Lori Gold, ROMANTIC FRICTION
[0:00]Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Book to Zibi.
[0:06]Formerly, moms don't have time to read books.
[0:08]In my daily show, I interview today's latest, best-selling, buzziest, or underrated authors
[0:14]and story creators, whose work I think is worth your time.
[0:18]As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously a podcaster, I get a comprehensive
[0:24]look at everything that's coming up, and spend my time curating the best books, so you
[0:29]don't have to.
[0:30]Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests, like I do, every single
[0:35]day.
[0:36]For more information, go to zibimedia.com and follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens.
[0:44]Lori Gold is the author of Romantic Friction.
[0:48]She is also the author of an adult historical and four novels for young adults.
[0:53]She currently lives outside Boston, where she fosters a writing community through her
[0:57]creative writing classes, book coaching, and writing retreats.
[1:00]Romantic Friction is her book club fiction debut.
[1:04]She has a second book club fiction coming, spent on the game of Mary Kisser-Kill, which
[1:09]will come out in April of 2026.
[1:12]Welcome, Lori.
[1:13]Thanks for coming on to talk about romantic friction and novel.
[1:17]Congratulations.
[1:18]Thank you.
[1:19]Thank you for having me.
[1:20]Oh my gosh, I really enjoyed this book.
[1:23]It is the best behind the scenes in publishing.
[1:26]The voice is so funny.
[1:28]It literally you pack in like every paragraph has like another 12 things about the publishing
[1:34]world and the author life that you just somehow, I'm like, I can't even like miss a sentence
[1:39]because everything is so on target and so funny.
[1:42]So I don't know.
[1:44]Congratulations.
[1:45]Thank you.
[1:46]Congratulations.
[1:47]I'm glad you found it funny because I love writing with humor and I love making myself
[1:51]laugh, but you never know if other people are going to find it funny too.
[1:54]I found it really funny.
[1:56]OK, tell us in there's what romantic friction is about.
[2:00]OK, so it is about a best-selling romantic, the author named Sophie Wild.
[2:04]And she is at the height of her career when she discovers that another author has used
[2:09]AI to write in her style.
[2:12]And instead of that author in the book being canceled, as we might expect in this unexpected
[2:16]world, fans embrace it.
[2:18]And she's called Innovative in the Press and social media is trending all about this author
[2:24]and probably the worst insult to Sophie who has worked so hard to get where she is in
[2:28]her career is that the other author is invited to the largest romance readers convention
[2:33]in the country, something that Sophie didn't get invited to for years.
[2:37]And so Sophie is understandably a little, a little, take us a front to this and she bans
[2:43]together with her fellow authors at that convention to try to take this AI author down.
[2:48]Anyway, they can, which will involve committing a felony?
[2:53]This one does.
[2:54]It is a softer world, right?
[2:58]So there are so many different themes, when to be a leading author and to maintain that
[3:04]sort of mantle, it's not always as easy as it seems.
[3:08]Talk a little bit about how you portray this through your character and that even the
[3:13]most successful authors, like let's just say this is ill and ill to random or something
[3:16]like that, like even the most successful in your book, where I have this underlying fear
[3:22]that at any moment, it can all just stop.
[3:25]Yeah.
[3:26]And you know, I think that's very realistic for how we all feel as writers and no matter
[3:31]the level you're at, there's always another level to get to.
[3:34]And I think it's hard to, you know, kind of wrap your head around that for me even when
[3:37]I was looking for an agent and first starting out, it's like I'll just be happy with
[3:41]the deal.
[3:42]I'll just be happy with this.
[3:43]But you know, the book is also about being ambitious and not apologizing for being ambitious.
[3:48]And I think that's a part of the writer experience and struggle because you're looking
[3:53]to improve, you're looking to improve your deals, your readership, the craft of writing,
[3:58]which I think Sophie, you know, wants to improve upon as well.
[4:02]And so I really wanted to be both transparent and encouraging at the same time when I'm
[4:07]talking about this author world and this experience.
[4:10]But for someone like Sophie, she starts out, you know, hybrid authors doing self-publishing
[4:14]and traditional publishing right now are becoming much more commonplace than it was even when I
[4:18]started out 10 years ago.
[4:20]And she feels like she has really paid her dues to kind of figure out how does this industry
[4:25]work?
[4:26]Because that's part of this process.
[4:27]How do editors work?
[4:29]How do publishing houses work?
[4:30]How do I self-publish getting cover designers and getting it up online and doing all of
[4:35]the production for it?
[4:36]There is so much to learn at every stage.
[4:39]And Sophie feels like she's done it all, you know, she's gone from self-publishing to
[4:43]the traditional publishing world and she has found success.
[4:48]But even there, you know you're only as good as your last book.
[4:52]And you know, right now, if you say something that you don't intend or, you know, it's
[4:56]taken the wrong way, you can be taken down.
[4:58]No, Sophie said something not so great in the book as this viral rant and that's part
[5:03]of why she gets some of this backlash.
[5:05]But there's always this fear that your readers could go away.
[5:08]And when you work so hard for something that's devastating.
[5:12]And so I wanted to portray that at every level writers feel this fear of what's going
[5:17]to happen.
[5:18]But I also think a fear of, are we good enough?
[5:20]You know, we think, you know, even if you have a lot of readers, I was just listening to
[5:24]another author who Victoria Ava, who's a friend of mine, and she was a huge romantic author
[5:29]moving into the adult space.
[5:31]And she was just saying, you know, I sent my book to my agent and she comes back and says
[5:35]it's great.
[5:36]And I'm like, but really?
[5:37]And we just have trouble believing that.
[5:40]And I think that's so much of that is swirling around our heads as writers.
[5:43]I feel as a group authors have to be sensitive, right?
[5:48]You have to pick up on so much to be able to write about it in a relatable way.
[5:53]And it often comes with anxiety and I feel like, as a group, then to have everything
[5:58]be put so much in numbers and sales and rankings and whatever, it's actually like the worst
[6:06]mix of industry with creators that there could be.
[6:11]Yeah.
[6:12]You know, I say this, I do some teaching and book coaching and I say this all the time
[6:16]that if you're going to pursue publication in any form, you have to be as arrogant as
[6:21]you are insecure because I think we have to be so arrogant to think out of all the wonderful
[6:25]books out there, mine's going to find a home of mine's going to find readers.
[6:29]But at the same time, if you don't have a little of this worry and self doubt in that
[6:33]anxiety and that, I think that pushes you to do your best.
[6:38]If you don't bring that to your projects, then all you have is the arrogance, right?
[6:42]All you have is something that, you know, is pushing, but maybe isn't the best craft
[6:48]that it can be as a book.
[6:49]So I think the anxiety and the self doubt gives you better books, but it certainly doesn't
[6:53]make it necessarily an enjoyable process all the time.
[6:57]Wait, take us back about what happened 10 years ago?
[7:00]How did you become an author?
[7:01]Give me the whole story.
[7:02]Sure.
[7:03]And even before that, like what were you doing?
[7:05]So I was a journalism major before that in college, and I worked on my high school newspaper,
[7:10]my college newspaper, and that's where my first career was.
[7:13]I would say writing is kind of my second career that I came to my first book was published
[7:17]about 10 years ago, and it probably started writing about three years before that.
[7:21]So I wasn't one of these authors who wanted to write, you know, since they were kid and
[7:25]since they could hold a crayon, I was always very much into the world of English and,
[7:30]you know, books and readers, I was a huge reader.
[7:32]You know, my mom would take me a library three times a week, and I would have this
[7:36]stack of books like this.
[7:37]She got so tired of taking me continuously that she would just hand me the biggest books
[7:41]we had in the house.
[7:42]We're seemingly always Stephen King, so I was probably like 10 years old, like reading
[7:47]these scariest Stephen King books, which is probably why I'm such a scaredy cat, too.
[7:50]It's like arm movies and things.
[7:53]But so I was always in the world of English, language, and reading and all of that.
[7:57]I don't know if it didn't occur to me that, like, being in author was a career.
[8:01]I went the more practical route, and that's probably part of my personality.
[8:05]If I'm going to write, I'll be a journalist.
[8:07]I can do that kind of writing, nonfiction writing.
[8:10]And so that's kind of where the first half of my career took me working for some magazines
[8:15]and newspapers.
[8:16]I got into technical editing, said that in the Boston area, and there's a lot of tech
[8:19]editing up here.
[8:21]It really wasn't what I wanted to do.
[8:23]It wasn't the type of writing or editing I was all that interested in.
[8:27]And so at some point, I took a pause and my husband said, why don't you try to write
[8:31]something creatively?
[8:32]And I was like, really?
[8:33]I've never taken a creative writing class ever.
[8:35]I was like, how do I do this?
[8:38]But of course, there's a little that arrogance that comes in, right?
[8:40]So I was like, oh, yeah, I could just sit down and write a book.
[8:43]That's just like, totally, by the way, put me to shame, right?
[8:45]Thank you.
[8:46]You were just like, I think I'll pick this up.
[8:48]Why not?
[8:49]I'm going to take one class and write this great now.
[8:52]Well, I ate a lot of crow because there was not that easy.
[8:57]The three years later, I had the equivalent of a manuscript, it was over 200,000 words,
[9:02]which is like Game of Thrones length, so it was like four books.
[9:06]It was like four books.
[9:07]It was kind of temporary women's fiction.
[9:09]I was like, I had no idea what I was doing.
[9:12]And so I had to take a step back and really figure out what is it that I'm doing.
[9:15]And I read a lot of craft books.
[9:17]I took some classes.
[9:19]And you know, that book I got into a form that was queryable.
[9:22]I could query with it.
[9:23]I didn't wind up getting an agent with it, but that agent said, if you write
[9:27]something else, come back to me.
[9:29]And I was writing something else.
[9:30]And that book was becoming gin, which became my first published novel, which is a YA novel.
[9:35]And so when I finished that, and I had learned a lot more about writing and I had hired
[9:39]editors and I had really tried to train myself of what is this I'm doing, then I was
[9:44]able to get that same agent actually became my agent and then becoming gin was my first
[9:49]book in 2015.
[9:50]Wow.
[9:51]And then why?
[9:53]And then I stayed in the YA world for three more books.
[9:56]And so I had a total of four young adult novels.
[10:00]then I knew I kind of wanted to transition into this
[10:02]upmarket book club fiction, but I got diverted on the way
[10:06]because I saw the play Hamilton and I found love with it
[10:10]and there is a song in Hamilton called Dear Theodosia
[10:14]and it's about Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton talking about
[10:18]their children and the fathers they want to be in this country they're
[10:21]passing along to them and as I sat in that theater I immediately
[10:24]thought of this Romeo and Juliet tale between the daughter of Aaron Burr
[10:28]and the son of Alexander Hamilton and so that sent me off on like it's
[10:33]my only true passion project as a writer I will say
[10:36]I came home from the play I did research and I wrote historical this
[10:40]historical fiction novel which I love reading but I never thought I would
[10:44]write as a writer and it's a hard process to write historical fiction
[10:49]so I wrote that I got it published and super proud of it
[10:53]but then I kind of went back to this world of where I thought I was going to go
[10:57]after the YA novels which was book club fiction and that's you know how
[11:00]romantic fiction kind of came to being oh my gosh
[11:04]not to put you on spot but have you read my novel blank because I tried to do
[11:07]something similar-ish I'd be unmasking of the industry
[11:12]so yes yes I feel like there aren't enough
[11:19]books like that take the industry and sort of poke fun
[11:24]but also unmask because I am routinely shocked
[11:28]even now even as a publisher and all this like I
[11:32]learned stuff every day about how things are actually working
[11:35]that as a reader I had literally no idea and like didn't guess
[11:39]you know I think we don't have any idea what goes on behind the scenes
[11:44]and you know maybe some of that's purposeful and I understand now why you
[11:48]don't know what to say yes but I think even you know published authors are
[11:51]surprised at some of the things that are in my book and your book
[11:54]in all of these books and you know what I wanted to do with this was
[11:58]kind of show the behind the scenes but you know so somebody you can one of
[12:02]the reviews they called it um evil parts mystery satire and
[12:05]industry roost yes well that's kind of that's kind of what it is
[12:09]so I wanted to do that behind the scenes but I did want to involve this little
[12:13]bit of like who done it keeper kind of you know feel to it to you know
[12:18]appeal to readers to their readers who love this behind the scenes stuff
[12:21]but I wanted there to be enough for everybody so you don't have to just
[12:24]want to read behind the scenes of Netflix I didn't mean to talk so much
[12:28]about you know motherhood and balancing all of that you know there's a lot
[12:31]for everybody and you know I think that's important to weave into these
[12:34]stories that might feel without that too much just
[12:37]about what it's like to be an author right now and I didn't mean to
[12:40]overemphasize that it's more than that but that is part of it
[12:44]I also found this whole AI subplot so interesting because I like everybody
[12:50]I'm thinking now so much about AI recently someone just sent me like a pitch
[12:55]that they could translate my podcast into all these other languages
[12:59]and they sent me my voice reading it in all these other languages
[13:03]and I was so freaked out like it sounds just like me
[13:08]so the fact that it's that easy to just take a voice
[13:12]take a writing style like what if what if someone could just
[13:17]write like you what makes us who we are our brains seriously just that
[13:22]I mean it opens all these questions what do you think about it
[13:26]you know so I think that is so interesting because a lot of when I
[13:29]I did some research about AI and it's always constantly changing right but
[13:32]one of the things that someone said that I think is very interesting is
[13:36]what makes something created by a human or not and is it the intention
[13:41]so if the intention comes from a human is the resulting
[13:45]body of work piece of entertainment still can we still call it created
[13:49]by a human or is it created by AI or by a computer
[13:53]so if the intention comes from that human does that change things
[13:57]I don't know you know I think these are all a lot of the conversations
[14:00]that we need to be having that I start to bring up in in AI
[14:04]you know even when you think of the world of like movies
[14:07]and CGI coming into do explosions or to do creatures that don't exist or even
[14:12]you know animation or humans that you know they're doing these movies that are
[14:17]taking a human and they're doing the movements but it's actually animated
[14:20]well is that the artist is that the actor actors or is that
[14:24]you know the the AI or the computer creating something we're in such
[14:29]this complex world and I think we have been for a while and we haven't really
[14:33]understood that you know even spellcheck is a form of AI
[14:37]you know even when you start taking the name in your email like in the two
[14:40]cent and like you start typing zi and it pops up zibi from your
[14:44]contacts that's a form of AI you know all of these things have been around
[14:48]us and now the spotlight is on them because the top
[14:51]technology is improving to do so much more than those sorts of tasks
[14:55]and I think it's in coming into the creative world of writing in a way it
[14:59]hasn't before that it maybe has in you know movies or
[15:02]that kind of form of entertainment so I think I have a lot of feelings
[15:06]about it what I think is the technology is
[15:09]continuing to get better and better and when I first started to do the
[15:12]research for romantic friction it wasn't there yet you know I
[15:16]played a bit try to write a scene I couldn't do it it didn't feel like a
[15:19]human it's getting better and it's continually getting better
[15:23]I really have no doubt that at some point it will be able to write a novel
[15:26]that feels like a novel like you said about you know it can take your voice
[15:29]and sound like your voice I do think it's going to happen
[15:33]and you know I think if we put our heads in the sand and ignore it
[15:36]writers are going to be left behind and I feel like what we need to do and what I
[15:40]hope to do with romantic friction is to start these conversations
[15:44]clean writers publishers readers especially readers because ultimately you
[15:49]know as I say in the book you know books may be art but publishing is a business
[15:53]and readers are the consumers so they're going to be the ones who decide the
[15:57]marketplace is going to decide today want to write read a book that's written by
[16:01]AI if they do do they want to label this such so they can be very clear in making a
[16:06]choice of what it is it is the future that's coming and I think if we ignore it
[16:11]we're going to be you know going down a tough road I think we need to have
[16:14]these conversations and start setting the parameters because it's here and
[16:18]people will use it as much as we say you shouldn't or it's unfair or not
[16:22]it's going to happen so I think bringing light to it and having these
[16:25]conversations where we get to kind of dictate where that goes
[16:28]is important and is important to do what is early as we can
[16:32]I wonder though if and of course this goes to the economics of the industry as
[16:37]well but if there's an option where readers
[16:41]create their own content in one second and they say
[16:44]you know hey chat JPT or hey Siri like you know
[16:48]write me a novel and the voice of let's just go back to Ellen Hildebrand like
[16:52]write me another novel and the voice of Ellen Hildebrand
[16:54]you know set an antique it about like a married couple and the beach boy or
[16:59]whatever any one second and maybe it's not
[17:03]as good right because of course it can't be but let's just say it's pretty good
[17:07]and it's free right and then you're reading a novel written just for you
[17:12]right like this blows my mind
[17:15]because I mean not like author should be immune every job is about to be
[17:19]eliminated essentially but yeah right like it's not like just because
[17:23]like there's no preciousness to being an author or a creator or whatever
[17:27]but just the fact that it could become a reader
[17:30]a reader like driven content source the way we're all kind of making our own
[17:35]newspapers now and Apple news or whatever that's great it's I don't know just
[17:39]mind blowing it's wild and I think what's interesting is I think depending on
[17:43]you know how old you are how where you are in your life
[17:46]you think it's great like somebody might know what you just said and said why
[17:49]wouldn't I want to do that but we as creators or we as people didn't grow up
[17:54]you know with computer from the time we were born
[17:56]we feel differently and I think that's what society is and that's how society
[18:00]changes because someone will grow up always being able to do that right
[18:04]they'll never know a time where they couldn't do that so in this
[18:07]period where you're like well I remember when we couldn't and I have
[18:10]strong feelings about that what do we do about that and is it
[18:14]I guess the question is is it okay is it okay to
[18:16]ultimately do that that gets into so many issues of
[18:19]right now you're right but are gonna but to your point of like you know
[18:24]that if they could do that would they want to read it and I think it's so
[18:27]interesting because it makes me think of again where we're not there
[18:31]yet in terms of of writing that we are in you know movies or TV
[18:36]you know you turn on Netflix and you can watch a thousand shows and you can
[18:39]binge a season 20 seasons of crazy anatomy if you want in a couple of weeks
[18:43]we're so used to immediacy of content in fact I have to say one of my kids
[18:48]has watched all of crazy anatomy I'm just saying she's literally
[18:52]on like season 20 and I'm like that is insane and how many of you spent
[18:57]on this versus like say school right yeah okay just saying yeah
[19:02]and yeah but it's true and like there used to being able to do that like that's
[19:06]just kind of it's what you can do with the the world that you couldn't do
[19:10]that where you had to wait Thursday night ER came on that was
[19:13]exactly I was so excited I had to like rush home to get there like what
[19:16]kind of lack is there a magical yeah exactly so it's interesting to think
[19:20]about you know if if readers could get another
[19:23]legal book or another's a Beowans book in a month rather than a year or two
[19:26]years and it's pretty good do they want it and we're in
[19:29]or in a second you know it takes a second like to do anything on AI it's like
[19:34]did you do boom like here it's like they don't have to wait for anything yeah
[19:39]and then it just it becomes an issue of do we what do we value do we value
[19:44]just the entertainment or do we value the creator behind it
[19:47]and again I don't think we know the answers to these questions there the things
[19:50]we need to start talking about the questions here they're being posed all
[19:53]the time but I think you know sometimes people have an
[19:56]knee-jerk reaction of like everything's wrong right and if everything is
[20:00]wrong. And I don't like approaching it that way either because, you know, in the whole world,
[20:04]if we, you know, currently right now, it would be nice to have, you know, discussion and debate
[20:08]as opposed to such, you know, divisiveness. And I think that can filter down to everything,
[20:14]even an issue like this, you know, what are the pros and what are the cons? And why, you know,
[20:19]would a reader want to do that or not do that? And is it okay or not? And I think I just want to
[20:24]to think about it more than I think people just have that need your correction of yes or no. And I
[20:30]want to think about all the complexities involved, whether it's like, is it as entertaining? Are we
[20:34]taking away jobs? And do I feel okay about that? All of these questions are stuff. I just wish people would
[20:39]think about a little bit more. Yeah. My gosh. So tell me more about your life when you're not writing.
[20:46]Like, obviously you're thinking about writing. But like, what is like a typical lorry day like,
[20:52]you live in Boston? Like, what else? So I teach creative writing and I lead writing retreats,
[20:59]and I do book coaching. And so that's kind of the bulk of what I do when I'm not either writing
[21:04]or promoting a book. And I love having both pieces of that. You know, sometimes it's hard to balance
[21:09]and I talk into you about balancing things. And I know how many millions of things you do as a
[21:14]publisher and writer leading retreats and all of that. But it's interesting to see like,
[21:19]you can these can take over, right? So the writing can take over and then you don't do any of
[21:22]the other work or the book coaching and the teaching can take over and then all of a sudden you
[21:26]realize you haven't written for a while. So balancing those things is something that I really try hard
[21:32]to do to have components of my day that are meeting with students. And mostly it's online on Zoom
[21:38]and then dedicating time to writing. I'm really good about setting writing goals. So I figure out
[21:44]how long I've been doing this for a while now. You know, this is my sixth published novel of
[21:48]another coming with HarperCollins next year. But I have four or five other books that I've written
[21:53]that haven't sold. So, you know, I'm probably up to 11 or 12 manuscripts now. And that's
[21:58]let me know what is my writing process, how am I most efficient, and how long does it generally take
[22:03]me to research and then write a book. And so I'm a big proponent of setting goals. So if I want this
[22:08]book done by September, what do I have to write every week to hit that goal? And then I can fill
[22:13]in with all of the other things that I do with book coaching and writing and teaching. Because I
[22:18]love doing those pieces, you know, writing can be such a solitary job. And if you're just right,
[22:24]you miss that opportunity to connect with other writers. And so I love that about the other aspect
[22:29]of my job. And I learn from it so much, you know, being able to read someone's work instantly on
[22:35]a page and read five pages and give them meaningful critique very quickly. It's hard to do. And it's
[22:41]a skill that I've kind of learned and gotten better at as an instructor. But it makes my writing better
[22:46]because now I can assess my writing as quickly in a way that I couldn't certainly when I first
[22:51]starting out. So those were the other pieces of my day. And I try to integrate beachwalks when it's
[22:56]not raining, which it's been raining here in Boston a lot lately. So that's the other piece. But
[23:02]that also becomes writing time, right? Because you're thinking in your head as you're walking.
[23:06]I saw somewhere that like an image of a brain when you're sitting down and then an image of a brain
[23:10]when you're walking and how like everything is like lit up. Oh, that's fascinating. Yeah. Somewhere
[23:16]on Instagram. And I was like, Oh God, I know I need to walk more. I know I know. But anyway,
[23:20]what is your next book? You slipped that in there. What is it? Yeah. So I have another
[23:24]look at HarperCollins that'll come out in April of next year. We're working on the revisions now.
[23:29]So I can't say too much about it, but it is still in this book club fiction world. And it
[23:35]looks at the same things that that romantic friction does of like ambition and female friendships,
[23:40]which is another big component of romantic friction. But it's a spin on a conversational game where
[23:46]three best friends and founders of a health and wellness app play this game at their summer
[23:51]outing. And it leads them down paths that they didn't expect. And it's got a slight
[23:56]speculative element to it, I will say. Have a very cool. What types of books do you like to read?
[24:02]So I mainly read book club fiction now with the occasional TV Institute historical fiction. But I
[24:07]tried to stay abreast of like what's popular in the genre that I'm writing. So I read a lot of that.
[24:12]You know, I love Taylor Jenkins read. I love Liam my already in Sally Hepburn. I really love books
[24:17]with a little bit of humor, you know, like wedding people, especially that tackle like a difficult
[24:21]topic. But you know, use that humor in there. I just actually finished which I'd never read her
[24:26]before. Beatrice Williams, husbands, and lovers. He came out last year and I loved it. And I loved
[24:32]the mix of storylines between, you know, present day and a couple of different past storylines and
[24:37]then how they all come together at the end. I love those kind of like merging together at the end
[24:41]of multiple characters and storylines. You know, kind of think it maybe comes all the way back to
[24:46]what I read Stephen King as a kid because those are huge like ensemble like cat characters and cast
[24:51]and all the stories that like merge at the end. So maybe I maybe I still grab a take towards that
[24:55]because it was my roots of reading. Okay. And this is totally invasive. And you don't have to answer
[25:01]this and probably appropriate. But you have like this gorgeous main of hair. Yeah, you are letting
[25:06]it go naturally gray. And you have one of these beautiful grays. I don't know how you knew
[25:11]because mine is not coming in beautiful. Like tell me about that decision. Yeah, it was
[25:16]an easy decision because the pandemic made it happen. When the pandemic started, I had my hair
[25:21]like up to here. It was just a short and it was like a layered bomb and it had a lot going on.
[25:26]It was one of those cuts where you had to go like every, you know, four weeks you should,
[25:30]but I would like it out to six weeks for it to really look really good. And I was getting it
[25:35]I've had gray hairs since I was like early 30s. It was started coming in very, you know,
[25:39]as young. And so I was dying it for years. And one, the texture was awful. And the time
[25:46]it takes to go into a salon to do that all the time got like expensive and such a time suck and
[25:52]the pandemic hit and you're inside. And I was like, well, I've no one to cut my hair. So it's just
[25:56]going to grow. And you go through this very awkward phase where you've got the hair with all these
[26:01]layers grow. It looks crazy. And then the gray starts coming in. But I had highlights too. So
[26:07]it was like, it was totally like skunk light blown down here. It was like it was a mess. And I just
[26:13]pushed through it. And I got through the other side of the pandemic. And all it was mostly one
[26:18]colors are cut it off. So it looked one color. And I looked at the gray. And I said, you know,
[26:23]it's okay. You know, like, I think it's okay. And it was an interesting decision because
[26:29]my mom always tells me which I do remember this when she started to go great early as well
[26:33]because where I get it from, I was not a little kid said to her, mom, you have to die your hair.
[26:38]You can't go around looking like that. And I said, gosh, that was one of the
[26:43]meanest things I could have said to her. Oh, sorry, mom. But you know, I said, you know, it's
[26:48]okay. And I'm just going to go with it. And I'm not opposed to dying it. If at some point,
[26:52]I don't like it anymore. But with the longer hair, sometimes it looks like highlights on zoom. It's
[26:57]going with it. It looks amazing. It looks like it saves so much time. I know. I'm like,
[27:05]it's a big time suck. Okay, sorry for the superficial. Anyway, romantic. Congratulations.
[27:11]So fun. So great. Such an unmasking of the industry mixed with fun plot and just like,
[27:18]how do we get through life? And how do we like just roll with it when things don't go our way? And
[27:23]when the unexpected happens. And that is something that we all need to figure out how to do every
[27:28]single day. Yeah, still working on that. Still working on that. We do. All right. Well, Lori,
[27:34]thank you so much for coming out. Thank you, Zippy. Okay. Take care. Thank you for listening to
[27:41]totally booked with Zippy, formerly mom's time to read books. If you loved the show,
[27:46]tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zippy Owens and spread the word.
[27:52]Thanks so much. Go and buy the books.