Alison Hammer, LITTLE PIECES OF ME
[0:01]Hi, this is Vivi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:06]I'm also the host of Moms Don't Have Time to Lose Weight, and I'm the editor of the anthology,
[0:12]which you should run out and buy called Moms Don't Have Time to Accarantine Anthology.
[0:16]I'll proceed to that book, go to COVID-19 Vaccine Research.
[0:20]And I'm the editor-in-chief of Moms Don't Have Time to Write a new publication on Medium,
[0:24]and we're accepting submissions, so please send your personal essays there.
[0:29]And if all that isn't enough, you can follow me on Instagram, ad-Zivi Owens, and my website at ziviowens.com.
[0:35]Okay, now back to this amazing podcast.
[0:37]I am obsessed with slumberkins.
[0:40]They're these collections of stuffed animals and levees that come with books, and they're so much more than that.
[0:47]Slumberkins were developed by a therapist and an educator using research-based techniques to help teach children
[0:54]how to understand and support their feelings.
[0:56]So these are almost emotional intelligence teaching animals.
[1:00]My kids are just obsessed.
[1:02]I mean, they fight over all of these things so much, and each one comes with a book.
[1:07]And in the book, you do things like reciting your feelings and learn about different emotions.
[1:12]There's the caring crew of animals, the confidence crew.
[1:16]There's the resilience crew.
[1:18]It's really amazing.
[1:19]They have great gifts for newborn parents, and they're giving my listeners and followers.
[1:25]Zivi10% off your first purchase.
[1:29]The code is zivi10.
[1:31]So go to slumberkins.com, check it out.
[1:35]Your kids will love them, and you will love the fact that they help the kids fall asleep better.
[1:41]They create an activity that you can do with your kids, reading, reciting that you even have digital books that you can do as activities with your kids.
[1:50]I am just such a huge fan of this brand and what it does for families and how it will help kids and also the fun that it brings into the household.
[1:57]So go to slumberkins.
[1:59]Code zivi10 will get you 10% off your first purchase.
[2:02]Enjoy.
[2:02]Allison Hammer, who by the way, you might remember if you listened to my moms don't have time to lose weight podcast,
[2:08]is the author of Little Pieces of Me, a novel.
[2:12]She's the founder of every damn day writers.
[2:15]Allison has been spinning words to tell stories since she learned how to talk.
[2:19]A graduate of the University of Florida and the creative circus in Atlanta, she lived in nine cities before settling down in Chicago where she works as a VP creative director at an advertising agency.
[2:30]You and me and us is her first novel and Little Pieces of Me is her second, but she has many more to come as you'll hear.
[2:36]Welcome Allison.
[2:37]Thank you so much for coming on mom's don't have time to read books.
[2:40]Thank you so much for having me.
[2:41]I am an avid listener so it is an honor to be on the podcast.
[2:45]And you were just saying it was a goal of yours and that's so cute. I love that.
[2:49]It really, it really is. And so I'm just so excited to be talking to you.
[2:54]Oh my gosh. Well, as you know, because I posted about it as soon as I finished it, I really, really enjoyed your book.
[3:00]It was like, not only that, but I have since like retold the plot now, like to three different people, including my kids who are like, listen to this.
[3:10]I love that. And literally your post made my day not only was the picture beautiful, but it's just, I'm just speechless. I was very, very excited by it.
[3:18]So thank you for reading and for sharing. Of course, of course. Okay, so tell listeners, please what your book Little Pieces of Me is about and what inspired you to write it.
[3:28]So Little Pieces of Me, it is the story of a woman who finds out through a male and DNA test that her dad that she grew up with an adored is not her biological father.
[3:39]It's a story of identity and family secrets and who we are and everything that that makes up us.
[3:47]It makes dual timelines. So it takes place in present day as my main character page gets this discovery.
[3:53]And as she's trying to figure out what it means for her her identity, her relationship with her late father and with her mother, which is a tough relationship.
[4:03]And then back in 1974 when her mom, her dad and her DNA dad are all in college at the University of Kansas.
[4:11]And that is Little Pieces of Me. Amazing. I loved those back. I mean, I enjoyed the present day scenes too, but I felt like I was so in it when you were writing about the scenes from college.
[4:23]Like you just like my heart kind of went out to the mom who up until then I was sort of annoyed at, you know, like you made her so sympathetic because you understand like once you understand basically anyone's back story.
[4:36]Or not to have more empathy towards them right when there seem to be reasons for their behavior.
[4:42]Totally. Well, the it's interesting because the way I first wrote the story was pretty different.
[4:47]In the beginning, I told the story in three parts. So part one was present day when page made the DNA discovery.
[4:53]Part two went back to 1974 when everything happened. And then part three was her dealing with the, you know, the aftermath of it.
[5:03]And when my agent read it, she was like part two is so driving because you know these two characters are going to have sex. You just don't know like the details of where one or how or anything.
[5:13]And then you find out and there's still 100 pages left.
[5:16]So she had the idea for me to interweave the chapters. And so once I got over the panic of how much work it would be, I literally took it apart and put it back together again.
[5:26]And I think the way that it is how you're just like you said, you're getting to present day, Elizabeth is a tough character to like.
[5:33]But when you see her as Betsy when she was a young growing college, I think that that, like you said, it helps you understand her more and hopefully makes her a little bit more likable to readers.
[5:44]Wait, so tell me what was it like taking it apart and packaging it up again. How did you do it was it all in like a word doc. Did you put it on the floor and start cutting like how did you do that.
[5:54]I didn't I went all arts and crafts. So my agent likes me to do a roadmap, which is amazing because it helps me just see the story from a high level.
[6:02]So there's a point in my process where I go chapter by chapter and kind of bullet point the things that that happened in it.
[6:09]And so I already had this it was like a 50 page outline.
[6:12]And so what I did is I made the present day scenes in red and the past scenes in blue.
[6:20]And I literally cut it out and I arts and crafted I cleaned off my kitchen table. I have a picture of it. I need to do one of those like how I started how it's going.
[6:28]But I just spread it out and I used to post it note for any scenes or chapters that I'd have to add, but it was pretty amazing how it ended up coming together.
[6:37]So yeah, it was and it really feels like it was meant to be that way. But once I got it and it did freak me out at first, but she was right. And I'm so happy with how it turned out.
[6:46]There was a moment in the beginning where, you know, she discovered her dad fairly quickly. And I thought that's maybe what the book was going to be about. And like I was halfway done or something like that.
[6:55]And I was like, okay, all right, that's not what the book's about. Like let's see what's coming next.
[7:01]So I love that you said that because when I started writing it and I'll tell you where where I got the idea from it, but when I started writing it, I thought that's what it was about to.
[7:09]And this happened with my debut, you and me and us that I didn't realize what it was about until a reader told me until a, you know, one of my beta readers pointed it out.
[7:18]And my mom was not thrilled that I wrote two books about difficult mother daughter relationships because we have a great relationship and she doesn't want people to think otherwise.
[7:27]But, you know, I thought it was about this woman who makes this discovery, but it's really about that mother daughter relationship again.
[7:35]And the story sometimes reveals itself to the author, which is still something that's amazing to me.
[7:42]And tell us about your last book a little bit more because I didn't read that one. I'm sorry.
[7:46]Okay. Yeah.
[7:47]So you and me and us, my debut came out three weeks into the pandemic. So super fun time to launch her career.
[7:53]But that is the story of a woman who works in advertising. She's a bit of a workaholic.
[7:58]And it's a story of her relationship with her teenage daughter. It's a difficult relationship.
[8:03]And the way that it evolves over a summer as they lose the one member of their family that holds them together.
[8:08]So that one is a bit of a tear jerker, but there's also parts that are that make people laugh and it ends with a little bit of hope.
[8:16]So when you sold your debut, was it a two book deal. How did you get the second one out so quickly?
[8:22]It was a two book deal. Yeah. So I my first book.
[8:25]So the first book that I ever wrote took me 15 years to finish writing and that's currently in a drawer.
[8:30]I'm hopeful maybe one day. But you and me and us was my first time doing nano rhyme out national novel writing month. So it's an international program that challenges writers to write 50,000 words in the month of November.
[8:41]So I went from taking 15 years to finish a book to finishing you and me and us the first draft in two months. So that was 2016.
[8:49]I wrote little pieces of me, which originally was called blank page page like the character's name. And I signed with my agent in 2018 worked with her on edit sold the book to William Morrow Harper Collins and then it came out in 2020.
[9:03]So it's a it was a four year process and then it's crazy. It like happens really slow and then then fast somehow.
[9:11]I'll do a pandemic too. Oh my gosh. Can't believe it. Wait. So why do you think what was it about the first one that took you that long versus the second one.
[9:21]That's like a radically different.
[9:23]It's radically different and I learned a lot of lessons. My biggest lesson was to finish first because I edited as I went and I had 75 pages that were just perfect.
[9:34]I worked up to them. I had like they were perfect. And then I sent him to an agent. It was 120,000 words long when it was finished, which is at least 20,000 words too long for a book in this genre.
[9:45]And an agent pointed out that it started in the wrong place, which is a mistake that most writers make starting out when they're first writing a novel. And so those 75 pages that were just perfect all eventually had to go.
[9:56]wasted about 10 years. I know it's very sad, but I
[10:00]I, you know, I think that now I, again, just really strongly I finished first.
[10:05]I don't edit until I'm finished and I just get it all out.
[10:09]And there was a point I think about 10 years in when I made that realization and it sounds
[10:13]so obvious, but I was like, I'm never going to finish it if I don't finish it.
[10:17]And so I was like, I'm like, I'm stopping editing.
[10:19]I'm not going to, I'm just going to finish it.
[10:21]And so that's how I got there with the, with the second, with the first one.
[10:25]And then Nano Rima was something that I'd always heard about, but again, it took me 15 years
[10:29]to write the first one.
[10:30]So I'm like, there's no way.
[10:32]But I'm ridiculously competitive against myself in like really silly ways.
[10:36]Like I have a sleep app that gives me a percentage quality of sleep every day and I wake
[10:40]up in the morning.
[10:41]Like how did I do?
[10:43]So there's something about that competition of having a goal with the, with the word count
[10:47]every day and the camaraderie and the community of so many writers all trying to make
[10:53]that goal that just helped me and also it helped that the first book I wrote had the same
[10:58]characters as my debut.
[11:00]And so I knew them really well.
[11:02]And I think the more you know the characters, the easier it is to tell their story.
[11:06]Alison, I would argue that you didn't waste a single minute of those years.
[11:11]You needed those years to do what you do now.
[11:14]Like it wasn't a waste.
[11:15]The fact that you spent that time, it's not that you perfected 75 pages, it's you taught
[11:20]yourself how to write a novel, right?
[11:23]Yeah.
[11:24]No, that is a very good point.
[11:25]I like that way thinking about this.
[11:26]It's true.
[11:27]Nobody, nobody can write a novel the first time.
[11:31]Like you have to try.
[11:32]You have to like, no, it's like you can't just like sit down with the piano and like
[11:37]turn something out.
[11:38]You have to learn how to play the piano and then you have to practice and then you
[11:42]get better.
[11:43]So I mean, I understand that there are people out there who are like virtuosos who can hear
[11:48]music and sit down and play and I mean, there are like wise people who can write novels
[11:52]on the first try.
[11:53]But for the vast majority of people, it's just not the case.
[11:56]A lot of people have a practice novel in the drawer and I do, I do hope that one day I can
[12:02]revive it and make it come to life again because it is, it's the story of the beginning
[12:07]of the story of Tommy and Alexis, the characters in my debut and I am hopeful.
[12:12]I've got these characters.
[12:13]I think there are some characters that just don't leave you alone.
[12:16]That started as, they started as a short story in college.
[12:19]So they've been around for a very long time and I have thoughts of a book that finds
[12:23]the mother and daughter 15 years in the future.
[12:25]But I've got a lot of stories that I'm excited to tell.
[12:29]That's just one of them.
[12:30]Oh, wow.
[12:31]You gave me this great idea, which is I should make like a little, like because I have
[12:36]novels in my cabinets behind me too and everybody does.
[12:40]But I don't even know where they are and they look like they're just in a white box
[12:43]and maybe I'll lose it and like, what if I die, no one's even going to know what it is.
[12:48]I should make a cute, like, coverlet for all the like discarded books, right?
[12:54]And then you could feel some sort of accomplishment, like because it is an accomplishment,
[12:58]even if it's, even if you never sell it, it's still a book.
[13:01]Totally.
[13:02]Oh, a hundred percent.
[13:03]I just finished writing a new project with a friend of mine, Stephen Kellogg.
[13:07]He is an author and a singer-songwriter and we did our, this nano project together.
[13:13]The other night I told him because it was his, his, his book that he has out as a book
[13:17]of essays.
[13:18]This was his first novel and I told him, like, reaching those final two words, the end
[13:21]is a really big deal and he was writing the epilogue.
[13:24]So he was going to get to the end and I was like, so just when you do it, take a moment
[13:28]and appreciate the bigness that like we just wrote a book.
[13:31]And so last night he faced timed me so that we could like write it together, but like, it
[13:36]was so cute.
[13:37]So finishing a book though, like, I, I do know that that's a moment and it's hard
[13:41]to, it's hard to remember that when you're like, you know, being published and looking
[13:47]for all of the, the list and big things that you want and you dream to be like, I've
[13:52]already accomplished a dream just by having the book out in the world.
[13:55]So thank you for the reminder because that is true.
[13:58]Just writing a book in the first place is, is pretty, pretty great.
[14:00]So you collaborated on a third book with Stephen Kellogg.
[14:03]It's like book six.
[14:05]Oh, God.
[14:06]Oh my gosh.
[14:07]Tell me the whole thing.
[14:08]All right.
[14:09]Give me, give me the lay of the land here.
[14:11]So again, I'm addicted to an animal rhyme.
[14:13]So I, I started it in 2016 and so I do, I did, you and me and us in 2016, 2017, I wrote
[14:21]little pieces of me, 2018, I wrote a book called The Antarage, which I'm hopeful that
[14:26]that could potentially be book three.
[14:28]And that was inspired by something that happened to a friend of mine.
[14:31]It's interesting.
[14:32]My, my debut was was all my imagination, but my next few books, including little pieces
[14:36]of me were inspired by things that kind of happened in my, in my world.
[14:40]But that's a story of another story.
[14:43]I tend to be in the family and friendship and love and lost zone.
[14:46]That's kind of my sweet spot.
[14:48]So the Antarage is about a, a group of friends who lost one of their friends who had
[14:52]a young baby and it's kind of them coming together to help raise the baby.
[14:56]And there's love and laughter and friendship and all that kind of stuff.
[15:00]2019, I wrote another book that I don't even know how to describe it in that zone.
[15:06]This 2020, I wrote this book called with Stephen Kellogg and it is about a singer songwriter
[15:12]kind of past his prime in his 50s and he, it's 2025.
[15:17]So post pandemic and he goes out on the road with a young, up and coming singer songwriter.
[15:22]So it's the two of them in their discovery, you know, one at the end of their career, one
[15:26]at the beginning and what they teach each other.
[15:28]It's love and friendship and there'll be an album to go along with it.
[15:32]So yeah, I'm really excited about that.
[15:35]And then during the pandemic because, you know, we had nothing but time, my critique
[15:39]partner and I started co writing books together.
[15:42]And so we are writing round pounds.
[15:44]We're working on our second one now.
[15:45]So I, you know, it's, I don't know.
[15:49]It's a lot.
[15:50]I know, but it's great.
[15:51]It's ridiculous.
[15:53]That's part of why I didn't meet my, my goal to lose 25 more pounds before, before book
[15:57]lot and because I know we talked on, on your other podcast.
[16:01]But my days are, are jam packed.
[16:03]I bet.
[16:04]I mean, I've, like, given up to trying to lose weight altogether, basically.
[16:07]So, you know, the fact that you were steadily losing was amazing.
[16:11]And anyway, I love to interview for that as well.
[16:13]Wow.
[16:14]Well, that's great.
[16:15]It's really awesome to talk to somebody who just feels so much joy about writing and
[16:21]clearly you love it and you love doing it with other people and you love doing it alone.
[16:25]And you like, it's your thing.
[16:27]And it's great.
[16:28]And you're finally getting sick, the, what's the word, the accolades, their validation
[16:33]after, after you're like apprenticeship to yourself.
[16:37]Thank you.
[16:38]Yeah.
[16:39]And I never, ever, ever thought that I would write a book with somebody else.
[16:42]I didn't understand how people did that.
[16:43]How do you do that?
[16:44]So we, it's the, the process is different with both of them.
[16:47]With Stephen, we have been doing weekly Zoom call since, since July.
[16:52]And we plotted it out.
[16:53]We came up with the characters.
[16:54]We, we had a really, really long outline.
[16:58]And I do most the writing of the first draft and then put it into a share doc.
[17:02]And he edits it and adds, like, as lines and makes notes.
[17:07]And so it really has been collaborative that way.
[17:09]My project with, with Brady Godfrey, my critique partner, we're called Allie Brady.
[17:14]So we took a little bit of both of our names.
[17:15]We have been writing dual point of view books.
[17:18]And so where we each have a character.
[17:21]And so we plot the, everything together, we come up with the outline together.
[17:25]And then we are, right now we're on like a chapter a week schedule where we each draft
[17:31]a chapter and then critique the others chapter.
[17:33]And so it's been, we're almost finished with our first draft of book two, which is pretty
[17:37]cool.
[17:38]That's awesome.
[17:39]So what do you, what do you like to read when you're not writing?
[17:42]What, what do you like to do when you're not writing?
[17:44]What there is their time for it?
[17:46]No.
[17:47]So I have a day job I work in advertising as a creative director.
[17:50]In this pandemic world, I mean, there's not much, you know, I do what I, I don't even
[17:56]know what I do.
[17:57]I do a lot of writing and a lot of reading when the world gets back to normal.
[18:00]I cannot wait for live music is something that I just love.
[18:03]I love travel.
[18:04]I'm obsessed with my two nephews who are just adorable.
[18:07]But yeah, I do, I do read a lot.
[18:08]I don't have a lot of time to sit and read.
[18:11]And so audiobooks are my best friend.
[18:13]And there are a few books that I've read recently that I have a physical copy of.
[18:17]But I also bought on audio just because I couldn't wait to read.
[18:20]And I listen when I'm doing laundry or cleaning or cooking or walking, I just listen.
[18:26]It's the way that I can get books in.
[18:28]But I read a lot of stories that are in a similar camp to mine.
[18:31]I love stories about family and friendship.
[18:33]I'm a sucker for feelings.
[18:36]I love books that make me cry.
[18:38]And I, it's probably why I wrote books that make me cry.
[18:41]I also love mysteries.
[18:43]I like historical fiction.
[18:44]I really, I really read pretty, pretty widely.
[18:48]I just finished the most incredible book.
[18:50]I like binged it all weekend.
[18:52]The song book of Benny Lemant by Amy Harmon.
[18:55]It's incredible.
[18:56]She's a new, new author to me.
[18:57]She's been around a long time.
[18:59]But I, you know, take books from recommendations that I see on Instagram that I hear on your podcast and other podcasts and word of mouth.
[19:08]But I read a lot.
[19:09]And then I've been trying to read.
[19:10]I started a book club with a friend where we pick a, we alternate between fiction and nonfiction.
[19:16]But we read a book by a black author every month.
[19:19]You know, I've always tried to read diverse voices.
[19:22]But after this year, I've made it like a priority.
[19:25]And so that's been a great way to just to read more.
[19:28]Wow.
[19:29]So you like to be busy, which I can really, I don't know if I love that.
[19:34]I don't know if it's choice, but it's definitely who I am.
[19:38]Love it.
[19:39]So what have you not accomplished that is on your list?
[19:42]Because I'm sure that there is stuff.
[19:44]So many things.
[19:45]I really, again, try to focus on, I try to focus on the individual readers.
[19:49]And I try to focus on what I can control.
[19:51]And that's really, really hard for me because I am very type A.
[19:54]And I like to, I like to know that I can do things.
[19:58]And with publishing, you really can.
[20:00]I can write the best book that I can and put it out in the world and hope that it connects
[20:04]with people and that people share it and it finds its way to readers.
[20:07]I had a dream of being in airport bookstores and you and me and us were supposed to be
[20:11]in the airport bookstores and then the world shut down so that was pretty sad.
[20:16]You know, I do try to remind myself that I'm living my dream, just the fact that like
[20:20]I'm here and I'm talking to you and there are people that are reading my book and that
[20:24]reach out to me. It's pretty amazing. So I have a lot of goals but I try not to get to
[20:29]focused on them. I mean, I'd like to have a long career. Like I said, I have a lot of stories in
[20:34]me and I just want to keep telling them and, you know, just keep connecting with people.
[20:40]Going back for two seconds to little pieces of me, I saw in the afterward there was something
[20:44]about that that this would happen to a friend of yours. Is that what inspired it? Tell me a little
[20:48]bit about that. Yeah. So like I said, it was back in 2017 and a friend of mine in Chicago had a bunch
[20:54]of bars and one was closing. So a bunch of us went out just for one last night and I walked in
[20:59]and I saw my friend up at the bar and so I said, hi. And she said, you will never guess what I
[21:04]just found out on Ancestry.com. And so I made a few guesses of some historical and current political
[21:10]figures that I knew she wouldn't want to be related to. And she kept saying no and I was like,
[21:14]okay, just tell me. And she told me that she had gotten a parent child match for man who is not
[21:19]her father. And I was like, I never would have guessed that. And the more she told me that she had,
[21:25]you know, done a little Googling and found out that this man went to college the same time in place
[21:29]her parents did. I was just like, I was fascinated. And I was like, this would make an incredible
[21:35]story. And I want to be clear. It is not her story. It is, I fiction. I took what happened to her
[21:40]and fictionalized it. But a few days later, she reached out to me and she said, I'd be happy to
[21:44]talk to you if you really want to write a story about something like that. And so I, I talked
[21:49]to her and got her experience. And there's a few scenes that are very close to what happened to her
[21:54]when she made that discovery. The conversation that Paige has with the family tree.com customer
[22:01]service rep is like almost verbatim her conversation. I had to change a few things because people
[22:06]were like, that's not believable. Like the customer service rep she talked to said, your mom's got
[22:12]some explaining to do. And people are right. And readers were like, there's no way somebody would
[22:17]say that. And truth is stranger than fiction. So I had to edit a little bit. But everything that
[22:21]happened in the past and even who the character is, that's all fictional. But it was hearing that story
[22:28]that that sparked the idea. Wow. Yeah. And when she told me that she didn't think that her DNA
[22:35]dad had any other kids, that was really the moment. And I don't want to give away any spoilers.
[22:39]But that was an important moment where, you know, that divided what happened to her to the story
[22:45]in my head. Well, well done on all friends. So exciting. So what advice would you have for aspiring
[22:52]authors? Oh, goodness. So many. I already said finish first is one of my big ones. And it's also
[22:57]find your community. And if you don't, if the community doesn't exist that you want, make it,
[23:02]I have been so fortunate. I get emotional just even thinking about all of the writers that have helped
[23:08]me and that are in my group. I had a group of writers for when I was when I was querying, we had
[23:14]like a querying support group. Once I signed with my agent, there wasn't a group that placed
[23:19]when you're when you have an agent and your on submission is just so it's so difficult and stressful
[23:25]because it's not something you're supposed to talk about. And you can't like complain down to people
[23:29]who would be just so desperate to have an agent. And so I started a group for a group of writers
[23:33]that were all on submission at the same time. I ran the 2020 debut group and our group, they they
[23:40]started doing these debut groups, I think in 2017. But our group is a unique group that had this
[23:45]challenge of being unknown authors launching a career in middle of a global pandemic. And I don't
[23:50]know how we would have survived it without supporting and just supporting each other and cheering each
[23:55]other on. So find your community whether whether it's a stage you're at or the Women's Fiction
[24:01]Writers Association. I credit for just changing my writing life. Find your people because they can
[24:08]help you get through the the ups and downs. And there are a lot of them. I'm thinking of starting
[24:13]a net like a group for people for authors who have been on this podcast. Oh, amazing. Do you think
[24:18]people would be looking down to that? 100%. I would just I just got into this. I started groups.
[24:24]Moms don't have time to grieve and moms don't have time to travel through this cycle of
[24:28]mighty networks. And I like I'm loving those. So then I was thinking maybe I should just invite
[24:32]all the authors who have been on the show. And then they can talk to each other. And I can like
[24:36]post news about, you know, I think that being groups are I mean quite honestly, groups are the
[24:43]reason that I'm still on Facebook. Like I feel like this with social media. I use Twitter to talk
[24:48]to other writers. I use Instagram to connect with readers and Facebook. I'm there for the groups.
[24:53]And I'm a bit of a I run a lot of groups. I run a group called The Every Damned Day Writers.
[24:58]And that came from NanoWriMo because we loved that daily accountability of checking in. And so now
[25:04]we have over 500 women writers and eight moderators who take turns every day posting something
[25:11]a prompt or just something to build community and accountability. Because again,
[25:15]like another thing that I say a lot is that writing is not a solo sport. You know, part of the
[25:20]reason that I can be so proud of my book is that I didn't get there alone. There's actually a funny
[25:25]two different times. I've had readers in reviews point out a line that in the book that they
[25:31]that they said is their favorite. And I love it too, but I didn't write it. My critique partner wrote
[25:36]it. So I think that there are so many people who have their hands and their minds and their
[25:42]hearts in this book that it makes it easier for me to be like to be proud and talk about how I think
[25:47]it turned out. But again, community groups, I think that it's everything, especially in this
[25:53]pandemic world. Like it's how we connect. All right. Well, maybe we'll talk after. Yeah. So you're
[25:58]open to a muddy network versus a Facebook group. I don't know. I guess I could. I feel like I'm like
[26:03]over faith. I don't know. I'm in Facebook groups. You know what? I'll talk about this later. Okay. Well,
[26:08]Towson, thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for totally entertaining me for like two and a half
[26:13]hours straight. I could I was like barely even feeding my kids breakfast before they went to school.
[26:18]So thank you so much for all of it. I really, really appreciate it. I have love chatting with you.
[26:23]Thank you so much. Like I said, this is a dream talking to you and being on the podcast. And thank
[26:27]you for everything you do to support writers and bring writers and readers together. I'm a big fan
[26:33]and it has just been a thrill to talk to you. So thank you. All right. Thanks. All right. Have a great day.
[26:39]Thank you so much. You too. Okay. Bye. Bye. Thank you. Slumperkin's for sponsoring today's episode.
[26:47]Again, use code Zibi 10 to get 10% off your first purchase. Thanks for listening to this episode of
[26:53]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens and
[26:58]at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at Zibi Owens.com and sign
[27:03]up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to
[27:08]Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morningmoon Productions
[27:13]for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music.