Episode 51: Paul Coccia
Author Paul Coccia joins the podcast to chat about Recommended Reading, his YA book developed in partnership with Bittersweet Books! Learn his tricks for character development and interiority, why you should try throwing out your first draft, and how he pulls inspiration from lit theory. We also cover plans for the zombie apocalypse, how true crime is the antithesis to rom-coms, and why that had to happen in Bridge to Terabithia. Plus, Paul discusses the importance of representing LGBTQ+ characters and experiences by creating stories with universal appeal that are meaningful for queer readers.
TRANSCRIPT FOR EPISODE 51 WITH PAUL COCCIA
Mary Kole (00:00:23):
Hello, hello everybody. Welcome to the Thriving Writers Podcast. This is Mary Kole. Even though I sound like a toad who is being run over by a semi-truck at the moment, but with me, I have … your last name. I realize that I've never actually spoken it out loud.
Paul Coccia (00:00:42):
Just leave it in. I think we should leave this part in because I do answer to everything. So no matter how someone pronounces it, I will answer.
Mary Kole (00:00:49):
Coshia. Coshia!
Paul Coccia (00:00:51):
Yeah, I say Coccia like gotcha.
Mary Kole (00:00:54):
Coccia.
Paul Coccia (00:00:55):
And then people get it. But I've also had people say, no, you need to stress the c’s more like Puccini. And I'm like, no, not in Canada. It doesn't work. Not in the States either. You sound awful.
Mary Kole (00:01:08):
Okay, so what makes this funny is that Paul and I have been working together for three years now and I've realized I have no idea how to say your last name because I've only ever seen it written. And to me you're just Paul. So.
Paul Coccia (00:01:25):
And my mom has one of those great maiden names, Weaver.
Mary Kole (00:01:28):
Yeah.
Paul Coccia (00:01:29):
That’s the easiest thing in the world. I'm like, why didn't you keep your maiden name, mom? Why weren't you a feminist that way?
Mary Kole (00:01:35):
Well, okay, so you are a Canadian-Italian inflected. Tell us just about yourself. You are an author, you are one of our partners at Bittersweet Books. We have a number of projects that we've done with you, but why don't we hear it from the horse's mouth?
Paul Coccia (00:01:55):
Sure. I am Canadian. My dad was born in Italy, as you mentioned, and came to Canada as an immigrant, a very poor immigrant. His dad died, which they intended to go back to Italy. They did not like Canada, but when his father died, they remained here. My mom is the daughter of a woman who divorced in the fifties. I know it's like we're breaking rules all over in this family. They've just done a really good job. But they were a British descent, so that's kind of interesting that they would've come here, I guess as close to indentured servants. So they came over when it was like, you are labor. And I'm going, okay, so I'm from a family of workers, I know that.
Mary Kole (00:02:44):
But you are an author and you have a number of projects including one that I have been tangentially involved with. So please tell us about your literary legacy.
Paul Coccia (00:02:56):
You have so little involvement with—we worked together on Recommended Reading and we've worked together on a few other things, which has been amazing. Recommended Reading is a young adult novel about Bobby, who is a fat, gay teenager who kind of epically ruins his chance at love and his college future all in one go.
Mary Kole (00:03:17):
He's an overachiever in that way.
Paul Coccia (00:03:20):
He's just, everything has to be extra and that had to be extra too. And he ends up working in a bookstore where he has the ability to match the right book with the right person, except when it comes to him.
Mary Kole (00:03:33):
And he sort of uses his powers for good and also to flirt.
Paul Coccia (00:03:39):
And meddle. He's got a real, I Love Lucy quality to him.
Mary Kole (00:03:44):
So for some of you who have not maybe heard me talk a lot about Bittersweet Books, I've started talking about it more because I feel like people have these ideas about what book packaging is, book packaging isn’t. I work with my business partners, John Cusick from Folio Literary. He's a literary agent and also the amazing Julie Murphy, who is a New York Times bestselling author of Dumplin’ and If the Shoe Fits all of these wonderful books. And she came to John and myself and said, “I would love to collaborate. I have more ideas than I know what to do with.” And Paul, you probably know this, but Bobby and Recommended Reading was the first idea that Julie floated when we got together and started working on Bittersweet. It was sort of the first thing. She sent us this five page document of ideas that she didn't have a home or time for, and Bobby was number one, first bullet point.
(00:04:46):
It was the first thing that we developed. It was the first thing that we really outlined and then we matched Paul to that project and it was just the absolute perfect fit. It ended up selling to Zando and it has just been, we celebrated it in New Orleans together at the Children's Institute in June, last June. Zando threw this big bookseller dinner and it has just been such a joy to go from sort of the very earliest days of my involvement in Bittersweet to launching this book into the world. It just came out in January and just to see it come so beautifully full circle and there is nobody that could have done that story justice other than you. You are just phenomenal to work with.
Paul Coccia (00:05:41):
I knew it was a gift and I knew, I think I also came into the first meeting with everyone and was, I know who Bobby is, but I did know who he was and maybe not the best thing to walk into a meeting and tell people who you would like to work with. I know your idea better than you do.
Mary Kole (00:05:59):
No, not at all. In fact, so we have worked kind of behind the scenes on another project with Paul. Paul came in to consult on some kind of drag 1950s history and perspectives. And we are also developing another potential fingers crossed early stages project with Paul. And one of the things that I admire about you actually is your deep ability to just get into a character and understand a character. You come prepared with pages and pages of either research or background or questions that you've developed. You come with a bunch of clarifying ideas. Once you have something, you have a sense of the character, you almost don't let go until you are satisfied in your understanding. And not just a superficial understanding, but a multilayered understanding of that character. I would really love to inhabit your head and figure out what your process is. How do you come up with not only your insights that you bring to meetings like that? I actually really appreciate someone who's like, no, I know this character. I would much rather work with a writer who feels a sense of ownership already even in a first meeting. But how do you come up with those early insights when you come to a project? How do you come up with the questions that you ask to get to know a character better?
Paul Coccia (00:07:35):
For me, getting to know the character is getting to know a person. What do I find interesting about that person? And I saw that you do this or you recommended doing this, you throw out first pages and do a complete blank rewrite. And I've done that and whenever I've said it to other authors who I think are less confident in what they do, they keep trying to make something work that's not going to, I'm like, throw it away and start over and their eyes, their faces go blank, and I'm going, it's not because you haven't worked hard. The important stuff comes back and I believe in it, it comes back stronger.
Mary Kole (00:08:11):
Oh, I love that. You just made a t-shirt slogan.
Paul Coccia (00:08:14):
Well, it's true. What matters will come back to you and you will not forget it. The stuff that, what they call it, the chaff from the wheat.
Mary Kole (00:08:24):
Yeah, the wheat from the chaff. Yeah.
Paul Coccia (00:08:27):
That will fall away. So I do that and I'll do that 20, 30 times on a first chapter, which I know I see your eyes doing it, but I can tell when the character's voice isn't right. And when I get to that point where it's like draft 25, the character kind of has a moment with me where it's like, you got me, you understand who I am now. And then it becomes really easy to write because the character starts dictating the actions. You know when something's out of character. The character would never do that. And TJ, the poor editor at Zando got from me more than once, and I think you were there, Mary, where I said, no, no, he would not do that. That is not in his character and I'll tell you why it's not in his character. But it makes your choices as an author for plotting really easy when you understand the essence of who they are and the foundation you built that character on.
Mary Kole (00:09:19):
So it's sort of like method acting a little bit. You inhabit the character or you understand, you empathize with the character to such a degree that it's not like you're making the choices sometimes it's like you're just gut checking against what you know of the character and it sticks out if you're being asked to do something or if it's in the outline. Because what's challenging about working with a packaged project is we sent you an outline and at Bittersweet, because we are very author-centric, author-led, we give you freedom. At some point, this is your book, you take the baton, you inhabit Bobby and you run with it. But if you have source material, it can be, I'd imagine, kind of difficult to square the outline that you are given and your burgeoning understanding of the story.
Paul Coccia (00:10:20):
But it's also a really fun challenge. It's like someone giving you a puzzle and you're going, I know the pieces will make a picture, but I have to figure out which one goes here. And every once in a while you go, oh, I thought that went up in the upper right corner. No, it goes right in the center. So that can be kind of fun because as a writer, how do I stretch myself? I like to be challenged. I like to try new things. I don't like stagnating. It becomes very boring for me. So in each project I do think, what am I going to bring that's new here? What am I going to do that's different from the last time? What will I do that's the same as last time? Because some things just work, but you talked about process too. And I have conversations with the character when I travel. So if I'm driving or I'm walking the dogs or doing something, I'll work out—and usually that dialogue ends up being really good. So by the time I get home, it's kind of like the throwing out your first pages again. That dialogue when I actually get down the page, I'm like, I don't need to change it too much. I've worked it out. I've had the same conversation over and over with them. I know how they'd react in the situation.
Mary Kole (00:11:24):
I cannot recommend back brain work enough. And what I mean is your body is doing something in space, showering, driving the dogs, whatever, but you let your mind sort of add a problem while doing something else. It's very rarely I find that when we sit down at the page and we're like ughhh trying to squeeze out the answer, that the answer comes often it comes when we're doing something completely different.
Paul Coccia (00:11:54):
It's like, who wants a hemorrhoid? I don't need to work this hard at that one. I can just sit here and read the paper.
Mary Kole (00:12:02):
Yeah, exactly.
Paul Coccia (00:12:02):
It's true. Sometimes the act of doing something else just takes the pressure off. I also think people need to give themselves permission to write garbage. You can edit something into a better form, but if you don't have anything on the page, you don't have anything to edit.
Mary Kole (00:12:20):
Yeah and it really does seem from working with you like for you, editing is an iterative process. You talk about 25 drafts of the first chapter, for example.
Paul Coccia (00:12:31):
And not everything is like that. Sometimes I'm like, I got the voice in the first go. I've had this character sitting in my brain so long that he's coming out now or she's coming out and that's it. And other times the character is a gift. Like Gladys was a gift in Recommended Reading. I think my instructions were crotchety old coworker.
Mary Kole (00:12:51):
Yep, yep. She ends up being kind of a frenemy. She's the cashier who's been working at the bookstore forever and Bobby comes in and is Bobby and they just do not see eye to eye for the longest time until they do.
Paul Coccia (00:13:07):
And I also think as a writer, if you're going to ask a reader to commit and fall in love with your characters, you better give them every reason on the page too. It can't just exist in your brain, which is what I see a lot of people go through when they're working out a manuscript way. Okay. All the things you told me as a friend about the work you didn't write down, so they do exist in the back of your head, but if the reader's not a mind reader, they're a book reader.
Mary Kole (00:13:37):
You're just full of these amazing slogans. So this is something that I see a lot of writers struggle with as well. And Paul is very plugged into a community of writers. He's such a generous kind of mentor and peer. And so you also probably see this a lot, but it's like, yeah, if I have my best intentions internally, how do you create a character who is engaging and relatable and generous on the page? How do you encourage that reader engagement when you write?
Paul Coccia (00:14:13):
So with Bobby, it was interesting because I knew he could get out of hand and become really annoying to the reader. He's over the top and that's a hard person to process. So you do have to think about the moments when that character drops that facade who they are to the outside world.
And that's where interiority, and I know you have a book on this, Mary, is it behind you? Oh, there it is. Interiority is so important for laying the reader into the vulnerabilities. And I do think the vulnerabilities are some of the most attractive qualities of a person and a character. I do have a friend who performs and their persona is amazing, very glamorous, very polished. But when the persona drops, when they take all that off and they're in their apartment eating pizza, standing over the table, I'm going, there's something real about you and that I can connect to. I admire the glamor and the glitz, but I connect with the real person eating the cold pizza.
Mary Kole (00:15:18):
Absolutely. And I feel like even a prickly character, even an annoying character like Bobby who is …
Paul Coccia (00:15:26):
He’s not annoying actually in the end, he's very endearing. You do love him.
Mary Kole (00:15:31):
Yes, no, absolutely. But I mean a character with normal floss, normal foibles, they don't have to show that inner kind of marrow, the quivering, vulnerable, real self to anyone in the story until they break open. Oftentimes this does rise to the surface, but if they are able to access that for the reader and to let the reader in, that's a really powerful engagement strategy.
Paul Coccia (00:16:03):
And that interior monologue, if you actually were in their head, would they be hiding it from themselves? And if so, why? And a lot of the questions I ask of characters again to them are, why? Why would they do that? Why would they not do this other thing?
Mary Kole (00:16:18):
Yeah, and like I was saying, you ask so many questions and such good questions, so “Why?” is great. Are there any other things that you've really found help you understand a story, a plot point, a character detail, a relationship?
Paul Coccia (00:16:37):
So will, there's a few things that if we're going to give concrete tips, I keep a post-it of all the things I love about the character beside me as I write. And that way, if I'm ever stuck about something and the scene's not working or the character's not jiving, I refer to that. And I think when you're working with a character who's from a community that maybe you know you're going to get backlash on. I'm a little bit belligerent. I'm like, I'm going to make you love them. I am a Jennifer Holiday, I'm a Jennifer Hudson. You are going to love them. I'm not going to give you a choice because then you don't have room to argue with the character. If you hate them, it's a superficial thing, that's fine. But the character is who they are. So I do the post-it. I also like a cheat sheet of physical markers, and that's just to keep things straight. So I know that my character on page one, they have blue eyes, they don't have brown eyes by page 131. So there's things like that.
Mary Kole (00:17:39):
So copy editors love him. One simple trick.
Paul Coccia (00:17:45):
Grab a calendar for plotting, which I learned this from Eric Walters, who I co-wrote a book with, grab a calendar because that's so useful. It's also useful when you plan promotion to know what you're going to do and when, whether it's social media, whether it's a live event. But when you're plotting out, and we had a calendar for this, it becomes very easy to decide if you're moving around an event in the story where I can actually put it. And it does other very practical things, like I don't have eight Saturdays in a month, which when you're writing for kids, a lot of their time is spent in school. So you do have to manage when they have that sort of autonomy and time to themselves.
Mary Kole (00:18:26):
Oh, that's such a good point. And I remember your calendar from the early planning stages.
Paul Coccia (00:18:32):
I never showed you the map. It was very badly drawn, but I needed to also understand the town.
Mary Kole (00:18:37):
The town. So Recommended Reading takes place in this really cute Stars Hollow-esque college town. There's a literary festival, and we are sort of bridging the time period between when Bobby graduates, or actually shortly before graduation is when the story starts to we're sort of rising to this literary festival that I believe happens at the end of the summer. So we had a lot of time to play with, but that's a really great point about middle grade and young adult that I should have thought of at some point in the last 15 years. But afternoons and weekends are really when you get that proactive, liberated character time.
Paul Coccia (00:19:19):
You can create it in other ways within the school. There's just ways, when I was taught this, it was always called the problem of the parent. So how do you get the adults that control out of the picture? One way is to kill them, which is why there’s a lot of orphans.
Mary Kole (00:19:35):
Yeah, that’s why there’s so many dead parents left and just littered with in middle grade and young adult.
Paul Coccia (00:19:41):
It is very hard to get a good parent written in. But the people who manage it, those are usually the most memorable parents or adults in a book because they provide the child protagonist with enough autonomy that they can make decisions and they can have their own world and they have their own agency, but they also are present enough that they're not a neglectful parent.
Mary Kole (00:20:05):
Yeah. On the flip side, I find a lot of middle grade and young adult writers try to maybe re-parent themselves with the parents that they write by writing amazing parents, just so supportive and perfect in every way and just accepting and there's never any conflict. That to me, always struck me as a little bit wrong because even if people love and support each other, they have conflict. They push each other's buttons.
Paul Coccia (00:20:37):
Oh yeah, why didn't you pick up your socks? They've been there every day for the last week, and it's driving me up the wall.
Mary Kole (00:20:45):
My son, my middle son, Finn, the first thing he does when he enters the home is he takes his pants off because he is related to me.
Paul Coccia (00:20:54):
I love that.
Mary Kole (00:20:55):
If I don't have to wear pants, am I wearing pants right now? Nobody knows. But Finn just sheds his pants, and so I live in an environment where there are just pants everywhere. He never picks 'em up, but he will shed them and just leave them anywhere. That's our household.
Paul Coccia (00:21:19):
Well, I know my friend told me this and I love it. With his partner, well, his ex-partner, the two of them fought every day since they moved in together about who plugged their toothbrush into the top plug. I thought I knew you were going to break up, but …
Mary Kole (00:21:38):
I was going to say, yeah, the ex-partner detail doesn't surprise me there.
Paul Coccia (00:21:42):
No, but I just thought, isn't that the way it is? It's like this really, and they never spoke about it, which was the other interesting thing. They just unplugged the one person's and plugged their own in. So it was a silent battle. I kind of, oh my gosh, I'd love to write that into a book, but he does read my books.
Mary Kole (00:21:59):
I think that's amazing. Yeah. My husband's personal bugaboo is my kids always say how much when they mean how many, and I don't know why this bothers Todd so much, but at random intervals, I'll just hear him bellow “How many!” from downstairs because someone's like, oh, how much pancakes did you give me? Whatever.
Paul Coccia (00:22:23):
My nephew and I noticed this when he was doing the online schooling, when physical schools you weren't allowed in, kids would say things and he was the kid who would be like, that's not a question. You told me you were asking a question. He's like, that's a statement. I'm like, wow. You can tell there's a writer in the house.
Mary Kole (00:22:42):
Very precise. Words have meaning. So tell me about some of your other books. I would obviously love to glorify Recommended Reading to the ends of the earth.
Paul Coccia (00:22:54):
We can.
Mary Kole (00:22:55):
What?
Paul Coccia (00:22:55):
We can. We could just sit here for an hour and make it the Recommended Reading podcast.
Mary Kole (00:22:59):
I know. But tell me about your other books. You've had individual books, you've had a co-written book, middle grade young adult, correct?
Paul Coccia (00:23:09):
Yeah, I've moved around and up in Canada we have Orca Books who I've worked with quite a few times. They do low literacy books, which are really interesting. It's not what I imagined I'd write, but it was a way into the industry, had a great editor, and you learn a lot by being put through your paces on a book that short, you don't have room to hide, you don't have room for sloppiness. You need to get your character down on the first page, if not the first sentence and paragraph really quickly for the reader. But you're also always keeping in mind that these are readers who will put down the book really easily. And so you're always thinking about reader engagement. So they're a great training ground to really hone your skills and go, okay, I can do this. I can do it short, I can sustain it longer. So I wrote, my first one was called Cub, which was about a fat teen baker who enters a cooking competition in Toronto where I'm from. And a celebrity chef kind of makes him an offer for his career that comes with strings, but he wants those strings. So it was very interesting once I pitched it and they accepted it, within two weeks, the Weinstein scandals came out.
Mary Kole (00:24:23):
Oh, no.
Paul Coccia (00:24:24):
No, it was great. It was like, oh, great. Marketing's on my side.
Mary Kole (00:24:30):
Very timely, horrible for the victims. Very timely for Paul.
Paul Coccia (00:24:34):
Yeah, I'm not saying it was good for anyone, but for me, God, what a marketing gift.
Mary Kole (00:24:42):
It's called the silver lining, people.
Paul Coccia (00:24:45):
And I thought it was interesting. It did make me think about that story in a way of, well, what makes my voice different in the conversation if I'm going to add to the conversation? So I did think about my responsibility as an author that way, and one of the things that was interesting for me was the idea of being complicit and the character knowing what he's doing, the main character, that he's not being taken advantage of. He knows what's happening and he wants it. So it became a very interesting way to approach that character.
Mary Kole (00:25:17):
You have to figure out somebody else's morality and kind of sense of value system. Is success more valuable to a character than let's say dignity or boundaries or all of these other kind of if ephemeral foundational elements?
Paul Coccia (00:25:37):
Yeah and that character was like, I'm being offered on the surface everything I could want including this hot guy and I get his attention. And part of that character that was always interesting to me was the inexperience. It was he didn't know enough to want better, which is one of my younger brothers things he said to people dating, he said it to a friend's new boyfriend, and it was just such a nasty thing. I was like, he looks at him and he goes, Sweetie, trust me, I'm old and I'm a drag queen. And I'm like, oh, here it comes. He goes, he looks good to you today, but you need to learn to want better for yourself in life. And I went, wow. Pulls no punches.
Mary Kole (00:26:25):
I want this kind of drag queen following me around on a daily basis and just slapping me into the perspective.
Paul Coccia (00:26:37):
Oh no, it's absolutely awful. You're like, oh no, he's going to tell me the truth. I don't want to hear it. Let me just live in my fantasy.
Mary Kole (00:26:45):
No, I need it at this point in my life, the blush is off the rose. Just give it to me straight. Just save me six months of delusion, please.
Paul Coccia (00:26:59):
I'm just like, no, I live in fantasy in my books. I want to live a little in my real life. I kind of connected with Bobby that way. I'm like, oh, he really wants to live in this romance fantasy. I get that. Books are the perfect vehicle for that.
Mary Kole (00:27:13):
Absolutely. And I mean there's such a swath of bookish books, right? Books set in bookstores and libraries and about bookish people for obvious reasons. But I think that kind of meta fiction is a really cozy, enveloping warm blanket of a book, and that's definitely what Recommended Reading is on some level.
Paul Coccia (00:27:35):
Yeah, and well, you asked about the other books.
Mary Kole (00:27:38):
Yes, I know. We're back to Recommended Reading. Gosh darn it.
Paul Coccia (00:27:42):
Well, for good reason. I wrote, but it was published third, the book with Eric Walters, it's called On the Line. And I know Julie has written a book with similar subject matter, which I won't give a spoiler for anyone, but you should read her middle grades. It's about a kid, a basketball star, which Eric knows basketball really well, and his dad comes out and they're in a small town. We kind of set it, we based it off of a town about 45 minutes from Toronto where the car plant was closing.
(00:28:15):
It was just one of those things where it's like we took a hyper-masculine world and kind of played with that and how the son connects with the father and what it means to be a man. And there's one of my favorite characters who's Brody, who's the dad's new boyfriend in that book that at first Eric was not convinced about writing together. He was just like, I don't know about this one. And I kept giving him an argument for it. And finally I said to him, well, I just need to write him. And he goes, okay, that's all you need to say. He's like, as a writer, I get it. You told me you need it, you need to do it. And he is like, just be prepared that when we edit, you might have to cut your darling. And I went, that's fine. So that was a character where I was, I have to convince someone and someone very directly that has control over this project as well because we've agreed that it's a 50 50 deal. need to make him love him. It's like I need to pull, it's a Jennifer Hudson thing all over.
Mary Kole (00:29:15):
I love it. Do you think that, because I noticed that you have another book, The Player, do you think that at least in this low literacy or kind of younger or shorter space that you are writing in sports were a part of it to make it appeal to some of those maybe more reluctant readers?
Paul Coccia (00:29:37):
Well, for the teen books I threw in sex, I always think of myself as Madonna at the back of the bus in A League of Their Own. And I said this to Jason Reynolds recently, and I'm like, you’re a Madonna too, Jason. Like he needed to be told. But I think one of them was the players a hockey book. And I just thought, that's really interesting as a Canadian to explore this, and I'm not a sports person, but I am a literary theory person, and this is where I'm going to get really geeky on everyone.
Mary Kole (00:30:12):
Oh, please.
Paul Coccia (00:30:13):
Northrop Frye has a theory in Shakespearean drama, which is the Theory of the Green World. So I will explain it, and it sounds complicated so you can sound smart if you're talking. The listeners can sound super smart at dinner later and be like Northrop Frye's Theory of the Green World. And in it, it's basically in A Midsummer Night's Dream, the young characters need to go off to the woods, which is literally the green world. It's a woods and in that world, all the rules don't apply. So they're able to work through their issues of society where the rules are very rigid. And when they emerge from the green world, they've played, they've experimented, they've made mistakes, but they've grown. So they're able to reintegrate back into the society as fruitful, productive members of it. So it is that kind of adolescence could be that green world.
(00:31:07):
I always say, if you think about Where the Wild Things Are, he can't stare at his wall angrily for 28 pages. It's a boring book. He has to go where the wild things are for the child reader, the benefit or the child protagonist, not the reader, but the reader as well. The benefit of the green world is those characters need a chance to grow and they need a chance to be out from under. Kids are under a lot of control. Their teachers tell 'em what to do, their parents tell 'em what to do, their siblings tell them what to do, they're always getting these rules and sometimes it's how do you give them that space? And I think sports in those two books was a way of giving those kids a world of their own and creating a system where they could start playing and creating and making mistakes.
Mary Kole (00:31:54):
That's really, really interesting. And for some reason, it made me think of Midsommar, but the initial drug trip, fun Midsommar before it got really crazy, right? You separate from society, you go, you have this transformative experience. You might call it the hero cycle, right?
Paul Coccia (00:32:17):
I love Joseph Campbell, we could have a whole thing on lit theory. I am a geek for it.
Mary Kole (00:32:22):
I mean, I love it. And clearly you are enriched by it. You do what you do so well because you apply all of these incredible ideas to it. But yeah, the hero cycle ends as the hero having gone on their journey, re-enters society. Midsommar goes off out of left field with that.
Paul Coccia (00:32:45):
One thing that's interesting that I love about the hero journey and Joseph Campbell was he talks about, and I don't think it gets enough focus on what's left behind when the hero leaves the hero's journey. So when they're coming back out, do they leave behind their magical tools? What can they carry with them out of that world and what can't they? And then I also like to think about who can't leave that world. So Peter Pan's a great example that people know of character who can't leave the green world. Peter Pan can't leave Neverland, he'll stop existing. Bridge to Terabithia is another one. She has to die. Sorry, everyone. She had to die for literary reasons. She couldn't leave that world. She couldn't translate out of Terabithia.
Mary Kole (00:33:33):
So interesting. You are such a joy.
Paul Coccia (00:33:37):
I've just ruined the listenership. They're like, I don't know what he's saying.
Mary Kole (00:33:42):
No, it's the green world-hero with a thousand faces-Bridge to Terabithia-Neverland, and I'm going to attack on Midsommar because for some reason I'm stuck on it right now.
Paul Coccia (00:33:52):
You can throw in some queer theory too and really make people's heads spin. I'll be like, Judith Butler, who doesn't want to talk about Judith Butler?
Mary Kole (00:34:02):
Which is why we have actually brought you on to consult on this other project. Can't go into much more detail about that. But you have this just rich and varied knowledge base. How do you supplement it? Are you always reading? Do you consume other media? What is your professional and self-development schedule?
Paul Coccia (00:34:28):
It sounds like I'm more rigid than I am. I'm very curious. If something is a question for me, I like to know the answer. So when I was working with Eric, he said something about muffins and cupcakes. I'm like, no, they're different Eric. And he's like, how are they different? I'm like, well, tell me how you think they're the same, and then I'll tell you how they're actually different. But it was one of those things that, because I bake a lot, I was like, well, what makes them different? So I went and looked it up, and until I'm satisfied with an answer that makes sense to me, I just don't stop. But I used to watch a lot of TV and I don't anymore, and I love TV. I just gave it up five years ago. It just worked out that way. So I will watch very little TV. When I'm writing, I don't consume a lot of media unless it's very different from what I'm doing. So when I wrote Recommended Reading, which was a rom-com, every night, I like to work at night, so I'd usually write till two or three in the morning and then I go watch true crime.
Mary Kole (00:35:32):
I was going to say, what is the polar opposite of romantic comedy? It's true crime.
Paul Coccia (00:35:38):
And there's this great series on Netflix of murder scenes. So they did the Texas Killing Fields, but I was like, what a great lesson in how to create setting that really enables character because it was all about why was this the perfect killing ground? I'm like, yeah, that makes sense to me as a writer. Why was it?
Mary Kole (00:36:00):
As a sidebar, I was watching the Menendez Brothers thing on Netflix.
Paul Coccia (00:36:06):
My younger brother is obsessed with them because my dad has an awful habit since we were little of turning on a horror film or turning on true crime and he'll go to sleep and just left us to watch it.
Mary Kole (00:36:18):
Well, I was going to say my 9-year-old came upstairs and he was like, oh, what you watching? And he sees a courtroom scene, nothing inflammatory. He's like, oh, murder shows. So that tells you the media I consume, and I really do attribute at least 50% of my personal dysfunction to the fact that when I was eight or nine, my dad let me watch Fargo with the wood chipper, and he just thought that was OK media for a fourth grader.
Paul Coccia (00:36:52):
I think also my dad has that thing, so he let me watch The Three Faces of Eve, that old movie. And I loved it because there was Eve White who was the goody, goody hated her, but there was Eve Black who did all the bad stuff. She was really fun. And then she'd be like, Eve White can clean up the mess. And so in my head, I had gone from wanting to be a twin because I had identical twin cousins, so I thought they were one unit. So I was like, you get to share two bodies when you're four, that's how the world works.
Mary Kole (00:37:23):
Yeah, that's a hot take right there.
Paul Coccia (00:37:27):
Well, it is not how it works. They're incredibly different. They're like night and day. But then when I watch The Three Faces of Eve, I'm like, oh, I could just get multiple personalities. And my mom is the sort of person who's like, no, no, no, sweetie, let's actually do some research here. You don't want that actually.
Mary Kole (00:37:46):
No, no, no. Let's tether you to this plane. No, no, no, no, no. Bring it in.
Paul Coccia (00:37:52):
Yeah. So she was, I think that sort of looking a bit deeper comes from her because she was always like, go look it up. That's not what you think it is.
Mary Kole (00:38:03):
What a rockstar. I think, honestly, and I try to instill this in my children, I try to embody it, but to me, having a skill is great, but that inner engine that keeps us curious, that makes us want to know more, that has us asking questions, that curiosity, not everybody has it. And I think rather than kind of innate talent or learned skill, curiosity and the desire to learn in the first place is the secret sauce to any career, any pursuit, any hobby, any endeavor. And it's really interesting to me when I meet someone who's just not curious compared to someone like you who just naturally is digging deeper into even the difference between cupcakes and muffins.
Paul Coccia (00:38:58):
Do you remember you came down, we're going to go off to the dinner in New Orleans?
Mary Kole (00:39:03):
I remember some of New Orleans. Yes.
Paul Coccia (00:39:05):
I was standing in the lobby waiting for everyone, and I found a woman there and I just start talking to her. She was like, because she was wearing this beautiful powder blue suit with these big gold buttons.
Mary Kole (00:39:17):
I was going to say the woman in blue. I actually do remember this.
Paul Coccia (00:39:20):
Lois, I remember her name too. And one of the things I said to her, I'm like, oh, are you here for the conference? She went mm-hmm and I said, oh, the children's conference. She's like, no.
Mary Kole (00:39:32):
You were telling us about her at dinner. Yeah. It was for some other really specific conference?
Paul Coccia (00:39:37):
She said word for word: I'm here for child abuse. And I knew it was one of those things as a writer, I'm like, this is the best story. It will be so good over dinner. And I looked at her very sincerely and I go, you're against it, right? But I love those ones. As a writer, you kind of collect them and you keep them and you're like, I'll use that somewhere somehow, even if it gets put through a filter and it changes, but it's such a good moment. I'm like, these are gifts from the universe.
Mary Kole (00:40:09):
Yeah, and you keep your ears open, you keep your eyes open, that kind of person maybe—so people who work as first responders or in these horrific sort of social work scenarios, they just get jaded it seems like, where they don't really, they detach from how it sounds. And so to them, I'm here for the child abuse or whatever is a completely normal sentence. And then the beautiful little children's book person is like, oh, no.
Paul Coccia (00:40:43):
I love that sort. And I love, I am an adult. So I love that sort of digging into things that maybe I shouldn't sometimes, but if there's a weird art show that I wouldn't ever take a kid to and I wouldn't normally go to, I'm like, I'm going to go to it just to say I did it. I told Julie recently, I went to this thing that was a literary salon. It was called Naked Boys Reading, which I think is very poorly named because they were all grown men, no idea what I was walking into. And only one of them read their own diary, and he had written it when he was really deep in the throes of addiction and dating his dealer and where he's like, I just can't read anymore because it's illegible. I have no idea what I wrote. I was so deep in the hole, so that reader was really interesting. But there was another one who read Anne of Green Gables naked, and it was so weird.
Mary Kole (00:41:41):
They were all naked?
Paul Coccia (00:41:42):
Well, they got naked, but it wasn't like, I guess in my head I expected a Gypsy Rose like da da da. And they just were like, okay, so I'm taking off my clothes now and just stripped down faster than teen on prom night, it was like that was off in a second.
Mary Kole (00:41:59):
Well, at least there was no false advertising with the name of the salon.
Paul Coccia (00:42:03):
No. And I was sitting there and as he was reading Anne of Green Gables, which as a Canadian, I could get kicked out. It's not my favorite. I'm not a fan.
Mary Kole (00:42:13):
Uh-oh, the Mounties are coming for you.
Paul Coccia (00:42:15):
And I did write a short story for an anthology, which is YA Re-imaginings of Anne of Green Gables, but I think that worked the detachment from the character that I could play with her. So he's reading, I'm going, oh, is that how you groom for the event? Oh, I see you're wearing some sort of hardware down there. It was just one of those things where I started analyzing the choices they made. But I do think that's the character creation part of me where I'm like, why would he do that? And I'm like, what would I do? Well, first of all, I wouldn't read naked.
Mary Kole (00:42:50):
Paul. You have the most fascinating way of looking at things, and I just love sitting here and just being on the sidelines for how you live your life.
Paul Coccia (00:43:02):
Well, also, you and I got along really well quickly, and it's because I value your directness.
Mary Kole (00:43:10):
Oh, thank you.
Paul Coccia (00:43:12):
And I find that sometimes, especially editors have to walk a very careful line when they don't know an author. And it's almost like the hamburger way of writing an essay where it's like, I'm going to give you a compliment and then I'm going to be mean to you a little bit, but I'm going to give you another compliment. I'm like, no, just tell me what's wrong so I can fix it. I think as a writer, you have to get a tough skin that way because writing is personal, but the business part of it's not. Business is not a personal thing.
Mary Kole (00:43:40):
Did you struggle with that? I mean, how did you sort of develop it over time? Or has that just been a perspective shift that you've adopted and you just go forth like that?
Paul Coccia (00:43:51):
In university, and then I did my master's in creative writing. Part of it was workshopping. And there are people who lack tact, and you should learn from them because you then learn how not to approach people. But when people say rude things to you and they just don't think twice about it, you're like, well, I can either crumple or I can just become Teflon. And I do think it's a choice. At a certain point, you're like, was it Eleanor Roosevelt? You allow people to hurt you.
Mary Kole (00:44:28):
“No one can hurt you without your consent.” And it was Eleanor Roosevelt.
Paul Coccia (00:44:33):
Okay, so I got the person right. I mangled the quote.
Mary Kole (00:44:37):
That's okay.
Paul Coccia (00:44:37):
I kept the sentiment. So there you go. But I thought that's really interesting. And it's also, I think this about people who come at you like that. I'm like, I'm gay. I'm still living my life despite a lot of people telling me not to live it that way. Do you really think I'm going to fall apart for you? And I did this to my younger brother’s ex the first time I met him because he said something to me and I just went, stop right there, sweetheart, because I thought we're saying the tone for the relationship today that we'll have going forward. And I said to him, I don't value your opinion, but he had said something completely—it wasn't his place to even open his mouth. And I said, until I value your opinion, say whatever you want, but know that I really don't care. So you can agree, disagree, it doesn't matter to me, but you have a choice. You don't have to take everyone's opinion. You don't have to value it. Now, that said, if you're working with an editor or other people, perhaps you do want to consider their perspective because often they're offering you a way to improve the manuscript or improve what you're doing, or they're giving you their best attempt. So even if it's not the way you would go forward, you might want to look at their intention and why you might want to revisit that sentence, that scene, that bit of dialogue, whatever they're telling you,
Mary Kole (00:45:58):
You are such a stone cold professional. And I love that perspective because some editors are prescriptive. They'll say, you need to do this, that, or the other. But what I really admire about you, Paul, is that you know yourself, but you also know the character and the story and your intention. And so it sounds like you take the feedback and you take the spirit of the feedback, if not the letter of the feedback. And then you figure out how it works within the framework of your understanding of story, character and self (Paul, the writer).
Paul Coccia (00:46:37):
I will try things that I didn't think of and see how they land, but you were part of it that one time, whatever the suggestion was, I said to you, I can't do it. I tried it out. I tried it. I'm like, that British woman who was like, I tried it three times and it was not for me. But no, I will try and I'll be like, okay, now I know that doesn't work because I know what it was. It was making the love interest and Julie does this really, really well. And so I've gone back and read her books to do it, making the love interest someone from childhood. I couldn't put it to work in Recommended Reading. I kept trying to do it and it was clunky. It was a backstory dump. It just didn't work for the character. I could go in and I could make those characters they've never met before. And so as they got to know each other and the reader also got to know them, I got to know them a bit more.
Mary Kole (00:47:34):
Cuz he’s new to town. That's part of the excitement of them meeting.
Paul Coccia (00:47:40):
We had a great backstory if he had been the childhood friend, it should have worked up until I wrote it and then it sucked. And I can't blame anyone else. I was the one who wrote it, so I had to own the suckage.
Mary Kole (00:47:54):
Yeah, I mean Julie does love that. And what we're talking about there to contextualize it is that we do believe when we're developing a story or we’re developing character relationships, that sometimes it is more compelling if there is history, if it's a first love that we're coming back to, obviously in a second chance romance, they do have to have history, but it's more emotionally invested with more sort of higher stakes to the relationship if maybe they used to be childhood best friends and now it's turning romantic. So that is a great strategy. It just wasn't a strategy for this specific set of people.
Paul Coccia (00:48:42):
Julie could have got it to work. I don't think I could. And Julie's book, where I think she does it really, really well, is Ramona Blue.
Mary Kole (00:48:50):
That's one of Julie's personal favorites of her entire catalog.
Paul Coccia (00:48:55):
It's a great book. And it's also really interesting because who, the relationship that the characters had as children becomes a conflict for the relationship they're going to have as young adults because who they were is not who they are and where they were is not where they are. And she understood that so well about those characters. Let's make this a Julie Murphy Love podcast. Let's just talk about the books that we love best of her. We'll start at the beginning and go back.
Mary Kole (00:49:23):
We do love Julie. Julie is tremendous. Julie is amazing. But we are here to talk about Paul. And one of the things that we've kind of not talked about directly is that you are a gay man and you are in all of these cultures and you represent—
Paul Coccia (00:49:43):
Let's talk about it, Mary, let's just talk about it in depth.
Mary Kole (00:49:48):
What I'm asking is how important is it to represent that community and to write for kids who might be coming up in that community or might not even know that they will end up in that community? Is that a big factor for you as you're choosing projects or characters or coming up with your own ideas?
Paul Coccia (00:50:09):
One way is a point of connection with me and my characters that I've written other than the 13-year-old basketball star, which no one ever says, you wrote a straight boy. I'm like, yes, I did. Thank you for noticing, and he was believable. The awkward dance scene. I was the one who brought the awkward to the game. So one of the tenets of literature that I learned because I did study English literature, was books that have lasting power. That's one of the markers of what will make a book canonical. It becomes part of the canon when it stands the test of time, but it also must have a universal appeal. So while the specific is writing queer characters for queer readers, and I love doing that, and with Cub, especially, grown men would come to me and say, I never, as far as I know, it's the only book that exists in the children's market that addresses the bear community directly as a main character. I'd love to be wrong about that, by the way, because I think there should be another, and there should have been one before mine, but as far as I know, there isn't. So grown men are always, I wish I had this book when I was a kid. It would've made understanding who I was so much easier. And that's a powerful thing as a writer to come to understand that your work has touched people that way.
(00:51:34):
And they will tell it to me with very tearfully because they've grown up the way I did, which is understanding your body's wrong. You were made wrong. Even in the gay community, you don't look like how a gay man should. You're not built like it. And I'm going, but we are. We're built like bears. They're the strongest ones to give hugs. But I also think that we open up a conversation for people outside the queer community, and I'm always a big—allies are part of the queer community. There's a very special bond between allies and the queer community that other communities haven't created the same way, and it's a privileged relationship there, but books do appeal to them. And so what I go through as a gay man and my understanding of love and desire and attraction shouldn't be outside the realm of what someone who's not gay understands. So I do think about that as well because I do want people to understand where I'm coming from. I do want them to understand what I've experienced, what my characters have experienced, what we bring to the game, and to make those points of connection for themselves. So while yes, on the surface there are queer books for queer readers, I hope that I broaden the appeal to every reader.
Mary Kole (00:52:56):
Every time I talk to you and I'm privileged to talk to you, I am just bowled over by how deeply and thoughtfully you consider all of your intentions and all of your actions. And I would love to—
Paul Coccia (00:53:13):
You could look at my personal life, Mary. I don't think about things a lot sometimes.
Mary Kole (00:53:18):
Well, you just called me direct, so text me, run your situation by me, and I will tell you the truth.
Paul Coccia (00:53:25):
Oh, Julie got out of me and so Recommended Reading launched in Kansas, and her first question, she's like, so tell us how you're getting back with your ex, Paul? And I'm like, listen, all of you romance readers, were not second chance romance believers apparently, because you were all dumped the guy again. And I'm like, listen, hear me out. You don't know my life. I'm a Jerry Springer episode.
Mary Kole (00:53:49):
Yeah, Julie will absolutely call you out on it. You're getting back with your ex?
Paul Coccia (00:53:55):
Yeah, it's great.
Mary Kole (00:53:56):
Do you really think that's a good idea?
Paul Coccia (00:53:59):
Well, I don't care actually. Who doesn't like to run up in something familiar?
Mary Kole (00:54:07):
Oh my goodness.
Paul Coccia (00:54:09):
We didn't split because of problems between us, he was a workaholic but the pandemic destroyed work, and he did not handle that well.
Mary Kole (00:54:18):
So he lost his identity and went into free fall?
Paul Coccia (00:54:22):
And I was just like, when you figure it out, find me again. And now it's turned into the let's dive into Paul's love life podcast.
Mary Kole (00:54:38):
You brought it up! Well, actually, Julie brought it up.
Paul Coccia (00:54:39):
I did. Yeah, well, but it is interesting to think I've decided to lead the rom-com life. I'm just going to get that man back.
Mary Kole (00:54:47):
What's next for you? Is there anything that you can talk about or any appearances that you have coming up?
Paul Coccia (00:54:54):
Well, Bittersweet. We are working again on something that will be really fun.
Mary Kole (00:55:00):
We are.
Paul Coccia (00:55:00):
It involves maple syrup, which has led me up to the maple syrup farms.
Mary Kole (00:55:05):
Oh, you've already gone?
Paul Coccia (00:55:06):
It is tapping season. It is tapping season. The weather's changing. It's like very cold at night, very warm in the day. So the sap is flowing.
Mary Kole (00:55:19):
The sap is flowing. I was going to make a really bad tapping joke, but you know.
Paul Coccia (00:55:24):
It was right there. Well, we don't need the low hanging fruit. No, but I do have a picture book coming next year, which is exciting. I've never done it.
Mary Kole (00:55:34)
Tell me about your picture book!
Paul Coccia (00:55:37)
So it is about a boy who's determined to catch a fairy and a little girl who is going to squish his dreams, but he does find a fairy in the bottom of potato chip bag eating the potato chip crumbs, and he's fat and hairy and a bear like the male bear, the gay bear. So I called it The Bear Fairy, and I keep saying it's the universal story of leave me alone to eat my chips. Everyone can relate. But it is one of those stories about what you find might not be what you wanted. So kind of meeting people at where they are versus where you expected them to be. Although I think kids will take whatever they want from it. My nephew read The Three Little Pigs. One teacher said, what's moral of the story? He was like, no one can resist bacon. Readers just take what they resonate with.
Mary Kole (00:56:31):
I resonate with the little girl coming around and crushing the little boy's dreams.
Paul Coccia (00:56:35):
Yeah, she was just, and even, am I allowed to swear, Mary?
Mary Kole (00:56:40):
Yeah, of course.
Paul Coccia (00:56:41):
Okay. The editor, when she read it goes, she's a real bitch. And I said, I know. I wrote her. And she's like, well, she is. I was like, I love you. We can work together any day.
Mary Kole (00:56:56):
I love it because my daughter, I mean, I'm not going to say that about my own child, but I often say—my daughter Ella is four right now. I often say that she would be the leader of the zombie apocalypse, but not the human resistance, not the people trying to survive. Right.
Paul Coccia (00:57:17):
I don't understand why one would want to survive it. I'm like this—it never gets better.
Mary Kole (00:57:19):
No, absolutely not. It never, I would sacrifice myself first thing, because what? Then the next day you wake up and have to do the whole sweaty thing all over again, and you don't know where your food is coming from. There's no hot water.
Paul Coccia (00:57:33):
I just don't have a stomach for killing either, even if they're dead already.
Mary Kole (00:57:37):
Oh, that's not my particular objection to the scenario.
Paul Coccia (00:57:42):
I'm also like, I'm going to just—they’re gonna get me. I'm not a fast runner.
Mary Kole (00:57:48):
Why even bother? Why even bother? What is waiting for you? Certainly not a spa treatment and a three course meal.
Paul Coccia (00:57:56):
Well, to bring it back to stories, one of the things I love in thrillers or that sort of genre is when it's getting to the point where the killer's going to get you and the two people stop and they're like, you know what? Let's just get it on. And I'm like, yeah, I'm very turned on those moments too. And I just want one writer, thriller writers, if you do this, please do this for me and send me the book for them to be like, We're going to die. Let's have sex. Let's just call it out as what?
Mary Kole (00:58:25):
Yeah. I mean, this might be the last thing that we ever do.
Paul Coccia (00:58:30):
Yeah. So it's like, let's just, meanwhile, I'd be like, let's go to the freezer. Let's find a cheesecake like the Golden Girls, and let's gossip, and then we'll die.
Mary Kole (00:58:42):
For me, I would go to the high-end seafood place that sells to restaurants and just the uni, thecaviar, all of the sushi grade tuna, the crab legs. That would be my splurge.
Paul Coccia (00:58:59):
I'd be like, let's get the Twinkies. Let's just, those zombies won't get me because my blood sugar is going to first.
Mary Kole (00:59:07):
With all the crab and stuff, my cholesterol would be very unhealthy to eat.
Paul Coccia (00:59:12):
Let them eat that.
Mary Kole (00:59:15):
My final act of resistance. Alright, Paul, I could genuinely talk to you all day and there have been beautiful days in life when I have gotten to talk to you most of the day, like in New Orleans. I will never forget getting to launch Recommended Reading in such a setting. You are just a joy, and I love the way that you see the world. It truly is wonderful to know you. Where can people find you?
Paul Coccia (00:59:44):
I do have a website, paulcoccia.com, but I'm @pauljcoccia on social media. I use Instagram the most. I like the visual aspect because it's different from writing.
Mary Kole (00:59:56):
Yeah. Wonderful. So everybody check out Recommended Reading, and can you share a title for your amazing sounding picture book?
Paul Coccia (01:00:03):
It's called The Bear Fairy.
Mary Kole (01:00:05):
You did say that.
Paul Coccia (01:00:07):
I wasn't very clever. I went for, I'm like, that's who he is. That's the title.
Mary Kole (01:00:11):
Hey, it does what it says on the box. Check out The Bear Fairy next year. Check out Paul's entire bibliography on his website. And Paul, it was an honor to have you. Thank you so much for coming on.
Paul Coccia (01:00:27):
It was all my pleasure, Mary. Anytime you ask me, I'll come. I love you.
Mary Kole (01:00:32):
I love you too. And I love you, my listeners. This has been the Thriving Writers Podcast. Here's to a good story.
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