Author Jenn McKinlay hit the jackpot with Hallmark series based on 'Paris Is Always a Good Idea'

Jenn McKinlay writes a lot of books. She’s published 60 now, in fact. And, now, for the first time, one of them is being adapted for TV.

"Paris Is Always a Good Idea" will be released as a limited series for the Hallmark Channel in July, starring Lacey Chabert, the "Queen of Hallmark."

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For McKinlay, it’s the kind of payoff she never really hoped for in her long career as a writer. She even got to visit the set in Spain where the show was being made. And she came into The Show's studios recently to talk more about it.

Full conversation

JENN MCKINLAY: I have heard statistics that 1% of all books published get optioned for film.

LAUREN GILGER: OK.

JENN MCKINLAY: Which is basically a studio putting a bookmark, you know, thumbprint on it. And 1% of all options get made into film.

LAUREN GILGER: 1% of 1%.

JENN MCKINLAY: Yeah, it’s like you might as well buy a lottery ticket, you know. It’s lightning in a bottle, you’re lucky. So it for me as a writer, it’s not a it was never an end goal. It was always kind of like, oh if that happens that’s nice, but if it doesn’t, you know, I like that’s, I’m a writer for a reason. I love my books.

LAUREN GILGER: But it did get made into a not just a movie but a series here this time with, you know, the queen of Hallmark and on the Hallmark Channel. And what’s the process like? How much are you a part of the process of your book becoming a movie?

JENN MCKINLAY: I’m sure some authors keep a handle on it. I did not. It happened so fast. The option came up in October-ish, I signed that contract in December. In my mind, I was like, oh, nothing’s going to happen, they’ll option it maybe for another year. Yay me, free money.

And then all of a sudden we got the notice that it was greenlit in December. But then I didn’t hear anything, and I was like, they’re not really doing it, they’re pranking me, they’re going to want the money back.

JENN MCKINLAY: Whole panic. And then the producer and the screenwriter reached out and they said, "Hey, we want to have a meeting, we want to talk to you about, you know, what’s going on." And I was just like, OK, it is happening.

And then we did this wonderful Zoom, and the screenwriters were so great because they took me through every change they made and why. So I can honestly say they stayed true to the banter, the heartfelt speeches, the heart of the book, the themes, all of that are totally there. And every logistical change that they made, I totally understood. So it’s been so easy to get behind the project. And, you know, when they cast it and it was Lacey Chabert, I was just like, wow. Amazing.

LAUREN GILGER: Amazing. Yeah, yeah. OK, so you have called this the book of your heart, right? Talk about why that is, because you’ve written a lot of books.

JENN MCKINLAY: I have, I’ve written a lot. "Paris Is Always a Good Idea" came out of a very strange place in that I have never had a book appear fully formed, ever. And it was, you know, I was taking my son to high school. And I wrote this in 2019.

LAURNE GILGER: Right.

At the time, I had just come back from a funeral in Denver, I was really grief-stricken, I was trying to get my kid, who’s chronically late, trying to get him to high school on time, and he was just like, "Mom, I need an energy drink." I’m like, "Of course you do." So we had to pull over to a Circle K, he ran in, and I’m sitting there. And it was fall, I remember that.

And I’d been asked by my publisher to come up with bigger ideas, like bigger concept, bigger storyline. And I wasn’t having any luck. I think I’d been like, you know, running around in my own brain for like six months with nothing. And then all of a sudden as if it floated in through the window, it was: This is Chelsea Martin and she’s grieving for her mom who died seven years ago from cancer. She’s devoted her life to raising money for cancer research, so she’s a corporate fundraiser. She had a gap year the year before her mother died, she fell in love with three men. She’s lost her way to be happy, her dad’s getting remarried.

And it’s, it was just like bubbling up like, yeah, now she’s crashing out because dad’s remarrying and her parents’ love was the greatest love for her. And her sister challenges her to go back to that gap year, the last time she can remember being happy, and finding those men that she had dated to see if she can find herself again and the Chelsea that used to be.

And then I thought, oh she’s got to have that one coworker, that one annoying coworker, and they’ll go to Europe together on a big ask for the cancer foundation, and he’ll just be a thorn in her side, but also have a front-row seat to all these shenanigans. And a lot of opinions. And a lot of opinions.

LAUREN GILGER: All right, we’re not going to give away the end, because you got to watch it or read it.

JENN MCKINLAY: Totally, or both.

LAUREN GILGER: But I mean, you got to go to the set where they were filming this movie. They filmed in Paris and Spain, right? And I just can’t even imagine what that would feel like to see something that you invented in your head come to life in this real way. What was it like?

JENN MCKINLAY: Oh, it was Well, what surprised me is that I had to kind of battle imposter syndrome. And I kept, you know, the producer was lovely. She kept working out the times because they were filming at 4 in the afternoon until like 3 in the morning.

LAUREN GILGER: Wow, yeah.

JENN MCKINLAY: Yeah, it was brutal. And it was and they’re battling weather. It was like 20 degrees colder than it was supposed to be, it was raining. I mean it was just insane.

So we my sons and I went, and we were kind of doing a research tour because my jam is kind of romantic comedy traveling. So it’s I’m always like, where are we going next? So when they said come to Spain, I was like, "Excellent, I haven’t set anything there." So I was really enjoying, you know, driving through Spain. So we flew into Madrid, drove up to Bilbao, they were filming in a castle, you know, right near that.

And I just, I was just, I kept saying to the producer, "I don’t want to get in the way, I don’t want to be a bother." She finally wrote back to me in all caps: YOU ARE NOT A BOTHER. And then we got to the set and she met us at the gate, we got in, and she had everybody stop what they were doing on set and she announces to everybody, she’s like, "Everyone," and she’s British, but I won’t imitate her because that would be rude. But picture British or hear British.

So she said, "Everyone, this blonde lady wrote the book 'Paris Is Always a Good Idea.' This is Jenn McKinlay. Everybody applaud." And they did. And it was so funny. And I was standing there and I was like, "OK, all right, this is cool."

LAUREN GILGER: "This is cool" is an understatement.

JENN MCKINLAY: And then I didn’t feel like an imposter so much. And then the best part was uh not only meeting the actors and watching them, and watching how hard they work. We got to see Annabelle, who plays the sister, in particular do one scene 10 times, you know, back to one, again, again, again, you know, moving the extras around her, her expression, this camera, that camera. And we were just so enthralled.

And then the director took a minute to come up to me, which this meant so much to me as a creative, and he just said, "This book, this story, the heart, the, you know, choosing joy and getting through grief," and he’s like, "It’s just got something for everybody, we love it." And it was just like, wow, I feel so validated right now. It’s like six years in the making since the book came out, and I finally feel like you get me.

LAUREN GILGER: Well, and this book came out kind of in the midst of the pandemic, right? Like it didn’t get a lot of fanfare, right?

JENN MCKINLAY: It didn’t. It came out in July of 2020. So, you know, my agent and I were talking about it at the time, and I was like, “You know, the sales are great,” because I have written a lot of books before, I said. “But I really kind of thought this one was going to, you know, break out a little bit more.”

And she said, “Well, everyone’s buying self-help books, how to make sourdough and school stuff for their kids.” She’s like, “Fiction’s kind of on the back burner,” and I was like, “OK.”

LAUREN GILGER: Fair enough, fair enough. So this gives it new life in a new way, I’m sure.

JENN MCKINLAY: And I’m thrilled. I’m just thrilled.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, so I mean, one of the things that’s so fascinating about you is that you’ve not only just written so many novels is that you’re like a workhorse in the writing world, right? Like, and this is kind of how, and I don’t think people realize this, this is how you kind of make it as a writer, as a working writer, right? Like you write a lot of books.

JENN MCKINLAY: All the time. You’re always working on something. You’re either writing a draft, revising a draft, going over the page proofs, approving the art, promoting something. And I had a I have a friend, a writer, also a Valley writer, Beth Kendrick, and she had told me way back when I kind of pivoted from mystery to contemporary romance where she already was. And she said, “You know, in the writing life, it’s just the harder you work, the luckier you get,” and that’s it.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, you make your own luck in that way.

JENN MCKINLAY: Absolutely.

LAUREN GILGER: So, 60 novels finally getting one to the big screen. This is well deserved, it sounds like.

JENN MCKINLAY: Thank you.

LAUREN GILGER: Congratulations.

Jenn McKinlay is a local author, she writes romance comedies, mysteries as well. The new book, which is now on the Hallmark Channel, is “Paris Is Always a Good Idea.” Jenn, thank you so much.

JENN MCKINLAY: Thank you, Lauren.

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