Falguni Kothari, THE OBJECT OF YOUR AFFECTIONS
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[0:33]I'm excited to be here today with Felgeny Kothari,
[0:36]who's the author of five novels and many stories,
[0:39]some unconventional love stories, some fantasy tales,
[0:42]all influenced by her South Asian heritage and her expat experiences.
[0:46]Her latest book, The Object of Your Affections,
[0:48]comes out February 19, 2019, very soon.
[0:52]An award-winning classical and ballroom dancer,
[0:55]originally from Mumbai, she currently lives in New York, so welcome, Felgeny.
[0:58]Thank you. Thank you, Zebi,
[1:00]for having me here at my pleasure to be here and talk about the object of your affections.
[1:05]So how did you come up with the idea for this novel and can you tell listeners what it's about?
[1:10]Okay, so what it's about is two best friends,
[1:14]and when you have a certain relationship with a best friend,
[1:18]you kind of sometimes take it to a different level,
[1:22]so we had these two friends, one is married,
[1:25]lives in New York City,
[1:26]the other one is kind of lost because she's a widow and she has a lot of issues,
[1:31]back at home in Mumbai and she's just immigrated to New York and try and see whether she can have a life here.
[1:39]And so the friend who's married Paris,
[1:42]she and her husband are trying to have a baby through surrogacy,
[1:48]and she kind of has his bright idea that why not have Naira, my best friend,
[1:53]be the mother of my child or be the gestational surrogate,
[1:57]because that's someone who she trusts simplistically,
[2:01]and she just lacks that relationship and as you will read in the novel as the chapters go on,
[2:08]you realize why she wants such a close relationship with the gestational surrogate.
[2:12]So that's basically the context of the book,
[2:16]and how did I get the idea for it?
[2:19]A couple of things happened, one that is the second book with Great in House,
[2:23]so I already had my last love story, which came out in 2018 in January,
[2:29]and that had two guys and a girl as a protagonist.
[2:32]So I kind of wanted a mirror that and have two women and a man in this book,
[2:37]but I didn't want the typical love trope to women fighting over a man.
[2:42]I mean, that's so done and that's a trope that I don't really like.
[2:47]And also one of the things that happened was that I know a couple of women who have chosen
[2:53]to have a child through surrogacy, so I was speaking to them and I was kind of fascinated
[2:58]by how they came to that point where they needed to have a child through a surrogate.
[3:04]Plus, I have a lot of family in India. It's actually very common over there for sisters in law
[3:11]to have a child for someone who cannot. You can have one sister not doing it for the other,
[3:18]two sisters doing it for the other, and that whole complication of relationship,
[3:22]not just having a child for someone else, but watching that child grow up in another household
[3:29]that is so close to yours. You have family vacations together. You'll have things together,
[3:34]and that whole dynamic of this child has two mothers and who gets precedence over what part of their
[3:43]lives. So that whole thing just fascinated me and that kind of came into this book,
[3:49]you know, became one of the ideas. And then one of the other things that I had come across
[3:53]was an article where movie stars apparently are choosing to have children through surrogacy more
[4:00]and more, okay for various reasons. And one of the things was like in India, it's become huge
[4:06]because I think surrogacy industry is huge there that I read an article about these two
[4:12]patch laws, these men who had children through surrogacy without finding a life partner, you know,
[4:19]and I was like, wow, they don't even want to wait to find whatever, you know, a life partner,
[4:25]a woman, whoever. And they were ready to be fathers and they just took the decision in their hands
[4:31]and I just kind of thought it was fascinating. So I've kind of played with all of those themes
[4:35]in this book and yeah, that's what happened and that's how I came up with. This was something
[4:41]like a stupid question, but in India, are there different rules about surrogacy, different laws?
[4:46]Like here, I know it's like state by state, they have different rules. Like is it allowed? Just,
[4:51]so I don't know how much you know about India, but over there, I don't think rules matter
[4:57]much, okay. It's more, you know, like if you want to do something and if you're desperate to do
[5:02]something, you kind of find a way to do it, whether legally or illegally. However, until I
[5:07]think last year, there weren't such stringent or strict laws. I mean, it hadn't yet reached the point
[5:16]where there were strict laws or implementable laws. Okay. And so it was all over the place,
[5:23]you have literally you have surrogacy farms happening in, you know, certain rural villages in India,
[5:31]you have a hospital and you have like hundreds of women there who, you know, because they are
[5:38]maybe below the poverty line and this is one way to make money for their family. They just
[5:44]there as mothers to be used as and how people with money can use them. However, I think this year,
[5:53]they've made the laws very strict in the sense you have to like the potential or the intentional
[6:00]parents have to have certain things. How do you put it? Like they need to pass certain
[6:06]like prerequisites. Yes, prerequisites. Yeah, that's the word for them to be able to,
[6:13]you know, go through the process of finding a surrogate or even, you know, going to one of these
[6:18]agencies that will connect them to surrogates. It's such a neat, it's such a neat theme to put in a
[6:22]book because it's like, I feel like we're at like the forefront of this whole almost not movement,
[6:28]like explosion of, you know, surrogacy. What does it mean? And, you know, it's just so neat,
[6:33]like what does it mean to be a mom, really? Is it your child that you know? Yeah, exactly.
[6:40]So good, good idea. Exactly. And this whole owners that women have of being mothers, of being
[6:49]you know, the carriers of the next generation or the carriers of humanity, why is it just,
[6:55]you know, why is the burden just on them? I understand that women are the only species that,
[7:01]you know, the female species is the one that can actually, you know, get pregnant and have a child.
[7:07]Yes, that's absolutely not negotiable. However, what is this whole thing that, you know, only
[7:13]women can be nurturers or only women have a biological clock or only they have this instinct of
[7:21]nurturing or raising children. I mean, men have it equally like between my husband and me. He is
[7:27]the better parent. He deals with children better than I do. I'm an only child. So I kind of was a little,
[7:35]you know, what is this baby? Why does it poop so much? Where is my husband? And I remember this
[7:43]right from the beginning. He, like the minute he got home once we had a first child, he'd be,
[7:49]you know, completely take it, you know, he just make me sit down on the side of like,
[7:53]go to sleep. You have your rest and I'm going to take care of the child. So I leave the next morning
[7:58]to go back to the office. Exactly. So I don't remember except for him waking me up to breastfeed,
[8:04]I don't remember, you know, taking care of my babies from, I think, 11 at night to the next
[8:11]morning, seven o'clock. And he'd be the one who was awake and he'd be the one if they were crying,
[8:15]he'd pick them up. And so his instinct, I feel, is stronger than mine. It's just that he can't
[8:21]have babies and I can. Right. Well, physically, I mean, he's still a parent. He's still a
[8:27]parent. Exactly. So why do we put fatherhood on, on a backseat when it should be equal?
[8:34]Like we, we're talking about equality of the genders. So this is one way of where they can also
[8:42]be equal. Like fatherhood is equally important. Yeah. I'm not sure every father has that instinct,
[8:49]but I'm also not sure every mother has that instinct. So it's, I think it's more face-to-face
[8:53]than it. Exactly. But anyway, I'll, for interesting topics. So you started your book,
[8:58]really about friendship and about the ways in which friends disappoint each other and holding
[9:02]grudges and, you know, one person can go to the other person's wedding and, you know, things just
[9:06]build over time. Like do you feel like you've had a friend disappoint you in this way? Like,
[9:10]were you tapping into something that happened to you? I have disappointed friends.
[9:14]It's not happened the other way around. I remember this one friend I had in high,
[9:21]before high school, I think it was in middle school or somewhere. We were very close.
[9:25]And the thing is that I tended to have a lot of friends, whereas she had fewer friends and she
[9:33]banked on me or she kind of put all of her eggs in my basket. And she expected things of me,
[9:39]which I couldn't fulfill because I had a busier social life than she did. So I remember
[9:45]disappointing her to the point where she wouldn't speak to me for a few months. And then I had
[9:51]to make up stuff. And then after a point, it just got too much for both of us. You know, she couldn't
[9:56]keep on expecting things. And I couldn't keep on delivering.
[10:00]Right. So we kind of just naturally
[10:02]or gradually just separated and went our ways.
[10:05]But yeah, I remember those tensions.
[10:07]And I see a lot of that in a lot of my friends friends.
[10:12]Like I kind of, I think I have a very unique personality
[10:16]in the sense I don't expect things.
[10:19]And then I don't want people to expect things from me.
[10:22]But I see that happening with between friends.
[10:24]Like not too much is disappoint.
[10:26]I mean, you get touchy about certain things
[10:29]because you're so close.
[10:31]Right.
[10:31]And then it just escalates.
[10:34]Yeah.
[10:34]I feel like the demands have to be sort of equal.
[10:37]Equat.
[10:37]Yeah.
[10:38]I had, have had one friend who needed me to like
[10:41]listen to her on the phone about everything for like hours.
[10:44]I shouldn't even say this.
[10:45]But anyway, I didn't have the time to do that.
[10:47]And I felt terrible about it.
[10:48]And after a while, you'd such a be like,
[10:49]I'm so sorry.
[10:50]I can't give you what you need, you know?
[10:52]Fine.
[10:52]I don't know.
[10:53]I don't know.
[10:53]But anyway, hopefully she's not listening.
[10:55]But I'm sure she's not.
[10:56]Because anyway.
[10:57]So I thought getting a glimpse into what it was like
[11:00]for Naira, my pronouncing Naira.
[11:02]So she was like a wife in the aftermath of a husband's
[11:04]financial scandal of sorts.
[11:05]And that was so interesting how she dealt with the shame,
[11:09]the logistics of it almost, the repaying of the debts,
[11:12]the selling off of the art, like the whole thing.
[11:14]How did you come up with that character
[11:16]and that aspect of the character, the sort of like roof
[11:18]made off of Asia type of?
[11:20]So a couple of inspirations for that character.
[11:25]One, I come from business family.
[11:26]My father, my grandfather, my father-in-law,
[11:30]my husband, everyone is in business.
[11:31]You know, the whole actually, the whole extended community
[11:34]is in the same business.
[11:36]And you see a lot of ups and downs in businesses.
[11:39]And then as a wife and as a daughter and as a daughter-in-law,
[11:43]you see that what affects them on a certain level,
[11:47]it comes back home.
[11:49]And it affects us also, right?
[11:51]And I see it with a lot of growing up in that environment.
[11:54]It's very easy to pictureize what happens if things go
[11:58]really wrong, because even one loss affects us on a certain
[12:04]level, you know, the extension in the house,
[12:05]and you can feel it.
[12:07]So what happens if there's a massive loss, you know,
[12:10]what if we reach like rock bottom?
[12:13]So it was easy to picture in the sense.
[12:15]Secondly, I'm obsessed with the good wife or I was.
[12:18]Yeah.
[12:20]And it just fascinated me.
[12:21]like, why would she stay with him?
[12:25]Yeah.
[12:25]You know, and her whole.
[12:27]And I thought she handled it beautifully.
[12:30]But you just feel so horrible for her.
[12:33]You know, like, oh my God, that is a woman.
[12:36]Like you don't know whether to get angry at her for
[12:40]turning a blind eye because she wasn't stupid.
[12:42]She knew exactly what was going on.
[12:44]Right.
[12:44]And she chose to stand by him.
[12:47]And sometimes when you're in a relationship,
[12:49]and if you're in a good relationship, and either spouse
[12:53]does something that's not really kosher or at least a
[12:58]world doesn't think it is, you have to justify it in your
[13:01]head that it was.
[13:02]Otherwise, you're not going to survive that.
[13:04]Right.
[13:04]So that is I think what I've tried to show with Naira's
[13:07]character is, you know, that love is kind of blind and you
[13:12]have to make it blind.
[13:13]Or, you know, there are very few people who are like
[13:16]embarrassed, who can see things for what they are and still
[13:19]manage to sort of, you know, hold on to that relationship.
[13:23]Right.
[13:23]Usually people, you know, if you're disappointed in one thing,
[13:27]you're going to just take it or, you know, your whole
[13:29]relationship will fall apart because of that.
[13:31]Right.
[13:32]So that's a kind of had that juxtaposition between the two
[13:35]friends.
[13:35]Like one is like, okay, you know what?
[13:37]Throw anything at me and I'll deal with it.
[13:39]Yeah.
[13:39]And then you have Naira who was like, no, no, no, I need to
[13:42]live in a bubble.
[13:42]I need to live in this illusion or I won't be able to
[13:45]survive.
[13:46]Interesting.
[13:47]And then you also gave us a glimpse into Naira's relationship
[13:49]with her own parents when they showed up and she was eight
[13:52]months pregnant.
[13:53]Am I giving up?
[13:54]Yeah.
[13:55]Am I giving up?
[13:56]Yeah.
[13:57]She'd been afraid to tell them about her pregnancy.
[13:58]Yeah.
[13:59]And when she finally did, her dad goes, what have you done?
[14:00]You stupid girl.
[14:01]And then her mom asked, you know, who would ever marry you
[14:03]after that?
[14:04]And I were boldly responded, you know, a good man.
[14:06]But she's like, it doesn't even matter because I have no
[14:08]plans to remarry.
[14:09]So then they basically, you know, she's basically emotionally
[14:11]expelled.
[14:12]Tell me about that.
[14:13]The loneliness, you must feel about that.
[14:15]Sort of the sense of parental disapproval.
[14:17]Like I was reading this and I was thinking, gosh, I'm 42
[14:20]and I still am like, mom, listen to read my article.
[14:23]And like, do you know what I mean?
[14:24]Like I'm still like so desperate for a parental approval
[14:27]that to feel that they've just completely turned their backs
[14:30]on her.
[14:31]I don't know.
[14:32]That's intense.
[14:33]That's intense.
[14:34]And that's I think a very common trait in Indian families
[14:38]because your parents or your elders hold such a strong
[14:42]position in your life.
[14:44]And we're kind of raised to listen.
[14:47]Like listen to your elders.
[14:49]They have the wisdom.
[14:50]They've lived more years than you have.
[14:53]So understand, don't make the same mistakes.
[14:55]If they're telling you something, if you they're telling
[14:57]you don't touch the fire, why do you need to touch the fire?
[15:00]Indians are raised in that kind of environment where you are
[15:04]sort of conditioned to listen and to want that parental
[15:09]approval.
[15:10]And it goes further than that.
[15:11]Maybe as humans.
[15:12]I mean, you see it on social media now.
[15:15]And we're constantly looking at our social media and checking
[15:19]how many likes we have, how many, you know, hearts we have on
[15:23]our posts.
[15:24]So that approval, if kind of I think as human beings, we're
[15:28]desperate for that, not just from our parents, from anyone.
[15:31]We want approval from our friends, from our, you know,
[15:34]all our relations from our bosses, from everything.
[15:37]So I think we're kind of conditioned to sort of have that
[15:40]what you're doing as right.
[15:41]And when you don't, it's horrible.
[15:44]Yeah.
[15:45]Doesn't feel good.
[15:46]And I ask your question.
[15:47]Yeah.
[15:48]That was great.
[15:49]Perfect.
[15:50]Tell me a little about, we had started to talk about this.
[15:52]And I was like, no, save it for later.
[15:53]But tell me about writing in India versus writing here.
[15:56]You got your start writing there and published a couple of
[16:00]books there.
[16:01]And then now you've had two books come out in the US.
[16:03]What has it been like this transition?
[16:05]I started publishing their first.
[16:07]However, I started writing in the US.
[16:09]I never grew up thinking I'd be a writer.
[16:11]I had no aspirations to be a writer.
[16:13]I didn't think I had the patience to be a writer.
[16:15]Like who's going to sit down and write 4,000 words?
[16:19]No 4,000.
[16:20]4,000.
[16:21]Yeah.
[16:22]Yeah.
[16:23]400,000 words, right?
[16:24]Who has the time or the patience to do that?
[16:27]And in India, like I spent the first nine years of my marriage
[16:30]there after, after growing up and whatever, getting married.
[16:34]So I was, I think, around 26 or 27 when we moved to the US.
[16:39]And until then, in India, you have the life that you lead there
[16:43]is very different from the life that I lead here in the sense
[16:47]that there were so many family obligations.
[16:49]My days were packed.
[16:50]They were packed with either, you know, the children or, you know,
[16:54]someone's getting married or someone's, the families are huge there.
[16:58]So your time essentially is just to socialize.
[17:03]Whereas in the US, I, after a point, you know, when your children
[17:08]are reasonably old, like once they reach middle school,
[17:11]you have a lot of time on your hands, especially if you're a home maker.
[17:14]If you don't have a job outside the home, you're doing nothing, right?
[17:18]From the time that you drop them to school and maybe pick them up in the afternoon
[17:23]or even later because they have after school activities.
[17:26]And my mother is the complete opposite of me.
[17:29]Like, even though she worked from home,
[17:32]she is a busy body to another extent.
[17:36]She can't sit still even for half a second.
[17:39]And she saw that I was kind of, you know, not doing anything
[17:43]and getting crochety because of it.
[17:45]And she's like, no, this can't go on for long.
[17:47]You need to do something.
[17:49]And so I started looking at online classes to take,
[17:53]you know, thinking that maybe I'll, you know,
[17:56]go and get my degree or, you know, just,
[17:59]and because I love reading and because I love learning so much,
[18:04]I thought that would be a good fit for what I needed to do.
[18:07]And then I stumbled on this class called Romance Writing Secrets,
[18:11]which was short, cute course.
[18:13]And I think that just clicks something in me.
[18:15]And I was like, oh my God, you know what?
[18:17]I not only love reading stories, making up stories in my head
[18:21]for my children or even for myself when I was growing up.
[18:24]And because I'm a dancer, the Indian classical dancing is kind of
[18:28]storytelling in one way in a different medium.
[18:31]And because I was always a most in stories,
[18:35]the story starts just coming out of me.
[18:37]You know, the creative aspect of it.
[18:39]And I was like, hmm, okay, this is something I can do from home,
[18:42]which I apparently love.
[18:45]And so that that's how I just started writing.
[18:47]And I started writing accidentally.
[18:49]So I didn't understand the industry.
[18:51]I didn't understand once you write a book, what happens after?
[18:54]And that's why I think I went with India,
[18:57]because I think that was an easier way for me to get into the industry
[19:02]as opposed to New York publishing, because one,
[19:06]I got an answer from India faster than here.
[19:10]And, you know, when you have your first book and your first manuscript
[19:14]and your first, yes, you kind of jump on it.
[19:17]Because you don't wait and you don't sit on way things or anything.
[19:22]So that's kind of how it worked out that I had my first two books out there.
[19:26]And then through that, and then through the years,
[19:29]and then when you're building more and more contacts,
[19:31]you come into touch with more and more people in the industry.
[19:35]And that's how I got my contracts for the next two books in the US.
[19:38]Interesting. Yeah.
[19:40]And now do you feel like you have a grasp on the industry?
[19:43]I kind of do, but it changes every month.
[19:47]Yeah. So, you know, yes, you have a grasp on the industry,
[19:51]but I think you have to stay on your toes because it kind of changes every month.
[19:54]Because I know 10 years ago when I was, you know, after my first manuscript
[19:58]when I was approaching agents and I was approached.
[20:00]doing editors in the US.
[20:01]I don't think diverse books or own voices
[20:05]was a big deal then, and they really
[20:07]didn't know where to place me, whereas now
[20:10]they absolutely know and absolutely understand
[20:12]where my books were fit into the whole scheme of things.
[20:16]That's awesome.
[20:17]So you said in an interview that I read with USA Today
[20:19]that you work best in the dark of night
[20:22]by the light of your laptop.
[20:23]And you said that not being fully awake
[20:25]brings out your most creative side, which I found
[20:27]so interesting, because I cannot function at night at all.
[20:29]Is that still true?
[20:31]Is that how you do it?
[20:32]I do it for the first draft, yeah.
[20:34]I need to be half asleep.
[20:35]Really?
[20:36]Yeah.
[20:37]Because I have a very technical brain.
[20:39]I'm a very linear thinker.
[20:41]So my editing, when I'm fully awake,
[20:44]I won't be able to just write.
[20:46]I'll keep going back and editing all of my words,
[20:50]and that kind of breaks your creativity, your flow,
[20:53]and everything.
[20:54]So I need to be half asleep to do that.
[20:56]Just get it out.
[20:57]And then the next morning you go over it,
[20:59]and then you polish it up.
[21:01]That's amazing.
[21:02]What did you want to be when you grew up?
[21:04]You said you didn't ever want it to be a writer.
[21:06]I'm just curious.
[21:07]Ask your physicist.
[21:07]No way.
[21:08]Yes.
[21:09]I'm completely a STEM girl.
[21:11]I mean, I love math.
[21:13]I love the sciences.
[21:14]I love, I just love knowing how this world works.
[21:18]On a physical level, and a metaphysical level.
[21:21]So I always thought I'd do something in philosophy with physics.
[21:25]But the thing is, the way my household structure was,
[21:28]or the way I was raised, was I am from a very not
[21:31]a very conservative household, but there
[21:34]were certain expectations of getting married at a certain time,
[21:38]of not, you know, when I expressed a desire
[21:40]to come to the US to study, to get my undergrad or my master's
[21:44]in astrophysics.
[21:45]My father was like, no, you're not leaving India.
[21:47]You're not, how much ever you want to study,
[21:50]there's no restriction on that.
[21:51]But whatever you want to do, you have to do it in Bombay.
[21:54]You cannot leave.
[21:55]You have to stay at home and do it.
[21:56]That's it.
[21:57]You should read, now, this author named Nell Freudenberger
[22:00]has a bit coming out soon called Lost and Wanted.
[22:03]And the main character is a physicist.
[22:06]And it's all about astrophysics and all of that.
[22:09]Anyway, I'm going to give it, I'll show you that in a minute.
[22:11]But that's really interesting.
[22:12]I mean, it's not too late, you know, to take that up.
[22:14]No, I don't think I can go back to college.
[22:16]I don't know, no way am I giving tests.
[22:19]No way.
[22:20]Tell me more about this dancing passion you have.
[22:23]I don't know anything about that whole world.
[22:24]Tell me about it.
[22:25]So I've always been a dancer.
[22:27]And then I said, my mother has been a busy body.
[22:29]And she had little girl dancer type of thing.
[22:32]A little girl dancer, so you know the whole thing
[22:35]about when you throw your two-year-old into the pool
[22:39]and just expect them to float or paddle.
[22:42]I did not do that.
[22:43]But you did not do that.
[22:44]I heard OK, yes.
[22:44]So that analogy, take it in dancing.
[22:47]My mother just threw me on the stage.
[22:49]And she was like, just stay there and wiggly about it.
[22:52]So she was a big dancer.
[22:54]She was a big dancer.
[22:55]She's an artist, a creative person in her own right.
[22:58]And she did a lot of, she organized a lot of shows
[23:01]for our community.
[23:02]And they were called dance ballets.
[23:04]So you have, it's sort of like a musical, but on stage.
[23:08]OK, it's like Broadway in India.
[23:11]So you have a story happening.
[23:13]And then you have, in between, you have dances.
[23:16]And all of that.
[23:17]So she threw me on the stage or two years of age.
[23:19]And I was supposed to be the main characters, little kid.
[23:23]So yeah, I mean, I think that just started my whole career
[23:27]in on stage and in dancing.
[23:29]And then I did Indian classical dancing.
[23:31]I did katak, which is one of the classical dances of India
[23:36]is katak.
[23:36]It's come from the muggles.
[23:38]And I did that for about 12, 13 years.
[23:42]And yeah, so I'm good at dancing.
[23:45]I loved dancing because it's a form of expression,
[23:48]which I think, because it's so physical, I like that.
[23:52]And then the last seven or eight years
[23:55]have been ballroom dancing in New York.
[23:57]Yeah.
[23:58]That's so cool.
[23:59]You should go on one of those shows.
[24:01]Oh, no, no, no.
[24:02]I'm not that good.
[24:03]So I used to dance professionally.
[24:05]Or my katak and in India, we used to have a lot of shows
[24:08]that we did not just in different venues,
[24:10]but also for competitions.
[24:13]Like my dance troupe won, I think, third place
[24:17]in the world, folk dance festival when I was 16 or 17 years old.
[24:21]And this was in Spain.
[24:23]And yeah, that was an unbelievable experience.
[24:26]I'm good.
[24:27]So what do you think are some of the best and worst parts
[24:31]about writing fiction here in New York City?
[24:33]I don't think there are any worst parts.
[24:35]The best is that I can't imagine myself ever
[24:39]being a writer in India.
[24:41]Because of what I said that I had a lot of family obligations,
[24:44]I didn't really have time for myself.
[24:47]So New York gave me that because it gave me the quiet
[24:50]that I need to write, it gives me the space,
[24:54]and also being so close to the industry in New York
[24:56]publishing.
[24:57]Like there's so many events that happen.
[25:00]All of that sort of encourages and keeps you on your toes
[25:04]also and also inspires you to keep on doing it.
[25:07]Because it's just available at your fingertips.
[25:10]I don't think there's a downside to being in New York
[25:13]and writing.
[25:14]Good, excellent.
[25:16]Are you working on another novel now?
[25:18]I'm working on a novella.
[25:19]So I belong to this Facebook group,
[25:21]fiction from the heart, where 12 authors, mostly romance
[25:25]and women's fiction, who we built a safe space for writers
[25:29]and readers to be in and exchange information about her books
[25:32]and sort of keep us as entertained and kind of like a book
[25:36]club online.
[25:38]And so we've decided 11 of us are going to take
[25:41]out an anthology, the fiction from the heart, second chances
[25:44]anthology, and I think it comes out in June.
[25:47]So mine novella, it's called Starstruck, take two.
[25:50]So it's about a bollywood star and a publicity powerhouse
[25:54]for movie stars and their second chance at romance.
[25:58]Oh, excellent.
[26:00]Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
[26:03]Absolutely.
[26:04]Eve's drop.
[26:05]And don't just, yes, participate in the world,
[26:09]but participate to the extent where you're not just witnessing
[26:13]or observing, but you're actually
[26:15]immossing yourself in it, because don't just
[26:18]see the snowfall, you know, taste it on your tongue,
[26:21]because all of that will help you write and build
[26:24]your scene and enhance your voice, I guess.
[26:28]So yeah, so pay attention, pay attention to the world,
[26:31]and immerse yourself in it.
[26:33]I love that.
[26:34]Don't just watch this now, stick your tongue out.
[26:35]This is awesome.
[26:36]Love it.
[26:37]Well, thank you so much for coming on mom's
[26:39]starting to time to read books.
[26:40]Thank you so much for having me.
[26:41]Zippy, this was so much fun.
[26:43]Oh, yeah, three, two.
[26:45]Thanks.
[26:45]Today's episode was sponsored by cereal box.
[26:48]S-C-R-I-A-L-B-O-X dot com, cereal box.com,
[26:52]delivering addictive book content in short listen
[26:54]or read installments.
[26:56]Thanks to Ryan and Steve at Texture Sound for the audio,
[26:59]editing, and mixing.
[27:00]Thanks for listening to momstone.
[27:01]Have time to read books.