T.J. Newman Finds Freedom in Limitations

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Speaker 4 Welcome to the shit show. Things are going to get weird.

Speaker 4 It's your fave villain, Kale Lowry.

Speaker 4 And you're listening to Barely Famous.

Speaker 4 Hello, fuckers. Welcome back to another episode of Barely Fucking Famous.
I'm super excited today because you know I'm a book girly now.

Speaker 4 So I have TJ Newman, a New York Times best-selling author on the podcast today. And I'm super, super excited.

Speaker 4 I heard rumors online that her two of her first books were picked up for seven-figure motion picture deals and that's super exciting so I cannot wait to talk to her.

Speaker 4 TJ also just launched a new book called Worst Case Scenario, which I did get a copy of and I'm super excited. So let's welcome TJ Newman.

Speaker 4 Hello, TJ. Welcome to Barely Famous.

Speaker 5 Hi, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 4 Of course. And also, I absolutely love your book setup behind you.
That is exactly what my bookshelf looks like at home.

Speaker 5 Chaos. Just no order, no color coordinating here, knickknacks on top of, yeah, chaos.

Speaker 4 No, literally. And everyone always asked me to see pictures of my bookshelf.
And I'm like, I'm embarrassed, so I can't, but also I love it so much. And I know where everything is.

Speaker 5 Yeah. It's also like, this angle's fine.
You want to see this? I'll show you this. Like, spin the camera around.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no. We'll stick right to the camera ready section.
The rest is

Speaker 5 off limits.

Speaker 4 No, I hear you. I'm so excited to have you.
And congratulations on worst case scenario. That's so exciting.

Speaker 5 Thank you.

Speaker 4 Yes. And Kristen and I both received a copy of your book and I cannot wait to read it.

Speaker 4 But I want to talk about who you are because I was doing some research on like your background and things like that. And before you were an author, you were a flight attendant.

Speaker 4 Are you still a flight attendant?

Speaker 5 I am not. I was a flight attendant up until the point that my first book came out.
And my intention was actually to keep flying and just write,

Speaker 5 you know, on the planes, which is how I wrote my first book. But my intention was to keep flying because I loved the job.

Speaker 5 You can read any of my books and know that, like, they're just love letters to aviation and love letters to being a flight attendant. I

Speaker 5 loved it. And so, I wasn't planning on quitting, even, but then when my career took off, it became very clear that I was like, Well, I'm not going to be able to do both.

Speaker 5 So, I was a flight attendant for 10 years, and I only quit once I got my book deal for my first book.

Speaker 4 That's so exciting. And obviously, your most recent book is Worst Case Scenario.
And but prior to that, you have Falling and Drowning.

Speaker 4 But can we talk about the process that you went through to publish these books?

Speaker 4 Because I read some things, and obviously you can confirm or deny, you know, what's true and what's false, but that there was a rejection process that you went through, but you decided to just keep pushing through and keep trying to get your books published.

Speaker 5 True. Can confirm.
Very true. Very painful.
Very long, very uphill.

Speaker 5 When I sort of came onto the scene, you know, it's like everybody, I think, thought like it's easy to label someone like that, like someone that comes out of nowhere as like an overnight success, right?

Speaker 5 And I was an overnight success that took about 20 years to get to that point.

Speaker 5 I started out

Speaker 5 in New York trying to be an actress, and

Speaker 5 since we're not talking about my next Broadway show, I think you can assume how well that endeavor went.

Speaker 5 Clearly struck out, clearly failed as trying to be an actress.

Speaker 5 So I packed up, moved back home, moved in with my parents, did the whole like, you know, I'm in my mid-20s living in my childhood bedroom, not knowing what to do with my life.

Speaker 5 What do I do now routine? And that's when my mom said, you should get a job at Changing Hands bookstore, the local indie bookstore up the street. I'm a lifelong reader, lifelong writer.
I love it.

Speaker 5 Like, moms are always right, right? Let's just like get that out of the way. Listen to your mother.
Moms are always right.

Speaker 5 I got the job at Changing Hands

Speaker 5 and just remembered who I was in that world.

Speaker 5 And it allowed me to start dreaming again in a way, being you know, surrounded by people who love to read and love to talk about books and love to talk about stories and about craft.

Speaker 5 And so, my time at the store was when my dream of being a professional writer turned into a concrete goal.

Speaker 5 But I left the store because an opportunity came out to be a flight attendant. And my mom was a flight attendant, my sister was a flight attendant.
We call it the family business.

Speaker 5 Again, listen to your mother. So the opportunity came up, and I was like, I know I can't pass this up.
So I got a job with Virgin America as a flight attendant, was based in Los Angeles.

Speaker 5 And for 10 years, I flew, you know, non-stop for the airline. And it was at work on a plane that I had the idea for my first book.

Speaker 5 So I started writing it by hand in the forward galley on red-eye flights while my passengers slept because red-eyes were my jam, LA, New York. That was my well-trod path.

Speaker 5 And so I'd put the passengers to sleep. I'd get to work in the galley writing, and I wrote it by hand.
And then once I finally felt like,

Speaker 5 okay, I think I have, you know, the book 30-some drafts later, you know, as far as it can go,

Speaker 5 I want to see if I can get this published. Yeah.
But I didn't know anybody. I didn't know what to do.
I didn't have an in. I had no clue what to do.

Speaker 5 So I literally bought a book called The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published. And I read it and I followed the directions.
And step one, get a literary agent.

Speaker 5 Like you can't just go to a publisher and say,

Speaker 5 I got a great book. You would,

Speaker 5 you should publish it. It would be great.
You can't just do that. You need an agent who goes to a publisher and says that.
So I start submitting my work and a query letter.

Speaker 5 You know, the one page, just in case there's anybody listening who doesn't know the process, which I didn't,

Speaker 5 you need like a one-page query letter that basically says, This is who I am, this is what my book's about, this is why you should want to publish it. And

Speaker 5 you send it out to agents. And so I did that full of hope.
And

Speaker 5 the rejection started coming back. And

Speaker 5 everything was a no. No one wanted to touch it.

Speaker 5 41 rejections in a row.

Speaker 5 And on my 42nd submission, I got my one and only yes.

Speaker 4 But so, did you send out the query letter in a blast? Like it was like you know, you're just doing it all at the same time.

Speaker 5 No, each one, because like each agent has their own submission guidelines of what they're looking for, what they want. You have to personalize it.

Speaker 5 Everybody wants like just the query letter, or the first five pages, or the first three chapters, or everybody has a specific thing.

Speaker 5 So, each of those, like, what, and I was fine full-time as a flight attendant at the time.

Speaker 5 So, my days off were literally just I would come home and research what agents were representing what, what do they need, what they want, and like tailor these things and just send it out just all on your free time, you know, just hoping that someone will do this.

Speaker 5 And then just no, no, no, no, no. And by the time you're in the 40s of rejection, it gets really hard.
You start to believe it, right? You really start to believe, like,

Speaker 5 maybe, maybe this book isn't as good an idea as I thought it was. Maybe, you know, I'm not good enough.
I should probably listen to them and just stop this.

Speaker 4 Was there feedback with the no?

Speaker 5 A handful of them. And I understand that agents get queries all day, every day.
Their slush pile,

Speaker 5 that's what you call the stack of people that want to be represented by them is just, you know, to the ceiling. I get that.

Speaker 5 And I understand that agents don't have time to give the attention to every submission that they probably would like to and give them feedback and say, you know, this isn't for me and this is why.

Speaker 5 I had a couple who gave me some feedback, but for the most part, it was just a standard rejection form that you know probably, you know, 15 other people got that day as well.

Speaker 4 So after the first, we'll say, handful of no's, what was the reasoning to continue to submit?

Speaker 4 Like what kept you going?

Speaker 4 Because I feel I got rejected for my first book six times and I was if I didn't get that yes on the seventh time There's no way I would have continued I would have just given up I would have been like okay.

Speaker 4 I'm done

Speaker 5 I get it and I felt that way it was that conversation every single time right? It wasn't I

Speaker 5 I felt the pain of each one of those rejections, but I believed in this book and I knew that if I could get it with the right person and if I knew it would connect with audiences and I knew that they would appreciate the story in the way that I did.

Speaker 5 And it was that bedrock belief that kept me going. And every time I would get

Speaker 5 just right there to quitting, I would remind myself, I didn't come this far just to come this far.

Speaker 4 100%.

Speaker 5 And I keep going. It's like you look at all the work you took to get there and it's like, if I stop, it will have been for nothing.
I just need one yes.

Speaker 5 All of the no's will mean nothing once I find that one yes. And I just, I believed it was out there and I refused to stop until I found it.

Speaker 4 So is that what you ended up publishing or was that a separate book than Falling?

Speaker 5 Absolutely. No, that became my first book falling.
Once I got an agent, I did another, you know, like nearly 10 drafts.

Speaker 5 I did nearly like 40 drafts of that book before it was finally the finished, polished, final product that readers read now.

Speaker 5 I'd never written a book like that and I didn't know how to tell the story the way that I needed to tell it and wanted to tell it.

Speaker 5 So it took me a lot of trial and error and a lot of work to get there,

Speaker 5 but I got it.

Speaker 4 You did it. You freaking did it, which is so exciting.
And I'm sure that some of those publishing houses are probably kicking themselves now because look where you are.

Speaker 5 You know,

Speaker 5 I'm now, I'm grateful for them.

Speaker 5 I am now so grateful for each and every one of those rejections because it got me to the right person person who saw the vision that I saw and knew what this book could be. And we were in alignment.

Speaker 5 So I'm grateful for those rejections now. I don't know if that would have been my answer at the time, but

Speaker 5 now

Speaker 5 I'm grateful for them.

Speaker 4 So now, are we allowed to talk about two of your books being in

Speaker 4 potentially production? Are we allowed to talk about that?

Speaker 5 We're definitely allowed to talk about the movies. Now, how much information I'll be able to give may be limited.

Speaker 5 But yeah, both of my first books, Falling and Drowning, have movie deals attached to them. They're going to be made into movies, which is insane.

Speaker 4 How does that feel? How does that process work? Right. Because you have, we know, you know, Colleen Hoover has it ends with us, right?

Speaker 4 And I think, if I'm not mistaken, that book was written like 10 years ago. So 10 years later, she's getting a movie deal.
For you,

Speaker 4 do you submit the book to be put into production or how does that work like what is the process there?

Speaker 5 Once again, that's where the agent comes in. If this was up to me, like, I wouldn't know.
I'd still be, I'd be reading a book, you know, how to get your book turned into a movie, you know? Yeah,

Speaker 5 thank goodness my agent, somebody who actually knew what they were doing, stepped in.

Speaker 5 So, you know, every project has a

Speaker 5 different life, a different story. You know, you just mentioned Colleen Hoover's, and hers were written a decade ago, and now they're just making it to the screen.

Speaker 5 Mine, it was sort of like with the first one falling, it was

Speaker 5 a crazy heated bidding war process that my agent kind of just spearheaded and took on and took it out. And like every, it's all different.

Speaker 5 You can package it up with a director, with a something, or you can just like shop the rights. It's a whole world that I'm still feeling very new to.
So I can only kind of speak to my two experiences.

Speaker 5 But with

Speaker 5 Folly, my first book,

Speaker 5 he took it out.

Speaker 5 was on the phone constantly, negotiations and counteroffers and going back and forth and who's doing what, and all these things. And we ended up with Universal Pictures going with Falling.

Speaker 5 And with that, that movie, I'm actually adapting the script. I'm writing the script.

Speaker 4 You're kidding. That's so exciting.

Speaker 5 It's so exciting. And it has been such a wild learning experience to know, like, this story that took me like 40-some drafts to get where it needed to be to tell the story that I wanted to tell.

Speaker 5 Okay, how do I now take that book that took 300 pages to tell the story? And how do I tell it in 100 pages in a script? What works in a book and what works in a film?

Speaker 5 Like translating now this story that I know intimately forwards and backwards into something completely new again.

Speaker 5 Oh,

Speaker 5 it's a wild, incredible,

Speaker 5 incredible process that I've really loved.

Speaker 4 You go from 300 pages to 100 pages. So I guess that kind of explains why sometimes the book to motion picture adaptations are slightly different from,

Speaker 4 you know, the book itself because there has to be changes because you have a shorter amount of time to kind of play the whole story out. So that makes a huge amount of sense to me now.

Speaker 4 I never even knew that.

Speaker 5 100%. It's the art of compression because you just have like the luxury of real estate on the page in a book that you don't have in a script.
And also too,

Speaker 5 in a book, I feel like it's a pretty, I love books. Obviously, I love movies.
Obviously, both are the loves of my life.

Speaker 5 I feel like a very standard answer is: oh, I like the book better. And people feel like there's something that's lost in the translation.
And I think that

Speaker 5 we don't realize that, like, in the book, we get the benefit of being inside the character's head, right? Like, we are experiencing those things with them because they're telling them.

Speaker 5 They're saying, I'm feeling this and I'm feeling that. And so we feel it with them.
So we're a part of it.

Speaker 5 You're also, as a reader, an active participant in painting the picture because you're creating the movie in your mind of what's happening.

Speaker 5 And so, translating something to the screen, which is solely a visual medium, we don't know what the actor, what the character is thinking.

Speaker 5 We just see what they do and we infer from their actions what they're feeling and thinking. And so, they're just two different mediums.

Speaker 5 So, trying to translate that, of like, how do I show that what this character is thinking in a way that

Speaker 5 you can only see it in a film. You can't feel it and know it like you do in a book when you're told.

Speaker 4 So, when you're writing and then ultimately reading, and you kind of imagine all the characters in your head, what they look like, their personality traits, and things like that, how does that that change when you are in production for a movie?

Speaker 4 Does it sort of change?

Speaker 4 Like, I don't know how far you are in the process and I don't know if you're allowed to speak to that, but maybe like for casting and things like that, does how you imagined it while writing and reading change with the casting of characters in a full production?

Speaker 5 I think for me, both for writing a screenplay and for writing a book, because I get asked that question all the time, like, you know, who did you, who did you envision when you were writing, you know, the book?

Speaker 5 And it's like, I work really hard to not envision anybody. One, because it's like,

Speaker 5 certainly with my first book, like I, I had no, like, I wanted to get that book published, but I was not like, and then it will become a movie. Like, that wasn't really, you know what I mean?

Speaker 5 Like, that's sort of, and I don't feel that way with any of my books. It's like, that is,

Speaker 5 I'm so grateful for everything that's happened. I have.
zero sense of entitlement that any of this is a given. Everything is a gift and everything is only there because I work that hard.

Speaker 5 So, that sort of entitlement of like, and then I'll become a movie, like, that's not a part of my creative process because it's, that just feels insane to me. So, I never

Speaker 5 work really hard to never envision anybody specific when I'm doing these characters because, like,

Speaker 5 if I'm envisioning Harrison Ford when I'm writing a character, I'm going to write Harrison Ford. I'm not going to write the character.
A character is played by an actor, not the other way around.

Speaker 5 So when I write, I write for that character. And then if I'm fortunate enough that it will become a movie, whatever actor,

Speaker 5 you know, takes over the life of that character will bring themselves to it.

Speaker 4 No, that makes complete sense to me. It also kind of gives

Speaker 4 a chance for more people to kind of fit the character, right? Like when you're casting, because you know, you're open, more open-minded, I would say. There's not like this specific

Speaker 4 aesthetic I guess you know what I mean so that that definitely could leave you more open-minded for casting I think that's that's really cool um do you get to help cast the movies at all

Speaker 5 I

Speaker 5 I'm tight-lipped on some things I'm not sure what I'm allowed to say and yeah so yeah I just feel like every time any decision making any sort of any time I'm in the room in the process is to me just a still like I'm looking around going how did I go from handwriting in the galley of a plane while people were sleeping in the middle of the night to rejection to being in this room having being a part of this conversation?

Speaker 5 It's weird. It's really good.

Speaker 4 It really feels so surreal. Like, am I here? Can someone pinch me?

Speaker 4 I love that, though. That's so exciting.
So, when you wrote your first book, Falling in the Galley of the Plane, is that on the plane?

Speaker 5 Yeah, that's like the area where the carts are kept, where the flight attends the carts. And yeah, and where we prepare the food and the drinks and stuff like that.
That's that's the galley.

Speaker 5 And there's one,

Speaker 5 depending on the aircraft, they're all over the plane, but one in the front and one in the back. And I usually worked up in first class, so I was always by myself and the one in the front.

Speaker 4 So I was a

Speaker 4 regular on the on the red eye flight from LA to New York. So I'm one, or I guess it was Philly, so I wouldn't have been on your flights, which is so funny.

Speaker 4 I thought maybe I maybe we crossed paths before this. I don't know.

Speaker 5 But I used to be a regular on those flights. Oh, no, no, no.
I love flying to Philly. Are you from Philly? Do you live in Philly?

Speaker 4 I live in Delaware and that's our closest airport.

Speaker 5 That was okay. Let me tell you, when we started flying to Philadelphia,

Speaker 5 we could not get enough of those flights. The LA Philly flights went so senior because like people loved flying them.

Speaker 5 The people that were on those planes, I mean, you know, it's a very specific type of people. Yes.
And they usually come on like

Speaker 5 expecting a fight during boarding.

Speaker 5 And as soon as they realize that, like, which is a very Philly trait, and I say this with total love in my heart, I think Philadelphia is the most underrated city in this country.

Speaker 5 I love Philadelphia, and I love the people that live there, but they would always board the aircraft, like spoiling for a fight. They were ready to go.
They thought it was going to be a challenge.

Speaker 5 And when we were like,

Speaker 5 nah, we're, we're just, this is cool. Like, we're going to have a good time.
Like, sit down. We got the TV.
We got food. Put on your headphones.
Just like relax. It's gonna be great.

Speaker 5 As soon as everybody figured that out, it was like the best vibes on the plane. And the city of Philadelphia, those layovers, we had so much fun on those layovers.

Speaker 4 The airport is crazy, though. The actual airport itself, I'm like, I love Philly so much, like, but this airport, we got to do something with it.
We got to do something with it.

Speaker 5 Hey, my base is LAX, so trust me, that's like the worst designed airport in the entire country. Maybe the entire world.
It is maybe the worst airport in the world. Love it.

Speaker 5 Love it dearly, but yeah, I hear you on that.

Speaker 4 I love, I also love Elliot. It's like a love-hate relationship.
You know what I mean? Yes. You know, you already know.
So, wait, so you did the first book falling in a galley.

Speaker 4 What about the second book? What was your writing process for drowning?

Speaker 5 The writing process for drowning, I was no longer working. I was just home being a full-time writer, which is a huge adjustment because

Speaker 5 like if I'm if I'm writing on a plane, I'm inherently limited in what I can do, right? I've got probably 15 minutes before somebody needs something. And that's if I'm lucky on a red eye.

Speaker 5 You know, somebody's going to ring their call button, somebody's going to need something. So it's kind of like you force yourself to focus and get stuff done.

Speaker 5 When you're writing at home and you're your own boss, and there's no clock, and nobody's, and I live by myself, so like nobody's interrupting me, it sounds like the most ideal writing experience an author can imagine.

Speaker 5 And it was a new challenge to have to figure out how to

Speaker 5 put those constraints on myself so that I could be productive. I had a mentor who once told me to truly set a cow free, you must build a fence around it.

Speaker 5 And I've always kind of like kept that in my head of like, I am more free if I have limitations.

Speaker 5 And if you look at the characters on my books and the stories, I realized that that actually helped on the book because

Speaker 5 when you write a story that's only on a plane, there's only so much that can happen. There's no new characters really being introduced.
There's not any new resources and tools coming in.

Speaker 5 They're limited by what they have right there in front of them. And so, yeah, finding those

Speaker 5 that new writing process took me a minute, but I've figured it out now, I think.

Speaker 4 And was the second one, the second writing process different or similar to worst-case scenario?

Speaker 5 Totally different. So with Falling, I knew nothing of the story.
I had the central

Speaker 5 like conflict. I knew what the story was about, which was a pilot finds out mid-flight that his family has been taken and that if he does not crash the plane, they'll be killed.
What does he do?

Speaker 5 That was, I knew that, and I knew nothing else. So, I just started writing, and I worked my characters in and out of their problems by trial and error.
And that's what's called in the writing world.

Speaker 5 If nobody knows this, there's pants and plotters. That's what's called being a pantser, where you write by the seat of your pants.

Speaker 5 And the story just sort of evolves as the characters tell you what they need and what the story needs.

Speaker 5 Then there's plotting, which is, you know, you ahead of time have a roadmap and you know exactly what it's going to be. You know what the story is, you know where it's going.

Speaker 5 You've plotted it all out so it makes sense. I did that with drowning and also with worst case scenario.

Speaker 5 I was deeply a plotter, had like 50 to 60 page outlines before I ever sat down to put pen to paper, and I knew exactly what was going to happen before I started that. Falling took me years and like,

Speaker 5 you know, nearly 40 drafts to get to a finished product.

Speaker 5 Drowning, and worst-case scenario,

Speaker 5 I mean, drowning I wrote, I think, in like 15 months, 16 months, something like that. Worst case scenario, I think I wrote in like

Speaker 5 five, I want to say.

Speaker 4 So I'm my process is is getting honed and I'm I'm now I'm feeling a little bit like okay I'm I've sort of these aren't completely new skills to me I'm getting a handle on it well that's exciting right because you're like okay I know you find what works for you what doesn't work for you and then it becomes but I I'm curious to know like when you write your fourth I'm assuming there will probably be a fourth not to put plans in your own in your future for you but if there's a fourth is it possible that it could take longer even though you kind of have that what works for you Absolutely.

Speaker 5 I mean, I think each writing process I found is a completely different process.

Speaker 5 Even if drowning and worst-case scenario were a little bit more akin in how I did that, how I got to both of those stories and executed them was completely different too.

Speaker 5 And I think the life of every story will have its own needs that it demands of you as an artist as you bring it to life.

Speaker 5 And also, what's happening in your own life at that time that gets infused into the work.

Speaker 4 Do you think that you have allowed any of your own characteristics or personality traits to seep into characters in your books?

Speaker 5 I think that's probably impossible to avoid, right? Like,

Speaker 5 since these are all people coming from my head, I don't think it would be possible to separate myself that completely from all of them.

Speaker 5 But I also don't feel like in any of my characters, like this character is me. Or there's nothing like that.
But I think there's a little bit of me in all of them.

Speaker 5 And I feel like this book, worst case scenario, probably

Speaker 5 more than the other two has a little bit of me in the characters and in most of the characters and in this world. It was a it was a tough book to write and a deeply personal book to write.

Speaker 4 Well, I mean, that's exciting though, that it's so different and it's the newest one. And I'm, I don't know, I'm so happy for you.
I, when I got the first of all, the cover is stunning.

Speaker 4 I wish I had it right here in my hotel room. The cover is absolutely stunning.
I love it. We're suckers for good covers over here.

Speaker 4 Do you think that you will stick in the kind of like aircraft realm for another book in the future if you continue writing?

Speaker 5 You know, it's a great question.

Speaker 5 The all three books, and all three covers, actually, if you, I love holding them up together because like they all have a plane front and center on them and various forms of of distress, if you will.

Speaker 5 It makes kind of like an unofficial plane trilogy, which is really nice. And this book is actually pretty different from the first two in that,

Speaker 5 and this isn't a spoiler because it happens in the first five pages, but the plane crashes at the end of the fifth page.

Speaker 5 And that's the end of that. which is a massive departure from the first two, which take place entirely on the plane.

Speaker 5 This one, worst-case scenario, opens with a crisis on a plane, which results in a plane crash, and the plane crashing into

Speaker 5 a nuclear power plant.

Speaker 5 And so, the story for this book follows everything that happens on the ground, which was a huge departure from the other two. And it was, you know, me as a writer wanting to go, okay,

Speaker 5 I'm going to stick my toe in this water of like, can I, can I do the same thing? You know, I was talking about those limitations before.

Speaker 5 Can I still do this if I remove those limitations of the plane?

Speaker 5 If I, you know, pull back, if I widen the lens to show an entire community and not just an entire community of a small town, but how that small town interplays with the entire country and then the global community.

Speaker 5 Like, can I do that as a writer? And will my audience go with me who have been so supportive of this plane world that I've established?

Speaker 5 Will they stick with me if I sort of branch out into something else? And

Speaker 5 so far, the reception has been incredibly positive. And I think the readers are along for the ride and with me, which is exciting.
So, where it goes from here, I don't, I don't know.

Speaker 5 I got a million stories

Speaker 5 to tell that are on a plane. I mean, you don't be a flight attendant for 10 years and only come up with like three good ideas.
I got a lot more to work with, trust me.

Speaker 5 But I've also got a lot of other stories, you know, that don't involve planes. So I don't know.
We'll see where it goes from here.

Speaker 4 Have you you been in seriously scary situations being a flight attendant that you pulled any inspo from?

Speaker 5 Luckily, I'll say this. Luckily, I've never been in an incident that is like a TJ Newman level incident.
Like if

Speaker 5 the incidents in my book, like

Speaker 5 God help us if we ever hit those levels of

Speaker 5 crisis on a plane. So I've never been in anything like that.
But like every,

Speaker 5 yeah, there's every day there's an inciting incident on a plane, and it can be as small as, you know,

Speaker 5 some, you know,

Speaker 5 a passenger that seems,

Speaker 5 appears to be intoxicated, as we call it in the industry. That's what we label it as, appears to be intoxicated.

Speaker 5 You may think just one drunk passenger is no big deal. You have no idea how that's going to evolve.

Speaker 5 And if you're, you're in the air, you're miles up in the air, you can't get out, like, what's going to happen next?

Speaker 5 And those situations and living in that moment of tension happen pretty much every day on every flight, right? You never know when the most benign thing can evolve into something truly catastrophic.

Speaker 5 And I think that as a writer, like, that's where my brain and my imagination is already geared that way. But being in that environment every single day really hone that skill of like,

Speaker 4 what's going to go sideways and how bad can get can this get and what am I and what are they going to do right right and you just probably never know what you're going to get on a day-to-day basis which is so interesting because I feel like there are some jobs just in our everyday lives that you know it's it's pretty routine but I can't imagine what you've seen on flights like I cannot imagine the smallest thing ends up being you know a pretty big deal Completely.

Speaker 5 Play it the next time you're on a plane.

Speaker 5 Just like sit there and like look at the people around you and think, okay, if something goes down, if something happens right now, what's that guy over there gonna do? What

Speaker 5 is what's he like? What's what is she gonna do? And just like play that game. And it's like, it's really interesting to start thinking about, you know,

Speaker 5 how we can go from complete strangers to suddenly being like, we're all in this together. Like that.
And it can happen in an instant. And if it does, what are these people around you going to do?

Speaker 5 It's fun. Try it the next time you're on a plane.

Speaker 4 I'll try it on a lower scale. I don't, I can't, my way my anxiety is set up, I would have to just think of like funny things.
Like, what are they going to do if this happens? You know what I mean?

Speaker 5 Totally, totally. Well, somebody's got to be the class clown, somebody's got to be the comic relief.
Yeah, me.

Speaker 4 It could be me.

Speaker 4 Okay, so what are some authors that you loved when you were growing up? Maybe when you were working at the bookstore or, you know, kind of in the writing process with falling,

Speaker 5 you know, my like, my North star, my creative North star that I read growing up, well, I've read my whole life, but was particularly, you know, influential as a kid was Michael Crichton.

Speaker 5 He's the king of the massive, you know, action thriller. And I remember reading Jurassic Park and watching Jurassic Park the movie, and it

Speaker 5 blew my mind open creatively in a way that I didn't know was possible. As soon as, like, something clicked in my brain once I realized that you could do something like bringing dinosaurs back

Speaker 5 to now with us. And it was like, something clicked in my brain that was like,

Speaker 5 oh, there's no limit. Like, there is no limit to what we can do.
And it like, it just connected something and gave me permission to like

Speaker 5 try anything that I wanted to do. So Michael Crichton, his entire,

Speaker 5 his entire life's work is, is probably the most influential on me. But I don't read just straight thrillers.
I read everything. And I think that's really important to read.

Speaker 5 all genres and and watch all genres of movies because you never know what is going to teach you something and what is going to give you inspiration for for something. And also, just what do you enjoy?

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 5 I love, you know, thrillers. It's clearly my bread and butter.
This is how my brain works. These are the stories I love.

Speaker 5 Give me a Nora Efron and Nancy Myers rom-com any day, and I'll be able to quote them backwards. You know,

Speaker 5 it's all of the above. It's got to be balanced.

Speaker 4 I definitely have also experienced that. Like just thinking I was, I thought I was always a thriller girly.
Like I thought that was all me all day. And then I dabbled in like historical fiction.

Speaker 4 And I was like, wait, I love this. Why do I love this? This is, I never in a million years would have pictured myself being a historical fiction girly.

Speaker 4 And then it's kind of like you said, like, it just opens this world of imagination in a different way. And so you just surprise yourself kind of being open-minded to what you read.

Speaker 4 I think it changes everything.

Speaker 5 Completely. And I think we're...

Speaker 5 I think we're moving towards finally getting to the point that people are really giving themselves permission to like what they like

Speaker 5 and not be limited by what they should like or what everybody around them is liking.

Speaker 5 And it's a challenge that I faced in my career in that like, I don't look like the person that writes the stories that I write.

Speaker 4 So do you get interesting reactions when people put a face to your name?

Speaker 5 Oh, I get all the time, you're a girl? Like, you're a woman? Like, you're female? Like, I thought you were a dude. Because, like, yeah, there's a lot of explosions.

Speaker 5 These are big action thrillers. Like, my favorite movies are The Dark Knight and Casino Royale and Top Gun Maverick.
Like, that's what I love, but I look

Speaker 5 like me. I'm a girl, you know, who gets her, you know, nails done, you know, all the time.
Like, like, that,

Speaker 5 there's a certain incongruence that... has been a challenge to overcome but like

Speaker 5 i know i'm not alone i know i'm not the only woman who loves these types of stories and wants to read these types of things.

Speaker 5 And it's been a challenge to sort of get that message across because I don't fit in a box cleanly. But I feel like, as

Speaker 5 we're moving towards just being like, yeah, read what you want, watch what you want, write what you want, create the art that you connect with because that's what's authentic and that's what readers will respond to.

Speaker 5 And I get all the time, you know, like the my favorite thing is the father-in-law father-in-law stamp of approval. People will be like, my father-in-law read your books and he loved them.

Speaker 5 And I'm like, oh my God, I got the father-in-laws. That's such, that's such a huge vote of approval.
I so appreciate that.

Speaker 5 And then I'll have like, you know, a Gen Z girl say, I sobbed the last, you know,

Speaker 5 quarter of the book. I just sobbed hysterically.
Like to be able to reach both of those audiences means the world.

Speaker 5 Because look, if we want to talk historical fiction, like you just said, and action thrillers and romantic and any of these genres,

Speaker 5 they're all ultimately telling the same stories, which are themes of, you know, love, hope, sacrifice, community. Like, it's all the same thing, just told through a different lens.
And I think

Speaker 5 finding sort of the work that connects with you is we're moving towards that. And I'm hopeful that people will, you know, just continue to move towards finding their

Speaker 5 audience and their creators.

Speaker 4 When you said that people will, you know, find out that you're a woman and be shocked,

Speaker 4 do you go by TJ prior to becoming a writer, or did you do that on purpose?

Speaker 5 It is my name. So my name is Tori Jan.

Speaker 5 That's my real name. But I've gone my whole life by TJ too, both of them, both Tori and TJ and Tori Jan.
So it's not like a pen name. It is my name.

Speaker 5 But I went with that because,

Speaker 5 not because of the gender thing, not because I wanted to fool anybody into thinking I was a dude writing a book. I went with it because,

Speaker 5 like, surprise, open up the back flap and you'll see my picture. Like,

Speaker 5 it's not exactly a secret. Um, I went by the name TJ because I wanted just that little bit of space between what was out public and who I am in private because it's scary to put yourself out there.

Speaker 5 I mean, you know, this you're you are out constantly. And I'm, I'm in awe of the way that you sort of bear yourself and put yourself out there for the public.
And

Speaker 5 it's scary, right?

Speaker 5 It's so scary.

Speaker 5 So scary. And when I was putting out Falling, like, it was such a terrifying thing to just be like, this is my creative work.
These are my thoughts and feelings. This is who I am.
This terrifies me.

Speaker 5 I want just just like an arm's length from that fear.

Speaker 5 So I'm going to go by Tori and keep, or by TJ and keep Tori for me and for my family and my friends and this life before kind of everything changed. So that is the real reason why I did it.

Speaker 4 Yeah. I mean.
TJ is like your professional. I mean, obviously you said that you go by that.
You went by that before, but I kind of feel that way about Kale versus my full name, Kaylin.

Speaker 4 I just feel like the people who knew me before I was on TV and before I had a public presence can call me Kaylin. And anyone after that is like, I'm Kale.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 4 Just like a little bit of a difference. And it's sort of almost as like a double life.
Maybe not for you, but I do understand where you're coming from.

Speaker 5 Completely. And I use it.
Tell me if you do this too. Like, I use it as a shorthand for myself and for the people who love me to check in with myself.
I'll be like,

Speaker 5 like, right now

Speaker 5 I am less than two weeks from publication date, and everything is this book, and this world, and all of that. All of my focus and attention is on TJ.
TJ is getting everything right now.

Speaker 5 It's helpful for me to check in sometimes and be like, how is Tori doing?

Speaker 5 What does Tori need right now? Right. Because there's just that slight, slightly different hat that I put on.

Speaker 5 And it's a nice shorthand for me to be able to check in with that aspect of myself to make sure that that's still there too and is still okay.

Speaker 5 Do do you do that kind of?

Speaker 4 Now that you put it that way, I think so. I just never really kind of

Speaker 4 said it out loud like that. It was just like, yeah, like this is, I mean, my best friend also works for me and she would be like, you know,

Speaker 4 how are you doing? You know what I mean? And so it's, I don't think that I ever made that connection with the names that way, but yeah, 100%.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 5 100%.

Speaker 5 Yeah, it's just kind of a nice way to be able to pick up and put down those different aspects of ourselves, which we all have, regardless of if you're a public-facing person, we all have those different personas that we use in different situations.

Speaker 5 And Tori has remained the most intimate part of just me. And so, I use that to check in.

Speaker 4 Well, I love that, and I think that's great. I hope other people that are listening to this can kind of maybe they need that and they needed to hear that to do the same thing.

Speaker 5 I love that. Yeah, maybe, I mean, they may not have a pen name like TJ, but they do have a name like mom.

Speaker 5 And that's another thing: look, mom is right now doing everything. How is

Speaker 5 the individual name before?

Speaker 5 How am who I was before I became mom? It's the same. It's the exact same.
It's the exact same thing.

Speaker 4 100%. So are you currently reading anything right now? And if so, what are you reading?

Speaker 5 Currently reading. Yes, I am finishing.
I just finished The Gunkle Abroad. I don't know if you read.

Speaker 4 I haven't read it, but I think it is on my TBR. I'm on Goodreads all the time.
I literally update that daily. Probably every 10 pages I read, I update it.
So I think it is on my TBR.

Speaker 4 And they have like the really bright covers.

Speaker 5 Yep. I know exactly what you're looking at.
Yep, I just finished that and it's wonderful. I actually liked it better than the gunk.
Loved both of them.

Speaker 5 Loved both of them, but I like the gunkle abroad more.

Speaker 5 It takes place in Italy, which is just, and I haven't been able to take a vacation, so maybe I was also just living vicariously through this fabulous vacation that they take in Italy.

Speaker 4 I just started Strange Sally Diamond last night, and I don't know if you've heard of that.

Speaker 4 A friend of mine, I had not seen it anywhere. Like, I didn't see it on social media.
My friend mentioned it to me. She kind of gave me the description, and I was like, oh, okay.
It is

Speaker 4 a wild ride. So if you ever are finding yourself looking for something that is like, you're going to be mind blown, I highly recommend Strange Sally Diamond.

Speaker 4 I'm about 100, maybe 115 pages in, and it's pretty crazy.

Speaker 4 Speaking of like social media and things like that, how has social media impact you as an author and kind of propelling your books into like sales and like in the general public eye?

Speaker 5 Absolutely. It's

Speaker 5 so interesting because like publishing used to be like as a writer,

Speaker 5 you write the book, you submit it to your publisher, they put it out.

Speaker 5 When it comes out, you maybe do a tour, you know, it was like you do a couple interviews for a couple trade magazines, and that was sort of like it.

Speaker 5 And that form of publishing a book and that form of being a writer is just almost non-existent anymore. And especially being someone who debuted only in this era, it's like you have to do all of it.

Speaker 5 You have to be marketing and social media and you have to have presence and you have to put out there like all of this stuff. It's, it's,

Speaker 5 it's such a more,

Speaker 5 which I love, quite frankly, because like I'm a P I love interviews.

Speaker 5 I could do this all day long. I'm a people person.
I like to talk. Like, this is great for me.
I love this. So

Speaker 5 it's been really cool, I think, not just for my books, but for so many books to be able to reach audiences.

Speaker 5 And the TikTok audience is a great example of this, where it's like things have just caught on that probably wouldn't have if it was up to just the people at like a publisher deciding what's going to get the support and what's going to get put out there.

Speaker 5 And social media has really, you know,

Speaker 5 democratized the

Speaker 5 book discovery

Speaker 5 and support systems that surround it.

Speaker 5 And I think that's cool. I think that's really cool that readers are finding their people and that writers are finding their fans.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 5 I think it's great.

Speaker 5 I think it's really, really cool.

Speaker 5 It's a challenge as an an elder millennial. Like, I

Speaker 5 have a TikTok account and I get on it, and I love it, and I, I, I look at the content that's on TikTok, and I look at what everybody does, and I think it's the coolest thing ever, but I'm just like, am I too old?

Speaker 5 Like, how do I

Speaker 4 know? I absolutely love following authors on like social media, Abby Jimenez, Jodi Pico.

Speaker 4 She did, um, Jodi Pico did a whole TikTok on how to pronounce her last name, and I just loved it because it puts like a personality and a person behind the name, name.

Speaker 5 Right.

Speaker 4 You know what I mean?

Speaker 5 I do. I do.
And I, I, I, I love that. And I think it's great.
I think it's wonderful for books. And like, look, people are reading.
And I think that's, you know, that's the goal.

Speaker 5 And that's, I'm, I think it's great. I think it's wonderful.

Speaker 4 I agree. I also love that I find other book talkers who will get on and be like, here's some, you know, five of the most underrated books that I've come across.

Speaker 4 And it kind of puts them on the map more, I feel, than, you know, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have heard of this book maybe if it wasn't for that book talker, you know, so that's kind of exciting.

Speaker 4 And then I immediately go over to Goodreads and then I'll add it to my list, and then everyone on your Goodreads will see it. So it kind of I think helps,

Speaker 4 you know, with that. I think that's kind of nice.

Speaker 5 I was just going to second that. I second that motion, yeah.

Speaker 4 Where can people find you on social media or where can they, you know, get your books? Would you mind sharing that with us?

Speaker 5 I would be thrilled to.

Speaker 5 They can find my books anywhere books are sold. Okay.

Speaker 5 Yeah, like literally anywhere books are sold. You can find my books.
I publish under the name TJ Newman. And my Instagram is TJ underscore author.

Speaker 5 My TikTok is

Speaker 5 TJ underscore Newman.

Speaker 5 And my Twitter

Speaker 5 or X or whatever we're calling it these days is T underscore J underscore Newman.

Speaker 4 And worst case scenario comes out August 13th.

Speaker 5 August 13th. That's right.

Speaker 4 Awesome. Thank you so much for being on Fairly Famous.
I love talking to you.

Speaker 5 Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 4 Of course.

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