Exclusive In Conversation with Sloan Harlow
Welcome Sloan! We are so excited to have you join us! Tell us more about your new anthology inspired by Taylor Swift’s songs titled 13 Little Love Stories.
I’m the excited one, here – thank YOU for having me! Oh my gosh, what can I say about 13 Little Love Stories besides the fact that it’s a dream come true? To know my work is going to be alongside love stories written by twelve of the most brilliant authors out there, each inspired by a different Taylor Swift song?? It came out better than I could have dreamed: the anthology is this beautiful, emotional mosaic masterpiece. It’s an extraordinary honor to be a little part of it. Swifties, romance readers, everyone in between: you’re all gonna love it.
Tell us more about your love story in 13 Little Love Stories.
Five Summers is a love letter to all my fellow open-hearted souls who fall painfully hard for the most inconvenient people. It’s about Alex Reyes, who struggles with big feelings for her best friend, Will Gray, told over the course of the five summers between the beginning of freshman year of college to when they graduate.
I really loved having Alex and Will’s story span their college years. College was such an intense emotional experience for me; it’s like, all of a sudden, you’re sharing every moment of your life with these strangers, you’re all homesick and scrambling for familiarity, you become each other’s lifelines. That immediate intimacy was a little overwhelming for me, but also kind of irresistible? I enjoyed revisiting that emotional experience through Five Summers all these years later. It’s a story that’s very close to my heart, and I’ll be the first to admit, totally self-indulgent.
How did you go about crafting your story? Did you instantly know which song you had in mind to inspire your story?
So, I had a therapist who once told me, “In a relationship, there is always a chaser, and there is a runner. You’re a chaser.” Which, I didn’t need her to tell me that: of course, I knew I was a chaser. I was usually the one falling first and hardest, and man, I hated it. I hated being a chaser. It’s painful, vulnerable, and humiliating. Now, I look back on it, and I feel a kind of admiration for my younger self. I feel an admiration for all chasers, honestly: it takes a lot of bravery to open yourself up to love despite the risk of all that pain and rejection. Shout out to all my fellow chasers!
I think that’s why I’ve always loved the song Cruel Summer. It’s a chaser’s anthem. It captures that feeling of being at the mercy of your feelings for someone else, against all your better judgment. The song’s also a little reassuring. Like, hey, even Taylor Herself has been there too, you know?
Because of all that, pretty quickly, I knew I wanted to use Cruel Summer as the inspiration for my story. Five Summers is, of course, total fiction, but I definitely drew a lot of inspiration for Alex’s emotional experience from things I’d personally experienced.
Talk us through the writing process! Did you listen to the Swiftie song on repeat while writing your story for 13 Little Love Stories?
I did! I had both the regular and instrumental version of Cruel Summer on repeat – that’s pretty on par for how I listen to music in general, though. I’ll find a song I love and listen to only that one song for weeks.
I also made a playlist of the songs I had on heavy rotation during my freshman year of college. My college roommate used to play the album Talkie Walkie by Air all the time, and it inadvertently became the soundtrack of that era of my life. I hadn’t listened to it in all these years, so playing certain songs from that album really brought me back. Have you ever done that? It’s like an emotional time machine.
What is your favorite part of your story in 13 Little Love Stories?
I love a good “romantic tension breaking point.” I love reading it, I love writing it, and I had a lot of fun writing the cathartic “all hell breaks loose” romance moment in Five Summers. I don’t want to give away too much – a woman must have her secrets – so I might leave it at that.
What was it like writing a story for an anthology with 13 different authors? Did you have a group chat? Writing meetings?
The experience of writing for this anthology was more solitary than folks might expect – but I think it’s sort of beautiful. As I said above, I’m in awe of every other author in this anthology. Each one is an absolute legend – a magician! They’re off in their individual corners, weaving their magic into their personal stories. It’s been so cool to see the stories come together. I’ve been blown away to see how, while we were all listening to Taylor as inspiration, everyone went in thirteen brilliant, unique directions.
That said, if any of them ever wanted to start a group chat, I would join with absolutely zero chill.
The biggest question I have is: will there be a Taylor Swift Easter egg in your story?
Oooh, if you go looking for it, and you know Cruel Summer well enough, you might catch some little eggs here and there in Five Summers. I’ll leave it at that, y’all don’t need hints. Readers, I want a report!
Before writing in the anthology, you wrote the bestselling novels Everything We Never Said and All We Lost Was Everything. Can you share your writing process for a full-length novel compared to an anthology?
Writing a short story feels like planning a weekend getaway, while writing a novel feels like unfurling a huge map of Middle-earth and being like, “Cool, so I need to figure out how to get from The Shire to Mount Doom…” Both are intimidating in their own way! (Take a wild guess as to which one I find more daunting.)
With a short story, you’ve only got a certain amount of words allotted to tell your tale. I’m wordy. My drafts are way too long, so that was one of my challenges. My editor and I are just constantly shaving off the excess. With a short story, you have the luxury (and agony) of really zooming in, polishing words and punctuation.
Are you an outliner or do you forge ahead and write, then go back and edit?
I have such a deep admiration for the writers who can say, “I’m just winging it, we’ll see where this story takes me.” That takes a lot of trust in the process, a lot of trust in yourself. I’d love to get there someday.
As of right now, I do need a general outline before starting a story: I want to know where I’m going before I start my journey. Here’s the thing: nine times out of ten, that outline’s gonna change – it’ll evolve in ways it needs to, in ways that are impossible to see when you’re at the very beginning, looking from a bird’s eye view of the story. To go back to the “road map” metaphor, it’s just like any trip: you show up to a stream that’s on the map but dried up in real life. You were counting on it for a water source, now you have to figure out something new. Fallen trees block a path. Things you thought would work just can’t now that you’ve arrived at the chapter, are seeing it from the ground.
Some of my favorite creators know that and embrace it. They’re comfortable writing and pitching their story without any idea of how it might end. They just know that whatever corner they write themselves into, they can write themselves out. That’s sort of terrifying for me, which is no good because fear is like my creative pesticide. Creativecide?
Did you always want to be an author?
Oh, definitely: I was interested in writing from a very young age. Did I ever think it could be anything more than a joyous hobby? No way. No way did I ever think I’d get that lucky.
How was the process of finding an agent? Can you share a bit about your writing journey to becoming a bestselling author for writers who want to publish traditionally?
My path is not a traditional one. I’ll be the first to admit that I got super lucky and am grateful for it every day. I came to this through connections I’d made doing other writing work. If I were to give any advice, it would be: above all, be kind. It takes a big team of very talented people to make any book successful. This is just my inexpert opinion, so take this with that ole grain o’ salt, but I think sometimes being a good teammate and collaborator takes you further than being the most talented person in the room.
What does a day in your life when writing look like?
Oh, man, I really want to be one of these authors who have the same routine every day, starting at eight every morning, rain or shine. Consistency. God, I’d love to be consistent.
I am not consistent.
In general, my writing days are some version of: make a hot drink (tea or coffee), sit down, write. (Pabu, my little black cat, is always there, too, trying to sleep on my keyboard.)
Here’s the thing: there’s usually a big, agonizing gap between making a hot drink and sitting down, and then another, even more agonizing, pulling-teeth gap between sitting down and writing. I saw a video of an author once say that the greatest challenge for any creative is the ability to “put your butt in the chair and stay in it.” He was like, “You’ll make any excuse to avoid that chair.” I’d never heard anything more relatable.
But then, when I’m on it? Like really elbows deep into drafting, really feeling those pages? I’m all in. I’ll eat, sleep, and breathe the book. I wake up thinking about it. Go to sleep thinking about it. Dream about it. Wake up in the middle of the night and jot down ideas in the notes app. I’ll binge write a 100K word draft in one or two months. I’m sort of a nightmare to be around. I’ve always struggled with being an all-or-nothing kind of person.
Anyway, big shocker, but that’s not terribly sustainable. I burn myself out. Don’t worry, (I know you were worried), I’m working on it!
What advice would you give to aspiring authors?
Don’t be afraid to write bad!!! You’ve got to be okay writing bad. It’s scary, trust me, I know it’s scary. But you can do it! You must. It’s the only way you’ll ever get to make something good. So write bad. Write terrible. Write the worst crap you’ve ever written, and then do yourself a favor and try to write worse than that. As long as you’re writing, you’re doing it! You’re doing it, Peter!
Oh, and if you figure out how to do this, please tell me how.
(I’m working on it.)
Do you have any new projects releasing soon?
I’m currently working on a few things I’m very excited about. I can’t say too much just yet, but I can say that I’m trying some new things, exploring new genres I’ve always had a deep love for. It’s scary – anything new is – but that can be a sign you’re onto something good. I can’t wait until I get to talk about it properly!
Before I let you go, could you share where we can follow you on social media?
I’m on Instagram @sloanharlowauthor. Social media and my brain are frenemies, so Pabu’s doing most of the heavy lifting on that page for now. My readers very much mean the world to me, though, so…I’m working on it.
Thanks for joining us, Sloan! Comment below any other questions you have for Sloan Harlow! Get your copy of 13 Little Love Stories today! xoxo!
