Kimberly McCreight, A GOOD MARRIAGE
[0:08]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast.
[0:12]Moms don't have time to read books.
[0:14]Please sign up for my newsletter at ziviowens.com for updates on podcast guests and lots of live events.
[0:21]Hi, everybody. I'm thrilled to be partnering with Start Small Think Big.
[0:25]You need to know about them.
[0:27]They help under-resourced entrepreneurs gain access to critical services they need to build
[0:31]sustainable small businesses that generate real wealth for themselves or families in their communities.
[0:36]They do this by engaging with a top-tier network of professional volunteers who provide free
[0:42]and high-quality legal financial and marketing support. Last year alone, their and volunteer network
[0:47]provided 1,300 small businesses with pro bono support valued at $14 plus million.
[0:53]95 percent of Start Small's businesses are women, minority, or under-resourced entrepreneurs.
[0:59]No other non-profit organization in the country provides this kind of comprehensive support
[1:04]to the population. Start Small Think Big has developed a page on their website
[1:08]called Shop Our Businesses, and this page features some of the businesses that they're supporting
[1:13]who are currently doing business online and need help now more than ever to support their businesses.
[1:19]So go to startsmallthinkbig.org and help out.
[1:23]I loved talking to Kimberly McCrite about her book. She is the author of The New York Times
[1:28]Besselling Book Reconstructing Amelia, which by the way was the fifth novel she wrote
[1:32]but the first to sell, and that's a great story in and of itself. That book, Reconstructing
[1:37]Amelia, was nominated for the Edgar Anthony and Alex Awards and was called Entertainment Weekly's
[1:41]favorite book of the year. It was also option for film by HBO and Nicole Kidman's Blossom
[1:46]Films. Her second adult novel, where they found her, was a USA Today Bestseller and a Kirkus
[1:51]Best Mystery of the Year. She's also the author of The New York Times Best Selling Young Adult
[1:55]Trilogy, The Outliers, which was option for film by Lionsgate, and Reese Witherspoon's
[2:00]Pacific Standard. Her latest book is called A Good Marriage, and it is really good. So you should
[2:06]definitely check this out and follow all the twists and turns that I had to do, and it was,
[2:12]it was great. So listen to hear more about Kimberly. So welcome, Kimberly. Thanks for coming
[2:16]on mom's turn. I have time to read books. Thank you so much. I'm very excited to be here.
[2:20]Would you mind telling listeners what your amazing book is about? I truly enjoyed it and got
[2:26]so wrapped up in it, by the way, that the kids are sitting next to me when I was reading it,
[2:30]and I was like, oh my gosh, you guys, no, no, it's not, it's, wait, no, you're not going to believe
[2:36]it. And I guess they're now my little daughter. She keeps asking me, well, you know, who was the culprit?
[2:43]Anyway, that's awesome. Rhonda, when you're putting the kids in it, that's a good time.
[2:47]It can't help yourself. Yes. Yeah. So my book, A Good Marriage, is set in my neighborhood
[2:53]park slope. It takes place over one week in the summer when most of the kids are waiting for a
[2:57]camp, and their parents are all gearing up for the event of the summer, which is an adult-only
[3:03]party with a kind of sexually adventurous side to it. It's actually adventurous, but fun. It
[3:08]was always meant to just be fun. But this year after the party, one of the women turns out dead,
[3:14]her husband is quickly arrested, and he reaches out to a former law school classmate named Lizzie.
[3:20]Lizzie is in her to the neighborhood whose own marriage is falling apart. As she's drawn into
[3:26]park slope, she quickly realizes that neither her friend nor his wife or who they appear to be,
[3:32]but then her own husband doesn't seem to be either. A Good Marriage is really
[3:36]part legal suspense, part domestic suspense, but it's also meant to be a genuine exploration of what
[3:42]it means to sustain a marriage over time, and the secret some couples keep and the compromises
[3:48]they make in order to stay together, whatever the cost. Awesome. Well done. Good summary.
[3:55]Let's back up here to this Sleepaway camp party where all the parents are sneaking upstairs to
[4:00]different rooms to get together with different people. Did you just make this up or was this a party
[4:05]or invited to? Or am I just not invited to the Sleepaway camp parties? What's going on? I don't know.
[4:11]Yeah, I don't know what to tell you to be if you're not invited. I really don't
[4:15]tell you. It's a party we host every year now. Although I have definitely started considering
[4:22]it after any of the books, but the party itself is really a compilation of a couple different
[4:26]things, parties like that that happen, parties that I know about, situations that I know about,
[4:32]I will say it's not an exact replica of an exact party, but it's really a piecemeal compilation
[4:37]of a number of different things from Park about. I was very struck by how sort of chill everybody
[4:43]was about what had been going on and who had been upstairs with who and everybody's just like, oh yeah,
[4:47]you know, no biggie. Kind of attitude. I mean, you know, in the process of writing this book,
[4:53]I talked to a lot of people in all different areas like, you know, middle of the country,
[4:58]California just friends, I'm talking about the subject matter, and really almost everybody had a
[5:02]story of something like this in their community, which I found really interesting and it is always
[5:08]a piece of it is people don't know if it's real, right? Like, you know, none of the people I spoke
[5:13]had been to the parties themselves, but, you know, I'd actually heard of someplace of people wearing
[5:18]a particular kind of clothing to signal on Friday nights that they were going to be at this party
[5:23]that it happened. So, you know, I know that for sure they do go on, I think they take different forms
[5:27]depending on where community you're in. Wow. Well, interesting. I'm remarried as of three years
[5:35]ago, so I'm not really in the market for any swapping, but I wish I had known. No, I'm kidding.
[5:41]If it's you can let me know. No, no, no, no, I'm good. I'm all good. That's funny. You must
[5:49]tell me about how you got such a good legal perspective in this book because it's very much
[5:54]felt like you must, are you a lawyer yourself? I'm sure I should know this. You have like,
[5:58]it was all very real and detailed and everything. Yeah, I was a practicing attorney for, I guess,
[6:04]three or four years. I was a big firm litigator in New York. I worked at Cravath right out of
[6:08]law school that I worked at poise. I do have big firm experience, but that was all as a corporate
[6:13]litigator. The only criminal experience I had, I did a little bit of pro bono work and I was a summer,
[6:18]a summer intern at the U.S. Attorney's office. So, I have a little criminal experience,
[6:22]but I could not certainly have written this book without being a lawyer because what it allowed me
[6:26]was, was to know what I didn't know. And so from that point, I consulted a lot of experts. I had a
[6:32]criminal defense attorney who let me shadow him and he took me to Rikers. You know, I actually went
[6:36]to Rikers and sat in one of those rooms and rode the bus and like, you know, did the whole thing.
[6:41]So, I, I know what that's like. And I went and watched him argue in court and listen to him talk
[6:46]about his clients. And biggest criminal law is a very specific thing. And if you go to a national
[6:51]law school, I went to Penn and Philadelphia, you cannot to learn about a lot of the details of it.
[6:56]So, I did that first. And then I also, and I consulted like a U.S. attorney who had made the transition
[7:04]to working in a private firm. So, to get some of those, those details because again, having my background,
[7:10]I knew enough to know what I know. And what questions to ask. But then after I had written the book,
[7:16]I had a lot of people read it. I really wanted to get the details right. So, I had that
[7:21]same criminal defense attorney read it. I had a prosecutor read it. I consulted a retired homicide
[7:25]detective. I consulted a fingerprint expert who worked on the fingerprints during 9-11. So,
[7:31]I did a lot of research. I tend to do research after the fact though. I really just wrote the
[7:36]book first to me. Those things don't lead. They are things that worked out after the fact. So,
[7:40]I did have to change some details to get that kind of stuff right at the very end. But I really
[7:46]leave the character first, not even a story. And then, once I get the characters right, then I'm
[7:51]working on reflecting the mystery. And then last for me is really those kind of details because I
[7:56]think you can tweak the story to make the details exactly right. But the twists and turns in
[8:01]this book, like there were so many. Like, I kind of go into thrillers now thinking, okay,
[8:06]something's not going to be what I think. Like, let me have it. Where is it going to pop up? But in
[8:11]this case, there were so many like, like red herrings essentially. And things and I'm like, how did
[8:18]you go when you were plotting? Did you have it all in your head? Or did you actually think maybe
[8:23]you were going to go down that one path and then said, oh, no, wait, this could be even more
[8:27]interesting. Does that question make sense? Yeah, it absolutely makes sense. I mean, the first
[8:32]issue is I don't plot in advance. So there are like, is no plotting that takes place? Like, I
[8:37]said, I really start with the I wanted to write a book about marriage. So that really led for me,
[8:42]like the themes and the and the characters and that was my starting place. So I don't work out
[8:47]all those twists and turns. I will say that like, I know the Houdini part, which I will do my best
[8:51]not to give away. So I know there's kind of always one big central mystery. And I know, you know,
[8:57]is it going to be the person who is set up to be at the beginning, etc. So I'll know the
[9:01]answer to that question. And the rest comes through the writing and revision really. I do a first draft.
[9:08]And then I do about 10 or 12 rewrites being tire book. And by rewrite, I don't mean like,
[9:13]I mean, I almost rewrite every single word and pull out whole plot threads and knit them back
[9:19]together. I figure out the story really through that process of writing it. And it's that sounds
[9:26]terrible. It is kind of terrible and terrifying because, you know, you're going to like,
[9:32]perched on a ledge a lot of the time being like, I hope I'm going to figure this out. And I was
[9:37]going to come together. And you're writing oftentimes from an instinctual subconscious place where
[9:42]I'm, I know something should be true. I just don't always know why. And that's when relying on
[9:47]the characters helps because if you know your characters really well and they're really well
[9:50]developed, the answer to the why. And like, you know, there's a scene early on in the book where
[9:56]Lizzie used the main character. She works with a more senior partner.
[10:00]who has her take on the case, her friend's case,
[10:03]and has her do that.
[10:04]And I knew that would be true,
[10:06]and I knew he would do that,
[10:07]and I knew who he was,
[10:09]but I didn't know why he would do that exactly
[10:12]in the very first draft.
[10:13]And later, it becomes not a big twist for the small one,
[10:16]and the book, why he wants for to take on the case.
[10:20]And that I figured out from knowing him later,
[10:23]a really developed later.
[10:24]And there is no cooler thing when, for me,
[10:27]that's why I do it,
[10:28]is when it all locks together.
[10:30]I'm like, oh my God, that's why I did that.
[10:32]Like, to be able to see it revealed to you.
[10:34]And so when the twist field gentlemen,
[10:36]a lot of them were surprising to me,
[10:38]as I revised,
[10:39]but that's the way it has been for me
[10:41]and every book I have ever written.
[10:43]And like I said, the scary part about that
[10:45]is you're writing blind most of the time
[10:48]until very late in the process,
[10:49]does it clear to me that it is gonna work out?
[10:52]And it's not always, you don't always know,
[10:55]but you write there are many twists.
[10:56]And so what I like about that is you might get some of them,
[11:00]but it's highly unlikely you will get all of them.
[11:02]So I like the idea of every reader
[11:05]kind of finding a way to be surprised in that.
[11:07]And I hope that they're surprised,
[11:08]but I hope that I've seated enough.
[11:10]I mean, every single one of the twists
[11:12]is supposed to be well-seated enough
[11:14]that at the end you feel like I didn't know that,
[11:17]but I should have or could have known that
[11:20]if I had been paying attention.
[11:21]So I end up they're satisfying for who the characters are.
[11:25]For me, when I read a mystery,
[11:27]I never wanna get to the ending
[11:28]and feel like somebody was brought on a less feel.
[11:30]Like, holy, like, oh, here's the killer,
[11:32]it's the person you didn't meet.
[11:34]It's not a guess to it because you didn't meet them before.
[11:40]That drives me crazy.
[11:41]I really wanna feel like, damn it.
[11:43]Like, ah, that should have been obvious.
[11:47]So that again, it takes a lot of revision.
[11:50]And it takes a lot of readers, giving you reactions
[11:54]because it's a very delicate balance
[11:56]between giving enough information and not too much.
[11:58]And you cannot figure that out on your own
[12:01]because you know all the twists.
[12:03]And honestly, even my agent and my editor at a certain point,
[12:06]we all know the twists too much.
[12:09]And so you'd have to constantly be finding people
[12:11]who don't know and make sure that they kind of
[12:14]didn't see something coming too much.
[12:16]And it comes down to single sentences.
[12:17]You're decided, do you say that one thing?
[12:20]That will be one thing too many.
[12:21]But it's obviously, obviously I enjoy it too.
[12:24]So it's, it's a lot of work and it's a lot of fun.
[12:27]Wow.
[12:27]I mean, it just shows like when you read it,
[12:30]it comes together so well.
[12:31]And it's nice to know that you didn't just sit down
[12:34]and type it all out and have like, I mean,
[12:36]because that makes me feel better as a reader,
[12:39]like how much thought and energy and effort went into it.
[12:42]It's just really remarkable.
[12:44]How long did this book end up taking like start to finish?
[12:46]I think I, usually it's like 18 months for me
[12:50]from start to finish the first draft so very fast.
[12:53]And I, you know, I'm working on a book now.
[12:55]I'm, you know, I can write three or 400 pages
[12:58]in a few months, but they're terrible.
[13:00]I know, like when you're gonna be done,
[13:05]I'm like, soon it's terrible.
[13:07]I mean, no one can see that, that's terrible.
[13:09]And I think it's just, if you do an outline first,
[13:12]you're front loading your work, right?
[13:13]I mean, you're figuring things out in advance.
[13:16]That's your process.
[13:16]So, you know, I can write the first draft quickly,
[13:19]but the revision process is probably
[13:21]like a 10 month long process.
[13:22]And I think, you know, it doesn't, it feels bad sometimes,
[13:26]but a lot of the time it, it just feels like my process,
[13:30]you know, I've accepted that that's just the way it is.
[13:32]And so while it can sometimes feel like wasted time,
[13:36]it's time I would have spent out on it, right?
[13:38]So it's, you're doing it at the back end of the front time,
[13:41]depending on your style.
[13:42]This is like, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
[13:44]Right.
[13:45]Exactly.
[13:46]It's working for you.
[13:48]And if I could find any of your way to do it, I would,
[13:50]but yeah, for now, I'm stuck with this,
[13:52]which is just, you know, my process.
[13:54]It is what it is.
[13:56]At least it works.
[13:58]Great, that's right.
[13:59]I also found it really interesting in the book,
[14:00]seeing up close the relationship between Lizzie
[14:03]and her husband and his dependency on alcohol
[14:06]and how that played out throughout the book
[14:08]and the different attempts to try to curtail it
[14:12]and failures and how it affected her.
[14:15]Can you talk more about adding that
[14:17]as a through line of the book as well?
[14:20]Yeah, so I'm a recovered alcoholic myself.
[14:22]And so it's something I always kind of wanted to,
[14:25]I just wanted to write about
[14:27]and I didn't get sober until after we were married,
[14:29]like I guess two or three years after we were married.
[14:32]So it's obviously different
[14:34]because this book is written from Lizzie's perspective
[14:37]from the spouse's perspective.
[14:39]And it's certainly alcohol and our marriage didn't play
[14:43]out the way it did.
[14:44]It was actually very not extremely disruptive.
[14:46]It's very disruptive and in Lizzie and San's life.
[14:49]And he loses his job as a result,
[14:52]puts him in financial difficulties.
[14:53]And I think that's, again, my situation wasn't that,
[14:57]but that's very common.
[14:59]And I think it was interesting to look at it
[15:01]from the perspective of a wife having to kind of deal
[15:05]with that fallout and take on the mantle.
[15:08]And I think it's really complicated,
[15:11]obviously becoming sober.
[15:13]And, but I think the issue more broadly is, you know,
[15:17]which everyone can relate to is the idea
[15:19]of whatever your spouse's problems are,
[15:21]whatever they struggle with,
[15:22]the fact that their problems do become your problems.
[15:26]And I was just actually talking to my husband
[15:28]about this the other night that it is,
[15:30]I think one of the biggest challenges in a marriage
[15:32]that lasts so long time is how do you continue
[15:36]to have sympathy for your spouse
[15:37]and really want to help them with their problems
[15:40]when their problems do feel like your problems?
[15:43]You know, you're like, don't bring that to me.
[15:45]That's like my problem.
[15:46]Like, I don't lie, it's hard to continue
[15:49]to care and have empathy and sympathy for those issues
[15:52]when they're so inextricably linked with your own.
[15:56]So anyway, so that was kind of how the alcohol played out,
[15:59]but I obviously like, I have a lot of knowledge
[16:02]from my own experience about what it's like
[16:04]to, it's a very scary to be an alcoholic
[16:07]and to have blackouts and not remember things.
[16:10]And so I hope that people empathize a little bit with Sam.
[16:14]I think you wrote him in such a way that you do feel bad.
[16:17]You know, he's like, devastated when he wonders
[16:20]what could possibly have happened.
[16:22]And yeah, your heart really goes out to him
[16:25]and it's really tricky situations, so.
[16:28]Absolutely.
[16:29]I think it's easy to say, like you wouldn't stay
[16:31]if you're lazy or you wouldn't, you know,
[16:33]you would make different choices,
[16:34]but then it's really seeing them play out
[16:36]on a moment by moment basis.
[16:38]She struggles to be like,
[16:39]I'm gonna make an ultimatum now or I'm gonna do this thing.
[16:42]And you can see why it's so easy.
[16:43]Like these problems look so easy when they outside
[16:46]when you're not in the marriage yourself,
[16:48]but it's a lot more complicated when you're in it.
[16:50]I feel like any problem inside of marriage
[16:52]is magnified because you're living at 24 seven
[16:55]and it's like, it's like, like you were saying,
[16:58]it's mirrored back and forth.
[16:59]So it grows exponentially.
[17:02]Yeah. What do you think you've written now
[17:04]but called a good marriage?
[17:05]What's like, what is a good marriage?
[17:07]You know, I think that really the central point of the book
[17:10]is it's different for every couple.
[17:13]And that maybe is or maybe isn't a satisfying answer,
[17:16]but a bit of what the book looks at is I think
[17:19]that we believe that I think as a society,
[17:22]we try to say that that marriage is,
[17:24]there is kind of a good marriage
[17:25]or these clear things must do to have a good marriage.
[17:28]Like you must be faithful and you must be completely honest.
[17:32]And you must, you know, your spouse must be your best friend
[17:37]and these are rules, right?
[17:39]Like, and if you do these things,
[17:40]that that is a good marriage.
[17:42]And I just think it's really kind of a fallacy.
[17:45]I think that that might be true in certain marriages,
[17:47]but how could there be one kind of good marriage
[17:50]when people are all so different?
[17:52]And I think a marriage really is a living thing
[17:55]between two people.
[17:57]So there's you, there's your spouse
[17:58]and then there's your marriage,
[18:00]which is something that has to be like cultivated
[18:02]and sustained and changes over time
[18:04]because you change over time.
[18:06]And so does your spouse.
[18:07]And the things you need change over time,
[18:09]which is why some marriages don't succeed
[18:11]and they don't, people don't stay together
[18:13]because they change.
[18:14]It doesn't mean necessarily that they were wrong
[18:16]to begin with.
[18:17]And so I really didn't, I don't,
[18:19]I don't want people to come away with an idea
[18:21]that there is one thing that makes a good marriage,
[18:24]but I'd rather have them questioning the notion
[18:26]that there are these specific ingredients
[18:29]that are gonna be true for every couple.
[18:31]Because I don't, you know, there's an example of a,
[18:33]again, I don't wanna do spoil it, too many spoilers.
[18:36]So Trump about talking about a mystery,
[18:37]but there's one couple in the book,
[18:39]they're like brutally honest with each other.
[18:41]They're like, say everything that that is on their mind.
[18:44]And that, you know, isn't necessarily the best thing.
[18:47]There's another couple that does have an open marriage
[18:51]and, you know, that doesn't necessarily turn out badly
[18:53]for them.
[18:54]So I'm really trying to play with some of these
[18:57]expectations and notions.
[18:58]And, but actually like the mirror of that in the book
[19:01]is the legal system because that's kind of the parallel.
[19:04]I think that's another institution where we're like,
[19:06]there's right and there's wrong and there's block
[19:08]and there's white and it's very simple.
[19:10]And in this book, it's very clear that both
[19:13]on the prosecution side and the defense side,
[19:15]there's a lot of gray and a lot of ambiguity
[19:18]and really what is in a sound.
[19:20]So it's meant to look at both of those things.
[19:23]So great.
[19:24]That's what made it so hard to put down.
[19:26]I mean, it's also great because you always wonder,
[19:29]I mean, everybody sort of banties about the expression,
[19:31]like you never know what goes on behind closed doors.
[19:34]So at least now you've opened up a few doors for us.
[19:37]And we get to peek in.
[19:40]Well, that's, yeah, that's very true.
[19:42]I mean, the thing that made me want to read the book
[19:44]to begin with was really that like, you know,
[19:46]we spent time with other couples
[19:47]in the very long time also.
[19:49]And I'm just, never cease to be amazed
[19:52]to have different, all those couples are
[19:53]in a different their marriage scene.
[19:55]You know, like, sound like the power dynamic
[19:58]is totally different or they're really affectionately.
[20:00]some bicker and and you really like welcome them from dinner and I'm always like wait
[20:04]so do they hate each other or just like they're saying like are they joking like I
[20:11]don't I really I I just find it fascinating because even it's not even that people are
[20:16]not so they're trying to hide something right like it's not like they're trying to put
[20:19]on a perfect front I think it's just the nature of of it like you eat and some people
[20:24]don't even know themselves whether they're happy right so true so that's a whole
[20:28]another layer on top of that my husband and I went to a party like in the last six
[20:32]months or maybe a year now anyway he got home and he's like I feel like we just went
[20:35]to a party where everybody there hated their spouse and I was like what do you mean
[20:41]and he's like couldn't you tell like nobody won it it was like everybody went to separate
[20:45]corners of their room there were all these angry stairs and I was like I didn't even
[20:49]notice I was just like be laughing along like so excited to see everybody he's like he's
[20:54]like I think we were and we had been just married then and he's like yeah like we were
[20:58]the only happy people and I'm like meanwhile I'm like screaming in him about something
[21:02]so who knows you know that's what that's the one I come home and I say are they happy
[21:06]I'm like wait but are we happy I know and the fact that no matter how close you are
[21:13]it's still something you don't share that much about with even people who are super close
[21:17]to you because there's there's like the sacrosanct institution part of it where you just
[21:22]don't share it all I don't know so yeah marriage it is a very complicated thing that's
[21:29]for sure well so tell me it would can you say anything about the next book you're writing
[21:33]or what the plot is yeah I mean it well it's about a group of old friends from college
[21:39]who head upstate for the weekend and they've kind of this troubled past and that troubled
[21:44]past and intersecting with them running a foul with some locals upstate there I'm a group
[21:50]of city hipsters who head upstate the cat's pills for the weekend so that's really all
[21:54]I can say about it for now but I'm excited about it and it's got a pretty unique structure
[21:59]so I'm having a lot of fun writing it I love unique structures there's something different
[22:04]that's why I also love in your book how you had all the transcripts from the court interviews
[22:09]there's a word for that that I'm not finding it to make sure your testimony thank
[22:14]you thank you thank you for that I did not I went to business school I did not go to law
[22:19]awesome do you have any advice for aspiring authors yeah I mean I yeah so so much advice
[22:25]I mean it was a very long road for me to sell my first book I wrote four unpublished books
[22:30]and it took me a decade it's the time I stopped practicing law to sell my first book so
[22:35]I think it's really important to understand that it can be a really long road if what
[22:39]you want is like publication with a traditional publisher and that there's a lot of hard work
[22:44]of all but there is also a degree of luck and I think it's important to recognize that
[22:50]I think that cannot underestimate the importance of getting feedback like having a writer's
[22:55]group or even just having it is not to be a group even just like a couple but you don't
[22:59]want just one person like you want several people because opinions differ such a subjective
[23:05]enterprise but is impossible as I was talking about with my book and trying to figure out
[23:10]the mystery you really can't see what you're doing if the story in your head is the story
[23:15]that's ending up on the page if you don't have people responding to it so that's just really
[23:20]a part of the process and you have to learn to take feedback and digest it and figure out
[23:26]what it means for you that you know perseverance does does matter and it can be you know
[23:31]like you I think it's easy to look at people who have published books and think oh you know
[23:35]that came easily for them but behind every published author is usually a story of a lot
[23:40]of failure what made you keep trying after four books that didn't sell why did you not give
[23:45]up terror now I had I had thrown away a lustrous career to chase the dream so that that
[23:53]was a piece of it I did get extremely lucky my first book I wrote I took a leave of absence
[23:57]from my job which is lucky so I was able to know I could give it a try and I had this
[24:02]job to go back to and I like was able to defer my law school loans and all that stuff
[24:07]that's really lucky but in that time I got an agent and I finished the book and that year
[24:12]and I got an agent and I almost sold it right away and so I think that was I want to
[24:17]do it luck yes it was a rejection but to have that success so quickly relatively speaking
[24:23]as a writer you know success can come in the former projection sometimes so to have that
[24:27]success I held on to that for years because I really believed that if I had accomplished
[24:33]I had no training I was never an English major and so I never taken a class and writing
[24:38]and I thought if I did that in a year I'm a big believer in hard work and so I thought
[24:42]if I keep working at it but to be clear by the time I was on book four and it was your
[24:47]10 like things were dark it was not like it was not good and that was 2008 and I had
[24:54]started looking for a job again I decided that that was it I was done and I like I
[25:00]things to offer the world I just was more unhappy than I was happy you know chasing the stream
[25:04]and so I was like I'm going to go back and be a lawyer but no one would hire me because everyone
[25:09]was out there I'm literally like I looked for a job everywhere and so I finished reconstructing
[25:14]a million my first book only because I couldn't find a job and I actually finally got a job
[25:19]offer working at Penn Law in their communications department so I'd have to commute from New York
[25:25]City to training every day with ridiculous I got that job offer two days before the auction was
[25:31]held to sell reconstructing Amelia and you know I sold it and then I got to call and say I'm not
[25:36]taking the job which was the best phone call to make ever but anyway so you know it was it's not
[25:44]easy you know at some point like you know you have a lot of dark times and you have to find ways
[25:48]to to get affirmation and and build a life around the process that allows you to keep doing it
[25:54]and again I'm really lucky I was my husband financially supported me and I think it's important to
[26:00]know that know people's stories because it's easy to look at people and be like how do you know how
[26:04]they do that I had somebody supporting my financially and enabled me to chase a dream and like that's
[26:10]you know you see you have to find either a day job or you know situation that allows you to just
[26:14]to not give up wow well that's super inspiring thank you so much thank you for coming I'm
[26:19]starting to read books thank you for shining light on a lot of other marriages for my reading
[26:24]pleasure of course it was so great to meet you thank you so much for the time you too thank you
[26:30]thank you thank you thank you thank you for listening to moms and have time to read books with
[26:34]Zibi Owens please make sure to sign up for my newsletter at zibiowans.com to get more updates about
[26:40]episodes like these and also lots of live events thanks to our sponsor start small sink big
[26:46]helping communities thrive one entrepreneur at a time you can shop all their businesses and support
[26:52]so many small businesses during this really difficult time due to the coronavirus so please go check
[26:57]them out start small sink big.org you can follow me on instagram at moms don't have time to read
[27:03]books thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at texture sound for the sound editing and thank you to
[27:08]morning moon productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music thanks for listening
[27:13]you could always email me at zibi at zibiowans.com