Laura Zigman, SEPARATION ANXIETY
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[1:22]I'm so excited to be here today with Laura Zigman, who's the author of animal husbandry,
[1:26]dating Big Bird, piece of work, her and her latest novel separation anxiety.
[1:31]She has been a contributor to The New York Times, The Washington Post,
[1:34]and have post. Her novel animal husbandry was made into the movie Someone Like You
[1:38]with Ashley Judd and Hugh Jackman. She produced a popular online series of animated videos
[1:43]called Annoying Conversations and was the recipient of a Yatto residency. She currently lives with
[1:47]her husband, son, and dog. So welcome, Laura. Thanks so much for coming on most of the time to
[1:52]read books. Thanks, I'm thrilled to be here. So we were just talking a while ago, a year ago,
[1:57]I read the news that Laura's book, Separation Anxiety, has been picked up for a book deal
[2:02]in publishers marketplace, and I was doing this very short-lived video called The Highlights,
[2:08]where I was talking about all the really cool things in the book industry for the week,
[2:11]which I ran out of time to do. Anyway, I mentioned Laura's book deal in the video and posted it,
[2:16]and she wrote me back right away, which was so cool. And now here we are, and the book is coming out,
[2:21]and it's just so exciting. It's so exciting because that was my first time having anything to do
[2:26]with a book in, you know, 14 or 15 years. And it was my first thing on social media, because
[2:31]back when my last book was published, Facebook wasn't even out. Twitter wasn't out. It was my space.
[2:36]So it was really exciting to see something on its side. I'm glad I've ushered you to do it to myself
[2:41]right away. I know, I was going to say, oh, thank you for your question. I don't think so.
[2:45]Well, anyway, I'm pleased I could bring you into the modern era, but now you're just crushing it
[2:50]all over so anyway. So Separation Anxiety, what inspired you to write this book, and what is it
[2:56]Separation Anxiety is about a couple who can't really afford to get divorced. And so they
[3:01]have to live together and stay in the same house. They live in separate parts of the house,
[3:05]because the cover for their newly teenage son is that, you know, one of them is Nora. So of course,
[3:10]it's Judy who snores, but she claims that it's Gary who snores, but he sleeps in the basement
[3:15]in a spare bedroom. And it's also about Judy who has got to a point in her life at 50 where
[3:21]a lot of us get at that age where loss seems to be the prevalent thing where she's lost both
[3:27]her parents and her career has gone downhill and she's can't seem to kind of get things going.
[3:33]And obviously her marriage is challenging and her son is now a teenager who becomes just a typical
[3:41]kind of quiet, secretive kid that she could no longer snuggle. And so in that emotional space,
[3:50]she, one day, looks at the dog and decides to start to wear the dog in an old baby sling.
[3:58]An old baby sling that she never even wore her son in, but that she was cleaning out the
[4:03]basement to try to declutter and suddenly finds the sling and things. Oh boy, I'm going to put the dog
[4:08]in there. And that's her form of self comfort. Did you do that? No, so I think, you know, this is
[4:13]where fiction comes in. So my fiction is, I call it semi autobiographical fiction, but it's always
[4:19]based on things that I'm going through or that friends of mine are going through. And so I had
[4:25]gotten a dog late in life for 11 years ago. I didn't grow up with animals pets. My family was allergic.
[4:30]So when we got a dog 11 years ago, I just, you know, like the lights went on. I finally understood
[4:35]what it meant to have that kind of support, you know, like not actually a support dog for me, but
[4:41]it really became one. So even though I never actually wore my dog in a sling, I feel like I wore
[4:46]my dog because my dog, whose name is Lady, was with me during a lot of really, really difficult
[4:52]times when both my parents got ill. I had my dog with me at the hospital or the treatments or whatever.
[4:57]And in all phases of my life since then, which, you know, are challenging in different ways,
[5:03]like the dog is just a huge part of it. So again, I never actually wore it, but now I see that there
[5:08]are slings. You can buy dog slings at Margaret Show wears her dog in a sling. She's a chihuahua,
[5:16]so she is on the red carpet with her dog in an actual dog, a sling may make them.
[5:21]You need to, you need to brand them. You need to make your own next year. Next year, yeah,
[5:26]that's your brand-mate stay with that. Yeah. So that's, but when I wrote this, I didn't,
[5:30]I didn't know they were dog slings. Like I didn't, it just kind of came up with it because I thought,
[5:34]well, that would be so nice to carry my dog around, actually carry her with me.
[5:39]There's something nice about having something like that stuff against your heart, you know,
[5:42]like a baby, so not anymore. Yeah. So I think one of like, I can't wait to be a grandmother,
[5:48]just a hold of baby, you know, it's very comforting. Yeah. Yeah. I worked actually at a new baby,
[5:55]you know, to Mount Sinai Hospital when I was in high school, and I volunteered there like once
[5:58]a week, every afternoon. You got to just hold the babies, I know. So cute. And it's like to dream,
[6:02]yeah. I love that. There was this one down syndrome baby who got abandoned at the hospital,
[6:08]so I formed this full attachment. But anyway, so I knew I can relate to that feeling of wanting
[6:12]the dog next to you. And by the way, when I was reading this, I was in this like very posh,
[6:17]Beverly Hills hair salon, actually getting my highlights done to a tall coming full circle.
[6:21]And they're beautiful. And literally like four women came up to me and said,
[6:24]is that really a dog that's laying? Is that, you know, tell me about this book. So,
[6:28]anyway, great cover. I love it too. It's funny you said this book is about a couple of the
[6:33]kind of four to get to work, which obviously is one of the main plot lines. But it's also
[6:38]about the separation anxiety of a child growing up, which I feel like to me is super relevant.
[6:44]I have two 12 and a half year olds. Yeah. I was hoping I could just read this passage,
[6:48]which got to me. Yeah. And then you can talk about it. I'm 50 when I head down to the basement.
[6:53]My son is 13. He no longer wears matching pajamas or explains the virtues of buttermilk
[6:58]egg o' waffles compared to homestyle, or holds my hand when we cross the street or walk through
[7:02]supermarket. He no longer begs for Legos pulling me into the store at the mall,
[7:06]pointing at the boxes, jewels on the shelves, gifts waiting to begin.
[7:10]It's hard for me to believe those moments ever happened, but I was ever in the middle of all that
[7:14]love and time and possibility and that now I'm not. Like I'm like about to cry.
[7:19]Life eventually takes away everyone and everything we love and leaves us bereft. Is that
[7:23]it's sad lesson? Oh, I mean, like how can you read this passage and not want to cry? Tell me
[7:29]about writing this passage and and the feelings behind it. You know, I started writing this
[7:34]about four years ago and and it was a tough time. It's I hadn't been writing in a long time. I
[7:39]hadn't had a massive case of writers block for years and years. And so it's really out of
[7:44]the game, out of the business. All my friends were publishing and I was happy for them.
[7:48]And I really, you know, finally got back and decided to really in between other things I was
[7:54]doing to earn a living to try to write this novel. And I had no interest really in writing
[7:58]just a really light, fluffy book, especially once politics changed, once I was in actually writing
[8:05]it. I mean, it took me three or four years to write. The world took on a really kind of deeper
[8:10]more serious tone. And I just wanted I wanted to be real and talk about what it feels like to be
[8:16]in your 50s. You know, with a marriage. I mean, all of us, if you're married, most people have
[8:21]challenging marriages, whether they admit it or not or whether they resolve them or not and stay
[8:26]together. Most people, if you're married, you have a challenging situation. And if you have kids,
[8:32]you know, they grow up. And that's hard. Of course, it's not as hard as people who actually lose
[8:37]their kids. But you do lose that version of your child when they, when they turn into a teenager,
[8:43]you know, as you know, you're used to sort of like you go in their room at night and you
[8:47]say good night and they tell you everything. They tell you everything. It's just like they talk
[8:50]and they talk and they talk. And you know, every single thing they're thinking about, you know,
[8:53]what they like, what games they want to do that this is, then suddenly they stop talking,
[8:57]especially boys, you know, they're socialized. Like, and you can raise them. However, you think,
[9:02]you know, to prevent that, but it's just a stage. And my son is now 19. And you know, we talk a lot
[9:10]now, but I mean, it was like, you know, there's a period. Oh, yeah. I mean, I was I'm really lucky and
[9:15]and most kids, I know friends of my kids, you know, they go through that phase. And then they,
[9:20]they come back, but it's really hard when you're facing it. It's such an abrupt, it's like,
[9:24]all of a sudden, this wall comes down and it's, it's really sad, you know, to have that because you,
[9:31]you miss that real connection that, you know, a pig feeling.
[9:35]He wrote another passage and then I'll stop making myself cry here every day. I try to square
[9:40]the fact that I don't know. Can't know. We'll never know everything crossing his mind. The minute
[9:45]it crosses it the way I used to because he used to tell me and doesn't anymore. Sometimes even
[9:49]the dog isn't enough to keep those molecules from coming apart. Yeah, just, you know, that same
[9:55]feeling of like, it's just a change. And I think it when you
[10:00]when you get to a certain point in your life and some people have a lot of loss in their
[10:03]threat. I had friends who lost parents and friends really early on. So it's not necessarily
[10:08]that it happens in my phase, but a lot more friends die and a lot of your family starts.
[10:13]I mean, you know, there are funny parts in the book. But I know I'm making it sound a lot
[10:18]up, but I'll do it. No, but I mean, it is like it's real. And I think that that, you know,
[10:23]that's when friends started to get sick and my parents, you know, all that stuff. So it is,
[10:29]you know, those seemingly smaller things, like being able to go into your kid's bedroom and have
[10:33]them blab. And when that stops, it's like, oh, I can't take it. I'm going to put the dog in
[10:39]this. So can we back up and go more into your life a little more and then we can come back to the book?
[10:45]So you wrote these amazing books many years ago. How did that all happen? Why was there a big
[10:52]like what was it like being so successful? Then, and then what is it that happened? I know you
[10:59]said your parents passed away, but that made these last decades of painful for you.
[11:04]So I had kind of a weird trajectory. I worked in book publishing in New York for 10 years.
[11:09]I worked in my last job was at Kenoff, and I was a book publicist. That's why I was early today.
[11:14]Thank you.
[11:14]I'm always really good. So I did that for 10 years and I was always writing in my spare time, of
[11:19]course, which there really wasn't because my job was very time consuming. And then at a
[11:22]certain point after 10 years, I moved to Washington because I was tired in New York. I got a job
[11:27]at the Smithsonian. I was home at 5, 15 every day because, you know, government. And I ended up going
[11:34]back to a novel. I had written a draft of. And I redid it. And that fall, I sent it to an agent.
[11:40]And I got really lucky. It was sold in the States. It was sold in about 25 countries. It sold to
[11:46]the movies. I had one of those experiences where I was very quickly able to quit my day job. It was
[11:52]fantastic. And that was a huge book. That was an animal husbandry. And so that really started
[11:57]my career. And I had three more novels published. Two of those other ones were optioned my
[12:04]third novel was optioned by Joey Roberts. And my fourth novel was optioned by Tom Hanks for
[12:09]near Vardella's for my big fact regretting. And because Hollywood is Hollywood, those things,
[12:13]you know, for various reasons didn't happen. And then we moved to Boston. I had met my husband
[12:16]in DC. We moved to Boston. We had a son. We ended up buying a house. I'm from Boston. We ended
[12:23]up buying a house accidentally, like a mile from my parents, which I never wanted to move home. It
[12:28]was sort of one of those weird, you know, Freud says certain new accidents. They were,
[12:31]who clearly wasn't an accident. We ended up living in my hometown, which was probably a bad thing.
[12:35]So that started a kind of regression that probably shouldn't have, shouldn't have been living
[12:41]like right there. But it was nice. You know, my son was little. My parents were around. They
[12:45]would babysit. I could write that kind of thing. But I sort of started, my career started to have
[12:51]little, you know, things would go wrong or things wouldn't happen. And then I was diagnosed with
[12:55]breast cancer and then my parents got sick. And so it was a whole, and what you don't realize is
[12:59]you sort of think like, oh, I'm just going to crank out a book every year, every two years,
[13:03]every three years. And what you don't ever take into account is like stuff's going to happen.
[13:08]You know, you're going to have years where you can't write where things are happening in your
[13:12]life where people are sick, where you have to, you know, tend to things. And, you know, the
[13:16]creative process is very delicate. And there were just years where I was like, I can't write this
[13:23]year. And it just time was going by. And at a certain point, I shifted into ghost writing. I was
[13:29]able to, um, it sort of happened, you know, by accident. But I sort of shifted into ghost writing.
[13:34]And then I really liked ghost writing. It was a way to earn money. And it was a way to
[13:39]work really closely with someone and get their story. It's a really interesting process to me.
[13:43]It's like you, you know, you clock all these hours with them and get them to tell you stuff that
[13:48]they've probably never told anyone if you're lucky. And then you write their story. There was a
[13:52]relief to that right and have to produce my own stuff. But then, you know, I longed at some point
[13:59]to go back to my own writing. But it took a really long time. I mean, it took a long time.
[14:05]And what were the, are you allowed to talk about what the ghost writing things were?
[14:08]Yeah. And yeah, most of them are not so good, but I worked with Wendy Davis, who was the Texas
[14:13]State Senator who filibustered her and her pink sneakers. I loved her. I worked with Eddie
[14:16]Azard, who's the British cross dressing actor on his memoir, I'm working with somebody right now,
[14:21]I can't say. Then she's kind of a big star. And so it's like that and other stuff that I'm not named
[14:26]on. But so it's really interesting to me. And I really like doing my own stuff too. So it was
[14:33]not really nice to get back to that. And what about writing essays or freelancing? Was it just like
[14:38]you didn't want to do any, you didn't want to tap into any of your emotions? I, you know, I wrote a
[14:43]piece a couple of years ago, a friend of mine Lisa Adams, Lisa Panchak, Adam, so a lot of people
[14:48]who were very listening to this podcast. Remember her, she died of breast cancer in 2015. And she
[14:54]had a huge blog. She kept in touch with a lot of people in social media. And she was quite
[14:59]young when she died. She was from Darien, Connecticut. So I wrote a piece about her in salon. And that
[15:04]was like the first piece I'd written in ages. And I just wasn't writing. Like I just, it was such
[15:10]a leap. I had no confidence. I hadn't done it in a really long time. And then I had worked for a
[15:16]tech company and started up in that went under. And about a year after that, I was, I was ghost
[15:21]writing a few different things. And I finally decided with the encouragement of my good friends in
[15:26]Boston, especially Alice Hoffman, who said, you know, you just really have to try. And so I ended
[15:31]up going on Craigslist and finding that I could rent an office by the hour. I was renting a
[15:37]shrinks office in Harvard Square. Because I couldn't afford like office space like, you know,
[15:41]you can go to Starbucks. And so, but I wanted like dedicated. So I would rent this shrinks office
[15:46]and when she wasn't there, you know, Sundays and part of Mondays. And I even if I sat there and
[15:51]stared at my phone, I was like, okay, this is my dedicated time. I'm not going to go
[15:55]us right today. I'm not going to food shop. I'm not going to this. I'm going to sit here and try to
[16:00]write. And luckily, over the years, I had always been doing a little bit of something. So for
[16:06]instance, in 2012, I had made friends with Jennifer Weiner online. And that summer, she said,
[16:12]come to the cave. She goes, come. I want you to get back to writing. And I wrote a screenplay
[16:17]which, you know, my agents loved, but they never sold. So I was able when I, you know,
[16:23]couple years later, when I, you know, rented the shrinks office by the hour to take pieces of
[16:29]that script, little pieces and sort of have something to start with. So I always say when people
[16:34]are blocked, like just whatever you do is not wasted. Like if you, even if the script didn't sell,
[16:40]it felt at the time like, oh, waste, but it wasn't, it wasn't at all. Because years later,
[16:46]I took pieces of that. It was a completely different story, but I was able to use pieces
[16:52]and it got me going. So it's never, nothing's ever wasted. Do you feel like writing is something
[16:59]that you either have a gift for or not? Like, can it evaporate? Because it sounds like you were
[17:04]worried that you weren't a good writer anymore. Whereas you felt confident you were a good writer,
[17:07]back when all the deals are happening. And do you think you can just suddenly not be good
[17:12]writer anymore? Like, is it something elusive? It is elusive. It's confidence. And I think
[17:17]someone said that to me at a certain point. And I finally clicked it. They sort of said,
[17:22]and I think there's something in the book about it where there was Norman Mailer or someone said,
[17:26]there is no such thing as writer's block. It's a crisis of confidence. And if you look around,
[17:30]you know, there are books that are better than other books and books that are less good than
[17:34]other books. And it doesn't matter. Like, people might think they're really good. And they
[17:37]publish their books. And they write. And I remember someone saying to me a good friend of mine
[17:41]was like, just write another book. It doesn't even have to be good. And it's sort of like,
[17:47]what's really, I think, very delicate is the sense of yourself. As you know, do you have the
[17:52]confidence? Do you feel like you can take criticism when you have a book out? You have to take
[17:58]the good with the bad. So I've had some really nice, you know, I'm on a lot of lists for 2020.
[18:02]Also, I'm sure there's other stuff coming. You have to brace yourself. You know, you have to
[18:06]not really believe the nice things because then you have to, you know, you have to really kind of
[18:12]shut down that part of yourself that really absorbs the negative, the negative stuff because it can
[18:17]get very negative. And so that part can be very affected by the outside. And it's hard to,
[18:24]it's hard to protect yourself from that because it's a public thing. I mean, and the flip side is
[18:29]you want people to read the book. And I also understand like, I go and every now and then I go,
[18:33]I'm good reads even though my friend Julie claim is like, do not go on good reads. And every now and then,
[18:37]of course, I look at good reads. And I'm like, I get it. Like I'll see a, you know, a review that's not
[18:41]so great. And I'll be like, no, I can see that, you know, I don't like it. But I get it, you know,
[18:46]I can understand or whatever. But you also don't have to really take it that series. It means one
[18:50]person's opinion. You know, and it's, but it can, it is affecting her. There are very few books that
[18:57]I feel like everybody likes because usually what you like in a book is something that's
[19:01]speaking to you and people have all their different conversations and their own heads have had
[19:06]something possibly, I don't know. It's totally subjective. It's totally subjective. Well, that's
[19:11]interesting having a steal yourself. Well, hopefully not too much because I thought this book was
[19:15]fantastic because I'm sure everybody. Well, back to the book for a minute now that I've
[19:20]pride into your life story. I also found it interesting in the marriage that you depict that
[19:25]Gary, the husband, has an anxiety disorder. And you tell it from the point of view of the wife
[19:29]and how she manages to live at someone with an anxiety disorder. And what the takeaway from that
[19:36]was, you write, I often wonder, as I do right now, if I'd known how much Gary and his anxiety
[19:40]might eclipse me, whether I still would have married him, if I'd known how hard things would be
[19:44]now, would I have made the same choice? Would he? Doesn't every married person ask themselves
[19:49]this question? I think they do. I'm sure my husband asked questions about me as well since I
[19:54]thought the easiest person to live with either, but you know, I've known a lot of people
[19:58]and certainly in my own experience.
[20:00]And so when you're dealing with a mental health situation
[20:04]or emotional issues, there's a lot of sense out there.
[20:09]It's just like, ah, enough.
[20:11]You should leave, you should leave, you should go.
[20:14]And if you're talking about a physical illness,
[20:16]like cancer or some kind of physical illness,
[20:18]I mean, you would never tell someone who had an ill spouse.
[20:23]It's enough already.
[20:24]They've had a relapse, like leave.
[20:27]And it's a whole different thing
[20:29]when you're dealing with marriages
[20:30]with one person who's struggling.
[20:32]And I know so many people in this position.
[20:35]And I have been in this position at times.
[20:38]And so it's very hard, you know,
[20:40]where you're trying to do the right thing for your person.
[20:43]And, you know, that's not to say every marriage has to
[20:46]state, you have to stay together.
[20:47]I mean, people split up all the time
[20:49]and people live good lives after that.
[20:51]I mean, it's what's right for you
[20:52]and what's right for your situation.
[20:54]But there is just your up against a sense
[20:59]that, you know, you're supposed to leave.
[21:02]And I thought one of the most interesting things
[21:04]and I opened the book with this little quotation
[21:06]from Esther Perelho has that, she's this, you know,
[21:09]she's had Ted talks about, she's a couple's counselor.
[21:13]I mean, she has a more elevated title than that.
[21:15]But, and she's a great podcast about, you know,
[21:18]couple's counseling.
[21:19]And one of the, one of the things,
[21:21]most interesting things that she said that I heard
[21:23]was she said it used to be that there was shame
[21:26]when people got divorced and now there's shame
[21:28]when they stay together.
[21:29]And there is a sense of like, if you're in an imperfect union
[21:33]and most of us are in some fashion,
[21:35]there is a sense of like, well, you could find something
[21:38]so much better.
[21:39]Now, there's not to say that there are times
[21:41]when you really need to leave.
[21:42]And that's not what I'm saying.
[21:44]But there are times when it's really great.
[21:46]And there is a sense that you have to explain yourself
[21:51]why you're staying.
[21:53]And I think Judy also feels like Tashi Wana stay, you know.
[21:57]So it's complicated.
[21:58]I mean, anyone who's been married knows, you know,
[22:02]on both sides.
[22:03]Do you think there's anything that people like Gary can do
[22:06]to help their spouses?
[22:08]And there are a lot of people who have anxiety
[22:10]to start with.
[22:11]The very just happens to smoke a lot of dope.
[22:13]But like a lot of people with a lot of people
[22:16]are responsible and they see strings
[22:17]and they go through different kinds of,
[22:22]like behavioral training to do things for anxiety.
[22:24]So it's just that in this guy's case,
[22:26]his go-to is like the freezer, you know,
[22:29]where he keeps his pot.
[22:31]And that's just his thing.
[22:33]But most people I know are more do that,
[22:38]but do other things too.
[22:41]Tell me a little more also about Judy's feeling
[22:44]of invisibility at her age and how she walks around
[22:47]and feels like, no, no, this is her,
[22:48]they notice the stroller, they notice the dog,
[22:51]they don't really see her.
[22:52]I feel like there's a lot these days
[22:54]about how you get to a certain age
[22:55]and people just don't notice you anymore.
[22:57]I mean, you're young and lovely.
[22:59]Wait till you get to be, I swear to God,
[23:00]it's like, on the day you turn.
[23:02]I'm not so young, but thank you.
[23:04]I appreciate that.
[23:05]But there is a sense.
[23:05]I mean, everybody looks better now because, you know,
[23:08]the 40 is the new 30 and there's all this pressure
[23:10]you're supposed to look amazing in your 60s.
[23:12]But, you know, there is an evolutionary,
[23:15]biological imperative where, you know,
[23:17]it's like the male gaze,
[23:20]they know you're not fertile, I guess.
[23:23]And, you know, in some really ambient way.
[23:26]And so, you get to a point where you either
[23:29]start to sense that or you just are exhausted by life
[23:33]and then you start to wear, you know, boxy clothes,
[23:35]you know, you know, you know, holding.
[23:37]And it, I mean, there's a scene in the book
[23:39]but it would happen to me where I would be at like Trader Joe's
[23:42]and where they talk to you, you know, everybody,
[23:45]you know, you go through the line and the guy
[23:46]is always like, oh, I love your, I love this curry
[23:49]and this is the best, you know, ice cream.
[23:52]And then you get to a point where even a Trader Joe's,
[23:54]like they talk to the woman in front of you
[23:56]and then they get to you and they're just like yawning.
[23:58]And then that was like, okay, wait a minute, you know,
[24:00]this is, but there is a point where everything really shifts.
[24:03]And then there is also a piece of that
[24:06]where it's a relief where you are invisible.
[24:08]You can walk down the street,
[24:10]you've walked down a plastic instruction site.
[24:12]Nobody says anything.
[24:13]And that's kind of nice.
[24:14]Like in the old days, that didn't happen.
[24:17]You know, you walk down past a construction site
[24:19]and someone always said something to say.
[24:21]And now you can, there's like a relief
[24:23]and a bliss in being invisible.
[24:25]You can just dress however you want.
[24:26]You can wear a dog.
[24:27]I remember I got my hair collared one day
[24:30]and by the time I was done, it was raining.
[24:32]That's for the highlights.
[24:33]I should have this sponsored by like,
[24:34]the girl over here.
[24:35]I'm gonna, yeah.
[24:36]Then I got my, I got my, you know, the gray covered.
[24:39]And by the time she was done with me, it was raining out.
[24:42]And, okay, I live in Cambridge
[24:44]so it's not like New York, but nobody cares
[24:46]what you look like anyway.
[24:47]But I didn't have an umbrella.
[24:48]She didn't have an umbrella.
[24:49]So she gave me a shower cap.
[24:51]So I put, you know, like it just a really crappy shower cap.
[24:54]And she was sort of like,
[24:55]are you gonna walk home like that?
[24:56]And I was like, oh yeah.
[24:57]So I walked all the way home with a shower cap
[25:00]covering my hair because it just been blown.
[25:03]And I didn't care.
[25:04]First of all, nobody looked at me.
[25:05]And also, I can care.
[25:07]No, if I were 30, I would never have done that.
[25:09]I would have, you know, never have walked home
[25:11]with a shower cap.
[25:12]But that's, you know, that's part of this back and forth.
[25:17]Like you want to be seen in there.
[25:18]Sometimes you don't want to be seen.
[25:19]And so you have to, it's a shift.
[25:21]You go back and forth.
[25:23]So now that you're back in the writing world
[25:26]less than invisible in this industry, quite the opposite.
[25:30]Are you happy to be back?
[25:31]Are you like, oh, thank God.
[25:33]I found my way back here.
[25:34]And now I'm doing in my happy place.
[25:36]And I'm writing again.
[25:37]And I can't wait to do more stuff.
[25:38]Is that how you feel?
[25:39]Or is it more complicated?
[25:40]Yeah, I mean, it is more complicated.
[25:42]I mean, on the one hand, I'm beyond thrilled.
[25:44]I never thought I would finish that book.
[25:46]I never thought it would sell.
[25:47]I mean, I ended up at a great publisher Echo.
[25:49]They're great.
[25:50]Everything's great.
[25:51]I have a great agent.
[25:52]I mean, I know complaints is zero zero.
[25:53]And I'm just completely thrilled and nervous
[25:57]because like I haven't started another book.
[25:59]And I, you know, the same, you know, it's like every time
[26:02]you do something, you think you can't do it again.
[26:04]And so I just did it.
[26:05]And now I'm like, I can't do it again.
[26:07]I'll never do it again, you know.
[26:09]And I know I will.
[26:10]But it's just, it's very hard to write a novel.
[26:15]And when you get to the end of one, you're just like,
[26:18]wow, I can't believe I did that.
[26:21]And then the idea of like being able to start again,
[26:24]because you know, there's my fifth novel.
[26:27]So, and I've written other books too.
[26:29]And so you just know how much work it takes.
[26:31]You know how many drafts.
[26:32]I mean, when you write the first 20 pages,
[26:35]you think you have it.
[26:36]And then you're like, nope.
[26:38]And you write the first 100 pages, you think you have it.
[26:40]You used to show my husband, my pages.
[26:42]And he used to write for the New Yorker.
[26:44]He was a really skilled writer and really smart reader.
[26:47]And he only had the best intentions.
[26:50]Like when he read the, you know, different versions of this.
[26:53]And I remember at the beginning, he was just like, no.
[26:57]And I'd go back and I'd be like, no.
[27:00]And then finally, he was like, yeah.
[27:02]Like it finally was on the road.
[27:04]And it, but it takes a while.
[27:06]It takes like draft after draft.
[27:08]And you're trying to get the voice right.
[27:10]First person, third person, you know, what's the plot?
[27:13]It's hard, but it's great.
[27:16]So I'm really, I hope that I have another idea
[27:19]for something and I hope that, you know,
[27:21]one of these days it gets started on it.
[27:23]You know, it's so funny because you would never think
[27:25]that you're sort of plagued by all the sense of care
[27:27]that you have is.
[27:29]I mean, it's great.
[27:30]You would just like go to a bookstore and you look at people's books.
[27:32]And you're like, wow, they're so accomplished.
[27:34]And that's amazing.
[27:35]And yet after all this time, you can say, oh, gosh,
[27:38]I don't know if I can do anything.
[27:39]I think it's a myth, you know, and I think it's a myth
[27:41]that everybody is just like, you know,
[27:44]people think that like, I mean, I'm looking around
[27:46]this beautiful room of yours with all these books.
[27:48]And, you know, I mean, there's some people more confident
[27:51]than others.
[27:52]But I think most writers and most writers
[27:54]who aren't published yet feel that.
[27:56]And it's normal.
[27:57]And you just everybody faces that.
[27:59]Like just because you have published doesn't mean
[28:03]you're going to publish again.
[28:04]I mean, for someone who had the career
[28:06]I started out with to then not have anything come out
[28:10]for 14, 15 years.
[28:13]Like that happens, you know, lots of people, I mean,
[28:17]there's lots of people publishing right now.
[28:18]Same thing.
[28:19]We're like long stretches.
[28:21]And I find those people really interesting as like, you know,
[28:24]but it's challenging.
[28:26]You just have to kind of like push yourself each time.
[28:30]And do you have any, I feel like you've given so much advice
[28:32]throughout this conversation?
[28:34]Any other advice to aspiring authors?
[28:36]People may be starting out with their first book,
[28:38]I said, from how long it is.
[28:39]If you're more encouraging.
[28:41]Yeah, I mean, I think it's just like,
[28:43]there's also these, I do some coaching for people
[28:45]in my spare time.
[28:46]And I think a lot of people who are aspiring think
[28:49]that if they don't write every day or if they, you know,
[28:51]they look at Instagram and it's like, you know,
[28:53]hashtag M writing and they're supposed to be writing
[28:55]every single day.
[28:56]And if they're not writing, you know, that they're all
[28:57]these rules.
[28:57]And I'm just like, I go for years without writing.
[29:00]I mean, obviously don't follow my example.
[29:02]But what I mean is like, I'll go for months without writing.
[29:05]And then I write a lot.
[29:06]And there is no right or wrong way.
[29:08]It's just like, what's right for you?
[29:10]And there'll be periods where you can't write.
[29:12]You're either busy with your family
[29:13]or you're busy with other work or you're busy
[29:16]or you just can't.
[29:17]And there are other things you can do.
[29:18]You can read, you can keep a journal.
[29:20]You can do what you try to write a script.
[29:23]I mean, you can do all sorts of different things,
[29:26]even if you're unable to tap into that writer voice
[29:30]that you want.
[29:31]So I think it's just, and also just remembering
[29:33]that nothing is wasted, nothing.
[29:36]You know, if you're keeping a journal,
[29:37]you might be able to go back and use something.
[29:39]There might be something in there that you could start with.
[29:41]Start a story with your start is a novel with.
[29:43]And that nothing is wasted.
[29:45]And just because you're not, you know,
[29:47]you don't have pages or you don't have a manuscript
[29:49]or you're not doing it every day.
[29:51]Just do it anyway.
[29:53]However, you can, you know.
[29:55]Love it.
[29:56]If anybody wants to hear more of Laura
[29:58]and me sitting and chatting like this,
[29:59]I'll see you next week.
[30:00]And if you live at the Striker Center,
[30:01]it tends to be so new out.
[30:02]Me too, when it's in May, yeah.
[30:04]Yeah, I think so.
[30:05]I think so.
[30:06]Sure, it's on the, it'll be on my website all over the place.
[30:08]So come see us in person.
[30:11]And thank you so much for coming in.
[30:12]Thank you, Super.
[30:13]You've been listening to Momstone Have Time to read books
[30:16]with Zibi Owens.
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[30:50]Thanks for listening.
[30:51]You could always email me at zibiatzibiowens.com.