Holmes, who is also the host of NPR’s “Pop Culture Happy Hour,” originally started her professional life as an attorney. As someone who did not formally study fiction writing, she learned some of the details of the craft while working on her first book, “Evvie Drake Starts Over.”
“I spent a lot of time learning about pacing and things like, why is this scene here?” she said. “Do we need it? Is it doing anything? And I think some of those mechanics have really become easier for me to understand as I have written several books.”
However, she’s also learned how to make the journey about writing for herself versus writing for other people.
“I want the book to be successful, whatever that means,” she said. “I want the book to be liked by people, but I also really want to be proud of the book. And I think in this case, I worked as hard as I could to focus on making it a book that I would be really, really happy with.”
One of the more prominent themes throughout the story is Cecily’s inability to figure out what she wants, both romantically and in other aspects of her life. Holmes also touches on the main character’s relationship with her job and finding balance between loving a job and maintaining an identity separate from it.
For Holmes, the mix of romance and other themes make a story more realistic.
“I always think romances are more interesting when there are other things going on, because I don't know anybody where the whole rest of your life stops while you meet somebody and date,” she said.
“Back After This” is different from Holmes’ previous two novels in that the main character has a profession so similar to her own. She said it helped that Cecily is a producer, rather than a host like herself. She was able to be in “the right amount of weeds.”
“It definitely is a thing where you don't want to make it a ten page history of audio production,” she said. “You want to kind of work it into scenes between human beings so that it feels like a conversation that people could actually have.”
Holmes also notes at the beginning of the book that none of the characters are based on real people, nor is the company Cecily works for based on a real place. However, Cecily hears a story about the NPR offices. She is told about a time when employees stood on their building’s terrace, watched the sunset and applauded, and that it was routine for them to announce rainbows over their PA system. Holmes confirmed that this is true, and it was her “valentine” to the people at NPR.
“The reaction to that in this book is somebody saying that can't really be true, but it was true and it's wonderful,” she said.
“Back After This” is available now. More notes from Holmes can be found on her blog.
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