How Rosie Danan Sits Down & Writes
'The Roommate' is simultaneously wholesome, steamy, and completely romantic.
House Rules:
Do your own dishes
Knock before entering the bathroom
Never look up your roommate online
The Wheatons are infamous among the east coast elite for their lack of impulse control, except for their daughter Clara. She’s the consummate socialite: over-achieving, well-mannered, predictable. But every Wheaton has their weakness. When Clara’s childhood crush invites her to move cross-country, the offer is too tempting to resist. Unfortunately, it’s also too good to be true.
After a bait-and-switch, Clara finds herself sharing a lease with a charming stranger. Josh might be a bit too perceptive—not to mention handsome—for comfort, but there’s a good chance he and Clara could have survived sharing a summer sublet if she hadn’t looked him up on the Internet…
Once she learns how Josh has made a name for himself, Clara realizes living with him might make her the Wheaton’s most scandalous story yet. His professional prowess inspires her to take tackling the stigma against female desire into her own hands. They may not agree on much, but Josh and Clara both believe women deserve better sex. What they decide to do about it will change both of their lives, and if they’re lucky, they’ll help everyone else get lucky too.
The Roommate is perfect for fans of Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert and Well Met by Jen DeLuca.
We chatted with Rosie about having 2-3 beverages nearby when writing, treating her manuscripts like meditations, and naming her characters.
Q: Where do you like to write the most?
This is a bit odd but I really like writing on my cell phone on flights or train rides. Somehow those passages always end up a bit more poetic. Maybe the motion has something to do with it??
Q: When do you like to write the most?
I’d say my best writing hours are 10am-2pm. I’m neither an early bird nor a night owl. I’m whatever creature thrives in the middle of the day. The...hungry squirrel?
Q: When it comes to drafting, do you prefer writing on a computer or freehand?
Computer, mostly because I don’t think I’d have the patience to draft by hand and then transfer everything over.
Q: Are you more of a plotter or pantser?
Definitely a plotter. In writing and life I’m always striving for efficiency. Plotting keeps me from building a lot of pieces that later don’t add up (at least in theory).
Q: Stephen King has a great line in On Writing that says “the scariest moment is always right before you start. After that, things can only get better.” That scary pre-start moment often inspires procrastination in writers. Suddenly, you have to clean your entire house, do the laundry and play Candy Crush for an hour before you can actually start writing. Is there anything you need to do before you can actually sit down and work?
I do like to have a tidy, if not fully clean, space to write so I’ll often fix the couch cushions or put away shoes, etc before I sit down. I also always have like 2-3 beverages on hand, usually at least one hot and one cold that I then inevitably forget to drink until they fully swap temperatures.
Q: Do you listen to music while you write? If so, what music? Is your choice of music inspired by the project you’re working on?
No, I get too distracted if I have music on while I work. I use noise-canceling headphones with nothing on to block ambient sound. I do listen to music on “inspiration walks” when I’m brainstorming and that music will differ based on the project, but even then I often have to switch to my recorder app to capture ideas.
Q: Some writers believe you have to write every single day. Is that true of your process? How often do you write/how long for each session?
When I’m drafting, I find that it does help me to stay in the story if I write at least a little every day. I usually break my writing time up into sessions. I’ll draft new words in the morning from 10am-12pm for example and then I’ll usually read through and revise that same passage from 7-9pm. That’s probably 3-5 months depending on the project. When I’m revising or editing I have a little more lee-way but still try not to go too long without picking up the work unless I’m letting the manuscript rest between rounds.
Q: What’s one piece of advice you’d give an aspiring author?
Common advice is ‘write what you want to read’ and I think that’s true, but I would also recommend writing what you need to read. By that I mean, write the book that scares you, the one that explores the embarrassing, tender-to-the-touch moments from your past and present. Write books that remind you about what you want and what you deserve from life and love.
In a lot of ways, I was, and still am, scared that I wrote a book that explicitly examines sex and shame. But that squirmy discomfort is the reason I needed to write THE ROOMMATE. It’s a reminder to me and anyone that reads it that we’re entitled to our desires and f*ck (or rather, don’t f*ck) anyone that says differently.
Q: Where do you normally find story inspiration?
I usually treat my manuscripts like meditations on a particular theme or topic that is of personal interest to me at that time. I figure that if I’m gonna spend so many hours thinking about something, I might as well pick a subject that’s already on my mind with lots of threads to pull. THE ROOMMATE was my mediation on shedding shame and external expectations and my second novel THE INTIMACY EXPERIMENT is about reconciling identity and radical vulnerability.
Q: The Roommate is one of the first books I've read where the story starts with physical intimacy (really vulnerable physical intimacy) and leads deeper into the emotional intimacy. What made you decide to work "backward" from traditional romances in that way?
The characters needed to have that physical experience relatively early in order to inspire a lot of the action that propels the novel. I also really liked having the opportunity to show the progression in their dynamic from their first physical intimacy relatively divorced from emotion, to later scenes where the characters have come to care for each other on much deeper levels and how that is reflected in the way they physically interact.
Q: It's always fun when a character's name matches up so perfectly with their personality, which is definitely the case with Clara Wheaton. How do you go about coming up with your character names?
I usually start with my gut instinct. I just write down whatever name flows while drafting with the assumption that I can alter it in future versions. A bunch of the characters in THE ROOMMATE changed names but Clara and Josh actually didn’t. Their full names have stayed consistent since the first draft. For Clara, I wanted an older, more traditional name that gave the sense she might have been named for an ancestor since she comes from a very old school blue-blood family. For Josh, I wanted something really approachable and friendly to reflect his personality.
Q: The Roommate centers a really feminist and honest conversation about porn. What made you want to explore the porn industry? What kind of research did you need to do for the story?
I actually decided to write an adult performer hero after getting inspired to update one of my favorite historical romance tropes—“Lessons in Seduction” between a rake and a bluestocking—for a contemporary setting. There are so many wonderful Regency romances about women learning to pursue pleasure with an experienced man and I think the reason the stories resonate with readers today is there’s still a lot of shame associated with women talking about what they want and need from sex, especially since actual sex education can be hard to come by in our country. I thought making my modern “rake” a porn star would allow me to invite readers to challenge their perceptions about those who work in the industry. When I translated that trope to modern-day Los Angeles, I wanted to make sure that my heroine, Clara, is not just learning about pleasure from the hero, she actually has sexual agency and decides to take charge of educating herself and other women about pleasure and obviously ultimately ends up funding a sexy, feminist website that promotes equal opportunity orgasms at scale.
In terms of industry research, I started with books, documentaries, and essays by adult performers and then I also worked with a subject matter expert, a current male performer, to review the novel and ensure my portrayal was both accurate and sensitive.
Q: While readers will definitely pick up The Roommate for its intriguing, sexy premise, Josh and Clara's love story is quite sweet and wholesome. Do you have a favorite romantic moment between Josh and Clara?
One of the most fun things about writing a roommate romance was getting to pen so many soft scenes of domesticity. There’s a tiny moment in the middle of the book where Josh and Clara are chatting and he reaches for her empty dinner plate. She was taken aback and he’s like “What? I’m just gonna wash your dish,” and it’s just a sweet gesture of taking care of one another and their shared space. He doesn’t think about it. It’s a natural way to behave for him and I love that.
Q: What's the last steamy romance that kept you up past your bedtime?
Rachel Reid’s Heated Rivalry. High stakes, enemies to lovers, hockey players in love. I’m fanning myself as I type.
Grab your copy of The Roommate at bookshop.org, IndieBound, or Barnes & Noble. Happy reading!
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