Ep. 243: Emma Straub on How to Finish Your Book

Emma Straub is the New York Times-bestselling author of four novels, All Adults Here, Modern Lovers, The Vacationers and Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures, and the short story collection Other People We Married. Her books have been published in twenty countries. She and her husband own Books Are Magic, an independent bookstore in Brooklyn, New York.

How Do You Write Podcast: Explore the processes of working writers with bestselling author Rachael Herron. Want tips on how to write the book you long to finish? Here you’ll gain insight from other writers on how to get in the chair, tricks to stay in it, and inspiration to get your own words flowing. 

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Transcript:

Rachael Herron: [00:00:00] Welcome to “How do you Write?” I’m your host, Rachael Herron. On this podcast, I talk to authors about how they write, what their process is and how their lives fit together. I’ll keep each episode short so you can get back to writing.

[00:00:15] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #243 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. I am way thrilled that you are here today, as I’m talking to Emma Straub. Emma Straub is a blockbuster. She owns an incredible bookstore in New York and she wrote All Adults Here, which is a book that I absolutely loved. So, it’s going to be one of those episodes in which I covell and fangirl, and she’s such a beautiful writer and a beautiful person and I know that you are going to enjoy this interview. Oh my gosh, you can hear me stumbling. I didn’t even prepare notes of what I’m going to talk about because I am so tired. The house closed escrow. So we have sold the house and we’re moving to New Zealand. It’s really happening. I think I wasn’t willing to really believe it until the house sold. And we were so lucky that our house hit the market, sold and closed escrow in three weeks and six days. It did not even go to four weeks. It was all done and dusted. I’m still in the house. We’ve got another 10 days here in the house that we got back from the new owners. I’m sitting in a house that is not my own. It’s a very strange feeling when it’s been yours for 15 years and now it is not. And I was out there at this morning, watering, not my garden, before the heat of the day. It’s very strange. But that’s been really exciting. And so that was a couple of days ago that happened. So, I guess now we have to move to New Zealand. So, we’re doing that. 

[00:01:55] Let’s see, what else is going on around here? I am still somehow continuing to work and it’s going well. I am working on the revision of A Life in Stitches, adding a couple of essays and you might be able to hear that my voice is super tired. I am doing the audio book narration for it, which I am exceedingly excited about and it’s going great. The publisher never, I think I may have mentioned this last week, forgive me, but the publisher never did an audio book of this book, which was ridiculous. And it was something I was so irritated with them about because knitters and crafters listened to audio books before the rest of the world embraced the new audio revolution. The crafters had always been there and they always wanted this book in audio book. So now that I got the rights back, I get to do it. And now, that we’re in this house with empty closets, I took the closet furthest away from the street, I lined it with moving blankets, using this method that is really working well. And I will just say it here really quickly. I’m using command hooks to hang a cafe curtain rings with little hooks on them, with little, what are they called? Like pinchers. Clasps, and then kind of, I am connecting them to moving blankets. So everything is removable, which is important because it’s all fresh paint in that closet. But when I’m done, I just unhook the blankets, take off the command strip because those come off clean and then it’s like, I was never in there and I have this awesome audio booth set up. It sounds great. And I am truly enjoying the experience of reading this book. What I’m really enjoying is the experience of making this book. That was good. It was really good. I was proud of it, but I’m making it a little bit better and I get to use my voice to bring it to life. And that is just one of my favorite things to do. Y’all know that. 

[00:03:57] You all hear me extemporaneously and speaking too quickly and stumbling over my words. But when I get to do books and actual, really, really reading of what I’ve written, and that’s one of the things I love to do best.  I’m going to tell you a tiny, tiny little story. I was in college. I was not even in college, I’m in community college at this point because I couldn’t bear to leave my mama go to a four-year college yet. I wasn’t ready. So I went to this community college and I was taking English 1, you know, probably the very first thing. And we read in that a story that I’d read a million times before, Steinbeck’s Chrysanthemums and it’s a story that I love and this kind of bored professor, we were going to read it in class out loud and he were going to move around the room. And, you know, one person would read a couple of paragraphs and then the next one, he would move it and somebody else would read. Somebody read the first few paragraphs, I took over two paragraphs in, and then after I was done doing my part and I kind of paused to see if he wanted me to stop. He said, do you want to continue? And so, I read a couple more and then I remember this so clearly, I’m like, you know, 18, but he said to the class, he said, do you want her to continue? And they all, they said, I heard them like, do this noise. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And maybe they were just saying that because they didn’t want to read out loud. But I loved reading that story out loud with emphasis, with passion, with emotion and when I was done, there was a silence and then they clapped and then afterwards a woman followed me outside and she said that it had made her cry. And I remember thinking, I’m reading words that I love and I’m putting my own expression into them. And how cool is that? And now, I get to do that in my own closet, in the back, reading essays that are important to me, reading fiction. I don’t know if I’m ever going to be ready to do that. But reading things, something that I wrote that I love that I’m passionate about. 

[00:06:05] So that’s been really, really fun and I’m getting a lot of work done on it. I’m hoping to finish it. I’m not hoping to finish it, I need to finish it by the end of next week. Because then we will be getting rid of everything in the house, including the stage furniture. There will be nothing in the closets including a recording studio. So I record this, I’m recording this on Thursday. By the time I talk to you next Thursday, I hope that I have it done and pushing it a little bit because I’m still continuing edits. I haven’t quite finished that either. So, I’m kind of editing and then recording and then editing and then recording and it’s fun. And I guess it’s giving me a place to put all this nervous energy that is coming out my pores. So, that’s, what’s going on around here. Let us jump into the interview with Emma Straub. I hope that you really enjoy it. Have as much as I enjoyed talking to her. She’s truly awesome. So, I wish you, my friends happy writing and we will talk soon. 

[00:07:03] Do you wonder why you’re not getting your creative work done? Do you make a plan to write and then fail to follow through? Again? Well, my sweet friend, maybe you’d get a lot out of my Patreon. Each month, I write an essay on living your creative life as a creative person, which is way different than living as a person who’ve been just Netflix 20 hours a week and I have lived both of those ways, so I know. You can get each essay and access to the whole back catalog of them for just a dollar a month. Which is an amount that really truly helps support me at this here writing desk. If you pledge the $3 level, you’ll get motivating texts for me that you can respond to. And if you pledge at the $5 a month level, you get to ask me questions about your creative life, that I’ll answer in the mini episodes. So basically I’m your mini coach. Go to patreon.com/Rachael (R A C H A E L) to get these perks and more and thank you so much.

Rachael Herron: [00:08:01] All right. Well, I could not be more pleased to welcome to the show today. Emma Straub. Hello, Emma!

Emma Straub: [00:08:06] Hi! Hi 

Rachael Herron: [00:08:09] Listeners, we have just gotten deep before the show on things like New Zealand and most importantly, cats. So, I, Emma’s already my best friend, but she’s not your best friend yet. She will be after this interview. Let me give you a little introduction so you know about her. Emma’s job is the New York Times-bestselling author of four novels, All Adults Here, Modern Lovers, not Levels, The Vacationers and Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures, and the short story collection Other People We Married. Her books have been published in twenty countries. She and her husband own Books Are Magic, an independent bookstore in Brooklyn, New York. Welcome Emma. 

Emma Straub: [00:08:47] Oh, thanks for having me.

Rachael Herron: [00:08:49] I’m so excited. I’ve been so excited to talk to you because Modern Lovers has just been one of those books in my TBR pile forever and I haven’t gotten around to it. And I apologize for that. That is going to be immediately remedied because your publicist sent me a net galley for the upcoming paperback of All Adults Here. And I am in love, Emma. Your book is exactly what I needed to read right now, I fell into it with such excitement and gratitude. And so it’s one of those things, it’s one of those books, listeners that in the first scene, you’re like, no, yup, here I am, 100% committed. I’m not going to touch another book until this book is done. And in fact, I’ve kind of been having a crappy day and I promised myself after we talked, I’m getting in bed with your book and I’m not getting out for the rest of the afternoon. So, first and foremost, thank you for being my new favorite writer. I don’t mean to scare you, but you really are amazing. You’re amazing. 

Emma Straub: [00:09:51] It’s going to take way more than that to scare me.

Rachael Herron: [00:09:56] Good. Oh, that’s wonderful. You’ll hear my cat soon, that might work. Okay, so let’s talk about your writing process. This is a show for writers and we love to talk about process. I’m kind of a junkie for that question that we kind of roll our eyes when we get asked, but then we love to answer it. You know, what is your writing process? Can you tell me what your writing process is now, like now during the weirdness of the world? 

Emma Straub: [00:10:23] So when I was a youth, I used to be precious. I used to be precious about my writing process and I would only write in bed like Virginia Wolf and

Rachael Herron: [00:10:41] Oh I love that

Emma Straub: [00:10:43] a book with a cat or two, and I needed total silence and etc. And then I had children and it turned out that that was a lot harder to come by. 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:00] Yeah. I’ve heard this rumor.

Emma Straub: [00:11:03] Yeah. And by the time I was on my, by the time I was on my third novel, when I was writing Modern Lovers, I was writing it like on the subway, like literally anywhere. Literally anywhere where there were no small children that were related to me. And now, you know, so for the first, let’s say six months of the pandemic, I didn’t write a word because I have a five-year-old and a seven-year-old and all of a sudden, I was doing school while husband was at the bookstore, keeping that going, which is no small feat last year. I mean, you know, it’s funny. We like, sometimes we get into like, arguments about like, who was more miserable.

Rachael Herron: [00:12:12] Who usually wins? 

Emma Straub: [00:12:14] I mean, that’s the thing, it’s a problem. I mean, I would say I,

Rachael Herron: [00:12:17] I think you do.

Emma Straub: [00:12:19] I would say, I win, but he was like, I would say my like emotional labor was more intense but he was doing like more physical labor, which was intense and I don’t, I mean, it was bad all the way around is what we ultimately come to usually, depending on who’s having a worst day. But so, the first, you know, from March until like September, October, I didn’t write a word because I had no minutes in which to do so. But then in the fall, my, so one of my kids was in school five days a week, starting in September and the other one started totally remote. And then has, it has like worked its way up. So now they’re in school four days a week. God, it’s so boring. I’m sorry. It’s like, 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:33] This is not so boring. This is fascinating. But, I have just a quick question. What kind of writer are you when you’re not writing? Are you a grumpy one or are you just like kind of bobbing along?

Emma Straub: [00:13:44] I would say I’m bobbing along mostly because, but unhappily, like I’m bobbing along unhappily because I really love to work. I really love to work. Like I love to write. It’s my favorite thing. Like it’s, 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:02] It shows, it shows in your writing. 

Emma Straub: [00:14:06] I know. So, but yeah, so, okay. So basically once school was like reintroduced as a concept and we hired a wonderful, beautiful babysitter who could help, then, my, like professional life started to seem possible again. And then I started writing and yeah, I mean, I, what I’m writing now is so wild. It’s so different. And I think like, I think that this is, I think it’s going to be really, really interesting to be a reader in the next, let’s say five years.

Rachael Herron: [00:14:55] I have thought the same thing. Yeah. 

Emma Straub: [00:14:57] It is like, I mean, like if I am writing what I’m writing, like, it’s going to like I’m writing a book, that is time travel with has time travel. And like, if like I, who knows, like just people are going to be writing some wild, wild stuff and it is going to be really exciting and interesting to see how everyone is like processing the trauma of this year, you know?

Rachael Herron: [00:15:37] Yeah, I’m at once right now, I’m trying to balance two proposals. One is the happiest, most up-lit book I’ve ever written. And one is the darkest book I’ve ever heard talk about and in, up to, and including like, my wife won’t let me talk about the book in the house. 

Emma Straub: [00:15:54] Oh my God, oh my god, that’s going to be a problem.

Rachael Herron: [00:15:58] I think that might be a problem, but I think we are really just we’re all writing those peaks and valleys. Where did you write before all of this happened? Were you an outside cafe writer or were you an inside? Have you had to adjust to that? 

Emma Straub: [00:16:11] I have always been an inside person, but last, I guess I wrote most of All Adults Here in a coworking space that I could walk to. And it was perfect because it got me out of the house and I could drop my kids off at school and then keep walking and it was like a nice walk from home. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:43] I had a coworking space for three weeks before the pandemic, I had just made the decision to do it. And I would take Bart there and take the train and it was like, you know, two stops. But did yours survive? Mine closed.

Emma Straub: [00:16:56] No, mine closed too. And you know, I think that like, I mean, one good side, if we can call it that, is that like, I am now able to work at home. Like, before I would have said, oh, I can’t work at home, but I can and I do. And actually, I bought something recently, just a couple of months ago that really changed my whole game. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:24] Tell me it was an Alpha Smart. 

Emma Straub: [00:17:26] I don’t know what that is. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:28] Oh, that’s a different topic for a different day. Tell me what yours is. 

Emma Straub: [00:17:31] I’ll be next, whatever that is. It sounds like a robot that writes my books for me. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:37] Yeah. That I, that I would like to buy. I can’t afford that one actually. 

Emma Straub: [00:17:41] Yeah, I’m looking for that one, but I bought myself a treadmill for my, and an adjustable desk. So, I just walk on my treadmill. I don’t go faster than that because, but I love to walk and I just, I don’t really have time ever for anything. But now, I can walk for, you know, a half an hour or an hour maybe, and then sit for a while and walk and sit, and then I can write. I’m going slow enough that I can write. I can type and, 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:24] That’s sounds brilliant. I have wanted, I will admit that I made one once with a cheap treadmill I got off Amazon and it was not a good one. And then I tried to drill a shelf, and it was just really a bad idea all around and it kept on falling off of it, but I have a dream of having the real kind. So, it really, you really can write at it?

Emma Straub: [00:18:45] Yeah. And I mean, like it’s not even like, the real kind, like, so Ann Patchett, who is like my sister friend. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:52] She’s amazing. 

Emma Straub: [00:18:54] That’s like all one thing, but mine is like a little Frankensteiny. But who cares? I just bought like, it’s not the cheapest treadmill, but it’s low profile. So like it’s really made for people to like shove under the couch or whatever. And so, it wasn’t crazy expensive and it has made my life better. So, I mean, I think that moving to New Zealand, like is already going to just improve things like 3000%. But what if you want to just like, touch it up even just like a scooch more. 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:33] I literally just had the thought, could I buy a cheap treadmill here because electronics are expensive there. Would I be able to get a step-down converter in order to run the voltage needed for the treadmill. And then I stopped that brain thought and then went back to listening to you. But yes, I think that that could really, really work. What is your biggest challenge when it comes to writing?

Emma Straub: [00:19:54] My own brain, I mean, I would say, I mean, it’s not fair to blame my children, right? 

Rachael Herron: [00:20:06] I don’t have kids so you can blame them. I don’t have that, that feeling that you shouldn’t.

Emma Straub: [00:20:11] Yeah. I mean, I guess the biggest roadblock is just that I have so many other things that require my attention. 

Rachael Herron: [00:20:25] I cannot imagine. 

Emma Straub: [00:20:27] I’ve like we’ve, this last year has been excruciating obviously. But the one thing that I feel really good about is that we are a better, more efficient, just like better functioning bookstore now than we were a year ago, even before the pandemic. And, what that means for me is just that I, they need me there less. 

Rachael Herron: [00:20:03] That’s awesome. 

Emma Straub: [00:20:04] Which is really, really, really good, especially, you know, since the fall, because, I’ve been writing and I am on deadline and, you know, God knows how long it’s going to take me to figure out, how to edit this time travel level, so, you know, I need all the time I can have, I can get, yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:36] Yeah. What is your biggest joy when it comes to writing?

Emma Straub: [00:21:41] I guess, I mean, I love a lot of things about it. I love when it slips in, like when it slips from the, from feeling like, okay, so I have this woman who’s like, 39, you know, from like when you like making conscious decisions to feeling like they’re people. I love that. I love that feeling.

Rachael Herron: [00:22:23] Does that happen to you in a first draft or is it, does it happen more in later drafts?

Emma Straub: [00:22:27] Yeah. I think it happens in the first draft, like, and at some point, you know, like it’s, it’s not always the same, but I like both with All Adults Here, what happened was that, like, I thought it was about, when I started, I thought that the book was really just about Astrid, who’s the, you know, the matriarch of this family, her daughter Porter and her granddaughter, Cecilia. Like, I thought it was really just about them, but then all these other family members kept, so like walking in, you know, and I mean, it’s like the same thing happened when I was writing Modern Lovers that like, I thought it was about this one family and then like the family next door, basically, I like kept like walking over there and I was like, okay, fine. It’s about them too. Like I get it. I get it. Brain. 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:30] Oh, and it’s just what my brain wants to read. Are you a fan of Elinor Lipman? 

Emma Straub: [00:23:36] You know, I am, I am I just, I, what did I just read? Oh my God. Something, I can’t remember a book by her.

Rachael Herron: [00:23:44] There are, I have levels in my brain and there, I don’t know if they’re color coded or numerical or whatever, but when I need, like, when I need soothing in a way I go to Elinor Lipman, but you just took one step above, you’re above her now. But I keep thinking about her and while I’m reading your books and the way that family is very real and very messy, but still, there’s just, it’s just underpinned with love. And that’s, it’s something that is so hard to pull off, organically and realistically, and it’s amazing. So, speaking of your writing chops, can you share a craft tip with our audience of any sort?

Emma Straub: [00:24:26] Oh geez, okay this is hard. I mean, this is like, I don’t know. Apologies if this is too broad, but my number one tip for people who are aspiring or emerging writers is to finish it, whether it’s a story or a screenplay or a novel. Perfection is a lie and like a dumb one. Like, I don’t know. I mean, I think there are a couple of people in the world. Like when I was in, I remember when I was in my MFA program, Kevin Brockmeier, who is an amazing writer came and talked to us and we asked him a question sort of like that or about his, no, it was about his process. And he said something and like, I could see the, like our faculty, like, you know, basically drawing there, like a hand and a line across their necks because he said what he does is he writes one sentence until it’s perfect.

Rachael Herron: [00:25:50] Oh no. 

Emma Straub: [00:25:52] And then he moves on to the second sentence and he works on that sentence until it’s perfect, but you know, it has to be perfect with the first sentence too. And he just goes on that way until he’s written the whole, and then he’s done. 

Rachael Herron: [00:26:06] Oh my God. Which is what every new writer thinks is the only way to write.

Emma Straub: [00:26:11] Right. And like, to me, that’s just plain impossible. Like just, yeah, I mean, I was born with, I don’t know if it’s just like, I dunno what it is, like a tube, like a one, like teaspoon, too much confidence or something. Like, I am always like, I’m done. Okay. That’s it. And then I have to go and fix things, but like, I just don’t think, I don’t think there’s any way to make something good unless you finish it. Like, it’s just, it’s so easy to psych yourself out and be like, oh, it’s not going to be good or whatever, like to like buy into the myth of perfection when, like that doesn’t matter. If like, if you’re choosing between, you know, having something to be perfect, I don’t know. I mean, I guess like if you’re Donna Tartt right, and your goal is to publish a book every decade, then like, maybe that is your goal. You know what I mean? 

Rachael Herron: [00:27:43] It is. But I would even argue with that, that there are a lot of people who want to be Donna Tartt and they aren’t finishing their books. I always say if revising, as you go is only it, your method, if you are finishing books. There you go. And Kevin’s got it, Donna’s got it. But most people don’t. 

Emma Straub: [00:28:03] Yeah. I mean, it’s so hard. It is so hard. 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:13] Yeah. Perfect. And I love that craft tip and I think we cannot hear it enough. What thing in your life affects your writing in a surprising way?

Emma Straub: [00:28:27] God, this is a hard question because I feel like everything that really affects my writing is not at all surprising because it’s like, you know, something that has some large gravitational pull on my time. 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:46] Can I ask you a pointed, Rachael directed question then? 

Emma Straub: [00:28:49] Yes please. 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:51] How do your cats affect your writing? Cause I really want to know. 

Emma Straub: [00:28:56] Well, right now, two out of three are snoozing right next to me. I, you know, I would say, here’s what I would say. Right now, when I’m on my treadmill, it helps me. Okay. I have a real answer. It used to be that if Killer, who is my 16-year-old. 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:22] Perfect Cat.

Emma Straub: [00:29:24] Of a possum. So, if Killer was on my lap, then it would, I can write for longer because, to move her? No, right? And now I, that’s how I feel about my treadmill. That like, if I’m writing and I’m walking, like I am a fidgety, 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:44] Yeah, me too.

Emma Straub: [00:29:46] Fidgeter, snacking. Like I, 

Rachael Herron: [00:29:50] Hair twisting, glasses adjusting. Yeah.

Emma Straub: [00:29:54] I probably need a glass of water. I probably have to pee. I probably need to snack. I probably need to whatever, you know. But if I’m walking on my treadmill, then I’m, I wanna do that. So I would say treadmill and cats both are anchoring devices. 

Rachael Herron: [00:30:17] I love that. And as a person who struggles with ADHD, I think I have to get a treadmill. I think it’s like, I think it’s necessary. Okay. And I’m going to throw this question at you and if your brain goes completely blank, that’s fine. But what is the best book you’ve read recently? And why did you love it? And this is impossible to write or ask of a writer and it’s doubly impossible to ask of a writer who owns a bookstore. So I apologize. 

Emma Straub: [00:30:43] Yeah, but I mean, I can do this. Okay. 

Rachael Herron: [00:30:47] My brain just goes blank when this comes up.

Emma Straub: [00:30:52] Okay. So right now, I’ll just tell you what, I’m, what I am reading and what I just finished. Okay. So, what I’m reading right now is The Galley of Colson Whitehead’s new book, Harlem Shuffle, which comes out in October. 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:07] Nice. 

Emma Straub: [00:31:08] And, it’s, you know, he’s, he had two really emotionally intense books in a row and I can see him having fun. 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:27] Oh, good. I’m so glad to hear that. I loved his, I loved his poker book for that reason.

Emma Straub: [00:31:32] Yeah, the Poker book, the Sag Harbor and even Zone One. Like, I mean, he’s written so many. Like he, they’re all bangers, you know, like they’re no skips, but yeah, it’s a fun one so that I’m reading and enjoying. My friend, Ashley Ford has a memoir that’s coming out in July, I believe it’s July.

Rachael Herron: [00:32:00] I can’t wait for that. I cannot wait for that one. 

Emma Straub: [00:32:04] It’s wonderful. It’s wonderful. You know, I feel really lucky. I mean, it’s sort of an absurd position to be in really where, like, where this has happened to me so many times, but I have so many friends, you know, who are people who I’ve made friends with as an adult who then write memoirs. And it’s like getting in a, like a machine and like going back and seeing someone’s whole childhood or like seeing what makes them who they are. It’s amazing. 

Rachael Herron: [00:32:48] Really being dipped, really dipped inside their brains. And how cool is it to be dipped inside Ashley Ford? Like that is amazing. 

Emma Straub: [00:32:56] Yeah. So that is terrific. And then I also just read this middle grade book called Middletown by a woman named Sarah Moon. And I don’t read much middle grade. I mean, my kids are five and seven. And so, I read a lot, I mean, I read a lot picture books and I read a lot of, sort of like younger chapter books, but yeah. But this sort of like, you know, third grade through like eighth grade kind of reading zone, I really haven’t dipped my toe in, since I was that age and this book is really good and it made me cry and it’s about sisters. And what’s really nice about it is that it’s about these two sisters whose mother is an alcoholic and it’s about them, sort of taking care of themselves and, but like nothing really bad happens to them, which is nice. 

Rachael Herron: [00:34:11] Yeah, yeah.

Emma Straub: [00:34:12] And also, one of the two sisters who’s in like the eighth grade, seventh or eighth grade in the book is gay, but it’s not a plot point, it’s not her coming out story. It’s just, you know, one part of who she is. And like, there is like a sweet, like sort of first romance. 

Rachael Herron: [00:34:44] Tell me the name of this one again. 

Emma Straub: [00:34:45] It’s called Middletown, the writers named Sarah Moon. And I love Sarah for many reasons. And one of which is that her daughter goes to the same school as my kids. And so, I see her at preschool drop off, which means she’s like one of like only a few grownups who I interact with out in the world. And she, like me is the daughter of a writer, and so we have a lot in common. Her mom is Amy Bloom

Rachael Herron: [00:35:20] Oh, wow!

Emma Straub: [00:35:21] whose white houses was a scorcher. 

Rachael Herron: [00:35:23] Yes. Wow. Yeah. Nice, nice lineage there. Oh my goodness. Oh, you have really good answers, Emma. Okay. I’m going to ask you the last question and then I’m going to say goodbye to you, but please stay on the line just for a second afterwards. Can you give us your logline pitch for All Adults Here? 

Emma Straub: [00:35:44] Yes.

Rachael Herron: [00:35:45] Okay. Sorry. I said it wrong. My wife always says, I said that wrong adults, not adults.

Emma Straub: [00:35:49] Say it, listen. This is your show. You can do anything however you want. Okay?

Rachael Herron: [00:35:56] Thank you! Thank you. 

Emma Straub: [00:35:58] You’re wife, she’s not the boss here.

Rachael Herron: [00:36:00] I was practicing it last night. All adults, all adults. Cause I do have some weird leftover New Zealand, Kiwi accent, things that come out and it just it’s, 

Emma Straub: [00:36:08] Well, it’s time to lean into that. 

Rachael Herron: [00:36:10] I know. 

Emma Straub: [00:36:12] Okay. So, all of those here, or as I like to say, All Adults Here is, 

Rachael Herron: [00:36:19] Thank you, Lala

Emma Straub: [00:36:21] it’s an inter-generational, multi-generational family story that takes place in the beautiful Hudson Valley in New York. It’s about a sort of a, you know, slightly fastidious matriarch and her three adult children who are each fucked up in their own ways. Can I say that?

Rachael Herron: [00:36:49] Yes, you can.

Emma Straub: [00:36:50] And then her granddaughter, Cecilia, who has just been sort of shipped up from New York city where she’s gotten into a little bit of trouble at her school. But yeah, I mean, it’s really about making mistakes, and figuring out who you are and forgiveness. It’s, you know, hopefully it’s funny, I think that makes me sound really serious, which like, there are some parts of it are. 

Rachael Herron: [00:37:26] It’s hilarious from jump, like no spoilers, but a lady gets hit by a bus and it is the funniest shit I’ve ever read. Plus, the end of that first scene, I was like, oh my God, Astrid, go, go with yourself. So I cannot recommend this more highly to people. Please pick this up. When does it come out and paperback? Is it already out on paperback? 

Emma Straub: [00:37:51] Yeah, yesterday. 

Rachael Herron: [00:37:52] Congratulations!

Emma Straub: [00:37:53] Yep. Thank you. 

Rachael Herron: [00:37:54] Happy paperback birthday. Thank you so much for being on the show, Emma. This is such a huge treat for me.

Emma Straub: [00:38:01] My pleasure and have a good move. Good luck!

Rachael Herron: [00:38:06] Thank you! Thank you! Thank you. 

Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of “How do you Write?” You can reach me on Twitter, twitter.com/RachaelHerron, or at my website, www.rachaelherron.com, you can also support me on Patreon and get essays on living your creative life for as little as a buck an essay at www.patreon.com/rachael spelled R, A, C, H, A, E, L and do sign up for my free weekly newsletter of encouragement to writers rachaelherron.com/write/

Now, go to your desk and create your own process and get to writing my friends.