Show notes
Jenny Wheeler: USA Today bestselling romcom author Emma St Clair loves sassy heroines, witty banter, and love stories with heart and humor. Her books have sizzling chemistry while keeping the bedroom door firmly closed.
Jenny Wheeler: Hi, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler, and today on the Binge Reading podcast, Emma talks about her crazy writing process – her favorite place to write is tapping on her phone while on the elliptical machine, believe it or not. And how she discovered she’s probably ADHD – something she only realized when she was researching a story.
Free St Valentine’s Romances
Our Giveaway this week is Free Historical Romance, for St Valentine’s Day, – or St Valentine’s month actually. Sadie’s Vow, #1 in my Home At Last trilogy is included.
Books of mine you’ll find in each offering listed below with the links to get the offer!
There’s lots of other free or sale books there as well.
FREE HISTORICAL ROMANCE
kobo sale
free sweet romance
Before we get to Emma, a reminder. You can help defray the cost of the production by buying me a cup of coffee on www.buymeacoffee.com/jenny wheelx. Just a coffee a month will help!
And if you enjoy the show, leave us a review so others will find us too. Word of mouth is still the best way for others to discover the show and great books they will love to read.
Links for Things Mentioned in the Show
Leah Brunner. Clean and sweet Ice hockey novella: https://leahbrunner.com/
Courtney Walsh: Clean and sweet ice hockey:
https://www.amazon.com/My-Phony-Valentine-Holidays-Hart-ebook/dp/B0BTB3LPYK
Books Emma recommends:
Hello Stranger from Katherine Center.
https://katherinecenter.com/hello-stranger
Mary E. Pearson
https://www.marypearson.com/
Tana French The Likeness
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5941114-the-likeness
Where to find Emma Online
Website: https://emmastclair.com/
Facebook: Emma St Clair’s Epic Reader Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/emmastclair
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kikimojo/
Podcast: (Retired but website still up and episodes available on YouTube)
www.createifwriting.com
Introducing Romcom author Emma St Clair
Emma St Clair – sweet and sassy ‘closed door’ romcoms
Emma St Clair: Thank you. I’m so excited to be here. It’s really nice and I appreciate you reaching out.
Jenny Wheeler: Fantastic. Emma, you are a master of the sweet, sassy, funny rom-com, and you’ve written a lot of them. Tell me, how did you get started in this particular genre and what do you like about it?
Emma St Clair: Well, it’s funny. I got my master’s degree in fiction, which is typically more literary. And I never thought I would write romance.
In fact, I didn’t read romance. I was one of those people who poo-pooed romance, My attitude was, oh, you know, those romance books. Like that was just not my thing, and after I got my master’s, I was writing more like literary young adult fiction.
I had an agent and we were submitting to New York publishers.
And then we had five kids in nine years, and so I just couldn’t write at all.
I had a friend, the first inkling I had that romance was a possibility, which I actually rejected. My very best friend was like, you know, a friend. April, from college, is writing these chicklet books. Hers were a little more chick lit than romance.
It was right when chick lit was becoming a big thing, which I don’t think there’s even a category for that anymore. But anyway, sweet, happy books that had a little bit of romance, but were a little bit more character based.
And I said, oh, I would never do that. And she was like, all right, I think you’d be good at it.
And I was like, oh, no, no, no. I could not do that. I write literary fiction.
How ‘literary’ author Emma found romance
And then a few years later, I kept trying to see if I could write books again when my kids were at the different ages. I would try to set aside time because some of them were in preschool at different times.
But it’s just a lot of kids and I just never could get back to writing literary stuff.
It was way too hard. I’d written a Christmas devotional type of book. And I bought this tool called Publisher Rocket and was searching for what keywords to use.
And for Christmas, the top thing that came up was Christmas Romance. And I was like, huh, that’s interesting.
And my husband was just switching careers. I don’t know if he had left his job yet or we knew he was about to, and so we were going to have some uncertainty.
And I thought, well maybe I’ll just try this. I mean, I could write a romance. How hard is that? Which is such a laughable thing, especially for someone who hadn’t read romance.
And I made so many mistakes with the first things that I put out there. But, as I started writing and I saw that there was a rise – this was around 2018 – when there was a rise of Hallmark movies, which had been around.
But I feel they went bananas over the last few years. where it’s like how many Christmas movies can we put out?
I saw this growing community of writers writing Sweet Romance without any sexual content and without language.
I just dove into that and I did some research and used a lot of the things that I knew from social media already from years of blogging.
Romcom ‘a much better for my voice’
I didn’t really think I would like the romance genre, but I actually fell in love with it. Some of the things I love about it, it’s so hopeful and you know what you’re getting.
I think beforehand that was something I didn’t understand. If you know that they’re going to end up together, what’s the point of reading the book?
I didn’t really understand that it was about the journey and that the tension and the things that keep you on the edge of your seat are not the same things as a mystery or thriller.
I used to read tons of those, and so I didn’t really understand the changes in romance, how that was different and how you could still keep readers on the edge of their seats with romance and a different kind of tension.
I really did fall in love with the genre and then a few years later, I switched to romantic comedy just because I felt like that was a much better fit for my voice and my personality and just who I am.
That turned out to be a great thing and that has really made my career and it’s so much more enjoyable than the first books I wrote that I felt like I was being a little bit more putting a lid on myself and toning things down.
Now I don’t tone down and I let the humor fly, and it’s been a lot of fun.
Jenny Wheeler: Fantastic. It sounds like you might have written a number of Christmas romances at the beginning?
Emma St Clair: I started with a short story because I love a good challenge too. So when I found that keyword, Christmas Romance, it was maybe late November, and I asked myself, could I write a Christmas novella this year? And I was like, sure…. because I really do love a challenge.
I decided to do that. That one is no longer published just because, again, I don’t think I knew the genre well enough to be writing it. It did okay.
Fake date, sweet ice hocky romance
I don’t even remember, I don’t think I was focused on the financials or the sales, but I was really pleased with how it turned out. And that kick started the hing for me.
I wrote that novella. And then as a part of another series, I do have a Christmas book and I write a lot of Christmas novellas, like I get the bug and like the FOMO when I see all the Christmas books coming out, but it’s always like November. And then I’m like, do I have time?
No, I don’t. And then I’m like, but I’m gonna do it anyway. I have one full length book that’s Christmas, and then two or three novellas.
Jenny Wheeler: The latest book that we are talking about today is Just Don’t Fall and it’s a fake date, ice hockey rom-com.
It’s really fun. I loved it. Now, of course I’m living in New Zealand. We do have ice hockey, but barely, and I associate ice hockey with the northern US and Canada particularly.
And I know that you are living in Texas, so I did think why is she interested in ice hockey when she lives in Texas?
Emma St Clair: Yeah, so we don’t have a team in Houston. We used to have a pro team The Arrows and they left. I don’t even know what year they left. Sometime soon after I moved to Houston the team left.
So hockey was more of a pragmatic choice for me. Just Don’t Fall was part of a Sweater Weather series that I ran with another author.
It was a group of seven of us and we planned it out to do a series of fall books. And in the past, whenever I’ve done a multi-author thing or something that’s not my own series, I tend to lose money.
I was really excited about this series, but I was like, okay, what is my best bet?
As far as what’s selling right now, what will help this book have another little boost coming behind it. And I knew that in the spicier steamier romance category, hockey was huge and so I was like, let’s do that then.
We’ll just add that trope in there and we’ll make my book in this series a hockey book.
Big burly guys being delicate and precise
I have written sports romances in the past. I have some former football players and then I had a series that I’ve taken down and I’m reworking that was football players as well, because football’s huge here.
My husband played football, my kids play football. Even one of my daughters plays football.
But for hockey it was just really because it was hot. Hot as like a trope, not literally hot obviously, but it’s funny because the idea really for the team came from the Savannah Bananas, which is a baseball team here in Savannah, Georgia. And they’re really savvy on social media.
I thought what if I do that but hockey? It’s been really fun. I had to go to a hockey game. I realized actually, almost too late.
I think I’d been to one when I was really young, but I realized I need to go and no, none of them are here in Houston.
And I looked at the schedule and it was probably about May. I looked at the schedule and the very last game was the very next night.
And it was midnight, I think. I texted my husband who was asleep and said something like, just FYI, I’m going to Austin tomorrow for work to see hockey.
He was like, okay. He’s very used to me doing very spur of the moment things like this. But I do love hockey.
I will say I’m not a person who knows tons about it. I don’t get to go often since we don’t have it.
But I think there’s something about these big, burly guys doing something delicate and precise on the ice. It really is amazing to watch the skillset that it takes.
I love team sports. I love writing books that have families or teams or brothers or friend groups because I think that’s really fun to have. That cast of supporting characters. So that’s one of the things I really loved about writing.
And it was really fun. I just went to another hockey game. We drove to Austin again and went to see a hockey game last weekend, which was super fun.
It really was just about what’s selling right now. I try to find that balance between what I want to write and what is marketable.
Just because I am right now our main full-time income, and so I want to be happy with what I’m writing, but I also do look at like the trends in what I see selling.
Ice hockey and clean romance – on the rise
Jenny Wheeler: And I see you did a blog about how ice hockey and clean romance is on the rise. I gather ice hockey books have been known to be fairly steamy in the past. Why do you think that is? You seem to be almost creating a wave there.
Emma St Clair: I think that there tends to be, not always but there tends to be a trickle down effect where if something is really popular in the steamy books, it comes to clean romance or closed door romance, whatever people want to call it. There are so many terms. It comes there a little bit later.
There was an author, I think after I’d started writing this book, an author named Leah Brunner.
She’d written a hockey novella, but her first hockey book in a series came out and did. So well, and so that was really the first I saw that was a huge smashing success and even a lot of steamy readers were reading it and enjoying it.
And so it was really nice to see that. And Courtney Walsh also had one before that My Phony Valentine. And those were the first at least romantic comedies that I’d seen that were closed door hockey And the Fall series did really well.
I can’t answer for all the authors who are now writing the clean hockey, but there’s a lot of them. a lot of, indie authors. We’re able to move more quickly because we’re just doing it ourselves.
We’re not having to wait on a publisher and their schedule of things that they have going. If you see a trend picking up, it’s pretty easy for some of us, especially if you can write quickly, to hop into that trend.
I’m not sure how long it’ll last. Maybe next year it’ll be football because of, Taylor Swift and her influence on football right now.
But you just never know what’s going to happen. If you’re trying to write to market and write keeping up with these trends, we’re able to move quickly if you’re able to write fast.
And so who knows, it may be something totally different next year, but either way, I’m pretty excited about seeing so many of these and actually just even the rise of cleaner sports books.
Keeping it authentic a challenge
I think it can be harder to write in some ways, because I think we all get that sense of the stereotypical athlete where they use a lot of language and they have tons and tons of women, in different cities which doesn’t really fly as well in the kind of content I’m writing.
Sometimes it can be a challenge to write realistic sports figures who are not sleeping with everybody and it’s not all there on the page.
To get that sweeter side where it still feels authentic can be a bit of a challenge. But it’s been nice to see so many more of these books on the rise and readers really enjoying them.
Jenny Wheeler: You made the decision to do closed door romance right from the beginning of your career though. What made you decide on that?
Emma St Clair: I actually made the decision back when I was in graduate school and trying to decide what kind of content I wanted in my stories and in my books.
Some of it has to do with my faith. I am a Christian. And there was this idea of what kind of content do I want to be putting out in the world?
It’s not like I don’t watch R rated movies, and I read all across heat levels, for the most part, though there’s some things I definitely didn’t read that are too far for me, just personally.
But as far as what I wanted to put out into the world and what I wanted to create, I decided all the way back then, that was what, 2005 that I wanted to try to write the best stories that I could that did not have language or at least not really strong language.
I think sometimes my books have language that would probably be still like a PG movie rating. Very mild, but mild language and not to have a lot of sexual content just because I think there are a lot of readers who want that, who want really good movies and books and TV shows that they can enjoy where the characters feel real, but it’s also not heavy in that kind of content.
Again, I like challenges. That was going to be my challenge – to try to write authentic characters, where it doesn’t feel stifled, it doesn’t feel fake.
And I’m also not really writing books that have faith in them. It’s not like I’m pushing a Christian agenda in the books either.
Clean and wholesome ‘gives readers options’
It’s just more about I see tons and tons of content on the steamy side. And so I think it’s my contribution to the world for the people who either don’t mind reading books without steam or who are specifically looking for that.
I love adding into that little arena more choices for people who might want to read books that don’t have any kind of content in them.
I made the choice actually back in 2005 and I think I’ll stick with that. There’ve been times I’ve questioned it, what if I wrote this kind of thing? But I think that’s just where I’m going to land, and probably stay.
Jenny Wheeler: We mentioned that Just Don’t Fall is a fake dating story. For those who perhaps aren’t quite so familiar with romance tropes, give us an idea of what the setup for that book is. I think you do it beautifully. I
t really is very convincing and it’s interesting that the male character comes across in this particular book as being a little bit more emotionally aware than the female character, in some ways, it’s quite refreshing. Tell us about it.
Emma St Clair: Fake dating. It’s actually one of the hard ones for me to write because I don’t believe it. How many of us are really going around and doing that?
I actually, I asked that question, then I realized, wait, I had a fake boyfriend once, but it was at camp when I was like 14. So I’m not sure that fully counts, but it does get hard for me to suspend disbelief.
But fake dating is one of the most popular tropes. If you ask readers, I feel like over and over again, people just love fake dating and I do understand why, and I think the reason or one of the reasons people like it, it has that whole thing where it forces them to be together.
It forces them to be in proximity to each other. It forces them to have this fake emotional connection.
The fun side of the fake dating trope
And then they have to think about are the feelings real? And there’s usually a scene where they set up the rules for the fake dating. I love the rule setting and I love also when they tiptoe up to the rules and then step right across them.
I just think that’s really fun. I struggle with the believability of it just because I’m like, really, what adults are actually faking relationships?
This one I felt worked pretty well, where it was more like she told a little fib to her dad that blew out of control.
And then it worked really well for his career and his image, it was something that snowballed.
It wasn’t so much ‘let’s set out to deceive the world.’ It was more like, here’s a tiny little thing, it’ll be one date and then it just spiraled into something bigger. I love reading fake dating books, but when it comes to writing them, I always struggle because I’m like, is this really believable?
And then I have to remind myself, romance readers, and it depends. Because when you have somebody, like I have family members and friends who don’t read romance and then they read my books and they comment ‘that was interesting.’
And I say, oh, you’re not a romance reader. Because the romance readers, I feel like we come into things with this set of expectations for the genre and for even the tropes.
But I still really want things to be as realistic as I can. And that’s always the challenge for me with the fake dating ’cause I don’t buy it myself, like in most books. You have to suspend disbelief. But as a writer, I want to make it as believable as possible while still knowing.
This is not happening most of the time in people’s real lives.
Spin off series – A sports romance plus
Jenny Wheeler: It’s interesting because I did notice that you’ve got the one that’s coming next, I think, called The Wild Guard. That also is a fake dating book, isn’t it?
Emma St Clair: I think so. I’m a pantser and so I think that’s what’s happening. – we’ll see. Sometimes the books surprise me, I hadn’t necessarily meant for the books to come in exactly that order. It ends up looking like I’m doing a whole ton of fake dating.
I think I will publish another hockey book. I’m doing a spinoff series from Just Don’t Fall with some of the teammates because I just loved them so much. And hockey’s so hot. So I think I’m doing a marriage of convenience, which is. really similar in a lot of ways ’cause it’s the same thing, just on a bigger scale ’cause you’re actually getting married.
I think I’m gonna have a marriage of convenience and then another fake dating. So it seems like that’s my obsession, but I think it just happened that way. So I’m gonna have to really get good at making up good excuses. For all these reasons, people have to fake these relationships.
Jenny Wheeler: I’m so glad to hear you say that you were going to write about. some of the other team members, because that’s one of the things I love about books like Just Don’t Fall.
That you have an introduction to a number of other guys and you’re starting to think, I wonder what’s going on in his head, and so I was going to ask you, because if it was in a series like Sweater Weather, then maybe you didn’t quite have the space there to do all the other team members, but you’re going to do a spinoff series, so that’s fantastic.
Emma St Clair: I love spinoff series. In fact, a lot of my series end up that way. Like I’ll have a series and some of the side characters just demand stories, and if they don’t fit into that series, then I break off and give them another.
So yeah, Jenny Proctor and I got together. She wrote another hockey book in that Sweater Weather series, the last book, Absolutely Not In Love about Felix the Goalie.
The attractions of the ‘fading star’
She and I are going to write a series together. Not co-write them. We’re each doing our own books and we may not alternate. We’ll see how many we get, but we both love teammates. I think that’s the best.
That’s when you’ve created this great side character is when you’re like, and you want to know their story.
I love it when the side characters demand a story. And I also like it when the readers want that too. We did hear a lot of readers talk about ‘we want more Appies.’ (The name of the hockey franchise – Ed Note)
And I’m pretty excited about delivering that up..
Jenny Wheeler: That’s great. The book before this, the Buy-In was a pro football book.
I wondered also if that idea of a sports star who’s reaching the pinnacle of a career or almost past it and is starting to face problems, whether the failing sports star idea is also something that readers love because your football book is a little bit like Logan in Just Don’t Fall.
A guy who’s been a big name and is starting to fade a little bit.
Emma St Clair: I love those stories. In some ways it can make it easier if they’re not in the sport.
There are so many details you have to research to get a sport right, if they’re actually playing. And man, I hate research. I will say that’s why I write contemporary, and I will never write historical.
I cannot do research. But if you’re writing somebody who’s currently playing the sport, you have to get a lot more things right.
For me, like in terms of ease, I love writing players who’ve come out of the sport. So in the Buy-In, he had come out and was trying to find himself.
I like that idea of you have your identity wrapped up in this big thing, the celebrity of it, and the excitement of it.
What does the sports ‘afterlife’ look like?
And then you’re having to decide what does the rest of my life look like?
What’s my purpose? I feel like Pat – Patrick – Graham in that book was really searching for that purpose and trying to figure that out and hadn’t really found what that purpose was until his dad bought this tiny town in Texas and he reconnected with someone he’d loved years before.
I love writing about heroes, but it’s best when you’re writing about a hero who is either struggling or a hero that has had significant setbacks and they’re having to grapple with what that looks like for their life and what their identity is now that, this thing that they have had is ending or changing.
Jenny Wheeler: Fantastic. Look, you’ve got a very active family life. You’ve got five children, a great Dane and a hubby, and you write in your Goodreads page that your favorite place for writing is tapping on your phone on an elliptical machine, which I thought was hilarious and probably was a joke, but how much of a joke is it?
Emma St Clair: It’s not, it is totally real. I do my very best and most writing on the elliptical, I ended up buying one during Covid because the gyms were all closed. It was in my office, and then we bought a new house. I don’t know why this house has two garages, it’s not a mansion, but for whatever reason it has two garages.
And neither one has a car in it. One a workout room with my elliptical and some weights for my husband and my sons. Actually, I use them too. And then the other one has a poker table, because we’re a big poker family too.
But I write on the elliptical on my phone, which I just discovered by accident was a thing that I could do.
Emma St Clair’s unique writing process
I realize how nuts that sounds every time I tell someone. They’re curious about how but I’ve been using an elliptical machine since like college and I could do a lot of stuff on there without falling off. It’s low impact, and I’m pretty used to it.
When my kids were little I would go to the YMCA to write and I would bring my laptop and the kids would go into childcare.
They had a two hour per day thing. They’d go in childcare, I’d sit in the YMCA lobby with a cup of coffee and write, and that was sometimes the only writing time I got all day.
And I remember we finished up one time and I wanted to go to the gym. When you have a lot of kids and you have a full day, you plan activities.
We did the Y and then we did the gym where I’d work out. We went to the gym for me to work out. And I was thinking, ‘man, I’m not done with the scene I’ve just been working on. I’ll just jot down a few ideas.’
And so I pulled up the notes app on my phone while I was on the elliptical, and then 45 minutes later I was thinking, oh my gosh, I just wrote an entire chapter and I was in this total, focused zone.
And it was good words. I had to reformat things. And so now I do it in Google Docs; so now I do it intentionally.
I was like, if I could do that once, maybe I can do that again. What I’ve found too is it really does help with my focus. It’s not great for my eyesight. I’m actually like trying to figure out what are the best options in terms of making sure I don’t make myself go blind, staring at a phone for an hour at a time.
But I also, now this year I got one of those – not super expensive – but a treadmill,
It’s not one that inclines or anything, it’s like a very simple treadmill and then a standing desk. I actually have just started this week writing on the computer at the standing desk on the treadmill, which is fantastic.
And you’d think for all this, I’d look like I’m in great shape. I don’t, it just keeps me moving.
And a discovery that might help explain why
But while researching, I think, what book was it? Oh Falling For Your Best Friend. One of my first romcoms. I was researching a character who had ADHD and some other neurodivergent things.
And while studying all this stuff and taking some tests and taking notes, I discovered I prob ably, actually have ADHD myself.
I haven’t gotten an official diagnosis. I probably won’t because at this point, I’m 46 and have mostly been coping with this my whole life.
But that’s one of the things; this hyper focus and this idea of combining the exercise with the writing, that’s something that totally makes sense for that kind of brain.
And I think that’s one reason I can get very distracted. There are many different ways that I write. Before my kids were all in school, I had that two hour window and that was all I had. So it just crammed it in there.
But now that my kids are all in school and I have these long days, it’s so easy to get distracted.
The one place I don’t get distracted is when I’m exercising. And so that’s just become a part of my routine. Maybe that’ll change, maybe I’ll find a different way, and next year it’ll be different. I think there’s different seasons for sure.
Why not try something? I never would’ve thought, that’s how I write. Nobody ever talks about that.
But I think as a writer, trying different things and seeing if it works, whether that be plotting a different way, or pantsing a different way, or trying to write on a different kind of device, or trying to write in a different location.
Like you never know what’s going to be the thing that helps a lot. I would never have thought this is how I would write, but at this moment, that’s how I get my very best words.
I don’t edit very well on the elliptical or the treadmill, but for writing my first drafts, it works really well.
A ‘typical’ writing day for a mother-of-five
Jenny Wheeler: That’s amazing and it does lead on to the obvious question of, give us a quick rundown on what a typical writing day looks like for you, or do you have such a thing as a typical writing day?
Emma St Clair: I try to have a typical writing day, but I’m also not great with schedules. I love for things to be a little bit more open-ended.
But for me, what I’ve found, I used to be such a night owl. I actually still think I’m a night owl, but I just don’t think my brain works as well at night. I love staying up late.
When my kids were little, I would try to write at night because that was all I had, or, those two hours at the Y.
But now, if I write first thing in the morning, it’s the best. So, I get my kids off to school. My husband’s a teacher at the school where four of them go to, so he takes four of them to school.
Right now, I’m taking one of them to the other school, and then I come home and hop on the elliptical machine and I get right to it.
What I found is if I don’t get started right away, if I start checking Instagram or I go on Facebook Messenger then, or do these little tasks, I’ll get caught up in the little task and never write.
My goal keeps being to write from eight to 12, every morning, but that doesn’t always happen.
If I had to list out all the things I do in a day, I think it would exhaust me, even. And so I don’t. When you’re running your own. business, which is really what you’re doing as an indie author, there just are so many little detailed things to do.
A million reasons not to get writing
Today it was talking to a web designer to make sure my email domain was verified and authenticated. I don’t even actually know what that means, but I had to hire someone to do it and explain it to her and spend 30 minutes giving her my passwords and getting that done.
There’s just always some kind of little thing to do. And if I can, I try to shove those things into the afternoon and schedule interviews like this for the afternoon so that my time in the morning could be protected. But it’s so easy to have that get thrown off. Like tomorrow, I’ve got to take my son to the orthodontist.
That’s going to be my – not my whole day – but man, it’s a drive. Houston? Everything’s a drive.
But that’s the main goal. The kids come home by around four, some of them earlier, but by four o’clock everybody’s home.
And so everything has to be done because from four o’clock till bedtime, it’s sports and dinner and homework and all kinds of things, and a lot of noise.
I get from about eight till four to some degree it’s usually not quite that whole time, but yeah.
Jenny Wheeler: You mentioned that you had a master of arts, and I did sense that you probably started out expecting to do literary fiction. Have you got still any unrealized ambitions for the literary fiction side of things?
Emma St Clair: Yes. I think by the time all is said and done, I bet I’ll be writing in a lot of genres, and literary may be one of those.
I do still love reading literary fiction. I loved getting my degree and being around people who were writing literary fiction. My professors were amazing, and going to these readings? It was fantastic. It was very inspiring.
I think probably a lot of them are asking, what are you doing with your career with this, with the romance and all that?
Because that’s how I thought. But I do think I’ll go back to that someday and I wouldn’t be surprised if I change things
Never say never when it comes to the future
I’ve looked at doing hybrid stuff and working with an agent, whether I’m doing rom-coms or something else, and doing traditional publishing.
I think that probably by the time I’ve gone my whole life, I bet I’ll be writing in a bunch of genres, so I wouldn’t count out literary fiction, but right now I’m just loving what I’m writing.
Especially since I started the rom coms. I think I put up my first rom-com during Covid year, it was 2020 when things started.
And I just think from then and even on now, there’s so much bad news, there’s so many heavy things and so many people struggling.
There always are, but I think the last couple years have been particularly hard for people. I love writing something that just brings joy and it makes me so happy when people send me messages or post in my Facebook group or send me a note on Instagram to say, your book made me laugh out loud.
And I just feel like that is such a gift. When I was little, I used to read my parents’ Reader’s Digest, except I wouldn’t read the whole thing.
I don’t know if you have those. (We did) But it’s like this little, monthly magazine newsletter with all these articles, but there was always one page called Laughter’s the Best Medicine.
And published these tiny little quips just to make you laugh.
When my parents would get Reader’s Digest, I would grab it and I wouldn’t read anything else. I would just go and find Laughter’s the Best Medicine. And I really do think that. So for now. I love what I’m doing. It’s paying the bills and people love it.
It’s a perfect place for me. I do have lots of literary interests, but also genre fiction, and I think it’s been very nice for me to open my mind where I used to think poorly of some genre fiction because again, that can come when you get an academic degree with literary fiction.
I feel like I can still absolutely respect literary fiction, but I can also respect people writing a story because I think that’s really ultimately what it’s about.
The importance of story in any genre
Human beings connect with story and you can write a literary story or you can write a thriller story or you can write a romcom story. As humans we connect to that element of story, whatever kind of genre you’re writing.
I can appreciate them more now. I’m glad that I feel like my mind has been opened a little bit more, where I was a bit snobbier, like especially right when I got my degree. And I just really enjoy it.
To me it’s about the enjoyment of it. Yes, I’m happy that what I’m doing makes money, but I’m also really happy that I can bring joy to people and enjoy writing it.
So yes, I think I’ll go back to literary at some point, but then again, maybe not, If I continue to be happy writing when I’m writing, I think ultimately the end thing is I’m not going to close any door and say I won’t write that.
Because I think probably the moment I say that, then I’ll start writing it.
Jenny Wheeler: Yes. If there was one thing that you’d say is the secret of your success in quotes, what would it be?
Emma St Clair: Oh man, that’s hard. I used to have a podcast for writers called Create If Writing.
One of the things I kept coming back to – well, I guess I’ll put two things. One is the writing itself. I think writing stories that connect, whether you’re writing literary, whether you’re writing romance, whether they’re writing thriller stories that really connect and resonate with readers.
And that’s very vague. There’s a lot of aspects to that, but in general, working on the craft and working on the story so that you’re writing what resonates with people.
But the second thing, I’ve always been a big proponent of taking readers on the journey from being a casual reader to a raving fan.
And so, building a community, and really honoring those readers and working to – I always say this – I want my readers to maybe they pick up my book because they just wanted a romcom, and then I want them to read my book and not just want another romcom, but to want another Emma Romcom.
And so trying to make both my books themselves have some unique aspects that are unique to me and my brand, I guess as a whole author and in the books, the content itself.
And then also outside of that, in my Facebook group and on Instagram, how I present myself online.
So when I connect with readers as well, that there’s this sense of belonging and inviting people in. It’s my own special brand of that. And it’s not for everybody, I definitely have some really good friends who have said ‘it’s just not for me.’ And it’s that’s okay.
Building reader community a key to success
This isn’t for you, that’s fine. But I do think trying to, not just, as sometimes in the indie community, get books out as fast as you can, or just write to the market. All those things can be helpful. That advice can work.
But I think that the evergreen advice you get that’s never going to change is ‘write great books and then build this sense of community around your books and around your author brand.’
Those are the two things that I think are the most important.
Jenny Wheeler: Why did you give up your podcast? I’m interested.
Emma St Clair: Oh yeah. One thing was time. I tend to be one of those people… I’ve heard the term like magic time, where you don’t really think about if you have time to do something or not. You just do it and that can work or not work.
And that tends to be how I do things. Like I decided to start a podcast.
I didn’t think, do I have time to do this? I just did it. And then for years I just continued to do it and at a certain point it just got to be too much because the writing was becoming more and more my main focus.
I started the podcast when I wasn’t writing books. I was blogging and I was doing the podcast. I always have to do something creative.
So even when my kids were little, if I couldn’t write books, I had to do something. I just have that urge, like I have a need to create things.
But getting back to the podcast, also, I felt like I was ready to just hang it up. I just was ready to. I’d shared so many things about my journey.
I’d been very transparent about things, and it was just really time, I think, to focus on the writing itself, which had always been the goal.
And so I feel like the other things that I did along the way with blogging and social media and podcasting were a side arm.
Knowing when to quit also important
And then once I realized hey, I’m doing the thing that I always wanted to do, which is writing books, and the podcast is really just taking away time that I could be giving to the main thing.
It was sad, but at the same time it, it felt very good and I don’t regret it. I actually just stopped paying for the podcast hosting this month.
So they’re still up on YouTube, but they’re not going to be on the podcast players. And I had this moment of oh, it’s the end of an era.
And I felt sad about it, but at the same time, I have no regrets and had no desire to continue.
When I stopped I thought maybe I’ll come back to it. And then the longer I went, I felt there are things I miss about it, but that part of me that loved it is now being fulfilled in another way.
It’s being fulfilled in the writing of books. It was a really nice era. I loved having a podcast.
Jenny Wheeler: That’s gorgeous. Look, we always like to ask our guests about their own reading tastes and whether they’ve got something they’d like to recommend to our listeners.
And it is a popular fiction podcast, so we do focus on that genre area of fiction. Tell us what you’re reading at the moment, and if you’ve got anything you’d like to recommend.
Emma St Clair: Right now, I’m in a slump. Anyone else ever been in a book slump?
I don’t know what caused it, but I just keep starting books. I don’t like to always say that I DNF (Did Not Finish) them. I like to say I PFN them (Pause For Now) because I usually come back.
Books Emma loves to read
Everything I’ve started in the last two weeks I’ve been PFN-ing. But I was looking over at my bookshelf, some of the ones I’ve really enjoyed in the last year or two, and these are all different genres, but I really enjoyed,
She lives in Houston, so I got to meet her recently. She is so delightful. And then a duology that I absolutely loved and have reread a couple times is Mary Pearson.
It’s Dance of Thieves and Vow of Thieves, which is like high fantasy, which is a totally separate kind of place. And I’ve loved those books. I think it’s one of the best enemies to lovers I’ve ever read. I guess it’s more like romantasy, because there’s romance in the fantasy, but those are some that I’ve really enjoyed.
And then as far as the thriller side Tana or Tana French, but she’s Irish and there’s a book she wrote called The Likeness and it takes place in Ireland, and I loved that one. If you’re a thriller reader, that one was fantastic.
Jenny Wheeler: Wonderful. Look, thanks so much. We are coming to the end of our time together. We’ve done wonderfully, we’ve covered so much ground. But you obviously are a person who loves to relate online. Tell us about your online presence and how people can find you.
Where to find Emma online
Emma St Clair: Yeah, so I’m mostly active – I’m everywhere, but I’m not active everywhere. I’m mostly active on Instagram. My handle is Kikimojo, which I started doing social media. I was like an early adopter to everything. And so I was on Instagram the very first year and it was when I was doing roller derby.
So all of my social media handles – Pinterest, Instagram, most of them – are Kiki Mojo. That was my roller derby skater name. Which I just decided to keep because it had been so many years. I decided not to switch. That’s where I post most frequently.
And then I have a Facebook group. I have a Facebook group for authors called Create If Writing that went along with the podcast, but it’s still active even without the podcast.
And then I have an Emma St. Clair Reader Group. I think if you search Emma, you’ll find it, I think it’s like Emma Epic Reader Group or something like that.
Jenny Wheeler: Great. Fantastic. We’ll put those all in the show notes for this episode so people will be able to track you down. Emma. Look, it’s been great fun talking.
It really has, you’re just the most entertaining person and I must say I love the book, so I’ll be looking up the other team members.
Emma St Clair: Thank you so much. I’m so glad you enjoyed. I’m actually wearing my, I’m wearing my Appie sweatshirt, so I’m all like geared up, but yeah, there should be another book coming soon. It was great to talk to you, so thank you for having me.
Jenny Wheeler: That’s fun. Thank you so much. Bye now.
Emma St Clair: Bye.
If you enjoyed Emma you might also enjoy… Kate’s romcoms too
We featured Kate as our Valentine’s Day author last year…
She’s a fellow Kiwi, an author friend of Emma St Clair’s and the best selling author of laugh out loud, rom coms, sweet romance, and feel good stories with gorgeous Happily Ever Afters.
Never Fall For The One That Got Away, is the last book in the It’s Complicated series that asks and beautifully answers. a key question: If life gives you a second chance with the one that got away, do you take it?
LISTEN TO KATE O’KEEFE
Next Time On Binge Reading
Binge reading is fortnightly this year, so our next show air on February the 28th.
Rachel Hore is the UK Sunday Times bestselling author whose latest book, The Hidden Years is a story of secrets, loss and betrayal set in Cornwall during World War II, and then looking ahead closer to contemporary times, in the heady days of the 1960s.
When talented folk musician Gray convinces Belle to bail out of her university studies and follow him to a communal country house, it’s not just the idea of a carefree summer that draws her in.
As the summer unfolds, Belle begins to learn the truth about secrets from the past that have been kept hidden by her family and also about the person she wants to be.
That’s the end of this month on The Joys Of Binge Reading. And just before I go, another reminder, leave us a review so others will find us too. That’s it for now.
Thanks for listening and happy reading