It Took Me Twenty Years to Become an Overnight Success -124

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Kathleen Basi [: 00:00:03

Welcome to Author Express. Thanks for checking us out. This is the podcast where you give us 15 minutes of your time and we give you a chance to hear the voice behind the pages and get to know some of your favorite writers in a new light. I'm one of your hosts, Kathleen Basi. I'm an award winning musical composer, feature writer, essayist, and of course, storyteller. Let me tell you a little about today's guest.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:00:33

Janie Emaus believes that when the world is falling apart, as it seems to be recently, we're just one laugh away from putting it together again. Everything she writes, from her children's books to adult fiction to her lifestyle pieces, always has a touch of humor. She lives in the Los Angeles area with her 99 year old mom and her wheelchair bound husband. She walks about 5,000 steps each day and that's before she even leaves the house. And she always finds something to laugh about every day. If she can make her readers smile, she's doing her job as a writer. Welcome, Janie, to Author Express.

Janie Emaus [: 00:01:07

Welcome. It's so nice to be here.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:01:09

Yeah, it's great to have you. And I love the idea of the smile and the steps before you even leave your house. I'm sort of obsessed with my step count, so. So tell me, what's the most interesting thing about where you're from?

Janie Emaus [: 00:01:23

I'm from Los Angeles, so it's like every other DoorDash driver is a stuntman. The servers are all waitresses, or I shouldn't say waitresses. The servers are all actors. Everybody's writing it. The bus drivers are writing screenplays. But it's also a beautiful town. There's the beach, which is gorgeous. The mountains and the weather is just pretty much perfect here.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:01:44

Yeah, that sounds lovely. I think it would be exciting to be adjacent to film because it just seems so exotic to those of us in other parts of the country.

Janie Emaus [: 00:01:55

Oh yeah, I know. Whenever my stepdaughter comes with her family, the first thing they want to do is find a celebrity. I mean, I don't really even know where you're going to find one, but, you know.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:02:04

So have you ever run into a celebrity?

Janie Emaus [: 00:02:07

Actually, many, many years ago. I don't remember the show. I think it was called One Day at a Time with Bonnie Franklin. She was sitting next to me at a counter. I was working as a bookkeeper and she was like two seats over at a little counter having lunch. And I kept thinking she was just a friend. I go, how do I know this woman? She's so familiar. And then Eventually, I think I even interrupted her and said, do I.

Janie Emaus [: 00:02:27

Are we friends? It was a little embarrassing, but I have. Oh. And then I. The other thing that I'll always regret is I was up at the beach having lunch, looking over the Pacific Ocean, and Diana Ross was at the next table.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:02:40

Oh, wow.

Janie Emaus [: 00:02:41

And my daughter was ready to have birth. She actually had birth that night. It was July 17th. And I wanted to talk to her. I wanted to go over to her and just say, thank you so much for your wonderful music. Not even, like, carry on a conversation. Just walk past and say, hi, you know, thank you so much for your good music. And my daughter was like, do not get up and talk to her.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:03:00

Right. And you do not argue with a woman who's on the verge of labor.

Janie Emaus [: 00:03:03

No. And she really was. I mean, she had the baby at night, so I didn't talk to her. And I've always regretted. Why did I listen to her? All I had to do was walk past her and say, thank you so much for your beautiful music. And she might have been happy to hear that.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:03:15

Yeah. You never know.

Janie Emaus [: 00:03:16

But I watched her eat lunch.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:03:19

So let's get to know you a little bit better. So you grew up in Los Angeles?

Janie Emaus [: 00:03:23

I did, yes.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:03:24

How has your upbringing shaped the person that you are now?

Janie Emaus [: 00:03:28

Well, I came from a very, very happy family. It really. It was a good home. It was. I loved growing up at the time when I did, you know, the 50s, there was no cell phones. I think about it. I got in the car, we drove off. Our parents didn't know where we were when we.

Janie Emaus [: 00:03:41

I mean, we had curfews, but. And I think I'm really close with my sister. We're like. Just couldn't be closer. I. We talk like a hundred times a day. And I had a really happy, wonderful childhood. There were some, you know, not everything was wonderful.

Janie Emaus [: 00:03:55

So I think that shaped my view of the world. And my mother was always so positive. I mean, she just instilled the positive attitude. She always said, if you feel like you look pretty, then you are going to look pretty when you're out there in the world, because it's only how you view yourself or how you think people are viewing you. You really don't know what they're thinking about you. So you can think, well, they think I'm pretty, and then you feel pretty. So she gave me a lot of really positive good things to carry on with my. She doesn't remember any of that anymore.

Janie Emaus [: 00:04:25

She'll be a hundred next week.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:04:27

That's Amazing. And she lives with you?

Janie Emaus [: 00:04:31

Yeah, she lives here with me.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:04:32

Yeah. My hat is off to you. To be a caregiver of two and still be able to write. That is a rock star worthy thing.

Janie Emaus [: 00:04:39

Well, thank you. But I do have a lot of caregivers. I didn't have as many as I do now. I realized I needed more, I needed help. So I pretty much have almost the whole 24 7. There's like five hours out of every day when I don't have help, which then forces me to be home, which then forces me to write. Because if they're sleeping or they don't need me, then I have time to get writing done.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:05:03

Yeah, very good. Well, so let's talk a little bit about writing. Let's talk about your book. Can you tell us about it in one sentence?

Janie Emaus [: 00:05:10

I can. The advice columnist. That's my women's fiction. After losing her job as a longtime advice columnist, a 50 something woman begins receiving messages from her younger self via social media on TikTok and text messages at emails and Snapchat. And she has to decide whether or not to take her own advice and listen to that person that she used to be.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:05:33

That is such a creative idea for a story. One of the questions that we ask quite often is, would this book have been the same if you'd written it 10 years ago or 10 years from now? And what would you tell your 20 year old self if you could go back in time? And all of what you just described just like dovetails so seamlessly into those questions. So what is it like to write a character hearing from her younger self?

Janie Emaus [: 00:05:59

You know, at the time I started the book, when I conceived of the idea, it was about 10 years ago or so people were writing and maybe they still are, but it was a big thing to write a letter to your younger self. And I started thinking, well, that's kind of. Let's flip it around. Let's have the younger self advise the older woman who she is now because there's a lot of stuff that you lose as you get older. That spirited young girl that you used to be for my main character, she lost a lot of that. And she used to always not put herself first all the time, but she thought more about what she wanted. And now she's this 50 something woman who's saying yes to everything. Everybody's getting a piece of her.

Janie Emaus [: 00:06:36

So basically if I went back and talked to my younger self, I would tell her to have more confidence because I didn't think I Did. But this girl in my story has all of everything that the older woman really needs to find herself again. But she doesn't wanna listen to everything the younger girl said because the younger girl did get her in some trouble. You know, she didn't give her all the best advice.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:06:59

Yeah. Is there a scene or a moment in the book that feels particularly personal to you?

Janie Emaus [: 00:07:05

Yeah, there was a scene closer on in the book. There's a lot of secrets in the book. It's like what happens is she's trying to get out of town. And plus the fact that she keeps hearing from this younger self. And her husband thinks she's totally nuts. But her best friends sort of are going along with her and everybody wants a piece of her until she can finally get out of town. And there's a scene where the husband has been keeping a major secret from her, which is pivotal in the story. And the one scene I wrote where the husband and wife are sort of working their way back to each other and realizing they both got lost along the way.

Janie Emaus [: 00:07:35

And it's a, you know, they've been married, like, 35 years. I've been married almost 46. Or maybe I was just 46. Yeah, last month it was 46. So, yeah, sometimes you just. You kind of forget that other person's changing too, and you. Both the husband and wife realizing that they still loved each other was a pivotal scene for me.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:07:53

I think that's a lovely thing. I've been thinking a lot about that lately. I'm married 25 years, and we tend to focus a lot. The most fun in writing and in reading stories and in going to the movies is to see new relationships. But there's something really beautiful and needed about how do you refresh and tap in and really preserve that? A long marriage that is beautiful and becomes something even more special in the long term. And anyway, I just love the fact that that's a part of your story.

Janie Emaus [: 00:08:27

Thank you. It's a major part of the story, their marriage, but all the different components. There's also a segment which is part of my favorite parts is where she's attracted to the man down the street who's about 20 years younger than her. And she's misreading him completely.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:08:42

Oh, dear. Oh, my.

Janie Emaus [: 00:08:44

One of my favorite scenes, too, is a funny scene where she thinks he's actually gonna kiss her. But he has no intention of really kissing her. So it's sort of an embarrassment for the main character.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:08:53

Oh, man. Yes. I can feel that even right now, just thinking about it. So let's talk a little bit more about your writing. Have you ever had to deal with self doubt or fear of failure during your writing journey?

Janie Emaus [: 00:09:07

Okay, this doesn't have to do with. It has to do with my picture books. After the success of my first one, which was the Latkes for Santa Claus book, I then sold the second one. And that took a lot of work trying to get it out. And I started thinking that maybe I wasn't going to be able to do it, but I did. But the first one was already sold, was done when I sold it. So it's different than when you're writing a second one after you pitch an idea. And I just sold a third one, which I'm working on right now.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:09:33

That's amazing to be able to write something with lots and lots of words like women's fiction and something with very few words like a picture book. Those are very different skill sets. So how do you juggle that?

Janie Emaus [: 00:09:45

I was told early on, way back, I started writing poetry. You know, I was going to be the poet laureate. And I was like, I was fabulous. Sold my first thing at 30. And I thought, oh, this is it. I'm in. I'll be successful.

Janie Emaus [: 00:09:58

Took me 40 more years to sell a book, but I was told I should probably just stick with one genre. But I can't. And I think what it is that my mind just goes like, if I'm sitting down writing women's fiction and I'm in a scene and it just isn't flowing right, I'll just open up another document of something totally different, like a light little poem or something that I'm writing for a picture book. I don't know. I don't recommend it to everybody. I think it might have hurt along the way with branding, except that now I sort of brand that everything has humor in it. You know, that that's probably the thing that is consistent through all my writing. But it's the only way I can do it.

Janie Emaus [: 00:10:35

It's the only way my mind works.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:10:37

Yeah, well, you find sometimes that there is something like for you, the humor that pulls it all together at the end, even though it seems like they're very different. So, you know, whatever works. There are all these rules in the writing industry, except when the rules don't count. So, you know, if it works, it works. Right.

Janie Emaus [: 00:10:54

And the rules don't count so much. Sometimes it seems like the next big breakout is something that went against all the rules.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:11:00

Exactly. I'm reading books all the time. Now, where I'm thinking. And you told me that you can't talk about that, and you told me that you can't talk about that. And clearly it's just a matter of the. When the alchemy is right, it just works.

Janie Emaus [: 00:11:16

Yeah.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:11:17

So as we start to wrap up today, tell us, where's the best place for people to find you online?

Janie Emaus [: 00:11:22

Probably on my website. Just the, you know, janieemaus.com because everything is there. My website, though, at the moment, it needs major revamping, but my books are there. I write a lot of articles for AARP, and there's some links to the AARP articles. Otherwise, just Google me. I'm everywhere.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:11:39

And would you spell your name for everybody so they can get the right website?

Janie Emaus [: 00:11:43

Yeah, it's J, A, N, I, E, E, M, A, U, S. So you have to do two E's together. And that is sometimes kind of weird.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:11:55

All right, and so in closing, tell us what book are stories inspiring you the most these days?

Janie Emaus [: 00:12:00

Oh, these days. Well, I don't have anything these days. Right off the top of my head. I could tell you, though, that I've been inspired in the past. Kurt Vonnegut and John Irving were like, two of my big authors I read when I was younger that they sort of gave me the quirky, weird world that I like. I love to be inside. And I know that from Jodi Picolt. I got a lot of structure advice by reading her books I saw how she structured things with the different points of views and sometimes even different fonts. Then there was always, like, Ann Tyler and Barbara o' Neill and just people that write women's strong, women's fiction, and just good stories and good characters. I don't know. A current book that I just finished reading, which I absolutely loved, was by Laurie Frankel. It was. This is how it always is. It's not really that current, but I just finished reading it.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:12:48

I'm reading Family, Family right now. So I know Laurie Frankel.

Janie Emaus [: 00:12:52

That was the first book I read by her. And I was, like, just blown away by it. I thought it was so good.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:12:57

Yeah.

Janie Emaus [: 00:12:57

So. And then I read a lot of picture books.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:13:00

I'm sure you do. I don't read so many picture books anymore now. I used to read a lot of them when my kids were smaller. Well, that's very good. You gave us a whole slew of things to give us meat in literary terms, I should say. So. Thanks for that.

Janie Emaus [: 00:13:16

Well, you're welcome. Thank you so much for having me.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:13:18

It's great to have you and everybody check out Janie Emaus at her website.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:13:27

Thanks for joining us today. Reviews help other people to find us, so please take a minute to give us a rating and leave a few words. We'll be here again next Wednesday. In the meantime, follow us on Instagram at Author Express Podcast to see who's coming up next. Don't forget, keep it Express, but keep it interesting.