Tag Archive for: marilyn brant

I Yam What I Yam

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by Susan McBride

A few months ago, I read an essay by Marilyn Brant that resonated with me.  She delighted in a talk Jennifer Crusie gave at this year’s RWA conference about being yourself when you write.  The point she made was that, while there are only so many stories to be told (and endless variations thereof), only you can tell a story in your own voice, in your own style, with your own points of reference and experience.
I love that message.
Not staying true to yourself in your work would be like writing a book in a genre you don’t read.  The fact that you’re not feeling it or understanding it is going to shine through like a lighthouse beacon.  I’m not saying “only write what you know,” because I believe that telling stories allows us to explore people and worlds we don’t know, first-hand anyway.  It affords us a chance to get in other folks’ skins and learn what it means to be them.  But we need to feel inside that sense of “ah, yes, this is right.”  Because when it’s wrong, it’s impossible to fake well or for long anyway.
It took me a while to learn this.  The first manuscripts I wrote were traditional romances. I had read a few, admired them, but it wasn’t my thing.  I had to try my hand at other genres that more deeply engaged me, like mainstream fiction, family sagas, and mysteries before I really got that “ah-ha” feeling.  Once I was finally published, I realized getting my foot in the door was only the beginning. 
When you’re thrust into the big, bad world of promotion and put yourself out there—whether it’s doing social media or standing in front of people in small groups or large, sometimes speaking on panels and sometimes all alone on a stage for an hour or more—it’s important to be yourself.  Whatever that is!  For me, at first, it was all unpolished awkwardness.   
At 34 when my first novel debuted, I still looked like a college girl with headbands in my hair and flats on my feet. I had zero experience in public speaking.  I typed up word-for-word speeches until I realized that wasn’t comfortable for me or anyone listening. I bumbled around on panels, hoping to be funny but coming off as sarcastic instead (well, I am pretty sarcastic so that wasn’t hard to do!). I wanted to be Mary Higgins Clark, glamorous in her Chanel suits, pearls, and pumps.  She looked so poised and spoke so eloquently. 
It took me a few years to finally realize the cold, hard truth:  I will never be glamorous or elegant any more than I will ever be MHC.  I yam who I yam, to quote Popeye.  And sometimes it ain’t pretty.
That sunk in deeply when I went through Crappy Health Crisis, which began at the end of 2006.  When you hear a frightening diagnosis and wonder if you’ll ever get your life back, you suddenly strip away all the pretenses. You say bye-bye to the meaningless. You shed responsibilities that aren’t important.  You even shed people who seem to tug at your emotions in all the wrong ways.  You realize it’s vital to say “I love you” and “thank you” and “you’re the best” to people who lift you up because you never know what’s coming ‘round the bend.
My mom has often told me, “Only do things because you want to, not because you think you’ll get something out of it,” and that’s some of the best advice I ever got.  I decided that “only say things because you want to, not because you think you’ll get something out of it” applied, too. It’s refreshing to feel like you’re not out to impress anyone. You enjoy everything more if you stick to doing things you love and saying things you mean.  It makes you all the more grateful for people around you who do the same things.
I guess I’m thinking about all of this with Little Black Dress out last week and my publicist asking, “Do you want to do this?  Do you want to do that?”  These days when I do anything—whether it’s promotion or going out for dinner—it’s solely because I want to, not because I feel like I have to. Every day, I strive to be more positive in my life.  So when I put something out there, I want to know my heart is behind it, whether it’s talking on the phone to a dear friend or writing a new novel.

Thursday Morning with Marilyn Brant

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I’m so happy that Marilyn Brant can join us today! She’s a great friend of mine, and she’s got a brand-new novel out called FRIDAY MORNINGS AT NINE, which revolves around three forty-something friends who regularly meet for coffee and talk about everything under the sun. I figured to go along with the theme, I’d do a little Q&A session with Marilyn for y’all to read as you sip your morning caffeine. So here goes!

Susan: Tell us about your most recent novel in 30 words or less.

Marilyn: FRIDAY MORNINGS AT NINE is a modern fairy tale about three suburban moms who each begin to question whether they’d married the right man or were living the right lives.

Susan: Okay, now more details, please!

Marilyn: Each Friday morning at the Indigo Moon Café, Jennifer, Bridget and Tamara meet to swap stories about marriage, kids and work. But one day, spurred by recent e-mails from her college ex, Jennifer poses questions they’ve never faced before. What if they all married the wrong man? What if they’re living the wrong life? And what would happen if, just once, they gave in to temptation?

Soon each woman is second-guessing the choices she’s made–and the ones she can unmake–as she becomes aware of new opportunities around every corner, from attentive colleagues and sexy neighbors to flirtatious past lovers. And as fantasies blur with real life, Jennifer, Bridget and Tamara begin to realize how little they know about each other, their marriages and themselves, and how much there is to gain or lose when you step outside the rules.

Susan: What was your favorite scene from the book?

Marilyn: One chapter I had a lot of fun writing in FRIDAY MORNINGS AT NINE was an adults-only Halloween costume party in the middle of the book. It made for a long, complicated chapter (I felt as though I practically had to choreograph it), but it’s a major turning point in the story for all three of the women. Some very serious things are happening in regards to each of their marriages, but those dramatic moments are juxtaposed against an absolutely absurd party setting, which made laugh whenever I tried to visualize the event.

Susan: What was most important to you in the writing of this story?

Marilyn: I’m always trying to be honest about the complexities of human emotion, particularly in regards to relationships. I would say with FRIDAY MORNINGS AT NINE, the biggest issue I wanted to explore was not so much the concept of “cheating” as a theme but, rather, the far less titillating subject of “choosing.” That a woman can really only be in a relationship fully — marital or otherwise — once she understands how and why she’s chosen to be there. That she has to look closely enough and listen deeply enough to know who she is and what she wants. And that in every romantic relationship or good friendship, she chooses over and over again (either consciously or unconsciously) whether she wants to stay. I believe that’s true of all of us, and I wanted my characters in this story to move from unconsciously living very unexamined lives to consciously, actively making a choice about where they were headed.

Susan: Where do you find inspiration for your work?

Marilyn: From conversations I overhear, things my friends tell me, funny stuff that happened in my family, incidents I’ve observed out in public, stories I’ve read in books or seen on TV and those endless “what if?” questions writers always ask themselves.

Susan: What’s your favorite thing about being a writer?

Marilyn: Getting to do something creative every single day! Truly, that’s been such a gift. Even when the plotting of a scene is giving me fits or the synopsis doesn’t seem to make sense at all…I love knowing that I have a place to play with these characters and storylines. My hope is that by writing about women’s dreams and experiences as honestly as possible, I might get closer to helping readers recognize truths about their own lives. It was this sense of “recognition” that my favorite novelists gave to me, and I’ll always be grateful for that.

Susan: What’s your advice for writers looking to get their novels published?

Marilyn: Don’t follow trends just because you think it’ll be an easier sell. And write the books that fit your voice. If what you love writing happens to be a hot-selling genre, great. If your writing voice happens to be perfect for the genre you want to write in and love to read, that’s awesome, too. But–if not–write long and hard enough to find what DOES fit you and your style best. Because then, even if it takes longer to make that first sale than you expect, you’re writing the kinds of stories you most enjoy, and that passion has a way of working itself into the projects you’re creating.

Susan: What’s next for you?

Marilyn: I’m in the process of beginning blog tours, library visits, book-club chats and other public events featuring FRIDAY MORNINGS AT NINE, which is a Doubleday Book Club and Book-of-the-Month Club selection for October 2010. I’m also still doing some fun Austen-related promo for my debut novel, ACCORDING TO JANE. I’ve just turned in my third novel (the title is still up for debate!), which will be out next fall, and it’s a modern “A Room with a View”-like travel adventure. It has characters that play chess, Sudoku and Mah-jongg, eat lots Italian gelato and linguini, and spontaneously sing Andrew Lloyd Webber songs and other musical-theater selections. Finally, I’m starting the writing process all over again for my next women’s fiction project, which I’m really excited about. I’ll, hopefully, be able to share more info on that story soon!

Marilyn Brant has been a classroom teacher, a library staff member, a freelance writer and a national book reviewer. She lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and son, surrounded by towers of books that often threaten to topple over and crush her. A proud member of the Jane Austen Society of North America, Marilyn’s debut novel featuring “Jane” won the Romance Writers of America’s prestigious Golden Heart® Award. When not working on her next book, she enjoys traveling, listening to music and finding new desserts to taste test. Readers can visit her website at MarilynBrant.com.

In Love with Austen

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by Marilyn Brant

Thanks to Susan and everyone here at the Stiletto Gang for letting me visit today. Happy (early) Valentine’s Day, too!!

My debut novel, ACCORDING TO JANE, is the story of a modern young woman who has the ghost of Jane Austen in her head, giving her dating advice. The number one question I’ve been asked since the book came out this past fall is: “Why Austen? What is it with everyone choosing HER to write about lately?!”

Well, the short answer is that for me, anyway, Austen-love was in no way a recent phenomenon. I was first given PRIDE AND PREJUDICE as a 14-year-old high-schooler in English class, and I raced through the novel way ahead of the reading assignments. I loved both the story and Austen’s writing style immediately. She was so insightful about the way human beings thought and acted. Her characters were fascinatingly flawed, multidimensional and very real to me, and their stories timeless and universal. Reading Austen’s work instantaneously changed the way I perceived the behavior of everyone around me, and I spent the rest of freshman year (and much of the 1980s) trying to figure out which Austen character each of my friends and family members most resembled. I, of course, was the beloved and witty Elizabeth Bennet–at least in my imagination–LOL!

Even years later, as a teacher, when I found myself encountering difficult administrators, staff members or parents, it helped me to think of what Jane might have said about them. How she would have instructed her most heroic characters to deal with these frustrating individuals. So, my love and appreciation for the author started decades before any kind of zombie/sea-monster/vampire craze and it even pre-dated the famous Colin-Firth-as-Mr.-Darcy version of the P&P film!! (Although, who wouldn’t be inspired by seeing him all wet from jumping in lake, hmm?!)

I also spent a fair amount of time during my dating years thinking about how beneficial it would be to get romantic advice from such a wise and perceptive woman like Miss Austen, not to mention one who was a respected author and the person who’d written my all-time favorite love story. So when, as an aspiring writer myself, someone asked me which classic author I’d most want to borrow a few plot points from, I thought first of Jane. I wasn’t a historical writer by any stretch of the imagination, so I found myself wondering what a modern girl’s P&P experience might be like… What would Jane have advised a teen (one who was sort of like me or my friends) to do in tricky situations if, let’s say, she were witnessing prom night maneuverings or an evening at a local pick-up bar.

Since I was thinking about this and writing the first draft of the story in 2004, there were only two examples of modern Austen re-imaginings that I’d seen way back then: “Bridget Jones’s Diary” (the film and the novel) and “Clueless” (the film). Those were both certainly influences–and I loved them!–but films like “The Jane Austen Book Club” and wild novel spinoffs like PRIDE & PREJUDICE & ZOMBIES had yet to be released. And, though I’d read some Regency continuations, I hadn’t come across anything else in the contemporary realm back then, even if it might have been available.

I suspect that degree of unawareness wouldn’t be possible now. With so many sequels and variations on Austen-related books and so very many movie remakes, it would be incredibly difficult to avoid them these days. Had I known just how many writers were working on something Austen-esque during the time I was writing mine, I might’ve been too overwhelmed or intimidated to continue. I didn’t even know that Austen fan fiction existed until after my book was under contract–and there are thousands of avid fans writing it!

For someone like me who can’t get enough of Austen, though, being a reader and a movie-goer during this current boom of Jane books and films has been awesome. I think interest in her work reached a tipping point and crashed into the mainstream, largely because of the attention the stories got onscreen. With actresses like Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Keira Knightley and many others playing leading Austen heroines, and Anne Hathaway playing “Jane” herself in “Becoming Jane”–not to mention the allure of good-looking actors like Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Matthew MacFayden, Jonny Lee Miller, etc. jumping in to take on the roles of the heartthrobs–it’s not surprising that Austen’s characters started to appeal to a wider audience.

So, I guess that’s my longwinded way of saying that even though I had no idea there would someday be such a huge Austen craze, I’m still very glad to be a tiny part of it!

My next book, though, takes a different women’s fiction turn and doesn’t follow any of the Austen novels. It comes out on October 1st and is called FRIDAY MORNINGS AT NINE. It’s a modern fairy tale about three very different forty-something women, their three very different marriages and what happens a decade or two after the “happily ever after”…

And, because Susan’s my friend and the most excellent author of THE COUGAR CLUB, I’ll add that there’s one hot cougar-ish scene in my upcoming book that I had a blast writing!! My husband rolls his eyes whenever I talk about this male character, but I find the guy to be very charming (as figments of the imagination often are) and I wish I could meet him in real life. Plus, unlike my (pretty wonderful) husband, my hot fictional man COOKS! For me, this is an element of fantasy that I’d love to see more of in reality–LOL! What about you all? Do any of you have a fantasy trait like that? One you wish your mate would surprise you with?? If so, do tell!

May you all have a fun and romantic Valentine’s weekend. Thanks again for letting me spend a little time with all of you ;-).

Marilyn Brant lives in the Midwest where, before she became a full-time novelist, she worked as an elementary school teacher, a library staff member, a freelance magazine writer and a national book reviewer. She’s blessed to have a genuinely supportive husband and son, a loving family and a truly amazing group of friends, all of whom keep her grounded, sane and away from dangerous things like chocolate martinis (usually). She’d love to say she also has killer abs but–so far–this is still a fantasy.

Marilyn, thanks so much for visiting us today! We loved having you, and we can’t wait to read FRIDAY MORNINGS AT NINE! As an early Valentine’s Day surprise, Marilyn’s giving away one signed copy of ACCORDING TO JANE to a lucky reader who comments today. So comment away, and Marilyn will randomly draw a winner! We’ll let you know if it’s you!