Latest / Show, don't Tell Writing with Suzy Vadori / 84. Writing About Your Life As Fiction

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84. Writing About Your Life As Fiction · Show, don't Tell Writing with Suzy Vadori

0:05
Welcome to the show.
0:05
Don't Tell Writing Podcast with me, Suzy Vidori, where I peel back the layers of how to wow your readers with your fiction, your nonfiction.
0:13
Anybody can bang out a first draft, but it takes a little more work to make your book as amazing as it can be.
0:20
Join me as I share the step by step writing techniques you could apply to your writing right away.
0:25
As I host successful writers who share a behind the scenes look at their own writing lives, and as I live coach writers on their pages giving practical writing examples that will make your own writing stronger.
0:38
Nobody is born knowing how to write an engaging book.
0:42
There are real and important skills that you need to learn on this show.
0:46
I cut through the noise and get you all the info you need.
0:49
I can't wait to see how this information is going to transform your writing.
0:56
Today we have a special treat on the podcast.
0:58
Well special because it's one of my favorite things to do, and that is to sit down and talk with authors who've had the privilege to work with from a very early start in their processes.
1:09
Shivani Malik, that I'm speaking with today.
1:12
She has, her book is finally coming to light, and the way I get to celebrate with these clients, with these writers, it is such a joy because I know that Shivani has written exactly the book that she set out to write, and that was our goal all along.
1:26
It's super exciting.
1:27
To sort of see it all come together and to celebrate with you all.
1:31
I want you to hear her story because it's not necessarily a typical journey, but she was really true to herself and knew what she wanted out of this book writing process and what she wanted at the end.
1:42
She could learn some skills along the way, which is the way that often we've gotta get the skills to do what it is that we want to do.
1:50
She was born and raised in India and then she immigrated to the US to pursue her PhD and she completed her training at Stanford and also at the University of California, San Francisco.
2:01
These days, she leads a group of researchers in an ecology focused biotech in San Diego, where she resides with her husband and her dog.
2:10
The sky is different.
2:11
Here is her debut novel and it is coming out with She writes Press Imminently.
2:16
We are so excited to talk about this today.
2:19
We're gonna talk about the fact that she wrote a novel based on her own lived experience, but it is a novel because she changed absolutely everything about it other than the fact that her protagonist is a woman who also moved from India to the United States to become a scientist.
2:36
I can't wait for you to hear this one.
2:38
We talk all about the craft of writing and what it was like to make this happen.
2:42
Please celebrate with me as you listen to Shivani.
2:45
So welcome Shivani.
2:47
I am so excited to have you on this podcast today.
2:51
We've been working together a long time.
2:53
It's been so a long coming, so let's celebrate.
2:57
Thank you for having me here.
2:58
I'm very excited to talk to you.
3:00
You were are my first book coach.
3:02
And it's like coming up full circle, right?
3:05
Working with you for almost a year, year and a half.
3:08
We continue to stay in touch and now the book is coming out and I'm very excited to celebrate it with you.
3:14
Oh, it's awesome.
3:15
So you've got your novel, which is, the Sky is different here, coming out in February.
3:21
So we're kind of in that presale piece of it, and we're hoping that like we'll get the buzz and the word out, which is awesome.
3:28
But like, how did writing a novel come about in the first place?
3:31
So what made you wanna write this book?
3:34
Yeah, so I started writing more as a way to make sense of losing my mother.
3:41
When I was in grad school.
3:43
She was, uh, in India.
3:44
I was in southern aui working on my PhD. When?
3:49
When she died suddenly of a heart attack, and it took me a few years to come up with a strategy that worked for me.
3:56
I am an introvert.
3:57
I am a trained scientist, and it's hard for a scientist mind to process through emotions of that intensity.
4:06
I was very close to her, and writing was a way of.
4:11
Processing those emotions for me, and I wrote for several years before it was my husband who prompted me to put it in a book form in a fictionalized novel form, because at least according to him, you know, somebody else could benefit from the story because it's a universal story.
4:29
You know, we all.
4:30
Grieve something.
4:31
We all are looking to belong somewhere.
4:34
And the book somehow became, it was not just a way of coping with losing somebody I loved a lot, but also making sense of my life in a world which was very different from which I grew up in.
4:47
And that prompted me to fictionalize my story and write it in a novel form.
4:52
Yeah, I mean it, it's amazing.
4:54
To people.
4:55
Sometimes we think we're just writing a book, but writing is always personal and I love that.
4:59
You know, even after working together for so long, I just learned something by asking you that question, right?
5:05
I mean, I knew I knew some of it, but, uh, you know, your husband's involvement and like, there's just always something behind it because writing a book is such a huge endeavor.
5:14
It's not for the faint of heart.
5:16
Right.
5:17
Okay.
5:17
But you were no stranger to writing, so you were kind of journaling about this and then you decided to turn it very accomplished academic career.
5:25
And so what kinds of writing did you do before writing a novel?
5:32
It was all academic writing.
5:33
As you said.
5:33
It's all hardcore scientific writing, starting from basic biochemistry papers to cancer biology and signaling pathways and reviews on how we think of precision medicine.
5:47
So it was all about very specialized.
5:50
Scientific topics and it couldn't be further away from novel writing in one period.
5:56
It couldn't.
5:57
Yeah.
5:57
But at the same time, you'd bring those skills because one of the things, I mean, your writing was so strong right from the beginning.
6:04
Everything in your writing was so clean and so strong, and you just had to learn that in novel format.
6:10
And I like to point that out when we're on the podcast.
6:12
'cause a lot of our listeners come from different walks of life and from different backgrounds.
6:18
Even though it's not the same, you're saying, oh, it couldn't be further from novel writing, but you brought that strong writing skill as well, so don't discount that.
6:27
Right.
6:28
Because it it, it helps a lot.
6:30
Okay.
6:30
So you sat down and you're like, all right, I'll try out this novel thing.
6:34
How did the writing go?
6:37
As long as it was journaling and thinking and reflecting, that was great, but.
6:44
And I had written like, I don't know, a hundred thousand words when I came to you.
6:48
I, and you know, I, I do read quite a bit.
6:50
I could see that there were some good things in there, but it was not a novel needed pace.
6:56
It needs setting, it needed something.
6:59
That would make the story interesting.
7:01
So, you know, I, as I said, one of the ways we think about scientific writing is we are trying to deliver facts.
7:07
But novel writing is not that there is a story, there is a core, but it needs to be told in a way that interests people.
7:14
And you know, uh, as you just pointed out, it's also coming a little bit into scientific writing.
7:18
You want readers to be interested in your story in that, sir. Where I was feeling like it was not coming through.
7:26
And that is when I think, you know, wanted your help to figure out what was the problem.
7:32
And working with you was so fun because not surprisingly, you were an amazing student, right?
7:37
You've been a student for many, many years as and, and a teacher and all the above.
7:42
So you were an amazing student and we were able to break it down in a way that made sense because like you said, even in scientific writing.
7:51
You are trying to write a persuasive paper in many times to convince somebody of your hypothesis is true, or to convince somebody, you know, I'm gonna get this all wrong.
8:00
You can, I wish you guys could see Giovanni's face right now.
8:03
She's like, a, know that you're talking science right now, Susie, but, but yeah, you know, you're bringing those skills and so we were able to frame it in that way.
8:11
And I think the biggest thing that we worked on was taking.
8:15
Those sort of journal entries, because oftentimes people are like, wow, I did it.
8:19
It's a hundred thousand words.
8:21
But you knew that it wasn't a novel yet.
8:24
Um, many writers don't recognize that.
8:26
They think it's done.
8:28
I, this is what I think, let's put it out into the world.
8:31
But yeah, you were missing seats.
8:34
And so what we worked on was putting that into scenes and putting all of those experiences that your fictionalized character, Shawnee.
8:43
I mean, you didn't go too far her Shivani Ani, but, but you did.
8:46
Right.
8:47
And she has a very different life from yours.
8:52
What made you decide to do a novel versus a memoir, which is also very popular today?
8:57
Many people would choose to write your own story, but you chose to fictionalize it.
9:01
What the reasons behind that for you?
9:04
That's a very good question, and there are multiple reasons.
9:07
Number one was it gave me creative space.
9:10
Especially in terms of pacing the story, as you just said, I've been to school for a very long time.
9:16
If I were to even take one, one stage of my academic training would be very boring.
9:22
My PhD was six years only.
9:24
My postdoc was six years long.
9:26
So it helped with pacing because by Fictionalizing I could shrink the timeline a little bit.
9:32
It could, it would be made more interesting.
9:34
Again, it give gave me more creativity to.
9:38
Bring a little more sticks to the scenes, which would be not very hard hitting or dramatic.
9:47
It was, you know, my, my real experience.
9:50
That was a big part of it.
9:52
The second part was, um, you know, I, I do work in the same space and I, I.
9:58
Did not want it to become a problem by saying that it was mis Yeah, and there's, and there's privacy and there's not, you know, like there's NDAs I'm sure that you've signed, so you really, you really didn't have the freedom to write about that time the way that most people can, so I, I completely understand that.
10:17
But you're right.
10:18
The funny thing is when you're writing memoir and about your own experience, you can still.
10:24
Do a, you know, take a few liberties, but they most mostly need to be true.
10:27
But here you took a really big step away where Shawnee is a completely different person from you.
10:33
Yes.
10:34
She is still a woman who moved from India to the United States and became a scientist.
10:39
Mm-hmm.
10:39
And some of those things definitely when, whenever we draw, I mean, even writing fiction, we're drawing on our own experience.
10:46
That's the only thing that we can really do.
10:47
It doesn't necessarily mean.
10:50
That everything that your fictional characters do when you call in and say, but Susie, you know, I didn't do these things.
10:55
Mm-hmm.
10:56
Don't think I did.
10:57
But it's still, everything that you write is necessarily done through your own lens.
11:03
Mm-hmm.
11:04
Which is, okay, I did this, or I didn't do this, but I thought about it, or I did the opposite of this, or Luis, I'd done that.
11:12
Right.
11:12
Like there's, there's this lens that we color everything with.
11:16
That is always there in fiction.
11:17
So here it was just that some of those things were much closer to your own experience.
11:22
Does that make, does that resonate with you?
11:24
Yeah, absolutely.
11:25
Yes.
11:26
So, and I think, I love that you said that it gave you some creative space, right?
11:31
And, and as you were saying, you were processing some very deep emotions and you know, some of that does make its way, well a lot of that makes its way into the book when Johnny, you know, has this experience.
11:41
She also loses her mother in the book and tries to process that.
11:45
And a lot of that was things that you actually went through.
11:48
Mm-hmm.
11:48
Um, so thank you for sharing that, but I think it gave you that distance to be able to write it for somebody else.
11:55
Yeah.
11:56
Okay.
11:56
So when you made that choice, did the project get easier?
11:59
Like, did you ever consider writing it as a memoir?
12:01
I mean, you were journaling, but did or, or was that always like, okay, if I'm gonna write a book, it's going to be fiction?
12:07
I think I had made that choice very early on, mostly because, uh, as you just said, it gave me a bit of a distance and I think I didn't realize it then, but subconsciously that did give me that distance and I didn't have to.
12:23
And again, you know, the scientist's brain always kicks in.
12:25
If I am writing a memoir, I would be like, oh, this is not factually con.
12:29
And making that choice early on that this is fiction, gave me that distance even from my analytical brain that it doesn't have to be, you know, you would've given us the, the, I woke up and then I went to bed and all of the six years of your PhD, I know you would've done Gary, but like, well, it needs to all be in there.
12:47
You could see it.
12:48
I could see it.
12:49
And maybe, maybe one day.
12:51
You know, that'll be really important when you're rich and famous and people will want that story.
12:55
Um, but right now I think it was a good choice not to write that six years of your PhD. Alright, so we took that original draft that you had.
13:07
We really deepened your immersiveness and created those scenes.
13:12
What are the biggest things that you learned when you were creating that sort of next draft and we were working together?
13:20
What were the biggest things that sort of resonate with you now that you would bring to writing your next novel?
13:26
I think the first thing you asked me was what's the why?
13:31
And although you know you, I do have some sense of it.
13:37
When you were writing and all, and I had already written the novel before I worked with you.
13:41
That why became even more clear.
13:44
So I think that was what the first big step.
13:47
What that did was it helped me hone on, hone into what the theme was, and once that became clear, the character arc became clear and that started to shine through a lot of filth that was around it in my first draft.
14:03
So I think that was a key difference after I started working with you and the draft became cleaner.
14:11
When that happens, then you can still see the story for what it really is like cutting, you know, cutting the Sharia out and making the, the central piece even more clear and compelling, I guess.
14:23
So I think that was number one.
14:24
And number second was from a very early on, making things a little bit more finalized, right?
14:31
Not just say, oh, and come back to it and we will see it.
14:34
When I started working with you, it was like, let's finalize these 20 pages and let's, then we'll go on to the next one.
14:40
So that, yeah, brings a little bit of more discipline to writing and makes it easier to edit when you have done the first draft, and what I learned from you was editing is the biggest part.
14:55
It.
14:55
And as you're getting the first draft done, it's like they type the end and then there's so much more to go.
15:01
Usually same.
15:02
Um, yeah.
15:03
No, I, I love that because.
15:05
Really, you're absolutely right.
15:07
If I often, well, I always start with why, and I think that now it seems so obvious when I ask you that.
15:14
Mm-hmm.
15:15
You know, I wanted to share, you said it right off the bat.
15:17
It is the first thing that you answered when I asked you, how did you know?
15:21
Why are you, how did this all come about?
15:23
You're able to articulate, well, I was processing grief.
15:27
I thought that probably people might benefit from that as well in this format.
15:32
It was a way to do that, and it seemed so obvious once you state it.
15:37
But if we don't address that and we don't create the book with that in mind, which you didn't, right?
15:44
The first draft kind of had that in it, but it wasn't the theme.
15:48
It wasn't what you wanted readers to take away.
15:50
You know, I always flip things as you know, to the reader's perspective.
15:53
So instead of thinking about theme.
15:55
Which is like what the writer wants to say.
15:57
It's like, what do you want your readers to get out of this?
15:59
And think about it that way, what do you want them to take away?
16:02
And so, yeah, I just love that you're able to articulate that like second nature now, right?
16:06
Mm-hmm.
16:06
And so, yeah, it's, it's just amazing how that sharpens, like you said, it sharpens everything.
16:13
And then the second piece to that is that whole idea.
16:17
I mean, I'm so obsessed with show Noel, as you know.
16:19
That's why the podcast is show tell.
16:21
So we're gonna have a quick lesson here 'cause Shavani brought it up.
16:25
That is making those decisions and kind of putting your feet in the sand and or like drawing a line, line in the sand and saying, okay, we're working on this 20 pages and I need to decide.
16:36
I can't just leave everything until later to decide.
16:40
Because what happens then is we haven't made those decisions then everything is vague, right?
16:45
And so a lot of times I'll stop you and be like, Hey, let's choose, let's choose something.
16:51
If you don't love it later on, that's fine, then change it.
16:53
But at least you can make something specific and you won't have these like whole passages that are super big.
16:59
'cause you haven't made a decision about what Shaw does in that situation.
17:03
Exactly.
17:04
Yeah.
17:04
So that was a lot of fun.
17:05
In fact, that was probably the, the most fun part for me, I hope it was for you, was bringing, you know, forcing you to make some of those decisions and pull some things that actually were from your own experience that only you.
17:20
Could bring to that story and one of the ones that comes to mind for me, I've used this example a lot.
17:25
I usually, I don't use your name, I don't use the example, but I can here 'cause you're here.
17:30
But when we were trying to figure out how to show the passage of time and because your novel actually follows a very long timeline, what's the timeline from start to finish?
17:38
Remind me, I think it's like five, five to six years, I guess.
17:42
Five to six years.
17:43
Which is hard to do as a newer writer.
17:46
It's like how do we pass the time and do you remember what we used?
17:50
One of the things.
17:52
The seasons.
17:53
The seasons, yes.
17:54
And the bottles of ghee.
17:57
Oh yes, yes.
17:58
The four.
17:58
Are they, I hope they still are in there.
18:00
Yeah.
18:01
So Shivani relayed this tale when she was leaving India, that you know, she only had a certain amount of luggage face, and her dad rocked up with these four bottles of gh, which is clarified butter that's used in a lot of Indian cooking that he insisted that she bring with her to America.
18:19
It took her a long time to get through those bottles, and so it was a fun way to both.
18:24
It showed so many things, right, on so many levels.
18:26
It was like it was also something that really happened, but it was this metaphor for how he was trying to help and also didn't really have a concept that you had to give something else up if you were gonna bring those things.
18:38
And probably you could make your own or buy it in America, right?
18:43
Also, it was a neat little vehicle that you were able to, to plug in to show how much time had passed because then you were down to your last bottle of ghee and that last bit of connection to that gift that your father had given.
18:57
And so it was this really neat.
18:59
Thing that you were able to insert like a couple of sentences through the book that just tied all that timeline together and made it feel way more interesting then, and then a year passed, right?
19:09
Mm-hmm.
19:10
Uh, which is what we tend to put, and nobody wants to breed that.
19:12
And then a year passed.
19:13
Well, what happened in that year?
19:14
I don't know, but oh my gosh, Shawnee's only got three bottles of left, so I guess that much time has passed.
19:20
Right?
19:21
If it, it was really cool.
19:23
I think that, and a lot of other, other ways that, or techniques you show you showed me, which would show the, the different things I'm telling because I think that A, it makes of course for more interesting writing, but that is one of the way that quickens at the pace rather than dragging it and making it boring.
19:42
And I think it's hard to know that as a first write, as a first time writer, that these are the techniques that.
19:50
Make a difference because all you know is yes, the pace is flow, but how do you fix it?
19:55
That's the question.
19:57
And yeah, that's exactly how you showed me to do because it's easier to say, oh, your pace is flow, fix it.
20:03
But the main question is how do you fix it?
20:05
And it is by bringing these details and bringing the theme imagery and more interesting references that ties in the story and also makes it, and also really, and I think I said this already, but.
20:16
Tell us the part of the story that makes it unique, right?
20:19
Like, yeah.
20:20
That, that only you could bring to the table.
20:23
'cause I would never think of that, that I would tote, you know, these bottles of ghee around, across the world really.
20:30
So there's, there's these neat little stories that really show pieces of your culture that only you can bring that make your story unique, that make it not just any coming to America story, but actually yours.
20:43
Okay.
20:44
How are you feeling now that it's coming out?
20:46
Are, are you excited for people in your life to read this book?
20:50
I mean, you're excited for strangers to read it.
20:52
I know that.
20:53
How are you feeling building up to this?
20:55
'cause it's, a lot of times when we're running memoir or fictionalized that's really close to us.
21:01
How do, how do you feel about people in your life, the scientists that you work with, your family in India and in the United States?
21:07
What do you think is gonna happen?
21:08
Like, are you excited for them to read it?
21:11
I'm, I'm, I'm excited.
21:12
Um, you know, there are lots of feeling.
21:14
I'm excited.
21:15
I'm a little embarrassed.
21:15
I'm not sure what they'll think of it, especially my team of scientists who are all diverse women from different parts of the world, including us.
21:26
And, um, they all know that the book is coming out, so I'm a little bit, I curious as to what they think.
21:32
A lot of, many of them have their own unique journeys and some of it is shared with my own experience.
21:38
So definitely that I think a lot of my family members knew I was writing.
21:42
They've seen some early drafts, so we'll see if they get to read it.
21:46
Anything.
21:46
Yeah, I knew.
21:47
I wanna unpack Mr. Ferin because you're saying.
21:50
I'm a little embarrassed and I, well, if that's really the right word.
21:54
I, I, you have a huge smile on your face right now.
21:58
Let's unpack that for a moment, because you've done something that not many people do, which is finished and published an amazing novel.
22:06
So I know it's very different from your day job, and that's probably part of it, right?
22:11
Is and also it's very sharing.
22:14
Your writing can be very exposing, right?
22:16
In a way that probably you haven't.
22:19
Had to do or had the opportunity to do.
22:22
Yeah, I just can't wait to see what doors this is gonna open for you.
22:27
What do you hope that readers will take away?
22:30
So what do you hope that people will learn about you?
22:35
So you, we don't want you to be embarrassed.
22:37
Um, what, what's the, what's the opposite of that?
22:39
What do you hope for that they will see.
22:42
I think, I really hope in some way that it breaks the stereotype.
22:47
I think a lot of Indian people abroad when asked what they do, the automatic responses, oh, you're assigned.
22:54
If I say a scientist or like, oh, I was going to say a doctor, but scientist is close enough.
22:59
But you know, breaking the stereotype that it's not just about what you do or being highly educated at highly scale.
23:05
But there are other aspects of life that make you the person you are.
23:10
And each of us have our own unique stories and I really, really hope that is what people take away.
23:16
That each of our stories are unique.
23:19
And yes, we are all united by, you know, some universal feelings and emotions, but we do have our own personal stories then, uh, that are interesting, you know, interesting in their own.
23:30
Yeah.
23:31
It's an amazing story.
23:32
I can't wait for people to read it.
23:34
And we were just talking before we started recording, so I'm gonna bring this up because people often ask me, especially, you know, you mentioned that you're introverted, that this is kind of more difficult to express sometimes, and said, well, we were talking about promotions and how are you going to get this word out into the world?
23:53
I encourage you to find something that spoke to you and you were telling me before we started recording about, and I'm like, wait, let's do it on the podcast about your essay writing.
24:02
So tell me a little bit about what you are doing to sort of compliment this and to get the word out about the book with your essay writing.
24:09
What's going on there?
24:10
Yeah, so I did meet an amazing local author who.
24:15
What very similar journey to mine.
24:17
She, she's came from India.
24:19
She's a scientist and now quite an accomplished writer.
24:22
And with her I came up with a few topics to write, a couple of essays to bring visibility to the, to themes that are part of the book.
24:33
Themes about grieving, themes about immigration, themes about pursuing science.
24:39
And it helped me reflect a little bit more on some of the things I talk about in a fictionalized way.
24:45
These are of course, all nonfiction essays, so a little bit more of my own experience, and it's a way of reflection and it's a way of improving your things and bringing a lot of techniques I learned from you.
24:58
And it's because I am not that big on social media.
25:03
I think this is a way for me to bring visibility to the work.
25:07
By shining Absolutely.
25:09
The themes in the book.
25:11
Yeah.
25:11
And you really don't need to be all the things all the time.
25:15
Mm-hmm.
25:15
And I say this, I mean, I feel like a broken record when I say this to writers, but I love that you've embraced that.
25:20
You found something that's comfortable, you found something that's meaningful to you and, and where those.
25:26
Essays float out into the world, I think is going to create speaking opportunities and create opportunities for you to share that story with the book, as you know, support for that.
25:35
So, congratulations.
25:36
I can't wait to see, you know, you'll have to let us know when all those are out and we'll, we'll promote them for you through our social channel, so you won't have to be out there.
25:44
Okay?
25:44
So here is the, the portion of the podcast.
25:47
I know you're an avid listener, so you know what, this is the quickfire portion, so here we go.
25:52
How long did it take you to write this book from the first time you had the idea to it being published in February 20, 26.
26:03
Five years.
26:04
Five years.
26:05
Yeah.
26:05
That's amazing.
26:06
Five years.
26:07
Okay.
26:07
What was your first big break along this journey where you were like, all right, this is really gonna happen.
26:14
This is coming out.
26:14
I'm not giving up.
26:15
This is really gonna happen.
26:17
It was, it was sound case cliche because I am talking to you, but it was after working with you because it was not just the writing techniques you showed me, it was your energy.
26:27
Really, that helped me believe in myself that, okay, I can do this.
26:31
So I love your story.
26:33
Yeah.
26:35
I know to ask that question to like fish, but, but sometimes it comes up that way because Yes, and it's also investing emotionally and financially and time-wise and all those things that coaching happens is like, all right, now I'm really in, and it's neat to work with somebody who can show you all the things, like when you come up against a block, I've seen it, right?
26:59
Mm-hmm.
26:59
Like I've done it with.
27:01
Of authors and I can be like, here's, here are the ways past it.
27:04
Which one, which one works for you?
27:06
Here are the ways past it.
27:07
Let's keep going.
27:08
Right.
27:09
Okay.
27:09
I love that.
27:09
Thank you.
27:10
Okay.
27:11
What is your best advice for writers wanting to turn their life experience into a fictionalized novel?
27:18
If somebody's out there listening and they're like, should I do it?
27:20
Should I not do it?
27:21
What's your best advice for them?
27:23
I think if it means something to you, absolutely should.
27:27
I think you should always write.
27:29
What resonates with yourself first, without thinking about whether readers read it, whether it could be good or not, that is beyond us.
27:36
I think if it means something to the writer, you should absolutely write it.
27:41
The only advice I will give is figure out a way to distance yourself a little bit.
27:48
Because emotions are important, feelings are important, but when you're writing, really writing, you need to.
27:56
Separate yourself a little bit from it, and if you keep that in mind, then I think it's a very enriching experience.
28:04
Yeah, I think, and I'll just add to that.
28:07
That when you are writing memoir, even if you're fictionalizing it, just make sure that you have the support in your life for those emotions that do come up, right?
28:15
Mm-hmm.
28:15
You're saying distance yourself a bit from it, but there are going to be times when it's hard, right?
28:20
Mm-hmm.
28:20
Or when you're holding up a mirror to the way that you interacted in the world and how people interacted with you, and it's gonna bring stuff, right?
28:29
Like it's, it's a hard process.
28:31
Um, so don't discount it when that happens.
28:33
Just make sure that you have that support somewhere in your life, please.
28:36
Yeah.
28:37
Um, alright, on that amazing note, Shivani, where can we find you and where can we pre-order the book?
28:45
We'll put all the links in the show notes, but let us know where to go to help support this.
28:50
It's time to pre-order the book.
28:52
Go help Shivani get this book out with a bang.
28:55
Go check out the cover.
28:56
It is.
28:57
Absolutely incredible.
28:58
And I think I, I didn't even realize it was one of your favorite colors until I realized that it's behind you on the wall.
29:06
Um, this beautiful robins egg blue that is the cover.
29:10
So go check it out.
29:10
Where can we find you?
29:11
Shivani?
29:12
Um, everywhere.
29:13
Anywhere you can get books.
29:15
Um, bookshop, Amazon, Barnes and Noble.
29:19
Um, yeah.
29:20
Awesome.
29:21
And where can we find your essays and your, where could we connect with you?
29:24
I have my own website now, which I will update once the essays are accepted.
29:29
I am trying to submit it to a few places.
29:32
I do write, uh, pretty frequently on Substan, which is also linked on my website.
29:37
Awesome.
29:38
Amazing.
29:39
Thank you so much for coming on the show.
29:41
I can't wait for all of our readers to read your amazing book.
29:45
Thank you.
29:45
Thanks, Ani.
29:46
Thank you.
29:53
Thanks for tuning into the show.
29:55
Don't Tell Writing podcast with me, Susie Vidori.
29:58
It is my absolute honor to bring you the straight goods for that book you're writing or the book that you're planning to write.
30:04
Please help me keep the podcast going by helping people find us.
30:08
You could subscribe to the podcast and leave a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever else you're listening.
30:15
To show the show.
30:17
That's how other listeners will find us.
30:20
Also visit susie vidori.com/newsletter to hop on my weekly inspired writing newsletter list where you'll stay inspired and be the first to know about all the upcoming training events and writing courses that happen in my candy.
30:34
Want my eyes on your writing?
30:36
Submit a page in your current draft for a chance to come on the podcast at the link in the show notes.
30:41
I'd love to chat with you about your writing in my always positive, incredibly supportive way so that you can make great strides towards your writing goals.
30:51
I'm here to cheer you on.
30:53
Remember that book you're writing is gonna open doors that you haven't even thought of yet, and I can't wait to help you make that it the absolute best it can be.
31:03
See you again right here next week.