where to start with jenna? maybe with tbr?
as your resident overeager beaver, i of course signed up for the conference early. and, of course, i signed up for the query class that they offered. jenna was the teacher. one of the (amazing) example letters she used was my friend Julie Gerstenblatt . i immediately texted julie, and then i told julie i was thinking about asking jenna to help me with my get-covid-out-of-the-mf-book edit. julie said “yes, do it!” (she was right.)
so, i sent jenna the first few pages. she told me her book (darlings) was launching in january, so if we could do this quickly, she was in.
she got the book. she wanted to be part of it. melt! and then… panic. because if she was going to edit it, i obviously needed to re-edit it first.
then i read her debut novel, those who save us. like everyone who reads it, i laughed. i cried. i was in awe of her voice. and then the terror set in: this woman is going to read my writing?
i sent my edit to her as she was literally boarding a christmas eve flight — the one she said she’d read it on. there were… several check-in emails. sorry, jenna.
she turned it around incredibly quickly. it was the first time i’d sent someone (in the industry) the whole damn thing. terrifying.
and then her notes came back! thoughtful. sharp. generous. she was laughing with me and horrified with me in all the right places. as someone who has always worked on teams, feeling someone in the trenches with me for what i hope will be the home stretch for this book? game changer. and her ideas to make it even crazier? she’s putting boomers in chick-fil-a cow suits. idk if the idea sounds better with or without context.
then, we met in person at tbr. she had just launched her massive hit thriller, murder your darlings. she was wearing bunny ears! she grabbed my hand, asked how my meetings went (great!), and started introducing me to people. i felt so lucky to have thrown myself into her orbit.
then i went to her book launch party. she is fun. she is beloved. she can command a room!
and then i read darlings. again: i laughed. i cried. i was in awe. but, it was so different from her debut!
back at tbr, sitting in session after session, the industry experts kept repeating the same thing: put yourself out there online (check). talk about your writing (check). be in literary community (check… wait).
i’ve built this little substack community. i interview women for she bet on herself. i talk about my book (sometimes cryptically, but still). but then i realized: why aren’t i interviewing authors?
so here we are: she wrote it.
maybe it becomes she read it, she edited it, she sold it, she published it… who knows? she’s bookish.
but, i’m starting a series where i sit down with bookish women and ask them a similar-but-different set of questions — about craft, ambition, reinvention, fear, joy, etc.
i am so excited about the lineup coming your way. and, i am thrilled that jenna is first.
if you’re an author (or adjacent to the book world) and would like to be interviewed — or have someone in mind — let me know.
okay. without further ado… jenna!
if you would like more of jenna after this (and you will), you can follow her on instagram, take a look at her event schedule to see if she is coming to you, and read her books!
the lost family (next up for me)
as i do with my she bet on herself interviews, i asked jenna to introduce herself the way she would at a cocktail party.
“i’m jenna blum. nice to meet you. i’m a writer.”
short and to the point!
what did you want to be when you grew up?
jb: jenna laughed and said, “a writer. always a writer.”
when did you start writing? do you remember early stories?
jb: jenna told me she started writing when she was around four years old. when i pushed her on that (i have a four-year-old! she’s amazing, but she is not writing), she pushed back and said it is true.
her dad was a broadcast journalist at the time. he covered the vietnam war, watergate, and much more. jenna remembers listening to the sound of her dad’s typewriter. one day, at four years old, she sat down at it herself and started writing stories — about people getting haircuts.
of course, i asked if she still had any of those early stories. sadly, she doesn’t.
jenna also remembers her dad taking those stories (yes, the haircut ones) to walter cronkite (!) and saying, “look, walt, my kid is a genius!”
her creativity clearly runs in the family. her mother is a concert pianist, and her sister is also an author. jenna told me her dream is that one day she and her sister will both be on the bestseller list at the same time. so special.
what was your journey to writing professionally?
jb: when jenna was 16, she won a fiction contest in seventeen magazine. her mom had secretly sent in her story, and she won $2,000. laughing, she remembered spending it on chuck taylors and whatever neon clothes she could find at the mall. at the time, she thought this was the beginning of the writing career she, as a contest-winning teen, was owed.
but that confidence slowly dimmed. in her 20s, she worked in restaurants while sending out short stories and hoping to be published. she “finally” got into BU for her MFA, which gave her the chance to teach. it was in graduate school that she wrote those who save us, and she loved the camaraderie of her cohort. writing came more alive there, she said, because she could be inside her own head while also having other people deeply invested in the work.
how do you get into your creative brain space? or do you need to get into it?
jb: at this point in her writing career, jenna told me she’s far less precious about it all. she putters. she walks her (gorgeous) dog, gets distracted, falls down rabbit holes. she tries to move through the “containable” tasks first in her day—laundry, dishes, the small things that can be finished.
then, around 11am, she sits down to write for four to five hours, often on zoom with other writers. silent, but together. there’s something about knowing someone else is there, also working, that keeps her in it.
she used to take a lot of notes by hand, but finds herself doing that less and less. i asked if she needs any rituals—a specific candle, a particular drink—and she said she just needs something hot, and that she’s very specific about her mugs. smoking used to be part of the routine, too, but she quit years ago.
i was especially curious about how she stays organized. my own notes and edits tend to live everywhere at once. jenna keeps it simple: microsoft word, saving each version as a new document. she finds google docs starts to get strange once a manuscript passes 100 pages (agreed). we both laughed about scrivener—how it probably is the better system, and how neither of us has quite managed to learn it.
who is a character who has stayed with you? yours and/or someone elses?
jb: jenna said that right now, the characters from the darlings are the ones most alive for her—especially the rabbit. if she’s thinking about anything, asking a question, the rabbit is right there.
she also mentioned anna from those who save us (who i, embarrassingly, mixed up with trudy during our conversation). jenna told me that her mom used to call her and say, “anna is just so real.”
when i asked about characters she loves, she brought up linda voss from shining through by susan isaacs. linda is a secretary from queens working at a white-collar law firm during world war ii, translating documents. she’s eventually sent into nazi germany. jenna described her as admirable and earthy—someone who speaks truth to power while staying sharp and strategic. and i loved the way she put it: “linda is not someone blinded by (male) puffery.”
what is the best writing advice you’ve gotten? and what is the writing advice you give?
jb: “yes, and.
yes, and.
yes, and.”
she remembers her friend matt, in grad school, telling her, “just tell your story.” which i love—it’s the writer’s version of nike’s just do it, no?
and then this, too:
“never give in.
never give in.
never give in.”
where should people start if they are new to your writing?
jb: “darlings! very accessible. funny and fun. resistance-oriented.”
how does an idea find you?
jb: jenna laughed (again) and said she’s almost completely amnesiac about it all. her mind is always churning, and then one day something arrives, an emerging galaxy, and slowly, or sometimes quickly, it becomes something more. she thinks there must be some kind of timing at play, between what’s happening in her life and what’s forming in that creative galaxy.
her ideas come to her through emotion first.
she never works on more than one project at a time. it becomes too immersive. and when a project is finished, she leaves the characters and feels ready to do so.
on whether you can start something new while still deep in another project, which is advice i really needed to hear, she said, “you can’t get pregnant while you’re already pregnant.”
what would you say to yourself when you were just starting?
jb: “you’re gunna make it. there was never an alternitive path for me.”
what do you listen to while writing?
jb: jenna listens to nothing at all when she writes. her mom was a concert pianist, and music is a huge part of her life, but if she’s listening to it, it becomes a mood creator. the language of sound interferes with her ability to put words on the page.
mantra:
jb: “never give in, never give in, never give in”
i asked jenna if there was anything else she wanted to talk about during the interview. of course, being who she is, she wanted to talk about my project. but this isn’t about that.
what she really wanted to talk about was her readers.
she loves them. the events, the questions, the conversations. she told me that at a recent event in indiana, a woman asked her, “do you ever want to just give up and do something else?” jenna said no. she has the grit. and grit is something you need as an author, or even as an aspiring author. i felt that one.
readers make or break a book. they are the audience clapping to keep tinker bell alive. “i love giving thanks to my readers,” she said. “thank you, readers.”
and because i couldn’t help myself, i asked about the film news. the darlings has been optioned by rome and pfeffer entertainment. a book stays alive in a different way when it moves to film. it stretches its life, reaches new people, becomes something else entirely.
thank you for doing this, jenna! go read darlings everyone!
highlights
spring weather! being outside! writing outside! playing outside!
fun plans with friends coming up
making progress on house projects
lowlights
missing out on family holiday plans because my back hurts
sick kids
scary world we live in
idk how many times this has been a favorite thing, but between my recent chemical pregnancy and car accident, this baby has been getting even more use than usual and is a miracle worker. you can use EMMAP15 to get your own. i also love this oil
my friend Emily Hammer recommended this ($11!) long sleeve tshirt and i figured why not try it. i love it. perfectly worn in and semi-cropped.
i am cann's biggest fan. i don’t drink at home much, but i love one of these babies around 5pm! i am doing a partnership with them right now (use code EMMAS10) which is so cool! i like the smaller ones but if you have a higher tolerance the “hi-boys” are a good option. also love the roadies and handing them out to friends! i call myself a dealer (can i say that on the internet?)
before we wrap up — thank you so much for reading!
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I love reading these interviews! They’re always so inspiring. My daughter is a big reader, writer, and overall creative, and I think of her every time I read about authors who’ve known since elementary school that they wanted to be writers.
Also, I love the cheerful floral graphics in this post…especially on a day that’s this chilly and gray!