Jane Costello, IT'S GETTING HOT IN HERE: A Novel
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[0:44]Jane Costello is the author of It's Getting Hot in Here, a novel.
[0:49]This is one of the books we are publishing from Zibi Publishing, formerly called Zibi
[0:53]Books.
[0:54]I am so obsessed with this book, it is funny and real and poignant, and all the things
[1:00]that I look for in a great read, you have to follow Jane on social, because her social
[1:06]channel, I think it's at Jane Costello, is just a love letter to women, and why 40-year-old
[1:14]women are still where it's at, and anyway, she's just amazing, and funny, which I love.
[1:20]Jane Costello is a best-selling British novelist whose romantic comedies have sold over
[1:24]a million copies in the UK.
[1:26]Her novel Yumi Everything, published under the pseudonym Catherine Isaac, has been
[1:30]translated into 26 languages.
[1:33]She lives in Liverpool, England, with her husband, and three cents.
[1:37]Again, Jane Costello, It's Getting Hot in Here.
[1:40]Welcome, Jane, thank you so much for coming on mom's don't have time to read books,
[1:44]to discuss its getting hot in here, your novel, which as you know, we are publishing
[1:49]in the US, and I am obsessed with in every way, and so excited to talk to you.
[1:54]Oh, I'm so excited to be here, and yeah, I cannot describe how excited I am.
[2:00]about the forthcoming publication, which is just, yeah, it's just a rise already, it's
[2:08]just fantastic.
[2:09]So, this is really unique for us, because it has come out already in the UK.
[2:14]So, we already have a peak at what happened, and it's almost like, it's like we can go
[2:20]back in the time machine, or something, and see what's it, or a fast forward, or whatever.
[2:24]So I want to hear how that's been, but first I want you to tell everybody what it's
[2:28]getting hot in here is about, and like, the backstory of it, and I'm with the whole
[2:33]story.
[2:34]Okay, well, it's a romantic comedy about a woman in her 40s, and my leading lady is called
[2:40]Lisa Darling, and she's a single mom of two, one of whom is, I think it's fair to say,
[2:46]a delightfully difficult teenager.
[2:48]I think they are, absolutely, absolutely endless material on that front, so I have, but
[2:56]yeah, she's a TV executive, she's perimenopausal, she is a member of the school PTA, and
[3:04]she's been divorced twice, and she has the to-do list from hell.
[3:10]And we meet her at the start of the book when she's supporting her best friend and colleague
[3:15]Rose through breast cancer treatment, and Rose's replacement has sort of swept in from
[3:22]the Los Angeles office, and he's a guy called Zach Russo, and he's sort of sent hearts
[3:28]of flutter across the office, but Lisa takes an instant dislike to him, because she,
[3:35]A, she's convinced he wants Rose's job permanently, and B, because he puts the breaks
[3:42]on a project that she's been working on for months and months, so she is very unhappy about
[3:46]that.
[3:48]Well, fireworks, since you have a lot of chemistry, a lot of chemistry, and all of this
[3:54]chemistry culminates in this steamy and ill-advised clinch that she has with him after they've
[4:00]had both had one too many drinks after work, and yes, that's a sort of, you know, the beginning
[4:06]of her, it is a rom-com, very much a rom-com, hopefully it'll make you laugh, but I think it's
[4:13]also a portrait of what it's like to be a mid-life woman in the 21st century, and all the
[4:21]things we have to juggle and deal with, so yeah, well, I love that you are the poster child for
[4:27]women in their 40s, and the fact that there is room for love and romance, and that we are not just
[4:36]moms, or we are not just taking care of the older generation, we are not just like you just have
[4:42]your rebranding this whole age group, and you are like the perfect most glamorous person to do it,
[4:48]I love it, like let you be the one to do a rebrand, I appreciate it.
[4:53]Well, I really honestly, I wanted this to be a celebration of mid-life, you know, obviously we
[4:59]have to deal with, we have a load of things thrown at us, and then that's very much reflected
[5:05]in the book, she does not have an easy time of it, but I just wanted, I just felt this urge to
[5:10]write a book that was funny and optimistic, and just a celebration of actually a time in your life
[5:17]when you've probably, you know, we've all built up these lifelong friendships, you know,
[5:22]we've got a bit of experience under our belt, and actually yes, as you say, there's still time for
[5:28]love, and you know, there's a well, I don't know what to say, but it is a bit steamy the book as
[5:34]well, and I sort of deliberately did that, because I thought, you know, this is, there's room for
[5:39]this, there's room for this, and it's important that that is not just something that's associated
[5:44]with women who are in their 20s who, you know, really had just looking for Mr. Wright for the first
[5:50]time in their lives, and yeah, so very much a celebration of mid-life. But do you think women in their
[5:58]20s are as tired as we are? I mean, Lisa's to do this, as I know I've told you, but Kathleen
[6:12]who is our executive editor in the book, she started reading page one and was like, oh my God,
[6:16]Zippy, like this is your, like you have to read this immediately, and any woman or parent or whatever,
[6:23]will just feel so seen right away by like the endless stuff and how doing all this stuff,
[6:31]you know, it's like we have to do it while on ice skates or something, right? You know, it's like
[6:36]with like undulations in the rink, like everything is against us, and yet there's more and more
[6:41]we have to hold. So, Zippy, you feel like you're drowning in it sometimes, and I think especially when
[6:48]you've got, I've got three kids, I know you've got before ever. What? Okay, okay, oh my god,
[6:53]hats off. But yeah, it's so good. You get this hats off. It's just endless, isn't it? You know,
[7:00]and so you have this, you have these to-do list that's full of really important stuff,
[7:05]but then there's so many items on there that are things like bisocks or, you know, organize
[7:11]such and such for a, I don't know, an art project next week, or, and it's just endless
[7:17]thing, you know, schools are very demanding, I think, these days, and, you know, when you're juggling
[7:23]that with a career and all kinds of other things, especially as, you know, I've been a single
[7:28]parent for a long time in my life, and it's really tough when you're on your own doing all that,
[7:34]it really is, but somehow we manage and still celebrate our friendships, and you still manage to have
[7:40]fun throughout the whole thing. So that's what I'm really wanted the book to, you know,
[7:45]I want to do that, and I completely come through. Yes, absolutely. Wait, so how old are your kids now?
[7:53]So my eldest is 19, and then I've got a 16 year old, and I don't have a year old as well,
[7:58]all boys. So mine is a busy, let's say, very noisy household.
[8:03]This is none of my business, but were you divorced twice? Like Lisa divorced. No, no, no,
[8:12]no, absolutely. No, I was divorced once, but I deliberately made that. I just wanted her to be divorced
[8:19]twice because the thing about Lisa is, she is really, really good at certain parts of her life.
[8:27]She's fantastic at work. She's an absolute killer in those meetings. You know, she takes
[8:32]no nonsense from anybody, but in parts of her personal life, the wheels have just come off,
[8:39]and she's made some, she's made some bad decisions really. And I think certainly in her marriages,
[8:48]she's, you can see she's sort of a romantic, you know, she's, she's, she fell in love really
[8:54]young and got married quickly and it ended equally quickly, but then was convinced that, you know,
[9:02]the guy she married and had kids with would, you know, be the one. And he made the decision to leave,
[9:07]you know, and she feels almost embarrassed about the twice divorce thing, you know, as if it's
[9:14]something people in Hollywood do, but not in real life. And yeah, and I think that's very much
[9:21]kind of made her reluctant to ever. And she's sort of convinced herself, you know, this is a time
[9:26]in my life. I'm not, I'm never having my fingers burnt ever ever again. But yeah, so the wheels
[9:32]come off in certain parts of her life set certainly with the dealing with the teenager, you know,
[9:37]you can see she is a really good mom at heart, but teenagers can be challenging. And he,
[9:45]I made sure that I did not hold back on that front. So I did not want to rose tint any of that.
[9:51]And he, despite the fact that you sort of know he's a good kid, deep down, or that's what I wanted,
[9:57]to me says, yes, you get that.
[10:00]good kid and he's going to come out the other side of it, but it's not fun. It really isn't fun.
[10:05]That sort of thing. So yeah, she sort of, she's a kind of multi-faceted character, I would say.
[10:11]I know. It's like the fact that when kids become teenagers, it's like invasion of the body
[10:18]snatchers, like the people, the sweet loving, cuddly things you can always count on,
[10:24]become like completely different animals. You know, it's like we once tried to rescue this puppy
[10:29]and I was like, oh my gosh, I've literally brought a wild animal into my home.
[10:32]You know, like, why did I do this? But that was a choice. You know, this is just one more thing
[10:39]that happens. And I mean, I love my teenagers. They're amazing. But, you know, it's an unpredictability
[10:44]of all of it. It's like nothing, nothing, like even the people you live with completely can change.
[10:51]It's like, what next? Yeah, absolutely. And the mortality, like you have with her friend,
[10:58]like that in the middle of others were also being like, oh yeah, right. And we're all going to die
[11:03]and like, maybe my best friend is dying. And like, I have to hold that too. I mean, that's like,
[11:08]it's a lot. Yeah. But I think we all sort of, you know, by the time you've reached a certain,
[11:15]I mean, this is a book that couldn't have been written about a woman in her 20s. You know,
[11:19]it's very much a woman in midlife. And you sort of, you know, by the time you've built up French
[11:25]and so many friendships, like you do when you've reached this stage. You know, we know people who
[11:30]terrible things have happened to whether it's, you know, not necessarily on this, but, you know,
[11:34]we've been through a lot of stuff and supported friends, hopefully. And, you know, so I just
[11:40]really wanted it to be a reflection of that. I feel like if anyone is going to come up with a
[11:45]clever name for midlife, it should be you, Jane. So if you could help us, you know, you're
[11:51]on the front lines of the rebrand. And I love that. But midlife is just such an unsexy name for
[11:57]this time. Let's find a new name. Could you do that on the side? Yeah. Although it's better than
[12:03]middle aged. To me, I used to think middle aged just sounded, I don't know. Well,
[12:10]told me I'd be writing a book about a middle aged woman. It just sounds so unglamorous.
[12:14]I know. And yeah, I'm afraid that's what we are. I know. I know. I don't feel the fact that
[12:21]the really thing, silly thing is. And I'm sure we all feel the same. You know, our bodies have
[12:27]changed. We've got a lot of history under our belt by feel fundamentally the same as I did when I
[12:33]was 25. And, you know, my personality and core is exactly the same. And I think that's one of the
[12:41]things that sort of take, she finds the broadness. I literally said that in a meeting yesterday,
[12:47]we were talking about like marketing to midlife women. And I'm like, but we can't say that. I was
[12:51]like, because I feel like I'm 28. No one identifies, even if you know it logically. Like, I don't,
[12:59]I don't know. It just doesn't sound right. But it sounds like that's double happen when I'm
[13:05]finally a grown up. You know, no, no, that's not going to happen. Yeah. Okay. On the side, come up
[13:09]at the better name or chart. Okay. I'll do that. I'll work on that. Okay. Thank you. But you
[13:14]have been writing throughout, right? This is not your first rodeo here. You've written like a
[13:19]zillion bucks and you've been writing for years and have two different pen names because you have
[13:23]so many books. You can't even fit it into one name. I mean, it's like shameful to the rest of us.
[13:28]And you've like taken the reader through, you know, in the same vein as like, you know, Sophie
[13:34]can sell a Marion keys. Like, you know, your, your, your, your characters are growing with us
[13:39]as we're all aging and you like nail each time zone, time frame rather. So just tell, tell me more
[13:45]about how you got started writing and, you know, sort of like your outlook on all that when you
[13:51]were younger, how it's shifted and some of the successes that you had back then and, you know,
[13:58]oh, okay. Okay. Oh my gosh. That was a big question. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, like all authors,
[14:06]I loved reading, you know, I just love reading as a, as a little girl. And I always say that stemmed
[14:11]from the fact that when I was growing up, my mom had been involved in a car accident before I was
[14:16]born. So she was in a wheelchair fully wheelchair bound. And so she and I, when I was a little girl,
[14:23]really worked sort of house bound together. And we would read all day long. And I just loved it,
[14:32]you know, I just became a massive reader from when I was really, really young and, you know,
[14:36]love, I really enjoyed writing. You know what it's like, when you sort of young, you think
[14:41]saying I want to be an author feels like saying I want to be a pop star, it feels, I was
[14:45]not too sensible to, to sort of ever imagine that that was within my grasp, you know, so
[14:52]I did what I thought was the next, next best thing. And I became a journalist. And I really
[14:58]enjoyed journalism worked in newspapers. I was the editor of the local newspaper in Liverpool.
[15:03]And it was while I was on maternity leave with my eldest son who's now 19. And that I thought,
[15:10]you know, I've really got to now's the time, you know,
[15:16]Trinity leave didn't quite leave this amount of free time that I ever imagined it would,
[15:20]to be honest, but I just knew I had to, you know, take the opportunity there and really
[15:26]actually do something about this ambition. So I wrote the first three chapters. Well,
[15:32]I got the idea from my first book, which was called Bridesmaids. It was before the film,
[15:37]by the way, it was original idea. And I got the idea, 19 years ago, as I was sitting in a,
[15:44]in a pew at a friend's wedding. I saw her and her, you know, Bridesmaids walked down the island.
[15:49]I thought, is anybody ever written a wrong calm called Bridesmaids? And I'm going to go,
[15:54]but just decided then I was going to go home. And if nobody had, I thought, I got to do this.
[16:00]So anyway, sure enough, I wrote the first three chapters and a synopsis sent it off to a
[16:05]an agent. And he took me on, basically. And that was it. And that was the start of what would
[16:12]then become a career, a sort of decade long career at the time, writing romantic comedy,
[16:19]you know, as Jane Costello, I was a top 10 bestseller in the UK. Unlike, it's getting hot in here,
[16:27]they were very much, you know, women in their 20s, finding Mr. Wright for the first time, with
[16:33]lots of humor in it, which, you know, as you probably guessed, is one of my trademarks. And then
[16:40]I, I sort of reached, I got to my ninth book and I was in my 40s myself and I thought, I can't,
[16:48]I can't realistically write something related to all of that. The ship has sailed about a woman
[16:56]who's in her 20s. And it was then that my career took this sort of different direction. And I
[17:02]wrote my first book as Catherine Isaac. And that book was called, You Me Everything, that house
[17:08]been published in the US, the other, the others happened. But yeah, that is really well and
[17:13]sort of sold all over the world. And, and it was a slightly different direction in the sense that
[17:19]it was very much still a love story, but it dealt with some sort of tougher themes I suppose.
[17:24]That book was about a woman who takes her 10 year old son on a road trip to the south of France
[17:31]to spend the summer with his estranged father. And the reason she's doing that is because she's
[17:36]discovered there is Huntington's disease in the family. And so there's, it's not a book about a disease,
[17:42]it's a love story, but obviously we're dealing with themes like that. It's not a rom-com, hence
[17:48]the fact that we had the different name. And really it was only sort of last year that I just
[17:56]felt this urge having kind of, you know, reached my late 40s and myself to to go back to writing
[18:03]the rom-coms. Because all those years when I was writing as Catherine Isaac, every book event
[18:09]I went to in the UK, people were coming up to me saying, when are you going to write another Jane
[18:13]Costello for another one? And I sort of battered it away for ages until I sort of hit on this idea
[18:23]that I just don't write it about a woman in her 20s anymore. I now write it about a woman in her 40s
[18:29]and the result is it's getting hot in here. That felt like a really long answer to your question.
[18:36]No, honestly, I just want to like feed up on the desk and kick back and listen to more stories.
[18:41]No, I'm like, please, I'll take a breath now. No, don't take a breath. Keep entertaining me. I
[18:47]love this story. I mean, it's a it's this true success story. And it's it shows you can make a
[18:54]career of writing and it can be a dream, but also a reality. And I find that you switched names
[19:01]very interesting and also a bit confusing. Like, how do you feel about that now? Like, because I
[19:05]feel like Jane Costello, like, don't you, doesn't, isn't she allowed to have range, you know?
[19:11]Yeah. Yeah. To be honest, I, with Heinz, I mean, it was that there have been a few times where,
[19:17]you know, certainly it took some getting used to at the time because they call you Catherine and
[19:22]book down. And I see looking blankly and then go, oh, yes, me. But your name is Jane Costello,
[19:28]right? Your real name is my surname is I'm Jane, but my surname is Catherine. Sorry, my middle name
[19:34]name is Catherine. And his name is Isaac. So that that was totally. Yeah. But yes, I mean, you know,
[19:41]yes, it's it could have been done either way, I guess, is the answer.
[19:48]It all worked out fine. But yeah, it does get confusing. So it's certainly in the UK where I'm
[19:54]very much known as Jane Costello. I would say, I'd say, you know, that was the kind of
[20:00]big a name that I had. But yeah, I mean, like I say, you
[20:03]me everything was, you know, did did really well. And
[20:07]there was a movie in the offering at one point until we
[20:09]had the small matter of a pandemic, which was a bit of a
[20:13]shame. But yeah, it was, yeah, it was a really interesting
[20:17]time in my career. And yeah, why were the Jane Castello books
[20:22]to refer to you now as like an object, but whatever? Why were
[20:26]those never in the US? Like, I feel like I would have eaten
[20:30]those up in my 20s? Well, I had, I, I didn't have the same
[20:35]agent at the time. It was like, you know, I don't know whether
[20:37]it was just one of those publishing things. I don't know.
[20:41]But I think that I, yeah, I mean, in much, it did so well
[20:45]here. Yeah. But I think at the time, you know, you know what
[20:48]publishing is like, it goes in fashion, doesn't it? And at
[20:51]the time, everyone was, although it was, they were doing
[20:55]really well in the UK. I think it was all about 50 shades
[20:59]of gray. Every was like the big thing. Do you know what I mean?
[21:02]And everybody was after that sort of thing. And then it was
[21:04]vampires after. And so, but yeah, so it was just one of those
[21:10]weird. But I don't believe my agent ever at the time ever
[21:14]offered it out to anybody in the, in the US. So it was just,
[21:18]we just very much focused on, on the UK really. It was one of
[21:22]those things. And it was only, you know, when I sort of
[21:26]moved, moved agents and then wrote you me everything that
[21:30]that really did. I mean, that was sold into 26 countries.
[21:32]So it was my gosh. I know. I know. So it's so it that was
[21:36]just like the most amazing time for me. Because although I'd
[21:39]had, you know, I'd been published in the odd country, nothing
[21:43]like that. You know, so it did sort of open up this whole of
[21:46]the chapter. But it was, it was for no other reason than we
[21:50]had publishing, you know, reasons, basically, rather than
[21:54]it necessarily being a book that wouldn't work over
[21:58]there. I would say well, I mean, we're now going to benefit
[22:01]from that lapse, because I am so honored to be bringing
[22:06]it over your voice. It's so amazing. I love how you
[22:10]write. So what are you working on now? Because I have a
[22:13]glimmer and you put a little bit in, you know, talk about
[22:15]that next book. Well, I'm so enjoying it. I've never
[22:20]written a sequel or a follow-up or anything like that
[22:24]to to any of my books before, because I always sort of thought,
[22:28]well, once you've got, you know, if you're writing in an
[22:30]a romance genre, once you've got them together, I don't want to
[22:33]pull them apart again and undo things in a sort of a natural
[22:37]way. So I've always resisted that. But somebody came up with
[22:41]somebody mentioned, now I've never seen Bridgeton, but
[22:44]apparently the sort of way they do it is they focus on
[22:49]one, it's all set in the same world, but they focus on one
[22:54]character in one episode, and then a different character in
[22:57]another episode, and then another one. And so this we've
[23:00]sort of put on to something really, and this, so this is
[23:03]what I'm doing. And so I'm writing a follow-up. It's not
[23:08]quite a sequel because it's sort of different characters, but set
[23:11]in the same world. And it's called 40 Love. And as you might have
[23:16]guessed, it's a sort of, it's about tennis, but it's anybody
[23:22]who is not even slightly interested in tennis, I would hope
[23:25]would be interested in it, because it's a love story, and it's
[23:29]about somebody sort of rediscovering. You know, they love a
[23:33]sport and camaraderie, and finding this whole outlet in their
[23:37]life that they never imagined they'd have at the in their
[23:40]full teeth. Well, I just love this. And the fact that I tried
[23:44]to publish a book called 40 Love, it's just so perfect that
[23:47]now you're coming along and doing it, and you're going to do a
[23:49]much better job, and my book was pretty terrible, and
[23:51]oh, you know, no, it's fine. It's fine. I tried to make it a
[23:56]little more literary. I didn't make it funny in retrospect
[24:00]whatever, and I tried to write it as memoir, but I had to leave a
[24:02]lot out. So whatever, it wasn't meant to be for me, but
[24:05]clearly like the universe has put 40 Love in my life,
[24:09]because of all the people. Now it's you writing, it's perfect.
[24:13]It's just totally perfect. Wait, so the character from it's getting
[24:16]hard in here? Well, it's a new character book. It's
[24:20]actually Jeff's sister. And she becomes one of the friends,
[24:26]basically. Oh, that's awesome. And yeah, it's, I'm loving it. I'm
[24:30]loving it, but I am determined to write it for anybody,
[24:35]even if they're not even remotely interested in tennis, because
[24:38]I just think, I mean, I'm, I love tennis myself. I think you
[24:42]I'm all right in saying you are. Yes, it is. Yes, you have
[24:46]in tennis connections yourself. But yes, but I, you know, I'm
[24:53]not, it's not a tennis book. It's just that sort of one of the
[24:57]key themes, if you know what I mean. It's a book about them.
[25:00]Yeah, it's another celebration of a midlife woman.
[25:04]I love it. Oh my gosh, I cannot wait to read that. I'm like,
[25:07]jumping, jumping it's a bit. The little section I read is so good.
[25:11]I mean, you're so good. It's just really amazing. Just a question on
[25:15]process. Like, how are you doing all of these? Like, you
[25:18]obviously have the whole story arc down the pacing, the
[25:20]timing, like how much is down ahead and how much is in the
[25:24]moment and like, what are any secrets that we can all benefit
[25:27]from? Okay. Well, I've become, I've always been a planner,
[25:32]and I think I've become even more of a planner over the years,
[25:36]because I just find that if I don't plan things out properly, then
[25:40]it just, I just end up sort of undoing things, and it's all
[25:43]really messy. And to be honest, even when you plan a book,
[25:48]it's messy and difficult, you know, because you get loads of ideas
[25:52]and you realize that some things don't work. And
[25:55]but yeah, I spend a long time, I would say, trying to make sure that
[25:59]every story line makes sense is building excitement,
[26:04]is making the pages turn, is saying something interesting. And
[26:09]yeah, I do make sure I do that whole thing before I sit down and
[26:14]write chapter one, because it's just, I don't, you know, that's
[26:18]just my way of doing it. I'm sort of in awe of authors who can
[26:21]just sit down at a computer and see where it takes them. But
[26:25]I've tried it and it just definitely wouldn't work for me. And in
[26:29]terms of the process, in terms of my sort of, you know, routine,
[26:33]I've become sort of quite strict with myself
[26:37]over the years, I would say. So my mornings are only for writing
[26:42]and nothing else. I don't answer emails. I don't do social media.
[26:46]If anyone phones, it goes unanswered. This is, you know, this is what I do.
[26:51]And I write in sort of hour-long chunks. So I use a focus app and I just
[26:57]refuse to move from my screen, no matter what, do it for an hour,
[27:02]and then take a little break and then do another hour. And I do that four
[27:06]times. And once I've done that, I sort of allow myself to
[27:10]take a breath and, you know, move on to all the other stuff, of which
[27:14]you know, there's multiple days. When I first started,
[27:18]there was basically Twitter and Facebook and that was it. But it's become
[27:22]this whole, you know, authors have got to be far more switched on and do a
[27:26]bit of everything these days. So relentless.
[27:30]Yes, it is. And you do that five days a week, like Monday to Friday.
[27:34]Yes, yeah. And I'll be honest, you know, the
[27:38]writing is my favourite bit. You know, social media is great.
[27:42]You know, it's lovely to be able to connect with readers and I have a
[27:45]newsletter as well, which I enjoy writing. But, you know,
[27:50]when the writing is going well, you know, we'll have off days.
[27:55]And your book blank, by the way, just brought me out.
[27:58]Oh, my God. Such a, I loved it so much. But as a fellow
[28:02]writer, that I, oh, God, we all know that pain has not been
[28:06]able to go with an idea. We all know that. Yeah, it just
[28:11]gosh, it described that feeling so well. But yeah, it's
[28:15]but I just, but that's partly why I find the planning really,
[28:18]really helps me because the really is nothing worse when you just
[28:21]feel like you're, you don't have the answer. And despite the fact
[28:26]that this will be the book I'm writing at the moment is my
[28:29]16th novel. I still have that stupid thing at the beginning of
[28:34]writing a book where I go, this will be the one where I
[28:36]forget how to do it or this will be the terrible one. This,
[28:40]this is bound to be the one that won't work or, you know,
[28:44]certainly at the beginning, you'll know if the beginning of
[28:47]writing, starting a book is really hard, isn't it?
[28:50]Yes. And it feels a bit clunky and the characters don't feel
[28:54]very real. And you sort of take a bit of warming off, I would say,
[28:58]but then once that happens and you're away and that magic happens
[29:02]where it catches fire, there's, there's nothing better.
[29:06]Totally agree. Oh my gosh. Well, we are so honored to be publishing. It's
[29:11]getting hot in here. I am so excited. I want to just like
[29:16]listen to you talk all day. Get soak up all your advice, experience,
[29:21]and anyway. Thank you, Jane. Thank you for everything.
[29:24]And I can't wait to read everything. I can't wait for people to
[29:28]discover your book and laugh and see themselves and escape
[29:32]themselves and all the things that a good book does. So thank you so
[29:35]much. Oh, Zibi, thank you. This has been brilliant. And
[29:39]yeah, oh, I can't just can't wait to let comes out. Thank you so much.
[29:43]Okay. Thank you. Thank you for listening to totally bucked
[29:46]with Zibi. Formerly, moms don't have time to read books.
[29:50]If you loved the show, tell a friend. Leave a review.
[29:53]Follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens and spread the word.
[29:57]Thanks so much. Go and buy the books.