A Conversation with Lisa Cron

I recently chatted with Lisa Cron about her most recent book, Story Genius, a detailed guide for writing a compelling novel. I have known Lisa for a long time and largely attribute my deep understanding of 'story' to our many conversations over breakfast at our favorite diner 'Rae's' in Santa Monica. And I continue to learn from her!

In this interview I was particularly struck by her insights around how traditional writing is typically taught - as early as kindergarten - leaning on 'technique' over 'story'. Perhaps my ears perked up because I have a four-year-old daughter. Even so, it makes me reflect on my own foundation and evolution, and the ways I've had to unravel and re-learn, thanks to people like Lisa who has made teaching 'Story' her life's work.

So I hope you'll take a moment to glean some Cron wisdom...

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LISA CRON has worked as a literary agent, a TV producer, and a story consultant for Warner Brothers, the William Morris Agency, and many others. She is a frequent speaker at writers' conferences, and a story coach for writers, educators, and journalists. She teaches in the UCLA Extension Writers' Program, is on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts MFA in Visual Narrative Program, and is the author of Wired for Story. She splits her time between Santa Monica, California, and New York City.

In her book Story Genius, Lisa takes you step by step, through the creation of a novel from the first glimmer of an idea, to a complete multi-layered blueprint--including fully realized scenes-- that evolves into a first draft with the authority, command and richness of a sixth or seventh draft. It follows on the heels of her first breakout book, Wired for Story, which offers a revolutionary look at story as the brain experiences it.

Karin: You call yourself a “Story Coach” versus a “Writing Coach,” why is that?

Lisa: When people hear the word “writing” they think, “How do you write? What's your technique?” and that comes at it from such the wrong place. Because story begets writing, not the other way around.

That's why people who know me well, when I'm working with someone, and I go, “Well, you're a really good writer,” they know I'm about to tell them something awful. That's not a compliment.

What is “You're a really good writer” code for?

For me, it's code for: you can write a sentence, you can write a generic scene, you can use words but what you're using them for isn't there. It's not about writing; it's about story. The power comes from the story not the writing. It's story first. That's what ends up giving power to any words. The problem is that writers think that the words have to be there first. It keeps them from getting into the starting gate, let alone out of it, because everything has to be beautifully written from the get-go. And if you don't know what you're talking about or writing about or what the story is, what are you using those words for?

Why do we have it all wrong?

I spent the past two years in this small school district in New Jersey that was K through 8. They wanted to figure out how could they incorporate story into how they teach writing. I've always said that writing is taught wrong everywhere. Originally in my head I was thinking post-secondary. And I got there and I went, “Oh no, it's starts in Kindergarten. I see exactly where the problem is.”

Kids in second grade are taught “theme.” What does that even mean? It doesn't mean anything. I tell adults not to use that word; it's a horrible word. You don't say, “What's my theme?” You say, “What's my point?”

It's taught in terms of technique. It's taught in terms of using beautiful, flowery language. It's taught in terms of mastering how to write a sentence.

I'll give you a great example. I worked with this great literacy coach at the school, and she told me before I got there, “I just want to let you know what you're up against.” About a year or two before I got there - I can't remember if it was a third or fourth grade class - but there was a little girl who came up to her and she'd written about the time when her parents sat her down and told her they were getting a divorce. And so she's reading a piece and she's holding back the tears trying not to cry. And the literacy coach said, “This is so beautiful, this is so amazing. Let's go show it to your teacher.” And so the teacher read it and the first words out of her mouth were, “Um, you missed a couple of transition words here.”

That's the problem.

Besides the fact that it's taught in terms of different techniques and pretty, flowery language - flowery language is very much applauded - they get these prompts that are things like, “Jane was walking on the beach, and she found a bottle with a message in it. Write a story about what happened...” Or “Joe woke up and heard some noise in the backyard and looked outside and there was a castle in his backyard. He decided to go in and explore. Write a story about what happened...”

Prompts are always like that. It's just a big weird thing that happened. But there's no story in that, why would that matter? I don't know.

The problem is, writers are taught the technique of how to write: here's how to write a sentence, here's how to write a paragraph. But when it comes to actually writing a story, they're not taught anything. And the thing is, ultimate and complete freedom is not liberating. It's paralyzing. Because how do you know what matters and what doesn't? What's the point? You're just standing there knowing nothing.

So I said, here's what a story is: it's character, problem, struggle, solution. They didn't know that a story is about how somebody changes. They didn't know that a story was about an internal struggle. They didn't know any of that. For them a story is just what happens. Adults hear it, too. “Okay, here's what a story is: it has a beginning, middle and end.” Show me something that doesn't have a beginning, middle and end. I mean, what does that even mean? Again, it means nothing.

People don't teach story. Writing is taught as if you learn how to write somehow a story is going to appear by itself. You get good with words, you develop your voice, which is bullshit anyway, and then somehow you're going to write forward and a story is going to appear; and if it doesn't, it means you don't have any talent. That's what kills me.

When people say things like, “I have a love of language,” I'm like what the hell does that mean? Language is nothing; language is an empty vessel. Language is a means of communicating something. How can you be good with language if you don't know what you're communicating? That comes first. Then you have the language with which to express it. Story first, writing second.

I think the key thing that is missing - the seminal mistake - is this belief when you start writing, you start writing on page one and you go forward to the end. When actually all stories begin 'in media res' - meaning in the middle of the thing - meaning that there is just as much of it before as after, and that there are certain very specific things in developing story that you need to do before you get to page one. Which is not in any way, shape or form “pre-writing” but everything that you develop “before” is actually in the novel itself; in fact, the most foundational layer of it and on every single page.

Are you talking about the relevant backstory?

I hate the term “backstory.” Backstory is story. My favorite quote that I've been using is Faulkner who said, “The past isn't dead, it isn't even past.” In other words, when the character steps on the page, they bring that with them, that's how they got to where they are.

It's the lens through which the protagonist - and really every character - sees everything. It's how they evaluate everything. It's how you evaluate stuff; it's how I evaluate stuff. There is no general reality out there. We make sense of everything, and everything gets meaning, based on what our past experience has taught us what those things mean. So if you send someone onto the page without knowing that, in a story specific sense, it's like pushing them on to the page with amnesia.

Tell us about your new book Story Genius...

Story Genius takes you step by step, from that first glimmer of an idea that sparks you, all the way through a method as to how to dig down and how to really get that first draft on to the page -- and what you need to know and how to do it. It's literally 100% prescriptive: here's what to do, here's the next thing to do, here's the questions to ask, here's the test to put your ideas through, here's what you're looking for.

If I could burn every copy of The Hero's Journey and every story structure book out there, I would make the biggest bonfire ever. I think any story structure method is awful and I'll tell you why.

They're like plotters; they start with the external story. They go, “This has to happen at this page, that has to happen over here”; they're looking at external structure. Story structure is a byproduct of a story well told. The plot is not what the story is about. The story is about how the story is affecting the protagonist and the plot is created to force the protagonist to go through a very specific internal change that they needed to make before the plot ever was even conceived of.

Those books will take very successful, well-known movies or novels and they'll break them down based on this theory. And the thing is, you already know that movie. You already know that novel. So the internal story, the thing that is really giving it meaning, you already internalized. So when you look at the external stuff, you think, “Oh I'll just make the external stuff and that internal stuff just shows up.” And it isn't true.

Story structure builds things from the outside in; story is built from the inside out.

Can you talk more about re-defining theme as “What's your point?”

All stories make a point on the first page and everything goes to that point. The point is how the character changes internally, that 'aha' moment at the end. It's kind of like that dithery friend who's going on and on and on... and you're smiling... and what you're trying to do is not shake them by the shoulders and go, “Why are you telling me this? What's the point?” If you don't know what the point is, then you can't write a story that tells it. You have to know.

It comes down to - and it's surprisingly deep - why does this matter to you?

I use that phrase a lot, “Why does this matter?” It's a much more relatable way of talking about it than “theme.”

Well, “theme” is scary because it's general. And when people think of theme, they think of that thing that hovers over. The thing is, the story is in the specific.

But I've noticed that it can take time to uncover and really get to - at least for memoir - the deeper, underlying truth of the experience and why it matters and what the actual change is that you're writing about. So what do you suggest?

Everybody enters wanting something really badly, something that they've wanted for a really long time, not something that they want once the plot kicks in. You've got to figure out what that is.

Their “misbelief” is what's keeping them from getting this thing that they want. I would never use the term 'fatal flaw' because it sounds so finger-waggy. It sounds so pejorative. And I would never use the term “wound” because it turns the protagonist into a victim. But it's a misbelief. Once you know that, you ask yourself, “Where did that come from?” It came in childhood, almost always; and I would guess that's definitely true with memoir writers. It defines how the character sees the world.

A misbelief is something that happens in a difficult situation that saves the character from something really bad happening. And in that moment it's true; but it's actually not so. So characters believe this misbelief; they feel like they are super lucky to have learned this early in life. And it drives their life. Once you've identified that and written it in scene form, when it kicks in you can start to trace it through story specific events that led the character to what's going to happen to the character on page one.

I'll give you an example I use all the time. I even have it in the book. Did we talk about the movie “Protagonist” ever? It's a great one; it's a documentary.

So in this movie “Protagonist,” there are four men telling their stories. One of them is this guy Mark Pierpont and he's gay. He grew up in a fundamentalist Christian enclave. It doesn't sound like they were in a cult - it wasn't David Koresh or anything - just very fundamentalist. He felt very loved and felt very close to his mom. But he, I guess like all of us, felt like he was different. He didn't quite get 'why' but it didn't matter. And then one day at school - he was 11 or 12 - someone came up to him and said, “God hates faggots.” And he went, “What's a faggot?” He went to the dictionary and looked up the word; and that became the defining moment in his life. If what I want most is love and connection, but if I have that, God isn't going to love me? Therefore, I can't be gay.

And he lived his life based on that. He got married to a woman!

When did he have to confront that misbelief?

The thing is, in a story the character is confronting it in every scene. In every single scene they've got to make a tough decision, and the story is what they have to struggle with to make that decision.

As I recall, I think the moment of truth was when he became one of those guys who was counseling other guys that they could not be gay. He was counseling someone who so deeply reminded him of himself that he couldn't do it. And he became the great guy - flamboyant with a capital “F” - that he was always meant to be. But you watch him buck it his whole life.

The “point” you're making is that 'aha' moment, what it takes to change someone on that level. And now the character can solve or not, depending on what kind of novel or memoir you're writing, that external plot problem.

A story is one single problem that grows, escalates and complicates.

Story Genius is not a formula. I never go into any kind of formula. I just go into, “This is what a story is and these are the things you need to know about your character and what's happening in order to then tell a compelling story.” There's no formula to it at all. Just, “This is what you need to get to, and those other methods won't get you there.”

Look at E.L. Doctorow who said, “Writing a novel is like driving a car in the dark, you can only see as far as your headlights but you can make it all the way there.” No you can't. If you have a natural sense of story, then maybe, but the rest of us are driving off a cliff. And that doesn't mean you're a better writer.

To learn more about Lisa Cron, visit wiredforstory.com

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A Conversation with Glorious Owens

I had the honor of attending a POPS The Club meeting at Venice High School a couple of weeks ago. If you don't know about this organization, then let me introduce you. POPS -- aka The Pain of the Prison System -- was created to support young people who have a loved one who is incarcerated. Did you know that 2.7 million children have a parent in prison? To think that a child can visit but cannot touch his mother or father is heart-wrenching.

Co-founders Amy Friedman and her husband Dennis Danziger are deeply woven into the fabric of our storytelling community in LA. They started the first club at Venice High School in 2013 (in Dennis's classroom) and have begun to expand across Los Angeles and other states. POPS has even caught the attention of the White House!

POPS members are encouraged to write and share their stories, many of which have been compiled into published anthologies. Below you'll find an interview with POPS member Glorious Owens, a remarkable young writer who is shining her light.

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GLORIOUS OWENS is a soon-to-be-graduating senior at Venice High School where she has participated as a member of POPS The Club. She's from South Central LA and is one of eight kids. As a writer, she recently won first place in the Beverly Hills Literary Society contest, and one of her essays will also be performed at the “Street Angels” gala evening at the Kirk Douglas Theater. Glorious will be attending El Camino College this fall where she'll be studying to become a social worker, and South Central Scholars will be mentoring and guiding her through college and university.

To read her prize-winning essay, click here!

POPS The Club is devoted to enhancing the lives of those students who have been impacted by the pain of the prison system (aka POPS) -- those with incarcerated loved ones and those who have been incarcerated themselves. Spear-headed by Executive Director Amy Friedman, POPS establishes and sustains high-school clubs that offer students community and emotional support as well as opportunities to publish the writings and artwork they create through the club.

Karin: What is your relationship to POPS?

Glorious: My relationship to POPS is that my father, my grandmother, my cousins -- almost half of my family, maybe a little bit more -- have been incarcerated at one point or another, on my mom's and my dad's side. And some of them have been affiliated with drug addiction. My mom's side - her dad and her mom were drug addicts. On my dad's side - his dad and his mom were drug addicts. So all my life -- all 18 years -- I saw things. It was like a vision of a movie. You think none of this could happen in someone's life, but it does. It actually happens and what do you do with it?

Like what? What are some of the visuals in your movie?

Basically I have seen people selling drugs, face to face. Somebody in my family getting caught for it and sent to jail. Someone getting beat up, jumped. Seeing my grandma in jail, going to visit her. Going through the process of literally taking almost everything off and getting searched. It feels degrading and makes you never want to go there. And my dad - I had never seen my dad in prison - but every other year it seemed like he would go back for something. He would always clean himself up and then go back. And my parents would say, he was 'on vacation, vacation, vacation' because I was little. But I knew better. I was like, why would he go on vacation for one to two years and not come see his kid?

They didn't take you to see him?

No, because they thought I didn't know!

But you went to see your grandma.

I went to go see my grandma, because we were super close -- we were like two peas in a pod. We always hung out. She was basically my babysitter and I was always with her no matter what the time was. When she went, I was one of the first people to know, because me and my grandma were that close. And she knew I understood what was going on, she knew I wasn't a slow child. And she just told me what happened, “Okay, I'm going for this, and I'm gonna be gone for a while. Just make sure you send me mail and come see me,” and all of that stuff. So it was one of those traumatizing experiences, “Now my grandma is going, like what's going on?” And it was continuous blows.

Someone that I love is getting taken from me. Now I have to go back, and someone I love is being taken from me again. I have to keep going, I have to keep pushing.

Keep pushing what?

Keep pushing like... they want you to succeed. Everybody wants you to succeed. But they keep doing stuff bad, so why do I have to succeed when you can't even do it? It's like, “What's the point? You guys aren't even gonna be here to see it. So why should I have to do anything?” It was stupid, I don't know why I would think that it was a really good excuse to not do anything.

And then you continue the cycle.

It's like... okay, I have to keep fighting, I have to keep doing homework. I'm gonna be somebody when I grow up. I'm gonna make sure everybody's alright, they don't have to worry about money. It always seemed like we were worrying about money. Anything that had to do with it ended up around money. So it was like... okay, I'm gonna be somebody who can make money and make sure that everybody in my family is okay, everybody's set. I don't have to worry about anything. But it felt like I was always the one who cleaned up the mess. Even though they don't think that, they think they did it on their own. Of course they think that!

But you always have someone who helped you get somewhere, even though you worked toward it yourself. Somebody helped you along the way to get where you are. Somebody who told you to get your life together... somebody who helps you, literally sits you down right there as you do your work. Or a passerby who happens to give you a hello that gonna make you smile for the rest of your day. It was always one of those things -- always being positive, always knowing how to help somebody. You never know what somebody's going to be going through.

So that's basically how I was, always a smile. There's no reason not to have a smile! Even if you're sad.

What gave you the motivation to rise above?

I didn't want to be like them, at all. I know jail is not for me. I know that I don't want to be on the streets. I know I don't want any type of pain to be inflicted on my family -- emotional, mental -- I don't want any of that. What I have to go through, I don't want them to ever have to go through. I don't want to have to add on to anything. It's already enough.

When it comes to POPS, how has it helped you?

It gave me a voice to whatever I'm thinking. Like how I'm talking to you now... I couldn't do this last year, at all. I don't tell anybody my business. I used to never even speak about anything. And then I came to Mr. Danziger's class and he told me about POPS, and he had us write stories about our lives. And that's when I was like, “I actually get to tell my story? Are you sure?” And he was like, “Yeah, you get to tell your own story. Write down everything that happened in your head and everything that you know happened.” And not be judged for it. Not have somebody tell you, “Are you sure that actually happened to you? Are you positive? That's not how it went.”

Everybody has their own story to tell, and everybody has their own perspective on it. But it was my perspective. This is what I felt; this is what happened when I see it. And people get to read that and understand. And you have people in POPS who understand what you went through because they have gone through the same situation. And so that's why it was a very good experience for me.

Was there anything challenging about it?

Just writing the story. And actually telling people my story, that was the hard part. Because it was like, “I don't want people to really know about me. That's none of their business. This was my story, but do I really want to put it out there?” That was the main thing. I've never been big on talking about myself but now I get to talk about myself full force. So what do I do? I was like, “Okay, I'll give you a little bit.” And Mr. Danziger was like, “No, I want more. I want you to actually put your whole life on the paper.” And that's what I did. It was my life and other peoples' lives. My mom would tell me stories about how her and my dad met, or how they would play basketball together,

I was playing basketball from elementary school all the way up to my freshman year, and I still play with my dad. Sports was the main affiliation with our family. In order for you to go somewhere you have to do a sport. And so this was something that I didn't have to do a sport for! I didn't have to work out. I can actually do this and get noticed for it -- besides having to do volleyball or basketball or run track. So it was a big eye-opener for me. I didn't expect this. I didn't even really expect anyone to notice me. I've always been a team player, all these team sports, team, team, team. I was always doing something for somebody. I was always fighting for somebody - for something, for your school, for a friend. You want to win because it's what all of us want. And this was something that was just for me. Even though it's technically for somebody - it's for POPS. They helped me. So I'm giving something back.

But it's your story. 

So what did you realize after the fact, in writing down your story, that you didn't know before?

There's always gonna be one or two people who have gone through the same thing and don't know what to do. If they're in that situation in that moment and they see my story, they might go the opposite direction. Instead of doing what their friends or somebody else told them to do, they'll take the right road. I want people to understand that they're not alone in whatever they're going through. They're not alone. Even though they may think, “You'll never understand my story.” Everyone has a different story, but there's always going to be a similarity to your story.

What about the personal aspect?

It's still one of things, like, I don't like you knowing! Because now when people see me, you see my story, not me. It's like, “That's how you are, how can you change that fast? How can you be so positive? You're faking it.” That's how I feel like people see me. I can tell you my story, but I'm a completely different person from my story. I'll do my best to help anybody in need in every possible way that I can. It's like, “How can you go from this background to this?” I don't know how to tell people the transition; I just tell you my story.

Isn't part of your story how you changed -- how you grew through it -- how you've transformed and become the person that you are? Or is that still evolving in terms of what you've written?

I feel like it's still evolving because all that stuff is still me. I feel like they see that part, and that's the bad part. That's still me. But I'm still pushing forward to that other me, the one I want to be.

That's a beautiful story, I'd love to read that.

To learn more about POPS The Club, visit popstheclub.com

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A Conversation with Shelly Peiken

My conversation this month with multi-platinum, Grammy nominated songwriter Shelly Peiken sheds an inspiring light on what it means to create and be an artist in this digital age. Shelly is best known for writing the #1 hit songs “What a Girl Wants” for Christina Aguilera and 'I'm a Bitch' sung by Meredith Brooks. Her memoir Confessions of a Serial Songwriterrecently hit the shelves. Read the full interview below!

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Shelly Peiken is a multi-platinum Grammy nominated songwriter who is best known for her #1 hits “What a Girl Wants” and “Come On Over Baby.” She earned a Grammy nomination for the song “Bitch” recorded by Meredith Brooks. She's had hundreds of songs placed on albums, and in TV and film. Shelly is a contributor to The Huffington Post and is well known in the music industry as a mentor, panelist, consultant and guest speaker.

Shelly's book Confessions of a Serial Songwriter chronicles her journey from a young girl falling under the spell of magical songs to writing hits of her own. It's about growing up, the creative process, the highs and the lows, the conflicts that arise between motherhood and career success, the divas, the egos and the back stabbers, but also the lovely people she's found along the way. It's about the challenge of getting older and staying relevant in a rapidly changing and youth-driven world.

She is a New Yorker at heart who enjoys her life in Los Angeles with her husband, composer Adam Gorgoni and their daughter, Layla.

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Karin: How has the experience been for you to release your memoir into the world?

Shelly: This is a first for me, and I'm really enjoying it. It's a story I needed to tell and it's been very cathartic. Everyone asks me, “How's the book been doing? Is it selling?“ I have no idea. I'm not asking, because it wouldn't change how I'm putting one foot in front of the other. I'm getting enough reaction and enough response that it encourages me and makes me feel, even if it's just a small community -- and I think it's bigger than just the small community -- even if it's just them, I feel like I made a difference.

I don't think it's just about songwriting. It's certainly not about songwriting “how-to's,” although that's sprinkled within the pages. But I really think it's more about life and getting older, and fitting in, and finding what to do next. It feels good to focus the conversation on those kinds of things once in a while.

People will message me or I'll see the reviews on Amazon, and people will say, “This isn't just about songwriting, this is about life.” It's not like I sat down to write a book about life, but I guess what I was feeling had to do with that. I don't know if I could have planned it that way and perhaps if I did plan it that way, I wouldn't have been able to hit my target. I think a lot of my creativity is to not think too much. Even in my songwriting career, if somebody said, “Write a song for Whitney Houston,” there were a lot of writers who could listen to her record, know her high note, know her low note, what vowels she sounded best on, was she legato. I could never do that analysis. I sat down and tried to feel, you know, what might she be feeling. Or maybe I would just write a song because I wanted to write a song and then ask myself, who could do this?

So I just wanted to tell this story, but I'm so happy when somebody says to me, “This helped me with where I am in my life.” I think that those feelings came from more mature readers, let's say 40 and up. And then the younger readers would message me and say, “This was so helpful in knowing how to navigate the landscape.” So I feel like I did two things peripherally, without sitting down and planning to do it that way.

What are the similarities and/or differences between writing a three-minute song and a 288-page memoir? I imagine both are very personal.

The book was way more personal for me, because I wasn't trying to get somebody else to say that the book was theirs. When I started out as a songwriter -- I was much younger and thought, well, maybe I'll write my own record someday -- it was very personal then, because I was writing songs that were mini-memoir. And I thought, maybe I'll write my own record and these are the songs I'll sing. Carly Simon was my idol, and she still is my idol, because she was never writing a song that Bette Midler could sing. I mean, maybe she could, but she was writing songs that were reflections of her life. But as I got more into the business and I wanted to make a living in songwriting, I had to think about, well, who's going to record these? I mean, sometimes I could write something personal and somebody else would relate to it and record it, but it got to be a little bit more about craft.

The book was just a big spewing about how I was feeling over the course of my songwriting career and how there were certain things that changed in the music industry over the course of the last five years that sort of stopped me in my tracks. I started asking myself, am I having fun anymore? And if I'm not having fun, then what do I do next? I've been doing this, it feels like my whole life. I am not ready to retire - I mean, I'm coming up on the age that I could - but I don't want to. I want to keep being creative; I want to try new things. But technology had changed the process a lot, in that you didn't have to pick up an instrument in order to be a songwriter anymore. You could just turn on your computer and find some app that helped you put sound bites together that could qualify as a lyric. And you didn't have to play an instrument because you could program things on a computer. I was trying not to put a value judgment to these aspects but just saying, how does it make me feel?

This made it easy for tens of thousands of people to become songwriters. So I was competing with all these people and a lot of the competition didn't really have to do with how remarkable a song it was, but what your relationships were with the gatekeepers of projects of artists who were making songs. I was certainly getting older and so many of the songs have to do with partying and going out to the clubs, and did I care about this stuff anymore? So if I was feeling pushed to the side a little bit, it wasn't my imagination. I just didn't know how to continue. So writing the book helped me find my way through that. I didn't know that maybe I would find these answers as I was writing the book. I just thought, I need to tell this story!

Writing the book sounds like it was a transformative journey. Can you describe how the process changed you?

I was forgetting that I was special. Everybody's special, but when I look back Karin, at songs I was writing 20 years ago, I think to myself, wow, what a gem. When I look back to songs I've written over the past five years, I'm bored to death. And I think that's because I started trying to do what I thought people wanted to hear. I think I started following, instead of just saying, what do I really want to say? I think I started second-guessing myself and trying to be more fashionable. I don't want to write those songs anymore. I'm 50-something and I'm trying to think of what does a 20-year-old want to hear? I wasn't excited about it and it's not going to resonate. I think we have to be true to ourselves. I know that sounds really cliché, but we really have to be true to ourselves. I just don't think any of that stuff works.

There is a value to -- like if I'm given a brief for a movie and they say, 'It has to be this, it has to be that' and they give me boundaries and a storyline. I listen to it because if I'm going to write something for that, indeed it has to be about what they tell me it has to be about. But then you have to put it on the back burner and say, okay now forget about it, how do you feel? And I think I lost touch with who I was, and what I started doing this for.

So by writing your story, did you get back in touch with it?

I think I'm getting back in touch with it, because I'm following my instincts now. Rather than if somebody calls and says, “Get in the studio with so-and-so, she's got a record deal.” Two years ago that would have mattered - and it does make a difference, because if someone has a record deal they're half way there - your song has a better shot at making the record. But I want to listen to their demo and say, does this move me? I was not paying as much attention to, is my own material moving me? Because I was jealous of, or envious of, maybe a colleague who is able to just write this song that followed that algorithm and became a hit. I can't do that. And I had to respect who I was, and maybe I'm not my colleague. I can wish I wrote that song she wrote, but I have to be able to recognize that that's maybe a song I can't write.

When I go back and look at the few songs of mine that changed my life, I wasn't following any formula. And then I wrote 50 songs that I didn't like, and those are the ones I was chasing something. But the ones that really made a difference, when I think about it now, were the ones where I was being really, really personal and true to myself.

I wondered after I wrote the book if I would ever write another song again, and in fact, I am. I was in the studio last week with Idina Menzel. I'm going to this beautiful songwriting retreat in Bordeaux in two weeks hosted by Miles Copland in his beautiful castle. I'm indulging myself a lot more. I'm getting into rooms with people I'm interested in, I want to write with. I don't want to be one of 50 people who are called to get in with an artist who's coming into town that week and I'm allocated three hours to work with them on a Wednesday. We used to spend a whole week with an artist. We used to go for hikes and take walks. And songs would come out of conversations. So it's a story about how organic it used to be. And now it just seems very contrived and analyzed.

Did you go hiking with Idina Menzel?

No hikes. But we talked for a good two or three hours before we wrote. The song we wrote definitely came out of the conversation we were having.

You know, I get together with some young songwriters now and they get in the room at 12 and they're like, “Well, I gotta be somewhere at 3.” It's like having sex, really fast, without any foreplay.

So yes, at least we talked about our lives. And she said this “word” - and I said, “Well there's our song.”

Can you say what the word was?

I'm not gonna tell you.

The reason why people feel like there's no time to hike anymore... The last many years, Karin, I know you must feel this too, with social media and with so multi-tasking, there's just not as much time as we used to have to relax and indulge in a concept or an idea. So I just feel like I've been rushed. I mean I sit down in front of my computer and start doing one task and then I get a little 'ding!' and then I'm like, oh, what was that? And I forget the first task I sat down for. It's ridiculous. We're so extended. We just don't have as much time in general unless we make a choice, a decision to do that. I think every recording artist and everyone who's writing a book, we're so challenged by all of the spots we have to touch during the day. We gotta make sure we tweet; we gotta make sure we're on Instagram. I mean, who can fucking write a song? Who has time to go on a hike?

When I started writing this book, I had been put in touch with an agent who was not a young agent. She had been around. She read a couple chapters and she said, “Look, you have a voice, Shelly, but you are not a well-known name outside of your songwriting world. You're gonna have to brand yourself. How many Twitter followers do you have?”

I had none, I wasn't on Twitter.

“What do you got going on Instagram?”

I wanted to go, are you kidding me? And I knew she knew how absurd this was, but she's also in a business. And she knows if she was gonna represent me (and she wasn't my agent) she was gonna have to go around to publishers who were gonna ask her the same question. And that is because if you have 100,000 Twitter followers who adore you and you tweet about your book, half of them are gonna buy it regardless of what it's about. So this is business.

I found that absurd, but as I thought about it more and more, I accepted it. And I wound up doing the things she said I should do. I got my website together, I branded myself “a serial songwriter,” I made a Facebook page, I got people to 'like' it, I started an Instagram thing, I got my Twitter thing going. I did all those things.

Do you think it helped?

I don't think it helped get the publishing deal I got actually, ironically. What it did help me find are my people, who cared about the same things that I wrote about, for sure. Because I'd be up at night and I would do a blog, something that was trending or something I cared about in the songwriting community. And people would 'like' my page and they would have conversations with me about it. So it helped me find my audience. It helped me engage people who were interested in my subject, who would buy my book.

I wound up being published by a company called Hal Leonard, which does a lot of books on music, many “how-to” books. But they had recently started an imprint called Backbeat that was doing memoir for musicians. And I thought, well, bingo.

I know you traveled a long, winding road to get that publishing deal.

I sort of let go and said, “I surrender control.” I just know I want to put this out. I don't know how it's gonna happen. And if no one will help me, I'll do it myself.

And then...

The book The Alchemist, you know it? It's all about believing in something strongly enough that the universe conspires with you to make it happen, but you have to believe in it strongly enough or else the universe won't help you. That book to me said it all. Because there wasn't a doubt in my mind that I needed to do this, and that I wasn't going to.

To learn more about Shelly Peiken, visit www.shellypeiken.com

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