Kate Broad, GREENWICH: A Novel
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[0:45]Welcome back to Totally Booked with Zibi, I am Zibi Owens, and I am so excited to be here
[0:50]today with Kate fraud to discuss her debut novel, Greenwich, yay, clap, thank you.
[1:01]I'm going to just read a little bit about Kate, and then we will dive into her delicious
[1:05]book.
[1:06]Kate Broad holds a BA from Wellesley College, and a PhD in English from the Cuni CUNY
[1:15]CUNY CUNY CUNY CUNY CUNY CUNY CUNY CUNY CUNY CUNY CUNY CUNY CUNY CUNY CUNY CUNY CUNY CUNY CUNY CUNY CUNY CUNY CUNY?
[1:17]CUNY Graduate Center, she is a Bronx Council of the Arts Award-winner for fiction, and
[1:21]her writing appears in The Rumpus, No Tokens, the Brooklyn Review, and elsewhere, Greenwich
[1:28]is her first novel. Congratulations.
[1:31]Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
[1:32]You are exciting.
[1:33]Thank you to Catas readers for these glasses.
[1:36]So, so grateful. Okay, Greenwich, please tell everybody.
[1:39]What is your book about?
[1:41]So, it's about a woman named Rachel.
[1:44]And she is, she's looking back on this pivotal summer
[1:48]that she's spent staying with her very, very wealthy
[1:51]on an uncle in Greenwich, Connecticut.
[1:54]And when she goes down to Greenwich,
[1:57]she's, it's the summer before she's starting college.
[2:00]So, she's about to turn 18.
[2:01]She's about to like have this new phase in her life.
[2:04]It feels like everything is about to start for her.
[2:07]And then a terrible accident happens.
[2:10]And that puts her in a position where she has to make a big choice.
[2:14]And it's the kind of decision that it really tests her moral compass.
[2:19]It's her sense of right and wrong.
[2:20]It's her family loyalty.
[2:22]She has all of these competing pressures.
[2:25]And as she is looking back on this summer,
[2:28]it's the book is about like what happened in Greenwich,
[2:31]but it's also about the consequences
[2:33]and kind of how all of the dominoes start to fall
[2:37]and how that affects not only Rachel's life and her future
[2:41]but also her family.
[2:42]And then everyone who gets unfortunately caught up in their orbit.
[2:46]Wow.
[2:47]So, it's really also about family loyalty
[2:52]when Rachel goes to Greenwich.
[2:53]Her sister, Jules, has just been diagnosed with cancer
[2:57]as going under treatment.
[2:59]Her parents are understandably quite distracted.
[3:02]Her aunt and uncle, who she goes to stay with her aunt, Ellen,
[3:05]has just had this terrible accident.
[3:08]A horseback riding accident from which she's struggling to recover.
[3:12]And Rachel is there to sort of help take care of her daughter
[3:15]but also her and not necessarily even getting the love
[3:19]that she needs from really anybody.
[3:22]And talk about what had just happened with her friend group
[3:25]because of course, at that time,
[3:26]being expelled from a friend group is the worst.
[3:30]Yeah, it sort of starts off.
[3:31]There's all of this drama, high school drama that's going on.
[3:34]And it's very much about sort of these are these factors
[3:37]that like there's just the push her to want to spend the summer at Greenwich.
[3:42]And it's that she, you're saying she has all of these things going on at home.
[3:47]Her little sister is sick and her parents are understandably so
[3:51]overwhelmed.
[3:52]And then meanwhile, yeah, she's had all of this friend drama.
[3:56]And her best friend has ditched her as being pretty mean to her.
[4:00]And she is just thinking, like, she can't spend the whole summer at home
[4:06]in Massachusetts, kind of everyone's going to parties without her
[4:09]feeling like everyone's talking about her.
[4:11]And she sort of seizes upon this idea, which is like,
[4:15]she knows that her aunt needs help.
[4:16]Her mom was going to go just for like a weekend to Greenwich.
[4:20]And then Rachel kind of has this idea that's like, I know,
[4:22]I can be super helpful and go down and take care of my aunt
[4:26]and help her with babysitting Rachel's cousin who is three.
[4:30]And they have this is such a wealthy family.
[4:33]Like they have help for everything.
[4:34]They're hiring out for everything.
[4:36]So they have a live in babysitter Claudia, but Rachel's still like, I'll go.
[4:42]And so she sort of tells herself this story that's like, I'm going to be of use.
[4:47]I'm doing something selfless for my family.
[4:50]But I think as we like dig into her psychology a little bit more, it's clear.
[4:54]She has her own reasons and reasons that she feels kind of conflicted about,
[4:59]like, should she have left her sister?
[5:01]Should she have left her friend group?
[5:03]But also it's so nice in Greenwich.
[5:06]And so how could she not want to be there?
[5:08]You have this scene at a CVS where Rachel is in one aisle
[5:14]and knows right away that her three old best friends
[5:17]are getting their hair highlighter in the cards or whatever.
[5:21]And you have her just like drop the cart and sneak out of the CVS
[5:25]so that her friends don't see her.
[5:26]And it's like so heartbreaking.
[5:29]It's just the worst.
[5:30]It's, I mean, I was really thinking about like,
[5:34]girlhood and like, what does it feel like to be a girl?
[5:37]And what does it feel like to then grow up into adulthood?
[5:41]And it's such a transition point.
[5:44]And it's, I mean, I certainly felt like not that I've had that exact thing happen.
[5:51]But I think we've all had experiences of being on the outside or realizing
[5:56]we thought we were on the inside and now what if we're on the outside.
[5:59]And a lot of it also stems from a sort of misunderstanding with her friend group.
[6:04]And none of them know how to talk about it.
[6:05]And none of them know how to resolve it.
[6:07]And that becomes, there's a sort of, there's a line later
[6:10]where Rachel is recounting to Claudia, the family's babysitter like, what happened?
[6:16]And it's the first time she's kind of opening up to someone about saying like, well,
[6:21]I lost all of my friends.
[6:22]And she's thinking to herself like, it feels really petty.
[6:25]It feels really silly to be talking about these girl problems.
[6:29]And then, but Rachel's also thinking about her aunt is also navigating this social,
[6:34]political world of wealthy, powerful people in Greenwich.
[6:39]And it's the same thing, like it's not that different.
[6:41]And she's thinking about like her teenage years,
[6:44]or these, it's the staging ground for the adults that they're going to become.
[6:47]And that I think we kind of dismiss girlhood at our peril.
[6:52]You know, it's not, it's different and it isn't.
[6:55]And we sort of grow up.
[6:57]And yet we don't necessarily leave all of those people behind.
[7:01]And Rachel in this process of coming of age, I think it's also realizing
[7:06]like that CVS doesn't change.
[7:08]Even if, you know, you're suddenly later on, like with her aunt,
[7:12]it's a political stage, or it's, you know, all of these other families in Greenwich.
[7:17]It's like, there's some way in which like, we're all 17 at CVS,
[7:21]realizing our friends are hanging out without us.
[7:24]Do you want to get it off your chair?
[7:25]Right.
[7:27]Go ahead.
[7:28]I'm here for it.
[7:29]I know, I know.
[7:30]What happened?
[7:30]What happened?
[7:31]Right.
[7:32]It's okay.
[7:33]No, I had that moment too.
[7:36]I had this one group, everybody like ran away.
[7:38]And I was like, where are we running?
[7:39]And then I was like, are they running away from me?
[7:42]I know.
[7:42]And what's so hard is like, what if you don't know?
[7:45]Yeah.
[7:45]I mean, that's always that's question, you know, that I have.
[7:48]And I think that Rachel has, which is like, what if, what if I don't know?
[7:52]And if no one talks about it and so much of this book is about the things that we don't talk
[7:56]about, like if you can't sit down and have a conversation with your best friend that says,
[8:02]I'm afraid I might have hurt your feelings.
[8:03]Can we talk about it?
[8:05]How do you become an adult who can say, I'm having a problem and I need someone to talk to?
[8:10]And like you're saying in the beginning of this, like Rachel's parents are not there providing
[8:14]any emotional support.
[8:16]And in fact, no one is providing anyone with the emotional support that they need.
[8:20]And you can kind of see these generational cycles of like, if no one has these emotional tools
[8:26]in their toolkit, how do we come to a place where we can like talk about things that people
[8:32]are feeling or talk about the things that are going wrong?
[8:36]Rachel's loneliness on her isolation kind of follows her to Greenwich.
[8:42]And then I think kind of follows her out of Greenwich too.
[8:45]She has one moment with Claudia where she's feeling really awkward.
[8:49]I mean, admittedly she's like spying on her.
[8:51]So it's justified awkwardness.
[8:55]She's like, oh, no matter where I go, there I am.
[8:58]Like the same awkwardness that was plaguing me at home is still here.
[9:02]You can't run away from your own issues.
[9:05]Yeah.
[9:05]It's like a little moment of Rachel inside, which sometimes she has and sometimes she doesn't
[9:10]in part because she's 17.
[9:12]And then in part because she's just human.
[9:14]And that is a moment of right.
[9:17]She like recognizes, yeah, wherever you go, there you are.
[9:21]And that kind of follows her through her life later too.
[9:25]Well, meanwhile, Rachel is observing so much.
[9:28]So she has her own issues.
[9:30]But then we get to be in her shoes as she goes through this
[9:33]palatial house, even though it hasn't been fully renovated yet and whatever,
[9:39]but there's like a pretend lake, not a pretend.
[9:41]There's lake in the entryway and like a whole floor of former servant's rooms or whatever
[9:48]that hasn't been brought up to date and whatever.
[9:50]And she starts looking around and finding what her aunt is hiding in her medicine cabinet
[9:56]and what is her uncle doing with these very sketchy business.
[10:00]and all of a sudden we kind of see things unfolding
[10:05]a little bit because through her eyes.
[10:07]Yeah.
[10:08]And everything is through her eyes.
[10:10]So there is this feeling of like,
[10:12]what's really going on?
[10:14]What is Rachel's perspective of what's going on?
[10:17]Do we trust her perspective?
[10:21]She is, yeah, there are all of these family secrets
[10:24]in this house.
[10:25]And Rachel wants to be part of something.
[10:29]She wants to sort of be an adult
[10:31]and be part, be brought in so that people
[10:34]would confide in her or tell her.
[10:36]But really how she goes about doing this is, right?
[10:39]She is, she's observing is a very nice way of putting it.
[10:42]She's spying on people a lot of the time.
[10:44]I'm trying to give Rachel the benefit of this.
[10:46]Yeah, yes.
[10:47]No, you have to do that.
[10:49]And she, yeah, she's eavesdropping.
[10:51]She's also, but she notices everything.
[10:54]And she is very observant.
[10:58]And she, that's part of like,
[10:59]she's trying to figure out the world
[11:01]and trying to figure out her place in it.
[11:02]And she's doing that by kind of tracking
[11:05]what are these people like?
[11:06]And her aunt and uncle are so different
[11:08]from her mom and dad in many ways.
[11:10]And that's like the appeal, right?
[11:11]Of going to stay with your glamorous aunt
[11:14]and sort of checking out what this other life is like.
[11:17]And so seeing, you know, it's like,
[11:18]what do they have for breakfast?
[11:20]How does Ellen talk to people?
[11:22]Like how is she running her business?
[11:25]How is she running the lawn care?
[11:26]Like Rachel is just tracking everything.
[11:29]And the more sort of curious she gets,
[11:32]the more that leads her into feeling like,
[11:35]well, I just kind of want to know what my uncle
[11:38]is talking about when he's on the phone
[11:40]or I'm just like, I've never been
[11:42]led into my aunt and uncle's bedroom
[11:44]because the door is always closed and no one's there.
[11:47]And what would happen if I just like gave it a little peek?
[11:50]And the whole time she's justifying to herself
[11:54]that she's not necessarily doing something wrong.
[11:57]But she also kind of starts to get in over her head
[12:00]as like she wants to be a part of adult,
[12:03]the adult world and their secrets.
[12:04]And then she kind of finds out a lot more
[12:06]than she bargained for and there's a little bit
[12:08]of that feeling of like, oh, I want to give it back.
[12:10]Like the adult world is very complicated
[12:13]and maybe that's more than she bargained for.
[12:16]Yeah, she has some clues though
[12:19]because the adults in her life and in this house
[12:22]are so distracted.
[12:23]Like they keep just like leaving the kid in the backseat
[12:26]and she's like, wait, do they not remember
[12:28]that she's sitting there and like starting to cook dinner
[12:31]and then leaving all this stuff
[12:32]and she's like, am I supposed to put the mushrooms away?
[12:34]Like what am I doing here?
[12:36]So I think her just her finding her way
[12:38]is in her face constantly and us is the reader.
[12:42]Yeah.
[12:43]And it is all right, I feel for her in those moments
[12:46]where it's hard, especially when you're like a guest
[12:49]in someone else's home, but it's your family.
[12:51]So people will be like, oh, make yourself at home
[12:53]and she's like, but it's not my home.
[12:56]Like, am I, is it over stepping for her
[12:59]to like finish making dinner while like her aunt
[13:02]and uncle leave or is that what they're expecting of her?
[13:05]And there are so many, part of it is that like going back
[13:08]to all of these things that are unspoken.
[13:09]It's like there are so many unspoken rules,
[13:13]especially in a house like this
[13:15]and with the kind of power like this
[13:16]that she's trying to navigate
[13:18]but no one comes out and says like,
[13:20]this is how you behave in this kind of echelon of society.
[13:24]So she's trying to figure it out.
[13:27]But she's 17 and she has no idea.
[13:29]And even when she's older,
[13:31]I think she's just then realizing like,
[13:33]should I have been left alone for all of that time?
[13:36]Like, was I old enough to handle that?
[13:38]And I think that, you know,
[13:41]we're talking about like, girlhood and adolescence
[13:43]and that transition and it's such a both end.
[13:46]Like those times when you feel like I'm absolutely
[13:48]an adult, like I should be trusted
[13:50]with these responsibilities.
[13:51]Of course I can make dinner for my three-year-old cousin
[13:53]and then other times when it's like,
[13:55]this girl is 17, like where are the grown-ups?
[13:58]And you technically do this.
[14:00]You put the book together in such an interesting way.
[14:02]So you have Rachel looking back
[14:04]and then you have these times where you give us little clues
[14:07]that something is ominous and it's about to happen.
[14:10]Like she'll talk about the second floor of the house
[14:13]and then say, later, police will talk about
[14:16]how much we could hear from the second floor.
[14:19]And you're like, what?
[14:21]What do they mean?
[14:22]What is happening here?
[14:23]How did you, from a technical standpoint,
[14:27]structure the book?
[14:28]How did you create that sense of suspense?
[14:30]And what was your whole goal in the book to begin with?
[14:35]I love talking about structure.
[14:37]I'm like always because that and I'm so excited
[14:39]to hear you say that because structures
[14:41]feels really important to me.
[14:43]Like that's how the whole thing unfolds
[14:46]and that's what makes the book the book.
[14:49]And I think I knew early on as I was figuring out
[14:53]how to put it together that I wanted it
[14:54]to have this retrospective component.
[14:57]Like this is about an adult world and an adult coming
[15:01]to terms with who she is and what mistakes she might have made
[15:06]and then how to, if it's even possible
[15:09]to sort of rectify those mistakes later on.
[15:12]And so I knew from the beginning
[15:13]that I wanted to have that kind of dualism.
[15:16]It's one character but it's almost two
[15:19]because you have adult Rachel and teenage Rachel
[15:22]kind of coming to terms with how they have become who she is.
[15:27]And then of course there's a question of like,
[15:29]all right, how do I actually do that on the page?
[15:32]But having that adult voice come through
[15:34]really allowed me to be like the Rachel
[15:37]who is telling this story knows what happens.
[15:41]And then that lets her but she's also sort of walking
[15:44]through the moment being like, where did this start
[15:47]when I arrived in Greenwich?
[15:49]This was how it felt but this is what sort of developed
[15:52]later on and it allowed me to kind of drop in those moments
[15:56]where like when you're living your own life,
[15:58]you don't know what's significant when you're in the middle
[16:01]of it but you can look back and be like,
[16:03]that's when I should have known something was happening
[16:05]or maybe that's when I wish that I had said something
[16:08]or that's when I said something and I wish that I hadn't.
[16:11]You know, it all kind of looks different in retrospect
[16:14]and I thought I wanted it to have that quality
[16:17]where she can sort of do both of those things at once.
[16:22]I'm thinking about then now like what's the goal of the book
[16:26]and a lot of it was like Rachel is thinking through
[16:30]all of these things and that was the kind of thinking
[16:34]that I wanted the book to do on the page
[16:36]and that I wanted the reader to do
[16:38]when they're reading so everything isn't necessarily
[16:42]wrapped up in like a neat bow with a moral and an answer
[16:46]to give you because Rachel is trying to figure this out
[16:50]and then we are with her on the journey of figuring it out
[16:55]and that kind of gave me a sense of like
[16:58]how do I want to stitch this story together
[17:01]so that we are going through this whole process with her.
[17:04]And it's neat to have a character looking back like that
[17:08]and having older characters in the story,
[17:12]in the flashback that are basically the same ages or now
[17:15]so that we as the reader can feel like yes,
[17:17]I remember what it was like when I was the sage
[17:20]and that pain or whatever, but I also am sort of relating
[17:24]to the parents, you have a sick child
[17:26]and the aunt who's injured and now maybe is getting,
[17:29]you know, abusing some drugs like you can relate
[17:33]to all the characters in the book in some way
[17:35]and then you're left thinking like well,
[17:38]what would I do in this situation?
[17:40]Yeah, and that really is that question
[17:42]that I was kind of guiding the whole book for me
[17:46]was like having wanting to feel like when I'm reading this,
[17:52]like when a reader is reading this,
[17:53]like what would I do, what would a reader do?
[17:57]I think it's really easy to like we can always kind of
[17:59]sit back and be like well, I know I would definitely
[18:01]do the right thing always because I'm a good person
[18:04]and we all want to say that about ourselves
[18:06]and I'm sure that it is entirely true of all of us here
[18:09]but the reality is, I don't know,
[18:12]she's all these people, you know,
[18:14]we live in a world that has a lot of problems
[18:18]and where people are not always making the choices
[18:21]that are the best for themselves
[18:23]and the choices that are the best for other people
[18:25]or sometimes the choices that are the best for one person
[18:29]also wind up hurting somebody else
[18:31]and I think because we're so close to the characters
[18:35]in the book and we're so like inside Rachel's mind
[18:38]all of the time, it's like we hear the justifications
[18:41]and like her reasoning for things
[18:45]and it kind of as the reader,
[18:48]like it makes you feel complicit I think in some ways
[18:53]and it does, I wanted to have that.
[18:55]Sometimes it's an uncomfortable question
[18:57]like what would I do?
[19:00]Am I sure that I would necessarily do the right thing?
[19:03]Like when Rachel has this decision that she has to make,
[19:07]there's a way in which the decision is very simple
[19:09]and there's also a way in which it's incredibly complicated
[19:12]and I think it's, you know, that's what it feels like
[19:16]to be a person, I think that's what it feels like
[19:17]to be alive is that like sometimes things are very difficult
[19:21]and no one comes along and says,
[19:24]oh, this is the moment where you're making a big decision
[19:27]and you should definitely do the right thing here
[19:29]because we don't always know.
[19:31]Have you been in that situation?
[19:33]Not, you know, not the way that Rachel is for sure
[19:38]but I think there is, you know, my hope was that there's something
[19:41]that feels very human and very relatable.
[19:43]Like most of us have not been in Rachel's situation.
[19:46]Most of us do not have an extremely wealthy on an uncle
[19:50]who are like, yes, come stay with us for the summer
[19:52]like we'll take you on vacation.
[19:54]We're like, here's the tab at the Country Club
[19:57]and yet we've probably all been in situations
[19:59]where we can.
[20:00]Look back and be like, I hope that I did the right thing
[20:03]or I hope that what I did didn't hurt somebody else,
[20:06]even if it's not on the scale of what's happening in this book.
[20:10]So you're a debut author.
[20:12]Your first book, obviously great book deal,
[20:16]beautiful cover.
[20:18]It's amazing.
[20:19]It's amazing.
[20:20]Oh my, I wanna like frame it and hang it in my house somewhere.
[20:23]What was the process like?
[20:25]Was this the first novel you ever wrote?
[20:27]Is this like the first one to get published,
[20:29]that you have tended to draw?
[20:30]And what was the whole path to acquisition and publication?
[20:34]Like, oh god, it looks like do you have six hours
[20:37]from the podcast?
[20:37]You have six minutes, it is a long process.
[20:42]And for anyone who is in this position,
[20:46]like persistence was the name of the game.
[20:48]This was not my first novel.
[20:50]It was not the first novel I wrote.
[20:52]It was not the first novel that I tried to get published.
[20:54]It was not the first novel that got very close to publication.
[20:58]It was almost sort of a shock when I found out
[21:01]that my editor was interested.
[21:02]Cause I was like, we've been here before.
[21:04]Like it's not gonna happen.
[21:07]I was already writing another book,
[21:09]kind of anticipating like I don't know
[21:11]what's gonna happen to Greenwich.
[21:12]So we just keep going.
[21:13]And then all of a sudden everything changed.
[21:17]I have, you know, other novels.
[21:19]I have, I don't know, probably four drawer novels
[21:22]that I won't touch again.
[21:23]I have two other novels that like I still really believe in.
[21:28]And think something can happen with.
[21:29]I have like other books that I'm writing.
[21:32]There's just always a lot of things going on.
[21:34]And I think it's, you know, you sort of just keep going.
[21:38]I can't even think of any novelists that I know.
[21:42]I'm sure they're out there,
[21:43]but they don't have to tell me who, like,
[21:46]get their very first novel published, you know?
[21:48]It's not like, oh, I had an idea for a book and I sat down
[21:51]and I wrote it and I got an agent
[21:53]and then the agent got me an editor
[21:55]and everything was great.
[21:56]I mean, there's just always, I wrote this.
[21:58]It didn't quite work.
[22:00]I started something else.
[22:01]I finally finished this.
[22:03]I tried to get an agent.
[22:04]I didn't get an agent.
[22:05]I got an agent, but that agent left the industry
[22:09]or, you know, decided they were no longer representing these books.
[22:11]Like a million things happen.
[22:13]But kind of along the way started just like clicking
[22:16]and connecting with the right people
[22:18]and finding the people who connect with the work.
[22:20]I think that's the most important thing.
[22:21]It's just like who is really gonna fall in love
[22:25]with the kinds of projects that I wanna be writing
[22:28]and then who is gonna be the champion
[22:30]for the work going forward?
[22:31]But why not just give up?
[22:33]Why not say, okay, forget it.
[22:35]I've got these four books and this isn't gonna sell
[22:37]and did it like, why not, you know?
[22:39]It definitely thought about it.
[22:41]But that the thought of giving up was continuously worse
[22:46]than anything else that could happen if I kept going.
[22:50]So any kind of note that I got or any kind of setback
[22:53]was still like, well, at least I'm doing something.
[22:56]And I'm writing the books that I wanna write
[22:59]and I think that was kind of this core truth
[23:02]that I had to keep coming back to.
[23:03]And I think that always stays with you
[23:05]because even when the book is published, it's still,
[23:08]you know, it doesn't mean that every single person
[23:10]in the entire universe is going to love it.
[23:13]But that would be so nice.
[23:14]That would be so nice.
[23:15]And obviously they should, but you know,
[23:17]you still have to know like, well, you keep going anyway
[23:21]or you say, you know, this is the project
[23:22]that I really believe in and that I wanna keep writing.
[23:26]And I kept coming back to that.
[23:28]And it was like, well, I could stop,
[23:31]but I have an idea for another book
[23:33]and I wanna write it.
[23:34]So I'm gonna keep doing that, you know?
[23:36]I just kept thinking, what else am I gonna do?
[23:40]For all of the, like writing is so hard, right?
[23:42]And writers always talk about how hard writing is.
[23:45]And it's true and it's hard.
[23:46]And like, and yet get so little sympathy.
[23:48]Yes.
[23:49]And at the same time, like writing is the best,
[23:52]writing is the best thing that I get to do.
[23:55]And even being in a position where there's a no
[24:00]or something doesn't land the way that I want it to.
[24:02]It's, I always kept coming back to this feeling.
[24:04]It sounds so cheesy, but I just kept being like,
[24:06]but I wanna keep doing this.
[24:08]I get to keep doing this and sort of holding on
[24:11]to that feeling.
[24:12]I think if you're in a position and you're like,
[24:15]oh, I could stop writing and I could save myself
[24:18]all of this heartache and all of these challenges
[24:20]and wouldn't that feel such, like such a relief?
[24:23]I think that's the sign to like, don't do this to yourself.
[24:25]Like you don't have to do this to yourself.
[24:28]But I think if that feels like grief
[24:32]that you would lose something,
[24:34]that that's the sign that you should just keep writing.
[24:38]So advice for aspiring authors?
[24:41]Yeah, well, we definitely, you know,
[24:42]hitting on the persistence.
[24:46]I love, you know, I love talking about this stuff
[24:48]because it is so hard.
[24:50]I have a whole sub stack called Ask an Author
[24:53]where people just write in and ask questions
[24:55]because I was like, I'm getting so many questions
[24:57]about writing all the time.
[24:58]So if anyone has questions, you just like write to me
[25:01]and I will answer them.
[25:02]I will do my best.
[25:05]So in it, I'm thinking about the persistence.
[25:07]When I'm thinking about like,
[25:08]what is like a practical, tangible thing?
[25:11]And I think one of the things that really helped me write
[25:14]Greenwich was I started setting certain parameters
[25:18]for myself and people will say like,
[25:20]oh, I write some number of words a day.
[25:23]And I do try to do that and I try to reach a goal
[25:25]so that I'm like, always touching a project.
[25:27]But what really changed for me
[25:28]and helped me, I think, be able to finish project
[25:31]was I started setting limits.
[25:32]So I was like, I'm not writing more
[25:34]than a certain number of words a day.
[25:36]So if I'm on a roll and things are going great
[25:38]and I've hit my, for me, it's usually 2,000 words
[25:41]but it could be anything, it could be 500,
[25:43]you know, it doesn't have to be that number.
[25:46]If I hit my 2,000 words and things are going great
[25:48]and I feel good and I could keep going,
[25:50]I don't, I stop.
[25:52]Because then the next day, I'm so excited to get back to it
[25:55]and I'm in the groove and I know what I wanna keep working on.
[25:59]And so it suddenly feels like this thing that I wanna do
[26:01]whereas if I just work and work and work
[26:03]until I'm completely burned out and exhausted,
[26:06]then I don't really wanna turn on my computer again
[26:08]because it feels like, oh, this is gonna be so hard.
[26:12]And so kind of finding these little ways to like,
[26:14]trick myself or to kind of set myself up for success
[26:17]to say, writing is something that makes me feel good.
[26:19]This book is a book that I wanna be writing
[26:22]and so I'm gonna keep coming back to it
[26:24]and whether that means like I don't do too much
[26:26]so that I'm still excited or I try to sort of end on
[26:29]a good note for the day or I will like write into the next scene.
[26:33]So if I finish a chapter, I will write the next sentence
[26:36]of the next chapter or even half a sentence.
[26:38]It doesn't even have to be a full sentence
[26:40]because then I know exactly where to pick up the next day.
[26:43]So it's like little tricks to say, I have to keep going
[26:47]and now I've set myself up to be able to keep going.
[26:50]I love it.
[26:51]If that helps anybody.
[26:52]It helped me, so there you go.
[26:53]But also if that is like not,
[26:55]what works for you if you're like, oh, God,
[26:56]what a nightmare, then like don't do it
[26:58]because I think part of it is also saying-
[27:00]Yeah, we're all gonna do it.
[27:01]Yeah.
[27:02]Because you said it.
[27:02]And that's it.
[27:03]That's it.
[27:04]It's been like the ruler of what happens
[27:05]because so much of it is just figuring out like
[27:08]what works for you and some of that might be what worked
[27:11]for somebody else and some of that
[27:13]might be like, oh, no, that would never work for me.
[27:15]People I think you can feel a lot of pressure
[27:17]to be like, well, this one writer like drafts everything
[27:20]by hand, so I should draft everything by hand.
[27:22]It's like, no, because I can't read my own handwriting.
[27:24]So I'm not gonna do that.
[27:26]So you just figured it out.
[27:27]Amazing.
[27:28]Well, Kate, congratulations and Greenwich,
[27:30]so delicious, so fun.
[27:32]Thank you so much.
[27:33]This is really fun to be here.
[27:34]Yeah.
[27:35]Thank you for listening to totally booked with Zibi.
[27:38]Formerly, mom's don't have time to read books.
[27:41]If you loved the show, tell a friend.
[27:43]Leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens
[27:47]and spread the word.
[27:48]Thanks so much.
[27:49]Oh, and buy the books.