Julia May Jonas, VLADIMIR: A Novel
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[0:58]Julia made Jonas is the author of Vladimir a novel
[1:01]She is a writer director and the founder of theater company Nellie Tinder
[1:06]She teaches theater at Skidmore College and lives in Brooklyn with her family
[1:10]Vladimir is her first novel. Welcome Julia. Thank you so much for coming on moms
[1:14]Don't have time to read books to discuss Vladimir a novel
[1:17]Thank you so much for having me such a racey cover by the way. I'm almost embarrassed to have it face up
[1:24]In my house, although also very excited about it. Yeah, I know certain people feel like it's it's like fun to be reading it on the subway and in those certain people will
[1:35]split the jacket cover off
[1:39]Were you involved in the cover by the way just I mean I I approve of the cover
[1:43]I think it's a great cover. I love it
[1:46]Especially for the book. You know, it really fills this idea of the gaze. Yes
[1:50]And I think it's kind of just the right about a funny. Yeah for the book
[1:53]But I was shown one cover and then approved it. Basically. So I didn't make it but publisher's dream
[2:01]Okay, let's back up for a second. Can you please tell us there is what your novel is about?
[2:06]So my novel is about a
[2:09]beloved college professor whose husband when the novel opens is being investigated for past
[2:17]What they view as consensual relationships with former students
[2:21]And then into her life comes Vladimir Vladimir Vladimir. He's the new hire at the English department
[2:27]And she falls head over heels in lust a combination of lust
[2:32]Amoration and be all of those things for him and that kind of leads her to some
[2:38]disastrous consequences
[2:41]First of all, I love that you have as a protagonist a 58 year old novelist and writer who has all these
[2:48]Feelings of passion and longing and that it is not over at that age
[2:53]I feel like so many depictions of older women are
[2:56]Not like this. Let's just say and it's just so invigorating to see a woman who's full of
[3:02]Life and desire and all of that
[3:04]So tell me tell me about that and how you chose to set her age in that bracket and everything
[3:10]Yeah, I mean, I think there was kind of the spark that happened when I was at this party with a friend
[3:15]And I have been thinking about this idea of desire
[3:17]And I have two children and I'm married and and there's some way in which you feel at a certain point
[3:23]Like your your lanes are getting smaller
[3:26]You know that there's bigger bumpers on either side in terms of what you're going to experience
[3:31]But also what you're allowed to to want and to desire
[3:35]And so I I asked my friend at this party
[3:38]Do you think do you have this core belief that you're supposed to want less as a woman as you age
[3:45]And she said almost immediately yes
[3:48]I do and it makes me so angry because I think we all kind of pulled this idea that we're going to gradually
[3:53]You know that all of our bumps and desires and wants and messiness are going to be somehow paved down
[3:58]And we're entering into some graceful accepting phase
[4:02]Where our aging bodies don't bother us and the
[4:08]You know the reduction of professional opportunities
[4:11]We take that all in and
[4:14]Processed and that we have no kind of real reaction or anger or or or anything about that
[4:20]So I realized I had that belief
[4:21]And so that was what I really wanted to explore
[4:24]I was kind of exploding that belief and thinking about someone really being in process
[4:29]And in a state of transition at an age
[4:33]Where we have an assumption that you're supposed to have things figured out in some kind of way
[4:39]I remember interviewing a bunch of women my grandmother's age and then her nursing home about their bodies
[4:45]Because I just assumed at some point you would like I would stop caring about my body and what it
[4:51]Look like I assumed that it does not just happen
[4:53]Like you don't go from being you and like whoever you are and have your own issues in
[4:57]Neurotic or whatever else you are dealing with and then all of a sudden one day
[5:00]You're like oh just because I'm this age. I give up. You're never gonna stop caring. You're never gonna
[5:05]You don't change overnight. No, no
[5:08]My mom was just telling me my mom who's a who's the perfect weight who looks wonderful
[5:12]Who's in her seventies was just telling me that she's starting
[5:16]Weight watchers again because she's not exactly where she wants to be
[5:20]You know, which I
[5:22]For her. I think you're so healthy. You exercise five days a week
[5:26]You're great. Why why can't you know if you can't accept your money at this point
[5:30]You should know hang out with my mom
[5:32]I feel like they would have a great time. They could like walk the golf course together. My mom is now
[5:36]She's doing intermittent fasting. You know, it's always something. Yes. Yes. That's so funny
[5:42]Yes, I yes
[5:43]So I feel like yes
[5:44]It doesn't just leave you because it's in a way
[5:46]It's muscle memory especially for women who grew up at a certain time in their life
[5:50]I think I think it's worse for my mom
[5:52]But it's certainly it's certainly present for myself and you can't shake it in the way
[5:58]That you think you're going to be able to
[6:02]Very true
[6:04]I also love that one of the novels
[6:06]I want you to go write this novel now because first of all
[6:09]I love how you write you I hear I said first of all 20 times
[6:12]So I guess second of all I love how you write. It's I just love it
[6:15]It pulls the reader right in and you're you're really great
[6:17]Would I have to find this fictitious novel where you had an artist?
[6:22]Let me see if I remember it was an artist a mother and a career woman
[6:26]Yeah, build in three perspectives and then you realize over the course of the novel that it's the same woman
[6:31]I love that. Why do you like tell me like write that book is that coming?
[6:35]That does sound like actually when I came up with that idea
[6:38]That sounds like a great race. Yeah. I will write it. That's a point. That would be great
[6:42]Like kind of my own fan fiction universe. Yes, Vladimir
[6:46]Very mad. Yes, perfect. It's like yes
[6:50]I also love this concept. Do you have a
[6:54]Great mom energy or big mom energy? What did you call it? Yes big mom energy?
[6:59]Big mom energy tell me about big mom energy and how do I get some of that?
[7:03]Well, I mean I think of this as when I'm in a college experience and I'm teaching for example
[7:09]You know, there's so much about teaching college students where you feel like you're exactly the same as them
[7:14]You know, it feels like you never really left
[7:17]College you still feel you so identify so strongly with where where they're at in many ways and in many ways
[7:22]They seem like children
[7:23]But I feel like sometimes you're kind of forced to put on this kind of maternal role to encourage them
[7:30]Or that's what's expected of you as a woman, you know as a as a man you can be
[7:36]Stern dismissive cold put them off
[7:40]That feels like that's something that's allowed and expected of a kind of male professor
[7:44]They're reaches a point when you're a female professor where there's this anxiety about having to be nurturing or maternal or
[7:52]You know someone brings you in their
[7:54]Their story and you have to say oh my gosh. It's so amazing that you did this
[8:01]Expectation for enthusiasm that's put upon women. I think especially in those kind of mentorship roles
[8:09]Very true. Yes, it's sort of mama bear energy. Yes. Yes. Yeah, and I find you know
[8:15]I was even examining it in myself and in how much I was I have you know
[8:21]Mostly female team and there's so much anxiety that comes in publishing in a book and I realized I was
[8:28]I was trying to hold myself back
[8:29]But I wanted my editor to mother be you know
[8:33]And then I had a certain point of reckoning where I said you know
[8:36]She doesn't need to mother you. I mean, that's not what you if you had a male editor
[8:40]You wouldn't be asking for this or expecting this in some way
[8:45]It's just again
[8:46]It's like all these assumptions that we can kind of think are very conscious and up
[8:52]You know, they exist for us subconsciously. I think it's certain ways. It's so true now. I'm gonna analyze my relationship with my editor
[8:59]Right
[9:01]Take that to the therapy. I'm not getting but should
[9:04]Anyway, I also think it's so interesting this whole like the so her husband is now has been accused of
[9:13]He's been accused of these non-consensual relationships when really as the narrator points out
[9:18]They were completely consensual the power of the man was exactly what attracted the women like and now for them to come forward and say
[9:27]Well, it wasn't consensual or look what he's been doing even the notion that it's some sort of
[9:33]That she's cheating on the wife and some negative way whereas that also was condoned in their relationship
[9:38]People making all sorts of assumptions about this and then after the fact as is happening all the time and particularly in school
[9:46]environments
[9:47]Punishing the perpetrator of said acts which may or may not be consensual and you even have like this group of women coming in and like trying to rally
[9:56]Her to be like, you know, you shouldn't let your husband do this
[10:00]or whatever. They said, but you know, tell me about, tell me about that because that's not always
[10:05]what you see is not what you get necessarily. Right. Right. Right. I mean, I think I was very
[10:11]interested in someone who was having to deal with the world shifting underneath her.
[10:15]So it felt like important that the relationships at the time that they were happening,
[10:20]felt like they were okay, that everyone had agreed that they were okay and that now with time
[10:26]and maybe greater consciousness or maybe a certain kind of being swept up in certain ideas that
[10:35]are circulating, they become not okay. And I think it's really, that was what I was interested in
[10:41]because I was interested in a character who's having the world shift underneath her. And that
[10:47]in a way is what happens to all of us as we age, which is just the world changes and we can
[10:52]either decide to kind of get on the water slide or we can find ourselves stuck and feel like we're
[10:58]no longer a part of this world that exists. So that was an important, it was important to me that
[11:05]the relationships had been condoned and okay at the time they were happening. I mean, and certainly
[11:11]as when I was in college, even though I'm younger than my protagonist, there were relationships
[11:16]between students and teachers. I did not have any of them, but they certainly seemed like
[11:23]at the time like, yes, them being a professor was part of their cachet to the women who were
[11:29]engaging with them. And they felt like they wanted to have this kind of teacher-student romantic
[11:34]relationship. Now, whether those ideas are positive and healthy, you know, I think the narrator
[11:42]is in process about that, about whether the power, whether power, even if it's, you know,
[11:47]quote unquote, legally condoned, is is still okay, you know, if that's still, if that's still
[11:55]something, that's, you know, not something that she should reevaluate. But I think that
[12:00]other and bigger, most important part is that she didn't have these relationships and she's
[12:05]experiencing the follow up for it. Yes. And I think that's what really also sets her off. It's
[12:12]that she spent her life, especially a woman that I think of her age, has spent more of her life,
[12:19]you know, trying to separate her career from her existence as a wife and a family person
[12:24]because that was what women of that age had to do. You know, I have a mentor who talks about how
[12:29]she would never speak about her kids in any professional circumstance ever because then she would
[12:34]be labeled as a parent and there would be kind of, she would seem diminished in front of people's
[12:41]eyes. So I'm very, I feel very glad that I have kids and I talk about them all the time in
[12:46]professional circumstances and think of that as a form of activism, you know, that they exist.
[12:53]But so I, but I think especially for, for that woman who has spent her whole life kind of trying
[12:59]to say, you know, my domestic life is not who I am, then it's being really brought up in her
[13:04]face and she's experiencing consequences for something she didn't do by nature of her, her personal
[13:10]and domestic choices. And I think that's, you know, what really gets to her. So interesting.
[13:15]Wait, how old are your kids, by the way? I have an eight-year-old and I have a one-year-old.
[13:20]Oh, big spread. I had a big spread. I had a six-year gap between my older, my twins and my younger
[13:29]kids. Oh, wow. So I actually feel like, I don't know if you feel this way, that I feel
[13:34]grateful. Like I was so much calmer with the little guys, you know, like just that big deep breath of
[13:40]six years, like aging mixed with experience and like, okay, this is, this is much easier.
[13:46]Yes, yes, I feel like I'm at the point where I feel like it makes vacation strange, but we're
[13:52]figuring it. But other than that, I'm so grateful to have someone who I can really speak to and
[13:58]how, you know, that they both provide it in a way or relief from each other. Yes, very true.
[14:03]I know. I like that too. I'm like, you're having a tantrum. Okay, I'm going to this room.
[14:06]Yeah, exactly.
[14:09]Still doing my job just such a gears here. You're an emotional breakdown. I'm going to go to somebody
[14:14]who just is happy to see me. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, he really, really, pretty picture of a,
[14:19]yeah, roses or something. I'm going to sit next to you, not next to the tear. No, I'm kidding.
[14:23]Yeah, I'll do not really kidding.
[14:25]So how did you tell me about your writing career and your life? Like, where are you from?
[14:29]How did you get started in this? How did you end up writing this book?
[14:33]So my main career has been as a playwright and a theater maker. I grew up, I was born in Texas,
[14:40]to grew up in New Jersey. I went to undergraduate for acting, actually at NYU.
[14:45]And then I think, you know, three months into it, I said, oh, gosh, wow, I really don't want to be
[14:51]an actor. That's like a very hard life. And also, you know, I really want to be, I don't want
[14:57]to be an employee. I want to be a boss. So I quickly kind of switched over to making pieces and
[15:05]making work. And then I spent a long time in, in New York, making a very experimental theater
[15:10]work. I was collaging text and choreographing all in very off off of Broadway theaters.
[15:17]And then I eventually went and got my MFA in playwriting. And then after that was more working
[15:26]inside of kind of the playwriting world, I started teaching playwriting. And then I had a big project
[15:34]that was set to take place during the pandemic at a theater, which was this kind of five-play cycle.
[15:39]And it was supposed to be in fall of 2020. So, you know, when March happened, we were writing
[15:45]the throes of planning. We had raised, you know, the huge budget that, and I just kept getting
[15:52]phone call after phone call about postponement, postponement postponement. And you know, now some
[15:58]version of it is going to take place in spring of 2023. But in any case, I needed to write,
[16:03]you know, I'm a part of the reason why I had a five-play cycle is because I love putting in the
[16:09]hours of writing every day or at least an hour. It feels like my moment of sanity and my moment
[16:16]where I can really touch something that is bigger than my existence, you know. So in the pandemic
[16:23]that felt especially important. But I couldn't write a play because theater didn't exist. And
[16:29]I just felt too dispiriting. And I had this character who I, who had existed in another play. And I
[16:35]thought about her. And I started writing in her voice. And I wrote that first chapter of Vladimir. And I
[16:40]thought, okay, yes, this is this, I know this can be a book. I can, I think I can keep going with this.
[16:46]And I had written prose before, but I had always either not clicked into the voice or gotten
[16:51]dissatisfied after a certain point or moved on to work on a play because plays are very immediate
[16:56]community oriented. So someone would say, hey, let's do a workshop. And I'd be like, okay,
[17:01]great, let me throw my novel away. And I'll, I'll come move over and do this thing that happens
[17:06]with people where we can talk. So that was my, that was essentially my practice. I was lucky because
[17:12]my husband Adam Sternberg, he is a crime writer. And I watched him write novels. And so that
[17:18]that witnessing was really important to me because I could see what it took. You know, I saw that
[17:24]basically for a period of six to eight months, he's every, you know, the majority of days of
[17:29]week, he sat down and he wrote something kind of without hope or fear. So yeah, so that was the,
[17:34]that was the process. And, you know, and after that, it became, I just, I felt like I had,
[17:39]I had really fallen into the voice in the way of writing. I figured out a lot of things about
[17:45]myself as a, as a prose writer. And that's where it, where it went. Did you and your husband ever
[17:51]get competitive with like how many pages he did in a day or have anything like that? No, no,
[17:57]I mean, I could say, you know, it's really where, where he becomes, you know, he's just amazing
[18:01]in that he's, I've only felt at support about it. And in terms of, yeah, in terms of writing,
[18:07]he wasn't, he was editing a book. I think at the time, whether they're working on a book,
[18:10]we were at different kind of writing phases. So yeah, I need to have at home sort of tutor, if you
[18:17]will. Yeah. Not that you needed it. Yeah. So now are you hooked on the novel as a form? Yes.
[18:25]Yes. I mean, I really felt like I found something. And in a way, it was, I felt like it was
[18:32]taking what really I enjoyed the most about my play writing and then also kind of removing at
[18:38]least at the time, what I enjoyed the least, which was it just feels, it's a direct transmission
[18:43]to a reader. So that feels so, that felt so empowering. And you know, yes, and I really loved writing
[18:50]and and have been writing working on a second book and that feels so fun. It's all I want to do,
[18:57]even though I have an eight year old in the one year old, I can't do it all the time.
[19:01]What's your new book about my new book is I'm very superstitious about saying what it's about,
[19:06]but it's kind of a very different approach I wanted to challenge myself. So it's, it's got a very big
[19:11]sprawl as opposed to this being very tight little stories. Okay. Yeah. I'll take it. I'll take it.
[19:18]And in your spare time, when you're not writing plays or novels and dealing with your kids,
[19:23]what do you like to read? I am a pretty voracious reader. So I mean, I love to go back and read old
[19:31]things. Recently, I've been loving to go back and read old things that I remember from high school,
[19:35]like really loving. So I just finished Somerset Moms of human bondage because I remember just being
[19:42]kind of slayed by that story when I was in college. I recently reread Portrait of the Lady,
[19:48]the Henry James book because I had also, I've been just trying to think about these,
[19:53]like what were the books that really kind of shaped me at that certain point in my life. So
[19:58]I've been reading that kind of old
[20:00]19th century, early 20th century literature.
[20:02]I look surely hazard writers like that.
[20:05]And then, you know, recently, I've been,
[20:07]recently I read my friend, Chloe Cooper Jones's memoir,
[20:11]which I think is just, I'm in a real hell,
[20:13]was just so spectacular.
[20:15]Yeah, she can't wait to read it.
[20:16]It's here somewhere.
[20:17]I'm visiting it soon.
[20:18]Yes, yeah, she's so wonderful.
[20:20]It's so brilliant and I loved it so much.
[20:23]How important is this whole,
[20:24]like is the whole writer community to you?
[20:27]Well, it's interesting because I don't know a lot of writers,
[20:31]you know, like I am actually now whenever somebody kind of
[20:37]writes to me, I try and say,
[20:39]you do you want to get a coffee?
[20:40]Do you want to meet up?
[20:41]Do you want to do anything?
[20:42]Because I know mostly theater people.
[20:44]And it's weird, it's strange to me how the world
[20:47]don't really intersect that much.
[20:49]You would think that they had more of an overlap,
[20:51]but they really don't.
[20:52]So I don't have a huge amount of writers
[20:56]who I know personally.
[20:58]And I'm interested in kind of, you know,
[21:02]making that happen more for myself now.
[21:03]So where do you live?
[21:04]Where are you based?
[21:05]I live in Brooklyn, which is,
[21:07]oh, okay, yeah, writer central.
[21:09]Awesome.
[21:10]Okay, well, next time I have an event here,
[21:12]I invite usually all the writers who have been on the podcast.
[21:15]Oh, yeah.
[21:16]So I'll loop you in to, you know,
[21:19]I feel like I was really lucky when I started this whole podcast,
[21:21]there was this group of writers
[21:24]and they all used to work at like the society library
[21:26]in 79th Street.
[21:28]And I interviewed one of them
[21:30]and then they introduced me like the whole group.
[21:32]And now like they're so amazing.
[21:34]You know, they're still like this really tight group.
[21:35]So much that I'm like, oh, and here you all are like,
[21:38]at lunch, but I'm not really at this group that much.
[21:41]But yeah, I feel like once you get into somebody's group,
[21:45]then you get to know the whole,
[21:47]there are these preexisting pockets,
[21:49]but not that many.
[21:49]I mean, there's so many,
[21:50]because look, so many books are coming out all the time.
[21:52]It's crazy.
[21:53]Yeah, there are so many books.
[21:55]But there's also a big market for books.
[21:56]And you know, we'll have books.
[21:58]As I, my, my metaphor for people when they ask about
[22:01]how slow a theater career is I say,
[22:03]think about every theater in New York
[22:06]and imagine if they were a bookstore,
[22:09]they would have five books in them at maximum,
[22:12]most of them would have one.
[22:13]And it wouldn't be that many bookstores like that.
[22:15]That world is so, so small.
[22:17]Whereas, whereas people read books all the time
[22:20]for all sorts of reasons.
[22:22]I think it's kind of such a,
[22:24]it's, and that's, I found that encouraging
[22:27]what a big market is.
[22:29]That's true.
[22:30]Yeah.
[22:31]Although there's so many books too.
[22:31]I was, I was with some of my college girlfriends
[22:34]and they were all reading like you, like older books,
[22:37]like, oh, you know, 19th century, not all of them,
[22:39]but like three of the five.
[22:41]And then I'm thinking to myself,
[22:42]this is terrible, you're not buying new books.
[22:45]You know, you're bringing out old,
[22:47]you're bringing your old books back out.
[22:48]So there is an audience,
[22:50]but they're not always all reading everything
[22:52]as soon as it hits the shelves.
[22:54]The way people in the industry
[22:55]might think that people are reading,
[22:56]they're not reading like that necessarily.
[22:59]Yeah.
[22:59]I mean, I found it kind of stunning
[23:01]that people picked up my book at,
[23:03]you know, when it first came out.
[23:04]I mean, I had, I read a lot of contemporary fiction,
[23:08]you know, but I would,
[23:10]I'd never think to pick up the first,
[23:12]you know, the first time I see a book on a just release shelf,
[23:17]that would not be my impulse is to pick that book up.
[23:19]I mean, now I'm much more conscious of that.
[23:22]And I do try and support new new writers,
[23:25]especially, but I feel like what they're making
[23:28]seems interesting and I can get something early
[23:32]because I understand it now,
[23:33]but I didn't understand the economics of that people are.
[23:35]I don't think most people understand that it really matters.
[23:38]It really matters to an author that first week
[23:40]or two weeks or pub day or whatever.
[23:42]I think there's some sort of misalignment in the public
[23:45]and the people producing it,
[23:48]the people consuming it.
[23:49]Yeah.
[23:50]You even like, I don't even think the lay person knows
[23:52]how the importance of why you encourage Indies
[23:55]for, you know, like why there are so many layers of,
[23:58]anyway, I wonder if education is the answer
[24:01]or if it's better just to suspend it,
[24:03]the way it is to spend the disbelief
[24:05]of the market efficiency or I don't even know.
[24:07]Yeah, I mean, I feel like, you know,
[24:09]the nice thing about folks is that they really do keep
[24:12]and as someone says to me, I haven't read your book.
[24:14]It's not going anywhere,
[24:16]I guess, you know, for a few years,
[24:18]you'll be able to find it.
[24:20]Oh, yeah.
[24:21]Well, it's like the movie model too.
[24:22]I mean, you're talking about theater,
[24:23]but movies that used to come out, right?
[24:26]And you knew it was a finite period of time,
[24:28]but you have to go to the theater
[24:30]and then you can get it in some other way.
[24:32]But with books, like you always know
[24:33]they're not going anywhere.
[24:35]There's no, what's the rush?
[24:36]Right.
[24:37]So it's a blessing and a curse in a way.
[24:39]Yeah.
[24:40]Yeah, especially when there's so many other
[24:43]also forms of media that are not really popping up.
[24:46]Yeah, yeah, I agree.
[24:49]But the nice thing is, again, you can have it on yourself
[24:51]and when it feels good to be the right time,
[24:54]you can pick it up and it can really shift you.
[24:56]Yeah, the right book at the right time is exactly amazing.
[24:59]Yeah.
[25:01]And your story is really timeless.
[25:04]You know, it'd be like in particular.
[25:05]And again, as I said in the start,
[25:08]just how amazing it is to have an older narrator.
[25:11]Just because I've always been somebody who reads
[25:15]a little head, like to see what's coming in life,
[25:17]you know, like what's coming next.
[25:19]And yeah, we're relatively the same age.
[25:21]I don't know who'll do it.
[25:22]But we're not 58.
[25:23]And so having this preview,
[25:25]even though it's fictitious, I feel like,
[25:27]is a helpful guide post in the crazy this is life.
[25:31]Yeah, yeah.
[25:32]I like to write out of a feeling of fantasy or fear often.
[25:37]I feel like that's a useful place to think about,
[25:41]you know, whether you're if you're writing tragedy
[25:43]then it's maybe out of fear.
[25:44]Or I'm making sure of both.
[25:46]You remember interviewing Chris Magellian
[25:48]and he said he always tries to write
[25:50]to the feeling of dread.
[25:51]Yes.
[25:52]Yes.
[25:53]Which I loved.
[25:54]Yes.
[25:55]Yes.
[25:56]That really that resonates.
[25:58]I remember I think it was maybe in a pageant
[26:00]who said something like cheat.
[26:01]She writes so that the thing that she's writing won't happen.
[26:04]Mm hmm.
[26:05]Yes.
[26:06]That's like, I used to do that all the time with my worrying.
[26:09]I still do it.
[26:10]I'm like, if I worry about this enough,
[26:11]then, you know, I'm taking it off the table.
[26:13]Right.
[26:14]Right.
[26:15]The idea that worry is going to be the thing that solves it.
[26:19]Well, I'm still clinging to that.
[26:21]My brain clings to that.
[26:23]Right.
[26:23]Well, and you're interested to have it even though life
[26:25]has not played out that way.
[26:26]But, um, OK, last question.
[26:29]What's your advice for aspiring authors?
[26:32]I would say, you know, to write without thinking,
[26:37]I would say not to let your emotions
[26:39]get in the way of your writing, especially
[26:41]when it comes to your initial idea.
[26:43]So if you have an initial idea that
[26:44]makes you excited, then don't pay so much attention
[26:48]as you go along about whether you are starting
[26:51]to think, oh, this idea is actually really bad,
[26:53]or this will never sell, or this won't do anything,
[26:56]to recognize all those thoughts as little lawyers
[26:59]than your head were going to talk you up of doing something
[27:01]and just keep going without hope or fear
[27:04]because really the, you know, the thing that is going
[27:07]to make you an artist is to finish something.
[27:10]So, so we're towards finishing something
[27:12]and don't pay too much attention
[27:13]to how you're feeling about it at the time
[27:15]because you're never going to feel completely good
[27:17]about something as you write it.
[27:18]And your feelings are kind of liars based on your brain
[27:22]chemistry and what you ate last night, you know.
[27:26]I love that.
[27:27]So true.
[27:28]Yep.
[27:29]Amazing.
[27:30]Well, thank you so much for coming on mom's time
[27:32]to read books to discuss in the latter year.
[27:34]Julie and me, Jonas, congratulations.
[27:37]You're a really fabulous writer.
[27:38]I can't wait to read what you have next.
[27:40]Really, really talented.
[27:41]It's awesome to read such great writing.
[27:43]So thank you so much.
[27:44]This was such a great conversation.
[27:46]Good.
[27:47]Have a great day.
[27:47]All right.
[27:48]You too.
[27:49]Take care.
[27:50]Bye-bye.
[27:52]Thanks for listening to this episode of mom's
[27:54]don't have time to read books.
[27:55]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens
[27:59]and at mom's don't have time to read books.
[28:01]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com
[28:03]and sign up for my virtual book club
[28:05]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[28:07]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan,
[28:09]at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing.
[28:11]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[28:13]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.