Evangeline Lilly, THE SQUICKERWONKERS
[0:09]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the Webby-nominated podcast,
[0:13]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:15]Please also check out my other podcast, Kids Do Have Time to Read Books.
[0:19]I'm on Instagram at Zibi Owens, and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books,
[0:23]and at Kids Do Have Time to Read.
[0:26]So please follow me, and if at any time you have suggestions,
[0:30]my email is zibiatzibi Owens.com.
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[0:59]Hi, I'm really excited to announce that I'm starting a second podcast,
[1:03]which is going to be called.
[1:05]Kids do have time to read books.
[1:08]By Zibi Owens and family.
[1:10]Do I?
[1:11]Today.
[1:13]And my kids are going to help, right?
[1:14]Yes.
[1:15]Yes.
[1:16]They're excited.
[1:16]We're going to be interviewing.
[1:18]And I was excited.
[1:19]And we're going to interview amazing children's book
[1:21]and authors and young adult authors with my older kids,
[1:25]and it's just going to be fantastic.
[1:27]Make sure that to visit.
[1:29]I am so excited to be interviewing Evangeline Lily.
[1:33]Evangeline is the author of the children's book series,
[1:35]The Squicker Walkers.
[1:37]The two titles in the series so far are the pre-show
[1:40]and act one, The Demise of Selma the Swoilt.
[1:42]She's also released audio books of The Demise of Learn of the Lazy
[1:46]and The Demise of Andy the Air again.
[1:48]A former model of Angeline is best known for her acting career.
[1:51]She starred in the ABC hit drama Lost as Kate Austin
[1:54]and then starred in The Hobbit movies,
[1:56]Ant-Man, Ant-Man, and The Wasp, and Avengers Endgame.
[1:59]Originally from Canada, she attended the University of British Columbia.
[2:02]She currently lives in Hawaii, which is so nice with her two children.
[2:06]So thanks, Evangeline, for coming on.
[2:07]Mom said, have time to read books.
[2:09]And also, kids do have time to read books
[2:12]are first hybrid, both recording, guest, I'm so excited.
[2:16]I love that I'm your first guest for your hybrid.
[2:19]I think that's very appropriate.
[2:22]It's appropriate because I'm a mom who never has time to read books
[2:25]and I'm always reading books to my kids.
[2:27]See, there you go.
[2:29]I know, some days when I don't have time to read them,
[2:31]like I've read 16 books, right?
[2:33]We go through a whole series.
[2:34]Right.
[2:34]How to catch a snowman?
[2:36]How did it end up?
[2:37]I've been reading for an hour now.
[2:38]No credit for it.
[2:39]Yes, exactly.
[2:40]Well, thank you for coming on.
[2:42]Let's talk about the Squicker Wonkers, which is your series,
[2:45]which is amazing.
[2:47]How did you come up with the idea for the Squicker Wonkers series?
[2:50]I was 14 years old when I came up with the Squicker Wonkers
[2:55]original poem, which is sort of loosely tied
[2:58]to the poem that is in the pre-show,
[3:00]but it's not in any way the same.
[3:02]I got rewritten a lot of times, but I was a very,
[3:06]I suppose, unusual 14-year-old.
[3:08]I wasn't, I didn't have much of a social life at all.
[3:12]And, you know, by choice, it wasn't really that interested
[3:15]in what teenagers are doing at that point.
[3:17]I kind of had the perspective at 14 of like,
[3:19]this is all bullshit.
[3:21]Am I allowed to say that in your pocket?
[3:22]You could say anything.
[3:22]Okay.
[3:23]And I spent my time like reading and journaling and writing.
[3:29]And I was really into Dr. Zeus.
[3:31]I think I had kind of come back to him as a teenager
[3:34]and realized this dude was so smart.
[3:37]And he was lacing such incredible messages
[3:40]into these really simple tales that I loved
[3:43]because of the poetry.
[3:44]And I was really into poetry at that point.
[3:46]And I just thought it was cool that he had this irreverent use
[3:49]of language and he would just make up
[3:51]whatever word he wanted to if he didn't have
[3:54]the perfect rhyming word.
[3:56]He would just make one up instead of searching
[3:58]for one in the English language.
[3:59]And I was like, I want to make up my own words.
[4:01]That's really cool.
[4:02]So I started writing a list of imaginary words.
[4:05]And most of them were ridiculous and not very good.
[4:09]But one of them on the list just felt good on my tongue
[4:12]and really stuck.
[4:14]And it was the word squicker walker.
[4:16]But at the time, I was like, but what's the squicker?
[4:19]What is that?
[4:19]Like, what would that mean?
[4:21]What would that translate to?
[4:22]And as soon as I asked myself that question,
[4:24]this voice with this kind of Scottish lilt came into my head
[4:29]and it said, the name is squicker wonker.
[4:32]Perhaps unknown to you.
[4:34]But that's it, squicker wonker.
[4:36]And this is what squicker wonkers do.
[4:38]And then it went on to like tell this tale of these really
[4:41]kind of horrible family who did a lot of really naughty things
[4:44]and got away with it.
[4:45]And that became the original poem.
[4:48]And then like 20 or so years later when I finally decided
[4:53]it's time for me to stop making writing things and then
[4:57]putting them in drawers and actually try to get them out
[4:59]into the world, the illustrator who I was courting at the time
[5:03]read a few of my manuscripts.
[5:04]And he read the squicker wonkers.
[5:05]And he said, oh my god, I have such a clear vision
[5:08]for what I want to do with this book.
[5:09]I want to put it in a wagon.
[5:11]And I want it to be marionette puppets.
[5:13]And I was in love.
[5:14]I just thought this was amazing.
[5:16]I've always loved dark kids' books.
[5:18]And I love marionette puppets how they have sort
[5:20]of a built-in sense of creepiness and mystery and magic.
[5:25]And that was sort of the beginning of what has now
[5:27]become a seven-year journey.
[5:29]Wow.
[5:30]And to remember all that from when you're a 14.
[5:32]I know it's weird, because I don't remember anything
[5:34]from the child or whatever.
[5:36]I remember anything from yesterday.
[5:38]Right.
[5:38]But that's amazing.
[5:39]That's called Mummy Brain.
[5:40]Yeah, exactly.
[5:41]Oh my gosh.
[5:42]So we were talking earlier also about how you were kind
[5:46]of a reluctant reader and how these books are intended
[5:49]to benefit readers similar to that, like the way you used to be.
[5:52]Can you talk about how your own experience
[5:54]sort of informed the way you packaged these ones?
[5:57]Yeah.
[5:58]Interestingly, the books have this kind of ambiguous age range
[6:04]because I intentionally tailored these books
[6:07]to me as a little girl.
[6:09]And I was a really poor reader.
[6:11]My comprehension was really high.
[6:13]I understood everything I was reading.
[6:15]But I was so slow.
[6:17]I was so painfully slow.
[6:19]that I started to feel like there was something wrong with me
[6:22]or I was stupid.
[6:23]Because my friend could read a book in a week that
[6:26]would take me two months to get through the first quarter.
[6:28]And I would just end up giving up.
[6:30]And so I started to really low the books.
[6:34]The idea of reading in a book actually
[6:36]made me feel mad inside because I was ashamed
[6:39]and I was embarrassed about the fact
[6:41]that I was such a slow reader.
[6:43]And then my grandfather, who was an educator,
[6:45]he introduced me to this author Edward Gorey.
[6:49]And Edward Gorey, if you don't aren't familiar with his stories,
[6:52]his books are very dark.
[6:56]And they deal with highly sophisticated and mature subject
[6:59]matter, primarily with death and gore.
[7:03]But there's like five or six words on a page
[7:06]and they're very highly illustrated.
[7:08]And he was the first author that I felt wrote his book for me.
[7:14]And I felt like he was sort of winking at me
[7:17]and nudging me and saying, I know you're smart.
[7:20]I know that you don't need 700 words on a page to prove
[7:23]that you're smart, but you get my joke.
[7:25]You get that what I just talked about,
[7:28]even though it seems really macabre, is really funny.
[7:32]And the fact that you can get that humor tells me you're smart.
[7:35]This is sort of this dialogue I was having with this author
[7:38]in my eight-year-old mind.
[7:40]And so I wrote these books tailored very much
[7:43]as kind of an ode to him and an ode to the little girl in me
[7:46]that wanted sophisticated subject matter
[7:49]but didn't want to be overwhelmed by the word count.
[7:51]And then in a strange kind of wonderful twist of fate,
[7:54]what ended up happening because of that
[7:56]is they also are kind of ideal books
[7:58]for young advanced readers who have really high comprehension
[8:03]like a little four-year-old who's just really quite bright.
[8:06]And they're reading, I don't know, you know,
[8:09]the toy train book and it's just not satisfying
[8:12]their intellectual needs, but they're still at a low word count.
[8:14]It's also really good for them.
[8:16]So it kind of ended up putting it in this very broad age range
[8:19]and hopefully appeals to a lot of kids.
[8:22]And it's perfect for audio books,
[8:24]which I listen to, you did, I mean they're great.
[8:27]Just like that little snippet you did before.
[8:29]Yeah, I do all these crazy voices.
[8:32]And I just, I get to put on my weird hat
[8:34]and not be a glamorous star for a minute
[8:37]and just be the cookie weird mom that I really am
[8:39]and read the books the way I would read them to my kids.
[8:42]And I have so much fun making the audio books.
[8:44]And you've released some of the books as audio books
[8:47]before print books, which I think is so interesting.
[8:49]How did you come to that decision?
[8:50]That was a long road to get to that choice.
[8:54]I've had a really interesting journey with the Squicker Walkers.
[8:57]I do have a full-time day job
[8:58]and so this has been something I've been doing on the side
[9:01]and haven't, you know, found the road
[9:04]into the publishing world very easy.
[9:07]I found it very difficult and kind of complicated world
[9:11]to get into.
[9:12]And I'm sure for people within the world,
[9:14]they're like, I don't understand, it's so simple.
[9:16]But being an outsider, it feels very exclusive
[9:19]and it feels very sort of unknown.
[9:21]And I really didn't know where to put my feet down.
[9:23]And so I tried publishing the Squicker Walkers
[9:27]in a multiple, you know, different kinds of ways.
[9:29]I started by like self-publishing
[9:31]and I took it to, you know, Comic-Con
[9:34]and it was really successful.
[9:35]But then I was like, I have no idea how to get into bookstores.
[9:38]Where do we even start for that?
[9:39]And so then I tried a different mode of publishing
[9:42]but it was publishing with, you know,
[9:44]a graphic novel, primarily graphic novel publisher.
[9:47]And, you know, they were at a children's book
[9:49]publisher, so they treated the material in a way
[9:51]that wasn't appropriate for, you know,
[9:53]getting it to children and libraries and teachers.
[9:55]And, you know, that kind of thing.
[9:57]I was like, what, this isn't a good fit.
[9:59]Like, this is...
[10:00]isn't working. And then I ended up deciding, forget it. It doesn't matter. It doesn't
[10:04]matter how many kids read this book as long as one kid is touched by this book. I'm just
[10:08]going to put them up on the little website. And I'm just going to produce the audiobooks.
[10:13]And I'm going to do it all as quickly as I possibly can to get the stories out to the
[10:19]world. I just want to tell my stories. I don't really care what the end result is. And
[10:23]the audiobooks to me, I used to listen to audiobooks when I was a little girl. My grandparents
[10:28]were missionaries in Africa. And they brought us stories about Africa and audio form. And
[10:32]they just completely captivated my imagination. And what I would listen to them is somebody told
[10:37]me a year after I'd listened to that audiobook 17 times, 100 times, 700 times. There's now
[10:43]a hard copy of that book. And you can see the pictures. I would be dying for that book. And
[10:48]I started thinking like what a wonderful way to get the stories to children as quickly as possible
[10:53]so that they're engaged and they're interested. And they don't have to wait for the illustrator
[10:57]to take a year to paint the incredible illustrations in the book. But can get the stories and
[11:02]succession fall in love with the world and the characters. And then eventually get this bonus payoff
[11:08]of seeing them come to life and hard copy. And I can do all that on my own. Like I don't need,
[11:13]like you did, you know, like you did with this podcast. The beautiful thing about audiobooks is
[11:17]it's not really that difficult to make them. It's not, it doesn't require the industry that it
[11:22]does to make a hard copy book. It's true. Plus you just get this attachment to the characters.
[11:26]I feel like differently when you hear them. Well, it's multimedia. And kids nowadays,
[11:32]their attention spans are not necessarily exactly what they used to be. And they're used to
[11:37]being stimulated in all these sort of sensory fronts. And so I also just felt like, you know,
[11:44]especially for any, you know, children with special needs or with any kind of disability,
[11:49]what a wonderful thing to help bring the world to life, to hear the characters, to hear the
[11:54]sounds of the world and have a soundtrack that's really identifiable and helps bring them immediately
[12:00]into the squicker world. The minute they hear the sort of opening lines of the soundtrack.
[12:03]Yeah. It's all about storytelling. Yeah. And whatever format, it's like getting them,
[12:08]getting the message out. So the squicker wonkers, though, has this sort of, as you mentioned,
[12:13]this dark side, right? And it's all about each one is about the demise of a certain character.
[12:18]Yeah. How did you, which is really like the death of a character?
[12:22]Really? I mean, let's be honest. Sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes.
[12:26]So why so dark? Like, what, I know it appealed to you reading dark children's books,
[12:31]something like that. But why this, why this way with all your characters?
[12:35]There's so many, there's so many reasons and motivations for me writing
[12:40]dark literature. And I'll try to be as brief as possible. I go on and on. But one of them is,
[12:45]I looked around at what was available for my kids to read and what I was looking for in children's
[12:50]books. And I found there was a lot of the same thing. And those stories were generally stories
[12:56]of in kind of a very safe world where things go pretty much the way you expect them to,
[13:01]was a little bit of maybe magic thrown in. And there's a struggle. And then through love and
[13:06]perseverance, the struggle ends and everything that ends happily ever after. And I felt very
[13:12]strongly that in this age of protective parenting, this protectionist mentality we have around
[13:19]that we're doing them such an enormous disservice. And I see these millennials that graduate
[13:24]from high school and or college and go out into the real world and are completely paralyzed
[13:30]with stress and anxiety and fear because they're facing a real world where things don't always
[13:36]turn out with happily ever after ending. And they have no coping mechanisms because no one ever
[13:42]told them those stories that didn't end so well. And then they didn't have the chance to
[13:46]both process those and talk about them in a very safe place. In the nurturing place of a nursery
[13:52]or a reading room or a classroom or a library with adults who can guide them through what it means
[13:58]when things don't go our way or when things don't end nicely for us. And how we can reflect
[14:03]and how we can learn from those experiences. And there was an old tradition that I really respect
[14:08]in telling stories to children that is lasted much, much longer than this modern era of
[14:14]happily ever after. You know, and a lot of people think of the Grimm's brothers when you say
[14:18]cautionary tales. But that used to be the bulk of the stories we told children to prepare them
[14:23]for life. It was a safe way for them to explore their own shortcomings, their own failures,
[14:30]and learn how to deal with them. And nowadays we really don't tell cautionary tales so much to
[14:34]children anymore. And I think they're really an important part of development. And so I called
[14:40]cautionary tales for modern day breaths. Who are so used to being told? It's not your fault. It's
[14:48]okay. You didn't do anything wrong. It's the teachers fault. It's your friends fault. It's mommy's
[14:52]fault. But it's not your fault. You're perfect. Actually, you're not perfect. And your actions
[14:59]have consequences. And those consequences might lead to really bad places if you're not careful about
[15:03]making better choices. And let's talk about that. And let's talk about that because I have faults
[15:08]and I'm not perfect either. Mommy's not perfect. Daddy's not perfect. We all make mistakes.
[15:13]You have to have your own podcast by the way. I can't remember if we were talking about this on
[15:17]here. You were debating. I was telling you. I was telling you. I was telling you. I could just sit
[15:22]here and listen to you all day, basically. I would do that with you. We should do this all the time.
[15:26]We should just make it a regular time. It's like when you work and come and we chat. Great.
[15:31]Please. So you've said before, obviously you're also an actress, but that writing is your true
[15:37]passion. And that in part, acting is a means to an end for you and that it enables you to do
[15:42]all these other things. So talk to me about that. And also what it's like to be spending so much
[15:48]of your time doing maybe what isn't your greatest passion. That's a really, it's a struggle for me
[15:54]as mom. When I was working on lost, it was the first job I'd ever gotten as an actress. And in a
[16:00]weird twist of fate, I kind of got the job by accident. And I found myself thrown into this
[16:04]occupation and found very quickly realized that it was actually something that was really hard for
[16:11]me. And by hard for me, I mean on all levels, emotionally, professionally, mentally. I just,
[16:17]it wasn't a very healthy fit. The fame was very uncomfortable for me. And it really put me into a
[16:23]dark place. And I had to really do a lot of soul searching about that. And at the time,
[16:29]you know, I was like, if I see this through, if I just see through this show, at the end of this,
[16:36]I can, I mean, I came from a family that has nothing and I could help my parents and I could help
[16:42]my sisters and I could put myself into a financial place where the sky would be the limit. Like,
[16:47]I could just think about what do I really want to do and I could pursue that? And I could
[16:51]go after my passion. And so that became a really simple solution to this conundrum of like,
[16:58]wait, I'm unhappy in what I'm doing. What do I do? And I just stayed and I stuck it out. And I
[17:01]think it's a really important thing in life sometimes that we learn to do that, just to stick out
[17:04]the tough stuff for the future benefits. But then now I've made much more of a piece with it. And
[17:11]that's a whole other story. We'd have to do a whole other day because it's a long story. But like,
[17:16]I've made my piece with acting and I've found ways in which to be happy within that space. But
[17:21]it still doesn't fulfill me the way I wish I could spend hours and hours and months and years
[17:28]working on something that fulfills me like how writing does. And now that I'm a mom, that becomes
[17:34]just 20 times more important because my time has become so limited and it's become so precious.
[17:40]And acting takes me away from my kids so much. And so when something that I am not
[17:45]deeply, deeply passionate and competitive, and I have to do it because it's like breathing is
[17:50]taking me away from the things that are life, that are the only thing that matter. It becomes this
[17:56]real tug for me. Whereas when I tuck away into my office to write a story and I'm gone in that
[18:03]world for 10, 12 hours at a stretch. When I come out, I'm so full and I'm so satisfied and I'm so
[18:12]delighted and like I'm vibrating with joy. And that joy then pours into my children and pours
[18:18]into my husband and I don't feel guilty about the time I took away from them. I feel good about
[18:23]it because I feel I'm coming back to them a better mom and a better wife. So it's still something
[18:30]I struggle with. It's still a tug of war for me because I'm the sole breadwinner in my family. I
[18:34]have a stay-at-home daddy who's an incredible father and I don't want that to change. I want him
[18:39]there for my sons. So I got to keep paying for the mortgage and you know putting a roof over
[18:44]head and food on our table and acting is the most incredible day job I could have. I mean it's I'm
[18:50]so fortunate to be doing what I'm doing. But you know the dream is one day maybe I could make a living
[18:56]as a writer. That's amazing. Yeah. It's funny. It's like the grass is always greener. I think
[19:03]right. Like so many people say well I wish I could do that and for you it's something you need
[19:08]to do. And I mean I'm not that you don't enjoy it but it's just you know life works in this
[19:13]way. I know it's so wrong. I always say it's not wrong. I'm so lucky. No, no, no. That's how I
[19:20]actually didn't say it's wrong but I feel that way. I actually wrote this essay once called like
[19:24]I'm too lucky to cry on Easter which I don't even tell. But like I was in the bathroom crying and I
[19:29]was like how could I be crying when I have such a nice bathroom? And I cry on this floor. Jamie
[19:33]like I feel like no matter what you have in life like if you are lucky in any way you feel bad
[19:40]complaining. But that's not true. You have what like it is what it is. It is right. And so you
[19:45]have to like kind of go from there. Thank you. I appreciate that because you're absolutely right.
[19:49]Any time I say anything that sounds remotely like complaining publicly I just think oh my god
[19:54]I'm handling shut up. You are so obnoxious right now. I was
[20:00]It's even saying like this morning,
[20:01]I was talking to my babysitter and I was like,
[20:03]maybe it's obnoxious of me
[20:04]to talk about how I have time to read
[20:05]when I have you here helping me, right?
[20:07]And I'm telling all these moms to go read
[20:09]and maybe they don't have a babysitter
[20:11]being able to help them.
[20:12]Maybe I'm being like totally presumptuous
[20:14]that like, you know,
[20:16]but not that my kids aren't,
[20:17]I mean, I'm usually reading in front of my kids,
[20:19]like I'm with them, like I feel like,
[20:21]I don't know, I feel like we're like,
[20:22]I'm very into my, I'm there all the time,
[20:25]but anyway, enough about me, but.
[20:26]Well, no, but I think that,
[20:27]I think that there's something to be said for.
[20:30]Having those thoughts,
[20:31]I think it shows that you're a conscious,
[20:33]healthy human being,
[20:34]that you're aware of your blessings,
[20:36]that you're aware of the difference
[20:37]between your life and other people's lives
[20:39]or that you aren't just blindly going around thinking,
[20:42]what was me?
[20:43]You know, I think it's healthy that we know
[20:45]and that we're aware that we're very lucky
[20:47]and that we have all these blessings.
[20:49]And then I think it's kind of a beautiful challenge
[20:51]to work ourselves through those things
[20:53]and do that thing of telling yourself,
[20:56]you're allowed to hurt too.
[20:57]Right, there's this beautiful song by an artist called
[21:01]Katie Hersig called, I Hurt Too.
[21:04]And I just had this connection to it one day
[21:07]where I was thinking about my fans
[21:10]and I have a pretty good really,
[21:12]like I actually really know some of my fans
[21:15]and I've gotten to know them over social media
[21:17]or whatever else and I really care about people a lot,
[21:20]even strangers and people I don't know,
[21:22]I, it means a lot to me if they're hurting.
[21:25]And recently I went through some really tough stuff
[21:28]and I was really hurting.
[21:29]And I felt like I didn't know how to reach out and say,
[21:34]I hurt too as a way of being connected,
[21:38]as a way of being humans together,
[21:39]without it sounding like I was complaining.
[21:42]But I didn't want to reach out and say,
[21:43]I hurt too so people go, oh, I'm so sorry you're hurting.
[21:45]I wanted to reach out and say, I hurt too to say,
[21:47]like we're all in this together.
[21:48]We all hurt, you know, no matter where you are no matter
[21:51]who you are, you hurt too.
[21:53]We all have pain.
[21:54]That was beautiful.
[21:55]That's so nice.
[21:57]Well, now I feel better about everything.
[21:59]So, good, good.
[22:01]Are you able to talk about any of the stuff
[22:02]that was going on?
[22:03]Well, I mean, it really pertains to the stuff
[22:06]that I was just talking about where
[22:07]I'm a really hyper-focused, really driven woman.
[22:10]I mean, when I was 16, my career goal
[22:13]was to be the youngest female CEO ever
[22:15]to walk the face of the planet.
[22:17]Like that was my dream.
[22:18]I don't even like business,
[22:19]but that was the ambition because I had been given
[22:24]all my life as I continue to be given.
[22:27]The worst possible advice you could give a female,
[22:30]which is you can have it all.
[22:33]And I really believe that.
[22:34]It was a reason that 1980s and I was female
[22:37]and I was told you are as strong as a man as good as a man.
[22:41]You can do anything a man can do, you can have it all.
[22:44]But built into my DNA, I believe wholeheartedly
[22:49]that it's my job to save the world from all of its woes
[22:52]and all of its suffering and all of its pain.
[22:54]I believe it's my job that I'm solely responsible
[22:57]for the ultimate happiness of my children and my spouse.
[23:01]I believe that I have to be a good person on all fronts
[23:05]and do everything right in life.
[23:06]And then on top of that now there's this added pressure
[23:09]that I'm supposed to have it all,
[23:10]which means I'm supposed to have the most incredible career
[23:13]or maybe five, and that I'm supposed to also run the NGO
[23:16]that I run and that I'm also supposed to be a social activist
[23:20]and I'm also allowed to and can take all this onto my plate
[23:24]and do it all and kill it.
[23:26]And I got really, really sick this year
[23:30]and a way that really unnerved me
[23:32]and a way that I couldn't get better.
[23:34]And I didn't know why and I couldn't get to the bottom of it.
[23:37]And I started to have to examine that like all these things
[23:41]I was killing it at were actually killing me
[23:44]and realized that I'm one human being.
[23:47]I have limited resources within my body
[23:50]and that they're being tugged in 700 different directions every day
[23:54]and that will kill me if I do not put down boundaries
[23:58]and start to say I can't, not I won't.
[24:01]I can't, I really can't, like I want to but I can't
[24:06]or just to simply say I don't want to.
[24:09]Why?
[24:10]Because what I really want to do right now
[24:12]is just lay down with my little kids
[24:15]and have them matter in my ear while I fall asleep.
[24:17]And that's what I want to do.
[24:19]And that's what I'm gonna do.
[24:20]And it's so hard I think in especially right now
[24:23]with the Me Too move and in the times that movement
[24:25]there's so much raw raw women, raw raw femininity
[24:28]which I love.
[24:29]But there's also this sort of built in danger of us
[24:34]as the people who I think through our DNA
[24:38]take on the world as our responsibility.
[24:41]Taking on too much and I took on too much.
[24:43]I just took on way too much
[24:44]and now I'm trying to figure out what do you get rid of?
[24:47]Like it's so hard to know what do you get,
[24:49]what have everything matters?
[24:50]Everything's important.
[24:51]And at the list just like goes on and on and on.
[24:54]And it starts to hurt because everything you think
[24:57]about letting go of you think of the people
[24:58]you're gonna let down.
[24:59]And I can't, I have such a problem with letting people down.
[25:03]Like it really paralyzes me, it makes me really upset
[25:06]the idea that I'm letting anyone down,
[25:08]especially if that person's been good to me
[25:10]or have put faith in me or showed me respect,
[25:13]I can't let them down.
[25:15]But I have to and what's happened in the time
[25:19]that I've been working through all this stuff
[25:21]and really getting to the core of what childhood issues
[25:26]really are causing me to need so badly
[25:28]to never disappoint anyone.
[25:31]I have let a lot of balls drop
[25:34]and this incredible thing has happened
[25:36]where those balls fall to the ground
[25:39]and I think they're just gonna shatter
[25:40]and they're just gonna fall apart.
[25:42]And actually what happens is they're caught
[25:45]by all these people I've been nurturing.
[25:48]All these places I've put my love and my time
[25:50]and these things that I've given to and given to
[25:52]and given to and given to and given to
[25:53]and never for a second thought about what I could get back.
[25:56]Suddenly I have these people who I thought
[25:58]I was carrying, carrying me and saying,
[26:02]you gotta take care of you, I got this, I got you.
[26:05]And I'm so like, I just, I get so emotional,
[26:08]I get so blessed and I'm like, oh my God,
[26:11]even like young people half my age
[26:12]who are, I mentor them, they're suddenly saying,
[26:16]I got you, you know, you're good.
[26:18]And like it's okay and like being the comfort for me
[26:21]and I'm like, wow, this is, this is the fruit.
[26:25]This is the fruit of loving.
[26:27]This is the fruit of giving and I wasn't looking for it
[26:30]but here it is and all these people now are telling me
[26:32]it's okay, stop and take care of yourself.
[26:35]We love you, we love you no matter what you do.
[26:37]It's been amazing.
[26:39]I'm not there yet, I'm not out of it yet.
[26:40]I'm still, you know, I'm getting there
[26:42]but it's gonna be a beautiful 40th year of my life.
[26:46]Thank you for sharing all that.
[26:48]Oh my gosh, I'm like crying myself.
[26:50]That was so great, that was your, your beauty of,
[26:54]I, you just, it's like pouring from you.
[26:57]The way you were saying before that, you know,
[26:58]how that your joy pours for you after,
[27:00]pours through you after you're writing.
[27:02]It's like the common humanity.
[27:03]It's like it's like all you're giving back.
[27:05]It's, I don't know, I'm rambling.
[27:06]It was amazing.
[27:07]You're not.
[27:08]Thank you.
[27:09]And it also makes me feel better
[27:11]just as another sort of person, another mom,
[27:14]another like someone who's trying to do a lot of stuff
[27:17]just to feel so understood suddenly
[27:19]by someone else, like given permission of us
[27:22]to like take it back and out.
[27:25]As much as we got all these mummy bloggers,
[27:27]we've got all this, you know, conversation online about
[27:31]this stuff, I noticed in my life,
[27:33]and I don't know if you find this,
[27:34]there's a void of conversation,
[27:36]meaningful conversation really being had
[27:38]about this stuff between mother's face to face
[27:41]and like this stuff is important.
[27:44]Cause I think a lot of us feel really alone.
[27:46]I mean, you just, you're so,
[27:48]so focused on those little people
[27:51]that it's so, you don't have time to read.
[27:53]You don't have time to hang out with girlfriends.
[27:55]You don't have time to go on a date with your husband
[27:57]and even have that person just looking at it and go,
[27:59]this is fucking hard, right?
[28:00]Like yes, it's really hard.
[28:02]And we need it so much
[28:04]cause it's such a lonely place otherwise.
[28:07]It's so true, it's so true.
[28:09]I know sometimes last night after like,
[28:11]especially after the weekends,
[28:12]I don't know for you of either time,
[28:14]like you just want to like collapse and be like,
[28:16]okay, we made it.
[28:17]You're like, that was supposed to be the rest time.
[28:19]I know it's your weekend.
[28:20]Just back to prioritizing and the times
[28:24]that you do just want to sit with your kids
[28:26]and whatever, how do you decide what to let go?
[28:29]And how do you decide what's worth keeping going?
[28:32]Obviously things like your day job and the acting
[28:34]and things you have to do,
[28:35]but is there any metric?
[28:37]Like I read all these parenting books
[28:38]and time management and these are the things you should do
[28:41]and do you have a way?
[28:44]Well, two things come to mind.
[28:46]One of them is probably less wise than the other
[28:48]cause one comes from me
[28:49]and one comes from my incredibly zen partner
[28:52]who is always wiser than me.
[28:54]The one that comes from me,
[28:55]I recently read the first part
[28:58]of the book called The One Thing.
[29:01]It was a New York Times bestseller.
[29:03]And for someone like you or an I,
[29:05]I highly advise you ignore all the rest of the book
[29:08]because it will just drive you into more doing.
[29:11]But the first part of the book talks about essentially
[29:15]the idea that multitasking is the greatest
[29:18]scam of all time, that it's a total lie
[29:21]and that when you divide your attention,
[29:24]no matter how good you are at that,
[29:26]everything that you're giving attention to
[29:27]is losing something.
[29:29]And so that really the key to being joyful in success
[29:33]and having success, like real true success
[29:36]that isn't just on the surface,
[29:37]but that's really deep and profound in your life
[29:39]is to focus on one, the most important thing
[29:42]and the one thing at a time
[29:44]and never like sort of break that rule.
[29:47]So I've been trying to employ that right now
[29:50]as a baby step towards some of these big letting go moments
[29:54]where I just tell myself,
[29:56]okay, well, while I'm here doing this podcast.
[30:00]I refuse to check my email or look on my phone or be thinking about what I've got to do
[30:06]five minutes from now or ten minutes from now or two days from now. And when it finishes,
[30:10]instead of jumping onto some other tasks that needs to get done, I'm going to finish this one
[30:17]completely so I will post about it and I will completely resolve this thing and be in it.
[30:23]And be in it so completely that I actually get filled from it instead of drained from it because
[30:29]I had an experience, I actually connected to another human being, I actually accomplished something
[30:34]that feels good to accomplish. Instead of feeling like how I felt for the better part of the last
[30:39]four or five years, which is like, I could have been more there or I could have been done that
[30:43]better or I could have really put a little bit more effort into that other thing. But because I was
[30:49]always kind of divided, I wasn't giving anything my all and I wasn't really getting satisfaction out
[30:54]of any of it. So that's my not so wise answer. This practical and I think a lot of
[30:59]that's wise. I thought it was great. Well, the better I think I think the wise that where I'm
[31:04]trying to get to what I think hopefully that will bring me to if I'm really just focused on one
[31:08]thing at a time and present with each thing at each moment will get me to how my partner lives
[31:14]which is that he honors himself in every moment no matter what that means. So if he wakes up in
[31:23]the morning and he's like, I, because he gets the kids to school and does the, you know,
[31:29]stay at home on routine. He wakes up in the morning and he's like, Oh, I just can't make breakfast
[31:34]for the kids this morning. I just, I don't have any me. He doesn't, he stops somewhere on the way
[31:39]and gets some crappy breakfast. It's not very good for them and sends them off to school with that
[31:44]and some lunch he bought at that same place and doesn't feel guilty about it and doesn't beat
[31:49]himself up about it. And because he didn't feel guilty about it and he didn't beat himself up
[31:53]about it when he gets home, he'll probably crash and have the nappy actually needs because he's
[31:58]not riddled with guilt and trying to make up for the mistake he made this morning. And then he goes
[32:02]on with the rest of his day and has probably a much better day. And the next morning wakes up
[32:07]refresh and he's like, Okay, I can make breakfast this morning. I'm ready to go. And he lives so
[32:12]completely that way. And he is my kind of Buddha. He's my, he's like my example of what I want to get
[32:18]to that even if he's dropping balls, he says, well, then that ball has to drop because I ain't doing
[32:25]I'm too tired. I ain't doing it. I'm too cranky. I'm sorry. That's not going to happen because
[32:31]that sounds really boring to me. I mean, it's like anything and sometimes I shake my head and I go,
[32:38]come on, sometimes it's possibilities and you have to. And he's like, yeah, my responsibilities,
[32:42]I have to get that kid to school and I won't let that one drop. I know that that's the do or die.
[32:46]You have to. But there is so much that you, my lovely wife think is a do or die that is not a do or
[32:54]die. And that's what I'm trying to get to is like, he knows that innately in his core and he just,
[32:58]he just honors himself. He just trusts himself and he goes with it and then he doesn't look back
[33:02]and I want to get there. Wow. Yeah. Good luck. So what's coming next? You're going to release
[33:10]all the rest of these books eventually. How long is that going to take? Do you know my schedule or
[33:15]it's 20 books? So I know why. Hopefully I'm still walking and upright and not in an old
[33:21]folks home by the time I finished the last one. It takes a long time for the illustrator to finish
[33:26]the paintings. So I was inspired by Arthur Rackham as one of my biggest inspirations for
[33:32]directing the illustrators and creating this series. I wanted it to have that turn of the century
[33:35]feel where you can see the pencil marks. You can see the watercolor marks. But what it means is
[33:40]it doesn't have that modern day crank it out digital efficiency. There's actual, you know,
[33:45]pencil to paper and paint to paper and those real things happening that take time. And so
[33:51]right now the plan is bang out the audiobooks as fast as I can. Write them, produce them,
[33:56]give them all my heart and all my time, make them as fun and zany and dark and wonderful as they
[34:02]can be. And so the kids have the stories and they're not left hanging. And then ideally two
[34:08]books a year, two hard copy books a year, maybe one and a half a year. I mean, maybe like two
[34:13]every three years. I don't know how quickly the illustrator can finish them. So we're still working on
[34:18]the demise of learn of the laziest half finished right now, which is the next one. And I'm only
[34:23]allowed to say that because the audiobooks come out. So that's not a spoiler. But usually we keep it
[34:27]a secret whose demise is coming next. And then we also have, I've been working on developing
[34:35]maybe a movie. I mean, we don't have any studio or funding or anything, but I do have
[34:40]stop animation partners who are incredible who will remain unnamed until anything is real.
[34:46]But it's always been my dream to see those quicker workers come to life in a stop animation
[34:51]live action blend. So in the books that you've read, I don't know if you've read both.
[34:56]Yeah, I had a different version. But yeah, yeah. So well in the pre show, there's a little girl
[35:00]who walks into a wagon full of vise ridden marionette puppets. And I just imagine in the movie,
[35:05]a real life little girl walking into a stop animation wagon with stop animation puppets and how
[35:12]completely magical that would feel it would be like a real kid gets to work into like 10
[35:16]burns world or something. And I just think that would be really exciting. Wow. Yeah, that's
[35:21]awesome. Yeah. So that's the plan right now. Do you have any advice on finding time to read?
[35:26]What do you find time to read? I wish I found more time to read. That has become one of my ways.
[35:37]So I'm a compulsive doer as many of us moms are and learn to be because we became moms.
[35:43]And so one of my ways of not doing is to discipline myself to say, right now you should do nothing.
[35:52]And I'm like, I can't do that. I don't know how to do nothing. I wish I could, but I can't.
[35:56]So in the last few months, I've discipline myself to say in the moments when I know the rule is I
[36:01]should do nothing. I read a book because then I'm doing something. I feel kind of productive.
[36:06]Unfortunately, that is something that I'm still very driven by. But it relaxes me and I get to
[36:12]escape into a world with no responsibilities and you know, someone else's problems and not my own.
[36:19]So for me, that has meant in my lifestyle, I have an unusual lifestyle as an actor. You know,
[36:24]I don't have a nine to five per se. That has meant in the afternoon when my little one naps
[36:31]and the world goes quiet for one hour. My discipline is, don't use that time to do the dishes
[36:39]or sweep the floor or catch up on some emails or any of that stuff. You sit down outside
[36:47]and you get yourself prone, not sitting up, you know, like in action mode, you're in
[36:52]repose mode and sort of lay down and read a book. And if you fall asleep, all the better.
[36:58]And when he wakes up, it's over and you go back to doing and that has become right now,
[37:04]because I'm not on a film set right now, that has become the routine. And it's been so healthy for
[37:10]me because that stopping in the middle of my day has prevented the latter half of my day from
[37:17]going off the rails with compulsive doing, doing, doing, doing, doing like the amount of times
[37:22]I catch myself squeezing one, two, three little last things into the end of my day. And then by the
[37:29]time I sit down to dinner with my family, my brain is on overdrive and I am not there. I am in those
[37:37]five things. I crammed into the end of my day and that discipline of stopping midday to read,
[37:43]even if it's just for 20 minutes has actually had this really wonderful domino effect on the rest
[37:48]of my day where I go about the rest of my day in a much clearer space. And I have better boundaries
[37:54]and I am more present and I don't push myself so hard. So that's become my thing right now.
[38:00]I love that. Yeah. I mean, even somebody who doesn't mind a five, you could do that on your lunch
[38:04]break instead of talking with a girlfriend, which can still get your sort of energy up,
[38:09]reading brings your energy down, which feels like, oh, now it's hard to go back to work,
[38:14]but maybe that's a good thing. You know, maybe your body's realizing how tired it really is,
[38:19]but if you get into that conversation and you still kind of adrenalize, your body doesn't realize
[38:24]it's tired and it's exhausted and that's how we get ourselves burned out and run down.
[38:28]Well, thank you so much for being the inaugural guest on kids do have time to read books and also
[38:34]on mom's time to read books. Well, I have one more thing I have to say in regards to kids
[38:38]you have to read books. Yes, I'm sorry. Yes, this is really this is really cool. So you asked me about
[38:43]the audiobooks and, you know, a big motivation for these audiobooks is I do feel that nowadays
[38:47]kids need so much more stimulation because they're so used to multi-sensory stimulation on video games
[38:52]and movies and YouTube and everything's at three seconds. They have a new sound or a new visual
[38:58]and I thought, you know, kids are probably not reading paper books the way we used to
[39:06]because they're going to the television or, you know, they're going to the video games
[39:10]and I want kids to keep reading books. So I'm going to help maybe bring kids back to books
[39:16]by giving them this audio accompaniment and I said that to the man who works, who's like the
[39:23]head of distributing at Ingram where I'm distributing my books through and this man used to work
[39:28]for the publishing house that published Harry Potter and he was the guy responsible to
[39:33]distribute those books and he actually called me, called me out on my ignorance and said actually
[39:42]you're wrong. I have been amazed and delighted and pleasantly surprised in delivering the
[39:50]Harry Potter books to the world to realize how voracious kids still are with books and the millions
[39:59]and millions.
[40:00]of copies of those books that went out every year again and again and again and you think
[40:05]we're going to run out of kids who want to read books and we just never seem to run out of kids
[40:09]who want to read books and every new generation that came up into that age bracket
[40:14]were just as voracious as the last one and we'd never saw any indication that children's
[40:19]passion for reading was dropping off at all and I felt so wonderfully wrist-lapped in the way
[40:27]you want to be wrist-lapped where you where I was oh that's so cool to know that kids are
[40:32]reading just as much as we were when we were kids. There's nobody's reading is still stories are
[40:37]still fundamental to growing up and and they're they're forming kids and what we're doing is still
[40:43]really important. That's excellent. Yeah. Good news. Yeah. It's too weak. It's too hard to read.
[40:49]We just don't think they don't. Thank you so much. It really is such a pleasure.
[40:57]Thanks again to my sponsor mermaid pillow co mermaid pillow co dot com slash zippy and her
[41:05]code zippy for 10% off. Thanks so much. Check out those really awesome giftable pillows and blankets.
[41:10]Thanks for listening to moms don't have time to read books. You can follow me on instagram at
[41:15]moms don't have time to read books and at zippy Owens and my new podcast at kids do have time to
[41:21]read. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at texture sound for the sound editing and thank you to
[41:26]morning moon productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music. Thanks for listening.
[41:31]You can always email me at zippy at zippy Owens dot com.