Bethanne Patrick, LIFE B: Overcoming Double Depression: A Memoir
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens, and you're listening to moms don't have time to read books.
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[1:03]Beth Ann Patrick is the author of Life Be Overcoming Double Depression, a memoir.
[1:08]Beth Ann maintains a story place in the publishing industry as a critic.
[1:12]And as at the book, Maven on Twitter, where she created the popular hashtag Friday Reads
[1:18]and regularly comments on books and literary ideas to 200,000-plus followers.
[1:23]Her work appears frequently in the Los Angeles Times, as well as in the Washington Post
[1:27]and PR books.
[1:28]And literary have, she sits on the board of the Penn Faulkner Foundation and has served on
[1:32]the board of the National Book Critics Circle.
[1:34]She's also the host of the Missing Pages podcast.
[1:37]Beth Ann's essays and short fiction have appeared on L.com, The Rhumpus, VQR.com, and
[1:42]in the Grace and Gravity series.
[1:44]Her debut novel just came out.
[1:46]Welcome, Beth Ann.
[1:47]Thank you so much for coming on momstone have time to read books to discuss.
[1:50]Life Be Overcoming Double Depression.
[1:53]I am really happy to be here Zippy.
[1:55]Thank you so much.
[1:56]It's funny to say happy to be here when we're talking about depression.
[1:59]So, Ironic, that is true.
[2:02]But it is, and here I have, I know you have a galley, and I have a finished book to show.
[2:08]Oh, beautiful.
[2:09]It looks great.
[2:11]So thank you, very exciting for me.
[2:14]My first all creative book, all by me.
[2:19]So I know you know this feeling and, you know, it's been just what, it hasn't been
[2:25]that long for you.
[2:26]Has it?
[2:27]Since my book came out?
[2:28]Yes.
[2:29]Oh yeah.
[2:30]Last July.
[2:31]Yeah.
[2:32]Last July.
[2:33]Yeah.
[2:34]So we're both debut this year, or debut authors.
[2:35]It's very exciting.
[2:36]It is exciting.
[2:37]Congratulations to you.
[2:38]And this is a very, I mean, I'll mumble as I guess are open, but this is really just putting
[2:42]it all out there.
[2:43]Some people, you're such a big deal in the literary industry.
[2:46]And no, seriously, you're, I mean, influence or critic, you know, I didn't even know how
[2:52]to say, just so influential in all of the different parts of the business where you're involved
[2:57]and to then come out and share the most deep, painful parts of you to everybody who
[3:03]you know will be reading and with, with have an interest, you know.
[3:09]I don't know.
[3:10]I didn't like when people said to me that it was brave or bold because it felt like something
[3:13]I just had to do and it didn't feel brave or bold because, but how do you feel about the
[3:18]whole thing?
[3:19]Well, that's exactly it.
[3:20]And it's so wonderful to speak to someone else who has written this kind of book, who
[3:26]understands the have to part of it.
[3:29]I did not expect to write this memoir.
[3:32]I did not expect to have to tell people about my family history, my family dynamics,
[3:41]my mental illness, all of the things that go into that, but that is what I needed to write
[3:47]about.
[3:48]And in order to write about anything else, in order to keep going and to grow as a writer.
[3:54]So I'm really glad that I wrote it and I do know that for some people, it will be difficult
[4:01]to read.
[4:03]For other people, it is something that is really illuminating, it seems.
[4:09]And I don't mean illuminating about me like, oh, wow, look at this brave influencer.
[4:13]No, no, I mean, it's illuminating in terms of, they think, gosh, someone can be so
[4:21]eye-functioning and doing a lot and still be having a tough time.
[4:28]It's okay to talk about the tough time that I'm having.
[4:31]Yes.
[4:32]And so important.
[4:33]I know I'm sort of over the whole, let's pretend we're all perfect.
[4:37]Seriously.
[4:38]Beside.
[4:39]You know, like, come on.
[4:40]We don't have time for this anymore.
[4:41]We don't.
[4:42]Moms don't have time to hide our problem.
[4:44]Yeah.
[4:45]Well, it's just as soon as you strip back one layer, you know, it's like taking off the
[4:51]back of a band-aid.
[4:52]It'll stick as soon as you take that layer off, right?
[4:54]And so that's all we're trying to do is like get people connected and sticking by those
[4:59]shared feelings and all that.
[5:01]That is so true.
[5:02]So tell listeners.
[5:03]Thank you.
[5:04]I'd like to add an algae, actually.
[5:05]Tell listeners about your story.
[5:07]And you know, you start this book where you're sort of struggling with your husband, whether
[5:11]or not to go back into impatient treatment.
[5:13]And you know, that's another thing that people can relate to.
[5:16]I'm sure is when you have your own struggles, how to make people on the outside really
[5:20]understand, take it seriously, know what to do, how to advocate for yourself when your brain
[5:25]is the one that's getting in the way and all of that.
[5:28]So just take us through your story and when you started sort of confronting mental illness
[5:34]and depression and finding out double depression and, you know, the whole journey, if you
[5:39]don't mind.
[5:40]Not at all.
[5:41]Not at all.
[5:42]And I think that's a great thing to say when I started confronting it.
[5:47]Here's the thing I've said this in the l.com essay that sort of started this book.
[5:53]And in the book, I realized I had depression probably in college and I started getting
[5:59]treated for it when I was in my early 20s and grad school.
[6:04]But even though I was taking my antidepressants and going to therapy and doing what I thought
[6:09]you were supposed to do, I didn't really know that I had double depression.
[6:15]I just knew there was something off.
[6:18]There was something that didn't sit correctly and it took decades for me to find that
[6:25]answer.
[6:26]And I didn't find that answer until I had had a period of real stability and joy in
[6:33]my early 50s.
[6:35]And this was a few years back and I thought, oh, okay, this is what life can be like.
[6:41]And the next time depression hit, I said to my doctor, okay, I'm done with this.
[6:46]There is something we need to work on.
[6:50]I don't know if it's psychological.
[6:51]I don't know if it's biological, but we've got to get to the bottom of this.
[6:57]And that is where this book took off from.
[7:00]So even though I talk about my childhood and my, you know, coming of age and my early
[7:06]years of marriage and motherhood, it's really about that moment where you say, and you
[7:10]could say this at any time in your life, but for many of us, it's in middle age.
[7:14]There has to be something better.
[7:18]And the great thing about life be and the title, Zibi, I just want to say we don't have
[7:22]to talk about it.
[7:24]But just so readers know, it isn't about life A was the bad part and life B is the good
[7:29]part.
[7:30]You know from reading it, there's something else going on.
[7:32]But anyway, life B is about a life where you have confronted a problem and really said,
[7:41]okay, what do I do next?
[7:43]How does life go from here?
[7:45]So double depression just to quickly tell people about that is a form of cycling depression
[7:51]where you always experience what we know as depression, right?
[7:55]Just thought me at sort of chronic long lasting depression.
[8:00]With double depression, that is combined with periods of major depressive episodes, clinical
[8:05]depression.
[8:07]And so you're always depressed, a little bit depressed or a lot depressed.
[8:11]I'm so sorry.
[8:13]You just it stinks.
[8:15]It's just that's such a rotten thing to get from the grad bag of life.
[8:19]It is.
[8:20]It is.
[8:21]And you know, they often diagnose it when someone has treatment resistant depression.
[8:25]They diagnose them with double depression.
[8:28]If they know they have a first degree family member with bipolar syndrome.
[8:33]And my sister has bipolar syndrome.
[8:36]And so that is what helped my very, very good psychiatrist to say, let's see if you respond
[8:43]to this kind of treatment.
[8:46]And it was amazing.
[8:48]I have lived the last several years of my life.
[8:52]The way many people live all the time because now I know what it's like to be intentional
[9:00]and to experience.
[9:01]I mean, I had joy, right?
[9:03]I've been married.
[9:04]I'm still married to the same man.
[9:06]We have two beautiful daughters.
[9:08]When they were born, those were moments of joy.
[9:10]It's not like it didn't break through sometimes.
[9:12]But now I know much more about contentment and joy than I ever did.
[9:18]It's a wonderful, wonderful thing.
[9:20]Oh my gosh.
[9:21]Well, it just shifts your whole perspective on, I mean, it has to.
[9:25]And what's important?
[9:26]What really does make you happy?
[9:27]Yes.
[9:28]And don't you?
[9:29]Don't make me happy.
[9:30]That is the, you know, that's the funny thing is I didn't want to write a book about,
[9:35]you know, reading, saving me because that's not what happened.
[9:39]I mean, I'm glad that I have reading and that I had reading, but that wasn't what worked
[9:45]on this.
[9:46]However, you know, it's not as if I came out on the other side, a wholly different
[9:51]person.
[9:52]I mean, I still have my personality, my temperament.
[9:55]It's about curing and illness, not curing your character.
[10:00]the same Beth Ann I ever was.
[10:02]I'm the same bookman I ever was.
[10:04]And reading for me as for you.
[10:07]I mean, this is like, you know, it is so funny.
[10:11]It's not that I wanna say we're both such influencers
[10:14]and such, you know, power people.
[10:16]What we are are passionate people, Zivi, you and I.
[10:20]And I think that is the thing that has made us both
[10:23]get on these paths and continue them.
[10:26]And, you know, just continue to share the love of reading
[10:30]and books with other people.
[10:32]And I'm able to do that so much more,
[10:35]in so much more of a focus and happy way.
[10:37]And that really, really makes me joyful.
[10:42]Well, I think there is part of having experienced
[10:45]these huge highs and lows, right?
[10:48]Where, you know, you're very aware and eager
[10:51]to sort of connect to other stories and other emotions.
[10:54]And it's sort of like this enhanced sensitivity.
[10:58]I think, or maybe they don't always go hand in hand.
[11:00]But I do think there's something to, yeah,
[11:04]just like being in a place and coming out of it
[11:07]where you kind of wanna see other people do that or something.
[11:11]No, that's exactly, in fact, I just said this the other day
[11:14]on another podcast.
[11:15]And it's not my word.
[11:17]So I don't feel bad repeating them.
[11:18]But I think it was Robin Williams who said that people
[11:22]who are very funny are often people
[11:25]who have experienced great depression
[11:27]because anyone who has gone through tragedy
[11:30]as you have and lost grief, depression,
[11:34]all of those things, we don't want other people to feel them.
[11:38]And so I think it's the same thing with people
[11:41]and literature as it is with comedy.
[11:44]We understand from our deep, deep reading,
[11:48]a great deal about sensitivity and empathy.
[11:52]And I mean, this is scientifically proven, Zibi.
[11:54]We are scientific experiments.
[11:56]The more you read fiction, the more compassion you have
[12:01]because it is such a builder of consciousness
[12:04]and you go into all these different worlds
[12:07]and head spaces and characters and stories.
[12:11]And how can you ever say that mine is the only world
[12:14]that matters?
[12:16]Yes.
[12:17]Not after you've read some of the books we have.
[12:19]That's true.
[12:20]That's true.
[12:21]Yeah.
[12:21]I feel like I've been reading a lot of books lately
[12:23]where people's life savings are wiped out
[12:25]by some sort of institutional thing in like Vietnam,
[12:30]like in dust-child or in like the dream builders in India
[12:34]where they had all, and that feeling like I haven't had
[12:37]my life savings whipped away suddenly.
[12:40]But now not to say that I would ever,
[12:43]but I have even more, like I just feel like I've been through it
[12:47]because I've read it and I can feel it
[12:50]and know all those anxieties.
[12:52]And it's not something I've been through,
[12:54]but now my empathy is even
[12:57]but bazillion times higher than it could have been.
[12:59]Do you know, maybe that's a bad example?
[13:00]No.
[13:01]I mean, I think this is the first of all,
[13:03]I want to say thank you for giving a shout out
[13:05]to Nguyen Phon Kimai's dust-child
[13:08]because it is one of my favorite books to be here.
[13:10]It's so good.
[13:11]It's so good.
[13:13]Oh my gosh.
[13:14]What an incredible end-the-mountain sing was her debut
[13:18]here in the United States and dust-child is so, so good.
[13:21]And I think that having everything wiped out,
[13:26]I'm teaching right now in American universities
[13:29]creative writing program.
[13:31]And one of the things I talked to my students about
[13:34]with creative nonfiction is a memoir called Wave
[13:37]by Sonali Duranigala.
[13:39]I don't know if you read it,
[13:40]but it is about Duranigala,
[13:42]who is an economics professor,
[13:45]had lost her sons or husband and her parents in the-
[13:50]Oh, and the Sonali?
[13:51]Yes, I do know this book.
[13:52]Yes.
[13:53]It's an amazing-
[13:54]I haven't read it, but when you get time,
[13:56]what would we get time?
[13:57]Look, right.
[13:59]It is a book about loss beyond loss.
[14:03]Like, she doesn't talk about the Sonami a little bit,
[14:07]but it's really a book about grief.
[14:09]And I said, you know, this is the kind of book
[14:12]that can teach you what you,
[14:15]I hope you never go through.
[14:17]And that's the thing.
[14:18]We all hope, I hope no one else ever has to
[14:21]worry about double depression.
[14:22]I know you hope no one else has to worry about 9-11.
[14:27]You know, happening again,
[14:28]but now we can give those experiences to people
[14:32]in as meaningful away,
[14:35]as meaningful as they are to us
[14:37]so that they can understand and move on
[14:40]in their lives privileged or not
[14:43]with this new empathy for a different kind of experience.
[14:48]Yes, 100%.
[14:50]And double depression,
[14:51]it's like how can you not be analyzing
[14:54]the impact of feelings?
[14:55]If you haven't had depression
[14:57]and you don't know that there's an alternative
[14:59]to just going through life, you can feel sad,
[15:02]but like it's impossible.
[15:05]It's like whenever, you know,
[15:07]even something like, you know,
[15:09]one time I broke my foot,
[15:10]next thing you know, you're thinking about,
[15:11]look at all these people walking,
[15:12]but when you're walking,
[15:13]you don't necessarily think about the fact
[15:15]that you can walk without crutches, right?
[15:16]So it's the same thing,
[15:18]like all of a sudden you're analyzing
[15:20]and being super hyper aware of everybody else's feelings
[15:23]when you know that your feelings are being impacted.
[15:26]I love that Zippy with the metaphors today.
[15:30]It's so great because we were both in Los Angeles
[15:34]for the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
[15:36]and also at Zippy's book shop.
[15:39]And yeah, I wanna go, which is very cool.
[15:41]And I saw an author, yes, Sunday,
[15:46]an author that I know and love
[15:47]and the author had a lower limb injury, a leg injury
[15:53]and we were talking about it
[15:55]because I've had an ankle fracture in the past.
[15:57]And I was thinking, oh my goodness,
[16:01]I noticed these things for exactly the reason you do
[16:04]because I've been through it.
[16:06]And it did get me thinking on this little train.
[16:09]It's like when you are hoping to be pregnant
[16:13]or you are pregnant, you notice every pregnant person.
[16:15]Yes, yep, you know, I know, totally.
[16:20]It's like we have different lasers and I'll stop it.
[16:24]Yeah, some of them.
[16:25]No, no, no, that's so funny, but it is true.
[16:27]And the other thing I wanna say about depression,
[16:30]let alone double depression is that
[16:33]one of the things I disliked about it
[16:35]and knew when I was in it,
[16:37]was that it made me so self-centered
[16:39]because I think I talk about this in the book.
[16:42]You know, when you're depressed,
[16:44]you almost have to be a narcissist
[16:46]because you're trying to save yourself
[16:48]from, especially when like with me,
[16:50]you have suicidal ideation
[16:52]or, you know, you have suicide attempts.
[16:55]You're always thinking about either how to disappear
[17:01]or how to stay right where you are.
[17:04]And so no wonder you become kind of boring in depression.
[17:09]And that is not to say, you know, every second
[17:12]I was around someone I was necessarily boring,
[17:14]but when you're talking about the depression,
[17:18]it's, as you said a few minutes ago,
[17:21]it's very difficult to communicate the state to people.
[17:24]And I think one of the reasons it's difficult
[17:26]to communicate is that all you can say
[17:29]is me, me, me, me, me, me, me.
[17:32]And I really dislike that aspect.
[17:35]My psychiatrist and my psychologist say,
[17:37]I'm not a narcissist.
[17:39]I don't want to claim that for myself, right?
[17:41]But I do want to say, I'm not a person
[17:44]who is always self-centered.
[17:48]I am, you know, I have a family,
[17:50]I have a lot of friends.
[17:52]Like you, I have people I want to communicate with.
[17:56]That's what interests me in this life.
[17:59]And so it was very difficult to be in a place
[18:03]where I was kind of, you know,
[18:06]all Beth Ann all the time.
[18:08]And I'm so glad to have found a way out.
[18:12]And I do believe now that I'm going to spend a lot of time
[18:17]talking to other people about keep going.
[18:21]You don't necessarily have double depression.
[18:23]I'm going to say to a person,
[18:24]but whatever it is that is holding you back,
[18:28]it is you can find a way through this.
[18:30]You can find a way to your purpose.
[18:33]And I know I keep saying joy, but it's true.
[18:37]It's also this whole self advocacy for the right diagnosis.
[18:41]Yes.
[18:42]You could have missed it.
[18:43]You could have been like, okay, well,
[18:45]it's just regular depression
[18:46]or I'm just not going to get better.
[18:49]But if you don't stop trying,
[18:51]you'll never get to the bottom of it.
[18:53]You know, I just thought of something
[18:55]that talk about my own metaphor.
[18:56]Yeah.
[18:57]Okay, your turn.
[18:58]Metaphore, Metaphore City today.
[19:00]My turn.
[19:01]So I know people who have skipped screenings
[19:05]of various kinds for annual, you know, cancer screenings
[19:10]and wound up at higher levels of entry
[19:15]into the cancer universe
[19:17]than they would have expected.
[19:20]And it's not always a person's fault
[19:22]for skipping.
[19:23]It can also be a diagnostician's fault
[19:26]for getting things wrong.
[19:28]Yes.
[19:29]But that is kind of what it was like for me,
[19:33]all those other people that I had,
[19:36]psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors,
[19:38]of various kinds, they didn't get it either.
[19:41]And I am never blaming them, never.
[19:44]Nor am I ever blaming my parents
[19:46]for not seeing, you know, that I was so depressed
[19:50]because you wind up in our society hiding it, you know?
[19:55]And I was very good at hiding it
[19:57]because we were talking earlier about the people.
[20:00]you know, in our world, our professional world.
[20:02]And, you know, I would make sure that,
[20:05]and I wasn't always successful.
[20:06]Let me naturally underline that.
[20:09]I wasn't always successful.
[20:11]But many times I was,
[20:13]many times I could put on a game face
[20:15]and stiffen my spine and just say,
[20:17]okay, I'm gonna be in it right now.
[20:20]And then go home and just collapse, you know,
[20:23]into a lot of times tears,
[20:26]sometimes just complete numbness and despair.
[20:29]But it's not that people who are taking care of you
[20:34]or who care about you are letting you down.
[20:38]You have to also say,
[20:41]I need to advocate as you also said.
[20:44]You need to say,
[20:46]I'm gonna go in for the screening.
[20:48]I'm gonna make sure every year I ask all these questions.
[20:52]And I think I probably got a little,
[20:56]I took it for granted.
[20:57]I got a little lazy about it.
[20:59]I thought, well, I'm showing up.
[21:01]You know, for therapy,
[21:02]I'm taking my, you know, little capsules.
[21:06]Instead of saying,
[21:07]let's talk about this.
[21:09]Can I push a little bit more?
[21:10]Can you ask me harder questions?
[21:13]So the self advocacy is an extremely important part
[21:16]of life be absolutely.
[21:20]And Bethan, can you just explain to listeners
[21:22]who don't know the breadth of your involvement
[21:25]and how you sort of got to where you are professionally?
[21:29]Because it's, you know,
[21:30]it's really impressive and amazing.
[21:32]And I'm, you know, so inspired by you
[21:35]and your success and all of that.
[21:37]So how did you, you know,
[21:39]talk about like getting into this industry
[21:41]and how did you know what you wanted to do and all of that?
[21:44]Thank you.
[21:45]Thank you.
[21:46]You're really, really kind and generous to be.
[21:48]And I will say that my path is not one anyone else
[21:52]could follow because it's a little circumstance driven.
[21:55]I won't say it's odd,
[21:57]but it definitely, you know, I,
[21:59]as some of our colleagues know,
[22:02]and maybe some of your listeners know,
[22:04]I felt deeply in love in college with my boyfriend.
[22:08]I was at the apex of feminism in the United States.
[22:13]I was at Smith College, and I fell in love
[22:17]instead of falling in love with someone either, you know,
[22:20]at an Ivy League school or whatever.
[22:23]I fell in love with West Point Cadet
[22:25]and I became a military spouse right after we graduated.
[22:29]And so I had planned to go into publishing.
[22:33]I had a job set up at St. Martin's Press.
[22:36]You know, I was going to be living in Manhattan
[22:39]with, you know, five roommates as we do,
[22:41]you know what we're done and going to my job.
[22:44]And I was really excited about it,
[22:46]but my husband was assigned to Berlin,
[22:50]which was West Berlin at the time.
[22:51]I'm old and, but I don't mind mentioning it
[22:56]because it was so amazing.
[22:57]It was, we were there, you know,
[22:59]till just before the wall came down.
[23:01]So it was an amazing time.
[23:02]Clearly I wasn't in publishing,
[23:04]but I still wanted to be in something books adjacent.
[23:08]So I got a master's degree in English literature.
[23:11]I wanted to go on for a doctorate,
[23:13]but of course what happened?
[23:15]I got pregnant.
[23:16]And so I had two children and we were moving around a lot.
[23:21]And I thought, I still want to go into publishing.
[23:23]How am I going to do this?
[23:25]So I started writing book reviews.
[23:27]And then I got a job at a magazine about books.
[23:30]And then I got a job at a big tech company as the books editor.
[23:35]And then, and then, and then.
[23:37]And so on from there, I've just done a lot of different jobs.
[23:41]I've never been in-house at a publisher,
[23:44]except for a short stint at National Geographic books.
[23:48]But I decided that I was going to by Hooker by Crook
[23:53]become a book reviewer and critic.
[23:56]And I really focused on that.
[23:58]And I talk about this in something
[24:02]that'll probably come out around my book launch.
[24:04]But I thought, you know, some of that early stuff
[24:08]might not be that great.
[24:10]But now I can really stand behind my work.
[24:13]And so it's been a work in progress.
[24:16]And so what I do now just to wrap that all up
[24:20]for your listeners is I am at a reviewer
[24:24]for the LA Times frequent reviewer.
[24:26]I review for NPR books for who else am I reviewing
[24:31]for these days?
[24:32]I can't remember right off the top of my head.
[24:34]Oh, virtuoso life magazine, I do work with poets
[24:39]and writers magazine, other places.
[24:41]But I also have a book and a book that I'm working on
[24:45]in proposal.
[24:47]I have a podcast called Missing Pages
[24:50]about the publishing industry.
[24:52]We're producing season two right now.
[24:54]That has been really exciting.
[24:56]Because I'm going to brag on my team
[24:59]and the pod glomerate for Second Zibi if it's OK.
[25:02]Bragg, go for it.
[25:03]We just got an honorable arts and culture mention
[25:06]in the Webby Awards.
[25:08]And thank you.
[25:09]It was very, very exciting because we were one of,
[25:13]I believe, three or four honorees.
[25:15]And then the finalists were BBC NPR, serious.
[25:21]I can't remember the fourth one.
[25:23]But I thought, oh, my goodness.
[25:24]We are really playing in the big leagues.
[25:27]And it's because of the pod glomerate
[25:29]that this has all come about.
[25:32]So delighted with that.
[25:34]I also just recorded the audiobook for Audible of life team.
[25:39]And that was an amazing experience.
[25:42]I'm hoping between podcasting and audiobooks
[25:46]to do more of that kind of work because I really, really
[25:50]love it.
[25:50]But I will never stop advocating for books
[25:53]on social media as the book may have been.
[25:55]I will never stop writing about books.
[25:58]And I will continue to also, I hope, lift up other people
[26:03]in publishing like Zibi books and Zibi media.
[26:07]And everyone else, we know who are doing such great things
[26:11]to keep giving readers what they're looking for,
[26:15]keep giving them exciting new ways of finding these stories
[26:18]that you and I are so passionate about.
[26:20]That's amazing.
[26:21]So awesome.
[26:22]Wait, what is the new proposal about?
[26:24]What's your new book about?
[26:25]ADHD.
[26:26]Oh.
[26:28]So we'll see.
[26:31]We'll see if I can pay attention and long enough to.
[26:34]Oh, look at us.
[26:38]Big ADHD jokes.
[26:40]Yeah.
[26:42]Mom's don't have time to deal with this, Zibi.
[26:46]Oh, my gosh.
[26:47]OK.
[26:48]So if you could give an aspiring author or actually a real author
[26:51]since you read so many books and review them and everything,
[26:54]what's something that is just the most important thing
[26:57]that you think somebody should know or should do
[26:59]or something that makes a great book?
[27:02]Well, I've just finished something about this.
[27:06]So I'm not going to give too much away,
[27:08]but I will say after listening to a lot of friends
[27:12]at the Los Angeles Times festival,
[27:15]that the thing to do is to finish your story,
[27:21]to not show it to other people too early or too often,
[27:26]you need to finish your story, your manuscript,
[27:30]before you get lots of other eyeballs on it.
[27:32]And it doesn't matter.
[27:33]Even if you're in a writer's group or a critique situation,
[27:37]just very protective of your ID at yourself.
[27:41]That's smart.
[27:42]Yeah, because bad feedback early could really throw you off.
[27:45]Exactly.
[27:46]Yeah.
[27:46]Exactly.
[27:48]Beth Ann, I hate to say, what a fun podcast we had
[27:51]about double depression, but what we did, what we did.
[27:58]So thank you for coming on.
[28:00]And thank you, honestly, joking aside for being so open
[28:04]and letting people in as like me, the reader
[28:06]and all the people you don't know and you do know
[28:09]and just putting yourself out there
[28:10]because all it does is like help other people as we all know.
[28:13]So it's inspiring, your whole story is inspiring
[28:18]and even the writing about it was just really moving.
[28:22]So thank you.
[28:23]Thank you, Zibi.
[28:24]It's so great to be here.
[28:25]It was a lot of fun about talking about depression.
[28:28]So good to know.
[28:29]All right, have a great day, Beth Ann.
[28:32]Thank you, you too.
[28:34]Bye bye.
[28:36]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time
[28:39]to Read Books.
[28:40]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens
[28:43]and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[28:45]Also sign up for my newsletter at zibiowens.com
[28:47]and sign up for my virtual book club
[28:49]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[28:52]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan.
[28:53]Take Texture Sound for the Sound Editing.
[28:56]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[28:57]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.