Scot on the Rocks
(How I Survived My Ex-Boyfriend's Wedding With My Dignity Ever-So-Slightly Intact)
by Brenda Janowitz
List Price: $13.95
Pages: 304
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9780373895281
Publisher: Red Dress Ink
A native New Yorker, Brenda Janowitz has had a flair for all things dramatic since she played the title role in her third grade production of Really Rosie. When asked by her grandmother if the experience made her want to be an actress when she grew up, Brenda responded, “An actress? No. A writer, maybe.”
Brenda attended Cornell University, earning a Bachelor of Science in Human Service Studies, with a Concentration in Race and Discrimination. After graduating from Cornell, she attended Hofstra Law School, where she was a member of the Law Review and won the Law Review Writing Competition. Upon graduation from Hofstra, she went to work for the law firm Kaye Scholer, LLP, where she was an associate in the Intellectual Property group, handling cases in the areas of trademark, anti-trust, internet, and false advertising. Brenda later left Kaye Scholer to pursue a federal clerkship with the Honorable Marilyn Dolan Go, United States Magistrate Judge for the Eastern District of New York.
Since her clerkship, Brenda has worked as a career counselor at two New York City law schools, where she published a number of articles on career related issues in publications such as the National Law Journal and the New York Law Journal. She currently lives in Manhattan where she lectures on the publishing process and teaches creative writing at Mediabistro.
Brenda is the author of the novels Jack with a Twist (Engaging your adversary and other things they don’t teach you in law school) and Scot on the Rocks (How I survived my ex-boyfriend's wedding with my dignity ever so slightly intact), as well as the short story “Based on a True Story”.
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Q: The biography on your book states that you’ve bravely attended three of your ex-boyfriend weddings. Ok, it seems pointless to ask where the inspiration for the book came from! Instead, can you mention literary influences that inspired your novel?
A: Oh, goodness, Kamela, there have been so many! I am such a voracious reader, and always have been. So much so that it would be truly impossible to list all of my literary influences throughout the years. There are so many writers out there who I love, but for this novel in particular, I was most inspired by Sophie Kinsella and Marian Keyes. I love the sense of humor in the Shopaholic series --- Becky’s voice never fails to make me laugh out loud. Marian Keyes’s Watermelon was one of the first chick lit books I read, and since then, I’ve always loved everything she’s written. Her books are always funny and poignant, and that’s a balance I try to strike as a writer, too.
As for authors who inspire me, in my own genre, in addition to Sophie Kinsella and Marian Keyes, I also love Kristin Harmel and Emily Giffin. For literary fiction, I love Dani Shapiro, Michael Chabon, Ayelet Waldman, Scott Spencer, Alix Ohlin, and Isabel Allende. As for classics, I'm a huge fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, and Jane Austen.
Q: Brooke Miller wants bad boy Douglas at almost any cost. Why are women always attracted to sexy no-good-for-you bad boys?
A: I don’t know! I wish I *did* know --- it would have saved me so much heartbreak throughout the years! Douglas is certainly handsome and slick, but for me, the Douglas thing is also about obsession --- I find that women get obsessed with a man, or even the idea of who she thinks a man is, and then can’t let that go, no matter how awful he is to her. Brooke refuses to see how terrible Douglas is because she’s too busy focusing on his custom made Italian suits and swooning over his accent. But, I suppose that if you don’t date the jerks, you take it for granted when you meet a great guy, so it’s worth it! (Or at least that’s what I tell myself to justify all the time wasted swooning over said jerks!)
Q: You’ve been teaching Chick Lit workshops at Mediabistro.com with rave reviews. How do you define Chick lit to your students?
A: For me, chick lit is funny, fun, smart fiction about our lives today.
Q: What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done for love?
A: I’m *obsessed* with Halloween, so one year, I decided that my then-boyfriend and I would live out my younger-me fantasy and dress up as Han Solo and Princess Leia.
(Yes, I know: what kind of a little girl was I to fantasize about Star Wars?) I was determined to make us the best Star Wars costumes ever. I spent night after night over a two month period trolling the vintage stores in downtown Manhattan, just looking for that perfect Han Solo vest, and even more time than that searching for the proper guns and holster at a million and one costume shops and online.
So, I suppose that’s really more of what I did for my love of Han, but that’s okay by me. Boyfriends may come and go, but Han Solo is forever.
Q: At Uppereast.com you mentioned that your second novel is a sequel to Scot on the Rocks involving a few favorite characters centered on a court case. When you signed your two-book deal at Red Dress Ink, did you pitch the second book as well? Can you give us some incite into your writing process the second time round?
A: When I got the two book deal, I wasn’t actually tied into writing a sequel. I could have written a different book, but I suppose that those characters were just calling to me! The second book in the series is called Jack with a Twist (Engaging your adversary and other things they don’t teach you in law school) and it will be out in April 2008. Brooke, Jack, and Vanessa will all be back for more crazy antics….
As for the writing process, when I wrote Scot on the Rocks, I had a general idea of where it was going, but by no means a real outline. I just let the story take me where it wanted and I did a lot of editing and re-writing to keep it tight and make it work the way I thought it should.
For Jack with a Twist, I created an outline first to show to my editor so that she’d have a sense of the type of story I wanted to tell. It was really great to work off of an outline since it gives you the opportunity to layer on the things like themes and symbols that I added to second and third drafts of Scot on the Rocks. I feel that it made for a much richer first draft.
Q: If you were to plan the perfect wedding, what music would be playing & what signature cocktail would be served?
A: Kamela, it’s so funny that you ask me this question, because I recently got engaged and am now in the process of trying to plan the perfect wedding! More to the point, in Jack with a Twist, Brooke is actually engaged and planning her perfect wedding! (And for those of you keeping count, yes, I wrote a book about a girl who plans her perfect wedding and now, in real life, I am planning my perfect wedding. My editor thinks I have psychic powers….
For me, the perfect wedding has great music you can dance to --- fun, upbeat music is key!
© Copyright 2009 by Brenda Janowitz. Reprinted with permission by Red Dress Ink. All rights reserved.
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