"If I can write a whole novel then I can definitely do this!"
Jessie Rosen's debut novel is a NaNoWriMo baby!
I was TICKLED PINK when I launched this interview series and Jessie sent Steven Rowley’s interview to her stories on Instagram, with the note that she, too, was a proud member of the “Authors Over 40” club. So OF COURSE I had to interview her!
She just barely makes the AO40 cut, as she turns 40 this year that her debut novel, The Heirloom hits stands on May 7. Like many later-in-life novelists, Jessie did many other kinds of writing on her way to a published novel, including screenwriting, which she talks about in her interview below and on her website, where you can also see a picture of her adorable dog Louie. Plus, in 2007 Jessie created the blog 20-Nothings – named a TIME Top 25 Blog, Forbes Top 100 Website for Women & Top 10 Website for Millennials.
She’s been around the writing block! She told me that doing this interview was cathartic for her, and I’m excited to share it with you today.
VITAL STATS:
Your age when your first novel published, and the title of that novel: 40, The Heirloom, publishing May 7, 2024
Your age now: 40
How many novels you published to date: The Heirloom is my debut novel from a traditional publisher.*
What’s your next novel and its pub date if you have it: The Heirloom was part of a two-book deal with Putnam. My second novel – an original not sequel – will publish in late Spring of 2025. Title forthcoming!
INTERVIEW:
1. How many novels did you complete before the one that became your first published novel?
The Heirloom is my third completed novel. Very early in my career (circa 2008) I ghost wrote a romance novel for a self-published author (yes, a wild experience!). In 2015 I released a YA thriller – Dead Ringer – through a digital-only publisher focused on IP for eventual TV/film sales.* The Heirloom is my third completed manuscript. I wrote the first draft in 2021, ultimately selling it in 2023. But I think it’s worth noting that I started two other novels that I did not complete between 2015 and 2021. I think both were part of a process of learning and exploring the form, but neither compelled me to the finish line.
2. What kinds of jobs did you have to support yourself while you wrote? Are you still doing one of them?
I’ve had so very many jobs in and outside the writing world to support me along the journey. From 2005-2012 I had full-time jobs in marketing ranging from the wedding website The Knot and The Tribeca Film Festival to a Johnson & Johnson media agency, and an LA production company focused on branded content. In 2012 I left traditional, full-time work to focus on writing because I’d secured literary representatives in the film and TV world, but I still needed to support myself with outside income. Over the ten years following that included: writing online copy for E!’s Fashion Police, writing & building pitch decks for former employers, drafting speeches for media executives, creating website copy for brands, contributing freelance articles to website, teaching group writing classes, offering private writing coaching services, and even producing for the Spotify podcast Call Her Daddy. I was doing one or more of these up until I sold my novel in 2022. Along the way there were moments when television and film projects afforded me the chance to take a break from gig work and focus fully on that bigger dream. But I’ve gone back and forth to support income throughout my entire, 18-year career.
3. What was the writing routine in which you wrote the novel that became your first published? How long did it take to write that book?
My writing routine for The Heirloom was unique because I wrote the first draft as part of NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month – and also from my childhood bedroom! This was in November of 2020 - the first year of the pandemic. My husband, dog, and I left Los Angeles and lived with my parents in New Jersey for 2+ months to be present for some major family milestones. I literally drafted the novel from my childhood bed – a few hours in the morning, a few hours at night – in between helping care for my very first baby niece. I went in with about 50 pages that I’d been playing with in Los Angeles. Over that month in November I wrote a shocking 65,000 more words to complete the first draft.
I think it was a rare moment of creative escape being a salve for uncertain times. The Heirloom went through several big re-writes over the following two years (probably because I wrote the first draft in 30 days from a bed…), but almost all of the structure from that first, speedy draft remained! That was an extreme routine, but I still favor quick first drafts. I just finished draft one of my second novel in about two months. Since drafting is a harder process for me than editing I generally defer to a sloppy first pass followed by longer fine tuning. All of that said, my routine still involves a lot of bed-as-desk time….
4. What was your darkest moment before selling your first novel?
I received a very devastating rejection on a TV pitch months before submitting The Heirloom. This was after a succession of no, thank you's in the immediate years prior. All that work was just as personal as my novel manuscript, so I started to really worry that my ideas were not a fit for the marketplace. For the first time in my then 16 years on the write life ladder, I wondered if I would have the heart to keep going should the novel not sell. I wondered if the universe was trying to tell me that writing was supposed to be my passion and hobby, not my full career. I confessed this feeling to my husband. I talked about it therapy. And I journaled about it ad nauseum. Then The Heirloom sold in one week, as a two-book deal. I’m still processing that whiplash from low to high. I know this moment wouldn’t be as sweet had it not come after a period of such struggle. But I also think I’m stronger going into these next rungs on the writer ladder because I spent time checking in on my relationship with the role of writing in my life.
5. What advice about writing helps you stick with it?
The advice that helps me stick with writing is more existential than practical. It’s also from Sister Act II: Back in the Habit, so I’m stepping outside the box on both accounts here! The movie correctly attributes the wisdom to Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters To A Young Poet, but I learned through it Whoopi Goldberg as Sister Mary Clarence, so that’s how I’m going to pass it along. This is from a scene where Whoopi-as-nun is giving advice to Lauren Hill-as-aspiring-singer:
“I know you want to sing. See. I love to sing. Nothing makes me happier. I either wanted to be a singer or the head of the Ice Capades….Don't roll your eyes. They were very cool.
Anyway I went to my mother who gave me this book called Letters To A Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke. Fabulous writer. Fellow used to write to him and say:
‘I want to be a writer. Please read my stuff.’ And Rilke says to this guy: ‘Don't ask me about being a writer. If when you wake up in the morning you can think of nothing but writing, then you're a writer.’”
I’ve written consistently - in some way, shape or form - since I was four years old. And it’s not just because I love to write. I just process all emotions and experiences best when I put them on the page. So the “advice” that helps me stick with it is that writing is too much a part of me to give up. In the times I’ve questioned whether I’m going to “make it” as a professional writer I always come back to this silly but profound movie moment and think, I am a writer. How that work plays out in my life may be a question. Whether or not I will always be writing is not.
P.S. Sister Act II offers endless life wisdom so my real advice is to watch it asap.
6. What is your favorite part about the writing life?
My favorite part about moving through life as a writer is the effect it’s had on my life overall. Findings paths to discipline in my writing has helped me do the same with my relationships to things like exercise and mediation. I’ve learned to set firm boundaries around my work hours and space and, even more importantly, to communicate those needs to my husband, friends, and family. To write with consistent energy I’ve needed to figure out how to feed my body well, stretch my (always hunched) back often and add exploration into my life through things like travel so I have something to write about! Pushing through a chapter that had me really stuck or arriving at the end after it felt so, so far away gives me an indescribable sense of pride and confidence that expands into so many surprising aspects of my life. I honestly think I had the courage to travel solo for three weeks in Italy because I thought, if I can write a whole novel then I can definitely do this! And I’ve worked out countless personal struggles by exploring them through my characters on the page, so I get “free” therapy by being a writer, too.
Of course not every day is filled with rose-colored realizations about the positive impacts. But on the really dark days my flexible, writer life schedule allows me to either take a massive nap or have a massive martini. Fine, both.
Jessie! That Sister Act - Rilke quote is amazing!!! And here I was thinking I was the first to articulate this phenomenon, that if you wake up one morning cranky from NOT writing, you know you’re a writer… Lol. Nothing new under the darn sun. Thanks so much for this generous dose of writing wisdom, and have so much fun with your debut in May!
*In 2015 I published Dead Ringer – a YA thriller - through a digital imprint called Full Fathom Five. I received no advance, paid an editor out of pocket and self-published the paperback version, which is available on Amazon, with their permission (I had to pay to have someone do the layout).
Love this! I also love the title and premise of Jessie's book.
Loved this interview and can't wait to read Jessie's book!