Jason Gay, LITTLE VICTORIES
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[0:34]Okay, now back to this amazing podcast.
[0:38]Jason Gay is the author of Little Victories, a memoir,
[0:42]and he is the Wall Street Journal's Sports columnist and humor columnist for its review section.
[0:48]PS, Jason, is like my all-time favorite columnist in a newspaper pretty much ever,
[0:53]and I read almost all of his columns and often read them out loud to my husband,
[0:57]because they're really that good, and his book was also fantastic.
[1:02]Okay, back to his bio.
[1:03]The author of the 2015 bestseller Little Victories,
[1:07]Jason has written for additional publications, including Vogue, GQ, Rolling Stone, and Outside.
[1:12]In 2016, he was named Sports columnist of the year by society of professional journalists,
[1:17]and was a finalist for the third prize of American humor.
[1:21]Welcome, Jason.
[1:22]Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read books.
[1:25]I am so grateful for the invitation and thrilled to get your invitation a few weeks ago and honor to be here.
[1:32]Oh, well, I have to say, you are a personal favorite of my husbands and mine,
[1:37]because he is like a sports nut and former professional tennis guy and blah, blah, blah,
[1:42]sports all the time.
[1:43]In fact, these used to be books on top of me as they showed you in my office.
[1:46]They used to be football helmets, which I also made him bring somewhere else.
[1:51]So anyway, we read your column all the time and I often read it out loud to him.
[1:55]So that's like one of our rituals.
[1:56]So he was like so excited.
[1:58]I was talking to you today.
[1:59]Wow, I'm deep and honored.
[2:01]Where are the football helmets?
[2:02]Are they, did you give them away?
[2:03]Are they at a basement?
[2:04]We did.
[2:05]No, no, no, no, no.
[2:06]I did not give them their downstairs.
[2:07]They're like in his little nook of, you know, football watching heaven.
[2:12]Yeah, it's, it's, I think you've upgraded a little bit from the helmets.
[2:16]It looks pretty good to me, but I'm very flattered by the joint reading.
[2:21]As I hear that once in a while and honestly, that's the best thing I can possibly hear.
[2:26]I'm very flattered.
[2:26]We actually not, no, this is just like sounding creepy me like two years ago or so.
[2:31]I was reading little victories and I downloaded the audio of it also so that he could
[2:36]listen to it.
[2:37]And so we listened to you on this cross, not cross country, but we were driving from Arizona
[2:41]to LA.
[2:41]So we put you on, you know, to listen to you for a while.
[2:44]And then after all he's like, I don't know.
[2:45]I kind of like you reading him better.
[2:48]Yeah, I don't have a great voice for radio.
[2:52]I don't have that kind of like stentorian gravel that you want, right?
[2:56]For real gravitas in audio books.
[2:59]But you know, I tried my hardest.
[3:02]And then if he prefers your voice to mine.
[3:06]Just, well, I hope he would prefer me to you.
[3:08]I mean, I am married the guy.
[3:09]So, you know, nothing personal.
[3:12]I guess I'm in trouble if he starts really strongly preferring other audio books.
[3:17]You know, it's a warning sign for me anyway.
[3:21]So my my my column at the journal more recently they've started putting an audio component
[3:26]on it where it's a computerized voice.
[3:29]It's not a human voice.
[3:31]It's a, but it sounds quite humanish and it's at the top of the column.
[3:35]And it takes some getting used to like I want to do it myself.
[3:38]I'd love to read it myself, but maybe people prefer the computer.
[3:41]I don't know, but like it's interesting because they tell me that there are type
[3:46]of reader who is very interested in getting their news information that way.
[3:50]And listen, I'm in favor of any application that can make people pick up a newspaper
[3:55]and any format.
[3:56]So I support it.
[3:58]I would vote for your voice over a computer voice.
[4:00]And I am.
[4:03]Although I have to say, I actually read a newspaper like in my hand, a hard copy.
[4:07]I think I'm one of the last couple.
[4:09]But maybe you do too.
[4:10]You write for a newspaper.
[4:11]How do you read it?
[4:12]You know, I'm embarrassed to say that, well, I shouldn't say embarrassed to say, but I am much more of a digital reader
[4:17]than I certainly was five, six years ago.
[4:19]But I do believe very strongly in the print product and the kind of news consumer that reads the print product
[4:25]because I think that.
[4:26]And I think studies bread is out that I don't want to say you're a more informed consumer, but you're getting,
[4:32]you're reading things that you wouldn't necessarily read digitally.
[4:36]Because what a digital product does is it starts to learn you.
[4:39]It starts to figure out what you like to read.
[4:42]And then it starts to like, you know, the same way that your Spotify feed does or anything else.
[4:46]It does your Instagram feed.
[4:47]It figures out things that you are interested in your preferences.
[4:51]And whereas when you read a print product, it's everyone's getting the same thing, right?
[4:56]And so it's not specific to you.
[4:58]And your eye might be drawn to stories that you wouldn't otherwise be handed by an algorithm.
[5:03]So that's the formative newspaper reading experience in my childhood,
[5:07]which was, you know, opening up the paper to read the thing that I wanted to read.
[5:11]And in my eye, I would travel to something else and I'd read that and read that.
[5:15]And pretty soon you realize you read like three or four stories that you wouldn't otherwise be reading.
[5:20]So I think that's a really valuable thing.
[5:23]And I would hate to see a moment where there wasn't that option for readers.
[5:27]I agree. I also feel like you can read so much more.
[5:30]I mean, I know they say that digital reading saves time, but I can go through like a whole paper in the top.
[5:35]You know, you can skim as you flip the pages and get information that would take so many click throughs.
[5:41]Yes.
[5:42]I don't know. I think it's fact. I think it actually saves time.
[5:44]But you know,
[5:45]Hey, there's just something also about the art of reading print, right?
[5:49]Like you're a New Yorker, I believe.
[5:51]And so like you're somebody who knows that how to read a broad sheet newspaper when you have a person on your right,
[5:56]your person on your left, you fold it carefully.
[5:59]And I am not good at that.
[6:01]Oh, you're not good at that.
[6:02]No, I'm not good at that.
[6:03]Well, there's still time.
[6:06]No, I tried. I've tried.
[6:08]I'm more like spread it out on my kitchen island.
[6:11]And sometimes I end up with four days at once.
[6:13]And then I just like go through the whole stack.
[6:15]I'm the same way.
[6:16]I have young children in my house, which means oftentimes though,
[6:19]when I spread that newspaper on the house pretty soon,
[6:21]someone's doing finger painting on top of it.
[6:23]And then I can't be noticed.
[6:24]Yes.
[6:25]Yes.
[6:26]That is an occupational hazard.
[6:28]But I try.
[6:29]Sometimes I even read them at night, you know, when nobody,
[6:31]it's like my, how I relax type of thing.
[6:34]And I feel like I should talk to you about the Super Bowl.
[6:36]Not that I actually really like football that much,
[6:38]but it is the day after the Super Bowl.
[6:40]And I read your column this morning about, you know, Tom Brady,
[6:43]who you keep writing about a lot.
[6:44]I think, you know, the absurdity of that.
[6:46]Can't avoid him.
[6:47]I can't shake him.
[6:48]That'd be easy.
[6:49]I know.
[6:50]I know.
[6:51]I feel like you have like a thing with him.
[6:52]Like you just like can't believe it.
[6:54]Is it just that, you know, a man about your age is actually,
[6:57]like doing this thing or what is it?
[6:59]Is it like a personal thing or just what?
[7:01]Of course.
[7:02]Like, you know, he's, he's mocking me.
[7:04]You know, look at, you know, he's 43 years old.
[7:08]He should have been falling asleep at halftime of the Super Bowl yesterday.
[7:11]Not playing in it.
[7:12]Not winning the Super Bowl MVP.
[7:14]And yet he's out there, you know, competing still at the pinnacle of the sport.
[7:18]You know, that Super Bowl yesterday.
[7:20]Like that was the seventh ring.
[7:22]The next closest person has five.
[7:24]He's in a class all to himself.
[7:26]And the fact that he is at 43 and shows no signs of stopping is making no indication
[7:29]that this is going to be it for him.
[7:31]Said the other day before the game that he's open to the idea.
[7:35]Going pass age 45.
[7:37]That's real rare.
[7:38]There is an NFL player who played to age 48.
[7:41]George Blanda, but he was a kicker for the latter half of his career.
[7:45]And so that Tom Brady is doing this at such a critical position at a vulnerable position.
[7:51]Right?
[7:54]Because everyone's trying to get the quarterback.
[7:56]It's just remarkable.
[7:57]So yeah, I mean, listen, I have Brady fatigue.
[8:00]Like I think a lot of people do at this point.
[8:02]But I also have a real sense of wonderment for what he's accomplished.
[8:05]Because we literally not seen it in the history of this sport.
[8:08]By the way, I think the way you feel about Tom Brady.
[8:11]This year is how the rest of us women might have felt about JLo at the halftime show.
[8:16]Last year.
[8:17]That's true.
[8:18]It's like really that you're that's what we can.
[8:22]This is like this is on the table as something that we can be possible standard.
[8:26]Yes, setting an impossible standard that just makes the rest of us feel bad.
[8:30]Okay. Yeah.
[8:31]Well, it doesn't take much to be an impossible standard for me.
[8:35]You know, I think someone who can just like, you know,
[8:37]walk 10,000 steps a day is already like in rare air to me.
[8:41]I'm struggling with the base minimums.
[8:43]But no, he I can see that for sure.
[8:46]10,000 is a lot of steps.
[8:48]I guess so many steps.
[8:50]I mean, I made that rule.
[8:52]I mean, I don't know.
[8:54]Like there's the big 10,000 society.
[8:56]Yeah, exactly.
[8:57]More shaming for those of us who like maybe get too black through the park with the dog.
[9:01]And that's about it.
[9:03]Not that that would be me, of course.
[9:05]I'm getting 20,000 steps a day.
[9:07]All those coffees.
[9:08]All those coffee trips.
[9:09]Is it going to be one of those things like, you know,
[9:11]with like how they always keep changing the health standards, you know,
[9:14]with like, you can eat this.
[9:15]You can't eat that.
[9:16]You can come back.
[9:17]You know, actually, you only need 14 steps.
[9:20]It's 10,000.
[9:21]We were wrong all this time.
[9:23]We just had 14 steps.
[9:24]That's it.
[9:25]That's all it takes.
[9:26]Maybe they'll do that to me.
[9:27]No, maybe it's like how doctors say do this twice a day
[9:29]because they know you're only going to do it once a day.
[9:31]So the recommendation is 10,000 because they know there's no chance.
[9:34]But if it's 10,000, then maybe people will get to 2,000.
[9:37]I'm sure there is something to that.
[9:40]Absolutely.
[9:41]Yeah.
[9:42]So it's like, it's a very personal guidelines.
[9:45]To make this more of a sad conversation,
[9:47]you're essay about your friend Tom Proda.
[9:50]I hope I pronounced that right was so sad and beautiful.
[9:54]And then I went and like read his essay and everything too.
[9:57]And maybe you could just talk for a second about.
[10:00]your relationship with him, and even how COVID
[10:02]gave him those extra moments and everything.
[10:04]Yeah, no, thank you for asking about him.
[10:06]I love talking about my friend Tom,
[10:08]and yeah, he shares a name with a very distinguished novelist
[10:12]Tom Peraudet, but this was a different one,
[10:13]and he wrote for the Wall Street Journal
[10:15]for about 10 years, and I knew him the whole time,
[10:18]and he was our tennis writer.
[10:19]He was the guy who we sent to Wimbledon and friendship,
[10:22]and had this really sort of wonderful job,
[10:24]and it was an incredible writer,
[10:26]but then was stricken with rain cancer
[10:28]about four years ago.
[10:29]And battled it very, very hard.
[10:31]He outlived all the sort of predictions
[10:33]of how long he would go, and we lost him,
[10:35]I guess the nearly December.
[10:37]Or no, I'm sorry, we're early January.
[10:39]And before he died in the fall,
[10:43]the journal published this essay by Tom that talked about
[10:46]really the last 10 months or so of the pandemic,
[10:48]and how amid what had been obviously
[10:51]an incredibly disruptive and challenging situation
[10:53]for so many people, he found this incredible silver lining
[10:56]of family, and the fact that family had to be home with him.
[11:01]This was a part of his life that he hadn't really experienced
[11:05]professionally, because he was always traveling around.
[11:06]He was always on a plane somewhere, and he had missed things.
[11:09]And here was this time in his life when, you know,
[11:12]he knew he didn't have a lot of time left,
[11:14]and he was getting every maximal moment
[11:16]with his children, his wife, his close circle.
[11:20]And it was just a very fascinating perspective on this,
[11:22]and you know, this period of time has been so rich
[11:25]with, you know, lessons of perspective and context.
[11:29]And I'll be the first to say, boy,
[11:31]I feel like the luckiest person around,
[11:33]the fact that my family has been healthy,
[11:35]the fact that I've been able to work through this.
[11:37]And I know many people are facing far greater
[11:39]and severe challenges than I could ever imagine.
[11:42]But I felt that what Tom wrote was beautiful.
[11:44]And I think that I know from talking to him,
[11:47]it was something he really wanted to say.
[11:49]And I feel like, you know, those of us
[11:52]and you're probably ones that'd be like,
[11:54]at some point in life, you've been kind of people
[11:56]who know they don't have a lot of time left.
[11:58]And there's this version of it,
[12:00]the movie version of like great clarity
[12:02]that people like, you know, they know what they wanna do
[12:04]and they're gonna do this last thing.
[12:05]And it's just like, you know, this trajectory.
[12:08]And it's not like that, you know, he was angry.
[12:10]He was mad about things.
[12:11]He just felt he was getting a raw deal.
[12:13]He died at 44, that is young.
[12:16]But he also really felt things.
[12:19]And he knew that what he was getting in these last months,
[12:23]he really needed it.
[12:24]And he felt was gonna be incredibly valuable
[12:26]to his children too as they got older
[12:28]than they knew that they had had this time with him.
[12:30]So, you know, he was a magical guy.
[12:33]We missed him a great deal.
[12:34]And he was a huge contributor to the newspaper.
[12:37]But I was really struck by the readers
[12:40]who responded, other writers, people in the tennis community,
[12:43]athletes, players who really liked the guy
[12:47]who were moved by him.
[12:48]And I don't know.
[12:49]I just, you know, we're all still sort of processing
[12:52]a little bit, even though we had time to prepare
[12:54]for this outcome.
[12:55]You know, my thoughts are primarily with his wife
[12:57]and children, of course.
[12:58]But I think that people have done right by him.
[13:01]You know, I think that he will be remembered
[13:03]as a true gen and a true, wonderful writer.
[13:07]Do you feel like losing him or having to watch this
[13:09]and sort of the anger at the life not lived?
[13:11]Does it make you feel like different approaching
[13:15]your day-to-day life?
[13:16]I mean, I know that's absolutely.
[13:17]Yeah, sure.
[13:18]How can you not?
[13:19]Like I had an experience with Tom where,
[13:21]so he was the person, of course,
[13:24]we sent to these big tournaments and he was the top dog.
[13:27]And as he started to have health issues,
[13:30]he was harder for him to do every part of it.
[13:31]He was the person who could do everything.
[13:33]And then, you know, as time went on, you know,
[13:35]he needed some supplementation.
[13:37]And so I went with him to Wimbledon one year
[13:39]and was writing some stuff on deadline
[13:41]about like Federer and Joko Vic.
[13:44]And he was sitting with me and he's like,
[13:46]you know, I'm just, I just wish I could still do that.
[13:49]And like that, I mean, like literally
[13:51]it's physically, mechanically do it really quickly
[13:53]on deadline or right like that.
[13:55]That was something that was harder for him.
[13:56]He used a little bit more runway to get stuff going.
[13:59]And yeah, I mean, you don't spend any time
[14:02]in the orbit of somebody who is facing something like that
[14:04]and not have it change you and not have it give you
[14:07]a major necessary dose of perspective.
[14:10]And all those things I need all the time.
[14:13]I think all of us need, but again, you know,
[14:16]the best part of it was the fact that he was able
[14:19]to have that time of family and friends toward the end.
[14:22]Well, I'm sorry for your loss.
[14:24]And it is always a good reminder, even though,
[14:27]I mean, they say like, oh, it's a gift when you realize,
[14:29]well, it's not a gift, it's still terrible
[14:31]and it still would prefer it not to ever happen.
[14:33]But of course, of course, of course.
[14:35]But there is something, you know,
[14:36]and since this is about writing, you know,
[14:39]there is something magical about the fact
[14:41]that people live on through their writing.
[14:44]You know, you can go, you know,
[14:45]if you've not read any of his work,
[14:47]he's not terribly hard to find, type in his name,
[14:49]Tom Perot, a Wall Street Journal, and you'll find
[14:51]just Avalanche is a great stuff that he did over the years.
[14:54]And I think that that will be a real comfort
[14:56]to his family, his children,
[14:58]but also to the many people who knew him and loved him.
[15:01]And there is something wonderful about the fact
[15:04]that that out lives us all.
[15:06]Maybe you should compile his essays into a book
[15:08]and write a forward for him.
[15:09]You're underway with all these kinds of things.
[15:13]Okay, I have no idea what it is to happen.
[15:15]You know, as children, you know,
[15:17]as others are quite young, still, you know,
[15:19]they're probably not reading the Wall Street Journal,
[15:21]but we want them to have that, you know,
[15:23]because it is a remarkable legacy of work.
[15:26]So speaking more about writing,
[15:28]how did you end up as the sports columnist
[15:30]for the Wall Street Journal?
[15:31]How did that happen?
[15:32]Like through a bunch of applications up here,
[15:35]as the mind was the, I don't, you know,
[15:38]I'll tell you, when did you start,
[15:40]when did you still back in time?
[15:42]I'll tell you what happened.
[15:43]So I was, you know, I'd kicked around newspapers
[15:45]and magazines for quite a number of years.
[15:47]And I had most recently, at that time,
[15:50]been working at GQ Magazine,
[15:51]which was the magazine I had been at for quite a while.
[15:54]And I got a call from a friend of mine
[15:56]who the journal on call at first and said,
[15:59]hey, the Wall Street Journal's looking for a sports writer.
[16:01]What would you ever do this?
[16:02]And I was like, what, the journal, what?
[16:04]Like I was not a Wall Street Journal reader.
[16:05]That will not shock anyone who reads me,
[16:07]but I don't really fit the profile of someone
[16:11]who's financially literate or newspaper literate
[16:15]in any sort of, you know, traditional sense,
[16:17]but it was still a cool sounding job.
[16:20]So I went in there and I talked to them
[16:21]and we did this thing where it was basically a try-out.
[16:24]So we write columns based on things that were happening,
[16:28]but they don't go in the newspaper.
[16:29]They just want to see if you can put the verbs
[16:30]after the grounds and spell things correctly
[16:32]and you can write on a deadline, that kind of stuff.
[16:34]Things that were important to them.
[16:36]So I did this kind of like audition over a few weeks
[16:39]and they said, okay, well, he will try this part time.
[16:42]And then about 10 years ago.
[16:43]And then it became full time a little while after that.
[16:47]And I have to say, it's the best job I've ever had
[16:49]by a landslide.
[16:51]And I've had some nice jobs and great bosses
[16:53]and great publications to work for,
[16:54]but there's nothing like working for a paper
[16:59]or any kind of publication where
[17:00]that just audiences is massive.
[17:02]So the journal goes out to what, 3 million plus a day
[17:06]and whether they like you, or they don't like you,
[17:09]you're gonna hear from them.
[17:10]You're gonna hear from readers.
[17:12]And I just never had that kind of feedback
[17:15]and relationship with readers before.
[17:16]And it's something I still treasure,
[17:19]the fact that you're in people's lives.
[17:21]And there's something about, you know,
[17:23]you described just your experience in like, you know,
[17:25]sharing what your husband or, you know, reading and print,
[17:28]you know, if you're around enough, you know,
[17:30]and my column gets in the paper a few times a week,
[17:33]you start to become a character in readers' lives
[17:35]for better or for sometimes not everyone likes you.
[17:38]But I just consider that an incredible honor and privilege
[17:41]to be able to have that role.
[17:43]And so that's my story, you know,
[17:46]everyone comes to the paper a little differently,
[17:48]but I didn't really fit the sort of standard profile
[17:51]of somebody who arrives at the journal.
[17:53]Most of the people are much smarter than I have much.
[17:57]Well, yours is by far my favorite column.
[17:59]And I think part of the reason why is
[18:02]that you put so much of yourself in everything.
[18:04]And not a lot of the other columns in the journal
[18:06]tend to do that.
[18:07]There's fantastic other things as well.
[18:09]But it's all about, I mean, it's you.
[18:11]It's what's like on your mind that week
[18:13]and like stuff with your kid,
[18:14]and yet you have like this funny way of like spinning everything
[18:17]or, you know, putting the Olympics in your mom's living room.
[18:20]Like, well, I would never have thought to write that essay.
[18:22]It's like, that's just funny.
[18:24]It's just like a different way of seeing the world.
[18:26]And yet you get to know you as well.
[18:28]So it's like, it's very cool.
[18:30]It's like going to a stand-up show or something like that.
[18:32]Yes, well, I am a failed comedian
[18:34]and I am just working it out in the Wall Street Journal.
[18:37]I look at everything that is so kind
[18:40]and I appreciate a great deal.
[18:41]I mean, I'm only doing what I know how to do.
[18:44]You know, I'm not somebody who is going to be able to write
[18:47]some sort of constantly serious stern proclamation
[18:50]about the world a couple of times a week of newspaper.
[18:53]I try to keep it light because that's just who I am.
[18:56]And the good piece of advice,
[18:58]one of the very many good pieces of advice
[18:59]I got very early on is like, you know,
[19:01]sort of be true to yourself.
[19:03]And that will be sort of your North star.
[19:05]If you are true to yourself,
[19:07]you'll never kind of get tangled
[19:08]because you're taking a take
[19:09]because you think that's what people want to hear
[19:11]or you're being something
[19:12]because you think that's what's going to get the most clicks.
[19:14]You just, you know, for better and for worse,
[19:17]you are yourself.
[19:18]And as far as like putting my own self into columns
[19:20]and things like that, you know,
[19:21]that was a challenge first of all
[19:23]because, you know, there's typically institutional resistance
[19:27]to that kind of thing wherever you work.
[19:29]That's not something that's just a journal thing.
[19:31]And I was very lucky to have publishers, editors
[19:35]who were willing to let me try that experiment with it,
[19:39]fail with it quite often.
[19:41]Still, I think that's an important part
[19:43]of being a columnist is failing everyone's in the while
[19:46]or someone on the regular.
[19:48]But it allows you, you know, you write the bad ones
[19:50]so you can write the good ones.
[19:51]And I think that, again, sort of the, you know,
[19:55]ultimately what you're hoping for is a relationship
[19:57]with the readers to sort of keep you on track.
[20:00]and everyone's in a while. I hear from people. I hear really great nice things from people.
[20:04]And then I hear everyone's in a while from people who are like, you got that one wrong or
[20:09]enough is enough with that. And like that relationship and that kind of feedback is essential to
[20:14]what I'm doing. And there's a long winded way of saying that like, this is the only skill I have
[20:19]as if this doesn't work out. You know, I'm going to be selling hand puppets somewhere. I just
[20:24]this is all I have. Okay. It seems to be going well so far. So, you know, this is it.
[20:31]Debbie, this is all I have is my thrice weekly call on the Wall Street Journal.
[20:36]We shall your life feel sorry for me. But you talk to writers all the time. And I think that
[20:42]there's a kind of writer who sort of says has like kind of a master plan or a worldview
[20:48]about the way that they want to do things and the way they sort of have a prescription for writing,
[20:52]you know, like this is how it should be done. And this is how I do it. And I don't feel that way
[20:57]at all. I feel like we're all kind of, you know, figuring out as we go along. And while in newspapers,
[21:05]there are some things that are hard and fast, like, you know, a need to be, you know, rigorous with
[21:11]fairness, be truthful to have integrity. Those are unbreakable rules. I think the rest of it is sort
[21:17]of open for discussion in terms of style and approach. And I think that in terms of
[21:22]there being rules for the way to write, you know, I guarantee you that most of the writers that
[21:28]all of us really love and somewhere or other kind of were world breakers and did a little differently
[21:33]and changed norms and were confrontational and sort of broke away from the pack. Not of which
[21:40]is to say I'm doing any of that on the regular basis. But I feel like I feel like writers have
[21:46]more liberty to experiment and do things differently. And I wouldn't certainly be prescriptive to
[21:51]people and say like this is that there's only one way to do this because there's not.
[21:54]There's a great many writers, sports writers that I love, love, love, love, who, you know,
[22:00]their humor is not their thing. They don't, you know, they're not trying to be funny. And they
[22:03]probably like a me and think I'm some sort of goofball. But I think there's room for all of it,
[22:07]you know, sports is such a topic that has such a wide range of fans, you know, people who are
[22:12]utterly casual who are watching the Super Bowl as their first football game of the season
[22:16]or the decades sometimes. And then there are people who are following every minute of every game
[22:21]and are obsessed and want a different kind of product. And I think there's room for all of it.
[22:25]Well, I mean, I don't think any writer really feels confident ever. I mean, I've talked to a lot
[22:30]of people and I think even the most accomplished brilliant literary icons like are like, oh, I hope
[22:37]my next book works. I'm sure you're right. But I think that there's a kind of person who is very
[22:45]capable of faking it, like at least in just in terms of like their confidence and it project
[22:51]to kind of like shorty that I just don't have. But I think you're right that ultimately you
[22:55]drill down and we're all kind of squishy in the middle. I'm sure that's true. And your book
[23:00]Little Victories was fantastic. But it was a while ago now. So are you thinking of writing another
[23:04]one or what? We are on the verge of like some excitement here Zibi. You know, there is a project
[23:11]in the works that I'm super excited about and spent quite a while working on. I can't like
[23:17]launch into details yet. But I'm really excited to get it out into this planet. Yeah, because it
[23:23]has been a while. I love doing Little Victories. I love the fact that I hear from people all the time
[23:28]still about, you know, reading it. But yeah, it's been a minute. And I'm really excited about what's
[23:33]coming. Well, please send me an early copy of whatever it turns out to be. I'm just going to
[23:39]eat it in the phone like, you know, like just audio. Right? Yeah. Then I can just read it back to you.
[23:45]Like hard hats. Can I have the computer voice, please? Thank you.
[23:51]Okay. Well, you just gave so much advice. But just one last piece of advice for people listening.
[23:55]Do you have one last parting piece of advice that everyone out there who's an aspiring author
[24:00]should know or aspiring writers or columnist? Oh, gosh. I think, and this is all just my experience.
[24:07]But I think one of the great superpowers of writing is humility. And by that, I mean,
[24:15]the ability to recognize that you don't have the answers always that you get it wrong sometimes.
[24:22]And you can sort of think out loud. I think that we are in a moment because of the way social
[24:29]media works and what it prioritizes and what sort of gets attention that being incredibly declarative
[24:37]to the point of like, coarseness and rudeness and awfulness, that's what clicks with people.
[24:43]You know, X is X. Y is Y. Z is Z. A is A. And life isn't like that. There are no clear cut answers.
[24:52]Or there are clear cut truth, but there are necessarily clear cut answers to the big questions.
[24:57]And I think that like, I think it's okay for people who are even in the opinion business
[25:03]to be sorting it out, to be, I don't know the answers to this question. And I have a little
[25:10]bit of, I see this and I see that. And I just, it doesn't necessarily track with like social media
[25:18]and the way that people, you know, react to information now. But I think it's human. And I think it's
[25:23]real. And I think there's a whole subcard of readers who appreciate that kind of candor. So I think
[25:29]the, you know, and that's a piece of advice that works. I think for someone who's writing opinion
[25:35]columns about sports or something, or someone who's writing opinion columns about stuff as far
[25:39]more serious than sports. It applies to people who are writing fiction and nonfiction that,
[25:44]you know, you can work it out. Show your work, right? You know, as they say on the math,
[25:47]show the work. And I think that that's certainly been my experience because, you know,
[25:53]the more you do it. And this is an old cliche. But, you know, the longer you go, the more you realize
[25:58]you don't know. But that can be a real asset. And to bring it all back to like a Tom Brady and
[26:05]the Super Bowl, right? You know, here he is. He's standing on that stage Sunday night. It would be 19 years
[26:12]since the first one. And you look at somebody who is still approaching his sport with this curiosity
[26:19]about it. Like what's it going to be like next year? I still like this. I'm still getting something
[26:23]out. I haven't done it all. I think that kind of thing is a real vital thing in no matter what you
[26:28]do. So that's sort of vague advice. But I'm sticking to it to be it works. I'll take it.
[26:36]Well, Jason, thank you. And one of these days, my husband is also quite funny. I have to say
[26:41]and love sports. And I think we should all go get a drink or something at some point. So
[26:45]can I interview you for one quick second? I appreciate that. But what's the tennis here? What's
[26:51]what's the tennis background? He taught professional tennis. He played like junior tennis in Florida
[26:56]with solitary blah, blah, blah. And then taught for like 10 to 12 years. And now he's a movie producer.
[27:02]Yeah, just fill out their hack in a way or is he up at the right place for fun. He plays for fun.
[27:07]Yeah. Not for money anymore. Not for money. No. But he's like my on staff pro.
[27:15]Good to have an on staff pro. How is his second serve these days? We don't actually, you know,
[27:20]we don't actually do serves. Oh, okay. Well, that's fun. Yeah, we just hit. But my father taught
[27:26]high school, our coach high school of tennis and Cambridge, Massachusetts for 40 years.
[27:31]And he was an obsessive like city tennis player. He liked the sort of like crazy chain
[27:37]like tennis where like, you know, the cracks in the court and the nuts were crooked and like,
[27:43]you know, like that was his game. He liked the city game. And his question to ask people was
[27:48]how was your second serve? And I think it was Harry Holland. The great Harry Holland said,
[27:52]you're only as good as your second serve. So I was thought that was like the knowing tennis
[27:55]question to ask. My second serve is horrific. So that doesn't speak well about my tennis,
[28:00]but my second serve looks like someone lightly tapping a butterfly into a butterfly that like it's
[28:06]so weak. Yes. You embarrassed. Not even be embarrassed. Not just for me, but for the entire sport
[28:12]tennis. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you so much. Thanks for spending the time with me.
[28:18]What a great time. Say hi to your husband for me. Say hi to the family. I really appreciate it.
[28:23]And let's do this again sometime. I would love it. All right. Take care. Have a great day.
[28:27]Enjoy the coffee. Okay. Thank you.
[28:31]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't
[28:35]forget to follow me on Instagram at ZB Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[28:40]Also sign up for my newsletter at ZB Owens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots
[28:44]of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the
[28:49]sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and
[28:54]now trim music.