Emma Straub Urges Creators To Treat Side Projects Like A Day Job

Emma Straub, the bestselling author and co-owner of Brooklyn’s Books Are Magic, says the simplest way to finish a personal project is to give it the same regular hours you’d give paid work. Her new novel, "American Fantasy," about a recently divorced 50-year-old who signs on for a boy-band fan cruise, has appeared on most-anticipated lists at three national outlets and is helping illustrate the point: discipline, not inspiration, moves the needle.

Straub, who also writes books for young children, built the neighborhood bookstore with her husband after dreaming of owning one for years. She balances retail, events and writing by blocking time and protecting it like any other commitment. “I don’t wait for the mood to strike,” she told me in a recent conversation; “I make the time and the work follows.”

Productivity specialists say that kind of routine can change outcomes. Dr. Lena Ortiz, a behavioral scientist who consults with creative teams, says carving out fixed slots for passion projects increases the chance of completion — often by about twofold compared with ad hoc efforts. She recommends treating those blocks as nonnegotiable appointments.

For neighborhood readers who watched Books Are Magic grow from an idea into a storefront, Straub’s approach underscores a larger lesson about making things happen in plain daylight: show up, protect time and adjust when necessary. And for anyone who, like this reporter, once covered teen-pop mania in the late 1990s, the book’s subject offers both humor and an oddly comforting reminder that grown-up life still has room for old obsessions.

Straub plans to keep juggling the store and future manuscripts, saying she approaches each new project the same way she did the shop: with steady hours, help from collaborators and the expectation that slow, steady work wins out more often than bursts of inspiration.