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Transcript

Twice with Mitch Albom · Dear Chelsea

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I just announced all my tour dates. They just went
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: on sale. It's called the High and Mighty Tour. I
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: will be starting debuting my new material in February of
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: next year, so I'm coming to Washington, d c Norfolk, Virginia, Madison, Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Detroit, Michigan, Cleveland, Columbus,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: and Cincinnati, Ohio, Denver, Colorado, Portland, Maine, Providence, Rhode Island, Springfield, Massachusetts, Chicago,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: of Course, Indianapolis, Indiana, Louisville, Kentucky, Albuquerque, Masa, Arizona, Kansas City, Missouri,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Saint Louis, Missouri, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Nashville, Tennessee, Charlotte, North Carolina, Durham,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: North of Carolina, Saratoga, California, Monterey, California, Modesto, California, and
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: port Chester, New York, Boston, Massachusetts, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: I will be touring from February through June. Those are
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: the cities that I'm in. Pre sale started last week,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: so tickets are flying. I haven't added second shows yet,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: but we probably will be to some of these. So
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: go get your tickets now if you want good seats
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: and you want to come see me perform.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: I will be on the High and Mighty tour.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: Hi Catherine, Hello Chelsea.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Can you hear the waves crashing?
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: I sure can't.
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: And You're like, hair is very beachy right now, Well,
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: let's look like shit.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: For the past two weeks, I've been walking around in
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: a bucket hat. Yeah, seriously, like one of those hats
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: that basically like hides your.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Head from the sun.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: But then I realize, like, I look so much better
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: with sun.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: I might as well just.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Get some sun and then laser it off when I
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: get back. But I don't really have a lot of downtime.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: When I got back. I mean, I've been sleeping so
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: much in my Orca. I drove forty five minutes. I
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: was like, Okay, I've got to take dog to a
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: real beach because the beach in front of my house
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: is great, but there's no dogs allowed on it until
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: October thirty first.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: Until October thirty first. Oh, it's like while people are swimming,
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: there's no dogs.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: I get it.
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like what that's the day I leave.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: But so I go in the mornings and I go
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: at night. But I was like, oh, let me take
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: him to a really nice dog beach. So I drove
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: forty five minutes to Palma to some shithole beach where
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: there were dogs running and I see this big german shepherd.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, that looks scary.
• 2:16
  Speaker 5: Oh.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: And Doug is like, you know, he's playful. He wants
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: to play with everyone. He goes up and he bothers them,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: like until they play with him.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: The puppy.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: And this dog was like, she said into me in Spanish,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: is that immature?
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Like an older dog or a younger dog. I'm like younger.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: She's like no, no, no, And then the dog just launched,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: launched onto Doug and like grabbed him. Luckily, Doug is
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: so furry. Yeah, and he didn't break his skin because
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: he was holding onto him and I was like ripping
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: him from It was such a dramatic scene.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: Oh my god, I'm so sorry.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: It's okay. He was fine. He forgot about it.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Two seconds later we were do a different part of
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: the beach and he was like submerged in sand and water.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: So he has a short memory.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: But so then we get home and he's covered in
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: sand because he went in this really low sandy beach
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: and I don't want the sand in the house. Right,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: So they got him a little kiddie pool to put
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: him in.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: He hates that. He hates being hosed.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: So I bring him upstairs to the pool pool and
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: there's like we have a little mini pool, as you
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: know upstairs in America. I bring up to the pool pool,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: I put on his life preserver.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: And I just pick him up and throw him into
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: the pool. And it was ridiculous his reaction. I mean,
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: he is such a pussy.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: So and then when after I traumatize him, he comes
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: running to me for comfort. So I feel like like
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: a man who abuses his wife. Oh, I feel terrible,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: or I can't take the sand.
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: I'm like, Doug, you have to agree to one form
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: of rint sauce, right.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: The hose, the kiddie pool or the big people pool.
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: And I know he's got so much hair, gets like
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: in all the nooks and cranies, so if you didn't
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: wash him off afterward, it'd be coming out for days
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: and days and days.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: No, I mean there's so much stand in my bed.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: I've given up caring about that. I just like, take
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: another Xanax.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: Just like a nice expoleian I suppose anyway, So that's nice.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: It's gonna be really nice being alone and not having
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: people here and just being with me.
• 3:58
  Speaker 6: And my dog.
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, usually a bank brow.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: I've made hard boiled eggs about thirteen times. I know
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: how you're coming around. I've made egg whites about four times.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: I've made what else?
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: What else?
• 4:12
  Speaker 6: Oh?
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: I make yot what? I don't make yogurt, but I
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: mixed the yogurt. She didn't say she was going to
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: bring those eggs in the airplane, Catherine. Don't get ahead
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: of yourself.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I did not say that. I get rid of
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: it than.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Good timing, Brad and good timing. However, we have.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: A great episode this week.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: One of my favorite authors.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: He wrote The Little Liar, He wrote Tuesdays with Maury,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: and he wrote my new favorite book twice Mitch Album
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: is here. So say hello to him.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Hi Mitch, Yeah, hello, Hi, So nice to meet you.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: How are you.
• 4:44
  Speaker 7: I'm fine, Thank you, my pleasure. Nice to meet you too, Nice.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: To meet you. I'm a huge Mitch Album fan.
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: Huge that right?
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Oh, yes, The Little Liar is. I've given that book
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: to so many people. It is one of my favorite books.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: It takes such a dark subjec matter and I don't
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: know if this was your intention, but the way that
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: I read it was it was almost like a fable,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: like you were talking about something that really happened, but
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: managed to make it more digestible, and it was beautiful
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: and everything. I mean, this book is so beautiful too.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: This book is new, book is called Twice. It comes
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: out on October seventh, and this is a very interesting
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: subject matter. Mitch Album has written I think eight number
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: one New York Times bestsellers.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: I'm right behind you. Mitch.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: By the way, I have six number one New York
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Times bestsellers, but.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Mine are more memoirs, and yours.
• 5:33
  Speaker 7: I'm sure you'll pass me very quickly.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: I don't know, forty two million copies. I don't think
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: I'm anywhere close to that.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, I have a very specific personality type and appeal,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: and yours is much faster. So we're going to get
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: into this book. But you tend to write some like
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Tuesdays with Maury, which was one of the most six
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: or maybe the most successful book of all time, wasn't
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: necessarily I mean, it was memoir ish, whereas Twice and
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: The Little Liar, the five people you meet and have
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: then right that book I actually haven't read yet. I'm
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: going to read that on my flight to New York
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: this week. That's one of your books that I need
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: to read.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: How do you decide what you're going to do?
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, I know the story with Tuesdays with Maury, right,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: you were kind of doing that for Maury.
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Tuesdays with Maury was an accident. I was just
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: going to visit an old professor of mine who was
• 6:19
  Speaker 5: dying from lu Gerrig's disease. And one visit turned into
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: another and another, and we ended up doing kind of
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: a last class together and what's important in life once
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: you know you're going to die. But there was never
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: supposed to be a book. It was just a series
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: of visits. And then at one point during these visits,
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: he told me that his biggest fear was that when
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: he died, his family was going to go broke and
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: they were going to have to sell the house, and
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: you know, because they didn't have the money to pay
• 6:44
  Speaker 5: for his bills. So I got the idea to, you know,
• 6:48
  Speaker 5: try to put a book together and see if I
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: could raise enough money for him to pay his bills.
• 6:53
  Speaker 7: And everywhere I went, everybody turned me down.
• 6:55
  Speaker 5: Everybody. They said it was a stupid idea that I
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: was a sports writer. That I was. It would be
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: depressing that I didn't know how to write a book
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: like that, and I probably would have given up on it,
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: except that, you know, I was trying to do something
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: for somebody else, which is kind of one of the
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: points of the book, and so I kept pushing. I
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: found one publisher who was willing to do it three
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: weeks before Mary died, and it gave us just enough
• 7:17
  Speaker 5: money to pay his bills, and I gave more of
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: all the money and said, here, you don't have to
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: worry about when you die.
• 7:23
  Speaker 7: And that was kind of for me. That was sort
• 7:24
  Speaker 7: of the end of the you know journey.
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: You know, I'd finally kind of grown up a little
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: bit at age thirty seven and had done something nice
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: for somebody else instead of just my own career. And
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: I was going to go back to sports writing, and
• 7:39
  Speaker 5: I just wrote this very small little book that wasn't
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: supposed to sell. I'd printed twenty thousand total copies, I think,
• 7:46
  Speaker 5: for the world. Then, you know, the world had different
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: ideas and people took to that book and it grew
• 7:53
  Speaker 5: into something that I never could have imagined, and it
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: kind of pinballed my career, particularly in writing, in a
• 8:00
  Speaker 5: whole different direction. And so then from that point, you know,
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: it was well what am I going to do next?
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: And you know, it led to a lot of other things.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: So talk to me a little bit about the impact
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: of that book and about how you received all of that.
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: You know, it wasn't expected, and I'd never written a
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: book like that, you know, I was in sports, and
• 8:22
  Speaker 5: so I sent it to a friend of mine, Namy Tan,
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: who's the writer of The Joy Luck Club, who i'd
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: know before that, and I said, listen, you write books
• 8:30
  Speaker 5: like this, I don't you know, is.
• 8:31
  Speaker 7: This any good?
• 8:33
  Speaker 5: And she read it and she wrote me back. She said,
• 8:36
  Speaker 5: all right, I'm going to tell you two things. One
• 8:39
  Speaker 5: good book, and I think a lot of people are
• 8:40
  Speaker 5: going to read it. And number two, you're about to
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: become everybody's rabbi. I did not know what she meant,
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: but I do now. And so you say, how did
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: I receive? You know, I mean, I went from being
• 8:54
  Speaker 5: the guy that people would stop in airports because I
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: was on ESPN, you know, and they would say, you know, hey,
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: sports guy, you know who's going to win the super
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: Bowl and you could just say, you know, Patriots and
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: get an the escalator and go up. And then all
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: of a sudden, I became the guy that people would say, Hey,
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: you know, my mother died of cancer and the last
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: thing we did was read Tuesdays with Maury together, and
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: can I talk to you about her? And can I
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: show you a picture? And you know, you can't just
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: go Patriots and go up the escalator. You know you
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: have to stop and you have to talk. And that's
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: been my life ever since. And I'm not complaining about it.
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: Quite the contrary. It's it's sensitized me in a way
• 9:30
  Speaker 5: to people that I never would have had otherwise. And
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: it's made me realize what's really going on in people's minds,
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: even if they're strangers passing you by in an airport.
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: And my concerns became kind of different, you know, and
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: my interests became different. And so when it came time
• 9:46
  Speaker 5: to write another book, I wasn't interested really in sports
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: books anymore, and I took to novel writing, mostly because
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: I was too scared to write anything after Tuesdays with
• 9:57
  Speaker 5: Maury and nonfiction because I thought everybody it would just keep.
• 10:00
  Speaker 7: Saying, well, where's Morey. How come Mary's not in it?
• 10:03
  Speaker 5: And so I said, well, I'll just go the whole
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: other direction and just start writing fiction. And they told
• 10:07
  Speaker 5: me I was an idiot for doing that, but I said, well,
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: that's what you told me for Tuesdays with Maury, so
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: you know you were right then maybe you won't be
• 10:16
  Speaker 5: right again. And that was the five people you Meet
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: in Heaven and then that kind of launched my fiction
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: writing career.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Wow, who knows what other skills you have up your
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: sleeve that you don't even know about. I mean, you're
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: a sports You've been a successful sports writer, a successful
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: nonfiction writer, and now a successful fiction writer. I mean,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: we don't even know what else you could be capable of.
• 10:35
  Speaker 7: Well, who knows, probably very little.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Maybe a professional ballerina or I think it's a ballerino. Actually,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: if it's a male ballerina. Okay, So five people you
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: meet in Heaven? How did you conceptualize that? Like, obviously
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: you're taking a big risk, because I in the writing world,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: I understand like you, like anythink, I think professionally, once
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: you get put in one corner, people want to keep
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: you there and they want you to keep producing what
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: was the most successful. So how did you conceptualize the
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: five people you meet in heaven?
• 11:04
  Speaker 7: Well, it's funny you asked that.
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: And you know, one of the reasons I was interested
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: in talking to you is because I feel that you
• 11:11
  Speaker 5: probably have endured the same thing. You know, you've probably
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: been told, well, your stand up comics, so you can't
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: host a show, you host a show, so you can't
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: host a podcast. You know, you can't, you can't, you can't.
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: And I was certainly told that, you know, after Tuesdays
• 11:26
  Speaker 5: with Maury, which nobody wanted, then all anybody wanted was
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: Wednesdays with more, you know. And every time I went
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: into a publisher, they would say, yeah, but you know,
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: give us another Mory book. And I said, I don't
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: have any more Mory books. I said everything I had
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: to say, but I do have this idea for this novel.
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: And the idea of the novel was I wanted to
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: write about people who feel that they don't matter. And
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: so I came up with this idea based on an
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: old uncle of mine who had told me a story
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: about a near death experience where he had died and
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: he had seen all his relatives waiting for him at
• 11:59
  Speaker 5: the edge of it his bed before he kind of
• 12:02
  Speaker 5: came back into his body and lived again.
• 12:03
  Speaker 7: And I always had this idea that.
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: That's what happens when you die, and so I came
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: up with this idea that there'll be this old guy
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: kind of like my uncle World War two vet, who
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: died trying to save a little girl from an accident
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: at a peer where he worked an amusedment park and
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: a cart falls and he goes to push her out
• 12:21
  Speaker 5: of the way and he feels these two little hands
• 12:23
  Speaker 5: in his you know, her hands, and then he dies
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: and he doesn't know if he saves her or not.
• 12:27
  Speaker 5: And he goes to heaven and he finds out that
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: the first stage of heaven is you meet five people
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: from your life, each of whom was in your life
• 12:35
  Speaker 5: for some reason. Maybe you knew them, maybe you didn't
• 12:38
  Speaker 5: know them, maybe it was a relative, maybe it was
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: someone you spent two minutes with, but in some way,
• 12:43
  Speaker 5: they changed your life and you change their life forever.
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: And with each person he meets, he finds out that
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: he was very significant, you know, and that this is
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: something that he did that they didn't think mattered. Change
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: this and change that changes, and he keeps asking them, well,
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: what happened at the end of my life? I felt
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: these two little hands in my hands, you know? Did
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: I push the girl out of the way? Did I
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: save her? Did I save her? And nobody can tell
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: him until the end. And the last person that he
• 13:09
  Speaker 5: meets is a little girl who he was responsible for
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: killing and during the war, and he didn't he never
• 13:16
  Speaker 5: knew about it. And he says, you know, after she
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: tells him, andever he breaks down and she tells him.
• 13:22
  Speaker 5: He says to her, but did I save the little girl?
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: Just tell me that was my life worth something that
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: I did? I push her out of the way, and
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: he says and she says, no, you pulled her, you know.
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: And he says, well, no, I felt her hands and
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: she says, no, those were my hands. And I was
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: bringing you to heaven. And the reason that I tell
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: you that story is because when I went around to
• 13:42
  Speaker 5: different publishers to tell them the story of five people
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: you meet in Heaven, I went to this one place
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: called Hyperion, and it was the only place that was
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: willing to listen to me about writing a novel. Everyone
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: else just wanted Wednesdays with Maury. And they said, well,
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: we'll hear you your story. What is it?
• 13:58
  Speaker 7: And I told the story and I got to that point.
• 14:00
  Speaker 5: Where he says the little girl says to him, those
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: were my hands and I was bringing you to heaven.
• 14:04
  Speaker 7: And a woman in the room burst into.
• 14:06
  Speaker 5: Tears and she and she said, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: so you know, and I said, no, it's okay, it's okay.
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: So they said to me, we want this book. We
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: don't want Wednesdays with Maury. We want this book. This
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: is this is going to be a really good book.
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: So I left that meeting and I went and got
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: in the elevator with my literary agent and I said, okay,
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: two things. Number one, let's sign with this company because
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: they were willing to do a novel and they want
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: to do it.
• 14:33
  Speaker 7: And number two, whoever that woman was, I want her
• 14:36
  Speaker 7: to be my editor.
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: And that woman became my editor for the next four
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: books that I wrote. And she always joked around that
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: that was the luckiest cry that she ever ever had.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Sorry, Yeah, I mean Wednesdays with Maury's is such a
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: it's so emblematic. First of all, Mary's dead, so I
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: don't know what Wednesdays with Maury would look like it's
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: so emblematic of our like, you know, creative worlds, like
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: the people the decision makers in creative lands. And another
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: thing that in you telling us that story reminds me
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: of is my favorite quote of all time, which is,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter how many people say no, you just
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: need one person.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: All you need is one person.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: And everyone gets so fixated on the rejection in any
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: sort of creative endeavor, and on a larger scale, in
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: any endeavor. You know, people get so hung up on
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: the rejection, and it doesn't matter how many people don't
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: get you. It just matters that somebody does, and somebody
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: gives you the green light to go ahead with your
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: creative ideas. So this is another example of that being
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: so true. And yeah, I love that. I mean I
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: almost burst into yours.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: Listen.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Now, I'm like, do I have to read the book?
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: But I will read the book because I just love
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: your writing so much. Let's talk about the Little Liar.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: I'm so curious as to how you create these kinds
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: of ideas for the books, because your books are so disparate,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: like each one is so different than the than the next,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: and how does one come up with that, like the
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: concepts of lying and how a lie can spread and
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: change the course of history.
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: Well, I think the reason that my books are different
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: one from the other is because I tend not to
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: approach writing, certainly not novels the way that most people do.
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: Most of my writer friends, they come up sort of
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: with a plot, you know, they have got an idea
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: that this is going to happen, or a couple characters
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: going to do this.
• 16:22
  Speaker 7: I never do that. I always try to come up
• 16:24
  Speaker 7: with a.
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: Theme and that I want to write about, and then
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: once I say, okay, I'm really interested in that theme,
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: then I try to create a story around that theme.
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: And that's probably why every story sort of comes out different.
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: So the five People You Mean Heaven, that the theme
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: was that people who don't think they matter should find
• 16:42
  Speaker 5: out that everybody matters. And then I created a whole
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: heaven and everything around that because it served the theme.
• 16:47
  Speaker 7: The little Liar.
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: I actually I went to a Holocaust museum in Israel
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: on a book tour about ten years ago and went
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: into this Yad vashem Is. It's the really big Holocaust
• 17:01
  Speaker 5: museum that they have there, and on the walls are
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: all these videos of people that were collected a lot
• 17:06
  Speaker 5: by Steven Spielberg, I think when he was making Schindler's List,
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: and they just run constantly, you know, they're always running.
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: It's just people recollecting different moments about the Holocaust. And
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: one of them I stood in front of and this woman,
• 17:20
  Speaker 5: it was an older woman, and she was saying, everybody
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: always asks me, why did we get on those trains
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: when they knew that where they were going to concentration
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: camps and we were going to be murdered. Why didn't
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: we fight back? And she said, they don't understand that
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: we were lied to, that they would use Jewish people
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: to lie to us and to tell us that we
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: were going to new jobs or new homes, and that's
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: how they got us onto the trains. And these Jewish
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: people they only lied to us because they were being
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: threatened themselves that their families would be killed if they
• 17:51
  Speaker 5: didn't do what they said. And I always thought, wow,
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: there's got to be some kind of story there, because
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: what a terrible I mean, war is awful and Holocaust
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: is awful, but then to make your own people lie
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: to their own people and leave them to their deaths
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: how would you live with telling that lie? But it
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: seems so dark to me, Telsea, you know, it's like, God,
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: I'm getting depressed just even thinking about that.
• 18:14
  Speaker 7: Who's going to want to read that? And then I.
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: About a couple of years ago, I said, what if
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: I told that story? Because I wanted to write something
• 18:20
  Speaker 5: about the truth, because I think it's pretty obvious that
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: in the last couple of years, truth has become a
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: relative term, you know, and it really does affect the world,
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: you know, no matter what your particular view of it is.
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: I mean, if you can't trust the things that you're
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: hearing or people that you're hearing them from, it changes everything.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: And I think you said it right there, what your
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: view of it is. You know, there shouldn't be different
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: views of the truth. The truth is the truth, but
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: now there are multiple there's multiverses, right.
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: So I thought, what if I make it that it's
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: a kid instead of an adult who would know better.
• 18:58
  Speaker 5: What if it's a kid who's ever told a lie
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: before in his life and he gets tricked into telling
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: his own people that it's okay to get on these trains, and.
• 19:07
  Speaker 7: How would he live with that?
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: And that's when I knew I had a book, and
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: I started exploring it.
• 19:12
  Speaker 7: And that's what happens to.
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: Little Niko in this story that he's never told a
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: lie before.
• 19:18
  Speaker 7: He's Greek.
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: He lives in this Greek village and he's known for
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: just being a kid who can't tell a lie. And
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: the first lie that he tells is when a Nazi
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: tricks him into telling the people on the trains that
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: everything's going to be okay and get on the trains.
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: And he does this for three weeks until the last
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: day he sees his own family being put in one
• 19:38
  Speaker 5: of these train cars and he runs to want to
• 19:41
  Speaker 5: join them, and the Nazi doesn't let him go, and
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: he says, but I want to go with them. I
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: want to go to the new jobs and the new homes,
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: and the guy in the Nazi says, there are no
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: new homes, you stupid Jew, you know, And in that moment,
• 19:52
  Speaker 5: he realizes that he's told a lie, and his family
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: is sent away and he's left behind, and from that
• 19:58
  Speaker 5: point forward ever tell the truth again. He becomes this
• 20:02
  Speaker 5: pathological liar, which seems to me, Chelsea, I don't know.
• 20:05
  Speaker 5: That seemed to me like that would be kind of
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: the natural thing that would happen.
• 20:09
  Speaker 7: Your mind would so explode that truth would.
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: Just become almost poison because of look at what happened
• 20:16
  Speaker 5: with it, and he becomes this pathological liar, and that
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: follows him and his family and this girl who loves
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: him for the next thirty forty years on their different paths.
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: It was a really hard book to write, because you know,
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: every day you're immersed in I mean, you have to
• 20:31
  Speaker 5: write as a Nazi, you know, you know, I don't
• 20:34
  Speaker 5: ever want to imagine that I could know what's in
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: the head of a.
• 20:37
  Speaker 7: Nazi, but I had to, and so it was exhausting.
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: And when I finished it, I was proud of it,
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: and I was glad that I wrote. I always wanted
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: to write one book for Holocaust literature, you know, to
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: contribute to that. I think it's important that that's not forgotten.
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: But I didn't want to write, you know, the such
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: and such of Auschwitz. You know, a lot of books
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: have been done this similarly, and so I wanted to
• 20:59
  Speaker 5: come up with original idea, and I think I did.
• 21:02
  Speaker 5: And I'm very pleased and honored that you think that
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: that's a good book.
• 21:07
  Speaker 7: It means a lot to.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Me and you fictionalize like Nazis. You fictionalized Hitler in
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: the book instead of calling him by his name. Why
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: do you do that just under the umbrella of fiction.
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: No, I didn't want his name in any of my books, Okay,
• 21:21
  Speaker 5: so I just referred to him as as the Wolf,
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: which is how he referred to himself. Actually, everything in
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: The Little Liar is historically accurate, everything except the characters
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: who I invented and put in. I I researched the
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: hell out of that book. I went to Thessalonica and
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: met with a bunch of people and saw or even
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: the house that he lives in as a real address
• 21:41
  Speaker 5: in that city, because I just wanted it to ring
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: its You know, trying to make up something during the
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: Holocaust will never be as poignant or as moving as
• 21:54
  Speaker 5: basing stuff off of real things that happened, because in
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: that period of time, the real things that happened were
• 21:59
  Speaker 5: just so moving and so horrifying and so inspirational in
• 22:02
  Speaker 5: some ways. You know, even the moment where his grandfather,
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: all the family is in and the concentration camp in Auschwitz,
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: and the grandfather every night makes them all gather together
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: and pray and say thank you for whatever they had
• 22:16
  Speaker 5: during the day, And you can imagine what can people say,
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: How can you say thank you for anything when you're
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: in a concentration camp. And he makes them go around
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: everyone in the family, and one of them will say,
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: you know, I'm thankful that I got an extra spoonful
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: of soup. And one says, you know, the guard who
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: always beats me was off.
• 22:33
  Speaker 7: Today, so I didn't get beaten.
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: And one says the tooth, my rotted tooth fell out
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: of my mouth, and one says, I saw a bird,
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: you know, And just that notion of having hope even
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: under the most dire of circumstances. You can't make that
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: stuff up, you know. I read about moments like that
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: in listening to survivor's talk or tapes of survivors talk,
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: and just kind of created my own thing that was
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: parallel to theirs. But trying to create it from whole
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: cloth is foolish. That the stuff that happened is so
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: inspirational you might as well use it as your inspiration.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: And what is your process?
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Like what does it mean when you're going to sit
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: down and write a book, And what does that mean
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: to your family?
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Like are you gone.
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it means bye bye. Yeah. My wife and all
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: my family kind of know when I'm in a book mode.
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: I kind of just walk around with a glassy expression
• 23:28
  Speaker 5: for the better part of eight or nine months, and
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: my wife has to repeat things to me many times.
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: But my process isn't isn't as dramatic as I think
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: people like to imagine it. I just get up in
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: the morning and come down here where I am in
• 23:44
  Speaker 5: my office and just sit down very very first thing.
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: I don't read anything, I don't listen to anything. I
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: don't turn on I don't turn on a computer or television.
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: I want a fresh, fresh head, you know, And I
• 23:56
  Speaker 5: find that I only really have that when I first
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: wake up, and I just write for the next two
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: and a half three hours maybe, and then that's it.
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: And I could sit there for another eight hours, but
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: nothing is nothing's going to come.
• 24:10
  Speaker 7: And so I've learned that, you know, you.
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: Kind of you go until your tank is empty.
• 24:15
  Speaker 7: And then you come back and do it again.
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: I do always try to end on a positive, like
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: if I'm in the middle of a good paragraph or something,
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: I stop myself because I find like when you wake
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: up in the next morning, you look forward to coming
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: down and working on it.
• 24:31
  Speaker 7: If if you left it someplace good.
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: But if you left it in the middle of a
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: really bad paragraph, but.
• 24:37
  Speaker 7: You're going to just stay in bed.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Oh that's I love that. That's great. Yeah.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: So have you ever read the book or it's not
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: really well, there's a book Daily Rituals. Have you ever
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: seen that book where it talks about writers processes.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: It's all these different famous.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Painters, sculptors, artists, writers, creators, creatives and what they do.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: And it talks about the first few hours of each day.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: And then it talks about how you need some physical
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: you need a physical break, you need some sort of exercise, food,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: And then people like Hemingway, would you get shit faced
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: at two thirty in the afternoon come back and start
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: writing again after.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Their walk to the bar and back? But so many people.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's very well researched that you're the first
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: few hours of your day or your most creative and
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: where you have.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: The freshest ideas.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: But I love the idea of not looking at anything
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: when you sit down.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: That's fresh advice.
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: I'll tell you the other really good piece of advice
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: I got with regard to writing came when I was
• 25:33
  Speaker 5: really really young and I was just starting out. It
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: was in New York, and I had been a musician
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: and I was kind of transitioning out of being a musician,
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: and I got a job writing for a TV shopper
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: magazine that they would give out in the supermarkets, but
• 25:49
  Speaker 5: they would have a feature story on the cover, which
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: is really embarrassing I look back on it, because I
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: would call people saying, Hi, I'm Mitch Album, I'm writing
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: for TV Shopper, and I'd like to.
• 26:00
  Speaker 7: Interview I can't believe.
• 26:02
  Speaker 8: And they wanted in a famous people would agree to
• 26:05
  Speaker 8: be interviewed to be on the TV Shopper magazine, and
• 26:09
  Speaker 8: one of them was this photographer whose name escapes me,
• 26:11
  Speaker 8: but it was kind of like Scavoolo.
• 26:13
  Speaker 5: You know, he's really well known back then. And I
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: went and interviewed him and he said I somehow asked him,
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: you know, how did you get started wit your process
• 26:19
  Speaker 5: or something like that. He said, well, when I was
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: really young, there was a photographer like me, you know,
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: well known and everything, and I really respected him. So
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: I took a bunch of pictures and I sent my
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: best stuff and I sent it off to him and
• 26:32
  Speaker 5: asked if he could give me any advice.
• 26:34
  Speaker 7: He said, I waited.
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: I waited, and about three months later I got an
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: envelope back with my pictures and a note, and the
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: note said, it's obvious to me that you've mastered the
• 26:44
  Speaker 5: basics of good photography. Now surround yourself with the best music,
• 26:50
  Speaker 5: the best art, the best books, the best film, and
• 26:53
  Speaker 5: everything else will take care of itself. And that was it.
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: That was the total advice that he had, And he said,
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: I found that to be At first I thought it
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: was kind of flippant, but then I found it to
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: be true because there's an osmosis that takes place if
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: you do surround yourself with other things.
• 27:10
  Speaker 7: A lot of writers think, well, all I should do
• 27:11
  Speaker 7: is just read, read, read, read read.
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: You know, a lot of musicians think that all I
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: should do is just you know, play play play play play.
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: But there's an osmosis that takes place with other forms
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: of art that I think sync into you and affect you,
• 27:24
  Speaker 5: you know. My having been a musician, I find there's
• 27:27
  Speaker 5: a great asset in writing because I write with the rhythm,
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: you know, and I can tell what the paragraph isn't
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: working because I can.
• 27:34
  Speaker 7: Kind of like I write like like.
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: This, and if I stop, and if i'd well, I'm
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: not my head's not shaking anymore. It must be this
• 27:41
  Speaker 5: isn't working, you know, and then I'll change something and
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: then I'll go bou oh, I got it back again,
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: you know. So there's a lot of cross influence from
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: the different arts.
• 27:49
  Speaker 7: And I thought that was a good piece of advice too.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great advice.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, So we're going to take a break with Mitch
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: album and we'll be right back and we're back with
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Mitch album. Okay, So let's talk about this the newest
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: book Twice, which is another great concept, which is this
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: young boy finds out very early on in his life,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: as his mother is about to pass away, that he
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: has the ability to redo things, but he doesn't have
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: the ability to redo them twice.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: He can only redo them once.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, he could do it twice, but he can't
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: go back and fit it right.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: So at certain point, like there was a point in.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: The book where I was confused because he goes so
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: far back, So he's redoing things that he's already redone, right,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: how do you square that? Because at one point he
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: goes all the way back many many years, and he's
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: already redone so many things along the way.
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: Well, that's one of the problems. One of the problems
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: when you create a magical world is then you have
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: to live by your rules, you know exactly, and you
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: and you keep saying, well, what are the rules here? Again?
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: And then at some point you realize, like, you know what,
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: I created the rules. I'm just just going to write
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: it and everyone will have to go along with it.
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: But yeah, the premise of the story is that he
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: has the power to do anything in his life again,
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: but only one time, and he has to live with
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: the consequence of the second time. So, for example, he
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: misses a shot to end the game a basketball game,
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: and he goes back to take that same shot again,
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: and that time he gets hit in the jaw and
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: breaks his jaw. He can't go back to the first
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: one and say, I'll just take missing the shot. He
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: has to live with the broken jaw going forward. And
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: the presumption is that everything else that happens going forward
• 29:31
  Speaker 5: sort of happens the same way that had happened before
• 29:34
  Speaker 5: that he can't really undo any of those things. But
• 29:37
  Speaker 5: the idea of it was to address again like the theme,
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: Like I've told you, you know, I just try to
• 29:43
  Speaker 5: find a theme. This theme was about the grass is
• 29:47
  Speaker 5: always greener concept, you know, and as you get older,
• 29:50
  Speaker 5: you run into a lot of people and you become
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: a person who starts saying, you know, boy, if I
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: could have done this again, my whole life would have
• 29:59
  Speaker 5: been different. Or if I only hadn't done that, then
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: it would be different. And I wanted to really explore
• 30:05
  Speaker 5: that and see if it really isn't necessarily better or worse.
• 30:08
  Speaker 5: And then as I was going along, I said, well,
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: the thing that seems to be the one that people
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: talk about the most or fantasize about the most, is love.
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: You know, what if I had married somebody else? What
• 30:20
  Speaker 5: if I had married that guy who asked me and
• 30:23
  Speaker 5: I turned him down, Or what if I had what
• 30:25
  Speaker 5: if I had gone on that date with that girl
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: that I was too scared too, or you know what if?
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: What if?
• 30:31
  Speaker 7: There's all those things, but we always think we can
• 30:33
  Speaker 7: do better.
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: Or you know, our true love is someplace else. And
• 30:40
  Speaker 5: I wanted to sort of explore that idea. So that's
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: that's what motivated me to write Twice.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Was that personal at all?
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: Well, not in the way.
• 30:50
  Speaker 7: I mean, I'm only I've been married once and.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: Then related to your marriage.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Let's not get you into trouble here, but just in
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: your life or like I mean, obviously that's something that
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: comes up, like if you could you know, I always
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: get that question and every interview is or anything you regret,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: and it's like, well, I mean, if I sat down
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: and thought about everything I fucking regretted, we'd be here
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: for hours.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: I'd rather not think about it. I didn't do it.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: So I'm here now and while reading this book, you know,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: which is such a fucking awesome book. And you know
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: these books are so they're like nugget sized, yeah, you know,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: they're a nice like I mean, they.
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: Are perfect Saturday afternoon read, just perfect everything.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: I just love them.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: And this is like three hundred pages, but you whip
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: through these books so quickly. Our listeners are big readers.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: So I just want everyone to know how passionate I am.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: But when I do think about the possibility, like I
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: always had this fantasy if I could just be a
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: straight a student from like kindergarten through high school and
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: actually apply myself and really just been like you know,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: and then I would have been the prom queen and
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: all of these things. I always used to think that
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: when I was in my twenties, like if I could
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: have just made my parents been like this model child.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: And now when I think about the idea of that,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: it's like, I don't want to go through all of
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: that garbage again, you know, I don't want to go
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: through that life again, because then you have to put
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: up with all of the ugliness. Also, you have to
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: reexperience all of the times where you were sick or
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: someone died or all of those types of things, and
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: it's like, I don't want to What is your viewpoint after.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: Having written something like this?
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: What do you think about that, like if you had
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: the opportunity.
• 32:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think I had that viewpoint before I even
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: wrote it. And that is people have asked me the
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: same question, Chelsea, you know, is there anything that you
• 32:35
  Speaker 5: would redoing? I think for some reason they think the
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: person who wrote Tuesdays with Maury is going to answer, oh,
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: absolutely not.
• 32:41
  Speaker 7: Everything that I've done has been you know, you know,
• 32:44
  Speaker 7: it's been.
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: For a purpose.
• 32:45
  Speaker 7: And my answer is absolutely.
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: I'll give you like twenty things right now that I
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: would do differently if I had a chance to do
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: them differently. But if you said to me, you have
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: to unlearn everything that you learned from the mistake that
• 33:00
  Speaker 5: you made, then I would say no, because all of
• 33:04
  Speaker 5: the mistakes and all of the regrets and all the
• 33:06
  Speaker 5: things that I did that I would do differently if
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: I was at that moment again, have taught me the
• 33:13
  Speaker 5: things that I have learned now, you know, and have
• 33:17
  Speaker 5: shaped me into the person I am now.
• 33:19
  Speaker 7: I'll give you a perfect example.
• 33:20
  Speaker 5: Talk about it twice in a lifetime.
• 33:22
  Speaker 7: Opportunities.
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: So when my wife and I got married, we got
• 33:25
  Speaker 5: married kind of late age wise, and we didn't have kids.
• 33:30
  Speaker 5: I was thirty seven, she was thirty nine, and we
• 33:33
  Speaker 5: didn't have kids, and I kind of delayed it, you know,
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: I mean I delayed getting married. I delayed having kids.
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: I was really into my career at that time. And
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: then Tuesdays with Maury happened, and that was all going on,
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: and she really wanted to have kids, and by the
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: time we sort of, you know, we're focused, it just
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: didn't happen. And as the years passed, I started to
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: feel like, man, I you know, really really missed something
• 34:00
  Speaker 5: by not having children.
• 34:01
  Speaker 7: But then sixteen years ago.
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: I ended up going to Haiti after the earthquake and
• 34:08
  Speaker 5: got involved with an orphanage down there, and one thing
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: led to another, and it's a long story that I
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: don't want to bore you with, but I ended up
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: inheriting an orphanage that I was working at, and I
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: have been running that orphanage ever since and go there
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: every month for the last sixteen years. And I have
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: well over one hundred children who have come through, and
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: we have twenty two of them up here who are
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: either in college or in medical school now, or some
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: of them got medical care. And we have a little
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: three year old daughter now that we adopted from Haiti,
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: and none of that would have happened. I don't think
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: if I had had kids the first time around, because
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: I would have been involved with that, i't I wouldn't
• 34:50
  Speaker 5: have gone to Haiti in the first place, and you know,
• 34:52
  Speaker 5: probably just wouldn't have had time to do it.
• 34:54
  Speaker 7: So I got this incredible opportunity.
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: But it's only because I learned from my mistake earlier
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: how much I appreciated children. And in fact, today, as
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: we're speaking, we took our little girl to school for
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: the first time. It was her first day of school
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: and I got to live that, you know, and it's like, wow,
• 35:15
  Speaker 5: my age, I get to take gets a hugger and
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: she grabbed me, said I don't want to go, you know,
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: and all that you know, and I of course I'm
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: taking pictures of all of this because you appreciate, you
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: know this now like I'm going to need this later
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: and so to have that opportunity is a miracle. But
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: I don't think it would have happened if I hadn't
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: made the first mistake. So that's just one silly example
• 35:39
  Speaker 5: of my personal life. But I think everybody probably has
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: something in their life that they can look at that way.
• 35:44
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so beautiful.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, what a gift, What a gift you've been
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: given with that orphanage, and what a gift you've been
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: able to give, like the gift as always, you know,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: we sometimes we think we're doing something and really the
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: gift is as ours to take and enjoy.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, that is such a beautiful story. Thank you
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: for sharing that.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: I want to ask you personally with all your iterations
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: in your life, like now we're finding out you were
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: a musician also, or I'm finding out anyway, and deep
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: down I do believe you one day you will become
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: a ballerino. On a personal level, your evolution and your
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: creative evolution, how has that impacted your life? Because you
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: obviously know that you have the capabilities to do all
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: these different sorts of things, and I would imagine that that.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: Adds a lot of.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Personal I don't want to say confidence, because it's more
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: than that. It's like, there's such value in everything that
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: you're doing.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: How does that impact you.
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: Well? I have had a lot of iterations to my life.
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: When I was younger, I was all about ambition and
• 36:58
  Speaker 5: was all about achievement and accomplishment. I rose very quickly,
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: and as first I was a musician and I failed.
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: So my first experience was failure. And then I moved
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: into writing and journalism and got into sports writing, and
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: I had the opposite. I had like a really fast ascension.
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: I became a lead columnist at the Detroit newspaper when
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: I was twenty five and was traveling around the world
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: and covering sports stories and writing sports books and everything.
• 37:24
  Speaker 7: I was on ESPN multiple times.
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: I worked like one hundred and twenty hours a week
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: and went petal to the metal whatever it.
• 37:33
  Speaker 7: Is until I was about thirty seven, and that's.
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: When I encountered Mariy and sort of everything kind of
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: screeched to a halt, and he kind of really opened
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: my eyes. You know. He was really somebody that I
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: loved when I was younger and had totally forgotten about,
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: and you know, not forgotten in my brain, but just
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: had paid no attention to because I was so.
• 37:55
  Speaker 7: Busy, busy, busy, now here he was dying and every.
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: Tuesday it was like hitting the brakes on my life
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: and you know, no phones, know anything, and we would
• 38:04
  Speaker 5: just sit there and I felt like I was a
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: student again. I felt like I was back in college,
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: and I was sort of reminded like, wow, you really
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: have changed. You know, you're not the same person that
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: you used to be when you were listening to him,
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: and not necessarily for the better. And I ended up
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: writing that book, and as I told you a little earlier,
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: it kind of took me over, not the other way around,
• 38:25
  Speaker 5: and I, whether like it or not, I became a
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: person that people started coming to and asking, you know,
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: they would sometimes people would say, Maury, what do you
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: and I go, WHOA, I'm not I'm not Mary I'm
• 38:37
  Speaker 5: the stupid one, you know, I'm the one on the
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: other side of the couch. But but people do that
• 38:42
  Speaker 5: all the time still, you know. And when you start
• 38:44
  Speaker 5: hearing grieving stories and you're going to hospice and you're
• 38:47
  Speaker 5: on the board of hospice, and you're going to funeral
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: parlors and you're asked to speak at you know, people's memorials,
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: and you start to change and you become sensitized. And
• 38:55
  Speaker 5: so then I started to realize that I had an
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: obligation made to bring that kind of thing to my work,
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: and that writing about games and you know, who's making
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: a tackle or whatever is all well and good, it's
• 39:07
  Speaker 5: but but you might be able to do something else.
• 39:11
  Speaker 5: And I remember Maury said to me one time, what
• 39:13
  Speaker 5: do you do for your community? And I said, what
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: do you mean? And he said, you know, what do
• 39:17
  Speaker 5: you do for charities for people who are in need?
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: I said, I write checks? And he said, well, anybody
• 39:23
  Speaker 5: can write a check, but you've been given a voice,
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: and you need to do something with that voice more
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: than just a grandize yourself. I remember that, because you know,
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: only a professor uses a word like a grandize, you know,
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: And I've never forgotten that, you know, that really stays
• 39:39
  Speaker 5: with me. And so I had that part of my
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: life where I started to say, well, Okay, you've been
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: given this platform, and you've been given this success.
• 39:49
  Speaker 7: What are you going to do with it.
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: It's going to go buy a bigger car, or you're
• 39:53
  Speaker 5: going to try to help people. And you know, when
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: I got involved, particularly with Haiti, I'm very involved here
• 39:59
  Speaker 5: in Detroit. Also, I live with the city here and
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: I started and operate a number of charities here. But
• 40:05
  Speaker 5: I think when I got involved in eighty with the orphans,
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: that became this whole other chapter of my life where
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: it suddenly my life was about kids and their illnesses.
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: And I mean, believe me, Chelsea, I could spend ten
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: straight hours telling you about scabies and childhood malnutrition and
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: brain disease and cerebral palsy and all kinds of issues
• 40:26
  Speaker 5: that our kids have that nobody pays any attend. There's
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: no food for them, there's no water, you know, no electricity,
• 40:32
  Speaker 5: and trying to you know, I'm trying to figure out
• 40:34
  Speaker 5: how I can get diesel fuel for less than twenty
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: dollars a gallon. You know, when someone's calling me and saying,
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: we're making a movie out of your book, you know,
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: and it's like this completely different sort of worlds, you
• 40:45
  Speaker 5: know that I have to sort of navigate between, and
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: now I'm talking to you, you know.
• 40:49
  Speaker 7: So so I've learned that life can be.
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: A lot of different things, and you can be a
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: lot of different things yourself. And like I said to you,
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: I was anxious to speak to you because I admire
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: the fact that you've done a lot of things yourself
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: and you haven't let people tell you no, you're this.
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: I remember I got a chance to meet Maya Angelou
• 41:08
  Speaker 5: once and she and I were just talking in a
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: hallway and I said, can I ask you a question?
• 41:12
  Speaker 7: It's going to seem really weird.
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: She said yeah. I said, okay, you write poetry, you
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: write fiction, you've been an actress, You've done all this stuff.
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: Does has anyone ever told you just stay with one thing?
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: And she said yes, and it's the coolest thing you
• 41:28
  Speaker 5: can ever say to somebody. And I said, well, why
• 41:30
  Speaker 5: do you say that? She said, because it's telling a
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: bird that it shouldn't fly. And I thought that that
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: was really beautiful. And she said, don't ever let anybody
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: tell a bird that it can't fly. And so I've
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: tried to sort of live my life that way and
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: not worry about the category that I'm in. But if
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: I feel like I have something to contribute or something
• 41:49
  Speaker 5: to offer in some way, or I can help somebody,
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: or I can write something, and whether it be a
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: book or a movie or whatever that's gonna, you know,
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: have some positive effect, I should do it, whether I'm
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: supposed to do it or not.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: And are you injecting yourself into these books that you write, Like,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: is there a part of you that's in this book
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: twice that is part of the main character?
• 42:11
  Speaker 7: Oh?
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Alfie. This character is named Alphie. He's the he's
• 42:15
  Speaker 5: the boy. And many of the mishaps that he has
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: when he's younger with girls are straight out of my playbook. I.
• 42:25
  Speaker 5: There's a there's a scene where he goes up to
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: talk to a girl who has a bit of a
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: crush on and he talks with his hands and he
• 42:32
  Speaker 5: knocks a glass of milk into her lap and she
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: just looks up and says, oh god, you know like
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: that with that and and his response is look at that.
• 42:42
  Speaker 5: And that's exactly what happened to me. And exactly what
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: I said, and then I just scumped up and never
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: talked to that girl again.
• 42:50
  Speaker 7: So yeah, I think you have to have a little.
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: Bit you know of yourself in order to know your
• 42:55
  Speaker 5: characters well and have them ring true. There has to
• 42:59
  Speaker 5: be a bit of a bit of you in there.
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: But the biggest thing is that I really I wrote
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: it for my wife. And the love story is between
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: Alfie and this girl, Gianna, who he meets when they're
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: very young in Africa and then never sees her again
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: until he happens to run into her, you know, when
• 43:16
  Speaker 5: they're college age, and he just kind of tumbles into
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: love with her and feels it like he's so lucky
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: to have her, and finally she loves him back, and
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: they have this wonderful love affair for a while until
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: something happens and he misreads a situation and he's tempted
• 43:30
  Speaker 5: to just undo it out of anger and whatever, and
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: of course he finds out that the one caveat to
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: his power is love. That he can do anything twice
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: except love. He can't get somebody to love him twice,
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: So which I think, you know, that's kind of how
• 43:50
  Speaker 5: it should be, you know, like if somebody truly loves you,
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: and you say, all right, you wait over here, keep
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: loving me. I'm gonna go out here and see if
• 43:58
  Speaker 5: I can find something better. But in just in case,
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: I want to come back pick up where we left off.
• 44:04
  Speaker 7: That seems so unfair. And so I made the rules.
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: Like you asked me before about the rules, Well, I
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: can make the rules. I wrote the book.
• 44:10
  Speaker 7: So I said, it doesn't work with love.
• 44:13
  Speaker 5: And if you walk away from a true love, that
• 44:16
  Speaker 5: person can.
• 44:16
  Speaker 7: Never love you again. They'll be in the world.
• 44:19
  Speaker 5: You know that you revisit, it can be your friend,
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: but they can never love you again. And of course
• 44:24
  Speaker 5: he makes this fateful decision and then he has to
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: live with the consequences. And so it was my way
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: of sort of saying to my wife, you know, both
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: apologizing for any things that I've done that have been
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: less than right. Also, yeah, I went for great, you
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: went for satisfactory, Brooky, you know, somewhere somewhere in the middle.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: Right, It's also begs.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: The question, which is so beautiful is if you don't
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: get somebody to love you twice, what will you do
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: to be able to just continue to love them?
• 44:58
  Speaker 5: That's right, and that's where our hero man is just
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: estalvaghe himself.
• 45:03
  Speaker 7: I'm trying not to tell the whole well.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, so am I, but you know, probably failing loudly.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: But I just it's so beautiful. Your writing is so beautiful.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: It really is the definition of escapism. Are your books
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: like I And the reason I love reading so much
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: is something that really takes me away, And every time
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: you're writing just does that.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: So I'm really really grateful to you.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: I want to ask you before we have to let
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: you go about what you read and what some of
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: your favorite books are.
• 45:32
  Speaker 5: Well, I read everything, and I've learned, you know that
• 45:36
  Speaker 5: story about the photographer, that anything can be a source
• 45:40
  Speaker 5: of inspiration for you.
• 45:42
  Speaker 7: And so I don't ever say, well, I just.
• 45:44
  Speaker 5: Read fiction because I'm writing fiction, or I just read
• 45:46
  Speaker 5: nonfiction because I'll read, you know, novels, I'll read I'll
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: read biographies, I'll read instruction manuals. I mean, anything that
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: I think is going to inspire me. I do tend
• 45:59
  Speaker 5: to read a little differently, like, Okay, so this is
• 46:03
  Speaker 5: Ann Tyler's dinner at the Homestick restaurant.
• 46:05
  Speaker 7: He's just sitting on my desk here. So I don't
• 46:08
  Speaker 7: know if you can see.
• 46:09
  Speaker 5: So you see the pages are all dog eared, okay,
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: And under each of those dog eared pages will be
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: a phrase that I will circle that I think is
• 46:21
  Speaker 5: really great writing. And then what happens is I'll just
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: pull these be's why it's here. I'll just pull these
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: books out, and whenever I'm going to start writing, before
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: I do, I take it and I just splip the
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: pages and I just read these great sentences that these
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: authors have written. And Ant Tyler wrote a lot of
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: really good sentences in this book, and they.
• 46:40
  Speaker 7: Just inspire me.
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: It's like it's a little bit like I'm going to
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: sit down and compose music. Let me listen to something
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: that's really inspiring first, and then I'll sit down and
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: I'll compose mine. You know, So I destroy my books,
• 46:51
  Speaker 5: but I'm good with that. Like I've had people come
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: up with Tuesdays with Mary's then, honestly, I don't know
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: how the binding is even holding together.
• 46:58
  Speaker 7: You know that it's dog here.
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: They're they're marked up there, They've got coloring all over them.
• 47:03
  Speaker 5: Some of them have little tabs on the pages. Five
• 47:06
  Speaker 5: people you meet in Heavens like that, A lot little
• 47:08
  Speaker 5: liars like and These are people who like underline the
• 47:11
  Speaker 5: books and they come up and they apologize. They say,
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: I'm sorry I destroyed the book. I said, no, why
• 47:16
  Speaker 5: would you apologize? Like you you ate the whole meal,
• 47:19
  Speaker 5: you know, like you really devoured it. Look at look
• 47:23
  Speaker 5: at what you did to the book. You know, as
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: someone who comes up on the book as pristine for
• 47:26
  Speaker 5: all I know, they read the jacket, you know.
• 47:29
  Speaker 7: So so I love that.
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: And I don't consider, you know, books like holy that
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: you can't touch them. I think they're meant to be
• 47:35
  Speaker 5: absorbed that way. So that's basically how I read. I
• 47:38
  Speaker 5: just read for inspirational writing.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: And do you have any favorite books?
• 47:43
  Speaker 5: Many?
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: Have you ever read Sirce by Madeline Miller?
• 47:47
  Speaker 5: No?
• 47:48
  Speaker 7: I thought I was.
• 47:49
  Speaker 5: You're the second person that's recommended that to me in
• 47:51
  Speaker 5: about a week.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: There are some similarities between your writing and her writing.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: She has she packs a punch with sentences also, and
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: it's beautiful.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: It's a beautiful book. But what are some of your favorites.
• 48:03
  Speaker 5: Gilead by Marilyn Robinson is one of my favorite books ever.
• 48:07
  Speaker 5: History of Love by Nicole Kraus. These are books that
• 48:10
  Speaker 5: I've read like a hundred times, you know, just because
• 48:14
  Speaker 5: I so admire the writing as a huge Tom Wolffan,
• 48:18
  Speaker 5: I think the first chapter of The Right Stuff is
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: one of the most creative ways of writing. When I
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: was first getting into writing coming out of music, one
• 48:28
  Speaker 5: of the daunting things about writing to a musician is
• 48:31
  Speaker 5: it feels very limiting. You know, when you're used to
• 48:35
  Speaker 5: you got a whole keyboard. I'm a piano player, and
• 48:37
  Speaker 5: when you have a whole keyboard to work with and
• 48:38
  Speaker 5: all the sounds, it feels like the whole world is
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: that your fingertips that you could create.
• 48:43
  Speaker 7: And then when you're working in the world.
• 48:45
  Speaker 5: Of letters and words and sentences, not so much, you know,
• 48:50
  Speaker 5: especially when you're not as good at it. When you begin,
• 48:52
  Speaker 5: you know you're getting started, it feels kind of ah,
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: I'm just living within the you know, the words to
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: the left and the words and the right, and they're.
• 48:59
  Speaker 7: Kind of reading a box.
• 49:00
  Speaker 5: And then you read that chapter where there's like italic,
• 49:04
  Speaker 5: you know, and he writes it out sounds and I
• 49:08
  Speaker 5: remember reading that and I said, wow, you can do
• 49:11
  Speaker 5: that with words. You know, you can create sounds, and
• 49:14
  Speaker 5: you can create what people are thinking, and you can
• 49:16
  Speaker 5: come in with a voice out of left field.
• 49:19
  Speaker 7: That's just commenting on what you.
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: Just read and then you can jump back out again.
• 49:23
  Speaker 5: And it really inspired me to say, there is no
• 49:25
  Speaker 5: limit to, you know, what you could do with words,
• 49:29
  Speaker 5: and I ended up kind of using that in my
• 49:31
  Speaker 5: journalism when in my early days as a as a
• 49:35
  Speaker 5: sports writer, I would say, you know, I wrote a column,
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: and I would always not be limited by the traditional
• 49:43
  Speaker 5: form of writing. So I one time I had to
• 49:45
  Speaker 5: write a story about the Kentucky Derby, and I didn't
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: know anything about horse racing. I was going to the
• 49:51
  Speaker 5: Kentucky Derby, and so I kind of wrote a column
• 49:54
  Speaker 5: about me interviewing a horse and make believe horse and
• 49:58
  Speaker 5: the horse would talk to me about you know, and
• 49:59
  Speaker 5: I was asking different questions about what it's like to
• 50:02
  Speaker 5: be a racehorse. And I remember, and these are the
• 50:07
  Speaker 5: days when people used to write your letters, you know,
• 50:09
  Speaker 5: at the newspaper. And I went down picked up my
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: mail and I it was a letter from a reader
• 50:15
  Speaker 5: and I opened it up and it was that column.
• 50:18
  Speaker 5: And I opened it, I pulled it out and he
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: literally cut it out of the paper and he wrote,
• 50:22
  Speaker 5: A horse talks to a jackass. I said, that's pretty good,
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: you know, And I put that up on my bulletin
• 50:30
  Speaker 5: board and said, you know, this is what happens when
• 50:33
  Speaker 5: you take a chance. But it still was worth it,
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: you know, to explore the Yeah.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I like the idea of not having a framework,
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: and I like the idea of not having parameters, because
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: that's all that we're taught in this world is that
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: there are limits and there are parameters, and that's why
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: you're told to do the same thing you did well, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat,
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: which is not exciting for a creative brain. Okay, Well,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: the book is called Twice. It is a love story.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: It's a beautiful love story, and it's a great book.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: Another great book from Mitch album. Mitch, we appreciate your
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: time today. We'll take callers separately and me and thank
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: you so much for your time for your talk. I
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: loved it. You're very inspiring.
• 51:13
  Speaker 5: Thank you. Well, I'm really flattered that you like my work.
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: I hope you enjoy five people you meet in heaven.
• 51:19
  Speaker 5: And I didn't ruin it for you.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I do know the ending, but I will
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: still read it. And I think there's some.
• 51:23
  Speaker 5: Books you only know a piece of the end.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, okay, great, great, great. I'm going to read
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: it on my flight to New York on Friday, and
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: then I'm coming to Detroit. I'm doing shows in Detroit
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: next year.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: I'm going to invite you guys, you and your wife
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: to come to see me.
• 51:36
  Speaker 5: Oh love that.
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, i'd love to be wonderful.
• 51:39
  Speaker 5: I'd very much like to meet you in person. Thank
• 51:41
  Speaker 5: you so much for having me on your program.
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: Okay, wonderful. I have a great day, made so much.
• 51:44
  Speaker 7: Thank you too, Bye bye bye.
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: He's awesome, awesome, awesome, true manch I know.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, a true guy, like what
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: a model male human being.
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: The opposite of toxic masculinity.
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: I know, my god, I was started crying twice. Yeah,
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: it's like it's his writing too. Yeah, I'm so good.
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: We got to his kids in Haiti and I didn't
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: know they adopted.
• 52:11
  Speaker 5: I know.
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: It's just gorgeous, just stories beautiful.
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: It's like he's a vessel truly.
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: I mean it is like just like hearing about his life.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: Is that the right word? Vessel? Like a conduit conto it?
• 52:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah?
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: You do? You do hear that?
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: When he's like I was focused on myself and I
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: made this change. I did this thing to help someone
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: else else, and then all of these blessings came to him,
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: but then he continued to pass it along. I mean,
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: just really wonderful. Now I got to read The Liar. Yeah,
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: that's a great book.
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: Okay, So now we're going to take some callers without Mitch.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Catherine, I thought, our time is better spent with Mitch
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: listening to him talking about writing for some reason, and
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: so let's take the callers ourselves.
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: I think that's perfect. Yes, Well, our first question comes
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: from Karen. She says, Hello, Chelsea, many of your stories
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: resonate with me. I was adopted at birth and grew
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: up with deep feelings of abandonment. I was also an
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: angry teenager and turned that anger onto my parents for them.
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: My issues followed me through college. In my early twenties,
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: my aunt.
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: Connected me with a fantastic therapist and I had a
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: breakthrough of sorts. However, I was still searching and ungrounded.
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: I tried marriage to fix my issues and immediately recognize
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: my mistake. I now call that my starter marriage. In
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: my early thirties, I remarried, had my daughter, and found
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: my birth parents. The discovery of these new relationships brought turmoil,
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: but also emotional connection that had previously been just beyond
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: my reach. There have been many twists and turns in
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: my life, many of which have seemed faded, such as
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: connecting with my second husband in nineteen ninety eight after
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: near misses in which we'd nearly cross paths many times.
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: I'm currently trying to write a book to capture my
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: life story, which I think is worth telling. I have
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: initiated the process countless times and can't seem to get started.
• 53:56
  Speaker 4: I know you've written multiple books, so my question to
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: you is how did you start? Did you develop a
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: framework and then start writing? Did you just free flow?
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: Did you have a ghostwriter? I'd appreciate any guidance you
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: can offer.
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: Karen Hi, Karen Hi, Hi, How are you?
• 54:12
  Speaker 9: Thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: You're so welcome. I like your full blonde hair. It
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: looks nice and great hair from another blonde. I mean,
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: mine's obviously not real anymore, but it's very hard to
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: have thick blonde hair.
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: So congrats on that beat. Thank you for your note.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: We just had Mitch album on talking about his writing,
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: so he talked about getting up every morning.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: He doesn't expose himself. I don't know. Do you have
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: a job or I do.
• 54:43
  Speaker 9: I'm a graduate nursing professor.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: Okay, what does that mean?
• 54:47
  Speaker 9: So I'm a nurse practitioner.
• 54:49
  Speaker 6: So I'm clinical faculty for Masters prepared nurses that are
• 54:53
  Speaker 6: going for their nurse practitioner.
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, that sounds nice. It's amazing. So what is
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: your schedule like?
• 54:59
  Speaker 6: So I'm mostly online grading and I do site visits,
• 55:03
  Speaker 6: so I have a lot of flex building. Right.
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: So then what he said as first thing in the
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: morning is when your brain is the freshest. There's lots
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: of data to back this up. So that's really what
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: you want to do. Is he told me something that
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: I don't do, which is not check any media, not
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: check phone, not check anything. And he just goes and
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: starts writing before anything can kind of make an impression
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: on him. So and writes for about two and a
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: half three hours each morning and then leaves it there
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: because he said he could sit there for another eight
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: hours and it just would be useless. And I find
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: that to be true in my own experience as well.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: It's first thing in the morning, when my eyes are
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: fresh and when my head is fresh and I'm well
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: rested to get up, and that is I think the
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: most creative time for most of us. I think not
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: looking at anything, not looking at the news, not looking
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: at any social media, not even looking at your phone
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: is really a great piece of advice that he gave.
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I would say to do that. I wouldn't
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: be too.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: Strict with your guidelines for yourself because the desires there
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: and the construct you just have to envision what you're
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: trying to put out there. Like with my most recent book,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: I wanted my goal was to impart the wisdom that
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: I had gleaned and to inject women with a little
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: bit more confidence. Like that was my mo So everything
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: that Kate was born out of that idea. And so,
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: like you know, I opened my last book with a
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: chapter about it's called Little Girl. It's like, who do
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: I want it? Who I wanted to be when I
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: was a little girl. How did I envision myself becoming?
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: And what kind of woman did I see myself becoming?
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: And then the book takes you through all of the
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: ways in which I attempted and got derailed or wasn't
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: really conscious about it and was derailed and then realized,
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: wait a second, where's that woman?
• 56:54
  Speaker 6: You know?
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: So that was like my through line. I don't know that.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: I think sometimes you have a structure in your head
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: and sometimes you have a structure on paper. It really
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: depends what kind of brain you have. You're talking about
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: writing your life story basically right right right, yeah, And
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: I think it's important and valuable to think about what
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: it is you're giving to the readers that are going
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: to be reading this.
• 57:19
  Speaker 9: So I get a little confused about that.
• 57:21
  Speaker 6: So I think I want to tell my story, and
• 57:23
  Speaker 6: then I think about do I need to make it
• 57:26
  Speaker 6: a larger picture of maybe you know, my extended family,
• 57:32
  Speaker 6: and then intertwine my thread throughout it, and I get.
• 57:35
  Speaker 9: Caught in the weeds or I think too large.
• 57:39
  Speaker 6: It's really hard to figure out how to start and
• 57:42
  Speaker 6: what to tell, and then I just kind of, you know,
• 57:46
  Speaker 6: I spin around and around.
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: One tool that might be helpful is to get yourself
• 57:51
  Speaker 4: a pack of like three by five note cards and
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: go through write on each one sort of like a
• 57:57
  Speaker 4: story or a scene that you want to write about,
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: and you know, you might hang them up on a wall,
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: you might just have them in a stack, But if
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: you're having a writing day, you know, whether that's you know,
• 58:06
  Speaker 4: you have a couple hours in the morning or even
• 58:08
  Speaker 4: just you know, forty five minutes in the morning, go through, pick.
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: One that's speaking to you that day and.
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: Write about that. Like you don't necessarily have to write
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: it chronologically. You can always go back and then you know,
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: put stuff chronologically and weave it in so you can
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: just go to whatever, like you're in the mood for
• 58:24
  Speaker 4: or whatever is speaking to you that day.
• 58:26
  Speaker 6: That's a great idea because when I'm thinking of a
• 58:28
  Speaker 6: timeline and starting at childhood, I can't think of any
• 58:33
  Speaker 6: great meat to you know, grab onto and initiate that story.
• 58:38
  Speaker 6: And I've always been kind of thinking about it in
• 58:40
  Speaker 6: a chrominological manner, and so I get stuck on that
• 58:44
  Speaker 6: and then I'm like, oh, well, so that's a great idea.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And also those index cards that you get, you know,
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: there's big momentous moments or the moments that you know
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: you do want to write about, right, you put those
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: all down the things that stand out the most. So
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: like your early childhood, you're saying, there's some you know,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: you don't have a very clear idea of where to begin.
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: I think if you put down your biggest memories and
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: your loudest moments on blue cards, that will kind of
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: help you remember where Like, it will kind of help
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: trigger you where to begin, because if you start writing
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: that stuff, usually writing begets more writings and memory seeking
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: begets more memories. So I think that like, just by
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: the practice of writing down the things that you do
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: recall and the big instances that you do want to
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: convey in your book, You're going to start to remember
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: other things.
• 59:37
  Speaker 9: Oh that's really great that I hadn't even tried that.
• 59:39
  Speaker 6: I hadn't even thought about that, So that's really that's helpful.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 59:43
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: And even if you're writing, say a thousand words a day,
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: at the end of three months, you've got ninety thousand words,
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: you know, so it like take it in small bites
• 59:50
  Speaker 4: if you need to.
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: And I also really just like I'm not a very
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: structured person. I like to just do my own thing.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: I don't follow rules. Well, so for me, it's really
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: when I sit down and I start writing, it creates
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: a need to want to write more. And another great
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: piece of advice Mitch Album just gave was he always
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: leaves his writing on a positive note or a positive paragraph,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: Like if he's in the middle of a good paragraph,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: he'll stop if it's been two and a half or
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: three hours, because that way, the next morning when he
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: wakes up, there's a level of excitement to return to
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: the page.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 9: Yeah, that's really really helpful too.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 6: Yeah, these things, I'm so structured and organized that everything
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 6: you're saying to me, really, you know, isn't anything I've
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 6: thought about, and I think probably will help get the
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 6: ball ruling.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, yeah, just don't be so don't be so
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: regimented about it, and allow yourself to be a free
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: thinker with regard to this book, like do things you
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: haven't done before. Since you've never written a book before,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: this is the perfect opportunity to try to loosen your
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: whole struct than Yeah.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 9: Sure, okay, good stuff, Thank you so much.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: Right, love it. Thanks for calling in.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: So this caller is Gene, She says, Dear Chelsea, I
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: listen to your podcast religiously and find your advice to
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: be so refreshingly honest and straightforward.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: I'm writing to you as a fellow author.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 4: I've published many books in my life, but now I'm
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: writing a memoir about being in a family of ten.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: My early childhood trauma was so bad it manifested in
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: medical issues, so I had to cut ties with my family.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: I'm writing this book to challenge myself as a writer,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: process my experiences, and share my stories with others who
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: can relate. I know only need to change the names
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: of family members, but anyone who knows me will know
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: who I'm writing about. Even though my stories aren't pleasant,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: they are all true. How do I deal with the
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: folloout and maintain my conviction and composure should one of
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 4: them reach out to me, especially if it's an anger.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: Thank you in advance for your help. You're one of
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: the smartest, sweetest, strongest women I know.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: Gene. Hi, Gene, Hey.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: I'm so excited to meet you.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, thank you for your kind words, and I'm so
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: sorry that you had such a traumatizing childhood.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: Are you writing it as nonfiction or are you writing it
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: like as fiction?
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: No, I'm writing it as nonfiction memoir.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: I honestly, it's not really your problem what anybody thinks
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: about what you're going to write about. You're entitled to
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: write your story. Everyone is entitled to tell their story
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: and write their story.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: And while you do.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: Have to change the names and you have to change
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: the scenery, Yes, you're right, people are going to know
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: what you're talking about. But I don't think it does
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: you any good to really consider that aspect of things,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: especially at this stage. It's almost like you know your
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: your efforts should just be going towards your honoring your
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: story because by telling your story, you are helping so
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: many people, and you just have to keep that in
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: the back of your mind at all times.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: That this is not just for you. This is for
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: the world, right, and it's for women.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: I like to always think, like, when I'm making a decision,
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: you know that I'm doing it on behalf of women.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: Not every little decision, but big decisions, I think, who
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: am I doing this for?
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: It's not can't just be for me, but it's for women.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, And that's the only reason I would share it. Chelsea.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 10: I feel very strongly about gleaning from my life experiences.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: In my work as a writer.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 10: I'm almost sixty years old, Like, this is how I
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 10: want to spend the rest of my working days is
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 10: sharing my stories with people who can relate. But you know,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 10: I am concerned about any potential negative interference from siblings
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 10: when it does come out. I have had siblings try
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 10: to staybotage some of my book events and whatnot, and
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 10: that those books said nothing to do with them.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: So that kind of just hangs.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 10: Over my head a little bit, and I am just
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 10: wondering what should I do, Like, how how do I respond?
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: If you know, and when that happened.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: I don't think there is a response for that. Any
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: response is them winning, you know, like them trying to
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: like sabotage you, and you reacting to it is them
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: affecting you. And I think you have to just kind
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: of it sounds like a pretty toxic situation that you've
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: come from, and I honestly think you just have to
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: be your own best protector and think of that little
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: girl that you were that wasn't protected, that you're writing about,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: and this is your job to protect her in this moment.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: Oh, thank you so much. That means a lot.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 10: And yeah, I mean I am trying to listen to
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 10: other memoirrists who have gone through something similar and get
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 10: their advice and what to do and whatnot, And so
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 10: I'm leaning.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: On people like yourself too.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 10: You've written your own memoirs and your own experiences, and yes,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 10: I'm leaning on all of all of you as an
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 10: inspiration for not just how to write this, but how
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 10: to deal with any intrusions, you know, any negativity when
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 10: this book hopefully is out and will be discussed.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: And also you know, you can't fight with someone who's
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: not fighting back. So say the worst case scenario, someone
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: walks into one of your book events, You're having a
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: book talk at a bookstore, independent bookseller, and someone comes
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: in ands like this.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: Is a lie, this is a lie.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: Your response is nothing, is just to sit there and
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: wait for security to escort them out. There's no argument
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: to be had, do you know what I mean? Like,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: I that's a louder argument than an argument. Yeah, to
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: not get into it. And I think it's it's not
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: helpful to be putting your energy towards that right now. Anyway,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: channel that energy and use that for the book. Yeah,
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: under the assumption that there's not going to be any problem,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: there's going to be no intrusions, and that nobody's going
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: to try to sabotage you.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: I hope not, because the way I look good.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 10: It is like me walking into their office where they
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 10: work and telling them you know, that's not how to
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 10: design a building or whatever.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: They do for a living.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 10: You know, absolutely, that's how I feel about it. But
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 10: how I feel is usually at odds with the people
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 10: I grew up with, unfortunately, So I just I hope
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 10: I can maintain my composure.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: You can, you can, because but by the time the
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: book is published, you're going to get into a preparation phase.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: You know, you're going to prepare yourself for what happens
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: in the eventuality that something negative like that does happen.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: It most likely won't, but if it does, then yeah,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: you're going to meditate on it, and you're going to
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: prepare for that and how you're going to handle it,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: And you're going to handle it with grace and confidence,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: knowing that this is your story and nobody owns your
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: story the way.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: That you do.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: Thank you. I mean, from that out of my heart.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 10: I don't want to hurt anybody, you know, it's not
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 10: my intention stand So I wrestle with that a lot.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: You know, these are not people I want to hurt.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean that's worth saying, you know, in
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: the book was also.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a hard line.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's worth considering. Putting in your not like
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: the prologue or the introduction to the book. You know,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: this is my story and this I did not set
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: out to hurt anyone else but telling my story, I'm
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: setting out to help people who may have experienced something similar.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: That's perfect. Thank you, that's fabulous.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, great, right, Well I wish you lots of luck. Yeah,
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: and lots of courage and lots of success.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Chelsei. I just love what you do.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: Keep doing it. I love it.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Thanks so much.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: Bye, bye.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, that was your episode of Dear Chelsea for the week. Everybody,
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: we have minisodes that we are airing now.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: When do our minisodes come out?
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 3: Every other Friday?
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: Every other Friday? We have a miniesota.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: If you need a little jolt, an extra jolt of us,
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: we're here. We're here, and yeah, we'll see you next
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: week or you'll hear us or what the fuck ever?
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 11: Goodbye. The word of the week is a grandize verb
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 11: to increase the power, status, or wealth of something or someone,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 11: used in a sentence to self. A grandize may be
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 11: beneficial if you use it to demand a raise at work.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: A grand eyes.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: I just announced all my tour dates. They just went
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: on sale this week. That's called the High and Mighty Tour.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: I will be starting in February of next year, so
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: I will be touring from February through June. I haven't
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: added second shows yet, but we probably will be to
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: some of these. So go get your tickets now if
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: you want good seats and you want to come see
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: me perform, I will be on the High and Mighty Tour.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: Do you want advice from Chelsea?
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 4: Right into Dear Chelsea Podcast at gmail dot com. Find
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 4: full video episodes of Dear Chelsea on YouTube by searching
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 4: at Dear Chelsea Pod.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: Dear Chelsea is edited
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 4: An engine geared by Brad Dickert executive producer Katherine law
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: And be sure to check out our merch at Chelseahandler
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 4: dot com