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Booktalk With Juliana Smith · Moms That Read

• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to the moms that read podcasts.
• 0:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm Kaylee and I'm Kenzie and today we have a special guest.
• 0:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have Julia and Smith who is an author of the most recent book that she's published with the drawn together.
• 0:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can introduce yourself if you want to kind of tell us a little bit about yourself or for those who haven't read drawn together yet like do you have something that you can kind of give us a spiel about about what that book is.
• 0:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, okay, so I'm horrible at introducing myself.
• 0:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the next I can, I'll pull together the cliff notes.
• 0:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: The problem is I introduce myself.
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, you want to hear this story from when I was in third grade.
• 0:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they're like, no, I don't.
• 0:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: We love to hear it.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
• 0:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 0:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Come on.
• 0:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, my name is Juliana Smith.
• 0:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm from a really small town in Alabama.
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I started rotten.
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: I guess it was about nine months after I had my daughter.
• 0:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was struggling with post-partum anxiety, and I was like, I need something to do.
• 0:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I got really into reading, and then my husband was like, you should, you should see if you could write one, just see if you could do it.
• 1:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I did it for fall in, and then I think it was like a month after my book came out.
• 1:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I got my royalty thing, and it was enough to make my car payment.
• 1:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, this is revelinary.
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can really sit on commission so I was like, heck yeah, I'm writing another one.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then I got to, I just felt more and more in love with it with each book.
• 1:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, so yeah, drawn together is my technically my tenth book.
• 1:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: My ninth publish, but my tenth total book, I got the written one in between those two and so.
• 1:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're drawn together though.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: The most recent one is a you've got male inspired rom-com where she is a children's book illustrator and he's a children's book author.
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's set in fall in your city, so it's very cozy, but not small town cozy.
• 1:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: We loved it.
• 1:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, this might be my new favorite romance book of the year.
• 1:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then I was like, you have to read it.
• 1:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so she read it.
• 1:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I didn't even realize it was a you caught Melan Spard until I went back and read the description.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was like, oh, that totally makes sense.
• 2:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, yeah, it was for love that you've got me all but flipped.
• 2:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're instead of them being like enemies in person.
• 2:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: They were enemies online.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: That was such a fun concept.
• 2:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love this.
• 2:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: So fine.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: So how long have you been writing?
• 2:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, what has that time line looked like for you?
• 2:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I started getting back in the romance late 21.
• 2:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I started writing my first one was it was like a new year's resolution to write it on.
• 2:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I started like the first of January.
• 2:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just wrote notes on my phone.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I literally like when my daughter was feeding, I would like typing out scenes and it is the most hot mess book ever.
• 2:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't pretend it doesn't exist.
• 2:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: I call it my burnt pancake.
• 2:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, I have to burn this pancake to get the other pancake, right?
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, but I wouldn't change it.
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it was such a, I love to go back every now and then I'll look at reviews to that book that are more recent.
• 2:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Wow, Julianna Smith's writing has really changed and it's like a lot of compliment.
• 3:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: But he's like, no, he has more punch.
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because I listen, I'm like, I was a solid sea student in the high school.
• 3:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: My English teachers have made that sound that I wrote writing books.
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: They were like, there's no way.
• 3:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because I was just not writing the high school.
• 3:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was more of a creative type than necessarily good at English grammar.
• 3:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it was something that just came with practice
• 3:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: like classes online and stuff and so my gosh, I never answered your question.
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is my problem.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: You see, we love it.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: We welcome it.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I started, I guess, January 2022 and then I published my first one, I think it was May or June, somewhere around there.
• 3:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: See, it's funny that you say that you were writing in your notes and stuff because at the Sarah Adams book signing in Nashville
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: what is your advice to someone who wants to like get started in write a book and she's like literally just write it down in your notes.
• 4:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, that's what you need to do because if picking up a laptop and typing it out seems too big, you just need to put it in your notes because it's not as big if it's on your notes.
• 4:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's funny.
• 4:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is, it's not a scary.
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have changed my, by the, by like the fifth book, I had my routine down, but the first three of them, 90% of it was on my phone.
• 4:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had like, when I would have an idea, and I still do this.
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: When I have an idea, I start a new notes app, and just like, I'll be driving in a little like blip of something.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's a good idea and I'll write it down or type it down whatever and then just as things come along I'll think here are song and I'll think of a lyric that fits the book really well the feeling of it and down right down and then when the time comes right the book which is usually sometimes like even a year later depending on how like back then um instead of like TBR it's like
• 4:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I will go back and I'll look at my notes from like a year ago and I'm like, Oh, yeah, I forgot.
• 4:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to write this book with these elements and like drawn together.
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's been like a two year old idea.
• 5:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just now got to.
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I mean, look at it.
• 5:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: It took off.
• 5:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think that is that pretty average like for your process like the year long or have you written something pretty quickly and just been like, yeah, that's it.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it depends.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to think of the last one that Gosh a snowed under I got an idea which is the second book of like the baggage claim But snowed under I got an idea for it because I was like, I don't want to do a Christmas novella and I was like no
• 5:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't really want to do an reveal.
• 5:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to do a full novel.
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just going to tie it back to Bagus Climbs.
• 5:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
• 5:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then I randomly just got this idea of like a single aunt and Cooper and I was like Cooper needs a single aunt to reel him in and I was like, you know what, I'm just going to write this full novel and
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had the idea and I wrote it like within 40 days late like wow in 40 days from the idea to like it was done So that was the craziest like just hopped on it and I think it was one of those I was so in love with it in the moment that it was so easy because yeah like unraveling itself like it was it was like a snowball I guess affected
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: the one I'm working on right now is book three in a series that hasn't even come out yet and I had this idea I think a year ago.
• 6:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: So sometimes it is hard because like in I'm writing this book but in my mind I'm thinking about about about a book I don't even know if I can touch in the next year two years.
• 6:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they have allowed to be able to read this book but it's in the back of my mind.
• 6:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that's the only thing that's like
• 6:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: a little tricky about that part.
• 6:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: So what's the difference between like writing drawn together which wasn't was indie published, right?
• 6:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 6:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then like you're now picked up and you're going to have a traditionally published book.
• 6:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's the difference in those?
• 6:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: so much.
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: No one talks about it.
• 6:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's much hush thing like yeah people just don't talk about it and when I was going through it was like they're just not going to be a big difference.
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like what like what could honestly change?
• 7:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like there's nothing.
• 7:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then I got my anything.
• 7:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I guess it was book one that came back.
• 7:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Originally, um, the series that's coming out with William originally was fully adult.
• 7:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: They came back and they were like, hey, a lot of people are strongly requesting like a YA cowboy.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Can you do it?
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Can you just do the same series just make them YA?
• 7:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like sure.
• 7:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that was a big adjustment, but it wasn't as big as like the second book.
• 7:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
• 7:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's so funny because like right now, the timelines are just different.
• 7:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I should say because near stuff publishing, you're doing one book
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: plot right at it within usually two or three months.
• 7:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's still really, really fast.
• 7:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: But this one, I'm doing that at the same time, it's very, very fast.
• 7:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it's like in this very moment, I'm proof reading book one, I'm copy editing book two, I'm drafting book three and I'm plotting book four.
• 8:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: How do you keep that all straight?
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's all right.
• 8:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Every single time, my editor will literally be like,
• 8:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: when there's literally like ties or I'm like, I don't know what this restaurant was called.
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and my editor's like,
• 8:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was called this, I'm like, oh, thank you.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't know, it is a little hectic, but it's also good.
• 8:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I work, I taught fast and I worked like my brain works really, really, really quickly, and then I burn out quickly.
• 8:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's one of those where I'm like, brush, brush, get it done, get it done, and then once it's done, I'm like for a month.
• 8:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I do nothing, so it's like right.
• 8:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: literally.
• 8:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I had the second manuscript do December, I think December 2nd or something like that.
• 8:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was the first Tuesday of December.
• 8:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then they're like, okay, you're good until like January 9th.
• 8:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think tomorrow is my next due date.
• 9:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: But they were like, okay, you're good for a month, and I was like, bet, I won't do anything for a month.
• 9:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I, I did not touch anything.
• 9:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I loosely plotted in my head some scenes, and then this last week, I did write it like a chapter by chapter outline for the next book, but other than that, I was a guy in touch and I think, and now it's time to like buckle in and it's like, wait, did you hope you enjoyed that rest?
• 9:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 9:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, good luck.
• 9:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: You got another three months of like banging one after the other trying to get them out.
• 9:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's good.
• 9:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just different.
• 9:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's definitely different and everybody no one talks about it.
• 9:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was about to say like I am so curious like being literally an only reader and never thought about even writing a book because I can't but like I'm so curious and how that world works and like the indie versus the traditional published and like how that just like
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Your workload changes and versus like you doing it versus having people do it for you, but you still having to be involved and yeah You don't hear much about it.
• 10:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't it is such like a quiet and I don't think it's like people are like I'm gatekeeping this I think it doesn't come up.
• 10:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: really talk about it but it is very different and not in a bad way I mean there's so many things I've already loved about it like I we hopped on a marketing call I guess it was about a month ago and we have another one in a couple weeks but and the sweetest girl and I'm Stephanie that works at Blame she was just like
• 10:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Tell me what you want.
• 10:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Tell me all your hopes and dreams.
• 10:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, are you serious and she's like, everything you possibly want.
• 10:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's your biggest like, what's your white whale with writing?
• 10:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, I got some big ones.
• 10:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's like, I'll handle them.
• 10:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she just wanted to hear everything I wanted.
• 10:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, well, they only just wrote out a list of like, all my dreams.
• 10:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's like, I can't promise I can make them have them.
• 10:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's like, I'm doing everything I can to get one of these at least checked off.
• 10:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's cool.
• 10:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: You feel so much more support because otherwise it's just you like, yeah, I'm yeah So anything more than me is like I want to cry because it's just so amazing like I feel so so blessed whenever I get off a call and they're like, hey, we're doing this for you We're doing that for you.
• 11:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have this this this coming up and like
• 11:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: the we're talking about like tour dates and signings and I'm like oh like there's just one thing after that oh my gosh I get so excited so there's a lot of great things about it too it's just overwhelming it can be overwhelming on both sides so like outside of the writing there's definitely more that you're kind of not required to but do but like you need to do like that comes along with the traditional publishing
• 11:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, um, more and green and I did say that I told them I like doing in person events.
• 11:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think I just like to travel.
• 11:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm gonna go to New York and do a signing.
• 11:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to go to New York.
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Go to signing and like have my six people there.
• 11:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And like I'm so sure that there will be more than six people.
• 11:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so sure that there will be more than six people.
• 11:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so sure that I'm so sure that there will be more than six people.
• 11:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm so sure that I'm so sure that there will be more than six people.
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm so sure that there will be more than six people.
• 11:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so sure that there will be more than six people.
• 11:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so sure that there will be more than six people.
• 12:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so sure that there will be more than six people.
• 12:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: East Coast.
• 12:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, oh, okay.
• 12:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Cool.
• 12:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
• 12:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Find a way.
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, we, I don't even have like the final dates or where we're going or any of that stuff.
• 12:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: But we were talking about like different books or as an all and where my pre-order is going in different stuff.
• 12:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like,
• 12:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: What am I like like what is so I get a little overwhelmed but it's it's a really it's a good thing Yeah, it's mostly the writing thing.
• 12:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like you ask and ask and ask for something and then you get it and you're like wait a second I want this
• 12:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Of course I want it, but it's like on a second.
• 12:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let me breathe.
• 12:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 12:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 12:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know my stake is too battery.
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: So with drawn together, how did you come up with the idea of like having the rider pass down from person to person?
• 12:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, you know it's so funny.
• 12:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I could not figure that out.
• 12:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like,
• 12:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: something to different has to happen here.
• 13:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know what.
• 13:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I always go through like little movie marathons in the background while I'm plotting.
• 13:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just rain them stuff.
• 13:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I usually just step from my childhood.
• 13:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: It'll be like high school musical, just the most random things, Kim possible's in the background.
• 13:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: But one day, I was sitting there and I was like, I cannot think of how am I going to make it him, but it's not obviously Tim to the read.
• 13:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's obviously him.
• 13:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, why is he not 50, 60?
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like who is this, whatever.
• 13:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was watching the princess bride.
• 13:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did you have you guys seen the princess bride?
• 13:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 13:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, the dread pirate robber.
• 13:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, how he, he, do you think that he's the dread pirate robber?
• 13:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like actually dread pirate robber's.
• 13:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, he retired years ago.
• 13:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just been passed down.
• 13:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's where I got that idea.
• 13:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, that's so unique.
• 13:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like I, I, I won.
• 13:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: I go into books like not looking for anything.
• 13:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so at one point I was like,
• 13:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Third something fishy with this.
• 13:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so it's still like genuinely surprised me that was right.
• 14:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, I don't want it to be like, oh, gas.
• 14:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: This part, no, and the whole time is the author, but I did want like a still like a little
• 14:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, that'll let me know.
• 14:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: They kept you on until the very end until you were like, how and like even if you, like you said, you realized who it was like, how the heck does that even work?
• 14:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I had so much fun with that.
• 14:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's funny because I already wrote all this was the only book that I have not pulled it.
• 14:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: This was the one that they like, they wrote themselves.
• 14:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had no choice.
• 14:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I felt like I was third wheeling.
• 14:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, hey, guys.
• 14:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but it was kind of funny so I was already like 40 like 50 and I was like in the world am I going to make him not 80 or something am I going to it like an old grand fall so it could over I was again.
• 14:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I got to do, and then I was watching the Princess Bride and Wesley, and it says that, oh, I'm not, you know, dreaded part of a story, but said he was going to tell me tomorrow, and for every day, for however many years, he said that, and then he finally retired and hated it down, and all, and I was like, I like that.
• 15:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's so fun.
• 15:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, do you say that like those characters like Flutter and Floor, like, were did they surprise you the most?
• 15:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: You were like, like, with the plot that
• 15:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't really playing out.
• 15:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Flora knows she wants to be unpredictable, but she is predictable.
• 15:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: She is not 100%.
• 15:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Literally like if you're reading Flora, you're reading me.
• 15:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I basically was just like, like just, yeah.
• 15:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: My life on to a page minus like I have a loving husband and kids Not that but everything else about like the things she's struggling with mentally in her words and all like Just put myself on a page So she was pretty easy, but flat you just kept coming back and surprising me in so many ways and again I did not this is the only book I didn't plot I have a very rigid routine that I do the first time I broke that routine and then I just
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think I started plotting it and I got 20% in and I was like I can't wait anymore.
• 16:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just want to write this and so I just got in and just started writing away and it did change a good bit the first chapter to the first I would say five chapters changed by four or five times and mixed things around before I got the combination I liked yeah.
• 16:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: because at first they had met at like a cost and party.
• 16:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: There was all kinds of different like elements before I got to like the muffin scene.
• 16:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, I need people to not like him just a little bit.
• 16:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I don't like all most romances you meet him on the first page.
• 16:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, this muffin guy, like, surely he's not good.
• 16:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: See, I thought it was the firefighter.
• 16:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, wait, what is there the bar?
• 16:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I, I, oh my gosh, I had so much fun with him and his little surprises and figuring out who he was and him being this little like crazy, healthy night with his grass smoothies.
• 16:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, based that so much off my husband and how he's very quiet but when he does talk it's very meaningful and I just, he's by far my favorite MMC and I hate to say that because even the books I'm running right now, I love the MMC I'm working on.
• 17:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think Fletcher's still, he definitely made it up there on my book Boyfriend list, especially the little nugget chapters you gave us of like what he was thinking.
• 17:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, can this man get any more perfect?
• 17:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, now I don't think he can.
• 17:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I like was making notes and my candle every time I read one of those, I was like, I'm eating up these little blobs.
• 17:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like I'm living for them, couldn't like, okay, I need to know if let you just think it right now.
• 17:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so glad.
• 17:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had a lot of fun with that in his little and the word of the day was fun.
• 17:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just felt like I was on the coaching.
• 17:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: with this because the first book in the series that's coming out I had wrote before drawn together.
• 17:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah and it's it's like hard and a fun but it's got a couple like heavy things.
• 17:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: She does have epilepsy and her there was an affair with her parents and so it was just like there were some darker things that I normally do not touch.
• 18:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
• 18:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: So most of my books are just pure like cloud rainbows, you know, it's just all the fun things in life.
• 18:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's the definition of the color pink.
• 18:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then so this was the first one that I was like, oh, I'm touching kind of heavy stuff and I felt like my heart was heavy by the end of it and I was like, I need a light vacation and that's like they just came out of that it was it was it's such a every books like such a
• 18:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, testament to where I am in life.
• 18:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like a lotting like a book or a certain chapter.
• 18:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: So like when I was, I think about my first book and I'm like, oh, my baby was like nine months old.
• 18:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she was sweet.
• 18:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I remember our first beach trip.
• 18:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was taking pictures of other books and photoshopping my cover onto the book.
• 18:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hadn't had a copy yet.
• 18:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just, those kind of things, and I think about, like, my fifth book, oh, my daughter was too.
• 18:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: My husband worked here.
• 18:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was doing this, oh, number six.
• 18:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I quit my job.
• 18:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And like, everything is just, it's slots into a time.
• 18:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I'll always, drawn together, will always be like my vacation book around, yeah.
• 19:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Was the summer that I wrote a book extremely fast, but had like the time of my life doing it.
• 19:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's my little, then my little
• 19:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: was there a scene in that book that was like extremely emotional to you while writing it?
• 19:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 19:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I really enjoyed him giving her the birthday present and the birthday party.
• 19:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 19:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 19:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: We needed that surprise.
• 19:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know a lot of people don't like surprise parties but it was one of those things where I think
• 19:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Florid didn't realize how much she needed a surprise party, but she really did mentally to just kind of reaffirm herself and her friendships that I've really enjoyed writing that and then the Chapter where everything comes out about Fletcher and His old friend and the whole yeah all through line up when I was writing that I was getting emotional because I was just like,
• 20:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: as if it's real.
• 20:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 20:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
• 20:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, people passed away and lined, and for me, it was like a lineage thing of like how beautiful it is to pass art down one person next to the next and as an author, I was thinking, oh my goodness, what's going to happen if I die, who am I going to give my stuff to me, the next doing in a smith, and like, I want to do it.
• 20:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: over thinking these things, and I was just like, I very rarely cry on my own books because usually I'm in like the same.
• 20:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then I cry like at six months after they come out of my solving, like I could cry about it now because it's long enough, but in the moment I don't really cry about it, but I do remember feeling like, oh, like, my best life, like a heaviness, not heavy, but like a good, heavy, like a weighted one.
• 20:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, is there a scene that either surprised you where you expected for readers to really connect with, maybe along the same lines as the emotional ones?
• 20:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, someone told me that the scene where she is working from home and it's raining and he's like, why don't you come work from home, like over here across the street.
• 21:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Someone said that that was their favorite scene because it felt like they were there with them.
• 21:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I, I've that stuck with me because I'm like, oh, that's lead.
• 21:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Love a cozy little rainy afternoon.
• 21:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're just sitting there, both working.
• 21:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's avoiding work.
• 21:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: So he's making
• 21:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: pancakes and he like smoothies and like you know fluttering around his apartment putting on records like doing all these different things and so I was kind of shocked to see and again this was one person's opinion uh that most people don't mention that scene um but this point never this all sent me like a long message on Instagram about an angry and like oh like someone took their time out of the day and that's it's seen that in the long run is not that important it's not
• 21:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: where I feel like it needed it and to see the validation of someone being like, this was my favorite scene.
• 21:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just, I want that up.
• 21:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 21:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, that's really cool.
• 21:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that too.
• 21:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: So when you are writing a book,
• 22:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: You said, you had like a playlist going, do you do like Pinterest boards and stuff like that, too?
• 22:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: You won't play you way ahead of time.
• 22:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it kind of works out.
• 22:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: So like, as soon as I get to book idea, I'm really like titles come to me the second, I have a book idea.
• 22:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes before I have a book idea, I have a list of like, potential book titles.
• 22:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, one day, I'll tell you one, I don't know what I'll be about, but it's a cute title.
• 22:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 22:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I have all these road out and sometimes I connect to sometimes it's already there, but usually it's already there, so I will make a Spotify playlist and then I make a Pinterest board and they connect.
• 22:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so a lot of the times the songs will interconnect with like the feeling of it or sometimes it's the lyrics, it would like identical to the scene, sometimes it's just like I think.
• 22:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the Pinterest board, I dive deep into, I make one for her, like the sections, you know,
• 22:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: section for her section for him, second for color palette, section for the wherever it's at, the town's world building, whatever, there, and then I have like side characters.
• 23:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's usually 12 or so sections.
• 23:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then if you scroll past all of my millions of sections, then there's like all the feelings of the girl.
• 23:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't really make them laugh.
• 23:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: a couple of them might be public.
• 23:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't even look about Pinterest like follows me.
• 23:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what's on there.
• 23:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, so him forbid people find it and there's like my 12th grade problem.
• 23:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I love my mother.
• 23:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, they're a specific song that you think of when you think of Lauren Fletcher if I have to pick one gosh.
• 23:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm looking at my playlist.
• 23:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is the hardest question in the world, but you make me feel so young, Frank Sinatra.
• 23:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I knew.
• 23:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that, that fits, that really does.
• 23:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know everybody associates with Elf, I'm sure, because obviously.
• 23:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, yeah, it's like Elf.
• 23:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: But there's that line where she's like, you make me feel so young and he is like, you're 25.
• 24:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she's like, yeah, but you maybe feel like it.
• 24:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that, that I love that.
• 24:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: That reminds me of me, my husband, because we act like we're I'm 26, but I act like we're both.
• 24:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: in our late 30s.
• 24:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: We, I think for both like old ladies all the time.
• 24:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so it reminds me of me my husband and Floran Fletcher, I mean, I think that's why.
• 24:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if you asked me that again in a week, I probably wouldn't say that.
• 24:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: So for now, that's my answer for now.
• 24:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's that's almost it too.
• 24:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: What was the whole mood of the playlist?
• 24:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, um, what were the vibes?
• 24:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Old, um, I was specifically thinking about what would, um, Fletcher play on his record.
• 24:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is Frank Quinn.
• 24:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Uh-huh.
• 24:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here's, um, Jerry Raffordy right down the line.
• 24:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that song.
• 24:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's a little bit of eagles, but older eagles more when it was.
• 24:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: He almost did.
• 24:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, yeah.
• 24:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 24:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's mostly all these.
• 24:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll have like every now and then I'll have like tell us what we've saw in there.
• 25:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're all be like, oh, these lyrics fit this.
• 25:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 25:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it usually does not fit the vibe of what I'm going for.
• 25:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 25:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I almost want to have like three different playlists.
• 25:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like one for each character and then one for like the aesthetic the vibe of the.
• 25:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 25:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: One for like actual that would apply to a scene, lyrics that would make me feel this scene.
• 25:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, so no.
• 25:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I always joked and said that like if any of my books got turned into movies, they would have a nightmare to deal with and the like a music soundtrack That's like wait a minute.
• 25:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: This calls for like some
• 25:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Steven X.
• 25:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: This calls for and they'd be like, we cannot do that.
• 25:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sorry.
• 25:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're trying to.
• 25:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm always saying I'd be a nightmare in that department, but it just depends on yeah.
• 25:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: So speaking on movies is there like a actor actress that you have in your head for floor and pleasure or like that you thought of while writing the book.
• 25:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I watched Spider the amazing Spider-Man right before.
• 26:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And specifically, the scene where Andrew Garfield is hurt and he's on the window seal and his head like Cox back and there's blood and he's at a breath.
• 26:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is that 30 second, 90 to 10 seconds.
• 26:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: That gift that you can find, yeah, flat your in my mind.
• 26:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's
• 26:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: But with Glass is on old Andrew Garfield is very much 2012 Andrew Garfield, but not Andrew Garfield now.
• 26:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I still think he looks great.
• 26:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's a guy.
• 26:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?
• 26:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Flora there is an influencer.
• 26:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my goodness.
• 26:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: What is her name?
• 26:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: She is a she's on TikTok and I saved her video because I was like future characters one day because So beautiful with her curly hair.
• 26:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: She has this gorgeous undertone of her skin.
• 27:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, yes, yes, definitely.
• 27:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, absolutely.
• 27:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's 100%.
• 27:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yeah, it's the moment I saw her I was like I need a character with that and she gives off such a
• 27:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: she looks like her in my life.
• 27:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, for sure.
• 27:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's perfect.
• 27:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: No actor or actress's name.
• 27:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if anybody else asked any other book, I'd be like, I don't know.
• 27:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'd be in 2015 and there was a cute guy in this, what's his name?
• 27:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I wait for someone to tell me.
• 27:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't remember their real names.
• 27:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I remember
• 27:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so all it like what's his is it Tom Willing?
• 27:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I guess that I'm like, oh, she provided us in the cute brother.
• 27:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes, yes, yes, but not not who he is now.
• 27:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I haven't seen modern pictures.
• 27:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm kind of need though.
• 27:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: It has to be from that time period, from that time period, but from that time period.
• 27:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I would like to go back to time grab him bring me a drink, play him into this book.
• 28:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, so yeah, so if someone is coming from like reading drawn together, that's the first one that they've picked up for me.
• 28:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: What would you recommend
• 28:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I always say to this snowed under it is the second book in a series, but I say it because their dynamic reminds me a lot of drawn together the it is kind of like an opposite to track, but almost like.
• 28:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: flip sides of one coin kind of thing.
• 28:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're very similar, but they're opposite at the same time.
• 28:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that kind of reminds me of Florent Fletcher.
• 28:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I think that Madeline Cooper would be a good little next one to go to, especially if you read drawn together in the fall.
• 28:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's noted more in the winter.
• 28:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you could read either year round.
• 28:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's always right.
• 28:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think I would say snowed under would be my next one that I would recommend.
• 28:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: What is your favorite trope to write about?
• 29:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Insta lovers, every time.
• 29:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's the hardest one because after a certain point you're like, you guys have been friends for 10 years when you have been together.
• 29:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to keep coming with excuses.
• 29:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, it was so many, but the classic that hits every single time, every time I read it and every time I write it, I'm like, I love this trope.
• 29:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: So much.
• 29:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's
• 29:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: No.
• 29:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I take that back.
• 29:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have to.
• 29:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can have to.
• 29:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, okay, because I think I changed my mind because it is so hard to write.
• 29:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's probably my favorite outcome, but it's so difficult to come up with situations for it.
• 29:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I would say for instance, I'll ever send my favorite more so to read or to written in the past.
• 29:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not right now.
• 29:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Make fading would be.
• 29:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: the one that I like.
• 29:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would put fake dating in every book if I was allowed.
• 29:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I love that.
• 29:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: How else am I going to get them together?
• 29:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, fours proximity to the max.
• 30:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, there is no getting around this.
• 30:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: You guys are stuck together.
• 30:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that is one thing that are really
• 30:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: feel like it just comes so naturally, right.
• 30:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, their family knows their friends know all these things, so they have to pretend and it's just so fun.
• 30:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think the banter is what makes fake dating.
• 30:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's perfect.
• 30:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Mayor just convenience anything that involves them to be like,
• 30:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: together in the Haiti to other is fantastic.
• 30:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: I like the green.
• 30:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I agree.
• 30:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: So who are some of your favorite authors that you, I guess, could you could say inspiring?
• 30:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Where are you just like reading?
• 30:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 30:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have something.
• 30:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: The first three that come to mind are for different reasons.
• 30:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: First, Katherine Center, I, yes, I have the biggest crush on her every time.
• 30:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you don't, if you notice, if you ever look at her Instagram, she'll post and then within 30 seconds, I'm like, love this so much like in the comments and you're biggest fan.
• 31:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, some obsessed with her.
• 31:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I remember like the first time she message to me,
• 31:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, it was actually when a cover came out.
• 31:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I guess it was snowing under, maybe it was like last year.
• 31:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: She was like, I love this cover so much.
• 31:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, I love you so much.
• 31:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 31:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was a problem.
• 31:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I was scared.
• 31:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's going to be scared of me.
• 31:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, but I just, everything she touches is gold.
• 31:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And even the bookstore, I'm like, this isn't necessarily my favorite book in the world.
• 31:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: She touched it.
• 31:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it is.
• 31:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, yeah.
• 31:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 31:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love it.
• 31:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love her books.
• 31:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've got like seven copies of the wrong covers.
• 31:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I could do not.
• 31:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: In that between these two shelves, I really do have, I've got multiple son copies, I gave a copy to my mother-in-law for Christmas.
• 31:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was like, actually, can I have that back?
• 31:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want this.
• 31:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, so everything Catherine said, I just think she is the perfect closed door author.
• 31:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think if you don't want to miss out, right, well, your closed door and they're like, well, I don't want that because there's not going to be that tension and heat.
• 32:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's still there.
• 32:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're super, super high.
• 32:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just that door closed.
• 32:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: It door doesn't even up, but there's not usually an opportunity.
• 32:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I love that because it's just so, oh my gosh, I just love her.
• 32:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: So everything she touches.
• 32:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Second would be Sarah Adams.
• 32:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, she's just like she laid the groundwork for closed-door.
• 32:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know she's open door now and I love her stuff now too, but her first few books in like the it happened in Nashville.
• 32:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, see, all of that.
• 32:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was just
• 32:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Holly, it just really, really inspired me to write.
• 32:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to think of which one it was.
• 32:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it was the enemy that made me be like, I wonder if I could write a book like it was the first one said I was like, if I were to write a book, I would want to feel like this.
• 32:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would want to have this feeling.
• 32:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think she just makes so many people smile on the world and I love that.
• 33:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and the third one I would say gosh, I'm stuck between two.
• 33:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to I'm going to split this.
• 33:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, Alley Hayes would because it's just everything to touches his Matt.
• 33:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 33:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 33:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 33:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thinking good.
• 33:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've never read Alley Hayes a book that I didn't like.
• 33:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, we read her whole backlist once a year twice a year or so.
• 33:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, like, I'll recently reread problematic summer romance and now I'm just like everything and I really love everything she touches and then on a complete flip side on a YA side, Kail Wall there.
• 33:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love, if you haven't read the summer book, summer-broken rules, oh, okay.
• 33:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like why, and until I read that, and I was like, oh, I love this.
• 33:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is so funny in its, it hooks you from within the first 10 seconds.
• 33:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I say two seconds, because I listen to all these.
• 33:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the first little bit like first chapter, less than that, you are like a immediately sucked into this chapter and it is just, oh my gosh, the story is so good.
• 34:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: The characters are great and her writing style is so beautiful.
• 34:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: She also puts a lot of little Taylor Swift hooks in there.
• 34:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like, oh, um, you know, that's all immediately.
• 34:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 34:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: What was like a treasure hunt?
• 34:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like it is so okay.
• 34:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Any little.
• 34:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: pieces into her different books and they are why but they don't feel why which is the same thing I'm hoping for on my YA series because I want everyone to feel like they can write it and she is such an inspiration So all the four of them are like tiding on bubble So how excited are you for the bodyguard movie?
• 34:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's like, let's be at them in my premiere if there is one.
• 34:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I literally, so, regardless, thanks for your question.
• 34:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: So excited.
• 34:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 34:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, and then just come back to that.
• 34:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just very excited.
• 34:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: very, very excited.
• 34:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I will be there front and center.
• 35:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Even if I can't make my way, think my way into early signing, dress up as like a work, we're in like a high face.
• 35:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
• 35:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's the flips capacitor.
• 35:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll find a way in, but even if I don't, it will be midnight that night.
• 35:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've got Netflix pulled up.
• 35:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's going to be like tomorrow with
• 35:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I haven't read it yet.
• 35:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've gotten into Emily Henry this year.
• 35:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just picked up reading like really last year, really when we did the podcast.
• 35:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: So with Emily Henry, I've been obsessed with everything I've read of hers, and that's next on my list because I want to read it before I watch it.
• 35:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Good idea.
• 35:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's really good.
• 35:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I it's so funny.
• 35:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you have a read a book when you have if you guys may not relate to this when I first get into romance I had horrible taste in romance.
• 36:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: That was like, oh, this is like a literary gold.
• 36:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is, who would read anything else?
• 36:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: So my first time like Henry, what is B-Tread?
• 36:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: After my, like, mafia experience.
• 36:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Experience.
• 36:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, this is not what I expected.
• 36:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I thought I'm not even DNF'd it, which is like, wow, rude.
• 36:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's my favorite one line two by far up to you later when I actually grew some freaking taste came back reddit and I was like this, no, this is gold like this is something I could crawl my way into and now I've read I've read B treat.
• 36:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: So many times I look listen the audiobooks So many times that if it was playing I could tell you the exact chapter like seen like I've read it over and over and over and over and same with funny story isn't my top five favorite books But it was one of my like top books of the year.
• 36:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, sure.
• 37:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Good
• 37:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh, Miles, now that I love him so much, funny.
• 37:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it was kind of funny because the same thing happened with happy place.
• 37:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I read happy place and I was like, I don't think I like this.
• 37:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's Madison right, you know, she was like, you love it.
• 37:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: She was like, you just don't realize you love it.
• 37:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I read the whole thing.
• 37:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, Madison, I don't love it.
• 37:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she's like, you will.
• 37:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And six months later, she was like, you read it again now.
• 37:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, okay, and I read it again.
• 37:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, wait, this is the best book I've ever read.
• 37:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, what's wrong with me?
• 37:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's what I need to read again, because I'm still not convinced that I love it.
• 37:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: You do, okay, I do, I'll try it again.
• 37:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do it again, because I do love that one.
• 37:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: It did take me a minute, but everything she touches I love.
• 37:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know some people didn't like, I call it great BBL.
• 37:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: We loved it.
• 37:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I like it made me cry.
• 37:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I thought it was beautiful.
• 37:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it's like the back story, the grandma story.
• 38:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 38:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I thought yes.
• 38:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I thought I would be the opposite.
• 38:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love mowing our yard and I pick certain audiobooks for when I'm in my yard and Emily Henry said yard girl.
• 38:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I like what my headphones on and I'm like mowing my yard and I remember
• 38:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Certain scenes where you're like punch in the gut and he locks when the older man I can't remember anybody's names that aren't my No, I know who are you when the older man locks eyes with a younger woman when they're young
• 38:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: I remember literally, like, turning my lawnmower around, like, I loved that book, so I was thinking much on audio, it was so good.
• 38:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: So everything she touches, and I didn't even mention her and my favorite authors, but she's up there too.
• 38:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, have you read the summer of yes by Courtney Walsh?
• 38:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: I read a Courtney Walsh book, but I don't know if it was it.
• 38:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, I read the Christmas one.
• 38:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 38:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: the cross country winner.
• 38:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, for the crank.
• 38:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, the cross country one.
• 39:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that one was good.
• 39:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 39:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: I read that one.
• 39:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: That was very good.
• 39:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 39:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: The summer of yes is very similar to great big beautiful life.
• 39:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, okay.
• 39:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like that.
• 39:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then read read the summer of yes.
• 39:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I love a romance.
• 39:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love a women's fiction that feels like romance and vice versa.
• 39:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it feels like women fiction and women's fiction that has romance.
• 39:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I like those to intertwine.
• 39:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
• 39:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's good to me.
• 39:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: So what's the last five star book you have read or listened to?
• 39:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have two ones not as fine, but I have it on my desk right now.
• 39:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I read this.
• 39:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's 2010-thousand, how to write faster, better, and more of what you love.
• 39:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's Rachel Erin.
• 39:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Grace Riley told me to pick this up.
• 39:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I did, because I'll do anything Grace Riley says.
• 39:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 39:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was, it was so good.
• 39:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was just really inspiring to exactly what it says, right, faster, right, better and more.
• 39:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I read it just as I was plotting this next book that I'm working on and it kind of time on worked out perfect.
• 39:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so it has me like super pumped to write again.
• 39:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the next five star hold on.
• 40:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let me put my candle out.
• 40:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have to read certain it has to be my same tone like my same voice.
• 40:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I can't read sci-fi when it's because I'll start writing like it's sci-fi and I'll start or like historical romance I'll be like
• 40:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: His trousers and I'm like, wait a minute.
• 40:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Look at that.
• 40:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's funny because every we've heard the opposite.
• 40:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think more.
• 40:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Listen to fantasy if they're writing romance or something like that.
• 40:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of my friends are I'm that way.
• 40:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Would you say romance is your favorite genre?
• 40:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes, and no matter what genre end up, I still want a little bit of romance in there.
• 40:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I still want to say anything, but I need there to be like some sort of relationship forming.
• 40:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I need something there.
• 40:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, wait, I think it was heartbreak hotel.
• 40:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: The heartbreak hotel.
• 40:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ooh, I just downloaded that on my Libya.
• 40:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've heard that.
• 41:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Ellen, Ellen of Clover.
• 41:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't read physical copies.
• 41:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just collect them.
• 41:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I was trying to say.
• 41:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the heart record tell Ellen of Clover.
• 41:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: That was also felt like women's fiction, um, it felt Emily Henry.
• 41:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 41:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was an ask like,
• 41:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was very, very immersive.
• 41:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was very emotional.
• 41:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: You felt everything the main character felt.
• 41:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: There was a gorgeous setting, the house that she works, that she lives at slash.
• 41:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, with is beautiful.
• 41:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: I could picture it so clearly in my mind.
• 41:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it was one of those that inspires me to write because I was listening to it and I was like, oh, I gotta be better.
• 41:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, this was really, really good.
• 41:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that was
• 41:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: probably my last five star, but that's the newest book I've read and that was before December.
• 41:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I've really been behind.
• 41:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's understandable.
• 41:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I reread everything.
• 41:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if I like a book, chances are I'll reread it.
• 41:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that'll be a goal.
• 41:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, would you ever write a book that wasn't romance?
• 42:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I had a, almost like historical sci-fi thing.
• 42:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Cool.
• 42:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Plotted out.
• 42:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, I'm a great underpin name.
• 42:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think I'll still do it.
• 42:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think I'll do it underpin name.
• 42:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think I'll ever tell anybody.
• 42:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's, I think it'll just be like a project and like not to make money, not like I wouldn't go to.
• 42:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would literally just put it out in the world just for fun.
• 42:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because sometimes you miss
• 42:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: when especially like since I've noticed it's going sad last year and going into this year um you write for your career so it's not like it misses a little bit of that fine um and so it's still a good time but so it feels like work you know um and so a work that you love but still it's work and so
• 42:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I always like the idea of writing something that's just so out of the ordinary and just putting out in the world with nobody knowing who I am and no eyes to it just just throw it out there.
• 43:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, something I might do it and it was really fun because it has like some cool like
• 43:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Biblical ties into a kind of like a cool as I'm really like, uh, I'm kind of a nerd when it comes to certain stories.
• 43:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 43:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was very much inspired by Esther if you've ever read the book.
• 43:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Esther it's so good.
• 43:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think whether you're a Christian or not, I think it's like a literally just a story, you know, this princess who brings all this evil down in such a cool concept.
• 43:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I really would love to write like a sci-fi historical something.
• 43:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't care for it, things in like one of them, and obviously there'll be romance in it.
• 43:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I one day I'll touch it.
• 43:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know when, but if you guys ever see a little sci-fi thing floating around that has all these things in it, am I just be me?
• 43:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: We ever see an ester-based sci-fi, then we'll just know, I'm gonna do it one day.
• 43:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know when, but
• 44:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: when I'm not bogged down with deadlines, it's right, perfect.
• 44:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, okay, so who would you say is your favorite book boyfriend that you've not written?
• 44:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh gosh.
• 44:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 44:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: you're welcome.
• 44:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's so many books.
• 44:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: I usually read around a hundred and ten a year.
• 44:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Last year was low, because I would.
• 44:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it was more like, think 60 or so.
• 44:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it was like almost half.
• 44:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, you know, there is a, do you like guys like Marianna Zapata?
• 44:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: That sounds familiar.
• 44:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh.
• 44:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Am I about to introduce you to my ground as a potter?
• 44:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not a potter.
• 44:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not a potter.
• 44:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not a potter.
• 44:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh.
• 44:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's a little much for some people because she's, well, by slow burn, I mean, like, they don't even hold hands for the first 90 percent.
• 44:51
  [UNKNOWN]: Okay.
• 44:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Get it's fantasy wobble slow burn get ready.
• 44:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, but it's very worth it and she's also mostly closed door and stuff.
• 44:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if you if you care about that.
• 45:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, you know, but She wrote the wall of when to pay in me.
• 45:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hi
• 45:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: You just introduced us.
• 45:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I keep introduced us.
• 45:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, she wrote a superhero novel.
• 45:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is the most underrated book.
• 45:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it is.
• 45:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: We found it.
• 45:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Gracie in the Grump.
• 45:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, I think of that.
• 45:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 45:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 45:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 45:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a soup.
• 45:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a little, I didn't know this.
• 45:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I read her books without reading like without going into it knowing what's going on.
• 45:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so she's talking about this man that's flying in her backyard now and I'm like, what is happening?
• 45:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And like a superhero, like he's actually
• 45:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Spiderman or whatever, whatever, and it is so good, it's almost, oh I can't say that because it's a,
• 45:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: it's a little bit of a spoiler.
• 45:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, oh my gosh.
• 45:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is so good.
• 45:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've never read something where somebody makes something so otherworldly, very like seamlessly, it was beautiful.
• 46:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's some funny tie.
• 46:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's very much like invisible string between the two of that.
• 46:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, so good.
• 46:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the MMC of that, he is silent 90% book, maybe that's why I'll do it.
• 46:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's so quiet, but it's not like Fletcher looks very quiet and then when he talks he's very meaningful with what he says.
• 46:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh.
• 46:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we're gonna have to read that report back for sure.
• 46:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have tried all my friends.
• 46:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: No I'm like you have to get the mayor hours upon their train and some of them half of them are like I read one book and now I'm reading a whole back list worth 13 books in and I can't stop and then I have some friends who are like I'm 60% in and they've barely made I contact what is happening.
• 46:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, so it depends how much I love love a good at slow burn
• 46:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Especially if it's closed door because I feel like it really just helps the tension and it helps you don't feel like you need more.
• 46:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like you're just kind of with what you've got.
• 47:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I really, really love the way she does that.
• 47:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's like a form of art.
• 47:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 47:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, and we'll go in along the lines of that.
• 47:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like what inspired you to kind of stick to the closed door romance?
• 47:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I have a couple different things about it.
• 47:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's so funny because I recently got like, I got sent a book deal option.
• 47:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: That was like going to be great money and great options and so excited.
• 47:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was they were sending over like they're in some difficult offer.
• 47:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was kind of like a.
• 47:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: pre-offer contract.
• 47:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you agree to us sending this?
• 47:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was so excited.
• 47:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was a great deal.
• 47:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it was part U.S. Part UK.
• 47:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was all these things.
• 47:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was really fun.
• 47:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then I agreed to like the pre-offer thing.
• 47:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it came back.
• 47:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they wanted me to write open door.
• 47:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they were like, not just like a little open door, like a needy pretty spicy.
• 47:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I wrestled with it.
• 47:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, no, I just can't.
• 47:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it wasn't even coming from a standpoint
• 48:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was nothing like that at all, it was a sense of like, I feel like I was doing wrong almost by like my readers because I have so many young readers and I have so many readers who I know that are like I look for specifically close door and I direct people to you because of that and then I or some who they just kind of know it to expect from me so I almost felt like a
• 48:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And know if it's anybody else who does this, you do the thing, one of my best friends is closed or she's got to go open door and I know judgment was whatever you do whatever you do, whatever you do, so it's all to do, but for me I felt like.
• 48:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was almost letting down some certain readers who have been there from the beginning and I felt like it's one thing for me to tater the whole lot versus jumping off the deep end.
• 48:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it would be like something very heavy and uncharacteristically.
• 48:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it was a book that was previously published.
• 48:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that felt.
• 48:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, tough to think about and also it's not as silly.
• 49:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't always come in.
• 49:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, of course, I am a Christian and so that always matters a lot to me.
• 49:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is just a small thing, you know, I don't, but he else for what they do, you know, I'm right earlier at so many things.
• 49:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: So who might say what someone should or shouldn't do or whatever.
• 49:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm like, I was saying earlier still love like Ali Hazel would still love um, so many authors out there who I know that, you know, go back and forth with different things.
• 49:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I um, it's just a personal thing.
• 49:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just really just something that I've always felt like this is my area.
• 49:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, I think outside of it fills.
• 49:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: foreign to into my readers.
• 49:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: So again, if it's never something where I, I feel like if someone here is closed or offered, they might think that I judge open or author so that I'm dear, they
• 49:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: See, I read both.
• 49:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I like, I love both, yeah, I love both.
• 49:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And most people do, yeah, or read both, most people are going to flip-flop back and forth.
• 50:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And for what?
• 50:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, this isn't even matter.
• 50:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
• 50:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Good book is a good book.
• 50:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's exactly just matter.
• 50:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just one of those things where I know my audience tends to come here and I don't like the idea of putting
• 50:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: something out in the world that 13, 14 year olds are reading, knowing it's kind of like, ooh, I don't know.
• 50:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she like, I teach middle school and I feel like romance is such a hard thing to recommend to them because they know I love to read and I'm like, okay, well, like, I've read things that are like YA and I'm like, I don't know if I want my middle schoolers reading this because there are some things, but then like the way that you've described that, like with your younger readers, like, I feel like that's a way to get them into romance and they still get to
• 50:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was just talking to one of the editors at Blim on Monday and she was like, I think what's going to be so great about this series is it's YA, but it doesn't feel childish, you know, when she was saying that her daughter is a middle school teacher.
• 51:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I actually think she's like seventh grade.
• 51:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, there's a lot of like 13, 14 year olds walking around with like Anna Hong.
• 51:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And oh, yeah.
• 51:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, I want to give it all kind of around with like,
• 51:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I cut it out so she was like there's very much a market for these these kids want to read romance It's kind of like when there was that good stretch of good YA Fantasy and sci-fi.
• 51:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: There was a good stretch where there was like solid YA books after another and then it kind of died down And build this calling back to a new section of YA and so I'm excited to join it because I've never joined that YA space.
• 51:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know
• 51:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: go.
• 51:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 51:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I, um, one of my cops that they use is Lynn Painter and I adore everyone.
• 51:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Painter.
• 51:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: So cute.
• 51:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: So anything she doesn't like, well, I'll take that as the highest compliment.
• 51:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, um, when they send it out to like, when they send out arcs and stuff, yeah, they sent me the proof of what they're putting out there and a lot of it was like,
• 52:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you like this by Lynn Painter, you would like this, but yeah, and yeah, that's what she was saying about like, sometimes there's a market for closed or even if you can write open door and even if it's good open door, sometimes it's best for your audience if they're younger to just sit with the closed door.
• 52:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm speaking of your like with your next book, the one that's going to be traditionally published.
• 52:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can you give us kind of an overview of what's
• 52:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I can, um, so it's so funny.
• 52:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was originally called a don't sell your saddle and so in my mind, it's still don't sell your saddle and someone says spread the moment where you talk about it's so funny.
• 52:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had the whole series to be like every title is going to be a don't verb your noun.
• 52:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah.
• 52:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Don't lose your Alaska.
• 52:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Don't hold your hand.
• 52:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: So now in my mind, I'm like, it's not that anymore.
• 52:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's part of the moment is mostly about a girl named Laughty, her 18th birthday is coming up over the summer and she suffered and for the last two years a traumatic brain injury.
• 53:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: She used to be a bull rider and now she can no longer do it.
• 53:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's post-traumatic epilepsy.
• 53:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, um, she, which causes surgery to have absent seizures.
• 53:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not in one grand mall.
• 53:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Seasers, um, it is just these absent seizures that you see here and there.
• 53:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And, um, it's something that her family is very guarded with her about.
• 53:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's not allowed to do any things.
• 53:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: and Walker, her childhood best friend, who did not know about any of this, he was very tied off in a whole other world, basically.
• 53:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: He comes back into town after he graduated and he's working there for the summer and he's next door to her and so on.
• 53:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so, um, it's kind of rekindling their friendship.
• 53:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's kind of like friends to strangers to friends again.
• 53:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 53:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Very, very much built on their friendship first.
• 53:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the relationship next, which was so fine.
• 54:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: There is plenty of fun summer scenes is a very summary book.
• 54:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 54:08
  [UNKNOWN]: One.
• 54:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm about to nerd out again, but the song, the song waiting in the reads by the eagles around the three minute mark, there is a bridge that is so summary and light and airy.
• 54:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it talks about a fairs wheel and ice cream of the week and all these like a fun things and some are dresses and or sunglasses and all these like
• 54:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: pretty lighthearted fun things.
• 54:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so there's those tones in it, whereas there's also like heavier tones of, you know, her dealing with this brandry that she has and she's dreading going back to school because she's where people are going to make fun of her.
• 54:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's just a lot of different topics that go through out it and Walker is probably the most supportive MMC I've ever wrote.
• 54:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was a delight to write through.
• 54:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was a really fun rom-com to write that had a little bit more substance than my other ones have in the past.
• 55:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's definitely a little heavier, but in a good way, I think.
• 55:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hope so.
• 55:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, you wish version of Miley.
• 55:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was cracking up at like your little troupe.
• 55:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you were listening to this thing and you were like, this is Miley Cyrus, like a static, and I was like, wait, which Miley?
• 55:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Hannah Montana, okay.
• 55:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
• 55:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: The worth, um, what was his name?
• 55:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Was it Travis?
• 55:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, the blonde guy.
• 55:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 55:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, summer and she like rebuilds that chicken.
• 55:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, and all that's they give, it gives me a link.
• 55:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I, I had sent it to my social media manager or the girl who's starting to start into my social media this year and she, I sent it her and she read it.
• 55:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's like, this is giving the longest ride, but roles reversed.
• 55:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah, I would accept the old people plot.
• 55:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not in there.
• 55:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: So like there's the feeling of it.
• 56:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I guess so yeah.
• 56:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's got a fun little side plot where there is like this 14 year old boy that she's teaching how to ride because she can no longer ride.
• 56:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: So she's teaching him.
• 56:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: kind of finding this new purpose.
• 56:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's really, it's got a little bit of this women's fiction in it, but still full of romance.
• 56:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I really, really tried to teetor this YA, but doesn't feel YA, kind of line.
• 56:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: So for adults and teenagers alike is what I was going for.
• 56:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: The cover looks pretty YA.
• 56:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm curious to see how that goes.
• 56:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like we have a cover of y'all.
• 56:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think on the 22nd of January.
• 56:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, when does it come out May 19th.
• 56:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: May 19th.
• 56:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay cool.
• 56:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's fun.
• 56:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the day before my sister's birthday.
• 56:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: See my husband.
• 56:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's 34, but he has a 13 year old sister who likes to read.
• 56:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, I'm going to have to make her read this book down.
• 56:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, definitely.
• 56:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's very fit for ages like they're in, even that guess you could like a 12, I don't know what 12 year old's read.
• 57:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a reading in wall.
• 57:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's for something.
• 57:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think.
• 57:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 57:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: But 12 to, I feel like 12 to 35, which is a big gap, like that's a, that's a broad ring.
• 57:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I really do think that it would,
• 57:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: She wait between there.
• 57:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I my mother and law reads all of my books and she's always been like a reader beaten before I wrote So I kind of rely on her for a lot of things.
• 57:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I sent her my books and she'll text me a little update and so she's like late 50's she's amazing She's one of my favorite people on earth Sometimes I like her more than my husband.
• 57:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love her
• 57:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: But she's like 50s and she likes everything all right, but this one she's like this is my favorite You've everything.
• 57:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's like my favorite thing you've ever touched.
• 57:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is beautiful like she has sent so many little texts and updates about it.
• 57:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's like oh my gosh I feel like I'm 20 reading like a little wildlife.
• 57:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's there.
• 58:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: So she's such a fun reader too because she's got a broad range, a broad taste.
• 58:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: She recommended me like the Lori Gilmore.
• 58:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but she loves those.
• 58:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: So she's not like open door and then yeah, but she also loves why she loves twilight What I love that honestly saying she's right at home her in her reading So I know when I send her something I'm like she'll be honest.
• 58:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, she has been honest with me a couple times I like this book, but not as much as your other books, but this was like this is it like this is gold and I feel so good knowing that she likes
• 58:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: I know I will fill all the nostalgia.
• 58:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: If it's giving me a Montana movie vibes like pushing 30 like that was the opinion of my childhood.
• 58:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm just like yes.
• 58:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 58:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I can't wait.
• 58:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I very much went for that feeling.
• 58:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I hope that that works.
• 58:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, thank you so much for hopping on the podcast and everybody needs to go check out just on this book.
• 58:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so we're going to we're going to
• 59:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
• 59:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Fun fun.
• 59:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Best of luck.
• 59:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: If he read my first one, just no.
• 59:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was a journey.
• 59:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think there's literally a line in my first book that's repeated twice.
• 59:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like not just twice in the book, but like twice.
• 59:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: He said this.
• 59:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: He said this.
• 59:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that makes me want to read it even more now.
• 59:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I can find it.
• 59:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: You will have fun.
• 59:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: being like, what was she thinking?
• 59:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, but just know a lot has changed.
• 59:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's especially if you're recently right, drawn together, it'll be like, wow, look at the growth.
• 59:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like that one comment.
• 59:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was back.
• 59:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 59:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's incredible.
• 59:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this is cool.
• 59:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Join us next week when we talk about all things.
• 59:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Kendall and Limited.
• 59:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Bye guys.