The Bookshop Podcast
The Bookshop Podcast
Noël Stark: Love, Camera, Action
In this episode, I chat with Noël Stark about her debut romantic comedy novel, LOVE, CAMERA, ACTION.
Noël Stark has worked in almost every position in the Film and Television industry, both in front of and behind the camera. Although she’s Canadian, she lives in L.A. with her young son, desperately missing winter. She likes chocolate milk in her coffee and gets most of her real-world intel from her three stepkids.
Here's the synopsis of Love, Camera, Action:
A scrappy TV director lands her big break only to go head-to-head with the surly yet sexy director of photography, in this page-turning romance perfect for fans of Ava Wilder and Tessa Bailey.
Up-and-coming TV director Cali Daniels knows sex. Well, okay, she knows how to shoot sex scenes, and she’s been hired to direct a highly anticipated steamy episode of the popular series The Demon. This job is her chance at a big-time career in the film and television industry—all she has to do is deliver an unparalleled show using her hard-knock know-how and ample creativity.
If only the director of photography—effortlessly sexy Jory Blair—would stop shutting her ideas down at every turn. Jory has spent years cultivating his career as an A-list director of photography, but a recent health scare has him rethinking his life and craving the director spot. Now this creative newbie, who he can’t get out of his mind, wants to change the look of his show. Even worse, the friction between them is sparking into blistering chemistry.
As collaborating takes on a whole new meaning, and the show’s producer not-so-subtly suggests that Jory sabotage Cali in order to achieve his own goals, they’ll have to decide if chasing their dream jobs is worth losing the dream of a future together.
LOVE, CAMERA, ACTION, Noël Stark
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 309. Noelle Stark has worked in almost every position in the film and television industry, both in front of and behind the camera. Although she's Canadian, she lives in Los Angeles with her son, desperately missing winter. She likes chocolate milk in her coffee and gets most of her real-world intel from her three stepkids. Love camera action is Dark's debut novel. Here's the short synopsis of the book. Hi Noelle and welcome to the show. It's great to have you here. Oh my gosh, thank you for having me. You're welcome. You are Canadian and you live in Los Angeles. I love Los Angeles. I think it is such a creative city. How about you?
SPEAKER_01:I have to say, there's a vibe here of just like a can-do creative attitude. And I mean, you know, Pauline Kale, if you heard of Pauline Kale, the critic, she used to say that LA, um, you could die of encouragement here. And I thought that was so funny because people are really um positive and enthusiastic about what you do. But coming from a country that's, you know, kind of small C conservative, which is Canada, where it's like everybody's a little bit, um, are you sure you want to do that? Are you thinking that that's gonna go? Maybe you should like not go out into the world so much. And in LA, uh they're so positive. They're such a yes culture. And even if those yeses are lies, I don't care. It's such a supportive environment that you just want to keep creating. So I I really love LA.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we just gotta get the film business back up and running properly here. Yes. Oh my gosh. Well, if we get stuck into that subject, we'll be here for hours. Uh, but I'd rather begin with learning about you and how a girl from a small town in Canada went from studying music and history, evolved into the acting and film industry in front of and behind the camera.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I start, I mean, I was always very, very creative. I was acting and singing um semi-professionally through high school and in university as well. And uh after university, I went into the film business just because I needed a job. And it was really booming in Toronto at the time. I'm from a small town north of Toronto. And um, that led me to going to acting school in New York and pursuing acting for some time. And then someone, someone said to me, you know, you should you should write and direct a short film to boost your acting career and act in it. And for whatever reason, and this is maybe a sign of why I didn't become a full-time actor, was I thought that was a really boring idea. The idea of making a short, however, was very interesting to me, not me acting in it. So that must should have been a sign. So I wrote and directed this short film that was based on a Strindberg short play. And uh it really blew up. It went to Sundance, it went to TIFF, it went all over the world, and it launched me into this career that I just sort of stumbled into in a way. And from there, I began directing, I was writing, I was working a lot in reality TV, in scripted. I was still acting, I was still performing, um, but I was very firmly on the road uh in in behind the camera.
SPEAKER_00:And when you look back, do you see a common thread that weaves through all of these create expressions? And what are you ultimately trying to explore or express through your work?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I thought I it that's such a good question, and it really made me think about that. I think I was always very interested in the female perspective. Uh, I think as an actress, I was very frustrated about what roles were available for women. You know, you can do okay in TV if you're certain size and if you're certain look. And if you're even marginally outside of that, um, it makes it so much more difficult. Like I'm 5'10, and so because I didn't have a kind of pixie build, it made things harder for me. And so I think I was really frustrated with the lack of diversity of female roles and female stories. And that was one of the reason I wrote and directed that short film, is because I wanted more control over that. And then as an actress, you don't have too much control over that unless you become also a producer. So I was always interested in female stories and female perspectives in roles that you don't see women very often. So when I got the idea, or I guess the spark to write this novel, I really wanted to write something about a female director in in TV because there just weren't that many. When I started writing this book, 7% of directors were women. And now it's around 12, which is better. It's not great. I guess we can say it's getting there, right? Getting there. But um yeah, I wanted to to talk about what it's like to be a woman in power, in creative power, uh, telling stories in a male-dominated world. So I think that's what the through line of all my creative works have been. And then as a byproduct of that, I've become interested in the male perspective of how do males go forward in this new world in a non-toxic way? How do they retain their wonderful masculinity and drive and and building and all the great things that, you know, Big M masculinity does while not being toxic. So I have a lot of, I have two stepsons, I have a son, I have a stepdaughter as well, but I have a lot of boys in my family, and I'm curious about how they're negotiating a very different world.
SPEAKER_00:I find what you're saying really interesting because having also been in the film industry behind the camera, uh, I know how vicious it can be for women. Gosh, the 80s and 90s, early 2000s, it was brutal. And over the last few years, I've been thinking about how that awful toxic masculinity and patriarchy created uh a super strong feminist movement. And in some ways, it's been really hard for the young men growing up now because they're almost some of them are kind of too scared to say anything. Now, when I bring that up with some people, they say, Oh, well, that's probably a good thing. Is it? I don't know. I mean, what are your thoughts?
SPEAKER_01:You're right. There are two extremes that sometimes men aren't sure what to say, and then there's the other side where men are feeling like they can say whatever they want and they have that right, and uh they're really digging their heels in. And I I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing that men are afraid to speak in a way because it's teaching them to listen a little bit more. It's teaching them to say, okay, hold on, like check, check my privilege, check my perspective. Is it okay? I mean, no one wants anyone to be silent, but sometimes I think it's okay for men just to be quiet and just to just to gauge what's going on. And and I hear you, I think my stepsons who are 27 and 24 frequently get into situations where they're afraid to speak. And I think there's positives to that. And I think it's we have to figure out I think what I'm trying to figure out in my own work is where is the middle ground? Where is the middle ground of holding your place, speaking your mind, but not doing it in a way that harms others or is disrespectful to others?
SPEAKER_00:I love what you said about uh young men who are too scared to to speak. It actually gives them time to listen, and that's what we need more of. I completely agree. I think it's very difficult when we have a leader of the country here and those around him who just say whatever they think and they have no filter. That's harmful.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Getting back to your book and the story and the film industry, it's been my experience that the people who work themselves up from maybe a PA, work their way up the ladder, being on every team on the set and learning what's expected, the etiquette of set, and then become either DPs or directors, producers. I have found them to be some of the best in the industry because they really understand what it takes to put a film or a TV piece or a commercial or a music video together. And what it is, is it takes a team who works well together to get the job done. And this is one of the through lines that I felt when I was reading your book. Uh, it takes a team. Kaylee has that experience, but also you have that experience, which made the book real to read.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think that's a really astute observation about people coming up through the ranks. When you when you work in film and TV, there's so many different jobs, there's so many things that need to happen that that um you really are a working team, that when you start from the bottom, you see how that works and you have great respect for the amount of time and effort and creativity every single person puts into that um working machine. And you really see when people are slacking off, and you really see when people are, you know, toxin themselves, you know, men and women. You can really see the effect on that because such an intense job, it's such an intense project working in film and TV. You're working 12, 13, 14 hours a day with this group that becomes a fast family, you know, dysfunctional or not, you know, and you really have to depend on each other. It's kind of an alt the ultimate collaboration. So some when someone comes in from the top down and starts mucking with the like the ecosystem of that, it really has a big fallout. And that is what I was trying to show in the in the book as well, is that when you have your top people, your director and your director of photography not agreeing, it affects the whole set, it affects everyone and what they're doing. But when they are working together collaboratively, it's such a joy. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. It really is. It really is. It really is. So I think, yeah, and and that's what I wanted to show the difference between Callie and Jory. Callie's the director, Jory's the director of photography, and Callie had to work up from the bottom. She couldn't go to school, so she had to come up from a PA. Whereas Jory comes from a very different background. He went to AFI, he went to um UCLA, he he was basically went into the business from the top. And so you see that different, you know, those different perspectives.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, you absolutely do. And how did your experience morph into writing this fictional story, love, camera, action?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that because I also started from the bottom. I I went to school as an actor, but I also, you know, I worked, I worked as a PA, I worked as a locations assistant, I worked in casting, I was I worked almost every single job. And so then you get to know all of these people and the different types of people that take these jobs. Like there's often a through line of uh who's in uh costume or who's in wardrobe or who's in makeup, you know. And uh because I I did so many jobs in the TV and film industry, it I I hoped it helped bring the crew alive because you see each department as the people that they are. Um, and so that really helped me uh write this book, is is fulfilling those many roles.
SPEAKER_00:Were there moments when you were writing love camera action where fiction and personal truth blurred for you? And how did you navigate emotional honesty and storytelling while maintaining creative distance?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, that is such a good question. Um, I I did use a lot of personal uh experiences that I had, as well as experiences of friends of mine and colleagues. Uh, I sort of blended them together. How to keep creative distance well, you like you really want to get in there. You want to try to get into the emotions of the of the moment of what it feels like to experience sexism or what it feels like to lose control and feel like you don't have any control over what you're doing or you know what you're putting out into the world. And so, yeah, I've had for sure lots of personal experiences with that and creative distance. I mean, I was thinking about that, and I think in my own case, I had to work to not have creative distance. I had to work at getting in deeper into what everybody did. It's my first novel, and novels are so specific in the way that you have to really get inside people's heads. And the work that I had been doing up until uh writing a novel had been mostly using subjects, using scripts, and using the actors to kind of interpret those things. So when you're watching a film or you're watching a TV show or a documentary, the viewers projecting onto those people of what they think is going on in those people's minds, right? In the novel, you gotta know, you gotta know exactly what those characters are doing. So for me, for me, I had to close creative distance. I had to get into the muck and force myself to get into there. Because, you know, sometimes you're like, oh, I don't, you know, I don't want to get into that conflict, or I don't want to put them through that, or you know, they have their privacy, my characters. It's like, no, you have to get in and and do that, if that makes sense. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, absolutely it does. Uh, love camera action tells the story of Callie Daniels, known for her skills directing steamy sex love scenes, and she is hired to direct a sexy episode of a popular series called The Demon. And she's ready to unleash her creativity. She sees this as her big chance. However, the director of photography, Jory Blair, has different ideas. Have you experienced similar chauvinistic real-life scenes on set? And if so, as a woman navigating creative leadership roles in male-dominated spaces, what inner resources have you cultivated to sustain your voice and vision? And I mean, let's face it, that's really difficult.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's really hard. I'm sure have you, you must have experienced that as well in your history. I of course have experienced chauvinism, you know, um, mansplaining, uh, gaslighting, all the things. And as a woman, you have a very difficult um uh line to balance on because you can't be seen as an outspoken feminist because you'll be seen as a troublemaker or you'll be seen that you're being hysterical or blowing things out of proportion. So you have to find a way to stick up for yourself and your vision without, oh God, it sounds so gross, but you without like disturbing male um ego too much. Yeah, I hear you completely. You're absolutely right. Because it can rain down on them. And it's unfortunate. When I've worked with all women in various projects, it is like something just sloughs off you where you don't have to put up those barriers or um you don't have to be second-guessing everything you're doing. You you can speak in a sort of understood code that I find very calming, but you just don't find those situations very often. I don't know how you well, how you feel about that.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I left the film industry in the early 2000s, but I can say in my experience through the 80s and 90s that, oh yeah, it was terrible. When you're part of a film crew uh and you're working either commercial after commercial or video or TV series after TV series or all, you know, months on a movie, that team becomes close. You're sharing personal stories, you know who what everybody likes to eat and doesn't eat and who's married and who has kids, you know, all of this kind of information. You almost become protective of each other. I found in my experiences with some male actors who would come on set, they would disrupt that harmony. What would happen is if a male would be kind of cocky or rude to a or make a pass at a female on the set, it was kind of toxic in a way that it would spread through all of the other male members of the crew. Now, years later, I have had crew members come up to me and say, Hey, I'm really sorry about what happened then, and uh I just want you to know that. And that is a taste of how society is changing, and I hope it continues to do so. But there were moments on set years ago where at times women felt shameful because what was going on, and we shouldn't have had to feel like that, and we shouldn't have had to spend so much money on therapy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and this is something that I found really interesting in terms of generational change, is that I I started in uh the when, like the late 90s and carried on through the early 2000s. And and at that time there were certain behaviors that were just like uh considered normal. And that you just had to roll with them and get on with your job. And after, you know, the I would guess I think the Me Too movement, the younger women on the cruise would be pointing out behaviors that I might not notice because I had learned to just disregard them. And I learned a lot from them because they were like, that's not cool. And I thought, oh wow, that isn't cool, you know, and um the good guys, then there are tons of good men around. Yes, they sure are. Tons, tons. And and they started noticing and they would start to watch their behavior. And, you know, it was the odd man out that would be saying um inappropriate things and digging their heels in to own that inappropriateness. Like there's a number of different times where I've said to, you know, usually ma'am, I said, Well, you can't really say that anymore. And whether it was an idiom or the way that they were addressing another woman or another crew member, and they just dig in, they say, Why? It's ridiculous that we're being, you know, told what to say and when to say it. And I'm like, Well, yeah, because that wasn't good the way we were doing it. It's inappropriate. So it was really interesting to see the generational shift. It was interesting to see how I was putting up with a kind of patriarchy and not even seeing it until the younger women were pointing it out to me.
SPEAKER_00:And you show that beautifully in Callie's personality. You show her vulnerability and the turmoil that she's having to deal with while she's trying to be creative. Just getting a little deeper into personalities. When people are rude, sarcastic, or chauvinistic, quite often their behavior reflects their personal insecurities. Now, in Jory's case, in your book, his insecurity is fueled by a recent health scare and feeling undermined when the producers and the production company hire Callie to direct. He feels his experience in the film industry is way above hers. Can you explain the difference of authority and relationship between DPs and directors on TV shows as opposed to film sets where you might have three cameras, uh, directors getting credit, etc.? And have you experienced this tension? And if so, how did you deal with it?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think, you know, in a in a film, in the film world, a DP and a director work very closely together from the start. They have decided on a vision, they've decided that they work well together, and they go from beginning to end. They're very much a team. Um, and and film is kind of a director's medium. It's it's the director sets the tone for everything and works with everyone to follow through with that tone. And and the director of photography is their close, close ally. And TV, it's different because the directors often, aside from the ones who start the show off, the that start the first or second episode, the other directors that kind of fly in on the sixth or seventh or tenth or eleventh, they're kind of just hired guns. And the um the director of photography has has started the show from the beginning and goes all the way through in the series, most of the time. Sometimes on big shows like Game of Thrones, they split up the directors of photography just because it's impossible to like have one person do all that. But most series have the same director of photography all the way through, and then a director will come in and shoot just a couple of episodes. So in Jory's mind, this is his show. He set the visual tone, he's, you know, uh shepherded the crew through all of these other episodes and the ups and downs of what a first season means, because first seasons are very, very tricky to do. Everybody's finding their feet, you know, uh narratively and visually and all these things. And here comes this woman, you know, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to make changes, ready to show her creative worth, which, you know, you can't blame her, but he's like, Oh God, I just want to get through my day. You know, I don't want to hear new ideas. I just want things to click along as like I'm tired. So um he feels like he needs to protect his crew from potentially a rogue director that has been pulled in at the last minute. And he's he's trying to protect his creative vision as well as the crew's time and energy. And so he sees Callie as kind of a threat. Now, you know, because he started from the top, he's he's got a certain arrogance to him. He doesn't know what it's like to come from the bottom and to struggle. So he's got a bit of a blind spot there where he has to learn to be a little bit more open and empathetic to different voices and different outlooks. And this was what I was trying to explore in terms of um how do men work in this world that we're moving towards? Because up until this time, men have just been surrounded generally by other men. And there's a shorthand that they speak to each other and there's a hierarchy, and and they're all kind of taught, you know, you have to stick to your vision and you have to be a leader. And collaboration is wrong in some ways. Whereas women, I think, are socialized much differently. We're socialized to be collaborating, collaborators were socialized to listen and think about other perspectives more. And so that makes clash. And so he has to figure out how to be a little bit more collaborative. He has to figure out how to listen to a different viewpoint, a different language. And that's his that's his journey. He's gotta, he's gotta learn from that while he's under the duress of having a health scare and managing the crew and falling in love with this person that he should not be falling in love with. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I love what you just said about uh teams looking after each other. For example, you know, the Key Grip and their team and the Gaffer and their lighting crew are often hired by the DP. So they are quite protective of that person. And I found that with the Glam Squad, uh costumes, hair, and makeup, they tend to gather around the actor or the actress and uh really protect them. And in your story, you nailed that connection and that protectiveness of crew members. It kind of brought back a lot of memories for me. I particularly enjoyed the scenes where a certain couple would set up these liaisons on the set where no one could see them or where they thought no one could see them. That was cute. Anyway, I would like to talk about a line that is on page 167. When Callia is reflecting on her past relationships, you write, quote, men were ultimately a drain on one's resources, end quote. Now, for many people in relationships, there is a time when this thought rumbles in their consciousness regarding their partner. What are your thoughts? And did a personal experience prompt this line?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think okay, so where that comes from in Callie's journey is that she um witnessed her mother who had some, you know, mental health difficulties and her sister go through tons and tons of relationships, like very toxic relationships where they gave up everything for the men in their lives. And I think we all know people like that. Um, I think we as women, we are again socialized to do that. And um, Callie made a firm decision to never do that because she didn't want to get into that situation. And so that's why she doesn't, she doesn't want to fall in love with Jory because she doesn't, she doesn't believe in love. She doesn't believe, you know, that partnerships can work because she's never seen a partnership work. Um from my own personal experience, yeah, for sure. I mean, I've I've uh, you know, I separated from my husband because of that, because it felt like there was too much, like there were many reasons, of course, but um there was such a uh uh imbalance of labor, emotional labor, physical labor, child labor. And you know, we're moving into a time where a lot of women are seeing those imbalances. Like there's 70% of the divorce cases that are or that are filed are from women, and it's often because they are exhausted. It's a thing that's happening. And I think women are are waking up to it. And because they don't have to depend on men economically, they don't have to depend on them for emotional support, it's easier for them to make those choices now.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's true. Now, let's talk about the theme of vulnerability: physical, emotional, and professional. It appears to underpin some of your character's conflicts. I'm talking about Jory and Callie. Um, what does vulnerability mean to you in your life and career?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think this is something that's really um important for everybody in a creative field, but in any kind of field, is to understand the strength in vulnerability. Um, I think, again, we've been taught, and men especially, that vulnerability is a weakness, that you shouldn't show it. You always have to be strong, you always have to be the leader, you always have to like not listen to outside ideas. This kind of question of autourism, especially in film, where it's like the one voice is the voice that carries it through. There, that does not exist. There is never one voice, especially in film and TV. There's so many voices in collaborations. And so it was something that I'm always thinking about is like, when are you allowed to be vulnerable? When should you not be vulnerable? Um as a woman, you're socialized to think that again, vulnerability is something that you can't show in your job because you will be denigrated or told that you're hysterical. But I think our world, people are yearning for vulnerability. And I think you see that on TikTok, you see it on Instagram. When when someone's being genuinely vulnerable, it always goes viral because you're like, oh my gosh, someone's being like speaking their truth kind of thing. Of course, that can also run rampant on the other side, but we won't we won't get into that. But yeah, so vulnerability is something that I think is is very important that we all kind of look at.
SPEAKER_00:It kind of gets back to uh what we're talking about earlier with young men and feeling like they can't speak at times. And I think that brings back that word vulnerability. I wonder if perhaps young men are starting to feel this word, this emotion of feeling vulnerable. And it all gets back to what you were talking about about listening and trying to be more empathetic to each other.
SPEAKER_01:A hundred percent. Yeah, and I think because you know, Mountain. Now men are told that they should be re vulnerable and they're like, Well, how the heck am I supposed to do that? I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:You know? Yeah. And especially if you've come from a family where nobody talked about relationships, that must be so difficult to learn about being vulnerable and that what that word really means, let alone putting that into your daily uh life situations.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think it's really hard. I think, like, you know, just watching my son grow up and how limited uh boys are allowed to be, just in the very colors that they wear. I remember saying, you know, I would always put him in pinks or pastels because he liked them. Um, and but also to prove, hey, you can you can all colors are for everybody. You can rock it. You don't have to stick to black and blue. And so, but then you see like so many boys just in black and blue. And what does that mean to them if they can't have red or they can't have purple or they can't have different shades of green? It's it's sort of it's hard.
SPEAKER_00:So yeah. Yeah, I mean, the colors you wear are such a personal thing, you know. I'm I could go on about colors and what we wear for a long time, but you know what? I would rather hear about your publishing story from your finished manuscript to finding an agent and landing a publishing deal. It was long.
SPEAKER_01:It was really long. Um, it was uh my my novel took a long time because I was working in the film industry and and uh I was I'm a single mom at this point, and so it took a long time to steal time to write it. And I got into a thing called Pitch Wars, which was a volunteer run but very highly regarded. Um I don't know what like mentoring program. And I I my manuscript got in and uh like it was they took, I don't know, maybe 50 romance novels and 4,000 people applied, kind of thing. And I got in very happily, got a mentor, and then they gave me a showcase after that manuscript was finished. So uh that meant that agents were sort of introduced to my work. Now I didn't get an agent from that showcase, but because I was able to put pitch words on my querying letter, people took more notice because they knew that it had been vetted, like this this project had been vetted to a certain degree. And it took uh it took about six or seven months for me to get an agent from that time after querying 45 different agents. And I thought that was crazy, but people were saying to me, you you don't give up on that manuscript until about 70 or 80 queries. That's when you decide to put it to bed and try something else. So around 45, I got I got my agent, and it was great. He was starting out, so it was good because we were both starting out, and that's where a lot of new writers can get agents is agents who are, you know, starting their own careers. And then he started submitting me. Now, a year later, I wasn't getting anything. Uh, but he and he decided he didn't want to be in the business anymore, and so he decided to uh he to get out, but would introduce me to an agent at at the at the agency, the same agency. And in that time where he said he wasn't going to be working there anymore, he uh sold the book. And so he sold the book, I got the new agent, and then once I signed that contract, it took another year and a half for a bit to come out. So it was really a long, long process for me. I think because working in the film and TV industry, you know that sometimes things can go like that, and sometimes, and by that I mean really quickly, and sometimes things just take forever. So because I had so many things going on at the time, I didn't worry about it as much as say a newbie might who might be checking, you know, their querying letters every five seconds to see who has read the book or who is asking for an NMS. I I had been run through the ringer already in film and TV. So it I didn't bother me as much. And that was a real godsend, in a way.
SPEAKER_00:Quite a few readers who I've spoken with think that, you know, authors are making a lot of money. That is a rarity. Let's get that clear. Yes, there are authors who have been around a long time and they uh quite often have a large backlist. And uh yes, they are making a lot of money. But generally speaking, most of the authors I know have not given up their other job or they're working part-time, giving them time to write. And I think this is a good thing for um writers who are starting out to remember. It's not about giving up your day job, it's about how to find creativity through your day job. Because it because it doesn't stop once you have perhaps found an agent and a publishing deal, because you need to have started writing or be halfway through your second book. And I know that's probably sounding easy the way I'm saying it, and it's definitely not, but keeping positive about writing while you have another job makes writing easier and being creative easier.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I agree. I agree. You need a stability to be able to write so that you're not always afraid of where the next paycheck is coming from. But also those day jobs can give you a lot of material. A lot of material. So I think you're right. And yes, you do have to be writing that second book. The second my first book was done and I was querying, I started my second book. And so now, you know, Love Camera Action came out in April. I've got my second book on submission, and now I'm starting my third book. So you really have to be, yeah, you have to be consistent and diligent. Um, and assuming you like doing it. I mean, people do ask me if I love writing, and I would say, no, I don't. It's it's horrible. Horrible. Because you're putting yourself through the ringer in so many different ways, emotionally, financially, time-wise, but I'm compelled to do it. I'm more miserable not doing it than I am doing it, and that's what's kind of getting me through.
SPEAKER_00:I think that's a great quote. I'll have to use that when I'm promoting your episode. Okay, I have a couple more questions. One of them is Do you believe the creative process changes the creator? And if so, in what ways has writing this novel, Love Camera Action, changed you? Oh my god, yes.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my gosh, why do it if it doesn't create doesn't change you? Like, didn't it change you when you were doing with being a costumer? Yes, absolutely. Each creation changes you, it makes you listen to people more, it makes you connect with people more, it makes you connect to yourself more, it makes you understand what you think is important and what you think it isn't, and it also makes you very humble. There's some criticism about love camera action that makes me really sit down and go, Oh, okay, that's an interesting perspective. And you have to be thick skinned, but also listen to when people have criticisms about your work. And it's not easy. It is not easy, but it makes you, I would say, I mean, not to toot my own horn, but a more interesting person.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, absolutely. One thing I will say though, there are negative reviews, uh, so many on Amazon that really don't make any sense. So I tell people, you know what, don't read any of the Amazon reviews or the Goodreads reviews quite often. Uh, the ones that really matter are written by people who really do understand writing. The other thing is you have to think of a bad review like a bruise. It will fade over time. I love that. I love that. You can listen, like you said, take in what you feel you need to take in to learn, but then you just have to let it go, which I know sounds easy and it's incredibly hard, but that's all we can do. I find it hard to uh think that anyone is giving you negative reviews about love camera action because honestly, it just made me feel good. And I need it. We all need to feel good, right? It's a hard world out there. Okay, let's talk books. What are you currently reading? Well, I'm actually going through a sci-fi summer.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that sounds like fun. So yeah, but I know it's so fun. I don't know why. Like sometimes I'll go through a gothic summer and sometimes other types of, but it's a sci-fi summer. So I just finished Andy Weir's project, Hail Mary. It's really fun. It's really fun. It's, you know, very sciencey, and I am not a science person. So I kind of glossed over some things. Like my my eyes kind of got glassy, but it's a really fun exploration of space and what would you do if you were stuck in space and all alone and didn't know who you were. So it was it was a lot of fun. That's also why I love romance. Like, and just back to what you were saying, romance is actually meant to make you feel good. It is meant to be an escape, it is meant to be read in a few hours because it is uh a release. You know that there's gonna be a happy ending. So you're okay with going through the trials and tribulations of these people. You're not scared to feel all those things because you know it's gonna be okay. And there's a really important place for that kind of literature. Like I've gone through, I've gone through my literary fiction phase, and that's it's amazing pros, it's amazing um stories, but sometimes I just get scared because I I'm like, I don't know what's gonna happen to these people. Can I handle it? And with romance, you don't have to worry about that. You can relax, you can escape, you can laugh, you can, you know, be sad because you know it'll be okay at the end. And that's what romance is kind of for.
SPEAKER_00:So your next books are gonna be rom-cons too? They are rom-cons, yes. Oh, good. I'll look forward to reading them. Let me know when they're close to being published because I would love to have you back on the show.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I would love to come back too because I want to hear some of your stories as well. I'll have to be careful, or they may end up in a book. Yeah, some of them they can't be uh for public consumption, for sure.
SPEAKER_00:Noelle, it's been great having you on the show. I've had a lot of giggles, and I love your book, Love Camera Action.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you so much, Mandy. This has been a real joy.
SPEAKER_00:It's so fun to talk to you. You've been listening to my conversation with Noelle Stark about her book Love Camera Action. 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 thebookshoppodcast.com. And make sure to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to the show. You can also follow me at Mandy JacksonBeverly, on 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 the bookshoppodcast.com. The Bookshop Podcast is written and produced by me, Mandy Jackson Beverly. Theme music provided by Brian Beverly, and my executive assistant and graphic designer is Adrian Ottahan. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.