About.com: I enjoyed your essay, "I Hear Voices," and though I know that it was meant to be funny, I wondered how much truth there was in it. Does your fiction generally start with the characters, then, rather than plot or theme?
Stephanie Lessing: Absolutely. There was no plot, or outline, for that matter. All I had was this idea that women need to be nicer to each other in the workplace. Chloe sort of invented herself. I wound her up, set her down in the offices of Issues Magazine and let her do her thing.
AC: I read on your website that you have two children (heights 5'1" and 5'4"). Could you share some tips for balancing writing and parenthood?
SL: I wasn’t able to do much of anything when they were small. I pretty much spent all of my time staring at them. I found them fascinating and couldn’t care less about anything else. Needless to say, I didn’t get much writing done. I simply waited until they were in school full time. I write all through the day and night, but if one screams my name, I drop everything. They come first. I write while they’re doing their homework or hanging out with their friends.
AC: What was the biggest challenge you faced as a first-time novelist?
SL: Getting publicity for the book. I think this is something writers need to know. In-house publicity departments don’t have the time or the money (unless you’re famous) to spend on making your book a bestseller. It’s up to the author to go out there and make things happen, to get the word out and get the book noticed. No one is going to do it for you. They have piles of books to sell. Writing the book and getting it published was a cinch compared to finding ways to publicize it.
AC: The New York Post described your book as "A lively chick-lit exploration of modern social manners." Why did you choose the chick lit genre (if you did consciously choose it)? What does this genre offer that others might not?
SL: I’m not sure if I chose to write chick lit but I did, didn’t I? I thought I was writing a sort of satire of the whole genre because Chloe is such an exaggeration of most chick lit characters but the book wasn’t marketed as such. I do love chick lit though, so I’m proud to have written a chick lit book, whether I intended to or not. I think it’s important to find the humor in as many situations as you possibly can. Chick lit offers readers a way to laugh at their problems and to realize they’re in the same boat as so many other women their age. These books bond women together because they all pretty much have one unifying message, i.e., “If you don’t take life too seriously, it’s a lot more fun.”
