Kristen McGuiness, LIVE THROUGH THIS
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens, and you're listening to moms don't have time to read books.
[0:06]This 30 minute podcast features a new author interviewed by me every single day, 365 days
[0:12]a year for about 30 minutes.
[0:15]I am also the publisher for Zippy Books, which publishes 12 books a year in fiction
[0:20]and memoir.
[0:21]Our books are already out now.
[0:23]You can check it out on zippybooks.com.
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[0:31]That's at zippymag.com.
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[0:36]And I recently opened a book store in LA called Zippy's Bookshop at 1113 Montana Avenue
[0:43]at 11th Street in San Monica.
[0:45]I hope that you are able to enjoy some of our other offerings.
[0:49]But this here podcast is the basis of all of it and started in 2018.
[0:54]And no matter what I do, this is basically my favorite thing.
[0:58]Enjoy.
[1:03]Kristen McGinnis is the author of Live Through This, a novel.
[1:07]Kristen is the founder of Story Boxing, which provides content, coaching, and courses
[1:11]for people looking to write the good fight.
[1:14]In addition, she is a co-founder, vice president and editor-at-large of Rohouse, a disruptive
[1:19]publishing imprint at the intersection of wellness and social justice, founded by best-selling
[1:24]author Rebecca Baruki.
[1:26]Kristen is also the best-selling author of 5150, the magical adventures of a single life,
[1:31]which was optioned by original films slash CVS Cable with Alison Bria attached to star.
[1:36]She has over 20 years experience in book development, writing, and editorial.
[1:42]Working with such authors is Dr. Phil McGraw, Dr. Steven Kovey, Chris Matthews, Leon Logo
[1:47]Thetis, Joe Gorgia, Darren Prince, Rebecca Baruki, and more.
[1:52]She began her career working in publicity for St. Martin's press before joining the editorial
[1:55]departments of Simon and Schuster, Free Press, and Judith Regan at Harper Collins.
[2:00]And then, Kristen has also worked in non-profit fundraising as a strategic grant and marketing
[2:05]director, helping to raise millions for local and international non-profits.
[2:09]Kristen has appeared in the Today Show in USA Today and in Marie Claire, and has written
[2:13]for numerous publications, including Huffington Post, Scary Mummy, Psychology Today,
[2:17]Salon in the Fix.
[2:18]Kristen has written and co-written multiple film and TV projects, and one weird play.
[2:23]Kristen received her bachelor's degree in government from Hamilton College and a master's
[2:27]degree in international affairs from the University of Paris.
[2:30]She lives in Ohio, California with her husband, two children, and their dog, Peter, and
[2:34]has now founded Rise Books.
[2:36]Her book was the very first book of the new imprint.
[2:40]Welcome, Kristen.
[2:41]Thank you so much for coming.
[2:42]And moms don't have time to read books to discuss your novel, Live Through This, which,
[2:47]by the way, I thought was memoir until I started reading, and I was like, her name is
[2:50]not Jane.
[2:51]Anyway, it's a novel.
[2:53]Thank God.
[2:55]I don't remember reading about this.
[2:57]I know.
[2:58]Then I got to the main event.
[3:00]I was like, no, no, no, I figured it out with him like a page, but I was like, oh, I don't
[3:04]know why that was memoir.
[3:05]Anyway, I just want to start by saying, I know we had coffee and we got to know each other
[3:09]and you told me about your book and blah, blah, blah, but you are a really good writer.
[3:13]I'm sure you know this, but you're really, really good.
[3:16]So anyway, I was so delighted to read it and be like, wow, she is really awesome writer.
[3:22]So I just wanted to tell you that.
[3:23]I appreciate that.
[3:24]Well, thank you.
[3:25]Yeah.
[3:26]And we had, I should say we had a fantastic event actually at Zippy's last night.
[3:30]Yes.
[3:31]That's why I've been in said hotel room because we were at the book shop, which I'm
[3:35]passed off and it was amazing.
[3:37]We had such a fantastic time.
[3:39]So it's just it's Zippy Day.
[3:41]Oh, my goodness.
[3:42]And then it's funny because the posters Lauren Schwartzfeld, who's our director of publicity
[3:47]arise, that she gave me were these ones, my what-if-year, so I didn't realize that until
[3:53]like I was going on with you and she was like, by the way, she like literally handed
[3:56]me these and I've been using them in the book and she was like, that was from Zippy's
[3:59]first book launch.
[4:00]So anyway, it was fun.
[4:01]So it's all Zippy right now, so thanks for, thanks for living through that.
[4:08]Yeah.
[4:09]So tell listeners about your novel and then I really want you to explain your whole
[4:14]sort of career trajectory and all the amazing things you do and everything, but first the
[4:18]book.
[4:19]Absolutely.
[4:20]No.
[4:21]And thank you for having me.
[4:22]I really like, and before we started, I sort of said I was like, I have kids and then
[4:26]laughed.
[4:27]I was like, oh, yeah, that's why we're doing this, the moms don't have time to read.
[4:31]And I think I think that's why I wrote this book, you know, was because I do have children
[4:35]and like a lot of us living in America with children and the epidemic of gun violence.
[4:41]Like, I just hit a place of like, what can I do?
[4:44]And so I was, it was 2016, a lot of us, I feel like it's almost like hurricane season
[4:50]here where there's just like a rash of mass shootings and, and you just feel like you
[4:55]can't even go outside and it feels, and it just for me personally felt like you kept getting
[5:00]closer to home.
[5:02]There were quite a few shootings that actually like I had personal connections to and
[5:06]about six months before actually, my mother's partner, his brother was shot and killed
[5:10]by a co-worker.
[5:12]He was a CEO of a tech company in Chicago and his CTO came into the office and killed
[5:19]him.
[5:20]So gun violence was just feeling really present in my own personal life, but then culturally,
[5:24]obviously watching it just all around us and, and yeah, I was laying on the couch with
[5:29]my one year old baby who's now a eight and a half year old young girl, but she was a little
[5:35]babe at the time trying to get her to go to sleep and scrolling, you know, on Facebook
[5:40]as we did back then, no, it's like Instagram, but I was like scrolling on Facebook and
[5:44]the pulse shooting was happening and I just asked myself, what can I do?
[5:50]I have one quality skill set which was writing and I decided I'm going to write a book
[5:54]about it.
[5:55]So, you know, there is a there is a mass shooting that it's at the center of the book.
[5:58]I say initially the shooting took place like on in chapter eight and sort of both from
[6:04]a narrative perspective, but I think actually like it's helped from like that talking
[6:07]about it perspective, we moved it up to chapter two, which really allows it to not be
[6:12]a secret, you know, and the main character Jane is a survivor of that shooting and it's
[6:18]a lot about navigating both the emotions, obviously, of that and she loses a loved one
[6:23]in that shooting and it's a very horrific traumatic event, not surprisingly, but also after
[6:28]the fact she's not only navigating grief, but then she's navigating like a new public
[6:32]platform, which many sort, not all survivors certainly, they're planning that don't
[6:37]don't end up with a public platform, but again, I wrote this in 2016, so it was prior
[6:41]to Parkland and then I sort of watched it happen in life to time with the kids in Parkland
[6:45]who now have all said like that was there was like an additional trauma of also becoming
[6:50]sort of political celebrities in the aftermath when they were still in the grief and
[6:55]trauma of what they had survived.
[6:56]So it's a lot about that, but also about love and marriage and motherhood and last night
[7:02]when we were at Zibby's, we talked a lot about friendship, which is actually a core piece
[7:06]of the book too and especially female friendship, which I know like for a lot of us, that's
[7:11]what boys us, right?
[7:12]And that's what keeps us going even in the hardest times of our life.
[7:16]Well, I couldn't watch it live last night, but I'm going to go back and watch because
[7:20]I want to get to know Jen better and I can't wait to hear what you had to say in the
[7:24]event.
[7:25]There was a moment in the book where right after the horrific shooting where Jane is like
[7:31]shellshocked with her mom getting in the car and decides to speak to the waiting massive
[7:38]reporters and just said like, undo this and her mom's like, why did you say that?
[7:42]You know, I feel like it's this big turning point to your comment about the victims having
[7:46]to take on these other identities and I feel like for her, that was like, that was a moment
[7:51]where her life, I mean, obviously her life had been shattered and went in a different
[7:54]direction moments before.
[7:56]But I feel like for her and perhaps for all the other survivors, there's that question
[8:01]of do you come forward and what do you say and do you want to have to speak out?
[8:06]It's so obvious, right?
[8:07]But then you're on personal life is shattered.
[8:09]So I don't know.
[8:10]I feel like that was such a pivotal moment for Jane at least.
[8:13]Yeah.
[8:14]And I really, you know, I mean, the thing about that moment is that she refuses to take
[8:18]off the clothes and she doesn't like that's not political statement.
[8:22]She's just traumatized and the idea and I think for, I mean, I've not personally gone
[8:27]through this.
[8:28]So it is truly fiction.
[8:29]But I know that like any time you've lost someone right, I mean, I just know that just
[8:34]from losing loved ones, right?
[8:35]Like it's almost like you don't want to change clothes because then that means like
[8:38]the thing happened, right?
[8:40]It's almost like that first like moment of moving on.
[8:43]It's like that first time you go to sleep and you wake up in the new reality.
[8:47]And so she doesn't like she's terrified to get out of the clothes and they're trying
[8:51]to get around the clothes because we've never seen that before, right?
[8:55]We actually don't cease the fibers post shooting and I spoke with a friend who is an emergency
[9:00]doctor about like what that triage looks like and what their protocols are.
[9:05]And so she kind of gets, she's not supposed to sort of get out of that urgent care where
[9:10]they're holding folks after the fact just to take statements.
[9:14]And when she comes out, she's, she's drenched and dried blood and you know, and so the,
[9:20]I sort of love that didn't love, but I mean, I love depicting a scene that we don't usually
[9:25]get to see which makes the violence truly, really visceral, not just for the reader who's
[9:30]reading it, but in the story itself for the camera people who take her picture.
[9:34]And it's why she ends up going viral, much, her dismay, I mean, that's not her intention
[9:39]at all.
[9:40]And it is sort of this quick decision that, yeah, her mother who's both politically conservative
[9:45]but also just, you know, conservative and behavior and is like, why would you do that?
[9:51]And James like, like, I don't know idea what I'm doing right now.
[9:54]Like I'm not even functioning and it ends up really snowballing into something much bigger
[9:59]than she anticipated.
[10:00]It's, yes, involving the president.
[10:03]In fact, it could not be any higher.
[10:09]Yeah, the cameo of the unnamed president.
[10:11]Yes.
[10:12]And I will say that came from that did come from reality.
[10:16]In writing the book, I reached out to a couple of people
[10:19]who were survivors of shootings,
[10:21]one who was actually in a shooting,
[10:23]another who's husband who died in the San Bernardino
[10:25]shooting, and many Ryan and I can't remember
[10:27]saying offhand right now that Ryan's husband
[10:30]was shot and killed in San Bernardino shooting,
[10:33]which had taken place in 2016,
[10:34]and which was definitely one of the shootings
[10:36]that inspired me to write the book.
[10:38]And when stories got out, his husband had actually
[10:41]protected two coworkers in that shooting,
[10:44]two women who had children, in fact.
[10:46]And he sent them out of the area
[10:50]and closed the door and he ended up getting shot.
[10:54]And so when that news report came out,
[10:56]it was a viral sort of report about that shooting,
[10:59]about this man who saved these two women's lives.
[11:01]And so Ryan was interviewed and Ryan ended up
[11:04]building viral himself and was interviewed
[11:06]in all these articles and he had news trucks down his street.
[11:10]And he began to actually develop a Gore phobia.
[11:12]Much later, yeah, he ended up having really horrific
[11:14]psychological consequences between the grief
[11:16]and the public reaction.
[11:18]But he was actually invited to the state of the union
[11:21]as Michelle Obama's guest.
[11:23]And so he went with First Lady Michelle Obama
[11:26]and then met President Obama
[11:28]and had a moment alone in the room
[11:30]with both the president and the First Lady.
[11:33]And had this real moment of like,
[11:35]if I could say anything, what do I wanna say?
[11:38]And he said that he got so nervous,
[11:40]like he didn't take advantage of that opportunity.
[11:44]And that really stuck with me.
[11:45]So I wanted this character to also have that same moment
[11:48]where she's like alone in a room with the president
[11:50]and like what do you say in this one chance
[11:53]that you have to speak to the most important person
[11:56]on the planet in Begg, you know,
[11:58]and which is what she does.
[12:00]But it was based off of Ryan's experience
[12:02]where he said he just like, he just shut down
[12:04]and like literally was like, these orders are great.
[12:07]You know, like what is that?
[12:10]I think he said these canopays are great.
[12:12]And then he didn't know how to pronounce canopays
[12:13]and then he just went like a dust spiral of like,
[12:16]I've said the word wrong, but he was awesome.
[12:20]And we actually met at the memorial
[12:22]for the victims of that shooting.
[12:23]And like he shared a lot about his husband
[12:26]but also what he had gone through in the aftermath.
[12:28]So I really wanted to like, and he has a cameo
[12:31]in the book as a bartender,
[12:33]but I really wanted to honor his experience too through it.
[12:36]So, wasn't this very traumatic,
[12:39]even just researching and writing?
[12:41]I mean, reading it makes me,
[12:43]I mean, I love books that make me feel.
[12:45]This book like completely made me feel.
[12:48]I was like holding my heart, you know,
[12:49]the whole scene was so real and like the piece of,
[12:52]but oh my gosh, so real.
[12:54]So yeah, just like I feel like I read the most,
[12:57]like I hadn't read a first person account
[13:00]in this language, in this way.
[13:02]And I know it was fiction,
[13:03]but what was this like for you to have to piece together
[13:07]and talk to so many survivors?
[13:09]I know you've had experience directly,
[13:10]but still this is a tough,
[13:14]this is a tough sort of, you know,
[13:15]upon to wade through of horrific information.
[13:19]Yeah, I mean, I think what was the most traumatic part of it
[13:23]was how many times I'd be working on it
[13:26]and a mass shooting would take place.
[13:27]And like, there was a moment, I remember,
[13:30]so it does take place in 2016
[13:32]and then main character ends up at the Women's March
[13:35]in Los Angeles.
[13:36]And she speaks, you know,
[13:37]she ends up kind of getting this public platform
[13:40]again, much like the kids from Parkland.
[13:43]And she ends up speaking at the Women's March
[13:46]and I was writing,
[13:47]I was writing that scene with the day after
[13:51]the Las Vegas shooting.
[13:52]Like I had planned to write that scene
[13:54]and I was at a hotel to write that scene
[13:56]and I like wake up and I'm literally the news
[13:59]is coming through of the worst mass shooting,
[14:01]actually I think in American history.
[14:03]And I was like, this is so weird.
[14:05]Like this is, I mean, what is this?
[14:06]Like what timing?
[14:09]By the time I was done with this book,
[14:10]I was so used to being in the middle of writing a scene,
[14:13]editing the book, working on the book
[14:16]with a mass shooting on the TV in the background
[14:19]that it wasn't even weird anymore,
[14:21]which I mean, that was probably the most traumatizing part
[14:23]of it was, I mean, I was editing when
[14:26]who've already happened and the Buffalo shooting happened.
[14:28]And I was just like, it's not even like,
[14:30]oh, what crazy timing?
[14:32]It's just, this is what life is here now.
[14:35]And that was probably the most traumatic piece of it
[14:39]was to realize that like, it's not even like,
[14:42]it's not a coincidence anymore.
[14:44]It's just a chronic state of being.
[14:46]And so that was really the hardest part
[14:49]was to be working on it for so many years.
[14:51]And in the process, just watching it continue to happen
[14:54]and with no real change, which is the,
[14:56]what the book is a lot about
[14:57]because it's not just a, I mean,
[14:58]one of my dear friends, Blurb did Gina Frangelo.
[15:01]And in that blurb, she was like, make no mistake,
[15:03]this is the call to action.
[15:04]And truly, that's why I wanted to write it,
[15:07]you know, much like Shannon Watts created mom's demand.
[15:09]I was like, I had a one year old.
[15:13]I was like, I don't have time to do that.
[15:15]Because I feel very odd.
[15:18]I don't know if I know writing this book
[15:19]would probably feel good enough to just start,
[15:21]but I was like, I could write a book.
[15:25]And really it was, it was that idea
[15:27]like how do we emotionally galvanize us
[15:29]to not go numb, you know, to demand action,
[15:33]to demand real change around assault weapons
[15:35]in this country and sort of no matter
[15:37]what our political views are on gun ownership.
[15:40]And you know, I personally am not against people
[15:42]having private gun ownership.
[15:44]I don't believe there's any reason
[15:46]to own an assault weapon.
[15:47]And no one, and as I say, no one protects their home
[15:50]with an AR-15.
[15:52]That's just not a reality.
[15:53]Like, especially if you have children,
[15:55]you're not gonna use a weapon that would spray bullets
[15:57]all over your house.
[15:58]Like that's just not, that doesn't,
[16:00]no one would do that.
[16:01]Anybody who owns a gun would say no.
[16:03]Like, so why do we keep that weapon around?
[16:06]If it's just for recreation.
[16:07]Like, why would we have a recreational thing
[16:10]that's also a weapon of mass destruction?
[16:12]So that was really what the book was about.
[16:14]It was just like, this is a real low hanging fruit.
[16:17]And for some reason, you know,
[16:19]administration after administration,
[16:21]no one does anything about it.
[16:23]And it shouldn't be that,
[16:24]it shouldn't be that hard of a thing to fix,
[16:26]especially when it causes such devastation.
[16:28]You align yourself with any of the nonprofits
[16:31]who tackle this and they can't start one.
[16:33]And that's totally fine.
[16:35]But I know there are many,
[16:37]are there any you support or endorse
[16:40]or for people listening if they wanna make change
[16:42]after reading your book?
[16:43]Like, where should they go?
[16:44]What should they do next?
[16:46]Yeah, no.
[16:46]I mean, I've long been a supporter of mom's demand
[16:49]and every town's safety,
[16:51]which are, you know, the same organization,
[16:53]mom's demand is a part of it now.
[16:54]But next week, I'm actually doing an event in Chicago
[16:57]on October 24th with Brenda Mitchell,
[17:01]Pastor Brenda Mitchell,
[17:02]who's part of every town and mom's demand.
[17:04]She lost a son to gun violence.
[17:06]And she's actually been ahead of their DEI initiatives.
[17:09]She's also on the book coach.
[17:11]And she's a private client of mine.
[17:12]So it was wild because we started working together
[17:14]and I had no idea what she did for a living
[17:17]and what her work was.
[17:19]And then I found out and I was like,
[17:21]oh, can we do an event together?
[17:23]Like this, I said to the book immediately.
[17:25]And so yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of great
[17:29]organizations that are doing good work.
[17:31]I also think it's about us really,
[17:33]especially when we have the president we currently do.
[17:35]And I certainly hope he gets another term
[17:39]is really pushing him to see where executive orders
[17:42]can be done around assault weapons,
[17:44]especially around manufacturing and importation
[17:47]that are things you can control through an executive order.
[17:49]You can't control sales in possession.
[17:51]But there are things that can be executive ordered
[17:54]to curtail the amount of assault weapons in this country,
[17:57]which at this point we have more than enough.
[17:58]Like that's not, you know, there's no reason.
[18:01]So I do think there's things that we as individuals can do.
[18:04]And then I think there, I mean, every town has been around
[18:07]for a long time and been doing good work.
[18:09]And Sandy Hook Promise is another wonderful one
[18:11]that I mean, I can't like of Aldi and Sandy Hook,
[18:15]as parents, obviously, that's, you know,
[18:18]and even Parkland, I always remember
[18:20]and I can't remember his name now.
[18:21]But one of the fathers from Parkland,
[18:22]like his great tragedy and his daughter passing away
[18:25]that morning was that she didn't kiss her,
[18:27]you know, goodbye in the morning.
[18:29]Like it was just a busy morning, right?
[18:31]And she left her school that day.
[18:33]And like that story, I mean, I know.
[18:35]I mean, it's like it's just the fear in your heart, right?
[18:38]And like I just, I've never, my kids never walk out the door
[18:41]without a kiss in the morning for exactly that reason.
[18:44]You know, like, I mean, like you will never leave this house
[18:46]to go to school without that like formal goodbye,
[18:49]sadly, because I don't know what could happen there.
[18:52]And I think that is like, you know, again, as a mom,
[18:55]that's what inspired this was that I just don't wanna
[18:57]live in a world where I have to have that fear
[19:00]when my child in the car I'm in morning to go to school,
[19:03]you know, and I don't, it shouldn't be.
[19:05]That's just, most developed nations look at us
[19:07]like we're absolutely insane.
[19:08]And I'm like, what is wrong with you people?
[19:11]Yeah.
[19:13]Oh my gosh.
[19:14]Well, Kristen, talk a little bit about how you got into writing,
[19:18]also publishing, talk about rise.
[19:21]I mean, the whole thing, everything you're doing is really cool.
[19:24]Tell everybody who's listening about it,
[19:26]because they need to know.
[19:27]Absolutely. Well, I think you and I are very reflective
[19:30]of each other and what we are doing and have done.
[19:34]That's really funny.
[19:35]But yeah, I mean, my primary background
[19:37]was in traditional book publishing.
[19:39]And I started out at Simon and Schuster.
[19:41]And I mean, I was like, I wrote to publicity
[19:43]at St. Martin's press very briefly,
[19:44]but moved over to editorial at Simon and Schuster.
[19:47]And then I worked in film development for a little bit
[19:49]and then moved back over to work at Harper Collins,
[19:52]but due to beginning, he was a very prominent publisher
[19:54]and back in the day still is, but, you know,
[19:56]she sort of was at the height of her powers
[19:58]during that time.
[19:59]And then I...
[20:00]wrote my first book and got into the world of ghost writing and did that for many years.
[20:04]And then as I think a lot of people do begin to, you know, I mean, I was always editing
[20:08]and helping people with book proposals. So that was, you know, kind of kind of my bread
[20:12]and butter for a very long time. But a few years ago I began and I started a book coaching company
[20:18]called Rise Writers, which is still in existence. And, you know, I've got workshops for
[20:23]memoir writers and book proposals and I'm hoping to start a fiction one and I have private
[20:27]clients and, you know, the ones that are sort of more likely to get book deals that I
[20:32]often help to secure agents and publishers. But I realized was not everybody was going to get a
[20:38]traditional book deal. That just wasn't going to be possible. And I mean, we both know what that world
[20:42]looks like. It is very, very hard. And actually last week we were in New York and we were at an event
[20:47]with Gretchen Rubin who said, you know, what the hardest thing is getting an agent. And I just,
[20:53]that I just like that stuck with me so much because it's so true. And I think people don't realize
[20:59]like how hard that process is. And it is. And so I just saw, you know, as a coach, I had a lot of
[21:06]amazing writers who I loved and I love their stories and I love their books. And I also knew
[21:12]there was no way they were going to get a traditional book deal. And so I wanted to create a home
[21:17]for them. And so I began RISE books. So I started my own small independent publishing house,
[21:23]much like you. In fact, that's, I mean, I have already met because I interviewed a firm
[21:27]that I'm writing about the rise of the smallish publisher. And I like to say we're like
[21:32]independence with big ambitions. And I think it is very different. I think independent publishing
[21:37]historically, though there have been some really big ones that, you know, I mean,
[21:40]Hey, how sounds true, shambal. It's not that there aren't big independence out there. And
[21:44]certainly in the fiction world, the same. But I know that there are also many who have struggled
[21:50]that became non-profits or ended up attaching themselves to universities. And I think that we're
[21:54]sort of part of a generation that we do see ourselves as direct competition to traditional
[22:00]big publishing. And I wanted to show that a book could be a platform in and of itself. And I
[22:08]think that does come from, you know, I started, I joke, I started out in book publishing 20,000
[22:13]years ago long. It feels, but it was really, I mean, it was pre social media. I mean, when I,
[22:20]I mean, it was 1999 when I started, like the internet was still this like, like Google had just
[22:25]begun, right? And like, so it was not an era where having any kind of, there wasn't social media.
[22:31]So really authors, there were brand name authors that like everybody knew, right? They were like
[22:37]household names. And then there was a whole swath of authors that no one had ever heard of before.
[22:43]And they were given book deals simply for the quality of their stories and their writing and
[22:48]and who they were on our belief in them to solve their book. And so I kind of, I wanted to take it
[22:55]back to 1999, you know, and create the same kind of energy around books that like the book can
[23:02]be the platform. And it's a way for people to build out all the other pieces of marketing and
[23:08]the work and how we share and how we build community in the world. And, and I think that is,
[23:13]I mean, to me, and I was saying this last night actually at, at Zippy's that, I think that's
[23:18]why books are so important, you know, I mean, as you have seen too, right? It's like, they build
[23:24]so much community. So what advice do you have for aspiring authors? Just keep writing, I mean, it
[23:29]really is. I think a lot of people think that there's that there's some fast and quick road to,
[23:35]and some people do. I mean, it's not to say some people do have a fast and quick road to getting
[23:40]published. And that's can be part of it. But I think that for a lot of other people, if that,
[23:45]if it doesn't happen immediately, they think they failed or they're not a good writer or some,
[23:49]you know, some other lie we tell ourselves. And I always say like, right, writing is like,
[23:54]I was joking the other day I did an event with Rob Bell and I was saying like writing is really
[23:58]dumb idea. Like, for a lot of people, it's not like, there usually isn't money on the table for
[24:03]it. It's this thing you do in your free time. There's no guarantee you're going to be successful.
[24:07]And there are a lot of people in your life that are probably like, that's a cute hobby. Like,
[24:11]maybe you should do something else, right? And I think that if you believe that you have a story
[24:16]to share, like, you just, you have to keep going with it. You know, it's why I ended up publishing
[24:22]live through this on RISE books. I didn't build RISE books for a live through this. I built it
[24:26]for other authors, but I had signed about three authors and was trying to sell it through this.
[24:32]I had an agent. I got an agent and we weren't getting that immediate yes. And I was like,
[24:36]you know what? I'm not going to stay in the bad lands of silence. That happens in book publishing.
[24:40]We're like, you get a couple rejections and then you just wait forever for responses. And
[24:45]it's a really tough place to be. It's that silence is where, you know, the writer's brain is like,
[24:50]shouldn't have done this anyway. And I was like, I'm not going to, you know, I don't have to do that.
[24:54]I actually created something and I can, and I decided to go first because I figured if I screwed
[24:58]it up, the author couldn't hate me that much. But, but I also realized like, it's also the
[25:03]story of being a writer, you know, that like, it really is about persistence and just keep going.
[25:09]And if you believe in the story, you have to share like, don't worry if it takes a lot of time.
[25:14]Like, that can be a beautiful journey in and of itself. So I think it's just enjoy the journey of
[25:19]writing, take it for, you know, take it for what it is and don't give up on it. So that's, you know,
[25:25]that's how you end up with one of these. Kristin, thank you so much. Thanks for coming on
[25:31]mom's no time to read books. Thank you for this beautiful thought provoking action inspiring
[25:36]novel and all that you're doing. So thanks. Thank you. Thanks for having me.
[25:42]All right. Bye, Kristin.
[25:45]Thanks for listening to this episode of mom's don't have time to read books. Don't forget to
[25:49]follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at moms don't have time to read books. Also sign up for
[25:54]my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on zoom
[26:00]every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan in fact, texture sound for the sound editing.
[26:04]And thank you to morning moon productions for providing this fantastic intro and outroom music.