Caitlin Moran, WHAT ABOUT MEN?: A Feminist Answers the Question
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[1:03]Caitlin Moran is the author of What About Men, a feminist, answers the question.
[1:08]Caitlin has been on this podcast at least once before, maybe even twice.
[1:11]Her debut book, How to Be a Woman, was an instant New York Times bestseller.
[1:15]And her first novel, How to Build a Girl, received widespread acclaim.
[1:18]She lives in London.
[1:19]You can follow her on Twitter at Caitlin Moran.
[1:21]Hi.
[1:22]Hey, my darling.
[1:23]How are you doing?
[1:24]I'm good.
[1:25]How are you doing?
[1:26]Really good.
[1:27]Yeah.
[1:28]It's just all gold.
[1:29]Your background looks so nice.
[1:30]Thank you.
[1:31]Yes, my library.
[1:32]So you've color coded the spines.
[1:34]I did.
[1:35]I have written a column in Defense of this because I remember a couple of years ago,
[1:38]loads of men I noticed got really shitty about this and were like, oh, people who color
[1:43]code their books, like they're just doing it to look nice.
[1:45]Like, I know that's not how a proper book reader would do it.
[1:48]First of all, what's wrong with things looking nice?
[1:50]And secondly, if you know and love your books well enough, you know exactly what color
[1:53]that spine is.
[1:54]And it's just as easy to find them when they color coded as it is to put them in alphabetical
[1:58]order.
[1:59]So it looks amazing.
[2:00]Well done.
[2:01]Well, thank you.
[2:02]See things in color.
[2:03]Anyway, like, I'm like, oh, it's that book.
[2:05]It's like green.
[2:06]Yeah.
[2:07]So that's how my mind works.
[2:08]So it works for me.
[2:09]But I know the color of all my books, I found it really patronizing the math men who
[2:14]were like, oh, why wouldn't you do it in alphabetical order?
[2:16]Because it looks nicer in color.
[2:20]Speaking about men, let's talk about your book.
[2:24]I am ready.
[2:26]Okay.
[2:27]What about men?
[2:28]A feminist answers the question.
[2:30]That's me.
[2:31]I remember talking about my book.
[2:34]You explained in the book why this happened and how you had gone to a number of events
[2:39]and people would raise their hand and say, what about men?
[2:41]And you came up with your traditional funny, you know, bright, witty response.
[2:46]blah, blah, blah.
[2:47]And then you thought, okay, I should delve deeper into this.
[2:50]Go ahead.
[2:51]delve deeper.
[2:52]Tell us why.
[2:53]Well, yeah, obviously, I spent almost decade writing about women and girls and feminism.
[2:56]I'm a woman.
[2:57]I'm teen tits.
[2:58]That's my plan.
[2:59]I will always look after my girls and my women.
[3:01]But first of all, every time I did an event, the second or third question I would be asked
[3:05]was, yeah, yeah, yeah, you've talked about the women.
[3:07]But what about men?
[3:09]Either from a TV men who clearly didn't like the fact we've been talking about women
[3:12]and girls for an hour, but often from mothers and concerned wives who were like, we
[3:17]now live in a world where there isn't really any problem or anything that can happen
[3:21]to a woman that there isn't a blog about or a Beyonce song about or a book about.
[3:25]But I feel like we haven't got those resources for our men.
[3:28]If my teenage daughter has a problem.
[3:30]I can point it towards a million things.
[3:31]But when my teenage son has a problem, I don't know where to turn to.
[3:35]And so I was like, yeah, OK, that feels like a question I could answer.
[3:39]I can dig into that and see if I can find some solutions.
[3:42]I'll sort it out myself, I thought.
[3:46]And you started with a Zoom with your, I think was one of your daughters and some guy
[3:51]friends and all of a sudden, just all of this stuff came pouring out about the things
[3:57]that these young men were facing.
[4:00]The range was quite widespread and then, of course, you go into a lot of the issues in
[4:05]the book.
[4:06]What were you surprised to hear?
[4:08]I suddenly realized it was quite deep waters.
[4:10]I just thought that I could do a book that was half funny and warm and just things about
[4:14]the kind of things men wear or kind of they're reluctant to go to the doctors or slightly
[4:19]sort of deeper stuff like the fact that men find difficult sort of maintained friendships
[4:23]in the way that women did.
[4:24]But I very quickly realized that there's a lot of anger out there, particularly from young
[4:27]men.
[4:28]And it's event I did was half girls, half boys age 15 and 16 and it was on International
[4:33]Women's Day.
[4:34]Our special day, we get a day.
[4:36]We're talking about women and feminism, but these teenage boys were not having any of
[4:41]it.
[4:42]And it was the first time I'd come across this anger that you often see in young men now.
[4:46]And I'm always intrigued when you see anger in a cohort of people because angry people
[4:50]are usually scared people because anger is just fear brought to the boil.
[4:53]And they just kept saying things like, we always talk about women now.
[4:57]We never talk about men.
[4:58]The women are winning now and the boys are losing, feminism has gone too far.
[5:02]And it was at this point, I realized that the reach of to a certain degree people like
[5:06]Jordan B. Peterson, but certainly people like Andrew Tate, that's a very extreme misogynist
[5:10]online sort of advice and role modeling that had found an audience in these boys.
[5:15]Because if you're a 15 year old boy, you've grown up during this last 10 years of feminism.
[5:19]And all you've heard is things like the future is female.
[5:22]All people saying typical men, typical straight white men, toxic masculinity.
[5:26]And so, although to old people like us, this seems like a relatively recent thing
[5:30]that we've been so positive about women, to these young boys, that's all they've known.
[5:34]They've just grown up in a time when we're really concentrating on conversations about
[5:38]women and girls.
[5:39]And so when these sort of right wing misogynists come along and go, no, men should go
[5:43]back to ruling the world, women need to go back in the kitchen.
[5:45]I'm going to talk about masculinity, I'm going to make young men feel good about themselves
[5:49]again.
[5:50]That's often the first time they've heard someone talk positively about their problems.
[5:53]Obviously, I think that the solutions that these kind of guys aren't actually that useful.
[5:57]Certainly not to women and neither to young men either.
[6:00]So that was like, we need there to be a book.
[6:02]We need to start a conversation that is more reasonable, more liberal, more progressive,
[6:06]and more about seeing the humanity in each other, helping these boys who feel quite lost,
[6:12]talking about what's good about men, starting about the positive side of masculinity.
[6:17]And also exploring how I think there are often some sort of feminist to think, I mean,
[6:22]I've been accused of it when it was announced.
[6:24]I was doing this book and a lot of women were like, oh, you're going over to the boys
[6:27]side now.
[6:28]You're not going to talk about women anymore like kind of, you know, you've betrayed us.
[6:31]And as any woman knows, half of the problems that women have are men.
[6:36]It's unhappy men, angry men, abusive men, men who went listen to your work.
[6:40]So we can't fix the girls until we fix the boys.
[6:44]So you know, you know, half of feminism's work is making sure that we have good, healthy,
[6:48]well-balanced, loving, you know, secure young men, because that's one of the quickest
[6:54]ways to make sure that we've got happy, secure young women.
[6:57]And do you find that men are reading this book?
[7:00]Or is it more for women who love men and want to share it with them?
[7:03]Well, as I'm sure, I'm sure you're aware, well, I've discussed before, 80% of books
[7:07]that are bought by women.
[7:10]And also we, with a people like talking about humans and ourselves, like, you go into
[7:14]any mock shop.
[7:15]There's a massive section for women covering every single stage of our lives.
[7:18]But there is no section called men.
[7:20]There is no men section in a book shop.
[7:23]So the book is kind of written knowing that it probably will be women that you will be
[7:26]interested in it and will buy it.
[7:28]So half the chapters are about problems that you might have found with your partner or your
[7:32]husband.
[7:33]And the other half of the problems that you might have encountered in your teenage son or
[7:36]the young men in your life.
[7:38]And it's sort of, and the idea is, I might always like to do is volunteer myself as the
[7:42]person to start a difficult conversation.
[7:44]So if it's a conversation about pornography or loneliness or mental health or anything that
[7:49]might be quite tricky to start a conversation about, the idea is that you read one of my
[7:52]books, read the chapter about that.
[7:54]And then you can go, Calences, there's a problem with watching extreme online pornography
[7:59]and teenagers.
[8:00]Have you found that?
[8:01]And you get to blame me for starting the difficult conversation.
[8:03]Thank you for that.
[8:04]I appreciate it.
[8:05]It's my job.
[8:06]I just love to start a difficult conversation.
[8:08]Where do you think that comes from?
[8:11]I think be the oldest of eight children and my parents were very, they were very shame
[8:17]filled people.
[8:18]They just would never talk about, I think, but this was quite common in their generation.
[8:21]They just anything to do with sex, but also emotions, mental health, physical health.
[8:28]We were all very, sort of, very fat on healthy children.
[8:31]So we were brought up in a house where you never acknowledged that you had a body.
[8:34]You were just like a brain and a jar.
[8:36]The idea of doing exercise, reading health, that he was kind of seen as something that
[8:39]other people might do on another planet.
[8:41]So I think at a very early age, I was like, I was so aware of how the silence around these
[8:46]difficult conversations was driving all of my siblings crazy and I was like, I'm going
[8:51]to be bold.
[8:52]I'm going to be the one that starts this conversation.
[8:53]What's the worst that can happen?
[8:56]When's the first time?
[8:57]And I know you've discussed this on past podcast we have done together, but when did
[9:01]you decide that you could use your voice on a wider scale than just your siblings?
[9:07]My parents decided to homeschool all of us.
[9:09]We didn't get to school and we were very poor.
[9:11]They were raised on welfare.
[9:13]And once you've been home educated for a couple of years and you know you're not going
[9:17]to do any exams and you're not going to have any qualifications, you're like, how will
[9:20]I earn money or ever leave this house, which is very crowded and quite depressing.
[9:24]And the only thing that I knew that I could do is a job was to write because that's
[9:28]what Joe March does in Little Women.
[9:30]And that was my primary source of information about the outside world at that time.
[9:34]So I just started writing books when I was 13 and the first one was published when I
[9:37]was 16.
[9:38]And then I started sending pieces off to newspapers hoping that I could get regular income
[9:43]from that.
[9:44]So by the time I was 18 I was a columnist on the Times of London, the newspaper, and just
[9:48]seeing the response that the things that I wrote had as a young working class woman, you
[9:54]know, there's not many of those on board sheet newspapers.
[9:57]And so I was able to write about these things that no one else was really writing.
[10:00]about and straight away the response from readers was like you made me feel normal or I
[10:05]didn't think anyone else had noticed that or you that this thing that I previously thought
[10:09]was a really awkward situation the way you wrote about it made me feel relaxed about it and
[10:13]I looked at it differently and that's a really addictive feeling knowing that you've made
[10:17]someone you never met laugh or changed their mind or feel better about themselves. So yeah,
[10:22]that was that was the start of the addiction that I still have to this day.
[10:25]Well, your addiction just ends up benefiting more and more people so it's all good.
[10:30]Keep going. What addictions do you hear so little about right? Yeah, that's a lie that that
[10:35]in my addiction to loading the dishwasher correctly. I feel I've taught many people had to
[10:39]correctly load a dishwasher not many people read the manual so they're putting their non-stick
[10:43]pans in there. They're putting the knives in the wrong way round and I like to see myself as some
[10:47]kind of educational bureau to tell people don't put your chopping knives in the dishwasher
[10:51]they will become blunt. You must wash them onto the ground. I actually spent the weekend so I hate
[10:57]washing knives in the sink and so sometimes I just leave them on the side. I'll do all the pots
[11:01]and pans. I put them all I hand washed like all of these and then I've left for the very last
[11:06]minute Sunday night the three knives that I had used this week and finally I wash them but I
[11:10]don't know I have a block against it. I mean so annoyed they don't go into dishwasher. I'm like
[11:14]I know I know they need to invent ones that don't become blunt. Also I have can I mean I know they
[11:19]do blunt in the dishwasher but how? How is water making a cutting blade? It just doesn't make sense
[11:27]I don't understand the science bit. How is that happening? Is something getting in there and doing
[11:31]it while we're not looking? How does that happen? Yeah why wouldn't it have an end to sink? Just
[11:35]feel like water. Surely when it's chopping that's when it's getting blunt. When you put it under some
[11:40]water in the dishwasher surely that's a rest period for it. I would have thought it would recuperate
[11:44]and become sharper again. Totally. Did the science on this one? I'm going to have to take the
[11:49]Katelyn Moran dishwasher class next. I have no spatial relations. It is actually always a challenge.
[11:55]I'm like I know these should all fit but that's not how my brain works. And as a Tetris of it
[12:00]just thinking I've thrown away things before that were perfect you good cups of plates because
[12:04]they didn't quite fit in the dishwasher properly. You don't work in my system you've got to get
[12:08]sorry instead of time. So men are not having this conversation as you're fine. No they're not.
[12:16]All right so many things like I love all the things you know I love all the things of femininity
[12:22]and all the things of masculinity. There's no aspect of being a woman or a man that is inherently
[12:26]bad. I think you know we can have big gender more conversations about these things and like all
[12:30]of humanity spectrum is fabulous but there are certain things that as things aren't a moment
[12:35]women are better at the men and one of them is about talking about our problems. It is about
[12:40]being honest about this stuff. We've really never used to be the case you know women will fill
[12:43]shame you know we go to the grave not talking about things that haven't to our bodies or in our
[12:47]lives but we are now in an era where women are so good at starting conversations about difficult
[12:53]things and putting amazing videos on TikTok or making speeches about it or writing books about it
[12:57]or making funny movies about it and then are at least one if not two generations behind in that and
[13:03]so I wanted to share woman kinds current technological advancement in being able to start awkward
[13:10]conversations about loneliness about fear about anxiety. You know about gender roles we've spent
[13:16]the last 50 years going what is a woman how could it change what kind of new women could reinvent
[13:20]there isn't that kind of conversation happening for men you know women teenage girls
[13:25]bedroom walls are covered in all these new kinds of heroes we're inventing new kinds of women
[13:29]but there isn't quite that inventiveness yet for our young male role models so I wanted to like
[13:35]write something that I hoped would just make men go oh I'd like that maybe maybe there's maybe
[13:41]for younger men going maybe this is why I'm angry with women it's that I'm actually a bit
[13:46]envious of how positive young women are how much support there is on social media when you know
[13:51]if you're a big girl that you post to picture yourself in your bikini with your roles and your
[13:54]stretch marks you'll have all your friends going yes queen fire emoji dancing girl emoji but if
[14:00]you were a fat boy posting a picture of yourself in your swimming trunks your friends would not
[14:04]be going yes king and kind of posting fire emojis and stuff it would be thought to be really weird
[14:09]and I think teenage boys must miss the kind of support and positivity that teenage girls give each
[14:15]other all the time and that that makes me sad I want our young boys to have what we've given
[14:20]to our young girls and there's no reason why we shouldn't so I have four kids including a teenage boy
[14:25]what is the what can you tell that teenage boy what can I do having what can I take away what can
[14:32]moms out there do to help teenage boys without making them feel second fiddle but empowering them
[14:38]enough to want to continue to be so respectful of women and collaborative and all of the good things
[14:45]but then also maybe open the door every so often for a woman you know yeah well I think I think
[14:50]often what promotes generosity of spirit in anyone let a teenage boys is when you feel that you
[14:56]have been listened to and people are looking at for you and what I heard from some of the teenage
[15:00]boys who were becoming more radicalized and angry about women is basically when it came down to it they
[15:05]as I said before they felt that unfairness that there wasn't as much conversation about their
[15:09]problems but talking to teenagers and particularly boys about their problems can sometimes be difficult
[15:14]so all the studies are that like if you sit down and like hold a teenage boy's hand and stare
[15:18]him in the eyes and go let's talk about your problems he will find that very uncomfortable as I
[15:22]think we all would but they find it particularly difficult so the key is to maybe do it when you're
[15:27]driving you're in a front he's in the back it's not that kind of direct eye contact one of the
[15:32]things that I find very useful is rather than saying are you having this problem go are any of your
[15:39]friends having this problem like are any of your friends for instance watching online pornography
[15:43]and are worried about it or any of your friends lonely or any of your friends worried about
[15:46]their mental health because when teenagers start talking about their friends they're usually talking
[15:51]about themselves and so you get an idea of sort of what's going on and that's sort of an easy way
[15:56]to start the conversation but it's being aware that for a lot of teenagers admitting that you
[16:01]have a problem particularly if it's a problem with being bullied or being friendless or something
[16:05]to do with your sexuality or your mental health you will probably feel embarrassed and ashamed
[16:09]talking to your parents about it because you don't want to say I'm not popular you don't want
[16:13]to say I'm struggling because we're very good as parents are always saying the only thing that
[16:18]matters to me is that you're happy and so when a child comes to you and has to go I failed in that
[16:23]thing you told me was important I'm not happy of course if we knew that's what they were thinking
[16:27]we'd be like oh no no no it's you know obviously I want you to be happy but you haven't failed
[16:32]if you're not but that's not how teenagers often hear it so they want to keep the secret from us they
[16:37]think it will make us too sad to know that they're sad and you only find out about it when
[16:41]there's some kind of emergency so yeah it's it's being sort of being able to start keep those
[16:45]conversations going all the time so things don't build up interesting who are you going to tackle
[16:51]next but group what concept what thing aging you know what what what where are we going after
[16:57]this what's your next book what are you just thinking about oh well the next nonfiction book
[17:02]I'm waiting for I'm 48 and I'm waiting for the menopause I'm looking forward to that next
[17:07]phase so that will be kind of like finding out what that adventure's like going into it whole
[17:11]heartedly and then being able to report and be humorous about what it's like but so far that hasn't
[17:15]happened my age I'll teach you working very well and the next book is it's a cheerful sci-fi
[17:22]a lot of sci-fi is quite gloomy about this book I've written for my girlfriends of my age I'm 48
[17:28]the ones who are newly divorced and going out there and dating and they're coming back looking
[17:32]quite shocked and going they just aren't that many good men out there we just don't know how to
[17:36]find one so this is about a group of girls who work in tech and they start inventing perfect robot
[17:42]husbands because they can't find men who were who will make perfect husbands and it all goes
[17:47]very wrong because what we think we want in a man if we actually programmed it into a robot
[17:52]we'll find it a bit creepier a bit weird that we'd have to like press the off button and start
[17:56]again quite a few times so it's yeah it's a fun it's like a gender flip version of weird science that
[18:02]I remember that yeah right Ellie Lebrac isn't that who was yeah and that famous scene where
[18:07]their teenage boys making a girl and the first thing they do is make it have boobies that are so big
[18:11]they're the size of a house and they're so cute so there's a female version of that scene
[18:19]which is an almost fun to write so yeah the next one's going to be a funny thing about what
[18:23]do we want from men and if we were in charge of making perfect men would we do better job
[18:28]than men have themselves very interesting I'm curious about your thoughts on the berry movie
[18:34]tell me what you thought about that well I think well for the most important thing was that I
[18:38]found a dog friendly screening at it in London so I could take my dog with me and when the movie
[18:44]ended the best thing I've ever seen with my eyes happened which is the lights went up and I turned
[18:48]around I was at the front and the entire theater was dog head human head dog head human head
[18:54]and all the dogs we're just sitting up to their own it's like really enjoyed the Barbie movie
[18:58]but they were so funny I loved it I wept I loved it I deliberately avoided all the spoilers
[19:07]and I loved being shocked by the realization that Greta Gerwig had made it for the moms rather
[19:15]than the kids if you had to work it out and balance that it's about mothers because she'd work
[19:21]out really early on of course little girls are going to want to go and see this because it's Barbie
[19:24]but their moms are going to take them and I can talk to the moms now and and tell their story
[19:29]and how they how they feel about stuff so I I went to the generosity of spirit I enjoyed all the
[19:34]outfits I enjoyed the scene where men are trying to impress women by playing guitar at them
[19:39]and women are having to do that thank you for playing your guitar at me faces I mean the cinema
[19:44]I was interrupted about one thing every single woman has had a guitar player to turn that style
[19:51]oh my word so um now I loved it did you and we you were love up did you adore it I did I really
[19:57]enjoyed it and the issues though I keep thinking about
[20:00]You know, the construct of the women's world,
[20:03]and I think about it in relation to this latest book of years, too,
[20:07]a world with women on the dollar bills versus men,
[20:10]and things we take for granted,
[20:12]and how things are so systemically set up
[20:14]in one way that you don't even pay attention to it,
[20:17]and then what if that were flipped?
[20:19]So I feel like that's just, I don't know,
[20:22]so on point for that was the most beautiful thing,
[20:24]wasn't it, and the amount of men
[20:25]that I did, I presume it's been the same in the States,
[20:28]but in the UK, there's just been this kind of tidal wave
[20:31]of men going on social media,
[20:32]usually sort of dads of my age, or like even granddads,
[20:35]kind of going, oh my gosh,
[20:37]I get the patriarchy now,
[20:39]like when I saw the world that was ruled by women,
[20:41]and it was like literally like the world
[20:44]that we live in, but with gender flip,
[20:45]I get I finally get it when people talk about the patriarchy,
[20:48]but my fingers in my ears will go, that sounds horrible.
[20:50]Now I get it, I've seen it,
[20:52]and I think that was the greatest genius of all,
[20:54]it's a billion dollar movie that everybody went to see and love,
[20:57]that showed in the most fun way possible,
[21:00]what it is that, you know,
[21:01]crusty of feminists like you and I have been banging on, right?
[21:04]It's literally a thing, don't you see it?
[21:08]It's, one of my feminist friends
[21:10]talks about your feminist glasses,
[21:11]she's like, when you first get into feminism,
[21:13]you put your glasses on and you see the world as it is,
[21:15]and after 30 seconds you go, no, it hurts, it's too much,
[21:18]and you have to take them back off again,
[21:19]and then he's gradually build up being able
[21:21]to wear your feminist glasses for longer and longer,
[21:23]and actually seeing the world as it is,
[21:25]and I just think the Barbie movie
[21:27]or everyone's feminist glasses on for the duration
[21:29]of that movie and everyone finally saw these big concepts
[21:33]that we've spent near the century talking about,
[21:35]but in a movie with the dance,
[21:36]the ballet dance sequence in the middle of it,
[21:38]with Ryan Gosling, that's perfection.
[21:40]It was perfection, so funny.
[21:43]America Ferris speech, by the way,
[21:44]and that was my favorite, this speech at the end
[21:46]when she was like, oh my gosh, I was like,
[21:49]this is what I say, this is Ed, I can't take it off,
[21:52]can't do it all, but anyway.
[21:54]And so she's called that speech has been printed out
[21:56]and put on a million bedroom walls,
[21:58]because it's there in a nutshell, isn't it?
[21:59]Kind of like, you know, you've got to be pretty,
[22:01]but not too pretty, you've got to be a meeting,
[22:03]but not too ambitious, it's like, yeah, that's it.
[22:05]There's a 1% sort of thing in the center
[22:08]of being a perfect woman, and if you're in the United States.
[22:10]Either that, you're going to get shot down
[22:11]by one side of the other, and that's the tightrope
[22:14]that Janal Monet sings about, that's where we live.
[22:17]I did not even consider printing that out,
[22:19]but I would like to read it again, to be honest with you.
[22:21]Because, you know, we're both writers, readers,
[22:25]like, I can take it in even more with words.
[22:28]So I think I should read it.
[22:30]Maybe I could read it out loud,
[22:31]or we could include a link in this podcast or something.
[22:33]Yes, I don't want to put it next to,
[22:35]because Chimamanda and Gozine Di Chi did a similar speech
[22:38]a couple of years ago, but Beyonce used on a Commonwealth
[22:40]song now, and I want to put those two side-by-side
[22:42]and just sort of have them as kind of companion pieces
[22:44]because between Chimamanda and Greta Gerwig,
[22:47]that's the whole thing covered.
[22:48]Well, she was just on this podcast, I guess, toast.
[22:51]Yeah, I know.
[22:53]Oh my God, how was she?
[22:54]I didn't do, I didn't do it.
[22:56]I have a guest host, I have two guest hosts
[22:58]who occasionally, Alicia Fernandez Miranda,
[23:00]she lives in Scotland, but anyway, she did that interview,
[23:03]and I was like, oh my God, I couldn't do the timing,
[23:06]or I don't know something, but she said it was unbelievable
[23:08]amazing, and I can't wait to listen to it.
[23:10]Oh, she's one of my absolute queens.
[23:13]I just think she's so, she's so gracious, she's so funny,
[23:16]she's so smart, she's just, she's just absolute perfection.
[23:19]So, oh my gosh, I feel like I'm kind of on the same screen
[23:24]that she would have been on herself.
[23:25]I feel like I'm almost like I'm sitting in a chair
[23:26]that she sat in now, that's what I'm talking about.
[23:30]I'm kind of wriggling around and enjoying being in the remnants
[23:32]of it aura, that's really pleasing.
[23:36]Who else do you love reading?
[23:38]Even not for anything super important or mission-driven,
[23:41]but just for fun, or is there not such a thing,
[23:44]or what do you like to me?
[23:45]Oh, no, yeah, so, I mean, my all-time goats
[23:48]are Ena's bit who wrote five children in it,
[23:52]and the wood be goods.
[23:54]I don't know if they were ever big in the state,
[23:55]but they're kind of like turn of the century.
[23:57]They're always about kids who don't have mothers,
[23:59]and they're just very, very funny books.
[24:02]Any one of them, she has one of the all-time great
[24:04]and narrative machines in that it's an unreliable rate,
[24:07]narrator, it's in the first person,
[24:09]and it's one of five children.
[24:11]And the narrator's going, these are the five children,
[24:14]there's also all to the resallists, there are whatever.
[24:16]I'm not gonna tell you which one of us it is
[24:18]that he's telling this story,
[24:20]and then within the next page, they're going,
[24:22]and Oswald was very noble,
[24:23]but didn't want to say anything about it,
[24:25]or if he was called the idea,
[24:26]but he didn't want to make a point a bit,
[24:28]or Oswald was extraordinarily clever in this moment
[24:30]and saved the day, and he thinks
[24:32]that he's being subtle about being the narrator,
[24:34]and he's not, and it's just constant comic perfection.
[24:37]The genuine wolf, I kind of increase anything,
[24:40]I don't want to read anything of the Virginia wolf,
[24:42]but there's also, but then I'll also just read
[24:45]every bonk bus to go in, what else?
[24:47]Tomorrow and tomorrow, I adored,
[24:49]as everyone in the world has adored,
[24:51]and gave it to my kids,
[24:52]and it was one of the first books they've read in 10 years
[24:54]that they really enjoyed, so I read everything really,
[24:56]like I'm really lucky, I'm a speed reader,
[24:59]so I can read a book a day pretty much.
[25:01]So I just sort of hoover up everything.
[25:02]Yeah, I even enjoy reading things that are awful,
[25:04]so I can just sort of read out loud sentences
[25:07]that I think are quite poor and go, that's a little short.
[25:10]They didn't, that metaphor doesn't actually make sense,
[25:12]if you look at it, that's very poor.
[25:15]Oh my gosh, you're so funny.
[25:17]Tell me about this purple streak in your hair,
[25:20]which I am only now realizing is purple,
[25:22]because I actually see in your eyes, but it's very cool.
[25:24]Yep, it shouldn't be, like so when you use a toner,
[25:27]so I've got gray that kind of goes yellowy,
[25:29]so I always use a toner on it,
[25:31]but you use, there's a kind of toner roulette,
[25:33]the bottles never really tell you what's inside,
[25:36]I don't think correctly, so it's always a bit of a kind of wall,
[25:39]and I always dye my hair last thing at night.
[25:42]So when I wake up in the morning,
[25:43]it's like you walk over to the mirror and you're like,
[25:45]what hair have I been given overnight?
[25:47]And this is slightly more purple than I would have wanted,
[25:49]I have to say, I'm gonna rock it,
[25:51]but it was especially more kind of icy blue.
[25:53]So yeah, it's, but it's going quite well with this jumper,
[25:56]and I think it really is, yeah.
[25:58]I thought it was a, I'm gonna style it out,
[26:00]make it look like, as with everything in life,
[26:02]if you make a mistake, you simply have to walk around
[26:04]as if you meant to do a ton purpose.
[26:06]So that's what I'm doing now,
[26:07]I'm trying to make it look like I chose this color,
[26:09]but between you and me, it was supposed to be gray.
[26:12]Oh, that looks very cool.
[26:15]Very cool.
[26:16]What advice do you have for aspiring authors?
[26:18]Don't go on a writing course,
[26:20]don't read anything about writing,
[26:22]don't take any lessons in writing,
[26:24]because until very, very recently,
[26:26]no writer in the history of the universe had done that,
[26:29]like how you learn to write is by reading,
[26:33]like kind of, you know, you just,
[26:34]it's like a digestive system,
[26:35]you eat up the books that you love,
[26:36]and only read books that you love,
[26:38]unless you particularly enjoy being like me
[26:39]and reading a book for hateful reasons
[26:41]and being scathing about how bad the metaphors are.
[26:43]But just only read things that you love,
[26:45]if you get bored with them halfway through,
[26:47]you don't have to finish it.
[26:48]And then after you've read 10 things
[26:50]that you absolutely adore,
[26:52]you'll feel your thing is itching
[26:53]and you wanna go and play the game,
[26:55]that's what all writers are doing.
[26:57]They're kind of, they're writing these books
[26:59]and sort of throwing a ball up in the air
[27:00]and going, you catch it.
[27:01]What would you do with this story?
[27:02]What would you do with this idea?
[27:03]Like come and join in.
[27:05]And I sometimes think that sort of
[27:06]when we do classes and stuff,
[27:08]you're just made to,
[27:09]it's like dissecting an animal or a baby bee
[27:12]and then sort of expecting it to jump off the table
[27:14]and run off and sort of have fun again.
[27:16]Like I don't really believe in picking books apart,
[27:18]you should just be writing
[27:19]because you're so excited about writing.
[27:21]Obviously, if classes work for you,
[27:22]that's great and if it's work for you, totally do it.
[27:25]But I know so many people who get discouraged
[27:27]when they do these classes and they're like,
[27:28]there's all these rules you got there in mind
[27:30]and you're supposed to use this kind of word
[27:32]at this point in a sentence
[27:33]and you've got to do this kind of structure.
[27:35]We know what stories are like,
[27:37]and if you can talk, you can write
[27:39]and if you can read a book and enjoy it,
[27:40]then you could write a book
[27:42]and the kind of book that you would enjoy.
[27:44]And I just, I just don't think it means to be as hard
[27:47]or as arduous as a lot of people make out.
[27:49]It should just be the most joy in the world.
[27:51]So don't do anything.
[27:52]And the biggest thing is a lot of people go,
[27:55]oh yeah, this chapter's really difficult.
[27:57]Like this chapter's taking me six months to write
[27:58]and just gonna keep on plowing through it
[28:00]and working really hard.
[28:02]If that chapter's not working,
[28:03]then bother writing that chapter.
[28:06]Take the story where it is
[28:08]and then all you need to do in the next chapter is go,
[28:10]anyway, that was three months ago.
[28:12]Some stuff happens.
[28:14]It was all really boring.
[28:15]I'm gonna get back into the fun bit now.
[28:16]Like you don't have to write the boring bits.
[28:18]You don't have to write the bits that difficult.
[28:20]Just do all the fun bits instead.
[28:22]Love it.
[28:23]I mean,
[28:24]yeah, thank you so much.
[28:25]Thanks for coming back on mom's.
[28:27]Don't have time to read books.
[28:28]Thanks for our discussion about men
[28:29]and everything else.
[28:31]Oh, my absolute pleasure.
[28:33]This is my happy place.
[28:34]Thank you so much for having me.
[28:36]I love you.
[28:37]Anytime.
[28:38]Thank you. Bye bye.
[28:41]Thanks for listening to this episode of mom's.
[28:43]Don't have time to read books.
[28:44]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens
[28:47]and at mom's.
[28:48]Don't have time to read books.
[28:49]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com
[28:52]and sign up for my virtual book club
[28:54]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[28:56]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan,
[28:58]in fact, texture sound for the sound editing.
[29:00]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[29:02]for providing this fantastic intro
[29:04]and now trim music.