Erin Ponisciak
Ted Fox’s second novel, Date Week, published in June, is a rom-com about a young couple with a baby on the way who find themselves wrestling with the past. Main characters Will Easterly and Rachel Armas, inspired by their favorite reality TV show, Date Me Now, set off on a lighthearted, weeklong road trip, but their insecurities come into play.
Fox infuses his prose with laugh-out-loud moments told from Will’s point of view. The writer lives in South Bend with his wife, their two children and two dogs, and has worked for the University in various communications roles since 2004. He is now program director for communications and administration with Notre Dame Learning.
You studied economics. What made you want to switch paths and start writing?
I never really had any plan to do anything directly with economics. When I was an undergrad at Notre Dame, I did a lot of stuff with WVFI, the student radio station, and I was a columnist for The Observer. My goal in life was to be an anchor for SportsCenter. . . . I worked at ESPN in production after I graduated, but it didn’t end up being the right fit, and I was interested in coming back to my alma mater. There was a writing job in the communications office in the College of Arts & Letters, and I got that job in 2004. In 2005, six months into my relationship [with my now-wife], she said, “You should try writing a book. That seems like something you would be interested in.” Sixteen years later, my first novel, Schooled was published.
Has working at Notre Dame helped you with your writing projects?
In the College of Arts & Letters, so much of it is based on critical thinking but also being able to express yourself, and writing is worked into so many things. So much of what I feel is good writing is listening to how other people communicate and how they interact with each other and being able to take that and translate it to the page. My radio experience and Observer experience augmented what I was doing as a student, and that helped me.
Where did you get the idea for Date Week?
This was not the idea that I originally pitched; this was an idea that my literary agent came up with, in broad strokes, about this couple expecting a baby going on a road trip. I wrote the pitch for the idea my literary agent came up with, and I had an idea that I liked that was more of a family dramedy. We pitched them both to my editor, and my editor picked the one you read.
Humor is an important part of your writing.
A big part of the reason why I started writing was to be funny. It’s always something I’ve been interested in and seem to have a knack for. Humor has become a big part of both of my novels, and 10 years before the first novel, I had a joke book that . . . was based on a Twitter feed. The humor piece is the constant for me in what I do, and it’s trying to find stories and ideas to hang that on.
What is your writing process?
I’ve found that I’ve been able to make the most progress writing by working for 30-minute or hourlong increments each day. I try to write five or six days a week. Not only does it literally move the story forward, but it makes it easier so that when I have a bigger chunk of time, I feel a lot more connected to the stories that I’ve worked on consistently as opposed to writing once a week for eight hours.
What advice would you give an aspiring writer?
You have to have a passion for the actual craft, and you have to love it to stick with it. If you do have that passion, my biggest advice is just to write and keep writing. Some of it’s going to work, but a lot of it’s not going to work, but it all goes into continuing to elevate your skill set and make you better.
What’s next for you?
My agent and I have a pitch and synopsis for my next book done, so I will be continuing to work on that and hopefully sell it [to a publisher]. The film and TV option for Schooled was sold for development for adaptation. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will be made, just that someone has the right to make it. . . . I’m hoping Schooled keeps moving forward and becomes a movie or TV show at some point, and then I hope Date Week gets optioned the same way so they can start the development process.
Caroline Collins, a rising senior environmental science major and journalism minor, was this magazine’s spring intern.