Have you ever gone through a really nasty break up? Have you ever written something that people really hated? Do you keep up a blog? Are you thinking about getting a tattoo? Writer Emily Gould has done all of the above. And she’s a pretty hot commodity right now. She has a new book out on the shelves right now called And The Heart Says Whatever. You can read about it in this article from the Boston Phoenix. You can also catch more of her writing in Newsweek , The New York Times Magazine and her first book, Hex Education.
Emily Gould dove full-force into the online world- blogging publicly about her personal life and writing juicy celeb gossip on Gawker (www.gawker.com). Emily would be the first to admit that she’s made some mistakes and pissed some people off (including her ex, a former co-worker and Jimmy Kimmell, but she’s also quick to say that she “totally accepts the previous versions of [her]self.” And all of those versions have brought out some really great advice for those of us who are looking to break into the writing world. From blogging to body art, Emily Gould offers up some valuable advice for aspiring writers—and the rest of us.
Lesson 1: Internships
…are great, but at some point, you might just need a job. Any job. Emily said she had a number of really great internships: at Best Magazine, Marvel Comics and a publishing house. “I felt like I was really checking things off of the list,” she said, “But when I graduated, I wasn’t thinking about what I wanted to do, I was just on a desperate search for a job.” If you have a great internship, be proud. But know that you’re going to need more one day. And Emily says to be sure to hold on to those connections because you never know when you’ll be in desperate need of a job or a recommendation somewhere down the road.
Lesson 2: Blogging
…is a great way to get your creative juices flowing, and to get a loyal following of readers. Emily currently keeps up four different blogs, including her own personal blog, Emily Magazine. She said she began blogging out of a search for creative expression. “A friend and I both had jobs that were creatively unfulfilling in a way. So we had some time on our hands,” she said. So they started a blog together. In her book, Emily describes her obsession with reading replies to her online posts. It’s part of what kept her writing- that instant feedback and the power she had to spark debate. “[The thing about blogging is] you’re writing for an audience,” she explained. “And any kind of attention puts a weird kind of pressure on your writing. It’s the observer effect.”
Blogging is what got Emily into more than a few sticky situations. Always attracted to what is off-limits, Emily has run into some problems with over-sharing on her blogs and in her writing. But she says she doesn’t regret anything she’s ever written. “Regret is not the right word. But I have hurt people by what I’ve written,” she said. Emily has apologized to those that she has hurt, and says that she thinks she behaves a lot differently now. “I feel like I’m always treading a very fine line, as far as what is and is not appropriate to divulge,” she explained. But on the other hand, she is always drawn to forbidden things. Uncomfortable things. Things that other people wouldn’t want to write or talk about. “These are things I’m most interested in as a writer,” Emily said.
Right now, Emily’s blog has been a little quiet. “I’ve been avoiding writing on my blog lately, which sucks. It’s sort of been taken away from me. But it will come back,” she said hopefully.
Lesson 3: Getting published
…requires having a fearless attitude. Emily says it’s important to remember that no matter what you’re writing, about half of your readers will like it and half of your readers will hate it. “The fifty percent that hate it will be more vocal,” she warned. “But, if something is inoffensive, and no one has anything to say about it, then you’ve failed.” Basically what she’s saying is- you’re supposed to get a reaction. That’s why you’re writing! No one wants to read something that’s sugarcoated, flavorless or uninspired.
But remember- you won’t always be writing what you want to write. That’s just part of the business. The first paycheck Emily got from writing was important to her. At the time, she was working as an assistant to the editor-in-chief at a publishing house. But she had yet to have anything of her own published- until she landed a gig writing for the back of romance novels. “The first check I got [from that gig] was the first money I ever made from writing. Just a hundred words about some romance novel,” she recalled. You never know where your writing will take you, or what it will take for you to get to where you want it to be.
Lesson 4: Tattoos
…are permanent. Emily would know. She has five of them. And their meanings are constantly changing. “The great thing about tattoos is that they can have a whole lot of different meanings depending on your mood,” she explained. “I honestly can’t even get into it; they mean so many things.” We’ve established that she doesn’t really believe in regret, but when asked if the time, pain and cost of her tattoos was worth it, Emily said she doesn’t think of it that way. Here’s her philosophy: “Are you going to live your whole life hating who you were? There’s a lot of pain and weirdness in life. You can buy a ticket for that ride and get on it, or you can white-knuckle through it and complain the whole time. I think it’s better to choose option A.”
Emily said she thinks one more tattoo might “tip the scale” for her, but she says you never know. “I think that your body is a work in progress. You have complete control over it. It’s a work of art, really,” she said.
Lesson 5: Developing a writing voice
…sometimes just happens. Emily’s writing has been described as poignant, honest, smart and poetic. But how did she go about establishing such a voice? “I basically just wrote a lot,” she said. “And I wrote a lot when I was really young and unafraid to f*** up.”
She said that working at Gawker helped a lot in developing her writing voice. She learned what worked and what didn’t. “The Gawker thing gave me an opportunity to publicly f*** up over and over again and have it shoved in my face,” she explained. “It was also really great in terms of being forced to write a lot on deadline, which was good in some ways for developing a style and a voice.”
Lesson 6: Reading what you love
…makes you a better writer. When Emily was working on developing her writing voice, she said she just read a lot. And wrote a lot, too. “I really believe that you get out what you put in, in terms of your reading and writing diet,” she said. “I still indulge in soppy novels, but if I want to write good stuff I have to read good novels while I’m in the writing process.” I guess it’s true what they say: you are what you read!
Lesson 7: There is never just one meaning or explanation
…for anything. Like Emily’s tattoos, the title of her new book, And The Heart Says Whatever , has many different meanings. She said it has 15 to 20 different meanings, but she shared one. “It comes from a Steevie Nicks song called Think About It she said. “The full line is “… and the heart says danger, and the heart says whatever it is that you want from me…” It basically means, “Oh god, whatever, I give up. Whatever is gonna happen is gonna happen. I’ll do whatever you want.”
As far as the future of her book, Emily said her big hope is that people will continue to read it for years. “A lot of books are popular the first month they’re out, but after that, they disappear.” she explained. “I’m okay with my book as long as it doesn’t disappear.”
Lesson 8: If you’re a writer
… you can still be more than a writer. Right now, Emily’s working on a different kind of project. “I’m actually working on a really fun collaborative project called Cooking the Books,” she said. “I have different authors come on an online cooking show. Usually the authors haven’t written their book about cooking, so they have no idea how to cook. But that makes it funny. I think we’re up to about fifteen shows now.
The shows are short and sweet- sometimes in more ways than one. Emily herself was interviewed about her new book by her friend Bennet on this episode of Cooking the Books.
Lesson 9: The written word
… is not dying. As a writer, Emily expressed her concern for the future of the novel. “People don’t feel too good about the future of the novel for totally valid reasons,” she said. “But as long as writers that people love are writing novels, I’m not worried about the novel dying. I’m cheered by the fact that there are so many really good books by really great authors coming out this summer and fall.” She’s looking forward to reading the new Jennifer Eagan novel and Jonathan Franzen’s new book, Freedom.
When asked what form she prefers to read her novels in, she quickly said print. “I can’t really get my mind around Kindles and books that are on tape,” she said. “Your memory is different when you’re reading on a device. You can’t turn back to a certain passage that you remember reading in a physical spot on a page. I think that’s a bad sign.” Emily believes that text is the least expensive technology, and that it would take a lot for text to die.
Lesson 10: Focus on who you want to be
… and what makes you happy. Through Emily’s tumultuous relationship with the Internet, she’s learned one very important thing: the only person you can control is yourself. “I’ve had to acknowledge that I don’t have as much control as I thought I did. I thought I could control what people saw, what people thought of me,” she said. “But no one can control that.” Instead of allowing this to scare you or discourage you, Emily thinks it’s better to allow it to liberate you. “It’s liberating because then you can focus on who you want to be and what makes you happy,” she said. And truly, at the end of the day, if you’re not happy, you should ask yourself why it is that you aren’t- and try to make some changes so that you are.