Lemondrop

Adriana Trigiani is exactly the kind of girl we'd want to take shoe-shopping -- appropriate, since her newest novel continues the saga of Valentine Roncalli and her family shoe-making business.

"Brava, Valentine" -- the sequel to "Very Valentine" and the second in the trilogy (next up: "Ciao, Valentine") -- is just what you'd expect from the best-selling author of the Big Stone Gap trilogy, "Rococo," and "Lucia, Lucia": swoon-worthy locales (Tuscany, Buenos Aires), animated Italian-American families and fabulous female heroines.

Since we couldn't go browsing for boots -- hey, her schedule is packed, what with the "Today" show, Barnes & Noble signings, and a book tour taking her from Columbus to St. Louis -- we caught up with Trigiani over the phone, where she shared her tips for aspiring authors everywhere. Just don't ask her for a cure for writer's block -- she never suffers from it. Sigh.

In fact if she weren't so nice, we'd have to hate her.


Lemondrop: You started out writing for sitcoms like "The Cosby Show," you studied playwriting -- were those stepping stones to becoming a novelist?
Trigiani: I came to New York to make it as a playwright. But this is what really determined that I became a novelist: You write for the theater, they're not allowed to change anything without telling you. In TV, they can throw anything out. Movies they can bring on another writer. What remains yours are plays and novels. Writing novels was never a goal of mine. I'm the daughter of a librarian -- books to me were like holy documents. I never felt like I would do it. Then after years of writing TV and plays and screenplays and making a documentary, I went, "I really just want to tell a story that nobody's going to touch."

But I love it. I don't have to check with anyone, "Can we build the set and do downtown Rome?" I can just write it. Nobody says, "You can't go to Rome!" I can just do it. In that sense it's very, very freeing.

What kind of prep work do you do for a novel?
For [Valentine], I went to Italy and I studied shoe-making. I'm obsessed with shoe-making; my grandfather was a shoemaker. There's this world-famous shoemaker on the Isle of Capri...he told me about his wife, and I just put the whole story into the book! And I'll read books that get me in the mood. I read Gay Talese's "Unto the Sons." The Godfather -- I wanted to see how he handled an epic story.

I did a lot of research about making shoes. I also got obsessed with the Sorelle Fontana, the Fontana sisters out of Rome. Their mother had a tailor shop, and the girls opened their shop in 1942 in Rome. I became obsessed with families -- how they survive by the labor of their own hands or they don't.

Sounds like a lot of research.
I do a lot. But then I don't look at it. Once you see somebody make something, if you're observant, you can probably do it. Think about recipes, and the way our grandmothers handed it down. If you stood and watched, you could probably pull it off. I approach research like the way my grandmothers cooked.

Speaking of cooking -- a recurring theme in your novels -- what made you write "Cooking With My Sisters"?
Kind of a magical thing happened when my grandmother died. My sisters and I were all in her kitchen and the stove died, and when we pulled it off the wall, all these bits of paper came out. She had hidden recipes in this false drawer under the oven! Literally on our hands and knees, we're on the floor trying to make sense of it. So we decided to do the greatest hits of what we ate all the time. And everybody's got an opinion -- you know Italians, their meatball recipes are like sacrosanct. I use fresh garlic, we all do. But in the '70s, everyone used garlic powder. Oh, the fights! But then we all made peace.

And last year you wrote your first young-adult book, "Viola in Reel Life."
An editor came to me from Harper's and said, "We really think you should do this." I thought about it for months. That's when I fell in love with reading -- at that age. And I looked at my daughter, Lucia, who's 7, and I thought, I really want her to have books to read. There are books out there, but you've really got to watch content. I want a mother to go to the store and feel she's not gonna worry if she hands her kid my book. I want to make themes that are very true and very real and make them delicious for the reader.

Really -- parents are the same as they ever were; they want quality, they want characters that help their kids think. I wrote a very kind of American character; she's from Brooklyn and she goes to boarding school in South Bend, Indiana.

What's your workday like?
I work eight to nine hours a day, and when it gets around deadline, more than that. Sometimes that's writing, sometimes that's editing, but yeah, I do a full day, always have, probably always will. I'll take a break in the middle. Lifetime bought "Very Valentine"; I just wrote the teleplay, and now I've gotten my notes so I'm doing the fixes. This morning I got up at 4. I don't know why I couldn't sleep, so I was writing.

And do you have an IV drip filled with espresso?
Coffee with Skim Plus. I steam the milk. It's mostly milk and very little caffeine. And a good breakfast is important. I always eat a hot breakfast. I'm like a farmer -- eat then you go on the field.

How do you fight writer's block?
Never get it.

Shut up.
Never got it, and I never will. There's a book called "The Power of Your Subconscious Mind" by Joseph Murphy. I never wear a watch, and I never set an alarm. I tell myself when I go to sleep to get up at 5 a.m. and that's when I get up. That's where the writing comes from. Before I go to sleep I say, "What's Valentine going to do?" And I wake up in the morning, I bolt up the stairs, and I do some writing. Once you get that subconscious mind engaged -- even as I'm talking to you I'm working. When I go to sleep at night, I'm working.

You described books as "holy documents." I think a lot of people feel that way. They're intimidated by the idea of starting a novel.
You know, the more people that write books, the better. Publishers have to figure out what to publish, but wouldn't you love to have your great-grandfather's life story written by him? Let's just start with that -- how valuable a book is. They're living documents of history. That aside, you can really see into what people were feeling and at a certain time. I'll throw out a certain example: "I Capture the Castle," by Dodie Smith. It so perfectly captures post-war England -- the voices, the clothing. Books are almost -- they're the spirit of a people.

My advice would be, first of all: Read like crazy. And then you've got to impose deadlines on yourself. I learned deadlines naturally from doing plays and writing for TV because something had to be ready by Friday. A writing group can have that. When you have those things, you can begin to explore your voice. Every day when I sit down, I ask myself that question -- it's like a broken record: What are you trying to say?

Also, I believe in having excellent tools. Make sure you have a computer or a typewriter or something you love. I really believe in beautiful pens and beautiful notebooks. Candles and flowers on the desk. Create a world for yourself -- and I mean that sincerely -- that no one else can go into. You need to carve out a closet or a space or a bedroom or something where it's just about creating art.

Melissa Rose Bernardo is a freelance writer and former staffer at Entertainment Weekly.