Gemma Hartley, Author of FED UP.
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[0:28]Hi, I'm excited to be here today with Gemma Hartley, who is a journalist and author,
[0:32]specializing in feminism, pop culture, health and wellness, and more.
[0:36]She has been published in Women's Health, Glamour, The Washington Post,
[0:40]Red Book, and other publications.
[0:42]Her article in Harper's Bazaar, called Women Aren't Nags,
[0:45]were just fed up, was viewed two billion times.
[0:48]That's billion.
[0:50]And sparked a national discussion about emotional labor.
[0:53]Her book, Fed Up, A Follow Up to the article, comes out November 13th.
[0:57]Gemma lives with her husband and three children in Reno, Nevada.
[1:00]Welcome, Gemma.
[1:01]Hi, I'm happy to be here.
[1:02]So, okay, what did it feel like to write an article that got viewed two billion times?
[1:07]That's insane.
[1:08]It was nuts because I had no idea it was going to go viral.
[1:16]You don't really have a sense of those sort of things, so it blew me away.
[1:21]When it was shared like half a million times within a week,
[1:25]I didn't even know articles could do that, and it blew my mind,
[1:30]because I wrote this thinking it was just going to reach like a small number of women
[1:35]that, you know, looked just like me, have lives like me, and, you know, would relate to me.
[1:40]But it struck a chord in a really big way.
[1:44]And just to back up, I should have started by saying the article and the book,
[1:48]the article's premise, why don't you tell it?
[1:50]So, the article revolved around a Mother's Day incident,
[1:55]where I had asked my husband to get a cleaning service for me,
[1:59]and in doing so, I wanted him to call around, get references,
[2:03]do all of that sort of invisible work that I normally do,
[2:07]and to sort of see how that feels.
[2:08]And, of course, I didn't tell him this expressly,
[2:11]and he did not get that from me asking him to do this.
[2:16]So, he called one service, decided it was too expensive,
[2:20]and that he could just clean the bathroom himself on Mother's Day,
[2:23]while I took care of the house and the kids,
[2:26]and all of this, you know, pent-up resentment started coming out.
[2:31]And I noticed that there was a gift wrap box in the middle of our closet,
[2:35]and had been there for days.
[2:37]He had gotten it down to wrap, you know, the present that he got me,
[2:40]since he didn't get me what I had asked for.
[2:42]And I just sort of like broke down and was like,
[2:45]why do I have to tell you to do everything?
[2:48]Why do I have to tell you to put this away?
[2:50]Why don't you just notice it yourself?
[2:53]Why am I the one that has to be responsible
[2:56]for everything that happens inside the house?
[2:58]And then when we were having that conversation,
[3:01]obviously it put him on the defensive,
[3:04]and it was sort of then me managing his emotions
[3:08]while we were in the middle of that fight.
[3:12]So, it was sort of this aha moment
[3:15]that I was doing a lot of this invisible work
[3:19]that my husband just had no idea was happening.
[3:23]And so, you turned it into this amazing article.
[3:26]Did it get posted first on the Harper's with our website?
[3:28]I'm looking for the mechanics here.
[3:30]I need to replicate this with something I read.
[3:32]I don't know how on earth anyone could replicate this
[3:36]because I had no idea going into it.
[3:39]But yes, I had pitched it right after Mother's Day.
[3:42]Yep. And then it didn't publish for another six months or so.
[3:46]And then it just blew up.
[3:49]I thought it would have sort of been past its time
[3:52]because I'm like, oh, no one wants to read
[3:53]a Mother's Day article in September,
[3:56]like at the end of September, but it blew up.
[3:59]And the views, did you find that people relate to it
[4:02]mostly Americans or all throughout the world?
[4:05]I got messages from people in India, Chile, the UK, Australia.
[4:12]It was so many different places.
[4:15]But obviously in America was where I got the most response.
[4:20]That was where I'd originally published.
[4:22]And that was really where it seemed to strike a chord
[4:26]because I think our culture really has a problem
[4:30]with acknowledging emotional labor.
[4:33]Yeah, I was going to ask, why do you think this tried to chord in America?
[4:37]So you think that this is some previously unspoken thing that went on, right?
[4:41]That women just picked up the ball and ran with it.
[4:44]We just, that's just what you did, right?
[4:45]Or what you do.
[4:46]And it didn't even like warrant a conversation almost
[4:49]until you sort of threw this into the forefront
[4:52]because so many people have this dynamic in their relationships in a way, right?
[4:55]Yeah, and I think really the term emotional labor
[4:58]was coined by Arleigh Russell Hock's child
[5:02]and it was just describing the emotion work that you do
[5:05]in the service sector.
[5:08]And in recent years that had been expanding.
[5:11]And so I sort of took the term in the way that it had been expanding
[5:15]since around 2015 and ran with it with this more umbrella type approach
[5:22]that connects all these things that didn't really have that connection before.
[5:29]So the emotion management work while also doing the home management work.
[5:33]And I think having language that really described that phenomenon
[5:39]was a really big part of why this went viral
[5:42]because we didn't have language for it before.
[5:44]I feel like you totally summed up emotional labor for me
[5:47]when you wrote in the book,
[5:48]taking out the trash is great,
[5:49]but taking the responsibility to notice when it needs to be emptied
[5:52]is where it's really at.
[5:54]Yeah. Because that's the difference.
[5:55]It's not the division of physical labor
[5:58]because when I looked at my marriage,
[6:00]my husband did have the work at least,
[6:03]but I was someone reminding him to do all of that work.
[6:06]Right. Like he was doing it for you.
[6:07]Yes, he was helping me, which makes all of it my responsibility.
[6:13]And so it was this dynamic where everything
[6:17]in the home really was my responsibility
[6:19]and anything that he did was helping me instead of sharing
[6:23]in the responsibility of our life.
[6:25]I feel like I'm usually like, what do you mind?
[6:26]Did it?
[6:27]Right.
[6:27]Yeah.
[6:28]Did you mind doing this?
[6:28]Yeah.
[6:29]Could you help me out?
[6:30]Yes.
[6:30]Could you do a quick favor for me?
[6:32]Yeah.
[6:33]The other thing I thought was so great that I was like,
[6:36]is she watching in my house?
[6:37]Is she writing this?
[6:38]When you started chapter three with a quote,
[6:40]just let me do it.
[6:41]So I say, just let me do it about 100 times a day.
[6:44]I feel like I complain about it, right?
[6:46]Like, oh my gosh, I have all these pills and I have all this to do.
[6:49]And then my husband says something like,
[6:50]well, give me something to do.
[6:52]What can I do?
[6:52]I'm like, oh, I'll just do it.
[6:54]You're like, I got it.
[6:55]It's OK. I just sort of wanted to complain about it.
[6:57]I don't know why.
[6:58]I say that, but obviously you didn't know.
[7:01]It's absolutely something that we do.
[7:03]Because we're really efficient at doing this work,
[7:06]because we've been practicing it our whole lives.
[7:09]So it takes a lot of work to hand it over to someone else,
[7:14]because they're learning these skills for the first time.
[7:17]And so handing it over to your partner
[7:20]isn't like automatically switching the balance.
[7:23]You're still holding a lot of that weight
[7:25]while they're learning how to do this work.
[7:27]And you had mentioned you saw that even when your kids,
[7:30]your son and your daughter were like four and two,
[7:32]where's something in your son, you have to be like,
[7:34]oh my gosh, amazing job picking up your clothes,
[7:36]and your daughter just like put it all in the hamper.
[7:38]And that's just what she did.
[7:40]Yeah.
[7:40]Yeah.
[7:41]I think they really pick up on that.
[7:43]They can't really verbalize what they're seeing in this dynamic,
[7:47]but they're internalizing it.
[7:48]And so it's really interesting to see how early
[7:52]those dynamics can start playing out,
[7:53]how those beliefs are sort of getting set.
[7:56]And do you ever think, because I kept asking myself this
[7:59]question as I was reading your book, like do women do this
[8:02]because it's sort of our competitive advantage?
[8:05]Like is this something that's better that we just do better?
[8:08]And therefore we do it more often?
[8:10]Or is it just that it's fallen in our laps
[8:13]for so long that we before like kind of didn't question it?
[8:16]Like do we have a better ability?
[8:18]I mean, I'm very open about my strengths and weaknesses,
[8:20]and I'm not bad at managing all this stuff
[8:22]and keeping 100 details in my head.
[8:24]But I am pretty bad at like other tasks,
[8:27]which maybe are more stereotypically in the husband's arena.
[8:32]Like I don't know, not to start going into full on gender stereotypes,
[8:36]but is it that or is that just beside the point?
[8:38]I really think it's beside the point because all the research
[8:42]that I look at showed that we don't have this
[8:46]you know, hardwired male, female binary.
[8:50]Like we don't have these specific skill sets.
[8:53]We're taught them from a very young age.
[8:56]And I think it seems really natural to us
[8:59]because we've seen it done for so many years,
[9:02]you know, with our peers, with our parents,
[9:06]everyone is reinforcing this idea
[9:08]that women are good at this and men are not good at this.
[9:11]And it's just not true because I talk to other men.
[9:15]I talk to people in queer relationships.
[9:18]These dynamics play out all over the place.
[9:22]It just generally falls into that gendered stereotype
[9:26]because, you know, heteronormativity is a real big cultural influence for us.
[9:32]heteronormative. I have not heard that before.
[9:34]That's a good one. Is that bad of me?
[9:35]I don't know. Like living under a rock or something.
[9:38]I loved how you were so open about your particular relationship,
[9:42]which is great because it's harder sometimes.
[9:44]I feel like when you're reading nonfiction to
[9:46]only take the facts and the research,
[9:48]but when an author like how you did it,
[9:50]said, well, Mr. Weaves in her own personalist,
[9:52]his or her own personal story.
[9:53]I feel like it, you know, really makes all the messages,
[9:56]hit home more. And then I was wondering, you know, when you-
[10:00]you're talking about your husband, and you're figuring out how to bridge the gap and
[10:05]solve this problem if it's anything solvable.
[10:08]You kind of realized that part of the problem was your own.
[10:11]And I was like, it's part of the problem of mine too, because you said, you know, the truth
[10:16]is this is what you run the book.
[10:17]The truth is that my constant meddling and unintentional undercutting were exactly the things
[10:22]holding Rob back from taking on emotional labor with confidence so that even though you would
[10:27]like your partner to jump in and be an equal partner, not just a helper, not like
[10:32]an assistant, but a true partner, which is what you wrote about.
[10:35]You have to be willing to then not have them do it your way, just they have to just do
[10:39]it.
[10:40]Yeah.
[10:41]They're a way too.
[10:42]So I felt like were you saying sort of it's not, it's not you, it's me, like I have to change
[10:46]too.
[10:47]I think it's both.
[10:48]I think there is a meeting point in the middle.
[10:51]And when I say that, you know, I need to take a step back and let him do it, that doesn't
[10:56]mean that we don't have the same like shared standard in what we want our life to look
[11:02]like and how we want things to run, how we want the house to look, we can agree on those
[11:07]things.
[11:08]He can get there a different way.
[11:11]And I think that both men and women have to do the work to bridge that gap because they're
[11:16]definitely were deeply held biases that I had even while writing the book and researching
[11:21]it.
[11:23]Maybe I'm just better at this stuff like, you know, it's not hard, wired, but you know,
[11:29]I have that natural advantage, which I don't, I don't think I do.
[11:34]If I'm logical about it, I know that that's not true and the more that I have step back
[11:38]and let my husband take over, I'm like, oh no, he's as fully competent as I am in
[11:43]this realm.
[11:44]He's just learning it for the first time.
[11:47]And it's been about a year now since, you know, that article came out and we've been
[11:52]talking through this and working through it in our marriage.
[11:55]And it's like a night and day difference.
[11:58]So I have a lot of hope for other couples, a lot of people ask me like, do you have any
[12:04]hope?
[12:05]Is it just totally hopeless that I'm like, I have a lot of hope that now that we're
[12:09]going to start talking about it, that we have more specific language for it, that it's
[12:13]going to be easier to bridge that gap.
[12:16]So what is your specific advice?
[12:18]So there are listeners out there that are thinking, oh my gosh, I can totally relate to
[12:20]this too.
[12:22]So I think there, it's going to be different for everyone, but I think really just opening
[12:29]up communication about it is really important.
[12:32]I think I spent a lot of time resenting my husband in my head and not actually talking
[12:38]through this with him because I thought it was too much work to, you know, talk through
[12:44]it and make these changes and it is, it's a lot of work and it's a long process.
[12:49]But I think that's really the first thing and I think what really helped with me in my
[12:53]husband was I was writing this book and so I was looking at all of the underlying cultural
[12:58]roots of this and that sort of took the blame out of the equation where it's not like
[13:04]you're doing something wrong or I'm doing something wrong.
[13:07]We've been raised to think this way and we need to unlearn all of that, you know, internal
[13:14]biases that we've been raised with.
[13:17]So it was really helpful to approach it from that standpoint like a more cultural standpoint
[13:22]than saying, well, you're just not pulling your weight, you're not doing your job.
[13:27]Like we're just conditioned to do things a certain way and maybe they're not, maybe it's
[13:32]not serving us and let's look at how we can make our relationship better.
[13:36]And it really does.
[13:37]I think having my husband do more emotional labor has really brought him into our life more.
[13:45]It used to be that I was sort of running his life for him and he didn't have that
[13:50]really deep connection with me or with our kids or with our life at home.
[13:56]I think it opens up a whole new world for men when they take on a more active role.
[14:00]It's like you don't think about the satisfaction that they might be missing at it.
[14:04]Yeah, there is because we talk about emotional labor a lot as a burden because women
[14:09]are usually shouldering all of it and that is burdensome and it's exhausting, it eats
[14:14]up our time and our emotional energy.
[14:17]But then when you give some of that up, it really like balances it out for both people
[14:24]where you can both enjoy it more.
[14:27]And I think another thing that you really enjoy is having a partner who really understands
[14:32]you on this new level.
[14:34]I didn't even think that was going to be something.
[14:37]I didn't even realize that it was part of the equation until it happened.
[14:42]And I was like, oh man, now when he comes home from work, even if he hasn't been around,
[14:46]I know that he understands my life in a way that he did not get at all before.
[14:52]And I feel like my husband, he's a step-father to my kids and he really did not know
[14:57]what he was in for at all.
[14:59]And he has been so amazing about picking up the slack and doing stuff and I should
[15:03]say it that way, I guess.
[15:04]It's another, I have to fix all my language now about this labor situation.
[15:08]But at the end of the day, the other day, he was really helpful.
[15:11]I mean, he was in it all day, he like from start to finish.
[15:15]And at the end of the day, he was like, oh, you did it.
[15:17]And I was like, well, we did it because it felt like such teamwork.
[15:20]And then I was so much less angry and tired and frustrated than the days where I feel like
[15:26]it wasn't like that, which I guess is an obvious point.
[15:28]But anyway.
[15:29]No.
[15:30]Just being on the same team and letting him know that I saw it because then he felt good
[15:34]about it as opposed to just being like, oh yeah, it was a really long day and like, whatever.
[15:38]Yeah.
[15:39]I've noticed I talk a lot about like, you know, don't ask for help, don't like over
[15:44]praise.
[15:45]But now we both like say thank you to each other a lot like we see each other for what
[15:51]we're doing.
[15:52]And that's a really new thing in our relationship.
[15:55]I would always have to notice when he did something before like, oh my gosh, the kitchen
[15:59]looks so amazing.
[16:00]And now, you know, he doesn't expect or look for that validation.
[16:06]And I think that's really changed things for us.
[16:09]Not, you know, not feeling like if I don't validate his work, he's going to just stop
[16:13]doing it.
[16:15]And I think that's a fear that a lot of people have.
[16:17]I had a friend that was like, my husband had the laundry and I like must have praised him
[16:22]like five times because I just want him to do it again.
[16:25]And I'm like, oh, that's like like doing it from a place of fear just being like, oh, thank
[16:31]you.
[16:32]Thank you.
[16:33]Thank you.
[16:34]Because I really, really want you to do this again.
[16:36]Yeah.
[16:37]When I do with the kids sometimes, right?
[16:38]If they do something, you know, like catch them being good, right?
[16:40]Like, you know, make sure they notice that you notice that you're sitting at the dinner
[16:44]table, which is fine to do with children because they're, you know, they're learning.
[16:50]And they need that.
[16:52]But like when you're talking about your partner, right, you should be able to expect
[16:56]a certain level of shared responsibility without having to go over the top praising them.
[17:01]And your husband was cool with you writing all this about him because I knew that
[17:05]there were times there were times there was like, huh, is he going to like this?
[17:07]I mean, I don't know.
[17:08]Obviously your husband, but and he seems like an amazing guy.
[17:11]But there was so much about, you know, the things he didn't do at the beginning, you know,
[17:14]like the contrast that you do.
[17:16]And I know you said at the end, he's like an equal partner now and he's, and then he's
[17:20]totally supportive of the book and the article on everything and I'm sure that's the
[17:23]case.
[17:24]But were there any stories that he had an issue with or was he just on board the whole
[17:27]time?
[17:28]He was on board the whole time.
[17:30]I didn't have to ask his permission or, you know, ask for him to support me in this.
[17:36]He was there the whole time.
[17:39]And part one, which really draws on most of the difficult parts of our marriage.
[17:45]I had him read before I sent it off to my editor and I'm like, you need to tell me if
[17:50]you're not okay with any of this because like we, you know, it does.
[17:53]It goes pretty deep into our relationship and it brings up some uncomfortable stuff.
[17:59]And he brought it back and he was like, you're a little bit too nice right here.
[18:02]I love it too for giving right here.
[18:05]And my editor made the same note and I was like, oh, yeah, he's, he's doing fine.
[18:11]And he didn't read the rest of the book until it was all the way written and I'm like,
[18:14]you need to finish the book better, like it's not just all me being mean to you.
[18:20]I promise.
[18:21]That's really funny.
[18:22]So you got engaged when you were 19, you got married when you were 20 and you had your
[18:27]children when you were 22, 24 and 26.
[18:30]Yes.
[18:31]In fact, you wrote this great red book article that said, it was called Stop Staying.
[18:34]I'm too young to have three kids.
[18:36]In fact, I just randomly want to read this quote because I just thought it was so awesome.
[18:39]Instead of telling a young mother that she must have her hands full, tell her how well-behaved
[18:43]her kids are or how beautiful her family is, tell her she's a warrior, tell her she's
[18:47]doing it right.
[18:48]That's just awesome for all moms.
[18:49]Yeah.
[18:50]What any comment that people give you.
[18:51]Yeah.
[18:52]Like just in general don't make like shitty comments to moms.
[18:56]Yeah.
[18:57]That's always nice.
[18:58]So do you think, and maybe this is hard to say because you're in it and this is your
[19:02]experience, but you got married at 20, a lot of people out there get married at 40 and
[19:07]start having their kids much later with 20 years of double the life experience before
[19:12]they go into a marriage, do you think that you're the age at which you entered into
[19:17]this, gave you a different viewpoint and maybe older people going into a relationship
[19:21]or do you think it's colored the way you see things or is it too hard to?
[19:26]I mean, it's hard to say what my life would have looked like if you know, it's one of
[19:32]those, you know, opposite worlds, but I definitely know that it has colored the way that
[19:39]I see the world and how emotional labor has evolved in my relationship.
[19:45]And I talk a lot about that in the book.
[19:48]You know, we we were like high school sweethearts there has been no other, you know,
[19:53]major relationship.
[19:55]And so that definitely makes it interesting to look at.
[20:00]from that perspective.
[20:02]But I think that it gave me an advantage in some ways
[20:07]because we are young and we are very able
[20:11]to modify our behaviors.
[20:14]I wrote another piece about getting married young,
[20:16]saying that in a lot of ways it was easier
[20:18]than getting married when I was older,
[20:20]because neither of us were really set in our ways.
[20:23]And so we've changed a lot together over the years.
[20:25]And a lot of that is luck.
[20:28]We look back at that sometimes and we're just like,
[20:30]man, we got really lucky because 20-year-olds
[20:33]getting married is probably not the best idea in the world.
[20:36]But it's 10 years later and things are going good.
[20:41]So I think a lot of marriage, maybe that's the wrong thing
[20:45]to say.
[20:45]I was going to say, I think there's a lot of luck in marriage
[20:47]and that you don't know how your lives are going to unfold
[20:49]both your individual lives and your lives together.
[20:52]So I think every relationship takes just a little dose
[20:55]of luck that you sort of navigate together.
[20:58]Yeah, it definitely does.
[21:00]I just think 20 takes a lot of luck
[21:02]because you are not a fully formed person at 20.
[21:05]Like your prefrontal cortex is still developing at that age.
[21:10]So I look back at that and I'm like, wow, we lucked out.
[21:14]Yeah.
[21:15]I was thinking I was like, wow, that's early
[21:17]to be totally fed up.
[21:18]And I imagine if she had been through this for like 30 years
[21:22]and she's like 55 or I don't know.
[21:23]Yeah, I mean, which is why it was really neat for me
[21:26]to have so many women from different generations
[21:29]who talked to me and just really deeply, really to this.
[21:32]Yeah, because it's not, you're not even
[21:33]talking necessarily about you.
[21:34]It's the cultural thing.
[21:36]It's beyond just you and your relationships, which is nice.
[21:39]But it was, you know, when I went and wrote that for a
[21:42]starter call, I didn't necessarily know that.
[21:45]I didn't know it was across generations
[21:47]and across all different life experiences,
[21:50]which was really exciting for me when I got to write
[21:53]the book because then I got to delve in
[21:55]all of that and see why.
[21:56]So what happened?
[21:57]You were at the article and then did someone call you
[21:59]and say you have to turn some to a book?
[22:01]Or what happens?
[22:01]Did you go at my study?
[22:03]About four people called me and asked me,
[22:05]could I turn this into a book?
[22:07]And was it the publishers or agents or?
[22:09]It was agents.
[22:10]And I had some editors reach out to me directly as well.
[22:14]But I ended up signing with my agent
[22:16]and drafting a proposal within a month
[22:20]from publishing the article.
[22:22]We were signing a book contract.
[22:24]That's crazy.
[22:25]It was so fast.
[22:27]Wow.
[22:28]And then I had six months straight in the book.
[22:30]So it was a really fast and furious process.
[22:33]Yeah, I was just thinking that article was only last
[22:35]year and now the book is like in my hand.
[22:37]Yeah, it's here.
[22:38]It's out like tomorrow in the story.
[22:40]So exciting.
[22:41]Wow.
[22:42]That's a whirlwind.
[22:43]So did you have to just put, I mean, I know actually,
[22:45]when I thought it was me,
[22:46]you were so, what's the word?
[22:47]Like self-referen, self-referen,
[22:49]self-referential in the book,
[22:51]because you were writing about writing the book a lot?
[22:53]Yeah.
[22:54]And I was thinking a lot about writing.
[22:56]She talking about a different book, or was she writing that?
[22:58]It was like, I think she's talking about writing this.
[23:00]Because you're like, I would be writing the book.
[23:01]And I'm like, but now I'm reading the book.
[23:03]So did you have to just stop?
[23:06]That's when your husband actually had to,
[23:07]you were like, I don't have the bandwidth to deal with my house.
[23:09]I have to get this done.
[23:10]And so he had to just step up and do it.
[23:12]Yeah.
[23:12]Things worked out in a really wonderful way.
[23:15]My husband got laid off around the time
[23:17]that I got the book deal.
[23:18]And so he was at home full time
[23:21]for the first time in our marriage.
[23:22]And it was for four whole months.
[23:25]So I had to write this book very quickly.
[23:29]And I did have to let a lot of stuff go.
[23:32]Like I was forced to, whether I wanted to or not.
[23:35]And that really changed our dynamic a lot in those four months.
[23:40]And now that he is back at work, the changes of stuck.
[23:43]It's not the same balance, obviously,
[23:45]because he's not at home full time.
[23:47]And I'm done writing the book now.
[23:49]But it's a very different sort of marriage
[23:53]than it was before we started this.
[23:55]That's awesome.
[23:55]And I bet you'll be changing a lot of people's marriages
[23:57]is out there, too.
[23:58]And I certainly hope so.
[24:01]And what do you want to do after this?
[24:03]You have this book, this whirlwind night,
[24:05]or do you are you going to do a book tour?
[24:06]What comes next?
[24:09]What comes next is just doing interviews right now.
[24:12]And I'm actually starting to work on a next book.
[24:17]All right, good for you.
[24:18]Did you sell it already?
[24:19]Or no, we're in the process of getting everything together.
[24:23]Nonfiction.
[24:24]Yes.
[24:25]Can you say any more?
[24:26]No, I can't say any more now.
[24:28]But it definitely popped up out of some of the research
[24:31]in this book.
[24:32]So related material.
[24:34]Awesome.
[24:35]All right, well thank you so much for coming on.
[24:36]Mom's don't have time to read books.
[24:38]I really appreciate it.
[24:38]Yeah, thanks so much for having me here.
[24:40]OK, oh wait, last question.
[24:41]Do you have any advice to aspiring authors out there?
[24:45]Just keep writing.
[24:47]I say a lot of people ask me how this happened
[24:51]and how you can make it happen.
[24:53]And I'm like, it's winning the lottery
[24:56]if the lottery required you to write every single day.
[24:59]So it's a lot of luck and a lot of work.
[25:03]Awesome.
[25:03]All right, thank you so much.
[25:04]Thanks.
[25:05]This episode has been sponsored by Bookhampton, Bookhampton.com.
[25:09]Thanks to Ryan and Steve at Texture Sound
[25:11]for the audio editing and mixing.
[25:13]Thanks for listening to Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.