Gabrielle Zevin, TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW: A Novel

[0:02]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens, the creator and host of the award-winning podcast that you're listening to right now.

[0:07]Thank you so much. Called moms don't have time to read books.

[0:10]It is a daily podcast, 365 days a year, and each day we talk to an author about all of the things related to their career,

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[0:58]Gabriel Zevin is the best-selling New York Times author of Tomorrow and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.

[1:04]You may not have been able to have missed this book because it's gotten so much press

[1:08]absolutely everywhere and is like the darling of the year with so many accolades and everything else.

[1:13]In addition to Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Gabriel has written the story life of AJ Fickory and also wrote

[1:19]The Screenplay for that, which is a movie, and several other novels. She has also written

[1:25]books for young readers, including the award-winning elsewhere. Hi, how are you? Hey, how are you?

[1:30]Good, thank you. Thanks for joining. I'm Zevin. It's nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.

[1:35]That's quite a library you have back there. Thank you. Yes, this is my office. Wow, it's great.

[1:40]All the way around. Yeah, thanks. You really committed to the color arranging lifestyle.

[1:47]You know, that shelf that like never moves. So I had it like that for like two years, and then

[1:52]I use these like these bookshelves. Others to be honest, even these are filling out pretty

[1:56]quickly. Yeah. Anyway, whatever. Yes, I'm committed to that there, and I like it. It looks beautiful.

[2:03]Yeah, no, at what point I got rid of so many books of mine and frankly, like during a, you know,

[2:08]2015 Marie Condo bout. And I really feel regrets about it to be honest, you know? I actually

[2:16]surprisingly, and also give away a lot of my books. And I am so sad that I did that because I'm like,

[2:20]what were they? And I would have like, anyway, you know, I mean, I had them really organized too.

[2:26]Like I had a like, you know, I don't know if you remember this thing, library thing, where you

[2:29]could like scan in your barcodes and have it like all like organized. So I had like, there was no

[2:34]organization problem with it. But I was just like, do I need all these books around? But it turns out

[2:39]I did, you know, but I still have a lot of books. I just mean I think about some of the books I

[2:45]have I parted with, you know? Yeah. And it's sad. It's sad. I'm old went for the books, you know.

[2:51]I had a friend who I was going on vacation because everybody always asks me even before the podcast.

[2:55]Just I was always the person like, I'm going vacation, which I bring, I'm like, oh, take this,

[2:58]take this. And then she'd love and I took it for some of my like favorite books. And she came back and

[3:03]I was like, what did you think? And she's like, oh, I love them. And I was like, do you have the

[3:07]books? And she was like, oh, no, I love them in the hotel. Yeah, I know. I know it hurt.

[3:12]It hurt. I gave my friends like my writer friends. Like, so I think writers generally are

[3:16]pretty casual with their, with their books. Because like, you just have so many books coming in

[3:21]all the time, especially you've like, you're at all known as, as I'm sure you get tons of just like

[3:24]galley. So just so many things are coming at you. But I lent my friend like my writer friend a book

[3:29]that I really, really loved as like this is a great book. And she never gave it back to me. And I

[3:33]was kind of like, I was kind of shocked. You know, I was like, this is, it was like a hard cover

[3:38]of a thing that was a prize winner. And she just like, like, she did manage, she did read it,

[3:43]but just never returned it. You know, but I feel, I mean, I don't feel, I feel casual, but my

[3:49]books are not casual. You know, anyway, I feel the same way. I totally get it. And some of my

[3:53]more attached to some have like personal, personal meeting. And I don't know if I lent it to you,

[4:00]I probably really liked it. You know, is the thing. Like, I wouldn't give you something that I

[4:04]didn't think was great. And especially for me, I mean, even after the horrible like Marie

[4:09]Kondo purge of like 2016, you know, for me, like the things I kept around were things I like go

[4:14]back to a lot too. You know what I mean? Like books I wanted to like, you know, go into for research and

[4:19]what have you. Yeah. Or like the original copies that's like when I first got great that I've been

[4:24]or, you know, it's funny. Like some of those will start to like fall apart and you can barely use them

[4:28]as objects anymore too. But yeah, I don't think books like it, you know, anyway, I actually loved

[4:33]Marie Kondo. But I loved that book when it came out. Like I was on book tour at the time on

[4:38]another book and it was in all of the stores. And you know, so I actually thought it was quite a

[4:43]good read even before it became like a show and like tons of people doing it. I thought, you know,

[4:48]this is really interesting. You know, it shows you how to part with things, you know, which is

[4:51]difficult, I think, for almost everyone, you know. So I did think that book was actually quite a good

[4:56]read. But on the subject of books, I think it fails. You know, she was like, she was like, you know,

[5:03]photograph or write down passages from certain books, but you don't need to keep the whole book,

[5:07]you know, was one of the things in it, for instance, you know. No. Like I just look at a book and

[5:13]the whole thing comes like floating back, you know, all the scenes and people and no, that's why

[5:19]I sometimes have a hard time with ebooks, you know, because I'm reminded of them all the time.

[5:23]I have a really hard time with ebooks because you don't kind of know where you are in them either,

[5:28]you know, like, you know, if you're kind of remembering something spatially or visually,

[5:31]like when you're thinking about, you know, how far through am I when this thing happened,

[5:35]or even kind of the abrupt surprise of an ending, if like you're on an ebook and it shows like,

[5:39]hey, you're at 90% and then it turns out the last 10% is actually like a sample chapter or something.

[5:44]Yeah. You know, you're like, oh no, it just, it just ended. But so it kind of, I think messes with

[5:49]your perception a lot, you know, a great. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Well, good. We good that.

[5:57]I'd like to know you were the first, you know, an early adopter of Ray condo and that, you know,

[6:01]perhaps your early enthusiasm is what's set around the trajectory. I hope it was not because I

[6:07]honestly think in the end, like there are like anything that becomes very popular. Like there were

[6:12]great things about it, but I think, you know, a lot of people that kind of adopted it maybe,

[6:17]you know, and even, you know, at a certain point, you know, she herself opens up like a store and

[6:21]she starts selling more things and the whole point is to get rid of things, you know. And, you know,

[6:26]like a thing I loved in her book, not to keep talking about this book from like seven years ago,

[6:30]was that, you know, she talked about how you really didn't ever need to buy things to organize,

[6:34]like you should just kind of save your boxes and use those and they were better than any sort of

[6:38]thing. And then like she ends up selling boxes, you know, that kind of thing. The lore of consumer

[6:45]consumption. I think the book was good philosophically, but then the brand became an entirely other

[6:52]other thing, you know. I also really think that, I don't know, after I have been a part of like

[6:57]cleaning out a few people who have lost like possessions, I feel like you look at your things in a

[7:02]whole new way. Like I think about that. Oh, yeah. Someone's going to have to figure out what to do with

[7:07]this thing after I'm dead. Like what are they going to do? Yeah, I think about all the time just to

[7:13]yeah, like what are they going to do with this? Are they going to keep it? Like where are they going to

[7:17]put it? Are they? Yeah, my mom had that reaction when they had to get rid of my grandmother's stuff

[7:21]like when she died. She was like, I just have to have my things in order, you know. Yeah. I think

[7:27]there's like, is this right? Remember there was a thing called like Swedish death cleaning?

[7:31]No, I don't remember that. Yes. Okay. I didn't read this, but it came out after Marie Condo.

[7:36]I forget what it's called, but it's like it's called like Swedish death cleaning or something

[7:40]where you basically do exactly that. You prepare to die and that's your. It's like the way

[7:46]you're unlapping, but it's not funny, but like you, you know, you organize your things in preparation

[7:51]for. Yeah, we're not being here anymore. You know, well, it does make you think twice about buying

[7:56]certain things or or keeping certain things, right? It's just someone has to go through on your behalf,

[8:02]it's sort of a pain. Yeah, I know like once all that kind of piles of just stuff, you know,

[8:08]it would be burnt. You know, I think about like when my mom dies or, you know, because people

[8:14]being mortal, but I think about it, like, you know how hard it will be for me to like get rid of

[8:19]certain things that are just even casual possessions of hers, you know, that kind of thing.

[8:24]Well, I think you realize too that the things you want to keep the most have nothing to do with

[8:28]the value of the thing itself. No, it doesn't. It's all about the sentimental and honestly, the

[8:33]the things I cling to for whoever's passed away are the handwritten things, which is sad since

[8:38]no one hand writes anything. But if there's like a card that they said or letter they hand wrote,

[8:42]like that's like, oh, right, or just like, I agree. You know, and kind of like the emails and the

[8:48]deums, like the screenshots of those don't like do the same thing. I do think about the photos by

[8:53]the way. And I don't know how many are in your how many photos are in your photo library on like,

[8:59]you know, Apple or whatever right now. Like I think like at some point, should I actually

[9:04]clean those up? Do I feel like psychically burdened by having, you know, how do I even tell you

[9:08]as info? I just opened it up. How do I know how many photos I have? Let me tell you I'll open

[9:13]mine. Hopefully this won't crash us out. I don't know how I know. I think, let's see. I get some

[9:21]point I could tell on my, this is a really interesting podcast. How many photos? Anyone listening?

[9:27]How many photos? Anybody listening just to send your report? Like, it doesn't, it's not actually

[9:33]apparent on this version. So I think we'll have to, I might have to look on my phone. We'll have to

[9:37]table a lot. The answer is a lot, a lot a lot. The answer is definitely a lot. Yeah. You know,

[9:42]like I can really get about printing albums. Are you good at that? Not really. I don't think I've

[9:48]printed it. I mean, I used to print all the time, but not, not currently. No. And I kind of feel

[9:54]bad about that. You, you should. Okay. Oh, I just figured out. So if you're in, are you, are you

[9:59]if you're in Apple?

[10:00]Library, click on all photos at the top.

[10:03]All items.

[10:05]All item.

[10:06]Just kind of scroll yourself to the very bottom.

[10:07]And so it turns out I have 55,540 photos

[10:11]in the corner of 90 videos.

[10:14]Wait, I'm going down.

[10:15]Oh, wait, how many do you have?

[10:17]55,540.

[10:20]I have 169,966 photos and 9,825 videos.

[10:25]Right, so, but you know, you don't have a lot of content.

[10:31]This is only from, this is only starting in 2008.

[10:35]Yeah, same, same.

[10:37]No, actually, at some point, some of my things all,

[10:39]it was kind of creepy at some point.

[10:41]Like, it managed to find everything

[10:43]that had been on like an old desktop.

[10:44]So I do, and it, and anyway, it kind of scares me

[10:47]because like all of a sudden, you'll see like a photo

[10:48]from 97 that was like a, you know, a film photo,

[10:51]and you know, just on your phone show up and that's odd.

[10:55]Oh, I'm annoyed because I put all my prior photos

[10:57]on like disks.

[10:59]Yeah.

[11:00]And now I don't know where the disks are.

[11:01]I can't access them.

[11:02]They're like years missing of my kids lives.

[11:05]But it's okay.

[11:06]I mean, you can probably reimport them, you know?

[11:09]So I can get up to 200,000.

[11:11]I would.

[11:12]You know, I even have, see all of these here

[11:14]are all my photo albums from before.

[11:16]I'm like obsessed with photos.

[11:18]They look really organized and really,

[11:20]like I like appreciate the fact

[11:22]that you have the same kind of album over and over again.

[11:25]That kind of organization is, I started with red

[11:28]and then I went to her own and navy and green.

[11:31]And then I stopped and started making them online.

[11:36]I know like, but it's funny, if you don't make things,

[11:39]it kind of feels like you're, or even make things

[11:42]buy things, things, you know, maybe because we're like

[11:44]from a capital's culture, whatever.

[11:46]If you doesn't necessarily like you need sort of sometimes

[11:49]tangible proof of having lived, you know,

[11:52]which also artifacts is like writing books too.

[11:55]I also feel like that is some way to say like, okay,

[11:58]I was here and now I've written this

[12:00]and, or it can like resuscitate people too.

[12:04]Right? Like this person is now.

[12:05]It can, you know, so for me though, like, you know,

[12:08]my first novel came out 17 years ago.

[12:10]And I think what I think about it is like just how

[12:13]different the person who wrote it is and the person I am now,

[12:15]you know, instead of published across many years

[12:17]as to live with sort of ghost versions of yourself.

[12:19]And one of the things I think is, you know,

[12:22]like most people in life can kind of like softly

[12:26]transition into other points of, other points of view,

[12:29]other ways of thinking.

[12:30]But when you're a novelist, you have sometimes like proof

[12:33]that at least, you know, that person that you were felt

[12:37]such and such a way, but such and such a thing

[12:39]at such and such a time.

[12:40]There's less like deniability that you ever, you know,

[12:43]thought that thing, you know.

[12:46]I love that notion of ghost selves.

[12:48]I was read, I read like this old journal

[12:51]and when I was a kid to my kids, they were like the same age.

[12:55]And I was like, this is so crazy.

[12:56]It's like the young version of me just met my actual kids.

[13:00]And now they're all like having a virtual playbaiter.

[13:02]So they do it.

[13:04]Yeah. And it's funny, like I remember being young that age

[13:07]and how much you like when you're journaling

[13:09]or whatever you are, you know, you think you live in the future

[13:13]even when you're that age, especially when you're that age.

[13:16]You know, like how many times did you play that game

[13:19]like Bash, you know, man's like total shit house, you know,

[13:21]and I mean, it's like you're obsessed with the future

[13:24]when you're, you know, 10 probably up to like,

[13:27]I think college I think even, you know,

[13:29]I think then it starts to feel like you're in the future,

[13:32]you know, but I think for, you know,

[13:33]especially when you're quite young, it's, you know,

[13:36]you're both present and imagining what it's going to be like

[13:38]when you no longer say, look with your parents

[13:41]or go to school every day or whatever it is, you know,

[13:43]what is that life going to look like for you, you know?

[13:46]Yeah, we should do a new match for like middle to old age.

[13:50]You know, like you're saying, oh my God,

[13:52]nursing home assistant living like your aunt's house

[13:58]or, you know, I don't know, hospital,

[14:00]I don't know, NAK age or something.

[14:02]You know, that's why I would be horrifying

[14:04]and then like how many grandchildren you have

[14:06]and like all those kinds of things.

[14:10]Like it would be basically terrifying though, you know?

[14:13]Yeah, I think I'd be super, you know,

[14:14]how like you do the thing with the circling.

[14:16]You know, I think I would be obsessed

[14:18]getting that circling like right to avoid, you know,

[14:22]extended convalescence, you know, totally.

[14:26]Oh my gosh, remember that, like it was yesterday.

[14:29]Yeah, you're doing all those drawings and yeah.

[14:33]Well, okay, so Gabrielle, what is your book about?

[14:40]Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, I'm kidding.

[14:42]I tell listeners, if they're still with us here

[14:45]and reminiscing back to MASH and you know,

[14:49]now everybody's counted all their photos.

[14:51]Actually, on the social media post

[14:52]we put about this episode,

[14:54]everybody should put in how many photos they have.

[14:56]I'm totally curious about how many photos

[14:58]everybody has their good albums.

[15:00]But anyway, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,

[15:02]best selling novel, congratulations.

[15:05]Thank you.

[15:06]Can you do your quick paraphrase of what it's about?

[15:09]It's funny, I don't feel like the book pitches quickly,

[15:13]you know, easily, even though I've been doing it

[15:14]for several months now.

[15:16]So I have like the quick version of a thing I say,

[15:19]which I know is deeply, you know, inadequate,

[15:22]which is tomorrow and tomorrow is about love,

[15:25]art video games and time.

[15:27]And then I'm like, well, that's really big.

[15:28]We should add something to that.

[15:29]So it's the story of Sam,

[15:30]Mains are in Sadie Green,

[15:32]who have a 30 year friendship and artistic collaboration.

[15:35]And, you know, they're probably the most important

[15:38]people in each other's lives,

[15:40]but they aren't any of the usual suspects to each other.

[15:42]They're not spouses and they're not brother, sister

[15:45]or anything like that.

[15:46]And I think the book kind of is trying to answer the question

[15:51]of what if the most important person in your life

[15:53]wasn't any of the usual suspects,

[15:54]what if it really was your colleague and your friend,

[15:57]you know, just saying.

[15:59]I wanted more of an update on Sam's foot and the injury

[16:04]and all of the information about the car crash

[16:07]and the actual bone healing and how that all went down.

[16:11]Did you consider that?

[16:13]You know, it's funny.

[16:14]I was thinking very particularly of another book

[16:17]that I won't mention when I was,

[16:19]when I was thinking about writing this one.

[16:21]And what I really wanted to write about was,

[16:24]I mean, I'll just to back up the reason

[16:26]that I wanted to write Sam is having a physical disability

[16:30]is because I thought that was one of the main reasons

[16:32]a person might be really drawn to video games, you know.

[16:35]And in a way it gives him a way to be able bodied

[16:38]without though he is not, you know.

[16:40]And so that was to me a core drive

[16:44]for what he got out of playing.

[16:45]But in terms of the overarching structure of the book,

[16:49]I wanted to show how a person might just incorporate

[16:54]chronic pain into their life and go on, you know,

[16:57]that I think a lot of people are in pain

[17:00]and there are some novels I have read that seem,

[17:04]you know, and I think pain when you are in it is defining.

[17:07]But some of these novels have almost a bironic fatalism

[17:10]about what it means to have an injured body, you know.

[17:14]And, you know, that is not a healthy attitude

[17:16]because the thing we know about bodies

[17:18]is that they are fallible, you know.

[17:20]And so for me, it was a conscious decision

[17:22]to have pain be very central for him for,

[17:27]probably I would say 65% of the book

[17:31]and then to have it kind of recede into the background

[17:34]because he had taken these steps.

[17:36]And I think it's always there, you know.

[17:38]I think the key thing for me, like in terms of the research

[17:40]that came out of like amputations was thinking

[17:43]about phantom pain, like that was a thing

[17:44]that really intrigued me, the notion of the fact

[17:47]that you can still feel a limb even after it's been,

[17:50]you know, even after it's been amputated, you know.

[17:52]And so I think this to me was a metaphor, you know,

[17:55]for Sam's pain generally and just it's a thing

[17:58]that he always lives with that's always there

[18:01]and not there at the same time, you know.

[18:04]But no, I really wanted to at some point again,

[18:07]show that Sam had figured out how to live in his body,

[18:11]you know, and I think that was part of the arc for it.

[18:13]So at a certain point in the novel,

[18:15]I don't think the issue was ever resolved for him,

[18:18]but I didn't want to like, you know,

[18:19]again, tell the reader and then, you know,

[18:22]that it was either hopeless, you know, or that it was,

[18:25]again, the central part of him, you know.

[18:28]And by the way, I think the point at which he is kind

[18:32]of able to deal with his pain, which is kind of, again,

[18:35]this is a spoiler, but after his amputation,

[18:38]it does allow him to, I think, do other things

[18:41]in his career personally and professionally, you know,

[18:43]it sort of opens him up in a way,

[18:45]but it is still always there, you know,

[18:47]it's still driving him, it's still, you know,

[18:50]making him need love and not always able to show love

[18:53]and everything about him is kind of centered around

[18:56]but the traumatic incident of the death of his mother

[18:58]and the pain that resulted from that,

[19:00]was physically mentally, you know.

[19:02]So that was my thoughts about it.

[19:05]Okay.

[19:06]And what about why Link that, right,

[19:09]so Sam and Sadie really strike up this friendship

[19:13]in a place where they're both in pain

[19:15]for various reasons him physically in her

[19:17]through the illness of her sister

[19:19]and they bond that way and obviously

[19:21]their relationship goes through so much along the way,

[19:24]but Sadie also has stuff from her past,

[19:27]not just her sister,

[19:28]but even what happens when you're the sister

[19:31]of someone who else who's going through

[19:32]some sort of physical major trauma

[19:35]and she had some line early on about how, you know,

[19:38]people just forgot about her,

[19:39]maybe that she'd only had this one chocolate

[19:40]putting all day long or vanilla pudding all day long, right?

[19:43]Right, right.

[19:43]You forgot to even feed her.

[19:44]And so what does it mean to go through something

[19:47]and also to overcome something like that as a child?

[19:51]How do you become a full bodied, full spirited adult

[19:56]carrying all of the stuff around?

[19:58]I feel like.

[20:00]You know, it's funny, we have these kind of benchmark ages of like, you're an adult now and it's like 18 or 21 or the Japanese have 20, but I don't really feel like I had myself figured out till probably like 40.

[20:13]You know, you don't even like you're 40 by the way. Well, I'll be 45 next week. So no way. Oh, yeah, heading right down.

[20:22]You know, in the middle age match game that we're going to play. I'm right. I'm like, that's why I guess that's why we're doing them 46. So yeah, same.

[20:31]So we are the same age basically. You know, and so I just feel like it's amazing. And you only know this when you're older. I think how much like of life you just is improvised.

[20:42]You know, how much things are thrown at you and you figure them out as you go along and you do better and you do worse sometimes and hopefully do better more than you do worse. You know, and so, you know, with regard to Sadie, I think, you know, video games for her aren't to escape her body. There are two, the sweet mortality, you know, and the fact that the death I think really loomed over her, her childhood and a really, you know, it's really present in her childhood because of her sister's illness, the idea that somebody can be taken from you at a moment's time.

[21:12]And obviously that's part of Sam's story too. And, you know, so I think in both of their stories to me, they're about the traumas or just things. Like you said, things, you know, the things people have that lead them to create other things, you know, and you know, so so much of Sadie's early life goes into their early work, even though like a lot of obviously solution is based on her grandmother, but also each

[21:35]she go, which, you know, people in the book, people on the outside think is more Sam's game, it's deeply Sadie's game as well, you know, you know, she, she is everybody in it as much as Sam is even though like by appearances, it seems as if it is, you know, Sam's game about Emily Blaster.

[21:55]Emily Blaster was meant to be the kind of game that some, an enterprising student might make very close to the night before it was due.

[22:02]Yeah, no, I think it, I think it, I think it, I think it is cool, you know, and obviously Emily Blaster like runs through an Emily Dickinson runs through through the book, it's both the epigraph of the book, you know, that love is all there is is all we know of love, it is enough, the freight should be proportion to the groove to me is a pretty good synopsis of the book and four lines, the first two lines are kind of a riddle about love that are then solved by machine based metaphor. So I always think, well, you know, you can either write like a five year page novel, or you can write, you know, a four line poem and it can be.

[22:32]I think that's kind of an advertisement for being a poet to be honest, right, that economy, you know, I mean, I like it's, I like the sprawl of a novel, I like to go live in it and to like live with characters and I like to be in it with them, you know, so poetry does one thing for me, you know, and I think it could be particularly expressive of very particular states, but, you know, I like what novels do too, you know, though I read a lot of poetry actually, yeah, I know.

[23:02]I just were like, of course, gloss benefit. Right, you know, they can pay you know, you've two hundred fifty thousand dollars a word.

[23:10]Yeah.

[23:11]Oh my gosh, I also really enjoyed your experience, not your experience, your depiction of Sadie when she is like sort of fighting for this relationship with dove do pronounce.

[23:25]And I pronounce it dove. Okay, I think it convinced me to pronounce it dove and I, and then I kind of was like, well, maybe he knows what he's talking about, but, but it turns out it actually is dove confirmed by my audio book producer.

[23:37]So, I mean, it's your character. But anyway, yes, dove and how what women in particular sometimes do and you talked about the objectification of Sadie like even what was she was wearing like when you feel that waiting interest and say you kind of double down to try to

[23:53]the person, even though you know there's almost nothing you can do and you just hope that maybe this one dress or this one outfit or this one, you know, come hit their look might change the mind of somebody who's mind is obviously already made up.

[24:06]Right.

[24:08]Yeah, you know, I think it's funny, dove is a character who sometimes I'll talk to somebody younger than me who will say why isn't dove punished more in the book, you know, and I'm like, well, because the book ends in like 2013.

[24:21]You know, so somebody like dove as long as he kept his life pretty tidy was fine until about 2017, you know, it's a to me that was the interest of writing about about this guy enjoyed writing dove because he is a person who is completely now, I guess you would say in an

[24:40]something in a modern setting, you know, where you could kind of be like big and you know borderline borderline or actually sexually harass your students, you know, and it would have been fine, you know, as long as you didn't do didn't cross certain lines as long as you, you know, and I think he's always clear over and over again like these technicalities he says like, you know, you were not my student when we started a relationship, you know, so he's like, I'm good, you know, what the abuse of power is obviously quite evident.

[25:09]And so they are in, you know, so the second section of the book is called influences and that's what it's what it's really all about how difficult it is for Sadie to ever escape the influences of dove, you know, in terms of professionally and personally, you know, and so, you know, I think, you know, the scene, you

[25:24]bring up where she kind of puts on her very 90s outfit to go to go to do saying, you know, that she feels sorry for herself that she has worn that the Sadie at the beginning, like she feels bad that she has put this on to try to like win him, you know, and decides I think I'll just keep my coat on.

[25:41]But, but like it's funny, like you, she's fighting for something that like I think she's not even sure why she wants it, you know, at that point in time, you know, and to me, as she just knows, she doesn't want it like,

[25:54]taken away from her. And I think I wanted to write about the kind of like draw, you know, young women feel toward older people.

[26:02]And dove is not like ancient, he's only eight years older than are he's 28 to her, you know, 20, you know, or something like that, 19 to 19 and 27.

[26:11]But he is a man in every way. He has a, you know, professional advancement. He has a wife. He has child, you know, so, so I think she's drawn to all the kind of good qualities he has.

[26:22]He turns out to be quite a good teacher and that co exists with, of course, you know, what is actually in an appropriate relationship, you know, yeah.

[26:32]Well, brought me back.

[26:38]All right. What's your next book going to be? Look at me. I really know I did at this point. I have no idea. And I, what were the years I have found that like, you know, when my first book came out, I went out and I did all these interviews where I'm like, I'm,

[26:51]writing this book about vaudeville, you know, and the more I talked about this book about vaudeville, the more I realized like I was never going to write this book about vaudeville, you know.

[27:01]So, so that vaudeville will never happen. Some research happened on it and what have you. And I think the truth of it is I think you realize that the person who goes out and like promotes books and the person who writes books is actually a very different person.

[27:16]So, once you start kind of like pitching an idea, it kind of starts to calcify and hard in that idea before it's actually become a thing in any way, you know.

[27:26]And so, so for me, I stopped, I've stopped talking about what I'm working on, but currently I'm really think I know what I'll work on next, but, but I'm not sure because like for me, I like to the problem has never really been having ideas.

[27:39]And I'm just deciding which one is worth following, you know, like with this book, you know, games was a great subject because it drew so many other subjects and other things I wanted to talk about to it, you know.

[27:50]But it's hard to find a great subject, you know, I think. And so anyway, and I don't know if something's going to be a great subject, usually until I've kind of gone down the road with like researching and thinking about like the people in it.

[28:01]And you don't know, even if you have a great subject, you don't really have anything until you, you know, draw some people to it.

[28:07]You know, I'm sorry, I asked, I shouldn't have asked.

[28:12]I actually like answering the question. I'm sorry, I don't have like like a great answer like writing a book about clowns.

[28:20]I actually love the idea of authors on tour coming up with a like a fictitious book that they're never planning on writing and just always answering with that.

[28:30]It's funny about that. I like, anyway, one of my books is becoming it is a movie and it'll be out, you know, this week, but basically, you know, I had to write some fake book titles for the author in that.

[28:42]And one of the fake book titles made me think, oh, I think I know how I could solve this idea that I had many years ago.

[28:49]And so I think that's the idea that I will work on, but sometimes coming up with something fake. I think can lead you to something real. That would be the danger of the fake book.

[28:57]So much that you were like, now I kind of want to read this thing, you know, I'm actually ready to know I'm called blank and it's about like an author with this blank book. But anyway, I won't get it.

[29:06]Cool. I won't give anyone away because I haven't written it yet. I've only written that. Anyway, I had so much fun chatting with you. This is awesome. Thank you for your time.

[29:16]Thank you so much for having me. I'm going to come up with different photo storage things now that I am as horrified as I am by how many pictures that I have.

[29:24]And this may be why it runs so slowly. Anyway, maybe why it's possible.

[29:31]Okay, I'm teaching my kids, I'm teaching my kids mash later today. That is now on my to do list after this.

[29:37]You need to make sure to update it, of course, so that it doesn't have like the retro values. I know I know I'm going to come up at some new categories or you can send it, send me an email.

[29:49]for you to include here. Okay. All right. Bye. Nice talking to you. You too. Bye.

[29:55]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms. Don't have time to read books.

[29:59]Don't forget.

[30:00]Get to follow me on Instagram at zibioins

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[30:11]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound

[30:14]for the Sound Editing.

[30:15]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions

[30:17]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.