Natalie Jenner, THE JANE AUSTEN SOCIETY
[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. Thanks so much for listening to my podcast.
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[0:53]I had the best conversation with Natalie Jenner,
[0:55]who is a debut author of the Jane Austen Society.
[0:58]We chatted on Instagram Live, so you can watch that there if you would like
[1:02]on my at Zivi Owens Instagram page.
[1:04]Natalie was born in England and emigrated to Canada as a young child.
[1:07]She obtained her BA from the University of Toronto St. Michael's College,
[1:11]where she was the 1990 gold medalist in English literature.
[1:14]She got her LLB from the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law,
[1:17]and was called to the Bar of Ontario in 1995.
[1:20]In addition to a brief career as a corporate lawyer,
[1:23]Natalie has worked as a recruiter, a career coach,
[1:25]and consultant to leading law firms in Canada for over 20 years.
[1:28]Most recently, Natalie founded the Independent Bookstore
[1:30]archetype books in Oakville, Ontario,
[1:32]where she lives with her family and two rescue dogs.
[1:35]Hi. Hi.
[1:36]Well, thanks for coming on today.
[1:38]Thanks so much for having me, obviously.
[1:40]We're sure.
[1:41]There were so funny.
[1:42]I was recently on Ann Vogel's podcast, which is called
[1:45]What Should I Read Next.
[1:46]And your book was one of the ones that she was most excited about reading the summer.
[1:50]So yeah.
[1:51]I mean, it's been really great.
[1:52]She's been wonderfully supportive.
[1:54]I feel very blessed right now.
[1:56]So tell us what your book is about and what inspired you to write it.
[2:00]So my book is about eight extremely different people
[2:04]at the End of World War II, who are all dealing with trauma and loss in different ways.
[2:09]And they bond over a sort of unknown shared love of Jane Austen,
[2:13]that sort of percolating amongst them in sort of either on their own,
[2:17]or in little subgroups, and they decide to form a society
[2:20]to try and save the cottage where Jane Austen in real life had lived and worked or revised her six
[2:26]major works.
[2:26]So it's a very fictional account of something that actually did happen, though, during the war,
[2:31]which was the formation of the first real life Jane Austen society.
[2:34]Well, yeah.
[2:36]And so what sparked your particular interest in this?
[2:39]So I had a shattering experience.
[2:41]I knew that the new were just disgusting.
[2:43]And my husband and I had opened up a little independent bookshop and four months in,
[2:49]he was diagnosed with a very rare and terminal form of lung disease that's also genetic.
[2:56]And at the time we were told that most people would pass away within two to three years,
[3:00]and we were a young family.
[3:02]We had a 14-year-old daughter.
[3:03]So I was also a career coach.
[3:06]I used to be a lawyer, and I coached lawyers for a living.
[3:09]So I had to make some hard decisions about time and travel and income,
[3:14]and I closed down the bookshop on its one-year anniversary.
[3:18]And I was, I mean, it was a hobby farm.
[3:20]I was working for free, and I was working 24-7.
[3:23]And I loved it, but it wasn't feasible.
[3:26]And we took a year, and we traveled and we tried to do things that we'd always,
[3:30]you know, touch about doing.
[3:32]And I aggressively re-red Jane Austen as well.
[3:35]And I watched a lot of TV.
[3:37]I blew through all 22 years of tears and Frasier on the elliptical.
[3:41]But I read a lot of Jane Austen, then I started to read a lot about her.
[3:45]And then my husband went golfing with the guys to Augusta, Georgia.
[3:48]And I'm like, that's great.
[3:50]I'm going to England, and I'm going to go to this little village.
[3:52]I'm going to spend a whole week there, just me.
[3:54]And I love you people, but I'm going to go do this.
[3:57]And it really changed my life.
[3:59]I loved my time there.
[4:01]I came back, energized, and at peace in this very odd way.
[4:06]And I kept reading about Jane.
[4:07]And then my husband was put on some pretty rare and innovative drugs,
[4:11]and his lung declined stabilized.
[4:13]So right now he's helpful.
[4:15]He's able to golf and live a completely full life.
[4:18]And we've bought our self-time.
[4:19]We have no idea how much.
[4:21]So we have to very much kind of live in the moment.
[4:23]But it gave me hope again.
[4:25]It's just kind of made me feel like you don't know what's around the corner.
[4:29]And there's no point in freezing up and not engaging.
[4:32]So I kept putting myself out there a little bit.
[4:34]I took my daughter to Philadelphia for I'm from Canada.
[4:37]I'm in my writer's shed, by the way.
[4:39]Like, 20 feet from like Ontario.
[4:42]I took my daughter to Philadelphia.
[4:43]And we went to this, our first Jane Austen conference.
[4:46]And it was amazing.
[4:47]And I came back, and I looked at her one day.
[4:50]and I said, I feel like writing again for the first time in years.
[4:53]And I'm going to write about a group of people
[4:55]trying to save an old house, because I'd
[4:56]been watching a lot of downtown abbey as well.
[5:00]And then one day, I just looked up.
[5:01]And I said, I'm going to write about a group of people
[5:03]that come together to save Jane Austen's house.
[5:05]And I typed the Jane Austen Society.
[5:08]And I typed the first paragraph.
[5:10]And it's all still there.
[5:12]And it was the most fun I ever had.
[5:15]It was writing this book.
[5:16]It was so much fun.
[5:17]Oh my god.
[5:18]That's a story.
[5:19]What a story.
[5:20]Oh my gosh.
[5:20]Thank you for sharing that.
[5:22]Oh my gosh.
[5:23]How great that you took that diagnosis and did something.
[5:27]I mean, I feel like it's so easy to just sit in a corner
[5:30]and cry and then get it first for a long time.
[5:32]Which is fine.
[5:34]No, no.
[5:35]I did.
[5:36]And then what I learned was the value of hope.
[5:40]And that is probably the one thing that I sort of lost faith in
[5:44]was when the doctors tell you, here's what it is.
[5:47]And here are the stats.
[5:48]And people in this family have died from this disease.
[5:51]So we're not being polyannished.
[5:53]We're not going, ooh, they're all wrong.
[5:55]Like we know that this is serious.
[5:56]But it's a day-to-day life.
[5:59]And I think what we're all dealing with right now
[6:01]and fortunately is you have to go an hour by hour.
[6:03]You don't know what's around the corner.
[6:05]And there's a great quote by a Persian poet, Rumi.
[6:08]And he says you have to live life as if it's rigged in your
[6:12]favor.
[6:13]And I had been coaching people that.
[6:16]But I'd forgotten it in my own pain.
[6:18]And then I, one day, I was like, you don't know for sure.
[6:23]So just live your hour.
[6:24]And that's what I've been trying to do.
[6:26]So I've had a great year.
[6:28]I was like, I had a wonderful time.
[6:31]So, oh my gosh.
[6:32]So the hour went pretty well.
[6:34]Yeah.
[6:36]So how did you sit down and write it?
[6:38]Like in the midst of everything else you were going through.
[6:41]You wrote the first paragraph.
[6:43]It became this amazing book.
[6:44]You had all this information sort of stored up from your
[6:47]travels.
[6:48]And then did it come pouring out?
[6:50]Is that what happened or?
[6:50]Yes.
[6:51]And do you know Susie Armishnall who has the books?
[6:54]Yes, yes.
[6:54]OK.
[6:55]So she's been like so lovely and supportive to me.
[6:58]And I was watching when Foster's book
[7:00]came out summer darlings.
[7:02]They were all talking about writing process.
[7:04]And I never knew anyone that had my writing process.
[7:06]But Susie, you know, got on and was like, I take like a year
[7:10]and I researched the heck out of something.
[7:12]And then when I finally sit down to write,
[7:14]that's all behind me.
[7:15]And then I'm eight hours a day.
[7:16]And that's what it's like for me.
[7:17]It's very intensive.
[7:18]And in a way, getting all the research done for historical
[7:21]fiction ahead of time enables you to really be liberated
[7:25]from the facts in the way that will serve the story.
[7:28]So I was able to kind of have it there in the background of my
[7:31]mind, but really focus on the characters and what I wanted to
[7:34]tell about them and their interior lives.
[7:36]So when I do write the first draft, it's intensive because
[7:41]everything's just pouring out.
[7:43]But it worked for me this one.
[7:45]I mean, Zibi, I have five manuscripts in a drawer from my past
[7:48]20 years that didn't go anywhere with it.
[7:51]I mean, that's like the classic story, right?
[7:54]And yet when they're your manuscripts, you feel really
[7:56]badly that they're in there.
[7:58]And I feel like people used to always give advice, like, you
[8:01]know, don't be afraid of rejection.
[8:02]But it's not like that.
[8:03]It should just be like, you have to write for bad novels
[8:07]before you have a good one.
[8:08]Like you have to, you have to like just take the time,
[8:11]write the bad novel, tell yourself that like you
[8:13]think it's great, but it's not and that you're next to
[8:15]hope you better and then move on from there and like, don't
[8:17]even think twice about it.
[8:19]That's absolutely it because in a way, it's like that, you
[8:21]know, the 10,000 hours theory and Malcolm Gladwell, it's, it's
[8:25]a muscle and you're learning to exercise it and you're
[8:28]learning to exercise it at certain times.
[8:29]Like as a working mom, when my daughter was in kindergarten, I
[8:32]would get up from five to seven to write.
[8:35]And I'm sure you're going to relate to this, right?
[8:38]Because you have four times what I have.
[8:40]I have one child.
[8:40]But when, sorry, do you have four children?
[8:43]Did I get it right?
[8:44]Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so so my creative subconscious is now
[8:48]trained to kick in a five am, whether I want it to or not.
[8:51]She's now at university and I'm still waking up at five to
[8:53]write.
[8:54]So a lot of that writing process of the manuscripts that don't
[8:57]get published is the training.
[8:59]It's the marathon.
[9:00]It's the, it's the lead up and that's the thing I want
[9:04]people to really take away from my story.
[9:07]Wow.
[9:08]So this book, how long did when it finally finished, she
[9:13]were doing eight hour days of just a pouring out of you, how
[9:15]long did it had after all the research and all the rest just
[9:18]wondering how long it ended up taking?
[9:20]I mean, it was probably a good, you know, a couple of months
[9:23]for like that preliminary first draft.
[9:25]But what was really fortunate for me was I landed in
[9:28]agent in New York who was at Curtis Brown at the time.
[9:31]And I'm like, you know, how's swipe up in Canada?
[9:32]And I land this agent right away.
[9:34]And he, he just, he grabbed it and then we worked on it for
[9:39]months and he basically didn't take a word out, but he wanted
[9:44]me to flush out things and, you know, pace it better.
[9:47]And so that process was another like four months and then we
[9:51]went on stuff.
[9:51]So do you have any regrets about how you handled this, like
[9:56]how you went about this?
[9:58]Like if you had to do it all again, it's good.
[10:00]because it sounds to me like super inspiring and spot on,
[10:02]not that there's any way to judge anybody else's life.
[10:04]But you know what I mean?
[10:05]Like when you look back,
[10:06]you went through so much heartache and pain
[10:08]and uncertainty and he chose to pour it into writing.
[10:13]I don't have a single regret
[10:15]and I said this to my husband last week
[10:16]because I theoretically should,
[10:20]but I can't because of where I am this hour and today.
[10:23]So I think regret is an interesting word to me
[10:28]because it's negative in a way.
[10:31]I think what you need to do is more forgiveness
[10:35]for the fact that at that time in your life,
[10:37]that's how you react it.
[10:38]And as long as you weren't calculating harm to others,
[10:41]as long as you were just doing your best,
[10:44]you might air or you might miscalculate.
[10:46]But if your intent was good,
[10:48]then I think you have to kind of just say,
[10:50]that's why I wasn't that time
[10:52]and I did the best I could.
[10:54]And there's a great documentary about the Eagles,
[10:56]the rock band through one of my favorites.
[10:58]And one of the later gentlemen of joints
[11:01]said you will look back on your life.
[11:02]And in the time, it's a mess.
[11:05]The toxic, you know,
[11:06]totally the TV out the hotel room mess as a rock band.
[11:10]And then you are now our age and you look back
[11:13]and it has the arc of a Victorian novel
[11:15]on the sweep of something by like George Elliot.
[11:17]And it was very poetic and I remember thinking,
[11:19]that's what we're all in.
[11:21]And that's where we're heading.
[11:22]So I'll just keep doing what I've been doing so far
[11:25]and hope that adds up.
[11:27]Oh my gosh, you're amazing.
[11:28]You're like, thank you.
[11:30]No, I mean, like you can tell,
[11:31]I feel like when people go through shattering experiences
[11:35]to use students' term again,
[11:37]life sort of opens up in totally new ways
[11:40]and you immediately become like somebody maybe
[11:43]you didn't think you would,
[11:44]but you have this sort of perspective
[11:46]that not everybody has.
[11:48]And I think like when I start talking to someone like you
[11:50]who has that it is very apparent.
[11:53]And I feel like there's so much to be learned
[11:56]and so much beauty in that way of looking at life
[11:59]because really that's the only way
[12:01]there is to look at life.
[12:02]But so many people, I mean, I think this I'm rambling
[12:06]but this period of time has caused all of us I think
[12:08]to stop and look back.
[12:10]But I don't know, that was a long-winded way of saying
[12:13]just that your perspective is so important
[12:16]and like I'm sorry you have to gain
[12:18]that perspective through the balance.
[12:21]We always say we would give our left finger pinky arm
[12:24]to not have gone through what we went through
[12:27]even for the perspective because it is awful.
[12:30]I mean, when you're given that horrible diagnosis
[12:32]and it's just it's awful.
[12:34]And I don't and there's no way to sugarcoat it
[12:37]but the perspective is the one silver lining
[12:40]and also in a very odd way.
[12:43]And I'll get a little emotional talking about this.
[12:45]When my husband was diagnosed
[12:47]and I was reading Jane Austen,
[12:49]something happened to me was my reading of her
[12:51]for the first time in my life.
[12:52]So I had read her since I was a little girl many times.
[12:55]I had gone to the village many times.
[12:57]I had read about her lots of books
[13:01]but this time she was reaching on a different level
[13:05]and it was almost as if she should be waiting
[13:08]for my maturity, my to catch up to her to where she was
[13:12]because I think she had a hard life.
[13:14]I think she was somebody who was like one of the handful
[13:17]of geniuses and literature up there with Shakespeare.
[13:20]And I think that she was struggling with the money
[13:24]and the ill health and she had chronic illness.
[13:26]I think she was probably far more sick for far longer
[13:29]than she led on to her family
[13:31]because I think culturally there was a stoicism.
[13:34]We're a much more open culture.
[13:35]So at the time, I remember when I was reading her,
[13:38]she was speaking to me on a new level.
[13:41]And then I was like closing this book's hug
[13:44]and I'm like why?
[13:46]Why did you have me open this book shop
[13:48]and put all this time and money and labor into it
[13:50]and then give us this diagnosis for months later?
[13:52]Which sounds self-pitting
[13:54]but it just, it wasn't adding up for me at all.
[13:56]And now, now that everyone is going through fear
[14:00]for their loved ones lungs and uncertainty
[14:04]and the healthcare workers for third lives every day.
[14:07]And I feel like I was kind of given this bizarre four year
[14:11]head start and I was able to develop some resilience
[14:15]that now enables me to fully enjoy this publication journey
[14:19]and enables me to be more present for my family.
[14:23]And that's all a gift from the horrible thing we went through,
[14:28]which is my rambling response to you.
[14:31]If that makes sense.
[14:32]Well, thank you for matching my own rambling.
[14:35]I feel like there are now.
[14:35]Thank you.
[14:38]You were fine.
[14:40]I don't think that that feeling is self-pitting.
[14:43]I think anyone in your shoes
[14:44]would wonder the same thing and be just so angry about it.
[14:47]I mean, anyway, I wouldn't beat yourself up.
[14:50]It sounds like you're in a pretty good place,
[14:51]but you deserved any self-pity.
[14:55]And I think it's just so great.
[14:57]So here's my other question.
[14:59]Why, I know why Jane Austen, what is it about her
[15:04]that really could cost you so much?
[15:06]And like, what is it you see in her that's good?
[15:10]So there's, I have like three or four things
[15:14]that happens to Jane Austen.
[15:15]So the first one is language.
[15:17]And there's something about her literally her syntax,
[15:19]the way she does a sentence, the way she does a paragraph
[15:22]and that zinger at the end of the long paragraph
[15:25]that you don't always get with Henry James, for example.
[15:27]Like you're reading and reading and reading
[15:28]and then, bam, she just gets you.
[15:30]And she just places the words in this way
[15:32]that is very soothing to my mind as I'm reading.
[15:35]So I find her just a very calming,
[15:38]authorial voice, basically.
[15:40]I think second major reason is that
[15:42]she creates these little worlds, like, you know,
[15:44]people are like, why do they film Jane Austen so much?
[15:46]And I'm like, because there's a lot of characters
[15:48]in there to get right.
[15:49]And you'll never get them all right.
[15:50]So then you'll make another Emma and another Mr. Knightley,
[15:53]but he'll be blonde and a little younger
[15:55]and a little shorter.
[15:55]Like it's a really interesting how she,
[15:58]you don't think there's a lot of people in the books
[16:00]because she talked about three or four families in her village.
[16:03]That's the essence of the core,
[16:05]but there's a lot of characters.
[16:07]And she's so brilliant at characterization.
[16:09]She's sketching some so fast for you.
[16:10]So she doesn't have to spend a lot of time for, you know,
[16:12]right away when a mis debates is like
[16:14]or Mrs. Bennett and Pride and Prejudice.
[16:17]So what I love is she creates these little worlds
[16:19]that have so many people we can relate to
[16:21]and that we recognize in ourselves,
[16:23]but there's still different enough from our life
[16:26]that we can go into them and escape from ours
[16:29]and yet still learn some lessons,
[16:31]which I find really fascinating.
[16:33]So on that level, I find her like a tonic, very purifying.
[16:37]And then finally, my number one reason is
[16:41]I am a sucker for a happy ending
[16:43]and I am a romantic and I love that she gives the reader
[16:47]the catharsis.
[16:48]She makes her heroine look really, you know,
[16:51]they really have to work for those happy endings,
[16:53]but they will get them in the end
[16:54]and I love that about her.
[16:55]I love going into those books knowing
[16:57]that the good guys will win.
[17:00]You know what I'm talking about.
[17:01]And is that like your book?
[17:04]Can you give me that?
[17:06]Yeah, it's definitely an escape
[17:10]and it's definitely, I will say I have an epilogue
[17:14]and when I was writing it, I just remember being so happy
[17:19]that I could tie off the arcs of these eight different characters
[17:23]and I still get emotional if I read the epilogue.
[17:26]I haven't read the whole book since like for a while now.
[17:29]I know this is the wrong thing to say on a podcast.
[17:31]You start to kind of hate your book
[17:32]and what I mean by that is you love your story
[17:36]but the book itself, it's now,
[17:38]it's a year and a half process to publication.
[17:40]So you're kind of like, you know, after a while,
[17:43]you're like, I wanna talk about something else.
[17:45]But now that it's out there,
[17:47]this is the most exciting time
[17:48]because people are getting it in the mail
[17:51]and like friends have pre-ordered it
[17:53]and it's arriving and they're showing me photographs
[17:55]and now it has a life of its own
[17:57]and now it's like another journey starting
[18:00]and there's a great quote that there's some amazing Canadian
[18:03]novelist in action right now
[18:04]and one of them Sam Bailey was a great thriller
[18:07]called Woman on the Edge.
[18:08]She was telling me, I have these women mentoring me
[18:10]and Facebook and Messenger is a bunch of Canadian women authors
[18:13]and I'll just be like, help me and they all jump in
[18:16]and they give me advice.
[18:17]Sam said that Carma Brown, another great Canadian writer
[18:20]had said to her that once the book is published,
[18:23]it's not really yours anymore
[18:25]and I thought that was such a brilliant way
[18:26]to look at reviews and buzz and PR
[18:31]and you know, you get emails from people
[18:33]through your website that are not always pleasant.
[18:35]You know, all that part of it that you just learn to accept
[18:38]that the story is mine, but the book is theirs
[18:42]and I also find, you know, at the stage
[18:45]that's a really, for me, liberating lesson
[18:48]and enables me as a very new author
[18:51]who did not think two years ago
[18:52]that any of us is gonna happen to or enables me
[18:54]to stay in the moment right now as well.
[18:56]I love that, what the story's mine,
[18:58]but the book is theirs, that's awesome.
[19:01]That's Carma.
[19:02]I love Carma Brown, yeah.
[19:03]No, whatever, it's great advice.
[19:06]By the way, speaking of Canadian women authors,
[19:08]I don't know if you know Sarah I'm lynowski,
[19:10]do you know where I find I know?
[19:11]Okay, I'm gonna think you guys in touch
[19:12]because she also like, Ra Ra Canada.
[19:15]She lives in LA now, but anyway, she actually told me
[19:18]to start a podcast a couple of years ago
[19:20]and that's so great, yeah.
[19:21]Anyway, I wonder if just if you want another new friend
[19:24]or whatever.
[19:25]And then I'll like, I need all the help I can get right now.
[19:29]So you're living each hour as we all in a way are
[19:33]in this pandemic.
[19:34]What is your advice to getting through life right now
[19:38]and in general, and you've already given such amazing advice
[19:41]about the perspective that you have,
[19:43]but advice and writing, but mostly just advice on
[19:47]how to maintain the focus of living in the hour
[19:51]when things get in the way in that hour.
[19:54]Yeah, no, I mean, I think a lot of it is,
[19:57]I found things were easier if I was complete.
[20:00]really honest with myself about what I needed at that time.
[20:04]And to be honestly honest, sometimes that meant saying no
[20:07]to people who wanted to catch up over coffee,
[20:10]tell me how your husband is
[20:11]and you'd been on the phone all day with doctors.
[20:13]And you didn't wanna have that conversation
[20:15]and I would be like, I'm so sorry.
[20:17]I just don't feel like doing that right now
[20:19]and the old Natalie would not have done that.
[20:21]But something about paying attention to what I really needed
[20:25]must have given me some kind of buffer or margin
[20:28]because it's made me now much better at that.
[20:32]I'm now able to give more of myself.
[20:34]So I think there's some sort of subconscious energy
[20:38]conservation that we all have to be mindful right now of.
[20:41]People are trying to homeschool
[20:43]and they have to make every meal
[20:44]and they're worried about their parents.
[20:46]And there's so much coming at you.
[20:48]And I think being honest with yourself
[20:50]about how much you can handle
[20:52]is probably the number one thing you have to do
[20:55]in order to pace yourself
[20:56]because clearly we have uncertainty
[20:58]for at least several more weeks, you know,
[21:01]it's not months ahead.
[21:03]So I think there's a pacing that needs to take place
[21:06]and to be gentle and kind and patient with yourself as well.
[21:10]It sounds very self-oriented
[21:12]but it actually, it's like that expression
[21:14]about the mom putting the osteo mask on first.
[21:19]And I found that by giving myself that quiet year
[21:23]and mercy myself in Jane Austen
[21:24]and taking the trip that I wanted to take
[21:26]and writing the book even though,
[21:27]I think my daughter was an exams,
[21:28]my husband was an Ireland golfing with his friends.
[21:31]That's when I started to write the book.
[21:32]You know, I wasn't the best time in life
[21:34]to try and write the book
[21:35]but I made the time for it.
[21:37]And I think that doing my year really gave me
[21:40]now an ability to share more open link
[21:42]because I naturally believe
[21:43]they're not as would be a very private person.
[21:46]I told my husband, I said, don't watch
[21:47]because I have a feeling that,
[21:49]because it is great.
[21:49]I have a feeling I'm going to go to that.
[21:51]I said, you're going to be under the eyes
[21:53]and just watch it later.
[21:54]So funny.
[21:56]My gosh, are you going to write another book
[21:59]or do you feel like that got everything out or what?
[22:01]No, that's a really, I mean, I think
[22:02]because I had already written five books.
[22:05]I am a writer.
[22:06]I have someone that has,
[22:07]there's a lot going on in here
[22:08]of you having gleaned that yet.
[22:10]And at any given time,
[22:11]I have different stories percolating.
[22:13]So I have one, another historical fiction.
[22:15]I think it's going to be said in New York.
[22:17]I'm very excited about it.
[22:18]But I did write another book
[22:20]that is sort of waiting with my agent and things going on.
[22:25]And it's said in more modern times.
[22:27]But my books have to go always
[22:28]there to be about a group of characters coming together
[22:32]and dealing with history or art or culture
[22:37]or saving something.
[22:38]I like multi character stories.
[22:41]I really, I love creating a bunch of people
[22:43]and then having them dash up against each other in a room.
[22:46]So that's something I'm excited to do.
[22:49]And I've raised a little writer.
[22:51]I have a daughter heading into third university
[22:54]and she just finished, like she's not published up
[22:56]and she's finished her second novel.
[22:57]And we're just constantly talking right now,
[23:00]which is like we've never had that.
[23:02]That's a whole new facet to the mother daughter relationship,
[23:05]which is really amazing.
[23:08]Oh, that's so nice.
[23:09]That is so special.
[23:11]I feel like even when my daughter writes like three sentences.
[23:14]I'm like, that's amazing.
[23:15]No, it is.
[23:16]No, it's amazing.
[23:17]The expression is amazing and also it's them.
[23:20]It's their own ego, their own creative mind.
[23:23]And that's so separate from you and it's wonderful.
[23:26]Yeah.
[23:27]And then parting advice and writing.
[23:30]So with this book, the biggest advice I can give
[23:33]because people are like, wow, I tried really hard
[23:36]for decades to get published.
[23:38]And I think my books were actually pretty good
[23:40]and I wrote them authentically and from the heart,
[23:44]my biggest advice would be to write the book
[23:46]that you most need to write.
[23:49]And don't worry about what everyone else is doing
[23:51]because if it's the book that you most need to write,
[23:54]then it's probably you're the only person
[23:56]that can write that story.
[23:57]And that will give you a little market edge
[24:00]because it's pretty crowded field out there.
[24:02]But the other thing too with this book was I said to myself,
[24:06]first I wrote it for me because I wanted to be close
[24:09]to Jane Austen again, but I'd read all the books.
[24:11]I'd reread those.
[24:12]I'd always say she's, but so I was writing this book
[24:14]and I'm like right away and check her one.
[24:16]I'm like, oh, I get to stay in Jane Austen's world.
[24:18]I get to talk about her with my characters.
[24:21]So I wrote it for me.
[24:21]I wrote it for my husband.
[24:22]The dedication of my book is for my husband.
[24:24]I wrote it for him.
[24:26]And but I remember I said to myself,
[24:28]it has to have more than a snowball's chance
[24:31]and hell of being of interest to somebody else.
[24:34]And that was the hook I think with the Jane Austen.
[24:37]And I'm very grateful to her
[24:39]because I know that this is why this is happening.
[24:41]And, you know, I would say to people,
[24:43]it's very important to have something be very authentic.
[24:47]The story you most need to write,
[24:49]but it does have to have that unique kind of hook
[24:51]that immediately will pull people in.
[24:53]So.
[24:54]Natalie, I am so excited.
[24:56]I spoke to you today.
[24:57]Oh, thank you.
[24:57]I know this went on.
[24:58]This can absolutely be the podcast.
[25:00]If the sound is okay, I'm going to need to just get it.
[25:02]Okay.
[25:03]I was worried with like down here in my basement
[25:05]and all the rest, but I'm glad that despite this,
[25:08]we can still have such a nice conversation.
[25:10]No, it's wonderful.
[25:11]You're really inspiring
[25:12]and it's just really great to be connected.
[25:14]So, thank you so much.
[25:16]Thank you so much for having me on and stay well.
[25:19]You too.
[25:19]Okay, take care.
[25:20]Bye. Bye. Bye.
[25:22]Thanks again for listening to my podcast.
[25:24]Moms don't have time to read books.
[25:26]If you liked this episode, please follow me on Instagram
[25:30]at zibi Owens and at moms don't have time to read books
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[25:36]so you can always hear about the latest things I'm up to.
[25:39]Thanks a lot.
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[25:56]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.
[25:59]Thanks for listening.
[26:00]You could always email me at zibiatzibiowans.com.