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Gilmore To Read: Danica Nava · Gilmore To Say: A Gilmore Girls Podcast

0:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi y'all, welcome our welcome back to Gomor to read.
0:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host Haley and I'm so glad to have you here today for our Gilmore Girls bookish segment of the podcast I see Gilmore Girls bookish because it is bookish It is Gilmore Girls related.
0:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore Gilmore Girls bookish 99% of the time it is authors who have seen and loved Gilmore girls sometimes they haven't seen it But in this episode my guest is a Gilmore Girls fan
0:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And nothing feels more cozy than books, writing, talking about gunmore girls, all of our favorite things.
0:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And today is our first episode of Gamarch Read of November.
0:43
[SPEAKER_00]: The time has changed, which has created more time for what I call my enrichment activities.
0:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure you have enrichment activities that are your cozy hobbies for when it gets darker earlier.
0:53
[SPEAKER_00]: To kind of save your mind a little bit.
0:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I love audiobooks and puzzles and crafts, or just reading with an abiance on an cozy blanket.
1:01
[SPEAKER_00]: or falling asleep with a historical romance on my Kindle, always, or an enrichment activity for you today.
1:09
[SPEAKER_00]: How about listening to a podcast episode about books and gummer girls?
1:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, cosy is can be.
1:13
[SPEAKER_00]: This can be your enrichment activity for the day because I have an excellent guest today.
1:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's Danica Nava, who I mentioned earlier, is a gummer girls fan.
1:19
[SPEAKER_00]: and the author of Love is a War Song, Oct. 5 for Reading a Sexy, our Go More Girls Inspired, Romance Specific Book Club.
1:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Dana Canava is the first traditionally published Native American Romcom author, and recently became a USA Today Best Seller with her novel Love is a War Song, which we talk about in depth later in this episode.
1:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you've already read it, I know that you probably loved it.
1:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me remind you of the synopsis of it.
1:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you've not yet read it, let me tell you about it.
1:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And then listen to my episode with Danica, which I'm sure will convince you to head straight to the bookstore.
1:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Love as a war song is about a pop singer, a refox who has become a national joke after posing scantily clad on the cover of Rolling Stone and a feather war bonnet.
1:58
[SPEAKER_00]: What was meant to be a statement of her success as a Native American singer has turned her into a social pariah and dubbed her a fake.
2:05
[SPEAKER_00]: With threats coming from every direction in her career at a standstill, she escapes to her estranged grandmother, Lottie's ranch in Oklahoma.
2:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Living on the res is new to Avery, not only does she have to work in the blazing summer heat to earn her keep,
2:16
[SPEAKER_00]: But the man who runs Loddy's horse ranch despises her and wants her gone.
2:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Red Fox ranch has been home to Lucas Iron Eyes since he was 16 years old.
2:23
[SPEAKER_00]: He's led by three rules to keep himself out of trouble.
2:26
[SPEAKER_00]: One, preserve the culture, two, respect the horses and three, stick to himself.
2:30
[SPEAKER_00]: When he is tasked with picking up Loddy's granddaughter at the bus station,
2:33
[SPEAKER_00]: The last person he expected to see is B.A.
2:36
[SPEAKER_00]: V. Fox.
2:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Lucas can't stand what she represents, but when he's forced to work with her on the ranch, he can't get her out of his sight or his head.
2:43
[SPEAKER_00]: He reminds himself to keep to the rules, especially after he finds out the ranch's under threat of being shut down.
2:48
[SPEAKER_00]: It's clear a read isn't belong here, but they form a tentative truce and make a deal.
2:53
[SPEAKER_00]: A Rewell help raise funds to save the ranch in an exchange.
2:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Lucas will show her what it really means to be an Indian.
2:58
[SPEAKER_00]: It's purely transactional, absolutely no horse thing around.
3:01
[SPEAKER_00]: But where's the fun in that?
3:02
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk about this later in the episode, but a lot of the inspiration that Danica had for this.
3:06
[SPEAKER_00]: We're, like, horse movies like Flika, but also the Hannah Montana movie where we have a pop star going out to the country and falling in love with someone on the ranch, which literally the moment that I hear Hannah Montana movie, I was so locked in, so hooked.
3:21
[SPEAKER_00]: and it really delivered.
3:22
[SPEAKER_00]: This was one of my favorite books this summer and I know that this is technically a summer book but there's just something about ranches and about cowboy romances and kind of everything that takes place here that feels very atomno, which Danica will give you a reason as to why I think that when we talk in the episode.
3:39
[SPEAKER_00]: But a bit about Danica, Danica is the critically acclaimed, award-nominated, and USA today bestselling author of Love as a War Song in the Truth According to Ember.
3:48
[SPEAKER_00]: She has received rave reviews for both of her novels and publications, such as The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Oprah Daily Entertainment Weekly, People, Cosmopolitan, and starred reviews and publishers weekly, Curcus, and Library Journal.
4:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Her books have been indie next-picks, library reads picks, and Amazon editors' picks for romance.
4:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Her debut, The Truth According to Ember, was a good
4:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Love is a war song was chosen as the Red Summer 2025 book club pick.
4:14
[SPEAKER_00]: She's the citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and has an MBA from USC, Marshall School of Business.
4:19
[SPEAKER_00]: She currently lives in Southern California with her husband and daughter.
4:22
[SPEAKER_00]: When she's not writing, she's engaged in the Battle of Wales with the GoFers destroying her garden.
4:26
[SPEAKER_00]: This was such a fun episode to record.
4:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Danica is such a smart, fun, silly person who is an absolute treat to talk to.
4:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I adored hearing about her history of storytelling and writing and what that has to do with Barbies.
4:38
[SPEAKER_00]: how she taught herself writing craft because she didn't go to school for it and the pressure of releasing the first Native American rom-com novel.
4:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Plus, I make her really think about who her favorite girl model really is.
4:49
[SPEAKER_00]: She guided her husband to the show which we always love hearing about a Gilmore convert.
4:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, we dive into Love is a more song later in this episode.
4:57
[SPEAKER_00]: But I won't spoil anymore.
4:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll let you hear it for yourself.
5:00
[SPEAKER_00]: So without further ado, here is Dana Canava.
5:07
[SPEAKER_00]: your latest novel, love as a worsen came out a couple of months ago, but I feel for some reason like cowboy romances are really a terminal to me.
5:15
[SPEAKER_00]: There's just something that's very like yihaw about being in the fall season.
5:19
[SPEAKER_00]: So I feel like this is a perfect book to read in October.
5:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it the hay?
5:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's the hay.
5:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it is the hay.
5:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I was trying to think about the weather.
5:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, wide open fields, like horses, like I was like, these are all things that are summer too, but I was like maybe a pumpkin patch sitting on hay bales.
5:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
5:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Like there's something about like a bonfire that felt very like fall-esque, but like it's the hay.
5:43
[SPEAKER_00]: What was the feeling of releasing your second book?
5:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, love us a worse song than your second versus your first.
5:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, with the first debut, there are a lot of pressure, especially when you have the tag of being the first traditionally published Native American romantic comedy.
5:57
[SPEAKER_01]: To ever be published.
5:58
[SPEAKER_01]: That is terrifying because people have expectations, right?
6:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And now we are in the landscape of book talk where things are viral.
6:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're up against virality where there's authors who are lucky enough.
6:12
[SPEAKER_01]: that some influencer someone on book talk has mentioned something and it's taken off and now you're moving tens of thousands of hundreds of thousands of volumes of books and then you know you come in and you're like it's not going to do that you know you're going to get against a huge machine of you don't systemic racism and just
6:30
[SPEAKER_01]: invisibility, you know, in the United States where my whole life, even recently, I've been told that Native American people don't exist anymore.
6:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So, to release a rom-com where it's like, no, no, we are here.
6:43
[SPEAKER_01]: We've always been here and not only that, we're allowed to be messy, we're allowed to fall in love and we're funny and sexy, but not like the stereotypical way where you see like, you know, the gorgeous Native American women like Washington clothes and the
7:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we are we exist entirely in this contemporary context.
7:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was really nervous.
7:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I was lucky that I got you know some really fantastic critical reviews, but like does that translate to commercial sales?
7:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And I never ever want my sales record or lack that wrong or anything to give executives and power at these you know, billion dollar publishing houses to be said that people don't want more of this.
7:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So I had that pressure kind of thrust upon me and just trying to like keep my head down, just like I showed up and I and myself like you know, there are 574 federally recognized tribes within the United States and then they're a state-recognized and they're something that can't get recognized and they're the author Darcy, a little badger.
7:44
[SPEAKER_01]: who, she's part of a tribe that isn't getting state or federal recognition, because they refuse to cooperate with the Texas government.
7:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, they're just so much that you can learn from, I'm Indigenous people across the world, because they're Indigenous people everywhere.
7:59
[SPEAKER_01]: But so it's just very important to me that like I can't speak for everybody.
8:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I can speak for my experience and I can speak to universal things that's falling in love is universal and I don't think you have to be Native American to read my book.
8:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I wrote it four girls like me.
8:12
[SPEAKER_01]: You've never seen themselves in the books, but like falling in love is the closest thing to real life magic.
8:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like when I found love for the first time like it was truly this magical feeling.
8:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wish I could bottle it.
8:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So I really, really, really, really.
8:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I write books.
8:27
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that, that, that loving experience.
8:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So there was just a lot of pressure and like hope of like, you know, of course, dreaming about being in New York Times bestseller, like that, like, whole life.
8:38
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, I never thought I'd publish a book.
8:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I never thought I'd go to college.
8:41
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just not how I was raised to have opportunities like that.
8:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So every accomplishment, everything that I've done has been like, I've clawed my way.
8:49
[SPEAKER_01]: worked very hard.
8:50
[SPEAKER_01]: My undergraduate degree took me seven years to get.
8:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Some people have that easy right out of high school.
8:55
[SPEAKER_01]: They get into college and things like that and that's just not.
8:58
[SPEAKER_01]: The experience I had in the soft experience, a lot of people I know have had.
9:01
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just really important to me with Ember and my debut.
9:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I told that story.
9:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I was getting my MBA.
9:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a new born baby and I was like, if I don't write this book, you know, my life will never change.
9:13
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a crazy time to start writing a book, though.
9:15
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like when you're getting your MBA and you had a baby and you're like, you know what, I need something else huge to go under my life right now.
9:22
[SPEAKER_01]: My debut was just like this battle cry of just like, I have to get this out, my life won't change and I know we're so deserving of these love stories and I know I can tell a book, like, there's the white space to use MBA speak, you know?
9:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Like there's this white space in romance and like, how come the only Native American romance is I have like the savage warrior, the savage thunder, whatever, and it's like a white man,
9:43
[SPEAKER_01]: an oil and a wig, like that's just not real life, and so that's why that's my why.
9:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Like why I wrote the truth according to Amber Angel.
9:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I was always so honed, but you know, also I loved Ron Combs, like Brigitte Jones is diary.
9:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's probably like I've rewatched so I watch it.
9:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like nine or ten.
10:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I probably shouldn't have watched it that long.
10:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
10:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I was obsessed.
10:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like Amber, I call it my like Indigenous Brigitte Jones.
10:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually requested Love is a War Song because I can't remember who it was.
10:10
[SPEAKER_00]: It was someone on threads, I saw someone was like, this book is so good.
10:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And as I read it, I was having just like the absolute best time reading it.
10:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I did read it over the summer and as I was reading it, I was like, oh, I wish I was reading this in the fall.
10:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why, maybe there was hey, maybe that's all it is because they were laying in the hay.
10:26
[SPEAKER_00]: But then I got to the end and I was like, oh my god, she was inspired by the Hannah Montana movie because as I was going through it, I was like, what, what is, what am I feeling here like this is this is nostalgic in a way that I can't recognize because of course like my curse is to find Gilmore girls in every book and I was like these three generations of women like that really feels like that's where I'm pulling this from.
10:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, but there's something about this book that feels like nostalgic in a way that I can't explain.
10:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And then at the end, do you have a note talking about being inspired by the hand Montana movie?
10:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, why are we not talking about this?
10:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you like the horse movies where your horse girl was a cake growing up?
11:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I was not personally a horse girl, but I did see the hand on to the movie in theaters and then went a couple more times.
11:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I got my cartilage pierced because I was so obsessed with hers in that movie.
11:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I was I was down bad for that movie.
11:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I got to the end, I was like, oh my god.
11:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to reread this book like immediately with that lens of like this is where we're going because it was just fantastic and like I can't imagine any like better south for like millennials like wanting to read that book still hitting like I think it was 20 was a 26 or 23 yeah 25 I was a really fabulous yeah
11:35
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a shock and the USA today by seller.
11:38
[SPEAKER_00]: How did that feel knowing that you had worked so hard for that first one and had that post-publishing slump that first one but then to come out?
11:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I had no expectations for what was the worst song I was like I refused to be in that headspace like last time.
11:53
[SPEAKER_01]: This isn't my first rodeo I've done it before so I was like like with Ember I had woken up like my anxiety.
12:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like a bit 5 a.m. Pacific time and I was looking.
12:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I slept, I have my toddler, I have to get a ready for school.
12:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I look at my phone and I see my friend Vanessa Lillie.
12:11
[SPEAKER_01]: She's a shout out of Vanessa Lillie.
12:12
[SPEAKER_01]: She's a Cherokee author.
12:13
[SPEAKER_01]: She writes incredible thrillers.
12:14
[SPEAKER_01]: She attacks at me as screenshot and she's just like, girl, you are number 25.
12:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I saw that I had like six other messages from people and I was like, like, what?
12:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And I cried.
12:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I cried and I'm getting Terry I right now because like,
12:26
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all indie stores.
12:27
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not any of those huge brick and mortar, you know, big box stores.
12:31
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all indie.
12:32
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all booksellers.
12:34
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all readers who pre-ordered and just word of mouth and
12:38
[SPEAKER_01]: It was validating.
12:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, and we got, and then I hit it the second week and I was like three weeks in a row, just beyond, beyond anything I ever dreamed.
12:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And then with with them, where I did hit Warsaw and it was the last week of Native American here, this bunch last year.
12:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I finally made it as spot 150 on a list of 150, but on their bitches.
12:58
[SPEAKER_00]: go through there out of like how many that's that's still pretty high.
13:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but so that that would like it had a long runway to you know, took months to get there.
13:06
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a freight instantly to hit.
13:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It felt great and like I know it happened because you the support of Lila Sage who's one of the three authors who's like so hot right now and cowboy and her books are everywhere, rightly so because they're incredible and so she did my release event with me and Minneapolis.
13:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I always saw that.
13:22
[SPEAKER_00]: It was so cute the two of you together.
13:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
13:24
[SPEAKER_01]: She's she's amazing.
13:25
[SPEAKER_01]: She's so tall.
13:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I didn't know hearing her face.
13:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So tall.
13:28
[SPEAKER_01]: She's like a model.
13:29
[SPEAKER_01]: She's like an Amazon goddess.
13:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh.
13:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm just like this nervous energy.
13:32
[SPEAKER_01]: She's like, you need to eat.
13:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I'm just talking.
13:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just nervous.
13:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to be on the stage.
13:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to can't eat and she's like, eat Danica.
13:39
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, she's like, her fans just like showed up.
13:42
[SPEAKER_01]: got my book too and like that's like community.
13:45
[SPEAKER_01]: That's like sisterhood.
13:47
[SPEAKER_01]: That's, you know, all I ship and like I'm just so grateful for that.
13:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's so many authors who have done like Emily Henry blurbed that you're at the according to Amber like she like asked to.
13:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
13:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw when she was doing, maybe it was Apple or Reese or something she recommended that book in, I think it was audiobooks that she likes?
14:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was like what?
14:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had the, I have the physical copy, but like when someone recommends an audiobook it's like, not like that it's better than like reading the physical book, but like I immediately download it at it because I was like, if this audiobook is great, I want to, I want to get it.
14:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, I have this book, but for some reason, Emily Henry made me download the audiobook.
14:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I worked, I've advocated very hard I got Santa East who is a Choctaw comedian, she's an actress who's starring right now and the low down on Hulu.
14:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, she's a comedian screenwriter and I was like, I think I need a comedian to read this book like the jokes on jokes in Amber.
14:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
14:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I do think that war song might be funnier, because there's more situational humor, more physical comedy.
14:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's a thing about this.
14:47
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, it deals with a lot of topics that could, yeah, they're heavy topics that people are going through or from their history or that try to move through, but it's all surrounded by hilarious situational comedy, that the situations that Avery ends up in, like not to spoil it, but like going to the dentist,
15:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I write things and I'm like, I'm not going to let me keep this.
15:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they do, I'm like, who's, who allowed this?
15:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Who allowed this?
15:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Who wrote this?
15:15
[SPEAKER_00]: It was me.
15:17
[SPEAKER_00]: But I actually wanted to go back in time just a little bit with you, because I want to hear more about your history with writing.
15:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that you said that truth about Amber was your first book, but you had been writing other things.
15:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Gilmore Girls came out in October 2000.
15:31
[SPEAKER_00]: What were you writing in the year 2000?
15:33
[SPEAKER_00]: If anything.
15:34
[SPEAKER_01]: In the year 2000, it was probably like really sad and trees in my diary.
15:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, gorgeous.
15:39
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I read before.
15:41
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, how miserable I was being the oldest and having two sisters.
15:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you a eldest daughter?
15:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
15:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
15:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a lot of pressure and I have a complicated family and just like, you know, a lot of big feelings.
15:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I also was like, I would write my alter ego, like, fanfic of my own life.
16:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So I would write like about the boys that I liked and then like,
16:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like really nerdy.
16:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm embarrassed to even say no.
16:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm obsessed.
16:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't be embarrassed.
16:13
[SPEAKER_00]: This is exactly what we need to hear because like this is how you became a romance writer.
16:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and then I love Star Wars.
16:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I was obsessed.
16:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually was wearing my Anakin shirt, but I was like, oh no, I've had a lot of videos of me in that when we sent myself in that velcro shirt.
16:28
[SPEAKER_01]: but I was obsessed with attacking the clones and so I wrote my first fanfic which I didn't even know that's what it was and like I did not have consistent access to the internet so I wasn't on these forums for like fanfic.net or whatever didn't know about those but in my diary and things I would write
16:45
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, Corday, the decoy that dies in the first two minutes of the talk of the clones, and I would write, like, what was her backstory, how did she train to be a decoy?
16:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, she would, and then so I wrote that, like, she and Sobe and Padme were all really close friends and they trained together, and there was a boy that she really lagged with a boy like Padme and like,
17:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It was an dirty.
17:09
[SPEAKER_01]: No, but that's great.
17:10
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I was doing.
17:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And then like I really wanted to be an actress.
17:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I did a lot of improv in class, like when I started 14.
17:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I was so I would write these scripts.
17:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And then my neighbor friend, she had a video camera.
17:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh no.
17:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I would get all the kids together.
17:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And we did
17:34
[SPEAKER_01]: are weekend kind of update like reporters and then rude cuts of these scenes that were just ridiculous and like crazy costumes and we'd make the parents laugh and they would just drink their beer and eat pizza and then I had all these Barbies and so I wrote Barbie World which was like this TV underbelly like lawn order for a video.
17:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Fire me, we're all stopping.
17:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I had one can that I got at a flea market.
17:59
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like the shaving can.
18:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I know shaving can.
18:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So we had shaving can and then we had Prince Eric.
18:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So they know the two guys we had.
18:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So then they were like cheating on everybody.
18:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would get like toothpicks and I'd break them off as like daggers and put ketchup as like, you know, the special effects and there would be like a murder.
18:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And at the salt and murder, and it was just so amazing.
18:18
[SPEAKER_00]: We, Greta Gerwig, move out of the way.
18:20
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a new Barbie world on the way.
18:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's what I was doing.
18:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, so you're a born storyteller.
18:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I am the storyteller.
18:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you missed it.
18:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like a little toddler learning to talk.
18:31
[SPEAKER_01]: My mom, this was like, oh, you do.
18:32
[SPEAKER_01]: You tell stories.
18:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You would just like tell us, like reenact, poke on this.
18:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'd add people gone as a mystery.
18:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd be John Smith.
18:39
[SPEAKER_00]: How did that translate then from you, having your wild Barbie worlds, your Star Wars fanfiction in your diary, to writing novels.
18:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I started writing a novel, I was like 19, 18, 19, and it was like a self-insert, like, I, my family just doesn't get me and I wrote this really sad, like why I about this girl, I know, which is nobody gets just not like other girls.
19:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, of course.
19:02
[SPEAKER_01]: It was dumb.
19:03
[SPEAKER_01]: However, I did read it back.
19:04
[SPEAKER_01]: like I don't have that computer hard drive it totally crashed but I had read it back like when I was 24 and I was like this isn't that bad like these sentences are okay like the story doesn't but like it's not that badly written so maybe I can't write it like am I like maybe she needs some therapy but she had some good sentences.
19:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I have like written it like I was crying so it was like super emotional but I was just like oh wow
19:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I wrote that!
19:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
19:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm the name of this called Aria and it was a little mermaid retelling set in high school and her name was Aria.
19:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Wait, I love that.
19:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so that's how, those are the first things I wrote and then I stopped and then my husband moved in together.
19:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're just like cuddling on the couch.
19:46
[SPEAKER_01]: It was lazy and I was like, I always wanted to write a
19:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, one of which he was right about.
19:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, well, so like smarter people do better people who like go to school for that, like, you know, they get a degree and he's like, anyone can write, just write a book.
20:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So the next day, I had a very slow day at work.
20:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I just wrote my prompt was like, I was stuck in traffic for hours.
20:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a girl stuck in traffic for him.
20:09
[SPEAKER_01]: but then like these ridiculous things started happening and that was the first wrong comment wrote from start to finish and I called it balancing act and I had self-published it and it took it down because I did not know pacing so it was like 70,000 words but it was funny like there was a spark there and so I went on Facebook and I found like a romance writing group like you know it was like I got to join easily and I just put like
20:33
[SPEAKER_01]: put a post.
20:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I don't know what I'm doing.
20:36
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you do this?
20:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, look, I have book, question mark me.
20:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And then this girl Brandy, you know, she responded and still friends with Brandy.
20:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we like became friends.
20:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And she like, I was like, no, you did a good with these groups.
20:52
[SPEAKER_01]: She's like, this group sucks.
20:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to these groups.
20:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's these resources.
20:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I love she's immediately in this group.
20:58
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like, this group sucks.
20:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to take you
21:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this group I came, it's like a piece and blessings to Brandy.
21:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and so, yeah, that's, I started learning and then like, I was listening to audiobooks on my commutes because the traffic was awful and Laura Thalass, I've read like the Akatar, like the audiobooks and it was like, people love this one as well and I was like, I got a credit, okay, wrap-sodic, what's this about?
21:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I loved it and I saw that she had this whole backlist in KU and so I, this is going to be so random but there was the Thomas fire and then we were evacuated and the rains came and there was a mud slide and so like because we were evacuated I was like trapped and I couldn't get to the office.
21:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So there was like a week of just like my job we didn't know what we were doing.
21:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
21:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was reading a lot.
21:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And I read like every little awesome book.
21:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I was like, well, I look up and she had a Facebook group I entered it.
21:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Turns out we live very close to each other.
21:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And she would do these lives in her group.
21:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And like there were a lot of people like aspiring writers.
21:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And like they would ask these questions like, how did you how do you write a book?
22:02
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you do this thing?
22:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And so she was just going like talking in this what I do.
22:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like literally taking notes.
22:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's how I learned to write a book that's how I learned how to self-publish.
22:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I just kept like looking up craft books and resources and you just like have to keep practicing that, that muscle, yeah, super, super random.
22:19
[SPEAKER_00]: No, that I feel like that's like, that's how you know that like you're in the right spot.
22:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Is because it's like this, I'm reading this book called Signs, it's by a psychic medium, it's like research for the book I'm writing.
22:28
[SPEAKER_00]: But like I keep feeling like people are talking about these moments, you're like, there was a mud side, so I had to stay home the whole week and read books.
22:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're like, okay, so like, do not feel like you're so like perfectly aligned to be doing this, like you're so meant to do this that back from when you were doing Barbie World and writing in your diary, it's like something like had to come into your path and be like, actually, Danica, we're going to write some books.
22:48
[SPEAKER_00]: But to your point of being like, you keep saying like smarter people do this, but like, I feel like you went like the most like true path of like finding it out for yourself, of like finding seeking these groups out, doing the hard work,
23:00
[SPEAKER_00]: finding the people who can help you through this, reading the books, doing the craftwork, that maybe there's people who have been like, you know, through creative writing, MFA programs, but it's like, I think that going in and seeking it out and finding that information for yourself is just a smart.
23:15
[SPEAKER_00]: You are very smart, Danica.
23:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
23:17
[SPEAKER_01]: We said to figure it out and like, no, I was told this lie, like that's what, you know, on my press tour for Amber when talking about like, this lie that I wasn't good enough, that I wasn't good enough.
23:27
[SPEAKER_01]: because I didn't grow up, X, Y and Z. I didn't go to private schools.
23:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't have teachers that mentored me and were like, you're smart.
23:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You can do X, Y and Z. I didn't have those things and a lot of people don't actually.
23:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like it wasn't until I was actually a community college.
23:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I was getting my paralegal certificate.
23:43
[SPEAKER_01]: and I was getting straight days and that was easy for me.
23:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Same with school, like, if I applied myself, and A was guaranteed.
23:49
[SPEAKER_01]: If I didn't do the work, I'm like, maybe on A minus or B, you know, like a school was easy.
23:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
23:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Michelle Obama, she said it.
23:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, once you get to those tables, and you listen to these men, you find out they're not actually all that smart.
24:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Me and I are.
24:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Me and I are the rises to the top.
24:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
24:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I just, I've learned to be more confident in myself and my ability.
24:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I do think that like there are barriers to me obviously, but I think that I do something special and I do it my way, the Danica way.
24:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that sometimes with the career, like it takes us so build.
24:18
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like some people, they hit that virality and just like randomly the right person was talking about it at the right time and it blows up.
24:26
[SPEAKER_00]: But like I think sometimes it's like really hard to like watch like a career slowly build.
24:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I personally really love a slow build.
24:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that that's hard on the author end to be like, but I want it to happen now.
24:36
[SPEAKER_01]: It could be slow.
24:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I just have to be able to keep giving them book deals.
24:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I just want to keep writing exactly.
24:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
24:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Hard as when like it's held against you, but I'm less to where I got another book deal and, you know, Berkeley wants to continue with me.
24:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And love us a worse song was so well received by so many places.
24:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was like entertainment, weekly, or to think what it was, they wrote about it, New York Times wrote about it, that I just feel like it was so well received, ended up so high on the USA today, best solace.
25:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I can only imagine that you're next one.
25:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, if you just keep writing in the Danica style, as you call it,
25:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and then like touring, touring helps because like, you know, it sells books.
25:13
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard, though.
25:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really hard to tour with a full-time job and a little baby, and another on the way.
25:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And my next book's not coming out talktober of next year.
25:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't do a summer release.
25:24
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just, it's hard with the full-time schedule, you know?
25:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I like, I think that one book a year is like the hardest thing, and some people are doing more.
25:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just like, how do you do it?
25:33
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what we write in full-time.
25:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, if I was full-time writing for Fubby for Lific, but I'm barely, yeah, I'm like a threading water, like machines just above and like, yeah.
25:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's it's fun.
25:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I love story.
25:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm such a nerd for craft.
25:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I could talk craft for hours.
25:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I love it.
25:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I love
25:51
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, analyzing books that I like absolutely adore and see the genius of these other writers like there's people who are doing things that like never seen before or like we haven't seen but in a new way I'm just an all of like seriously every single person in this industry.
26:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I just want everyone to succeed.
26:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, and I think that's exactly the kind of like author that you want to be reading is someone who love like truly loves the genre not someone who stumbled into it and like recognize that it was like the high selling genre and was like oh, I could do this to it's like someone who like truly deeply loves the genre that's here speaking of writing and like how much you love it is there like a writing process that you have found that works for you or does it change every day.
26:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I used to not be able to write with music, but now I have to like have one song on repeat and it blocks everything out like the money money money money.
26:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
26:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So to get more song done, there was two songs that I had on repeat, predominant.
26:49
[SPEAKER_01]: There were other songs that I played.
26:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Like there's a playlist and I did listen to all them while I wrote.
26:52
[SPEAKER_01]: But like neon moon, like that slow.
26:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I had done repeat.
26:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I was writing these slower scenes.
26:58
[SPEAKER_00]: It's Lucas and
27:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, the promise by winning Rome, the tempo was just right for these moments where she's like, you know, the third action, she's like running, you know, like for whatever reason, as that song just like helped me get into the mood and I would get really high-word counts.
27:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So I swear by sprints, I love to do my 20-minute sprints, I write into these boxes, and then I try to do four sprints a day and on the weekends, it's like 8 to 10.
27:28
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, in 20 minutes, and then if I'm in a flow, I'll do another 20 minutes, you know, and then we'll try to do a break in there.
27:34
[SPEAKER_01]: For us, you know, it's like little by little, you get a book in there.
27:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd like to do, say, the cat beats.
27:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I used to, like, really break it down, and now I don't like doing that, because then I feel like it's open book, and I get bored.
27:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a
27:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so do you see your an outline or kind of it's like a skeleton outline this next book I'm writing I have I have it all like the synopsis and it's it's broken out by beats because that's how I had to sell it But I've written about 20% of the book like it just kind of the first act usually flows out of me like I get this flow stay and I can get to that breaking to act to it's like my favorite part of writing is like you
28:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Meet these characters and it's just go go go go go go.
28:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I love the fast-paced book.
28:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you like the the you were talking about editing?
28:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you like that process better than the No, the drafting.
28:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Fuck no.
28:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't work out again.
28:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to add in my life.
28:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll eat the drafting process like the blank page scary.
28:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like a blank page is scary, but when she get into the flow state, I do like, you know, when I review and I can clean up the sentences, but no, like, I have to do like a massive rewrite of part of this book and like, I've never had to rewrite an opening, a beginning before.
28:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Until I'm finding that to be very intimidating and like, that those changes a trick.
28:47
[SPEAKER_01]: The true trickles down to the rest of the world is a lot of Frankenstein and it's a lot of work and trying to like spice it together in the document looks messy.
28:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like that just stresses me out all the red, green, blue, all the comments.
29:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I like the end product.
29:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean there's there's the scene of the line dancing and that was a war song and I rewrote that scene three times only to really revert back to the original.
29:09
[SPEAKER_01]: because my editor like she wanted a certain thing and I was like well, that's repeating a beat that happens and like in screenwriting, I hate repeating beats, like I'm like, you see that like we see that already, like I am paying that and she's like, don't know, so I wrote it.
29:22
[SPEAKER_01]: She's like, no, try this way.
29:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I wrote it again.
29:24
[SPEAKER_01]: She's like, no, I think you're right, go back to the beginning.
29:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like,
29:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You're like my favorite dude, but I do this and then I, you know, I re-wrote the ending The ending originally had Carrie Underwood in it because like, you know, I mentioned that she's in the Skogi Yeah, and so like in a movie like the, you know, the credit scene or whatever you could see like And I carry underwood because things are you guys see that happening so I was like, you know, I'm put in there and my editor was right She was just like, Avery has to be the big star here singing this like he's just be upstage by Carrie Underwood I'm like, okay, you're right you're right you're right you're right you're right you're right
29:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
29:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, sometimes I write, sometimes I'm wrong.
29:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like a lot of the things that you said, though, are really perfect because a lot of our book club members or listeners of Gilmour To Read are aspiring writers.
30:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like you've provided a lot of insight into people who don't necessarily have a background in writing, like what to do in the event that you do want to write and like how to approach that, what it's like to be in traditional publishing and that sense of like getting those edits back, feeling.
30:22
[SPEAKER_00]: overwhelmed by it so I think that you are like a really good.
30:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Just like resources in the same way that a lot of other writers have been for you for our listeners.
30:30
[SPEAKER_00]: So I do have a little true false quiz for you, again, that I pulled from your book to get to know you more.
30:37
[SPEAKER_00]: So these are all things that I pulled from love as a war song to see if it is true or false for you.
30:42
[SPEAKER_00]: The first one is you hate golden goose sneakers.
30:45
[SPEAKER_00]: True.
30:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how you could walk away from this book
30:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Big fan.
30:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I spelled that my best friend like I don't think she bought them or we're walk around Chicago and there was like Gucci had the same ones like these dirty and I was like who would pay $600 for these fake dirty.
31:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Now real dirty sneakers walking around.
31:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like that's stupid.
31:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry.
31:08
[SPEAKER_00]: You love pop music.
31:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it, true.
31:11
[SPEAKER_00]: You are a horse girl.
31:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Balls.
31:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Really.
31:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I have only ever ridden horse three times in my life.
31:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
31:17
[SPEAKER_00]: This book was giving horse girl.
31:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
31:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I wish I was a horse girl.
31:21
[SPEAKER_01]: We know I'm money for that.
31:22
[SPEAKER_01]: But I watched those flicker black daddy and I was obsessed with those.
31:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like firing horse girl.
31:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Cooking is not your strong suit.
31:31
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that's true.
31:32
[SPEAKER_01]: My husband is the chef.
31:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I can cook like things that I grew up cooking.
31:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I will say I make the best to Molly's.
31:39
[SPEAKER_00]: You'd be down for line dancing.
31:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I've done line dancing that, okay, that scene is like pretty much what happened to me.
31:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I went line dancing and for whatever reason it was Jaiho by the footage at 12.
31:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, okay.
31:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I just was dance called Kelli Entertainment, which is the hardest day.
31:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I had to never done it.
31:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's people pushing me like out of the way.
31:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And it like it was not nice.
32:01
[SPEAKER_01]: It was not easy to follow.
32:02
[SPEAKER_01]: It was chaotic.
32:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, this is gonna go in a book or movie one day.
32:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I was like, I don't know that anyone could believe me that I went country, Western line dancing to Jai Ho, the Bollywood song, featuring the Pussycat Dolls, to a dance called Kellyanne.
32:17
[SPEAKER_00]: So maybe you're not so down for it.
32:19
[SPEAKER_00]: You had a good time.
32:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a good memory.
32:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm like one that's I'm just like, feel like going line dancing right now.
32:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I do have a lot of cowboy boots now.
32:28
[SPEAKER_00]: You would say no to playing stick ball.
32:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I probably would.
32:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just not going to contire sports and like yeah.
32:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought it was like a chill game of kids.
32:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but not the one not the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
32:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I do.
32:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to have sleep, like I go to bed early every time someone like woke her up before she needed to.
32:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, let her sleep.
32:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I feel good.
32:57
[SPEAKER_00]: This last one is a little bit of a crossover of love as a more song and get more girls, but you prefer Emily Gilmore over Laura like Gilmore.
33:06
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, when I watched Gamma Girl so many times through, I've always wanted to be Laura Lye in Rory.
33:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I understand Emily.
33:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
33:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I think she let people, like the judgment, like a factor relationship.
33:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I think she just wanted to bet, but it was best for Laura Lye.
33:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that might be true.
33:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You like it.
33:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god.
33:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, I just like where I made a lot of mistakes the scroll.
33:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, cheating on Luke hooking up a Christopher again.
33:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think she was cheating?
33:34
[SPEAKER_00]: That's actually a question because I do think that she was not because she ended the relationship and the relationship did not continue from that point forward.
33:41
[SPEAKER_01]: That's tough.
33:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's a tough search.
33:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm really excited to talk to you about a moral specifically because I always ask everyone what their interest is because I've had people who've watched a couple of seasons versus there are some people who have fall asleep to it every night.
33:54
[SPEAKER_00]: So I kind of have to get, I used to kind of prepare for the same way and then I would hear their experience and I was like, I prepared incorrectly.
34:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So now I ask, and your publish is said that you love Gamma Girls, you've watched it many times, and that you forced your husband to watch it, which is our favorite way to watch Gamma Girls.
34:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you watch it with him the first time, or did this is something that you introduced to him?
34:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I introduced it to him.
34:15
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I was watching Gamma Girls as it was coming out.
34:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to be really Gamma.
34:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to be super smart and go to Yale, and I was like, that's never going to happen for me.
34:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was like, it doesn't happen for a lot of us.
34:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that's a thing is like her reading level.
34:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it's just kind of like was so unattainable for me as a 16 year old because I was so much more interested in reading books where she would have been a character in them versus like books that she was reading.
34:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was like the boring as books.
34:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was I'm here for make a bot like I am a self-sense make a bot.
34:49
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I was reading in high school.
34:50
[SPEAKER_01]: The mediator series changed my life.
34:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So I wish you weren't in care where had been reading some like fantasy or something.
34:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I always joke that like when she dropped out of Yale, really all of she needed was like a fantasy book, a doctor preparation, and app, and she would have been fine.
35:03
[SPEAKER_00]: She was just putting too much pressure on herself.
35:05
[SPEAKER_01]: She just watched some shows.
35:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, before Ben's watching was even a thing.
35:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Like she would, they were doing it.
35:10
[SPEAKER_00]: They were doing movie marathons.
35:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Just take a nap, have a snack, just watch something dumb, and you'll be fine.
35:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you said that you watched it from the beginning.
35:18
[SPEAKER_00]: What will like drew you to that at that time in your life when you were writing fanfiction in your diary?
35:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it was just that she was this girl with brown hair and I have brown hair and she's like star She's like this nerd but she's like this beautiful gorgeous nerd and I was just this nerd, but everyone called ugly But you know, it was just like that was fullness of like I wish I could be her and just like how smart she was and like
35:40
[SPEAKER_01]: studios and like I was like I don't have a lot but maybe I could be smart and like studios like her and so like I did work really hard on like homework and thinking like the clarinet I was like how to play the clarinet and they agreed.
35:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah so like that I tried to like really emulate Brewery Gilmore.
35:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I loved that she had this great relationship with her mom.
35:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I did not have like my mom had left for a time.
36:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's just like I was this girl that was just like kind of floundering with like no-tether and so I love watching Gilmore Girls and the Nanny.
36:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I watch like every season of the Nanny so many times.
36:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we've been talking about the Nanny a law in the podcast because my co-host Tara she's rewatching it so that keeps coming up so it's funny that the zero shows.
36:19
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, that's something about Rory and she doesn't tuck every last thing up.
36:22
[SPEAKER_01]: That's your so pretty and tuck every last thing at the DVD of that.
36:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And remember watching it a lot.
36:26
[SPEAKER_00]: When you were watching it, because you said that like you've always come away like loving Lorely, did you feel more connected to Rory growing up than you did to Lorely?
36:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it more of like a wish fulfillment mother of like wanting to have that relationship?
36:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they just, like, were thickest deeds.
36:41
[SPEAKER_01]: She wasn't the, like, you know, also traditional mom, who was just, like, cooking, you know, they, like, would eat out and she had a job and, like, a roof over their head and, like, you know, they weren't the richest, but, like, Murray got everything she wanted and needed, you know?
36:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that was just, like, aspirational in a way.
36:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, did you see yourself, like, wanting, like, as you got older, to be more of, like, a lower-line mom to your daughter?
37:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that I want to be right now, I'm best friends with my daughter, we play, and I love her, she's my princess, but I don't know that I would be like, we're friends, you know, like, we have to always be friends, like, because I have been a girl, you know, growing up and like, yeah, boundaries.
37:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, I want to maybe be a little healthy.
37:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I bought my daughter to always know, she can tell me everything.
37:26
[SPEAKER_01]: A little less co-dependent.
37:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, there's no secrets, you know, I mean, like, that she would tell me, like, there's,
37:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I am like a mother hand, like, you know, like if anyone ever tries to bully my daughter, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll be there.
37:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, oh my gosh, my sister has kids and like I feel like they're my own like she was talking about her being bit school and there was like someone who's kind of me And I was like what's her number what's the parent's name as much as like when you're younger you look at lower lie and you're like oh my gosh This is the kind of mom I want to be this kind of just so cool Yeah, and you step back and you're like well, I've used a character for one There's lessons that I you know that I can take away from that I you know, I love how they communicate and hang out and
38:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, we're all just different people, like the circumstances.
38:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we're different.
38:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Right now, I don't want to worry about it because my daughter is not for yet.
38:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's going to be for her.
38:13
[SPEAKER_00]: But she's going to be for her.
38:14
[SPEAKER_00]: That's such a perfect couple of her age.
38:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, she's so, I feel like she's so much fun at three.
38:19
[SPEAKER_00]: My niece and nephew, they're two and four.
38:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that they're just like the light of my life.
38:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the perfect.
38:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's cut a lung.
38:26
[SPEAKER_00]: When your husband watched it, how did he like it?
38:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Gilmore Girls, he really like, he just never seen him before.
38:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't like I, like, you have to watch us over breaking up.
38:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, oh, I love this show.
38:35
[SPEAKER_01]: They have all of them on Netflix.
38:36
[SPEAKER_01]: You want to watch it.
38:37
[SPEAKER_01]: He's not interested in it before.
38:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So I have to pile it and he liked it.
38:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we started skipping around.
38:41
[SPEAKER_01]: He really loves the Thanksgiving episodes.
38:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So we actually, we've rewatched the Thanksgiving episodes several times together, like over the years.
38:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Because that was so...
38:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Atmosphere for Fall, like in Southern California, we don't really get season changes.
38:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
38:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Living in Chicago, we did.
38:55
[SPEAKER_01]: That was like...
38:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Brief though.
38:57
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like there's a fall in the boom.
38:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It's winter for six months.
39:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.
39:01
[SPEAKER_00]: No, and that's like such a good episode too.
39:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So he didn't watch the whole thing.
39:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Just kind of popcorned around.
39:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we pop kind of like he hasn't seen like every single episode.
39:09
[SPEAKER_01]: But there were times he was sick and he did watch more without me like, oh, you know, he knows that work and stuff.
39:14
[SPEAKER_01]: He's in quite a bit though.
39:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we watch the year and a life together.
39:17
[SPEAKER_01]: All that was a lot of jazz.
39:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I love jazz.
39:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I was team just.
39:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I was about to ask.
39:20
[SPEAKER_00]: If you were a team just like if you liked the earlier seasons or the later seasons,
39:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I like the college because it was just so cool, you know, because I was in school still.
39:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, wow, that's what college is going to be like.
39:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I want to join a secret society on a jump off of something.
39:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I want to do the people.
39:38
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just like fun.
39:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But there are like parts of Chilton, you know, like I did do some debate because she did debate.
39:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I was not very good at it.
39:48
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah.
39:48
[SPEAKER_00]: You're like, bud, lingford sweating during the day.
39:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I did do like theater though.
39:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I was acting into the at the Romeo and Juliet episode with Chad Michael Murray.
39:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So, but you were Team Jess.
39:58
[SPEAKER_00]: What was it, Jess?
39:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I was Team Jess.
39:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't like the crashing the car and how angry he was.
40:02
[SPEAKER_01]: He needed some help.
40:03
[SPEAKER_01]: But like, I thought he was cute.
40:05
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a reader.
40:06
[SPEAKER_01]: He was a reader wrote in the margins.
40:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Like Dean was like a nice first boyfriend.
40:11
[SPEAKER_01]: But Jess, I definitely thought was like, the guy.
40:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the bad boy is intriguing, like he had something to say.
40:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I personally really love when they crash the car just because I just love that drama.
40:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that's a drama.
40:24
[SPEAKER_01]: That was drama.
40:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Of what?
40:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I just feel like they'd probably have conversations with a little more interesting bit of a dean.
40:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and then when we get to Logan, you're like, no.
40:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Logan, I was like, I don't know, wrist boys are not like, but I don't have anything I got with these people, like, I don't know.
40:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I just think when he comes on the screen and they're like, bantering back and forth, I'm like, what is this?
40:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the bantering, I mean, that's so great when you have writers.
40:52
[SPEAKER_00]: When you have writers doing it for you, you're like, I could do this, but only if I was both sides of the conversation.
40:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
40:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And the rule, I'm like, that's stupid, like, well, yeah, but guys know, it's a fantasy.
41:03
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all a fantasy, 100%, I feel like though that when you're, you probably experience this when you're writing when Avery and Lucas are flirting, you're like, okay, but what would they say?
41:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, you're like, I'm flirting with myself now is actually what's happening.
41:17
[SPEAKER_00]: My dream is actually to have a full conversation with myself.
41:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yeah, but I act out everything I write to make sure it's got a flow to it and like I'm blocking physically blocking all the scenes So like I can just describe it and it's like so people understand what I mean.
41:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and you're like wow As it turns out my writing is very attracted to my writing
41:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the answer, and I was like, you get to show off, but, you know, with comedies, I do think that it's like, it has to be more than just banter, I think, and he's to have like a situational humor, physical humor, there's the humor within the premise.
41:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, definitely.
41:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Is Gilmore girl something that you rewatch a lot, like, are you a fall rewatcher?
41:55
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I haven't re-watched it in the last couple years because I've been busy.
42:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I got there in the end.
42:01
[SPEAKER_00]: You had a lot going on.
42:02
[SPEAKER_01]: You had a lot going on.
42:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So I haven't watched a lot of TV honestly.
42:05
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just until recently I've been sick and so I've been watching like Hell's Kitchen.
42:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, I'm like, oh, the show.
42:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Comfort media is such like an interesting topic because like, go more girls make sense because it's like a pretty comforting, low-sake show.
42:17
[SPEAKER_00]: But I was talking to someone recently.
42:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Their favorite comfort show is Mad Men.
42:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, that's very depressing.
42:22
[SPEAKER_00]: But they love it.
42:23
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like for you, it's like Hell's Kitchen.
42:25
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like that is like Gordon Ramsay yelling at people.
42:27
[SPEAKER_00]: You're like, oh, I can finally relax now.
42:30
[SPEAKER_01]: What is like, I get to watch them through these cooking competitions.
42:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, I could never do this.
42:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but you're like, I can't stop watching it.
42:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you, or is there media that like inspires you when you're drafting?
42:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I know that a lot of...
42:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Like there's definitely like a genre of like Gilmore Girls' Esk books that have come about, even like I was talking to like Coco Miller's Who wrote blue sisters that like she learned Pacing for dialogue from Gilmore Girls like even studying it in classes And I feel like a lot of people have various touch points Whether it's Gilmore Girls or other things that while they're writing or while they're drafting That they get really inspired by is there one that you can point to?
43:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think like being obsessed with Gilmore girls and the young age and like having that year for for wit and humor and like the layers and arrested development is another one is really funny and and like if you look at the subtitles that's like the jokes on jokes.
43:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
43:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I really tried to do that with Amber.
43:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Like if there are jokes in them, I like if you read it a second time there's there's more jokes in there.
43:27
[SPEAKER_01]: That was really fun.
43:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I love space balls like Melbourne.
43:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, that's a first one.
43:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I can feel it.
43:34
[SPEAKER_01]: That would be like I can just close the whole thing.
43:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
43:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I just really really re-watched it with my husband because I am I'm drafting something new that hasn't been announced.
43:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is book four book four and well book five is like that's what I was watching space balls.
43:48
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll see if that book five can be
43:51
[SPEAKER_01]: We're a book for, I've been watching a lot of Westerns and getting into the old western, the spoof, parody western.
43:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Just kind of getting into the atmosphere, the ambiance of like, these old West movies, sets, towns, and what it would be like to be a modern character thrown into this world, and a modern native character thrown into this world.
44:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So, that's what I'm drafting right now, and I'm having the time of my life, and it's so fun.
44:20
[SPEAKER_00]: When it comes to love as a worsen, I told you that like I have this like curse of when I read a book, I'm like always kind of thinking of where it fits in terms of Gilmore girls, like how I could introduce this to a Gilmore girls fan who has never heard this book before.
44:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I read it because I saw again, I saw someone talking about it on threads and I was like,
44:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me see what this book is about.
44:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone's loving it.
44:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I love cowboy romance.
44:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Love it, of course.
44:44
[SPEAKER_00]: How a great time.
44:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And I saw these three generations of women kind of fitting into the story of Emily, Lorelight, and Rory in a much different way.
44:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And like the way that I kind of want to like go about our Gilmoreish romance book club, which is called reading a sexy, is to give you like a kind of a setup that you are familiar with.
45:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And then find a book that changes it kind of drastically.
45:08
[SPEAKER_00]: because in this one, it's of course like the Rory and the Lorelei have been separated from the Emily, but they are the ones who have like kind of rested in the wealth that has come from Avery from the daughter, the granddaughter character, but they're seeking refuge in her, not financially, but for the safe space that she is.
45:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And I loved that kind of like turning that on.
45:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It's had a little bit to give you this three generations of women.
45:34
[SPEAKER_00]: who need each other, who have all heard each other, but in vastly different ways.
45:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Also because of the community aspect of it, I feel like everyone is like so, like it's just like that quirkiness that everyone has, everyone always has something to add, that's absolutely hilarious, but has like such an earnestness to them, like all of the side characters who just make up the community around Avery really is something that Gomogal's fan would really really love, but again, when I got to the end and I realized that you were inspired by the
46:02
[SPEAKER_00]: God, why is this not like on every millennials number one TBR to be read because like that is like my dream book, my dream set up, but in your own words, how would you describe the plot of love is a war song?
46:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I describe it as
46:17
[SPEAKER_01]: This pop star who is in hot water right now for an insensitive photo shoot in music video and listening to people, you know, empower and and because she doesn't have agency in her own image in her own voice in her own, you know, career and but then she has to take the fall.
46:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So she has to go hide at her strange Gamma resource ranch where she needs to look as ironize who is the ranch hand who's running everything and he hates everything she stands for their songs everywhere.
46:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he's like also like he cannot deny this attraction that she is this beautiful woman and then you know She's so earnest and she's trying her hardest and and she he recognizes that and he's still trying like I can't I can't like her like she's yeah, you know She's so high
46:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And then so they strike a deal because she sees that this horse ranch is like going to think right so she's like okay I'll help financially like say this ranch for you and this business if you teach me what it is to be Native American like what what is like to be Muscogee how do I how do I claim this heritage you know and it's not as easy as well and we'd thank
47:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's not as straightforward as one would think.
47:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I think people thought they would actually be Indian lessons and like, I really wanted to steer away from that because I don't want, you know, there's a lot of outsiders.
47:29
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of people who have like a lore in their family and lore doesn't only take place to ancestry and I don't want to, I'm not Miss Gogi, I'm Chickasaw.
47:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I don't want to ever like write something since spiritual practice or whatever where like, you know, let's not my place to do so.
47:44
[SPEAKER_01]: But I also don't want to be in this box where like, I can only ever write like a mixed Chickasaw woman.
47:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So like I just tried to write, like I love the five tribes in Oklahoma, like we raw removed together.
47:55
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of similarities in our cultures and our languages.
47:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So like I feel comfortable in that regard and also other tribes with other stories I'm writing.
48:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like it takes a lot of research because I don't ever want to present something wrong.
48:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It's stressful, but like small towns aren't just white people, it's not all heterosexual people.
48:15
[SPEAKER_01]: This country is diverse and colorful and I think our books should reflect the world that we live in.
48:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I think that love is a more song does a fantastic job of doing that.
48:26
[SPEAKER_00]: But I want to go back to like the first moment that you thought of this book, because like what was the first idea that you had and what did you do with that?
48:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So I finished, she was going to Amber.
48:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It was called Little White Lies then, and I was- Ooh, that was a good title, though.
48:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, I don't know why I don't want and let's be keep my titles, but- That's good, that was good.
48:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and so I had the idea for it was love into other war songs, and so there was like singer in the rancher, and I was like, oh my god, she's a pop star.
48:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And like it literally just came to me.
48:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew I needed another idea to pitch and I wrote the back cover copy and that back cover copy never changed.
49:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been like the short and some of the words make it shorter, but like that was my guiding post, my north star for the story and the plot.
49:10
[SPEAKER_01]: It just like was so perfect and they were hooked on it.
49:13
[SPEAKER_01]: They were.
49:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I pitched it, Angela, she was like laughing.
49:17
[SPEAKER_01]: She was like, oh, oh, it's kind of like the Hannah Montana movie.
49:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, exactly.
49:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And I love it.
49:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
49:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that so much.
49:23
[SPEAKER_00]: You dedicated this book to your mom who'd introduce you to country music, which added to the feeling of the Gilmore of the Salted Atticator to your mom.
49:31
[SPEAKER_00]: What impact did the music have that you were listening to have in the music that ended up in the book?
49:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I think music is so integral, especially country music for the whole vibe and like I was just picturing like you know I got my MBA when he gives it I want to make film I want to make indigenous rom-coms and I was like oh my god can you imagine like an all indigenous cast I'm in a soundtrack of all indigenous musicians doing covers of these country standards and then in original music it's why I recorded where you're tonight but music is just so integral you can't
50:06
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, like you're gonna be hearing, kind of showing music somewhere, you're gonna be very rocker.
50:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So many bands, like Kings of Leon came from Tallyna Scott.
50:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, did they?
50:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and then all American Regents came from Stillwater.
50:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Like a lot of the bands that look carey underwood, you know?
50:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I'm almost like, I knew someone with the last name under what I think I knew her cousin.
50:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like it's just a small day in people know each other.
50:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, music was just really important.
50:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have a faith?
50:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I know you said you listen to a lot of Neon Moon, which like, love that song.
50:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I love Garth Brooks the dance, Michael Ronnie, and he rest in peace.
50:40
[SPEAKER_01]: That was his favorite song.
50:41
[SPEAKER_01]: We had to play it for him, Edda.
50:43
[SPEAKER_01]: He was in a memorial to the ass, but we all listen to him until I can't.
50:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Listen to that song with a dry eye.
50:48
[SPEAKER_01]: It's beautiful, so I love that song.
50:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And the chicks, you know, will get you like, if you want this nostalgic 90s kind of
50:58
[SPEAKER_01]: movie or book, you know, it's gotta be, you know, wide open spaces and cowboy take me away.
51:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there's nothing that will like solve a fight faster between me and my sister in the car than like just turning on goodbye roll.
51:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Like yeah, we will just start screaming.
51:14
[SPEAKER_00]: That's all together and then we're healed.
51:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, so good.
51:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you have someone that you were kind of comparing Avery to in terms of her career like where she kind of existed and maybe on the rise or
51:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, like, Lindsay Wallen, myly Cyrus who started doing child acting and then moved into the musical sphere.
51:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, all this Disney stars, a little bit of, and my, like, every has, like, has a voice like myly Cyrus.
51:40
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, it truly a vocalist.
51:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's, that's who I was thinking about.
51:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, did you see that Hillary Duff is coming out with me, music?
51:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I did.
51:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, you should come out with a new choreography, too.
51:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, actually kind of hope not.
51:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I love her metaphors a lot more for this TV.
51:52
[SPEAKER_00]: We had it.
51:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, of course.
51:53
[SPEAKER_01]: That's like, that's like my life during the time.
51:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you,
52:06
[SPEAKER_00]: We I saw them in concert recently because their new music is actually really good.
52:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god.
52:12
[SPEAKER_01]: See like I think it's so like I just work I never hear anything new.
52:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll just send you new songs and be like this.
52:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I do I need like Need to be here source to the outside world.
52:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm 33, but I feel like I'm 93
52:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I want to talk about something that's quite shocking, and that is the first line in your book.
52:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to read it to all of our listeners here.
52:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew I was like hooked from the very first line, and the first line is three nearly naked men, drenched in oil, gyroading around me, their things, barely covered, and short tan hide, loincloth, that dangled between their thighs.
52:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Was that always the first line of the book?
52:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Or was?
52:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't think they let me keep it, but here I am.
52:52
[SPEAKER_00]: because I like when I got that, I was like, did that go through rewrites?
52:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Did that go through people?
52:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Like how did how did we end up with the first line like that?
52:58
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the first thing I wrote and I just laughed and I was like, and it never changed.
53:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Never changed.
53:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember right.
53:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I posted the first line on my stories and nobody knew who I was and I was like, hey, let's see if this day's and it did.
53:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Low and behold, it did.
53:13
[SPEAKER_00]: But I love so much about it.
53:14
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like it's such a shocking image to start the book with, but it's also like you are with Avery.
53:20
[SPEAKER_00]: It is very shocking to her as well.
53:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And so like once you get into it, you're like, whoa, what am I about to read?
53:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you get into her mind a little bit, and you're like, whoa.
53:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I just read love ridiculous stuff.
53:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean the bus ride from hell getting robbed by fallout boy and the skinny jeans that made me so stressed out like I was like it's a girl they call someone you need to go on a long way around yes her Gucci bag being stolen I just stuff like grandma the turquoise you know it's like this stereotypical it's like get away from me oh so you need to get your you need to air act together that's a
53:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been tired a lot.
53:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I got such a second hand embarrassment because he saw that and I was like, I saw that.
54:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that moment I was like, oh my gosh, okay, maybe we should be running off and to be alone for just a little while every.
54:12
[SPEAKER_00]: But you were talking about like research that went into this because as you mentioned, this is the Muscogee.
54:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And I imagined that that research was really fascinating to do.
54:20
[SPEAKER_00]: What was something that you found to be really fun that you discovered that you're really exciting about and something that really surprised you in your research?
54:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So I went to Broken Hero.
54:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I was really important to make that number been there before I said to him, well, my husband and my daughter.
54:32
[SPEAKER_01]: We had a lovely time until son, broken hero, we toured the museums, walked the downtown area, took a lot of photos.
54:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just so important to me that I was there.
54:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And the biggest joke in this book, that only the locals have picked up on, and some of their views.
54:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Because she calls like broken hero, this like wrinkly, digulate a small town.
54:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's 100,000 people.
54:53
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the second largest city in the Oklahoma.
54:56
[SPEAKER_01]: But...
54:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So every year, like Los Angeles is 8 million people, like it is a lot smaller, and but, you know, 20 minutes out, it is yet more rural, does like the states get bigger, the properties are more sprawling with the horses.
55:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
55:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I did visit a horse ranch, Tulsa Hills, Youth Ranch, where, you know, they, that's like the business model that I would like come up with and I found that exact thing in Tulsa.
55:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So you thought of it, and then you found something that was similar to the whole pitch and everything, and then I just wanted to make sure that it was right like I'd never been on the horse right before.
55:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
55:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And so is this when you wrote a horse for the first time?
55:33
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no.
55:34
[SPEAKER_01]: The first time I wrote a horse was like at the fair, and like they have the belts, you know, and you just like go in a circle.
55:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and then I did do a horse trail ride with my friend roommate like I was 21 and then those people like we had the price it was cash only and then we get there and they're like, oh, no, no, it's actually this prize and there's an ATM suite like walk a mile to get more money like there was like this whole hustles he's so mad about it, but I named the horse peso after the horse that I wrote at that trail.
56:01
[SPEAKER_01]: because the guy would like shun up in this flannel and he's like target, cheap little cowboy, little boots and like give you pace, you'll be like you can handle pace though and I'm like, well, what's wrong with pace?
56:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And this thing was just like, in the whole time.
56:16
[SPEAKER_01]: You're like, why do you think I look really strong?
56:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so there's like this a lot that I learned about horses that I don't know any of that stuff was called the dangling things like what do you do with the tornado and like they had land and it's like you just set them free
56:31
[SPEAKER_01]: To help for the best and I was like, oh my god.
56:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah So like that was the most shocking thing that I learned with like horses and like tornadoes You just let them fend for themselves like I mean, yeah, you have to run and they yeah They have the acres and they run in the pasture and then like you know They have the the wind shelters and you like they have to be like the North winds are really cold and so like they have Like situated in the certain way it was interesting
56:56
[SPEAKER_00]: That's cool.
56:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that that got included in the book though, that.
56:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there was another thing that I learned in that book that I've applied to the third book because it's on a farm.
57:04
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's talk about our girl, Avery.
57:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Ms. Avery Fox, who needs a warrior tonight, did the pop star or the pop anthem come first when it came to her?
57:14
[SPEAKER_01]: The pops are very quickly.
57:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I came with the idea and then I was like in the shower and I was just kind of thinking like, oh, we'll be really fun if like we had this like kind of Brittany JLo asks song and I had the the song titles I need to work and I like I had to come up with that was like, oh, that'd be really funny
57:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, what would that sound like?
57:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was just riffing.
57:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And then after the shower, I got my phone, I did a voice memo, I'm like, me out here hunting, gathering, searching for live.
57:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I don't know.
57:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And I did a lot of work shopping.
57:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I just like, coming up with dumb things.
57:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I went to my husband.
57:45
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like a musician and a producer of music.
57:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was like, babe, listen to this.
57:50
[SPEAKER_01]: like embarrassed, you know, and he's like hearing this recording and he like, this is nothing.
57:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, yeah, but you'll make it something.
57:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And he did not want to make the sound.
58:00
[SPEAKER_01]: He was like, this is dumb.
58:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was just like, we have to do it.
58:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, it was a year.
58:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And then finally, we recorded it.
58:05
[SPEAKER_01]: He helped me.
58:06
[SPEAKER_01]: He was like, the lyrics you have, he's like, this is a pre-chorus really.
58:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he was like, I think the chorus should just be O's.
58:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we were just like riffing and joking.
58:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, oh, what if we had like hand drums?
58:16
[SPEAKER_01]: and so he's like, okay, and so he's like doing the thing.
58:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I at one point I was like, oh, I'm about like, you know, those the floats that you always hear, but like it just didn't didn't mesh well.
58:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I wanted to be kind of like, I first had fun feeling more seventies like Abba, but it was definitely more like synth pop, what we ended up with, which just worked out better.
58:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Wait, is it you singing on the track?
58:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's me.
58:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, wait, okay, y'all can listen to this.
58:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's on Spotify, but I heard it on Instagram.
58:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's everywhere.
58:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You'd be actually released the song, like, distributed it with the distributor.
58:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can find it anywhere.
58:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Every Fox player tonight and the photo is me.
58:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, because I was, I always go to, like, the author's Instagram to see what songs they're associating with the music, so that I can, like, kind of match that when I make posts about it.
59:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And yours was a refox and I was like, oh my god, this is the song.
59:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so then I listened to it and I was like I've had it stuck in my head for like the last like week.
59:10
[SPEAKER_01]: It's such an earworm and it's like the lyrics are dumb, but like you just want to dance though.
59:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it makes it a lovely sense.
59:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Like when you hear mommy song and then she just like jumps around.
59:20
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a bob.
59:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we released it before my cover release.
59:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like I had a lot of friends evolved posting like who is every fox?
59:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Why does she have the song of the summer?
59:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I did the cusp reveal with the song.
59:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like a deep cut.
59:33
[SPEAKER_01]: It's there for people.
59:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I should go listen to it because like honestly it could have been the song of the summer.
59:37
[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't really have a song of the summer because we needed a warrior tonight.
59:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I thought it was the song of the summer.
59:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but also like, I was like, I just manifesting right like one day I'll be pitching to studios and I'll be like, and then here's the song and I have it ready, you know, like I have this vision, buy into this vision with me, help me, maybe.
59:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'll be by warrior tonight.
59:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
59:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Speaking of Avery, though, is like she really experiences the vicious nature of cancel culture.
1:00:03
[SPEAKER_00]: How did you go about approaching that in a way that the reader was going to empathize with her, but also kind of understand why she was being canceled?
1:00:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's like, what is it to be canceled?
1:00:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like there's just...
1:00:15
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of fear right now of like people like backlash with people online and there's like a lot of voices out there right so there's just people in power like Taylor Swift like that whole thing with like Kim Kardashian that went down and like the sheer volume of millions of people following and talking like that must have been really overwhelming but then there's like everyday people like you and I it's just like a scale like it would just I don't think we'll ever
1:00:38
[SPEAKER_01]: reach that scale.
1:00:39
[SPEAKER_01]: But there is a fear right that like everyone can just turn against you.
1:00:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And like online is just there's some people who I think forget that there's other humans on the other side of people online.
1:00:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I didn't want to like come from a place like this is what cancel culture is.
1:00:54
[SPEAKER_01]: This is how you overcome cancel culture.
1:00:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I was more of just like it's such a it's topical.
1:00:59
[SPEAKER_01]: It's happening all the time.
1:01:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And then especially with like quote Pretendianism.
1:01:06
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a hot topic and I wanted to explore that in this way of like, okay, what if you're not enrolled, but you clearly are descended, but you don't have this connection.
1:01:18
[SPEAKER_01]: But then you have these people, this machine behind you are like, oh, we can market this and we can use these stereotypes and we can make money off of you.
1:01:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like that to me was just like the most interesting, like, I like, let me explore that one with that look like and again, I can't.
1:01:31
[SPEAKER_01]: predict the future or I can't speak for everybody, but it was just like in this story in this way, I could explore it.
1:01:36
[SPEAKER_01]: But I also think that there's criticism that is valid.
1:01:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So I tried like, when there's comments and things, there's people like I, things that I've seen people say on Twitter, and you know, I'm like TikTok and things that have been like posted online, like I had somebody calling me a $5 Indian, like on TikTok.
1:01:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Like on every video, I had to block that person.
1:01:56
[SPEAKER_01]: What?
1:01:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's like because people were paying five dollars to like get Indian status to get like the land during the land rob like Oh, like there's there's a lot of complicated history and I don't everyone a police anybody and blood quantum is such a it's a sore subject
1:02:13
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and there are tribes that like they still uphold blood quantum for tribal enrollment, they're their own sovereign nation, they get to determine that.
1:02:21
[SPEAKER_01]: But then you have like the Chickason Asian Parliotrides, the five tribes, banded together to have legislation where the quote blood doesn't run out.
1:02:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the tendency you have to have like a direct line to somebody on the last dos roles.
1:02:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And, but even that is a, you know, is its own issue, right, because some people just aren't on those.
1:02:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It's tough to navigate and like, I don't know a single person in my like community, like indigenous community, like who feels enough, right?
1:02:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we're always never gonna fill enough, and that's because of the government and Hollywood and everything.
1:02:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we have been taught that like,
1:02:53
[SPEAKER_01]: We aren't enough by any standard, because right, and only good Indians are dead in the, and that's about the propaganda that's been around for years.
1:03:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that you did a really good job of showing that side of it of like, cancel culture is so weird to begin with, that like, it's really just a matter of like, I'm not willing to listen to any more of this story from either party, I'm just going to be the sudden juror in this and make a very fast decision that I, this person is canceled.
1:03:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that in the case of Avery, it's like, if you knew more about it, it's that she had this very complicated history with her mother and her grandmother and not really understanding her ancestry, but also that like the people who wanted to to profit off of her were like, that will sell your uniqueness is something that is going to benefit us and we're not going to do any further research into this.
1:03:43
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not going to do anything that's going to make it seem like we approach this scientifically.
1:03:49
[SPEAKER_00]: We're just going to use you.
1:03:50
[SPEAKER_00]: for all these things that you really don't understand about yourself and when that all falls in couples that you're fault.
1:03:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that you did a really good job of showing that like sometimes cancel culture is just like absolutely wrong.
1:04:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I think sometimes it's quite good.
1:04:05
[SPEAKER_00]: We have learned these things that these people have said.
1:04:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, because they're at the end of the day, there is no canceled rate, because there's a machine.
1:04:12
[SPEAKER_01]: There's people making money.
1:04:13
[SPEAKER_01]: It's in their payment.
1:04:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the people making money are going to continue to want to make money.
1:04:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's people who will like forgive these things or just overlook it.
1:04:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And like they just don't care.
1:04:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Because they exist in that same mindset, usually.
1:04:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.
1:04:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there can be public backlash and I think it could be really hard to navigate, but I just, I don't know that like anyone has truly ever been canceled.
1:04:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Or, you know, they've been back.
1:04:38
[SPEAKER_01]: They, you know, like, even Taylor Swift, like, girl, make a more money than ever before.
1:04:42
[SPEAKER_00]: So like, you know, and that was the thing is like coming on to the other side of that getting the other side of her story and like realizing that they had edited everything, that like, that wasn't even the truth.
1:04:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's like what is the truth?
1:04:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Like what are we supposed to believe?
1:04:55
[SPEAKER_00]: So, we talked a little bit about Avery, but did you know where her story was headed?
1:05:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, did you know where the end of the story was going to be?
1:05:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Or did you, was a big question mark?
1:05:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so it was really hard to write because I had thought about bringing her dad and like her grandfather or something and like have this like male figure come and kind of like mentor her and So like I kind of went in this weird direction with it and then I was like maybe it to go And then I was like actually I'm cutting all those like Some words better.
1:05:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I always threw the ending would be like, you know I love in Bridget Jones when like Diana Ross ain't no mountain pie enough comes on
1:05:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like running, that's kind of like how I was preferring that third act and it's just so quick how it happens and the song.
1:05:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted it to feel like a movie.
1:05:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I love how much you're visualizing all of this as you're writing it, that you can really feel that.
1:05:44
[SPEAKER_00]: This book feels cinematic in that way.
1:05:46
[SPEAKER_01]: That is like how I approach writing, especially this book.
1:05:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I just thought it would translate so well to screen.
1:05:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like that's just like how it came about and I know some people were like, wow, it was like really rushed.
1:05:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if
1:06:01
[SPEAKER_01]: But like the pace it's rush so much.
1:06:03
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just the way because like it's like several thousand words if you don't I mean, but like I just think it feels Maybe they wanted more.
1:06:12
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I think that it's pace right like I just I feel like it makes sense like the way that it's like it's constantly moving and I feel like that's like by nature of like the story itself like I would read a book like that I honestly don't like to read books that are too long
1:06:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like if the dragon the third eye to get kind of boring, and then for an epilogue, like getting her quote Indian card, like her certificate of degree of Indian blood, that's where I always knew I wanted to end it.
1:06:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And so my epilogue's aren't really in epilogue, and I just found out doing another podcast that some people don't read anything title that belong.
1:06:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, good, what?
1:06:44
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's fun.
1:06:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, it's crucial for my stories.
1:06:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's like the last chapter, like it all comes from that.
1:06:54
[SPEAKER_00]: That's crazy, that they are just like deciding to end the book before it's over.
1:06:57
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like there's no chapter.
1:06:59
[SPEAKER_01]: You didn't wanna read it.
1:07:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:07:01
[SPEAKER_01]: It's sure, but like there's very clear in that.
1:07:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I do wonder if it's because like I feel like a lot of the times an epilogue has this like expected nature of like they're gonna be married.
1:07:11
[SPEAKER_00]: They're gonna be having a baby.
1:07:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything's gonna be even better than it was before.
1:07:15
[SPEAKER_00]: which is not what this quote unquote epilogue is about.
1:07:17
[SPEAKER_00]: So I wonder if there's that.
1:07:19
[SPEAKER_01]: You know those nudges where Luzram comes, the romance movies where it's like it ends a kiss together.
1:07:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And then as the credits roll, you get these additional scenes.
1:07:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:07:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, that's, you know, that's how I view my endings.
1:07:32
[SPEAKER_00]: That's kind of how I see an epilogue just kind of more going on.
1:07:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like the kiss that's the epic like that's the end of the movie cut to black and then the credits roll and you get a little bit more and you get to see and it's like a brazald that's just like how I approach rom-coms I did get to write a wedding scene for my third book that I don't want to give away too much
1:07:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I would love weddings and books.
1:07:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh, it was first of us like, he had the long should have been five years in the future where they're married and have babies because they had mentioned they both want to be buried and have babies and I was like, it ends with the music and then five years later they just cut to have a baby like she's a career woman.
1:08:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I just don't think that would have been like like serving the character, but like I can see why everyone had a fanfiction.
1:08:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:08:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So with the third book, it's so different and not like it's second chance.
1:08:18
[SPEAKER_01]: They're a little older.
1:08:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And I really got to indulge in those romance.
1:08:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like progressive romance right now.
1:08:25
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, you don't have to get married.
1:08:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to have babies to have this fulfilling happily ever after.
1:08:29
[SPEAKER_01]: But some people do want that.
1:08:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Some characters, you know, and some stories.
1:08:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I got to really indulge all of those romance things with book three.
1:08:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I'm riding a rattle wedding.
1:08:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I want a wedding in here.
1:08:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I love a wedding.
1:08:43
[SPEAKER_01]: more buttons please but it's like my my okay way you know like yeah it's a data quiz so like it I don't I think it would be surprised but I got to do that so that was really fun I can't wait for that well speaking of the epilogue that everyone wanted with Mr. Lucas Iron Eyes
1:08:59
[SPEAKER_00]: something I mentioned earlier is we were talking about the dual POV is I really liked that we didn't have his perspective because it felt like a slow unraveling of him because you kind of just like meet him as this ranch hand to like you were just so embarrassed that he's witnessing avery at all and then slowly you learn more about him and his history and the things that hurt him and how he wants to help other people who've been hurt and I just love that slow progression of him.
1:09:22
[SPEAKER_00]: How did you decide to kind of have that slow reveal instead of having his POV?
1:09:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I think he decided that as I was writing, I just, I love him, he's the favorite, the most favorite, love interest I've ever written, and I've written several.
1:09:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, yeah, I thought I'm writing right now.
1:09:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually my third book, I got the EditsFack, and when I realized that I had called Noah, the character in book three Lucas a couple times, and I was like, yeah, I don't even know, I'm just like, still so stuck in Lucas, I love it.
1:09:51
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
1:09:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's just like, baby boy, and he's like, this grumpy, I don't know, just like, it just felt right.
1:09:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And then like, you know, lean into the romance things that I love, like Mr. Dorsey and the Han Flacks and Pride to Precious the Movie.
1:10:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm like, how can I incorporate that my way and the parents and like, and he's not perfect.
1:10:10
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, yeah, layers like an onion.
1:10:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:10:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Boy does he, yeah.
1:10:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's just like film natural.
1:10:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I love that element of like not the spoil like the familiar aspect of it, but I really like to when she went over to their house with him and I just felt like that was like the getting that aspect of him later in the book.
1:10:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I just felt like so like you're just going to hug him.
1:10:32
[SPEAKER_00]: You just want to give Lucas a big hug.
1:10:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I wanted to show that there's like there's different aspects to Indian country, right?
1:10:38
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not all like people assume a reservation is like we're all like curalled behind like a fence like cattle and there's like nothing.
1:10:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's just not truly not in the corporate to become a comma, you know?
1:10:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
1:10:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's there, there's wealth.
1:10:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Like there's oil money, there's casino money, there's generational wealth with like, you know, education and like doctors, lawyers, things like that.
1:11:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Dentists.
1:11:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, dentists and also like a mansion in Oklahoma is like more affordable than a mansion in California It's like all those things, but like addiction alcoholism like a does affect our community like disproportionately more than others And so I thought that was that was important and my husband, you know like he's sober and so that was like an aspect of our relationship over the years, you know like
1:11:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I just think it's beautiful.
1:11:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think that anybody in the lost cause, like the quote troubled teens, like I don't want to call them troubled teens.
1:11:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So like how he has this dream of like helping kids like him who like got into drugs, young to alcohol early, and don't know how to get out of that, and like mentoring them.
1:11:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why I really loved the vision of the Tulsa Hills Youth Ranch and how they have this mentorship and the the question therapy and like taking care of the horses to help.
1:11:49
[SPEAKER_01]: and it does help people, but also just like having that care so often people are written off because of addiction and at the end of the day we're all people and like some just need a little bit more help than others, but like no one's a lost cause.
1:12:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I never want anyone, especially in a romance book that like
1:12:07
[SPEAKER_01]: They feel like they don't, they don't belong.
1:12:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they don't deserve that happily ever after and I love.
1:12:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And even if they have that feeling, I get it changes based on the relationship that they build between the characters, which I think that someone who has a big role in that is Laughty, Avery's Grandmother, who for lack of better description is like such a character.
1:12:25
[SPEAKER_00]: She is so much going on there.
1:12:27
[SPEAKER_00]: She's very strong.
1:12:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't describe her as someone who's particularly soft, but she is incredibly caring.
1:12:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And when she goes to visit her friends, I just feel like she is just such a good member of the community while maybe being a little bit brash in her approach to things.
1:12:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there someone in your life who she is based on or is this like an entirely new character for you?
1:12:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I think she has the most me and her, like I can be harder and set in my ways and rigid.
1:12:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So I put that rigidity into Lottie, like somebody who's like grew up with the church and these old fashion values and how it's alienated her daughter, like, you know, every character has a little bit of me and like how do you explore that and how do you intensify that right so you have this character and this arc and this growth and so like I'm not 100 or something like Lottie, you know, but like
1:13:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like I don't need help, and I just push through, I push up here, like, happening hyper, I miss this gravity room, and just, like, I have to keep working, and I have to write this book, and I have to, like, show up, and even if I'm dying.
1:13:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I'm not performing at my height, I feel like I am a failure.
1:13:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And, like, that is something I...
1:13:33
[SPEAKER_01]: worked on and therapy and continued to work on from all my life, right?
1:13:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I equate like my worth, myself worth, and like good, I contribute to society, it's like how much I'm working and contributing, and like that is obviously a trauma response to how I've been raised.
1:13:45
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, I just, I wanted her to be there and like try to to amend for stuff that has gone wrong, and like even in my own experiences, like I'm sorry, just sometimes it doesn't come out, like they don't know how to say those things.
1:13:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's like through action, she's like showing up for her.
1:14:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I feel like she's a really good example of that, of like apologizing through action and really showing up for people what was the most fun part of this for you to write because like of course deals with very heavy topics, but I feel like every page there's just like a warmth and a light to it and something funny happening alongside all of those heavy topics.
1:14:20
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so important with a romcom that you find these moments in these pockets of levity when you're, you know, have these heavier, heavier themes, heavy topics and, um, I was writing this book, I just wanted to get to the stick fall scene.
1:14:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I was writing it for the stick fall scene.
1:14:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I like knew it from the gag go and like in my head, barracuda plays like them, but it's like slow mo and there's like elbows flying and yeah, you know that.
1:14:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So like that was so fun like all the moment like again the first actress who louder me and like the plus right and like how can I make it even worse for her Yeah, it's so bad.
1:14:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just just sitting there's so nervous for the scroll I love it and then of course the tornado storm seller bang I always knew I was gonna be writing that love that that was great a plus plus That's how you get through your tornado fear
1:15:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, what's so funny is like Ali Carter, she wasn't Oklahoma and she's like no one banging in the middle of a tornado like it's like, you know, it's a brown house.
1:15:20
[SPEAKER_00]: It's fictional, but have you ever tried it?
1:15:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Like have you ever thought about doing that?
1:15:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I mentioned that the storm's even up.
1:15:27
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no imminent danger of a tornado.
1:15:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I imagine it in my cut to the business.
1:15:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's a slow burn, right?
1:15:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So like it didn't make sense that they're hooking up earlier.
1:15:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it definitely like it culminated in this like very emotional moment.
1:15:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:15:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I like that the atmosphere though is like reflecting their inner world that like there's a tornado happening like everything is like building up between the two of them.
1:15:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I always love moments like that where it's like is dramatic as possible.
1:15:54
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a tornado.
1:15:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Handsome man on a horse looking for you in the rain.
1:15:58
[SPEAKER_01]: What is a girl doing?
1:15:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's do it.
1:16:01
[SPEAKER_01]: She, there's no other option.
1:16:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And did you see the after light addition where they have the images of like, yeah, I will have to share that to our story.
1:16:08
[SPEAKER_00]: The barn.
1:16:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, love love love love love.
1:16:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you have a favorite character that you got to write during this?
1:16:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess Lucas because he were using his name and books that he's not in.
1:16:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I guess you turn it up to me, my favorite character, um, I don't know, Dave is pretty funny too.
1:16:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I love Dave.
1:16:24
[SPEAKER_01]: They like really razz her with her hair gets eaten by the horse.
1:16:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:16:31
[SPEAKER_00]: See this why I can't, I can't be a horse girl.
1:16:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, like they do that, and they just all know, uh, uh, uh, I'm like the still the nasty about the way they eat.
1:16:40
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, not, not about that.
1:16:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I will, I would mind from a distance, what a majestic creature.
1:16:44
[SPEAKER_00]: We will be, we will have some space separating us for sure.
1:16:48
[SPEAKER_00]: What did you feel was the hardest to get right when you were writing this and that you were really put a lot of pressure on yourself to make sure it felt right.
1:16:54
[SPEAKER_01]: her growth and like then that the middle right like the I don't want to ever want the murky middle to still boring and like not meant to be there.
1:17:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So I wanted her to learn these lessons with messy, lessons in community, lessons in like the generations of family and like the addicts full of just crap and like you know and like becoming one of her own.
1:17:12
[SPEAKER_01]: the messages of being canceled.
1:17:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I was just like, oh, I'm gonna be a canceled myself.
1:17:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, if I don't be the same, I'm like, yeah, I'm going to be life-emitating art.
1:17:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I was just like, you know, I just have to like make it as like honest as possible.
1:17:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, that's why I incorporate my essays the way I do in there.
1:17:30
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like, you know, I cannot ever speak for anybody.
1:17:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't want.
1:17:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And I did get some people like that out there.
1:17:37
[SPEAKER_01]: It'd be lessons on how to make an Indian.
1:17:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, yeah, step one.
1:17:41
[SPEAKER_00]: That's wild to me because like what did you want?
1:17:46
[SPEAKER_00]: What did you come into this rom-com looking for lessons?
1:17:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, I think they're pretty clearly numbered, you know, which is like, I'll let's do number one never with midnight.
1:17:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, like that, okay, you got it.
1:17:58
[SPEAKER_00]: You're done, you've made it, you've learned everything.
1:18:02
[SPEAKER_00]: That's so interesting to me that like, I feel like it's definitely a pressure that's like not put on white authors to teach something to like convey this grand teaching of your heritage into your rom-com.
1:18:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Every book, it's like I have to like justify why they're indigenous.
1:18:20
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so weird, I'm trying to be more freer as I write, you know, like at the first debut, like I realized I had to like really spell it out for readers who've never joined a, you know, but on this journey with me.
1:18:31
[SPEAKER_01]: but I'm becoming more freer in how I write and that's been fun to like see me grow.
1:18:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:18:36
[SPEAKER_01]: In my process.
1:18:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:18:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And just like, you know, my characters get to exist and they get to exist exactly the way white authors characters get to exist.
1:18:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's no like rationalizing why they are.
1:18:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:18:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do hope that like that is like you move closer and closer and further away from that like expectation that people feel because it's like that's wrong of them to put that on there.
1:18:56
[SPEAKER_00]: It says more about themselves than it does about the book that you're writing.
1:19:00
[SPEAKER_00]: because like if you if you went into this hoping for that I don't I don't know what you thought you were doing I don't know what part of the books where you thought you were in because it's just it's just such a fun book it is so romantic like the ending of it really just does like when you get to like one certain part towards the end all you can feel is just the cinematic need to have it like
1:19:20
[SPEAKER_00]: the rom com of it just how like light and fun but like how you've been on this heavy series journey with them and to get to like live that out is just like you're really just feel like you want to see it in a movie like right now what right now I would love to right this minute the last question I have for you is what are you most proud of from this book?
1:19:39
[SPEAKER_01]: when I'm proud that it exists like that's a dream come true that there's this books that I wish I had been able to read you know like I just got to tired of waiting but I wrote one myself I'm so proud of Indigenous women and and men you know that I've read this book and I've just like DMed me and emailed me like saying thank you so much like I'll you'll never see this but like this is the first time I've ever seen a character like me I've never related to a character so much
1:20:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And like that that is my why like we we deserve to see ourselves at in these roles and not just relegated to like being murdered in these movies so that white heroes and can come and like solve the murder and they learn this big lesson that like Indian people are just like everybody else you're I mean like
1:20:22
[SPEAKER_01]: we get to be these main characters because we are in our own lives, like each of us are main characters or the heroines and heroes of our own lives.
1:20:29
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, maybe we don't have all the resources in all the money, but like we're hilarious and we look to slap on the word resilient.
1:20:38
[SPEAKER_01]: But like we are, like it's just survived so much like generationally and just like even in this climate that we're in now to fight for our existence that we like belong here.
1:20:48
[SPEAKER_01]: To show us in the modern context like that's that's what I'm so proud like the horse book the horse move whatever You know that I've always wanted to see us and like I got to I got to live live that and so like that I'm so proud of that so proud of the humor that like people from all walks of life can laugh with me Like humor is like again a universal thing like I love spreading joy and laughter And I think we need more of it.
1:21:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it people saw how we are all so much more alike than we are
1:21:14
[SPEAKER_01]: you know like we'd be in a better place and if we all just looked out for each other and like cared for one another this country could heal and so like and it's some a little active rebellion right with these love stories and it's happily ever after is that we're not just like cliff notes or you know like a footnote and some historical whatever you know what I mean yeah yeah I got chills when you're talking about people
1:21:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Messaging you with like that same idea of like what you were wanting in your why and everything that you just said that I feel like like Like I just like to like even just bringing it back up like I just I get chills of like all these people messaging you and thinking like Oh, you're never gonna see this and it's like little do you know I have seen this and it's like no I don't know I cry a lot because they're so touching oh
1:22:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
1:22:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that people can see themselves in this.
1:22:04
[SPEAKER_01]: This is people who, like, I've always wanted to write a book, but I didn't know how to, you know, and I'm just like, you can.
1:22:08
[SPEAKER_01]: We need more of our stories, right?
1:22:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever it is, finish that story.
1:22:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, like, that's just been, I can't be the only one.
1:22:14
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I love that idea that, like, this book that you started because you wanted to see yourself, the other people have seen this, reach out to you, felt these deep feelings about it, and are now like,
1:22:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So, the one question that I ask every author and that is what is a book you would recommend for Kimmore Girls fans?
1:22:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, for Kimmore Girls fans, for sure, Ava Ronny's book, Poison Ivy, it's coming out on October 14th.
1:22:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I just finished that.
1:22:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it.
1:22:45
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so good.
1:22:46
[SPEAKER_00]: As a Logan girlie, like secret society, I am obsessed with Ava Ronny.
1:22:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I, yes, but can love her.
1:22:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Danica, thank you.
1:22:54
[SPEAKER_00]: So much for chatting with me today.
1:22:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for having me, I appreciate it, and now I want to go rewatch again more girls.
1:23:00
[SPEAKER_00]: As you should, my book-loving besties, thank you so much for joining me today for another episode of Gilmour to Read.
1:23:09
[SPEAKER_00]: If you'd like to join the book club conversation, head over to Patreon where you can join for free.
1:23:13
[SPEAKER_00]: For a November, reading a sexy is reading Julia Song is undatable by Susan Lee.
1:23:17
[SPEAKER_00]: My next guest will be Hannah Grace, author of Holiday Ever After.