Interview with Brenda Janowitz, Author of "Scot on the Rocks (How I Survived My Ex-Boyfriend’s Wedding With My Dignity Ever-So-Slightly Intact)" - Red Dress Ink 2007
by Uppereast.com Staff
A new Chick Lit book with some Upper East Side spice!
Bouncy and cute, author and Upper East Side resident, Brenda Janowitz, strolls into a diner on the Upper East Side to sit down with UpperEast.com and give us an exclusive scoop on her first novel, out this month, Scot on the Rocks (How I Survived My Ex-Boyfriend’s Wedding With My Dignity Ever-So-Slightly Intact). A lawyer-turned-author, Brenda is as perky as her book’s protagonist (and perhaps alter ego), Brooke. She shares with us insights into the writing/publishing process, inspiration she found on the streets of the Upper East Side and what it means to be a Chick Lit writer these days.
Book Description: When her ex-boyfriend, Trip, gets engaged to Hollywood’s latest “It Girl”, Manhattan lawyer Brooke Miller plans to attend the wedding. Who says a modern girl can’t stay friends with her ex? Besides, Brooke’s got her sexy Scottish fiancé, Douglas, to take as her date. Okay, so maybe he’s not her fiancé, but they are living together in his apartment, so she’ll be getting the ring any minute, right? Wrong.
After a fight leaves her without a boyfriend (much less a fiancé) just days before the wedding, Brooke faces the ultimate humiliation of attending her ex-boyfriend’s nuptials alone. Desperate to find a replacement to fill Douglas’s kilt, Brooke concocts an outrageous plan to survive the wedding and win the man of her dreams, all with her dignity ever-so-slightly intact.
UpperEast.com: They say a good fiction comes from fact. What part of this book is fact and what part is fiction?
Janowitz: 1% is straight fact, the rest is fiction. It is true that there was a Scottish guy, and that I did go to my ex-boyfriend’s wedding, but the rest of the story is fiction. Like I tell my students in my Mediabistro classes, real life is just real life. Fiction should have a structure to it. In fiction, you can mine from your real life for your novel, but you then fictionalize it to give it structure and make it more interesting. Brooke has some of the aspects of my personality, but she isn’t me. She is version 2.0 of me, a more fun version.
UpperEast.com: Do you think the glamorous life that is portrayed in Sex and the City, other Chick Lit novels and that you describe in your book really does exist in New York City?
Janowitz: Well, all women love shoes. (she chuckles). The show and my book tap into real New York things, like the fifteen dollar cocktails you get at hotel bars. And certainly, things like the importance of friendship, female bonding, and your self-made urban family ring true. But in the show and in my book, life is a little more fabulous than true day to day life.
UpperEast.com: How did you go from being a lawyer to being a writer? Tell us how the process went for you.
Janowitz: I became a lawyer because I loved to write. I practiced at a large law firm and also did a federal clerkship, but couldn’t find the perfect niche for myself in law. So, I decided to pursue my dream of being a fiction writer. Even while I’d been practicing law, I never let that dream go. I began working on my manuscript while I was still working full time as a lawyer—it took me around 6 to 9 months to complete. Since I had the basic idea for the story in my head, it flowed well for me. I knew the way I wanted the scenes to play out, the character arcs, and then from there, I just let things grow on their own. Basically, I wrote whenever I could. Instead of renting a movie on a rainy night, I would just sit and write. After 3 more months of editing, it took another 3 or 4 months to find an agent. It was a lot of rejection at first, but then I met Mollie Glick from the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency. It was an instant connection and I immediately knew that I wanted her to represent me. Mollie then took it from there and found the perfect home for my book with Selina McLemore at Red Dress Ink.
UpperEast.com: So you live and write on the Upper East Side, are there any parts of your book that take place there? Did anything from the Upper East provide inspiration during the writing process?
Janowitz: I’ve lived on the Upper East Side since 1998! I love how it has such a neighborhood-y feel to it; the Upper East Side feels like such a close knit community to me. I love how my dry cleaner asks me where I’ve been if he hasn’t seen me in a while. I get a lot of inspiration from places on the Upper East Side—I love to people watch in the park. Central Park is one of the best perks to living on the Upper East Side. In fact, I take my laptop with me to the park and write in the park whenever the weather’s nice!
Two characters in the book, Vanessa and her husband, Marcus, live on the Upper East Side. In one scene, Vanessa takes Brooke jogging on Writer’s Walk in Central Park. It’s one of my favorite places in the park and I just had to use it in the book. Another scene, which eventually had to be cut, took place at another favorite Upper East Side place of mine—JG Melon’s. Sadly, that part wound up in the scrap pile, but JG Melon’s is still my favorite place in the city for a burger and fries!
UpperEast.com: What are people’s reactions when you tell them you are an author? Are they worried that you will use their lives as fodder for your books?
Janowitz: Everyone keeps saying to me, “Is that going to be in your next book?” after they tell me some story. Either people want me to use their experience for the book or they preface telling me a story by warning me not to use it in my writing. But the truth is, ideas happen more organically for me. I use people’s emotions, but not the actual stories I hear.
UpperEast.com: Do you plan to practice law again or continue to write more books?
Janowitz: I have no immediate plans to go back into law. I am, however, working on writing a sequel, due out in April 2008, which revolves around a court case, so I’ll be using some of my legal background in the writing process. I’m going to reprise a lot of the same characters from this book in the sequel. I’m also teaching classes at Mediabistro on fiction writing - click here for more info.
UpperEast.com: What last thought do you want to covey to the readers of UpperEast.com about your book?
Janowitz: I had a lot of fun writing the book, I hope people have a lot of fun reading it. I want to make people laugh…a lot!
For more information on Brenda Janowitz, be sure to check out her website for the latest news on Scot on the Rocks, her book tour calendar, excerpts from the book and to purchase the book.
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