Nikki Vargas, CALL YOU WHEN I LAND: A Memoir
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[1:03]Nicky Vargas is the author of Call You When I Land, a memoir.
[1:07]Originally from Bogota, Columbia, Nicky is the author of the best-selling, Call You
[1:12]When I Land, named one of the best women's memoirs of 2023 by Glamour Magazine, selected
[1:17]as a staff pick by Apple Books and recommended by Good Morning America, Forbes, Cosmopolitan,
[1:22]Shonda Land, Real Simple, and more.
[1:24]Nicky is the co-author of Wondress, a woman's travel guide available in stores now, and
[1:29]featured in Refinery29, Fortune Magazine, and Forbes.
[1:33]In addition, Nicky is a senior editor for Photos Travel, a legacy travel publication
[1:37]since the 1930s, reaching millions of readers.
[1:40]She is also the founder of Unearth Women, a women's travel publication set on championing
[1:45]women's stories and spotlighting women on businesses.
[1:48]She founded Unearth Women back in 2018, taking it from a mere idea to an internationally
[1:53]sold magazine available in over 800 bookstores across the United States and independent
[1:58]book shops abroad.
[2:00]Nicky's work has been published and celebrated in the New York Times, Good Morning America,
[2:04]CNN, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, The Daily Beast, The Washington Post, Forbes, and more.
[2:08]Beyond her writing, Nicky is a public speaker who has spoken at various travel conferences,
[2:12]including the Women's Travel Fest, Women in Travel Summit, Latino Travel Fest, and
[2:16]more.
[2:17]Welcome, Nicky.
[2:18]Thank you so much for coming on mom's.
[2:19]Don't have time to read books to discuss Call You When I Land, a memoir.
[2:23]Thank you so much for having me.
[2:25]I'm so excited.
[2:27]Tell listeners everything about your book, which is, of course, yourself.
[2:31]Keep going.
[2:32]So, Call You When I Land is a travel memoir, but there's so much more to it than travel,
[2:40]which I think surprises a lot of readers.
[2:43]It's a love story.
[2:44]It's a story about running away from wedding last minute.
[2:48]It's a story about chasing a career dream around the world and all the ebbs and flows
[2:53]and highs and lows that come with chasing a career dream.
[2:57]It's a story about coming of age, learning to embrace your own identity, your own heritage.
[3:04]And it's a little bit of a murder mystery, which throws people for a loo, but that's
[3:08]in there too.
[3:09]But underneath all of it is travel and this constant thread that kind of ties together
[3:14]this whole sort of tumultuous coming of age journey.
[3:18]So it is a travel memoir, but yeah, there's a lot of storylines in there that
[3:23]make it so much more of an evolution.
[3:26]So, let's start with the runaway bride aspect.
[3:31]Talk about that and go from there, the runaway bride aspect.
[3:35]The book begins in the jungles of Argentina.
[3:39]You find me a week before my wedding day and it's this New York wedding that has been
[3:46]planned for months and months and months and months.
[3:48]And I had been taking a backseat to that planning.
[3:52]And there's a lot of avoidance.
[3:54]There's a lot of running away from my life in all the wrong way.
[3:58]Is a lot of it is just, you know, youthful naivete, just trying to not take seriously
[4:04]of these big decisions I'm making that can come to define my adult life.
[4:09]And so after all of this avoidance and hiding and running away, you find me in the jungles
[4:14]of Argentina as a runaway bride screaming into the trees that I don't want to get married.
[4:21]And the reason I start the book there is because I think that that is really where the
[4:28]transformation begins.
[4:30]And that's sort of the prologue of the book and then it kind of rewinds and builds
[4:34]back up to that moment of how I got there and what led to that and why was I avoiding
[4:40]it and how I was using travel as a tool of avoidance.
[4:43]And then you move past that moment to see what happens next.
[4:47]But the runaway bride part of it was absolutely the catalyst for this memoir because it
[4:55]was such an audacious decision at the time and surely one that caused a lot of drama and
[5:02]a lot, a lot of pain, but it ultimately was one that set my life completely on course.
[5:10]And so I think that that was a great part of the book to really pin the transformation
[5:15]too.
[5:16]A lot of people have doubts when they're getting married or they're getting closer to
[5:20]the date, but maybe the wedding is taking over and the momentum like you discussed is just,
[5:27]it seems like it's hard to, the cart before the horse, you know what I'm trying to get
[5:33]the cart into that control.
[5:34]Yeah, I don't know.
[5:35]I get it.
[5:36]I know.
[5:37]It's early.
[5:38]I don't know.
[5:39]I'm like guzzling coffee.
[5:40]I know.
[5:41]I do.
[5:42]That's an idea.
[5:43]I need like my second cup.
[5:45]So, but not everyone can make that decision and like slam on the brakes like that.
[5:53]And I know you go through this and how that developed.
[5:56]But if you could say in like a sentence, why could you do that?
[6:01]What was it about listening to the voice, even at the last second that you feel like you
[6:07]could do that maybe it's hard for other people to do.
[6:12]I think the truth is to say it as concisely as I can.
[6:16]I had reached the point of no return.
[6:18]There was just no other decision to make.
[6:21]I for months had not been listening to my inner voice.
[6:25]I had been really avoiding everything that was going on in my life.
[6:30]Not only this wedding, but the career decisions I was making, everything I was doing,
[6:35]I was doing passively because it felt like that was the thing to do.
[6:40]And I should be making others happy.
[6:42]And I reached this point where I could not take another step forward without kind of having
[6:49]this clandestine meeting with myself and figuring out what is it that I want.
[6:54]And that's why I think a lot of people think, you know, did you really scream into the
[6:57]trees?
[6:58]And the answer is yes, I did because it had built up so much inside me that when I stopped
[7:04]to finally ask myself, okay, what is it you have to say?
[7:08]I didn't think about the answer.
[7:10]I didn't like decide now I shall scream into the trees dramatically, it just flew out
[7:15]of me these words because they had been so suppressed.
[7:19]And so there really isn't a magic bullet answer to that question.
[7:23]It really is just I had pushed myself so, so, so far to the edge that there was nowhere
[7:30]else to go, but to just take that jump and trust myself, love that.
[7:35]I love that so much.
[7:37]So when did you know that travel was like your thing?
[7:41]Oh gosh, travel has always sort of been this passion that was cultivated throughout my childhood
[7:49]in the form of family trips, but when I became an adult and in my 20s, I realized that
[7:55]it could become a career.
[7:57]And I became really attached to this idea of being a travel writer.
[8:01]I had always loved writing, I studied journalism, I had this passion for writing since
[8:07]I was a kid.
[8:09]And when I learned that there's a career that combines those two passions, I was just gone.
[8:15]And that really becomes a lot of pressure on that relationship that also maybe comes the
[8:21]marriage I walk away from.
[8:23]This idea that I'm trying to chase my dreams literally around the world because I'm trying
[8:28]to be a travel writer.
[8:30]And I'm trying to go to the forest flung places on earth to get these compelling stories.
[8:35]And it starts to really rub up against this life I built on New York with this man who's
[8:41]like fell in love with me at a certain point when I wasn't an adult really.
[8:45]I mean, I was an adult, but when I was just, you know, I was at a call if I first got
[8:50]engaged.
[8:51]And I was like, let me correct.
[8:52]That's different.
[8:53]But you know, when you enter your 20s, you're so different than who you are when you exit
[9:02]them.
[9:03]And there's so much growth and evolution in this time period, arguably more so than in
[9:08]other decades of your life.
[9:10]And so I really, really, really wanted to try to convey that in the book.
[9:15]This massive amount of just transformation happening in this short period of time.
[9:21]Don't they say that your brain isn't even fully formed until you're 25?
[9:24]Yeah.
[9:25]Something like that.
[9:26]Absolutely true.
[9:27]Yeah.
[9:28]And yet we're all making these like major life decisions.
[9:30]I had friends who like got engaged in college, not not friends plural.
[9:34]Okay.
[9:35]One person I do.
[9:36]Well, I didn't even really know her.
[9:37]She was friends with a friend of mine, but but even still, she was 21 years old.
[9:41]And I'm like, how, how can you possibly know, right?
[9:44]How I mean, it's impossible.
[9:45]No, but you're absolutely right.
[9:47]And I think it's a, you know, when I look back at that time period and I look back at
[9:52]how I was taking these major decisions and stride, moving in with someone, choosing career
[9:57]paths, like choosing a future.
[10:00]husband, discussing the idea of kids.
[10:02]Like when I look back at it and I see where I was mentally
[10:06]at that point in time, it seems almost laughable
[10:09]that I was just so cavalier about these decisions.
[10:12]I was making them the way I would make like,
[10:14]yeah, we'll go there for brunch.
[10:15]It was like whatever.
[10:16]Yeah, it'll be fine.
[10:17]I'll figure it out along the way.
[10:20]And now I am now 36 years old.
[10:24]It's very different.
[10:26]And every decision I make is so intentional.
[10:29]And there's a lot of mindfulness behind those choices.
[10:32]And there's a level of sort of care-free spontaneity
[10:35]that doesn't happen anymore that did when I was in my 20s.
[10:38]And I have to say at the end of the day for as messy and audacious.
[10:44]And quite honestly, just all over the place
[10:47]that I was in my 20s, I'm glad I was that way
[10:51]because those giant swings got me to where I needed to go.
[10:56]I feel like we can all look back.
[10:58]I mean, now that I'm at the wise old age of 47.
[11:00]We can all look back and say like, OK, that was so stressful.
[11:04]And I felt like that was a mistake at the time.
[11:06]But it all made sense because it led up to now.
[11:10]Yeah.
[11:10]Yeah.
[11:10]Exactly.
[11:11]Maybe it doesn't always work out.
[11:12]OK, so talk to me.
[11:14]Talk to me more about travel writing.
[11:16]And how you build a career as a travel writer.
[11:18]And what do you need?
[11:19]Like, I'm not sure I'm the best traveler.
[11:21]Like, I only liked a very picky about where I stay
[11:25]or I'm thinking about what I eat.
[11:27]Like, I don't like major routine disruptions.
[11:30]Like, I probably am not the best travel writer unless I only
[11:34]get to pick my spot.
[11:35]So what are some of the secrets of great travel writing?
[11:39]Who are people you look up to as travel writers?
[11:42]And how did you forge your way into that field?
[11:46]Oh gosh.
[11:46]I mean, when I set out to be a travel writer,
[11:50]it was at the time that the world of blogging
[11:54]was really rising up.
[11:55]And it was piercing the pop culture fabric.
[11:58]So now you were seeing things like the White House blog
[12:00]and news sources referencing blogs.
[12:04]So it was really this new wave of writing.
[12:07]And all of that is to say that when I graduated journalism
[12:10]school, there were really no jobs to be had.
[12:14]And I decided if you can't beat him, join him.
[12:16]So I started a travel blog.
[12:19]And the hope for this travel blog was
[12:20]that it would allow me to build up this portfolio of writing
[12:24]and eventually kind of kick my foot into the door
[12:27]and get in the industry.
[12:29]But I really went about it round about way.
[12:32]It took me most of my 20s to get to that point
[12:37]of becoming an on-staff travel writer
[12:39]and editor for publication.
[12:41]And in the time that it took me to get there,
[12:44]it really was about press trips.
[12:47]And this is something that I'm very honest about in the book.
[12:50]And I try to demystify.
[12:52]Because for people who are not in my industry,
[12:55]the first question that comes to mind
[12:57]is how were you going to Borneo and how were you just
[13:02]running away to Buenos Aires, like how lavish?
[13:05]And the answer is press trips.
[13:08]Press trips is one of the most fantastic parts
[13:11]of our job, which is to say we have the ability
[13:14]to go on these free trips by virtue of being travel writers,
[13:19]whether we're hosted by tourism boards or hotel brands
[13:22]or whatever it is, it's really a tip for tap arrangement.
[13:25]They invite writers out to cover their destination or hotel.
[13:29]We write stories that feature said destination and hotel.
[13:33]And it's just a very like a symbiotic relationship.
[13:37]So when I was trying to be a travel writer
[13:40]and instead I became a travel blogger,
[13:42]I had stumbled into this world of trips,
[13:45]creator trips, press trips, influencer trips.
[13:48]And it allowed me to see the world at that age
[13:52]on an entry level salary with no savings,
[13:54]living in an apartment on 79th and 2nd
[13:57]that I could not afford.
[13:59]And I took those trips and eventually
[14:03]were able to parlay them into stories,
[14:06]which led eventually to my first on staff job.
[14:09]So it was a really kind of cobbled together around about way
[14:13]that took a long time, but eventually I
[14:15]did become a travel writer.
[14:17]But to answer the other part of your question,
[14:20]travel writing to me, I think, is I love the writing
[14:24]that's a beautiful blend of personal narrative
[14:27]while also acknowledging the destination.
[14:30]And I think sometimes it leans too much on one side
[14:33]or the other, where you get people kind of rehashing
[14:36]their emotions in the presence of a beautiful place,
[14:39]but you don't know anything about the place.
[14:41]And I love the writing that pairs the two.
[14:45]And an example would be the late and great Anthony Bourdain
[14:48]outside of his television work.
[14:50]He was a phenomenal writer.
[14:52]And his book, A Cook's Tour, one of his early books,
[14:55]he had such an incredible power to draw you
[14:59]into a destination, connect you to a destination,
[15:02]not only in the sights and sounds,
[15:04]but the history and the culture,
[15:06]and then also reveal some of his own emotional turmoil
[15:09]while in that destination.
[15:12]And that is something I'd really tried to channel
[15:14]and call you when I land.
[15:16]Amazing.
[15:17]I listened to no reservations, and that was called,
[15:19]I listened to it on audio.
[15:20]Yeah.
[15:21]It's an audio book of my husband,
[15:22]I'm like a long drive, it's amazing.
[15:24]It is, oh, he was great.
[15:25]Yeah, he was a, he was a lot of things.
[15:28]He was certainly, you know, he, he had his faults,
[15:31]but at the end of the day, he was an undeniably great writer.
[15:35]Tell me about writing this book.
[15:37]What was this process like?
[15:38]How long did it take?
[15:39]Did you always know, like when did you know
[15:41]you were gonna write a memoir?
[15:43]And then how did you structure it?
[15:45]Like did you enjoy writing it?
[15:47]Just tell me about writing.
[15:49]Well, the structure I really love.
[15:52]So the book is divided into three parts.
[15:55]Part one is turbulence.
[15:57]They're all kind of aviation travel.
[15:59]So part one turbulence, as it suggests,
[16:02]all the chapters in it are very turbulent.
[16:04]It's meant to feel almost uncomfortable to the reader,
[16:07]because I'm really drawing you into my mistakes
[16:10]and kind of what I'm just trying to figure out.
[16:14]And then that eventually gives way to changing pitch.
[16:18]And that is an aviation term for when an airplane essentially,
[16:22]the nose of an airplane kind of adjusts up and down,
[16:24]ultimately sort of shifting direction of flight.
[16:27]And so all the chapters in part two of changing pitch
[16:31]are exactly that.
[16:32]It's sort of figuring it out, trying to find that equilibrium
[16:35]kind of like me defining my life.
[16:38]And then obviously gets into landing,
[16:40]self-explanatory, you're kind of like coming in at a landing
[16:42]and coming in on resolution.
[16:45]So I really always had the idea of structuring it
[16:48]in these like three buckets.
[16:51]And the way the chapters are written,
[16:52]they are written in a very sort of chronological linear way.
[16:56]But they're almost written like vignettes.
[16:58]It's almost like flashes in time.
[17:00]And each one is sort of rooted in a place.
[17:03]And there were so many more trips I could have put in this book,
[17:07]but I intentionally wanted to choose trips
[17:10]where there was some level of epiphany or transformation
[17:14]that kind of moved the story along.
[17:17]And as much as I would have loved to just write about myself,
[17:20]drinking margaritas in Mexico,
[17:22]I'm sure people just want to get to the good stuff.
[17:25]So there are some trips that didn't make the cut.
[17:28]But all in all, I always had an idea
[17:31]for how I wanted this book to be.
[17:33]And I knew I wanted to start it in the jungles of Argentina.
[17:37]I knew I wanted to sort of trace this evolution
[17:40]through my 20s.
[17:42]And it was cathartic to write, which I'm sure you hear a lot
[17:45]when you talk to people who've written the words.
[17:48]It was difficult for sure.
[17:51]But I think what surprised me the most
[17:53]is that the parts that were difficult.
[17:56]Writing about the wedding was actually the easiest part
[18:00]because it was so long ago.
[18:03]And there was so much time between that.
[18:06]The part that was the hardest was writing about
[18:10]on earth women for those listening.
[18:12]On earth women was this woman's magazine.
[18:15]I started in 2018 out of the depths of unemployment.
[18:19]I mean, truly it is not an exaggeration to say,
[18:22]I was just drinking wine in my pajamas on a week night
[18:26]and thought to myself, I just started woman's magazine
[18:29]and then ran with it.
[18:31]And within a year, I can totally relate to that, by the way.
[18:35]I like to think of things.
[18:36]Yes, as most great ideas begin, that's a wine in the middle
[18:41]of the night, but I had this meteoric rise.
[18:44]And it went from that idea, born from the bottom
[18:49]of a glass of wine, to becoming a magazine
[18:52]sold in over 800 Barnes & Noble bookstores across the country.
[18:56]And then it very promptly kind of felt
[18:59]we had to fold the print magazine.
[19:02]And that was the most difficult part of the book
[19:04]for me to write because I realized it's still so present.
[19:08]And there's still a level of unfolding,
[19:11]I'm working with on earth woman.
[19:14]But it was a lot of fun.
[19:15]I'll tell you what, there were a lot of dirty martinis
[19:18]that I had in the process of writing this book.
[19:22]I love it, we could, the subtitle is,
[19:24]call you when I land from wine on the couch
[19:28]to dirty martinis.
[19:29]Yes.
[19:30]And it's really, yeah, it's so funny.
[19:33]It's way, literally, my now husband.
[19:38]He would come home sometimes.
[19:40]And I remember one memory, he came home.
[19:43]And I'm like, I have my hair in a messy bun.
[19:45]I'm in pajamas.
[19:46]I'm all hunched at the computer, typing maniacally,
[19:50]have this dirty martini in my hand and I'm crying.
[19:54]And he comes in and he's like, my God, what happened?
[19:58]And I'm like, this is the scene.
[20:00]where I say buy to like an Alex was my ex fiance,
[20:03]my ex fiance, and he's like, okay.
[20:06]But it's like that level of like having to sort of,
[20:10]in a way kind of shed dignity.
[20:14]So you can really just let loose on the page
[20:16]and kind of drop that barrier.
[20:19]It's such a fun creative process, I have to say.
[20:21]As you well know, what contributed to the downfall of the magazine.
[20:24]What contributed to the downfall of the magazine?
[20:29]Or the success?
[20:30]Well, I think the success came from the magazine
[20:36]being introduced at a moment in time
[20:39]where it was sort of around that kind of cultural moment
[20:43]of me too, around sort of times up
[20:46]where you're getting a lot of sort of overdue support
[20:51]for women and particularly women led initiatives.
[20:54]And owner of women was kind of sticking a flag
[20:59]in the travel media industry,
[21:01]which at that point was so largely male dominated
[21:04]and saying, here's a magazine for women
[21:07]who make more than 70% of travel decisions
[21:10]but are often overlooked.
[21:12]Here's a magazine just for you.
[21:14]And we're not only gonna give you tips
[21:17]on how to travel and really nuanced, thoughtful tips,
[21:21]but we're also going to share stories about women
[21:24]doing incredible things around the world.
[21:26]And it's not gonna be a novelty.
[21:28]It's just going to be great stories.
[21:32]And I think it just kind of flew on the wings of that moment
[21:37]and ultimately what led to it folding
[21:40]is what leads to every print magazine folding right now.
[21:44]It's just there's not enough demand for print
[21:47]and everything's shifting to digital.
[21:49]And it does still exist digitally.
[21:51]owner of women is owner of women.com now
[21:54]but the magazine I always,
[21:57]I just loved the magazine so much.
[21:58]I had such a, it just meant so much to me
[22:02]that it existed in the world as this tangible object
[22:06]that it was in bookstores next to afar
[22:08]and travel leisure to lose that was a,
[22:12]I say it in the book, killing your darlings.
[22:14]It really was a killing of my darling
[22:16]to give up that magazine.
[22:18]Well, it's interesting to talk about this
[22:19]because we have this magazine
[22:21]about Zibi Mag and I really want it to be print
[22:23]even though obviously everything is going
[22:25]in the wrong direction.
[22:26]I feel like I keep leading my businesses
[22:28]in all of the ways where everyone's like,
[22:30]okay bookstores dying but magazine,
[22:32]what are you doing?
[22:33]You're like going backwards but I love it though.
[22:36]It's totally different.
[22:37]Like I love when the magazines come that I love
[22:40]and I like save them for a time when I can like go through them.
[22:43]It's not the same thing when I'm just like scrolling
[22:46]through articles.
[22:47]What I will say about Zibi Mag
[22:48]which I actually am familiar with Zibi.
[22:50]I'm familiar with everything you're doing in this space
[22:52]because I think it's so amazing.
[22:55]But for Zibi Mag, what I will say is that,
[22:58]take my lesson and learn from me
[23:02]because what I learned with other women magazine
[23:04]was that we were trying to do it at the time quarterly.
[23:09]And I wish that I had scaled back.
[23:13]I wish that I had allowed myself time
[23:16]to kind of like breathe in between issues
[23:19]and instead I just kept pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing
[23:23]because I was afraid that somebody else would swoop in
[23:26]and kind of like step on our toes
[23:28]and take that opportunity away.
[23:31]And in retrospect, what I now realizes that
[23:34]if I had scaled back, if I had done maybe two issues a year
[23:37]and done it more thoughtfully targeted the New York market
[23:41]as opposed to just immediately go across the country
[23:44]where people haven't even heard of it.
[23:46]If I had been slower and more intentional,
[23:49]who knows what would have been?
[23:50]So I don't think that it's impossible
[23:54]to have an indie magazine.
[23:56]I actually think that there's a real renaissance
[23:58]of indie magazines right now,
[24:00]but I think it has to be slow.
[24:04]It's very slow and steady once the race.
[24:07]And I like slow.
[24:08]I'm not good at that.
[24:09]Yeah, never in my obviously.
[24:11]I know, I'm like, who aren't either.
[24:14]Like slow and steady, what race?
[24:15]No, you're my sole sister here.
[24:17]We're the same.
[24:22]Do you have plans for more books?
[24:23]What do you think?
[24:24]Yes, I am in the very early stages of writing my third book,
[24:28]which will be fiction.
[24:30]But true to form, it will be very rooted in reality.
[24:37]I'm a little nervous about it.
[24:38]I will say because everything I've ever written is nonfiction
[24:43]because keep in mind, you know,
[24:44]I am a journalist.
[24:45]My background is travel journalism.
[24:48]I'm now travel editor at Photo's Travel.
[24:50]I'm a senior editor there.
[24:52]So everything I do, everything that I've done,
[24:55]what pays the bills is nonfiction writing.
[24:58]So I am both nervous and thrilled
[25:01]for this opportunity to try my hand at fiction.
[25:03]This book, next book will be very different,
[25:06]which I am very much looking forward to.
[25:08]Wow, well, I wrote a novel
[25:11]after only writing nonfiction my entire life
[25:13]basically and it was, for me,
[25:15]I felt like I had to write many novels
[25:18]to figure out how to write a novel.
[25:19]I love that.
[25:20]I couldn't just do it once and I'm like,
[25:22]oh yeah, I got this like over and over and over again.
[25:26]And how did you find that initial switch
[25:29]from nonfiction to fiction?
[25:31]Like was it very jarring?
[25:33]Well, the first I was like, this is basically
[25:35]a memoir, but I'm making a fiction,
[25:37]but then I moved into like actually
[25:39]I'm trying to write a novel, but it's still hard.
[25:41]I mean, it's still hard, I'm trying to get now.
[25:42]It's like, I don't know.
[25:43]I'm still every time I'm like,
[25:45]I don't know, can I do this?
[25:46]I'm not sure.
[25:47]I'm very much in that same head space.
[25:50]I think how I'm finding it is that
[25:53]I find myself writing nonfiction.
[25:57]And then being like, wait,
[25:59]I could take liberties with this.
[26:00]I don't have to be like, so to the book and to the letter
[26:04]and like, I can change these details.
[26:06]I can play this up.
[26:07]I can add this dialogue.
[26:08]I can switch this location.
[26:11]And so that's very freeing.
[26:12]Because obviously with memoir, you can't do that.
[26:17]So I do enjoy the liberties,
[26:19]but my nature is to definitely stick to nonfiction.
[26:23]So I have to keep reminding myself like,
[26:25]add, embellish, have fun, you don't have to color
[26:30]within the lines.
[26:32]Like we need to have a coffee.
[26:33]Discuss this a little bit more.
[26:34]Oh, I would love it.
[26:35]One sentence advice for aspiring authors, take notes,
[26:39]always take notes throughout your life.
[26:41]Honest, even if you don't have a book idea in mind,
[26:45]even if you're not even sure you wanna write a book,
[26:48]capture moments, write down anything that inspires you,
[26:53]keep journals if that's you.
[26:55]Just take notes.
[26:57]One of the biggest things that helped me
[26:58]in writing call you when I land
[27:00]and retracing my life over the past 10 years
[27:04]was the fact that I had old journals.
[27:07]I had old notes.
[27:09]I had maps that I had written notes on
[27:12]about places I had been to when I was in Vietnam.
[27:15]And I was able to cobble together all of this material
[27:19]and bring myself back to these moments and retrace steps
[27:23]and remember the name of that hostile and Hanoi
[27:26]that I'd stayed at and then look on a map
[27:28]and find the place where I ate that on me sandwich.
[27:31]And at the time, I had no idea that I would write a book.
[27:37]I wasn't doing it for a story.
[27:38]I was just doing it for myself
[27:41]and if future family members wanted to go to Hanoi
[27:43]and try that restaurant.
[27:46]And now I see the value in that.
[27:47]So my biggest piece of advice is keep track of things.
[27:51]Write it down.
[27:52]If you're in a market in Europe, jot down a sentence
[27:55]of what it smells like, what it sounds like,
[27:57]what it feels like because it will bring you back
[28:00]and jog your memory in such a useful way.
[28:03]Amazing.
[28:04]Thank you. Thank you so much.
[28:05]Call you in.
[28:06]I land.
[28:07]Congratulations.
[28:08]Thank you so much for having me.
[28:10]So of course, my pleasure.
[28:12]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time
[28:15]to Read Books.
[28:16]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram, at Zebioans
[28:19]and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[28:21]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebioans.com
[28:23]and sign up for my virtual book club
[28:25]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[28:28]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan in fact,
[28:29]Texture Sound for the Sound Editing.
[28:31]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[28:33]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.