Jessica Anya Blau, MARY JANE

[1:51]Zibby Owens: Hi. This is Zippy Owens, and you're listening to the award winning podcast, moms don't have time to read books. I'm also the host of moms don't have time to lose weight, and I'm the editor of the anthology, which you should run out and buy, called Moms Don't Have Time to: A Quarantine Anthology. All proceeds of that book go to COVID nineteen Vaccine Research. And I'm the editor in chief of Moms Don't Have Time to Write, Publication on Medium, and we're accepting submissions, so please send your personal essays there. And if all that isn't enough, you can follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens and my website is zibbyowens.com. Okay, now back to this amazing podcast. Jessica Anya Blau is the author of Mary Jane. She's also the author of the nationally best selling novel, The Summer of Naked Swim Parties and three other critically acclaimed novels. Most recently, The Trouble with Lexi. Her novels have been recommended and featured on CNN, NPR, The Today Show and in Vanity Fair Cosmo, Oprah's Summer Reads and many other national magazines and newspapers. Welcome, Jessica. Thanks so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss Mary Jane's.

[2:56]Jessica Anya Blau: Yay. Thank you for having me. I love all your multiple platforms and media and I go through it all and listen to things and I think you're wonderful. So thank you for having You're

[3:07]Zibby Owens: so sweet. Thank you. Well, I'm delighted to have you too. I love your sense of humor that is in this book. I mean, I don't know if that was a primary intention. And maybe we should start with you telling listeners what your book is about and what inspired you to write it and all that. But I just like you're, like, so quick witted and, like, this sort of dark sense of humor. I just loved it. It's just so funny. Anyway, loved it. Aw, thank you. Yes, the book is about a 14 year old girl in Baltimore in 1975,

[3:36]Jessica Anya Blau: who is the summer nanny for a psychiatrist who lives down the street. And over the summer she discovers, or immediately she discovers that he's housing a very famous rock star and a movie star as the rock star tries to sober up and they're hiding on the 3rd Floor of this house in Baltimore. So that's it. Was the premise and that's what I sat down to write. I wrote this book. I ghostwrite sometimes. And I have been ghostwriting for a celebrity and she was lovely and she was very fun and we had a great time and she had no boundaries, which as you probably know, I'm from California, I'm actually used to people who don't have boundaries. It's like, I can deal with it. Somebody's like, Hey, no boundaries. I'm like, Okay, I'm in. So she had no boundaries. It was like FaceTiming from bed with her celebrity husband every night, you know, and it was just like phoning every day and the entire history of her sex life with every celebrity in Hollywood, which was very extensive and interesting and fun to listen about, you know, to hear about. And, you know, I kept writing chapters and writing chapters and writing chapters and everything she told me she didn't want in the book. So it was this incredibly creatively frustrating thing where she would spend, you know, ten days telling me about every star she'd ever had sex with. And then I'd write a chapter of it, would hide everybody's name and try and disguise who they were. And then she'd I don't want to put that in the book. And then she'd spend a week talking about her famous family and this and that and then I don't want to put that in the book. And then we'd spend two weeks talking about movie sets and certain movies she was on, and then, I don't want to put that in the book. And it was just like, you know, was trying to write and trying to write, and it was like I couldn't write it. So we were kind of at a crossroads and she fired me, which was Oh no. Well, we had read her diaries together and we were reading the diaries and they were very smart and funny and they were interesting. And I said, Oh, you should just publish these diaries. And then two days later, she decided she was going to write the book herself and she fired me. So it was of course that terrible humiliation of being fired and anger and heartbreak. You know, it's like a guy breaking up with you or a woman breaking up with you. It's like a lover breaking up with you. It's like a friend leaving you and then it's the humiliation of losing a job. Was just like, and I was just so sort of heartbroken and angry and upset and frustrated. And then I just thought, oh, I just want to write what I want to write without anybody else having veto power or saying, don't want to say that, or I don't want to reveal that, or I don't want to, you know, it was so hard. And then ghost written for other people before and I'd never had that problem before. You know, it goes through a few books. So it was a new thing that everything I did was rejected. So I sat down and I was like, I'm just, you know, it was almost like a rage right at first. It was like I was so mad. And I just thought, I'm just going to write what I want to write. And I sat down and I started writing Mary Jane. And I was just, you know, I wanted it to be 1975 and I was listening to Billboard's top 100 songs from 1975 the whole time I was writing. And I turned it up at the end of the day and dance in the kitchen and empty the dishwasher. You know what I mean? I was just completely liberated. Like I'd felt liberated and it felt really good just to have my voice be the only voice and my say be the say of, okay, this works, and I'm going to do this. And so that's how I wrote Mary Jane. Wow.

[7:09]Zibby Owens: Well, you know, it's so great when the person writing the book is like going through some of the emotions that are actually in the book. You know, like you were clearly on this like journey, not that that happened in the story or anything, but even just that image of you dancing around, like that is so great. Like how can you then read a book and feel anything but that same sense of sort of like perseverance

[7:31]Jessica Anya Blau: and joy and all of that, right? It's like it seeps in there. Yeah. All right. That's interesting. Remind me of what was that book? Was it Isabella Ende? The one where they would put the tears and the food they were making and you'd feel Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes.

[7:45]Zibby Owens: That like water for chocolate or am I mixing Yeah, things was gonna say that and then I was like, No, I'm sure I'm wrong. Yes, think it We both or we both might be both might be wrong, but I'm on the same. Yes, that's what I think it is too. No, that's just interesting.

[7:56]Jessica Anya Blau: I love that you said that. It's so interesting. Yeah, because maybe it was, I mean, there was so emotionally, I was in such a sort of state as I entered this book. So maybe, yeah, maybe it does come out. Maybe it's like cooking with tears.

[8:11]Zibby Owens: It's true. It's so true. My husband cooks a lot and he's always like, Well, you can I'm like, Your food always tastes better. He's like, That's because like I put my love into it. He's like, I could give the same ingredients to a chef at a restaurant. It's not going to taste the same because like the emotion is out of it. So anyway, I feel like it's parallel to this story. Yeah, that's sweet. Well, and then a lot of this was written during COVID

[8:31]Jessica Anya Blau: and I was just like feeling like all I wanted was to go to a dance party and all I wanted was to like hug people and touch people and just snuggle with somebody in a bed. I mean, have kids too. I started having kids in my twenties, so they're out of the house now. So in the book, I definitely was putting in the things I need like Mary Jane, holding Izzy or getting hugged or dancing, you know, just this sort of like communal togetherness feeling physically and emotionally connected with someone was such a fantasy just because of COVID and lockdown.

[9:09]Zibby Owens: So I was definitely that was coming out in the book as well. I love it. There's like the scene at the end that I'm not giving anything away, but when she's like euphorically kind of jumps in the car and they're all so excited like, Mary Jane, you're back. And they're like all together again. You know? It was like a I felt like it was like a scene from Almost Famous or something. You know? Like it it had that same like rock band that's gang gangs together again, you know, excitement to it. So I could see that. Yeah. Just being part of something. Being part of a group. Yeah. You know, mean, I am such a pack animal and COVID has been so hard on me, you know, and just being part of a little pod,

[9:48]Jessica Anya Blau: you know, I like to be in a litter. Like I would love to be like with six people in a litter.

[9:54]Zibby Owens: Yeah. Well, come on over. I have four kids and a you know, there are at least six people in the house most of the time.

[10:00]Jessica Anya Blau: You're like, I wanted like six kids. I just thought I had two, but I wanted six. I just thought it would be so much fun. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, well, anyway.

[10:11]Zibby Owens: You're doing great. You're doing an amazing amount of things for four kids back there. Oh, well, I'm kind of cheating. My son's at boarding school, so he'll be back in a couple But of anyways, so it's like three and a half at the moment. There's a lot in the book too about obviously addiction, right? Because there's the psychiatrist and Jimmy is there for treatment and that's sort of the premise of the whole thing. But I love this quote from Sheba. And you said, well, she said, well, we're all addicts of some sort. Part of being alive is figuring out the balance between what you want, what you need, and what you have with what you don't want, don't need, and don't have. And then she says, I mean, Jimmy, man, you are so not alone here. This whole family, each of us, we're all addicts in one way or another. Tell me a little bit more about that and sort of the addiction to other things, not just how we're all kind of addicted to something. Well,

[10:59]Jessica Anya Blau: I mean, you know, I do feel that. Like, I do feel that in life. And, you know, it really is like how do you how do you find the balance? How do you let go of certain things? I mean, everything, love and hate, even being angry. People get hooked into being angry about something. It's like there's so much that we need to let go of and so much that we need to grasp and maybe not grasp as much. So, I mean, it is such a part of life just balancing all this. And I mean, it's interesting because COVID also has been a lot of it has been letting go, like a process of letting go and acceptance and just sort of being where you are and accepting where you are and that kind of stuff. And as far as addictive behaviors, I've certainly had mine, but I've also been with people and have family members. I think we all have, haven't we? Don't we all? Everybody's got a story. Yeah, we all have people in our lives and families and all that stuff. Think maybe the difference between people who are writing but it's just that you're either willing to talk about it or you're not. So, how do we talk about it or do we talk about it? And certainly everybody doesn't need to talk about anything. I mean, I don't write memoir, I write fiction. But there is in all my fiction, is my internal life is being processed through there. Mary Jane, one of my daughters read the book and she's like, Mom, Mary Jane is exactly you. It's just And then a close friend read it and he was like, That's not you. You were making out on the beach and drinking beer at 14. I was making out on the beach at 14. I grew up in Southern California and drinking beer, But internally, like as my daughters know me, that is me. Like I love organization and alphabetizing. Like I see your bookshelves are color and so are You know, I mean, I love like alphabetizing and color. I mean, I just, I love like purity and cleanliness and order, and I love singing and dancing and I love Broadway musicals. Yeah. I mean, there's just so much to love in the world. So really internally it is me, although at 14, I was a little more rebellious. I mean, I was in Southern California. Was, you can't, you couldn't help it.

[13:18]Zibby Owens: Yeah, here in New York, everybody was very buttoned up, I'm sure. In comparison.

[13:24]Jessica Anya Blau: Don't know. New York and California, everywhere in between. I mean, who knew? I mean, right? In Indiana, they're taking a truck out to the cornfield and right everybody, you know.

[13:34]Zibby Owens: This is why I'm like terrified about having twin teenagers at the moment. Old are they? I'm like, I know what I was doing. What are they going to be doing? They will be 14 very soon. Boys or girls?

[13:47]Jessica Anya Blau: Boy girl. Wow. Boy and girls. Well, did find in motherhood because I had so many, I mean, I was never completely off the rails. And so I never stole. I mean, tried not to steal or cheat or do terrible things, it did do, know, I'd sneak out my window at night and go out with a boy and go to the beach and try and sneak back in at four in the morning stuff like that. But there was, mean, I don't know if you're fine with kids, it was like, my kids' daughters would do things and it's like, I did that. It was kind of like, am I really going to care or get upset? You want them to have boundaries and you want them to be contained and feel like there's some safe netting around them so they don't totally go off. It's almost like everything they did was pretty forgivable because I did it too. Like Today's

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[17:49]Zibby Owens: Okay. So tell me a little more about your writing process in general and like how you got your start. When did you Tell me about like your first published book and like how you became a writer. Yeah. So

[18:03]Jessica Anya Blau: I was You know, I married my college boyfriend and we had a baby right away. And he got a job in Canada. So we were in Toronto. And in Toronto, part of the thing was I wasn't allowed to work or go to school. They wouldn't give me a permit. So I suddenly was home. It was just like, and I was kind of going crazy. I've always been a reader like you, you know me, just reading like mad my entire life. And so I was home and he brought a computer home from work. I was like, Oh, and I just started writing stories. And so I was lonely. I didn't know anyone. I was in the middle of Toronto and we moved there in, you know, in the fall and it got cold really quickly. I was lonely and I was alone and I got a dog because I thought, well, that'll help. And I just would, I've found that if I wrote every day, I felt like I was okay. Like, cause I would clean the house and I would grow. I mean, I was a complete, I was a bowel booster, just like cleaning the house, grocery shopping, you know, just taking care of everything. And I felt so sort of pointless. I felt so useless. But when I noticed that if I wrote every day, I felt like an okay, I felt okay about myself. And so I was just writing and writing, writing. So I spent a year writing just every single day and it was a secret. I didn't tell anyone. In fact, I was home in California and I ran into an old friend and she said, What have you been doing up in Toronto? I said, I've been riding every day. And she said, Do you have your own horse? I thought, No, not ride it. She couldn't even think, you know, it was so secret. So at the end of that year, I had a bunch of short stories and actually the truth is I had them on a disc and I gave them to this husband. I gave him one to print off and he printed it off. And then I had a year's worth of work on a disc and I gave him the disc. I said, can you just print off these stories on this thing? And he actually ended up losing the discs. Years worth of work. No! It's just completely gone. But you know, I figured it was me teaching myself how to write. So it was probably garbage anyway. But there I got one short story printed and I mailed that short story out and it was published. And I was just so shocked at the time. I just thought, oh, that's really strange. You know, because I hadn't told anyone was writing. I didn't show anyone anything. And I just mailed out the story. I just remember thinking, like I almost, not almost, I really couldn't believe it. I thought they're going to publish this. And then I thought, well, maybe I'm doing an okay job here. Like, maybe it's okay. So I thought, well, maybe I should apply to graduate school. So I applied to graduate schools and I went. And then when I got in, was like, oh, okay, now I think I can say it out loud. I still almost didn't want to say it out loud, you know, that I'm writing. And then I went, I just was publishing short stories and all that. And then I was at Bread Loaf. Do you know what this writer? I do. I was at Bread Loaf and Lynne Fried was there, the South African writer who I just love her book so much. And she had told, we were in this workshop and she told everybody to write one short story. In her South African voice, the word right sounds like rat. And she said, everybody just rat one story. No, rat one line, one sentence. Just rat one good sentence. Everybody rat one good sentence. And I thought, I gotta rat a good sentence. I gotta rat good What am I gonna rat? What gonna rat? And I rat one sentence, you know, just one sentence. And it was a memory of being a kid in Southern California and my parents and all their friends would swim naked and they'd have these big naked swim parties. And the kids, we'd all have our bathing suits on, and they were always naked. And so, it was just a memory of sitting on this, you know, and this was in the '70s and stuff, just sitting on the steps of a pool and watching one of my parents' friends, and man, naked, jumping up and down on a diving board, and instantly understanding male anatomy in a way. I had thought things were farther apart from each other. Didn't realize they were And so it was this bizarre moment where I was like, Oh, wow, weird. And so I wrote this just one sentence about that observation. And Lynn Freed, whose writing I love and adore, she was just so like, she was very complimentary. And so I felt really good about it. And then later on at Bread Love, was talking to this sort of famous editor who has since died and she had read a short story of mine in a magazine. And she mentioned that she had loved this short story and I thought it, you know, and so it's like, you know, writing, you get so anxious writing. It's like my, know, my heart. And I was like, oh, you read that story. You liked that story. And she said, yeah, do you have a book? Because you need to have a book. And I said, oh, I'm working on a book right now. And she said, are. And I wasn't, I mean, in my head, you know, and so I hadn't, I just, I didn't have. And she said, well, what's the name of the book? And all I could think of was that one sentence I had written for Lynne Fried. And I said, The Summer of Naked Swim Parties. And she said, oh, that sounds great. Let me know when you finish it. And so then I thought, well, I better go write that book. So then I went and wrote that book and that was my first book. Wow. It was, you know, so it was just sort of a, I mean, I guess I was always a writer because I was somebody who kept diaries and filled them and filled them and filled them, you know, so I have diaries. So in really, I'd been practicing writing since, you know, second grade, you know, writing in a diary every day, but I just didn't realize it. And so it was, you know, by the time I was writing, I didn't realize, you know, I really have been practicing at this for a while. So was so anyway, that's where it started and that was the first book. Wow.

[23:30]Zibby Owens: And then you said you wrote part of this during COVID, which I find like, that just happened. So you were like, this came out so fast then. Tell me about like the process of that. Like, did you just whip out after you got over the breakup with the movie star? Was it did it all just come pouring out of you like very quickly? The fastest book ever. Yeah. Pouring out. Yeah. No, pouring out of me really fast.

[23:53]Jessica Anya Blau: And then because I am such a I have been living in Baltimore when I started the book actually, and that was right before COVID. And in Baltimore, used to go to cafes and I would sit in cafes with other friends who wrote And we would sit there and we would write. And you'd say, okay, we're not going talk until you pick a time. And so then we'd write and then we'd look up and we'd talk for a few minutes and then we'd write. And so I'd just write in these cafes. And then get in the car, put on 70s, go home, put on seventies music, dance around, listen to music. And then in the end of December, I moved here to New York City. And then COVID happened in March. So then I was here in New York and trying to write in cafes, but I didn't know anyone and just sort of writing by myself. Aw. It was sad. It deserves an awe because I was so lonely. I joined a gym and they had like a little workspace in the gym. And so I could sit in the workspace at the gym and I'd at least see other people and I would write there. And then once we locked down, I started FaceTiming with friends and we would write together. So we'd, you know, get on FaceTime and be like, okay, we're not gonna talk. And then we'd write, and then we'd look up and talk and we'd write. So I just am not an isolation alone person. So I wrote through all that stuff. And then all of the second drafts and the editing and the proof, the ending was the car scene that you mentioned, the driving off. That's actually where I originally ended the book. It wasn't exactly as it is when you read it. It was slightly different because it was the end of the story. But I was thinking sort of like that, do you remember the movie Thelma and Louise? That just beautiful freeze frame at the end in the car. I had this sort of vision of this like liberation, even though I think they're gonna kill themselves in the movie, but that's not definitely no nobody's killing themselves in this book. But it was like this, just this sort of liberation moment, freeze frame car. My editor Kate was like, no, that you can't end it there. Like, no, this is crazy. So the ending was like, I don't know because I've lost sense of time in COVID, but I feel like it was maybe three months or four months of me writing and ending, sending to Kate, her rejecting it, writing and ending, you know, and then we'd be on the phone discussing it and she'd like, we have to feel that we want, you know, me just thinking about it and trying to process it and get in my head and get the right feel and the right emotion. Like emotionally, where do you want to end up and how do we end up there? And so the ending was just, you know, a lot work all here with somebody on face time, you know, talking to myself. You know, you say, I'm always talking to myself. Nevermind. Myself. Well, COVID, when everything is back to normal, I'm also in New York. So you can come over here at love some it. Yes. When all the kids are there, I want like the chaos of kids. Yeah. Or other writers. So you're not alone.

[26:44]Zibby Owens: There's tons of writers everywhere in this day, I feel like.

[26:47]Jessica Anya Blau: Are you working on a new book now? I'm working on a new book now, and I think it's due in June, but there's been, I've been doing so much other pre pub stuff and all this stuff. I think it might be a little might be a little late, though. I'm I'm usually really good at deadlines, but there's just been a lot of chaos

[27:04]Zibby Owens: and upheaval and, you know, as you know. Can you say anything about it? You don't have to. Okay.

[27:10]Jessica Anya Blau: Forget it. Don't forget it. Okay. How about do you have any advice for aspiring authors? Yeah, I think I do. I mean, I always need to take my own advice too because I'm such a nut job. For me, is sort of, you know, I mean, people say like, what do they say? Like, know your reader, write for another or whatever. I'm sort of the opposite. It's sort of like, ignore your reader and write, like liberate yourself. I mean, there's so much like fear and anxiety and fear, fear of a perceived reader and fear of like, is my mother gonna read this or is my husband gonna, you know, or will my kids read this? And of course you don't wanna shame people now. You know what I mean? Like other than taking care of the emotional needs of the people you love in the world, It's like even writing the simplest thing, people are so scared, myself included. And so I think the the best advice for me is always this just sort of let go of fear, just let go of fear and follow your heart. I mean, following your heart means following your true artistic impulse and not the perceived things, oh, everybody wants a vampire book, I'm going write about a vampire, everybody wants this, I'm going to write about this. I mean, people say to me, Oh, I'm thinking of, you know, it seems like everybody likes blank. So I'm thinking of a book where blank, blank, blank. And it's like, well, is that really what you want to write? Because writing is hard. Like, how can you do it perfectly unless it's really what you want? Like, if you think of painters, was Jackson Pollock thinking, you know what, I think splatter art would be in next. I'm going to just split. You know what I mean? Like, you have to really go for your true individual point of view, like your heart, your soul, and your very, very particular point of view, which is the only thing that great art is. It's one particular person's point of view in anything. So I think to do that, that's why it's scary because it's so personal and is your particular point of view even when it's fiction. So my advice to bring it all back would be just to accept that you're afraid and do it anyway. Let go of the fear, accept the fear and just move straight through it. I love that. Awesome.

[29:26]Zibby Owens: Well, you, Jessica. Thanks so much for coming on my show and for getting to, you know, chitchat today. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Okay. All right. Well, take care. Bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens and at moms don't have time to read books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zibbyowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the sound editing, and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.