In 2008, Emily Gould wrote an essay for the NY Times Magazine about her life as a Gawker blogger–earning a book deal and more than 1,200 comments in the process. We interviewed Gould this morning on the Morning Media Menu.
The online writer and memoirist Emily Gould discussed her new memoir, And the Heart Says Whatever–sharing advice for aspiring bloggers. She also pondered the major changes shaking the publishing industry and talked about her online cooking show.
Press play below to listen.
Around the 12-minute mark, Gould spoke about the publishing industry: “I still do know a lot of people who work in publishing, and a lot of them are terrified. People have lost their jobs and a lot of really great people have decided to move on–which is also really scary. You didn’t use to hear about people who had skyrocketing, awesome careers turn around at age 30 even they’ve gotten to be full editors at that point and say, ‘You know, I don’t think I want to be in this business.’ That does not bode well.”
Gould also pondered her evolving writing style: “When I do feel really masochistic and I go back and look at the old stuff, I am struck by the fact that I wasn’t really writing in my own voice. I maybe thought I was, but I was exercising this one aspect of my virtuosity as a writer. I’m pretty decently good at being very catty and bitchy and mean and insulting…taking a very, very little bit of information and extrapolating it into some basic idea that would probably have a pretty negative tendency. It’s pretty easy to do that.”
She added: “One of the first things I did when it seemed like I would definitely be allowed to write this book (when I was pretty sure it would sell, but it hadn’t sold yet) was sign up for something I had wanted to do for a long time–yoga teacher training. And I did it that summer. While I was writing this book I was also learning how to be a yoga teacher. Now I do that–it’s my day job. My not very lucrative day job.”
Gould concluded: “So I flatter myself that I’m more relaxed, but let’s be real, I’m still totally compulsive. Tumblr, that’s my new addiction, I’m looking at it all the time and definitely posting on there at least a couple times a day. I haven’t abdicated from the Internet. It’s still my home country that I like to go back and visit every once in awhile. But I wouldn’t want to live there. I don’t ever want to live there again.”