Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen, Co-authors of AN ANONYMOUS GIRL
[0:00]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens, and you're listening to Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
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[0:28]I'm thrilled to be interviewing Greer Hendrix and Sarah Peckinin today on their publication
[0:33]day of an anonymous girl.
[0:35]Here is the co-author of an anonymous girl and the wife between us, both of which she wrote
[0:39]with Sarah Peckinin, formerly an editor Simon and Schuster for 20 years.
[0:43]Greer has written for the New York Times, a lower publisher's weekly and other publications.
[0:47]She received her master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.
[0:51]Greer lives in Manhattan with her husband and two children.
[0:53]Sarah Peckinin is not only the co-author of an anonymous girl and the wife between us with
[0:57]Greer Hendrix, but she has written eight other novels, seven of which Greer edited, a former
[1:02]Capitol Hill journalist, Baltimore Sun reporter that says to magazine contributor and
[1:06]on-air correspondent E. Entertainment Network, Sarah lives with her three sons in a
[1:11]suburb of Washington, D.C.
[1:13]Okay, welcome to Greer and Sarah, thank you both so much for coming on momstone have
[1:17]time to read books.
[1:18]Thank you so much for having us.
[1:20]We're super excited to be on here.
[1:22]So Greer is here with me and Sarah is on the phone, right Sarah?
[1:25]Yeah.
[1:26]And the car on the way to New York.
[1:27]Awesome.
[1:29]So can the two of you tell listeners what your latest book and anonymous girl is about?
[1:34]Sure.
[1:35]I'm good.
[1:36]I think I'm going to do a little more of the heavy lifting and talking just because
[1:38]I'm sitting here and nestled next to you.
[1:41]So anonymous girl is the story of Jessica Ferris, who's a makeup artist in her late twenties
[1:47]in New York City kind of struggling to make it as a lot of young women are.
[1:53]And she hears about this psychology study that's being offered at NYU.
[1:59]And she sneaks into it thinking she'll make some easy cash and it'll be kind of like
[2:04]a Myers-Briggs, you know, answer a few questions.
[2:08]And then she walks into NYU and she sits down in front of this computer screen.
[2:13]And these questions start to creep across the screen.
[2:17]And it seems as if the psychiatrist conducting the study knows what she's thinking and
[2:23]knows what she's hiding.
[2:25]But she gets lured into this study and then the psychiatrist says to her, would you like
[2:31]to take it to the next level and do some real life morality and ethics experiments?
[2:35]And then it kind of goes from there.
[2:37]And that's when Sarah and I usually say, bam, bam, bam, so how did you guys come up with this
[2:44]idea?
[2:45]So on the heels of our first book, The Wife Between Us, it was really important to us
[2:50]that we have a follow-up that was as strong.
[2:54]And so we spent really months talking about what we wanted to write about.
[2:59]And some of the key elements that we knew we wanted there to be a real immediacy to the
[3:03]story, which is why we chose to write sections of it in the second person.
[3:09]And we felt hopeful, hey, people will agree, brings in the really brings in the reader
[3:14]and that you feel that you're answering the morality and ethics questions that Jessica
[3:18]is answering as well.
[3:21]So that was one thing.
[3:22]We are both, we had both studied psychology and so we have a deep interest in that.
[3:28]And so some of the really fun parts of the book were sort of researching those psychology
[3:33]experiments and psychological theories behind it.
[3:35]Yeah, I would say those are basically the two key elements that we wanted to explore.
[3:40]We wanted the book to be basically same better or different.
[3:43]It's not a follow-up to the last book, but if you've read both, you know that there's
[3:47]kind of that similar, like page churning, quality, and relatable female protagonists sort
[3:52]of in distress and conquering things.
[3:57]That's awesome.
[3:58]I'd love the second person element to it.
[3:59]Oh, good.
[4:00]Yeah, I just add to what Greer said.
[4:02]I think when it comes to our ideas, what we really do is, as Greer said, like, we spend
[4:08]months talking for hours every single day.
[4:11]We're sending each other newspaper articles, clipping, photographs of, you know, somebody
[4:17]saying, does this look like, you know, our main character?
[4:19]Does this look like Jessica or Dr. Shields?
[4:21]So we spend those months talking every single day for hours and hours and, you know, we
[4:27]generally just am mass sort of a big file of the ideas we want to incorporate into the
[4:33]book.
[4:34]And then we go, you know, we outline some characters.
[4:36]We talk more about the plot, but it really is a very slow building process.
[4:41]Our favorite two words are what if, what if this, what if that?
[4:45]And then we do egg each other on a bit when you say, Sarah, like, the crazier, the better.
[4:49]I'm like, oh, I got chills.
[4:51]That's good.
[4:52]And then let's add to that crazy subplot.
[4:54]Absolutely.
[4:55]So how did you two first meet?
[4:56]How did you meet?
[4:57]And then how did you end up working together?
[4:59]So prior to becoming a writer, I was a book editor for 20 years at Simon and Schuster.
[5:05]And one day, literary agents, Victoria Sanders sent me a debut by a woman named Sarah
[5:12]Peckinin.
[5:13]And I read it in one sitting and I loved it.
[5:15]I was at a point in my career where I was looking for, like, I joke, like marriage is
[5:21]not one night stands.
[5:22]I wanted long-term relationships with my authors.
[5:25]And so Victoria brought Sarah around because I wasn't the only editor in town who was interested
[5:29]in her book.
[5:30]And Sarah and I immediately hit it off and I persevered and acquired her debut.
[5:34]And we worked together as an author, editor, team for seven books, right, Sarah?
[5:39]And then I decided to leave corporate publishing.
[5:41]I just wanted to try something new.
[5:43]And in the back of my mind, I wanted to write, but I wasn't really telling anybody.
[5:48]But over our time together, Sarah and I had discovered we had a number of uncanny similarities.
[5:54]So we both had studied psychology and journalism.
[5:56]We both had played field talking in high school.
[5:58]We were both terrible cooks.
[6:00]We both have brothers that were really close to who are both named Robert.
[6:04]So we had just developed a friendship that I was close with a lot of my authors.
[6:08]But what Sarah and I had was really special.
[6:10]So I confessed my secret to her that I wanted to write and Sarah, what did you say?
[6:16]I said, hey, let's write a book together.
[6:18]It was a totally spontaneous, impulsive thought.
[6:23]But from my background, I had done everything from wire service reporting to newspaper
[6:30]writing, to magazine writing, to short stories, to novels.
[6:34]I had been playing around with screenplays in my spare time.
[6:38]And I loved career.
[6:39]I loved working with her.
[6:42]And I didn't want to lose our collaborative relationship or our friendship.
[6:48]And I was also eager to do something a little bit different.
[6:51]So the timing, I think, it just worked out beautifully for both of us.
[6:55]Yeah.
[6:56]So as first I paused because I thought, why does she want to write a book with me?
[6:58]She's written all these books on her own.
[7:02]And I had this idea that maybe I should try to do this alone.
[7:04]And then I thought, this is crazy.
[7:06]I've written a couple of articles, I've edited hundreds of books, but I've never written
[7:10]a book.
[7:11]I have no idea what I'm doing.
[7:12]This could be like a master class and learning how to write.
[7:14]So I felt like I was a lucky one getting to work with careers.
[7:18]So that's it.
[7:19]It's like a really great marriage.
[7:20]We're kind of sick together.
[7:21]Oh wait, I've got to show Zibi.
[7:22]I'm showing Zibi our necklace.
[7:24]Sorry, people who can't see this online.
[7:26]I had these made for us.
[7:28]The first one represents the first book colors.
[7:30]Oh my god.
[7:31]And then there's a second book and it's our forever friendship and that I'm never letting
[7:34]her go.
[7:35]So hello.
[7:36]Hello.
[7:37]Yeah.
[7:38]Please, um, Greer surprised me with this necklace.
[7:40]It's a gold chain and there's a circle that's gold and that represents, you know, the circle
[7:46]of, you know, forever friendship.
[7:47]And then there's a little blue stone in the circle that matches the cover of the white
[7:52]between us.
[7:53]And a few weeks ago, she gave me another beautiful gold circle with a red stone that
[7:57]matches the cover and anonymous girl.
[7:59]Oh, it's okay.
[8:00]I can't wait to see like over the years this necklace will become so heavy.
[8:03]Like your neck won't be able to dress the dream for me about the part of your mouth.
[8:08]That's what we want.
[8:09]Yeah.
[8:10]But so basically I said, I said, yes.
[8:12]And then the question for Sarah and I was, well, why are we going to write?
[8:16]And like Sarah said, she'd been writing, you know, more like women's fiction for lack
[8:20]of a better word.
[8:21]And that's primarily what I edited.
[8:23]But what we did was we both went to our bookshelves and we took down all of our favorite
[8:28]books from the past few years.
[8:30]And Sarah's in DC and I'm here in New York and there was a lot of overlap and certain
[8:35]themes emerged and we realized most of the books that we really like, they were psychological
[8:38]nature with strong female protagonists.
[8:42]And we pretty early on figured that we wanted to write a psychological thriller.
[8:49]And then the question for us became, well, how are we going to do this?
[8:53]And we really hadn't thought about the logistics, which I think was actually a good thing
[8:57]because we may have or maybe I might have gotten a little nervous about how are we going
[9:01]to do this?
[9:02]But we decided to first or our first meeting was in New York City and we wrote this 15,
[9:08]20 horrible pages side by side.
[9:11]I mean, they're so bad.
[9:12]We found them last year and we thought they were brilliant, but they were really bad.
[9:16]But we knew we couldn't sit side by side every day because of our geographical distance.
[9:22]So my daughter, who was I think 13 at the time said, hey, mom, there's this new fangled
[9:26]technology called Google Docs and Google Hangout, which embarrassingly we didn't really
[9:31]know much about.
[9:32]So she set us up and said, that's how Sarah and I work.
[9:35]So every day when our kids go off to school, Sarah has three boys and I have two kids.
[9:40]We sit down at our respective desks at around nine o'clock and we work until four.
[9:46]What's particularly great about that is that there's an accountability, you know, I think
[9:50]if I was alone in my apartment, I'd get up, I'd do some laundry, I'd have another couple
[9:55]coffee, I'd go, you know, I just would get really distracted.
[9:58]But when you're on the phone, what's up?
[10:00]when you can't check Facebook or Instagram or go,
[10:03]you're really, you're in it.
[10:05]And I think that that's been really,
[10:07]has contributed to our productivity, don't you think Sarah?
[10:10]Absolutely, yeah.
[10:11]I mean, we work straight from nine to four.
[10:14]We at this point are pretty much eating lunch on the phone.
[10:17]Well, we're working.
[10:19]I'll say to, you know, as you're a crunch
[10:20]and say to Greer, oh, you're opening your seaweed
[10:22]and so 11 o'clock, I know you get gold so well.
[10:25]But we also, in the off hours,
[10:28]we both get up super early.
[10:29]So that's when we go into the document individually
[10:33]and do little tweaks and suggested mode, you know,
[10:36]word changes, you know, maybe you're a little bit
[10:38]of individual writing.
[10:40]But yeah, it's somehow it works out beautifully.
[10:43]And because we are both moms, you know,
[10:46]working on as all moms are hard, you know,
[10:48]we understand that occasionally, you know,
[10:52]it can't be homesick.
[10:53]And we're gonna have to work around that
[10:54]and take a 10 minute break.
[10:56]Well, you know, you go 10 to your sick kid
[10:57]or there's a dog barking in the background.
[11:00]Hey, don't throw a creeper into the mess.
[11:02]That's my dog.
[11:04]Well, now I have a dog who barks.
[11:06]I used to have an old lab who's gaffin' never bark.
[11:09]No, I have a little dog who's more of a barker.
[11:12]But I think it just works.
[11:13]All of our similarities just pay off.
[11:15]Like we really get, you know, the other one
[11:18]on so many different levels.
[11:19]And I think there is 100% support that we both feel
[11:24]and our writings is a very safe place.
[11:26]But we say there are no bad ideas.
[11:28]And then we throw out 100 bad ideas
[11:30]and we laugh about them, but like we're laughing together.
[11:32]You know, we're, it really is a rare thing.
[11:35]I think what we have.
[11:37]Except that I know when I'm going down a bad track,
[11:39]because here's Sarah, I'm gonna,
[11:40]she'll say, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.
[11:43]I'm like, could that be like, yeah, okay.
[11:46]Or maybe go and do a different, go and do a different way.
[11:48]And Greer gets really quiet, so after she gets quiet,
[11:51]I'm like, hello?
[11:52]Are you still there?
[11:53]I'm like, okay, she can keep good or bad.
[11:55]It's like, you know, jeopardy waiting for the answer.
[11:58]But we also, the other thing we do continue to do
[12:01]is get together in, we used to meet in each other's cities
[12:04]for one night, and now we meet in Philly for two nights.
[12:08]And that's where we try to do a lot of our plotting
[12:11]or just, I don't know, at this point, writing,
[12:13]whatever it is that we're doing.
[12:15]And usually the person, one person will bring,
[12:17]like, giant posts.
[12:19]And we whiteboard and stick them all over the walls.
[12:22]And this is where one of our differences comes out
[12:24]because Sarah likes it, like, messy, like,
[12:27]Carrie Mathison in Homeland.
[12:28]It's like a crazy person.
[12:29]People can't see, but I'm twirling my finger
[12:31]around my ears.
[12:32]I'm going around, like, straining up behind her,
[12:35]because I'm like, I can't concentrate like this, Sarah.
[12:37]So, yeah, so that we try to do, like, our plotting.
[12:40]And then, Sarah, do you want to tell the story
[12:42]about your big mistake in the hotel?
[12:44]That wasn't, that wasn't DC.
[12:46]Oh, yeah.
[12:46]But we never have enough time.
[12:48]Like, we could be, you know, working together
[12:49]for, you know, one day for five days, whatever it is.
[12:52]Like, we're always kind of working right up to the last minute.
[12:56]So, Greer had come to DC.
[12:58]This was before our Philly trips,
[12:59]and we were taking turns visiting each other cities
[13:01]for a night.
[13:02]And we had Homeland at the walls,
[13:04]and, you know, I had a very messy,
[13:06]it was wonderful, all kinds of things all over the wall.
[13:09]And because we write psychological thrillers,
[13:12]you know, there are some words that they're like,
[13:14]you know, knife or gun or whatever it was.
[13:17]I think there was a word I'm not going to ask.
[13:18]I can't say it on the podcast.
[13:20]It was a family's love.
[13:22]But my job, because Greer was throwing things in her suitcase
[13:25]and racing to make her train,
[13:26]was to take down the post-its.
[13:29]And I always photograph them,
[13:30]so I'll have, you know, a record of them
[13:32]if something happened.
[13:34]But, you know, we got distracted by something.
[13:36]He knows what.
[13:36]And the post-its were made on the wall of Greer's hotel room.
[13:41]And, you know, of course, she had checked in
[13:42]under a credit card or real name.
[13:45]And I can only imagine when the poor cleaning lady came,
[13:48]and saw this crazy, you know, violent weird homeland of wall.
[13:54]But Greer's still allowed back into B.C.
[13:56]They have a dance or yes, I think it's okay.
[13:58]I was waiting for some arrests to have it.
[14:00]No, that would happen in one of our books,
[14:04]but it didn't happen in real life, thank God.
[14:06]Not yet, anyway, I'm not going to.
[14:08]That's so funny, guys.
[14:09]They're so lucky to have found each other
[14:11]for so many reasons.
[14:12]I mean, this is a friendship, the collaboration.
[14:15]We are grateful for that every day.
[14:17]And we often get really mushy.
[14:19]And we do express a lot of gratitude for each other.
[14:21]Because at this point, we are, I mean, we're co-authors.
[14:24]But we're, you know, we're business partners as well
[14:27]because we are building a brand and we're very aware of that.
[14:30]And we're also deeply close friends.
[14:33]I mean, we, you know, we say we start writing at nine,
[14:35]but the truth is, on some days, we just have to chat
[14:39]and catch up on things before we even start writing
[14:41]because there might be something, you know, going on.
[14:44]And it affects the writing process.
[14:46]Like if you're having an issue with one of your kids
[14:48]or, you know, whatever, whatever the topic is,
[14:51]you know, it affects the day.
[14:53]So it's important to let the other person sort of know
[14:55]your frame of mind.
[14:56]And, you know, at this point, we really feel like we are,
[15:00]we both don't have sisters.
[15:01]We feel like we're like sisters to each other.
[15:03]In fact, to the point where we don't look alike in person,
[15:06]but we are a little bit, I feel like we start to look
[15:08]alike like pets in their owners or something.
[15:10]Or like my mom will look at pictures now
[15:12]and she'll do a double taken can't tell us apart at times,
[15:14]which is funny because we really,
[15:16]I don't think anyone would have said that five years ago.
[15:19]Now, but I do think we look alike.
[15:20]Now we always get the RE sisters.
[15:23]And part of that is for some bizarre reason,
[15:27]we show up wearing nearly identical outfits all the time.
[15:31]When we were in Philly,
[15:32]we both had like a gray and black striped sweater
[15:35]and black pants on.
[15:36]We were wearing both like chunky, creamy,
[15:38]turtle necks, the previous time.
[15:40]And so it's really strange.
[15:41]Even for your trip Sarah, when I said,
[15:43]this is what I'm gonna wear to the launch,
[15:44]and this is what I'm wearing to the TV thing.
[15:46]And you're like, of course,
[15:48]like she had literally picked black leather pants
[15:51]and a flower dress.
[15:52]Like that's, I mean, the flower dress especially.
[15:54]Like that was, I own one flower dress.
[15:57]Her hair is wacky.
[15:58]Wow. Yeah.
[15:59]Well, also we should probably tell about the kind of,
[16:02]one more thing before I get to that.
[16:03]I wanted you to follow up.
[16:05]I mean, I think part of the reason that we do feel so grateful
[16:08]for what we have is that we started a whole new career
[16:12]at the age of 50.
[16:14]And I think it was such a big scary leap for both of us.
[16:19]I mean, we're for you to leave corporate publishing.
[16:22]And yeah, I mean, you had a lot of freelance editing jobs
[16:25]and consulting and things like that lined up.
[16:27]And I was still writing solo books.
[16:29]So we had like our kind of comfortable space,
[16:33]but we left that to take this big leap together
[16:35]and to try to write something new
[16:37]and do something kind of daring
[16:40]and having each other to kind of hold hands with
[16:43]as we did that and then having it really succeed
[16:47]beyond our wildest dreams.
[16:48]I think at this point in our life,
[16:51]we know this is just something
[16:53]we're intensely grateful for and having the support
[16:56]of another woman who is a sister.
[16:58]I think just means so much to both of us.
[17:00]Yeah, we say we're better together.
[17:02]In fact, Sarah got a t-shirts that do say better together
[17:05]because I mean, I certainly,
[17:07]I mean, Sarah at least had written some books on her own, you know,
[17:10]but I'd never written, I could never have done this
[17:12]on my own, but I think there's a great magical chemistry
[17:15]between us and I don't think it's that common.
[17:18]And our process is unlike any other writing duo
[17:20]I've heard of because most co-authors,
[17:22]they either will write a chapter set it together
[17:24]and the other one revises it
[17:26]or they'll each take a character,
[17:28]but we don't know anybody who is on the phone together all day,
[17:31]literally writing sentence after sentence together.
[17:34]It's unusual.
[17:35]Yeah.
[17:36]Yeah, I mean, well, career you edited, you know,
[17:38]the nanny diaries author for the nanny return
[17:40]and you know, Liz and Lisa, who write, you know,
[17:42]thrillers now too.
[17:43]And I think a lot of people have said to us,
[17:46]oh, I couldn't do that.
[17:47]I'd kill her, you know, and we're like,
[17:50]oh my God, it makes us closer.
[17:51]Like we can't imagine not doing that.
[17:53]Yeah.
[17:54]I think I would just sit there and I would write a sentence
[17:55]and it would, I would just question myself, you know,
[17:59]every day, is this the right plot?
[18:00]Is it, sometimes we just decide to make a decision.
[18:02]Is it the right decision or not?
[18:04]We just are weighing, there's someone to say, you know,
[18:06]go for it or like, yes.
[18:08]And so we can at least be, you know, moving forward.
[18:11]And the other thing is if something's not working,
[18:14]we, if it's not working for one of us,
[18:16]then we both say it's not working
[18:17]because if it's wrong for one person,
[18:20]it's probably wrong for other people out there.
[18:22]And it's really important to us that we're both
[18:25]really happy with, you know, the plot was the ending,
[18:29]even word choices.
[18:30]I mean, we'll, you know, deliberate, you know,
[18:32]down to a specific word.
[18:34]What's the right, you know, what's the right way?
[18:36]So.
[18:37]And are you doing the same thing?
[18:38]So you turn it, you turn the white
[18:40]between us into a screenplay.
[18:41]We're working on it right now.
[18:42]You're working on it now.
[18:43]Yeah, there's a different writing tools for screenplays.
[18:46]So we were held back in the beginning
[18:48]because we couldn't write literally together
[18:50]and we don't know how to do it otherwise.
[18:52]But now we found this program writer duet
[18:55]and which enables us, it's not quite as seamless as Google Docs
[18:59]but it enables us to work together.
[19:01]So yeah, so we've written the first act of the screenplay
[19:05]and we've gotten notes from the studio
[19:07]and they like it.
[19:08]They wanted some revisions but they were,
[19:10]are we allowed to say this, Sarah?
[19:12]I think so.
[19:12]I think we can't name the names
[19:14]who have been recently attached but I think we can say that.
[19:17]Yeah.
[19:18]So it's going well, it's fun.
[19:19]I mean, it's definitely even more of a challenge
[19:21]if writing a book was a challenge for me.
[19:23]The screenplay is a whole other level.
[19:25]But this is where I think we've got such a great partnership
[19:28]because Sarah is adventurous isn't the right word.
[19:30]What's the right word?
[19:31]You're a pulpit.
[19:32]You're a pulpit.
[19:33]And post events, all of those things.
[19:36]She's more, and I'm a little more cautious
[19:37]and it's good to have.
[19:39]You're more analytical, you're more, you know,
[19:42]but yeah, you're right, these are our differences
[19:44]but they both work to kind of further
[19:46]I think what we're doing, right?
[19:48]Hopefully, it seems like it's so far so good.
[19:52]I'm like running through in my mind,
[19:53]like which friends can I now write a book with?
[19:55]You know, because it sounds like you need to have
[19:58]a much more fun, you know.
[20:00]my gosh, pick a friend carefully, like I don't think I could do this with anybody other
[20:05]than career.
[20:06]But it is just so much more fun to share this with somebody, I mean, like we're touring
[20:11]this month.
[20:12]We're going to 14 cities career and we're going to be together and we're going to go
[20:17]jogging around new cities and we're going to our next book together and have meals together
[20:22]and just kind of share and all of this and so absolutely, yeah, find a perfect friend
[20:28]to do this with.
[20:29]And yeah, someone, I mean, and I think it's also someone that you have similar work styles.
[20:34]Like I think that that's so key for us that I think someone else might, like if I was with
[20:39]someone who like didn't was working with someone who didn't have kids, they would never
[20:42]understand when I'm like, I have to leave early to take, you know, Alex, for doctors
[20:46]appointment or this, you have to have the same kind of, you know, values and the same
[20:53]level I would say of ambition because if one person doesn't want whatever it is as much,
[21:00]I think that that would be really, you know, really frustrating.
[21:02]Yeah, we just, and the narrative instincts too, like we love the same kind of books and
[21:08]we always have.
[21:09]Yeah, I don't think either of us have a big ego.
[21:12]So there's never like this battle of like, you know, I was right on this point or that
[21:16]we've truly, it's truly like this great marriage where we feel like one person's like
[21:22]we're rising, we rise together, the better, you know, the better Sarah is, the better
[21:26]I am.
[21:27]And it's just a great partnership.
[21:29]Well, and I think like you said earlier, I could never write this kind of book on my own,
[21:33]you know, absolutely.
[21:34]It takes both of our brain.
[21:35]Oh my God.
[21:36]But, you know, we do feel like our brains are one in one equals three.
[21:40]It's not just our combined, you know, brains like we achieve more, you know, I'm not sure
[21:46]I'm not a writer, not a math major, but I tried to explain that formula.
[21:51]I like to know, I think it's better together, I think it all comes down to better together.
[21:57]That's awesome.
[21:58]So do you, now that you've achieved all this together and both of your individual
[22:01]careers, do you have advice to other people starting out either in anything else about
[22:06]choosing a collaborator carefully or elements to include in a book or anything sort of more
[22:12]philosophical about, I mean, you guys, there's such experts at this now.
[22:17]Well, I would say in terms of what you choose to write, make sure it is something you
[22:23]really, really love and feel passionate about because writing a book, you spend a lot of
[22:28]time, we go through those pages again and again and again.
[22:32]And so it can't just be like this idea that you think is going to sell, it has to be something
[22:37]you really want to dig in and spend however long it takes to write.
[22:42]And then for the co-author, I do think for a collaborator in any business partner, we
[22:47]have known each other.
[22:48]You might say Sarah was impulsive, but we had known each other for seven or eight years
[22:52]by the time you proposed to me, so I think that it wasn't as maybe as impulsive as we
[22:59]make it seem.
[23:00]Right.
[23:01]Right.
[23:02]What about you?
[23:03]That's a good point.
[23:04]Yeah, I mean, I think part of it, there's a little bit of an element of luck.
[23:08]I think you need to do your research.
[23:10]In terms of, I knew I wanted Greer as my editor when I was writing my debut novel and
[23:17]I told my agent, please submit it to Greer, which he had been planning to do anyway.
[23:23]And that was mainly because I didn't know Greer at all personally, but I knew the authors
[23:28]that she worked with, Jennifer Weiner and Lauren Weisberger and all of these amazing writers
[23:34]that I admired.
[23:35]So, you know, I did my research and that the fact that we just happened to get along so
[23:40]well personally was, I think, luck.
[23:43]But I would just say one thing in terms of writing something that helped me tremendously
[23:48]in that, you know, Greer and I are doing now with screenplays is to really break down a
[23:55]book you love.
[23:56]You take out index cards, break down every scene, you know, have one card for every
[24:01]scene.
[24:03]When you kind of experience a book as a whole, you get swept up in the story, but if
[24:07]you can kind of break it down analytically and figure out how the author did it, I think
[24:12]that's something that has helped our writing and our product.
[24:15]That's good advice.
[24:16]It is good advice.
[24:17]And so what's coming up next for you guys?
[24:19]So yes, we're working on the screenplay and then anonymous girl is going to be not going
[24:24]to be made into a TV series and we're attached to the executive producers.
[24:29]Excellent.
[24:30]That's amazing.
[24:31]Excellent.
[24:32]We're working on book three, which we can't even tell you the title because we don't
[24:36]have a title.
[24:37]We have a bunch of bad titles, but we're working away, which will be another psychological
[24:41]thriller, strong, relatable female protagonist, page journal qualities.
[24:46]So yeah, that's what that's what we're doing.
[24:49]And we're beyond tour and January, look at our websites, everyone out there and go find
[24:53]us on tour so we can meet you.
[24:55]So awesome.
[24:56]Yeah.
[24:57]Well, congratulations.
[24:58]It's so rooting for you, the two of you, and you're like this ideal couple, ideal friendship.
[25:05]It's just, it's so wonderful to see.
[25:07]Thank you.
[25:08]Thanks for having us.
[25:09]Of course.
[25:10]Thank you so much.
[25:11]Thanks for coming on.
[25:12]Thank you.
[25:13]Bye, Sarah.
[25:14]Bye.
[25:15]Bye guys.
[25:16]See you soon.
[25:17]This episode has been sponsored by Bookhampton, Bookhampton.com.
[25:19]Thanks to Ryan and Steve at Texture Sound for the audio editing and mixing.
[25:23]Thanks for listening to Momstone.
[25:24]Have time to read books.