Annie Cathryn, THE FRIENDSHIP BREAKUP: 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
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[0:58]Annie Catherine is the author of the friendship breakup
[1:01]Annie Catherine has always dreamed of becoming an author and lives by the motto creating is living
[1:06]The friendship breakup is her debut book born out of love when not writing or reading
[1:10]She is organizing her personal library collection by color sounds familiar by the way and discovering
[1:16]delectable chocolate
[1:17]She earned a journalism degree and a masters in communication from Marquette University
[1:21]And lives in Chicago land with her husband daughter and two fur babies
[1:25]Welcome Annie. Thank you so much for coming on mom start have time to read books to discuss
[1:29]The friendship breakup your novel very exciting. I am so excited to be here. Thank you zibi
[1:35]It's my pleasure. So nice after you've talked to me to be able to talk to you and say no
[1:40]It's so great to connect again
[1:42]Now I'm on the other side of the interview
[1:44]I know no more nervous
[1:48]You're nervous
[1:50]I'm nervous
[1:52]We'll both be nervous together
[1:55]Okay, the friendship breakup
[1:57]Discuss how did you have this idea come to you?
[2:00]What was the whole story behind it all of it?
[2:02]Well, I've always wanted to write about female friendships because I think they're so important
[2:08]I don't think they get enough
[2:10]Recognition and novels. They're usually subplots
[2:14]So I wanted this the story to revolve around friendships rather than a romance
[2:19]So this book files
[2:22]Balin Monroe
[2:23]She's a wife and mother one
[2:26]And she's about to turn
[2:28]40 and
[2:30]She's looking at her life and thinking what do I have to show for this?
[2:33]It's not at all what she expected it to be at 40
[2:37]Which I think many of us couldn't relate to a lot of my friends at least
[2:42]And so she's thinking what can I do?
[2:45]So she started a side chocolate business because chocolate brings her joy
[2:51]and
[2:52]Then she's being ghosted by her neighborhood from mom friends and she's had them for seven years and it's such a painful
[3:00]experience for her and
[3:02]She's trying to figure out what did I do wrong?
[3:05]And instead of waiting to be invited to the next event or not invited
[3:11]She decides to throw a party for her friends to win them back
[3:16]But it's a huge disaster and she makes everything worse
[3:21]So then she finds a shocking letter that she had
[3:26]Found it 20 years ago and then didn't deal with it then
[3:30]And realizes that she should take another look at this letter and deal with what's in this letter from her past to move forward
[3:39]So that's pretty much the crux of the book
[3:42]Amazing. I mean, I think ultimately the whole book is sort of about identity, right?
[3:47]Who you are where you come from?
[3:49]What what it means to be you right and all these different iterations of life and sort of yeah
[3:56]Identity is sort of the through the through line. I think and it's easy to lose your identity as a as a mom
[4:03]Which she also starts to do that way as well. So yeah, I agree with that
[4:07]And that was another main theme that I was working on because
[4:12]Like I had said I'd see it myself going raising a child and then hitting mid 40s
[4:18]Or my friends the same way and many people I've met online and you reach this point and
[4:26]Like oh my gosh, my life is half over
[4:29]And what am I doing with it? Yes, I love being a mother, but I'm more than that
[4:34]And that is what Fallon is
[4:37]Struggling with in the book as well
[4:39]She's more than just a mother and it's okay. I mean
[4:43]You don't have to just be a mother
[4:46]I literally just had the same
[4:49]Not this conversation, but a conversation on the same topic earlier today with another author who writes for literary mama and
[4:56]How there's this misunderstanding that you have to sort of give up your identity to be a good mom when in fact your identity is sort of what makes you
[5:04]It's what the kids have to aspire to be like they need a map of where they're going
[5:08]Right not just a mirror into like this is me on the floor playing with my toys or something
[5:13]I'm not saying this very well, but I know no, I get I get it because yes
[5:18]There are many times I said I'm the floor with my daughter playing delt and
[5:22]Yes, we have to be there for them in the moment
[5:24]But then there's times we have to be there for ourselves. Yes. Yes
[5:29]I didn't say don't be on the floor. I love being on the floor
[5:32]I mean, I get it. I wore only sneakers for so long, but yeah, I just meant like it's okay
[5:38]And then get off the floor and like sit at the computer and not feel guilty about it
[5:42]But be like no now I do this and now I go to this meeting and and that's what I do when I'm not on the floor
[5:48]Yes, yes, and in failing in my book
[5:51]Struggles with that too where she's thinking okay. I
[5:54]Want to have this chocolate business. I want to be there for my daughter
[5:58]I want to be there for my husband
[6:00]I want to be there for my friends
[6:01]And she's being pulled in all these directions and she's trying to be good at everything and you know
[6:06]Sometimes you just have to set the boundaries and say listen I have to do this now
[6:12]Yeah, you know and that's what she did
[6:14]She you know followed through with her chocolate business and then and the friends that want to come along
[6:20]You know are the ones that are really your friends. Yeah, I think that's another thing that happens in your 40s too. Yeah
[6:27]It's like starting the the wheat from the chaff so to speak, right?
[6:30]Who's actually here for me? Who am I who do I want to be there for? Yeah, you're right
[6:33]I think this time of life
[6:35]Crystalizes so many thanks for us and yeah, but then there's an added layer for Fallon which is really
[6:42]You know, I we can't talk about it because that's like the big reveal and
[6:46]and everything but
[6:48]but it also
[6:49]Totally touches on like this whole notion of of missed opportunities or lives not lived or
[6:55]What ifs right which is the other sort of theme to aging right like you start running out of time and
[7:02]I don't know sometimes there are experiences that like in the book where you're like oh my gosh
[7:06]I literally missed this parallel experience in a way right vaguely and other times. It's just knowing like how do you choose your path?
[7:16]I saw like wrapped up. Yeah, so where did this come from for you?
[7:20]I know you as you are in your
[7:22]You're experiencing similar themes perhaps in your life
[7:26]But like where did this come from as a bug and when did you decide to even write the book and what's what's the whole story behind that?
[7:33]So this particular because this is my fourth one that I've written so
[7:37]I tried many different things
[7:39]But this was the one that I actually got published so I went through a painful friendship breakup and
[7:45]It was during a time where I was reinventing myself
[7:49]So you can scoop here
[7:53]And I kind of went through all the emotions like what did I do wrong, you know, what could I have done to fix this?
[7:59]Did I spend too much time on myself and then I let this friendship go to the wayside
[8:05]So I just grappled with all of this and I put it all in the book with found as a fictional because it's not exactly
[8:12]What I went through obviously I don't make chocolate and things like that
[8:15]But I just wanted to
[8:18]Write about the experience because chances are if I'm dealing with this
[8:24]that others might be able to
[8:27]Relate to this as well and I wanted to have a good ending and give failing
[8:33]Closure because it was important to me that I never got the closure and so in my fictional world
[8:39]I wanted failing to get that closure interesting wait, so four books. Yeah
[8:45]Let's go back to that we did this whole thing. Okay. You always wanted to be a novel is what were those books about? What was the story there?
[8:54]Yeah, it's right. So my daughter was in kindergarten. I finally like I always wanted to be an author
[9:00]But when my daughter was in school full-time
[9:01]That's when I made the commitment that I was gonna do this
[9:04]This is what I want to do. This is what I want to do for me and I thought okay, so here's me. Oh, yeah, baby Annie trying to say oh, here's a book
[9:12]Oh, it's just gonna be published next year. You know, it's just gonna go boom, boom, boom
[9:16]And that's and I had a wake up call that is not the publishing world work
[9:22]So yeah, I started out writing young adult fantasy
[9:27]Yeah, I don't even know. I just tried that genre
[9:31]Awesome, and then I did middle grade fantasy
[9:35]And then my third book was women's fiction and then this was the fourth one this so
[9:41]I think it really took me all those years to find my voice
[9:47]And to hone my writing skills to learn
[9:51]Structure I have a journalism major and you know, I writing for me has was always like
[10:00]and get the facts down, get it out fast.
[10:03]So I kinda had to learn how to write creatively
[10:07]to the story and whatever.
[10:09]So yeah, so this is, I mean, my daughter's in fifth grade now.
[10:13]So that's how long it took to get a published book.
[10:18]It's not that long.
[10:19]That's really not bad.
[10:20]I swear, I mean, you might feel like it is,
[10:22]but it really isn't.
[10:23]That's impressive.
[10:24]I don't know.
[10:25]You probably could talk at length about this too.
[10:27]It's, I think we haven't our head as writers.
[10:30]These preconceived notions, hey, this is gonna be great.
[10:34]It's gonna be fast.
[10:35]It's gonna be quick.
[10:36]I'm gonna get a book published,
[10:38]and once you get into it, the querying process and publish,
[10:42]it just, it takes longer, but like you said,
[10:45]it's really not that long, but I felt like it was.
[10:49]Yeah, well, it's the publishing itself is slow.
[10:53]Based on the production timelines and everything,
[10:56]you know, I was determined that I was gonna do it faster
[10:58]if I did it myself, but there really are some systemic
[11:00]production issues and like the multiple drafts
[11:04]and then the printer and then the shipping
[11:06]and then the distributing.
[11:08]There's just so many steps and yeah.
[11:11]And even just the slotting in, like, you know,
[11:14]I'm curious what your publishing experience is like
[11:17]so far at alcove and how that's been
[11:18]and how you ended up there and you know,
[11:21]what you were expecting in publishing in general
[11:24]after talking, I mean, you have your own social series
[11:27]and talk to authors all the time and, you know,
[11:30]book reviews and like you're very much books
[11:32]to grammy, you know, you're like in the whole thing.
[11:35]And then to finally be in publishing.
[11:37]I mean, I feel like I'm talking to myself,
[11:38]but anyway, what has that felt like and what,
[11:41]like what did you, what happened?
[11:44]Just talk about it.
[11:46]Yeah, okay.
[11:46]So it took me about eight months to get my agent.
[11:50]And then Zika Zardo of Martin Literary.
[11:53]Well, for this book, obviously I queried out
[11:56]the other ones and didn't get an agent.
[11:58]Okay, so then I worked with her for eight months
[12:01]on the book because she was an editor at Amazon
[12:05]and she knew like, okay, you have to cut this,
[12:09]you know, I pants the whole book, right?
[12:11]And she's very much into outlining.
[12:14]So I had to go, she asked me to go back and re outline.
[12:17]So after the book was written,
[12:18]I had to re outline the whole thing
[12:20]and it really helped with pacing and structure.
[12:22]But the good news is after I worked with her that whole time
[12:26]and then she said, okay, we're going on some mission
[12:28]to publishers, do something else.
[12:30]Like just don't worry about it.
[12:32]I luckily it only took two weeks to get a publisher.
[12:36]She said, wow, I think it was because she knew
[12:39]she had worked for a publisher.
[12:40]She knew how it would work.
[12:42]So I landed with Elkhov and they,
[12:45]I just, they're a smaller publisher
[12:47]and they give more one-on-one, which you obviously understand.
[12:52]And I don't feel like I'm, I get lost
[12:55]because they don't have that many, like hundreds
[12:59]and hundreds of authors.
[13:00]So the experience has been really good.
[13:02]My editor was amazing.
[13:04]She guided me and it didn't take long to get the book ready
[13:09]and the marketing team there, they're phenomenal.
[13:13]And they do some internal public,
[13:16]like I have an internal publicist,
[13:17]which is not all these the case.
[13:20]And I just, I feel lucky where I landed.
[13:23]So hopefully that answered your question.
[13:25]Yeah, yeah, it's great.
[13:27]You've talked to so many authors.
[13:29]Tell me about why you started doing that
[13:32]and what you've gotten out of it personally.
[13:35]Yeah, so for my skillful series,
[13:38]I focus on non-fiction authors just because,
[13:43]well, the whole fiction space is like I,
[13:45]like you, I could talk to an author every day,
[13:47]but it seems, it's so overwhelming for me
[13:50]that I'd rather just do like pick
[13:52]and then fiction author and do like one or two months.
[13:54]So I don't know, I just fell into it.
[13:57]It wasn't even expected on my journey,
[13:59]but those are the best things,
[14:00]the surprises that come along.
[14:02]So I wrote an interview for this book,
[14:05]I am a girl from Africa written by Elizabeth Yamayaro.
[14:09]And I just wrote a review, I just loved the book.
[14:12]And I wrote it on Instagram and she saw it
[14:15]and she loved it and she asked me
[14:16]if I would do an Instagram live with her.
[14:19]And I was so nervous, like I am not a on camera person.
[14:25]I don't know, I don't know if I'm an introvert,
[14:27]I don't know what I am.
[14:28]I'm like a cross between introvert extrovert,
[14:30]but it's out of my comfort zone.
[14:32]I don't like to, I didn't like to interview whatever.
[14:35]So I said, okay, I'm gonna do this.
[14:38]She asked me, I'm stepping out of my comfort zone.
[14:41]So I interviewed her and I just loved it.
[14:45]I loved her energy, I loved what she had to say.
[14:47]I loved that she was sharing messages
[14:49]and that others could relate to
[14:52]and she was such an inspiration.
[14:54]And then the next morning I woke up and I had an idea.
[14:56]I'm like, I'm doing this.
[14:57]I'm gonna interview authors, non-fiction authors
[15:00]for inspirational messages, share with the world,
[15:04]promote them and I came up with a name, social series.
[15:08]And I knew that I needed to interview non-fiction authors
[15:12]to share their messages and I contacted
[15:15]five non-fiction authors that very day they all said yes
[15:18]and then social series was born.
[15:21]So, and I just love just interviewing these authors
[15:24]who have amazing inspirational stories
[15:27]and it uplifts me and I'm hoping that the people
[15:31]that listen to it, it uplifts them too
[15:33]and you've been on the show and you've your inspirational
[15:37]so it's just an amazing experience.
[15:40]That's great, that's so awesome.
[15:42]You are inspirational.
[15:43]Oh, I mean, I think every story,
[15:47]like both of our stories of getting involved
[15:50]not just as a writer or author,
[15:52]but all the pieces of it, the interviews
[15:56]and the writing you do, the reviews and the blogging
[15:58]I don't do as much of that, but all of it.
[16:00]It's like being in the ecosystem
[16:02]and learning from each other and this is sort of how it works
[16:05]when you wanna learn, like this is what you have to do.
[16:08]It's like a fragmented space.
[16:10]There's no writer's academy where you like go in
[16:14]and learn, I mean, I guess they're MFA programs
[16:16]but those are a few and far between
[16:18]and for a different, you know,
[16:19]a particularly literary type of writer, but I don't know.
[16:22]I feel like you have to learn by doing,
[16:24]learn by talking, learn by interviewing.
[16:27]I don't know, I've gotten so much out of it too.
[16:29]No, I agree.
[16:30]And that's the one thing about the publishing process
[16:33]that because it takes a long, you know,
[16:36]from when you get a publisher or even prior
[16:39]before you get an agent to start building up your author
[16:44]network, your writer friends
[16:46]because that's who is gonna walk with you on your journey.
[16:50]And I've been so lucky, it's really through Instagram,
[16:55]honestly, I've met so many wonderful authors
[16:59]and I talked to them day to day, I mean,
[17:02]we DM each other and we have you experienced this
[17:06]what are you going through?
[17:07]How is this going?
[17:08]And then you celebrate each other's successes.
[17:11]And that's what I'm so grateful about on this whole journey
[17:15]is that in the time where you're waiting,
[17:17]foster relationships, you know,
[17:19]because these are the people that are going through it too.
[17:23]And I know you know that because you're interviewing
[17:25]all these authors and you're probably becoming friends
[17:28]with them as well.
[17:29]Yeah, people are so nice.
[17:31]I think because everybody else identifies this,
[17:33]need for community and all that too.
[17:36]Yeah, what have you read lately?
[17:38]That's really good.
[17:39]Oh my gosh, I don't know if you've read this yet,
[17:41]but the vibrant year's by Sonali death.
[17:44]Yes, it is so good.
[17:47]I was literally laughing out loud at the time
[17:50]because I was reading it in bed and my husband
[17:53]and my daughter like, what is going on in there?
[17:56]But I could not think it is so great.
[17:59]I just love it.
[18:00]And then I just interviewed Alicia Fernanda's Miranda.
[18:05]Yeah.
[18:06]So that was coming out.
[18:07]Yes.
[18:08]And I read that book and I loved it.
[18:09]And it's your first zippy book.
[18:12]It is.
[18:13]Yes.
[18:13]Talk about reinventing yourself right before 40.
[18:16]There you go.
[18:17]Exactly.
[18:18]I should have brought that up myself.
[18:19]I know, exactly.
[18:20]She's like the real life version.
[18:21]Maybe she could work for Chuck the company
[18:23]and then we could tie it all together as I think.
[18:26]I would be awesome.
[18:30]What is coming next for you?
[18:32]What do you have after this?
[18:33]Are you working on another novel?
[18:34]Nonfiction back to YA fantasy?
[18:38]Where are you off to?
[18:40]Yeah, I don't know about that.
[18:42]I think I do have to write under another name
[18:44]if I went to YA fantasy.
[18:46]But I think I'm going to stick in the women's fiction genre.
[18:50]I think my voice right now.
[18:53]I have a lot of experiences to write about for women's fiction.
[18:57]So I started a second book.
[18:59]I'm on the first draft is at my agent right now.
[19:02]So I don't know.
[19:04]We'll see where that goes.
[19:05]I'm a little superstitious about talking me
[19:09]about exactly what it is, but I am still writing.
[19:12]So that's great.
[19:14]Excellent.
[19:15]And what is your dad and think about all this?
[19:17]Oh, she's so excited.
[19:19]I think she's really proud of me.
[19:21]Although she can't, I haven't let her read the book
[19:24]because it's really an adult dish.
[19:26]So, but she is excited.
[19:28]So, well, I know you already gave some advice,
[19:30]but what advice would you give for aspiring authors?
[19:33]The one thing that I think I grappled with was expectations
[19:38]and letting expectations go because the journey might not
[19:45]look exactly like you expected it to look.
[19:49]And not to be so concerned with the outcomes,
[19:53]but rather enjoying the journey as it unfolds
[19:56]because there's so much beauty in front of us.
[20:00]And so many surprises along the way, but if we're so caught up in thinking about, I want to achieve this. I want to do this. You might miss out what's really happening right in front of you.
[20:12]I love them. Well, Annie, thank you for coming on. Congratulations on the friendship breakup. So exciting. I really wish you all the best. That's off to perseverance. And yes, and I can't wait to listen to your interview with Alicia and everything else. So thank you.
[20:29]Yeah, thank you so much. This is so fun. I really appreciate you having me on your show. My pleasure. I have a great day, Annie. Bye bye.
[20:40]Thanks for listening to this episode of moms. Don't have time to read books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zibioens and at moms. Don't have time to read books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zibioens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on zoom every other week.
[20:56]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan back texture sound for the sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.