Why I Love Singlehood

Book Description: Eva Perino is single and proud of it. Owner of The Grounds, a coffee shop nestled in the heart of a college town, thirtysomething Eva cherishes her comfortable life filled with quirky friends, a fun job, and no significant other. In fact, she’s so content to be on her own that she started a blog about it: “Why I Love Singlehood.” Yet when she hears the news of her ex-boyfriend’s engagement, her confidence in her single status takes a surprisingly hard hit.

So begins Eva’s clumsy (and occasionally uproarious) search for love as she secretly joins an online dating site, tries her hand at speed-dating, and breaks her own rule by getting involved with one of The Grounds’ regulars. Soon Eva is forced to figure out exactly who—or what—is the true love of her life. Sparkling with warmth and wit, Why I Love Singlehood is a charming and insightful must-read for anyone—single or otherwise—who has ever been stymied by love.

A Conversation with Sarah Girrell and Elisa Lorello

For most people, it’s hard to imagine writing a novel, let alone writing a novel with someone else. But for Elisa Lorello and Sarah Girrell, writing together was as natural as a coffee and cream. Being such good writing partners and friends, they decided to ask each other about what it was really like to share the text, their favorite (and not-so-favorite) characters, and how their own relationships influenced their work.

Sarah Girrell: I’m curious, where did you do most of your writing for Why I Love Singlehood?

Elisa Lorello: The most uninteresting space ever: my lap. I don’t have an official "writing space" in my apartment, so it’s wherever I take my laptop. Some days I’m sprawled out on my bed, others I’m sitting Indian-style on my couch. Whenever I need a change of scenery (which is often), I take my laptop to one of the local coffee shops. I like to write somewhere with windows. For me, the occasional staring out a window is an important part of the writing process.

Sarah: None of the places I wrote were that nice, either. When we first started working on the novel I was still in medical school so I did my writing in one of two cubicles in the library computer lab at school (upstairs from the cadavers--nothing classy or very comfortable about that). Then I used to wake up early (sometimes as early as 5 a.m. or so) and write. Towards the end I wrote pretty much anywhere any time--usually at the table or on the couch.

Elisa: I’ve talked to friends who are both single and married, and they’re really intrigued by Why I Love Singlehood’s premise and theme. Being married, did you struggle with that at all?

Sarah: I get asked this a lot, and the answer is no, it was never an issue. Actually, the question makes me giggle a little. It reminds me of this great story about Alan Alda, a well-known Democrat, being asked how it feels to play a Republican presidential candidate on "The West Wing" and if it was "a stretch." He answered, "I've played murderers too--no one ever asks me if that's a stretch."

Elisa: For me it reinforced my own acceptance of my singlehood, and it was fun to write something that ultimately celebrated being single rather than demonize it.

Sarah: What didn't you expect from the story? Is there anything that took you a while to warm up to or see? I know I identified more with some characters than others, and never really knew what to expect in terms of a resolution--especially when it came to Eva’s love life.

Elisa: Oh, good question! For starters, I didn’t expect Beulah to become someone who plays such an important role in Eva’s maturity and development. And she does it so under the radar, which I love. I also didn’t expect to fall in love with both Norman and Kenny as hard as I did. That brings up an interesting point, by the way. How do you answer when people ask who did what when it came to the writing?

Sarah: You mean did we alternate chapters or only write certain characters? It’s funny, before working on Why I Love Singlehood, when I read co-authored pieces my mind boggled at the thought. How could they do it? Literally, how did they do it? In retrospect, I’m still not sure how others do it, but I can’t imagine writing Why I Love Singlehood any other way than our constant rhythm of emailing a drafted scene piece by piece--sometimes ending midsentence--back and forth as each one of us edited and reworded and added. It gave us an automatic audience, immediate feedback, a fresh set of eyes, a reality check, and a way out whenever we felt stuck.

Elisa: And there wasn’t much organization to that, although toward the end we divvied up certain scenes between us; but even then, although one person may have predominantly drafted a scene, the other’s fingerprints were all over it.