Emily Smith - Technology Leader and Writer

What prompted you to pursue your creative career?

In my early thirties, my life was not going as planned. I had thrown myself into my career but increasingly felt disenchanted. At the same time, most of my friends were getting married and having children, while my romantic relationships were increasingly toxic. I felt an urgent need to pause and untangle issues that I’d long felt lingering but had never actually addressed, and writing was my way in. I began to explore the ways I’d contorted myself to fit in with and impress men for most of my life. I started writing in secret first, too embarrassed to admit I was taking my own thoughts seriously enough to write them down. But then writing quickly became all I wanted to do. 

Did you want to have dual careers, or was it an accident? How do you feel about having achieved success in both?

Once I started writing, I wanted to be successful in both writing and my career in tech. I wanted my stories and essays to be published and read. The point of writing, for me, is to slow down enough to figure out what I think, but it’s also to share those thoughts. It’s about communication with others.  At the same time, I knew that most writers make no money from writing. And, as an engineer and an MBA, writing doesn’t come easy to me, so I wasn’t about to pursue copy-editing or ghostwriting. My writing is very personal to me and takes me a lot of time to complete. Whereas logic, strategy, and numbers are all more intuitive to me. So I knew I also wanted to continue my career in tech.

How does your creative career impact your business career or vice versa?

They’re very related! My sweet spot in tech is building and scaling products from nothing into something, what they now call “0 to 1” development. This is essentially what novel writing is, too. It involves creativity and vision, but it also requires an insane amount of persistence, and specifically being able to organize and progress amidst extreme ambiguity. The logical thinking I’ve cultivated in tech very much helps me shape the various pieces of a novel or an essay. And the creativity and persistence I’ve honed in writing, without a doubt makes me better at my tech job.

What do you think is one secret that has allowed you to scale your career in multiple formats?

Intense compartmentalization. The way I work tends to be all or nothing, so in switching between two very different careers I’ve had to become very good at shutting out one while working on the other; I need to almost pretend the other doesn’t exist. This has led me to structure my work such that I allocate, for example, six months to write my novel, then a year of tech consulting while I work on edits and promotion (which is less intensive). Or I’ll block three hours in the morning to think exclusively about an essay, and then plug into my tech job and be heads down on that for the rest of the day.Being able to deeply focus on one thing and tune the rest out is incredibly valuable. 

Tell us about your book. Why is it a must-read? 

Nothing Serious is the story of Edie, a single 35-year-old woman in tech who goes into an obsessive spiral when her best friend and longtime crush is implicated in the death of a woman she adores. It’s a literary novel with mystery and suspense elements, but the heart to me is a coming of age story about a woman learning to trust herself and untangle from a lifetime of men’s influence and other people’s expectations. It’s a very personal story, much of which is pulled from my own experience. The book explores modern dating, childlessness, platonic obsession and grey areas of abuse, among many other things. But don’t take it from me! It’s received fantastic reviews from media outlets and other writers:

“Smith’s brisk debut, bolstered by absorbing storylines and a vividly depicted cast, achieves the improbable: It explores the often disheartening experience of living in a world built by Silicon Valley yet still manages to be thoroughly enjoyable….Edie’s pain is recounted in powerful detail; her feminist awakening is complex and fitful; her friendships with women are nourishing; and her professional experiences are ludicrous and maddening.… “Nothing Serious” figures to win plenty of readers in its protagonist’s millennial cohort [but]… speaks to a broader sense of frustration, one felt by lots of people whose lives have been colonized by their devices.” — San Francisco Chronicle on Nothing Serious

'Nothing Serious is an unflinching and incisive look at modern dating, womanhood, friendship, and obsession. Smith's unforgettable voice, wit, and cultural precision will make you crave her take on all contemporary quandaries. Her debut is cause to clear prime shelf space in eager anticipation of everything else she writes.' — Courtney Preiss, USA Today bestselling author of Welcome Home, Caroline Kline

'Nothing Serious takes an anthropologist's eye to digital dating and real-life friendship and explores those battlefields with a weary and tender heart. Funny, sharp, and tragic; a brilliant and unforgettable debut about public and private selves in the digital age, wrapped in a (maybe!) murder mystery. Emily J. Smith is an enormous talent, and I am now a devoted fan.' — Katie Gutierrez, bestselling author of More Than You'll Ever Know

“Sharp, funny, engrossing and deeply felt, Emily Smith’s Nothing Serious seduces with its yearning in a world that so often feels as if it has no space for yearning, compels and entrances with its questions and its mysteries, and satisfies with its humor and its honesty.” — Lynn Steger-Strong, author of Flight

It took you ten years from starting to write fiction to publishing it. What have you learned about writing, and living a creative life?

I find myself settling more and more into a creative life. When I first took extended time off to write, I was frustrated with myself for not producing more. If thoughts didn’t come right away I felt ashamed, which is a very capitalist, corporate mindset. Now I’m more trusting in the process. I’ve learned (and continue to learn) when to push myself and when to give myself space. I know now that it’s normal for the act of writing to feel terrible and tedious; it’s not a sign that I’m bad or shouldn’t be doing it. I also now feel comfortable calling myself a writer, which, absurdly, I didn’t for many years even though I was writing constantly. Finally, I’ve learned you need close creative friends to keep going. A creative life runs in stark opposition to capitalism, which is everywhere, so to not feel crazy you need other people around with the same priorities.

What is next on your journey? Is there a big creative goal we can help you achieve?

I’m currently working on my next book. I just submitted the draft manuscript to my agent and am waiting for feedback. The hope is to sell it before the end of the year—fingers crossed! I’ve also launched a new class, From Corporate to Creative Writer, where I help people who are new to writing build a creative practice. We have three cohorts running this summer and one cohort starting in the fall. Please share with anyone who might be interested!