Kevin Wilson, NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO PANIC: A Novel
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[0:54]Kevin Wilson is the author of now is not the time to panic a novel
[1:02]He is also the author of two collections
[1:04]Tumbling to the center of the earth which received an Alex award from the American Library Association and the Shirley Jackson
[1:11]Award and baby you're going to be mine also three novels the family fang perfect little world and nothing to see here
[1:18]Which was in New York Times bestseller and a read with Jenna book club selection
[1:21]His fiction has appeared in plow shares
[1:23]Southern review one story of public space in elsewhere and has appeared in best American short stories 2020 and 2021 as well as the
[1:31]Pen O Henry prize stories 2012. He has received fellowships from the McDowell colony
[1:37]Yatto and the K.H.N. Center for the Arts
[1:39]He lives in C.W.A.N.E. Tennessee with his wife the poet Lee Ann Couch and his son's
[1:44]Griff and Patch where he is an associate professor in the English department at C.W.N.E. the University of the South
[1:50]By the way in the New York Times Sunday edition of october
[1:55]29th and 30th there is a whole feature on him in the New York Times book review
[1:58]So you might want to go back and check that out if you want to learn more welcome Kevin. Thank you so much
[2:03]For coming on mom's don't have time to read books to discuss now is not the time to panic
[2:08]Thanks for having me
[2:10]This is like I showed this book to my husband he started laughing because I'm like always panicking about something and he's like
[2:15]Could we put that like on a sign for you?
[2:17]This should be you know all over the place. So thank you for that
[2:22]Oh, yeah, no, I want to get a tattooed on I think on my arm just to remind myself
[2:26]Yeah, well this book is amazing. It's really. I'm sure you'll hear this and have heard this already like because
[2:32]Many many times, but it's so good and I'm such a fan the characters are so real the whole thing the backstory
[2:40]The family the the whole thing I mean those funny triplets the whole thing is so
[2:45]Good and I don't know. I've just been recommending it right in left. So I'm a huge fan. Oh, thank you
[2:50]So why don't you tell listeners what it's about and then you include this in the book
[2:55]You know why how this whole phrase came to be I was going to try to chant it for you, but I can't so
[3:00]And don't tell that whole amazing story
[3:03]Sure, so the book itself is about this woman. She's in her late 30s Frankie budge and she's got a kid
[3:10]She's got a husband. She's got a great life, you know, and then this reporter calls her out of the blue and wants to talk about
[3:18]This event and her hometown that happened when she was 16 in the summer of 1996
[3:23]The strange mass pan, you know kind of pandemonium
[3:27]And the reporter has figured out that Frankie is at least one of the people responsible so
[3:33]You know, she's got this really nicely set up life
[3:37]And it's about to kind of get complicated and it forces her to go back in time to think about that one summer
[3:45]When she met this new boy in town Zeke and they made this weird piece of art and
[3:51]You know, I'm I'm 44 and I have kids and you get to a certain point in your life where you've got yourself where you want to be
[3:58]And then you start looking back right like you want to trace the line of how did I get from that person to this person
[4:05]And that's what kind of Frankie has to reckon with in this book and maybe even track down some people she's lost touch with
[4:13]But the book itself, you know, there's a line that that Frankie writes that's repeated throughout that kind of
[4:20]Creates the pandemonium and it's it's called it goes the edge is a shanty town filled with gold seekers
[4:27]We are fugitives and the law is skinny with hunger for us
[4:31]And it's a strange line, but it comes from my own life. I had a
[4:37]friend in college we met
[4:39]We spent a summer living together in an apartment. He was an actor. He was leaving after the summer to go to LA
[4:45]Eric and he gave me that line. He just wrote it down kind of out of nowhere
[4:51]And being an impressionable 19-year-old
[4:54]It just burned into my brain and I've never gotten rid of it, you know, and I've always tried to figure out
[5:00]What do you do with this thing someone gives you like it's personal? It's meaningful
[5:05]But how does it go out into the world and and so I you know, I wrote this book
[5:09]I wrote it in a lot of ways just just to use that line
[5:13]And you mentioned in the letter that
[5:16]Eric passed away and I'm so sorry about that and that you
[5:20]struggled with what to do if you should continue and how to keep writing through all of the craziness of life
[5:28]Even when he wasn't there. So tell me did that make you want to do it more and tell me about that?
[5:34]Yeah, so I mean that summer was intense Eric and I like and we lived with
[5:39]My cousin as well, and it was just a three of us. We made little short films
[5:43]Eric was the first person that made me think like art was something that like you could do, you know
[5:48]It was actually something that a normal person could make, you know
[5:52]And that inspired me and we stayed in touch, you know
[5:55]We would we would talk off and on but but he was in LA and I was in Tennessee
[6:01]and
[6:02]We just kind of lost touch and I knew I was gonna write this book and
[6:07]In my head I was like I'll write this book and it will bring Eric back into my orbit
[6:13]We'll be friends again, you know, I'll return us to that summer
[6:16]and I was on you know halfway through the book and I and I found out Eric had suddenly died
[6:21]You know, I heard from my cousin and I thought
[6:24]Well, I can't write the book, you know
[6:26]What's the point because it's not gonna bring him back and
[6:29]My wife and my agent who I think are the two people who know me the best
[6:33]You know, they said, you know, it's fiction. You're writing a novel and it's not you and Eric
[6:38]It's it's Frankie and Zeke and I don't know how I'd forgotten that but it clicked in the place
[6:43]I was like this is this is the story that I can write outside of myself so that it connects with other people and
[6:50]In some ways, I thought okay with it can't bring Eric back into my orbit. It can bring Eric
[6:56]To the larger world right like I can open this line up and give it to everybody in the story
[7:01]And I found my way. I think somehow to the end of of the book because of that
[7:07]Wow, so what is your cousin think of the book?
[7:10]He hasn't read it yet, and I know he's excited to I think he's just waiting and it it actually comes out
[7:16]I think it's like a day before Eric's birthday, you know
[7:20]So I know he's ready and when it comes out he'll sit down with it and read it, but yeah, it's I mean
[7:28]You sometimes wonder about the limitations of art like what can it do?
[7:32]But I do know that in the making of art, you know
[7:35]It can get you through those moments that maybe you couldn't have otherwise. So whatever happens with the book
[7:41]You know no one can take away the generation of it of how it got me through that moment
[7:46]I feel like there's a
[7:48]Parallel with Frankie when she cuts her finger open right that such that line all the way down and how Zeke only has this
[7:56]They were doing like a blood thing for their
[7:58]Not even explaining this one the paint the work of art
[8:01]They were producing he wanted a little bit of blood and so she's as an exacto
[8:04]And I have the next thing, you know, it's like gushing and she needs stitches
[8:07]Which she doesn't get and it's like you know
[8:09]But I think that that is that is also part of the process right it can be that painful and you can like
[8:15]You know hemorrhage essentially and then it just has to close up and then you end up with like you know your book
[8:21]Yeah, I mean that's that's that's excellent. Yeah, once you open the vein you you don't know what's gonna happen after that
[8:28]And then there's no matter what if you open yourself up
[8:32]There'll be a scar that reminds you right good or bad. You have that reminder for ever
[8:37]Yeah, well, I love how you developed each character
[8:40]Not just Frankie and Zeke, but even the mom character and you know
[8:44]I'm into the brothers
[8:44]But just just like all these different supporting roles as if it's a movie right the supporting characters and
[8:51]The night when the mom stays up all night long and like is so worried that Frankie's about to start having sex and she's like
[8:56]Oh my gosh, like I can't sleep. I'm gonna be awful
[9:00]It's so funny. Yeah, like where do you come where do you come at?
[9:03]Does it just come when you're writing like to like how did how do you craft all your characters so well? Oh
[9:08]Yeah, well, I really appreciate that
[9:10]I've been happy to hear that people really like this mom because a lot of my books in the past
[9:16]Mom parents are awful, you know
[9:18]I always write up for this book. I just thought you know what this is I am gonna make a parent who is a good parent
[9:26]You know in part of it is I'm always so focused on the main characters and sometimes I try to remind myself like there are other people
[9:32]That can help them through these moments, you know and and so the mom was that for me
[9:37]And so I tried to think what would it be like to be a single mom
[9:40]Raising these three feral triplets in this like weird quiet girl
[9:45]And you want to help them, but how do you do that? And so sometimes you know you help them by worrying in ways that you
[9:52]You're just saying I want to be and I am going to talk to you and I am going to be a part of your life whether it's awkward or not and so
[10:00]I kind of fell in love with this mom for her refusal to just step into the background.
[10:05]You know, she said, I don't know what's going on with you.
[10:07]You are weird.
[10:08]We are different.
[10:09]But here, take these things and we'll figure out a way through it.
[10:14]And how did you get your start writing anyway?
[10:17]Did you always know this is what you wanted to do?
[10:19]No, God, no.
[10:20]You know, I grew up in the middle of nowhere in this tiny town in Tennessee.
[10:24]I was so isolated.
[10:25]It was really rural and books were just my window into the world.
[10:30]You know, it made the world less scary, you know, and each time I read a book, it would
[10:34]open up that circle just a little bit wider.
[10:37]So I could imagine myself like beyond that place.
[10:40]I mean, strangely, I live in the same town where I grew up in the same county where
[10:44]I grew up.
[10:45]But I went away.
[10:46]You know, I did stuff.
[10:47]I had experiences.
[10:48]But I just always loved reading.
[10:50]And then after a while, when you love something so much, you think, well, what could
[10:55]I do to be a part of that?
[10:57]Like, how could I make it?
[10:59]And I loved movies, too.
[11:00]And I loved all these other forms of art.
[11:01]But when you grow up in the middle of nowhere with no money, it's not like I could get
[11:05]a camera.
[11:06]It's not like I could convince people.
[11:07]So I thought, what's the thing I can do by myself, you know, alone?
[11:11]And it was right stories and each time I wrote a story, I felt my, again, I was writing
[11:19]myself towards a future, you know?
[11:22]So each story was fictional, but it was also helping me figure out like, this is how
[11:26]you're going to get where you want to go.
[11:28]And so what books did for me writing did for me as well.
[11:32]So did you have other odd jobs along the way?
[11:35]No, I've never like, I love that when writers are like, they were like, they're terrible.
[11:40]I'm terrible at everything except writing.
[11:45]But I just always knew like I needed two things.
[11:48]I needed money and health insurance.
[11:51]And so I always worked like, I wouldn't say becoming a writer is the sure path to either
[11:56]of the things.
[11:57]I know.
[11:58]So I knew I was like, how are you going to get this?
[11:59]And I just took secretarial jobs always, you know, I worked in the gender stage program
[12:04]at Harvard.
[12:05]I was a secretary as a secretary for a writer's conference.
[12:09]And I love those jobs.
[12:10]I mean, sometimes they're awful.
[12:12]But for the most part, like the great thing about secretarial work is the people in charge
[12:16]don't really know how long it takes to do anything.
[12:19]You know, like they sometimes it's awful because they're like, I need a 500 page report
[12:23]in eight hours.
[12:25]But most of the time they're like, make these copies and I would be like, oh, that's
[12:28]a four hour job.
[12:29]They would have been all idea and I would just go right or read.
[12:33]I get my work done always, but it was those kinds of jobs where you're just at a desk.
[12:39]People kind of forget that you're around.
[12:41]And I just always snuck my way into those jobs so that I could keep doing what I wanted
[12:45]to do.
[12:46]So you're basically the world's worst employee.
[12:48]Yeah.
[12:49]But no one ever knew the great secret is long as no one else knows you're the worst employee.
[12:57]You're fine.
[12:58]You're golden.
[12:59]So you think that if you're the worst employee, but your boss never finds out then you're
[13:04]not a bad employee, you're not going to get the work done.
[13:07]Okay.
[13:08]Okay.
[13:09]Yeah.
[13:10]I remember once I was in the library reading.
[13:13]And someone that I worked with like an administrator who was above me saw me and said,
[13:19]working hard and I would last, I didn't really click.
[13:22]I said, Oh, no, hardly working.
[13:25]And then I realized I was like, that's, she has power over me.
[13:27]I should probably not have been so flippant and be reading the book when I was supposed
[13:31]to be working.
[13:32]But I still, maybe it was just the southern accent I got away with a lot.
[13:37]I could do that.
[13:40]So what was it like then to go from writing story after story and then becoming a New York
[13:46]Times best selling author?
[13:47]It's just, it's pure luck and magic, you know, like, and that stuff's all great.
[13:52]But you can't write like, you can't, you don't finish a novel and you're like, ah,
[13:58]a New York Times best selling book, you know, like, you've been saying like, I'm yelling
[14:02]up to my wife that I'm so like, for me, it was always the pleasure of writing.
[14:07]And that's what, that's what matters to me.
[14:09]Because the minute the book touches the open air, you can't control it.
[14:13]I mean, you can certainly like, I'm with a great press.
[14:16]I have a great publicist, a great editor and those people can position the book.
[14:20]And I feel really lucky and a lot of the success is due to them, but it's still just
[14:24]luck, you know.
[14:25]So I just feel like I got really lucky and it worked out.
[14:30]But even if it hadn't, you know, I got the pleasure that I wanted out of writing it.
[14:35]And a lot of times for me, of course, obviously I'd love to be successful.
[14:39]I want people to read my books, but really all I want is to do well enough that I can
[14:44]publish another book, you know, that somebody wants the next thing that I make.
[14:48]And I feel like that's, that's the sweet spot that I want to, that I want to live in to
[14:52]never worry that the next thing will disappear.
[14:56]And what about health insurance?
[14:57]I got, well, I teach full time, so I think I'm in the realm.
[15:01]But sometimes my life is like, you know, maybe we could figure out a way that we
[15:05]could write full time and I was like, oh, no, I'm too nervous, you know, I need a lot
[15:10]of things in place that keep me settled so that I can focus on the making of things.
[15:15]I like that.
[15:16]So Tommy, what do you teach?
[15:19]I teach creative writing at a small university on a mountain in Tennessee.
[15:23]It's called the University of the South.
[15:25]There's like 1700 students, Tennessee Williams left is a state to the university, which
[15:29]is why I'm there.
[15:30]And I teach creative writing, I teach literature.
[15:33]And so, you know, three or four times a week, I'm in this classroom with 15 students
[15:37]who are all like really lovely and wonderful and smart and engaged.
[15:42]And I don't know.
[15:43]I mean, I'm really grateful to be on this podcast, but like it's hard sometimes to find
[15:46]people that care about books, you know, like you want to talk about this amazing book
[15:50]you've read and it's hard to find those people sometimes.
[15:53]And so, teaching for me is like, oh, I get to be with these 15 people who are eager
[15:58]to read.
[15:59]We'll talk about books.
[16:00]And so, yeah, it's a gift.
[16:03]It feels, it is work.
[16:05]But in those great moments when you're just with these kids and you're talking about
[16:09]this incredible piece of art, it doesn't feel like work at all.
[16:12]Well, if you ever need to talk about books, anybody, you just call me up.
[16:16]I'm glad to know that.
[16:18]Do we know this?
[16:19]Oh, he's talking about books.
[16:21]Oh, he's talking.
[16:23]Have you read anything personally great or do you work on anything with your class that's
[16:27]like a hallmark book for you?
[16:29]That is a great example of like what we should all aspire to or teach us some of them.
[16:33]Oh, man.
[16:34]Yeah.
[16:35]So, I mean, like, I try to vary it and I try to teach super new books a lot.
[16:39]You know, I'll try to bring a book that's a couple of years old just to keep it fresh,
[16:42]but also because I want them to know, here's what's out in the world right now.
[16:46]And so we just finished this book by Brian Washington, a story collection called Lot,
[16:50]and they all loved it.
[16:52]But the book that I almost always teach, no matter what the class, is Jennifer Egan's
[16:56]a visit from the Goon Squad, which I just love so much.
[17:00]And it's fun for them because it's it's non-linear.
[17:04]It's a link collection of stories.
[17:06]One of the stories is in the form of a PowerPoint.
[17:08]So there's all this kind of weird stuff that they're like, what's going on here?
[17:12]But at the heart of it, it's just kind of a beautiful book about the acceptance of the
[17:16]passage of time, like what happens to us?
[17:19]How do we get from point A to point B?
[17:21]How do we reinvent ourselves so we don't slip under the surface?
[17:25]How do we see those moments where it feels like everything is ending?
[17:28]And we say, no, it's not ending yet.
[17:31]There's still time for me to do the thing that I want to do.
[17:34]And these kids are so young and sometimes I'm like, is this going to land?
[17:37]I'm 44.
[17:38]And so I'm always like, ah, yes, the cruel passage of time.
[17:42]But even when you're 19 and 20 and you're on the precipice of the life that you're about
[17:45]to have, they're still that worry, like how fast are things moving?
[17:49]Will I get what I want?
[17:51]And this is a book I think that teaches you like, life time will never stop.
[17:55]But there are moments when you can slow it down, right, and get the thing that you need.
[18:00]So I just love teaching it.
[18:01]I probably taught it like 30 times.
[18:04]Wow.
[18:05]How do you apply that to parenting?
[18:08]Everything goes out the window with your own, right, like you have a plan in place.
[18:13]But there's moments with those texts too, like where I'm just trying to think about like
[18:18]the passage of time and like, you can hold on to it, but you have to let it move forward,
[18:23]right?
[18:24]And so my kids now are 14 and 10.
[18:27]And I can still remember so clearly when they were three years old.
[18:31]And there's something lovely about that weirdness where I'm like, sometimes my children
[18:36]are unrecognizable to me.
[18:38]You know, I'm like, oh, you are not the kid that you were when you were four and sometimes
[18:41]it's really sad.
[18:42]You know, sometimes I'm like, oh, this is hard.
[18:45]And I think what starts to happen with kids is you hold on to all the different versions
[18:49]of them that you can hold them all in your heart, even as they move eventually beyond
[18:54]you, right, to become their own person.
[18:56]And so for me, maybe it's the novelist in me, but I love being like, well, here's the
[19:00]story of you at this time.
[19:02]And here's the story of you at this time.
[19:03]And I can connect that line even as they get further and further away from me.
[19:08]So I guess maybe it's just, I'm learning to hold on to the pieces that I can and let
[19:13]go of the things that I have to let go of.
[19:16]That is really grinded, my son is telling me to do that.
[19:20]No, I don't, but I'm going to aspire to that.
[19:23]That's true.
[19:24]I know.
[19:25]And the whole thing is made all the crazier by the fact that they don't even remember
[19:28]all the things that you remember about them.
[19:30]And so yeah, they're so in grip, like my Griffin patch, they're so tired of me being like,
[19:34]when you were three, they were like, shut up about when I was certain, I don't remember
[19:38]it.
[19:39]I have no memory of it.
[19:40]Yeah.
[19:41]Yeah.
[19:42]15 year old twins.
[19:43]And then I also have a nine and a seven year old.
[19:45]And so I feel like I have had a do over with the little dance.
[19:50]You know, I'm like, all right, I see how this goes.
[19:53]Now I'm like, you want to sleep in my bed?
[19:55]Come on in.
[19:56]I think, and also like what I love.
[20:00]about, you know, having a second and having more than one kid is that you think,
[20:04]ah, this is what children are. I've had one. And then there's these kind of beautiful moments
[20:09]where like the second one or the third one, they're different in these kind of incredible ways
[20:14]that like allow you to do different things. You know, the things that my older son didn't care about
[20:19]all of a sudden, I'm learning all these new things with my second kid. And it's just like,
[20:24]oh, okay, it's fresh. It's different. You think that you're just going to do the same things over
[20:28]and over, but they're so unique that you're just adapting each time. Yeah. The more kids I have,
[20:34]the more I realize I have, like, almost nothing to do without they turn out.
[20:38]Yeah. My goal is just not to mess them up too much. I was so whole of myself as when I first
[20:43]made kids, I was like, oh, you know, everything that's bad about me, they'll get everything
[20:47]that's good. And then I was like, oh, they're unrecognizable. They are whole. Yeah. Where did you come from?
[20:51]Yeah. How did we end up here in the kitchen? So what are you working on now?
[20:57]Oh, man, I'm trying to figure my way to a new book. And so it's weird, but just the way that I
[21:03]tend to write is I go back to old books. And I'm like, oh, I have to keep writing. So I'm going to
[21:10]steal something that was very small. So there's a moment in this book where Frankie has written,
[21:15]she's like, well, I a writer, but she's written this book for a doll. So, you know, that's
[21:19]about this woman who goes to pick up all of her half siblings who have the same name as her,
[21:25]her father has just had multiple families and he's dying and she's picking them up.
[21:29]And in the book that I've written, I was like, it was a terrible book. Like, it was not a critical
[21:34]success. It didn't sell any copies. And for whatever reason, the way my brain works, I was like,
[21:38]oh, what a good idea. I'm going to do that. So this new book is about a woman who meets this guy
[21:46]who shows up at her farm and says, Hey, I'm your half brother. We have the same dad.
[21:51]And what they find out is every 10 years their father has left the family he's made.
[21:55]And started a new one. And he has all these children that he leaves. And so their mad,
[22:01]and they want to track him down. And they're just driving cross country, picking up all of their
[22:06]half siblings for the first time, meeting them so that they can go have this reckoning with their
[22:10]dad. I love that. I read a book. Now I'm blanking on what it was. There are these four half siblings
[22:18]and somebody does drive around and picks up four of them all over town. You know, it takes place
[22:24]in, I want to say in London or I have no, no, it's not. It's somewhere in Africa. I'm going to
[22:31]find you, I'm going to figure out the book. Yeah, I got to get this. It's not the same. It's
[22:36]you're not copying, but it's it's only like five of them. Five siblings, but right in the beginning,
[22:42]they go and pick them all up. Okay, my brain will catch up with me at some point, but I'll
[22:47]if I find it, I'll send it your way. I'm going to add it to the two read list. Yeah,
[22:51]I thought you were going to say you were going to write the bad, not critically acclaimed.
[22:59]Yeah, no, no, that's not in me just yet. I would be able to. That would be hilarious.
[23:07]You should commission that. You could pair it on us like a gift set. I like that. It'll be funny.
[23:14]Anyway, maybe maybe to me. What do you do when you're not writing and teaching?
[23:20]Like what do you mean? We live on a mountain in Tennessee, so my wife and our kids were kind of
[23:26]a world unto ourselves. You know, we live. We have a pond in our backyard, a little treehouse, some
[23:31]woods. And so so much of our life is just the four of us, always on top of each other. So the
[23:37]times that I'm not writing or not teaching a lot of times what we're trying to do is just expand
[23:42]our circle a little. So we're constantly doing just little road trips, three, four, five hours away
[23:47]to explore these cities. You know, so we're going to Louisville. We're going to Atlanta. We're
[23:52]going to Little Rock, you know, and then in the summers, you know, we just got back from London and
[23:57]Ireland. Like when you live in a small place, everyone's like, oh, it's so tiny. What do you do?
[24:01]And I'm like, oh, we have great fun. You know, we swim every day in the pond. We do the stuff,
[24:05]but then it gives you the excuse to say like, it would be nice to see a museum. It would be nice
[24:11]to eat an restaurant. And that forces us out into the larger world. So mostly what we do is travel
[24:17]and explore. That's exciting. Yeah. I have not been to a lot of this. I've been to Atlanta,
[24:22]but that's it. Yeah, a lot of people are like, you spent the whole weekend and Little Rock are inside
[24:27]with like twice, you know, that's not it. That's awesome. Okay. So what is your best piece of advice
[24:35]for your students or that we can share with aspiring authors? So I mean, I think it's,
[24:40]it's I don't think this is just writing. I think it's just life advice, but a lot of times
[24:44]what I tell my students is, and you know, I think also they've done well, you know, they've excelled
[24:51]in high school. They're overachievers. And I just want to tell them that like, I mean, the pleasure
[24:57]of art is making it, but you are going to fail. And you just have to accept that, you know, that
[25:03]there is a period of time where the things that you make don't match up to how you had envisioned
[25:08]them or people's response is not what you had hoped or you don't have the success or you get
[25:14]rejections. And a lot of times what I try to tell them is like, that's just a natural part of
[25:20]of the process. And so what really matters is what you do in the aftermath of that, which is just
[25:26]refusing to quit, you know, and that a lot of times the way that you succeed is that you just
[25:32]don't stop, you know, that you send out a story and it gets rejected and you're like, well,
[25:37]nevertheless, that's it. And you quit. And it's the student. Sometimes my students that I see making it
[25:43]are not the ones who were naturally like the best writer. They're the ones that were like,
[25:48]I love this enough that I don't care if it's not good. I like looking at it. I like thinking about it.
[25:53]And I'm going to keep doing that. And almost always, those are the students that make it. And so
[26:01]that's what I was like too. You know, I just said I'm going to like, obviously I have not very few
[26:05]other skills. I'm just not going to quit. You know, I'm going to outlast everyone else and make the
[26:12]the best of it. And I won't mind because I get pleasure from making that. And a lot of times it
[26:17]is just who sticks around. Did you ever see, this is, I'm 46. I'm hoping maybe this will not be
[26:23]the most ridiculous reference. There's a movie called Wild Cads with Goldie Han. Oh, yeah.
[26:29]Well, anyway, she like, she runs around the track so many times that she beats like every guy on
[26:34]the football team and like, yeah, I feel like that's where she's the coach of the football team.
[26:39]Yes, yes. She's the coach of the football team. And she has like no respect from the team. And so
[26:44]she challenges them to run. And it's like pouring rain and she's the only one still standing. And she's
[26:48]like, see, anyway, I feel like that's your approach. That's right. Writing is a line for suit, right?
[26:54]It's a lifelong pursuit. So as long as you do it for as long as you possibly can, you'll get
[27:00]somewhere further than where you started. I love it. Thank you so much. This was really fun.
[27:06]All right. It was the best. Sorry for starting it out with what you thought was Halloween
[27:10]music in New York City traffic. But, you know, thank you for your time. And I'll make sure
[27:15]never to hire you for anything. Yes, yes, please don't. But it was so lovely to talk.
[27:21]You too. Congratulations on your book. Thank you. Okay. All right. Take care. Bye-bye.
[27:27]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[27:31]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read
[27:35]Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and
[27:40]meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound
[27:45]for the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic
[27:50]intro and outro music.