Let It Glow - Live from Book Tour with Marissa Meyer and Joanne Levy

Marissa and Joanne get together to tape this special episode (less than 24 hours after they met in person for the very first time!) as they embark on their LET IT GLOW tour! They answer listener-submitted questions on topics like their origin stories, the origin story for LET IT GLOW, writing fanfiction, the inside story on their collaboration, what they love about the characters, their favorite scenes and what they loved best about the process, how they started working together, a couple favorite holiday reads, and so much more.

For Lunar Chronicles and Renegades questions see Episode 200: Marissa’s AMA episode: https://www.buzzsprout.com/950767/episodes/15212600-ask-me-anything-marissa-meyer-talks-writing-books-life-and-more-for-our-200th-episode-celebration 

The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming: A Christmas Story

https://bookshop.org/a/11756/9781952119613

How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

https://bookshop.org/a/11756/9780394800790 

The LET IT GLOW playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0putR6JHGHk0dcLwmEutqu 

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Transcript

Marissa: Hello and welcome to the Happy Writer. This is a podcast that aims to bring readers more books to enjoy and to help authors find more joy in their writing. I am your host, Marissa Meyer. Thanks for joining us Today. We are broadcasting this live from the Let It Glow Book Tour. Or actually, not live. Not technically live. We're definitely recording this in advance.

Joanne: We are live, but we are in person.

Marissa: Joanne and I are hanging out in my hotel room, getting ready to go to our very first book signing in a couple hours for Let It Glow, which as that when you guys hear this, it will have just come out last week. So, Joanne, we're so excited. Excited. I'm so happy to meet you in person. We literally just met each other in person for the very first time last night.

Joanne: Very first time. And what a joy that was. I was glowing. Were you glowing?

Marissa: We are glowing. This is the Let It Glow Tour.

Joanne: The Let It Glow Tour. We are glowing. There's glitter everywhere, and we're so excited.

Marissa: I know, I know. I was telling Joanne because I'm. I'm dressed up. I'm very festive in my. My Christmas dress, and I've got tinsel in my hair, and we've both got, like, these really fun holiday headbands, and I feel a little bit like holiday Barbie. It's like the tour. Dress up tour I've always wanted.

Joanne: So exciting. And I don't know about you, but I'm planning on getting lots of pictures of our holiday outfits, and we're going to.

Marissa: Oh, good idea.

Joanne: Yeah. And do a big album of all the goofiness.

Marissa: Yeah. I'm really bad when it comes to taking pictures of myself on tour. So you can keep me honest on this one.

Joanne: We'll do our best.

Marissa: Yeah. And, like, stories and how people always do, like, the selfies and put them in Instagram stories and.

Joanne: And maybe even an album.

Marissa: What are you going to do with an album?

Joanne: Well, not a printed album. Oh, online.

Marissa: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, at the top of the Instagram feed, there's, like, those buttons. You can. I never do anything with those. Mine are, like, five years old now.

Joanne: You know what you're going to do.

Marissa: There you go. All right, we're super excited. Today is our Let It Glow, Ask Me Anything, Ask Us Anything episode. So if you are following along on Instagram here. A couple weeks ago, we had listeners submit their questions, and we're going to be answering some of them. But before we start, you guys know what I like to ask every guest. Joanna and I are going to talk about Our origin stories. And we're going to talk a little bit about the origin story for this book in particular.

Joanne: That's a super fun origin story. So. So I will start with my origin story, but I will make it kind of short because it is a very long origin story. So way back forever ago, I started writing. I had a job where I had lots of time, and I started writing because I was bored. And I wrote an adult novel and I thought I would get it published. And I thought back then it was going to be a lot easier than it ended up being. Fast forward, I think 14 books and my first. So the first book that actually got real interest was called Small Medium at large.

Marissa: Okay, so 14 manuscripts. Like 14 books published. You got 14. You wrote 14 books.

Joanne: Okay, yes. So 14 manuscripts. So one of them was called Small Medium at Large. And it was a YA novel about a girl who got hit by lightning and could then hear ghosts. And it was a really funny story. And my agent at the time submitted it to publishers and nobody wanted to buy it except one publisher. One editor came back and said, oh, would you consider writing it as a middle grade? And I had never even thought of writing it as a middle grade. And I don't have kids, so I hadn't read middle grades since I had read Judy Blume books when I was a tween. So I said no. And I. I just didn't envision it as a. For a younger audience. So on we went in, the book didn't sell. And a year later, that same editor came back and said, oh, we remembered this and we loved it. Would you consider rewriting it as a middle grade? And I thought, you know, if this editor came back a year later and had remembered the book, then maybe I should give it a go. So she actually, her and her assistant actually sent me a box of middle grade books and sent me some ideas for other ones. Long story short, I rewrote the book as a middle grade and they decided not to buy it.

Marissa: That's a very anticlimactic.

Joanne: Yeah, it was. It was very hard to get beyond that because I thought it was a done deal and they decided just not to buy it. So I said to my agent, a new agent at the time, you can try and sell it, put it under the bed. I don't care what you do. I was, I was a little damaged by that. I said, but I don't want to edit it again. I don't want to do anything with it. If you can sell it, go ahead. And so she put it out on submission. And I think it was about a year later that an editor at Bloomsbury said, I love it. I want a few changes, but I do love it. And I made the changes and she bought it. So that was my first book that came out in 2012, and that was Small, Medium At Large as a middle grade.

Marissa: And now Let It Glow is number nine.

Joanne: I believe it's my ninth. And I know listeners are going to go, how do you not know?

Marissa: Oh, my gosh, now I've totally lost out.

Joanne: But I also did two under a pen name as a IP project, which is intellectual property. So the publisher gave me the outlines and a pen name and said, go write these books. So I always never know whether to count those or not count those. And so I think this is under my name, my ninth published novel.

Marissa: Okay. I think Let It Glow for me might be 18, but again, like, I don't know, do you count the short story collections? Do I count the graphic novels? How about the coloring books? Like, it does get a little. There's some gray areas. And when we start counting up the books. Okay, so my origin story, which I think was actually one of the questions submitted for us today, because evidently I have not talked about it on this podcast.

Joanne: Yes. And lots of people always want to know. So let's hear your origin story.

Marissa: So my origin story, way back when I was a wee lass, I had a really overactive imagination. And I because of this overactive imagination, when I was a little kid, I had a lot of trouble sleeping at night because I would just lay in bed or I would get out of bed and I would pace back and forth in my bedroom and I had all of these stories and these characters in my head and these adventures going on, and I just couldn't turn my brain off. And at some point I got the idea to start writing these stories down. And lo and behold, suddenly I could sleep at night. And so that was really great. And mom stopped being so worried about me. And so I started writing stories when I was honestly four or five, six years old and never stopped. And then I kind of started to get more serious about it when I was 14 and discovered Sailor Moon fan fiction. And I started writing fanfic and wrote it for 10 plus years. And that for me, is kind of what I credit with learning how to write a complete story. Because in the fanfiction, anyone who's spent any time in the fanfiction world knows that, like, it's so common that you start reading a story and the author gets halfway through it and then just gets bored and stops posting. And I hated that. And I vowed that I would never do that to my readers. So if I started posting a story, I always finished it. And so it really taught me to write on deadline because I tried to post once a week. It taught me to push through those difficult times, those murky middles, and how to write a complete story all the way through to the end. And I wrote, I don't know, something like 50 or 60 fanfics over those 10 years. And at some point in there, I realized, like, I really want to do this for a living. I'd like to get paid to do this at some point. And so I started writing novels, attempting to write original novels, but I would start one and then I'd be like, ah, this isn't working, or I'm no good, or this is cliche, blah, blah, blah. And I just go back to writing fanfic. And so I think I had six attempted novels over those 10 years, and I never finished any of those. But when it comes to fanfic, tons and tons of finished stories. And then one day there was this writing contest happening on a Sailor Moon website. And the woman who was running the contest had a list of 10 things. And you had to choose two things from the list to include in a short story. And so from her list, I chose to set my story in the future and to include a fairy tale character. And I wrote this short story that was like a Sailor Moon mashed up with like, Star wars and Star Trek and Puss in Boots, which is one of my favorite fairy tales. And I did not win the contest, but it gave me this idea of combining fairy tales and science fiction, which are two things that I really love. So I started thinking, well, maybe I will write an entire series of futuristic fairy tales. And a few months later, I had the idea for a cyborg Cinderella. And Cinder was the first original novel that I ever finished and of course, went on to become my first published novel.

Joanne: Yay. And yay. And people are so glad you found that niche. I mean, I would hazard to say that Cinder was one of the first sci fi fairy tale mashups.

Marissa: It was. Which is weird to say it now because there's been a number of them since. And even, like, when Cinder came out, I think there was one other that had also just come out. So I don't think it was like the very first one or anything, but when I started writing it in 2008, I researched and researched and couldn't find anything Else like it.

Joanne: Yeah, yeah, you definitely found a niche.

Marissa: Yeah.

Joanne: And your fans love them and I love writing them.

Marissa: So. Yeah.

Joanne: It's so great hearing about the fan fiction origins and we hear it a lot on the podcast and it's so wonderful that that, that exists. Like when I first started writing that either didn't exist or it was so new that I never stumbled upon it. And I oftentimes will tell kids, like if you want to start writing but you don't want to build an entire world because it's a lot, start with fan fiction because you know half of the work is done for you and then it's a great way to get started. So.

Marissa: Yeah, yeah, no, truly, it's, it's a great, great way to teach yourself some writing skills and get support because we don't always have support in our real day to day life and it's nice to get the feedback from other readers and other fans.

Joanne: Yes. Writing can be very hard, so it's nice to find that support where you can.

Marissa: Yeah. And now here we are, maybe 9, 10, 18ish books later.

Joanne: Yes.

Marissa: And this is my first co written, published book. Is it also your first co written.

Joanne: Same. Yeah. Correct. Yeah. And I co wrote a book with somebody else but it didn't get published. But it was kind of a different experience. But this. Yeah, this really came together. So we should talk about the Let It Glow origin story.

Marissa: We should figure out how to put that to like a little music so every time we can let it glow.

Joanne: Well, you're welcome to do that. And I will stand beside you and clap and cheer.

Marissa: Oh, I think I can be very persuasive.

Joanne: So the Let It Glow origin story. So I guess I'd better start because it started with me. So I was actually talking to my agent one day on the phone, Hillary, and she said to me that people were looking for holiday stories and maybe I should consider writing a holiday story. So we sort of brainstormed it on the phone and I'm not sure if she came up with the twin swapping idea. I came up with it, but she gets credit for even sparking the idea. So we came up with this idea of twins swapping homes for the holidays because I thought I can't write purely a Christmas story because I'm Jewish and I want to celebrate Hanukkah in the book. So, you know, I just, I decided I was going to to write the twins separated at birth. So I started writing an outline and I got about four chapters in and I realized I really didn't know the joy of Christmas and what it's like to celebrate a Christmas in a home. I had seen, you know, the Hallmark holiday movie type Christmas and what you see on commercials, but never the lived joy of what makes Christmas wonderful. And I realized I can't write that because I just don't know. So I thought, what am I going to do with this? Maybe I should co write it. Okay, who am I going to co write it with? Well, it's about twin girls adopted at birth and I'm adopted, but I'm not a twin that I know. And who do I know that might. Might have an adoption story and understand that lived experience and also who loves Christmas. And of course, course the one and only person I thought of was you.

Marissa: Who else?

Joanne: Who else?

Marissa: What gave it away?

Joanne: So I approached you and I said, hey, any chance you're interested in writing this story with me? And you said, I think I said.

Marissa: Call back later.

Joanne: Pretty much. I think the email was. I'm so tempted to say yes right away, but.

Marissa: But no, I think, gosh, I think I was working on with a little luck at that point. Like I just started, it was in the first draft and so was not in the right frame of mind to be taking on a new project. And I think I might have also at that time just signed the contract for my next project. So I've got another. Some more fantasy books coming out and a couple graphic novels. And so it was just the timing was like, I can't process anything else on my plate at the moment. But I wrote with a little luck and got that sent off to my editor. And then I went back and read Joanne's synopsis and her ideas with more of an open mind and just fell in love with it for all the reasons that she mentioned. I love Christmas, love the holiday season. I've got, you know, of course my daughter's twins adopted. I loved the idea of writing a middle grade, which I have not done, I've wanted to do for years, especially as the girls have gotten older and we're reading so many middle grades as a family. And yeah, so there were just so many things that appealed to me. And so I said, okay, let's do this. And we had some zoom calls and worked on making an outline, which I thought Joanne might fight me on. But you were like, yeah, no, we need an outline.

Joanne: No, we totally needed an outline. I had sort of a bare bones.

Marissa: That's true, that's true. Yeah. And so we, we made some changes and of course I brought in my perspective with the holiday season and did some character work on my girl who was Hollywood, and we started writing it, and now it's in the world. It's a published book. It's so pretty.

Joanne: It's a real book.

Marissa: Yeah. So we're super excited and can't wait for you all to get your hands on it. And with that, I'm sure. I don't even know what time we started this at, but let's answer some questions.

Joanne: Yes, we should answer some questions. So let's start with the Let It Glow questions. And thank you to everybody who sent all your questions in. There was, like, a gazillion awesome questions, so we had to sort of pare them down a little because we do have to go on tour, but thank you.

Marissa: Oh. I did want to point out. So a lot of the questions that were not Let It Glow related were, for me, asking about some of my other projects. But a lot of them we did cover in our last Ask Me Anything episode, which was episode 200. So if you submitted a question and you want answers about Renegades or Lunar Chronicles, go listen to that episode. We may have covered it already.

Joanne: We probably did, because a lot of them were duplicates for that. So thank you for that reminder. So what inspired us to write Let It Glow while we covered that? So we can skip that one check. What scene was your favorite to write?

Marissa: So my. It was both my favorite and least favorite in a weird way. And this was the ice. I knew you were gonna say. Yeah, you're nodding like. Yep. And of course, we don't wanna. We will avoid spoilers in this conversation, but there is a scene after the twins have swapped families in which. Oops, both families decide to go ice skating. And so the twins are there, and they're working really hard to keep their families from meeting each other. And shenanigans ensue, Right? They're. They're kind of skating back and forth. And now I'm pretending to be Aviva. Now I'm pretending to be Holly. Kind of a headache of a scene for us to keep things straight and organized and then to write it in a way that hopefully the reader can follow along and not get confused. But it was also just so fun and kind of brought in that whole, like, this is the concept, the shenanigans swapping and what complications they run into. And it was just really fun.

Joanne: Yeah, same. And it was a lot of moving parts, and that's what made it complicated. But I think that's also what made it hilarious. Yeah. So it's a lot of fun. And agreed. I think that was probably my. My favorite to write. Yeah. Also the food scenes, because I love writing food scenes because there's so much food that I don't let myself eat. So I live vicariously through my characters while they're eating. So what's your favorite thing about Holly and Aviva? Well, I will start. I will say one thing I love about Aviva is she is the girl that I would always aspire to and being fearless and loving to perform and not being afraid of people looking at her or judging her. She just wants to go out and perform, and I love that about her and Holly. Well, my nerdy Holly, like me.

Marissa: She's so much like us.

Joanne: Yes. That's what I love about.

Marissa: Yeah. No, I relate to both girls, actually, really strongly. Holly wants to be a writer. She's an introvert, as you say. She's a little on the nerdy side. But Aviva wants to perform, and she wants to be on Broadway. And that took me back to when I was growing up and I did little theater as a kid and loved it and had a brief period where I also wanted to be on Broadway. Turns out I can't carry a tune. Oopsies. So that dream was not going to happen. But I really enjoyed writing them both. But I think. I think my favorite thing, and it's for both girls, is how much they love their grandparents. Aviva has a grandmother she's really close to. Holly has a grandfather she's really close to. And those two characters play a really big role in the story. And I was really close to my grandma who passed away here about three years ago. And so getting to write a kid grandparents story was one of my favorite things too. And I just loved seeing how close they were and how much they appreciated and respected the time that they got to have with them.

Joanne: Yeah. And it was important to us to have grandparents that were young and vibrant and not your stereotypical old, doddering old people that people sort of make fun of. Like, I hate that. So I think we did a good job.

Marissa: Yeah, definitely. With Bubby, I think gramps, he's. He leans a little stereotypical, but, like, in a really charming way.

Joanne: But in a charming way. And I think he sort of. He knows it, and it's sort of his, like, wink, wink to being an older man. Yeah, I think that's cute.

Marissa: Totally. No, he's intentionally the curmudgeon.

Joanne: Yes. Oh. Somebody would like to know if Let It Glow will be turned into a series.

Marissa: Well, we've certainly talked about it and we have ideas, potential ideas, but I think the publisher is waiting to see how many books sell. So if you want more of Viva and Holly, buy it for all your friends.

Joanne: Yes, and, and I always like to do a PSA this time of year that books are great for toy drives. A lot of kids don't own their own books. First book, first book Canada try to put books in kids hands because there's been studies that lots of kids do not own their own books. So please remember the book nerds when you donate to toy drives and books are perfect for that and this book is perfect for that.

Marissa: Good reminder.

Joanne: Just putting that out there.

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Joanne: How different was writing a middle grade versus a YA?

Marissa: Very different. Not, not in a way that was more difficult, just different. It's more. It's very voicey. YA can be very voicey too. It just depends. I mean different stakes I think was big and that could be as much just this book in particular has different stakes than one of my big yas where you know, people are always trying to kill each other or like there's they're starting a revolution and gonna save the planet. Like here it's a much quieter story, a much more cheerful, warm, family oriented story. And so that just. That just makes it different. But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the humor, I enjoyed that. I felt like in this book we could maybe get away with being sillier than you can in ya. And yeah, I don't know. I loved it. I loved writing. And this for this audience.

Joanne: It's so much fun. I always think of middle grade as everything has an exclamation mark at the end of it. Like, everything is so meaningful and so exciting. And even though it doesn't have an exclamation mark at the end of it, I always think that in my head that that's sort of the difference.

Marissa: Yeah. I remember we had to do. Or at least I had to do, one pass where I just, like, searched for exclamation points and took the math because I was like, okay, tone it down, Marissa, you do love your exclamation points. I love exclamation points.

Joanne: What was the best part of writing? Let it glow.

Marissa: Writing together.

Joanne: I was gonna say that, too. We had so much fun. It's. And we hope it shows on the page, but it was pure joy from beginning to end. And then continuing here on the tour, I. Yeah, that was the best part.

Marissa: Yeah. No, 100%. It's a fun book. It's a fun story. But for me, the biggest joy was when we were in the act of doing that first draft. And, you know, I'd write a chapter and send it off, and then the next morning, I'd have a new chapter from Joanne in my inbox. And even though we had an outline and so I always had an idea of what the chapter was going to include, there were always surprises and those. Those moments where we could make each other laugh or, you know, put in something fun and unexpected. I mean, we really. We just had a lot of fun writing this, and we.

Joanne: I think we wrote for each other. Like, normally, when I'm writing a book by myself, I'm writing for me, but knowing I was writing for somebody else and knowing I wanted to make them laugh or, you know, inspire them or get them excited about the next scene was a little more pressure, but in the best way.

Marissa: Yeah.

Joanne: Yeah. And it. I think it kept us moving forward very quickly. Like, we drafted it in record time.

Marissa: I know. Was it two weeks, three weeks?

Joanne: 24 days.

Marissa: 24. Okay.

Joanne: 24 days. Now, that's after we did the outline. So when we started drafting to the end of the first draft was 24 days.

Marissa: Yeah. And no, it went extremely fast.

Joanne: Crazy fast.

Marissa: And, of course, that's one of the bonuses of working with a co writer is you only have to write half.

Joanne: Of it, half the book. But it was. We ended up with such a clean draft because you would paste in a chapter and I would edit that, and then I would paste in my chapter and you would edit that. And we were sort of leapfrogging along, and the next thing we knew, we had a draft that was pretty clean being edited as we went. So. Yeah. So, next, what's your favorite part of the book? We already covered. How did you two meet? Well, yesterday.

Marissa: Yesterday. So I was in my hotel room and there was a knock on the door.

Joanne: So the real origin story of how we met before we met in person is. Well, way back. So we debuted the same year. So back in 2012, you had Cinder, and I had Small, Medium At Large, and we were both in the Apocalypses, which was a debut group, but there was, I think, like 140 people in it, or there was over 100.

Marissa: It's a big group.

Joanne: Yeah. So names got lost, you know, and you don't always remember, but I do remember you. And I remember when CINDER came out and I got an email from you maybe seven or eight years ago, and you were looking for an author assistant. And that's what I do as my day job is I assist authors with email and spreadsheets and scheduling and all sorts of stuff, any. Any kind of admin stuff. And you were looking for an assistant, and I actually said I was too busy and I couldn't work with you.

Marissa: Really? I don't remember this.

Joanne: Yes. And you said you had feelers to a couple other people and you found somebody, and it, unfortunately, fortunately for me, didn't work out. And you came back, I guess, a couple months later and said, you know, I need help. And I said, well, I don't have a lot of time, but I can do some stuff. So.

Marissa: Famous last word.

Joanne: Yeah. Yeah. Well, when you. When you came to me, I was really busy, and you came to me with a big, long list of things you were hoping to. To offload. And I think I was probably a little overwhelmed and went, no, I can't do that. But, yeah, when you came back, and I'm like, no, I can make time for what you need, and let's work it out, and the rest is history.

Marissa: Yeah. Yeah. And I have been eternally grateful ever since.

Joanne: And I've been eternally grateful for you because, you know, it's been great working with you. And here's the Marissa and Joanne love fest that you were all waiting for. You didn't know you needed it. But between the podcast and working for you and everything behind the scenes that I do, it's joyful work for me, so I appreciate it. So thank you.

Marissa: Well, I appreciate it because there's a lot to do on social media and just keeping up with author stuff. It does become a second full time job. I could not have written so many books. I didn't have the help.

Joanne: So including Let It Glow.

Marissa: Because I shouldn't do it with the Disney even though I really want to.

Joanne: Somebody asked, will there be a sequel? We talked about that. Please, macmillan, make a sequel. What are your favorite holiday novels? This is hard. This is hard. One of the reasons I wanted to write Let It Glow in the first place was because there weren't a lot of middle grade Hanukkah stories. So that was now I should say this year tons of Hanukkah stories are coming out. Like tons.

Marissa: Good.

Joanne: I was actually going to do a social media roundup a little closer to the time. But there's, there's tons and tons of Hanukkah books right from picture book through to ya, I think that are coming out this year. So that's exciting. As far as favorites, I'm not sure. I'm not sure I have a favorite. You.

Marissa: I've seen a lot more holiday movies than I've read holiday books.

Joanne: I think that people were afraid they wouldn't sell. But people are just so into the cozy Hallmark movies that I think that they're coming up now for me.

Marissa: I think I'm gonna go way, way, way back and say the Grinch.

Joanne: Oh, the Grinch. Is that a book?

Marissa: The Grinch. Dr. Seuss.

Joanne: Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, you think movies, movies, movies.

Marissa: Yeah, no, it's one of the girls and mine favorite to just cuddle up and read around the Christmas time and yeah. Feel good story.

Joanne: Oh. So you know what? You just reminded me it's maybe not for kids, but the Latke that Wouldn't Stop Screaming by Lisa Brown and Lemony Snicket is a very funny Hanukkah book and they just reissued it. I think McSweeney's reissued it last year. Is really funny. So that's my favorite holiday book. All right, next, what are some go to snack recommendations to have on handy while reading this book? Cookies, Definitely cookies. Anything Hanukkah is going to be greasy so you probably want to avoid that. Unless you don't mind grease spots on your book.

Marissa: Just makes it feel more loved.

Joanne: Chocolate Hanukkah guilt. Yeah.

Marissa: Eggnog.

Joanne: Eggnog, yeah.

Marissa: Jelly donuts.

Joanne: Whatever you like for the holidays I think is appropriate.

Marissa: What's holiday hot chocolate. I think this is a hot chocolate book.

Joanne: Definitely a hot chocolate kind of book.

Marissa: Yeah.

Joanne: Any songs you would put on a planet playlist for this book. Interesting you should ask. We do have a playlist that's coming soon and hopefully by the time this airs we will have it and we will put it in the show notes and it's got lots of cute songs on it. So stay tuned.

Marissa: Yeah, we have, we've written it up. We're waiting for the publisher to work their magic and make cute little graphics for social media because that's what they do.

Joanne: What is the hardest, easiest part of co writing? Well, the easiest part is how much fun we had.

Marissa: Yeah. And just knowing that you only have to write half the book just kind of take some of the pressure off.

Joanne: That made it easy. The hardest. I wouldn't say anything was particularly hard. I mean we've talked about this before but there was absolute trust in both of us when we embarked on this. So I don't think there were any surprises or any real difficulties. But I mean for myself, I'm a control freak. So not getting my way 100% of the time was probably the hardest thing. But again like it wasn't a hardship. And in many ways, you know, the things that I may not have agreed with at the beginning still made it better in the end. So the collaboration was actually making it better. So yeah, that's kind of a non answer.

Marissa: But yeah, no, it's funny. So I have another co written book with a different author. It hasn't been announced yet but it should be announced literally any day now. So soon I will get to talk about it more openly. But it's funny comparing, you know, co writing with you and co writing with her. Both have been just amazing experiences and I'm so thrilled with the way that the books have turned out with you. I felt like there was just like hardly. There was never any disagreements. Like we just. It was a very smooth, very quick and easy process. The other book is a far more complex story and just a more much more complicated type of story and type of book. And so there we had more disagreements. But what I found was that every time we disagreed on something it would just be like this signal to us to keep working at it. And like, okay, well if you don't like option A and I don't like option B, what's option C? And option C was always the best.

Joanne: Yeah. And it's, I mean I guess it's like an editing process just with working with an editor is looking at the whole, the big picture and what's for the best of the book.

Marissa: Yeah.

Joanne: And I think going in that trust with each other was always going to make the right decision, what's best for the book. And I think we both left egos at the door, so.

Marissa: And I have to say, promoting this book with a co writer makes promotion a lot easier. Maybe not for you, because you're, like, handling way more of the work than I have been, because Joanne's, like, the one who's written all of our, like, social media captions and things that normally I would be doing for my own stuff, but it's certainly taken a lot of my plate.

Joanne: Well, and it's also an opportunity for us to work on our strengths, too, because I like doing that stuff and I like making graphics and things like that, and I like busy work, so it works for me, so.

Marissa: And I like getting dressed up. Yes.

Joanne: I'm excited to be dressed up. What inspired you to write a joint book? We already covered that. Are you actually long lost sisters? Well, I'm adopted, so maybe.

Marissa: I'm pretty sure I'm not adopted. Those stranger things have happened.

Joanne: You never know. I'm not going to say 100% for sure. No. We haven't done DNA tests, but considering we live in different countries and on different coasts, probably not. Yes. Let's see.

Marissa: We could be sisters at heart, though.

Joanne: Yes. For sure. What did you learn about yourself and each other with this book?

Marissa: Hmm. Huh. Well, I don't. I've. I definitely learned a lot about Hanukkah.

Joanne: I did, too. I did, too, because I. I would compare myself to Aviva sort of at the beginning where she's like, ah, it's about the Maccabees. But, you know, so I did research too, because we wanted to make sure that the. The information that came out in the book was accurate. So I learned a bit more about that. And I learned about you, just how funny you are. I always knew you were funny, but really funny. Yeah. And it was just. That's part of what made it joyful, is even the things that readers will never know about, like our notes in the margins when we were writing together and making each other laugh. And that was just a joyful experience for me. So I learned that about you.

Marissa: Aw.

Joanne: And I noticed you didn't say how funny, you know, I am now, but that's okay.

Marissa: No, we definitely. We made each other laugh constantly in this book.

Joanne: Yeah. Another question was, were we in the doc together or did we write separately? So that's a good segue to. We actually did use a Google Doc together, and originally the plan was to only be in it separately so as not to interfere with each other. But that got thrown out pretty quickly, and we started. We would write separately, but then we would paste in and edit together in the same doc. And there was times when we were both in there together and doing notes in the margins, and that was a lot of fun.

Marissa: Yeah. But generally, for that first draft, when you're writing the first. Taking a first stab at each chapter, we would do it separate, like she. Like she said, and then paste it in so that we wouldn't just be, like, watching over each other's shoulders as we're typing.

Joanne: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I never wanted to be looming over you, but it was fun watching in real time as you were, like, editing my chapters. And that was a really interesting process. And yay, Google Docs for enabling us to do that. That was fun. How did you approach character development together?

Marissa: That's a good question.

Joanne: So when we started, we had the outline. We prepared the outline, and I already had the beginnings of characters. But then when Marissa came on board, she took Holly and made Holly her own, and I had Aviva, and I wrote her. And I think they sort of grew out of the drafts into the characters that they needed to be for book. But we were sort of. We each had our own character, and I think we built them on our own.

Marissa: Mm. Yeah. And kind of figured out what their backstories were and their interests and personalities.

Joanne: Yeah.

Marissa: One thing that's kind of interesting, that might be surprising, is that so, you know, Joanne starts writing Aviva, I start writing Holly. And the plan was to continue, each of us writing our individual characters for the full draft. But halfway through the book, when the girls swap, and suddenly Holly's hanging out with the Jewish family, and Aviva's over here learning all about Christmas. And, I mean, we didn't get into maybe, but one chapter of the swap, and when we were both like, I want to trade characters, because I just realized, like, this character is now she's having a Hanukkah feast, and she's supposed to, like, say a blessing and light candles. I don't even know which candles we're supposed to light. So we then switched characters, and so I took Viva from there, and Joanne took Holly. And then, of course, when the girls swapped back, we also swapped. But so that was great. So that we could then write the traditions as from our own personal experiences. But by the time we did that, the characters, we had both gotten to know both of them so well that it was pretty easy to stay in their personalities. And of Course we were. As Joanne mentioned, we were constantly editing each other's work and checking for voice and whatnot. But. But for the most part, I feel like we knew who they were by the time they did the swap.

Joanne: It was. Yeah, it felt seamless. And. And we've been told it reads seamless, so we did a good job. So yay us. So, on that note, we need to go put our books to go sign.

Marissa: Okay. So quickly, Joanne, what are you working on next?

Joanne: I just finished the draft of a book about a boy with ADHD who wants to be an excellent ally to his best friend when she has a period issue at school. And it's how he becomes an ally for girls and menstruators. And it's just a really big departure for me because it's about a boy with pretty severe adhd, but it's joyful and fun and he's funny, and I'm really happy with it, so fingers crossed that it finds a home.

Marissa: Awesome. The girls and I just watched Inside Out 2, which is about puberty. And so puberty questions have started to crop up in our family and delay. I thought you only got your period when you were a teenager. Oh, honey. Awesome. So I've got my next couple things coming out. We've got the Happy Writer book that comes out at the end of January, and then I've got a graphic novel called We Could Be Magic that comes out next June. So those are the next things coming out in the Mercer Meyer world.

Joanne: Both available for pre order now.

Marissa: Yes.

Joanne: Wink, wink.

Marissa: Yes. And then I am working on the Bluebeard retelling, which will be out next fall, which is very Project Awesome. Joanne, I'm so excited to have written this book with you and to be on Book Together book tour together.

Joanne: Thank you for saying yes.

Marissa: You're welcome. Thanks for inviting me as your partner in crime readers. We hope you will check out Let It Glow, whether it's for yourself or maybe for the young reader in your life. It is available now. Yay. Of course, we encourage you to support your local indie bookstore, but if you don't have one, you can check out our affiliate store@bookshop.org shop Marissa Meyer. Please leave us a review and follow us on Instagram at Happy Writer Podcast. And don't forget to check out our merchandise on Etsy. Just saying. Probably make some pretty good Christmas and Hanukkah gifts. Until next time, stay inspired, keep writing, and whatever life throws at you today. I hope that now you're feeling a little bit happier.