Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka, THE ROUGHEST DRAFT
[0:01]Hi, this is Vivi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast.
[0:05]Moms don't have time to read books, and speaking of books, I have two of my own books
[0:10]coming out this spring and summer.
[0:12]Princess Charming is a picture book, which debuts on April 19th, and bookends.
[0:17]A memoir of love, loss, and literature comes out on July 1st, and it is truly a labor of love.
[0:24]I hope you'll pre-order, order, and join me on tour as I go across the country.
[0:28]You can find out more at ziviowens.com, or bookendsmemoir.com, and you can follow me
[0:35]on Instagram at ziviowens, because I always post about everything.
[0:38]Enjoy the show!
[0:41]Emily, Wibberly, and Austin, Seagamund, Broca are co-authors of the Roughest Draft.
[0:47]They met and fell in love in high school.
[0:49]Austin went on to graduate from Harvard, while Emily graduated from Princeton.
[0:53]Together, they are the authors of several novels about romance for teens and adults.
[0:57]Now married, they live in Los Angeles, where they continue to take daily inspiration
[1:01]from their own love story.
[1:03]Welcome, Austin.
[1:05]Emily, thank you so much for coming on mom's, don't have time to read books, to discuss
[1:08]the Roughest Draft.
[1:09]Thanks for having us.
[1:10]Thank you so much for having us.
[1:12]So introduce yourselves, obviously, one of you as a man and a woman.
[1:14]But just in case, introduce yourselves, and we'll jump right into it.
[1:18]I'm Emily Wibberly, and I'm Austin Seagamund, Broca.
[1:21]And how did you two pair up?
[1:23]Why did you decide to write this book?
[1:25]What are we doing here?
[1:27]Yes, absolutely.
[1:28]I mean, this book is a long time coming.
[1:30]This is the culmination of a long journey.
[1:31]We've been writing together for six, seven years, which is most of our adult lives.
[1:39]It started with Emily.
[1:40]Yes, I mean, we should say that we are married.
[1:43]And we have been together since we were in high school.
[1:46]So we met some time in middle school or high school, some clear, and we've been taking
[1:53]since we were 17, and then we went to college, and I decided I wanted to write.
[2:01]And then one day, I was always kind of bouncing ideas off of Austin and brainstorming
[2:07]with him in one day.
[2:08]So why don't you just take a look at this and add to it?
[2:12]And then that is how the partnership began.
[2:14]And I was thrilled to join on.
[2:16]You know, I've always loved, you know, story and books and literature as well.
[2:20]And it was always a real point of mutual interest for us.
[2:23]You know, as a couple of things you talk about more than others, you're going to have
[2:26]some mutual interest, some things in common.
[2:29]And we love reading, writing, story, breaking down movies, TV, whatever we were reading.
[2:35]And so the jump to applying those conversations to things we were working on ourselves felt
[2:39]very natural.
[2:40]So our writing partnership began there and kind of took off, inspired by perhaps our
[2:45]own high school romance.
[2:47]We started in the young adult space and have written there for some time.
[2:51]And the roughest draft was our jump to adult romance, which I think was inspired as much
[2:56]by the market and by this idea.
[2:58]We were really excited to have as by the fact that we ourselves are growing up in a phrase
[3:03]and wanted to work with characters who were dealing with some of the logistical and existential
[3:09]pressures that we are now looking into.
[3:12]Well, I have to say, I was sort of surprised that your characters were as young as
[3:16]as they were.
[3:17]Maybe because, you know, as a 45-year-old woman, I just assume everybody, every protagonist
[3:23]is me or something like that.
[3:25]But as I was reading it, you don't reveal the ages until a little bit into it.
[3:29]And then I was like, oh, why did this, this is how they're like, what, 31 and 28?
[3:33]Yeah.
[3:34]I'm like, oh, wow, but they seem so wise and they seem to have gone through so much
[3:39]at this point.
[3:40]And she's already become a bestseller, right?
[3:43]You open it up when I'm really bad with names, especially character names.
[3:46]Tell me your character names.
[3:47]Katrina.
[3:48]Katrina.
[3:49]Right, Katrina.
[3:50]Katrina is like in the bookstore and somebody's trying to sell her her own book, which
[3:53]is such a great scene.
[3:54]It says that to have it in a book, it's like, so the whole thing is so meta.
[3:57]I love it.
[3:58]And I just thought, at first, I thought, oh, this is like a white-haired, older lady.
[4:03]She's like wandering in for her successful book.
[4:07]And I'm like, what?
[4:08]No.
[4:09]It's this, like, really cool, younger woman who's already been so weathered by the book.
[4:13]Yeah.
[4:14]Process.
[4:15]Basically.
[4:16]So, I mean, that was, that was, that was important to us.
[4:20]The publishing process, years are made up of days and sometimes the days are very long
[4:26]and very confusing.
[4:27]And so we wanted to write characters who were closer to our own age, but also to
[4:32]characters who felt like they'd already achieved and won and lost so much and the stretch
[4:38]of life before them was now long and confusing.
[4:42]Oh, how old are you guys?
[4:43]Can I even ask that?
[4:44]Yeah, I'm 30.
[4:45]I'm just 29, so I'm dating an older woman, but I'm married to your younger man if
[4:53]it makes sense.
[4:54]Wow.
[4:55]And you've already done so much, oh my gosh, this is humbling for everybody listening.
[5:00]And you're really good writers.
[5:02]I mean, this is a really great book.
[5:05]I'm serious.
[5:06]You really get into the, you immediately show us who the characters are on like an emotional
[5:12]deep level, like what they're thinking and feeling and all of that.
[5:15]But with alternating narratives and all that, it's like the plot itself is propulsive.
[5:20]You're like, what is going to happen?
[5:22]Like, I want to be in this QS house myself for like, how do I get into the house?
[5:27]We felt the same, right?
[5:30]It's like dream house, you go and Zillow and like pretend they have your character.
[5:34]Yeah, absolutely.
[5:35]And like we had planned, you know, when we were, you know, coming up with the idea and
[5:40]pitching it, we were like, well, we'll totally do this.
[5:43]Like when we're, when we sell the book, we will totally go and get a, like rent a house
[5:47]for a couple of weeks and like write some of the book, like do method writing with Katrina
[5:52]Nathan.
[5:53]And then it was a pandemic.
[5:54]We sold it like in March of of 2020.
[5:57]So that was not really our deadline did not line up with being able to travel.
[6:02]Still haven't made that portrait one day.
[6:05]I love this like bullying agent character.
[6:09]Tell me about him and how he came to be.
[6:13]No, he's really the, the only true villain we've written in our whole career.
[6:18]If we had somebody that that Katrina was with out of a sense of, of needing some stability
[6:23]and some security in her life, we really needed him to be somebody the audience would
[6:28]root for her to pull back from.
[6:30]So we kind of invested in him every publishing cliche and every male cliche.
[6:35]And a little bit more, you know, our, our, one of our agents early notes was like, can
[6:40]you make him more of like a Hollywood agent somehow is that it's more believable that he's
[6:45]so wicked.
[6:46]And we're like, for sure, because I think we're like, it's not reflection of you who are
[6:51]lovely agents, nothing like him.
[6:57]But he was fun to write, to be honest, somebody who, who embodied so many, so many manipulative,
[7:03]so many nasty traits that professional spheres in, in all industries sort of occupy.
[7:10]So.
[7:11]Wow.
[7:12]I love how, I love how Nathan gets so inspired by Katrina's conversation with the agent
[7:19]who's also, you know, her longstanding fiance, and like, oh, well, this is great.
[7:24]And then he just starts writing the, as it is, and that he can kind of look into, he
[7:30]can, every, what a sort of, all the body language, right?
[7:34]He reads into all of it.
[7:35]Where how she's sitting, how she's, because he knows Katrina's say, well, from writing
[7:37]this.
[7:38]You know what?
[7:39]I should have backed up and asked you guys to describe this book.
[7:42]I'm not supposed to see you guys anymore, right?
[7:43]It's not like something you're not supposed to say.
[7:47]What is the, could the two of you please describe explain the plot a little better now that
[7:51]I've been like chit chatting with you about it?
[7:53]Yes, we would be glad to.
[7:54]The roughest draft is about two authors who have written a best-selling novel together,
[7:59]but split under mysterious unknown circumstances.
[8:03]And years later, they have another book under contract and for different professional or
[8:07]personal reasons.
[8:08]They both agree that they will return to a house together to write this one last book
[8:14]and sort of face what has happened between them.
[8:16]Wow.
[8:17]I love how they even argue about how they're going to do it.
[8:22]When Nathan's like, all right, was it Nathan?
[8:24]No, Katrina at first was like, we'll do, you know, we'll do parts, then we'll trade
[8:27]off sections.
[8:28]And he was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, we're not doing that, right?
[8:30]We have to do it together.
[8:32]So how do you two do it?
[8:33]Like how, now that you're like Nathan and Katrina here, I mean, this is so like, I'm like
[8:41]in the real book right now.
[8:44]Let me tell you, we have debated over how and what logistical means we will actually
[8:48]get the writing done.
[8:50]Our process is pretty similar to theirs, although with some key differences, we write
[8:55]just about everything together in the same room.
[8:57]It is not a trading chapters situation or a one person takes one perspective and the other
[9:01]person takes another.
[9:02]We basically try to write every line on every page together.
[9:06]What this commonly looks like is Emily sitting across the room with the outline.
[9:11]She has thoroughly crafted sort of explaining what has to happen next in the paragraph
[9:14]in the sentence and me offering solutions on how to spin it into prose.
[9:18]And then we talk about those and what finally works goes in the book.
[9:22]Sometimes we sit next to each other and pass the computer, but we try not to make a habit
[9:25]of it.
[9:26]Wow.
[9:27]This, and you don't do fight?
[9:29]Oh, it constantly, it's like, yeah, so a lot, a lot of moments in the rug was drafted are,
[9:36]we wanted to get that across, but there is a lot of conflict from writing and there is
[9:42]a scene in the book where Nathan and Katrina have a longstanding feud over a certain
[9:47]word and the word is always and that is real that we just put that in because it was
[9:51]a fun little joke for ourselves that like Austin doesn't like the word always and so I am
[9:56]always trying to fight to get it into the book because I like the word.
[10:00]And that was just a bit of fun we had.
[10:02]Yeah, we'll be honest, most of the writing disagreements
[10:05]and issues over pacing are how much to describe
[10:09]or where to start or where choice.
[10:11]Most of those are exactly real.
[10:13]Obviously, the emotional angle for these characters
[10:15]is what we have invented completely,
[10:17]but the nuts and bolts are pretty authentic.
[10:20]We generally, we fight and then we when the workday is over
[10:25]we put it away and we are able to go back
[10:28]to being married couple with, you know,
[10:32]which is regular conflict and not screaming about
[10:35]a certain word.
[10:36]Doesn't, I mean, I would feel like it would be very hard
[10:39]to shut off the work stuff, given that you're like living
[10:44]and breathing the novels and all of that.
[10:46]How do you separate it?
[10:47]How do you not go to, yeah?
[10:49]We probably don't like we talk about work a lot
[10:52]over meals and stuff.
[10:54]And in fact, the roughest draft was an idea
[10:56]that we had while on our honeymoon.
[10:59]It was really, and we got the idea on our honeymoon
[11:01]and I was like, what kept trying to brainstorm it
[11:04]while we're like walking around Italy
[11:06]and awesome.
[11:07]No, no, no, like we're on our honeymoon.
[11:08]We're not gonna work right now.
[11:10]So those issues do come up.
[11:13]But yeah, we were honestly just chatting
[11:15]over the breakfast table in Florence
[11:17]and Emily remarked that having recently gotten married
[11:20]our agent and editor must be relieved, reassured
[11:24]that we weren't gonna break up now.
[11:26]Our writing partnership, we continued, Jane,
[11:28]flourished and we've looked each other
[11:30]and realized, well, what if we did?
[11:32]What would that look like?
[11:34]Others who were bound to continue this career together
[11:36]despite wanting nothing to do with each other
[11:38]despite having a story in past themselves.
[11:40]And the idea was born.
[11:42]And then it percolated and we did not brainstorm
[11:44]her whole day except we kind of did.
[11:47]Wow, that's so fun.
[11:48]I had this idea yesterday when I was talking to an author
[11:51]about a book or maybe she was, I think an author recommended
[11:55]a book that I hadn't heard of.
[11:56]And I felt foolish, not having heard of it.
[11:58]So it was kind of nodding along with it.
[12:00]I was like, would it be funny
[12:02]if we invented some book that actually didn't exist
[12:05]and started like making it a success
[12:08]and try to get it on the bestseller list
[12:10]but actually there's no book.
[12:11]There's like, whoa.
[12:12]Like, I feel like you want to write that for me?
[12:15]You guys write it because I'm not at home.
[12:17]And right, that's a really
[12:19]in publishing satire that's like the producers
[12:23]are a little different.
[12:24]Yeah.
[12:24]Yeah.
[12:25]Like it's a, you know, have you read
[12:26]and then you have all these scenes
[12:28]for like all these intellectually, you know,
[12:29]every I'm like, oh my gosh, of course it was so great.
[12:32]And I read it here.
[12:33]I read the galley like, well, I read it, you know.
[12:37]Absolutely.
[12:38]Great buzz.
[12:39]I can see the title now.
[12:40]Ooh, great buzz.
[12:41]I love it.
[12:43]All right.
[12:44]Will you please write it.
[12:45]I want to read it.
[12:46]Absolutely.
[12:47]Okay.
[12:48]Top of the cube.
[12:48]Put it on your list.
[12:50]If only I could make these projects just appear.
[12:54]The ideas are not the problem.
[12:56]It's just like the execution of it.
[12:57]Oh, tell me that.
[12:59]We've got, you must have a bazillion.
[13:01]iPhone notes scrolls long of stuff.
[13:04]It's like, yeah, be colder at that one day.
[13:06]Hope we get to it.
[13:07]So what are you working on now?
[13:10]Yeah.
[13:11]We're actually being unprovising our second adult novel,
[13:13]which is set to come out next year.
[13:16]And which we could say about it, but we're very excited.
[13:19]You can't say a word in that page.
[13:21]Oh, but yeah.
[13:22]It's a story about a marriage.
[13:24]It's a story about a couple whose marriages
[13:26]in the place they want on the fifth anniversary.
[13:29]And on an anniversary getaway, they stumble on
[13:32]an unusual situation that might make things better.
[13:35]Interesting.
[13:36]Okay.
[13:37]I like it.
[13:38]Well, I feel like not to keep going about your age,
[13:42]but there is wisdom.
[13:44]I'm serious.
[13:45]There is this wisdom in the characters
[13:48]that feels like mature and thoughtful.
[13:51]And so I feel like, are you two old souls?
[13:55]Like, is that what it is?
[13:56]Like, are you older siblings?
[13:59]Like, where is this all coming from?
[14:00]I am.
[14:01]I have a tough childhood that you're looking through.
[14:04]We certainly have a lot of thousand publishing.
[14:06]Yeah.
[14:07]Oh, definitely.
[14:08]And I'm an only child who's an older sibling.
[14:11]Yes.
[14:12]You know, we did get together at 17.
[14:15]And so it kind of reflects like, we sort of knew
[14:17]that we were like, you know, this is it.
[14:19]We're good now.
[14:20]And so I think that because we've had so much
[14:23]relationship behind us, it just like made us think
[14:28]like we were in a different part of life.
[14:29]Yeah.
[14:30]We really have had to negotiate a lot of logistical changes,
[14:34]a lot of life changes, a lot of those inflection points
[14:37]where you look at what you want to do
[14:38]and what you're committed to and say, no,
[14:41]I have to hold on to this thing that I know is real.
[14:44]Very much true in our relationship, very much true
[14:47]in publishing where there have been ups and downs
[14:48]and confusions and points like these characters.
[14:52]And honestly, many of our friends who are our age
[14:54]have encountered similar things,
[14:56]where we've sort of faced a couple of choices now,
[14:58]where you know that one way leads one way
[15:02]and the other way leads another way.
[15:03]And you have to think long and hard
[15:05]about how those will affect you.
[15:08]So we love writing these characters
[15:11]because we felt we got to explore that more
[15:13]than we ever have in our young age.
[15:14]And that's what the adult where it's all about
[15:15]making those choices for the first time.
[15:18]This was all about getting in touch with characters
[15:20]who had already made some of those choices
[15:23]and now we're seeing the effects of those
[15:25]rippling across the years.
[15:27]So it was a unique challenge for us.
[15:29]And I think a lot of that went into the characters
[15:30]because we enjoyed doing it.
[15:32]It was a very new creative task.
[15:34]And that's for the age thing.
[15:35]I mean, there are two of us.
[15:36]So our combined age is a very good point.
[15:39]We really, we, we,
[15:41]that is a success experience.
[15:43]It's the benefit of having a co-author.
[15:45]It's really a collaboration.
[15:47]And we really get to take advantage
[15:49]of the other person's brain, honestly.
[15:51]Yeah.
[15:52]And so which of you was this now a high school breakup?
[15:56]Who, who of you?
[15:57]I think, because we did this.
[15:59]Did it cross?
[16:00]No.
[16:01]Why did I, why did I, why did I start from?
[16:03]You know, it's sort of like a thought experiment.
[16:07]Yeah, these were, these were nightmare versions.
[16:09]Yeah.
[16:10]I shouldn't be saying like everything
[16:13]in fiction has to come from.
[16:14]Yeah.
[16:14]Yeah.
[16:15]The book is just,
[16:17]so just crying into your relationship, excuse me.
[16:21]I mean, this was exactly the thing we wanted to probe though.
[16:24]Like the two, to an extent, it does.
[16:25]It does often difficult writing opposite your spouse
[16:29]to slap those implicit disclaimers on certain things
[16:32]that you say.
[16:33]But yeah, no, we have not had any sort of acromonious break
[16:36]up right now.
[16:37]Come on, just break up at all.
[16:39]This was, yeah, this was just like the Fleetwood Mac version
[16:42]what our career could have been in the interest of literary fun.
[16:46]And are you fans of Emily Henry?
[16:48]I know that, um, Beatrice.
[16:50]Yes.
[16:50]Long, you know, speech read came out like right when we finished
[16:54]writing the book.
[16:56]And I remember I was like, OK, I got a read,
[16:58]be treated, make sure that they are not the same book.
[17:01]And I like read it in a day, like right before we turned
[17:03]into the book and I was like, all right, they're different books.
[17:05]Like it's all good, but of course we adore Emily Henry
[17:08]and people meet on vacation as well.
[17:09]Yes, absolutely all her books.
[17:12]Who else do you love to read both of you?
[17:15]Well Taylor Jenkins read is another huge inspiration.
[17:18]Oh, yes.
[17:19]The richness of her contemporary storytelling,
[17:21]but also in stuff like Daisy Jones,
[17:23]it really gets at these creative relationships
[17:25]that are lifelong and sometimes life for dream.
[17:28]Yeah.
[17:29]But in romance, you know, we love anything that's meta.
[17:32]So like the romance book club, you know,
[17:34]and you know, that kind of interacts with with romance.
[17:37]It's a genre of love a lot.
[17:39]Yeah, yeah, yeah, we adore the whole genre.
[17:41]It's been a lot of fun to sort of get get into it, basically
[17:45]learn this community and all of its nuances
[17:48]and make new friends, read great books, you know,
[17:51]the things you hope for.
[17:52]I cannot wait until, well, I shouldn't assume this either.
[17:56]Are kids in your future?
[17:58]Yes, one day they are.
[18:01]Well, if and when that happens, I cannot wait
[18:04]to hear how you write about that.
[18:09]Think you're something out to embarrass me on that stage.
[18:12]Oh my gosh, I am excited.
[18:14]Very, well, I feel like there's,
[18:17]did you watch that movie with Diane Keaton a long time ago
[18:20]where she's writing the novel and the Hamptons,
[18:22]Jack Nicholson, something's got to get
[18:24]as I would have said.
[18:25]Yeah, yeah.
[18:27]I feel like there's something similar,
[18:29]even though the characters are much younger.
[18:31]That's sort of like beautiful setting, trying to write.
[18:37]We love you.
[18:38]Like cinematic.
[18:39]Anyway, is there hopes of this being a film
[18:42]or on the screen in some way?
[18:44]Or do you already have a duper and I don't know about it?
[18:46]Oh, yeah.
[18:47]It certainly helps.
[18:48]We will see what happens, you know, film is such a,
[18:50]it's a long process that has begun.
[18:52]Yeah.
[18:53]It's a long process.
[18:54]It's never until you get like across the finish line,
[18:56]you know, that's something ever truly materializes.
[18:59]So fingers crossed, we reached that finish.
[19:01]That's right.
[19:02]From your mouth to Hollywood's ears to be right.
[19:04]We're hopeful the things that have started
[19:07]to materialize pan out.
[19:09]It could be neat to do a whole,
[19:11]like a limited series,
[19:12]but they're different couples, different writing parties.
[19:14]A lot.
[19:15]Mm-hmm.
[19:15]It's sinus, you know.
[19:17]Right.
[19:18]When that kind of needs like collaborations,
[19:21]like, yeah, collaborations.
[19:23]I mean, that's another title.
[19:24]Yeah, and I do that next.
[19:25]Yeah, plenty of ideas, but in here,
[19:27]this is good.
[19:28]This is great.
[19:29]That is a record.
[19:30]Yeah, I want to just like have a shared dock
[19:34]into your notes app.
[19:34]It's not all serious,
[19:35]because that's kind of how our partnership begins.
[19:37]It's like, oh, that'd be cool.
[19:38]Oh, yeah, that'd be good.
[19:39]Oh, that's a good idea.
[19:40]I'm like, and then there you are.
[19:41]Something you're writing together six years later.
[19:44]First being on the side,
[19:45]it's like, it's a good idea,
[19:46]but do I want to invest two, three years
[19:48]of my life writing about it and then marketing it?
[19:50]And now that's, yeah, you have to really love them.
[19:53]And honestly, we've had those ideas
[19:55]where like we've put a lot of time into it
[19:57]and then like it hasn't gone anywhere.
[19:58]Like, you know what?
[19:59]It's okay.
[20:00]But that one go, it's like there are other things
[20:02]that we love more.
[20:03]Yes, again, amazing.
[20:06]But what advice do you have to aspiring authors?
[20:08]Yeah, absolutely reading widely in the genre.
[20:12]Super important.
[20:13]And to finish those ideas, you know,
[20:16]it's really tempting to come up with a great idea.
[20:21]Like on a call with someone
[20:22]and then you want to just start writing that one
[20:24]and so you forget about the one that you are 50% of the way
[20:28]through and maybe it doesn't feel as fun and shiny anymore.
[20:31]And so to really just sit down and make yourself finish
[20:35]those projects that you know,
[20:37]maybe right now you're a little lost in them
[20:40]because you're in the middle.
[20:41]But at the beginning, you really believed in them
[20:43]and so find that again.
[20:45]Yeah, you know, even when it's hard, keep going.
[20:49]Because I think that sometimes people
[20:51]particularly writers starting out expect
[20:53]that it will always be fun
[20:55]and it will always feel like you're pouring your soul
[20:57]off the page and a lot of days it doesn't.
[20:59]A lot of days it feels like you're just translating
[21:01]something your soul fought three months ago.
[21:03]And that's a lot harder, more granular a job
[21:08]than it sometimes feels.
[21:10]But we've always found that if you just kind of muscle
[21:13]through and do those parts that feel like work,
[21:16]when you get to the end and you read it back,
[21:18]you can have this wonderful moment of being like,
[21:20]oh yeah, I do love this idea.
[21:22]I'm so glad I got this down.
[21:25]So glad I got through this
[21:26]because it actually works.
[21:28]Amazing.
[21:29]Love it.
[21:29]All right.
[21:30]Well, I can't wait to see what comes next for you.
[21:32]I'm such a fan.
[21:33]I'll be following whatever you do.
[21:35]Hi, I'm Sydney.
[21:35]And you're listening to be working the podcast.
[21:37]Mom's don't hand side to re-reuse it.
[21:39]If you like this podcast, you totally love
[21:41]my new anthology of mom's,
[21:43]which I have time to get.
[21:44]Yeah, that's to luck.
[21:45]Check it out.
[21:46]And you'll look up from 49 authors,
[21:48]but all straight to you guys.
[21:49]Mom's are not as big.
[21:50]Oh yeah, just put it on the podcast.
[21:52]Also check out my podcast,
[21:54]that would be in Tracy.
[21:55]My other podcast, sex talk would be in Tracy.
[21:58]Check out mom's.
[21:59]Don't have time to write on medium.
[22:01]And of course, my new publishing company called Zivi Buggs.
[22:05]And now back to our daily author interview site
[22:07]and a quick hello from some of my kids.
[22:09]Hi, hi, hello.
[22:11]Enjoy the show.