Amy Sue Nathan

Not Jennifer – The Not Series, Part 2

I read Jennifer Weiner and couldn’t help but love her writing and relate to her as a person. She’s a Jewish mom from Philadelphia. She makes no bones about the fact that she’s not thin. She runs. Ok, I don’t run, but I’ve thought about it. She writes female protags who break molds, adds in characters and subplots that surprise. She takes a bit of something she knows well, as far as I can tell, and shakes it up and around and upside and comes up with fiction that’s real and relatable.

No one has ever compared me to her — but for a long time I wished they would!

I took liberties (like gazillion others) and added Ms. Weiner to my Facebook friend list, which prompted a portion of my Huffington Post piece about Facebook Over 40.

I learned a big lesson when reading one of Weiner’s books – and that was how much I appreciated, almost craved, the element of surprise in a novel. Not suspense, surprise. How everything pointed to a revelation, but I had it right along with the main character, not before. I was as shocked as Cannie, in Good In Bed, when she (spoiler alert!) discovered she was pregnant. I learned about the ebb and flow of fiction reading that book in particular because it has a lot of ups and downs. It’s the first time I read a novel and not only enjoyed, but analyzed what made it work for me.

So when I set out on some very real fictional (figure that one out) trials of my own, I wanted to be like Jennifer Weiner. Forget that I’m probably 10 years older – that would work – I could be the older version. She got to keep the 20′s and 30′s. I’d take the 40′s and 50′s.

But with enough experience in writing – and life – I realized quite quickly that while there were similarities — voice driven fiction with a female protag — there were many more differences. At first it made me nervous. Obviously, she has the formula for fiction and I failed chemistry. But being a copy-cat is not what I’m after. I just want to write as myself, akin to others who write well but as a shadow to no one.

So not being Jennifer Weiner quickly became OK. I’m sure she’s relieved.

As for me?

That’s yet to be determined.