The Bookshop Podcast
The Bookshop Podcast
From Journalism to Novels: Marissa Stapley on Writing, Grunge, and Creative Success
In this episode, I chat with Marissa Stapley about her novel The Lightning Bottles. The story navigates the intertwined paths of love, fame, and addiction through the lens of the 90s music scene. The episode explores themes of identity, media scrutiny, and the struggle for redemption, highlighting the complex dynamics between its characters.
• Discussion on the transition from journalism to fiction writing
• The role of deadlines in fostering creativity
• Key themes of addiction and codependency in relationships
• Exploration of media representations of women in music
• The significance of fan relationships and personal growth
• Insights into the writing and publishing journey
• Sharing of personal anecdotes related to addiction and redemption
Hi, my name is Mandy Jackson-Beverly and I'm a bibliophile. Welcome to the Bookshop Podcast. Each week, I present interviews with authors, independent bookshop owners and booksellers from around the globe and publishing professionals. To help the show reach more people, please share episodes with friends and family and on social media, and remember to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to this podcast. You're listening to Episode 282.
Speaker 1:Marissa Stapley is the New York Times bestselling author of Lucky, which was the first ever Canadian Reeses Book Club pick in December 2021, as well as bestsellers Mating for Life, things to Do when it's Raining and the Last Resort. Her next novel, the Lightning Bottles, a story of 90s rock and star-crossed love, was published by Simon Schuster in the fall of 2024. She has also co-written the best-selling holiday rom-coms the Holiday Swap, a book of the month pick, and All I Want for Christmas, under the pen name Maggie Knox. Her next rom-com, three Holidays and a Wedding, was a collaboration with best-selling author and playwright Uzma Jalaluddin. Many of Marisa's novels have been optioned for television and her journalism has appeared in publications across North America.
Speaker 1:She has also worked as a sports reporter, cemetery gardener, bartender, destination travel rep, stable hand and magazine editor, but becoming an author is a dream she has harbored since the age of seven, when she decided she was going to be the next LM Montgomery. She lives in Toronto with her husband, two children and the best cat in the world and is happiest while lakeside in Northern Ontario, a good novel or notebook and pen in hand. Hi, marisa, and welcome to the show. It's lovely to have you here. Oh gosh, it's so great to be here. I thoroughly enjoyed your novel, the Lightning Bottles. I thought it was wonderful. But before we go there, let's begin with learning about you and your work as a magazine editor and how that led you into writing and becoming an author.
Speaker 2:So I think you know, even before I was a magazine editor, I worked at newspapers and you know, even all through high school my dad was a small town newspaper man and I he'd go away on vacation, I'd take over his column. So I was always a writer. There were a lot of writers in my family. But the interesting thing about coming at it from a journalism background is that I always understood the power of a deadline and I knew that. You know, you can think that you don't have it, you don't have it, you don't have it, and then it's like half an hour to print and you're like, oh you know, like Stephen King says, the muse has arrived in the form of an unbreakable deadline.
Speaker 2:So people do often say to me wow, you're so prolific. But I think it's just because I don't sit down and feel lost in front of the blank page. And when I do, or I feel like something's not coming, I know that it will eventually. And generally, the more pressing a deadline becomes, the more I'm able to get things done. So I think that's how my background kind of complements being a novelist, but frankly there was never anything else. It was always my dream and because I did have writers in the family, I was always really encouraged to do it. Sometimes I'm like, wow, what a kind of ridiculous thing to try to do. Nobody ever told me it would be hard. They were just like you know, kind of ridiculous thing to try to do. Nobody ever told me it would be hard.
Speaker 1:They were just like you're so good at it, you have to do this. I like what you said about having a deadline, even if it's a deadline made up by yourself. It's important that you know you have a certain amount of time to get something done. Otherwise, time just gets away from you. You know the laundry gets in the way the beds need changing. Time gets away from you. You know the laundry gets in the way the beds need changing. Time gets away from us and before you know it, that deadline that you thought you had in your head, it is long gone.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's so true. And I often tell aspiring writers you know it's partly, you know, get your butt in the seat, get the work done. But it can be very challenging to be motivated if you don't have a deadline. So it's okay to set and you should set self-imposed deadlines. You know, like you know, second week of January you're going to do, you know, have your outline, done, that sort of thing. And, of course, be easy on yourself. If you need to move that deadline Because the other thing is in publishing, I can say, oh, you know, I understand the power of a deadline. Talk to my editors how I'm always like, but I need an extra week, you know. Or I need a little extra time, that's okay. But working towards a deadline is certainly. It's a good way to get drafts finished, and if you don't have a draft finished, you don't have anything to edit and work with and pursue your dreams with.
Speaker 1:Before we get into talking about your book, the Lightning Bottles, can you give our listeners a short synopsis please? Yeah, so the Lightning.
Speaker 2:Bottles follows Jane Pyre and Elijah Hart, who are a married couple and sort of soulmate lovers, who are the Lightning Bottles, which is a rock duo in the alternative 90s music scene. They skyrocket to fame and almost just as quickly begin to fall from grace. And during this time Elijah goes missing and we meet Jane five years later when he's been gone and she's been blamed, which is a story as old as time for the wife to be blamed for the tragedies and failings of her partner, and she's just trying to get out of the spotlight and really can't but ends up in the trajectory of someone, a young teenage super fan, who feels she has evidence that Elijah is still alive, leaving clues for Jane in the form of Banksy-esque street art across all the European cities they toured. So that's the sort of long elevator pitch. It's a mystery and a story and it's about music and art and fate.
Speaker 1:And it's fun that some of the story is set in Europe. I thought that was interesting. Now, alcohol and drug addiction plays a large part in the story, but it's Jane's addiction to protecting Elijah that is perhaps the most detrimental to their relationship and how the world sees them. Can you expand on this?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I guess I'm not 100% sure that I totally agree that that would be the most detrimental. I think, you know, with Jane, when they came together she was so young and you know, so was he right. And I did an interview recently where the interviewer said you know, elijah's so great, he's so charming, he's so talented, but I'm not introducing him to any of my friends and I was like gosh, that's just so true, right, he's sort of unsuitable at the beginning and she certainly falls into such deep love with him and it does become codependent because of her need to save him, which becomes part of, you know, her, her identity, um, and that's the journey that she has to go on. Um for sure, and you're right, like it is a bit of an addiction. But I also think there's a purity to that love and and um and a complicationication because of the fame. And she is doing her best and Elijah, in a way, isn't because he doesn't have to right, partly because of her, partly because of the way the world is set up. Everyone is just so quick to accept his foibles and his flaws and then blame them on her, and they certainly are not her fault, but with the drugs and alcohol.
Speaker 2:That was a real challenge for me. I have, you know, friends and family members who have struggled with addiction and mental illness. I think you're lucky if you don't. And in the world of the alternative scene 90s music scene and the 70s scene, you know, the drugs and alcohol are just like a terrifyingly destructive element of that. But I wanted to write a story that was entertaining and redemptive and mysterious and romantic. And then you have the drugs, which are just like a lead balloon, and it was tough.
Speaker 2:I would write scenes and I would pull back on it and I did so much research into addiction and I will tell you that almost every single memoir I read, the person eventually died. And I was so depressed by this and I just kept thinking what am I doing? And that is, you know, it was early days in the novel and I think that that is when I realized one day days in the novel, and I think that that is when I realized one day, escape is the only option, in a way, escape from the scene and from fame. So I really focused on that for Elijah and for Jane, even if you could argue that's not realistic, but it isn't. But this is like the different way of ending the story, rewriting the story, because the actual way that this story would end is probably in deep heartache and tragedy, and that was not what I was wanting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've been sober 37 years and for a big part of my life I was in that industry and my experience was that on most music videos we did in the late 80s and early 90s, there were drugs everywhere. I mean, it was just how it was in LA during that time probably in most major cities, I'm sure and by the time I realized it was time for me to get sober and stop drinking alcohol and doing drugs, I had to let go of all my friends who were still drinking or doing drugs. I just couldn't be around it. I couldn't have it in the house.
Speaker 1:While I know I wanted to get healthy, there was a part of me that was sad, sad of saying goodbye to my friends and that part of my life. And of course, I didn't actually say goodbye to my friends physically, it was just something that I knew I had to do. It's kind of like one door closes and another one opens, I guess. But it's only been recently, actually over the last few years, that I've been able to catch up with friends from that era in my life in Los Angeles and it's been lovely. But I couldn't have done it then. It just wasn't something I could do. I would have partied hard again.
Speaker 2:Of course, yeah, and you had to disappear in a slightly, potentially less dramatic way, but it was probably quite dramatic for you. Yeah, I really saw that and I know I certainly I tried in some ways to give addiction a light hand, not because I don't see the seriousness of it, but because I just thought. I think it's okay to present escape as an option here and because I don't think there's any other way.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think that everybody who needs to get sober or get off drugs escapes in some way. Mine was to kind of close the doors of my house and my social life abruptly and to do it that way house and my social life abruptly and to do it that way, whereas for Elijah it was the true escape, which we're not going to go into. No spoilers Now, a focus of the story is how young female musicians in the grunge era, such as Sinead O'Connor and Courtney Love, were judged by the media. But this is nothing new. I mean, women in general have been judged and misread throughout history and continue to be your character. Jane Pyre accepts her fate until a fan, hen, helps her realize the story she's believed is not the story of her fate and that she's deserving of so much more. What is it about Hen that makes Jane take notice, and how long into writing the original manuscript did Hen appear?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, it was a while. I mean, the lightning bottles Jane and Elijah, came to me maybe six years ago, pre-lucky. I was trying to figure these ones out and they were like people who wanted therapy from me. So they would come to me and they're like here's everything that's wrong with us. And I was like, okay, but what's your story? And they were like our story is we're very messed up people. So I was like, yeah, that's not a book though. So I couldn't.
Speaker 2:I had to find my way in and it was, I would say, a good two or three drafts. I mean. I abandoned the whole thing and went and wrote Lucky. Thank goodness I did. That changed my life. But I came back to that kind of thinking, okay, we need a way in.
Speaker 2:And also thinking about my own fandom as a teenager and how I felt that I was a part of. You know, kurt Cobain's death affected me. It was a part of my life. Like these things felt like they happened to me and they didn't. But and Sinead O'Connor even I mean she died halfway through when I wrote the book. She was my first concert. I was just a huge fan of hers and I was quite heartbroken and so I thought to myself, okay, fans have a place in the story. That's often in a different realm, but let's just like we're giving the escape hatch, let's put a fan into the story in a way that would be just so incredible.
Speaker 2:So that was maybe draft two, and I think it just sort of naturally followed that Jane began to soften to her because of the similarities because they were. You know, they were both teenagers who are very focused on music and and very sheltered in a way, and they had these similarities. I didn't set out necessarily to just to do that. Sometimes stories just take their path and and these, these similarities started cropping up and they, um, it just it helped, but it helped. But it was challenging because I decided also that it was Jane's story. Jane Pyre was the only narrator. Um, so everything that I had to get into that prologue where we really are close to hand for the first time. I probably worked on the prologue I wouldn't say as much as the entire novel, obviously, but it really it took many like 30, 40 different rewrites of that to make it.
Speaker 1:I'd like to stress about what you said regarding Hen coming up in the second draft. I think that's a really good thing for anyone listening who is a writer a beginning writer to understand that if you really listen to your characters, you might be four or five drafts in before you suddenly think oh okay, I know what's going to happen now because the characters have just told me and I think that's something that you need to remember because only by doing that will the perfect story appear and I think also, going into writing a story with the understanding that the first time you write it isn't going to be the last time you write it. There's going to be lots of drafts, lots of changes, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is okay. I think it's definitely okay and it's certainly something that you learn is along the way, right? You can only learn by doing, and I think it's. I love that part where you're like, oh my gosh, like with Lucky, I wrote the entire novel in the present timeline.
Speaker 2:I didn't have any of the scenes where she was a child and I kept thinking I need people to love this flawed con artist, and it wasn't until one day somebody said something about how you're always, you know, give love to your inner child. People will always give love to a child and I was like, oh, bingo, I need she needs to also be in the past timeline as a child and that again, you know two or three drafts in. You're writing your way around a lot, a lot. So, yeah, I think it's so important to be open to that. And also, don't be precious about scenes that you've written or characters that you've put in, and just because that's, you know 20,000 words that you might have to cut. That's okay. No writing is ever wasted. It's all practicing your craft and the more you allow yourself to do it, the better you'll get at it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great advice. What's unique about bands such as Nirvana is that they went viral without the internet. Mtv played a huge part in breaking a song or a band. My husband worked on the music video Smells Like Teen Spirit and shared with me that the band was nothing but professional and kind of kept to themselves. The punk crowd around them in the music video were predictably crazy and true to their name. One member of the audience kept on trying to steal the hi-hat from the drummer and you can see this in the video. So can you talk about the research you did for this book, particularly regarding addiction and the grunge era?
Speaker 2:I'm sure that the books I read would stack up to the ceiling. I'm a huge fan of libraries and I was able to go to my library and get endless books out in addition to the ones I bought. I thought I knew the scene. I grew up in it, it was a big part of my life. But I did need to do a lot of research.
Speaker 2:But the biggest and most useful part of my research was speaking with a radio personality here in Canada named Alan Cross. So we talked years ago when I had first started conceptualizing the novel and he sat down with me and just told me his stories. Alan Cross, you know he has a show I think it's a podcast now the Ongoing History of New Music, but that used to be on the radio and that he's the voice who told me you know, kurt Cobain had died, all of that. So we would sit down and talk. So he told me. He told me a great story about Nirvana and it's interesting, you say, like the pre-internet fame, so the how huge this was. He said that um he was working at cfmy, toronto alternative radio station, and um he had the cd. I guess you would might know exactly what this is, but the cds that the record companies would put out with what they were hoping to highlight. And, um, the segment producer kind of came to him and said, hey, track four smells like teen spirit, um, by this band called nirvana. It's. The album is coming out Tuesday I think this was Monday. You should play this. Just play the song. It's really good, it's a real, it's a good one. So he said okay, he played it. He left the room during the song.
Speaker 2:By the time he came back the lines were completely jammed with callers. He said everybody, and for the rest of the day, what was that song? Can you play that song? He said everybody, and for the rest of the day, what was that song? Can you play that song? And the album came out the next day. He did an alternative club on Friday called Club Energy that we all used to go to and he said every single person in that club knew all the me to have and I loved that story. But because this is what happens to Jane and Elijah and my editors would say, well, I don't know, can this really happen and they become famous so fast. And I was like, no, this is what happened, like it was really like the fact that you say that they were pros by the time they were doing that video, that's because they'd been around already. They you know they were. They had already been in this level of whatever was happening to them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's easy to forget that before a band makes it, so to speak, they've played in hundreds and hundreds of dives and garages and wherever they can play, so that by the time they're offered a record deal and a tour, then they've kind of got their act together emotionally. Now, if they haven't, then that's when the cracks appear.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean, even if they didn't, you know, I mean Kurt really didn't, and I read too that he really found that video very overwhelming. I think he didn't feel safe.
Speaker 1:My husband said that the band pretty much stayed off away from everyone on their own, which is good. I mean they needed to keep centered to be able to do the video, but everyone was safe, Thank goodness. Now tell us about your writing process, from idea to research, writing and editing.
Speaker 2:So when I get an idea normally like what I was doing with the lightning bottle six years ago I'll allow myself to explore it and just kind of start writing about the characters. So with Jane and Elijah, whatever came to me it was letters, memoir I like to do proofs, questionnaires for my characters, just to try to get to know them, and I really like to walk around with it for a couple of months. I always kind of imagine it's happening above my head and that's when I figure out if the story has legs or not. And honestly, with the lightning bottles I wasn't sure. Right, I was like but again, I'm getting a lot of details about your inner lives. So with Lucky it was very different, because this situation came to me. I heard something on a radio report about a lottery ticket that hadn't been redeemed, and then I was able to fit a character into an, a kind of pre conceived plot, which is just such a gift it happens very rarely and then you can kind of be off to the races. But usually you're just kind of waiting. You get to know the people, you figure out what you can do with them Actually, I shouldn't say usually, it's different every time, but with this one. And then I like to do I now I like to slash, must do an outline, because of the way that my career is set up Generally.
Speaker 2:I'm working on a contract. I'm already contractually obligated Okay, to write my next book and the publisher wants to see what it is, and so, and if they like it or not, so you know, I write the outline and then we go from there and then I always do a fairly bare bones first draft, just allowing myself to move through the story, and if there are parts that don't feel like I know what's going to happen, I have no problem. Just going okay, tk, we'll figure it out later to see if I can get to that ending. And if the ending works, then I have my first draft is just for me, sometimes it's only 40,000 words and then I'll go back, adjust the outline again because things have changed and then do a more polished draft which is shareable.
Speaker 1:Marissa, how do you cope with the pressure of contracts and deadlines?
Speaker 2:I mean I guess for me I don't, I, that's my superpower. I think it's ideas and outlines. So it's more like how do you cope with the fact that you've sold something and everyone's like, yes, we love it, we're super excited, and then I have to actually deliver on that with the draft and so I don't. I mean that is just the fun part for me. I have ideas coming out my ears and which is why I do so much writing. I also write holiday romance under a pseudonym and I almost can't keep up with myself in terms of ideas.
Speaker 2:I think it's more just sometimes it's saying you know, okay, stop coming up with ideas, because I'll be like, oh, I have a film, TV idea, I have this and that, and just focusing on what I have already sold. But I know that's kind of a good problem to have and I think my advice for anyone who's feeling that pressure is you have got to find a way to just shut your door of your office, either physically or mentally, and write for yourself. And maybe like that one ideal reader, like I swear I was writing the lightning bottles to Sinead O'Connor. I was like this is for her and it's between us, or if you have a great relationship with your editor, or if you're writing it because your husband is your first reader, just be writing it for him and just try to keep everybody and all the expectations out, because you cannot With pressure and expectation. It is the enemy of creativity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, let's face it, where would creative people be without sticky notes? I mean, let's face it, part of being a creative is the fact that ideas just flow, so you have to just take a minute and scribble it down and put it on a sticky note or carry a notebook around so you can always be taking notes or just do a message on your phone. But, yeah, just about every single author I have spoken to well-established authors always say you know what I put this sticky note on my board about I don't know 20 years ago, and I woke up one day and just went oh yeah, now that story's come to life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll just walk into my phone, I'll just go, okay, I'll walk down the street and I'm like blah, blah, blah, blah, and then sometimes the added bonus to that is that you get some weird garbled thing that you tried to code later and you can share the funny screenshot. Yeah, I think I used to always carry around a notebook and now I just do it on my phone. I just because I remember sitting at this literally on a curb once, like in the rain, trying to write the idea down and I was like, okay, you know what I can just give in and you know what sometimes giving in is when the process begins, which is exciting.
Speaker 1:Can you share your publishing story, from your first finished manuscript to finding an agent and landing a publishing deal?
Speaker 2:I can, but how much more time do we have? It was complicated, which I think is inspiring for some people. I know very few authors who are like oh, I had an idea, I got an agent and I got published. So gosh, I mean, I wrote a novel when my kids were super little and they're now 16 and 17. And it was environmental, romantic, like eco fiction. It was called Saving the World in Sensible Shoes. It still has a place in my heart. It'll never get published, but the publisher who bought it was a small Canadian publisher. They went out of business.
Speaker 2:I was over the moon that I was getting published and then absolutely devastated when everything kind of fell apart. I had gotten an agent with that book, but our relationship, you know we kind of things got a little tense there too. So then I was sort of looking for a new agent and I ended up with the agent I'm with now, who's Sam Haywood, and she's just incredible. We worked together. I wrote another novel, but I felt so much pressure I was, I had told every woman I was getting published, you know I was doing. So that novel, I will say, was objectively, I mean I shouldn't say it was terrible, because Sam has good taste and she tried to sell it. But it certainly wasn't my best. We couldn't sell it, but I did.
Speaker 2:I would go to events in the industry and editors would say to me you know what you're close Like, you're so close. So I, but I still felt very disheartened. I took that was when I started working as a magazine editor, actually because I felt I just needed a real job. And then over my lunch hours I would sometimes just close the door and write short stories and these were just for me. I was just writing them because I needed to write creatively and Sam would call me every few months and ask what I was writing and I would tell her I wasn't writing anything. And then one day she said really nothing and I was like, well, I'm writing these terrible. I didn't say terrible because they were pretty good.
Speaker 2:I'm like short stories, but I don't know they're about these women and don't know what their mother is, their wives, it was all what I was going through and she asked if she could see a few of them. So I printed them off and went to lunch with her, thinking she would let me know later that we no longer had a, you know, agent, author relationship and she called me a few days later and said you're writing a book, you've got to figure out how to get these characters to be connected in these short stories. And I said, well, they'll never. They would never they're so different, like they would never be friends. So I made them sisters and then it turned into Mating for Life, which was my first novel.
Speaker 2:Simon and Schuster that's one and honestly it's. You know the process, the rejections. I've been through it, months and months of being on submission and it was my third time around and it sold within a week and just everything started from there. And I've been with Simon Schuster pretty much ever since, at least here in Canada, you know. But there still have been ups and downs and good moments and hard moments. And then Reese Witherspoon came along and picked Lucky and everything changed and you have some exciting news about Lucky.
Speaker 1:Would you like to share it?
Speaker 2:Yes, so when Lucky was picked, they were very interested in the TV. This was TV rights as well. This was three years ago and through strike, through all sorts of different difficulties in Hollywood, they Hello Sunshine kept going with it. So now it has just been announced last week, as something that I've known for a while, that Apple TV will be filming in March Jonathan Tropper, who's incredibly talented as the writer, and Taylor Joy is lucky, which I always thought she would make a perfect lucky. They asked me who and I said I said her. So it's kind of a fever dream that she is going to be and, yeah, this will be. This will be on the small screen soon, which is such a dream and yeah, it's just wonderful.
Speaker 1:It's just, it's so great. Yeah Well, congratulations, because I know how much work you've put into this. Thank you, it's talk books. What are you currently reading? I'm reading oh gosh.
Speaker 2:Okay, you may have heard of this one because it's a huge, like I said, arc of Florence Knapp's the Names it's called. It comes out in May. It was one of those like jillion dollar bidding war books and I got a handle on an arc from one of my publicists and it's just so great. It's about a young child who what the different trajectory of his life would be had he had a different name. So there's three different timelines and three different lives. It's just fascinating and it's wonderful storytelling and, awe of this, it's a debut as well, but it's not her first novel. I think it's at least her second.
Speaker 1:Marissa, I thoroughly enjoyed your book, the Lightning Bottles Great character development and beautiful writing and thank you for being a guest on the Bookshop Podcast. I thoroughly enjoyed chatting with you and getting to know you. Oh, thank you. Yeah, no, this was great. You've been listening to my conversation with author Marissa Stapley about her book, the Lightning Bottles.
Speaker 1:To help the show reach more people, please share episodes with friends and family and on social media, and remember to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to this podcast. To find out more about the Bookshop Podcast, go to thebookshoppodcastcom and make sure to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to the show. You can also follow me at Mandy Jackson Beverly on X, instagram and Facebook and on YouTube at the Bookshop Podcast. If you have a favorite indie bookshop that you'd like to suggest we have on the podcast, I'd love to hear from you via the contact form at thebookshoppodcastcom. The Bookshop Podcast is written and produced by me, mandy Jackson-Beverly, theme music provided by Brian Beverly, executive assistant to Mandy, adrian Otterhahn, and graphic design by Francis Perala. Thanks for for listening and I'll see you next time.