First Draft Episode #234: Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed
FEBRUARY 17, 2020
LISTEN TO THE EPISODE
Becky Albertalli, New York Times bestselling author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, Leah on the Offbeat, and co-author of What if it’s Us, and Aisha Saeed, New York Times bestselling author of Written in the Stars and Amal Unbound, teamed up to write Yes No Maybe So.
Sarah Enni: Today's episode of First Draft is brought to you by Alice By Heart, a debut young adult novel from Tony Award- winning playwright Steven Sater. In this book, Sater, co-creator of runaway Broadway hit Spring Awakening, tells the story of a young girl who takes refuge in a London Tube station during World War II and confronts grief, loss, and first love with the help of her favorite book, Alice in Wonderland.
Sater penned the Lewis Carroll inspired musical alongside his Spring Awakening co-writer, Dunkin Sheik and Jessie Nelson. And in the novel, he encourages us all to celebrate the transformational power of the imagination, even in the harshest of times. Alice By Heart is out from Penguin Random House now.
Sarah Enni: Welcome to First Draft with me, Sarah Enni. This week I'm talking to Becky Albertalli, New York Times bestselling author of Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda, Leah on the Offbeat, and coauthor of What if it's Us. And Aisha Saeed, New York Times bestselling author of Written in the Stars, and Amal Unbound. Becky and Aisha teamed up to write the New York Times bestseller Yes No Maybe So.
I really loved what they both had to say about what surprised them about the reality of canvassing for a political campaign, on taking anywhere from seven minutes to a full night of sleep to let an edit letter really sink in, and they really get into the nitty gritty of how a book gets co-written.
From writing in school pickup lines, to live texting reactions, to the complex submission process. And, in their case, a very quick turnaround schedule. I was so gratified that they were willing to really get in the weeds on that and give a ton of practical tips and a lot of advice. So definitely stick around for that.
Everything that Becky, Aisha and I talk about in today's episode can be found in the show notes @firstdraftpod.com. First Draft participates in affiliate programs and shopping through the links on FirstDraftpod.com helps to support the show at no cost to you. If you'd like to donate to First Draft, either on a one-time or monthly basis, you can simply go to paypal.me/FirstDraftPod.
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Sarah Enni: Okay. Hi ladies, how are you,
Aisha Saeed: Doing great!
Becky Albertalli: Yeah, we're so good. We're so happy to be on the podcast.
Sarah Enni: Oh my gosh. So excited to have you and thrilled. I don't always get to talk to co-writers or two people at once, so this is lovely. I have so many questions for you guys. Becky, you have been on the podcast before, so I'm gonna urge listeners to listen to your episode, especially to learn more about where you grew up and how you got into writing and all that great stuff.
And Aisha since we haven't had the chance to chat about this before, I want to dive into that a little bit with you first. So I always start these podcasts at the way beginning, which is, where were you born and raised?
Aisha Saeed: So I was born and raised in South Florida. Miami, Florida in particular.
Sarah Enni: Nice. And how was reading and writing a part of growing up for you?
Aisha Saeed: Reading and writing were the two saving graces of my life growing up. I have been reading since I was three-years-old and we would go to the library every Saturday, get laundry baskets and fill them up with books. And actually didn't even know bookstores existed because I thought it was just libraries cause that's where I went every weekend.
And so it was a huge part of my life. And writing has always been part of my life. I've always told stories ever since I was little. My earliest memories are notebook after notebook filled with stories that I wanted to tell.
Sarah Enni: I heard you in an interview say though, I feel there's two kinds of writers, ones who want to be published from the time they were three-years-old, and others for whom books are magical things that no human ever touches.
Aisha Saeed: Yes. I was the second, I was the latter. I just imagined authors as living in beautiful villas off the coast of a Greek town and drinking coffee and contemplating outside as the waves crash on the shores. And so for me it just felt so out of reach to be an author. I'd never met one. I didn't know what kind of career that could look like. And to be honest, I never saw anyone that looked me in the books that I read.
And neither did I see authors that looked like me. And so it really felt completely and utterly out of reach for me. So I love to tell stories. It's just brought me so much joy. But being a published author, trying to be a published author, really didn't occur to me until I was in my twenties actually.
Sarah Enni: If you don't mind, I know this is a lot of background, but if you don't mind, I love your story of how I think your first book came to you while you were studying for the LSAT's. Is that right?
Aisha Saeed: [Laughs] Yes. I love to get easily distracted.
Sarah Enni: I mean, who wouldn't want to do anything but study for the LSAT's? That seems intense.
Aisha Saeed: I think the first time that I realized that maybe I had stories that could be told was when I saw a book in grad school. I was an elementary education major and my professor had this book just sitting on her shelf, and it was called Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind. And it was the first time I ever saw a Pakistani girl on a cover. And even though she was from a nomadic tribe in Pakistan and had nothing in common with me, it was the first time I saw anyone remotely like me on a cover.
And that was the first time it started to come to me that maybe I want to write a story. But then when I did eventually start writing, it was just so bad that I was like, "I'll never get published. I'll never get published." And so I kind of always put it off. And then when I was in college and went to law school and I was studying for the LSAT, of course, that's when my muse strikes. And I started thinking a lot about the stories I wanted to tell. And I think it was probably because I was about to embark on a legal career, which is a very defined path.
And this other path was still whispering to me. And so I started working as an attorney and what I started doing was following the story. I would write during my lunch breaks, I would write on the weekends and it was terrible writing. But then I learned that it's always terrible and you get better the more you work at it. And revise and revise. And so then eventually it became a book.
Sarah Enni: Yeah. I love that. That shows so much dedication and I'm always so impressed when people, you know, it's heartening when people don't think of publication as the end goal but still can't stop themselves from telling stories. It's just speaks to how important what we do is for our souls, in addition to sometimes earning us money, which is great. More than anything, it feeds us.
I want to actually hear about how you guys met for the first time. Because you are both writers, and you live near each other.
Aisha Saeed: We do. Yeah.
Becky Albertalli: Yeah. We met, I think it was 2014. It was after our debut novels had sold, but before they came out. So our debut books both came out in 2015. And we realized we were both from Atlanta, are both moms with young kids, and we vaguely knew each other through We Need Diverse Books. Which had started in 2014 with many authors, spearheaded by Ellen Oh. And Aisha was very much involved and instrumental in getting We Need Diverse Books off the ground. I would say I was peripheral and just absolutely in love with their mission and pregnant. So a little bit unhelpful, but [laughs].
So we had a couple of things in common, were excited to meet each other, but you never know if you're gonna click in person. But we had almost like a blind date. We went to this little restaurant in Atlanta called Cafe Intermezzo. We were very nervous to meet each other. And fast forward a few years later, and Cafe Intermezzo plays a very important role in our book.
Aisha Saeed: Yeah. We just hit it off right away and it felt like I'd known her forever. Our kids enjoy each other's company, so it was just nice to get together at each other's house, have play dates and talk. It was so wonderful because we connected on many different levels as moms and as writers.
Sarah Enni: It feels like something I always have appreciated, but I'm appreciating even more and more. You just sometimes need a real life connection with writers, as opposed to just having amazing people on a forum, or on Twitter. Those are really great connections too, but sometimes you just need to ask dumb questions or be like, "I hate publishing and everything about it!" Which I don't want to say on Twitter, but I want to talk to my friends about it.
So it really was great to hear that you guys were already right there and then able to connect with each other. And before your books came out. So you must've been key for each other. Debut year is unlike any other.
Aisha Saeed: Yeah, I mean, I didn't really know any other authors when I signed my book deal. I had no idea. And so it was really nice to be able to have other authors going through the same thing as you, to lean on, to know you're not alone in your worries really helped a lot.
Sarah Enni: I love that you were able to connect really early on in your careers and then you both have gone on to have many books come out and do many exciting things. I'd love to hear about what brought you together to write a book together.
Becky Albertalli: Yeah. We've always been really big fans of each other's books. And I remember I read Written in the Stars, Aisha's debut, in ARC form and I think you read Simon in ARC form?
Aisha Saeed: Yes.
Becky Albertalli: And so we loved the idea of writing a book together. But that's the kind of thing I feel a lot of us authors say, that maybe like, "We should totally do that." So it's still a little bit...
Aisha Saeed: It's like a daydream.
Becky Albertalli: Yeah. I can't believe we did it.
Aisha Saeed: So, I remember you were at my house, we were in the basement with the bouncy house going and the kids are playing, and we're both like, "Ooh, we should totally write a book together." And we're like, "What's it gonna be about?" And we're like, "No idea, but there should be kissing in it. I think there should be a lot of kissing in it." And that's about as far as we got I think that day.
So it was always at this wishful stage. She had her other projects going and our solo projects. But then 2016 happened. And the election happened.
Becky Albertalli: We were so innocent. It's like before that it was like, "Bouncy houses and kissing and daydreams." And then 2016 happened. Do you have any soundtrack to go with that?
Sarah Enni: [Sings] Dum-dum-dum! Oh my God. Yeah. And I do feel that, I mean, of course the entire country was like, that was a shock no matter who you were, or who you voted for, I think. But publishing completely shut down for about three months. I don't think a single email about books was sent in publishing. It was really a shock wave for our community, I think.
Becky Albertalli: Do y'all remember YallFest? I was like a couple of days after.
Aisha Saeed: Oh my goodness.
Sarah Enni: I didn't go to that one, but I heard about it.
Aisha Saeed: Yeah, Becky and I were there. We hugged each other and just sobbed. I remember that. YallFest was the first time that us authors, the group of authors who were at YallFest, got together and connected. And it was devastating. It was so devastating. It felt every day there was something worse and worse on the news. Every day there was a new horror. And that hasn't changed much.
I remember back then I just reached a point where I felt like I couldn't take any more bad news, and I decided to just go offline for a few hours. I just didn't want to keep getting updates. And I texted Becky and I said, "I just can't take the news anymore, but if anything good happens, please send me a text."
And I was pulling into Costco to do some shopping.
Becky Albertalli: It's gonna either be Costco or Target.
Aisha Saeed: Yeah, one of the two. This time it was Costco and I parked the car and there was a text from you and you said, "Well, you said only contact you if there's good news and here's some good news." [Chuckles] You want to share what it was?
Becky Albertalli: So the news that caught my eye at that time was about a special election that was gonna be happening in our district. So we live in the suburbs of Atlanta. It is the Sixth District in Georgia, which periodically makes national news. And it has been a very Republican district for a very long time. I think forty years or something. We sent Newt Gingrich to Congress.
Sarah Enni: I did not realize that was where Newt Gingrich came from. Wow.
Aisha Saeed: We're sorry.
Becky Albertalli: I know. So, Yes No Maybe So is from Newt Gingrich's district. So that's kind of our sweet way of cussing, Newt Gingrich.
Sarah Enni: Yeah! I love that. But better than he deserves. So good job guys.
Becky Albertalli: That's far better than he deserves. But yeah, so that's been the status quo where we live, we had been represented for a very long time, by a Republican who was, after Trump got elected, promptly elevated into Trump's cabinet. He later went on to resign in disgrace.
Aisha Saeed: As they often do.
Becky Albertalli: As they often do. But at the time, the conversation was starting to shift to who was going to fill that congressional spot. So this is a U.S. Congressional election. And so the news that I texted to Aisha that day was an announcement made by this guy who grew up in our district, who was running to fill that spot. And his platform was about accountability, holding Trump accountable. And he really did believe in the kinds of things that were really important to us.
Protecting marginalized groups, and listening to the concerns of all of his constituents and not just the constituents who... I think in Georgia, and especially in the Northern suburbs, there's a tendency for people to sometimes frame it as these white Republican Christians who are the 'Real Georgians'. That's who's really from our district.
And then everybody else, we're portrayed as, I don't know, I think they think that we're shipped directly from Hollywood and Brooklyn or something.
Sarah Enni: Just extras there to pad out the scene.
Becky Albertalli: Yeah. I think there are people, like neighbors of ours, don't believe we're real Georgians.
Aisha Saeed: Yeah, that's for sure.
Becky Albertalli: They don't believe we are real Sixth Districters. I was born and raised there. I lived there my whole life.
Aisha Saeed: Yeah. And so this open seat, Jon Ossoff was running, and we decided, "Let's do something." Because we were frustrated, we were upset. And yeah, we were donating to candidates and causes that we cared about, but we wanted to do something tangible that we were actually seeing an actual effect from it.
And so we decided, "Let's canvas. Let's canvas for this candidate." And we did. So, to be honest, when we decided that we were gonna go canvassing, I took it on as a civic duty. I took it on as something that we had to do, that it was important to do, and we wanted to do. But I did not think it was gonna be anything that I remotely enjoyed. I took it on as a job, something you do.
And so Becky and I went to the campaign headquarters, and we got the little packets. And it was nice, cause just like Becky said, there's this perception that our district is just one type of person. But you go there and you see all these other people, who are also from our district, who have a range of diversity, of opinions and beliefs, and who are all united in this particular cause.
And so yeah, we got our packets, we went to the neighborhoods we canvassed, we knocked on doors. And it turned out that it was actually not that bad. And it actually felt really good and cathartic to do something. To knock on a door and let somebody know that there's an election coming up. It just felt really good.
Sarah Enni: I wanted to ask just in case. I see this as an opportunity to have you guys talk about the nitty gritty of what you do when you canvas, just in case someone's listening who has been too nervous to do it. If you guys can talk about what were you intimidated by, and what was it actually like when you were out there knocking on doors?
Becky Albertalli: Yeah. Oh, that's such a great question. I think the thing that I was most intimidated by was the idea that I might knock on somebody's door and that they would shout me down. That I would end up getting into an argument with somebody who not only disagreed with me politically, but [pauses] I didn't know who we would meet.
I didn't know how they would feel about groups that I belong to, groups that people I love belong to. I don't know if this is something that's universal for campaigns. Maybe it is, maybe it's well known. I'm not sure. I did not realize that when we were canvassing, they only sent us to knock on doors for Democrats and Independents. And the minute they told me that, it was the biggest relief.
Aisha Saeed: Yeah, same here.
Becky Albertalli: Yeah. It was just about turnout and and spreading the word about the election.
Aisha Saeed: Just reminding people.
Sarah Enni: Yeah. Same. When I went canvassing, it was like, "Oh yeah, we're just going to people who have said that they are likely to vote for a Democrat or or that they're very Independent-minded." And you're just making sure that everybody in the household is registered. And if there's a person... in California, if someone just turned 16, they can pre-register and whatever. Just a face that's like, "Hi, I'm a Democrat and I care that you vote." Is such an actually massive factor in people really getting up that Tuesday and going to the polls.
Aisha Saeed: I think I was also scared that people would ask me questions that I didn't have answers to. That they might go deep dive and ask me things and that I would be responsible. But at the campaign headquarters, they give you some answers to some typical frequently asked questions, but that if you don't know beyond that, you just say, "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm not sure about that. But you can go to the campaign headquarters, contact the people, ask them your question."
So you don't have to be an expert to canvas. You just have to believe in the candidate. And in getting the election results that we're hoping for.
Sarah Enni: It also doesn't take... it's not your whole entire life is gonna be going door to door. It's a Saturday morning and then you can go on with the rest of your day, which was nice to remember. You just wake up early on a Saturday and then you have your whole afternoon.
Becky Albertalli: Yeah. Unless you're a character in Yes No Maybe So. But the only reason it takes over your life is because you're canvassing with somebody you have a crush on. That can make things more complicated.
Sarah Enni: Yeah. You end up wanting to do it a lot that way. That's so true [everyone laughs].
Aisha Saeed: It's actually funny, I've even read an article, I don't know if I sent it to you Becky, about canvassing and political activism is a new place that people are connecting and falling in love. So we were ahead of our time.
Sarah Enni: I love it! You guys totally called it. Also I'm interested in how, so when you are author friends, you can connect over sharing ideas about stuff that we really care about. Not only themes and literature, but also the act of writing, and the ideas behind themes and how you write. And then connecting with people over political beliefs is similarly really deep and to the core of what you believe in.
So had you guys fully talked about what you believed in before? I mean it's cool that you got to know each other in this other really personal way.
Becky Albertalli: We've talked a lot about our faith with each other, and the marginalization that's been sharply increasing with every passing year, for both Jewish and Muslim communities. And so I think we connected deeply on a lot of these different levels, and had lots of different conversations about those issues, and how they affect our families. And our fear for the future and what that might look like.
Aisha Saeed: We have young children that are growing up these days and this is all they have memories of, is life like this. So yeah, those things were definitely heavy on our minds.
Becky Albertalli: Yeah. I don't think we ever set out to discuss whatever political topic was happening in the news or something. We never really sat down to unpack those beliefs. It was just after 2016, that was just so right there for both of us, and it affected absolutely everything. It was very much a thing that we were on the same page about.
And I think part of the process for us, when it came time to transform those beliefs into a story, the kinds of decisions that we had to make were like, "How unapologetic are we gonna be?" Like, "Can we say they're Democrats?" We do. And I don't think we realized until after we did that, and put it into the world and saw some early reactions to it. And if everything either of us have ever written, which, I do think the two of us have written some books that... I think all of our books are very political. But something about calling these kids Democrats and putting the label on it felt like a bold move to some people.
Aisha Saeed: It did, it really did. And that was surprising because what party did ya think we belonged to? [Laughs] Like how could this be a surprise? And we were really intentional about it because at the end of the day, unfortunately, there is one party that is making many communities feel very unsafe with the policies that they're putting in. And, I think we're past the time of tiptoeing around that. I think we have to call it what it is. And we did in this book.
Becky Albertalli: It was really interesting. So on the flight from Atlanta to Portland, we watched Long Shot, which we'd both been meaning to see for forever. We sinked it up together so we could watch it together on the plane, because they're really extra like that [everyone laughing].
Aisha Saeed: It's about Charlize Theron, she's playing somebody that's running for President.
Becky Albertalli: And Seth Rogan is a journalist but he knows her. We both really enjoyed the movie. But one of the first observations that we made about it afterwards was, they were very vague about political parties in that movie. And it made us really curious about what conversations were had behind the scenes. And for me, I don't know why certain creative decisions were made there, but I felt very grateful that we were able to write this book without having to worry about having to make back millions and millions of dollars in the theaters in every state.
We had a team at Harper Collins who was all in. And they did not try to pull us back with any of the politics. They were willing to go with us as far as we wanted to go.
Sarah Enni: That's awesome. Also to some extent now, we as writers have to be so careful about what's gonna pull someone out of your story. And I just think not saying the party would have been so obvious. It just would've been so clear when you were dancing around it, I would imagine.
Aisha Saeed: Absolutely. So in this book we do tackle an election and activism and speaking out. But the other thing that we also learned from the canvassing was that it can be fun and it can be a connecting experience. I think you and I got closer through canvassing. Our kids got closer, they would come with us and knock on doors with us and hand out flyers, or walk pieces.
And so I think that was another part that surprised us. And so the way that we started brainstorming this book was that we would text each other and just say, "Hey! Oh my gosh, it was so much fun today. Wouldn't it be fun if there's some teens that did this?" And like, "Oh, wouldn't this be fun?" And so from there, a story started to emerge, the seeds of a story.
Sarah Enni: I love that. Let's actually pitch the book really quick and then we can get into more details.
Aisha Saeed: You know, I think the way we tend to describe Yes No Maybe So, if we're in Atlanta, we just call it Jon Ossoff fan-fiction.
Sarah Enni: [Laughing] I read that you called it that somewhere and I really love that. It's probably the first time Jon Ossoff's has had fan fiction written. I should say, I don't know, but...
Becky Albertalli: He is very aware of our book.
Aisha Saeed: He is. Jon, if you're listening to this like, "We love you. We're so excited for your Senate run."
Sarah Enni: Is he running for Senate?
Becky Albertalli: Yes! He's running for Senate in Georgia!
Aisha Saeed: Yes, we are a Purple state this year. We've got two Senate seats on the line.
Becky Albertalli: So if you're listening to this and you can vote and you vote Democrat? Please vote. And if you are a Georgia voter like us? Let's get ready. Cause I do feel like, "Georgia, we have a shot in November." That's not the pitch of our book.
Sarah Enni: No, but as a quick side note, cause I won't forget the book, but I want to make sure we don't forget this point. I was gonna ask you guys, it's a tough question so we'll see how it goes. But often I hear from people in California or LA, or my family up in Washington State, and they'll be like, "What can we do? There's nothing that we can do because we're just in a Blue State, so you know, whatever."
So I actually meet a lot of people who are dispirited because they feel it's a foregone conclusion. And in some ways they envy people like you in Georgia where it feels like really what you're doing matters. But obviously what you just talked about was, up until this point, you felt like the people around you were voting not with your interest. I don't know, I'm just interested in how you guys feel about that.
Aisha Saeed: I think that there's this, um, okay. So yes, California is a very Blue state. However, that doesn't mean that there are not issues here. And it's a misconception that because California is a Blue state, "Oh, there's nothing to be done here. We're already Blue." And that's just not true. I think after the elections, I had lots of well-meaning friends say to me, "Oh, you need to move. You need to move to D.C. Or, you need to move to California. It's safer here."
And actually I've experienced racism in DC. I've actually experienced racism in San Francisco, one of the most liberal cities on earth. And it's everywhere. And just because, okay, so maybe California's not gonna determine the presidential election, maybe. But there's a lot of other things. There's a lot of local ordinances and things that can change and that if you get involved you can change.
So I think it's how you decide to look at things. Are you just gonna look at national stuff? Or are you gonna look at local stuff? Because local stuff... and Republicans are really good about the local stuff and getting in things that you're not paying attention to, because you're focusing on the big races.
I think that in the Blue states there's a different struggle. And the struggle is to not get complacent and to think that, "I'm in a Blue state so everything's okay here." I disagree. I think that there's work to be done everywhere.
Becky Albertalli: Yeah. And I want to give props to California in particular too, because you have your local elections, which absolutely you can make such a difference if you participate in those. And then you have your huge national Presidential election. But 2018... California was a big part of that.
The Democrats took the house and a lot of those seats were picked up in California. And obviously, that doesn't apply to every single district in the state, but in addition to these local things, you can be supporting races that are happening that may not be in your district but are nearby.:
I care a lot about elections that are happening in Alabama, Florida, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Kentucky in particular for me, you know?
Aisha Saeed: Yeah, I donate beyond Georgia, for tight races. Absolutely.
Sarah Enni: That's the other thing I told my family, and I appreciate you guys just helping build a chorus to my family. I was like, "Well guys, there's local stuff. And also you can write postcards for districts that aren't yours. You can donate to districts that aren't yours You can phone bank from anywhere." I was like, "There's no excuse not to be engaged this year. Literally none."
Aisha Saeed: That's true. So I guess the pitch for the book [everybody laughs].
Sarah Enni: Yes, let's talk about the book.
Becky Albertalli: Actually before I do, I feel the pitch for the book is like the big surprise at the end of the podcast. But one other thing too. You had mentioned, up until very recently, we had felt like our district was voting consistently in a different way than we wanted it to. I think it's worth mentioning the way that the election that our book is based on, played out. And if you were following politics closely around 2017, the Jon Ossoff race got some national attention because it was seen as the first test of the resistance.
And people poured a lot of money into it and put a lot of weight on this one race. And Jon Ossoff lost very narrowly, it was extremely close. And we were devastated. It was the absolute worst we'd felt since November 2016. In our community online, the book community which is not largely based in Atlanta and Georgia, there was a lot of despair. And a lot of anger towards Georgia, which I get.
But what we knew on the ground living there, was what a huge deal it was that Jon Ossoff had gotten that close in a district that had been Red for that long. So we were trying to hold onto that. And then Aisha, I will let you tell the best part.
Aisha Saeed: So then 2018 midterms happened and I actually wasn't even following the midterms. That special election seat was open up again. And Karen Handel was the Republican who had beaten Jon Ossoff in that race. The GOP had poured in so much money into that race to ensure that they maintain their foothold there. And so Lucy McBath was running to take that seat and I voted for her.
I had her sign out in my yard, and I hoped. But I didn't dare let it sit too deep. I didn't want to get hurt again. And yet Lucy McBath won and she won narrowly. It was so close. But she won. And that was connected to Jon Ossoff's loss that year. It was close. And then the next time we got closer. And so I think it was so fun to be able to add that addendum in the back of our book. That we got our happy ending that we didn't dare dream about, but came true.
Sarah Enni: Yeah. Not in the way that you would expect, but in a whole other really meaningful way. So...
Becky Albertalli: Should we stop withholding the description of the book? [Laughing].
Aisha Saeed: Tell us about the book!
Becky Albertalli: Yes No Maybe So is about a boy named Jamie and a girl named Maya who fall in love while knocking on doors and canvasing for an election in their district.
Sarah Enni: Amazing. And it is one of those books where you hear the pitch and you're like, "I can't believe no one's done that before." It's such a genius, cute idea. And it is so timely and fits so well. I would love to hear, you already dipped into it a little bit, but I'd love to hear about how even the planning process got started, and what it was like to work together to build this story.
Aisha Saeed: So in the beginning, it was just this daydream over texting like, "Wouldn't this be fun? Wouldn't that be fun?" And then after a little bit of that, we were like, "Wait a minute, I think we are writing a story here." It really came that organically to us. It came through with different scenarios and suddenly those scenarios felt very real. And suddenly these teens that we were texting about began to feel real.
And so then we met up at Cafe Intermezzo. And we had our notebooks and laptop, and we just started coming up with some beats for what the story would look like, and who some of the characters would be. And we just brainstormed, we just talked them through. And from there we had a rough, I think we made a two, three page outline. I still have it. Where we just wrote down all the different ideas that we had. So that was the beginning.
Becky Albertalli: Yeah. And then from there we took that beat sheet, or that early outline, and ultimately we ended up putting it into a very detailed chapter-by-chapter outline. So it wasn't, you know, Roman Numeral, ABC format. But it was chapter one, a big paragraph of everything that happens in chapter one.
And we mapped out the books scene-by-scene that way. And of course somethings changed.
Aisha Saeed: Oh yeah.
Becky Albertalli: Plenty of things changed.
Aisha Saeed: But it gave us a roadmap. And it gave us a way forward. So Becky was writing Jamie's character, Jamie's point-of-view chapters, and I was writing Maya's. And in order for us to do that most seamlessly, it helped to have that outline. To know what was coming next, and to be able to plan ahead and plant the seeds for the future in certain chapters. And then of course we revised, and we went back and changed things as you always do. But it was a great way to dive in.
Becky Albertalli: Yeah. And one of the things that was really interesting about the process, and this is my second collaboration cause I did What if it's Us with Adam Silvera (listen to his First Draft interview here). And this is something that struck me then too, is how well you have to know the other person's point-of-view character. And we get asked that a lot. "Did you each only write your point-of-view character?" And yes. But, you end up writing a lot of dialogue for the other person's character.
That dialogue has to feel like that other character. It's gotta be as real as their point-of-view chapters.
Aisha Saeed: Yeah. So even though I wrote all the Maya chapters, I had to get into Jamie's head to think about how he would feel about certain situations. And I think whenever we talk about these teenagers, we just call them our teens. They're both ours. We love them both equally and we even have Bitmoji's of them. Maya has her own Bitmoji on my phone and Becky has a Jamie Bitmoji. And we'll text each other with our Bitmoji's.
And we just love them. We really fell into this world and we shared this world together, completely. It was really such a special experience to get to share those early, early moments, that are usually all alone by yourself, with somebody else. Who can partake in the frustration of maybe a certain stumbling block and can also share in those joys with you.
Becky Albertalli: Yeah, and I think too, because this book is so personal for both of us, in so many different ways, we learned a lot about each other. And I think you always become really close when co-writing. I think also it's a good idea to already be close with somebody you're...
Aisha Saeed: I highly recommend that.
Becky Albertalli: Highly, highly recommend that from somebody who has had a wonderful experience twice. It's a very intimate experience. And one of the things that was special about this book, in particular, was I gave Jamie a Jewish teenhood and childhood that was very, very, very similar to my experience growing up Jewish. He goes to my synagogue.
And for Aisha, Maya's experience, and just the way she practices her faith is very much based on Aisha's experience as a Muslim. So we got to learn about that part of each other.
Aisha Saeed: And ourselves too.
Becky Albertalli: And ourselves too, yeah.
Aisha Saeed: I feel like this book is, I mean all my characters thus far have mostly been Muslim characters, but this is the first one where I really took on the faith and just examined it and how she relates to her faith. And it's the first time that I've done that. And you just learn so much about yourself and your own beliefs. And I think you've mentioned that you felt that way too, right, Becky?
Becky Albertalli: Yeah. Which makes it, now that the book is in the world, that's really scary.
Aisha Saeed: It's so scary because personally this is my most personal book, so I don't know. So far no one's told me they hate Maya. But if they hate Maya, they kind of hate me cause it's so much of me.
Becky Albertalli: How could you hate Maya?
Sarah Enni: Do you think that you would have been as brave about sharing such personal stuff... it's about your guys' personal teenage experience, but it's also where you live right now, and everything. It's very actively personal too. Do you guys think that writing it together and sharing this experience together helped make it less frightening to do that?
Aisha Saeed: I think so. Especially the political parts. I have to be honest, I have been the subject of trolls that come at me. I've had death threats on social media. It's something that I really do think about when I say something because I know what the consequences can be. And I think that writing with somebody that I trusted, writing with somebody who is in it with me, who is experiencing all of it with me, gave me that courage to take something on.
I don't know if I could have written a book this without Becky.
Becky Albertalli: Yeah, I think so too. And one of the things that was really exciting to explore, but also something we were nervous about, was not just writing a Muslim book and not just starting a Jewish book. But having a book that shows this almost conversation between these two faiths that we have always felt are very connected, and have a lot in common. But are often pitted against each other in the media.
And I think we saw that a lot, I think particularly last year that kept coming up in the news. And one of the things that was important to us was to be able to describe these experiences of Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism and describe them in a way that just honored the validity of both. But did not try to necessarily draw an equivalence between them because they are not the same experience.
So for example, I'm Jewish. I'm a white Ashkenazi Jew with a last name that does not signal to anybody that I'm Jewish. I grew up with the last name Goldstein. So my maiden name is very, very Jewish. And I'm used to Jewish being the first thing people knew about me before they met me.
But now, with the way I walk around in the world, there's a lot of privilege. That does not take away from what it means to me to be Jewish. That does not render Anti-Semitism invalid, but it is not the same as Aisha's experience. And that was really, really important to us to go into this with extra care to capture that nuance.
Aisha Saeed: Yeah. And we unpack those things about privilege and different marginalizations. We unpack all of that in the book. And I think we really couldn't have done it the way we did without each other involved in this project.
Sarah Enni: There is, I think this was an interview that you guys had done related to the book. There's a couple of quotes that are really good. "That fear cannot be a reason to not tell this story." I thought that was really compelling, and relates to so much of what we're looking at now in the world, right? Being an engaged person in America right now means that you just have to do it because morally that's what needs to be done right now, I think.
And another quote that you guys brought up, I forget which of you brought these up specifically but, "Choosing not to be political right now is also a privilege." And that, I think, is something that can't be said enough. But I'd love to hear just how that relates to the story you wanted to tell.
Becky Albertalli: I will say those beautiful quotes are definitely Aisha.
Aisha Saeed: I can't remember [chuckles]. Yeah, I think there was perhaps a time that we could say that, "Oh, I'm not political and I don't get into politics." But the truth of the matter is that politics affects our lives. Politics are the laws that get put into place, that separate families from each other, that ban entire communities and nations from coming into the United States.
There's no such thing as being apolitical anymore because the truth of the matter is that politics affect so many people, in particular marginalized communities. And so when you're saying that you're not political, you're saying that you're not tuning in to those politics that affect marginalized communities, and that's a political stand that you've taken. There's no such thing as being apolitical in this day and age.
Sarah Enni: Yeah, We Need Diverse Books predated 2016 obviously, and a lot of what we're doing now. But it was so prescient in so many ways I think. Cause it's been interesting to be like, "Oh yeah. Remember 2009 Twitter?" You can be like, "I don't know who votes for what." It was a different world. Now it's if you speak your mind and talk about what matters to you, then it becomes apparent very quickly how your life is gonna go.
Aisha Saeed: And the stakes are just so high. We can't afford to be afraid. The stakes are too high. And the people who are gonna pay the price are the people who are the least safe to defend themselves.
Sarah Enni: We're talking a lot about how serious this is, and the very intense and nuanced conversations that you are threading throughout this book. It's also a love story that has kissing and cute banter and lots of fun side characters. So I just would love to hear how you found a tone, and maintained a tone. Also as two writers, having a tone and a sense of flow of dialogue and stuff is challenging. I'd just love to hear how you tackled that.
Becky Albertalli: Yeah, I love this question too, because even during the parts of the process where we were not explicitly talking about this, that question was always present. It was like, "How are we going to be able to tell this story, that we always knew since the bouncy-house days, that we wanted it to be about kissing." It's the one that we knew.
Sarah Enni: Also, I just want to refer to pre-2016 as the bouncy house days for everyone forever. [Everyone laughing]. We were so young then. Sorry Becky, go ahead.
Becky Albertalli: So then after the bouncy house deflated in November of 2016 that love story and the rom-com-iness of it was not less important.
Aisha Saeed: It's even more important to hold on to our joy during these difficult times. I think that something that these policies have in common is that they're designed to create fear within marginalized communities. A reminder that you don't belong. That we don't want you here. And so I think saying, "You know what? No.We do belong and we're going to love each other. We're gonna kiss. We're gonna have laughter and humor and relationships in spite of you wanting us to not have all of that."
That is its own form of resistance.
Sarah Enni: And what is falling in love if not being deeply empathetic to someone that you're in connection with. So seeing these two characters first be friends, right? And then really respect each other and then hang out with each other and make excuses to keep hanging out with each other. Yeah, I mean, it was so fun.
Aisha Saeed: I know it's hard to imagine a fluffy romcom that tackles Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism and activism, but really that was our goal. That there'd be a lot of love and lightness in this book.
Sarah Enni: I'd love to hear you talk about, I can imagine that was um [pauses], what's the word I'm looking for? Not catalyst, but like a comfort, right? You've been writing now this book for a couple of years. And that's, again though you're tackling really intense stuff and intense stuff is happening in the world, you do get to go to the page and write characters that are falling in love with each other. Was that a comfort?
Aisha Saeed: Completely.
Becky Albertalli: It's been so interesting because this book was absolutely our lifeboat for a very long time. And now we're in this place where the book's out in the world, and we are touring around and speaking about it. And stuff keeps happening in the news. Every time you open the news app it's like, "What fresh hell is this?"
Aisha Saeed: And every time we open our phone from airplane mode we wince. It's like the worst. Like, "What just happened?"
Becky Albertalli: The terror of coming out of airplane mode to see like, "What did he do now?" But it is really hard sometimes to stay hopeful. And I feel this book has given us that gift all over again. We were holding on so tight to this book, for such a long time as we were writing it. And now, sometimes, we have to be hopeful because we have to appear hopeful in front of a crowd of people who we're talking to. And because we think it's important to hold onto that hope.
And without fail, by the end of that conversation, it really changes something within me.
Aisha Saeed: We had such an amazing experience at our launch of our event. We had our launch at Little Shop of Stories in Atlanta, Georgia and they had worked with the Georgia Muslim Voter Project. And they came out with voter registration forms and stickers. And after the event, we were signing books. And the last people, there's three teens that were the last in line for their books.
And they introduced themselves to us and they had the stickers from the Georgia Muslim Voter Project on like, "This American Votes. This Latinx American Votes." And they said that they had registered to vote at our event. And one of the girls, I think they were all young and they may not have been of legal voting age yet, but they had preregistered to vote. And one of the girls had put under hers, "This American Votes Soon."
And it was such an incredible way to start off this book coming into this world, because that's what we wanted. We wanted this book to inspire people to become politically active and to vote if they can. And it was just so cool to see that three teens that, before that day, were not registering to vote, had not registered. And just, it gave me a little bit of hope.
Becky Albertalli: Me too. Yeah. So when November 2020 rolls around, if you see Georgia flips Blue by three votes, we know which three teens are gonna get all the props!
Sarah Enni: Oh, that's amazing. I love that. One last question and we'll just see where this goes. But Aisha you had a really interesting quote that actually this is about, um [sighs] I'm like which one? This I believe is about Amal Unbound. I'm just gonna read a quote to you [laughs], I'm gonna read you to you.
"As a Muslim and a Pakistani American. It was a balancing act for me to not only differentiate faith from culture, but to also be sure I highlighted an issue in Pakistan without vilifying the entire culture. All cultures have problematic aspects within them that need addressing, but this does not eliminate the goodness, beauty, and warmth that is also present within them."
And I felt like, "Oh, that's so present in this book." We really need to have a thorough and critical conversation about democracy and what is going on in America right now. But that doesn't mean that we're not still living here and loving families here, and raising kids here. I think there's some fear on, I mean, this is a generalization. But I think there's some fear on some people on the right that if we have these conversations that it'll all explode. Or it means that you're not American. Or that you don't love this country.
And you know, I think it's so important to have voices like ours say, "We're Americans too. We just want to talk about it." Like, "It's not perfect. It's not gonna kill us to try to make it better." I dunno. I'm interested if that was super present on your mind.
Aisha Saeed: I think that's definitely present in my mind. I think sometimes, because two of my stories were set, one partly in Pakistan, one entirely in Pakistan. I would often get comments like, "Oh, it sounds so tragic over there. Oh, how sad. Things are so messed up over there." And I always found those comments really interesting because it absolved people here from any responsibility. Like, "Everything's great here. Oh, you poor people over there."
And so it was fun to write a book set in the U.S., in Atlanta where I live, and to explore issues where I live. And that's why I call it one of the most deeply personal stories that I've written. Because it's examining my home, and it's examining my world and the issues that I face and that my kids face. We are not exempt. And we are not above issues that need addressing and solving.
Becky Albertalli: And I completely agree. And I think having these conversations, holding ourselves accountable when we need to. And just bearing witness to these aspects of our country that we love and live in and it's our home. But these conversations are so patriotic. That's what patriotism looks like to a lot of us.
Aisha Saeed: I mean this is my home. And it's so funny when after 2016 and you just hear the rhetoric of, "If you don't it here, then just go back where you came from." And I'm always like, "Where am I gonna go? This is my home. This is the only place I know." And it is not undemocratic and it is not unpatriotic of me to say, "I want things to be better here."
That means I love this country and I want things to get better and that I believe that they can be better. The fact that we're still here, that we wrote this book, it means that we believe that things can change. And that's a good thing to hope for.
Sarah Enni: Yeah. I love that. The last few questions are about super nitty-gritty process questions like track changes, email schedules, literally how did this book get written? Because I think this is something that we don't get into the nitty- gritty enough about. So, for anybody out there who is wanting to write a book with their friend, I'd love for you guys to spell out how the process went.
Becky Albertalli: Yeah. Well I think the first thing that's important to mention is that this is gonna look really different for every pair of co-authors. So you'll hear some co-authors say they like to write and see where the chapter leads them and they're trying to surprise the other person. And for us it wasn't like that. As you know, we had an outline.
But there were a couple of things about our process that I think somewhat were carried over from the process that I had with Adam on What if it's Us, which was also such a joy. I think one of the things that we most loved about this was the tradition of finishing your chapter draft, sending that chapter to the other person, and then the live text reaction.
Aisha Saeed: I didn't know you did that with Adam actually.
Becky Albertalli: Oh yeah. That was the best thing ever. It's the best way, first of all, to motivate yourself to finish a chapter. Could there be a better reward too than getting this sneak peak early content from one of your favorite authors? It just doesn't feel real.
Aisha Saeed: Yeah. It began as scary for me. I had never done it before. So just, "Oh my gosh, I'm gonna write a chapter. I'm gonna send it to a writer who's not only my friend, but a writer who I respect. And because she's my friend, she probably can't just email me back and go, 'This is awful. What are we doing?'" You know? Like, "She's my friend." So there's all this angst the very first time.
But then I started getting a text like, "OMG Maya." And then, "This is so cute." Or, "Oh, maybe we should do this instead. You know?" And these awesome texts. There's love in it. There's ideas on how to make it even stronger. And that's why I say I'm forever spoiled with co-writing because I can't do that with my solo projects. I just gotta do them myself. And I miss having someone to text back and forth. So we would do chapter by chapter. I think we did the whole book like that.
But because we had an outline, let's say if Becky was traveling or something and she just couldn't write at that moment, I didn't have to wait to get a chapter back from her. I could just keep on going. And then once I got her chapters, I may go back and tweak a little bit. Because you can outline, but the reality shifts as you write. And that's how we did it chapter by chapter, the whole way through.
And then once it was a full book, then we went back and revised together. Several rounds I think.
Sarah Enni: The outline, it sounded like you guys hashed that out in person. Is that accurate?
Aisha Saeed: I think we outlined the first half of it together.
Becky Albertalli: Yeah. It's hard to remember because it's all very chaotic when there's, you know, we have between us five little boys [chuckles]. So it's all, when I look back, a blur of Cafe Intermezzo and notebooks, and typing, and then also texting, and copying things from the texts into the outline, and emailing, and sending documents back and forth to each other.
Aisha Saeed: Yeah, we had to be flexible. We have kids, we have carpool times that are inviolable. We have to be there. And so we did it when we could. Sometimes we would have a play date and sit down with our laptops at the most unbelievable bouncy house places with, oh goodness.
Becky Albertalli: How does that compare to your fantasy of the Greek Villa?
Aisha Saeed: Yes, exactly. Exactly! And that's I would say to anybody listening who wants to write a book. There may be some writer out there in their Greek Villa and that's awesome. But we did this while we were sitting in carpool lanes, and texting while we're parked waiting for our kids to come out. We did this at bouncy house places. We did this wherever we could, whenever we could. And that's why I think it's kind of a blur. We just had to make the time.
And it would be lovely if we could have these concrete long luxurious blocks. But also when you're a working writer, you don't have the luxury of just sitting and writing all day. There's other things. You have other books to promote. You have posts to write. You have other things to do too. So we did it whenever we could, however we could.
Becky Albertalli: Yeah. Sarah, have you ever had one of these podcasts that talks so much about bouncy houses? [Laughs]
Sarah Enni: Not yet, I'm so excited. Do you guys know, now I do episode titles, so sorry, it's 'The Bouncy House Age', or whatever, is absolutely the episode title.
Aisha Saeed: Love and Life in the Time of Bouncy Houses.
Sarah Enni: [Laughing] That's the episode title, yes! So, and like I told you, I want to be so granular about this for possibly personal reasons. But, I'm interested both in when an editor got involved, because revising seems like it'd be a whole other part of your brain in a lot of ways. And then having to talk those edits out together. So when did an editor get involved and what was that process like?
Becky Albertalli: Yeah. Oh, you know, we should talk briefly about the submission process. We got a great question from a writer in the audience at one of our events. And he wanted to know something as simple to us, but this is a complicated dynamic. We belong to two different publishing houses. I've been with Harper Collins since Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, for my whole career. And Aisha has done work with several publishers, but her home publisher is Penguin.
So from the beginning, we knew we were going to have to...
Aisha Saeed: Choose one publisher to publish it.
Becky Albertalli: Choose one publisher over the other.
Sarah Enni: And you have different agents as well at the time?
Aisha Saeed: We do. Yes, we still have different agents.
Becky Albertalli: Yeah. So we sold the book on proposal. We had written a couple of chapters and we had that outline. It ended up not being anything dramatic, or some huge choice with hurt feelings. Because Aisha's editor Nancy Paulson, who I from afar am a huge fan of and Aisha adores, does mostly middle grade and picture books now.
Aisha Saeed: And Donna, she just loved the book and she got it and she saw the vision that we were going for. And so it was a pretty seamless process with who was going to publish it. And Donna got involved later. So I mean, she read the proposal, she gave us some feedback on it.
Sarah Enni: And you're talking about Donna Bray?
Becky Albertalli: Yeah, sorry! So yeah, Donna Bray from Balzer and Bray at Harper Collins has been my editor for my whole career.
Aisha Saeed: Yeah. And I adore her. I'm such a big fan of Donna. And so we finished writing the book and we turned in the whole book to her and then we got notes back. Just like we do with most of our projects. We finished the whole book and then we send it to our editor and then at that point they jump in. And this was my first time working with Donna on a project and I really appreciated that she wanted to get the story where we wanted to get it to. And she understood that as the goal.
The goal was to sharpen the vision that we had. So she helped me a lot with my Maya chapters, to make sure that the right tone was coming across. And sometimes for me, there's a lot of things that are intuitive because I am Muslim, and it's my world. So just clarity, but subtle clarity, cause nobody wants to be didactic in a book. So just being able to explain things without explaining them, she really helped me hone in on all of that in the revision.
Sarah Enni: So, getting revision letters and stuff like that is always a whole process. So what was it like to both get an email that had that in it? How did you process it together? How did you talk about what the changes would be?
Becky Albertalli: Gosh. Well, I'm a veteran of the Donna Bray letter. I adore my editor too. But I know she doesn't hold back. She's a very thorough editor. And when that letter lands in your inbox, I at this point know for me, it takes seven minutes. I will read the letter and for those first seven minutes I am feeling all kinds of contradictory things here.
I am simultaneously the worst writer who's ever dared to put a word on a page. I am just trash. And also, "How could she not see the genius? And she doesn't get it at all. And everything was perfect the way I had it." And those those thoughts exist at the same time for seven minutes. And then after that I'm like, "Oh my God, she's right about everything."
Aisha Saeed: My husband at this point, and this transcends all publishing houses for me. He now knows the drill. I get a letter and I'm like, "This is awful. It's not right. It's not true. I'm done with this. What? Why do I write? Why do I write for a living? This is terrible." And my husband's like, "Yeah, why do you? Yeah, I don't know." I'm like, "She's just so wrong." He's like, "So wrong, so wrong." And I'm like, "Thank you!" You know?:
And then I go to bed, I wake up in the morning and I'm like [tsks], "She was right." And he's like, "Yeah, she was right." And I'm like, "Yeah, it's gonna be much better now." He's like, "It will be." It's just become a tradition and I really am not, it's not conscious. It just happens. And it's just a process.
It's hard. It's hard to get feedback on something that you put so much into. But that's what an editor is there to do, is to make it better and to help you see things that you're too into the story to see. They're an outside objective voice. And there are times that you don't agree with the editor, even after you've slept on it, and then you talk it out and you say, "Well this is my vision."
At the end of the day, the editor's job is to help you grow your vision. So you don't have to do everything an editor tells you to do. You do the things that you realize make sense for that book.
Sarah Enni: And I don't know if you guys found this... with my friend and I who have been endeavoring to write together, we got notes on something and just talking it out with each other helped us be even more firm in what we were trying to go for. It's like, "Oh well not that she's wrong, but she's pointed out something that does need work. But the real solution is this."
That we'll come to when we're having an actual conversation on the phone or something like that. And that just helps clarify in ways that you can't, when it's just yourself talking in your own mind. I think having to vocalize what you're going for in that way was a revelation.
Aisha Saeed: It definitely helped to have Becky's insight with these edit letters. Otherwise you're just wondering to yourself, "Well is this the right? Is this right? Is this right? Am I wrong?" And then having somebody else to go through that process and talk everything out with. And maybe the editor has one idea on how to fix a situation, but together we can also come up with other ideas to fix the situation. It was, like I said, I'm forever spoiled by co-writing.
Sarah Enni: The last part of this that I want to ask about is about career focus. You both have many projects going on that are your own or with other co-writers. And I'm wondering how you thought about, when you started to get serious about this project, how did you think about the timing of it and where it fit into your schedule? Everybody only has so much time. So what was the process of talking that through with each other?
Becky Albertalli: That always is really complicated. The logistics are a big deal. And I think these kinds of scheduling questions are why Adam Silvera and I started talking about co-writing in 2014, before we'd met in person, which is not wise, but it worked out. And then What if it's Us came out in 2018.
That's why Aisha and I, definitely 2016 at the latest, we are starting to flirt with the idea. And that book came out just this year, in 2020. So a lot of that is not only finding time when you are clear to sit with a book and write, but you both have to be available at the same time.
And then for this book there was the added complication of, because of its subject matter, we all felt like, Aisha, me, and our entire team, all agreed that this book should be out in 2020. When I would say by the time we sold it, most of the other books being sold around then were 2021 books. So this was very much...
Aisha Saeed: On an accelerated schedule.
Sarah Enni: In some ways that's great to have that clarity. Then everything has to make room for this thing that must happen in 2020, which is kinda cool. Cause otherwise things can drag out, or gets shunted around. So does that mean that you put everything aside and like, "Let's go full speed ahead on this?"
Aisha Saeed: I did, yeah. This was it. And this was gonna be my focus. And I think that was important because of the timeline that we were working with.
Becky Albertalli: Yeah. And same for me. And for me it also worked out really beautifully because I had a very intense year in 2018 with two books and the Love, Simon film. And I had no books out in 2019 which is a delight. And so that left me with a lot of time, not a lot of time, cause time just disappears. The head space to really focus on this and sit with this story.
Sarah Enni: Yeah. And how long are we talking, from actually selling the book to turning in the final edit?
Aisha Saeed: I think we sold it in October, 2018. I think. And then I think we were done by April, 2019.
Sarah Enni: Yeah. Okay. Wow. That's pretty quick [laughs]. Yeah. Good job guys. That's very impressive. But it goes to show when you put your head down you can really get a lot done. Especially when you're co-writing and sharing the burden. That's the other best thing about writing is I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this chapter just happened. I didn't have anything to do with it. It just appeared in my inbox. What a joy!"
Becky Albertalli: Oh, that's my favorite thing. The other best thing too is you get to completely, wholeheartedly, love at least half the book in a very uncomplicated way. I still think the Maya parts are perfect. They are.
Aisha Saeed: And I think the Jamie parts are perfect. Yeah, no, honestly, and I really mean that. Because I can never... I don't read my books again once I'm done writing them. Cause I've gone over them so many times, so many times. But this book has been different. I've actually read it. I've picked it up and I read it again. And it just brought back so many memories.
Just reading a chapter where Maya's crying and then Jamie hugs her. And I remember where I was and I remember Becky's thoughts about that moment. And so it's the story, but then it's also the story of how the story became, that also speaks to me as I hear the story. So it's one of the books that I feel I can unabashedly love because I got to write it with somebody that I love. And I think that just makes it one of the most special books I've written.
Sarah Enni: Yay. Oh, I love that. This has been so fun you guys. I really appreciate it. I usually wrap up with advice, but you have given so much amazing advice along the way. I think we got it covered. It's been a joy to talk to you. Thank you so much.
Aisha Saeed: Thanks so much for having us. It was a joy.
Becky Albertalli: Yeah. Thank you.
Sarah Enni: Awesome.
Sarah Enni: Thank you so much to Becky and Aisha. Follow Becky on Twitter and Instagram @BeckyAlbertalli and Aisha @Aishacs on both Twitter and Instagram. You can follow me on both @SarahEnni (Twitter and Instagram), and the show @FirstDraftPod (Twitter and Instagram).
Today's show was brought to you by Steven Seders, Alice by Heart, which is out from Penguin Random House now.
Hayley Hershman produces First Draft and this episode was produced and sound designed by Callie Wright. The theme music is by Dan Bailey, and the logo was designed by Collin Keith. Thanks to production assistant Tasneem Daud, and transcriptionist-at-large Julie Anderson. And, as ever, thanks to you future political canvassers, for listening.
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