KJ Dell'Antonia, IN HER BOOTS
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens, the creator and host of the award-winning podcast that you're listening to right now
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[0:54]KJ Del Antonia is the author of Inher Boots a novel
[1:01]KJ is a novelist and former journalist and editor at the New York Times
[1:07]Where she covered the personal and policy aspects of family for many years with the mother-lode column
[1:12]KJ grew up in Texas in Kansas and attended Kansas State University then spent her 20's locked in a struggle to marry
[1:19]Her upbringing with the mysterious ways of Manhattan and East Coast culture and to reconcile career choices that included practicing law
[1:26]at Kravath slain and more and the New York County District Attorney's office with her childhood desire to be
[1:32]End of green gables only with more publishing success during the first internet boom
[1:37]KJ became the worst vice president of business development ever at an otherwise successful startup
[1:42]Her subsequent layoff proved the perfect excuse to finally pursue journalism and moved to a small town in New Hampshire
[1:48]And it didn't stop her from eventually taking over the New York Times mother-lode blog
[1:51]Her first book had to be a happier parent, which by the way
[1:54]I interviewed KJ about and so you can go back and listen to that episode as well
[1:58]That book developed as a result of her work at the New York Times
[2:01]But her heart was always in fiction
[2:03]Her memories of the two chicken restaurants in the Kansas towns where her parents grew up sparked the creation of
[2:09]Chicken mimees and chicken franies the two restaurants at the center of the chicken sisters and the story grew from there
[2:15]Her second novel in her boots is about the gap between the adults
[2:19]We think we have become the child our mother will always see and our horrible fear that our mother is right a story
[2:24]That grew from the complex relationship that every other has with the successful self
[2:28]We portray on the outside and the doubting voices that will always hammer away inside of our heads by the way
[2:34]The chicken sisters with a Reese's book club pick KJ lives in New Hampshire with her husband
[2:38]Four children and assorted horses chickens dogs and cats and she is co-host of the hashtag am writing podcast
[2:45]Which she was nice enough to host me on as a guest
[2:49]And now she's hard at work on her third novel welcome KJ. Thanks so much for coming on moms
[2:54]Don't have time to read books to discuss in her boots a novel
[2:57]Thanks for having me. I am delighted to be here and to be back
[3:03]I know you were last year. I feel like it was pretty early on in my podcasting time
[3:07]It was very early
[3:09]But I appreciated you're coming on then about how to be a happier parent and I loved all your advice and
[3:14]Really took it to heart and of course since then
[3:17]You know not only do host hashtag on writing, but you became a Reese's book fake and now you have in her shoes
[3:23]And it I mean it's just amazing. Yeah, I'm having a really good time. It's been a good
[3:28]It's been a and the rare person that can say these last couple years have been pretty good
[3:33]Why don't you tell listeners a little bit about what in her boots is about if you don't mind? I don't mind at all
[3:39]I will do my best. I have vowed to never write a book with such a complicated plot again
[3:44]But I think books with complicated plots. Maybe my thing. So yeah, we may be stuck
[3:51]So I like to say that in her boots is the story of
[3:55]The adult we hope we have grown into the child our mothers will always see at our terrible terrible fear their mother is right
[4:04]So which I experienced
[4:06]Well, traveling a little for my mom and also it was very weird to say that in front of my mom
[4:13]But she's not here now, although
[4:16]listeners may hear my dogs who are here
[4:18]Anyway, so it's also more fundamentally about
[4:23]rent and to
[4:24]Understand red you can have to know where red comes from she
[4:29]Was she's a MacGyver like person super handy with her hands super good with engines
[4:36]and mechanical stuff
[4:38]Also a reader and a little bit of a writer, but mostly she lives in the world not in her head
[4:45]Which is actually a little little different from me. So that was fun to write about and the red has spent the last 20 years as a
[4:54]Solo traveler so she's been out in the world
[4:57]She's been making new lives for herself over and over in different countries establishing herself and she has become Instagram famous
[5:04]She's become an influencer for exactly that she got in early on Instagram never sends pictures of herself
[5:10]It's always her travels
[5:11]But she is like the icon of women who travels solo so she also wrote a book about it
[5:17]But she didn't want to put her own name on her book because reasons
[5:20]So she put a different name on it and she calls the alter ego of her book the modern pioneer girl
[5:26]And it's not just it is her, but it's also who she wants to be so when red is
[5:34]Given the opportunity to head home and she's ready. She's 40
[5:37]She's wants to inherit her family farm and her best friend convinces her that it's also time to take over this persona
[5:44]To be the author of this book to really own who she is and to red agrees and she's asked to be on the today's show
[5:51]Which is every author stream as you know and or or any of the morning shows. They're all great
[5:57]But I picked that one because it's like, you know, though well known one
[6:01]So she's asked to be on the today's show and she
[6:05]Jasmine her best friend dresses her up and they head out and when they get there
[6:09]They hear the name or the voice of the other guests that morning and it's her mother and the only person in the whole world
[6:15]The one person she cannot really be herself in front of in her own mind is her mother
[6:20]But fortunately for red's perspective
[6:22]Jasmine is standing right there and the person who's hosting them doesn't know which of them wrote the book
[6:26]So when the person says oh, I love the modern pioneer girl
[6:30]Which of you is it?
[6:31]Rhett grabs Jasmine and says it's her
[6:35]And of Jasmine for reasons of her own. Let's this happen
[6:39]And it should just be a one-off like this is all on the first few pages of the book, right?
[6:43]It's a prank and they're known for this stuff. They're best friends. This is what they do
[6:49]Dung stuff together and then they, you know, sort it out
[6:53]So everything would be fine except that when Rhett gets home
[6:56]She discovers that her mother is completely in control really of whether or not she can inherit her family farm
[7:02]Her mother thinks she's done basically nothing for the last 20 years
[7:06]Her mother is deeply worried for reasons of her mother's own about the effect that owning the farm will have on Rhett
[7:12]She thinks it will drag Rhett down as it did Rhett's father
[7:16]And she wants to save Rhett from this terrible fate and also she just doesn't think Rhett's capable
[7:23]But she's super super impressed with whoever wrote that book, which of course she thinks is Jasmine
[7:29]So it goes on for there
[7:31]And I think the thing that I really love about it is that there's no obvious or easy course for Rhett
[7:38]So often when you're reading you're like
[7:41]Just tell him how you feel or you know, just stop doing such and such or just do this or just do that
[7:47]There's no just for Rhett in this situation, which credit she has created for herself
[7:53]If she tells
[7:55]She's not gonna inherit the farm or she doesn't tell
[7:57]She's not gonna inherit the farm if she day like there's no there's she got no no easy way out
[8:02]So that's that's where we join her
[8:06]And that's what the books about
[8:08]Rhett finding a way really finding her way to be herself in the world and seeing what that gets for her while trapped in a corner
[8:15]Essentially while trapped in a corner exactly back into a corner
[8:18]I should say I'm her own making which is the best kind of corner in books. Yes
[8:23]Sometimes I feel like I'm there myself in my real life
[8:29]Amazing by the way, I could just listen to you talk about books forever. I feel like you know
[8:33]I could talk about books forever. Yeah. Well, you know
[8:37]It's so it's pretty awesome. You should just summarize
[8:40]I have to I have to give an actual speech to the Kansas book
[8:46]book
[8:47]festival and
[8:49]Giving actual speeches, you know, it's sort of a thing. It's like
[8:53]It's one thing to get up and talk. It's one thing to talk about podcast
[8:55]I could do that all day and it's one thing to like get up and have a conversation with someone
[8:59]What's they call it a speech? It's like ah?
[9:01]So I'm sitting here with them talk like Ted. Oh my gosh. Yeah
[9:06]So I can get ready, but anyway, the first chapter is like be sure to talk about things you're enthusiastic about and I was like
[9:13]Check
[9:15]I'm going to talk about I'm going to talk about reading for fun
[9:18]I'm going to talk about why we should read what we want to read and not what other people think we should read
[9:23]So caveats, and I'm so excited to do that. I just
[9:26]Give me a test drive get practice in the material. I haven't made any material yet other than just you know
[9:34]To go ahead and embrace the things that you love in reading and the things that you look for when you turn over the back of the book
[9:41]You know if you flip over the back of the book and it's like
[9:43]You know witches and a bakery solving murders and those are your thing
[9:47]I mean just go ahead like buy that and if somebody's like no
[9:51]You really need to read this very serious wide-a novel in which everyone dies and that's not your jam
[9:57]You don't have to and then the thing
[10:00]excited to sort of really go on with there, excuse me,
[10:03]is that you can still expand your raising horizons
[10:08]while you read what you love.
[10:10]So, you know, if you have noticed that your bookshelves
[10:13]are only white women, which is that I've certainly
[10:17]looked at my bookshelves and gone, ooh, ouch,
[10:19]I didn't mean to do that, you know, you don't have to like go out
[10:22]and find the most serious book about intrinsic bias
[10:28]that you can find unless that fascinates you and which race
[10:30]go grab it because it is interesting.
[10:33]Go find a book about which is solving murders in bakeries
[10:37]that was written by someone who's a little different than you.
[10:40]And go from there, rightly take what you love and broaden your horizons within it.
[10:46]That's so much cited. I'm excited to put that together and I've
[10:48]liked deciding on titles and I don't know, jokes.
[10:54]You feel like people feel just totally pressured to read books they don't want to read?
[10:57]I do, actually. I think a lot of us feel sort of the echoes of our
[11:03]academic experience and feel like, well, but I really, this is too much fun.
[11:07]This can't really be reading. I'm enjoying it.
[11:09]Now, not, I mean, or we differentiate.
[11:12]We're like, I will read this for fun, but I will read this because it is very serious.
[11:16]And I mean, sometimes you want to read that stuff.
[11:20]And sometimes we, some of that, I guess what the other piece of what I'm trying
[11:25]to say is, yes, read about serious topics, but find, you know, open the book and make sure
[11:30]that it interests you, like the voice, the flow, the way that it's presented.
[11:35]That's going to be different for everyone, what works for you.
[11:40]So I think not feeling, because that book that you have to read is just going to sit there
[11:45]forever dragging you down.
[11:48]So, and then making you feel like, oh, apparently I don't like nonfiction,
[11:53]but that's probably not true. You probably just don't like that piece of nonfiction.
[11:57]Do you think that people should read both fiction and nonfiction?
[12:03]Or like, would you, are you cool with just reading all fiction or?
[12:06]I'm cool with just reading whatever you want to read.
[12:09]And if that is all romance all the time, by all means, if that is all genre picture,
[12:15]if that is all fantasy, go for it, right?
[12:18]I mean, or if it's all nonfiction, I mean, then you're just apparently your dude, and that's fine.
[12:24]Because that's, that's, I mean, that, and that is very much statistically true.
[12:29]Men read a lot of nonfiction. The weird truth, and you probably know this, but I didn't,
[12:34]and a lot of people don't, and I want fiction is way more popular.
[12:38]Like it sells way more copies than fiction, and more people read it, both men and women.
[12:44]I had no idea. I would have guessed, I think, the opposite, because I have somebody who reads
[12:49]and loves novels, although I read a lot of nonfiction too, but certainly the shells behind me are,
[12:55]I mean, it's probably 75% fiction.
[12:58]Yeah, me too. Well, the thing with nonfiction, A, you can learn, obviously, but B, like,
[13:04]there's something in it for you. Do you know what I mean?
[13:07]Yeah. Oftentimes, I think people are buying a nonfiction book because they are trying to solve
[13:11]a problem or get through something. And here is the solution packaged up in the system, right?
[13:16]And then you could just, you know, mission accomplished.
[13:20]Right. So people read nonfiction that don't think they would be interested in a novel.
[13:25]Maybe if they picked up the right one or the one that also addressed that problem, they would be,
[13:30]but yeah, that's definitely true. I mean, more people are going to grab the
[13:35]magical joy of tidying up, which is not quite the title, but you know what I mean?
[13:40]Because they want to tidy up, or they want to imagine that they're going to tidy up,
[13:42]which is a lot like tidying up only easier. But it's like you, you bought the Ted book because
[13:47]you're doing a speech. I bought it, yeah. But I bought it years ago for different shows.
[13:53]Okay. But I grabbed it off my shelf. And yeah, yeah, this is hopefully, this is going to solve
[14:00]all my problems. Basically, it's going to write this for me. That's my plan.
[14:04]You know, have a pen book. This other book just came out about all the speeches that were never
[14:08]given, but they were written. We heard about that book. No, I haven't. I'll send it to you if I
[14:14]can find it. Okay, cool. But back to your book. So when you're writing fiction, you obviously are
[14:20]a lover of fiction. So you can just channel all of that in. And there's this part talking about
[14:25]writing that I just wanted to read if I'd done, which I dug here. Hold on one sec. But it's about
[14:32]ghost writing, essentially. Anyway, it was about Emily and talking to a ghost writer and how
[14:41]she needed help. And she had a gift for finding the moments that ended up changing her life
[14:48]and getting those onto the page. And I was wondering what your thoughts were about other people
[14:54]helping. Do you need help? Have you worked with a ghost writer and tell me about that relationship
[15:00]as you know it? I need so much help. I've never worked with a ghost writer, but I work with a lot.
[15:06]I definitely work with editors and book coaches. I don't, I think ghost writing is much more
[15:11]common for people who have an interesting life, but aren't necessarily the one to write about it.
[15:16]I don't, I mean, I don't think we even call it ghost writing. Like, yeah, James Patterson, maybe
[15:23]doesn't, I don't want to malign anyone, but there's, there's someone that like really 100
[15:30]percent, like he writes kids, but I think it is James Patterson. And he doesn't even pretend,
[15:34]like he comes up with the ideas and then people help him write, but that's the different,
[15:37]that's when you're like an industry, not a, not necessarily an individual writer. But what I
[15:44]have had is book coaches like Jenny Nash, and I know that you know, and I think you're
[15:50]yeah, Michelle. And she really taught me how to do this. And if there's one thing I could sort of
[15:57]go back and say to my baby writer self when I thought I couldn't write fiction, it is that this is a
[16:03]learnable skill. You know, reading and loving fiction is one thing. And unfortunately, it doesn't
[16:09]actually teach, I probably teach us some of us how to write it, but mostly it kind of teaches you
[16:13]how to, it might teach you whatever element really speaks to you. It might teach you that. So for
[16:19]example, I have a natural like writing dialogue in the form that appears in books comes really
[16:28]naturally to me because I've probably read more dialogue than I've heard because I'm a very fast reader
[16:34]and and spent a lot of years, you know, huddled up in my parents' house reading books and not talking
[16:39]to people. So that comes really easily to me. But the structure of the story does not. And that's
[16:45]what Jenny really taught me was how to make sure there was a core and not write a lie. I already
[16:53]told you I really liked to write really complicated parts. You should have seen the plot of the
[16:57]chicken sisters when I first took that to Jenny. It had so many. It was like a tree with all the branches
[17:04]and roots and sister trees next to it that were all wound up and probably talking through the roots.
[17:10]I mean, it was crazy. So she really taught me that to find the one story and stick to that and the
[17:19]things that were closest and most important to that. I think structure is also important. It
[17:23]really difficult. I mean, it's hard. It's usually to build it over so many pages. It's like
[17:29]keep it going. It's one thing in an essay. I don't know. It's just like over all that time.
[17:37]Really, it really, really is. And so it's so key to have these sort of signposts for every,
[17:46]I also like the sort of traditional plot things where you're like, you know, that the
[17:51]inciting incident and the midpoint and the all is lost moment. I like to know what those are. Those
[17:57]are like signposts. But I also like Jenny's a real genius at like the core of each either chapter
[18:03]or scene, just depending on how you're approaching it. And so to be, to have sort of just a list that's
[18:09]like in, you know, she finds out Mike is, I don't spoil anything in my own book. But you know,
[18:17]she finds out her mom tells her such and such. And to have the one line for every scene.
[18:24]And then the, to know what why it's there is really important.
[18:29]So you have all that laid out ahead of time. No, that would be an excellent way to do it. But
[18:38]no, that is not the way that I do it. I mean, I've only done this in full maybe four times once
[18:46]for the book that no one will probably ever see in once for the one I'm about to try to sell
[18:50]and then twice for the ones that you can see on the shelves. So I don't really have a method.
[18:55]And I hope to somebody have a better method. But mostly my method seems to be
[19:00]I know where we start. And I either know where the plot ends or I know where the person ends.
[19:05]And then I have to kind of write a bunch of stuff to get to the point. So no, I don't really
[19:10]end up with that core. Like what each thing is about and what's important probably till I've
[19:16]drafted it. And then that's what I used to revise. Got it. It'd be great to do it the other way.
[19:22]I think I think that would be very efficient as not. Maybe less fun. Maybe. I don't know.
[19:31]I don't know. Next time. Wait, what are you working on now? What's the book you're trying to sell
[19:34]now? It is easier to describe. It is, which is in a small Marfa-like town in Kansas with a deck
[19:43]of stolen can tarot cards and a lot of family secrets. Okay. Awesome. Yeah. And back to setting
[19:51]it in Kansas, which I'm delighted by. I grew up in Kansas. So I like to. I like to give
[19:56]Kansas. It's still amazing.
[20:00]So in addition to all you're writing,
[20:01]you are hosting co-hosting hashtag on writing.
[20:05]What's the latest there?
[20:06]What it, like what exciting or interesting things
[20:09]have happened on the show lately?
[20:10]And what do you take out of the show
[20:12]to then inform your own writing?
[20:14]So it's hashtag amwriting on writing.
[20:16]Oh, even Kingsbook, but you're the second person today
[20:19]that's saying that's okay.
[20:20]It's kind of funny, because you're why.
[20:22]You're the second person today to say it that way.
[20:24]So it's hashtag amwriting.
[20:25]I knew that, which is a hashtag we totally made up
[20:29]and pro-priotarily, oh, and you can't use now.
[20:31]I'm kidding.
[20:32]We just, we stole that off the internet
[20:34]and everybody uses it.
[20:36]And so it's fun to have it be our podcast.
[20:38]And we, so this summer, we did a thing called Blueprint
[20:43]for a book using Jenny Nash's Blueprint for a book.
[20:45]And we did 10 episodes that if you listen to
[20:49]and follow along with each 10 episodes,
[20:51]and you don't have to do it in live real time,
[20:53]they'll always be there.
[20:54]You will come out with what I just said I rarely have
[20:58]to start with, which is a thing you can use to start,
[21:04]either a non-fiction book or a fiction book
[21:06]that will really help you to know where you're going.
[21:09]And I probably, I really think it could save you a year
[21:14]of twisting and turning around things,
[21:18]or at least six months.
[21:20]So I love that.
[21:21]And also yesterday, we just interviewed Emily Henry.
[21:24]So that won't come out till fall,
[21:26]because it's gonna come out after the blueprint is done.
[21:28]It was a really good interview in which we talked about
[21:33]how we talked about exactly what you and I were talking
[21:36]about a minute ago, which is reading for fun
[21:39]and writing the things that we love to read.
[21:41]And so I didn't even know, but Emily,
[21:44]we think of her as like an overnight success from,
[21:47]between, she had three YA novels,
[21:51]as she describes them sad YA novels about serious things.
[21:56]And that just didn't turn out to be.
[21:57]So I loved finding that out.
[21:59]And then we loved talking about like how,
[22:03]I mean, writing fun is hard.
[22:04]So we talked about that.
[22:06]It was really, it was a really good one.
[22:08]It was a good interview.
[22:09]Awesome.
[22:10]Okay, why is writing fun hard?
[22:12]Easy reading is hard writing.
[22:14]And it really is.
[22:14]And I'm not saying it's hard to her
[22:16]than writing literary stuff,
[22:18]or I'm sure that is also hard, all writing is hard, I guess.
[22:22]But to, as Emily said,
[22:26]you know, a thing that drives us in like our day
[22:30]to day decisions,
[22:31]which is exactly what we talked about in the podcast.
[22:33]Like for example, a thing that might drive me
[22:36]is if I'm on a plane and I'm in the window seat,
[22:39]I would be, I'm really uncomfortable asking the person to move.
[22:42]And so I made all kinds of decisions
[22:45]as Emily was talking about it.
[22:46]Like I'm making all these decisions
[22:48]because I want to avoid conflict.
[22:50]And many, many women are like that, right?
[22:52]But to put that into a book,
[22:54]your person needs to have a real reason
[22:57]that they want to avoid conflict.
[22:59]And you need to get sort of,
[23:00]you need to examine, you need to make it realer than real.
[23:05]It needs to be bigger than our individual,
[23:08]real personal experiences,
[23:10]or at least then most of them.
[23:11]In order,
[23:14]first you want to follow along
[23:15]and really embrace that person's travels and travels.
[23:21]So you kind of have to make it,
[23:23]it's like you want to take something
[23:25]that's an experience that we all share,
[23:27]like maybe avoiding conflict or being afraid
[23:31]to tell someone how you really feel.
[23:33]And you need to turn that into something big enough
[23:36]that we can see it and watch it change
[23:39]and enjoy the process.
[23:42]And yet also feel like it's a thing that could happen.
[23:47]So there's, yeah, there's a lot, it's hard.
[23:50]Wow.
[23:52]Well, to shift gears for two seconds,
[23:55]as we said, I started off,
[23:58]I talking to you about how to be a happier parent.
[23:59]And now you've had all this career success.
[24:01]Has all of that, not that you hadn't already?
[24:03]I was like, mother, motherhood, editor.
[24:06]And like, I mean, you already were,
[24:07]but you know what I mean?
[24:09]Good things have happened for me.
[24:10]It is true.
[24:11]Does that make you a happier parent?
[24:13]Do you feel like you're a better parent?
[24:14]Has it affected at all?
[24:16]You're parenting?
[24:17]You know, the possibly ugly truth about me
[24:21]is that I'm a gold star kind of girl.
[24:23]And I know that you are too.
[24:24]I like to get accolades from the outside world.
[24:27]It is hard for me to rely only on my own assessment
[24:30]of my achievements.
[24:31]So, yes, absolutely.
[24:34]My life is much easier and better
[24:36]when if someone says, oh, have you written anything
[24:39]I've heard of?
[24:39]I can say, oh, yeah, I mean, maybe you haven't,
[24:42]but I can tell you things that will make you go,
[24:44]oh, she's not just a, I mean, so yes,
[24:48]that makes me happier.
[24:50]And again, I would like to be someone
[24:52]who can just put value in the journey,
[24:57]but the truth is that I like success.
[25:00]So there's that.
[25:01]Has it made better parent?
[25:03]I probably just makes me more pleasant.
[25:05]I mean, early in my kid's lives,
[25:08]when we had moved out of the city
[25:11]and I had been laid off and lived in a place
[25:15]where there really was gonna be hard for me
[25:17]to get a job in any industry.
[25:19]Although in my chosen industry,
[25:22]I found myself feeling really weighed down
[25:26]by the kids and the experience of parenting
[25:30]and feeling like it was all anyone thought of
[25:32]when they looked at me.
[25:33]So I really, it's been great for me
[25:35]to have the other things.
[25:37]Now, I think I could have found that
[25:40]in any satisfying, there are other things that I love to do.
[25:43]My work with animals, my cooking,
[25:46]I could have taken one of those things
[25:48]and also, but the key for me
[25:50]was not letting my identity be entirely wrapped up
[25:53]in my kids, which doesn't mean that I don't love them,
[25:56]obviously.
[25:56]And if anyone wants to read a great book on exactly
[25:59]what I just said, then you need the book.
[26:02]This is not a book about Benedict Cumberbatch.
[26:05]Yes, that.
[26:05]Why do you put that in your Instagram?
[26:10]Why?
[26:11]I actually haven't read it.
[26:12]I did get,
[26:13]oh my gosh, I knew I have a treat and store for you.
[26:15]I'm so excited for you.
[26:17]It's little.
[26:18]Yeah.
[26:19]It's not a book about Benedict Cumberbatch.
[26:21]It's a book about someone finding something
[26:25]that they loved and feeling stupid
[26:28]about loving that thing, which was the show Sherlock
[26:30]and the actor Benedict Cumberbatch.
[26:32]And then exploring why they couldn't just throw themselves
[26:36]into this thing, which is after all just about fun.
[26:38]And then taking that even one step further
[26:41]and exploring weight.
[26:42]Why is this thing that interests me,
[26:44]which really is no dumber than being interested in, say, soccer?
[26:49]Why is this so dumb in the eyes of the world
[26:52]and more importantly in the eyes of me?
[26:54]Interesting.
[26:55]Then something, you know, or like, you know,
[26:57]it's fine to be obsessed with golf.
[26:59]Why is it fine to be obsessed with golf,
[27:00]but why is it fine to be like a male Star Trek cosplayer?
[27:07]And not a woman who's super interested in, you know,
[27:11]Sherlock.
[27:11]Anyway, it's really good.
[27:13]And it just gets, it really ends up exploring
[27:18]why we, in particular, we as women struggle
[27:22]to do things that are only for us.
[27:25]And that's kind of my whole, like my whole topic
[27:28]is why we and especially as women
[27:31]as such a hard time figuring out
[27:32]which will make us happy.
[27:34]So I was delighted to find this really different
[27:38]nonfiction, if you like that kind of thing,
[27:40]approach to exactly the same topic
[27:43]that I really love talking about.
[27:45]And it's super funny and super fun.
[27:47]And I'm very distracting on an airplane.
[27:49]So all those things.
[27:51]Getting all these extra book recommendations here.
[27:53]Yes, yes, I love that.
[27:57]Any final am writing tips?
[28:00]Final am writing tips.
[28:03]You know, it takes forever and don't stop.
[28:06]And I mean, you know, if you're writing a 800 word essay
[28:10]that you haven't been able to get anyone else to read,
[28:14]keep reading essays, keep modeling, you know,
[28:16]keep looking at the way other people structure them.
[28:18]Take that structure, apply it to your own.
[28:20]And the same goes for books.
[28:22]If you are trying and trying to get it out there
[28:25]and trying to get something done, tear up other people's books,
[28:29]look at the structure.
[28:30]Try to find out what you don't have.
[28:32]And don't stop and don't stop before it's as good
[28:36]as you want it to be.
[28:37]I love it.
[28:38]There you go, that works.
[28:39]Thanks.
[28:42]KJ, thank you.
[28:43]This was wonderful.
[28:44]It was nice.
[28:45]Thank you.
[28:46]In your metafork booths for a minute.
[28:49]In your little office and in your mind for while we hear
[28:54]all these great thoughts.
[28:55]So thank you so much.
[28:57]It's always super fun to talk to you.
[28:59]You too.
[29:00]All right, thanks KJ.
[29:02]Bye.
[29:02]Bye.
[29:04]Thanks for listening to this episode of Mom's Don't Have Time
[29:07]to Read Books.
[29:08]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram, at ZB Owens,
[29:11]and at Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[29:13]Also sign up for my newsletter at ZB Owens.com
[29:16]and sign up for my virtual book club
[29:17]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[29:20]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[29:22]for the Sound Editing.
[29:24]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[29:25]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.