This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:32] Laura Camien: Welcome to The Spark File, your one-stop business in the front, party in the back for creative inspiration.

[0:41] Susan Blackwell: I'm Laura Campbell.

[0:42] Susan Blackwell: And I'm Susan Blackwell. If you're joining us for the first time, you are so welcome.

[0:46] Laura Camien: You may be asking yourself, what exactly is a spark file?

[0:49] Susan Blackwell: Where do I get one? What do I file in it? These are such good questions, and we have got answers.

[0:54] Laura Camien: A spark file is a place where you consistently collect all your inspirations and fascinations.

[0:59] Susan Blackwell: Here's the deal. We are makers and we make all kinds of things. If you're anything like us and making stuff all the time, or you want to be making stuff all the time, you know that the wellspring of inspiration can run a little dry.

[1:11] Laura Camien: So we're on the lookout for fresh ideas, images, and inspiration that spark our creativity and pique our curiosity, things that inspire us to get up off of our asses and make things like this podcast, or a wildly popular social satire series that captures a cultural moment.

[1:28] Susan Blackwell: Or a business that allows you to use all your creative wisdom and experience to support others who want to create.

[1:35] Laura Camien: Or a practice that helps people to collaborate well in the corporate space.

[1:39] Susan Blackwell: Or a family of curious, creative, and even sometimes mathematical little people.

[1:44] Laura Camien: On today's MakerSode, we're gonna talk to two people who truly spark us.

[1:49] Susan Blackwell: And those special folks are Nicola Kraus and Emma McLaughlin.

[1:53] Susan Blackwell: Nikki, Emma, welcome to The Spark File.

[1:58] Nicola Kraus: Thank you for having us.

[2:00] Emma McLaughlin: That is the longest introduction in show business.

[2:03] Susan Blackwell: Beautiful. Gentle listeners, you're gonna recognize those names because Nikki and Emma were featured in our recent Spark episode.

[2:09] Laura Camien: That's a new word I made up on the topic of collaborative writing.

[2:13] Susan Blackwell: Among many other titles, these old baby geniuses wrote The Nanny Diaries.

[2:17] Emma McLaughlin: That's right.

[2:18] Laura Camien: Hey, I feel before we launch or get too far down the road, we should probably sort out the sound of our voices.

[2:25] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, we are four white ladies talking, are we?

[2:27] Nicola Kraus: We are.

[2:27] Emma McLaughlin: We are.

[2:29] Laura Camien: And everybody say your name and something really distinct about yourself.

[2:34] Susan Blackwell: Uh, I will go first. This is Susan. You can't see it, but something distinct about me is that I have sort of gray silver hair.

[2:41] Susan Blackwell: If someone's cussing, it's probably gonna be me.

[2:43] Susan Blackwell: And for the duration of this interview, I'm going to distinguish myself by using the voice of Gwen Verdon who wants to go next to that be annoying.

[2:51] Laura Camien: We can't have another voice in the middle.

[2:54] Nicola Kraus: And the ghost of Gwen Verdon is here.

[2:56] Laura Camien: I'll say this is Laura, and you can't see me, but my I have brown hair that is graying.

[3:03] Laura Camien: Um if someone is crying, it's probably me.

[3:07] Susan Blackwell: So you'll hear that in my voice.

[3:09] Nicola Kraus: Who wants to go next?

[3:11] Nicola Kraus: Uh, this is Nikki. I have uh brown hair that is going gray, so I'm deciding to highlight it.

[3:16] Emma McLaughlin: Yes.

[3:17] Nicola Kraus: I feel like this could be a thing.

[3:19] Emma McLaughlin: I'm trying to start a trend.

[3:20] Nicola Kraus: I'm I'm right behind you.

[3:21] Emma McLaughlin: I'm on it.

[3:22] Nicola Kraus: I'll follow that trend.

[3:23] Laura Camien: Nikki, how are we gonna know your voice?

[3:25] Nicola Kraus: Um, this is my voice.

[3:28] Nicola Kraus: Um this is the voice that I have.

[3:31] Nicola Kraus: I I've been told that it is a little nasal.

[3:33] Laura Camien: Um, does that distinguish me from the other participants?

[3:36] Emma McLaughlin: He's a lovely voice.

[3:37] Nicola Kraus: Thank you.

[3:38] Nicola Kraus: True story, I used to sell drug tests to prisons.

[3:42] Nicola Kraus: Uh, you know, when I was acting and needing money.

[3:44] Laura Camien: This interview's got everything.

[3:47] Nicola Kraus: What else more?

[3:49] Nicola Kraus: They would have inmates answer the phones, and some of these guys would just keep me on the phone talking to them about whatever.

[3:55] Nicola Kraus: I was like, oh, I'm providing two services.

[3:58] Laura Camien: Oh, yeah.

[3:59] Susan Blackwell: Hold on, at least two.

[4:00] Susan Blackwell: You sold drug tests like in bulk?

[4:03] Nicola Kraus: Yes, for SmithKline Beecham to prisons.

[4:05] Susan Blackwell: You were like a uh uh drug rep.

[4:07] Nicola Kraus: Yes.

[4:08] Nicola Kraus: Well, I worked for the drug for a very specific drug testing product.

[4:14] Laura Camien: Are inmates empowered to purchase or do they have purchasing powers?

[4:19] Nicola Kraus: You were supposed to pass me to the warden or someone who was authorized.

[4:23] Nicola Kraus: Mostly we just chat.

[4:24] Emma McLaughlin: Yes.

[4:24] Emma McLaughlin: That is amazing, and that does distinguish you.

[4:27] Emma McLaughlin: Uh, this is Emma, and this is what my voice sounds like.

[4:31] Emma McLaughlin: Um, and a distinguishing characteristic of me, if you saw me in person, is that I am in denial about wearing glasses with my aging eyes.

[4:40] Emma McLaughlin: So I'm either gripping them or wearing them on top of my head and spending half of my thoughts about how dirty they are and how that's factoring into your perspective on my capabilities.

[4:52] Emma McLaughlin: There is a portion of my brain running about 2% 24-7 on if you are seeing the spots on my glasses, and it's informing your sense of my competence.

[5:01] Emma McLaughlin: But I should say you may not distinguish my voice from Nikki's, which is part of what the story is.

[5:07] Emma McLaughlin: Our voices have been indistinguishable forever.

[5:10] Emma McLaughlin: And if we weren't fucking great with that, we would not be sitting here.

[5:13] Susan Blackwell: Oh my god.

[5:16] Laura Camien: I will say that.

[5:17] Laura Camien: Awesome thing to say.

[5:19] Susan Blackwell: What that's what a generous spirit you have.

[5:21] Nicola Kraus: Do I feel I well?

[5:22] Nicola Kraus: It's tested.

[5:22] Nicola Kraus: We've been talking as one for 15 years as one voice.

[5:25] Emma McLaughlin: The chances that she's about to say something that's gonna fuck me is minimal.

[5:31] Laura Camien: It's a well-tested theory.

[5:32] Susan Blackwell: It's not a I'm not just like open girl.

[5:35] Emma McLaughlin: You know, I was gonna say, I was gonna offer this terrible idea, but maybe we don't have to.

[5:39] Emma McLaughlin: I was gonna say, just for a little while until we get rolling, maybe like on a like you would do on a terrible conference call, everyone says their name before they speak, but you know, fuck that.

[5:49] Emma McLaughlin: Everybody just it's a free for all.

[5:51] Emma McLaughlin: Everybody's we're just right now we're just one big talking white lady.

[5:56] Laura Camien: We're the voice.

[5:56] Nicola Kraus: We are.

[5:57] Susan Blackwell: I'm great with that.

[5:59] Susan Blackwell: Great, great, great facing aging with this.

[6:00] Susan Blackwell: Great style and determination as we all get.

[6:03] Laura Camien: Great.

[6:04] Laura Camien: Then I'm just gonna jump in.

[6:05] Laura Camien: You know that the price of admission to The Spark File is to real quick, just tell us some creative risk that you've taken recently.

[6:15] Emma McLaughlin: I am writing a graphic novel right now.

[6:18] Emma McLaughlin: Oh.

[6:19] Emma McLaughlin: It's YA Sci-Fi, and every single thing about that fills me with terror on a daily basis.

[6:25] Emma McLaughlin: I sit down in Albert Brooks sweat before every round of the god.

[6:30] Laura Camien: You in that sweat.

[6:31] Emma McLaughlin: Persevere, I won't let the fear stop me, and I'm very close to having it be finished.

[6:36] Laura Camien: Do you are you drawing it?

[6:38] Emma McLaughlin: I am thankfully not drawing it.

[6:40] Emma McLaughlin: A wonderful man named Eric Donovan is doing the illustrations.

[6:42] Laura Camien: Amazing.

[6:43] Susan Blackwell: I just have to come up with a story that is science fiction and also science and involves teenagers who I'm getting farther and farther away from every day.

[6:52] Laura Camien: You've got this.

[6:53] Emma McLaughlin: Yeah, thank you.

[6:54] Laura Camien: That's courageous.

[6:55] Susan Blackwell: That's I think that qualifies.

[6:56] Laura Camien: When you are sitting down to write this YA science fiction, and you are scared.

[7:04] Emma McLaughlin: How does that manifest for you?

[7:07] Emma McLaughlin: There's a little bit of avoidance.

[7:09] Emma McLaughlin: I I will watch uh a little YouTube every day, but I suddenly can find that I've I'm like so deep on Facebook that I'm reading some grandmother's recipe for something that I know I'm like okay.

[7:21] Emma McLaughlin: I'm never gonna make this recipe.

[7:23] Emma McLaughlin: And I say to myself, if you don't do the thing right now, you're gonna feel exactly like this at five o'clock.

[7:29] Emma McLaughlin: But if you actually pull your socks up and you write a few pages, you're gonna feel great at five o'clock.

[7:34] Emma McLaughlin: And don't you want to give five o'clock you the gift of feeling great?

[7:38] Susan Blackwell: That's what makes me feel good.

[7:39] Emma McLaughlin: I'm this is I'm saying this to myself, I'm saying it to you, Camps, and I'm saying it to all the listeners.

[7:44] Susan Blackwell: This is a person who is a very seasoned writer who still wrestles with that resistance on the regs.

[7:52] Laura Camien: Amazing.

[7:53] Susan Blackwell: I don't think it ever goes away.

[7:54] Emma McLaughlin: If it does, you should start doing something else.

[7:56] Susan Blackwell: Really?

[7:57] Emma McLaughlin: Yes.

[7:57] Emma McLaughlin: I'm waiting for it to go away.

[7:59] Susan Blackwell: The terror is lets you know that you're doing something that's really exciting and worth tackling.

[8:04] Laura Camien: Make friends with it.

[8:04] Susan Blackwell: Right?

[8:05] Susan Blackwell: It's the things that don't scare us anymore that become our day job.

[8:07] Laura Camien: The thing we just kind of show up, we do it, we know we can do it.

[8:09] Susan Blackwell: We go.

[8:10] Laura Camien: I think it's interesting though that the terror that you're describing manifests itself, and I think this is true for so many people.

[8:16] Laura Camien: The terror manifests in the most mundane way.

[8:20] Emma McLaughlin: A deep, deep, deep relationship with Facebook.

[8:23] Laura Camien: Like that or like just like totally addiction to Candy Crush.

[8:28] Laura Camien: Like it it manifests in the most slippery way.

[8:33] Emma McLaughlin: Oh, yeah.

[8:34] Emma McLaughlin: I should absolutely fold the laundry.

[8:35] Laura Camien: You know what?

[8:36] Laura Camien: I feel like the dishwasher's been a little funny.

[8:38] Laura Camien: Maybe this is the moment I should look up how to fix it or get in touch with someone.

[8:41] Laura Camien: And oh, an hour's gone by.

[8:42] Nicola Kraus: Yes.

[8:43] Nicola Kraus: It's it's sneaky.

[8:44] Laura Camien: So, how about you, Emma?

[8:45] Laura Camien: What what's your price of admission?

[8:47] Emma McLaughlin: Well, I uh, as you know, have left writing, which is uh I would have 24,000 examples for use in just the last hour of the fears I faced.

[8:55] Emma McLaughlin: Um, but uh now I I work as a as an executive coach and I recently had a a string of things I had to do run on my own.

[9:05] Emma McLaughlin: Um I had been with a firm uh in between partnering with Nikki and to train myself and and get up to speed in the field.

[9:11] Emma McLaughlin: So I was running sessions, usually with another coach with a partner.

[9:15] Emma McLaughlin: And I had a 24 hours where I was both facilitating some a very senior major thing alone for the first time, on my own business on the heels of presenting to a very intimidating senior group of people a whole presentation on my own for the first time.

[9:32] Laura Camien: Wow.

[9:32] Emma McLaughlin: Um it has been a series of sort of stepping out with my voice.

[9:36] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[9:37] Emma McLaughlin: Um, and there's and there's just the basic habit of breaking turning to no one.

[9:42] Emma McLaughlin: You know we are so trained just to nod encouragingly semi at each other, not really we're doing it right now.

[9:51] Emma McLaughlin: We don't even we cross our legs at each other, like we're so trained to draw the eye to whoever's talking.

[9:57] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[9:58] Emma McLaughlin: Um so there's the basic.

[9:59] Emma McLaughlin: So you try to throw it to somebody who isn't there.

[10:02] Laura Camien: Yeah, yeah.

[10:03] Emma McLaughlin: Yeah.

[10:03] Emma McLaughlin: The first time I spoke without Nikki, I did.

[10:05] Emma McLaughlin: I constantly I started by saying, hi.

[10:08] Emma McLaughlin: I um, I've always worked with a partner.

[10:11] Emma McLaughlin: We're just gonna decide she's here uh for the sake of this presentation.

[10:15] Emma McLaughlin: And um, you'll find it endearing, I'm sure, shortly.

[10:19] Laura Camien: Um but so I but but there's I sort of still hold that in my head.

[10:23] Laura Camien: Did it have sort of an imaginary friend quality too?

[10:25] Emma McLaughlin: It does.

[10:26] Emma McLaughlin: She's she's she's always with me in in that sense, in the in the best sense.

[10:32] Emma McLaughlin: And I think on the flip side, part of the the complexity of having a a creative partner is that you give them all of it.

[10:40] Emma McLaughlin: You give them, you imbue them as the audience and you imbue them as the judge and jury um and it's it's it's a lot to carry right yeah and and you know how much of that is they either want nobody uh wants that any of it really you know and I think over my last couple of months of doing being solo I'm realizing the liber b both the the holding it all myself and the responsibility and that when there's no one to to toss the ball to but I think alternately it's that that judge and jury now sits entirely with myself and that's tremendously liberating because no one's gonna say to me three hours from now you know having built up to it over a couple of cocktails got me nice and relaxed to say you know next time we come at that material maybe it would be a good idea if like that's not coming.

[11:32] Laura Camien: Yeah right um and and that's exhilarating but then also the next thought is well then who's gonna tell me yeah right when you're keeping your own counsel yeah yeah like you really so it's it's just in the in the ongoing process of individuating now I think if you have listen I guess this is a this is a late time to mention that if you haven't listened to that piece on collaborative writing that spark that I shared with baby camps you might want to go back and give it a listen or don't listen do this however you want to do it.

[12:08] Susan Blackwell: But after writing together for 15 million years I think give or take you decided to consciously uncouple your words um how just give us all context how long ago was that?

[12:25] Nicola Kraus: Four years now?

[12:26] Emma McLaughlin: Yeah.

[12:27] Nicola Kraus: Four years.

[12:28] Emma McLaughlin: And when did you engage in this work with uh coaching, Emma?

[12:33] Emma McLaughlin: Um, well, I should say it's the work I was doing right out of school when when we started writing.

[12:39] Nicola Kraus: So you returned to it.

[12:39] Emma McLaughlin: So I've I've returned to it.

[12:41] Emma McLaughlin: But um, but I probably uh it was about three years ago.

[12:46] Emma McLaughlin: It was about I took about a year to sort of find my way.

[12:49] Nicola Kraus: Yeah.

[12:58] Nicola Kraus: Um, and uh, and then I that really affirmed for me that that this kind of work was what I really feel born to do.

[13:08] Emma McLaughlin: Yeah.

[13:08] Nicola Kraus: Um and so I I sought out a firm that uh would train me and um give me sort of the the fundamentals that I had not gotten. And then I went uh into private practice about a year ago.

[13:20] Susan Blackwell: Amazing. I think this is particularly interesting, just to to note like so from what I understand, you didn't like fully pursue individual careers before your success together, right? Your success together came pretty young uh quickly after college-ish.

[13:39] Nicola Kraus: I had been acting for four years.

[13:41] Emma McLaughlin: Okay, and I decided that was not a good use of my time on the planet.

[13:47] Nicola Kraus: Um you give joy to so many people.

[13:51] Emma McLaughlin: I was giving joy to people on the lower east side.

[13:54] Nicola Kraus: But I did not want to give those people joy.

[13:59] Emma McLaughlin: No shame.

[13:59] Nicola Kraus: They need joy too.

[14:03] Susan Blackwell: So you were acting, but you were like, no.

[14:05] Emma McLaughlin: No, no.

[14:06] Nicola Kraus: Okay.

[14:06] Emma McLaughlin: And I um, and it was actually delightful. My last year, I didn't have to have day jobs, and that actually gave me the space by really doing it constantly, be like, oh, I don't like this.

[14:16] Nicola Kraus: Yeah.

[14:17] Emma McLaughlin: And so I thought I was going to learn that about yourself.

[14:20] Nicola Kraus: And that you that changing your choice was you embraced that.

[14:24] Emma McLaughlin: I was like, let's let's do this.

[14:26] Nicola Kraus: Yes.

[14:26] Emma McLaughlin: I suddenly did not want to be looked at. And you know, unless you have a great voice, which I did not think I did.

[14:32] Nicola Kraus: Well, that eliminates a lot of things.

[14:33] Emma McLaughlin: Yeah.

[14:34] Emma McLaughlin: So I decided I was going to finish out my pre-med requirements and apply to med school. Uh I was also teaching yoga at the time, and that seemed like a viable career.

[14:45] Nicola Kraus: And I was starting to write a book. I thought one of these three things will be the thing.

[14:48] Emma McLaughlin: Something's gonna hit.

[14:50] Nicola Kraus: Something one of these things has to work. And I wrote a play and I invited Emma to a reading of it.

[14:56] Emma McLaughlin: And at that point, we hadn't been in regular contact for a few years uh since college.

[15:01] Nicola Kraus: And then Emma sent me an email the next day and said, Would you like to write a book together?

[15:05] Emma McLaughlin: Let's do that.

[15:06] Nicola Kraus: And I was like, I'm saying yes to everything right now.

[15:08] Susan Blackwell: And amazing.

[15:09] Nicola Kraus: And then we got married, basically.

[15:11] Emma McLaughlin: You got creatively married.

[15:12] Nicola Kraus: Yeah, we got creatively married.

[15:14] Susan Blackwell: Amazing. And Emma, so for you, you had been working on your own for how long before you found the partner?

[15:22] Emma McLaughlin: And I assume there was a reason why you were saying, let's do this together.

[15:25] Emma McLaughlin: Yeah, I I mean we had had this tremendously informative experience of being nannies on the upper east side.

[15:32] Emma McLaughlin: Um at a time where being Caucasian and being American citizen and being a college student at trifecta, it was an unusual that was a minority population in that workforce.

[15:43] Emma McLaughlin: Um and and it had it had left a real hangover on us on multiple fronts.

[15:49] Emma McLaughlin: Um so I I had been I I couldn't shake the experience on um in a lot of different ways, and and was trying to make sense of it.

[15:59] Nicola Kraus: But that was part of one of many psycho dramas of being in my early 20s in New York as we as a chick, right?

[16:05] Emma McLaughlin: Yeah, it's just one plot line running.

[16:08] Nicola Kraus: Um but I yeah, I had always been I really wanting to um facilitate uh and and I what and and working with with um in in a in with groups of people and figuring out how to kind of optimize the experience of of working together um and creating together.

[16:27] Emma McLaughlin: And uh I I was doing that right out of school.

[16:30] Nicola Kraus: We both say in quotes, we graduated from nannying, and I um was pursuing that in nonprofit and in other ways.

[16:36] Emma McLaughlin: And I actually was enrolled at in the org psych program at teachers college to get a master's in the work um when nanny happened.

[16:44] Nicola Kraus: Wow.

[16:45] Emma McLaughlin: Um, and was uh a little ways into that when the the media around nanny became so acute in New York, yeah um that I couldn't have the anonymity that it I needed.

[16:58] Nicola Kraus: I remember was working at a hosp I were visiting nurse service of New York and I went in, I was had been working with a group of hospice workers and I wanted to do the session and the administrator had the post on the her desk, which was a day that listed what we had been paid for a project in splashy letters, and I remember her just looking up at me and I was like, oh, this was the moment that I have to make a decision about this.

[17:21] Emma McLaughlin: And we were very blessed at that point, had been off, you know, had our second book deal, and it was you don't turn down being a a full time writer in Manhattan.

[17:28] Nicola Kraus: You just don't do it.

[17:30] Emma McLaughlin: You don't thank God.

[17:31] Susan Blackwell: So can can I jump back? I just want to touch on a point that you just brought up.

[17:35] Susan Blackwell: When you were kind enough to talk with me about your experience with collaborative writing, you talked about something that you had in common.

[17:42] Susan Blackwell: That to use your words, you'd both been traumatized by nannying the day in and day out of being in these seemingly aspirational, but actually very unhappy family/slash work situations.

[17:54] Nicola Kraus: That is what we would call a dark spark.

[17:57] Susan Blackwell: You took this painful experience and you transformed it into your creativity.

[18:03] Susan Blackwell: I don't think you were exaggerating when you said it was traumatizing.

[18:06] Susan Blackwell: I think that was that I don't think you were being funny.

[18:09] Susan Blackwell: I think that was real.

[18:11] Nicola Kraus: And as somebody who has worked uh for decades in jobs that were um traumatizing to different degrees.

[18:21] Emma McLaughlin: Soul crushing.

[18:22] Nicola Kraus: Yeah.

[18:22] Emma McLaughlin: I when you said that, I was like, oh, I re I recognized a truth in that.

[18:27] Susan Blackwell: So first I just wanted to confirm that you really did mean that when you said it.

[18:31] Susan Blackwell: And also I would love to hear how it was for you to take that dark spark and really make something out of it.

[18:39] Susan Blackwell: I mean, you really made made something out of it.

[18:43] Nicola Kraus: Was it gratifying?

[18:44] Nicola Kraus: Was it were you ever like, oh, we're gonna get in trouble?

[18:48] Emma McLaughlin: Yeah.

[18:49] Emma McLaughlin: I immediately flashed as you were asking those questions to being put on a bus from I don't even know where.

[18:58] Emma McLaughlin: I know that we passed through Providence, Rhode Island because I was one of the islands.

[19:03] Emma McLaughlin: Because I went to college in Brown.

[19:05] Emma McLaughlin: It was the most miserable year of my life.

[19:07] Emma McLaughlin: And I took the Peter Pan bus home every weekend.

[19:11] Emma McLaughlin: And I swore to myself when I dropped out of that school that I would never get back on that fucking Peter Pan bus ever again.

[19:17] Nicola Kraus: And there I was back on the Peter Paran bus, Providence, Rhode Island.

[19:22] Emma McLaughlin: And I sobbed.

[19:24] Emma McLaughlin: I just sobbed for six hours all the way back to New York because this family had put it me on a bus and I knew I was never gonna see this two-year-old ever again.

[19:34] Nicola Kraus: Oh and had you been terminated or yeah, I mean, in that they put me on a bus.

[19:41] Emma McLaughlin: What would they fire me to my face?

[19:43] Nicola Kraus: No.

[19:44] Emma McLaughlin: They were like, We're taking you to the Peter Pan.

[19:47] Emma McLaughlin: It was a euphemism for being terminated.

[19:49] Nicola Kraus: Yes.

[19:49] Emma McLaughlin: I was like, Oh.

[19:50] Emma McLaughlin: Okay.

[19:50] Emma McLaughlin: And then she said, you know, you can go to my my manager, my manager will pay you.

[19:54] Emma McLaughlin: And uh yeah, I just and I was listening to this REM song, the one that Michael Stipe wrote about Kirk Cobain, let me in on repeat.

[20:03] Nicola Kraus: Like I would fall asleep.

[20:04] Emma McLaughlin: This is the most emo story.

[20:06] Nicola Kraus: Oh my god.

[20:08] Emma McLaughlin: And I yeah, so I mean, I for six months it was like my heart was broken.

[20:12] Emma McLaughlin: You know, I just wake up every morning with this pain in my chest, and it was it was devastating.

[20:17] Nicola Kraus: That was my last job.

[20:18] Emma McLaughlin: It's like I can't do this again.

[20:20] Nicola Kraus: It's heartbreaking when because you invest so much.

[20:23] Emma McLaughlin: I was gonna say, because of the separation from the children, you know.

[20:27] Emma McLaughlin: If this is this was a child who I was the first face she saw every morning when she woke up, and I was the last face she saw every night when she went to bed for a year.

[20:36] Nicola Kraus: And to suddenly have that ripped out of my life and to know that I never got to say goodbye.

[20:41] Nicola Kraus: And ripped out of her life, and ripped out of her life.

[20:44] Emma McLaughlin: I never got to let her know that it wasn't her fault.

[20:46] Susan Blackwell: Have you ever reconnected with this super crazy thing?

[20:51] Emma McLaughlin: Um, she is she is friends with my cousin on Facebook.

[20:55] Emma McLaughlin: And so a couple of weeks ago, Facebook said, Hey, do you know?

[21:00] Emma McLaughlin: And I was like, Oh my god, I couldn't believe it.

[21:02] Emma McLaughlin: And she kept her nickname from when she was really little.

[21:04] Nicola Kraus: Oh my god.

[21:05] Emma McLaughlin: And she's gorgeous.

[21:06] Emma McLaughlin: She grew up, she looks, she looks very happy.

[21:08] Nicola Kraus: It filled me with she's a woman now.

[21:11] Emma McLaughlin: Um, but it was really, really painful.

[21:11] Nicola Kraus: Really painful.

[21:15] Emma McLaughlin: And so when Emma first said to me, Do you want to write a book about nannying?

[21:18] Nicola Kraus: It was like, no.

[21:20] Emma McLaughlin: Oh, that's interesting.

[21:22] Emma McLaughlin: That is the most I thought it was the most heartbreaking, depressing thing I'd ever done.

[21:26] Emma McLaughlin: And I could never imagine that we could create anything that anybody would want to read.

[21:30] Nicola Kraus: I mean, all I could think of was like clock watching and disrespect.

[21:34] Nicola Kraus: And which would have been a great alternate title to the nanny diaries.

[21:39] Emma McLaughlin: Clock watching and disrespect, starring Scarlet Johansson.

[21:43] Nicola Kraus: Really strong.

[21:44] Emma McLaughlin: Really strong.

[21:46] Nicola Kraus: The French version.

[21:48] Emma McLaughlin: The French version produced by a boy.

[21:51] Nicola Kraus: But I find it so heartening and and so gratifying that you did take this, these experiences that I think that that's true of every book we wrote.

[22:01] Emma McLaughlin: And I I think I think what we we realized with Nanny, it's the reason I was uh one of the many reasons I was hooked for many years in it, is we really took something that we took the heartbreak and we took the silencing of I mean those those are two themes of a girl of a woman's voice.

[22:22] Nicola Kraus: Um, in in a workplace quote trauma, um, every one of our novels is about it it, you know, it's usually the usually the A-plot, occasionally the B plot, I don't know I think it's always the A-plot, is the is that part of your identity?

[22:40] Emma McLaughlin: Um, and when we started writing in 2001, that we saw that nowhere.

[22:44] Nicola Kraus: Not that we had done an exhaustive search, but um when we we uh it goes back to an old thing we used to talk about when we were sitting around with our friends in our 20s talking in bars till four in the morning, there was an element of boys or girls.

[22:57] Emma McLaughlin: Um, I mean our sex or romantic life or lack thereof, but the thing that was the 4 a.m. like hyperventilating in the bathroom was where you had to show up the next morning or the next night to work.

[23:08] Nicola Kraus: It was that those that relationship, yeah, you know, and where with especially in Manhattan, or you know, when you have to you have to pay to be, it's pay to play.

[23:19] Emma McLaughlin: And you know, and and that we felt like it was such a disconnect that that that was that was the formative thing happening in our 20s, and and what of course would go on and on.

[23:29] Nicola Kraus: Um, and and our each of the novels, it was a long process of kind of working backwards from trying to bring in a very funny and fun-filled way, but at a very heart at the heart and kernel of that fundamentally it's them and not you, you know, you are not the asshole.

[23:48] Emma McLaughlin: Um they they are the assholes.

[23:50] Nicola Kraus: It's hard to know that, especially in your 20s, though.

[23:53] Emma McLaughlin: I feel like it takes some life experience to really turn that around.

[23:57] Nicola Kraus: Yeah, we were always writing five, usually about five years out in age from our our character.

[24:02] Emma McLaughlin: And I'll tell you till to the last book that we wrote together, where we were very close to age, the character, which was utterly disorienting, and it was a constant state of texting each other, being like, is this funny?

[24:13] Nicola Kraus: Or is this just a Tuesday?

[24:15] Emma McLaughlin: Like, I is this interesting?

[24:17] Nicola Kraus: Or is this everybody?

[24:18] Emma McLaughlin: I can't like you have no, I think only Lena Dunham singularly has simultaneous perspective to be able to look at it.

[24:25] Nicola Kraus: That's right and make work simultaneously is super super tricky.

[24:29] Emma McLaughlin: That's right.

[24:30] Susan Blackwell: You are the the grandmaster of this world.

[24:32] Emma McLaughlin: Well, it is it that is that's a trick.

[24:35] Nicola Kraus: I mean, just to have a little bit of distance.

[24:37] Susan Blackwell: But the thing that I am loving so much about what you're saying is for all the people that are listening that are sort of looking into your own the spark file that is you, these experiences, these experiences that you would love to just put in a lead casket and bury deep in the earth because they feel so painful or so toxic.

[24:59] Emma McLaughlin: Um there's there's sparks in them, their experiences.

[25:03] Susan Blackwell: That's right, you know, it's um it's really remarkable that you were while you're talking.

[25:08] Susan Blackwell: I'm like, yeah, this was traumatic for you, and somehow you did make satire out of it.

[25:14] Susan Blackwell: You did make something that was funny out of it.

[25:18] Susan Blackwell: But you know, I guess I guess I shouldn't be so baffled because so much uh comedy does come out of truly painful experiences.

[25:26] Emma McLaughlin: But you have to be willing to go there, you've got to be willing to go there.

[25:29] Nicola Kraus: We always talk about that.

[25:30] Nicola Kraus: Like there are people with stories, there are people with talent, but you have to become friends with that uncomfortable feeling that you feel when you dig in or when you sit in front of a blank piece of paper, and that's that's the real skill that you have to have.

[25:47] Nicola Kraus: Well, the shift going back to what you were saying, is that in the moment it's heartbreak because you think you're the asshole.

[25:53] Emma McLaughlin: Right.

[25:53] Nicola Kraus: And then with a little bit of time, you get angry, and that's where the satire comes in. Because it's not until you get to wait, fuck you.

[26:02] Emma McLaughlin: Yeah, that it becomes funny.

[26:05] Nicola Kraus: Was this an amazing this was an amazing trick that you all pulled off, which was you were writing a book that I think was, I don't know who your like sort of like dream reader audience avatar was, but you wrote a book that I think really spoke to sort of I'll say like a working class sort of person, but I think it was also totally captivating to those other characters in the book.

[26:34] Emma McLaughlin: Those I think it was really read by people who would be able to afford to have nannies.

[26:39] Nicola Kraus: You know, I think it was kind of a must-read for them too.

[26:42] Emma McLaughlin: It shocked us.

[26:43] Nicola Kraus: I have a friend who was working at Goldman Sachs at the time, and his boss came in and pulled it out of his briefcase one morning to a room full of guys and said, You all have to read this.

[26:53] Emma McLaughlin: That's awesome.

[26:54] Nicola Kraus: I think it was sort of like don't marry this woman.

[26:56] Emma McLaughlin: But it was um it was fast. I mean, we never we didn't think anyone was going to buy it, first of all.

[27:02] Nicola Kraus: So that anyone did, and that it did cover such a wide strata.

[27:06] Emma McLaughlin: Yeah.

[27:07] Nicola Kraus: Blew our minds.

[27:08] Emma McLaughlin: Yeah.

[27:09] Nicola Kraus: I have a question.

[27:10] Emma McLaughlin: We get a lot when we're teaching workshops.

[27:12] Nicola Kraus: They're like, what if I want to write something?

[27:14] Emma McLaughlin: And I'm afraid like it may make someone mad or disappoint them.

[27:20] Nicola Kraus: And we're of course always encouraging to push forward. But I'm just curious, did your book make anyone mad?

[27:26] Emma McLaughlin: And what would you say to people who have that fear of telling stories that will, you know, upset the apple cart a bit?

[27:35] Nicola Kraus: I think the apple cart has to be upset. But we got lucky, and I said this to Emma when we were working on it, because she was more nervous about always, period.

[27:44] Emma McLaughlin: You know, you're like, I was the more nervous.

[27:46] Nicola Kraus: Period. I was the more nervous.

[27:49] Emma McLaughlin: Were you terrified of that? Of like, oh my god, people.

[27:52] Nicola Kraus: I'm with you, Emma. I'm I'm always like they're in the middle. I'm like, they're coming for us, they're gonna come for us.

[27:57] Nicola Kraus: So I said if these people were capable of seeing themselves as behaving this badly, they would not have behaved this badly in the first place.

[28:05] Emma McLaughlin: And Lamont and Lamont.

[28:07] Nicola Kraus: If they didn't want to be written about, they should have behaved better.

[28:10] Emma McLaughlin: Yes, and kinder too.

[28:12] Nicola Kraus: So no, we never heard from anybody.

[28:15] Emma McLaughlin: Interesting.

[28:15] Nicola Kraus: I don't think they would have dignified it.

[28:17] Emma McLaughlin: And I'm sure they're fucking kidding.

[28:18] Nicola Kraus: No, I'm using no every letter.

[28:21] Emma McLaughlin: I'm sure they even pretended to people that we had not worked for them.

[28:25] Nicola Kraus: Or they would do the flip side, which is, oh, did you see? Oh, I know it's so she used to complain to me about those other people all the time.

[28:32] Emma McLaughlin: You know, they'd find a way to certainly wasn't just out of curiosity.

[28:36] Nicola Kraus: Who I'm gonna ask this question, you can you can choose not to answer it.

[28:40] Emma McLaughlin: Was there anybody that you worked for in in this context that you had a positive experience with?

[28:47] Nicola Kraus: Or were they all just fucking douchebags?

[28:49] Emma McLaughlin: No, definitely, definitely and we wrote their names into the book.

[28:53] Nicola Kraus: We did, but yeah, the good families.

[28:55] Emma McLaughlin: No, definitely.

[28:56] Nicola Kraus: That's really sweet.

[28:57] Emma McLaughlin: Oh, I would have left New York if it hadn't been for the good families.

[29:00] Nicola Kraus: I just would have felt like it's not possible.

[29:01] Emma McLaughlin: I to my nervousness at its core.

[29:04] Nicola Kraus: So many we could go on for days on it, but I would say that the candy apple hard shell at that point was that um was that that we would expose children or families that we have worked for, good or bad.

[29:16] Emma McLaughlin: I think we we were we this was a bigger mission than than even the bad families.

[29:16] Nicola Kraus: This was a bigger mission than that.

[29:24] Emma McLaughlin: And and I I want to go back to something you said.

[29:26] Nicola Kraus: I I think you I believe that you you sh can, and there's it's incredibly fertile and and profoundly cathartic to go into the to the the darker sparks.

[29:38] Emma McLaughlin: Equally passionately, I believe that it's it is a lot of work, and I think that's the thing.

[29:44] Nicola Kraus: It is it is a it is it and it it should be a lot of work because I think you're grappling, you're trying to make sense of suffering.

[29:52] Emma McLaughlin: Yeah, that's right.

[29:53] Nicola Kraus: And and you're trying to make a mathematical sense out of it, you're trying to give it an arc, you're trying to find a beginning, middle, and end, you're trying to make it pay off.

[30:03] Emma McLaughlin: You're trying to wrap it up.

[30:04] Nicola Kraus: And as we were in in commercial writing, that's your job.

[30:07] Emma McLaughlin: Yeah.

[30:08] Nicola Kraus: Um, and and I think that it I think if it to get the kind of catharsis that that I got in each of our novels and each of those journeys for myself as a creative person, required six months of eight hours a day outlining, you know, day in, day out.

[30:27] Emma McLaughlin: It required getting to chapter nine in every book and having it fall apart every time in the first draft and having to go back to the beginning and then find your way back to chapter eleven.

[30:37] Nicola Kraus: It required us walking around in an agitated, afraid haze for two years at a time of discomfort of like, how does this come how does this come clean?

[30:47] Emma McLaughlin: What is she hooked on?

[30:49] Nicola Kraus: How do we unhook it?

[30:50] Emma McLaughlin: What's the thing that can move?

[30:51] Nicola Kraus: You know, all and I always say to my writing clients now, there has to be a moment where she stops being you and becomes yours.

[31:02] Emma McLaughlin: And that's the moment where you liberate yourself to start making it better.

[31:05] Nicola Kraus: And I remember saying like nanny has to be braver than we were.

[31:09] Emma McLaughlin: Nobody wants to read me on a bus.

[31:11] Nicola Kraus: You know, there has and that's that's liberating, but I think that that's the and it's also the transformational power for people who are doing this writing.

[31:20] Emma McLaughlin: Yes, right.

[31:21] Nicola Kraus: It's healing.

[31:23] Emma McLaughlin: Like fellow writers that I've worked with who, you know, in the feedback session, people are talking about tweaking this or tweaking that.

[31:32] Nicola Kraus: And they're stuck on, but that's what really happened.

[31:35] Emma McLaughlin: Nobody cares in nowhere.

[31:37] Nicola Kraus: It doesn't matter.

[31:39] Emma McLaughlin: I love this.

[31:39] Nicola Kraus: Like it has to stop being you, but become yours.

[31:43] Emma McLaughlin: It's fantastic.

[31:44] Nicola Kraus: That's good.

[31:44] Emma McLaughlin: That's a good idea.

[31:45] Nicola Kraus: That's good.

[31:45] Emma McLaughlin: I think that's good for um not just writing.

[31:48] Nicola Kraus: I think that that might span more types of art and making.

[31:53] Emma McLaughlin: I'd certainly I think it's true for acting.

[31:56] Nicola Kraus: I'm thinking about like developing characters and graduate school.

[32:00] Emma McLaughlin: I'm taking a real trip right now, but I think that there is something about that that is uh I have to think about that more.

[32:08] Nicola Kraus: That's good.

[32:09] Emma McLaughlin: So I wrote a book where I was the head writer with a uh collaborative group of 10 writers.

[32:17] Nicola Kraus: That came with its own very, very particular challenges.

[32:20] Emma McLaughlin: That was called Blue Man Group.

[32:22] Nicola Kraus: Um, that was you know, it's collaboration at its very best.

[32:27] Emma McLaughlin: Um, but now Susan and I are preparing to co-write a book, The Spark File.

[32:34] Nicola Kraus: Oh, that's wonderful.

[32:35] Emma McLaughlin: And so we would love, you know, just do you have some tidbits of advice on how to co-write a book?

[32:43] Nicola Kraus: How can we get our our little book off the ground? What would you say to us?

[32:47] Emma McLaughlin: I think you obviously already share a shorthand, which I think is 90% of it, and you've already made all the tough decisions about the voice of the podcast and the scope of the podcast and your taste about who you want to have on and what's interesting to both of you.

[33:04] Nicola Kraus: I I do think that that you might take a lot of that for granted because you have that commonality, but if you were just getting into this and one of you was like, I think we should go and interview death row inmates, and you had to be like a very you're like, great idea, Susan.

[33:22] Emma McLaughlin: There could be so much conflict.

[33:24] Nicola Kraus: So I think it's now just coming up with a workflow.

[33:28] Emma McLaughlin: Yeah.

[33:29] Nicola Kraus: Do you want to go based on the podcast where you would write one up and you would write and you each do 10?

[33:35] Emma McLaughlin: Um as a coach, I will tell you that for the book, you want to have a ratio of 80 to 20% new content to already recorded content.

[33:44] Nicola Kraus: So 80 new.

[33:46] Emma McLaughlin: So 80 is going to be like, I've it's so this is so good.

[33:49] Nicola Kraus: This really is news you can use.

[33:51] Emma McLaughlin: I wondered about that before because I see other people who work in a variety of mediums, even like uh David Sedaris, where where you're sort of like, oh, okay, I've heard a reference to that before in this other thing over here, but all of this is fresh meat.

[34:06] Nicola Kraus: Yes.

[34:07] Emma McLaughlin: So you're saying 80% freshies, and then we can tell 20% much 20% of things we're what they call your greatest hits.

[34:15] Nicola Kraus: So exactly in a David Sedaris book, 20% of those stories will have already been the New Yorker, and 80% you can only get if you buy the book.

[34:22] Emma McLaughlin: Okay.

[34:23] Nicola Kraus: Interesting.

[34:24] Emma McLaughlin: And then Charles tricked you into giving us the advice.

[34:29] Nicola Kraus: Hey, thanks.

[34:29] Emma McLaughlin: People bet you for this.

[34:31] Nicola Kraus: It's good stuff.

[34:32] Emma McLaughlin: What other um, I don't know if there were challenges, pitfalls, things to, you know, avoid along the way.

[34:41] Nicola Kraus: I turn it now to you, Emma, because the work that you do, I feel like, even though it's in the corporate space, it also touches on helping people to collaborate and work well together.

[34:53] Emma McLaughlin: Do you have any thoughts for us or the listeners about how?

[34:57] Nicola Kraus: And some of this I feel like you've already shared through the spark that you shared that I got to share with Cammy and listeners amazing.

[35:02] Emma McLaughlin: But um, how to collaborate well, how to work well together.

[35:07] Nicola Kraus: You have so much experience with this, you have so much wisdom.

[35:10] Emma McLaughlin: What you got?

[35:11] Oh my goodness.

[35:12] Nicola Kraus: What a wonderful buildup.

[35:14] Emma McLaughlin: I think it's I think it's a combination of it's it's a combination of two primary ingredients.

[35:20] Nicola Kraus: And um, and I think Nikki will be delighted to hear me say this, because it took me one of the ingredients I had to learn really the hard way and was not natural to me.

[35:30] Emma McLaughlin: And I took me 15 years, and even upon our departure, I am only doing it now, which is there's the there's half of it is, and this is the part she knows, is is the heavy lifting.

[35:41] Nicola Kraus: I think half of it is uh you is to not take for granted being explicit about expectations, being explicit about process, coming to agreement about how are we going to work together.

[35:53] Emma McLaughlin: Yeah.

[35:53] Nicola Kraus: Um, what can we expect from each other?

[35:55] Emma McLaughlin: When's a good time to call each other?

[35:57] Nicola Kraus: If I call you or text you, you know, when you prefer, or how soon can do you need to hear back from me?

[36:03] Emma McLaughlin: Or do we need to hear back from each other?

[36:05] Nicola Kraus: All the points where misunderstanding or um, you know, counter-narrative starts to fill in and tension starts to build, right?

[36:13] Emma McLaughlin: So part of it is being hyper explicit and not taking for granted that this is an organic thing that we're suddenly working together, as we say all the time, it's not meeting for brunch, you know.

[36:24] Nicola Kraus: It is not meeting for brunch.

[36:26] Emma McLaughlin: Yeah.

[36:26] Nicola Kraus: Um on the flip side, also equally important is there's there's a fair amount of stuff you gotta that is not worth having a real conversation over.

[36:37] Emma McLaughlin: You know, there's a fair amount of stuff, and this is this is where the entertainment industry, I think, heavily over-indexes, but there's a fair amount of stuff that it's okay to just put a smile on and and get through like a like a Thanksgiving dinner with relatives and you don't have the same politics on.

[36:51] Nicola Kraus: Like it's okay.

[36:53] Emma McLaughlin: And I think the big the constant conflicts I see in corporate settings are over-indexing and an absence of one of the one of those two aspects of working together.

[37:04] Nicola Kraus: Either everything's being being, you know, everything has to be a real authentic clarity connection.

[37:12] Emma McLaughlin: Um which is just not human.

[37:15] Nicola Kraus: It's not natural.

[37:16] Emma McLaughlin: We're just not built for that level of work.

[37:20] Nicola Kraus: Um and at the same, or on the flip, you know, that there's a lack of of really coming to clarity in agreement on things.

[37:27] Emma McLaughlin: Can you give can you give us an example of this the second one where what is it it really doesn't bear a deep conversation or processing about it's just sort of like it's okay to just we're just gonna like sort of skate over that.

[37:41] Nicola Kraus: Can you give give us an example of that?

[37:43] Emma McLaughlin: Um well, I think in my experience in the entertainment industry, that's like 90% of the time.

[37:49] Nicola Kraus: And I mean, I I say that I say that with respect and affection for from being off that fucking island.

[37:56] Emma McLaughlin: Um the further you get away from it, it's astounding.

[38:01] Nicola Kraus: And I think everyone, and I assume that's a fair portion of your listenership, the rest of the world is not operating like that so much.

[38:11] Emma McLaughlin: And I get I I have tremendous respect.

[38:13] Nicola Kraus: The industry's so really figured out how to get the most from artists by having either pumping us full of fear or pumping us full of bullshit.

[38:22] Emma McLaughlin: Um I love that.

[38:24] Nicola Kraus: That's genius.

[38:24] Emma McLaughlin: Could you hey, why don't you write up um, you know what?

[38:27] Nicola Kraus: Shoot it over.

[38:28] Emma McLaughlin: We're waiting, but I'm gonna send it over to so and so.

[38:29] Nicola Kraus: We're gonna wait that just could you tell you what?

[38:31] Emma McLaughlin: No, just write it up.

[38:32] Nicola Kraus: No, just write another version.

[38:33] Emma McLaughlin: You know, could you do another?

[38:35] Nicola Kraus: And no, she's really eager to read it, right?

[38:37] Emma McLaughlin: Like we're okay.

[38:38] Nicola Kraus: Yeah.

[38:39] Emma McLaughlin: Deathless excitement.

[38:41] Emma McLaughlin: We should let's sample it and do that. Um, or the alternate of like, well, you know, I liked it until this. I don't know. We'll see. We'll maybe think about it. And then of course the two of us huddling back and we can't they can't think about we're so that's kind of different version. We can't let that be the last word. So it's genius, right? It creates as a, uh, creates keeps everybody working for free a lot. Yeah, you know, so it's genius. Um, and it's not like other industries are immune from that elements of that. But the traffic, the amount of not real conversations being had is predominant. And in corporate settings there's a different kind of that, um, but on the flip side people who are well versed and efficiently maneuver through the entertainment industry with the least amount of energistic drain to my observation are people who don't engage, partake it personally and are able to just kind of be in the malleable flow of truth, you know, and what's real and sure we're vibing, you know, this may go somewhere it may go nowhere.

You may like this thing I'm gonna spend 20 minutes on it. You may not like this thing. Like they're able to, and I and I Nikki fundamentally to her profound credit is just innately wired to nav to be in that space. I give a lot of credit to, uh, New York City private school system but, but and I don't mean I mean that with tremendous sophistication and with heart and authenticity. It's not, it's Nikki doesn't move through it in an inauthentic or bullshitty or untrue way. She does it from a very grounded and authentic place. She's just really able to gauge what's real and what isn't and maneuver in a way that doesn't drain her battery. And I spend most of my corporate work with executives who are moving from up into the top tiers of the enterprise where so much of it is political. And it's, I find myself spending much of my time just translating what Nikki sent me so much. What would Nikki do?

[40:47] Nicola Kraus: Yeah, yeah. I'll share just as a in a specific example of my one of my many breaking points of why I was not wired to this. We were at a meeting with a producer, um, in Soho at a great restaurant. I was always a great restaurant, and the producer for one of our books, and the we the producer was throwing out all sorts of ideas of what could happen in this book as a movie that made me want to kill myself. And like it was just like fundamentally at every front, like wrong on top of wrong. And I was trying thought I was thought I was doing a decent job of sort of delicately just pushing back and trying to push us, you know, gently, oh yeah, but maybe it would be better if what tried this on. Oh, but maybe, and we got on into the street, and Nikki was like, you cannot do that.

You cannot. I think this is well into our this is when we got to the phase of just turning to each other and saying you cannot do that. And he's like, you cannot, you cannot do that. You cannot block in a in a first meeting, you cannot be blocking like that, or that will be the end of where this could possibly go. And I started, I broke down in tears, and I was like, I just how do I know when it's real? I'm so sick of being this disoriented. I don't know when we're having a real conversation, and I should be engaging. When or when does that happen? She said, and I now make millions off of saying just this to executives. She said, you will know because there will not be good food, the lighting will be bad, and a lawyer will be in the room.

And all three of those things need to be happening before you say no to anything. And I was like, oh, so helpful. And it's proven to be true. That is something high level advice. The lighting is bad. The lawyer is optional, but usually there's donuts. The lawyer's theoretically in the room. The point is we're at, we're at there's a contract in play. It's real work. It's real. Yeah. It's not just sort of like speculative, like, you know, maybe there could be three dogs and the dogs could talk, but the owners can't hear the dogs talk. Like we're you're talking about real substantive work happening. All the grace notes will go away and then you then fight like hell.

[43:02] Emma McLaughlin: Yeah, yeah. And she was, and from that point on, I was 70% more oriented. It was invaluable. I would have, you should hire as a coach. Um here in the industry. It's priceless. Um I wondered, I wonder how did you develop this intuition that you have? Or I don't know if it's like a bullshit meter or like, uh, an intuition about what is real and substantive and what is.

[43:19] Nicola Kraus: I wish I could tell you I knew how I developed it or encourage other people to develop their own. Um, but I do think it does did have something to do with growing up in New York City and the, um, figuring out very early because there's so much inauthenticity, there's so much you know, just cheek kissing and and seeing people who have said horrible things about each other and then they go to the event. And figuring out, but then what if that is actually genuinely toxic and has long-term bad repercussions? And what if it just keeps people moving? And there's really like that's fine, you know, like whatever, no harm, no foul. And sort of learning that you can be in that as long as you're fully conscious of where you're, you know, smiling at somebody who you know kind of thinks you're an asshole, but let's just get through this meeting and it's fine.

Um, versus those moments where you really have to dig in because if you are untrue to yourself on any level at that moment, there will be no coming back from it. So yeah, I think New York City, it's a little piranha tank that's a great training round for the entertainment industry. Speaks well of neither thing. Did you find that having a partner while navigating that, like those things in particular was beneficial?

[44:44] Emma McLaughlin: I think there's a strange challenge, thinking specifically of Los Angeles. Um, they are so easily threatened, which you would not think because they have all the power, right? But there was something about two of us always showing up that I think put people on edge a little bit. Wow. They felt a tiny bit ganged up on, even though we were always, as Emma would say, white soft underbelly, you know, um, but it just sometimes would feel like a lot, also because frequently they were a little bit charisma challenged, and so we would have to keep trying to dial it down. Um, but I think that in those moments, probably being one person, we may have gotten farther just because they would feel like they were still completely in control.

Right. I think because they're they're gonna come out of the meeting as powerful as we think they are, and there's gonna be someone else screaming at them. Right. Going all the way up to the top of the chain. So everyone, I mean, I think that is the thing about Los Angeles that I find kind of palpable. Everyone's terrified. They're all vibrating all the time. This level of fear that I personally find exhausting to be around.

[45:52] Nicola Kraus: And less so in New York, do you think?

[45:54] Emma McLaughlin: I do. I think because we're there's just constant checks and balances, which is I think that ratio of democratic states to Republican, it's population density. Even the most famous, successful people I know still take the subway sometimes. Right. They're still having to navigate midtown to get to their car. They're still seeing real struggle, real adversity. And so, and and other people doing other things, like whether it's through your kids' school, but you're you're surrounded by people who are not in the entertainment industry. So there's a dollop of perspective.

[46:25] Nicola Kraus: That's true. Yeah. You are both so wildly creative, and it is manifested in so many different ways in your writing, in the entrepreneurial things that you're doing with your lives. At this point in your life, or even looking back, do you have any creative advice for us and our listeners? It could be really specific, it could be like really wide open.

[46:52] Emma McLaughlin: I would say pick a tiny goal and do it consistently. Bird by bird, inch by inch. Yeah. It's so much better. My clients who set these big audacious, hairy goals, they get so overwhelmed and panic so fast. And I think it's important to pay attention to that biofeedback. A tiny goal. And for me, it's 250 words a day on whatever I'm working on creatively. 20 minutes, 30 minutes. But if I do it every single day, by Friday, I feel great. In a year, I'll have a first draft.

[47:22] Nicola Kraus: Yeah. Uh so that is my advice. It's not particularly artistic advice.

[47:26] Emma McLaughlin: Oh, it's a one. It's so practical.

[47:30] Nicola Kraus: Small assignments. Small assignments. What do you got for us on?

[47:35] Emma McLaughlin: I think my advice is it may not be a book. And what I mean by that is I I'm looking back over my life so far. I'm so grateful for storytelling. I wouldn't be a lot, I wouldn't be here if it didn't exist. And I think it's I've had clients who came to me. I frequently get the clients through our through the finished thought that we share of people coming to write a book who end up not needing to write a book. And I don't know if that's just how it's shaken out, or you know, that the synergy of I'm the person who has left book writing. I promise I'm not breaking them of it. But I I think people come, people have been waiting their whole lives to write this story and yet waiting their whole lives to never tell this story, right?

And and I find when I I've, you know, I have gotten people at that tension point where like this is the thing that they have to do, and it's the thing they can't do. And doing the deeper work with them of what is this? I have one person who came around this, and and it what was really sitting under it was a desire to make music. Yes. And now he's he now he's making music all over the place in his life. And it took about two years. Some of us, some working with me, some doing other kinds of work to find that, but he has recalibrated his life.

[49:01] Nicola Kraus: Yeah. And that was the thing that was missing. And if and we circled and circled around. Is this a book? I love it. Um, and I think for myself as well, that that when I'm coaching with clients, I'm doing exactly what I would do outlining with Nikki. I'm sitting, I'm holding the whole thing they're saying and I'm asking a series of the same questions. Like what is the piece of this that can move? What's the part of this plot that's not fixed? Like where can we find what's the piece that can move? You know, where's the place where you're hooked? Where where do you as a heroine like where where are you telling yourself the stories? I'm I'm doing exactly in my brain what I did outlining and I and realizing for me it it it wasn't the books. It was the this it was the coaching practice. It was the coaching practice and the catharsis. It was moving this protagonist from utterly stuck to utterly unstuck.

[49:51] Emma McLaughlin: Wow so great. It may not be a book it may not be a musical it may be a podcast piece. And we've had that as well we had things we were we had books that became screenplays that went back to being books that went on to become working like and I I think I've I think people lose years stuck on the on the pro on the end product and and I know it's cliche but you you gotta surrender and dig deeper to like this is the thing but what's what is it does it if I let go of the end product what what formed wow the two of you is there a creative thing that each of you know you need to do before you're done?

[49:58] Nicola Kraus: I am doing it right now when Emma and I separated I'd had this idea for a book for 10 years and Emma kept saying please write this, please write this. And it took a few things happening. My mother had to die. I needed to have the space to write this. And it's taken such a long time. It's embarrassing as we head into the holiday season. People are like, so what happened to that book? I'm like, oh, the one you asked me about last Thanksgiving? Still working on it. On its way. Things of quality take time.

[51:09] Emma McLaughlin: They do. They really do. They've just been marinating in this. And it's about uh forgiveness transcending death. So it's not something you just like crank out. Wow. Um, but it's it's been one, and it is it has been the thing. I mean, I looked to heart at myself at 40 when Emma and I separated, I said, okay, you you might have a very limited window of time. You have no idea. Right. Like what is the thing you have to have done.

[51:34] Emma McLaughlin: Yeah. And I've done it. I don't know if anyone's gonna read it, but I do feel so much better for having done it. Yes. Almost finished. Yes. Love it. I thought the thing that I had to do was a musical. You don't say. And I spent, we spent years. I've never I had a headache for two years. Like I woke up and went to bed with a headache. Interesting. Um, I musical writing is heart writing, it's not brainwriting. Yeah. Um, and after 15 years of writing my brain, I got a lot closer. But I I um I just think it's Jesus' work. I thought it was Jesus' work when I was five years old. All to say that the writing of the musical process of it's not it's not a book, helped me to realize that it I needed to let go and really step back and look at what's the song I need to sing.

And I I sitting here answering this, and I know it it seems corny, and I'm sure in one lens it's utterly codependent. But the when I look back over the 15 years of working with Nikki, the mo probably one of the most, if not the most painful themes that came through, the points where we were that like lover-esque heartbreak, who who are you that I married moments, were the spike moments where Nikki this book, this part of her independent creative brain would spark up. And there were times she wrote, you know, she went, we had a terrible fight. Nikki like wrote for something else and never told me. And I can still take you, tell you what I was wearing the moment I found that out. And you know, we had, and but it it but she it was like this bird that would sort of fly up on the other side of the room, and and it was the specter of like utterly intense, like I don't know where I am in this.

Like I I know that's a right. We talked about this in the spark where you said from time to time four amazing pages would be shared, and you would be just shaking your head and crying because you knew it couldn't hue to the genre essentially. And I knew it was something that was never meant and couldn't be for me to be in with her. Like I just knew that was not a a boat I could get in. And and I know it sounds crazy, but I like her doing this, and now the next thing that she's on to her her writing finally fully, freely, unfettered, like the whole thing, and I don't know how to explain it. I I tried to when we talked about it. I thought you explained it beautifully. But I it is the thing that needs to happen.

Like that's the last creative thing I need feel at this point in my life. I need to do. I went into I had surgery a year ago, and the blinding thing, like among other my children. I have children, I love you very much. More than Nikki's writing. Um, but it was like I was like, I just I need to know that she's gonna do this. I feel fiercely protective of it. Like I read it and I, it's like an out-of-body experience. How I imagine having my children growing up and maybe walking down the aisle or whatever they do in their lives. Um, but it it so I I so I share that also because then I share with you, I I people who we're so afraid to separate and our partnerships and our collaborations. Um, and I wish to God someone had cornered me and sat me down and said, you know, your love for her and what you've done together, your love for her brain and your love for her work and its voice and what it does in the world and what it does for you, like that's gonna be the big that's the headline, like that's the thing that's gonna stay with you, you know, and it will you'll the pride, the connection I feel to it of like having been any part of any part of that.

So I just wish someone had told me you don't get small, you think you're gonna disappear, and that's gonna be the thing, but you don't disappear. And in fact, like there's so much, it is like let them go, and if they come back to you, whatever that set it free and shoot it or whatever. I don't think it's shoot it. So but you feel like the thing that you needed to do during your time on this planet, one of the things that you needed to do that was so critical was sort of stepping to the side so that her writly voice could rise up completely unfettered.

[55:43] Nicola Kraus: Yeah, I think that the the last creative thing in this mode of creativity that I needed to do was I don't know, it's not really, I don't even stepping aside, but surrender or yeah, I needed to to surrender and just lift lift my arms to her. I needed to just I needed to just do it, you know. And and and and it's proven it's given back and it keeps giving back. Every time I read a sense of it, I think about the book randomly in the shower. Like I, you know, not like in an inappropriate way, but settle down, everybody. But it's like it's like, you know, it's it's um it's a gift that that keeps on giving, and no one tells you that. I I think I think you think you're just gonna, you know, and it and it's we have to let's tag that in the back of our mind.

I feel like we're it are I mean, we've been making stuff together for a long time, but this little endeavor is sort of more in its infancy, but we need to stick it, stick it back there in the back of our minds for the city. I'm not gonna shoot you. Emma said, if I love something, shoot it. You heard it here first, she said it. Um this is a Laura Cameron question that I love. I ask each of you, what's it all for? What is it all for? That is literally what I spent the last four years trying to answer. What is it for? What's it for, Nikki?

[57:05] Nicola Kraus: Uh gosh, I grapple with this all the time because sometimes I think I'm not a useful human. And then I come back to bear with me. But you know, when you go to a museum and you see really ancient things like tiny little cups, yeah, and they were utilitarian objects because everyone was starving to death, and you didn't know if the crops were going to fail, and your lifespan was 30 tops, but you still took the time to make something beautiful. It is in our hard wiring to create beauty and to appreciate beauty, and who knows why? It doesn't make sense, it doesn't ensure the survival of our DNA, it's not for the good of the species, but intrinsically, however, we were created, we need to have that emotional connection. So I don't, I don't have this on on a good authority from anybody, but I think it's all for love.

[58:00] Emma McLaughlin: I love it. And we're all just making it up as we go along. So that's as good as any great one. I think that it's it's it's the comfort. I feel like so much of the suffering that I put myself through and have in life is is spinning out and like feeling alone and feeling like shame and sort of spinning out on myself. And and every time I wrote and every time I coach, it's it's it's just reaching in to someone and saying, oh man, come on, you know, fuck it. Fuck it. Like you got this. Yeah, you got this. And I I think anytime, and and that is what Nikki did for me on a on a daily basis, is what we we did for each other. And and I that's what it's all for. I think you know, title of show I can't barely speak about it because it was religiously a sequence of in a way that I had never, as I said, never heard articulated, still have never heard articulated.

Like just beat for beat was like this is I feel so relieved by this. Like I was such a release of this is collaboration, this is collaboration creativity. This is like we're not the only crazy fuckers. Right. But it's like it is, it is this fuck, like it is this fucked up and this incredible, you know. And I think like that's about deck to Hollywood back when I worked with Purdue with corporate people. It's like it's both things. You gotta be really militant about sorting out your shit, and you gotta take a lot of shit and let it slide off your fucking back. Both things, you know? Um, but it's it's it's it's back to like it's not you, it's me, or it's not me, it's you. It's it's that same thing.

Like it's just I think what it's all for is just to reach out to someone and be like, you know, let's fucking let's take it down a notch. You know, let's take it down a notch. What's all four we've ever had on the show? Taking it down a notch. Uh who or what is sparking you these days?

[1:00:02] Nicola Kraus: TB Waller juicy.

[1:00:04] Emma McLaughlin: Oh my god.

[1:00:07] Nicola Kraus: Phoebe Waller Bridge.

[1:00:09] Emma McLaughlin: The name on everyone. Did you go see the flea bag of the movie theater so you could see the not yet, but it's still playing, apparently. It is going to be for like six more months intermittently at film forum. Not film forum, IFC. Yeah. They're gonna have it in rotation. Um, no, completely upset. You you were obsessed with season one. I was the Johnny from Lilly who didn't fall in love till season two. Then I watched Crashing two and both seasons of Killing Eve. And you are all Phoebe Waller. Oh my god, anything. If there's a video out there of her fifth birthday, I want to see it. Like she is just also, I think because my dad's English and I grew up partially in England, like her obsession with small animals, the hamsters and the guinea pigs, and the like, have you seen her on Steven Colbert talking about casting the guinea pigs?

[1:00:57] Nicola Kraus: No.

[1:00:57] Emma McLaughlin: Oh my god, they actually had to cast the guinea pigs for the live show at Bleecker Street. Oh my god. And they were given uh headshots of the guinea pigs. I love that woman. I will do anything for that woman.

[1:01:10] Nicola Kraus: What about you, Emma?

[1:01:11] Emma McLaughlin: I mean, yes. Um, I think after season two of uh flea bag, they should have just broken everything. Like we should all just be like that. We're good. TV's done. Um I've I've late at night now to go to sleep. I read McSweeney's um things and send them to Nikki at four in the morning. Um, and uh and then have to say at 11 a.m. I know you jumped right past us because you jumped into your day, but you go back to your 7 a.m. text and read this. I I feel like McSweeney's where I'm so I'm so Johnny come lately, but it's like all the things I love, right? It's delightful. But it also it's so interesting how it's so hard to land those planes as like the tiny little absurdist essays are so easy to start and so hard to end. Um they're nailing it at McSweeney's mixes. Well, many much of the time, but I just love the effort. So yeah, that's those are great sparks.

[1:02:06] Nicola Kraus: Those are good sparks. Will you tell us where our listeners can find you in the world?

[1:02:10] Nicola Kraus: Uh well, collectively. Um, we are at the nannydiaries.com and the finished thought.com uh for people who want coaching or advice or just to say hi. And then my uh then I'm also at nicolaweir.com. Why you need any more information about me, but you know, I do. We can't. We're gonna Phoebe Wallerbridge you so hard. We won it all. And then Emma, if we want to be coached by you, where do we go?

[1:02:36] Emma McLaughlin: You can find me at the advisor e as in the letter E, the advisor e.com. Oh, friends, that has to be it. We hope this put another bunch of sparks in your file. Listen, if there's a spark you'd like us to explore, or if you've taken a spark and you fanned it into a creative flame and you'd like to share that, please email us at the sparkfile at gmail.com or submit it through our website, thesparkfile.com. We'll even take your feedback. But you know the price of admission. First, you have to share a creative risk that you've taken recently. And be sure to subscribe to this podcast wherever you get your podcast. Subscribe, rate, five star review it. If you like this podcast, share it with people that you love.

If you didn't like it, agree to disagree, dude. If something tickles your fancy mark. I know, but it gets me every time. If something tickles your fancy and gets your creative juices flowing, we are writing you a forever permission slip to make that thing that's been knocking at your door. It's your turn to take a spark and turn it into a flame. You gotta motif it. You gotta bar relief it. You gotta paint a giant flower in Georgia. O'Keefe it. You gotta take it and make it. Thank you so much. We totally love you. Right back at you. When I bump into something that inspires me, I dump it in the spark files. Could be something that I wanna take or how I wanna be. I'll pump it in the spark fire. Sparfies. I jump into my spark file. Sparfies. Let's open up the spark fire.