Kristin Harmel, THE ART OF FRENCH KISSING, chick-lit novelist: Mr. Media Interview, Part 2 Return to Part 1!

ANDELMAN: That’s really what it comes down to. I’ve got to ask: What does make a bad date? My sense is that you’re single so it’s a fair question.

HARMEL: Yes. What makes a bad date? Let me think. I think that maybe the reason I don’t feel like I’ve been on a lot of bad dates is because I usually just enjoy talking to people and finding out about them. I enjoy meeting new people so usually dates are fine, but I think the ones that are bad are the ones that you feel like you’re pulling teeth just to talk to a person. You know what I mean? Like when I feel like I’m interviewing somebody as opposed to having a conversation with them. To me, that’s sort of the worst kind of date where you have these I ask a million questions, and they just answer them with yeses or nos, and they stare at me blankly. It’s like, “Okay, I only have so many questions. I’m running out here.” But, fortunately, I have not been on many of those.

ANDELMAN: Let’s come back to the book. Emma, the lead character, comes off as kind of a doormat at the start of the book. I’ll use the male description here. Everybody’s kind of lifting their leg and peeing on the poor woman.

HARMEL: That’s true.

ANDELMAN: Have you been through anything as consistent and awful as she, or can you just pile on the poor girl in the book?

HARMEL: No, you know what? Writing her like that at the beginning of the book was actually sort of a personal thing for me. I feel like it was something that, to some extent, I feel like I used to be like that a little bit, too, and I think that’s something that many novelists do. They sort of work through some of what they feel to be their own issues, in their fiction. I think, hopefully, that I’m mostly past doing that, but that was a lesson I had to learn a couple years ago. And at the beginning of my novel, you’re right. Emma is a little bit of a doormat. But I think it’s less of her being a doormat and more of her foolishly sort of seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. And then when it doesn’t turn out that her perceptions are correct, I think not having the guts to stand up for herself, and I think that’s a mistake I have made in my life, too. At the beginning of the novel, Emma actually has her fiancé say, “I no longer want to be with you,” and I think that’s one of the most hurtful things that someone can say to you. Like I said, she’s engaged to him, and she’s planning to spend the rest of her life with him despite the fact that, in retrospect, there were obvious problems in the relationship. I think that she sort of chose not to see them and turned a blind eye on them and therefore, became sort of a doormat.

ANDELMAN: It was tough. And I don’t want to give away anything from the middle or the end of the book. There was one thing at the beginning that happens with her. I hope I can give this away.

HARMEL: We’ll see. If it’s the beginning, that’s no problem.

ANDELMAN: Alright. The fiancé dumps her, and she loses her job. And that in itself is horrible, but when her best friend sleeps with the fiancé, I just thought oh, I actually feel sorry for this character that doesn’t even exist.

HARMEL: Fortunately, I’ve never had anything like that happen to me before. But I guess I just wanted to create a situation in the book where she sort of felt like everything that she defined herself by had been sort of ripped away. And I think part of my point with doing that was to sort of show that I think, all too often in life, we define ourselves by the things that are outside of us, who we’re dating or who we’re engaged to or who we’re married to, for instance, or what our job is or even who our friends are. And I think that that’s sort of a mistake. I think that you can rely on those people and love those people around you and believe in those people, especially if they truly are good people, but I think that a lesson that Emma learns through the course of the book and that I feel I’m still sort of learning through the course of my life is that it’s important to define yourself by what’s inside of you. You know what I mean? And who you are as opposed to all those external factors. And I guess I sort of wanted to create a situation where Emma was forced to learn that the hard way.

ANDELMAN: That was tough. Now, I wondered: Was there a moment in your life where something clicked for you where you became very aware, very self-assured, the world just kind of came together for you?

HARMEL: Gosh, in my own life?

ANDELMAN: Yes.

HARMEL: I feel like I’m still getting there. I feel like I have a lot more self-confidence and self-assuredness than I used to, but I feel like I’m still kind of growing into that. I don’t quite have myself figured out yet, and I certainly don’t have the world figured out yet. And I think, again, that’s something I’m just sort of exploring through my writing. And this sounds silly, but like you mentioned at the beginning of the program, this is my fourth novel now, and I feel like with every novel, I feel like my writing has grown, and I hope that people who have read a few of my books would agree with that. I also feel like it’s been almost therapeutic for me because I sort of work through these issues that I feel like are issues in my own life and sort of through the characters, I feel like I learn a little bit, and I become a little bit more confident. I sort of feel like I’m still a work in progress, but shoot, maybe I should be writing like six novels a year, and then I’ll be a totally complete human being in the next couple of years.

ANDELMAN: If you decide to go that route, I really recommend outsourcing to India.

HARMEL: Exactly. The outsourcing. I’ll just write the outline, yes.

ANDELMAN: There’s a web chat that goes alongside the Mr. Media interviews, and Missy333 just wanted to ask you a question.

HARMEL: Okay.

ANDELMAN: I don’t know if this is serious or not. She says, “I hear Disney is casting for the lead role in their new live-action ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ and they’re looking at you for the part. Is this true?”

HARMEL: Missy and her husband Al were the first people who gave me my break in journalism way back when I was 16-years-old, and I pitched them a story about the, I believe, it was the St. Louis Cardinals Instructional League, which was happening in Tampa Bay. I actually really wanted to be a sports reporter at the time. And I didn’t tell them my age, but they met me fairly soon after and realized how young I was. But I don’t know that I’d be doing what I’m doing today if it was not for them. Missy and Al, who ran, at the time, Tampa Bay All Sports and now run Accent magazine and Fight Zone, they really completely put their trust in me, helped me to grow as a writer, and sort of gave me my start in the business, and they always tease me and say that I look like Alice in Wonderland. So that’s where that comes from.

ANDELMAN: I see, I see. I have to tell you. I guess we have something in common: We are both graduates of the Martino School of Faux Journalism.

HARMEL: See, I didn’t know. I didn’t know you knew the Martinos. It’s wonderful.

ANDELMAN: I do, and I wasn’t sure when I asked you the question. I knew who Missy333 was, but I didn’t know if you’d know. This is going to be really boring for anybody listening, but yeah, I actually worked for Al’s brother, Ray.

HARMEL: Oh wonderful.

ANDELMAN: Twenty years ago and I learned magazine layout and design from him. Of course, no one does it that way anymore. We did it by hand, obviously. We had a typesetting machine and all that kind of stuff. So, yes, I’ve known them a long time. That’s funny. It’s a small world.

HARMEL: Small world, but look at the legacy that the Martino family is creating.

ANDELMAN: That’s true. That’s true. And they’re good people. No doubt about it.

HARMEL: They’re incredible people, yes.

ANDELMAN: That’s so funny. So how come the sports writing didn’t work out for you?

HARMEL: It did. I loved it. I loved doing that, but when I was in college, I really hoped my senior year of college to get an internship at Sports Illustrated. I had applied to the Time Incorporated magazine internship program hoping that I’d be placed with Sports Illustrated. Instead, I was placed at People magazine, and I thought oh, I don’t know if this is something that’s really gonna be up my alley, and I loved it. It was one of the best experiences of my life. I had a fabulous summer working for People. I worked hard. The bureau chief at the time, his name was Joseph Harmes, put his trust in me, and they wound up hiring me, and I’ve been working for them for eight years now as a contributor. So I still do sports stories for People occasionally. If they need a sports story in the Southeast, I’m generally the one to do it or have been until recently, and I still love doing that. I really enjoy sports, particularly baseball and college football -- as you know, as a Gator. What I had always enjoyed about sports, though, was getting to know sort of the people behind the teams and the personalities behind the athletes, like that kind of thing. I liked doing the personality profiles. So it was actually a very natural move to work for People instead.

ANDELMAN: And you’ve done some other magazine stuff as well, I guess.

HARMEL: I primarily work for People magazine when I do magazine writing, but I also do work for Runner’s World, and I wrote a medical column for American Baby for quite a while. I’ve worked for Men’s Health in the past. I’ve done some writing for Woman’s Day, Health magazine, just a bunch of them. I’ve written for probably dozens of magazines over the years, some that I really enjoy doing.

ANDELMAN: I was asking if there was a moment where you became more self-assured, but I’m kind of wondering, too. You’ve just recently been out touring on these books. What do the women that you meet, what do they want to talk to you about most? Is it your characters, your success, your smoky eyes, what is it?

HARMEL: My smoky eyes. A lot of times they want to talk about something that has happened in the book that meant something to them. I get a lot of emails from readers who say, “I really connected with Harper in your book, The Blonde Theory, when she did this or when she said this or a very similar experience happened to me.” It’ll be something that sort of connects to something in their lives. Generally, they want to talk about how something in one of my novels has touched them, which means so much to me. When you’re sitting at your computer writing a novel, it’s almost like writing into a vacuum so it’s amazing when someone comes up to you and not only has read your novel but has actually been touched or moved in some way by something that you’ve written. So that has been a wonderful experience for me. But a lot of times people want to find out about how to write a book, too, so I’m always happy to talk to them about that. And, in fact, I teach a novel-writing class for an organization called mediabistro.com, and that’s actually been filling up every semester. I really enjoy it. It’s an eight-week course, and I get to teach it online and talk to aspiring writers about how to put together a book, which has been a good learning experience for me, too.

ANDELMAN: MediaBistro does a lot of good work. They’re good people over there.

HARMEL: Absolutely.

ANDELMAN: On “Good Morning America,” you talked about the things that French women know that American women don’t know.

HARMEL: Yes.

ANDELMAN: Now, I gotta tell you, Kristin. I don’t really care about that. But what I do want to know is what is different about French men, we’re back to the original theme here, but what’s different about French men from American men? In other words, what is it that those Frenchie guys, what is it that those guys have that Mr. Media doesn’t?

HARMEL: Well, I’m sure none of them have anything on you, Mr. Media.

ANDELMAN: Good answer.

HARMEL: Oh, gosh, that’s a good question. Well, first of all, I, as I think probably many girls are, am a sucker for accents so you put on that sexy French accent.

ANDELMAN: Ah, oui, oui, mademoiselle.

HARMEL: Exactly. I think that probably one of the major differences that I can think of is that really, in general, French men, and again, this is a broad generalization, and it’s hard to sort of generalize about an entire culture or country full of men, but in general, I would say that French men tend to be more unabashedly romantic, if that makes any sense. I was sitting at a bar with a friend of mine one time in Paris, with a female friend of mine, and this French guy tried to start talking to us, and he didn’t speak any English at all. And this was five years ago when I didn’t really speak any French so there was really no basis for communication between us. So after literally not being able to communicate, he turns away for a moment, and he comes back about ten minutes later with something scribbled on a gum wrapper, which he handed to me. He had written me a poem in English, I guess, using the only English words that he knew and at the end, asking me to see Paris with him. So it was cheesy to be sure, and I think it’s sort of funny that it happened, but I can’t imagine ever having that experience in the United States with someone who was actually serious. And this guy was dead serious. He really thought that his poem was going to sway me into being swept off my feet in the beauty of Paris. But that silliness aside, I do feel that French men do tend to be more romantic and not at all ashamed of it. I think there’s more of an emphasis on being sort of just masculine and sort of like keeping your feelings a little bit, maybe playing your cards closer to your chest here in the United States, whereas I think in France, people wear, men in particular, their emotions on their sleeve a little bit more.

ANDELMAN: Now, having said that, I did read your book so I do know about the French character in there who makes a big play for Emma, and he’s so sweet, he does this. Well, it turns out he does that to every American woman.

HARMEL: Yes, that’s true.

ANDELMAN: I’m reminded of that Geena Davis movie from years ago, Earth Girls are Easy.

HARMEL: Yes.

ANDELMAN: Is part of it over there that they think that American women are easy? Is that part of it?

HARMEL: I don’t know that they think that American girls are easy as much as some of the slimy guys, and there are slimy guys, I think, in every country.

ANDELMAN: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

HARMEL: I would say the small handful of slimy guys that exist in France probably do look at American girls, to some extent, as easy prey because, quite frankly, we probably are. We’re used to men, like I said, sort of being a little bit more or maybe like withholding their emotions a little bit more. So I think it’s easy as an American girl to listen to a guy saying sweet things to you in that wonderful French accent to the backdrop of this beautiful city and telling you how beautiful and lovely you are. They’ve never seen anyone as lovely as you. I think that there are certainly cheesy guys in the United States, though, who would use the same line with the same amount of success. So I don’t think it’s just American girls that would be singled out as easy targets by those types of people. I think it would probably be any girls who look like they could be easily swayed.

ANDELMAN: Alright. But it really does come down to the accent, right?

HARMEL: The accent, perhaps. Gosh, it’s such a beautiful accent. I wish I had a French accent.

ANDELMAN: I wish you did, too.

HARMEL: I will have to start talking in one.

ANDELMAN: But if you did have the accent, you wouldn’t be talking to me so let’s keep things as they are. So you told us a little bit about how you got the magazine break. You got the internship. You wound up at People instead of Sports Illustrated. How did you get your fiction break? How did you get the first book published? Was there a good story to that?

HARMEL: I always wanted to write a novel, and I thought to myself, “I’m too young to do this. I don’t have the life perspective yet.” And then, to be honest, it really was that summer that I went over and lived in Paris. It made me think to myself why not try? Yes, I could just stay on the fast track and try to do everything I can in the magazine world, or I could continue to do that but also sort of pursue my dream. So slowly, I started writing my first novel. I had not contacted an agent yet. I had not contacted a publisher. I just came up with the idea for a story. And I had a few friends in Tampa at the time that all worked in the same office, and I said, “Hey, I’m gonna try to write this book. I need to stay motivated. Could I send you one chapter a week so that I know that someone’s waiting for it?” And they were all excited, and I started sending them one chapter a week, and so slowly, I actually wrote this first novel. And then when I finished it, I started sending it off to literary agents, and I got an agent, and we did a little bit of work on the book. They thought I needed to make it a little bit funnier and a little bit shorter, and so I made those fixes that they suggested. And then they sent it off to, at the time, Warner Books, which is now Hachette Book Group, my current publisher that I’m with now, and they made an offer almost right away. I had the chance to work with a wonderful editor there named Amy Einhorn, who now actually has her own imprint. She’s just a fabulous, super editor, but she was the one who really gave me my first chance, and I was so happy with that and so happy that I’m still with Hachette Book Group. I have another wonderful editor there now named Karen Kosztolnyik, and she’s equally fabulous. I feel like I’ve really become a part of a really wonderful family there.

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© 2008 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.

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