Becky Motew’s house is sparkling. That’s because she promised to clean one window in her home for every copy sold of her debut novel Coupon Girl. Now she’s out of windows and has been reduced to tasks like cleaning the stove with a toothpick, and she doesn’t mind one bit. After all, she’s journeyed from copywriter to coupon seller to award-winning playwright to college professor and novelist—it’s probably time to take a break and clean anyway.
R&T: Becky, what’s your philosophy on writing? What is the writing life to you?
Motew: This is a scary question. The writing life to me is every morning, without fail, dipping into the well even if only for a cup of something good—or just one line. I like to always move forward, even if just a tiny bit. The writing life is different for every person doing it. To some it is a business, to some a sacred privilege, and to others a hobby. For me it is where I live, where I am most real. I am the full me right now, this minute, clicking these words down.
R&T: Your first book, Coupon Girl, was released in May of 2006 by Dorchester Publishing through its Making It chick lit imprint. Do you identify yourself as a chick lit writer, or are you a writer who wrote a chick lit book?
Motew: It’s funny about genre. If your book has a murder in it, even a teeny-tiny murder and even if the rest of it is chockablock full of literary musings or cooking recipes or golf tips, it’s still a mystery. It’s a mystery first and then whatever else second. A culinary mystery: Julia Child kills somebody! A golf mystery: Tiger Woods kills somebody! Tiger Woods kills Julia Child with no adverbs? It’s a literary mystery!
If your book has a youngish woman for a protagonist and is somewhat funny and written in the first person, BANG! You have written a chick lit book. I did not know my book was chick lit when I wrote it. My agent had to tell me.
“Your book is chick lit.”
“It is?”
“Well, Becky, yes, of course.”
She didn’t say “duh” but I could feel “duh” in the air.
Did I successfully sidestep your question? Well, I won’t do that. I think I’m a writer who wrote a chick lit book.
R&T: You have a master’s degree in English, which you swear you earned without writing a sentence shorter than five lines, and a background in advertising copywriting. Those are definitely opposite ends of the spectrum. How have they influenced your writing?
Motew: Academic writing is luxurious. All the readers wear thick glasses. You can take seven paragraphs to ponder Edgar Allan Poe’s use of the word “pit.” And then another seven for “pendulum.”
Advertising copywriting works like this:
Assignment—Convey the following information in five words; don’t leave anything out.
This has influenced all my writing—by getting me to the point faster. I no longer think getting there is half the fun. It isn’t, not for the readers. They want to get there now. The train is pulling into the station in just a few minutes.
R&T: Have you ever experienced writer’s block?
Motew: I have trouble sometimes figuring out plot twists. What am I going to do with this character? How can this one be green and at the same time purple? I usually go to the local high school track and walk around for a few laps. I get good ideas there, although bad knees.
R&T: How long did you work on Coupon Girl, and what changes did you make to it through the process?
Motew: Coupon Girl poured out of me in four months. Maybe it was three. I always knew I would write it, so it had been percolating for years. My editor made me eliminate a number of characters, which is one of my inclinations. I love to populate a world the way it really is, with all kinds of personalities colliding. But that can be confusing for a reader, and as a novelist you just can’t do it.
R&T: What has been the most surprising part of the publication process?
Motew: How long it takes. And how much you have to do on your own. And how microscopic it gets. Describe your book in one paragraph. Now describe it in two pages. One page. Now describe it in French. In a cartoon. A haiku. It seems never ending.
R&T: Before Coupon Girl, you wrote two other books, one you’ve described as “[not] unlike the eventual CG, only it had a murder in it,” and the other you’ve called “a ‘serious’ book…[with] complicated plot and flashbacks, multiple POVs and a prologue.” What are your plans for them now?
Motew: I wrote a book called Coupon Murders, which was a mystery with all the same characters as Coupon Girl. The only difference was that it had a dead body in a dumpster. It poured out of me too, except I had to walk around the track quite a few times to figure out what to do with the body. I have no plans for that book since I cannibalized from it heavily for Coupon Girl. It is my version of an old Subaru—I’m using it for parts.
The “serious” book was called The Brew. It was about four people who go to the same bar daily but don’t know each other. It takes place in one day. “Oh wow,” a few people said, “like Ulysses!” Well, yeah, it is like Ulysses, except for the jokes, the jerky self-conscious narrative, and the absence of literary quality. Otherwise, it’s pretty much just like James Joyce’s book. I have no plans for it unless my agent would like to read it. I’m not sure I could understand it myself.
R&T: You’re currently represented by the Nelson Agency. What was your search for representation like, and how did you finally settle on an agent?
Motew: I was very lucky. I had immediate interest in Coupon Girl and multiple offers for it. I signed with Kristin Nelson pretty fast. She was the right fit for me because of her client list and expertise in my kind of book. We clicked then and we still do.
R&T: With (a) an agent and (b) a well-received, commercially published book under your belt, you’re living many writers’ dreams these days. What do you know now that you wish you’d known when this whole experience started?
Motew: I guess I know now to write from my heart. Write the book you’re supposed to write. It’s your own voice that will win the day. If I’d known that from the beginning, I wouldn’t have wasted my time trying to be “serious.” It’s not what I do. Or at least it’s not what I do best.
R&T: What advice do you have for writers trying to break into print?
Motew: Get on the Internet. Learn everything you can. Volunteer. Join. Make friends. Network. Participate in writing groups. It will all help. But mostly, write your heart. Write the truth as you see it. Don’t worry about weird stuff that other people are doing. You know what you do best. Do it and don’t look back.
R&T: What’s next for you?
Motew: A nice chardonnay. In addition, I have written another book that I hope will find a home. No announcements yet.
For more on Becky Motew visit her website.
Kristen King is a full-time freelance writer-editor and former R&T staffer from Virginia, where she lives with her husband and two cats in a too-small townhouse with a too-big desk and too few file cabinets.
Visit her online at: Kristen King Freelancing or Inkthinker
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