Kidsday interviews Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
What is your newest book "The Real Real" about? NICOLA: The Real Real is about 17-year-old Jesse O'Rouke, who is a senior in high school, and she is the first person in her family who is going to go to college. Her family has been working really hard to make that happened. And Jesse is cast in a reality show. She's told it's going to be a documentary with XTV, which is an MTV-like network. And she soon finds that she's giving an unrealistic version of her life to America.
What inspired you to write "The Real Real"? EMMA: I think we were inspired by reality television and what a huge role it has now in American culture especially in teen culture. And how young ladies like Lauren Conrad are held up as living these amazing lives and we wanted to talk about how manufactured those lives are. Because we think it's important that if someone's being held up as a role model or someone to emulate that's we have the full story about whether or not that's an attainable life style. We were also inspired by our experience at having a book coming out at 27. And having to do a lot of publicity at the end and how weird that is and we were 27 and what if you were 17 and on cover US weekly not just somewhere in the back.
How did you two meet? NICOLA: We met we were seniors at NYU. We were in a great books program called the Gallatin School we were in a class together but we were both too shy to talk to the other one so we kept following each other in the elevator on different days but not getting up the nerve to say hello. We met after class we were at an ATM machine standing around on the Upper East Side, which was a million miles in NYC terms from NYU. We tapped each other on the shoulder and started talking and we didn't stop talking. That's where it started.
Did you guys ever argue about the plot lines of the characters? EMMA: All the time .It's really taught me how to negotiate and compromise, and it's OK if you don't agree. That just means there's something that needs to be talked out and that you're book will be the better for it.
Do you also write on your own? EMMA: No. We do not. That was a short answer. If it's not broke don't fix it.
What was the first book you guys ever wrote? NICOLA: It was "The Nanny Dairies."
What was your first reaction for each of you when you found out "The Nanny Dairies" was going to be made to a movie? EMMA: I think we were together we both started sobbing. I think there was a lot of hugging each other jumping up and down and sobbing.
In the beginning of the book, "The Nanny Diaries," it states that the two of you both worked for New York City families. Have you ever worked any place else? EMMA: I nannied one summer in East Hampton. That's how far I've gone
NICOLA: I actually grew up in Rochester N.Y., which is about six hours north of N.Y.C., and I did a bunch of babysitting there. I wouldn't say I was a nanny.
Do you think the novel was easier to write the novel "The Nanny Diaries," because you both had personal experience? EMMA: I think it was easier and harder. We kept trying to make sure that we weren't letting our own experience cloud the story and where it needed to go. We had a tenent we live by which is just because it happened to you doesn't mean that it's interesting.
NICOLA: Yes, it's true.
EMMA: And we wanted to make sure that we were telling a story that other people could come into and it had piecing and felt realistic. There were things that happened to us that we would have loved to write about. They were so upsetting. They just didn't have a place in the story. Either they were just so dark, they would have just taken the reader someplace they couldn't come back from or just not funny. So we just tried to be incredibly mindful of it. In a lot of scenes I think there were things one of us would just so loosely tell to the other. Like I would say I took care of a little girl with the croup. And Emma took that an ran with that whole section of her being sick.
How did you come up with the names of the characters like the X's and Nanny? NICOLA: The thing what we really wanted to write a special satire with "Nanny Diaries" and "Citizen Girl," where the girl's name is Girl. Within a week of writing the character that way like after all it seem like really legitimate and enchanting. And once we got to know the character we're like ah! We're going to name our daughters Girl. But I think that we wanted to kind of poke at the universality of these experiences that it wasn't just unfortunately it was not just one family, it's not just one nanny whose lived through that to see something that has happened to a lot of people.
Did you find your employers by chance like the X's or did you put up posters? EMMA: We definitely put ads. There is a place called the Parents League. We looked for the league that has a bulletin board and you can put up an ad there and people looking for help also put ads up. And you can kind of read behind between the lines and see who would be a sane person to work for. That's where I got all my jobs.
NICOLA: Me, too.
Did you ever nanny for a child that got sick like as Grey? EMMA: Yes I did -- awful. It's very intense to be 21 years old and be responsible for a little person who is not your own child. So you don't make the final call about going to emergency rooms and that you're in just like that. Cell phones were something that people just started to carry. So when parents wanted to disappear off the radar they could disappear off the radar. And so that was a very - There were definitely experiences that were really scared us and were also part of our inspiration of writing the book.
Would you hire a nanny after your personal experience or being with you? NICOLA: Yeah like the women who were just here. There were three nannies and it can totally work. It just takes a lot of writing together. It takes a lot of communication and takes everybody involved remembering that it's a job. That this person in your home is there absolutely because they want to be working with you and they want to be with your kids. But also because they're there to earn a living and to be mindful of that they are not mind readers and we respecting what an incredible hard job it is.
EMMA: That it's hard work and I try to remind my friends sometimes that when you're the parent if you need to go mattress shopping you just park the kid in the stroller and you just do that. The kid has to go along and you're the mom. So when you're on the clock you're having to be sort of entertaining and educational stimulating and attend all the time because that's what you're being paid for. That's actually a lot more draining because you can't give yourself breaks because . . .
NICOLA: You're working!
EMMA: It's long it's a very, very long day. And it's great if you're in a household where parents they do the work themselves when you're not there and they do appreciate what you're doing all day and you get to have that they really appreciate the role that you have in their child's life.
What is your favorite part of writing? NICOLA: Right now it's meeting the readers. And it's really amazing when you meet people especially this is our first young adult novel so meeting young women especially who are interested in writing. We worked so hard to put this journey together and then you're like what are the higher ups. It's nothing like pulled out of having a chance to meet people who have given this experience to and they have their own experience of it. It's just mind bearing. It's hard to believe it's really real. That's always cool.
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