Annabel Monaghan, IT'S A LOVE STORY
[0:00]Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Book to Zibi.
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[0:44]Annabelle Monahan is the author of It's A Love Story, Annabelle is the USA Today bestselling
[0:50]and library reads Hall of Fame Author of Summer Romance, same time next summer, and Nori
[0:56]goes off script for which she was on this podcast to discuss many times, as well
[1:01]as two young adult novels, and does this novel make my butt look big, a selection of
[1:06]laugh out loud columns that appeared in the Huffington Post, the week, and the rye record.
[1:11]She lives in Connecticut with her family.
[1:12]Her novels have been translated into 20 languages.
[1:16]Go Annabelle.
[1:17]Welcome, Annabelle.
[1:18]Thank you for coming back on Totally Book to Zibi to talk about It's A Love Story, Your
[1:22]Fourth Novel.
[1:23]Congrats.
[1:24]Thank you.
[1:25]Thank you so much.
[1:26]This is the highlight of my year coming on your podcast.
[1:29]Thank you.
[1:30]I was looking at you have like two more live events I think today for this book, right?
[1:34]Don't you have like a sub stack live, which I've never done, by the way.
[1:37]I do tomorrow, and the stress that I feel having to press that button, and maybe it's
[1:44]the wrong button, like I don't know.
[1:47]It's all very mysterious when it works out.
[1:49]Yeah, I actually did try to do a sub stack live, not knowing that it immediately sends an
[1:54]email, so I was just like walking down the street, had a retreat, and then I realized
[1:59]that like everyone had gotten the email, and I was like, this is not good.
[2:02]But anyway.
[2:03]Yeah.
[2:04]So I hope you have better luck than me.
[2:05]Okay.
[2:06]It's a love story.
[2:07]What is this love story about, please?
[2:09]So it is the story of Jane Jackson, who is a former teen star, who was sort of when
[2:15]she was on TV as a teen.
[2:17]She was the punchline of every joke.
[2:19]You know, she was the one who was on the receiving side of a milkshake to the face, or
[2:23]she sat in the nachos, ha-ha.
[2:26]And now she's all grown up, and she's trying to make it as a producer in Hollywood.
[2:31]And she's about to get her first project greenlit, like it's all going to happen.
[2:36]And it starts falling apart, and in a panic, she tells a really huge lie to buy herself
[2:41]a little bit of time.
[2:43]And now she has to rely on the one guy she really cannot stand in the world to help her
[2:48]make this happen.
[2:49]And his name is Dan Finnegan, and he is so cute, Sibi.
[2:53]Like, there's no cute like Dan Finnegan.
[2:57]And he is an identical twin, which is amazing.
[3:00]He is.
[3:01]Yes.
[3:02]Wow.
[3:03]With three other brothers.
[3:04]Oh my gosh.
[3:05]Well, many shoes from.
[3:07]Yes.
[3:08]Yes.
[3:09]Yeah.
[3:10]The scene in the house where she first walks in and meets the whole clan, like, it
[3:17]nieces and nephew, like, all the kids and all the cute boys.
[3:20]And she's just like, what kind of land have I entered here?
[3:23]Like, what is that, especially as an only child herself?
[3:26]Wow.
[3:27]Have you ever had that experience for you walk into a really big family?
[3:32]And it's like, there's something happening here.
[3:34]And I don't know what it is.
[3:37]This has happened to me before.
[3:38]It happened to me too.
[3:39]I dated a guy who had three brothers and a dog.
[3:41]And it was like, I had my one brother and my parents were divorced.
[3:44]And it was so quiet in my house.
[3:45]And I walked in and I was like, oh my gosh, this is insane.
[3:48]Yeah, it was like that.
[3:49]So thank you for bringing us back.
[3:54]I just think there's a little bit of honesty in a giant family like that.
[3:58]I don't have a giant family, but where everything's kind of out in the open.
[4:03]And I always wanted to write about that kind of big family where everybody's just busts
[4:07]on each other, but nothing's too serious because sometimes the really serious thing
[4:13]is the quiet thing that is on said in a family.
[4:17]And that's kind of where things get dangerous.
[4:20]Very true.
[4:21]Very true.
[4:22]So you have multiple plot lines going here or settings even, I should say.
[4:28]So there's the aspiring, like I'm hiding under my desk.
[4:31]I really want my movie to get picked up and I'll do anything and I'm going to talk myself
[4:36]into it.
[4:37]And then there's like the most sort of vulnerable feelings in a relationship.
[4:43]And then there's, okay, so let me back up so I don't give anything away.
[4:47]So there's sort of the complicated mother daughter relationships and intimacy of that.
[4:53]So you have all these different puddles where people can sort of find themselves and
[4:58]something that relates most to them.
[5:01]Was there one piece of this you were drawn most to when you started when I started?
[5:05]I just wanted to write about, I wanted to write about somebody who grew up and went
[5:10]through puberty on TV.
[5:12]When I was that age, it was like for me, it was a time of trying things on.
[5:17]I had a big perm and permed bangs and you're trying on how you look and how your personality
[5:24]is and you're trying to figure out who you are.
[5:27]And so I wanted to write about a person who had grown up reading from a script wearing
[5:31]a costume, being told where to stand, being told that she was kind of a joke who grew
[5:37]up.
[5:38]And what I was kind of surprised about is she literally grows up to be a person who was
[5:41]so unself aware, like she has no idea who she is.
[5:45]She's a mess.
[5:47]And I really loved writing about somebody who was kind of a mess.
[5:50]So that was where I started.
[5:52]And then all of the rest of it, like all of what she had been through as a kid kind of
[5:57]came to me as I was writing.
[5:59]But for me, it was more about her like trying to be, figure out as an adult, what all
[6:05]of the stuff she should have figured out when she was 15.
[6:07]Interesting.
[6:08]Okay.
[6:09]And so what are your actual thoughts on the notebook because there is a debate in the
[6:13]book?
[6:14]Okay.
[6:15]So I'm a normal person with like, I am emotionally regulated.
[6:19]I love to the notebook.
[6:21]And I think that's the right opinion.
[6:23]Okay.
[6:24]I will die on that hill.
[6:26]Janine and Dan disagree about the notebook for a variety of reasons.
[6:31]And it was so fun to write because there really are a lot of ways to hate on that
[6:36]movie.
[6:37]Like if you've watched it a thousand times, it does kind of fall apart in your hands.
[6:42]I have not watched it as much as you, obviously, but now I need to like go back.
[6:46]I'm like, how many times is that about watch this movie?
[6:49]Oh, no, a million times.
[6:50]But like, why didn't Ali ever just go to the mailbox and see if he had written?
[6:55]Like if I was madly in love and my boyfriend didn't write to me for a year, I'd maybe
[6:59]go check the mailbox.
[7:01]Yeah.
[7:02]Or even the post office.
[7:03]Hello.
[7:04]Yeah.
[7:05]Yeah.
[7:06]I would start dating the postman to make sure I got those letters anyway.
[7:08]So there are a lot of, and it was just like such a funny fight.
[7:11]I mean, it's so stupid, right?
[7:12]But it was a very funny fight to write about.
[7:15]Did you have to do some digging into the world behind the scenes in Hollywood and all
[7:20]of that?
[7:21]Where did all that come from?
[7:22]A little bit.
[7:23]Like I had a couple of friends that I asked just the most ridiculous questions to just
[7:29]for like words and like what your career trajectory would be.
[7:33]And they gave me so much information.
[7:36]And I remembered why I don't write nonfiction because I don't like your lot of information.
[7:41]And I just took like seven words of what they said.
[7:45]So it's all, it's not really a deep dive into Hollywood.
[7:48]But it's enough though you get like a, no, it's not.
[7:51]I learned more than I wanted to learn.
[7:53]And then I was like, no one reading my books needs to know all this.
[7:56]Like this is just how it's going to be.
[8:01]So I read the book and then once I finished, I read the questions at the end.
[8:06]And I was like, oh, look at that.
[8:07]There are questions at the end of the book and most already answered all these questions.
[8:10]So I'm going to make sure not to ask her any of these questions.
[8:13]But then as I was reading, there was a quote that you had in here that I loved so much
[8:17]I took a picture of and I think I'm going to post a few don't mind.
[8:21]But anyway, this is what you said.
[8:22]You said, in my actually, let me back up and read the beginning.
[8:25]You said, there are definitely elements of my own marriage in Rini and Cormax.
[8:30]I have been married for a thousand years.
[8:32]And what I've learned is that real love is not like it is in that Tiffany ad where she's
[8:36]in her best dress and he's in a tux hiding a blue box behind his back that has literally
[8:41]never happened to me.
[8:42]In my life, love actually happens over breakfast.
[8:45]It happens during our morning dog walk where we talk through our plans for the day and
[8:49]laugh about something we saw on TV a decade ago.
[8:52]It happens in line with the DMV and in hospital rooms and over texts from Costco.
[8:56]I found that long lasting love is about just showing up for the other person, giving them
[9:00]the benefit of the doubt and treating them like they're as important as your house keys.
[9:05]Sibi, you know what's funny?
[9:07]I was thinking right before I signed into this podcast that last year you made me cry.
[9:13]And I think that that could almost make me cry again.
[9:16]I forgot the thing about that.
[9:18]Yeah.
[9:19]I do.
[9:20]That is how I feel.
[9:21]I do.
[9:22]I've been married almost 30 years and my husband is not like the guy with the grand gestures.
[9:28]And I think that we all like growing up watching rom coms and love stories.
[9:34]We want the parade, you know where the guy comes in on the float and it's the big.
[9:38]I love you in front of everybody.
[9:40]And that's like it's just not how it is after time.
[9:46]And I have found increasingly like probably more and more like in the last 10 years of
[9:50]my marriage.
[9:51]I just feel like it's those quiet things where like he notices I'm out of the sparkling
[9:58]water that I like.
[9:59]And like.
[10:00]goes and buys it. And I'm like, I open the fridge and there's the sparkling water because you
[10:05]think about me during the day. And I'm like, I love this man so much. And since my husband's
[10:10]retired, it's like, we do have these routines that are so quiet, but the dog walk is like a morning
[10:17]meeting. And so nice. It is really nice. Well, thank you. Thank you for writing that because
[10:24]I think those moments are so often taken for granted. We don't even pay attention to them.
[10:29]And yet, of course, where I'll have the magic lies really. So that's where it's that quiet stuff.
[10:36]And I think that was the whole point of this book once I had written it six times is this quieter
[10:42]kind of love like Dan is a quiet man and PS I love a quiet man. And he like, it's all very
[10:50]steady and constant. And you see through his parents marriage, how that steady, constant,
[10:58]non flashy thing is just like has a lot of weight to it. And you talk about how emotional he is too.
[11:06]There's one point when he says he's been crying for a week straight. And that's so sweet. Most men
[11:11]don't say that. Yeah, but they do cry. They do cry, but they don't say it. They don't say it. Yeah,
[11:17]it's a really nice way to say I trust you and I care about you. It's to tell somebody you cried.
[11:22]So you wrote this book six times. Oh, God, no, I wrote this book. This book, I probably wrote
[11:28]this book 12 times. I've written this. Times. Yeah, I just, the first three drafts were so far away
[11:35]from where it ended up. I was like, I knew I was trying to tell a story. I just couldn't find it.
[11:42]And it's kind of terrifying. If you write a book the way I write a book, which is just to sit
[11:47]down and write a book, it's terrifying to not really know where you're going. The pop star that
[11:52]they were after the first three drafts was a woman. Oh, and had nothing they'd never met her before.
[11:59]And then I was like, this is not working. So I started again. Yeah, wrote a lot of drafts of this
[12:05]book. So when you say, did you actually throw the whole thing away and like start a new document?
[12:11]No, no, I never do that because I don't think I could survive that. But I, I often
[12:17]delete a third of a book. I actually just did that with the book I'm writing right now. I just
[12:22]deleted a third of it. I was like, hmm, wrong way. This, it sounds horrible, but I've done this a
[12:28]bunch of times now. And it's the only way. It's like there's something in me that I'm trying to
[12:33]say. And it's the only way I can excavate it is by actually writing. If I knew another way,
[12:40]I would do it. Trust me, my editor would be so happy, but it's just not, this is just not how it goes.
[12:47]Oh, at least it's only a third, I guess. Right? Yeah, things could be, things could be worse.
[12:52]Could be worse. Yes. Wait, what is the new big? I'm working on a book right now about,
[12:59]kind of think we talked about this a little bit in Arizona. She is a woman, a single mom, she's 39,
[13:05]she's a kindergarten teacher, she works part time in her dad's fish store. And she needs to pose
[13:11]as this, as the girlfriend of this guy who's the heir to a huge real estate fortune.
[13:17]He's kind of like a Vanderbilt. The whole thing takes place in a fake town next to Newport.
[13:23]Yeah. That'll be best. I love a fake town. Yeah. I feel like I'm the designer, like here's where
[13:30]the butcher is, here's where the diner is. So how are you keeping up this pace,
[13:36]especially if you're writing and deleting and writing and deleting, you have so many books coming
[13:40]out so fast. How are you doing that? It's one a year. And I have recently talked to writers who
[13:48]write three books a year and two and three books a year. And they're like, oh, you're only
[13:54]writing a book a year. And I think it's a lot to write a book a year. And I work, I mean,
[14:00]I work seven days a week. I'm always, I'm always working. I think it would be perfect if the year
[14:06]was 14 months long. Like if I think that's how long it takes in like a more reasonable pace.
[14:14]But frankly, I really love doing it. Like I love writing a book. I don't really mind deleting a
[14:21]third and kind of digging in again. It's almost like like crossword puzzle to me. Like I enjoy
[14:27]like figuring it out. So I don't know how else I'd be spending my time if I wasn't doing this.
[14:32]All right. That's fair. I mean, there can't be that many people who are writing two and three
[14:37]books a year. Are there? Well, in romance, there are. Okay. And they're just like
[14:43]spontaneous, like alley hazel would just announce a book. Like I never heard of it and it's coming
[14:48]out in a week. Like when did you, because you just released a book? So what, what's happening?
[14:54]People are, people are prolific. And with my starting over again, all the time process,
[14:59]I am not going to ever be more prolific than I am. Interesting. There's this whole Instagram
[15:06]jealousy thing going on in the book as well, where one of the other stars,
[15:11]surname Allison, Bree, when I, why I'm totally forgetting her name, the one who becomes really
[15:15]famous. What is her name? I can't remember. I can't, you can't remember either. Okay. Great.
[15:20]I think it's like Allison or, or Bree or whatever. I don't, anyway, it doesn't, it's
[15:24]just more done. Her name's going to come to me, but I, okay. Well, the point, the point is not even
[15:28]about her. The point is, is that she's on Instagram and is sharing her like perfect life all the
[15:34]time with the bazillion followers. And, and of course, making everyone else feel badly about
[15:40]their own lives when they watch her life. Talk a little bit about that. Oh my gosh. Well,
[15:45]I mean, I, I don't think I need to explain that to anybody. But what, when I really started thinking
[15:50]about that is when I read Jeanette McCurdy's, I'm glad my mom died really started thinking about
[15:55]teen stars. And I started thinking about her on Sam and Cat and Victoria's. My kids used to
[16:03]watch these shows all the time. And I used to think like, or I was starting thinking about what do
[16:08]all those people who were on those shows think about the fact that Ariana Grande is a billionaire
[16:15]like, she used to be the girl who stood in the background and was like, like, I mean, I don't
[16:20]remember some ideas. Yes, she's a billionaire. Like, out, she's killing it. And I don't know what
[16:27]happened to the rest of those kids. And so I think about we, you know, we're all, and I've been like
[16:32]this in my life too, where I'm like, am I keeping up with like the girls I went to high school with
[16:38]because, you know, one of them's head of breast surgery at Cedar Sinai, like, I'm like, I'm not
[16:45]keeping up. And it's like how we measure ourselves in our lives about what ever, I've
[16:50]against what everybody else is doing. I think people did that already. But with Instagram, you know,
[16:56]showing like the highlight reel and everybody's best hair day every single day, I think it's easy
[17:02]to just like lose track of where we are in the world and how much we've done. Okay. So who makes
[17:10]you feel worse when you look at their Instagram accounts? It makes you feel bad about yourself,
[17:15]like that you're not keeping up. Is there anybody? Yeah, you know what? I don't think I feel
[17:19]like this anymore. It was more when I was like, like 15 years ago, and I was home with kids,
[17:26]okay, like mostly covered in vomit all the time. And then one girl from my high school class
[17:32]is like the chief technology officer at Facebook or something. And I'm like, what am I doing?
[17:38]Like I know what I'm doing, but like, how did I want? Yeah, I don't think I don't think I feel
[17:44]like that as much now, which is the beauty of being in your 50s. Nice. Any other beauties?
[17:50]Everything. Yeah, everything. No, I'm not kidding, Jimmy. I don't know people to talk or like
[17:55]so terrified about getting older. When you turn 50, like call me on that day, you're going to be
[18:02]not that far away. I will call you in a year. I don't see any. It's like something shifts. It's like,
[18:09]oh, you know what I'm going to do? I'm just going to do what I want to do. And all of a sudden,
[18:15]it's like everything kind of opens up. It's so far, so good. I do love this decade. It's my
[18:22]favorite yet. It needs like better branding though, 50s. It needs better branding. And why
[18:28]is all the branding about how we've got to fix ourselves? So we seem like we're in our 30s.
[18:34]Yeah, I wasn't as happy in my 30s as I am now. So how about I brand myself like I'm in my 50s?
[18:42]Yeah, I would take my skin back though. Yeah, yeah, the skin. I mean, there are a couple things.
[18:48]There are a couple of things. The collagen. Yeah, I would take back the collagen,
[18:52]a skin piece to the collagen. And the estrogen also, those were good. Good things.
[18:59]Okay, so the movie star, sorry, the singer who plays a big role in the book and finding the singer
[19:06]and all of that, like, was kind of a jerk back in the day and continues to just be a jerk. I kept
[19:14]hoping that he would be a really nice guy. Yeah. What should we take away from that? Yeah,
[19:19]we sometimes people don't change. And sometimes you think that everybody's going to grow up and
[19:26]grow out of all their nonsense. But, you know, being a jerk isn't about being a certain age.
[19:31]Some jerks are ageless. And anyways, if he had turned out to be a nice guy and accommodating,
[19:38]then I think things would have been too easy for her. I always, always when I'm writing a story,
[19:44]I want everybody to get what they want immediately. Like, I want the whole book to be over in three
[19:49]chapters, because I can't say that people suffering. But I really felt like for her to bring up all
[19:55]of her garbage that she'd been carrying around, she needed to really.
[20:00]So there, so he had to be a jerk.
[20:02]Kind of a shame, though.
[20:04]Yeah, it's a shame.
[20:05]In the book, or maybe it was in the questions
[20:07]after you talked about writing a novel
[20:10]based on True Story, which is the fictitious pilot
[20:15]script or not pilot screenplay in the book.
[20:18]Are you thinking about that?
[20:19]Did you drop that idea?
[20:22]I thought it was a fun idea for a minute,
[20:23]probably the minute that I was writing notes
[20:26]in that question.
[20:26]So the screenplay that they're trying
[20:29]to get greenlit, it's a movie called True Story.
[20:32]And it's about that kind of love.
[20:35]It's about like a quieter kind of love
[20:37]where you fight and you come back and you fight and you come back.
[20:39]And it's not just like all one big honeymoon the whole time.
[20:44]And the original name for It's a Love Story
[20:46]was going to be True Story.
[20:48]But it kind of sounded like True Crime, so they...
[20:50]I was thinking it was going to be True Story
[20:52]and then I was thinking, oh, people thought it would have
[20:53]thought it was a memoir or something.
[20:55]Yeah, you know, the other thing is for all any writers
[20:58]who are listening, I do think that publishers
[21:00]understand titles.
[21:02]When they change my titles, it's always for the better.
[21:06]Like I'm giving up titles.
[21:07]I always make a title, it never gets, it never sticks.
[21:11]Anyways, I was thinking like that is a story.
[21:13]The story of the movie they're trying to make.
[21:16]I was thinking it might be a fun book one day to write
[21:19]like to actually write what I imagine that story was,
[21:22]but I don't have any plans to do that.
[21:24]Well, that could be your first screenplay, maybe.
[21:27]God, don't know if I want to learn a new trade.
[21:31]Mm-hmm, okay, you don't have to.
[21:35]Okay, still working on this one.
[21:37]And I love, by the way, that this is set on Montana Avenue
[21:40]right where my bookster is in Santa Monica,
[21:42]which is so exciting where you'll be
[21:44]for an event for the books, which I'm very excited.
[21:46]You're first, June 21st.
[21:48]Yes, I call my family.
[21:50]I'm so, that's...
[21:52]The Los Angeles stop on my tour is always so much fun.
[21:55]It's like a really quick family reunion
[21:57]and all my little great nieces and nephews come.
[22:00]It's so fun.
[22:02]I love it.
[22:02]And you were like, there are five bathing suit stores
[22:05]within walking distance.
[22:07]And I was like, where are these bathing suit stores
[22:09]in walking distance on Montana?
[22:12]We need some more bathing suit stores.
[22:13]You know, I was thinking about the one on...
[22:16]on Topanga Canyon, can't think of what it's called.
[22:20]Okay, anyways, yes, I don't know.
[22:22]I don't shop for bathing suits as much as I used to.
[22:24]When I lived in Los Angeles.
[22:27]I only buy bathing suits online.
[22:29]I could never face a dressing room for a bathing suit.
[22:32]Yeah, it's brutal.
[22:33]Yeah.
[22:34]Favorite love story of all time?
[22:36]Do you have one?
[22:37]Oh, well, the notebook was the first one
[22:38]that came into my mind.
[22:40]I think that my favorite love story of all time
[22:42]is actually love story.
[22:43]The one where she dies.
[22:44]She dies on her page.
[22:46]Yeah, yeah.
[22:46]I just, there's something so raw about that story.
[22:52]And I actually read that book a couple of years ago
[22:54]for the 100th time, but yeah, I would say love story.
[22:57]So good.
[22:58]I think that is really good too.
[23:00]So good, so good.
[23:01]Okay, and about thank you so much for yet another great book
[23:05]in your trademark awesome, witty, amazing voice
[23:08]and congratulations.
[23:10]Well, thank you.
[23:11]Thank you, thank you.
[23:12]Thank you so much for having me and also, yeah.
[23:14]Yeah.
[23:16]Okay, bye at all.
[23:18]Bye.
[23:18]Bye.
[23:19]Thank you for listening.
[23:20]To totally booked with Zibi,
[23:22]formerly mom's don't have time to read books.
[23:25]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review,
[23:28]follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens
[23:31]and spread the word.
[23:32]Thanks so much.
[23:33]Oh, and bye the books.