Jennifer E. Smith, THE UNSINKABLE GRETA JAMES: A Novel
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[0:58]Jennifer Eastmith is the author of the novel the unsinkable Greta James
[1:02]Which actually I listened to on audiobook
[1:05]Jennifer is the author of nine books for young adults
[1:08]Including the statistical probability of love at first sight and to logo by and everything in between
[1:13]Both of which have been adapted for film
[1:15]She earned a master's degree in creative writing from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland
[1:19]And her work has been translated into 33 languages. She currently lives in Los Angeles
[1:24]Welcome Jennifer. Thank you so much for coming on moms don't have time to read books to discuss both your new books
[1:30]Basically added at the same time the unsinkable grated Greta James and the creature of habit
[1:35]Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here
[1:37]I mean, I'd like love this color this like blue. I mean, it's almost the same. Did you do that?
[1:42]The coordinator not not coordinated does have a sort of a happy history
[1:46]Cheerful feel to it all but they it's it's really nice to have the kind of bright the bright happy colors right now
[1:52]It's so nice. Okay, let's talk about
[1:54]Greta who is so awesome
[1:56]I listened to this book and I don't always listen
[1:59]But I feel like sometimes I feel like the ones I listen to like stick in more in a way and I remember like all the walks
[2:05]I went out to listen to this book
[2:07]And now I feel like I need to go stock up on call of the wilds and you know all the books and in the book
[2:12]Tell listeners a little about what this book is about
[2:16]Yeah, it's um, it's the you know, it's about a successful indie musician who is still reeling from the sudden death of her mother
[2:23]Who was her greatest cheerleader and she winds up taking a week-long cruise to Alaska with her dad
[2:29]Who has never exactly been supportive of her life choices on what was supposed to be her parents 40 at the anniversary trip?
[2:35]So it takes place over this this week in Alaska
[2:37]There's also a romance with a charmingly nerdy professor that she meets on board the ship
[2:41]But it's mostly a love story about Greta and her music and her kind of struggle to find her voice again
[2:47]Yeah, I love that I feel like the universe is like pushing me towards Alaska for some reason
[2:52]First I had Lee's book my partner Lee
[2:55]Nobody gets out alive, which you know, and then there was one oh and then mother trucker came out about Alaska
[3:01]And now your book on this Alaskan cruise and then last night my daughter wanted to watch bigfoot's family
[3:08]Which takes place in Alaska and I was like, okay, who wants to go in an Alaskan cruise?
[3:12]Like who's ready for Alaska?
[3:14]The socks and pointing me that way. I've never had more Alaska than this like month of my life
[3:19]I think you know what you have to do
[3:21]I think so. I think it's it's clear. Why did you set it in Alaska?
[3:25]You know, I I knew it was made take place on a cruise ship, which it's it's become a little bit of a joke
[3:30]How many books I've set on modes of transportation. I've written
[3:34]Based on a plane one that takes place. It's a road trip one that's on a train and now a ship
[3:39]But I really like putting people in confined places for you know
[3:45]Certain amount of time and kind of seeing what happens and I chose Alaska honestly because
[3:51]Regretta is an indie rock star
[3:52]She is somebody who's in cities who's at venues, you know, who's who's playing shows and concerts and festivals and
[3:58]I liked the idea if she was gonna be
[4:01]You know, it's basically stuck on a cruise with her dad who she doesn't particularly get along with
[4:06]I like the idea of her feeling kind of at sea both both literally and metaphorically and being in a place Alaska is so unique
[4:13]It's so
[4:14]It's staggering. It's beautiful. It's otherworldly
[4:16]It's it's really like kind of got a lonely four-worn feel to it
[4:20]And I like the idea of just putting her in in such a
[4:23]Different kind of place than then she usually is and you know, I didn't write the book just so I could go take a cruise to Alaska
[4:31]But I did not write the book so I could do that
[4:34]But I had been on Alaskan cruise as a kid and I when I first started writing
[4:39]It loomed really large in my mind because Alaska is so beautiful and so unique and I thought I could kind of get by on memories of
[4:46]The cruise and looking at like literally YouTube videos of other people's family vacations and
[4:51]Realize pretty quickly that if I wanted to write this well
[4:53]I was gonna have to to go actually, you know, take this this trip again and so I did kind of a writing retreat
[4:59]I'm Alaskan cruise and I it you know
[5:02]I've learned in the course of publishing this book that people have very strong group feelings about cruises either way and
[5:09]You know for me was just really interesting to be kind of a fly on the wall like I did all of the excursions and trips and adventures that
[5:16]And her her family and friends do I do the way of watching and the wilderness of Ari and the heights of the
[5:22]But I also was like
[5:24]Wanted to make sure I was at the buffet and I did trivia night with with real random people that I met and I tried to really have
[5:31]You know the whole cruise experience so that I could write about it. So it was it is definitely a very interesting research trip
[5:36]Wow, I love like the little lady character who likes Easter walking out that morning and like oh my gosh
[5:43]Yes, I always had some commentary for
[5:47]Yeah
[5:49]The way you wrote about loss was so good. So moving Greta is is in the raw
[5:55]aftermath, right?
[5:57]They're still reeling as is the dead and those scenes were also really beautiful where he like you know comes to terms with that loss
[6:03]But the way she writes about sort of you know
[6:06]Just like you said being a drift without the person who sort of holds you safe and like her life raft in a way is
[6:13]Gone tell me about writing those scenes because it felt like there was just so much emotion on the page
[6:20]Yeah, I mean, I you know, it's when I sat down to write the book
[6:24]It really I wanted to write about what it is to live a creative life and to you know
[6:29]I'm lucky my parents are wonderful, but I am from the Midwest
[6:32]I grew up in a very practical place and in a very practical family and being a writer is not you know
[6:38]Something that was was kind of in the plan and
[6:42]You know, so over the years
[6:44]Watching my parents try to kind of struggle to come terms with this this kind of job that has no guarantees and no certainty and no safety net
[6:51]It's just it's a weird job like you have the one hand you have to be full of confidence and determination
[6:56]And on the other hand like you're working without a net always and
[7:00]So I wanted to put Greta and her dad like two people who really came from different different
[7:06]You know angles on this together and and so what started out it started out as more of a conceit than anything
[7:12]Because I thought you know
[7:14]How do you get these two people alone together who have basically lost their translator and losing her mom
[7:19]But as I wrote the book, you know, it was interesting like the mom has already passed away at the start of the story
[7:24]But she really is a kind of full character in the book even though she's she's kind of not present on the page and
[7:30]Yeah, it was I mean, it's it's hard to write because it is there's a lot of a raw grief
[7:33]And there's a lot of emotion and a lot of feelings and I think it in turns people get frustrated with Greta
[7:37]And they get frustrated with her dad
[7:38]And then they kind of see both of their sides and they there's just a lot that they're kind of working out over the course of this week and
[7:44]You know about you know halfway through the process of this book right when I'd kind of finished the very first draft of it
[7:50]My mentor who the book is dedicated to who's a who is a really legendary
[7:55]editor in the book world Susan camel passed away and
[7:59]That you know kind of put everything into a different perspective for me when I was writing it because she was she was my little boss
[8:06]She was my friend she was my mentor and I channel a lot of that I mean
[8:11]She was always the person I was kind of writing the book for in a way
[8:14]She would she encouraged me for years to write my first adult novel and you know
[8:18]She passed away like two weeks after I finished the first draft and never had a chance to show a tour and she knew I was working on it
[8:24]And so that that I think you know when you talk about the kind of like depth of emotion
[8:30]I think a lot of that got channeled into the book. So you know in a way
[8:34]It still was for her and it still is is so much about her, but that's that's where a lot of that came from
[8:41]I'm so sorry. I heard about it. I didn't know her obviously, but when I heard about her last I was just like oh my gosh
[8:46]I bet a lot of people I know or like
[8:48]Oh, yeah, I really must have really known her well and anyway
[8:55]But it really it really comes through there was just one passage
[8:59]I wanted to read it. Oh, that was also good, but it's the end. Oh, I love this line
[9:05]So she's with Conrad asks I'll just read this Conrad asks her only once if she ever well
[9:10]I don't want to give it anything away. Yeah
[9:13]Well, she's okay. There's just this one line at some point in the book
[9:16]And she says maybe the point isn't always to make things last. Maybe it's just to make them count
[9:23]Yeah, I'd love that. Oh, I'm so glad. I think I mean I I often write about kind of fleeting moments
[9:30]You know my my if there's a thread that goes through all of my books
[9:34]Maybe except for the picture book. It's that I like to write about moments in time that act as hinges days
[9:39]Where there's like a clear split between a before and an after so yesterday your life was one way
[9:44]And tomorrow will be completely different and I'm a big believer that like
[9:48]Yeah, things can count even you know meeting somebody for one day can kind of send your life into a different direction and and brief
[9:55]Encounters you you know, we all are sort of pinballing off each other in different ways and
[10:00]And that, you know, even things that don't last can really count and can really have a lasting impact on you. And, and it's partly why like writing about these kind of, you know, moments that are really bracketed by time, but I'm glad that's, that's one of my favorite lines too.
[10:15]Really good.
[10:16]Yeah, there's a wisdom to it. There's a sadness and a wisdom, but then resilience, like you really feel like you're going through it, you're getting through it.
[10:25]Sometimes what else can you do? You just go through and get through it. That's right. Exactly. Yeah. Is this going to be a movie or a show or anything. It feels very cinematic to me.
[10:34]I hope so. A lot of people have said so many feels very cinematic. We're still working on that. You know, I've learned like two of my young little novels are going to be movies.
[10:42]One's coming out on Netflix and summer and one one will, we'll hopefully have more news on soon, but I've learned a lot through that process and it's, you know, one of the two that has been filmed.
[10:53]The statistical probability of love at first sight. It started filming 10 years to the week that the book first got optioned. So I have learned a patience and the long game on this and I, but I do hope at some point to get to see secret on screen.
[11:07]Are you excited for the summer that must feel amazing.
[11:10]I'm really excited. It's, I feel very fortunate because both these movies filmed back to back during COVID and it's now, you know, just I've seen so many different cuts and so many, you know, different versions of them and I love them so much.
[11:25]I think they're both so fantastic.
[11:27]I just want to go by and everything between and we don't, I don't, I want to get to our date yet, but it'll be out pretty soon and it's just, it's such a wild experience as an author, especially an author has been writing for a really long time. You don't expect this and, you know, it just, it's, it's such the icing on the cake, but to really love the way these stories were made and all the people involved with them and, and to feel really proud of them is such an exciting thing.
[11:51]So I think it'll be, it'll be a really fun summer. Well, congratulations. Thank you.
[11:56]I will be out in LA a bunch. So good.
[11:59]Good.
[12:00]I'm going to be doing any big fun parties.
[12:03]For sure.
[12:05]We go back to how did you start writing? I know you were an editor. So tell me about how that even began.
[12:10]I mean, that was always writing in the way that I think a lot of us were always always writing, but I worked in publishing for many years.
[12:16]I was always, you know, to kind of go back to grad and her dad. I was always very pragmatic about it all and never expected, you know, that I could make a living doing it, but I wanted to be involved in books.
[12:26]And so I started out at a literary agency right out of college at ICM and then I went back to grad school for a year for creative writing in Scotland and then I came back and started working around a house.
[12:36]And I was getting up in the mornings and writing my books and working on the weekends. And, you know, my like enduring memories of my 20s are all my friends like hung over on the couch watching movies and me in my room, like trying, trying to write a book.
[12:49]And I always think back, you know, again, kind of in terms of Greta and how hard these these careers can be and is that I wrote two books before my first one ever got published.
[12:57]And then even the first the first two books I got published sold about two copies each.
[13:02]Always very grateful when people tell me they've read them because it's really like you're one of your one of a few.
[13:07]And, but I like when I look back down and think how easily it would have been, you know, especially with those first two that didn't get published like I sat down and wrote a whole novel from like, you know, hundreds of pages.
[13:18]And then with no encouragement and in fact with a lot of discouragement because I was getting tons of rejections to kind of sit down and do it a second time and then to do that a third time with no guarantees with no, you know, reasonable hopes about it.
[13:31]But that that's what it is right it's it's you just kind of keep trying and there's something that compels you to do it and it's it's comes from a place of passion.
[13:41]And I always kind of look back at my younger self now and feel really grateful that I did that. And then I also just I think when you've, you know, this is Greta is my 11th published book and my 10th novel.
[13:53]And when I think sometimes when you look at a career, it can seem like a really straight line from like, you know, point A to point B, but I, you know, I look at us all there's like, you know, some of some of these books have been stepping stones to the next thing.
[14:06]And some of these, you know, I've had books that haven't sold in between ones that have had tons of books have set aside.
[14:12]I've had books that I thought were going to be a huge hit and that, you know, and that weren't in books that nobody expected anything of that, you know, went on to, to, you know, just via word of mouth do do so well.
[14:23]And it's just kind of everything in between. So I think what I always try to remember having been doing this for a while is like, all you can do is control which you can control which is the writing and the book and the work.
[14:35]And you know, just that the industry will do what it'll do and the market will do what it'll do, but as long as you kind of keep focusing on telling good stories and writing well and staying kind of true to yourself, that to me is just always the kind of thing to keep in mind.
[14:49]I love that. Amazing.
[14:51]Okay, the creature of habit. So where did this come from? And it is so cute and just adorable. Anyway, anyway, my daughter particularly loved this book and has requested many reads so I'm so glad that's so fun. It is been such a joy to do a picture book.
[15:05]And my joke has been that I mean, I love I feel really privileged to have written why for all these years, but after a decade of talking to teens it's so much fun to talk to like six and seven an year.
[15:16]I love about this book and you know when it's time for questions are like, do you like turtles? You're like, yeah, yeah, I do like turtles.
[15:24]It's a whole different kind of thing. But this book came, you know, I have too little enough use whom very close with and the older one similar to me is just a really routine oriented doesn't like change, you know, likes to know what's going on kind of kid.
[15:40]And years ago, he was switching classrooms at daycare. So sorry, my dog's gone.
[15:47]I'm a very old dog with a frog.
[15:51]He's not ideal for podcasts, but he was he switched classrooms and my sister called me and she was like, I don't want to do like every day I'm dropping him off and he's crying and he's usually kid who loves going school.
[16:01]And, and I said, you know, it's it's not his fault. The poor kid comes from a long line of creatures of habit. And I just started thinking about, you know, the freeze and also just how change is hard for people at any age change is hard for adults for kids.
[16:14]And if you're a certain kind of person uncertain, he can feel really scary. And so I just I wanted to write a book that showed that like, you know, it's not a book saying like if your creature habit, you should all of a sudden become, you know, somebody who, you know, does something different every day because that's just not in your DNA, probably, but to show that like sometimes,
[16:35]taking a different path or or stepping outside your comfort zone can can actually lead to different things and new things. I should say the book is about it's about a creature who lives on the island of habit who does the same thing every day at the same time.
[16:48]And then one day another little creature sails up and just knocks his whole world off balance and and so it's it's just about him kind of yeah like seeing seeing that there's another way to do things and
[17:00]exactly which we all have to do and it was so interesting as I wrote it before the pandemic, but then, you know, over the last few years like how many times have we all had to shift gears and change and kids especially so it's been it's unfortunately become more relevant and timely, but it's been really kind of a wonderful thing to get to talk to kids about about this book.
[17:21]I should have had my kids here to talk to you about it.
[17:24]Next I would have loved it.
[17:26]I'll show them this little clip.
[17:28]And what are you working on now?
[17:30]Why just I just turned in the sequel for the creature of habit.
[17:34]The creature of habit tries his best and and I'm working on another, another adult book, another novel so that's kind of the next big thing and then I've been working on a couple of scripts and adaptations of other of my YA books so it's been funded to kind of, you know, for a long time.
[17:50]I would write a YA book every year and, you know, finish the people in the cycle like you write it and then you finish it and you take a little break and then you start a new one and over the last few years similar to the creature of habit.
[18:02]I've kind of shaken things up a little bit and been doing, you know, the adult book and the picture book and the scripts and it's been really fun to try new things.
[18:10]So that was that was not supposed to be a plan for creature of habit.
[18:13]That's actually just what's happened over the last couple of years.
[18:15]But this is a show for plugging things.
[18:18]That's loud here.
[18:20]Try new things that actually it actually works sometimes.
[18:23]I like always having lots of different things going on in different ways.
[18:27]I feel like I can't, you know, I wish I could but I feel like I need like lots of stuff where I get restless or something.
[18:34]Yeah, I know it's good.
[18:35]It's a good thing to kind of have a lot of pots on the burners.
[18:40]Yeah, although I don't like cooking a lot of things at the same time.
[18:44]I meant like intellectually not.
[18:48]That's exactly.
[18:49]No, no, that's like a totally fair.
[18:52]I have like no.
[18:54]I'm not blessed.
[18:55]Like I can follow a recipe because I'm, you know, reasonably intelligent person, but I cannot.
[19:00]I'm right at your level.
[19:02]I get it.
[19:03]Oh my gosh.
[19:04]Anyway.
[19:05]So what advice would you have for aspiring authors?
[19:08]I mean, I think that obvious is always just to read a lot and read widely.
[19:12]Working and publishing for all those years was, was such a great education.
[19:17]Not about the publishing industry necessarily although that helped, but just like.
[19:21]You can't read that many manuscripts and that many stories and that many books without.
[19:25]You know, figuring out what, you know, getting kind of an internal rhythm of a story and figuring out what works in a book and what works for you in a book.
[19:33]And then, and then the other thing is just like I was saying, like, not to be afraid of failure because when I think of like my early books that didn't work or didn't get published, I would not have written the next ones without the ones before them.
[19:44]So I truly don't think that anything is ever wasted.
[19:48]Like the amount of false starts I've had over the years and books I've set aside and it's like sometimes you have to write them to get to the next thing you're going to write.
[19:56]And you learn something from each or you carry something forward.
[20:00]And so, you know, just sit down and write,
[20:04]and that doesn't work the next thing well.
[20:06]I'm just keep going.
[20:07]I totally agree.
[20:08]I feel like before I did this podcast
[20:10]and learned that like everybody else who was a writer
[20:13]had the same thing, like I just felt like such a failure.
[20:16]Yeah, like, because you don't realize,
[20:18]I mean, I guess if you guys are just leading,
[20:20]yeah, it's such an excellent thing.
[20:21]So yeah, for everyone's out there
[20:22]and just like tripping over themselves
[20:24]in their own, you know, at their own computers,
[20:26]but it's, every one is going through it.
[20:28]I've never met, I've, you know,
[20:30]after years of like being an author,
[20:32]working and publishing,
[20:33]I've never met a single author
[20:36]who doesn't have like a book in the drawer
[20:37]or one that didn't work or something
[20:39]that I got stuck on.
[20:40]It's just, it's so universal.
[20:42]Yeah.
[20:43]You have to practice.
[20:44]It's like, yes, it's a muscle.
[20:46]It's just, it's like having, it's like making
[20:48]the first cake or something.
[20:50]Usually the first cake, we're back to cooking.
[20:52]Yeah, back to cooking.
[20:53]I mean, I just had lunch.
[20:54]I shouldn't be talking about it.
[20:56]Yeah, I think it would be a consolation.
[20:59]I wish I hadn't done that way back when
[21:00]that like having something in the drawer
[21:03]doesn't mean you're a failure.
[21:05]It means you're a writer.
[21:06]Yeah, absolutely.
[21:08]Oh my gosh, the amount of stuff I mean,
[21:09]recently I was like trying to figure out a new book
[21:11]and I went back through old files
[21:14]just to like check out old ideas.
[21:15]And I found like, you know, 60 page beginnings of books
[21:19]that I don't even remember writing.
[21:20]It's such a funny, like you just,
[21:22]it's over the years you have so many ideas
[21:25]and you kind of like, you stick with the ones
[21:27]of where the energy is at the moment.
[21:29]But yeah, sometimes it just takes kind of like,
[21:32]we want in between to get to the next thing.
[21:35]Very true, but also good to hear.
[21:39]Okay, Jennifer, thank you so much.
[21:41]The creature of heaven and the unsinkable Greta James,
[21:44]which I truly loved.
[21:45]And this is my book of the month copy, by the way.
[21:47]Oh, I've only got it for me,
[21:48]but I picked it for my subscribers.
[21:51]So nice, I love book of the month.
[21:52]And I'm so glad you liked the audio too.
[21:54]You made Whitman did an amazing job.
[21:56]Really good job.
[21:57]Really good job.
[21:58]They just thank you so much for having me.
[21:59]I love your podcast and you're doing so much good
[22:02]for the publishing industry.
[22:03]And it's just, it's really exciting to be here.
[22:05]Oh, thank you.
[22:06]And for anyone listening, if you want to hear more
[22:08]of us chatting, come to pages when are we doing that?
[22:11]May 10th or something?
[22:12]I think it's like 14.
[22:14]May 14th, thank you.
[22:15]Don't go on May 10th, although you can.
[22:17]May 14th in the morning,
[22:19]we'll be doing a story time with our two books.
[22:21]So that'll be really fun.
[22:23]Yeah, I was like, I lost it in Manhattan Beach, California,
[22:26]a pages bookstore.
[22:28]And yes, you can just show up.
[22:29]Yes, yes, I'm talking to you.
[22:31]Right.
[22:33]Why can't we just do that?
[22:34]And thank you again for having me.
[22:35]All right, thanks a lot.
[22:36]Bye-bye.
[22:36]Yay.
[22:38]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms.
[22:40]Don't have time to read books.
[22:42]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram, at Zebioans,
[22:45]and at Moms, don't have time to read books.
[22:47]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebioans.com
[22:50]and sign up for my virtual book club
[22:51]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[22:54]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan,
[22:55]in fact, Texture Sound for the Sound Editing.
[22:58]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[23:00]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.