Anna Solomon, THE BOOK OF V.
[0:08]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens and you're listening to the award-winning podcast.
[0:11]Moms don't have time to read books.
[0:13]Thanks so much for listening to my podcast.
[0:15]If you like what you hear, please follow me on Instagram at ziviowens and also at
[0:20]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books and sign up for my mailing list at ziviowens.com where I'll
[0:25]always keep you updated on what I'm up to.
[0:27]I'm so excited that recliner NYC is partnering with me because I found this longish
[0:35]nightgown thing and I don't wear nightgowns usually but it would like a floor length kind of
[0:39]dress made out of the softest fabric I've ever felt and the front is like right and the back
[0:44]is black and it goes all the way to the floor and I saw it on an edit Instagram and had to get it
[0:49]and now I bought it and I'm obsessed so we went after recliner in New York City and they gave us
[0:54]a discount and you can find it on my website. It's amazing. I'm so excited to partner with them.
[1:01]Nine tenths of the customers told them that their products have helped improve their sleep which
[1:07]I totally believe because these pajamas and my nightgown and everything are functional but kind of
[1:14]stylish and really awesome. So go to recliner.nyc and use code Moms X recliner. Moms X recliner and you get
[1:26]20% off which I wish I had had when I got my nightgown so anyway go check it out and tell me what
[1:31]you think I loved it. I had the privilege of interviewing author Anna Solomon on the Good Morning
[1:37]America Book Club Instagram Live account. Her book The Book of V was the GMA Book Club pick for
[1:43]the month of May and I got to interview her there so this is the recording of our live Instagram
[1:49]conversation so if you want you can also watch us talk if this isn't good enough but Anna Solomon is
[1:55]the author of three novels The Book of V which I mentioned leaving Lucy Pear and The Little Bride.
[2:00]She's a two-time winner of The Push Cart Prize. Her short fiction essays and reviews have appeared
[2:05]in The New York Times magazine, plow shares one story, The Boston Globe and elsewhere. She's the
[2:10]recipient of awards from McDowell, Yatto, Breadloaf, the Rhode Island State Council for the Arts
[2:15]and the Missouri Review among many others. Previously she was an award-winning journalist for
[2:20]national public radios living on earth. Anna is a graduate of Brown University and the Iowa Writers
[2:25]Workshop and teaches writing at Barnard College, Warren Wilson's MFA program and creative writing
[2:30]and the 92nd Street Y Unturberg Poetry Center. Anna was raised in Gloucester, Massachusetts and
[2:36]lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and two children. I hope you enjoy our talk together.
[2:40]Hi, how are you? Good, how are you? I'm good. You're amazing. I was like how can you keep all of this
[2:47]in your head? If I held up 20 books that I had read recently, I would just be like and this one
[2:53]was really good. I just incredible that you can hold all of that. No, I can't remember college,
[3:02]but I can't remember all these books or crisp in my head. At least I found this one
[3:10]sort of arcane piece of knowledge that I can exploit these days, so that's nice.
[3:14]Speaking of gifts of knowledge though, oh my gosh, your book. There's so many interesting things
[3:22]in your book. I, first of all, can you please tell everybody listening to this eventual podcast
[3:29]and everybody on GMA Book Club? What the book of the is about and what inspired you to write it?
[3:34]Yes, I would love to. This is the final cover. I'll just hold it up with that beautiful GMA seal on it,
[3:39]which made me have to keep it covered for the week in which I got it. First,
[3:44]very excited. So the book is about three different women spread out across three different centuries.
[3:50]There is a contemporary mother of two in Brooklyn, New York in 2016. There is a US senator's wife
[3:57]in 1973, Washington, D.C. And then there's a teenage Esther in ancient Persia. You might recognize
[4:05]the name Esther and she is in fact Esther as in Queen Esther from the Bible. And the book
[4:10]intertwines their stories, their stories sort of intertwine. And as it goes, you start to see them
[4:15]converge until they ultimately collide in the present. Which is absolutely good. No, I was just gonna say
[4:23]I did not, I felt kind of like a moron because at the end, I did not see how those were all intersecting.
[4:28]I just didn't. And I was like, oh my gosh, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's what I wanted
[4:36]to have happen for me. Okay. Those are not hot moments. I mean, some, there are a couple
[4:40]places in the book that different people have, it turns out, experience them. So you might be one
[4:46]of the people who experienced it a little later than other people. But as long as you experience it,
[4:51]that's, that was the goal. I hope I wasn't like at the, like one of the slowest people to catch on.
[4:56]But no, I was literally, I was sitting reading a lot of the kids were watching Paw Patrol and
[5:01]literally out loud. I was like, oh my gosh, wait, no, no, no, wait.
[5:05]Yeah. Yeah. Not feeling that I love as a reader. And so producing that feeling in my readers is,
[5:12]is really a joy. How this story is complicated and intricate and not in, in only a good way.
[5:19]But just there's so many by interweaving three different stories first of all. And even within
[5:24]those stories, the complications, how did you go about structuring it and writing it and not getting
[5:29]confused yourself and then figuring out when to do what? I mean, it's a, it's an art form, really.
[5:36]How did you do that? Yeah. I mean, it was a challenge. It really was, I thought of it at times,
[5:41]it felt like, okay, I'm making a building, like I felt like an architect. And then at other times,
[5:45]I was like, well, this is more like, I'm making a symphony, like a composer. And I'm neither an
[5:50]architect nor a composer nor do I know much about either thing. But I am a very structural thinker.
[5:56]And I think, you know, the only way I could have written this book or even conceived of it is
[5:59]because of that. And I, I did do, I use a lot of index cards. That's one of my big organizational
[6:06]sort of tools, very basic. But so I'll, you know, like I, every single scene was, was an index
[6:12]card. And then I had them color coded at various times. And then I would put them up in my workspace
[6:18]so that I could sort of see how they were relating to each other. And I actually did it part by
[6:22]part to break it down further because the books and three parts, they're three women. But then
[6:25]there are three parts to the books. So for each part, I would, I had like, here's, this is going
[6:29]to be this scene and this one, then this one, then this one, then this one, they're going to weave
[6:32]like this. And then I would put in sort of the different objects and themes and gestures that I
[6:38]had running through the book. I would kind of attach them to those cards. Because then I think
[6:42]it was helped me to see it visually instead of just you can't hold a whole novel in your head,
[6:48]even a, even a sort of slim novel. And this is not one, you know, this is like a big ranging
[6:52]novel. You, you still, you can't hold it in your head. And so finding ways to be able to visualize
[6:57]pieces of it at a time was really helpful. Wow, still though. I mean, all the index cards in the
[7:03]world that I mean, it's, it's, it's an enormous speed. Can we talk about the Esther portion?
[7:10]Did you research all that? What of that is recorded? What did you glean from the Bible? Like,
[7:16]how much of that is actually what happened? Because I only know the like, let's up dress up for
[7:21]the poor and carnival version, right? Not this version. What's really interesting, this is, this is
[7:27]my version. This is not, and the thing is that nobody knows what happened. And when you go to do the
[7:34]research, which I did, I mean, I read an incredible amount about it in the book of Esther itself,
[7:39]but also about it. Like all, I mean, for thousands of years, people have as, as with anything from
[7:43]the Bible, people have been writing about it, arguing about it, reinterpreting it, creating new
[7:48]stories about it. So I just was joining this like long line of people doing that. But one of the
[7:52]things I figured out very early on is that no one knew what like what it was actually, what was
[7:58]going on at this time in terms of like that this was based in any fact. No one has any idea who wrote
[8:03]this book or when. I mean, there's even some people theorize that a Greek person could have written
[8:08]this like hundreds of years later. There's really very little information. And what's so interesting
[8:13]when you talk about like what's the record, the only record when you do the research, it all
[8:17]drives you back to the book of Esther. Like a lot of people when they're looking at what happened
[8:22]in ancient Persia, their source is actually the book of Esther, which is in my mind. And in many
[8:28]people's mind, a work or fiction, you know, it itself. I mean, there are people who would argue with
[8:32]me about that obviously. And people who take it in a much more fundamental sense like this is
[8:37]what really happened. But in terms of, I mean, yeah, so I took it very much in that spirit, and I
[8:41]played with it in that spirit and sort of reinterpreted it in that way. Interesting. Yes, now I
[8:47]feel like, well, first of all, I have a new perspective on that whole story. But second of all, I
[8:52]have a new perspective on all the kids even dressing up as Esther. And what about Queen Bashi? And like
[8:57]the whole thing is just, I don't know, you've like completely boggled my mind here. I'm glad. I mean,
[9:03]the book is sort of subversive in that way. It does take, you know, if you know, I think, and it's
[9:08]this story, if you know, but you don't have to know the book of Esther at all to get this book
[9:12]to get my novel. But I think the idea is that we, you know, whether it's this story or another,
[9:16]we all have had these stories. We've been told in our lives about this person's good, and this is
[9:20]person's bad. And a lot of stories are made up of that, right? Like evil. And, you know, of the
[9:25]who's the virtuous woman and who is the wanted woman and who is the aggressive woman and who's
[9:29]the me woman. And this is a story that I think like many that many of us are told in a way where
[9:34]those are very clear lines. And I was really interested in kind of shaking that up and saying,
[9:39]well, how do we know this? And if we really look at what happened, like does this ring true? And
[9:45]aren't all of us sort of some of both? Or some of all, like aren't there many women inside
[9:49]every one of us? And maybe we could, you know, do better to stop with these kind of categories that
[9:55]we tend to place ourselves and other women in. So it's hard that that's, you know, I think a real
[10:00]subject of the book and I don't write to sort of have like this is I don't write in a
[10:04]polemical sense like I have an argument to make in my novels but that's sort of I think if I had
[10:09]to have if I had to say like one thing I'm arguing in this novel it is sort of against categorization
[10:14]and like type of woman and kind of embracing us all as whole and many multifaceted.
[10:21]Interesting. I feel like there's also something to women's relationship with men in the story and
[10:26]there was so much dominance and sexual abuse and exploitation and throughout all three parts
[10:34]of the book really what points were you trying to make like that or what made you get out of it?
[10:38]I mean I think that was more of an exploration in a way but I think the book really is about power
[10:43]on a lot of levels and in an end I think at its court about really like gendered power and about
[10:50]the ways in which women historically and it turns out right now all the time are working to
[10:58]figure out how to kind of possess our own power and then in some cases how to exert it and in
[11:04]some cases where women are in fact not in control of their own lives how they find ways to even
[11:10]in those circumstances to kind of find ways to have power or to figure out how to kind of be in
[11:15]charge of their own story. The book is very much about I think women in relationship to men
[11:21]finding a way to to tell their to own narrative like to take charge of it and I think you know
[11:26]I mean it's interesting because I started writing this book before the last election and before
[11:32]the Me Too movement and before I think in a moment that felt to a lot of people kind of post
[11:38]feminist and you know like in the arts of a sort of like oh we're all past that now you know
[11:43]and we all knew that that wasn't true but it was sort of I think so it was interesting writing it
[11:49]and there were parts that I was like well people buy this like well this feel relevant and then it
[11:53]turned out like oh yes people really do buy this and in this thing they this I don't think you have
[11:58]to argue for it yeah in that way and it is about men you know in powerful positions who
[12:05]don't necessarily there's not really a reason for them to be in those positions and what they do
[12:08]with their power yeah I was particularly interested in in these character and how she navigated
[12:14]it was so brilliant how you set that in the context of her being a senator's wife and the power
[12:19]that comes with the government attached to you as well but also how as you were saying how she
[12:23]takes the power back even if something as simple as taking off her buttons or what she ends up doing
[12:28]later not to give anything away but like even how she you know spends her time while she's staying
[12:32]with her friend later and like that she makes these decisions with her own sexuality try to you know
[12:38]make a stand like that was really interesting I mean yeah yeah and most of them aren't conscious
[12:43]right it's not like she's like I will make a stand but my friend is sort of floundering and so we
[12:49]watch her try to navigate that and most of it's pretty messy yeah yeah I mean the book it's still
[12:56]a little bit dark right there's so many you're still trying there people the women are just
[13:01]wrestling with this stuff over and over like they're kind of like in the dryers you know I mean
[13:05]like centuries after centuries and like trying to figure their way out of it like do you feel like
[13:10]there's any like what can we do at the end of it right is it inspiring like should we all feel
[13:16]good should I like get rid of all my buttons and just say like forget it like oh my god first
[13:22]well did you say in the dryer yeah because I love that I've never heard that but it's so makes sense
[13:27]and it's also so relevant to this book where there's so much laundry happening I'm really
[13:32]doing so much laundry lately that literally like my life is in like housework metaphors at the
[13:39]moment and quarantine so sorry about that but yes no it fits the book really well because the
[13:43]book is kind of obsessed with housework and housekeeping and I don't know if you're familiar like
[13:47]I have this whole Instagram called uncapped that's all about like domestic chaos you should go
[13:52]check it out I didn't know I'm sorry I thought I researched everything about you I've no no no but
[13:56]yeah no so that it's all like pictures of women's the mess in women's homes and like
[14:00]piles of laundry literally you'll love it go oh thank you love that will make me feel a lot
[14:04]better I will it makes everybody feel better and I think actually that sort of tied to like
[14:08]well what's the lesson or how can it I mean I don't I definitely don't write toward a lesson but
[14:13]I hope that it for so I feel like there's a lot of life and light in the book in this in the
[14:18]sense of like the humor and the narrative the narrator there's a consistent narrator even though
[14:24]we're shifting between these different women at that narrator really does have kind of a rise
[14:28]sense of humor and can comment from kind of outside of the morass and that were like the the
[14:33]neurosis but I do feel like to me where it leaves us is toward connection with other women and
[14:39]toward like the power of female friendship the power of mothers and daughters yes and those relationships
[14:46]are in our grandmothers and the ways in which we are tied to these women whether or not those
[14:50]relationships are easy right they are just fundamental to us and to who we are and who and to the
[14:57]stories that were sort of beginning to tell to people after us right like so this this book is
[15:03]you know dedicated both to my mother but also to my 12 year old daughter and it it feels to me
[15:07]very much a book in in that way that that is that to me is an in something that inspired me
[15:13]while I was writing it is that it felt like it was toward connection now I feel like
[15:18]Lily's relationship to her mother especially as she's thick in the hospital is like the perfect
[15:23]analysis really of what it means to be an adult and deal with like your mother's demise in a way
[15:28]and that relationship and the things that weren't said and the things that were said and
[15:32]expectations and disappointments and it's like oh you just like it's like you just took all of
[15:37]like the therapy rooms and just like splattered it in the but yeah it is I mean yeah it is kind of
[15:44]what like I really wanted to get into the thick of that like that mother daughter thing and it was
[15:49]it was a real it was a challenge to do it you know in on an emotional level and then it was also like
[15:54]pretty cathartic and it felt like oh like I'm getting at the truth of something here in a way
[15:59]that I don't even though I've written about mother to daughter before like I don't think I've
[16:03]ever done it quite like this and with this level of like you know so there's this kind of arc
[16:08]that you travel on with Lily in terms of coming to terms with her relationship with her mother
[16:13]yeah which makes it you know a great book from other state yeah exactly has your mother read this book
[16:18]my mother has read this book yeah yeah and and she says she loves it no she does love it
[16:23]she's she is actually like a huge champion of my work and someone who's been very tolerant
[16:29]when she shows up in my work which hasn't been so obvious until this book like I've been
[16:35]this is the like Lily the Lily characters much closer to myself than I've ever written before
[16:39]down to the fact that the sampler that appears in the book that says a well kept house is a
[16:44]sign of it else that like that sampler was in my bathroom growing like I'm mine so there's definitely
[16:50]like more and I said to her I was like you know you don't have to read this you will find yourself
[16:55]here like I'm not going to pretend that you're not here and that are some of our stuff isn't in
[16:59]here even I'm very different from Lily too and I like I have a career which is a huge difference
[17:03]between me and Lily and you know whatever but but yeah she has read it and she's she's just an
[17:09]she's incredibly supportive and she she writes herself and so she knows sort of what it takes and
[17:14]yeah so the part of the Lily character that's most like you did that involved the like struggles
[17:20]with the toddler to get the shoes on and out the door like that like a total morning in your life
[17:24]yes completely lots of times yes absolutely and also like for those couple years we also were
[17:30]we were living in a building in New York where we're with the basement that with our washing
[17:34]machines were in the basement not ours the buildings yeah and just like and I would I would just
[17:38]forget the lot me we all forget laundry but if it's in your apartment it's one thing but if it's
[17:41]like in the basement and like you know I would get reminded again by this super and I was just like
[17:46]oh and I would feel so like ashamed but then I would also feel so frustrated that I had to keep
[17:51]it all in my head so it was like that yes I mean they're like definitely drew on that in a yeah
[17:56]for though did your kid's school actually charge you if you were late no I made that up I
[18:02]was like oh my gosh what school is this I was just that what happens in part yeah I don't know
[18:08]well it could which is why yeah it could happen doing it oh my gosh wow and what about your
[18:14]daughter she hasn't read this actually or maybe she has not she's not old enough but I will say
[18:19]that when I first got the galleys in our apartment in Brooklyn and I I was like doing something and
[18:24]I suddenly heard her it she was in the bathroom and I heard her say mom this senator is a real jerk
[18:32]she had like snuck it without my seeing into the bathroom and it's just it's been like reading
[18:37]the first opening chapters and I was like what is she talking on there's like oh my god and I was like
[18:41]no no no you shouldn't read that I mean thankfully she is you know she's now she's in middle school
[18:47]she's not like she's completely oblivious and she's also growing up in a moment for better or worse
[18:52]where she's actually really conscious of a lot of things that I wasn't when I was her age in
[18:56]terms of like things that go on in terms of men and women and so you know I still don't think she's
[19:01]'s not ready to read the book but she has a sense of it and she knows it's dedicated to her
[19:06]one of my four kids is an almost 13-year-old I have a 12-year-old daughter also and I don't know
[19:10]I've kept her pretty shielded about some of the stuff going on in the news with the men
[19:13]yeah women and I don't know I haven't like been ready to go there so yeah I have it I've kept
[19:19]her shielded but somehow it just like from other people yeah it's just like the you know a lot
[19:24]of as they you know I feel like a lot of her influences at this point come from her friends as
[19:28]much as from us and so that that's been a real shift in the last year or two or it's like oh right
[19:32]you're gonna learn about things that we're not the things we wanted you to know yeah so my daughter
[19:37]is ready to talk about them my daughter seems to be getting all her information from like
[19:42]the 10 YouTubers she follows I didn't get to allow but now I'm like all bets are off so
[19:47]right yeah great new hairstyle thanks you too so tell me a little more about like where
[19:54]where you wrote the book your process I know you said the the no cards and all the rest of it
[19:58]like how long?
[20:00]to finish this took and just where you actually
[20:03]like paint me a picture of where you were writing it.
[20:06]Yeah, I guess I was already,
[20:08]so we had lived in Rhode Island for a few years
[20:10]and then we moved back to Brooklyn.
[20:12]And I think I was pretty much already back in Brooklyn,
[20:14]which means that I no longer had an office at my home
[20:18]and that I was writing at the Brooklyn Writers Space,
[20:21]which is where I write.
[20:22]I mean, not during this pandemic, obviously,
[20:24]because it's closed, but it's a shared workspace.
[20:28]It's a totally silent workspace,
[20:30]so there's no sound allowed,
[20:32]like you can't your phone can't buzz, et cetera.
[20:34]And you sort of pick a different cubicle each day.
[20:38]They're thankfully, like the walls are,
[20:40]you can put pins in them,
[20:42]so I was able to do my index thing, correct thing there.
[20:45]But of course, it was interesting,
[20:46]because like at first I was very frustrated,
[20:47]because I had to put my index cards back up every day.
[20:50]Yeah, that's it came down.
[20:52]And then I was like, the gift in that it turned out
[20:55]was that I saw, I noticed them every day.
[20:57]And I dealt with them every day.
[20:58]Whereas in my office in Providence,
[21:00]where I had had like my little garret,
[21:02]I would just sort of stop seeing it,
[21:04]because it was always up.
[21:05]And so it was, I mean, I try in my process,
[21:08]even it always changes depending on my kids' ages,
[21:11]depending on like our living situation, depending on,
[21:13]and I try to find sort of the bright spots
[21:16]in the different requirements in the different challenges
[21:19]that come along.
[21:21]Yeah, so I tend to go,
[21:22]I like it's like drop the kids off at school
[21:24]and go to the Writers Space.
[21:26]And I try to keep the mornings really as my writing time.
[21:30]I try to have, I use the freedom app to block the internet.
[21:34]Like I don't check email.
[21:35]I don't go on any kind of anything.
[21:37]And it's just like, that's my time for drafting, like creating.
[21:41]And then afternoon, I do other work.
[21:43]I freelance and I teach, you know, like most writers.
[21:47]But sometimes when that's slow,
[21:48]I'll come back to it in the afternoon for revision
[21:50]or to do research.
[21:52]I try to not research in the mornings,
[21:53]because it's always much easier than writing.
[21:56]And it will just keep me from the writing.
[21:57]Like if I Google something,
[21:59]I'm like, this is so much more fun than writing that dialogue.
[22:03]I need like, I need that freedom app that you mentioned.
[22:06]I want to like push that button now for my life.
[22:08]Like super great.
[22:09]I really mean it's actually very scary
[22:11]when you first, you know, when you first do it,
[22:14]I had always been, I'm a very disciplined person generally.
[22:16]And I'd always had no trouble just like not going on those things.
[22:20]And then after the election in 2016, I was like,
[22:23]oh my God, I can't stop.
[22:25]Like I was just, I was like a sickness.
[22:27]And the first couple of days that I put the app on,
[22:30]it actually felt like I was like an addict.
[22:32]Like I felt like I had to like, it was like rehab.
[22:35]And I was like, jonesing.
[22:36]Like, oh my God, I just want to hit.
[22:38]I just want to hit.
[22:39]And then, but then it's like I got trained out of it.
[22:42]And it was so much better.
[22:43]I felt like I don't do those things.
[22:45]But just to have that window where you're protecting yourself
[22:47]and you're ruthless about it, I feel like it's saved me.
[22:50]Well, it's such a nice thought to be able
[22:53]to like drop your kids at school and go work.
[22:56]Is that good?
[22:56]I mean, it doesn't feel like some fantasy now.
[22:59]Like the idea that we could even do that.
[23:02]It's amazing to me how quickly it seemed impossible.
[23:06]Like it only took a week or two
[23:07]where I was before being like, oh, we did that once upon a time.
[23:12]We went like, let alone like walked into a cafe and sat down.
[23:15]And like, I mean, I don't, it's so weird how quickly
[23:18]and biologically it begins to feel like a whole other life.
[23:22]Totally one that I hope I hope we get back to.
[23:25]Oh my gosh.
[23:26]Not the school necessarily.
[23:27]And that's like shot for a while.
[23:28]But I don't know, at least being around other people.
[23:31]No, I mean, camp would be nice.
[23:33]And I think that would probably not happening either.
[23:35]It's just, it's wild.
[23:36]It's hard to fathom.
[23:37]It continues to be hard to fathom.
[23:39]Yeah.
[23:40]Oh my gosh.
[23:40]One day at a time, I can't let you far ahead.
[23:43]I'm right there with you.
[23:45]So what was it like finding out you were the GMA book club pick?
[23:49]Totally thrilling.
[23:50]I was just shocked.
[23:52]Honestly, just shocked.
[23:53]I mean, who wouldn't be shocked by that, right?
[23:55]You'd have to be like a crazy person to not be shocked.
[23:58]And I was just like, are you kidding?
[24:00]This is amazing.
[24:01]Just to have that sense of like embrace from, you know,
[24:05]I think especially a show that reaches so many people
[24:09]all around the country and all different kinds of people
[24:11]and not at all people who like in my sort of
[24:14]like little literary circle, which is open and up in that way.
[24:17]And I think, you know, to have such a feminist book embraced
[24:20]by a good morning marker was also really exciting to me.
[24:23]So no, I'm just thrilled by it and a little bit overwhelmed.
[24:29]Well, congratulations on that.
[24:30]That's so cool.
[24:31]So what's next for you?
[24:32]Are you a working on a new project?
[24:34]Are you just gonna focus on publicity, which is fine
[24:36]not to say you need to be doing any more than that?
[24:38]I mean, you know, it's just going a thing.
[24:39]But yeah, I had started.
[24:42]I have like a new novel cooking.
[24:44]And I was actually waking up early in a month ago.
[24:47]I was kind of making progress every day,
[24:49]just even like an hour.
[24:51]But that was so great to be in it.
[24:52]I have turned right now to this book
[24:55]and like seeing it out into the world
[24:57]and it feels important to do that.
[24:58]And but as soon as I can, I'll get back to that,
[25:01]even if it's just that hour a day, just to,
[25:04]because I find, you know, even if it's a little bit of time
[25:06]I'm working on it each day, then it's still in my consciousness
[25:09]in the rest of the time and things will filter through.
[25:11]And that's the most important thing to me
[25:13]is the sort of the regularity.
[25:15]So I'll get there.
[25:16]Well, it's too early to talk about it yet.
[25:18]But I think it's set a little bit in the future.
[25:23]It's not like sci-fi or anything,
[25:24]but it is, it's set maybe a decade from now.
[25:28]I'm interested to hear what's going to happen
[25:29]in a decade for now.
[25:30]That's interesting.
[25:31]Me too.
[25:32]That's the other thing is once this pandemic happened,
[25:34]I was like, oh, huh.
[25:36]I might have less of an idea
[25:37]than I even thought I did about what's going to happen.
[25:40]So it's definitely like part of me is like,
[25:42]I should probably wait and see what's happening here,
[25:43]but I'll just be developing my characters.
[25:46]And I might, you know, I'm sure the plot
[25:48]as always will change.
[25:50]I loved, by the way, your LA Times quarantine diary,
[25:53]where we got to see what you were doing every day.
[25:55]That was so neat too.
[25:56]I'm like, you know, you're out there
[25:58]like basically camping or trying to do whatever
[26:00]with your kids.
[26:01]Like, oh my gosh.
[26:02]At least I don't really wanna try to get on zooms
[26:04]and wrap, right?
[26:05]Wrap, wrap, that's what it was.
[26:07]Oh my gosh.
[26:08]It was actually really cathartic to write that.
[26:10]So it was like such a gift to be allowed to write it,
[26:12]you know, because I feel like I just was like,
[26:15]I don't know, just to make sense as we do as writers
[26:17]of the chaos in a form of the diary.
[26:20]There was a very funny.
[26:21]I think I put it, I'll send it to you,
[26:24]but there was a Google alert.
[26:26]Did you see this that I posted a while ago,
[26:28]where, you know, the top said like Kate Hudson reports
[26:32]that like quarantining with her boyfriend
[26:34]is like the best sex she's ever had.
[26:35]And then the next line was Anna Solomon is like building
[26:38]rafts with her son, and like her not,
[26:43]because her not in her novels, not, you know,
[26:45]and not on tour.
[26:45]It was just the funniest, and they were listed
[26:47]as if they were in relationship to each other.
[26:49]And I was like, this says all of it.
[26:51]Like me and Kate Hudson, her reality in mind.
[26:56]I think that's really her reality.
[26:57]I mean, of course not, of course not.
[26:59]I mean, great for, I mean, whatever, I can't even,
[27:02]I mean, great, if that's her reality, fantastic.
[27:04]Why not?
[27:05]Like, totally happy.
[27:06]We were all happy.
[27:07]We were all happy.
[27:08]It was so funny that when I saw it, I was like,
[27:09]oh my God, this reads, if you really read these in a row,
[27:13]this is hilarious.
[27:14]I'll send it to you.
[27:15]The juxtaposition of glamour and reality.
[27:18]But do you have any advice to aspiring authors
[27:22]for aspiring authors?
[27:23]Yes, I think to me, the thing that,
[27:26]and obviously people are different stages in their writing
[27:29]and maybe some are already in sort of a career
[27:31]and others aren't, I think to me,
[27:33]the things that feel the most important to let to say
[27:37]is write and write and write and write and write
[27:39]and try to focus on the writing at this point
[27:41]and not the career part.
[27:43]Like, let yourself figure it, you know, do that work.
[27:46]And it takes years for most people,
[27:49]if not decades, to get to where they should be thinking
[27:52]about, like, can I find an agent?
[27:53]Should I get published?
[27:54]You know, it's an incredible, like, it's a muscle,
[27:56]a writing muscle.
[27:57]And the other thing is read.
[27:59]Just don't, you know, know people will say,
[28:00]like, I don't want to be influenced too much by,
[28:03]and it's like, no, no, no, no, you do want to be influenced.
[28:05]Like, this is how we learn to write is by reading.
[28:08]So read and read and read.
[28:09]Pay attention as a writer, learn to read as a writer.
[28:12]You know, like, what, the thing that you loved
[28:14]about this book as a reader, go back to it,
[28:17]figure out what the writer's doing.
[28:18]Like, oh, huh, this is how you set up a plot in this way,
[28:22]or oh, that's interesting.
[28:23]If you bring an object in and this way,
[28:25]you can move a scene along or all the things
[28:27]that you can learn from what other writers have done.
[28:29]Like, don't be shy about it.
[28:30]And, you know, myself and many writers I know,
[28:33]we still, you know, when I'm in a moment
[28:35]where I'm like, how do I move someone across the room again?
[28:38]I turn to the books I love, you know?
[28:40]That's not plagiarizing.
[28:41]That's like, that's just craft.
[28:42]That's like, oh, right.
[28:43]Here are possible ways to do this.
[28:46]I remember now.
[28:47]Anna Sullivan talks plagiarism tactics on
[28:50]J.M.M. McClellan, you did fine.
[28:55]Please tune in tomorrow.
[28:56]Exactly.
[28:58]Her yes.
[29:00]Well, Anna, thank you so much for doing this interview.
[29:03]This will be on mom's no time to read books.
[29:04]Thanks for doing it through the J.M.A.
[29:06]Book Club, you know, Instagram,
[29:08]and I have great that this worked out.
[29:10]I'm sorry I had to reschedule, but this is even better.
[29:12]So it's perfect.
[29:13]Thank you so much.
[29:14]Thank you for everything and just all of all of what you're
[29:17]bringing to the Larry community with my book
[29:19]and others.
[29:20]No, it's my pleasure.
[29:21]Okay.
[29:22]I'll send all of you out to you in that.
[29:24]Yes, send me the link and I'm going to go check out
[29:26]on count as well.
[29:27]Okay.
[29:28]Please do.
[29:29]It's on count for your life.
[29:30]Okay.
[29:31]On count for your life.
[29:32]Okay.
[29:33]I'm there by Anna.
[29:34]Thank you.
[29:34]Thanks again for listening to my podcast.
[29:36]Moms don't have time to read books.
[29:38]If you liked this episode, please follow me on Instagram
[29:42]at Zippy Owens and at Moms don't have time to read books
[29:45]and sign up for my mailing list at zippyowans.com
[29:48]so you can always hear about the latest things I'm up to.
[29:51]Thanks a lot.
[29:52]Thanks to Recliner NYC for being a partner,
[29:55]for giving everybody a discount of 20% off
[29:58]with the code Moms X Recliner.
[30:00]And for partnering with me after I loved your product so much.
[30:03]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the Sound Editing,
[30:07]and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outroom music.
[30:11]Thanks for listening! You can always email me at zibi at zibiowens.com.