Hot Take: Teaser of Feb Patreon Interview with Romance Novelist Alexa Martin
Hello, flamethrowers! For our Patreon-only segment in February, Jessica interviewed romance novelist Alexa Martin about her life as an NFL wife, how she got into writing, and about her upcoming romance novel that was inspired by Colin Kaepernick. This is a small part of that chat.
If you would like to hear the entire interview and our back catalogue of Patreon-only segments and interviews, go to our Patreon and sign up for $2+/month: www.patreon.com/burnitalldown
Alexa Martin is the author of 3 books with another forthcoming. Her first, Intercepted, which was published in 2018, is about Marlee Harper, a long-term girlfriend of an NFL star, whose relationship suddenly ends and she finds herself falling for her ex’s quarterback. This book was inspired by Martin’s own experience as an NFL wife, which she was for 8 years until her husband’s retirement from the league. Her husband, Derrick Martin, is a two-time Super Bowl champion, with the Packers and the Giants. Martin’s book Intercepted is in development with Starz and G-Unit films to become a new series on Starz.
Her other two books are in the same series -- Fumbled and Blitzed. Snapped is next and its hero is a quarterback who decides to kneel during the national anthem inspired by Colin Kaepernick.
Transcript
Jessica: Hello, flamethrowers. Jessica here. For the February Patreon-only segment, I interviewed romance novelist Alexa Martin. This is a teaser of that interview. To hear the entire thing, including more on her life as an NFL wife and her upcoming novel inspired by Colin Kaepernick, go to patreon.com/burnitalldown and become a patron of the show for as little as $2 per month. Again, that's patreon.com/burnitalldown.
Alexa Martin is the author of three books, with another forthcoming. Her first, Intercepted, was published in 2018. It was inspired by Martin's own experience as an NFL wife, which she was for eight years until her husband's retirement from the league. Her husband, Derrick Martin, is a two time Super Bowl champion with the Packers and the Giants. Martin's book, Intercepted, is in development with Starz and G-Unit Films to become a new series on Starz. Her other two books are in the same series. They're titled Fumbled and Blitzed. Snapped is the one after that, and its hero is a quarterback who decides to kneel during the national anthem. Here are some excerpts from the conversation I had with her.
Jessica: What do you think people totally don't understand about being the wife or the partner of a professional athlete? I think we have all these ideas that it's glamorous and busy and big…
Alexa: I think that's the main one, is that it's like glamorous and it's not at all. [laugher] Like I said, you know, most of the players aren't making millions and millions of dollars. Most are making like modest ones and they're not starters and they're not getting these huge contracts. My husband, he played with the Ravens for the first three years, and then he was traded to Green Bay.
Jessica: Oh, cold.
Alexa: Yeah, he hit very cold. I was not expecting that. And he was traded when I was 37 or 36 weeks pregnant with our daughter.
Jessica: Oh my gosh.
Alexa: Yeah, so he got the call, and then the next day he had to leave, and I was left packing up our apartment. So, pregnant, with a toddler, and then driving across country. And meeting my doctor once before I was like induced because they had like an out of town game and I was afraid he would miss it. Then, you know, being stuck inside of a house in the state where I didn't know anybody and was too cold to venture outside with a toddler and a newborn. And it's just, you know, it's not like a steady career, right? Like, you never know what's going to happen. I had one of my very good friends, her husband got hurt in practice during the offseason, and he was never able to play again. Like, he blew his knee out. He's had so many surgeries that I've lost count. So it's just one of those things where it's great in the moment, but it's one of those things where you kind of really have to learn to live in the moment, because you don't know how much longer it's gonna last.
Jessica: This is Alexa talking about her first novel, Intercepted, which was inspired by her life as an NFL wife.
Alexa: It's funny, because when I first started writing it, it was not like a football romance at all.
Jessica: Oh really?
Alexa: I was like, I will not read about football, ever. [laughs]
Jessica: Oh, why?
Alexa: To me, it wasn't glamorous. It wasn't anything that like people would really wanna read about.
Jessica: Because it's just your life.
Alexa: Yeah, just my life. And it's just, you know, like when I would read football romances, they did seem like so glamorous and wonderful. I was like, I'm too jaded to write anything as nice as this. [Jessica laughs] Which is why in my books, I do tend…They’re usually is an injury or two, right? There's people who get traded. There's like a friend you'll see one season and you won't see them the next season. So I did try to bring that in. In my second series, I kind of touch on CTE. Not series, the second book. Yeah, it was just like a very slow thing for me. I went from like, “I'm writing this and nobody will ever read it” to…I had a really good mom friend who would talk romance novels. So was like, hey, I'm kind of writing something, do you wanna check it out? And she was like, no, it's really good. It wasn't really good. She was just very nice. [laughter] To having another friend who was writing also, and we kind of like send chapters back and forth to each other until we finished our books. And then like me just kind of being like, you know, what could it hurt? The worst people could say is like, no. I mean, people actually…I got a very not nice rejection, so that's wrong. Somebody said, like, “You're terrible. Quit now.” So yeah, I feel like I just got very lucky. I tried at like the right time, and Pitch Wars was a lifesaver masterclass for me that changed everything. But definitely football romance was not in the cards for me at all.
Jessica: So then how did you land on football?
Alexa: When I got into Pitch Wars, so, in the original version, there was like an ex-boyfriend who was a football player and it was just kind of in like the background. I had like a blog post, and they saw that and were just like, well, what about if you do it this way? If you make it a football romance? And they're just like, but you would have to rewrite the entire book. Pitch Wars is a two month, when I was doing it, it was a two month period. They're like, you'd have to rewrite the entire book, but do you think you could do it? [Jessica laughs] I was like, yeah, of course, no problem. The book that took me four years to write, like, to rewrite in five weeks. No problem. I didn't sleep for like a month and a half and I cried multiple times. But I finished! So yeah, they're kind of like, what do you think about that? And so I was like, yeah, no, I'll try it. I think because it was in such a short time, I didn't have time to overthink things, and it just kind of flowed out into what is Intercepted now.
Jessica: I often write on gendered violence in college football in particular, and I talk about how I deeply love reading romance novels, knowing like, it's fun to see these totally fleshed out characters for one, but also know there's like a happy ever after at the end.
Alexa: Yes. That’s part of romance.
Jessica: Like, yeah, you can go into this book about these intense issues, but know that at the end you're gonna feel good. I just love that. So, I'm very excited. That sounds amazing.
Alexa: Thank you. I'm really excited for it.
Jessica: Why do you think, or what have you heard from readers about why they like sports romance novels, why they find them so compelling? I just gave you my personal reason. But I'm just, what do you think it is?
Alexa: Well, I've heard from somebody, they said it's like competence porn. Like, it's like somebody who like loves what they do and works at it until they're the very best at it. And I kind of think that might be it. Like, it was just like, wait, is that why I like it? [laughs] Because it kinda resonated, like, yeah, you're right. And then to have that intense focus that they've put on their craft put into the heroine, into like their love and romance. And I was like, yeah, I think that's it for me.
Jessica: Wow. I just feel so stripped bare right now. [laughter] Oh, no. How or maybe where can our listeners find you and your work?
Alexa: For me on like social media, I'm mostly on Twitter and Instagram, and I'm @alexambooks. And my website is AlexaMartinbooks.com. And you can just kind of see what I have going on there.
Jessica: Great. Thank you so much for being on Burn It All Down, Alexa. This has been so much fun.
Alexa: Thank you for having me. I loved talking to another adult who wasn’t my husband for twenty minutes. [laughter]
Jessica: Once again, that's just a part of the 23 minute interview that I did with Alexa for the February Patreon-only segment. If you'd like to hear the whole thing, including more in her life as an NFL wife, her new novel inspired by Colin Kaepernick, and her recommendation for other sports romance novels to read, go to patreon.com/burnitalldown and become a patron of the show for as little as $2 a month. You can hear that entire interview, plus a whole back catalog of Patreon-only segments. We hope that you will consider signing up. Thanks for all of your support. Burn on, not out.