Krohn. And I kind of go through those books as a course every single time before I start writing a book.

[00:23:32] Susie Schnall: And I make sure that I understand what the theme of the story is, or I, I get there eventually, but I need to know the beginning, middle, and end. I need to know what the beats are. I need to know the highs and lows. It always changes when I'm halfway through the manuscript, always, and I have to go back and re plot, but this is the process that I need in order to start.

[00:23:52] Susie Schnall: So that didn't change, but I would say the research process changed. 

[00:23:57] Nicole Meier: Okay, I love hearing all of that. First of all, hopefully your husband gets a little nod in your acknowledgments because that's great. Of course. And also, again, I, like I said to Jeannie at the top of the, the session, was that I love learning things while I'm being entertained and this from your story, I totally learned things and I love the idea that you came up with the right product and the right valuation.

[00:24:24] Nicole Meier: So was there a whole process and did you have like a bunch of sticky notes on the wall of different products you might do? How did that go? 

[00:24:30] Susie Schnall: Yeah, it originally started with a home automation product. like a smart home sort of thing, but it just wasn't interesting or sexy enough. And my agent actually was the one to call me out and be like, I think you need something different.

[00:24:44] Susie Schnall: And so then I really, what I started to do, I think I researched moonshot products, like what are things that haven't been invented, but people really want. And I just kind of did a lot of research on that and went down a lot of different rabbit holes. And found that Google glass was a really innovative product, but it just didn't work well.

[00:25:04] Susie Schnall: And so I don't want to give too much away, but my product is like the next gen Google glass, more of an implant. So it's definitely different, but along that lines, because I really wanted it to be something that would have changed the world, that there would have been enough hype about this product and this founder, Anna Bright, that everybody would be talking about her.

[00:25:25] Susie Schnall: And she would feel this pressure similarly to how Elizabeth Holmes did feel this pressure to get her product to market because everybody was waiting for it and had the Theranos product work, it would have changed the way that people live their lives and deal with disease and all that. That's how it all kind of happened.

[00:25:44] Susie Schnall: But yeah, it was interesting. And there are some other entrepreneurial inventions scattered in the book. And one of them that I have the daughter of one of the characters coming up with was a product that one of my sons quote unquote invented when he was in high school that we never did anything with it.

[00:26:01] Susie Schnall: But so I had a lot of fun with the invention aspect of it. And then I also had to make sure that the journalism, the newsroom element was right for my second character, who's also a main character, Jamie, who works for Businessberry, which is an online business website, a news website. And wanted to make sure that her environment was real.

[00:26:23] Susie Schnall: So I did have some journalists read those pages and make sure that I was getting that right. 

[00:26:29] Nicole Meier: Love it. Love all of it. I love knowing all this background. It just makes it that much more exciting. So just looping back really quickly to your writing process, we know you're a plotter. We know that is super helpful to you.

[00:26:40] Nicole Meier: Did you still make discoveries as you wrote? Did you have surprises or are you really kind of strict to your outline? 

[00:26:47] Susie Schnall: Yeah, so when people divide themselves into plotters and pansers, I'm definitely a plotter in that binary, but I'm definitely more in the gray area in the middle. I always like to use the analogy that if somebody is going cross country, Pancers will say, I'm leaving New York and I'm going to end up in Los Angeles.

[00:27:05] Susie Schnall: And that is all they know. And then real true plotters know exactly where they're going to stop along the way, every highway they're going to take. They've made dinner reservations and hotel reservations and know exactly which, Jeannie's waving her hand there. They know exactly which tourist attractions they're going to see.

[00:27:21] Susie Schnall: I'm somewhere in the middle. I kind of know how many nights I'll be out there. And I definitely know the route that I'd like to take. Everything changes once I'm on the road. And so I do have an outline, but it's open for. when the characters start doing their own things. You know, I'll be writing and I think that my character is going to do this.

[00:27:42] Susie Schnall: And I'm like, but then they did that. I'm like, Oh my God, where did that come from? And that's just what happens to a writer. So I really want to be open to those changes. So my outline might be two sentences, what the chapter is going to be about. And it's a 4, 000 word chapter. So I don't really know what is exactly going to happen within that chapter, but I know.

[00:28:02] Susie Schnall: where the character has to start and where the character has to end in that chapter to move the story along. And so that's the extent, but I'm going to let Jeannie pipe in there about her plotting. I am 

[00:28:15] Jeanne Blasberg: definitely a pantser, but I am on a cross country drive. And so I do pick where I'm going to stay maybe the few hours before, but that's only because I don't want to jinx myself and make too many plans.

[00:28:30] Jeanne Blasberg: And then I feel like if I make too many plans, I'll get a flat tire or something, so I try to keep it like I kind of know where we're going to stop, but I thought it was funny that you used that analogy since I'm actually sitting in North Platte, Nebraska right now with the intention of making it to Lincoln later tonight.

[00:28:50] Susie Schnall: I'm always astounded by I think it's Stephen King who says he writes as if he's driving with his headlights on. He can only see as far as his headlights show him. And that just blows my mind. And I know some authors who do that, and they end up throwing away a lot more words than I throw away, but they have to write.

[00:29:07] Susie Schnall: To get to their story. That's how they get. Yeah. So it's so interesting. Everybody's so different. 

[00:29:13] Jeanne Blasberg: I think I'm motivated to sit down in the chair because I have these visual inspirations of scenes. And where my character might be going next, but it's like, not until about 75 percent of the way through the process that I'm like, maybe I should put an outline together and figure out how this is all going to tie together and what's useful and like what blanks need to be filled in.

[00:29:37] Jeanne Blasberg: But I definitely don't think I would have as much fun with it if I had it all figured out in the beginning. Or I don't know, I just don't think I know enough. Maybe it's just like I always want dessert and I never want to eat the entree and like doing the hard work of the plotting is like the entree and I'm motivated to sit down and just eat my candy all the time.

[00:29:59] Jeanne Blasberg: But yeah, it probably does result in my long process and having to cut a ton at the end. Oh my gosh. Okay. 

[00:30:07] Nicole Meier: Thank you. Thank you both for sharing that. First of all, it is so helpful to the listeners and it's validating because everybody has their own process. There's no wrong answer. But it's so great to hear the process that you both went through.

[00:30:20] Nicole Meier: And maybe it was different from your first books, but really helpful.

[00:30:28] Nicole Meier: Hi listeners. I'm jumping on here to offer something very exciting. Myself along with Susie and Jean and a host of other authors are offering a giveaway. Inside this giveaway is a bundle of books releasing this spring and summer. All you need to do to enter the giveaway is to leave a rating for this podcast, take a screenshot of it.

[00:30:51] Nicole Meier: And send it to me at nicole@nicolemeier.com. Again, leave a rating, take a snapshot of it and email it to me at nicole@nicolemeier.com. There's more info in the show notes.

[00:31:08] Nicole Meier: I think what I would love to do here is share a mistake I made on this writing process that hopefully will help some listeners. So, on my book, I wrote the first draft in three months. I was so inspired. I was in that honeymoon phase, euphoria, but it was during the pandemic. So I was going through some personal stuff, as so many people were during the pandemic, and I was so concerned, I think subconsciously, that I was going to let my personal stuff bleed onto the page that I held way back.

[00:31:37] Nicole Meier: And when I was writing the protagonist, I wrote what I say, holding the readers at arm's length. I really kept kind of a wall up. And so by the time my agent started pitching a couple of publishers out there, they all gave the same feedback, and it was, love the premise, can't connect to the protagonist.

[00:31:55] Nicole Meier: And I was horrified, not because the publishers were giving these comments, but because I knew better. I was trying so hard to protect my own personal stuff that was going on in the background that I completely made the protagonist this unaccessible person. So I would say this writing process was different in the fact that I made a big mistake.

[00:32:14] Nicole Meier: I love reading and writing character driven novels, and I completely didn't do that even though I wanted to. So that was something that I would just warn other writers out there. Don't write as if someone's reading over your shoulder. Don't hold your reader at arm's length. Because it really shows and it makes people feel like they can't connect.

[00:32:33] Susie Schnall: I think that that is so interesting and so important and I find, and I'm sure you both will agree, that it gets to the point with your novel that you're so close to it, you're so inside of it, you can't even see it anymore, yet we all know when something's not working because we feel it in our stomach.

[00:32:52] Susie Schnall: Okay. And we Just know, and it sounds like you knew and you knew what it was, and we have to kind of listen to that. But it's so hard. And I think just looping this back around, that's when our reading partners really can help because they can tell us that. Absolutely. 

[00:33:09] Nicole Meier: Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to go on to the next question.

[00:33:13] Nicole Meier: This is such a good conversation so far. The next one is. Think about your younger writer self. Is there something you can think of, Jeannie we'll start with you, that you would go 

[00:33:22] Jeanne Blasberg: back and tell her? That's a great question. My younger writing self, like I have been a writer all my life. In my late 30s, early 40s, I was writing a lot of personal essay, and then I thought, you know what, I want to try to write a novel.

[00:33:38] Jeanne Blasberg: And this was in my early 40s. And so now I'm 58, and I just published my third novel. So my younger writing self could have been that 40 year old. Or it could have been like the 22 year old college grad who stuffed her short stories in a drawer so she could be an investment banker and feel sick to her stomach every day.

[00:34:01] Jeanne Blasberg: So I think what I would say though, is that the joy of this process is going to be moments that are so unexpected and hard to describe. And like we said in the beginning, the email or the review you get, Where you really connected with someone and you feel like your story made them think or like my first novel Eden had to do with adoption and I had people writing me that my book gave them courage to search for their birth family.

[00:34:39] Jeanne Blasberg: And that blew me away, like, A, it felt like a huge responsibility, but then B, it gave us a vehicle to talk about heart issues. So I would just say, you have no idea what the victories are going to be. And I wouldn't count the victories in terms of. commercial things. The joy in this process is going to be expressing yourself well, feeling understood, feeling heard, and connecting with other humans.

[00:35:14] Nicole Meier: So powerful, so powerful and so good and such a good reminder to all of us. It's not about, I mean, it is about sales, but at the end of the day, it's about that person reaching out to you and saying, thank you for giving me the insight and the courage. Amazing. Okay, Susie, what would you tell your younger writer 

[00:35:32] Susie Schnall: self?

[00:35:33] Susie Schnall: I would tell them everything Jeannie said. And then we had a similar trajectory because I didn't do investment banking, but I did corporate marketing and communications out of college. Right. Right. And really wanted to start off as a magazine writer, work in editorial for a magazine, but I didn't get that job.

[00:35:49] Susie Schnall: My first job I got was in advertising and I kind of stayed on that trajectory. So the first thing I think I would tell my younger self is keep trying to work in editorial because it turned out that I didn't write my first novel until I was 40. And I don't have any regrets, honestly, because I think that the jobs that I did have were great and interesting and prepared me for a lot of things in life and in work.

[00:36:14] Susie Schnall: But being a novelist, being a writer professionally, is the perfect combination for me of intellectual and creative pursuit. And it lights me up now. And I finally found it. I didn't find what I loved to do when I was in my twenties and early thirties. So I would say that I would also say that you are going to be blown away by how you are able to deal with rejection, because if your listeners are new to this, then they might not know how much rejection really comes in this business.

[00:36:50] Susie Schnall: But as Jeannie said, there are so many amazing highs that you don't even know are coming. And so it's this combination of being prepared for the fact that you will have the highest highs and the lowest lows in this industry and that it's all worth it. Because you get to express yourself, a lot of writers say that writing is how they breathe.

[00:37:12] Susie Schnall: And if you need to write, then it's worth all of the highs and lows because it allows you to do what you are doing. And again, similar to what Jeannie said, I think it's very important to set your goals and to understand is your goal to have written a book? Is your goal to see your book in Amazon? Is your goal to be a New York Times bestselling author?

[00:37:33] Susie Schnall: Those are all very, very different things. And I think it's really important to know what your goal is and it can change as you go through your career. You have to remember all the wins and don't forget them along the way, because. When you're first starting out, the idea of seeing your book on Amazon, getting to type your name into that search box and seeing it is like the craziest thing.

[00:37:58] Susie Schnall: And when I did that the first time, it was amazing. And now I'm like, Oh yeah, I typed my name into, I mean, I'm not that much, whatever, but it's still all very exciting. And then the last thing I'll say is, For me, I would tell my younger writer self that you are going to meet your people when you finally get into this industry.

[00:38:19] Nicole Meier: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And thank you for highlighting all of that, the fulfillment and the wins along the way. The ability to have self expression, and I love that idea that writing is like breathing. So the stakes of that are if you gave up writing, it would be like giving up breathing. Really cool. Yeah, I love that.

[00:38:37] Nicole Meier: Thank you for sharing that insight. Okay, what would I tell my younger writer self? I know, I would say, I also started writing, 40, stop it with the sense of urgency and desperation. That's what I would tell myself, because I had this. Always bubbling underneath the surface sense of urgency and desperation to write the book, edit the book, finish the book, pitch the agent, get the agent, get the book deal, make the sales, get the right marketing.

[00:39:08] Nicole Meier: I mean, it was just this constant panic. And I would tell my younger self, just quit it. It's not going to serve you. It doesn't serve your creative process. It doesn't serve you in finding and connecting to your reader and your audience. And also, I love what you said, Susie, about touching on community.

[00:39:25] Nicole Meier: It's like that writing community is everything. So seek out community, and it's kind of a salve or a balm to the urgency and desperation that I felt because I was like, oh, we're all going through this together. Okay, so my final question for all of you, and again, we'll start with Eugenie just because we've been making a pattern here, is what words of wisdom do you have for emerging authors out there, especially fiction writers?

[00:39:51] Jeanne Blasberg: Well, I think I may have touched on some of this advice as I answered the previous questions. The first is to be vulnerable and share your work with others. Go out on a limb and try to form a writing group. I've tried to form a lot of writing groups and some I've held together. Two that I'm in right now are amazing.

[00:40:18] Jeanne Blasberg: And some just didn't work. So if it doesn't work the first time and people aren't a great fit, just keep trying to find those people who will be your safe readers for early drafts and also take classes. Right now, there's never been a better time to take all these online classes and get coaching from folks who are far away.

[00:40:40] Jeanne Blasberg: You can find one that fits with your genre and your lifestyle and schedule. So that's for real early writers, but I think it's also important to put writing at the top of your priority list. So I am an athlete and I used to do my sports and my training first thing in the morning. After my kids went to school, I'd be off to the gym or whatever.

[00:41:07] Jeanne Blasberg: I was like, no, I'm a writer, have the most energy in the morning. That's when I'm going to do my writing. In the afternoon, I will schedule doctor's appointments, time with friends. and any sports or athletics and time with my kid. When I do have those guaranteed high energy hours between 8 and 11, I'm going to dedicate it to this.

[00:41:32] Jeanne Blasberg: And once I started demanding that for myself and demanding that space within my family and calling myself a writer, Everybody in my world respected that. It was those years when I was kind of in the closet and I didn't know if I could really ask for people to leave me alone or whether I could say to my husband, no, you do it because this is my writing time.

[00:41:57] Jeanne Blasberg: I needed to get over that and take myself seriously. So it doesn't need to be once you're a published author. It needs to be as soon as. You possibly can demand that time for yourselves. And once you start considering, and I'm not speeding into the thing you said, Nicole, which I think is really right, which is this urgency and kind of this pressure you're putting on yourself, but I think it's the respect you're giving yourself.

[00:42:25] Jeanne Blasberg: You won't get the respect and the space from other people until you start giving it to yourself. So I would definitely say I wish I had called myself a writer, taken my pursuit more seriously, and demanded the space from my other kind of family stuff earlier. 

[00:42:46] Nicole Meier: Yeah. So good. I mean, honestly, No one's going to care until you care, and no one's going to take you seriously until you take yourself seriously.

[00:42:55] Nicole Meier: So great bits of advice and wisdom. Thank you, Jeannie. Okay, Susie, same question. 

[00:43:02] Susie Schnall: I have two answers. The first would be to learn everything about the industry, and it's all there online. get a lot of people introduced to me who want to ask questions about being an author. I'm sure the two of you do as well.

[00:43:19] Susie Schnall: And it is evident from the very beginning, if they've even gone online to look and find out how to get an agent, what is a publishing contract? How long does a book have to be? What all of that is. And I think that if you are not going to take the time to learn how the industry works, it's. going to definitely reflect on your ability to be successful in that industry.

[00:43:43] Susie Schnall: It's the same for any job. If you're going to interview, For a job in television broadcasting, you need to understand what it, that industry is. And so I definitely would recommend that people read Jane Friedman. She's an incredible resource or read Writer's Digest. There are so many wonderful Publications online that are free that you can read and learn anything that you would like to know about advances or again about how to get an agent.

[00:44:13] Susie Schnall: And I think that you owe it to yourself to do that. And oftentimes, if a potential author is coming to me with some questions, I might recommend some of those things before we spend time on the phone. And so that would be my first piece of advice. My second piece of advice would be that nothing's going to get written unless you, and this is the proverbial, put your butt in that chair, and the other proverbial, write a shitty first draft.

[00:44:39] Susie Schnall: And I always forget if it was Anne Lamott who said that or somebody else. Yeah, Anne Lamott, Nicole Singh. So yes, I mean, you cannot write a shitty first draft, however hard you try. So just tell yourself you're going to write a shitty first draft, a shitty and short first draft, because You will end up with something that is way more than you could have ever imagined, but you just have to sit down and do it, commit to it.

[00:45:05] Susie Schnall: And I will end my answer with a quote. I'm listening to the Barbra Streisand book right now, and she repeats a quote that has been so meaningful to her in her career, and it is so true. And it's by Goethe, and I don't know if I've pronounced that right, the, you know, G O E T H E. And he says, At the moment of commitment, the entire universe conspires to assist you.

[00:45:29] Susie Schnall: And I'm going to say that again, because I think it is so important. At the moment of commitment, when you commit to something, the entire universe conspires to assist you. And you can call that God or the universe or whatever it is that you believe in, but it is so true. Boom. Mic drop. That was so good. 

[00:45:47] Nicole Meier: I could just end the episode right here.

[00:45:49] Nicole Meier: That was really good. I need to print that quote out and have it in my workspace. I just love that. And I love that you are reminding the listeners and the writers out there. Yes, it's about the creative process and it's about being inspired and the story you want to tell, but we also need to be realistic and know the environment, the business.

[00:46:11] Nicole Meier: The landscape that we're stepping into. So I appreciate 

[00:46:14] Susie Schnall: that. Yeah, Susie. Yeah. And I will say one more thing. There are great opportunities out there for you to learn, and it will help you become a better author because you'll understand what you're up against. Totally. Okay. 

[00:46:26] Nicole Meier: Thank you for sharing all that.

[00:46:29] Nicole Meier: And then I would just say for my answer to this. is know your goals. And Suzy, you touched on this already. Know what you want out of this. I made the mistake in my author career in the past 10 years of identifying my goals, but then going for something shiny that was not part of my list, and it didn't serve me.

[00:46:48] Nicole Meier: It didn't make me feel great. So really understand what you want. And that could be what you want out of your storytelling, what you want out of your agent, what you want out of your publisher, but stick to that because your instinct and your intuition knows. So I think that that would be my biggest piece of advice right from the get go for writers.

[00:47:07] Susie Schnall: And I'm going to add one more, which is about comparison, that there are a lot of authors on a lot of paths. You don't know their personal stories. You don't know what they're dealing with. You don't know what legs up they've had or anything. Do not compare yourself to other authors, which is exactly why you need to set your own goals and know what's important to you because you can accomplish so much and there will always be somebody who you believe is accomplishing more or getting more than you.

[00:47:37] Susie Schnall: And that will just ruin all of your joy. So be focused on what lights you up. 

[00:47:43] Nicole Meier: Yeah. So great. So powerful. Okay. I have adored this conversation with you. I think that I would love to just wrap it up with each of you telling our listeners where they can find you. Jeannie, if you want to go first. 

[00:47:57] Jeanne Blasberg: Sure. I really enjoyed this conversation too.

[00:48:00] Jeanne Blasberg: Susie and Nicole, you guys are awesome. I have your books with me and let's car and I'm reading along as I have different breaks in my action, but I started them both already and I love them. My presence online is primarily on Instagram at Jean Blasberg author and Facebook is the same handle, Jean Blasberg author.

[00:48:27] Jeanne Blasberg: And I've recently started a sub stack, which I'm looking forward to putting out. So. That's called constantly curating is the name of my sub stack, but I believe the way sub stack works. You can also look my name up. I have a website that's jeanblasberg. com and again, my novel daughter of a promise is available where books are sold.

[00:48:52] Jeanne Blasberg: Your Indies can order it or you can. Find it online most easily. 

[00:48:58] Nicole Meier: Awesome. Thank you. 

[00:49:00] Susie Schnall: Okay, Susie. Where can listeners find you? So you can find me on Instagram at Susie Orman Schnall and the spelling of that will be in the show notes. I also have a website Susie Schnall dot com and I do a newsletter with giveaways and stuff.

[00:49:15] Susie Schnall: So if you want to sign up for that, you can find that on my newsletter. And also Anna Bright is Hiding Something comes out June 4th. and also wherever books are sold. And thank you so much for having me. This has been such a treat to talk with you both. 

[00:49:30] Nicole Meier: This was so much fun. Thank you both for being here and all of your answers and sharing.

[00:49:36] Nicole Meier: I know that the listeners are A, going to be excited to go buy your books and also just take away some really good nuggets of truth. So until next time, everyone. I hope to see you soon, and happy reading and happy writing.

[00:49:53] Nicole Meier: If you want to check out my coaching programs for fiction writers, visit NicoleMeier. com. That's M E I E R. And if you liked this episode, I'd love you to take a minute to leave a rating and review for this podcast. This will help more writers like you to discover the show and to get going on their writing journey.

[00:50:14] Nicole Meier: Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, happy writing, everyone.