Transcript for Episode S04.29: Nora Roberts: a Trailblazer Episode
Show notes: S04.29: Nora Roberts: a Trailblazer Episode
Nora Roberts 0:00 / #
I got my first royalty check for Irish Thoroughbred, which was my first published Silhouette. And I didn't understand. And I called her and I said, "I got this check and it was, I never had this much money." I said, "They already paid me, because they've given me, you know, $3,000." That was my advance for my first book. And she said, "Nora, they keep paying you." Maybe that was the moment, "Oh! I'm Nora Roberts, and they keep paying me!"
Sarah MacLean 0:30 / #
That was the voice of Nora Roberts. Whoo! It's happening.
Jennifer Prokop 0:37 / #
Yes, it is happening. And you know what, I'm going to say we have been blessed to have amazing people on, but I think you and I both, when we sent the email, when you sent the email to Nora Roberts, were like, what's going to happen? (laughter)
Sarah MacLean 0:55 / #
My favorite is that I texted you and I was like, "Hey, Jen, do you have time to interview Nora Roberts?"
Jennifer Prokop 1:04 / #
Here's the other thing that happened last night. So Mr. Reads Romance said, "What are you doing tomorrow?" And I was like, well, we're going to be recording an interview with this author. And you know, he has no idea who anyone is, bless you all. And I said, "Yeah, with Nora Roberts." And he was like, "Oh, I know that name." I was like, Okay, now I'm nervous. Everyone knows her name.
Sarah MacLean 1:27 / #
Yeah. My in-laws are here this week, because, you know, we're still renovating this house or, you know, putting up bookshelves. And I literally this morning was like, you all need to leave this house. I can't have you in here.
Jennifer Prokop 1:39 / #
Goodbye.
Sarah MacLean 1:42 / #
Welcome, everyone to Fated Mates. I'm Sarah MacLean. I read romance novels, and I write them.
Jennifer Prokop 1:48 / #
And I'm Jennifer Prokop, a romance reader and editor and you're about to hear our conversation with Nora Roberts.
Sarah MacLean 1:54 / #
Do we need to explain who Nora Roberts is for people who are not Mr. Reads Romance?
Jennifer Prokop 2:02 / #
Actually, go do your homework, and know your betters and come back and listen then. Fine. Here we go. Nora Roberts.
Sarah MacLean 2:13 / #
Okay, so let's get started. I think we should begin, if it's okay with you, at your beginning. How did you come to romance? There's sort of a legend about your romance, your first book.
Nora Roberts 2:27 / #
It's a true legend.
Sarah MacLean 2:28 / #
So good.
Nora Roberts 2:28 / #
It's a true legend.
Sarah MacLean 2:32 / #
Would you tell us?
Nora Roberts 2:33 / #
Yeah, well, first, I was really lucky to grow up in a family of readers. Everybody read in my house. So books were everywhere. So I grew up with stories. My father was a movie projectionist. So those kind of stories do and so I always read, and I always thought everyone made up stories in their head. So I never really thought about being a writer until the blizzard of 1979. But I lived in the country, back, a lane about a quarter of a mile. I didn't have four wheel drive. I had a kindergartener and a preschooler.
Sarah MacLean 3:12 / #
Oh my gosh!
Nora Roberts 3:13 / #
Three feet of snow. And I'm walking to kindergarten day after day, and during the period after I had kids, I started reading Harlequins because I could chain the kids down for a nap, and read a book. So I'm really you know, these are great by Violet Winspear and Anne Mather and all of that, and the Gothic romances, Phyllis Whitney and Victoria Holt. Mary Stewart, my absolute favorite. So then I thought, well, I'm, I'm going crazy, going crazy. This is, you know, day six -
Sarah MacLean 3:53 / #
Totally understandable!
Nora Roberts 3:54 / #
Of not being able to leave the house. And so I got a notebook, and I just started writing a story down. A notebook, because first, I didn't have a typewriter at that point. And because I couldn't leave my kids. I had to be there or the older one would have murdered the younger one. And I just fell in love. I mean, it's like, this is so much fun! Why didn't I ever think of doing this before? And that, that was it. And I just never looked back.
Sarah MacLean 4:23 / #
Was that your first book? That notebook book?
Nora Roberts 4:26 / #
No, it was my first book, but not the first that I sold.
Sarah MacLean 4:30 / #
So at that point, I mean, so this is 1979, where do you go from there with a notebook full of story?
Nora Roberts 4:39 / #
Well, exactly. There was no Silhouette at that time. There was only really Harlequin. I think Dell had Candlelight Romance, if I remember correctly, it's a long time ago. So I sent things off, you know, cheerfully, to Harlequin, and the rejections, many of them, because I would just start another book and keep going. So that the news was good. And I showed a lot of promise, but they already had their American writer.
Sarah MacLean 5:12 / #
Gosh, we've heard that story again and again. We've already got our American.
Nora Roberts 5:17 / #
Yeah, it was Janet Daily, which you know is a whole nother story.
Sarah MacLean 5:22 / #
Maybe we'll get there.
Nora Roberts 5:23 / #
Yeah, but then Silhouette opened up in 1980 and they were looking for new American writers. And I fit. I was new. I was American. And so I started and sent a book off to them, and I got a phone call. I know it was hot. So it had to have been in the summer. The kids were screaming in the other room. Then Nancy Jackson, with her British accent was on the phone from New York, said they wanted to buy my book. And it was, "What?" (laughter) It was the best moment of my life. And I had just hired Amy Berkower with Writers House as an agent. I mean, like, like the day before.
Jennifer Prokop 6:15 / #
Oh, wow.
Nora Roberts 6:16 / #
And so when I told Nancy, I just hired an agent. (Huffs) "You should have told me that right away. I need to talk with her." And hung up! I didn't know then that Nancy Jackson never said goodbye. That was just her way. (laughter) And I thought, I've screwed myself. Totally. But no, it all worked out.
Sarah MacLean 6:39 / #
And that's, I'm sorry, you said Nancy Jackson?
Nora Roberts 6:42 / #
Nancy Jackson.
Sarah MacLean 6:43 / #
You're still with Amy, all these years later, right?
Nora Roberts 6:46 / #
Oh, yeah. Mmmhmm.
Sarah MacLean 6:47 / #
Nancy was with you for a long time? Or -
Nora Roberts 6:51 / #
Yeah, several years. And then she shifted to Young Adults. I think they, did Silhouette started Young Adult, with some other line.
Sarah MacLean 7:02 / #
Mmmhmm.
Nora Roberts 7:03 / #
And they passed me to Isabel Swift, who is phenomenal. I've been very lucky. And I was with Isabel until I stopped writing for Harlequin.
Sarah MacLean 7:15 / #
So let's talk about that. You write very quickly. And I think everybody who's listening probably knows that. But were you a fast writer, even then in the early days?
Nora Roberts 7:26 / #
It's just my wiring, I'm, I have a fast pace.
Sarah MacLean 7:29 / #
One of the things on my list that I'd like to talk about, and I think this is a good place for us to talk about it, because it probably comes from the early days, too, is you have, I think, when I think as a writer about protecting the work, and making space for the work and for the writing, you are often the first person I think of because you are so focused and so committed to making space for writing and protecting that space. Could you talk about that? Does it come from, you know, having kids screaming outside in the hallway and just insanity?
Nora Roberts 7:58 / #
I can still write, I like the quiet, but I can still write in any situation because I started writing with two kids in the house, but we had rules. We had rules. And when they were little guys, the rule was when I was writing and I was right there. Don't bother me unless there's blood or fire. (laughter) And sometimes there was blood. We never had any fire. But sometimes it was blood and stuff and you deal with it. When they got older and more responsible, it was arterial blood and active fire.
Jennifer Prokop 8:38 / #
These are book titles. Have you ever called a book Blood or Blood or Fire? Because missed opportunity? (laughter)
Nora Roberts 8:45 / #
No, I'm working here. So this was my job, what would they have done? I would have a sitter or daycare, or something. If I've worked in an office outside the home. This is my writing time. This is my job. Now I did write when they were in school, and when they came home from school, I stopped because you got homework, you got snacks, you know you got kids. And I would go back to work when they finally went to bed. And I did that for a lot of years. I was a single parent for a while, so it was just me and them. They outnumbered me. You know, your kids are your first responsibility. But when you've got to work to pay the bills, so the kids don't starve and don't go naked. So you make work.
Sarah MacLean 9:39 / #
Now your kids are grown and one of the things when we were emailing about this time you said you know can we do it on a weekend because the weekdays are my writing days. And I said to Jen, "I think this is something that, you know, I need to internalize as a writer too." It's a job. You sit in the desk and you do the work.
Nora Roberts 9:56 / #
It's a job. It's a really great job, but it's a job,
Jennifer Prokop 9:59 / #
So it's interesting, you talked about starting off in writing in longhand. So how did that change? I mean, obviously, are you a person now who can write on your phone?
Nora Roberts 10:10 / #
Oh, my phone. My God, I don't do anything on my phone.
Jennifer Prokop 10:13 / #
Okay. Well, because I feel like there's a movement now to younger writers who are like, yeah, I wrote this book on my phone. I feel like it's a weird new longhand. Like I just did it where I could. That's where I was, when I could write.
Nora Roberts 10:26 / #
Whatever process works for you is the correct process. There's no one way.
Sarah MacLean 10:31 / #
So at this point you're writing, it's the '80s, and you're writing Silhouettes, and you're writing Harlequins?
Nora Roberts 10:38 / #
No, I never really wrote for Harlequin.
Jennifer Prokop 10:41 / #
Oh, okay.
Nora Roberts 10:42 / #
They bought Silhouette.
Nora Roberts 10:44 / #
I forget when, but I really wrote for the Silhouette imprint.
Sarah MacLean 10:49 / #
Is this the time when you start to really feel like romance is coming? We know the '80s is when the romance world just sort of exploded. And at what point did it really feel like, oh, this is happening. This, this romance is real, the readers are showing up, and this is a big deal.
Nora Roberts 11:09 / #
I don't know that I ever had a like, come to Jesus moment on that. It was all gradual. And I'm, again about the work. So I don't know that I noticed so much. I mean, I went to conferences, and that sort of thing. And I had a local chapter. But I didn't really go to meetings because -
Sarah MacLean 11:34 / #
Of RWA.
Nora Roberts 11:34 / #
Yeah. I mean I went to one meeting of Washington Romance Writers, way, way back. I think my first book was out, and I had sold two more. And I went to my first meeting, and there was some controversy at the time about the Silhouette contract. And most of these women, I'm gonna say, right off, were not published. A couple were, and they're all bitching and whining and carrying on about Clause 19B, I still remember. And one of them turned to me at one point, I didn't know what the hell they were talking about. And she said, "Nora, what do you think about Clause 19B?" And I said, "Oh," because I really didn't know, "I don't read contracts, I sign them." (laughter) And that was the end of that. And it's absolutely true. I have an agent. She reads the contracts.
Nora Roberts 12:35 / #
If she told me not sign, I wouldn't sign it. You know, so it was, it's my community. It was my community. And RWA offered so much support and the local chapters so much support, and information and networking opportunities. And I met a lot of my friends there. People I'm still very good friends with today, but I never really, I mean, it all just sort of built and, and happen. So I couldn't say that I had this, "Oh, my God, look at all this." It was just, I was just writing books.
Sarah MacLean 13:12 / #
So you have a bookstore, in Boonsboro, Maryland. You have several things in Boonsboro, Maryland. But you have a bookstore in Boonsboro, Maryland, and you're so welcoming to new and established writers to come and you do signings every time you have a book out in Boonsboro. And I've been there twice and both times, it's just an amazing experience, because people come from all over the country and world to Boonsboro to meet you and to and to get books signed by you at these book signings. And they stand in line for hours, they wrap around the building. It's an incredible experience. And you also have this very rich reader community online, that you clearly built when the internet arrived. So I'm curious about your relationship with readers and how this community, how you built this community and then the work as you think of it through readers.
Nora Roberts 14:14 / #
I think it's really important to be accessible. And I like being accessible through the internet because you don't have to put makeup on. (laughter) Worry, you know, you haven't had your hair done, so your roots are showing, stuff like that. But I'm happy to hear from readers most of the time. Now, Laura, Laura Reeth is my publicist. She handles social media. If I were to try to do the social media, I wouldn't be writing.
Sarah MacLean 14:47 / #
I would much rather be and she's much better at it anyway. But in the early days, you know, there were message boards on AOL, stuff like that, and I would, I'd go on here and there and it was fascinating. Just fascinating. And you did build relationships. Problems started with some people, and now you've got a target on your back. So they, they just can't help themselves. And we have some problems with that certainly in the social media that Laura does. We just had to put up another post yesterday, you know, knock it off with the, I love that it's the In Death books in particular. I love, love, love these books, but you need to do this, this, this, this, this, this, this. You need to do this, this, this! No. I don't. Read them or don't. Like them or don't. Don't tell me how to do my job. I know you used to ghost writer on that last one, because it didn't sound like you. Oh, fuck you. Just completely. Because I've been very clear about that. I work really hard. And I love my work. That's the downside.
Sarah MacLean 16:11 / #
Mmmhmm.
Jennifer Prokop 16:11 / #
Yeah.
Nora Roberts 16:11 / #
If I had to do it myself, I wouldn't do it at all, at this point, but Laura is so good at it. That we've got a really nice community on Facebook, on both pages, and I do the blog. And I handle things like I'm wearing my, "I have personally explained the process to you Deborah" sweatshirt. (laughter)
Jennifer Prokop 16:35 / #
We all love that.
Nora Roberts 16:36 / #
Because I will, I'm very patient, I think. And I try to be very gracious, because some people don't know they're being offensive. So you give them chances, because, and you try to explain. But then when you just keep at it, you're gonna piss me off. That's really a mistake.
Nora Roberts 17:04 / #
A big, big mistake.
Sarah MacLean 17:06 / #
Well, let's talk about that. One of the hallmarks, I think, of your place in romance and in publishing in general is your intense and important advocacy around the issue of plagiarism because you've experienced it multiple times.
Sarah MacLean 17:23 / #
And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how that experience shaped your work, your writing, your life, and then it feels like it happens more in romance or in genre in a really interesting way. And I wonder if you have thoughts on that.
Nora Roberts 17:41 / #
I still remember exactly, I was on a message board. Again, and there's that connection with the readers. And I read this on a message board that this reader had read, Notorious by Janet Dailey, shortly after she had read a reissue, because my book was six, seven years prior to Notorious, Sweet Revenge, and said, they're big chunks that are the same, word for word. And I'm thinking she's wrong. Because I knew Janet. That, that has to be wrong. But my younger son was working in the bookstore that day, and I said, "Bring a copy of Notorious," it was out in paperback, "home with you." And I opened it up to one of the pages that she had cited. And I couldn't believe it. I mean, I literally just lost my breath. There, it was obvious, it was word for word, not just a sentence, but a chunk. And then you look on and there's another chunk, and there's a scene, and on and on and on. And I, it was on a weekend, I called my agent, you know, we started dealing with it, and it was ugly, and hurtful. And I knew her. So then I'd never experienced anything like this. And a lot of the advice was we'll just keep it quiet.
Nora Roberts 19:17 / #
We'll just keep it quiet. She will, you go through, her agent said, go through the manuscript. Go through them, I think they sent me the manuscript, and just take out whatever is in question.
Nora Roberts 19:36 / #
And I actually started to do that.
Nora Roberts 19:39 / #
And I sit was sitting on my deck. And I was doing that and thinking, "this is crazy!" There are pages, and it's like, you take this and I called my agent again. And I said, "Amy!" She was so hot because Janet's agent had just called her to tell me to hurry up, because the publisher wanted to go to a second printing.
Sarah MacLean 20:05 / #
Oh, so they were gonna just take out all of that stuff and reprint?
Nora Roberts 20:09 / #
Oh, you don't back an Irish woman into the corner! And that was it. That was all, that was over. I wanted her blood in my throat after that. That was just, uh-uh.
Jennifer Prokop 20:21 / #
Yeah.
Nora Roberts 20:21 / #
There was an RWA thing coming and she, we agreed that we would keep it quiet and deal with the lawyers, that I would not go to the press. She would not go to the press. We would see, without pulling the book, and then I, I went down to speak to a library, a Friends of the Library thing, the day before an RWA conference in Orlando. And she broke it. She broke the story. So she's a liar, on top of being a thief, and put me in a really big, terrible spot.
Sarah MacLean 20:59 / #
How did she spin it?
Nora Roberts 21:00 / #
Oh she had -- it was inadvertent. It was unconscious.
Jennifer Prokop 21:06 / #
Oh, right.
Nora Roberts 21:06 / #
She was so sorry.
Sarah MacLean 21:08 / #
Ohhh, feel bad for me.
Nora Roberts 21:09 / #
Yes, feel bad for me. I'm the victim here.
Sarah MacLean 21:12 / #
I made a mistake.
Jennifer Prokop 21:12 / #
I don't know how it happened. Boy, I just must have read that thing.
Sarah MacLean 21:15 / #
I don't know how I copy and pasted.
Nora Roberts 21:17 / #
Then I was I was going down the elevator the next morning to get the paper because I'd spent I don't know how many hours dealing with reporters after it broke. and I'm riding in the elevator and I'm reading this article, and it said that, you know, her brother had been sick and this was Janet speaking -
Sarah MacLean 21:43 / #
Oh, the the full banana here.
Nora Roberts 21:45 / #
And her dog died. And I love dogs. I've always loved dogs. I have dogs. I just laughed hysterically and there's some strange woman and I punched the woman you know, not like, "POW", but like, "her dog died!" (laughter) "Oh, no, I'm so sorry." I said, "No, no, you don't get it. That's why she had to steal from me." And she told me it was only the one time because they finally convinced me to talk with her on the phone.
Sarah MacLean 22:17 / #
Oh, and you were friends.
Nora Roberts 22:20 / #
She told me, she swore, she swore to me it was only the one time. And I went up and I got another one of her books, because I had collected them, opened it up and immediately found another book with my work in it.
Nora Roberts 22:37 / #
So two years of court battles, and just bullshit from her lawyer until we settled.
Sarah MacLean 22:45 / #
And why do you think, I mean, do you think there's a reason why you were told to keep it quiet?
Nora Roberts 22:49 / #
Because that's what they want you to do. That's what everyone wants you to do, basically, because it's ugly. And it's hard.
Sarah MacLean 22:57 / #
It really became a conversation in romance writ large. There were factions, right?
Nora Roberts 23:05 / #
And a lot of people were really, really pissed at me.
Sarah MacLean 23:11 / #
Shocking.
Nora Roberts 23:11 / #
A lot of writers were really angry with me. RT did this, Romantic Times did this whole article on, on how I should have left her alone. She's an icon.
Sarah MacLean 23:23 / #
It's really interesting, because it, of course makes you think if these were men, would we be having this conversation?
Jennifer Prokop 23:30 / #
Right.
Sarah MacLean 23:31 / #
Do you feel like that's part of it?
Nora Roberts 23:33 / #
Oh, absolutely. The press was all, "See? We told you romance was all the same." They made fun of it.
Jennifer Prokop 23:40 / #
Oh, yeah.
Nora Roberts 23:41 / #
And that was, you know, so there you go. But I didn't make fun of it. And, and she lost. So -
Jennifer Prokop 23:49 / #
Right. To me when I think about this, I think this is Nora Roberts saying this is a business and this is not just fun and games and a cute thing we do.
Nora Roberts 24:00 / #
No. This was my my career. This was my work and she stole it. I remember one writer coming up to me at the conference and saying, you know, it's really a form of flattery. Instead of punching her in the face, (laughter) I just said, "You know, if you compliment my earrings, I'm flattered. If you steal them. I'm calling the cops."
Jennifer Prokop 24:26 / #
Yeah.
Sarah MacLean 24:27 / #
Yeah. And what's shocking about this, is that it's not the only time it's happened to you. So, it's really, it is something that we see rise up again and again in romance. And I mean, I'm sure it happens in other genres too. But -
Nora Roberts 24:44 / #
Oh yeah.
Sarah MacLean 24:45 / #
Personally, you and I have had many conversations about plagiarism, and I'm really grateful for all of your guidance.
Nora Roberts 24:52 / #
The Brazilian woman really does take the cake. I mean she stole from so many.
Sarah MacLean 24:57 / #
Nora and I were both plagiarized by a woman who pla
Sarah MacLean 25:00 / #
giarized, I think, it was in total, almost 60 authors.
Nora Roberts 25:04 / #
Yeah, almost 60. Just amazing.
Sarah MacLean 25:07 / #
That was fun times. We'll put links in show notes to all of this. So -
Jennifer Prokop 25:11 / #
What I kind of as a reader, more on the reader side struggle with, is this seems like something Amazon could easily cross check. You know, documents against other documents. So -
Nora Roberts 25:23 / #
Oh yeah! Could not agree more.
Jennifer Prokop 25:24 / #
You know turnitin.com exists for students, so why couldn't it exist for Amazon?
Jennifer Prokop 25:29 / #
So I'm curious about your opinion, if you have one about why can't the gatekeeping be to stopping this before it gets out? And then you guys are all stuck trying to sue this woman in Brazil?
Nora Roberts 25:40 / #
Well, I will say that it's difficult for the publishers, although I got a lot of, with um, is it Surya or whatever her name was
Sarah MacLean 25:53 / #
Serruya.
Nora Roberts 25:54 / #
A lot of support from my publisher on that one, but the copyright's in the author's name, not in the publisher's name. So copyright infringement is the author's problem.
Jennifer Prokop 26:05 / #
I see.
Nora Roberts 26:06 / #
And when I when I sued Janet, I got a lot of support from my publisher. There were two. I had more than one at that time. In fact, Silhouette sent me a manuscript that they were going to publish of hers and asked me to look and yeah, she had plagiarized me and then they dropped the book.
Sarah MacLean 26:32 / #
In that one too! Oh, my gosh! You would think she would have pulled everything back at that point and said, "I want everything back."
Sarah MacLean 26:42 / #
Thank you for talking to us about that. Let's move on to more fun conversation. [AD BREAK]
Sarah MacLean 26:50 / #
We talked about your category work. Let's start there with the move from category to single title. How did that happen? Was it you moving as an author? Was it the publisher saying you know Nora, you're so fabulous. We need bigger books, more books.
Nora Roberts 28:50 / #
I always wanted to write romantic suspense. Always, always always, but there just wasn't a market for it, unless you were Mary Stewart or Victoria Holt or Phyllis Whitney. And I remember my agent telling me way back in the day, build a good foundation. That's the first thing you do. So not only did I take that to mean the work and the quality of the work, and your relationship with the readers and everything else and the business, but category, which I respected a great deal or I wouldn't have written them gave me a foundation. How to write an entire story with character, plot, setting, subplots, themes, description. A friend of mine once said, "A book is Swan Lake on the stage with the costumes and the lights, and the choreography, and category is Swan Lake in a phone booth." And that's perfect.
Jennifer Prokop 30:00 / #
Yeah.
Nora Roberts 30:00 / #
You have to learn how to tell a story briefly and still make it good. And I wanted to do something bigger. I knew that I wanted to write suspense. So when I felt like I had an idea and I had built my foundation, I tried with Hot Ice. And yeah, Bantam bought that. And that was the next step to doing, you know, mass market paperback, bigger, romantic suspense sort of books.
Jennifer Prokop 30:41 / #
And you also seem to have a real affinity for a certain kind of fantasy?
Nora Roberts 30:47 / #
Yeah, I love writing fantasy and magics, and fairies and dragons and -
Jennifer Prokop 30:54 / #
You know you really are a triple threat. You know you write straight, kind of contemporary romance, but then as time evolved, there's the romantic suspense, but even the In Death books are futuristic. As you then enter the '90s, where you have kind of more of an opportunity to write single title. How did you balance, I guess, the needs of the market versus your own interest as a writer?
Nora Roberts 31:20 / #
Never think about the market.
Sarah MacLean 31:22 / #
That's good advice.
Nora Roberts 31:23 / #
Think about what I want to write. What interests me, well, the idea that's there, and pulling at me, is much more important to me than the market, but that was after I built my foundation. And then, you know, if I write this book that I really want to write, and it's crap, or nobody wants it, I'm writing another one. Because the market changes. It changes. So by the time I'm going to write this because this is really hot right now, but by the time you write that, and it gets published, it may not be hot anymore. So write what pulls at you. Write what you need to write.
Sarah MacLean 32:06 / #
So let's talk about that, because what pulled at you was the In Death series at some point, and you changed your name for it. So can we talk about that?
Nora Roberts 32:16 / #
Oh, yeah. That. Phyllis Whitney. Oh my God, what a brilliant, the most brilliant woman in publishing. She was CEO of Putnam, when I went there. And she called me one day in that New York accent, "Nora, you need a hobby."
Sarah MacLean 32:37 / #
"You need a hobby!" (laughter)
Nora Roberts 32:38 / #
"You need a hobby." "Phyllis, I don't want hobby. I just want to write." And my agent and Phyllis had both been nudging me to take a pseudonym. Oh, no, I don't, wah wah wah, I don't want to take a pseudonym. Those books have to have my name on it. Blah, blah, blah. And then Amy said to me one day when we're talking about it, after Phyllis and the hobby, she said, "Nora, there's Pepsi, there's Diet Pepsi, and there's caffeine free Pepsi." And I thought, oh, it's marketing. And I can be two popular brands. Let me, I have this idea, this weird idea. Let me play with it. And we'll see. 'Cause I had had this idea for the Eve Dallas character, and, and this setting in New York and all of that. I sort of had all of that, but I thought, I don't know what to do with that. I don't know what to do with that. She's so dark and difficult. You know, I know, I'm not sure what I would do. And then this is like, all right. They want something. I said I would do it, but I would have to do something completely different than what I do. And I started writing Naked In Death, and really, really fell hard. It was a three book contract. I started it thinking it would be a trilogy. So I sort of structured it that way. And by the time I was into the second book, I was really hoping I could, they would do well.
Nora Roberts 34:30 / #
Write 50 more? (laughter)
Nora Roberts 34:30 / #
Yeah. 'Cause I'm loving this. These are so much fun. And I, a lot of people, since we're on this one, think I took the JD so people wouldn't be sure, would think I was a man, and that is not true. They're my son's initials. I just thought that would be fun. I didn't, yeah, they're my son's initials and they wanted me to use a last name that would be close to where people would look for me in the bookstore shelves, so -
Sarah MacLean 35:03 / #
Sure. At the time was it public that you were both?
Sarah MacLean 35:07 / #
Some people keep that a secret.
Nora Roberts 35:09 / #
Yeah. My agent felt it was really important for the books to build on their own. If they were going to build, let them build on their own, and then you'll be two popular brands. And she was right again. As you see, you might understand why I've been with Amy for decades.
Jennifer Prokop 35:31 / #
How is writing a long running series with the same main characters different from writing other trilogies? How does that, as a writer, how do you plan for, okay, it's even work again?
Sarah MacLean 35:46 / #
How do you keep that fresh for yourself, too?
Jennifer Prokop 35:49 / #
Yeah, exactly.
Jennifer Prokop 35:50 / #
How does that interact then with the other stories that might be, you might think, oh, this is a three book series. I can conceive of this at the same time.
Nora Roberts 35:58 / #
With the In Death, I know that world and those characters really, really well. I should by this time, 50 odd books. So it's, it's more when I, when I think about what am I going to do with them next? It's what, what will drive them? Usually I'm going to think of the murder. You know, people, a lot of the readers think of them more as relationship books, because they're very attached, as I am, to the people in them, but they're murder books. The murder is the core of it, because if she didn't have a murder to solve, what would she be doing? You know? So I have to think of what, what's around that, and I might have to think, or try to think, what secondary characters might I bring in this time. Sometimes that just, I don't think about them, it just flows with the story. Oh, this is good, Nadine's coming in, because it just makes sense. I enjoy them a lot. I don't have to think about the world. Like when I'm starting a trilogy, I have to build a whole new world again. With the In Death, that world is built. And I just have to follow the rules I set up in 1995 or whenever it was. And I want the characters to evolve and change because people do and their relationships evolve and change. So we're, where are we here, and I then, I just sit down and get started and see what happens. With a trilogy, I have to, I have to have an idea that will work in three parts. A big story that I will tell in three parts, but each has to be self-contained enough. So it has an ending of some sort, but some thread that is going to continue through into the next book and the next for the resolution. And with the trilogies I've been doing the last few years, that means a lot of world building. With Year One, I have to build that whole. And who knew that there would be a global pandemic? At least billions that, and hasn't wiped us all out yet. So there's that. I just had that idea and I have to do that. Even though it's different than, you know, because it wasn't a romance.
Sarah MacLean 38:44 / #
Right. Well, that's what I'd like to talk about. I mean, it really feels to us, you know, when we were talking, before we we started talking with you, it feels to us that there was a kind of significant shift in the way that you wrote or you write and it came, in our mind, somewhere around the Bride Quartet. Are we in the right area?
Nora Roberts 39:07 / #
It might be. It's so not analytical.
Sarah MacLean 39:14 / #
But now, I mean, the difference between the Bride Quartet say and -
Nora Roberts 39:18 / #
Oh, yeah. completely different.
Sarah MacLean 39:18 / #
The Chronicles of The One, right.
Jennifer Prokop 39:21 / #
Right.
Sarah MacLean 39:21 / #
Exactly. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how you have, how you are changing as a writer, how because it seems a lot of times people get to a certain point in their career and they you know, just coast and they write the same book over and over again and you are definitely not doing that.
Jennifer Prokop 39:40 / #
Not doing that.
Nora Roberts 39:41 / #
Well, I get accused of that, though, all the time, by some readers.
Sarah MacLean 39:45 / #
Well, we would never!
Nora Roberts 39:47 / #
And I don't think it's true because I do write in different areas. Many -
Sarah MacLean 39:52 / #
No, it feels like people are not paying attention.
Jennifer Prokop 39:56 / #
Right.
Nora Roberts 39:57 / #
I think that goes back to I have to write what interests me. When the idea comes on, they're not all good ideas. So you have to work on how you're going to articulate that idea and do a story on paper. So with the Bride Quartet, I liked the idea of using the whole wedding thing and have each one of those women, that have their own place in it, yet interact. And of course, you know, the romances. And I think those were the last straight relationship books that I've written. I can't think of anything I've -
Sarah MacLean 40:41 / #
Where the relationship is the primary driver.
Nora Roberts 40:43 / #
Yeah. Where the relationship is the reason. It's the reason. So those were probably the last romances I wrote. The books that come out in the summer in hardcover are generally, they're going to have a relationship in them, because that's what I like to read too. I like books with relationships in them. But the relationship often doesn't start, as it would in most romances, pretty much in the first quarter. even sooner. So they're more thrillers with romantic elements or suspense with romantic elements,
Jennifer Prokop 41:26 / #
Or fantasy with romantic elements. I've just read book two of a series that is kind of more fantasy.
Nora Roberts 41:32 / #
Oh it's The Awakening and then The Becoming.
Jennifer Prokop 41:34 / #
Yes. Yeah, clearly relationships are at the core of the story, but definitely the romance is not the core of the story.
Nora Roberts 41:40 / #
Yeah. Lots of relationships.
Jennifer Prokop 41:41 / #
But it's still so satisfying.
Nora Roberts 41:43 / #
I like writing about family. I like writing about friendships, the family you make, the family you're born with, that sort of thing. I mean, it's the world we live in and those relationships are a part of who we are. So if you're gonna write about people, you write about relationships,
Sarah MacLean 42:01 / #
Do you feel like, appreciating that you don't think about the market, do you feel like the readers have come with you really readily?
Nora Roberts 42:10 / #
Some don't. Some do. Some drag their feet. I had a comment the other day, this woman has read all my books under Roberts, but she just didn't think she would like the Robb books, so and then, I guess a lot of people picked up more books during the pandemic, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna read, so. And you know, she loved them. But she, no, I don't think I want to read something that's set in the future. So and I get that a lot. Or you get men who will read the Robb books, because they think it's a guy. They just automatically think that and then you know, their wife or girlfriend or whatever, haha, you just read Nora Roberts. (laughter) That's a hard one for some men to take.
Sarah MacLean 43:04 / #
Well, with that in mind, it sounds like, I mean between Amy and your publisher and your editor, you know, you have such an incredibly supportive community helping you publish, but I wonder is there ever, has there been over the course of your career, the book that you, the fight you had to fight in order to tell the story you wanted to tell, to make the change to -- has there been a challenge or have you ever had to really, really push for something?
Nora Roberts 43:34 / #
Not for, not to write something now. No, no. No one's ever told me that won't work, or that won't do. Plus, I don't talk about it before I start it.
Sarah MacLean 43:47 / #
Oh and that helped, right?
Nora Roberts 43:48 / #
Never like go I'm thinking of and who would I say that to? My editor? Oh no. She can read. Yeah.
Jennifer Prokop 43:56 / #
Right.
Nora Roberts 43:56 / #
Now she will often ask, "You know, so what are you working on? You know, can you tell me anything?" And I'll, I'm really bad at it. She knows I'm really bad at it. But I'll try to, you know, walk her through the basics. You know, I'm setting it in, and the one that's coming out, Nightwork in May. When you said it's all over the place because he travels, so it doesn't have until the last part of the book where he settles, you know, she's thinking covers and stuff too. Give me, give me something.
Jennifer Prokop 44:36 / #
Right.
Nora Roberts 44:37 / #
And names and things like that, but I I don't and never did. Now I'll tell you an early story which may explain some of this. After I started selling to Silhouette, I'd sold several books to them, my agent called me up, bearing please, you no longer have to submit a completed manuscript for their contract, you can just submit an outline. And I said, "Great!" Hung up the phone and like, oh, shit. I don't know how to do an outline. (laughter) I don't know what I'm writing until I'm writing it. So what I did, I did three times. I wrote the book, and then I wrote an outline and I sent it in.
Sarah MacLean 45:25 / #
Oh my gosh! (laughter) They gave you more work!
Nora Roberts 45:29 / #
We were together somewhere, I think it was on the Queen Mary, some RWA thing at the bar, and I confessed and she thought that was the funniest. Never mind, Nora, never mind. You don't have to write them. (laughter)
Jennifer Prokop 45:42 / #
That's, oh that's really funny.
Nora Roberts 45:46 / #
A synopsis, I guess is what it was. You can, you can sell them synopsis. I still couldn't write a synopsis if you held a gun to my head.
Sarah MacLean 45:53 / #
Oh, no, they're the worst. (laughter) Nora, this one is, some people feel awkward about answering it, but I hope you won't, and that is you are Nora Roberts. And when people talk about romance in the world, you forever will be associated, you know, you are the first name many people think and I wonder if you can speak to, when did you realize that you were something bigger than all of it? (laughter) In many ways. I mean when did you realize that you were, you know this is a Trailblazer episode, this is the Trailblazer series. Let me rephrase it. When did you realize that you were kind of a legend?
Jennifer Prokop 46:36 / #
Nora Roberts!
Sarah MacLean 46:38 / #
You're Nora Roberts!
Nora Roberts 46:38 / #
I think a lot like how romance just, you know, kept rolling and exploding. It just, it was a gradual thing. I think one of the milestones for me was hitting the Times list the first time. That was huge. And that was -
Jennifer Prokop 47:02 / #
Was that Hot Ice or was it something later?
Nora Roberts 47:04 / #
No, that was Geunuine Lies.
Jennifer Prokop 47:06 / #
Oh, okay.
Nora Roberts 47:07 / #
Genuine Lies was the first one to hit and so that sort of thing. And I started this business so naive, another story, which Amy laughed at quite a bit, is I got my first royalty check for Irish Thoroughbred, which my first published Silhouette. And I didn't understand. And I called her and I said, "I got this check." And it was for like, I never had this much money. I said, "They already paid me."
Nora Roberts 47:45 / #
Because they'd given me you know, $3,000. That was my advance for my first book. And she said, "Nora, they keep paying you." (laughter) Maybe that was the moment -
Sarah MacLean 47:56 / #
And you were like this is a good job!
Nora Roberts 47:59 / #
I'm Nora Roberts and they keep paying me! (laughter)
Jennifer Prokop 48:05 / #
Well, and you know what, if people buy enough Irish Thoroughbred after this, you're going to see that return on your royalty statement again. (laughter) [AD BREAK]
Jennifer Prokop 49:44 / #
So you were in romance from the beginning and how have you seen the genre changing? Do you think it has changed?
Nora Roberts 50:04 / #
Oh my god, yeah. It's always changed and if you don't change you stagnate. When I first started, the big part of romance was the historicals. Kathleen Woodiwiss, who was the -
Nora Roberts 50:19 / #
Rosemary Rodgers
Nora Roberts 50:20 / #
Yes, that's the name that wouldn't come to me. That was, that was the thing, and I didn't want to write those. I read some and I enjoyed them, but it wasn't like what pulled at me. So what gradually category romance became really big over the course of the '80s, and then contemporary romance became really big. Before that, then, you know, there was gothics, which I did love, you know they had the woman running away and the light in the window.
Jennifer Prokop 50:51 / #
(laughter) Right.
Nora Roberts 50:52 / #
All the covers.
Jennifer Prokop 50:52 / #
Woman running away. A night gown. That house is coming to get me! (laughter)
Sarah MacLean 50:57 / #
Well, you said Victoria Holt. I mean that labels you as a gothic lover from the beginning.
Nora Roberts 51:03 / #
The beauty of romance was always that you could, I will absorb elements from any other genre, from any other area of fiction, as long as you have that core relationship. The two person love story, and emotional commitment, sexual tension, happy ending. You have that, you can do anything, absolutely anything. Use any spoke on the umbrella. Over the course of time, it seemed to me that the two person evolved a bit, so that the sex wasn't about sexual tension and emotional commitment, but is more about 50 Shades of Grey. Let's just have lots and lots of sex. And when I read books like that, and I'm not dissing that particular book, but that sort of thing, I didn't feel the heart. And for me, romance, always had heart, because it was about emotion and commitment. And it seemed to me pieces of the genre were changing again, which you know, things change. And that's not the direction I wanted to go. So I went my direction, and the genre sort of took a different one. Not that there aren't still books that are about two people falling in love and having that sexual tension before they jump into bed and, and then having really good sex is a great part of romance, if it's articulated well. And that commitment again. And that upbeat ending. You've got to give me the upbeat ending. I don't, no. Anna Karenina. She throws herself in front of a train. Why do I want to read that? I don't want to read that. I want to read Jane Eyre. She, everything -
Nora Roberts 53:07 / #
All the horrible things that happened to her but she wins! She wins in the end. That's what I want.
Jennifer Prokop 53:13 / #
Right.
Sarah MacLean 53:14 / #
When we had Jayne Ann Krentz on, we talked a lot about core story, and is there something that you feel like when you sit down, there's just no way you're going to avoid?
Nora Roberts 53:23 / #
I think one of the most important elements to me, is character. So the characters are key for me. Character is plot to me. If I don't love the characters, or hate them if it's a villain and I'm supposed to. I can't write them well. I can't write their dialogue well if I don't know how they speak. I need to know, whether I put it in the book or not, what they want to eat for breakfast and what they have in their top drawer. Where they come from, why they left there, why they stayed there, what they do for a living, why they do it, and where they do it. So I think most of the readers from feedback, it's the characters that pull them in. And for me as a writer and a reader, it's the characters that pull me in.
Jennifer Prokop 54:23 / #
One of the things for me, I've always really respected about your characters, especially that women always have really interesting jobs. You know, she's an arson investigator or or you know, she's a sculptor. When I talk about how I imprinted on romance, I often talk about that sense that every woman had a cool, interesting job, or was doing something she loved.
Nora Roberts 54:43 / #
Doing something you love. Yeah. Whatever. You were someone's administrative assistant, but you loved being that, that's all great and good. I like writing about strong women or women who find their strength over the course of the book. That's key. I certainly don't want to write about weak men, either, but I'm a woman, and I want to write about women who find, who stand up for themselves or finally stand up for themselves.
Jennifer Prokop 55:18 / #
Do you have books of yours that you consider your favorites? Or that you're most proud of?
Nora Roberts 55:24 / #
No. My favorite book is the one on sale now, because I never have to think about it again. (laughter)
Jennifer Prokop 55:31 / #
We hear that a lot.
Nora Roberts 55:33 / #
The least favorite is usually the one I'm working on because it's giving me all the trouble. (laughter)
Jennifer Prokop 55:42 / #
Fair.
Sarah MacLean 55:43 / #
There must be books that you feel just landed in the world in a really special way. Do you have books that you hear the most about from readers?
Nora Roberts 55:53 / #
I don't think so. What I try to tell the readers, because it's absolutely true, when they say, "But you need to do this, this and this." I said, "If I listen to you, and I did this, this and then, Reader B over here is going to say, "Why the hell did you do that, that, that? I hate that."" Listening to readers, that way lies madness.
Sarah MacLean 56:19 / #
I'm writing this down. Take note.
Jennifer Prokop 56:20 / #
Yeah, take note.
Sarah MacLean 56:22 / #
Put this on my wall.
Nora Roberts 56:23 / #
You cannot write with a reader over your shoulder. You cannot do it.
Jennifer Prokop 56:26 / #
One of my favorite things on your website is a definitive list of things that Eve and Roarke will never do, and half of them are like get pregnant, have a baby, be pregnant, be worried about being pregnant, babysit. And I was like she must be hearing from readers who really want this and she's like, look, no.
Nora Roberts 56:43 / #
It never stops. No matter how many ways I say no, but, but, but cops have babies. Yes. This cop isn't having one. The changes they don't understand.
Jennifer Prokop 56:56 / #
Right.
Nora Roberts 56:57 / #
Because they're not writers, it would change the direction of the series. And they love the series. But it would be so funny. Babies are, it would be so funny to see Eve pregnant. Yeah, for the next five years, ten years.
Sarah MacLean 57:14 / #
But then she has a baby! (laughter)
Nora Roberts 57:15 / #
And then what is she going to do? Oh, she can give it to Summerset, he'll, he'll - why would you have a baby and then say, "Here. Take care of my kid." (laughter)
Sarah MacLean 57:26 / #
She just gives it to Summerset! (laughter)
Nora Roberts 57:28 / #
She could have a kid, she could adopt one. What's the difference between a biological and adopted child? They're children.
Sarah MacLean 57:35 / #
They still need to eat.
Nora Roberts 57:36 / #
Yes, they need love and they need your attention. They need to be the center of your world. They're entitled to that.
Jennifer Prokop 57:42 / #
Not the murder of the week. It's interesting to me because it feels like that exact push-pull that sometimes what readers want is not really what readers want.
Nora Roberts 57:53 / #
That's exactly right.
Jennifer Prokop 57:55 / #
I said it first. (laughter)
Nora Roberts 57:57 / #
They think they want it, and then they would be like, oh, but she, they're not having sex. Well, no, because the baby's crying! Or you know she's not about getting her face beat in, yeah, 'cause you know, you gotta change the baby's diaper. (laughter)
Jennifer Prokop 58:14 / #
That's funny. That sounds grim. Nobody wants that.
Sarah MacLean 58:18 / #
Nora, one of the questions that we always ask is, is there anybody who we should make sure that we've talked about or thought about or names that people should know from the early days? People who maybe still aren't with us, or stopped writing, or writers, designers, editors. You've named a number of people but -
Nora Roberts 58:41 / #
Well, there's my good friend, Ruth Langan. Ruth Ryan Langan. She writes as RC Ryan too. She has many names but Ruth Langan, who I met at the very first RWA conference in Houston in 1981. Ruth and I have been friends ever since. Dixie Browning. Ruth and Dixie and I did a lot of Silhouette: How to Write a Romance workshops when Silhouette used to send us around like this little dog and pony show. It was amazing and great fun. Patricia Gaffney doesn't write any more. She's still with us, but she doesn't write anymore, but oh, she had some marvelous books. Just marvelous books. Mary Kay McComas doesn't write anymore but she wrote for Bantam Loveswept. She wrote a lot of books for Loveswept. These are good friends of mine. Elaine Fox. Mary Blayney. They're all pals of mine. Mary wrote Regency type historicals and Elaine wrote a lot of romcoms. Those are off the top of my head.
Sarah MacLean 59:54 / #
No, that's great. We want to fill these episodes with just as many names as we can. So that's great. Patricia Gaffney. My gosh!
Jennifer Prokop 59:55 / #
I know. That name. I remember those. Yeah.
Nora Roberts 59:58 / #
Yeah, and Ruth, she's still writing. She's like the Energizer Bunny. She never quits.
Sarah MacLean 1:00:14 / #
This was really fabulous. Thank you so much for joining us, Nora.
Nora Roberts 1:00:19 / #
Well, thanks for asking me.
Sarah MacLean 1:00:20 / #
Oh, we loved having you, and we know that all of our listeners are going to just be over the moon when they hear it.
Jennifer Prokop 1:00:28 / #
Whoooo (laughs). Listen -
Sarah MacLean 1:00:35 / #
Well, that was delightful.
Jennifer Prokop 1:00:36 / #
That was amazing. Yeah, that was amazing.
Sarah MacLean 1:00:38 / #
Listen, the thing that I liked the most about having conversations with Nora Roberts, and I have had three in my lifetime. No, that's not true. A few more. Well, let me start over. The thing that I liked the most about when you talk to Nora Roberts is that there's nothing she won't talk about, because she's Nora Roberts.
Jennifer Prokop 1:00:38 / #
Right!
Sarah MacLean 1:00:38 / #
So what are you gonna do?
Jennifer Prokop 1:00:40 / #
I mean, we talk every time about how different the Trailblazer episodes were. One of the things I found myself thinking was to be a woman who started off not really knowing what royalties were, right? Which is a charming story, of course!
Sarah MacLean 1:01:21 / #
But I don't think that's -- I think that's real.
Jennifer Prokop 1:01:23 / #
Of course!
Sarah MacLean 1:01:23 / #
I think a lot of women who were selling books in 1979 were -- thank god for Amy Berkower!
Jennifer Prokop 1:01:31 / #
Yes.
Sarah MacLean 1:01:31 / #
It sounds like Nora really, she made such a good decision in that, the earliest days. And we've talked about agents before, and how important an agent is, but the idea that she had somebody who could really help her move through this industry, with purpose and confidence, is amazing. But also, I do think that speaks to a large number of women mostly, in those early days signing contracts, and just sort of on a wing and a prayer,
Jennifer Prokop 1:02:05 / #
I think this still happens. I still think that there are authors -
Sarah MacLean 1:02:09 / #
1000 percent.
Jennifer Prokop 1:02:09 / #
Who sign their first contracts, not really knowing what's going on. But I also think it really speaks to her professionalism, that 15 years later, she is the person who understands entirely that it is not okay for someone to steal from her, and that she is willing to essentially take on publishing, in a way a lot of people probably would not have been. And that I think, that arc really is important to me, because one of the things we're doing is talking about who built the house, and kind of how romance became romance as a genre, but romance is also a business. And one of the things I really appreciate about Nora Roberts is how clear she is that that is what -- she loves telling stories and she loves writing, but she also realizes that it's a business. And I found that I was just really fascinated with that whole part of the conversation.
Sarah MacLean 1:03:09 / #
Yeah, I just, I'm so glad we got to talk about a number of things. I'm really glad we got to hear her talk about, you know, the, the work as a job. I think that is a thing that over the years I have struggled with personally, and a lot of writers struggle with, particularly women writers who are in relationships and have families.
Jennifer Prokop 1:03:36 / #
Yeah.
Sarah MacLean 1:03:36 / #
Because there is a sense that if you are home and you are writing, then that is fluid work -
Jennifer Prokop 1:03:43 / #
Yes.
Sarah MacLean 1:03:43 / #
And you have time to run and take care of the kids or do the laundry or whatever the thing is. And I mean it felt really kind of life changing when I got that email from her, and she was like, "Can we do it on a weekend?"
Jennifer Prokop 1:03:49 / #
Yes.
Sarah MacLean 1:03:55 / #
"Because the weekdays are for work."
Jennifer Prokop 1:03:59 / #
Yeah.
Sarah MacLean 1:04:02 / #
And those kinds of things, there are so many lessons embedded in this interview, I think for all of us, not just writers, but people.
Jennifer Prokop 1:04:12 / #
Right.
Sarah MacLean 1:04:12 / #
Take ownership of yourself. Hold the space that is yours. Prioritize your joy and your work and the things that make you feel most you. I feel like there were a lot of moments in this particular conversation that made me feel like oh, that's not just writing advice, that's -
Jennifer Prokop 1:04:34 / #
Life advice.
Sarah MacLean 1:04:40 / #
Everything advice. Yeah.
Jennifer Prokop 1:04:42 / #
Yeah.
Jennifer Prokop 1:04:43 / #
And I mean, I think that's the part too about protect that work. But you know, that's the thing I think -
Sarah MacLean 1:04:50 / #
Don't think about the market.
Jennifer Prokop 1:04:51 / #
Right. Right.
Sarah MacLean 1:04:54 / #
Don't talk about your projects before you're ready to talk about them, which is obviously a slightly more complicated than when you're early in your career, but -
Jennifer Prokop 1:05:02 / #
Sure, and also be willing to stand up for your work and what's right in a lot of different ways. And I think that's the part that I mean, again, I think anyone could apply that to what they do. I think there's so many ways in which we're willing to collectively kind of give up space. And it's tricky, because our work does define us in a lot of ways, regardless of what that work is, that do what you love mentality. Do what you love, but then be really good at it or -
Sarah MacLean 1:05:37 / #
Yeah.
Jennifer Prokop 1:05:38 / #
Protect it. Or -
Sarah MacLean 1:05:39 / #
Well, I thought it was interesting, because we talked about jobs. Was it Elda Minger who talked about giving women interesting jobs, because you wanted them to see that they could have, be, live however they wanted, and in happiness and success?
Jennifer Prokop 1:05:58 / #
Yeah.
Sarah MacLean 1:05:58 / #
But I thought it was fascinating that what Nora's heroines do, she doesn't give them interesting jobs, because they're interesting jobs. She gives them jobs they would love.
Jennifer Prokop 1:06:09 / #
Yes.
Sarah MacLean 1:06:10 / #
Right?
Jennifer Prokop 1:06:11 / #
Right.
Sarah MacLean 1:06:12 / #
This bedrock concept of happily ever after is embedded in the characters too, in a Nora Roberts novel. You know, maybe this is an urban fantasy. Maybe this is high fantasy. Maybe this is a contemporary romance. Maybe this is something else, but the characters have joy.
Jennifer Prokop 1:06:36 / #
RIght.
Sarah MacLean 1:06:37 / #
They get joy from their lives and their work. And I love that.
Jennifer Prokop 1:06:44 / #
Well I was really inspired, I think too, by thinking about, (sighs) I mean, obviously I love romance, right? That's what I want to read, happily ever after, but I think what she's saying is these characters still win at the end. I might not be writing a romance, but I am still writing characters, who at the end, have come out with a win. And that to me, makes a lot of sense, right? And it makes a lot of sense why readers, for a long time now, have been really drawn to her books,. She can do anything. She's really willing to take big risks with the kinds of stories that she tells. But in the end, if it's Eve and Roarke, or if it's a fantasy or magic, you're still going to have that. You're going to get what you need from a Nora Roberts book, even if it's not -
Jennifer Prokop 1:07:34 / #
Straight romance anymore, right?
Sarah MacLean 1:07:36 / #
And so many love letters in these Trailblazer episodes to category. To the way category not just built the genre, not just exploded the genre in the '80s, not just brought the genre to the US, all of that.
Jennifer Prokop 1:07:53 / #
Yeah.
Sarah MacLean 1:07:53 / #
But in the way that writing category teaches us storytelling.
Jennifer Prokop 1:07:59 / #
Yes.
Sarah MacLean 1:08:00 / #
And I've said that a thousand times because I really believe that category writers do it better -
Jennifer Prokop 1:08:08 / #
Yeah.
Sarah MacLean 1:08:08 / #
Than all the rest of us. (laughs) And I think they get a real bum rap. I think about this. I think about Jayne Ann Krentz. I think about Elda Minger. I think about many, many people who we have not, I don't know when this one is running. I'm not going to give all the other names that we've interviewed.
Jennifer Prokop 1:08:29 / #
Right.
Sarah MacLean 1:08:30 / #
But so many of the Trailblazers have just nailed that. That idea that category is doing the storytelling in a different way, and in a more distilled, in a more refined way.
Jennifer Prokop 1:08:45 / #
It's a really good example of the phrase, "learning on the job."
Sarah MacLean 1:08:49 / #
Yeah.
Jennifer Prokop 1:08:50 / #
Right? I mean that's the thing, I think we don't often see that necessarily in action and as clearly as we do. Although I think now with self-publishing we do, where you can really see an author's growth arc as you read their books. And that is something that I think is really cool about romance, but I also think a lot about, I think it's Julia Quinn who says, "Romance is the only genre where people are graded on the quote unquote worst writing as opposed to the best." But we want authors to be getting better on the job. I'm not interested in -
Sarah MacLean 1:09:30 / #
You don't have a choice.
Jennifer Prokop 1:09:32 / #
That's how it should work. Right?
Sarah MacLean 1:09:34 / #
Yeah. I mean, if you think about, it's the only job, aside from maybe comedy? (laughs) Right? Where we have to get better by virtue of putting our product into the world not knowing, right? We can't focus group it. We can't practice. I mean, we can practice but we can't practice over and over and over again to run the mile slightly shorter. We have to put our work into the world and then see if it lands and then try again.
Jennifer Prokop 1:10:09 / #
But at the same time, I was very interested in Nora Roberts saying, "I can't think about the market either."
Jennifer Prokop 1:10:16 / #
I have to write what I want to write, and readers are going to go with me or they're not. There's a way in which it's also madness to try and chase the market maybe, right?
Sarah MacLean 1:10:32 / #
I think that's the key, right?
Jennifer Prokop 1:10:33 / #
Yeah.
Sarah MacLean 1:10:34 / #
Chasing the market is just -- and again I mean there's something slightly -- look -
Jennifer Prokop 1:10:35 / #
It's Nora Roberts.
Sarah MacLean 1:10:40 / #
There's a lot different, right?
Jennifer Prokop 1:10:42 / #
Right.
Sarah MacLean 1:10:42 / #
I mean, Nora Roberts doesn't have to think about the market anymore.
Jennifer Prokop 1:10:46 / #
Right.
Sarah MacLean 1:10:46 / #
And when you were writing category in 1980 it was the Wild West.
Jennifer Prokop 1:10:51 / #
Sure.
Sarah MacLean 1:10:52 / #
If you could just deliver 60,000 solid words that was good. We were all eating it up.
Jennifer Prokop 1:11:00 / #
Yeah.
Sarah MacLean 1:11:01 / #
I will say that I think that the challenge now is that, for a lot of romance writers, production, writing fast, being able to write the stepbrother romance at the stepbrother romance time -
Jennifer Prokop 1:11:15 / #
Right.
Sarah MacLean 1:11:16 / #
Is a way to survive as a romance writer. I think what's interesting here, and it's something that I wish that we had talked a little bit more about, or maybe the whole conversation is this conversation, but that kind of quick turnaround, chasing the market, making sure that when X is popular you're writing X, is a way to survive in the market. But is it a way to create a legacy? As in the market? And I don't I don't know the answer to that. Because I think we are so early. We're just now what, six or seven years out from that kind of writing in romance. So I will be interested to see how that progresses.
Jennifer Prokop 1:12:04 / #
Right. I mean that's the thing. Self-publishing makes it possible for people to get something out, that's really responsive, that's really fast.
Sarah MacLean 1:12:14 / #
Yeah.
Jennifer Prokop 1:12:15 / #
And at the same time, and that's the thing people maybe don't understand, the Nora Roberts pipeline. She's writing books that are going to be published two years from now, probably.
Sarah MacLean 1:12:27 / #
Nora is an incredibly fast writer.
Jennifer Prokop 1:12:30 / #
Yes.
Sarah MacLean 1:12:31 / #
So when we talk, when you point to the people who are writing six, seven, eight books a year in independent publishing, in self-publishing, you're talking about Nora Roberts's, right? As she said, Phyllis Whitney said, she called her up and said, "You need a hobby." Because she was just writing too much. (laughter) Quote, "Too much."
Jennifer Prokop 1:12:53 / #
Sure. Sure.
Sarah MacLean 1:12:55 / #
You need a hobby.
Jennifer Prokop 1:12:56 / #
She's like, okay, JD Robb is a hobby
Sarah MacLean 1:12:58 / #
The publisher of HarperCollins should call me and say, "Sarah, stop with your hobbies." (laughter) "We need you to write some more books." (laughter)
Jennifer Prokop 1:13:05 / #
There's so much pressure on authors now to be on TikTok or Twitter or Instagram, and at some point, I am like, what about the books? Right?
Jennifer Prokop 1:13:21 / #
What about the books? What is it costing you?
Sarah MacLean 1:13:23 / #
She said that, right? If she had to do it, she wouldn't do any of it. She's lucky enough, she has her PR person who manages the boards at Nora Roberts headquarters. And I will say that is a thing that a lot of us are asking. How much of this do we, I hate to use the word "have" to do, but I mean, how much of this is a requirement for the job? And how much of this is selling books? Is actually in service to the books? And how much of this time could be better used writing?
Jennifer Prokop 1:14:05 / #
And I think that's the part that every individual author is sort of answering for themselves. I think it's clear from the outside that publishing houses are kind of, "Okay, PR is on you. So make that happen." And that becomes something that feels really -- I can only be sympathetic. This is not me shaming people for being on TikTok by any means. This is me saying, "I just hope that it's not costing you something. Right? I just hope it's not costing you something." And that's the part where I think people have to figure out.
Sarah MacLean 1:14:42 / #
Well, you know what? I hope that it's giving people the joy.
Jennifer Prokop 1:14:47 / #
Yeah.
Sarah MacLean 1:14:48 / #
That writing gives Nora Roberts.
Jennifer Prokop 1:14:51 / #
Right.
Sarah MacLean 1:14:52 / #
Right. That's what I really took away. I'm not sure that's what she was aiming for us to take away, but my takeaway really was if there's no joy in it, then is it even worth it? And I really think that's so important. And last season we talked so much about joy and romance and the work of romance being about joy. And I don't know. Choose joy. Choose joy and maybe you'll end up like Nora Roberts, which wouldn't be so bad.
Sarah MacLean 1:17:22 / #
And that is all pretty great.
Sarah MacLean 1:17:25 / #
You are listening to Fated Mates. This is the Trailblazers Series. You can go to trailblazers.fatedmates.net to listen to all of the incredible interviews that we have done with other writers who built the house in many many ways. And you can find us on fatedmates.net or on Twitter @FatedMates or on Instagram @fatedmatespod.
Jennifer Prokop 1:22:28 / #
Thanks to this week's sponsors and we'll see you next time.
