Dolly Alderton, GHOSTS: A Novel
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[0:50]My name is Melissa Gould, and I am so excited to have my essay,
[0:55]What's in a Name? My Best Friends.
[0:58]In the new anthology, Moms Don't Have Time to Have Kids.
[1:02]And the thing I do not have time for is people who refuse to get the COVID vaccine.
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[1:10]Dolly Aldordin is the author of Ghosts, a novel.
[1:13]She is an award-winning author and journalist based in London, and a columnist for the Cindy Times Style.
[1:20]She's also written for GQ, Red, Marie Claire, and Gratia.
[1:23]She is the former co-host and co-creator of the weekly pop culture and current affairs podcast The High Love.
[1:29]Her first book, Everything I Know About Love, which is a memoir, became a top five Sunday Times bestseller.
[1:34]And it's first week of publication and won a national book award in the UK for autobiography of the year.
[1:40]I had Dolly on my podcast to talk about that book so you can go back and listen to that episode as well if you like.
[1:45]Ghost is her first novel.
[1:47]Welcome, Dolly. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to read books for the second time to discuss ghosts.
[1:54]Now, international bestseller. So exciting.
[1:57]Congratulations.
[1:58]Oh, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me.
[2:01]I am so impressed with the very, very chic home that Debbie is beaming in.
[2:07]I literally can't. That's like all my Pinterest dreams come through.
[2:13]I put this all together myself. I had COVID last February and I was in bed for nine days and I got out and I came in here and I took every book off every shelf and reorganized and made this like color for wall. I don't know.
[2:25]It's like I had to touch every book. It was bizarre. So yeah, what an incredibly industrious and useful way to spend your time suffering from COVID.
[2:36]Yeah, I think I just was going crazy and not seeing anybody for so long. So, you know, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good that's actually that's a good hot tip for someone who's currently house bound with COVID.
[2:47]Yes, start reorganizing. Start reorganizing. You should see what I do with my kids rooms, but that's like a whole nother zoom.
[2:53]Everybody's just rearranged and oh my gosh, I even put like the wallpaper you can get from Amazon on my daughter's room to make it look like pretend bricks because she was like all into that.
[3:04]I don't know. Wow. Sometimes I need to like get into it, you know, to like, I don't know. Just like make have some control over something. I don't know.
[3:13]Yeah, have some control over something and I also think that there's something that's so satisfying about DIY like at home projects because you know that you're putting all this time into it and you know that you're going to get this thing guaranteed physically at the end, which you don't get in other parts of adult life.
[3:30]You know, all right, creative endeavors, speculative business propositions, you can play so much time and love into something and end up with absolutely nothing at the end.
[3:45]There's something that's just like so satisfying about DIY and gardening that you're guaranteed to have this like physical evidence of your time at the end of it.
[3:53]Yes, it's so simple, but so satisfying. I don't garden, but you garden.
[3:58]Do you know what I went to a big gardening phase a couple of years ago. I've got I did that classic London thing that I'm sure people in New York do where like because none of us can afford outside space.
[4:10]You end up just finding these like tiny little square meters of roof or, you know, just bits of gravel that you then turn into a makeshift garden. So on my roof, which is an even mind, I think it kind of belongs to the tenants above.
[4:26]I asked them permission. They were like, yeah, go for your life. I just put loads of I put like four raised beds and I grew some courgettes.
[4:35]It was very satisfying, but like everything with me, it's always really exciting and I'm obsessed with it and I think about nothing else for about six months and then sure enough, they're now just full of weeds.
[4:48]I have the same thing I get so excited about everything and then like the next thing comes and I'm like, well, I'm not as excited about this anymore. I said that to my daughter about something and she's like, what?
[4:58]You were so into that. I was like, I know, but now I'm in the best. I know I'm the same. I'm exactly the same. I have like endless amount of obsession and passion for something and then
[5:10]then I move on. Yeah. I don't know. Keep things interesting. I guess.
[5:15]It's interesting. Yeah. And it gets stuff done in the short term. Totally. It's like a burst of motivation and well, is that how ghosts came about? Tell me, yeah, this book came about.
[5:24]Yes, goes was definitely an absolute obsession that gripped me and it all came about really fast. This is it's so funny. We should talk about this because it's the same.
[5:33]It's the same with writing. It's like albums and like it's with albums at the moment. I'm only listening to two albums on repeat and I have done for a month.
[5:41]Which one? And I know little Sims knew album and Cleo souls knew album and then thank God Kanye's album was so shit.
[5:50]It means I can just focus on those two new releases of September.
[5:55]And then I know next month, I won't listen to them again probably for three years. It's just a weird part of my personality.
[6:03]I'm always interested that you're the same and that you manage to commit to having a family because I always think like that.
[6:09]That's going to be the real test for me. But I can't just go, okay, I think I'm done now. I'm just going to hand these kids over.
[6:17]Yeah. Well, I will say I'm divorced and remarried. So I do get breaks every other weekend where I'm so maybe I've manufactured that in a way.
[6:27]We're so interesting. You should say that you can cut this out if you want because this is obviously like, you know, a bit of spicy things to say, but I have dated quite a few single dads.
[6:39]All of them have said the same thing, which is like, obviously divorce is huge. You traumatic and horrible thing for anyone to go through, but the thing that no one talks about is it, if you're amicable with your ex-po parent, it does sort of give you the perfect parenting set up.
[6:56]I mean, there, I mean, it's very sad when I don't have my kids, like especially in the beginning and sometimes it feels like my heart is breaking, but other times I'm like, all right, I'm good.
[7:06]My husband never knows what he's going to get. Like after I dropped him off. Will I be sobbing or will I be like ready to go for drinks? He's always just like, what, what's coming? I don't know.
[7:18]But it's true. I mean, I always say like, I could not get all the stuff I do done if I weren't divorced. Yeah. I mean, there's no way. Yeah.
[7:24]I mean, I can barely, I go like 10 days and then I get a break. So, you know, that's really the secret sauce is like being able to sleep and regroup and all that stuff.
[7:33]But yeah, and I think it's the thing that my, that my friends have said that so all encompassing about having kids, which actually does relate back to goes.
[7:41]It's that it's not so much like, you know, you've got really, really little children. It's not so much about loss of time and loss of sleep.
[7:51]It is about loss of life. It's about loss of identity. It's about, you know, so much of my life in my 20s where I feel like most myself and most like I'm really in my own life and in the funk of my existence is pottering around is like those Saturdays where I go from an exercise class to really long walk to having lunch with a friend and then walking around the shops or going to the cinema on my own.
[8:20]And like the thought of all of that being taken away from me. I think it would send me into a bit of an existential, you know, funk really.
[8:28]Yes.
[8:29]Well, I think that's why, I think that's part of why there's a lot of, you know, they postpartum depression anxiety. I mean, not the actual thing. That's like a symptom and a true mental illness.
[8:38]But like, I mean, like long term postpartum like 10 years to any years. It's true. I mean, that's why that's why so many parents are like, oh, brunch remember brunch. Anyway, now I get to go to brunch every other weekend and you know, it's not that great.
[8:53]But I had it the other day. Yeah. I had it the other day with my friend where I said to her, she had her baby was she had an afternoon off from her baby, which was like the first first time that she had an afternoon for a baby.
[9:05]And she was like, what did you do thinking she was going to say I went to this exhibition and I went and ate this is my favorite thing. I went whatever. And she was like, I just did errands and it was bliss.
[9:19]And so, you know, she went to the post office and she sorted out her naked rule and she and the idea of that being a luxury in life.
[9:29]It's quite terrifying actually. Yeah. And like, oh, I had time to like shave my legs without someone knocking on the shower door.
[9:37]Oh, nice. No one interrupted me for two seconds. Yeah. Well, and you're so funny in this book, by the way, with Catherine, she that's the name of the married friend, right Catherine with the ice. Yeah.
[9:48]Because the way that your main character interacts with her friend is just like so classic, especially this one line or she canceled because she said something like I have to get up in the morning.
[10:00]and you're like, as if we, the rest of us don't have to live.
[10:03]I mean, you're so much prettier than me.
[10:04]What did you say, hold on, let me see if I can find it.
[10:06]Okay, you said, I'm going to read this whole paragraph
[10:09]because you're hilarious.
[10:10]And by the way, I have laughed more in this book
[10:11]than I have in so long.
[10:13]And like every time I pick it up,
[10:14]I'm like, well, I bet this next section won't make me laugh.
[10:16]And then it does.
[10:17]And I'm like, oh, thank you.
[10:18]You said thanks to me.
[10:19]The next morning with the sort of hangover
[10:21]that makes you Google Ostroms,
[10:23]I found myself 10 and a half miles away from my sofa.
[10:26]And once again, on Wandsworth Common Against My Will,
[10:28]the original plan was for Catherine to come to my flat
[10:31]to help me choose a paint color from my bathroom,
[10:33]then go for a walk and lunch nearby.
[10:34]But at the last minute, she said,
[10:36]she couldn't do the journey because of a child care glitch.
[10:38]I was totally unsurprised.
[10:40]Such is the superior trump card of motherhood
[10:42]that she once canceled dinner with me
[10:44]an hour before we were meant to meet via a text explaining
[10:47]she had to quote, wake up in the morning, et cetera, unquote,
[10:50]as if being childless gave me an option
[10:52]of not existing for the day.
[10:54]What a bitch.
[10:57]Oh my gosh, but you're so funny, especially the two of you.
[11:03]I keep saying you.
[11:04]It's not you.
[11:04]Nina and Catherine are over there.
[11:07]And she's trying to fill her time for an hour and a half.
[11:09]And just sitting there being like, is this enough?
[11:12]You go refer to it as, what did you say?
[11:13]It's a big like, I don't know, filling up the card.
[11:16]And then you don't have to refilling
[11:18]like you have in the cars, and then we're finally
[11:21]you're done and you've listened enough
[11:23]and you're like, I'm out.
[11:25]I know.
[11:26]When I hear it back, I do, because I hear that passage
[11:29]being read at night.
[11:30]God, Nina is so snarky.
[11:34]I love her.
[11:35]I love Nina.
[11:37]Oh, I'm so glad you do.
[11:39]I'm so glad you do because it was,
[11:40]she's quite different to me with her voice,
[11:42]but her thought that she says to the reader,
[11:47]a kind of like my darkest thoughts
[11:48]that I have on my grumpyest day when I've
[11:50]had three glasses of wine.
[11:51]So there's something very cathartic about just letting
[11:54]those slightly less generous thoughts have room
[11:58]to breathe and to kind of play around with them.
[12:01]And I'm so glad that as a mother in particular
[12:03]that you liked her and you didn't feel she was too judgmental
[12:06]because I really, really wanted to, at first,
[12:09]you see Catherine through Nina's eyes,
[12:11]which is only from the poultry pieces of information
[12:15]that she gets from Catherine and Catherine is so concerned
[12:18]with showing her she's made the right choice
[12:20]of having children and settling down
[12:21]and getting married quite young,
[12:23]that she actually doesn't give the full picture to Nina.
[12:25]And it was really important to me
[12:27]that you have that slightly distorted view
[12:30]of Catherine through Nina's eyes initially.
[12:32]And then in the kind of later part of the book,
[12:36]we get more of the backstory of where Catherine's at
[12:38]in her marriage and in her mental health
[12:40]and with her children and with her mothering
[12:43]so that we can really understand
[12:45]why she has in Nina's eyes fallen short as a friend.
[12:48]I really, really wanted to not,
[12:50]I didn't want to be ungenerous towards Catherine.
[12:53]So I'm glad that you like Nina.
[12:54]No, I loved it.
[12:56]You know, everyone who is a mother was once not a mother.
[12:59]Yeah, we were all on the other side of that.
[13:02]And all of us had mother friends.
[13:04]I mean, not, I shouldn't say all.
[13:06]Let me speak for myself when before I was a mother,
[13:09]I had friends who were already mothers.
[13:10]So like just because I'm one now doesn't mean I've forgotten
[13:13]any of that, you know, I mean, so no, I didn't find,
[13:17]I thought the snorkeiness was hilarious.
[13:19]I think that was my favorite part.
[13:20]I'm serious, maybe that makes me a terrible person
[13:22]or something, but no, I was laughing so much.
[13:26]Yeah, I loved their dynamic.
[13:28]And I mean, when she said she's having another baby
[13:30]and, you know, it's like, oh, like what did she say?
[13:34]She was like, she's having another one.
[13:36]Now I have to feign like I care the surprise
[13:38]or like whatever, I don't know, so.
[13:40]Yes, it was something about.
[13:41]That is a bit me bearing a bit of a bit that I think
[13:46]that I'm always, not always has not all couples do this,
[13:50]but I do find the kind of grand unveiling of information
[13:55]when you have the privilege of being in a couple
[13:58]that have this information that they feel they can kind of
[14:01]releases it as a sort of a suppress release to the people
[14:06]in their life, which is a privilege.
[14:08]It's not really allowed for single people.
[14:10]You know, if I kind of issued statements
[14:13]about new information in my life,
[14:15]I think people would think it was rather self-important,
[14:17]but I am just quite interested.
[14:20]And obviously with having babies,
[14:22]there are lots of reasons why people would want
[14:24]to hold that information back.
[14:25]But there's a way in which Katherine conveys that information
[14:29]to Nina that Nina finds sort of in periods.
[14:33]And I think as I said, like it's just comparing it
[14:36]to the single experience, which Katherine just seems
[14:39]to have forgotten.
[14:39]So it's like, wow, you really do get just
[14:43]by the default structure of having, you know,
[14:48]the ancient rituals of like having kids and getting married
[14:51]and how that celebrated it means that by default
[14:55]in their friendship, like a lot of their friendship
[14:58]and a lot of their conversation
[14:59]and a lot of their lives and a lot of their planning
[15:02]is all related to Katherine's life choices,
[15:06]personal life choices that kind of dictates
[15:09]the whole tone of the friendship.
[15:10]And that unit that does so to great on her life, of course.
[15:15]There's this other passage.
[15:16]Oh, is this your fish and chips?
[15:17]Just as a warning for the soundscapes and movies.
[15:19]So right before we started filming,
[15:22]Thali says, well, I hope you don't mind,
[15:24]but in the middle, a nice man's gonna come in
[15:26]with some fish and chips.
[15:27]And I was like, how British is that?
[15:29]Amazing.
[15:30]And this is exactly what's happening now,
[15:31]is that she's getting fish and chips delivered.
[15:33]And as if this is what happens all the time in London,
[15:36]like it's not just in the movies.
[15:38]So much, Ryan.
[15:39]This is, yeah, Friday on set,
[15:42]this fish and chip day, the whole crew
[15:44]are really always excited about a Friday.
[15:46]So I've got a classic box of fish and chips.
[15:49]We tell us why to tell us about the project
[15:52]that you're on set for it.
[15:53]Yes, I'm making, sorry, as you can tell,
[15:56]I'm struggling with sentences today
[15:58]because I was on set very early.
[16:00]I am doing an adaptation of my first book,
[16:03]my memoir, everything I know about love
[16:05]and that's shooting at the moment.
[16:07]And we're doing all the scenes in the studio
[16:10]at the moment.
[16:10]So there's a set there in London, we're here all day.
[16:13]That's so cool.
[16:14]Is that just such a trip to be doing your own life story?
[16:17]I mean, is that crazy?
[16:19]I mean, it's semi-fiction-alise,
[16:21]which helps it be a bit less crazy.
[16:23]But that house is very similar to the girls' house share
[16:28]that I lived in.
[16:29]Oh my gosh.
[16:30]And they've really, really done a great job
[16:32]of these very, very specific authentic details
[16:36]that were very important to me.
[16:38]One of the first conversations I had with my director
[16:41]was we said, we don't think there should ever be
[16:44]a shot of a radiator that doesn't have nickers hanging on them.
[16:49]When you live with girls, it's just every radiator
[16:52]just has drawing nickers all end up wearing each other's pants
[16:56]for years, because you're wearing
[16:59]the same indistinguishable crap pants.
[17:02]So yeah, all these tiny.
[17:05]And like in the bathroom, I was walking around the bathroom
[17:08]yesterday and it had that classic girl house share thing of,
[17:12]there were so many bottles around the bath of shat.
[17:16]Like most of which have been emptied,
[17:18]but no one can be bothered to throw away
[17:21]just as detritus of womanhood around the bath
[17:25]that makes it impossible to have a proper shower.
[17:28]So yeah, it's really, really fun.
[17:30]I'm so keen when I'm talking about the process of filming
[17:33]this show to be really honest about the fact,
[17:35]like it is stressful and it is tiring,
[17:38]but it is probably the most fun experience I've ever had.
[17:41]And the only reason I'm so smug about that
[17:45]is because I want writers to know that it's worth it.
[17:48]Because when you're a screenwriter,
[17:50]you just have like basically 10 years of heartbreak
[17:55]and nothing being made and having to write endless documents
[17:59]for no money, like so much work that you do
[18:01]in those development stages of working with TV production
[18:04]companies and film production companies.
[18:06]It's just unpaid work and it just gets fruitless
[18:08]and it goes nowhere.
[18:09]So now I'm just really keen to say,
[18:11]do you know what, when you do get there,
[18:12]it's creativity on a level I didn't even think was possible.
[18:17]It's like, typing up the copy for one of my characters
[18:22]CV might have looked like for one passing shot.
[18:25]It's just that kind of level of detail that I love.
[18:28]That's so cool.
[18:29]Who is playing you?
[18:30]And that Appleton is playing me.
[18:32]And then Bell Powerley is playing character based
[18:36]on my best friend.
[18:38]And then the two other housemates,
[18:39]the other two best female friends,
[18:41]they will make university.
[18:42]One of them is being played by Marley Sue,
[18:45]who's done a few things before.
[18:46]And then the other is being played by Arlia O'Doughton.
[18:49]And Arlia is literally like when we hired Arlia,
[18:52]she was still in drama schools.
[18:53]She haven't even done a showcase yet.
[18:55]So that's just so, we feel so lucky to have,
[18:59]well, we have, we feel lucky for the whole cast,
[19:00]but there are a few actors where we feel like it's so exciting
[19:03]that we have the privilege of it being their first green job.
[19:07]So cool.
[19:08]Oh my gosh, how fun.
[19:10]This is so great, too, because I feel,
[19:11]last time we spoke about your other book,
[19:13]and now I'm ready, it's like a whole production.
[19:16]And now like, I don't know.
[19:17]By the time your next book comes out,
[19:19]what will have happened to go?
[19:20]I don't know.
[19:21]Was this option ready to?
[19:22]Yes, it's optioned as a film.
[19:24]It's been optioned as a film.
[19:25]I was film script has been bought.
[19:27]A studio hasn't bought it yet,
[19:29]but I am writing the film script.
[19:30]It's the thing I'm doing straight off to this.
[19:32]It should be great.
[19:33]Oh my gosh, I can't wait to be fun.
[19:35]I just wanted to read like one more funny passage,
[19:37]and then talk about one other passage.
[19:39]You wrote, max was 10 minutes late.
[19:41]I hated lateness.
[19:42]Being late is a selfish habit adopted by boring people
[19:45]in search of a personality quirk
[19:47]who can't be bothered to take up an instrument.
[19:49]That might be one of my favorite lines of the whole book.
[19:51]That's so hilarious.
[19:52]You're so funny.
[19:53]Oh, thanks.
[19:54]I mean, do you know what?
[19:55]That was a real stretch in my imagination,
[19:56]because I'm sorry to say I am the person
[19:58]who is 10 minutes late for everything.
[20:00]has upset and angered and infuriated quite rightly,
[20:03]every person who loves me and my entire throughout my entire life.
[20:06]I am like always on time.
[20:08]Well, now I'm sometimes late, but like I just have always
[20:11]viewed being late as like, well, why is your time warm?
[20:13]But anyway, it was just like hilarious.
[20:15]I don't know.
[20:15]Oh, I can already tell.
[20:16]I can hear, I can hear from that speech that that sentence.
[20:19]You just said that's already been said to me so many times.
[20:22]I know if you and I were best mates,
[20:24]we would have so many hours about it to be.
[20:26]My husband is late a lot too.
[20:27]He's like chronically late.
[20:28]And I don't understand.
[20:30]I mean, I'm sorry if he's listening, but you know,
[20:32]so now I like give him false times that he has to be ready.
[20:35]Or I'm like, I do that to me.
[20:36]And I kind of see why.
[20:38]I like watch it.
[20:38]Like I'm watching like an animal at the zoo.
[20:41]Like why is it so hard?
[20:43]Let me see what he does to make him late
[20:45]because we both have the same amount of time
[20:47]to get ready to leave at the same time.
[20:48]And I think it's that like, it just doesn't feel pressing
[20:53]until it's time to go.
[20:54]And then he has like all these things he realizes he has to do.
[20:58]Yeah, whereas I'm like always working backwards in time.
[21:00]Like, oh, I mean, I've to leave in 20 minutes.
[21:02]So now I have to do this now or, you know,
[21:05]as opposed to like, it's time to go.
[21:07]Oh, now I have to do these five things.
[21:09]You know, I mean, like it's different, I don't know.
[21:11]I think as well.
[21:12]I think it's definitely the working backwards thing.
[21:14]Like you do that when you die.
[21:15]I also think to be generous to your husband and myself.
[21:20]I think it's optimism.
[21:22]So I think people who are extremely optimistic
[21:25]in a bit of a delusional way
[21:28]will just not factor in all the realities of life
[21:32]that means that you have to leave time for all the variables
[21:36]of life have to leave time for.
[21:37]So like, if I see on the train app that it says
[21:42]to get from my station to the station needs to go to,
[21:46]it's 10 minutes, I will leave for 10 minutes,
[21:50]forgetting that I have to walk to the station.
[21:52]I have to walk to the place at the other side of the station
[21:55]that there might be delays, that there might be a queue
[21:57]at the ticket machine.
[21:59]So it's like, and it's also, I think, daydreaminess.
[22:02]And I'm just always sort of in a bit of a different world
[22:06]in my head a bit.
[22:07]So I think I just find it hard to be rooted in reality
[22:12]and it's a molds.
[22:15]Honestly, I think you've just like solved
[22:16]one of our biggest conflicts in our relationship, really.
[22:21]Oh, because I had a, he is super creative.
[22:23]And he is super optimistic.
[22:24]And he always just thinks everything's going to turn out
[22:27]just fine.
[22:27]And it actually does for him.
[22:30]And I've always been like, that's not how it works.
[22:32]And he's like, that's how it works for me.
[22:34]And I'm like, I don't know.
[22:35]But you know, yeah, I don't know.
[22:38]But where do you go from here?
[22:40]That's the thing is that you analyze it and you work out
[22:43]and it's like, well, where do we, how do we,
[22:45]because I do think I've been trying to change it my whole life
[22:48]and I can't really change it, I'm sure I could.
[22:52]But I keep trying and it doesn't work.
[22:54]I really think it has to be a false deadline situation.
[22:58]Yeah, that's what my friends.
[22:59]That's the only way.
[23:00]I think it's the only way.
[23:01]Because if someone's process is not going to change
[23:05]and they're like committed to overlooking the mundane
[23:11]or just don't see it, right?
[23:13]It's, you know, I feel like it's like people who are flying
[23:15]above the clouds, right?
[23:17]Like they're not seeing all the stuff
[23:18]whereas like I'm like right on the ground,
[23:21]looking at every single building, right?
[23:23]I leave like an hour early for everything.
[23:25]I'm too early.
[23:25]I'm at the airport.
[23:26]Like I usually make earlier flights
[23:28]because I'm like, yeah, I don't know.
[23:30]I don't know what might happen.
[23:31]I could get in a car crash.
[23:33]It might be today.
[23:34]Like I'm always at the worst case in my head.
[23:36]And so, and this is the problem
[23:38]because my best friend is like you.
[23:40]If you're someone who's above, you know,
[23:42]in the clouds on that plane of existence,
[23:44]the likelihood is you surround yourself,
[23:46]the people who are closest to you with the people on the ground.
[23:49]So then it means that you don't really have to go down there.
[23:52]So it's like, so it means that like,
[23:55]I always know if I'm going on holiday with Farley,
[23:58]that I, everything, I would sort everything
[24:02]that she'll just sort it months before I would.
[24:05]So I don't even really have to open the Airbnb app.
[24:08]Even though I'm happy to, I know I won't have to.
[24:11]So it kind of perpetuates this like dynamic
[24:16]where she always feels like she has to be the one organizing
[24:19]everything and keeping everything on track.
[24:21]And I always feel like, I don't know what I provide to jokes.
[24:24]The drinks, the laughs, I don't know.
[24:29]Something completely fucking useless.
[24:31]But I just think it's interesting that those two opposite
[24:34]temperaments often really are drawn to each other,
[24:37]which means that the other one never really has to change.
[24:40]Hmm, interesting.
[24:42]I like it.
[24:43]I like it.
[24:44]I mean, because it helps us the other way.
[24:45]When you say you don't know what she gets out of it,
[24:47]like I'm sure she gets so much out of being your best friend.
[24:49]I feel like I want to be your best friend
[24:51]after this book and conversation and everything.
[24:53]Like I sure anybody would.
[24:54]But like, I know for me, like my husband,
[24:57]like I need that, I need to see.
[24:59]I need to get pulled up myself or else I'm in the, you know,
[25:02]who wants to live today, the traffic and live above the clouds.
[25:06]I don't know.
[25:07]So maybe I just to taste a reminder of that or something.
[25:10]One other thing I just wanted to talk about in ghosts,
[25:12]which I thought was also like one of these life revelations
[25:15]that you just casually throw in there was when you choose
[25:18]your partner anew and just like based on every life stage.
[25:22]Like this is what she realizes, Nina and her ex-boyfriend
[25:25]kind of realized when he gets married and says,
[25:27]or he's getting married and says he doesn't want to.
[25:29]She was like, I thought you wanted to,
[25:31]you didn't want to get married and we were together.
[25:32]And he's like, well, I think you choose who you want to be
[25:34]and what you want to do based on that relationship,
[25:36]not based on you and then you fill in the person
[25:39]who will make that happen.
[25:40]I didn't say that very well.
[25:41]But yes, yes, it's exactly that.
[25:43]Yeah.
[25:44]And I just love that because I hadn't thought about life
[25:46]and that way too.
[25:47]Basically in every relationship, right,
[25:48]it goes a different way based on that specific
[25:52]combination as opposed to this is what I want.
[25:54]This is what I don't know.
[25:56]I thought that was really cool.
[25:58]Yeah, totally.
[25:59]And it's like that's some ways.
[26:00]I mean, I have to believe that because of the sheer number
[26:03]of men who wouldn't commit to me
[26:04]and then the next relationship they're in there married.
[26:07]Like that happens to me so much in like 20s.
[26:09]And then equally I think about the people I haven't
[26:11]be able to commit to in a very,
[26:13]like I remember being with someone for quite a long time
[26:16]and saying to him when I was really young,
[26:18]maybe I was just too young to be even pontificating
[26:23]on these things.
[26:24]But I said, I definitely don't want kids,
[26:26]definitely don't want kids.
[26:28]And then the person I was with straight afterwards,
[26:31]I just immediately knew that I would want to have kids with them.
[26:34]And what I realized was it wasn't that I didn't,
[26:38]I was a person who didn't want to have children.
[26:41]It's that I had chosen a partner who deep down.
[26:43]I knew I wouldn't be able to parent with.
[26:45]So something in me was like, oh, that's not for me.
[26:48]And it's because I couldn't imagine raising children
[26:51]with this other person is wonderfulity as he was.
[26:54]And I think that's, you know,
[26:55]that's exciting in a way to know that humans are malleable
[27:00]and adaptable and that we love in that way,
[27:02]that we can, we only know what it is we're capable of really
[27:05]when we meet the person who makes us feel
[27:08]like they can make us capable of it.
[27:10]But that's also pretty heartbreaking.
[27:11]Like the my heart breaks for Nina a bit with that,
[27:14]with her ex-Guitar and her ex-Jo are very good friends.
[27:17]And he was just a completely useless boyfriend.
[27:20]And it was kind of seven years.
[27:21]And he never remembered a birthday and he was adoring
[27:26]but he was like having a bit of a teenage son,
[27:28]boyfriend, I think we all had one of those.
[27:30]And then the next woman he was with straight after Nina,
[27:33]he's like Mr. Boyfriend couldn't be more attentive,
[27:37]loves being bossed around by her.
[27:39]Is terrified of upsetting her?
[27:41]Is her laptop basically?
[27:43]Couldn't be more, quote unquote, well behaved
[27:47]as a romantic partner.
[27:49]And the fact was that him and I think he says this to Nina
[27:51]on the morning, it was wedding scene
[27:53]as one of his archers, he says it's not
[27:56]that we were different people, we were just growing up
[27:58]and the point where Nina and Jo...
[27:59]Yeah, when they were met each other
[28:02]and when they were together throughout their 20s,
[28:05]they were, you know, kids, they were thought
[28:07]they were working out with each other
[28:08]what kind of adults they want to be.
[28:10]They weren't really being adults together.
[28:12]You just love them.
[28:13]Reminds me of when Harry Metzallie, you know,
[28:15]when she's crying and we assume
[28:16]you've seen this movie, right?
[28:18]My favorite movie of all time, no, no, no, no, no, no.
[28:20]I was gonna say, like, if you haven't seen this movie
[28:22]and something as well, you know what I'm saying?
[28:24]No, when she's like crying and she's like,
[28:25]you didn't want to marry me, you know?
[28:28]Oh, I hate that, Laura.
[28:31]All this time, yeah, all this time I sort of
[28:33]Jo didn't want to get married.
[28:34]Oh my God, he's called Jo, the ex as well, right?
[28:36]I was gonna see that and then I was like,
[28:38]did I just make up the name of a show?
[28:39]Maybe I won't see the word Jo.
[28:41]No, no, no, it's so funny.
[28:42]I've got to be so careful if that is,
[28:44]so I've got this incredibly spongy brain.
[28:47]This has happened a few times with the script
[28:49]and the show that I realized I've written a scene
[28:51]that's just phenomenally good.
[28:52]And then I realized the reason it's phenomenally good
[28:54]is it's completely stolen from one of my favorite films.
[28:57]And I've done it without even realizing it.
[29:00]Dolly, you have stolen that scene.
[29:02]I hate to know, I know it's bad, it's really bad.
[29:06]It's because you don't, you have to, every scene
[29:08]and the key is if it's really good,
[29:10]if it's really good, the likelihood is you've taken it
[29:12]from somewhere else because it's like,
[29:14]yeah, every scene I do, what every line that I've written
[29:17]that I'm like, oh, that's good.
[29:19]That feels like classic.
[29:22]If you get the feeling with your own rise
[29:24]and that something feels like classic or like,
[29:26]archetypal or it's being here before,
[29:28]the likelihood is it's being here before.
[29:30]And it's just, you're just recycling stuff
[29:33]without even realizing it's my biggest fear
[29:35]is accidentally plagiarizing about even realizing.
[29:38]We won't say anything.
[29:39]I won't tell anybody.
[29:40]I know I'm like already running over as a last question.
[29:43]What's your advice for aspiring authors?
[29:45]Ooh, okay.
[29:46]So don't be afraid to live is my first piece of advice,
[29:50]which sounds very like something you'd see
[29:53]is cross-stitched on a cushion.
[29:55]And what I mean by that completely useless truism
[29:58]is you don't have...
[30:00]to be in a rush to get projects done because writing is one of the very few industries on earth
[30:06]that favors aging. So that, for me, as a woman feels incredibly liberating. I know for fact
[30:14]that when I'm in my 60s, my writing, there's just no dispute. My writing is going to be better.
[30:20]It's not like being a model or being an athlete or being in a really zeitgeisty job,
[30:26]like publishing or marketing or pure or whatever. The more life experiences a writer has,
[30:31]the better they are going to be as a writer. The more love they feel, the more loss they feel,
[30:36]the more people they meet, the more people they meet from different backgrounds to theirs,
[30:40]the more experiences they expose themselves to which are uncomfortable or different to theirs,
[30:45]the more they learn, the more they read, the more they travel. All this stuff is only going to make
[30:51]your writing better and better and better and better. So don't be so panicked about having to,
[31:00]this is the age I need to get my novel done. This is when I need to get an agent. This is when
[31:03]I need to have my piece published in the New Yorker because you've got time. Time is on your side.
[31:09]So if it means that you have to spend five years, 10 years, 20 years, look at these English
[31:15]writers, sorry, but Nina Stebee is one or there are so many writers, A.A. Gills, another writer,
[31:22]who were like beloved English writers, super successful. They have these whole lives before
[31:28]they started writing. They were in their 30s and Nina's case, I think she was in her 50s and don't
[31:32]be afraid because basically to write full time from a young age, the fact is you've got to have
[31:39]support, you've got to have rich parents. And most people don't have that. And that's obviously
[31:45]totally fine. So what you're going to have to do instead is either loads of different temp jobs
[31:51]or a job that's writing adjacent or an entirely different career, like be a lawyer, be a doctor,
[31:58]be a teacher. That's totally fine. You don't have to panic about that taking away your chance.
[32:06]As the years go on, your chances of being a publisher, I have to do not dwindle as far as I'm concerned.
[32:11]There might be statistics that prove me wrong, but I just personally think that writing
[32:17]is only ever enriched by the experiences of the writers. So just don't panic and just do
[32:24]your writing in the evening and at the weekend and any matches of time that you can.
[32:30]And that doesn't mean that you're a failure. And that doesn't mean that that should be inspiring
[32:34]to you. That should be exciting. Don't ever feel ashamed about that. I love that. That's
[32:40]brilliant and fantastic piece of advice. I feel like all the people I interview, there's like,
[32:45]I don't think I've interviewed anyone in their 20s. You know, it just doesn't happen then.
[32:50]Yeah. You just have to go out and live. Yeah. And just don't jite panic because the minute
[32:55]that you're anxious, that is when you can't create. So just yeah, relax into it. I love it.
[33:03]Dolly, thank you so much. I'm sorry to run over. I could talk to you on that. Not at all.
[33:07]Zibi, I always love talking to you. I'm sorry. I've been rambling on
[33:11]knowing that half the sleep state with one eye completely focused on this pile of
[33:17]redid habit. You were your vision checks and go back to your real work.
[33:23]Have a great day. Thank you so much. It was lovely to talk to you. Thank you so much for having me.
[33:27]too. Okay. Bye bye. Bye. Bye.
[33:31]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[33:35]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[33:40]Also sign up for my newsletter at zibiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots
[33:45]of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan. In fact, texture sound
[33:49]for the sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic
[33:54]intro and out trim music.