Latest / Show, don't Tell Writing with Suzy Vadori / 59. Interview with Literary Fiction Author Lidija Hilje (Part 1)

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59. Interview with Literary Fiction Author Lidija Hilje (Part 1) · Show, don't Tell Writing with Suzy Vadori

• 0:07
  Welcome to Show.
• 0:07
  Don't Tell Writing with me, Suzy Vadori, where I teach you the tried and true secrets to writing fiction nonfiction that are gonna wow your readers broken down step by step.
• 0:18
  We're gonna explore writing techniques.
• 0:21
  I'm gonna show you a glimpse behind the scenes of successful writers' careers that you wouldn't have access to otherwise.
• 0:27
  And I'm also gonna coach writers live on their pages so that you can learn and transform your own storytelling.
• 0:33
  Whether you're just starting out, you're drafting your first book, you're editing, or you're currently rewriting that book, or maybe even your 10th book, this show's gonna help you unlock the writing skills that you didn't even know you needed, but you definitely do.
• 0:48
  I'm so looking forward to helping you get your amazing ideas from your mind onto your pages in an exciting way for both you and your readers, so that you can achieve your wildest writing dreams, and you're gonna also have some fun doing it.
• 1:02
  Let's dive in.
• 1:04
  On today's podcast, I am hosting Lidija Hillier.
• 1:08
  This has been such a long time coming.
• 1:10
  I'm so proud of the book that she has put out.
• 1:13
  Lidija is a fellow book coach.
• 1:14
  She lives in Croatia, and she and I started our book Coaching Careers Together.
• 1:19
  She's somebody that I absolutely adore, and just her knowledge and her grasp of how story works is something that we could talk all day about, and in fact, we almost did.
• 1:32
  And so this episode ran really long and we're gonna break it into two parts because she just has so much to say.
• 1:37
  But here's her bio.
• 1:39
  Lidija is a book coach and author of literary fiction, and before becoming a novelist, she was a practicing attorney at law spending her days trying cases before Croatian courts.
• 1:49
  Lidija's nonfiction essays have been handpicked by Medium's editorial team, and featured on the Medium homepage, which earned her the title of Top writer in fields of psychology, self-awareness, personnel development, self-improvement and more.
• 2:02
  Most recently, her personal essay was published in the New York Times's Modern Love Column.
• 2:07
  She lives in Zadar, Croatia with her husband and two children, and when she's not writing her coaching writers, she can be found sipping coffee with her husband.
• 2:14
  On one of her hometown's, piazzas we're scrapbooking and buying too many books with her girls.
• 2:20
  Lidija's debut novel Slanting Towards the Sea just came out in July of 2025 with Simon and Schuster.
• 2:27
  It's being released in both the UK and North America.
• 2:31
  Let me read you the blurb about it.
• 2:33
  This is an absolutely gorgeous, gorgeous novel, and we're gonna talk about it slanting towards the sea, spanning across 20 years and one life altering summer in Croatia.
• 2:43
  Slanting towards the sea is at once.
• 2:45
  An unforgettable love story and a powerful exploration of what it means to come of age in a country younger than oneself.
• 2:53
  Ivona divorced the love of her life, LA Ho.
• 2:56
  A decade ago, they met his students at the turn of the millennium when newly democratic Croatia was alive with hope and promise.
• 3:03
  But the challenges of living in a burgeoning country extinguish Ivo dreams one after another, and a devastating secret forced her to set him free.
• 3:11
  Now La Ho is remarried and a proud father of two.
• 3:14
  While Avon's life has taken a downward turn.
• 3:17
  In her thirties, she has returned to her childhood home to care for her ailing father, bewildered by life's disappointments.
• 3:23
  She finds solace in reconnecting with La Ho and is welcomed into his family with his spirited new wife Marina.
• 3:30
  But when a new man enters Zonas life.
• 3:32
  The carefully cultivated dynamic between the three is disrupted, forcing a reckoning for all involved set against the mesmerizing Croatian coastline.
• 3:40
  Slanting towards the sea is a cinematic, emotionally searing debut about the fragile nature of potential and the transcendence of love.
• 3:49
  In this part one of this interview, we're gonna talk quite a bit about literary fiction.
• 3:55
  What is literary fiction?
• 3:57
  How does it differ from genre fiction?
• 3:59
  So if you've ever been curious about this distinction, Lidija is like your woman.
• 4:05
  She knows how to describe it really, really well.
• 4:07
  We talk about the fact that the book is set in her home, which is Croatia.
• 4:12
  And how much of her politics and things that have happened in her life and what drove her to write that story and how that worked out.
• 4:19
  We also talk about her takeaway and what she wants to read, her takeaway, and how the theme and the point of the book differs in literary fiction than it does in genre fiction in joy.
• 4:32
  Oh my gosh, Lidija, it is so, so exciting to have you here today.
• 4:37
  It's been a while.
• 4:40
  I'm so excited to be here.
• 4:41
  It's such a joy to see you again.
• 4:44
  Yeah.
• 4:44
  We were just talking before we started the recording that I think it's been a couple of years, but we started our coaching career together and all these things, and so when this book came out, I'm just so excited to have you on the podcast.
• 4:57
  So thank you for coming with us today.
• 4:59
  I'm super excited to be here.
• 5:02
  So laning towards the sea, and we'll put some screenshots up of the two beautiful covers that you have, and Lidija has them up behind her as we're recording.
• 5:12
  You guys can't see this, but they're absolutely gorgeous.
• 5:15
  I'm happy with the covers.
• 5:17
  I'm super, super happy with the covers.
• 5:20
  Uh, the painting cover was actually something that I had sent to my editor, which you are published authors.
• 5:28
  Wow.
• 5:29
  That you never, yeah.
• 5:31
  Covers.
• 5:31
  But this painting popped up on my Instagram basically.
• 5:35
  And so I just like, I was like, this is my cover.
• 5:38
  And so the US Oh, cover.
• 5:41
  Yeah.
• 5:41
  And it turned out to be a person living in Lisbon, but when I looked her up, she turned out to be creation as well.
• 5:48
  So it was nice way.
• 5:50
  Perfect.
• 5:51
  Yeah.
• 5:51
  To connect over, you know, like we are two Croatian women basically establishing our careers abroad.
• 5:57
  So.
• 5:58
  It was a great, great thing.
• 6:00
  And the UK cover is also, it, it, it kind of like, it's a photograph, but Yeah.
• 6:06
  In a conversation with the US cover because it's also a woman in the sea, so yeah.
• 6:10
  I love them both.
• 6:11
  I can't really decide.
• 6:14
  I'm a, I'm a swimmer and I grew up on the ocean in Canada, as you know, and so.
• 6:19
  I don't live on the ocean now, and so it's hopefully a really special place for me whenever I can get to the ocean several times per year.
• 6:25
  In fact, I was in SSON a few months back and, and was in the sea in the spring and people were like, it's cold.
• 6:33
  I'm like, I don't care.
• 6:34
  And so, so yeah, those covers really spoke to me and that is, I didn't even know that story.
• 6:39
  That is such a beautiful story.
• 6:41
  Okay.
• 6:42
  So slamming towards the sea, it's literary fiction, right?
• 6:46
  And one of the things that Lidija does, an amazing way, we have a lot of writers on this podcast that listen to this podcast and something that Lidija does so well is describe genre.
• 6:57
  So what makes it, and this is sort of what your, one of your superpowers, you have so many, and I'm gonna talk about that to you, but what makes a book literary fiction.
• 7:08
  Oh, that's a great question and thank you.
• 7:10
  Alright.
• 7:11
  You know, Nico, I hope I live, uh, explaining this, but yeah, genre is uh, one of my favorite topics to talk about and I was as a coach and also as a writer, really annoyed with not getting that answer anywhere.
• 7:27
  So I took to finding the answer to that question, even though like, it's always so difficult to answer.
• 7:34
  But most resources that I Perus at that time really spoke about literary fiction, just being gorgeous writing, which doing a disservice to genre fiction because genre fiction can also be go gorgeously written and literary fiction has a different quality to the writing.
• 7:54
  Not to say that it's more quality.
• 7:56
  Like I said, it's just like that.
• 7:58
  It's different.
• 7:59
  I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I do have this book club for writers that I run.
• 8:04
  And in this book club we read a lot of literary fiction.
• 8:07
  And so I was like looking at, at all these stories and, and racking my brain in trying to figure out what it was.
• 8:15
  And so it really is something that Donald Mass, who is this writing instructor that I really adore, really coined this phrase postcards.
• 8:26
  And he was talking about how.
• 8:28
  Literary fiction was written differently than than genre fiction in the sense of seas, where in genre fiction, you will have a scene that moves the story forward, something changes for the protagonist.
• 8:40
  They, you know, something happens plot wise and it inspires a decision or a different course of action or realization for the protagonist.
• 8:51
  And in literary fiction, you those kinds of scenes but also.
• 8:56
  Postcards and postcards are, are the scenes where nothing changes for the protagonist, but the understanding of the reader changes when they read the scene.
• 9:05
  So everything stays the same for the protagonist, but your understanding as a reader deepens.
• 9:12
  That's one of the big discerning things.
• 9:14
  And the other ones are obviously, you know, that it can be structured differently.
• 9:19
  It doesn't necessarily adhere to the formulas that are in place for some genre fiction.
• 9:25
  Like in, in a mystery.
• 9:27
  Yeah, like romance or mystery.
• 9:28
  Yeah, yeah.
• 9:29
  People, yeah, people would be really displayed.
• 9:31
  It didn't solve the murder toward the beginning, you know, or in romance if it's not a happy ending or, you know, uh, at least happy for now.
• 9:40
  Readers get really mad because they, they have expectations from those stories.
• 9:46
  Whereas in literary fiction, you really subvert those expectations.
• 9:50
  And it's also about just having a different approach to the point where it's not so clear cut as it is oftentimes in genre fiction, for instance, in woman's fiction, it will often be.
• 10:07
  Pretty explicit about the problem that the protagonist has in, say, the CAT method.
• 10:13
  There's even this device that, that's, you know, the, the sidekick in the story really tells the protagonist in the first few scenes what their problem is, and the protagonist kind of denies it, and toward the end of the story, it turns out to be their problem and they're resolving this issue.
• 10:30
  But in literary fiction, you do a layered approach to themes and to point of the story.
• 10:38
  And it's often like when we talk in my book club about literary fiction books, it's really hard to just have one takeaway of the story to just say, okay, this story, the point of this story is so and so.
• 10:51
  It's really like every reader gets their own pick and they pick and choose, and it's not true.
• 10:58
  It's all true, but.
• 11:00
  It's not just one thing and the reader usually has to work in Literation.
• 11:04
  They have to work much harder to parse things out to, to really figure out the story.
• 11:10
  And this really puts a lot more pressure on the writer because they have to have as their writing.
• 11:19
  An incredible amount of control over, over their, their story storytelling.
• 11:23
  So while you're reading, it might seem that it's disjointed or that you don't, that it's not like you don't know why the writer has gone that way or this way, but you trust them to lead you to, to connect all the dots for you.
• 11:40
  As a reader, you trust them and as a writer you have to deliver on that premise, which is incredibly hard because you know, when you're in the thick of the writing process, it's asks for incredible understanding of your story, which is not yet known to you.
• 11:55
  So it does ask a a little bit more concentration on your part.
• 12:01
  And as a book coach, obviously it also asks.
• 12:05
  The, this balance between just asking the writer to clarify and, you know, letting them run away with the story, but reining them in.
• 12:17
  So it's, it's a whole thing.
• 12:19
  I, I know I talked a little bit more.
• 12:21
  No, that's great.
• 12:23
  The listeners are gonna understand immediately why you and I get along so well and why we have so many conversations.
• 12:30
  Because this is what I do.
• 12:31
  I, I coach mostly genre fiction, and so we have those discussions, right?
• 12:35
  Because many writers coming at it will be inspired by literary fiction, but as you said, it's, it's very difficult to, I mean, it's difficult to write everything.
• 12:45
  But it's a little bit less approachable to become, you know, your debut novel as a literary novel.
• 12:51
  It's pretty tricky.
• 12:52
  You gotta learn a lot before you can do it.
• 12:54
  And so they take some of those concepts, like those, you, you were talking about Donald MA's, um, Donald J MA's idea of postcards, but it's those untethered scenes, right?
• 13:04
  Like scenes that aren't in a moment.
• 13:06
  We don't really allow those in genre fiction because they're, they're too abstract and they're too difficult.
• 13:12
  But literary fiction readers.
• 13:14
  Crave those seeds, and that's part of that moment.
• 13:17
  And so I often had genre fiction writers come to me with a science fiction, for example, with these untethered scenes where you're in somebody's thoughts and they're not grounded in a moment.
• 13:27
  They don't work right in that genre.
• 13:29
  But in literary fiction, that is actually the staple of it.
• 13:32
  I mean, you have, and in this book you do so many things.
• 13:35
  Well, Lidija, by the way, is absolutely, you talked about gorgeous writing as the definition of literary fiction, and that is absolutely what comes to mind.
• 13:43
  This is really gorgeous book and you float in and out of those sort of postcards with real details.
• 13:50
  And I'm gonna talk about this in a moment, 'cause the showing details that you've got in here.
• 13:54
  Off the charts.
• 13:55
  I mean, I geek out.
• 13:56
  The whole podcast is called Show No Tell Writing, and you know that that's my shtick, right?
• 14:00
  And so like I was just like, my mind was exploding with all the details that you had on the page.
• 14:06
  And so it is absolutely gorgeous, beautiful.
• 14:09
  I love, love, love the way that you approach things.
• 14:11
  And we're gonna talk about this in a minute, but because of your former career and all the shifts that have been made, you looked at the genres.
• 14:20
  In terms of like literary fiction in terms of patterns and tried to break it down.
• 14:25
  So would you say in slanting towards the sea, do you think that you followed the typical or trope patterns?
• 14:32
  I mean there there's less of them, there's not a formula, or did you break some of those norms?
• 14:37
  Like would you say that this is classic literary fiction, or were you pushing the boundaries?
• 14:43
  So I, I think it's really hard to say that there, that anything is classic litter efficient because it, it's definition is to defy expectation.
• 14:53
  Yeah.
• 14:53
  So it's really hard to say, but I did, I will say that my first, you, you were, you did a fantastic job clarifying how difficult it is to write a novel as a beginner writer and to make those postcards work.
• 15:09
  This is what happened to me as a novice writer five or six years ago when I was writing my first s novel.
• 15:16
  I, you know, came to my developmental editor with a flurry of the post, um, teed scenes, and she asked me to ground them all and she led me into, into, she led the book Towards Woman's Yeah, towards genre.
• 15:33
  And while at the time, you know, I didn't know what I was doing.
• 15:36
  I was new to writing.
• 15:37
  I didn't know anything, so it, it made sense for me to listen to her.
• 15:43
  It ended up, you know, my book ended up being something that I didn't want and it didn't work out, and so I shopped that project.
• 15:50
  But I'm, I'm mentioning this because you really do have to learn the formulas.
• 15:55
  You really do have to.
• 15:57
  Learn show don't tell.
• 15:59
  So well that you can share.
• 16:01
  Yes.
• 16:01
  I didn't hear Baker say this.
• 16:04
  She didn't, yeah.
• 16:05
  It's like you really do need to learn all, all those things and then you can take them and start playing with them.
• 16:12
  And I will say that when I started writing this book, I knew I wanted, I knew I wanted it to be a literary fiction novel, but I was also mired, basically like, you know, as a book coach, I, I'm trained.
• 16:24
  In different forms of different story pattern.
• 16:28
  Let's say, you know, uh, save the Cat Blueprint for a book.
• 16:32
  You know story.
• 16:34
  I know you follow story, story, story, genius, all those things.
• 16:39
  And they tend, because they're teaching you something, they tend toward formulaic, right?
• 16:43
  They need to show you some formula to be able to execute that.
• 16:47
  And so I had to find back on that impulse.
• 16:52
  To fit the story into this formula, and I was actually on a call with Barbara Boyd, who is our colleague, and you know her well.
• 16:59
  And I chose Barbara because Barbara, she coaches nonfiction on, on the, on the fold, but also literary fiction is one of her the things that she loves and she hates women's fiction.
• 17:12
  And I thought this was a perfect thing for me because I thought she would pick up on the things where I weirded towards women's fiction, towards genre fiction.
• 17:21
  And so we had this call and she said.
• 17:24
  I laid out the, you know, the story for her that I had in mind, and this was, this was before I really in earnest started writing, and she said, you know, there was, there was this thing where toward the end that I really leaning into the woman's fiction angle.
• 17:41
  I was, I, I basically killed off a character so that I would make things easier for my protagonist.
• 17:48
  And she said, what would happen if she, if that person didn't die?
• 17:52
  I'm like, it would be super messy.
• 17:55
  And she said, yeah, that's where it is.
• 17:58
  And she was so right.
• 18:00
  She was so right in, in learning how to curb those impulses that you are learning as afic as a genre writer to to honor.
• 18:10
  It's like finding those impulse as a literary writer where the story really resides.
• 18:17
  But to be able to do that, you really, really do need to know the ins and outs of, of your Yeah.
• 18:22
  You know, basic genre.
• 18:24
  Because even, like you said, even literary fiction does have basis of the story in a genre, you do have a sci-fi bent to, uh, a lot of, to a lot of literary fiction stories.
• 18:35
  You have orbital by.
• 18:37
  Samantha Harvey that won, I think the Booker Prize.
• 18:41
  So, you know, it's, and it's set in space.
• 18:44
  So you know, it's basically, it crosses, it crosses topics for sure.
• 18:50
  Yes, you can do any topic in literary fiction, but it is a style of writing.
• 18:53
  But it's not for everybody.
• 18:55
  And it's not for every reader, right?
• 18:57
  Yes.
• 18:57
  And so you're gonna pick up different readers than you will in.
• 19:01
  Fewer writing in that genre.
• 19:03
  And generally less so than, yeah.
• 19:05
  Fewer.
• 19:06
  Yeah.
• 19:06
  Fewer.
• 19:06
  Fewer, fewer.
• 19:07
  Fewer.
• 19:07
  Yeah.
• 19:08
  Fewer.
• 19:08
  Fewer.
• 19:09
  And, and, and I like to say too, you know, depending on what people's goals are with their book, because there is so much to learn in literary fiction, it's not for everybody.
• 19:19
  Right.
• 19:19
  Like, you have to be really, really interested in learning about all of that.
• 19:23
  Right.
• 19:24
  To be able to make it work.
• 19:25
  Okay.
• 19:26
  So what's this book about?
• 19:28
  So this book is about 38-year-old Croatian woman living in Croatia, and I'm from Croatia.
• 19:35
  But uh, it's about this 38-year-old Croatian woman who's divorced, living with her ailing father.
• 19:42
  And she divorced her the love of her life 10 years ago for reasons that only she and her mother-in-law know, and she's still in contact and in close relationship with her ex-husband and his new wife.
• 19:56
  But when a new man enters her life, the carefully curated dynamics between all involved really era talk about mass, right?
• 20:05
  Yes.
• 20:05
  Talk about messy.
• 20:06
  So yeah, the book is set in your home, Croatia, which I just think is absolutely beautiful.
• 20:12
  There are beautiful descriptions of the sites and I, I know that you also have like sort of a photo guide on your website of all the different sites in case people haven't been there.
• 20:23
  And I've never been to crochet.
• 20:24
  It's been on my list for a very long time.
• 20:27
  I will make it there, but my husband's already been, so it's one of those things where like when we look, he's like, I've been there.
• 20:32
  I wanna go somewhere new, but we will get there.
• 20:35
  But you also chose to tackle.
• 20:38
  Pieces of the politics of living in Croatia and the, the, the ways that it's changed over the years is something that I've seen you write about in relation to this book.
• 20:49
  It isn't necessarily all in the book.
• 20:51
  It's not what the book is about, but it was that one of the things that you really wanted to show or did that just kind of happen?
• 20:57
  Um, like what it was like to live in an evolving country as it's changing.
• 21:04
  To be honest, like my first book, I really didn't want Croatia to be a part of it, so much so that I said it in the US even though I've never been to the us, but it felt at the time, and this was like 2017, 2018, that.
• 21:19
  If I set the book in Croatia, everyone would expect there's this expectation that reader has all stories coming from a certain place.
• 21:28
  If the place isn't the US or the uk, if you're in the US or the uk, you can write whatever story.
• 21:33
  You can write the Len Park story, you can write the Manhattan story, like everything goes.
• 21:38
  If you're from Croatia, everyone expects you to write about the war.
• 21:42
  And if I had a dime for every time that I heard, oh, were you writer?
• 21:47
  Book about a war.
• 21:49
  It's really interesting.
• 21:50
  I would be a rich person now, and this wasn't something that I wanted to write about.
• 21:54
  I wanted to write about intimate relationships and how they develop and small things that really change our lives.
• 22:01
  And it felt like if I put the story in Croatia, the Croatian element, like the, you know, the culture that's similar, but not so, so much so from the US or Canada, in fact, would, you know, overpower the quiet narrative.
• 22:17
  So I set my first book in in the US and it was a huge mistake because I'm a very sensory orientated person, and it was really hard to bring the setting to life because I'd never been there.
• 22:30
  And so when I started this book, I said, you know, I'm going to set it in Croatia.
• 22:33
  It's not, it's not an option.
• 22:35
  Like I'm not going to put myself through that torture again.
• 22:38
  And my initial thoughts were that I wouldn't, that I wouldn't want to involve croak too much.
• 22:45
  Okay, the story's set here, but let's keep it out on the sidelines and as much as possible.
• 22:50
  But then when I delved into this character's life, it became obvious pretty early on just how much she was affected by this country that she calls home, as we all are.
• 23:03
  Regardless of where we live, it's like we are all shaped by what's possible in our country, what education we can get, what kind of, you know, occupation you can, you can have, what kind of money you can earn, what your healthcare system like.
• 23:17
  All those things really govern your life, and it was very true for my character as well.
• 23:22
  And so slowly, these two opposite things.
• 23:27
  Really seeped into my book.
• 23:28
  First was the gorgeous sending, which I said I'm a sensory person.
• 23:33
  I do experience my surroundings in the, the way that they're described in the book.
• 23:38
  I do go out and I do notice all the sounds and the smells and the, you know, the spray of the sea every day.
• 23:45
  Like it's all there for me every day.
• 23:47
  So it's, it's not, it's, it was not a thing I did to enhance the book.
• 23:53
  It's just how things are.
• 23:54
  No, not at all.
• 23:56
  Okay.
• 23:56
  Yeah.
• 23:57
  Yeah.
• 23:58
  And the other competing part was the political stuff because it also shaped my life.
• 24:03
  And so it was only logical for it to enter the book as well.
• 24:07
  So those two things are, yeah, and they, they, it isn't as overt.
• 24:12
  It isn't as, you know, there aren't that many things about the political piece.
• 24:16
  Like I was expecting there to be more, honestly, when I, when I read some of the preamble about it, and of course that's what people draw out, right?
• 24:24
  Right.
• 24:25
  I think it was actually really interesting, just on a sort of more personal note, because everything that ends up in a book is personal.
• 24:32
  It doesn't mean that it's been your experience, but it might have been the opposite of your experience or it might have been, you know, all these things.
• 24:38
  And I, I'm sure this is not your story 'cause I know that that is not your situation.
• 24:42
  But I actually love, there was a few details about when she's setting up her business.
• 24:47
  And all the paperwork, you're like, you don't have enough experience to become a sole proprietor entrepreneur.
• 24:53
  Like, 'cause when you and I were setting up our business, that was something that you went through, right?
• 24:57
  And so that was, I know you had so much more paperwork and so many more hoops to jump through to set up your own business than I did in Canada.
• 25:06
  And so that was, that was really neat to see that show up in the book because yeah, we forget.
• 25:11
  It's not just about culture and politics, it's like actually how it affects your life.
• 25:16
  And like you said, what kinds of jobs are available to you and what are you allowed to do and what opportunities are There is very different from country to country and I know people often will say, how come there's so many writers in Canada?
• 25:29
  And our social safety net is one of those reasons because we can, you know, we don't need to worry about.
• 25:34
  Um, healthcare from a employer standpoint, so we do have more so sole proprietors because we don't have that worry.
• 25:42
  You know, like there's, there's different things and policies that actually do shape our lives, and I, I love how you do that.
• 25:48
  Yes.
• 25:48
  You didn't set it in Croatia because it was like a gimmick.
• 25:52
  I mean, that's where you live.
• 25:54
  And it's not about the war or about politics, it's just kind of there.
• 25:59
  Of course, people are people and relationships are relationships and seeing, seeing that is really awesome.
• 26:05
  You don't have to write about Croatia specifically to show that Croatia people have the same, the same things and family dynamics and relationship dynamics that, that all humans have.
• 26:17
  So, so what do you hope that readers will take away from this story?
• 26:21
  I know we talked about this at the beginning.
• 26:22
  You're like.
• 26:23
  There's not just one takeaway or point or theme, but in your heart of hearts, what do you want readers to take away from it?
• 26:31
  Or is that too much of a spoiler?
• 26:33
  No, I don't think it's a spoiler.
• 26:34
  Thank you.
• 26:35
  That's a really good question and, and probably just like I said, for different readers interpreting the book differently.
• 26:45
  Uh, you could ask me this question 10 days in a row and I'd probably give a different answer.
• 26:51
  I think when I was writing it, there were a few things that I really leaned into that were important to me.
• 26:58
  One was how we were shaped how we are shaped as people with some experiences whe whether they're one traumatic event or if they're like prolonged period of unsafety instability, which in Croatia has been.
• 27:13
  Historically a thing and how that can affect your decision making, and it makes you feel like you're making all these decisions out of free will, but that free will is shaped by your emotional setup, if that makes sense.
• 27:31
  Yeah.
• 27:32
  I'm so questioning those, that that setup is what I'm interested in, in, in my.
• 27:38
  Personal life.
• 27:39
  Like I enjoy doing stuff, you know, just based on, on inertia.
• 27:45
  And then just, oh, like realizing that and then giving it a proper thought and saying, do I want this to be my reaction going forward?
• 27:56
  And just the idea of people having the ability to change and having the ability to, to do things differently, but also.
• 28:05
  That there are things that are going to be, you know, that your life is going to be affected by.
• 28:12
  And it's this, you know, push and full, it's positive and it's also heartbreaking at the same time, if that makes sense.
• 28:19
  So that's what that, what makes perfect sense.
• 28:21
  And I love that you say that because again, just following your journey, you know, you've made some hard choices in your life, and we've talked about this before, but you were, you were a lawyer.
• 28:33
  Turned writer, and that was one of the things that we got along most about.
• 28:37
  I'm fascinated by people who switched careers, myself included, from being a business executive to becoming a book coach and a writer.
• 28:45
  And so how did that switch happen for you?
• 28:49
  We have a lot of listeners that are in other careers now and would love to do what you did.
• 28:54
  So how did it happen?
• 28:56
  It was a bit of a, it was a bit of a crazy journey, I will say.
• 29:01
  In Croatia attorneys, I was an attorney at law.
• 29:04
  I had my own law practice, but in, in Croatia, people, you know, even if you're in the most like progressive, like high level occupation.
• 29:14
  You don't necessarily earn a lot of money, like government position, more or less, right?
• 29:19
  Like yes.
• 29:20
  It's not a government position, it's just the fact that people, for instance, yeah, government position generally poorly paid.
• 29:27
  So a neurosurgeon in a hospital will not earn maybe twice of what the retail worker does.
• 29:34
  It just like not enough money for that kind of occupation.
• 29:38
  And for, I was, you know, self-employed through my law practice and like it was, I was a business owner, but for there, there's, um, hyperinflation of lawyers in Croatia when I.
• 29:52
  Opened my law office until the time that I closed it.
• 29:55
  There was a rise of 30% more people being lawyers, practicing law before courts.
• 30:01
  And it was, it was, it's unsustainable.
• 30:03
  And because of that, the, the prices, you know, the rates, you have to dump the prices anyway, it was a whole thing.
• 30:11
  It was not very lucrative.
• 30:12
  Just as any occupation in Croatia is not very lucrative.
• 30:16
  So people will hear them off of tourism and brave economy and all those things.
• 30:21
  Not so much off of a wage.
• 30:23
  And so my husband and I, we were actually thinking about moving the way, and he's lucky in that his occupation translates well into a foreign country, which he is.
• 30:34
  He's a programmer while I'm, I'm a Croatian lawyer, so my wouldn't translate so nicely.
• 30:40
  And he ended up finding a remote job and we ended up staying in Croatia.
• 30:46
  But then by that time I was just like so sick of my job that I. I just wanted to do something with books because I had, like during the time that we thought of leaving Croatia, I was just like, what will I do if we go to Ireland?
• 31:00
  Like, what's going to be my life there?
• 31:02
  And I decided that it's going to be something about books.
• 31:06
  I'm.
• 31:07
  Could be a bookseller or a book writer or you know, librarian.
• 31:11
  Something about book you were being called.
• 31:13
  Yeah.
• 31:15
  And it's, it's, it was not more well defined than that.
• 31:19
  And that's what makes the story a little bit crazy because when he came home and said, we are staying in Croatia, I was like, yeah, great.
• 31:26
  We don't have to uproot our children.
• 31:28
  Take them to a country where they don't even know to speak their language.
• 31:32
  But on the other hand, I couldn't reconcile myself to going back to law after admitting all the things that I hated about it.
• 31:39
  And so I, I said to my husband, he was finally earning enough to keep me afloat, to gimme a chance to really do something.
• 31:48
  And so I took a leap of faith.
• 31:51
  It's more like jumping out of the, an airplane.
• 31:53
  There was no safety net there, there was no guarantees.
• 31:57
  I didn't know anything about writing.
• 31:59
  I didn't know, I didn't know.
• 32:00
  Show don't tells.
• 32:01
  You that have found this podcast and learned a ton from people, now you're teaching it.
• 32:06
  Now you're teaching it.
• 32:06
  I wish.
• 32:06
  Yes.
• 32:07
  Now I'm teaching it and it was a steep learning curve, but back in like it was six years ago, in February, 2019, I closed down down my law firm.
• 32:17
  I started connecting with critique partners abroad, uh, reading and and writing in English, which up until that point I was reading and writing in operation.
• 32:27
  And so maybe.
• 32:30
  Nine or 10 months out, I found out about Author Accelerator and, uh, Jenny, you know, I was so worried that I would not be accepted into the fold being, uh, you know, someone who's not a native speaker, but thankfully, you know, Jenny accepted me and I, it's, it's critique of other people's work.
• 32:52
  And she's shown about your book at the top of her life, have you even imagine?
• 32:57
  Think about that six years ago that you worked that closely with her, that she's excited about this book, as excited as you are, and conversely to 30% extra attorneys practicing law.
• 33:09
  We were the very first author, accelerator certified coach in Croatia.
• 33:14
  Are you still, I don't know if that's still true.
• 33:16
  I think so.
• 33:16
  Yeah.
• 33:16
  Yeah, I think so.
• 33:17
  So I mean, from a overrun profession to being the only one in your country that actually do this job, like think about that.
• 33:26
  Right.
• 33:27
  I never know that way.
• 33:29
  That's amazing.
• 33:30
  That is amazing.
• 33:31
  And you talk about, you were reading and writing in Croatian and then you switched to English.
• 33:36
  How was that?
• 33:36
  And then I say that because.
• 33:38
  I work with a lot of ESL or even like English is a second language, or I'm working with a writer who, English is her fifth language.
• 33:45
  I'm working with the writer who English is his seventh language and he said, you know, he's choosing to write in English because it's his language of inspiration.
• 33:54
  So I hope you're listening out there.
• 33:55
  What was that decision about and how difficult was that is?
• 33:58
  Do you speak other languages or, or the two.
• 34:01
  Just the Croat.
• 34:02
  Just Croatian and English.
• 34:03
  Yeah.
• 34:04
  Okay.
• 34:04
  And so how was that transition to be writing in a language that isn't your first language?
• 34:10
  Croatia is such a small country.
• 34:12
  We actually have less than 4 million people.
• 34:14
  So you can imagine our publishing landscape not being huge in our readership, not being huge.
• 34:22
  And people don't live off of writing here, usually, probably there are exceptions, but not many of them.
• 34:30
  So when I started, when I finished the first draft of my first novel, I really started thinking about, okay, can I publish this?
• 34:37
  And where do I publish this?
• 34:39
  And it was unimaginable for me to publish it in Croatia because like I said, it's not, yeah, there was this fear of glass ceilings, which I also met as an attorney, and I didn't want that to be part of my story.
• 34:52
  I wanted to be judged by my talent alone.
• 34:55
  So I decided to translate my book, or I rather I'd given it to someone who had used Google Translate rendering the material completely unusable, which would mean in a position, gosh, it was horrible, and it put me in a position where I, I needed to do it myself or give up.
• 35:16
  And so.
• 35:18
  At that point, I really thought I was so far into this process that it didn't make sense to give up.
• 35:23
  I didn't know how much work it goes from translating your book and writing your, basically what was basically the first draft to getting it ready for publication.
• 35:34
  And thank God I didn't know because if I had, I would save.
• 35:39
  Yeah, please don't look into a lot play before.
• 35:42
  Before.
• 35:43
  Yeah.
• 35:44
  But anyway, um, I did that.
• 35:46
  I translated it and it was difficult at first while I had the two languages in my head, um, because I was trying to literally translate and it didn't work.
• 35:56
  I know there are translators out there who do fantastic job.
• 36:00
  It's an art form in its own right, but I personally.
• 36:06
  Had issues with translating because doesn't it the same thing for those who don't speak to languages, you know, they, there's lots of ways that we use language that, that you can't literally translate 'cause you have to think about what it means in that culture.
• 36:22
  In that, in that language.
• 36:23
  Right.
• 36:23
  And so exactly not skill that everybody has.
• 36:26
  So for, for instance, there's this, there's this example that where I bristle at this now there's we very good showing detail there.
• 36:35
  Leave it showing and not selling until the bristling.
• 36:38
  Right.
• 36:38
  Good job.
• 36:38
  I'm Bris, I'm bristling.
• 36:40
  So the there, you know, selling waterfront property is a thing here and we call it like the house is in the first row to the sea.
• 36:50
  Right?
• 36:50
  And so in Croatian it makes sense when you say it like the house is the first road to the sea in English, it doesn't work so well.
• 36:58
  A seafront property.
• 37:00
  And that's how it should, right?
• 37:01
  You should say it.
• 37:02
  So if I. Translate the phrase, literally, it really doesn't work.
• 37:08
  And then like, that's just a phrase and a lot more goes into translating entire paragraphs and entire chapters.
• 37:16
  That's than, than meets the i in the beginning.
• 37:18
  So I, I basically gave up on translating than, so this book, you, this book you started in English?
• 37:26
  Yes.
• 37:27
  Yeah.
• 37:28
  Yes.
• 37:28
  Yeah.
• 37:28
  And the English is beautiful.
• 37:30
  Absolutely beautiful.
• 37:31
  Okay, thank you.
• 37:32
  How can we find your books and talk a little bit about your book coaching service?
• 37:38
  Because the clients who get to work with you, and especially in the genres that you excel in literary fiction, women's fiction, they are so, so lucky.
• 37:48
  Where can we find you?
• 37:50
  So my book is, you know, everywhere where the books are sold.
• 37:54
  So, you know, in Canada and in the US it's in all the stores you can find.
• 37:59
  It's everywhere.
• 38:00
  And it's also out in the uk so we can, you can get it there.
• 38:03
  And in terms of book coaching, I'm taking a pause because Coke launching and we didn't even talk about that.
• 38:09
  You'll have to come back on and talk about launching a book.
• 38:12
  Scott, launching a book is a full-time job.
• 38:16
  It takes a lot and I really.
• 38:18
  I really do.
• 38:19
  I'm really very de a very dedicated coach.
• 38:22
  I really am.
• 38:24
  You know, I, I do want to give like 100% to my clients and this wasn't a period where, where I could do it.
• 38:30
  So I'm, I'm taking a short break, but I'll be back.
• 38:34
  In the fall and you can con contact me.
• 38:36
  We are my website.
• 38:38
  There's, we'll put all, we'll put all the links there.
• 38:40
  Yeah.
• 38:40
  And fall 2025. So depending on when, if you're listening to this later, the Lidia might just be your ideal book coach.
• 38:48
  So go and check her out.
• 38:49
  Yeah.
• 38:49
  Okay.
• 38:50
  Thank you so much for coming on today and I will talk to you soon.
• 38:53
  Thank you so much for having me.
• 38:54
  It was a blast to be here.
• 38:55
  I love this.
• 39:04
  Thanks for tuning in to show.
• 39:05
  No.
• 39:06
  Tell Writing with me, Susie Vadori.
• 39:08
  I'll me continue to bring you the straight goods for that book you're writing or planning to write.
• 39:13
  Please consider subscribing to this podcast and leaving a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever else you're listening.
• 39:20
  Also, visit susie Vadori.com/newsletter to hop on my weekly inspired writing newsletter list where you'll stay inspired and be the first to know about upcoming training events, writing courses that happen in my community.
• 39:34
  If you're feeling brave, check the show notes and send us a page of your writing that isn't quite where you want it to be yet for our show notes, tell page review episodes.
• 39:44
  Remember that book and your writing is going to open doors that you haven't even thought of yet, and I can't wait to help you make it the absolute best fast You're feeling called to write that book.
• 39:57
  Keep going, and I'm gonna be right here cheering you on.
• 40:00
  See you again next week.