María Amparo Escandón, L.A. WEATHER: A Novel
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[0:38]Enjoy the show.
[0:41]Maria Amparo Escondon is the author of LA Weather, novel.
[0:46]Maria is the author of the number one LA Times by seller Esperanza's box of saints
[0:52]and Gonzalez-Daughter trucking co.
[0:54]They've derived her to watch by both Newsweek and LA Times.
[0:57]She was born in Mexico City and has lived in Los Angeles for nearly four decades.
[1:01]LA Weather was a Reese's book club pick.
[1:04]Welcome, Maria.
[1:05]Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read books to discuss LA Weather.
[1:09]Thank you, Sivi.
[1:10]Thank you so much for the invite.
[1:12]Yes, I'm also a mom.
[1:14]And yes, I don't have time to read.
[1:18]How many kids do you have?
[1:20]I have two.
[1:21]They're in their 30s.
[1:22]So they're out in the world, you know, but when they were growing up.
[1:27]Oh boy, a handful.
[1:29]They're barely a year apart.
[1:30]So it was one like one right after the other.
[1:36]Well, I have twins.
[1:37]So that was like literally at the same time.
[1:40]And then I waited a while and then my last two kids are 17 months apart.
[1:44]So I don't know.
[1:45]I'm like glutton for punishment or something.
[1:49]But yes, you certainly have time to write or at least
[1:52]now and your filmmaker and all this amazing stuff that you do.
[1:56]So when did you?
[1:58]Well, okay, first of all, can you explain to listeners a little more
[2:01]about what LA Weather is about in case they're unfamiliar with it,
[2:04]which would be unlikely as it is a recent book pick
[2:07]and all over the place.
[2:08]But you know, just in case they missed it, LA Weather.
[2:12]Well, LA Weather is a family story.
[2:15]It's basically a family story.
[2:18]But the backdrop, of course, is LA.
[2:22]It's in the title and it's the weather and it's the LA Weather.
[2:27]And I use the weather in LA as a metaphor for the life of this LA family
[2:34]because some people out there believe that, you know,
[2:38]the LA people, you know, leave like celebrities and everything is
[2:43]wonderful and sunny and great over here.
[2:47]And that's that's far from the truth.
[2:49]The reality is, you know, everybody has ups and downs and drama and heartache.
[2:56]And so, you know, when people say, oh, LA, you know, it's always 72 and sunny.
[3:03]Well, that's also far from the truth.
[3:05]And so there's all kinds of weather events that affect how people live here in Los Angeles.
[3:12]You know, the fire is being lately the most, you know, out there in the news.
[3:17]I myself have been evacuated twice.
[3:20]So yeah, you know, we do have weather.
[3:25]It's part of which part of LA, are you in?
[3:28]I live right by UCLA.
[3:29]Okay.
[3:30]So we have a mountain like right, you know, against up against our home.
[3:36]And with coyotes and deer right in the middle of the city.
[3:42]It's pretty wild.
[3:44]We spent a lot of time in the palisades.
[3:46]Oh, okay.
[3:47]Okay.
[3:48]Well, yeah, you know, how pristine and, you know, a lot of times, because California
[3:55]have been so beautiful.
[3:56]I love it.
[3:57]You know, they preserve the beaches.
[3:59]They preserve the mountains.
[4:01]They try not to build up everything.
[4:04]And so there's a lot of vegetation around.
[4:07]There's reserves, you know, they buy on our wetlands.
[4:12]are right on the beach.
[4:14]And you would say, oh, that's prime real estate to build condominiums and stuff,
[4:19]but they don't.
[4:20]They really preserve it.
[4:21]So I like that about relating.
[4:23]You know, it's very respectful of the surrounding habitats and nature.
[4:28]So anyway, it's a story of a family to story about three sisters and speaking of twins.
[4:37]I mean, in your book, I mean, I was like having a heart attack and reading
[4:41]the beginning, like, oh my gosh.
[4:43]So I don't know if that even counts as giving it away because it was right at the start,
[4:46]but it was quite an opening.
[4:48]Let me just put it that way.
[4:49]Like you are immediately gripped.
[4:51]I mean, everybody's every parent's worst fear is something happening to the kids.
[4:56]And I don't know, especially when the grandparents are on watch.
[4:58]I mean, every time I leave them with anybody, it's like you're holding your breath a little
[5:01]until you get home.
[5:02]And oh my gosh, even just some of the imagery you put in the scene, like the shoes
[5:07]that had just scratched the boat that the mom had just been partying on.
[5:11]And now they're in the emergency room.
[5:13]And oh my gosh, just the detail and how quickly life can change is basically that.
[5:19]It's like you have to, it's like life changes on a dime.
[5:22]You don't know.
[5:24]I don't know.
[5:26]Yes, I know.
[5:27]And because I have kids, that is one of my worst fears now.
[5:32]Of course, there are adults, but when they were little kids and they were growing up
[5:36]to leave them, you know, with a babysitter or an aunt or a grandparent, you know, like you
[5:42]say, you know, you leave them with some trepidation because I don't know.
[5:47]It's one, I mean, it's mom's worst fear, you know, for something to happen to your kid.
[5:53]And I needed a trigger of that caliber to propel the family into chaos.
[6:01]And that's what happens, you know, without getting into all the spoilers and all that.
[6:06]This is a trigger that sort of, you know, puts everything into question in the family.
[6:12]And in order to come together, first they need to disintegrate.
[6:17]And then it's rebuilt, rebuilt, rebuilt when everything happens.
[6:23]And it's a story.
[6:25]It's actually a disaster year for this family.
[6:30]You know, they have everything, the CZ wars, you know, betrayal secrets.
[6:36]But I've had years like that in my life.
[6:40]You know, some people have told me, oh, it's just too much happening.
[6:45]You know, I can't be real.
[6:47]Oh, yes, it can.
[6:49]Definitely, you know, it's one of those years when, you know, you're at your new years party and you're
[6:55]hosting for the new year.
[6:56]And you just think about the year you just lived and you go, good reasons.
[7:01]Get out of here.
[7:04]And so it's a year in the life of this family starting January to December.
[7:10]And all the weather events that I write about the fires, the flash floods.
[7:16]If there is a full moon, the temperature, all of that is real.
[7:21]I researched it.
[7:22]So on the day, it says there's a full moon.
[7:25]There was actually a fire is all real.
[7:28]So they, they happened in the right moment in the story on the right day.
[7:33]That is real as well.
[7:35]So there's just one that I made up, which is Christmas morning.
[7:39]I wanted it to rain and it didn't.
[7:43]I said, well, what is this picture?
[7:45]I'm going to make it up.
[7:50]So one character I found sort of alternately, well, let's talk about the dad character
[7:59]because this is mostly about women, the story centers around the women.
[8:02]And yet there is a man going through a hard time and not really knowing his place in the world.
[8:08]And I feel like you hear so much about when people retire and losing life's purpose.
[8:14]And suddenly, you know, only able to sit in a chair.
[8:18]I mean, usually the TV is on versus off, but still whatever.
[8:22]That sense of being lost even when you're home, which I think he really encapsulates.
[8:28]Tell me about like crafting him as a character.
[8:32]Well, I based Oscar on actually a little bit on my dad.
[8:38]It's not exactly like my dad, but my dad fell into this depression in the 80s where his business went under.
[8:49]My mom got cancer.
[8:51]You know, it's like perfect storm situation where everything sort of collapses.
[8:57]And he just instead of, you know, just going into, you know, fix everything all he went the other way.
[9:04]And he just landed on the couch and watched the weather channel for hours on the end.
[9:10]And it was really funny.
[9:12]Well, it wasn't funny, but I lived in LA and he lived in Mexico City.
[9:18]And he would call me long distance to tell me, take an umbrella. It's going to rain.
[9:23]He was my weatherman.
[9:27]Yeah, but really it's exactly like you say it. Oscar was lost because even though, even though this is a story about women and you know, all the story.
[9:41]But here is a guy who is surrounded by a wife and three daughters and an aunt.
[9:47]So it's all women around him and all these women one or another way affect him very directly.
[9:57]So his wife, his daughter.
[10:00]even he's aunt, they all have expectations
[10:05]and he feels very stressed because he feels responsible
[10:10]and feels like he needs to deliver
[10:12]and sometimes men have these issues
[10:14]and it's pretty taxing on their personality
[10:17]and their lives.
[10:20]It's true and it's hard to watch
[10:22]when that happens as well.
[10:23]But that was of course just one of many interactions
[10:27]that the family has and different personalities
[10:30]and you do such a good job of immediately letting us
[10:34]get to know all the different people with details
[10:38]and anyway, it's just very immersive.
[10:40]Tell me about when you got your start sort of writing
[10:44]and doing everything with film and all of that.
[10:48]Well, I actually started writing in second grade
[10:51]and as a matter of fact, because I was writing,
[10:55]I flunked and I had to be held back in second grade
[11:00]because I hadn't learned anything.
[11:02]But when I started to get real serious
[11:04]when I was 16, after I read 100 years of solitude
[11:09]by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I said,
[11:12]I want to really do this.
[11:14]And so I joined a workshop and I was a mascot.
[11:18]Everybody was an adult and he was a teenager.
[11:22]But it was very, it was very formative, it was wonderful.
[11:27]And I've been writing ever since.
[11:30]I got a lot of stories published
[11:32]while I was living in Mexico.
[11:35]I got them published in journals.
[11:37]And I was writing in Spanish.
[11:39]But then when I moved to LA when I was 23,
[11:43]right after college, I decided, well, if I'm gonna live here,
[11:47]I better learn English, I better learn the language
[11:51]and learn to write in English.
[11:54]And so I joined workshops at UCLA extension
[12:00]and eventually became a teacher.
[12:02]I've been teaching there for 26 years.
[12:04]But that really was a wonderful experience
[12:08]and really helped me to learn the language.
[12:13]And so when I wrote my first novel,
[12:18]it's Barranza's Box of Saints.
[12:22]I said, I'm gonna write it in English.
[12:24]And it was hell.
[12:26]It was so difficult.
[12:28]I had the dictionary that the sorrows,
[12:31]you know, right by my side.
[12:33]And I used to call my friends, how do you say this?
[12:37]My kids were little, but I would ask them
[12:41]because obviously they were born here.
[12:43]So they were fluent.
[12:46]So my eight-year-old and my seven-year-old
[12:49]is like, how do you say this?
[12:51]Oh, mom, you know.
[12:55]Why don't you just give up and stop bothering us?
[12:58]Tell, but I did learn a lot.
[13:00]The novel got published.
[13:02]And so I said, okay, so maybe I can do this.
[13:06]And so the three novels that I've written
[13:09]have been published in English.
[13:11]And then I've done my own translation into Spanish,
[13:14]which was also a lot of fun to go back to my native language
[13:23]and try and create into Spanish.
[13:26]Yeah.
[13:27]And then how did it feel
[13:30]having this sketchbook fixed by Reese's booklet?
[13:32]What was that like?
[13:34]Well, of course I fill up my seat when I was talking.
[13:39]What?
[13:41]Because I've been a fan since the beginning.
[13:44]I've been a fan of the club.
[13:46]And I read most of the books that she picks.
[13:50]And the fact that she picked my book was a shock to me.
[13:55]I had no expectations.
[13:56]I never even crossed my mind that something like that
[14:01]could happen.
[14:02]And so I feel very honored because I love all the authors
[14:07]that she picks.
[14:08]I think that they're fantastic and very talented and creative.
[14:13]And so to be able to be in that group is quite privileged.
[14:19]Yes.
[14:20]I saw all over Instagram that many of you
[14:23]authors met up at the new pop-up.
[14:25]That looks like fun.
[14:27]That was great.
[14:28]That was quite something.
[14:29]She's a force of nature.
[14:33]She's incredible.
[14:35]She's an entrepreneur, great actress, but also a producer.
[14:40]And she has her book club.
[14:42]And then she has an NGO, which is called lit up.
[14:47]And that your listeners, you guys should really
[14:51]look at what she does is she does a call for entries
[14:56]for writers who come from underrepresented minorities.
[15:02]And they pick the best projects and their manuscripts
[15:07]of novels or collections of short stories.
[15:12]And they become fellows.
[15:13]And then they pair them up with mentors who are published
[15:17]authors and they work with them on their projects.
[15:20]I think that's amazing.
[15:23]So she's doing that.
[15:24]She's doing so much for women's literature.
[15:28]And this pop-up that she did in LA is,
[15:32]you know, it was a pop-up story.
[15:33]It's a story.
[15:35]But she did it beautifully, all pastel colors.
[15:39]Of course, was selling all the books with all the authors
[15:43]and other items that she also promotes, you know,
[15:46]like furniture and candles, mugs, you know,
[15:50]just cool stuff.
[15:52]And she did an event.
[15:54]And there were maybe about eight of the authors in town.
[15:58]And so we met there and it was so much fun
[16:02]to actually meet them in person.
[16:03]You know, it's such a rare thing these days
[16:06]to be at an event.
[16:09]You know, it was a small event.
[16:11]But the fact that I was able to meet the authors
[16:14]that I've read their work, it was really cool.
[16:18]Aw, it's awesome.
[16:20]Congratulations.
[16:21]Really neat.
[16:22]Thank you.
[16:23]What advice would you have for aspiring authors?
[16:26]For first-time authors?
[16:28]Mm-hmm.
[16:28]Oh, who get their work off?
[16:30]Or for aspiring people who want to be authors.
[16:33]Oh, okay.
[16:35]Well, I would say when you're developing a story,
[16:39]you want conflict.
[16:40]I think that's something that really moves stories along.
[16:46]Obviously, bad choices make great stories
[16:49]because the more you get your characters in trouble,
[16:53]the more interesting it becomes.
[16:55]You know, no wonder it's no wonder that, you know,
[16:58]all those stories, you know,
[17:01]and they live happily ever after the end
[17:04]is because when there is no conflict,
[17:06]why continue the story, you know, it becomes really boring.
[17:10]So, okay, Prince Jarmine,
[17:14]and now they're married and happy.
[17:17]They have kids in the end of story.
[17:19]You know, so look for conflict,
[17:23]get your characters in trouble.
[17:25]Another thing that I would probably recommend
[17:30]aspiring writers is eliminate the word aspiring.
[17:35]Because if you're already writing,
[17:37]even if it's a journal, you're already a writer.
[17:41]You're not aspiring.
[17:42]Somebody who was buyers is somebody who is not doing it
[17:45]at the moment and would like to do it.
[17:48]So, by just eliminating the word aspiring, you know,
[17:51]it kind of weighs you down.
[17:53]If you take it out of your vocabulary,
[17:55]you say, I'm a writer, you know,
[17:58]it's almost like, yeah, you're doing it.
[18:01]You're already there, you know.
[18:03]I like that.
[18:06]The other thing that I would probably recommend
[18:09]is embrace writer's block.
[18:12]And it sounds weird, but the reality is,
[18:16]I think I believe writer's block is my brain telling me,
[18:22]stop and think.
[18:25]Don't just sit down and try to write
[18:27]because you're not ready.
[18:30]And so let yourself get into the move,
[18:35]get into the story.
[18:38]When I get asked, you know,
[18:40]how many hours do you write a day?
[18:42]I say, you know, I write all day.
[18:45]Day and night, I write in the car at the grocery store
[18:48]in the shower.
[18:49]I write everywhere all the time
[18:52]because I'm thinking about my characters all the time.
[18:55]So how many hours do I type a day?
[18:59]Well, that's different.
[19:01]You know, for me, it's like downloading
[19:03]what I've been thinking about.
[19:05]So when you have writer's block,
[19:07]it's because you want to type before thinking.
[19:11]So put your computer aside.
[19:14]And as you go about your day,
[19:17]just think about your characters, about your story,
[19:21]the plot, all of that.
[19:23]And all of a sudden, you know,
[19:26]you get the juices going and you start getting excited
[19:30]about it and scribble a little note here,
[19:33]a little note there if you want.
[19:35]And then when you're ready,
[19:38]then you sit down and type.
[19:41]I think that really helps.
[19:43]And that's one way of embracing writer's block.
[19:46]I love it.
[19:47]That's great advice.
[19:48]I think people beat themselves up for the thinking part,
[19:52]but it is so essential.
[19:54]You're absolutely right.
[19:55]Amazing.
[19:56]Well, thank you so much, Maria.
[19:58]Thank you for coming on today.
[19:59]Thanks for...
[20:00]chatting about Ellie weather. I'm actually coming to LA next week, so I'm having the weather is very nice.
[20:06]Well, I think we're going to finally get some rain.
[20:10]Oh, just in time. All right. Well, whatever.
[20:12]For a couple of days. It never even has long unfortunately.
[20:16]Well, thank you, CB. I have a wonderful time in LA when thank you and I really, really
[20:23]appreciate your invitation. Thank you. My pleasure. Thanks for coming. It's okay. Bye-bye.
[20:30]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[20:33]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[20:38]Also, sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet
[20:43]lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for
[20:48]the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and
[20:53]now trim music.