The value of smut with Emma Barry

Elle 0:01
Emma. Hi, thanks so much for being here.

Emma 0:03
Ella, it is my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

Elle 0:06
Oh, they see I'm trying a new, a new opening where I'm not reading the bio. And so I feel a little lost at the moment. So hi. Maybe I should have read the bio. So Emma, you have a new book that as of this recording, but it will come out. This will come out much later is coming out very soon. January. Yes,

Emma 0:27
I know. It seems so soon. But it also seems so far away.

Elle 0:32
So it's check magnet. And it's a great, it's a it's a really clever idea about a vet veterinarian, and a chick loving. I guess it's YouTube influencer.

Emma 0:44
Yeah, the idea is that she's like YouTube and Tiktok that she's sort of like across different platforms, but that her like niche is that she keeps backyard chickens and her brand is all about her backyard chickens. Your

Elle 0:57
bio is great, because your your your headshot is great, because you're holding a chicken. It's

Emma 1:01
true. It's one of I do keep backyard chickens. And that is that is one of the four hens that I currently have. Yeah.

Elle 1:10
Oh, that's so fun. So I guess you knew what you were writing about when you were writing about keeping backyard chickens. That

Emma 1:17
part? Yes, the influenza part? No, like, I'm definitely not like a social media queen or anything. But the chickens themselves I've kept for about five years. And I think chickens are really fun and interesting. And there is this like whole online like chicken community. I'm like, it has like different kinds of iterations. And I just think it's really fascinating. And then it would I was like, this would be a great job for a protagonist to have in romance. Okay,

Elle 1:41
is the chicken the online chicken community? Is it contentious like Like sometimes the romance community? Um,

Emma 1:49
I don't think it's quite as dramatic as the romance community. Um, there, there are different things that come up and there's different like, I don't wanna say levels but different kinds of identities. So there's like part of it that's very like how to influencers who are very focused on like, here's, you know, how to keep chickens, and what's the best material to have on the bottom of your coop? And like, how do you treat illness and then there are sort of chicken influencers who are more lifestyle Lee, um, like, one of my favorites is drinking with chickens. And she, oh, my God, it's amazing. She's a cocktail blogger, who also like, has a big garden and keeps chickens and she photographs the cocktails with her hands on the pictures are amazing. And the recipes are really good, too. But like, it's the chicken thing like grows and shows up in these kind of other other ways, I would say, but it's not as dramatic as the romance community for sure. Do the chickens

Elle 2:40
drink the cocktail? hilarious, and you're probably like,

Emma 2:45
I don't think chickens probably do well with booze honestly. No, it's totally like an aesthetic thing not actually giving the chickens boots. What

Elle 2:54
made you because you've only been doing this only you've been raising chickens for four years, what made you decide to get a chicken.

Emma 2:59
So I in where I live, when it's the summer, it's really easy to find farmer's markets and to find farm fresh eggs. And once you grow accustomed to an egg that is fresh, if you eat eggs, of course, it is very sad to go back to grocery store eggs because like they're just they're not as good. And so I was complaining to my critique partner and some time co writer, Genevieve Turner about this and she lives on like an actual farm and she keeps chickens and turkeys and she's goats and horses, like all kinds of stuff. And she was like, No, you should keep chickens it's really easy. And I was like, This is a lie. It cannot be this easy. And so I started reading about it. And I was like, well, this doesn't seem too bad. And so the hard part was convincing my husband but as soon as I was like you can build the coop, he got excited. He was like okay, this is like a project and so he got into that and then we got the chickens. And they've been it's been fascinating like I was really only thinking about the eggs I'm just not thinking about like chickens as pets so that chickens would be fun in any other way. I was just like, like fresh eggs that come out of my backyard. But the chickens have been delightful and now I feel like they're like a part of our family and and we love them as well as love their eggs. That's

Elle 4:10
so cool. So now what kind of influencer is Nicole, which is your protagonist and check back it up.

Emma 4:16
So my thought is that she started out on YouTube but I think has kind of branched out and that she's on Tik Tok and she's really more of the like how to type but a little bit of like the lifestyle type as well. You know, she talks about like photographing her garden and she also talks about how many of her fans don't necessarily have chickens which is something you can sort of pick up in the comments sometimes that like sometimes the fan base or our chicken keepers but sometimes you get the sense that the fan base are not taking keepers and are watching because like the person is really charming or whatever. And that they're just into it for like kind of that that side of it.

Elle 4:52
Oh, very cool. Yeah, it's funny. I have a book that's probably about 60,000 words in and it is about an influencer. It was inspired by like an influencer, that like flamed out spectacularly, although now she's back. And like, kind of watched her like, or, you know, and so I took like one little bit of that experience with her relationship publicly flaming out. And, and, and I was like, Oh, that's really interesting. Let's see what happens in my world. And I'm very curious about that part of writing and influencer. And what kind of research were you doing? It's a weird world. And I don't quite know that I'm getting it right in the book that I'm working on. So I'm kind of curious about how you went about that? Well,

Emma 5:34
so I had not really watched much influence or content until COVID started, just my kind of media consumption diet was like, sort of like TV and books. And then when COVID started, that really changed, like I honestly never watched a YouTube video that wasn't like music. But yeah, wow. No, I know, I'm such a dork. But I just was like, sort of focused on other things. And then during lockdown started, like watching more stuff on YouTube or to watching Tik Tok and just became really fascinated by it. So there have been several good, like longer features about influencers, like Vox did a really long feature about the like influencer houses in LA. So I started reading like, as much like behind the scenes stuff as I could find. And the funny thing about all of those articles is you can see how the influencers still maybe have the mask on even as the, like reporters trying to like pry it off and try to get down to the truth is a lot of those profiles sort of end up feeling like an extension of their brand in some way. But I tried to sort of get into that. And then just consuming as much of the media as I could and then like really like living in the comment section and trying to see how people were interacting with it. Because the like sort of parasocial side of it is really interesting to me. And I find myself doing it too, as a consumer, like you'll watch somebody's video about planting a garden and then suddenly be so invested in the outcome, which is ridiculous. It's like a five minute video about their garden, but you'll be like, Well, I don't know, is the lavender gonna thrive in that location. And I know, to that was sort of how I approached the research. But I to share the concern that it's really, I guess, really hard to get it right, because I don't think anyone wants to take off the mask or think it's really hard. I wish I knew some like bigger influencers that I can ask, but I don't and I don't want to like show up in someone's DMS and be like, I'm researching a book, right? Hey,

Elle 7:28
can you help me figure this out? Yeah, like a weirdo. It is kind of more, you know, definitely more of that sort of like research watching, watching what they're doing, seeing how they're interacting, reading stories about them. They're the one particular influencer that I was following. And I feel like I was, I'm in like, because I was looking at a lifestyle influencer. And I think it's a little bit that sounds a little bit more toxic than chicken influencers, although I could be wrong. And there was like a lot of like, hate YouTube videos about this particular person, like a two hour long rants about why they were so awful. Yeah, it was kind of wild, it was definitely this sort of crazy rabbit hole. And a friend of mine who is sort of like we cheer each other on with our writing. And we're not critique partners, but we'll sprint together and stuff like that. She was like, you just have to start writing the book because I was getting so consumed by the research. Because it was so fascinating. And it was this sort of like almost like sociological study of how hard things can get online.

Emma 8:30
Yeah, I mean, I do the same thing with the research. And for me, I want to understand it well enough that I can fit my story and my characters inside the boundaries of what's possible. But sometimes I definitely worry that I can get so caught up in like having to get it right, that I become obsessed with a level of granularity that readers will never care about. Right. So make it feel real, but not be like I must describe the little nitty gritty details that no one put me will ever care about. Right, right. I

Elle 9:01
think I wrote I wrote one in one of my books, I think like it was like the book before last, I think, yeah, I had this whole scene where I did all of this research into a New England clam bake. And my editor came back with Do we really need 10 pages of a clap? Because I like when it to do tell about what you do and rock weed and she was like, cut all that shit. Well, yeah, yes.

Emma 9:27
No, I that's happened to me more times than I can count or you find yourself being like, No, we must keep this one line. Okay, we'll lose the whole rest of it. But this one line has to justify the 40 hours I spent learning all about this. Yes, in trying to get that balance right with Nick and Nick's job was really hard for me and I hope I walked the line. Well, but we'll see.

Elle 9:50
So I guess we should maybe back up a little bit and you have this, this really sort of interesting background where you're an academic are recovering academic, also a political staffer, which I'm kind of like, ooh, tell me more on that. And you're also a romance writer. And I'm really curious how that all fits in the Venn diagram of you like, how did you get to romance writing?

Emma 10:15
Well, that's sort of a good question. So right after college, I moved to DC. And I worked for a Senator for a couple of years. And I mean, I was just writing for him, essentially, like answering mail and writing some very low level speeches and that kind of thing. And I loved working in the hill, it was great. It was exciting. But I was also working, being like 60 to 70 hours a week, and it was, you know, like a little bonkers, and I missed books. And while I knew smart, thoughtful people in DC, it also was more political and not like partisan politics. That didn't bother me, actually. But like interpersonal office politics, were very exhausting to me. And it sort of felt like, the wrong people got ahead, and I just got very tired of that. And so in my head academics was very different. Haha joke was on me. It was like, I'm gonna go to grad school and you know, get back to because I'd studied English as an undergraduate as I can get back to books. And that's going to be great. And I'm going to have more like work life balance, every single aspect of this is a total lie, by the way, like, none of this worked out. So I went to grad school, first in Boston, and then Virginia, and I got my PhD. And in grad school, I was studying popular literature. I was studying, like newspaper novels from the 19th century, and a lot of them had cool. I mean, I think it's cool. It's a satellite, there are no jobs. The thing to note, there are absolutely no jobs in the field that I was in. But there is often a romance kind of strand in these kinds of books. I mean, some of them really are even like proto romance novels. And one of my professors in grad school was telling me about how she was teaching this class on Women's Popular culture. And she was going to teach some romance novels. And I was like romance novels. I've never read one of those. And so I literally Googled best romance novel ever, because if I was gonna read one, right, what came off, you knew is that all about romance, though? The book blog, their list, right? And they do like an annual list. Or maybe it's like every three or four years or something, but like the readers vote, and the number one book that whatever list I was finding was Lord of scoundrels by Loretta Chase. So I was like, okay, that's gonna be my one. It's gonna be my one romance novel, ha, hilarious, every part of the snack and workout. And so I sat down and read that book. And I loved it. I had not had fun reading a book in like, 10 years at that point. Because all of my reading was for school, and all of my reading was going to be from a dissertation or I was going to write about it. And so books had just stopped being fun for me. And so I read that book, and I loved it. And I think there's like critiques of it. And I don't know that I think it's like the best first time it's to give someone I mean, there's a whole lot to say about that book. But for me at that moment, you know, I just adored it. And I loved everything about it. And so then I read like, 50 more romances. And the next month, I mean, no kidding. Like, I was on maternity leave, and I just read romance. I nursed my children, I have twins and like read romances nonstop for like six months.

Elle 13:20
Sounds kind of nice. Except

Emma 13:21
the lack of sleep, like I did not sleep. romances, and there's my children, if I've been sleeping, like maybe

Elle 13:27
that would have been perfect. From there,

Emma 13:29
it would have been perfect. And at the end of that sort of experience, I wanted to write a novel which I had never wanted to do like a lifetime of reading literary fiction, you know, studying, you know, literature with like, a big L, you know, in two T's had never made me want to write a book or never made me think I could write a book. But at the end of reading all of those romances, I mean, it's not the end, I'm mostly still reading lots of romances. Um, you know, I wanted to write something that could be that fun to read and could be that joyous, versus kind of often the heavy kind of sad books that I was reading for school. And so I sat down to write one novel again, are we sensing a pattern here? I'm just gonna write one just to like, do it just to try it out. And it was terrible. Like my first thought was so bad. And I was angry. I was angry that I wasn't better at writing out what was bad about, like, the characters were really flat and like I started out with ideas for them, but they quickly became these like sort of caricature like cartoon versions of the people in my head. And like the dialogue was really like stilted and like plot heavy and like exposition me, and like the villain was really like ridiculous and villainous.

Elle 14:43
furling I love it.

Emma 14:47
It was just like the like I didn't have enough plot. So like I finished and it was like 55,000 words and that was like clearly not the right length and like, just everything about it was bad and I was pissed because it felt as if like, A lifetime of reading books, I should know how to write one, right? I mean, how hilarious is if those things are really related, but I was so mad. So I went out and got a bunch of craft books and started, you know, reading about how to write a book, which you would think that's where I would have started. But I didn't start there. And then I started revising it, and it got better. But I was excited to write one more book. Now I'm going to put, you know, into use all these lessons I've picked up. So I wrote a second book, and it was better, but it was still not good. And then I was like, Okay, this is it. Third, Third time's the charm. And the third book I wrote is the first book I sold. So it just took me a while. But I sort of fell in love with writing along the way. But it was purely out of being pissed that my first effort was not like a masterpiece. What was that book? So that book, when it was originally published was called special interests. And it was published with Carina press. And I've since gotten my rights back. And it's now been republished under the name, the one you want. And it's a book set in DC, it is not, even though it's like slightly inspired by my experiences on Capitol Hill. It's not autobiographical or anything. But it's about like a woman who works for a construction union. And she's been going through some stuff, and she ends, she's very idealistic. And she ends up meeting this guy who works in the Senate office who is incredibly cynical and is very much like, I just want to get a deal done. And they're very drawn to each other, but obviously, are extremely different people. And so they sort of end up dating but like they don't think I think mutually don't think there's any way they're going to be able to make it work. And then obviously they do because it's a romance. But the idea was, like I was interested in kind of opposites attract, but we're they're ostensibly on the same side, like they're both Democrats. But how could there be these really deep divisions, even with somebody you should have, like a lot in common with? And so that was kind of the idea of that book.

Elle 16:49
That's really cool. Now, so you're writing. So you're writing romance? I'm sort of fascinated by the fact that you have this English Lit background, and you never once had any desire to write. And it wasn't until you read a romance. And you were like, oh, yeah, I think I want to write like, that's, I think that's really fascinating.

Emma 17:08
I think it's that there really is a division between like the people who write books like MFAs and creative writers, and then the people who do like the criticism of the books, even like in my program, now, where there are, there's a big MFA program, there's not a lot of overlap between the like literature professors and the creative writing people, they're very different. And so it's surprising. I would, I would think so too. But I mean, I have no way to to explain why it's that way. It's just that there seems to be this huge division, and I am a analytical person, and maybe more of a mind person than a feeling person. I think I'm like a big feelings, but I keep them like contained because they feel unstable to me. And so romance writing gave me a way to kind of tap into that, and to kind of use this other part of myself that I think I know is ignored. But I don't know, I just I love reading literature. I love literary fiction. And genuinely, it just is not the way my voice comes out when I write creatively, and I'm not sure that I could like I don't think I could remake myself into someone who writes the kind of books that you teach in a college lit class, you know, that my voice is more commercial, I think.

Elle 18:18
Right. Right. And I've Well, I mean, I think it's really interesting. When I when you think about what you were studying in school, that was the commercial fiction, that was the genre fiction that was the pulp fiction of its day. 100%.

Emma 18:31
Yeah, I

Elle 18:32
don't think that you're that far off, right?

Emma 18:35
Yes, I mean, I definitely like reading those books. And part of why that was my dissertation topic is that I did enjoy reading that commercial fiction and it was like, how do I make this like an official topic? Right? Like, I make this like acceptable to that like literary establishment, many of whom also think those books are kind of trashy, too. So like, there was kind of a sense, even when I was working on my dissertation, where people would be like, right, but are these books actually good? Right. And there's sort of this sense that like, the answer was clearly No, I was supposed to say, no, these books are terrible. I wasn't supposed to be like, No, actually, I think they're really interesting. And what is different between these books and Hawthorne? Like, I was not supposed to say that there was a very clear, like, value system, you know, to that, too.

Elle 19:16
That's really interesting. Because, you know, I mean, I think probably most famously, right. It's Charles Dickens, who wrote that in the newspaper books and variously that's why it should have so long because he got paid. But you know, he was he was trying to get paid. So he was extending his work out very long so he could continue getting paid. But now he's taught as as sort of classic literature like there is a crossover, Jane, Jane Austen, too, was sort of poo pooed as as Oh, that looked at her romance books, and now she's considered a classic author. Yeah.

Emma 19:49
And I mean, in Raymond Chandler is another example of somebody who is reading like crime fiction and you do see like scholarship on Raymond Chandler. I mean, what I can say is that I think at any given moment meant, like when you actually zoom in what's happening, literarily is often, like much more rich and interesting than the kind of way that the canon is, just by definition gonna, like reduce the complexity of things, right? Because you're gonna take like one book published in a 10 year period. And we're like, okay, that's the great book of the 1860s. And like, you're not gonna read anything else from 1860s. But if you zoom in, there's gonna be like a million other things happening. And I mean, I wish I had an answer for it. I just think that English studies weaponizes taste. I mean, like, that's the only thing, actually. And so there's a sense that like people's taste, and what they like says something about how smart they are or what their value is, as people. And I think English professors know that intellectually, because we've all read words. Yeah. But like, I don't think we often live that way. Like, we know, that's not being bad, but I think a lot of them still kind of weaponize it in that way.

Elle 20:52
Oh, my God, that's, that's actually a really great way to put it. Um, and it's unfortunate, because I do think popular fiction, there is this sort of connection, if you look at popular fiction, and you look at what's going on in the world, kind of like, and it's really unfortunate, because cinema does this film studies programs do this, they take a look at the popular genres, and they're able to sort of say, Hey, this is a reflection of a very specific period in time and what was going on. And this is the artistic reaction to it. And, and it happens in genre material. And I don't think academia gives it enough credit.

Emma 21:30
Oh, 100%. And I think in English, it's been almost exactly the opposite tendency. And the books that are more like overtly political or that too on, like, whatever the issues are of a given day, are often treated as kind of less serious than the ones that either don't treat that material at all, or treat it in a more sublimated way. And you can even see it in like, an individual's like body of work like the no one treats sanctuary as like this serious Faulkner novel. Even though that novel is about like rape and race and like very overt political topics. It's a less overtly political novel that gets the scholarship more often, or like Herman Melville, like, we don't tend to talk about Marty, which is a novel that talks about colonialism really directly, like we talked about would be dick, because that is less obviously political. And so I think that actually plays into what happens in literary studies, for sure.

Elle 22:23
That's so fascinating. This is a whole other topic we can talk about, but I'm sort of curious, when you were writing these first books in your writing romances were you? Were you always like, Yes, I'm gonna write sex on the page, or did you shy away from that at first, um,

Emma 22:39
my first two books do not have as much sex on the page. And then third one has more. And I think it was not a conscious decision as much as it was something that grew out of my growing competence as a writer and my growing understanding of my voice. And so as I became more confident, I began asking, like, what can I show in a love scene? What can I show through writing sex, that I can't show any other way? Right? And so like, How can this be like a tool of characterization or a tool of, you know, the plot complications I'm trying to build? And, and like, it just felt to me like leaving something in the toolbox to not write that. So again, I never wrote anything that was fully closed door, but definitely, like slightly lower heat. And I don't know that I'm a high heat writer. No, I don't think I am. I think I'm somewhere in the middle. But just to kind of embrace that a little.

Elle 23:29
That's really cool. How was writing the first, like, that first intimate moment? Was it awkward? Or did you find that you were just like, Yeah, okay, just another scene, right?

Emma 23:38
I mean, it was a little awkward at first, in part because it's intimate in like a vocabulary sense. Like, what words you choose, they're gonna put some readers off, I don't think there's any like universally embraced terms for genitalia that everyone loves. And you see that on Twitter. Sometimes people will be like, Well, I hate this word. And someone else will be like, No, actually, I like that word. But I hate this word. And realize, like, okay, there's no universally accepted vocabulary here. And so what would this character say? What would this character think? And how can the language that I'm using, you know, reveal the character and reveal how they feel about the moment and all of that stuff? But without it for me, I had to kind of set aside what a reader is going to think and just be focused on the characters in that moment, but it requires knowing them very intimately, you know, what is their sexual history? And how do they feel about that? And what have they done? Or what have they not done? And how do they feel about that history? And then how is this moment going to be different? And so it requires an intimacy with the character, that I think writing them going to the grocery store maybe does not have the same kind of a sense, right?

Elle 24:47
It's really interesting because it's, it's a weird balance, right? Because I think particularly with commercial fiction, you're always writing with your reader in mind, right? Like, you want to, is this going to appeal to the reader is the reader going to enjoy the story is Because the that that's what commercial fiction is. Yes. But so to have to step away from that when writing the intimate scenes, because you know, you're not going to make everybody happy with the word choice. Yeah, yeah, one person's Oh, yeah, that is so sexy as another person's absolute cringe. So you're never gonna, like you said, you're never going to get that right. And so it's really interesting to have to shut the reader out. At that point, it almost is like, we have to close the door to the reader to give them the open door scenes, if

Emma 25:32
that makes sense. Yes, no, 100%. And I, I feel like my thinking about the reader is something I can do at certain moments that I have to stop doing an intimate scenes are just one example. For me. Like, I often think a lot about the reader when I'm writing up the like proposal for the book, which I do even for something that like, I'm not going to give to my agent necessarily, like, I'll often write like a three page treatment of the book. And I will think about the reader lot at that point, you know, how are we going to title this? How would we cover this? How would we market this, but then, I, I did not used to do that. And I did not sell books, to start doing that to be smarter with the market. Um, but then I really do have to shut the reader out for a while because otherwise I can't hear myself and, and then the reader comes back for me when I'm editing. But I don't I don't know that I can think about the reader constantly. Because it makes it really hard to hear me.

Elle 26:22
Interesting. I'm sort of fascinated by this. So you basically do a three page treatment, you have the title before you begin, you know, what the book cover is going to look like? Well, is

Emma 26:32
that a good idea? Yeah. And then you

Elle 26:35
start writing. And when did you switch from one from the just writing to doing that? Well,

Emma 26:41
chick magnet was like a turning point. So I had this kind of early section of my career, where I was an agent for a while and then had an agent, and it did not work out. And we split. And then I had this long period of writer's block, kind of in the middle between, like 2018 and 2020. When I was considering quitting writing, I just was not fun anymore, I was stressed out. I just felt like, I couldn't write anything that would be successful in the market. And in chick magnet was kind of the turning point, I wanted to write one last book for me, every sensing a pattern again, was gonna be like my book. And I was just gonna write it for myself. But I did have like an outline when I began, not really since about the cover, but I did have the title. And I, you know, sat down and wrote that book, and then I finished it. And I was like, well, maybe, you know, and I hadn't felt that hopeful. I hadn't felt that possibility in a long time. And that's when you know, quarried agents again, and then we went out and set up and we sold the book. And I mean, who knows what will happen with it. I'm happy with the book, regardless, kind of of the outcome. But everything I've written since then I've worked on since then I've had like the three to five page treatment to begin with. And I found it making my writing less painful, because then I know what's going to happen and why. And even when I change it, even when I'm like, no, no, like now that I've been writing this character, I don't think they would react this way in that moment. And so I think we got to take it another direction, I found that to be really useful. And for me, again, if I can think about the market at the start, then I can kind of turn it off in the middle and still feel confident that I'm writing a marketable book that alleviates that stress and lets me be kind of selfish when I'm drafting.

Elle 28:17
What do you think? What what do you think was the thing better term that sold this book?

Emma 28:27
What do you think was the thing I think it was, it may have just been the title. It's funny, almost everyone I know in the last couple of years has had to change their title like almost everyone I know their working title has not been acceptable to their publisher, but we never talked about changing chick magnet like that was never even came up. Because I was like, I will defend this title ever had to. I think it is the kind of concept for the books I think the chickens were helpful. And maybe the social media influencer angle I think that and certainly mine is not the only one in the market with that in it, but I think that's really appealing right now.

Elle 29:06
Interesting. So I gotta hurry up and finish this one that I'm working on that I do. Yeah. Next month. That's really kind of interesting. So I don't I'm not quite ready to dig into your intimate intimate scene yet, but you have a lot of pup of books before chick magnet like, obviously, you know, the political persuasion series Fly Me To The Moon series, which looks really fascinating. That sort of set in the 60s. Yes.

Emma 29:35
And those i co write co wrote with my friend Genevieve and yeah, they're essentially like Apollo 13 With banging. The others that in the 60s astronauts are the protagonist for some of the books engineers for some of the other ones. But we're really interested in like 60s gender roles and like what is like femininity mean then what is masculinity mean and kind of trying to unpack And subvert those things. But yeah, that's the kind of idea there and there, there was another series where we wrote it got good reviews, and they're sort of cult favorites, I guess. Like I still hear from readers and particularly the second book Earthbound, which came out in 2016. So like, a long time ago, and the romance world and I, it still seems to have to have some readers. So it's like riding the Rocky Horror Picture Show or something, I

Elle 30:21
think, really cool. Ahead, but

Emma 30:25
kind of always, always simmering out there.

Elle 30:28
One of the things that sort of strikes me with your body of work is it feels like, Are you like, they? It feels like these are sort of like you're writing in all these like different genres? Or, like, Are you like chick magnet is clearly comedy like rom com? Yeah. And the political persuasion seems a little bit more intrigue, or do I have that wrong?

Emma 30:52
I mean, it's it's contemporary, I would say I would, I would call even check back in a contemporary romance, not rom com, and there are rom com elements to it. But it's also like, his business is failing. And her ex gaslighted her, like, I mean, I hope it's funny, but I think there's also like some heavier things in their backstory. And I would say the political persuasions are, you know, contemporary romance, the characters in that series are in their 20s. So I guess it's like, potentially on the high edge of new adults versus like, Now, I could not write people in their 20s anymore. I definitely like writing characters in their 30s at this point. So yeah,

Elle 31:28
that's really cool. That's because I was like, Oh, this is really fat. Like your body of work just on the whole is super fascinating in terms of how, how varied it is, thank you seems, which I think is really cool. I'm like, okay, like this funny guy. I'm like, Oh, I have to buy that one. That was

Emma 31:47
really excited about that book. Um, yes, I am psyched for that one. It's coming out in May. And I just couldn't be happier with how that one turned out.

Elle 31:57
Now. Is that one is that one also through Montlake? It is. Yes.

Emma 32:00
That is the second book on my my contract with them. Okay, cool.

Elle 32:04
Because it's you. You know, so everybody knows what we're talking about here. There are no chickens.

Emma 32:08
No chickens. It's totally different, completely unrelated in every way.

Elle 32:12
And it's that New York City and you've got funny guy is a comedian, right? I'm guessing he is.

Emma 32:20
He's a comedian. He does stand up. And he appears on a sketch comedy show, which may tape on Saturday night nights in New York City. And he's like a tornado of a human being like a snap, sleep chaos Muppet, very famous. And his ex was a pop star. And she wrote a song about him and about kind of what a mess he is. And it's become like a huge hit. And so there's this media firestorm, and he hides out at the apartment of his childhood best friend. And she is like the opposite of a chaos muppet. She's like a total order muppet. But there's two things. They've been best friends for 25 years. And there's two things she's never told him. One is that she's in love with him. And two is that she's going to try finally to get over him. So she's applying for her dream job across the country. So its friends and letters and forced proximity. And that's the setup.

Elle 33:09
I have this concept. Now, where did this idea come from? Well,

Emma 33:14
so when I was a kid, I became really fascinated with Saturday live. And when I when I was nine, we moved from Montana to Dallas. And so I was like trying very much to impress this girl. I was having sleepovers, I wanted her desperately to be my friend. And I felt like you know, the biggest hick from the sticks. So I was like, you know, should we stay up? And like, watch the Little Mermaid? And she's like, No, we're gonna watch the coolest show on television. And I was like, of course, I'm always what's the goal, the show on television. She's like, it's Saturday night lie. So for mine of that point out for about 10 years, I mean, I always watched it, it's not as fascinating. Always wanted to write for the show. And it has just kind of always been in the back of my head. And I think the show is higher profile in some ways than it's ever been. I don't know that as many people watched, but it feels like the cast is more celebrities now maybe than effort. And so it was just really interested in that idea. And I've also really always loved pop songs where it's clear that the singer is like, absolutely letting their acts haven't. And so I was almost like, what would it be like if someone wrote that song about you? So I'm like, You're the not that you're the one singing it. But you're the object of like tights on my boat, right? So like, if that's you, the object of the Dixie song and the song like, what would that be like? And so I wanted to sort of combine those two those two things. Oh, that

Elle 34:34
is really cool. I'm excited for this one. Sounds like really excellent. I'm really stoked for that. That's a that is definitely my wheelhouse dealing with like celebrity and all of that in the books. Absolutely. In my wheelhouse. So we've got a steamy scene from chick magnet. Can you set this up for us? Where are we in the book?

Emma 34:54
Okay, so we're in the second half of the bugging is definitely a slow burn. And so Well, Nick and will have gone from not really liking each other because he is a veterinarian. He doesn't like really approve of her whole backyard chicken thing because he's seen the like other side of it, right? He's seen people bringing in sick birds because they don't know what they're doing. And so he's annoyed with her at first. And then they suddenly become friends. They're both I mean, damaged in many ways, and no one else around them really like sees that they can sort of both see through each other's masks, she sees through his grumpy and knows like, why he's kind of pushing other people away. And he sees through her sunshine and sees kind of who she is underneath. And so he is, her grandmother grew up in this town that she moved to, that's why she moved there. And he figured out where her grandma's house was, and he knew the people who own the house. And so he took her to go and see it. And so in the scene, they have just come back to they live across the street from each other, they've just come back to their houses. And I think she's finally gotten to the moment where she's really like, ready to let him in.

Elle 35:56
Wow, now have they had an encounter before they have kissed before.

Emma 36:01
And hilarious story in the original first draft, it was a lot like hotter hookup initially, and we decided to pull back the heat on that scene. And so at this point, they've kissed but nothing else has happened. And was it

Elle 36:16
like a quick kiss? Was it a kind of long kiss? I'm guessing,

Emma 36:20
lingering? Yeah, with like, a lot of high heat potential between them. But I think they particularly her was feeling like this is too soon. Oh my God, he's my neighbor. Like, what if everything goes badly wrong, particularly because she's just had a relationship go badly wrong. But now is the point when she finally feels ready to like, take the risk.

Elle 36:41
Okay, cool. There was one, I'm just gonna read this first. It's like two sentences or three sentences. And it's not steamy at all. But I just really loved this little paragraphs, like the tiniest paragraph. And I was like, oh, I want to read that. The thing she was coming to understand was that will get gruff when he was embarrassed or angry or experiencing any emotion stronger than hunger. Feelings clogged him. And I was like, Whoa, that's nice like that. That was a really expressive moment for somebody who hadn't read through, like, read the full book and like write in that you just got who this character was right away. And I love it when, when you can, when there's like one second section, or one sentence or one little bit, that just explains the character so completely, that you can drop into the story anywhere and you can be like, okay, okay, I know, I think I got this character.

Emma 37:35
Oh, so good. I'm so glad that worked for you. It was such an existential question. And you were like, send me the steam scene. And I was like, Wait, where does it start? And like, in my head, it was really hard to figure it out like, well, because I think I'm someone I hope I'm someone my goal is to be someone whose focus is on emotions, not just choreography. And so with, like, Where does the scene start? Does it start outside start in his bedroom, it start when they take their clothes off? Like where where's the beginning of the seat? And it was, I don't know, if I chose right, it was really hard to figure out. The end is a clear point. But I was like, I don't know where the beginning is of this. And so it was a little tricky. Well,

Elle 38:13
I think it's I think that's really an interesting point. And it kind of, and I kind of think it shows, I guess the the, the just the sheer of sort of variety of steamy writing that's out there and also what we're not even steamy, just intimate and also what makes it to to you as the writer what what makes it what to you is the intimate rather than it doesn't always have to be like about body parts and appendages and what those were and using words that are going to offend certain readers but not others is about having it it is about peeling, peeling the onion layers are drawing out the the characters in a different in a different way in a physical way, even if it's like on the page, right? And so that can be something as as innocent and I use that in scare quotes as a peck on the cheek, you know, right down to something completely like the most over the top. Sacks you can you can ever imagine. And then times 1000. Right? Yeah. And it's really interesting to see like, what what people chose, choose, you know, what authors choose and whether it's like, you know, full out sex or it's actually just an intimate moment for me, I tend to because sometimes, you know, I'll have people up ended on me and sort of be like, well, you pick a steamy scene, and obviously, okay, and I'll go through and it will be very hard. And usually what I pick is probably not the most extreme luck. It's usually pretty tame.

Emma 39:51
Yeah, that makes so much sense. Yeah, yeah, it really is. So

Elle 39:54
it's really interesting to do this podcast and see all the diff Rent sorts of sounds that come to me and also you know why the author's choose them which I think is really cool. Okay, here's another bit again, not steamy like not really steamy right like you would like. Like not graphic. You don't argue with me when I hug you she whispered. So of course he started to is this thank is this Thank, you know, while she wanted while she wanted to thank him she wasn't going to try and take him to bed out of gratitude is that we're both bruised under our clothes where no one else can see. We're like the apples at the bottom of the bin. He huffed out a laugh we're bad apples. No, we recognize each other's hurts. She let that sit there between them the promise of it the question of it, but she could feel his body responding to her nearness could feel him going hard hungry, giving a preliminary answer. I really love that apples at the bottom of the bin.

Emma 40:56
Thank you. I'm so glad there were like three different images in that moment. And yes, the one that stuck in so I'm so glad that that worked for you. Yeah, I

Elle 41:04
really love that. I was like, oh, apples. And then the bad apples thing was hilarious. Like I was like, Oh, come on. Of course it's like we're bad apples. That's like no you're just at the bottom like you're bruised your damn and I thought that was like such a lovely way to express you're dealing with characters that are have baggage that American baggage with them. There's so

Emma 41:27
broken and I think that's what makes them lovely together because I'm so happy they find each other. But yes, these two have a lot going on

Elle 41:37
at night. Okay, so now we're getting into it. We're getting there. And now we're getting a little they've now they're kissing and it's that high heat level kiss. She missed the taste of him the surging power the way his hands rushed up her body waves up the shore breaking on her back her stomach. This wasn't like their first kiss or their second kiss. There was no surprise this time just hunger and arousal and need gnawing adamant need you're not damaged will manage between frantic kisses down her neck. He pressed his mouth over her shirt and she boiled underneath. At that moment she felt replenish the parched creek bed full to brimming after the flash flood. Neither are you. She caught his head in her hands and dragged him back to her. Her hips rocked into him. But it wasn't right. She was too short for this but going into his house, dragging him across the street into her as it would risk dissolving the spell. She couldn't chance that not when she could feel her libido rushing into every cell in her body. The too long dormant hunger roaring back. Not when she discovered the just right taste of well, she dropped back onto her heels kissed his neck for a change his collarbone. But that freed up his mouth. Sorry, I just love that it was like But that now it's his problem when they start talking. Talking. All going so well. And then let him open his mouth. What is Yeah, I mean, his question was reasonable. But this wasn't about reason. It was about the way his thigh felt pushed between her legs about his hand, cupping her ask about the fresh laundry smell of his clothing. why hadn't she known before that fucking fabric? softeners smelt so goddamn erotic.

Emma 43:29
It's so strange to hear it. I haven't been able to bring myself to listen to the audiobook, which is great. I should say the audiobook narrators are fantastic. And I've listened in the first 10 minutes. But it's really hard to hear your own writing because I'm like, Oh, she has a deadline, right? I think I'm catching on to things. But it is also lovely to hear it and to be like Wow, that really does work that works the way I wanted it to.

Elle 43:47
I don't think any writer can hear like or read their book without being like, no, no, I should change that. Like even when I'm doing like little social media graphics. I'm like, oh, no, rewrite that sentence.

Emma 43:59
That's the perfect time to edit your book actually, is when you're making social media graphics.

Elle 44:04
Actually, that's a really good point. And I should probably make social media graphics in the editing part instead of after? Because I'm always like, Oh, no, there's a better way to say that. And I, you know, again, this, there's just like, there is a lyricism in the way that you're writing about this and the, you know, the parched creek bed full to brimming after the flash flood, like just these sort of like, moments that give you this visual impression of what she's feeling is just sort of really cool and beautiful. And I also love because I was in a in a creative writing class once where there was this writer who just had all of these metaphors and she was beautiful, lyrical, like gorgeous. She just came up with metaphor after metaphor, and she turned in a story that was literally all But, and it was overwhelming to the point that it was distracting. Yeah, yeah. And so I always so impressed where you can just when, when writers can use it. So use it so sparingly, so that it has that impact. But it doesn't draw you out of the story. Because it becomes, when you do when you have too much of it, it becomes so obvious that you can you can sort of see the writers hand, right? Yeah, you can see that it sort of takes away it doesn't it's no longer the character's voice. It becomes the author's voice.

Emma 45:29
Yeah, one thing I was trying to do in the part you just read was, there are a couple of metaphors, but they're all like water based. And so to try not like a, like a theme on that page, or this couple of pages, so that to at least even though I am mixing my metaphors, I guess, but at least that they seem related to the create, like, like, that's how she's feeling at that moment is like replenishment, maybe all right, on that line with overwhelmed emotionally, and to try and get all the images to kind of line up around that. That kind of idea.

Elle 45:58
Right. And I also loved the fresh laundry smell right? Like, I love that you're because I think that I'm curious when you're writing this, like, do you have to go back and layer this in? Is this just all sort of like barfed out in the first draft? I mean, or close to it? Because, you know, sometimes I'll have to go back in and be like, Okay, what's going on? With essentially in the senses? So? Yes, I think it's very easy to fall into feel and touch. Yeah, they're doing the scenes, but there's so much more or even temperature, heat, what, but there's so much more to it, what are you seeing? What are you smelling? Right?

Emma 46:37
I 100% have to go in and lay it in every the scenes that I tend to write and kind of one big rush tend to be the scenes where nothing is happening. And it's very internal. Like, there's a scene very early in the book, where Nick and her best friend are sort of fighting and she in her head kind of like thinks through like how that came to be like that scene I wrote in one big rush and it's more or less untouched in the final book, this scene, most of it is not that way. Dialogue and the really big bits of choreography first, and then I'll go in and layer in the internal monologue. And then try to think about the sensory details and like, Okay, I haven't I haven't talked about temperature in a while. Okay, I haven't talked about this in a while. And to try to put those those triggers in, and frequently I overdo it, and then have to pull back. So I'm often like underwriting and then overriding. And then finally, like the third pass, and the scene is where I hope I get that balance between is this descriptive? Is it not descriptive enough, but usually, it's like dialogue and the really big bits of choreography that come first.

Elle 47:40
And do you do you go back? Like, are you like one of the ones that go and edit as you go? Or do you wait till you get the whole thing down, and then you go in and you start adding, I

Emma 47:53
added a psycho, which is a terrible way to do it, and no one should do it that way. But I do in a Chapter, often I'll write it over the course of two days. So I'll like write the skeleton and then the next day will be like, the flesh goes on the bones. And then you know, maybe at the end of the week, I'll go through and kind of do that third round over everything I've written that week. But yeah, I do edit as I write. I feel

Elle 48:18
like there is no right or wrong though. Like it's just your process right? Like

Emma 48:21
I would like to think my process makes that much sense but I am dysfunctional

Elle 48:32
oh my god, that's so funny. Okay, so we're gonna go down a little bit and there's a little there's like this sort of interesting push and pull mostly him pushing and her pulling I think or, or him pulling away and her pushing back. And it was you know, there's like this one little bit of if you were trying to make a case against six sacks, he was doing a pretty bad job. This was more evidence of how it was good decision. So like, there's there's this trepidation on his part that they're doing this thing. And she's trying to convince him like, we can be friends that have this sort of relationship, like, stay friends, even if we have sex, and he's not quite buying it, but now he's at the point where he's like, Okay, then.

Emma 49:11
Yes, I think that's accurate.

Elle 49:13
And before she had a second to revel in her when she was over his shoulder, and he was crossing the yard, those great legs of his eating up the ground beneath them, while every bit of her hummed in anticipation. She didn't get a good look at his kitchen before he started up the stairs and then down his upstairs hallway to his bedroom. She bounced once on the bed before he'd covered her with his body. dreamed about this she managed between kisses, frantic breathless kisses, the contact the break the Gasp the struggle with her shirt, her pants, and then finding his mouth again. Well rolled back onto his knees and was peeling has showed up. His muscles were lightly scored and perfect the sexiest anatomy textbook in the world, and she was going to get to touch him. She skimmed her fingertips over his body. How are you? You have that report that's supposed to be basically disembodied just hands and a head. It would be a shame to diss anything this body. How are you a chicken person? He asked returning the favor. Like chicken person like that's a bad thing.

Emma 50:18
Perspective definitely a bad thing.

Elle 50:22
Which I thought was hilarious. I was like, oh my god chicken person. He came over her again his belly brushing over her as it was an accelerant kerosene on the fire pit that didn't meet up. She could have rushed everything then just for the relief of knowing that they'd done it that she'd had him but will obviously had other slower plans in mind. He began fumbling with the clasp of her bra and Nick could feel gravity and Nick could feel gravity find her breasts. It was the swollen tender point of recycle great for cleavage, not so much for Be careful with them. Her voice came out as a shadow will immediately froze careful. Everything sort of sensitive. She left off, not in a good way. He pulled back he hadn't turned on any lights and his blinds were still drawn from the night before the afternoon sunshine was making its way through the cracks leaving strips of light and dark across his face. Do you want me to put your bra back on? No, I just wish I hadn't said anything at all. They they get like this at certain times of the month and touch is a lot then. The burning in her cheeks now is self conscious, not arousal. She didn't normally mention this to her partners. And when she had, they hadn't normally cared. No one had been cruel, but they also hadn't been conscientious. So she just stopped saying anything at all. She had absolutely no idea why she blurted it out now but she wanted the words back neck will cut her face with one hand the contact so tender, she had to close her eyes. I'd never hurt you. I know. Oh, god.

Emma 51:55
I love him. So much. I'm so glad you picked this part to read. Because it's probably my favorite part of the scene, even though obviously, like there's no like sex happening at this moment. To me, it shows like The intimacy between them in a way that I really love.

Elle 52:10
Yeah, yeah. This is where you could close the door on the rest of the scene. And I And and you have gotten the moment that sort of like intimate connection between them, you have completely nailed it just with this. I'm

Emma 52:26
so glad that worked for you. Because again, this but this part means so much to me. And so, um, yeah, that was definitely the goal.

Elle 52:32
I thought and I loved the because obviously, people with bras and cycles can experience extreme soreness. Yeah. And I don't think, and I'm guilty of this myself, we put enough of that. This is what really happens when you're cycling, or when you you know, when this or that or whatever, like these real life things about our bodies come into play. And, you know, I think for myself, I'm just so worried about getting it right. I don't necessarily think think about these other things that can kind of get in the way, particularly of a woman's pleasure. Yeah. You know, and and how is the partner dealing with that? And I think that that says a lot about the partner at that moment.

Emma 53:26
I mean, that was certainly the goal. I mean, one I wanted to realistically represent, you know, something that I wouldn't have seen it on the page, but not that often. But to what I really cared about, I guess the most in that moment was Will's reaction, right? And kind of showing that, like, he's able to see this thing she's telling him she kind of doesn't really want to tell him and she like regrets it immediately. But he doesn't he react responds perfectly right? And with like, incredible empathy toward her. And so it's about her, but it's also I think about him and showing the relationship between them. And it's like a metaphor, I think, for every way that they are able to relate to each other.

Elle 54:04
Yes, absolutely. And it's sort of I because I think later on down in the scene, like he actually has her put the bra back on.

Emma 54:11
Yes, yeah, that's

Elle 54:12
right that so that she is not uncomfortable. So that she has also, I think some protection from you know, if the if touch does go that way, she's got she's got a little bit of protection there, just in case and, you know, just making sure that her comfort level is taken care of. It just spoke volumes about him and what he thought of the relationship even though through the scene, they keep saying their friends.

Emma 54:37
Yes. And his hesitancy is because he wants them to be more than friends. So like, I think for him, that's like, that's not good enough. Like for her that's she's lying to herself, of course, but like she's saying, this could be all it is. And he's like, Hmm, am I gonna be satisfied with that? And so I think part of when he responds in that way, it's him showing her like, I'm going to care for you and take care of you You, even if you're saying that's where I don't want that, right. And so I think that's his commitment to

Elle 55:07
her, right. And we get that sort of, in that intimate scene that comes a little bit later or that maybe like the action sequence, I don't even want to say the intimate scene. It's like more like the action suit sequence. And, you know, when her spine had melted, and she was when her spine had melted, and she was on her back next to him shimmy shimmying out of her panties, and begging him to hurry up with the condom, it no longer seems so absurd that she had confessed her discomfort to him. His response felt like being cherished and because he knew the truth, because she knew he'd be gentle. She didn't hold anything back and try to protect herself. Because while this might be fucking it could be honest, it could be caring. And it was caring when he pushed into her caring when he kept her breasts never squeezing caring when his chin tipped up and he moaned and she knew he was finding release caring when she followed him over the edge. Friends cared, right?

Emma 56:03
Yeah, ending with a little irony.

Elle 56:09
It was really, it. This was such a great and seen and it made me like really excited to read the book, in particular and see what is happening with these two characters who I think are, I think, I think the road to getting here was probably really fun.

Emma 56:29
It's like 150 pages of bantering and pulling back and in trying to be honest, I mean, in some ways, the scene I'm realizing is almost like a microcosm for everything in the book. Like replayed? Yeah.

Elle 56:46
Okay, so you can tell me not to act like you can be like, Yeah, I don't want to I don't want to talk about this. But one thing that I had caught on your Instagram was, you know that you would said if chick magnet was the book I had to write to mend some broken part of myself. Then funny guy is the book I could write when I was healed. So funny guy is the next book that's coming up, talked about. And I thought that was really interesting. And I was wondering, like, Oh, can you expand on that a little bit? And only if you're comfortable? If you're, if you're not, we can just blow right on past that question. No,

Emma 57:16
I mean, here's what I would say. Like, I went through this period for several years where I didn't think I could write anymore. And I didn't know if I wanted to write anymore. And I was just feeling I mean, like the the question that was really paralyzing for me was, what's the point, and it just sort of felt like nothing that I did was ever going to, like, get traction in the market. And I just felt really overwhelmed and really broken in many ways. And some of that was stuff that was happening, like not with my writing career. And some of it was like, things that were happening in the world. But there was just this really like bleak moment for me that went on for a long time. And even though nothing about what I was experiencing emotionally is that all similar to will or next issues, like it's not an autobiographical book or anything, but in writing these two characters who are both bruised in ways that we talked about who both like have a lot of baggage and who find self actualization, I think, but just like find a way back to some confidence and find a way back to the people they want to be, and then are able to be kind of together and worthy of each other in that way, something about that arc, felt very healing for me and the things that I needed to know in order to hear my own voice again. And so you know, I think this is a book for both of them, like will needs to learn that people can know that things are not working out with his business and still love him like that's like wills journey. And Nick's journey is that she doesn't have to be defined by her ex. And she doesn't have to be defined by her job, like she can, like find her like, center again, who she is. And writing those journeys, helped me hear my own voice in a way that made it possible to then write a book that I mean, it's also not autobiographical in any way. But to write a book that I think is really joyous. I mean, I hope chick Magnin does joy and hope there are funny moments into Bagnet. But it's also a book about healing in many ways. And I needed that message. You know, I needed that so much. And so I had to kind of write this book, I think, to feel confident enough to keep writing and to find the joy in that again.

Elle 59:24
Yeah, so selfishly, because I feel like I'm at that point where you were before you wrote chick magnet, where I'm kind of feeling like, what is the point? You know, and I have gotten traction on some of my books, but it just feels like it's not enough. You know, had to go get a day job. Yeah, and so and so I'm kind of there right now. And I'm just kind of curious, how did you how did you get this book? How did this book become the catalyst? Right? Like, how did you pick yourself up and even right? Yeah,

Emma 59:48
so I am a person who wants like all the external validation and all the gold stars, okay. If there is like if there's an A and B Like promo L, like I wanted, like, I would like someone to send me a report card with Chick Magnet comes out, like in a in all the subjects. It's It's so bad and it's so unhealthy. But what I had to do is to say, as much as I want those things that I can, I'm never gonna be able to stop wanting those things. It's just who I am. But I have to have the work be intrinsically valuable. And I have to feel like there's enough in this for me that even if I'm like Emily Dickinson, and the book sits in a drawer, and no one else ever reads it, that there was still a point in me writing it. And so I had I mean, this gets How will your time and earlier with like, do you think about the reader, but I had to shut the reader out because I had really paralyzed myself thinking so much about like, because I had, the story I was telling myself was you're not a commercial writer, Emma, like, you, you're a writers, writer and writers like your books, and you get good reviews, but you're never gonna find readers. And I had to be like, eff that, then I'm a writers writer, and I'm gonna write this book for me, it's gonna be a weird book, it's gonna be about chickens, and you're gonna be surprised and, and that's going to be fine. And honestly, like, being selfish, a little bit. And it's still a commercial bug. But being selfish and being like, I don't care about the market helps me write something that's sold. I mean, again, I don't know whether the books gonna find readers who knows, maybe another filter, but at minimum, tuning that out, tuning that stuff out and hearing myself and like, turning the volume up on me, was the best thing I could do. So I mean, I don't know, wait, like, your journey is going to be different than mine and cheese. I'm so sorry. Like, it was such a sucky period for me. And I have so much empathy for anyone who's in that face. But what I can say is, your voice matters, even if no one else hears it. And I think trying to find the value in that just for you can help or at least it helped me. I

Elle 1:01:58
kind of love that you're sort of saying like, I'm not gonna I'm just gonna write this book for me. Yeah. Because, you know, you're sure i It's, I think that you're concerned, like, it might not find readers. I don't know. Montlake is that the division of Amazon, and they know what they know, those they know, they have the algorithms, they have that back end, they know what's selling, and that's why I kind of feel like, Oh, I think this will be fine.

Emma 1:02:26
Here's what happens in my head. I'm like, right, but I'll be the one that fails.

I know I'm awful. There's I was but ya know, it's, it's, it's bad. But I feel I mean, if that happens, that would be sad. And I wouldn't be sad, but I also know that it would be okay because I think as I've crawled out of that hole once, I'm like, I'm not going back in that hole again, like I just it has to be for you. And if it is, then the rest of it doesn't matter as much. I'm not gonna say it doesn't matter at all, but it doesn't matter as much.

Elle 1:02:57
Okay, this was great. Emma, thank you so much for coming on. It was really great to get to know you and and get to know your chickens. And so chick magnet will be out by this by the time this airs. And I think also funny guy, too, might be as well. But where can people find you on the internet? Where do you hang out the most?

Emma 1:03:21
So my website is author Emma berry.com. And there's links to all my socials, I'm on Instagram and I'm on Twitter and there's so linked to my Spotify if you want book playlist, they're all there. But I would say I'm probably I mean I'm on Instagram. I post almost every day and I'm on Twitter almost every day. Okay,

Elle 1:03:39
that's always good to know. And always I will have links in the show notes. If you're driving your car. You don't have to stop pull over get in an accident. Don't get an accident. We don't like that. Thank you so much for being here.

Emma 1:03:50
Thank you so much for having me. l it was so much fun. Anytime,

Elle 1:03:53
come back. Now

Transcribed by https://otter.ai