Mitch Albom, THE STRANGER IN THE LIFEBOAT: A Novel

[1:09]Zibby Owens: Hi. I'm Zibby Owens, and you're listening to the award winning podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. If you like this podcast, you will love my new anthology called Moms Don't Have Time to Have Kids. Check it out, and you'll hear from 49 authors about all sorts of things moms don't have time to do. All the authors have been on this podcast. Also, check out my TikTok at withzivyandtracey, my other podcast, sex talk withzivyandtracey. Check out moms don't have time to write on Medium, and, of course, my new publishing company called Zibby Books. And now, back to our daily author interview site and a quick hello from some of my kids. Hi. Hi. Hello. Enjoy the show. If you like this podcast, you will love my new anthology called moms don't have time to have kids.

[2:10]Zibby Owens: Mitch Albom is the author of the stranger in the lifeboat. He's also the author of numerous books of fiction and nonfiction, which have collectively sold, wait for it, more than 45,000,000 copies in 47 languages worldwide. He has written seven number one New York Times bestsellers, including Tuesdays with Mori, the best selling memoir of all time, which topped the list for four straight years. Also, award winning TV, films, stage plays, screenplays, a nationally syndicated newspaper column, and a musical. I mean, what can he not do? His most recent work is a return to nonfiction with the New York Times bestseller Finding Chica, a memoir about a young Haitian orphan whose short life would forever change album's heart, which by the way, I interviewed him about and he was crying and you should go back and listen to that podcast if you enjoy this one. And even if you don't, He founded and oversees Say Detroit, a consortium of nine different charitable operations in his hometown, including a nonprofit dessert shop and food product line to fund programs for Detroit's most underserved citizens, and he operates an orphanage in Port Au Prince, Haiti, which he visits monthly. His newest novel, The Stranger in the Lifeboat,

[3:19]Mitch Albom: is coming out right now. Welcome, Mitch. Thank you for coming back on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss The Stranger in the Lifeboat, a novel. Thanks. Thanks for having me. It's nice to be back. Would you mind telling listeners a little bit about this book that takes place on sea and land and the news and all the rest? And how did you come up with this idea? You've written so many books at this point. Why this book? Why now? Well, so let me start with the first part of that about sort of setting the stage for the book. So in the movie trailer version, it's basically an empty life raft floats up on a Caribbean island a year after a terrible explosion at sea. And this life raft is from that boat, and a police inspector finds it, and he discovers a notebook that's hidden inside a a packet. And it was believed that everybody died on this big explosion of this luxury yacht. But as it turns out, as he takes his notebook and reads the account of it, apparently, some people survived. So there was this luxury yacht owned by one of the richest men in the world. He had this big soiree on it with some of the most important people in the world for a whole week and inexplicably exploded. And only 10 people survived the crash, and they found their way to a lifeboat. And half of them were the rich guests, including the rich guy who owned the boat, and half of them were the workers who supported the rich guests. And there's a dog in the room. Sorry. My dog just walks in by herself. Anyway Dog's not in the book, but makes for a nice in interruption. So these 10 people are on the life raft and three days go by. Nobody's coming for them. No helicopters. No other boats. They're running out of food. They're out of water. They're desperate. They're calling out for help. And suddenly they see a body floating in the ocean. And they pull it into the life raft, and it's this young guy, kind of nondescript, average looking guy. And they pepper him with questions. He doesn't speak. And finally, one of the women in the boat says, well, thank the Lord we found you. And he says, I am the Lord. And that's basically the premise of the book. And then everything that happens from that point forward in the lifeboat as the days go by and things start happening that are mysterious or not. And and and whether people really believe this guy or whether he's just somebody crazy, he says to them, you know, they say, well, what are you doing here? And he says, well, weren't you calling me? You know? And I came because you called me. And they say, well, are you going to save us? And he says, I can only save you if everybody in this lifeboat believes I am who I say I am at the same time. And so it becomes an allegory, you know, for for our beliefs. And to answer the second part of your question, I sort of wrote it because it seems that in my life, a lot of times when I thought I was asking for help or wanted something to happen, it didn't happen, but something else happened. And then years later, I kind of realized that the thing that actually happened that I didn't think had anything to do with what I was asking for became the answer to my prayers. And so it's a bit of a question of, you know, do we recognize when our prayers are actually being answered if it doesn't come in the form of exactly the answer that we wanted? And this guy is not who you would think God was, you know, as I say, it looks more like a surfer guy. He doesn't have he doesn't have flowing robes. He doesn't have a beard. He doesn't speak, you know, wise. He does a lot of weird things. He falls asleep a lot. He's hungry. And yet, you know, the question of, well, could he really be the answer to their prayers is what haunts them as the days pass on and things get more desperate on the lifeboat. Such an interesting way to sort of develop all the characters on the boat. Right? What do they do when they come across something that shouldn't make sense, doesn't make sense? They all, you know, are so skeptical at first. Who believes? Who doesn't? Why? And then, of course, you delve into each of their backstories, which sort of informs how they feel about that one extra element on the boat. Right. What's an example of one of those times for you where you had a you wish for something, but then something else came in its place? Well, there are many examples. I mean, I could go back to Tuesdays with Maury when I was, you know, a very ambitious, hardworking sportscaster and sports writer who really just was interested in my career. And all I really wanted was another level of my career and get to another level, you know, doing more and more. And suddenly this old professor is dying from Lou Gehrig's disease and I kind of get guilted into going to visit him. And then he asked me to come back and then I come back and I end up, you know, taking one day a week out of my life and going to visit him, which at the very beginning at the time was not what I was looking for in my life. You know, it was a little bit like, oh my God, now I gotta travel to Boston every week. And yet when I look back on it, it was the best thing that ever could have happened to me. You know, it stopped me from going that direction for the rest of my life and thinking all that matters is your next accomplishment and your next paycheck. And of course, opened a literary career to me that I never could have imagined. So here I thought it was taking away from my career, my career path, and it ended up being the best thing that could have happened to it. There are many examples for me like that. You know, won't bore you with all of them, but the other most significant one to me is that we, my wife and I never had children. We wanted children, but we got married later. Whatever reason, I was dragging my feet on it and it didn't happen. And it always was sort of a regret. And then, you know, you kind of say, well, why didn't it work for us, God? You know, we wanted to and no answer. And then about ten years, twelve, fifteen years later, I end up in Haiti after the earthquake and through a series of weird circumstances end up taking over an orphanage, not so much because of children, but just because I thought I needed to do it because it was gonna go under otherwise. And next thing I know, my wife and I have 53 children, and they're like the dominant thing in our life. It's the most that's the biggest part of my life right now is operating that orphanage. I'm there every month. And I've got more kids than I ever could have imagined. And so I didn't know at the time that that was kind of an answer to that prayer that had been sitting there for a little while, but it certainly is now. And so it was those kinds of things that sort of informed me to create a story where it makes the reader sort of wonder as they're reading it. Well, is this real or isn't this real? And then takes that into their own lives and says, well, maybe this is actually the answer to my prayer and I just don't realize, you know? And so, yeah, I have many examples of my own life. I I don't find this boring at all. I'm like interested in your life. That's why I'm talking to you. So don't think you're boring me. But, you know, I think that's part of the wisdom of getting older is that you realize all the times in your past that you were the most upset. Now you see you can like look back and not and see that, well, yeah. Okay. That was horrible in the moment, but it led to this or that or whatever. Even like insignificant things like a house I bid on once or, you know, something silly. It's like, well, then that wouldn't have led to this, that. You know? It all makes sense later, but never in the moment. Right. And you're right about that. You have to live a certain amount of time in order to understand that. And, you know, I find as I get older, my writing is more about things that I now have realized and learned than it was when I was younger, where it was more about the questions that I had. I was kind of imagining the answers or in Maury's case, Maury was giving me the answers or in have a little faith, other people were giving me the answers. And now I'm sort of reaching an age where I'm starting to sort of feel like I've been blessed to have seen some of the answers and it's my obligation to sort of share them with the younger audiences and whatever and say, look, this is what you realize when you get a little older and this is a perfect example of that. I also though feel, even though you learn these things and you wanna share, I feel like it's like yelling into the ocean. Right? Like you can yell as loud as you want, but no one's like necessarily gonna hear it. I feel like you have to be in a certain headspace. Maybe I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. But I think it's one thing to tell people, but until they live it, they don't fully understand. You can say, yeah, yeah, I know you're upset now. It's all going to work out. And they're like, uh-huh. Okay. Yeah. That's a really good observation. And my way around that is to make it into a story. If I did nothing but lecture about it, you're right. Nobody wants to hear it and nobody listens. But if you engage people in a story in a, you know, a and a gripping one, like, I I was was always fascinated by sea survival stories. First of all, it's like the last way I wanna die. You know? I I I would be terrible at this. And that's why it was a little bit like facing your fear because I that's like the worst way for me to die, be stuck in a life raft in the middle of the ocean. You don't know if you're gonna be eaten by a shark. You don't know if you're gonna drown. You don't know if you're just gonna wither away slowly, you know, and then die under the you know, you know, no protection, anything like that. And yet, it's a gripping story. And I've always loved, you know, Castaway and and Life of Pi and any movie where people are stuck out there and have to figure out how to survive. And so if you make a story like that, where people don't even realize what they're reading, they think it's an adventure story and a thriller story, and then by the end, you've kind of snuck that little message in there, you know? And you kind of hook them and they don't want to give up on the story, that's a good way to sort of get a message across without without seeming like you're lecturing. Good point. Very good point. Yes. And the stories stay with them. Right? And then the characters and You hope. Yeah. You hope. You hope. Yeah. Well, yeah. The power of storytelling is rivals nothing else. That's for sure. There was one part in the stranger in the lifeboat that sort of reminded me of when we last spoke about finding Chica about, you know, in her sad, terrible medical odyssey that you went through and the loss. And I'm still so sorry about that and what you and your wife went through and all of it. So I I just maybe was projecting onto the scene. But anyway, I just wanted to read it. When LaFleur pulled up to his office, he was thinking about Rome and the notebook he had hidden and the pages he'd well, I don't wanna give anything away. Well, I can only do that when you believe who I say I am. LaFleur had balked at that part. He'd stopped relying on God right after his daughter died. There was no place in his mind for a benevolent force in the universe that wasn't benevolent when it came to a four year old. Praying was a waste. Church was a waste. Even worse, it was a weakness. A crutch that let you dump your misfortune on some make believe scale that would balance when you died and reached a better heaven. What crap? The way LaFleur saw it now, you either ran from a volcano or you stayed and shook a fist at it. Tell me about that section. Well, yeah. So my wife and I did lose a child. For those people who don't know, as I said, I operate an orphanage in Haiti. I'm there every month. It's going on twelve years. So it's a huge part of my life. The kids there are a huge part of my life. And one of them, who was named Chica, came to us when she was three years old after her mother died, giving birth to a baby brother. And she was funny and bossy and loud and everybody kind of was amused by her until when she was five. She developed a brain tumor. And we took her to America thinking that the doctors there would obviously take care of her. It's American medicine and we can fix anything. And then we found out that it was an incurable brain tumor and they told us she would be dead in four months. And they wanted us to just take her back to Haiti and let her die quietly there. And we refused to do that because I knew how tough a kid she was. And we said, if she'll fight, we'll fight. And it ended up we had nearly two years with her, not four months, and we became a family. And, you know, she never went back home to Haiti. She stayed with us. We traveled around the world trying to find a cure. And she really, you know, pulled us together in a way that, you know, we had as I said before, you know, you want children. You you don't think that a brain tumor in one of your children in orphanage is somehow going to lead to you becoming a family, but it absolutely did. And one of the worst things that ever could have happened to her was one of the best things that that ended up happening to us. And, of course, when she died, you know, my wife and I went a little bit of a different route, and that's kind of what happens in the book. Le Fleur, who is the the inspector who finds the notebook, he and his wife lost a child in the book, and his wife found solace in religion as my wife did. She was always faithful beforehand, and she just stayed faithful, and she just believed that god you know, she was in god's hands and all that. And me, I got angry. You know? And and I, although I am a person of faith, you know, in terms of that I believe, I don't mind arguing with god when I don't think it's fair, and I just didn't think it was fair. And I just it's one thing if something happens to you when you keep trying to figure out, well, what did I do wrong to have this affliction order? But but a five year old child, what could she have possibly surety? She was born three days before an earthquake. She survived an earthquake when she was three days old. She survived her mother dying in the bed where her baby brother was born. She survived being in an orphanage, and then she has to have a brain tumor, and you have to take her at age seven. So I felt a lot of those things that I wrote. You know? What kind of benevolent god isn't benevolent to a to a five year old? What kind of god needs a child so badly that he has a ripper from earth? And and and I did look at a lot of that stuff as sort of silly until enough time passed that you're able to put it into a perspective. You lose your anger. And, you know, in in the I mean, you're very smart. That's why I love doing your podcast. Thank you. You pick up on a lot of things, and there's a moment in the book that you probably know that know then where one of the key characters asks god, quote, unquote, the guy who says he's god. And, again, I'm not saying he is or he isn't, by the way, folks. You know? I there's no you're gonna have to read the book to find out what that there's way more to it. But he says his wife died, and he said, why did you take my wife? And he's crying. And this man who claims to be the lord says, look. I love you, all of you. I I don't do things to hurt you. You know? I know that you cry when you lose a loved one, but I can assure you the loved one who died is not crying. Mhmm. And that you know, if you believe in heaven or you believe that there's something that comes after this, then you believe that too. And I think I came to sort of feel that a little bit more about Chica, that, you know, we're crying because she's not here, but she's not crying. And so I put that in the book, you know. So a lot of those emotions, it was like you wait your whole life to have a conversation with God, you know. And if you could have God on your podcast, you know, if he gave you five minutes and not half an hour, what would be the questions you would ask him? You know? And I try to put them in the mouths of the characters so that, you know, it becomes a little bit of a of a treatise on, you know, here's here's god's answer to your most popular questions. And that was one of, you know, why why do you let people die? And, you know, I thought that that answer would be the answer that would comfort me. So I put it in the character of the book. 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[21:25]Mitch Albom: Wow. Yeah. Gosh. Now my head my mind is racing of what I would ask God on this podcast. But What would you ask him? You know, what have you been reading lately? I mean Yeah, exactly. What are you working on now? I mean, I I I think I'd really want to like, why all the suffering? You know? Why why all the suffering? Why why is it all necessary? Why allow all that to happen? Death is one thing. Right? Death, I I mean, to say I understand, of course, I don't really understand. But that, like, okay. On or off switch. Right? But but the pain, why pain? Why so much pain? And there's a moment there where one of the characters in the boat says to says to the god character, because one of the I won't say who. I'm trying you know, like you said, this hard book. This is it's a very suspenseful thriller kind of book, you don't wanna give away too much. But one of the characters takes his own life and out there at the at sea. And Benjie, the lead character who's talking to the the lord character says to him, you know, how did you let that happen? You were right here. You know? Why did you let him end his life? And the man who claims to be god says, I start things. Man ends them. Mhmm. And, you know, that's kind of an answer to your question. You know? If you believe in god or, you know, the universe, whatever, you can accept the fact that we have everything here on this planet to make a perfect world. But we choose to screw it up. You know? God doesn't start wars. We start wars. God doesn't invent guns. We invent guns. You know, God doesn't have us spending our time playing video games instead of all working on a cure for cancer. You know, we choose to do that. And so God starts things, man ends them or ruins them or or, you know, free will, if you believe that, you know, is what allows the things that you're saying to happen, knock up. And again, that was a fundamental that's why I asked you what questions would you ask because I bet most of the questions that most people have for God, unless they're really small and esoteric, I kind of address in this book. And this is my sort of Conversations with God book, but it's it's not that kind of format. It's a It's a thriller story out in the ocean that just happens to answer those same questions. Yes. Very clever. I when I I don't even know why I even remember this now that we're talking about it. When I was like seven, eight years old, I had this like same realization that like God made the world perfect. Now all we have to do is like make it perfect for ourselves. And I remember my mom was like, that's amazing. And we took this big cardboard from like one of my dad's dry cleaned shirts or something, and she, like, wrote it out big in bubble letters for me, and then we framed it. But it's sort it's true. It's like, okay. Here's what you have. Like, make what you will of this. Right? And that sounds so simplistic, and yet maybe that's it. I don't know. What happened to that thing? You still I have I literally have not thought about that in, I don't know, thirty years or something. I mean, I have to I'm gonna call my mom now. Probably in the garage somewhere. Yeah. It's definitely not in a garage. It's definitely gone, but I did have it for a long time. But anyway, yeah. I mean, wrestling with these questions in any format on a boat, reading a book, you know, this is the stuff that makes life worth really meaningful, right? Like, what are we doing? Because essentially it comes down to like the basics. Like, what are we doing here? Like, why are we doing it? What is the point of all this? You know? I think most of my books wrestle with that question in some way, shape, or form. Those are kind of ever since Tuesdays with Maury, five people we meet in heavens that way for one more day is that way. You know? They're they're they're the questions that we sort of wrestle with, but in story form. And that's the way I like, you know, I like reading books that when I'm done, not only have I been entertained by it, but I think about it. And I think about the issues that were raised by the book or the lessons that might be taught by the book. Those were always books that that that I gravitated towards as opposed to, I don't find myself that interested in in, you know, stories about characters who just are contemplating their angst, but it doesn't go anywhere. It doesn't inspire you at the end. They might be beautifully written, and I acknowledge that they're beautifully written. And I acknowledge that people there are many people who love books like that, which is great and fine. You know, everybody picks their thing. My personal preference is always to come out a little uplifted by a book and and thinking about something. So I aspire to write books like that myself. Whether I succeed or not is up to the reader, but but that's the direction I try to go, that's what I try to do with Strange in the Life Room. Is there one you read lately that that, like, fits the bill aside from all your books? Like, when you're like, oh, this is a classic example. The one I always go back to is Gilead Mhmm. By Marilynne Robinson, which is a story about an old pastor is writing a kind of farewell letter to his very young son because he's he married a woman who was much younger and had a boy. And he just kinda goes through his life, and it's a story of his life and story of the things that he had. But there are so many underlineable passages that are true about life that, you know, I find myself remembering and and and and saying, yes, that was true. You know, that was such a true sentence that it doesn't just apply to the book. It applies to life. Mhmm. And I can read that book 10 times over and still find new stuff. And and yet I'm sure, you know, she wasn't writing. I don't I don't know. I'd love to talk to her, but but I'm sure she maybe you have. I haven't, but now I should. Yeah. But I don't think she was writing to preach. I just think that those lessons came in the course of of the story, and that's what I try to do in my stories too. Do you believe there is something next? Yeah. I do. But I you know, the next question is always what? And everybody thinks I have some kind of answer for that because I wrote a book called The Five People You Mean Heaven, and it became a popular book. And now there are people who think that I have some kind of insight into what actually goes on. And, you know, I I have to sometimes remind people that was a work of fiction. You know? I didn't go do some research, go to heaven, come back and say, okay. This is what it's but, yeah, I just honestly, the reason why isn't so much that I have proof of it. Although, I do have the story that my uncle told me, which inspired the five people you meet in heaven, which was, you know, Eddie in the in that book. I don't know how long it's a long time ago if anybody remembers it, but, you know, they made a movie out of it. He's this grizzled old war veteran, and that was based on my uncle Eddie, who was exactly that age, was grizzled, fought in World War two, all that stuff, but had a near death experience where he died for a couple seconds on an operating table while they were trying to revive him with a heart issue. And years later, he said that he remembered lifting out of his body and floating above the bed and seeing all the people working on him. But then he said he saw all of his dead relatives waiting at the edge of the bed for him. And, of course, as a kid, you know, you'd always say, well, what'd you do, uncle Ann? What'd you do? And he was this crusty old guy. He said, what'd do? I told him, get the hell out of here. I'm not ready for you know? And apparently, he scared them right back to heaven, went back into his body, and then he lived another ten or fifteen years. But that story informed me a lot about what comes next because he's not some self help author. He's not somebody I don't know who's, how do I know what the reason is for coming up with it. He's somebody I loved and trusted. And if he said that that's what he saw, then I believe that that's what he saw. And so that's always I learned that story as a kid. And so I think it's always been in my brain that there must be something afterwards because uncle Eddie saw it. You know? He was a witness. And that's all you really need is one witness to to tell you that you trust, and you go, okay. I'm going with that. And so I think I've always believed on something afterwards. And I think in my heart, I wanna believe it. Mhmm. I don't wanna believe that our existence and all the things that we feel and everything we've done and the way the world interacts with one another is just so amazing and how one person influences another and one thing that happens half a world away is affects you over here. That that's suddenly just, you know, nothingness and there's nothing beyond. So between my heart wanting it and my uncle Eddie telling me about it, yes, I do believe that there's something next. Well, yay for uncle Eddie, you know. Yeah. Another bad thing that ended up with something good, right, the operating table. There you go. That's right. Yeah. I recently interviewed Laura Lynn Jackson who wrote signs. She's a medium and everything, and I've started to believe more. Anyway, this sounds woo woo, so I'll stop. But I don't know. It was pretty amazing on the podcast. She, like, literally got in touch with my grandmother. And anyway, I don't know. Wow. Yeah. It was really crazy. I I'm like, if anybody's, like, bursting their way in here, just let me know. She's like, actually, there is. You know? And your grandmother's being very pushy. And I was like, yeah. That sounds about right. Mother. Yeah. Wow. So, yeah, it was crazy. She actually said she was coming that day for some sort of special anniversary. And I was like, no. Today is not an anniversary of any kind. You know? Sorry. And I'm thinking, well, whatever. And then later that day, my mom drops off this box. It turns out it's my grandmother's ashes. Isn't that crazy? Oh, wow. Yeah. Anyway, I can't believe I'm telling you the story, but, you know, I know it was crazy. So I've I believe I am a new I am a convert. I think I didn't used to, but maybe because I'm getting older, I choose to believe it too. Makes me feel better. Getting older will do that too. Yes. Exactly. I'm like, oh, alright. There's no harm in believing. It's only gonna make my life better. So yeah. Anyway. Okay. So stranger in the lifeboat out now. Do you have another book next that's already, like, slated to come out? I do, actually. It's one of the rare times that we had when I say we, I mean myself and my publisher had discussed, you know, what we're gonna kinda do for the next few years. And there was there were a couple of books that I was contemplating doing and we sort of discussed, well, let's do this one first and the other one. So I sort of do have another thing. It's a historical novel that is set well, it spans a lot of years, but it begins during the Holocaust with an incident that I saw somebody talking about at the Yad Vashem Museum in Israel when I went to the Holocaust Museum, where they talked about how when they were rounding up the Jewish people to put them on the trains that would take them to the concentration camps, they would have a they would get a Jewish person who was trustworthy to be on the platform and tell the people, you can these trains are good. They're taking us out of town to safety. Get on. Get on. Get on. Because, obviously, if it was a Nazi guard, you wouldn't believe them. But so they they they forced someone of the of of their own people to lie like that. And, you know, I won't I won't go into much more than that, but it sort of begins there with that lie and the person who had to tell that that lie and then kinda takes off from there. So it's still gonna be a little bit different, but, you know, still have a lot of sort of interesting life lesson kinda stuff. And I've always been I don't wanna say interested in it's almost been macabre to say that, you know, but I've been aware of of the Holocaust and its consequences all my life and have known many people who survived it, you know, and and and the effects that it's had. So I thought setting a a story in there would be something I would do at some point in the course of my life. So it looks like that might be the next one. But then again, by tomorrow, I could have a different idea. I won't I won't hold you to it. But that sounds Hopefully, I'll be back in a couple of years talking about that. Yeah. I can't wait. Hopefully, God will have made an appearance on my show by then, and I can tell you what happened. You know? So how'd it go? Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Well, I know I asked you this last time. You get asked all the time, but I'll just say it anyway. But what advice would you have for aspiring authors? Well, not sure what I said last time, but I imagine it's fairly close. You need to read. And there was a incident that took place in my life when I was very young that that has informed me a lot about how to approach questions like that in any field. So I'll share it with you for whatever it's worth, and and perhaps it's worth something to your listeners. So I was working actually as a security guard for Pinkerton in New York City as I was a musician trying to make my way, and I've made my money, not very much money, working for Pinkerton as a security guard. And since I'm hardly an imposing person, I don't know why the hell they hired me because, nope, I couldn't protect anything. I was sort of thinking that, but I wasn't gonna say anything. So anyway Yeah. Yeah. Really? Security guard, what what are you protecting? But anyhow, along the way, I got assigned somehow I ended up with this photographer, and I cannot remember his name now, but he was very big at the time. Not Scavulo, but somebody along that same level. And I sort of stopped talking to him and asked him about, you know, I told him I was into music and I asked him about, you know, how did you get so good at photography? Like, did somebody tell you what did somebody tell you when you were young? Because I was young, you know, and I was asking a similar question. And he said, well, when I was just starting out, and by this point, he was, you know, well into his fifties, sixties. So when I was just starting out, I took some photos and, you know, I got my work together and I sent them off to the best photographer of the day, you know, with no idea if he would ever respond to me. But I just wrote the question that you just asked me, Sabi, is, you know, what do I need to do to become a great photographer? And he said a few weeks later, I got them back with a note. The guy actually responded to me. And he wrote, I can tell from your photographs you have mastered the basics of photography. Now go out and surround yourself with the best literature, the best music, the best art, and everything else will take care of itself. And I believe that that's true, That if you wanna be a great writer, not only read, but watch plays, watch movies, go to concerts, you know, go immerse yourself in all the arts and it will infuse you and the rest does take care of itself. You know? Yeah, you can lay out a lot of patterns of, you know, study this book and use this and do this exercise and all that, but you can find that along the way. But the one thing that people sometimes don't do is they think in order to become a great writer, you just need to sit and write and sit and write and sit and write, and that's not true. If you're not observing, if you're not bringing in input, you're not going to have anything to write. You can master verbs and adverbs and adjectives and and, you know, the construction of a sentence all you want, but what are you saying? Mhmm. You need to fill your gas tank with something worthwhile saying and an artistic way of saying it before you can start using all the technical craft that you have mastered. And so I always thought because I said to him, what what? So he didn't tell you, like, get this camera or get this lens? He said, no. You know, he just said, surround yourself with these things, and everything else will take care of itself. And I think that that was that's accurate for almost any form of art that you wanna go into. And so that's probably the best advice I can share. That is great advice. Live your life. Get the inputs. You know? Don't write unless you have something to say. That's that's easier said than done. Yeah. Amazing. Well, Mitch, thank you so much for coming back on. Lots of thought provoking things in this discussion and of course in your book. So yeah, thank you for taking the time. Thank you. I appreciate you talking about the book and I thank everybody who is listening. Zibby, it's pleasure a to talk to you as always. Hope to see you again maybe in a couple of years when we, if that book comes to fruition. I'll probably be right here. Hopefully with a few steps under my belt by then. Okay. Thanks. Take care. Bye bye.

[37:48]Zibby Owens: Thanks Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram Zibby Owens and momsdonthavetimetoreadbooks. Also sign up for my newsletter at zibbyowens.com and sign up for virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the sound editing and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.