JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Author Jasmine Guillory is trying something new. After writing eight romance novels about heterosexual couples, her ninth features two women.
JASMINE GUILLORY: My new book "Flirting Lessons" is about Avery and Taylor.
SUMMERS: Avery, she says, is kind of uptight.
GUILLORY: She's about to turn 30 and feels like she should go out and do more fun things but doesn't quite know how.
SUMMERS: And then she meets the charismatic Taylor, who offers to teach Avery how to flirt.
GUILLORY: They embark on a series of flirting lessons, and then it becomes a little romance between the two of them.
SUMMERS: Like her character Avery, Jasmine Guillory undertook this big, new thing - writing a sapphic novel - with a little help from a friend. In her case, that friend is fellow author Amy Spalding. Spalding has written sapphic love stories before. Her latest book, "On Her Terms," came out in February. And when Guillory reached out in a what-the-heck-am-I-writing kind of moment, Spalding was there for her. In conversation with each other about their work, Guillory and Spalding teased out what's so great about trying new things in writing and in life.
GUILLORY: Avery comes into the book nervous about doing something new. She has just kind of gotten out of this relationship that was bad, and now she's doing things that she does not know how to do and is scared to do. And she has this conversation kind of early in the book with Taylor about, why would anyone want to do something that they're bad at? Like, you have to be bad at something in order to get good at it.
AMY SPALDING: Yeah. I thought a lot about that theme, too, while writing "On Her Terms" because one thing that I think about a lot just as me - not just as the writer me, but as the human me...
(LAUGHTER)
SPALDING: ...I think there's a real joy, a real learning experience, that - if you're willing to open up and try new things and be willing to be bad at something at first and to be willing to not be perfect. But every time I put myself in that scenario, I'm like, oh, my God, people are looking at me. This is so awkward. I felt like - when you said, like, when Avery says, why would I do something if I can't be perfect at it? - I just - like, I literally hear, like, a therapist's pen, like, going across her notepad, like, girl.
(LAUGHTER)
SPALDING: But I try hard to make myself sometimes be bad at a thing or try a new thing. Oh, I don't like it either.
GUILLORY: No, it's terrifying...
SPALDING: Yeah.
GUILLORY: ...And ultimately good for us and ultimately, like, yes, a very good thing and I'm grateful that I did it, but in the moment, it's terrifying.
SPALDING: Yes. You're not going to be great at everything you try, and that is also a good lesson to learn and hold to yourself. I will also say something about writing "On Her Terms, " which I think is really also true for "Flirting Lessons," is that often when you try something new, when you take a step out of your comfort zone, when you do a thing that sort of feels labeled not you, you actually are going to have a lot of support in your life.
GUILLORY: Yes.
SPALDING: I think what you picture, and what our characters definitely picture, is that everyone around them is going to say, why are you doing this?
GUILLORY: I mean, I - thinking about myself, like, there have been a number of times in the past few years where I have done something new and scary and have sent, like, messages to the group chat. And invariably, my friends, like, cheer me on and are excited for me and tell me the things that I need to do in order to go do the thing that I'm scared to do.
SPALDING: I think relatedly, like you said, so many of us - you start to get to your 30s and 40s, you feel a little set of, like, oh, I guess this is who I am, and this is the things I do, and that's fine. But one theme that I'm interested in exploring in all my books is the idea that, like, you feel like, oh, everyone else knows how to be a person, but I'm - no, we're all figuring it out. We're all putting pieces together. We're all sort of grappling with what's an adult? What's someone who has a happy life? Where do I fit into this?
GUILLORY: Yeah, and I think people who are trying to figure out how to be a person at every age they are and what they want in life and what they want out of friendships and relationships - both those people in real life and in fiction are much more interesting people...
SPALDING: Yes.
GUILLORY: ...To talk to and read about and care about than kind of people who aren't curious about life. Like, I want to know people in real life and have those relationships in real life and write in fiction and read in fiction those people who are curious and interested about what would happen if you changed your life in one of many different ways.
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SUMMERS: Jasmine Guillory's new novel "Flirting Lessons" and Amy Spalding's "On Her Terms" are both out now.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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