Katharine McGee, AMERICAN ROYALS
[0:08]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the web-e-nominated podcast,
[0:12]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. This episode has been sponsored by Lauren Gabriellesson,
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[0:49]I'm really excited to be here today with Catherine McGee, who's the author of the New York Times
[0:53]best-selling series, The Thousandth Floor, and her latest book, American Royals. In English,
[0:58]in French literature major at Princeton, Katie earned her MBA from Stanford. She currently lives
[1:02]with her husband in Houston, Texas. So welcome to Katie. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so
[1:06]excited to be here. It's a nice to be here in person together. Thanks a lot. Yeah, and I know you have
[1:10]all these good, exciting book events in the city. I'm really excited that you made time.
[1:14]It's so fun. I love doing this. So American Royals, so good. I was saying to you earlier,
[1:19]I like couldn't wait. I had to read every page like voraciously. What was going to happen?
[1:23]It was really great. Tell listeners please what American Royals is about and what inspired you to
[1:28]write it? So American Royals is essentially crazy Rich Asians meets the crown. So it is a
[1:34]what if scenario of what if instead of being our first president George Washington had been our first
[1:38]king? And present day, America is still a monarchy. And it follows the love lives and relationships
[1:45]and adventures of the three children who are all the current generation of heirs to the throne.
[1:52]So there's Princess Beatrice who will be the very first queen of America and then her two
[1:57]younger siblings Samantha and Jefferson. And are you a royal family addict type of person?
[2:03]I am, but I'm more of a historical fiction addict. So I read a ton ton ton of historical fiction
[2:10]anything about for sigh Charles II, Queen Victoria, the tutors. I'm here for all of it. And so
[2:17]it's been in more recent years that I've become reinvested in the modern British royal family.
[2:23]There was also a long time where they weren't that fun to be totally honest because like William and
[2:29]Harry were teenagers and you know, Charles is just Charles sadly. And so I feel like they've had this
[2:36]whole, you know, the rebranding in recent years because you know, they've had to really big weddings
[2:42]and now they have a whole new generation. And we have all these really fun photos. And it's
[2:47]been really exciting to kind of dive back into them as the royal family is changing in so many
[2:52]positive ways. I remember waking up my twins who are now 12. I woke them up. I think they were
[2:56]five. I can't remember when exactly the princess game wedding was, but I woke up my daughter
[3:01]knows. I can't have to watch this one. I have to watch the wedding. Okay. So that's one of my
[3:06]favorite New York moments was watching that wedding. So I have a friend who works, who used to
[3:12]work at the time in television. And so I went to this very glamorous royal wedding breakfast tea
[3:19]party. Actually, here in Manhattan, because I was living in New York at the time. And it was the
[3:24]Kathy Lee in Hoda party. Wow. I know. It's so cool. I have great pictures from it, but it basically
[3:30]my alarm went off it for him. And we met up and went because the pre-show started at 5 a.m.
[3:36]Eastern time and had like curled my hair, had on this bright pink dress, this big hat,
[3:40]and we're all crowded into this restaurant. And they were passing around mimosa's. So this is
[3:46]not a Friday. And I went to work that day. And I had mimosa's and tea little scones and things. And
[3:55]watched they had the wedding, all the pre-show. And then of course the live ceremony on these enormous
[4:01]screens. And it was so fun to watch. And the entire room broke out in cheers when they kissed. And
[4:08]then I remember going out onto the street. And people in the street were excited. And it just felt
[4:13]like all of New York was celebrating this moment that didn't even have anything really to do with us.
[4:19]And it was just about, you know, royals who belong to another country. But it will always
[4:23]remain one of my, it's like being in New York for New Year or something. It's one of those like
[4:27]New York Manhattan memories that I really treasure. And then of course you've effectively tapped
[4:33]into this whole royalty passion with your book, which is great. Tell me about how your thesis
[4:39]in college related to this final book. So my college thesis was so much fun, although the final
[4:46]product was a complete mess. I tried to write a historical fiction novel. And I probably only got
[4:52]about, I don't know, 60 to 80 pages of the novel, which is really funny because now that doesn't
[4:59]sound so hard to me. Now I look back and I think, how did that take me a year to do? I can do that.
[5:04]But at the time, of course, I had never really written fiction before.
[5:06]You probably had a lot of other classes. I know there's things going on.
[5:09]I mean, right. I mean, come on. Let's cut these guys.
[5:11]Okay, cut you some slack here. Of course I did. Someday, maybe I will revisit that novel. It was
[5:16]really fun. It was set in 17th century France. And it followed, it was also like American royals.
[5:23]It was multi-pulby. And it followed young women in whole year's theater troupe. And the young
[5:28]women at Versailles, it was sort of like a Philip Gregory-esque, but set in Versailles under the
[5:34]Sun King. And it was really fun. So since I, you know, it was a creative thesis, I still, I couldn't
[5:39]just turn in a creative document that does not fly at Princeton. And so I had to write like a final
[5:47]piece that was several chapters of, for lack of a term, almost history, which is not very
[5:55]typical in English department. But it was, I wrote about the history of historical fiction in America.
[6:00]And in particular, this very niche subgenre of what I sort of called not even royal historical
[6:08]fiction, but historical fiction telling women's stories of stories that traditionally were
[6:15]men's stories. And we're seeing a lot of that in recent years. I mean, if you think about
[6:18]Malin Miller and Cersei, and I mean, it's like there's so many stories where we are now taking,
[6:26]you know, a myth or a legend, whether it's King Arthur, and taking the women's side and retelling it.
[6:32]And so I was investigating stories like, you know, Shakespeare's wife and the subgenre of
[6:39]historical fiction that follows the women who were there for all these events that you think you've
[6:44]heard of, but we're hearing them from a different angle. So I, yeah, I loved, I mean, I, I've read
[6:51]as much historical fiction as I can get my hands on. And it was a really fun project to work on.
[6:55]And that was when I did use this term castle envy, which I, by that I meant, you know, this idea
[7:01]that Americans, since we don't have a royal family, we are endlessly fascinated by the idea of royalty.
[7:07]You always want what you can't have, right? Exactly. The grass is always greener.
[7:12]So I noticed in the thousand floor series, which I haven't read, but sounds amazing. Best
[7:17]selling series. You have like a zillion fans and everything. You wrote about a futuristic society
[7:21]in 2,118 to start. And then in American royals, you created this whole alternate universe,
[7:28]obviously, with the US. It's a monarchy. And I was just wondering, is there something about these
[7:32]alternate realities that you in particular find so interesting? Like, does reimagining do
[7:38]something for you personally, emotionally? Or is there something that makes you like to rewrite
[7:44]what life could be? It's a funny balance to strike. Because if you ride my books, you know that
[7:50]I'm a bit of an optimist. And so I, I don't like to write about dark dystopian worlds. I really
[7:56]do want to write about a world that hopefully is certainly in the thousand floor series is slightly
[8:01]better than the world that we live in now. But that said, people are flawed. And certainly
[8:06]characters have to be flawed or you have no story to tell because a story about perfect people in
[8:10]a perfect world would be a very short story. No story turns and no drama. So storytelling moments
[8:17]come from people's mistakes and the way that they handle those mistakes. And of course,
[8:22]their desires, which often they want things that are not good for them and what they're willing
[8:27]to do in order to get what they want. So as far as the, the what if of it all goes, you know,
[8:33]it's been a real, really fun exercise to imagine the what if of a world where we do have a monarchy
[8:40]in the present day. It has led to a lot of questions throughout the book, both big and small. So
[8:46]small moments such as, you know, do we have a national anthem? Do we sing God Save the King?
[8:52]Is it something else that I've never heard, you know, should I make up an alternate version of
[8:56]the Pledge of Allegiance? And then of course, much bigger questions like what is the rest of the
[9:01]world look like? So if you're taking as your thesis, even just using a basic eighth grade
[9:08]knowledge of history and not going deep deep deep because we could debate it forever.
[9:13]But, you know, thinking that, okay, the American Revolution inspired most of the leader
[9:18]revolutions of world history from the French Revolution to the Haitian Revolution to the Russian
[9:23]Revolution. And so what, what does the world look like now if you take out this very first
[9:29]domino and where I've landed is a bit of an optimistic place, which is that the rest of the
[9:34]world does look quite a bit like modern England. So we have kept the trappings of monarchy, but
[9:42]socially the world has advanced and obviously there's no more serfdom in Russia or anything like
[9:48]that. And if you do enjoy history and want to go deep in it, I think one of the things that,
[9:55]you know, hindsight's 2020, but one of the things that strikes me about all of these sort of
[10:00]Arkeys is how many chances they had to fix things
[10:05]and how easily they could have ended up like England
[10:09]and sort of kept their position
[10:11]but seated away a lot of their power
[10:12]to some kind of representative government.
[10:15]I recently watched the last SARS on Netflix.
[10:17]I don't know if you've watched it.
[10:18]I haven't seen it.
[10:19]Oh my gosh, it's so good.
[10:20]And I'm endlessly fascinated by the Romanovs,
[10:22]but it's painful to watch because there are so many moments
[10:24]where you're seeing Nicholas make mistake
[10:27]after mistake and you're going just talk to them.
[10:29]Like they've elected representatives,
[10:32]like please just go meet with them, do something.
[10:34]Because the people didn't, most people didn't want
[10:36]to kill that family, you know?
[10:38]They, most people didn't even understand
[10:40]what this idea of having a whole new democracy.
[10:43]It was very revolutionary in any way.
[10:45]So in American royals, people were not so dumb
[10:48]and people actually did, you know,
[10:50]they didn't make all those mistakes
[10:52]and they were able to sort of save the position
[10:56]that they held and so in the modern world,
[10:59]there's a little bit of like this,
[11:00]the world has frozen time in the 18th century
[11:02]because the Romanovs are still around
[11:04]and in France, we're on Louisa 24th or something.
[11:09]And so there are these other monarchies,
[11:11]but of course it's the modern world.
[11:13]We have advanced socially.
[11:15]So it's a really fun, what-if game to play.
[11:17]And I'm lucky my college roommate is getting a PhD
[11:21]in history and she's endlessly patient with me,
[11:24]like debating the nuances of my alternate world
[11:27]and all of its little corners of it.
[11:29]So you could have taken this obvious passion and interest
[11:33]in this topic or really a lot of topics related
[11:36]to this time in history.
[11:37]You could have done anything with that.
[11:39]You've chosen to write this type of a book for this audience.
[11:42]Who's your target audience?
[11:43]Like how old?
[11:44]Oh, everyone.
[11:45]Everyone doesn't know.
[11:46]I definitely think this book hopefully should appeal.
[11:50]I mean, to men and women, but it's narrated
[11:52]by four young women.
[11:53]So I would say this is,
[11:55]I like to think of this as falling in a women's fiction
[11:57]category, at least across over category,
[12:00]fans of crazy recasions, of Jasmine Gillery,
[12:04]of Emily Giffin.
[12:06]I think we'll hopefully love the book.
[12:07]It's got a lot of romance unquestionably.
[12:11]So if you don't like romance, I would steer clear,
[12:13]but there's a lot more in there aside from the love stories.
[12:18]And I feel like it appeals to teenagers too.
[12:20]I mean, this is like, yes.
[12:22]Right, there's a lot of drama related to some of them
[12:26]that just gone to college.
[12:27]I don't know.
[12:28]There's something very coming of age about it as well,
[12:30]which I feel like can appeal to even a slightly younger.
[12:33]And the stories are totally timeless.
[12:35]I think it's so fun.
[12:36]And I'm not trying to say this is for this type of thing.
[12:38]But I think that's the really fun thing
[12:40]about getting to tell this type of story.
[12:42]It's really a privilege to get to tell the story
[12:46]of how people are coming into who they are as adults.
[12:50]And I think, I mean, people do often ask me this.
[12:53]And I think my answer is often that,
[12:55]I mean, I'm still coming of age.
[12:56]But I'm still figuring out what is the world expected me
[13:01]and how does that come into conflict with what
[13:04]who I want to be and what I want from the world.
[13:06]So just to talk about a few things in the book.
[13:08]Sonina is one of the main characters
[13:11]who becomes close friends with all of the royal family.
[13:16]So Nina struggles with Daphne,
[13:19]who is this backstabbing, social climbing.
[13:22]I want to marry the prince, come hell,
[13:23]or high water type of character.
[13:25]So Nina is now struggling with Daphne
[13:27]in her backstabbing ways.
[13:28]And her mother gives her some advice.
[13:29]She says, oh, Nina, I've gone up against the Daphne
[13:31]Dayton's of the world a thousand times ever.
[13:33]You think, and the mom is a lesbian, so she says,
[13:35]you think your mom and I don't know what it's like being told
[13:37]that we aren't good enough, that we don't belong?
[13:39]I'm a gay Hispanic woman in a position of enormous power
[13:42]in the king's administration.
[13:43]That has won me far more enemies than it has friends.
[13:46]Every day I face people like Daphne,
[13:47]people who fight dirty, who think that they're entitled
[13:50]to anything in the world that they want simply
[13:51]because they can reach their greedy hands out and take it.
[13:54]So her mom's solution to this, she says,
[13:56]is to look to her wife, to stay grounded.
[13:58]And she says, all you can be is yourself,
[14:00]holy and unapologetically about this.
[14:03]So I wanted you to tell me a little more about this.
[14:05]And I wondered if you have come up against Daphne's
[14:08]of the world in your own life.
[14:09]I know, this is one of those instances where authors,
[14:12]I feel like they always say, right, what you know,
[14:15]and right, whatever you're trying to write,
[14:18]whether it's the sad scene or a happy scene,
[14:21]like you have to draw on your own experiences
[14:23]to write that.
[14:24]And this really did come from,
[14:27]this is an adapted speech from my own mom, for sure.
[14:30]It is, this job is so much fun.
[14:33]And I feel very lucky that I get to do it.
[14:35]And most of the time, it's wonderful.
[14:36]But unfortunately, I'm only human.
[14:39]And sometimes I can let the criticism get me down
[14:44]because there obviously are critics
[14:45]and you're not going to please everyone.
[14:48]And unlike most jobs, whether you're a doctor,
[14:52]or a lawyer, or something where your work
[14:56]doesn't feel quite so tied into your own personality
[14:58]and who you are, I think getting criticism
[15:01]is just it's not a big deal.
[15:04]But it can sometimes feel when people say ugly things
[15:09]about the books that it feels can feel like an attack.
[15:12]And the online book community is so wonderful
[15:15]and so strong and for the most part so supportive.
[15:17]But again, the internet has so many positive uses.
[15:22]And I feel like it has brought people together
[15:24]in a way that is overwhelmingly positive.
[15:26]But of course it also gives people license
[15:29]to say things that they would never say to your face.
[15:32]And so I've gotten a lot better at it.
[15:34]And this is now my fourth book.
[15:36]I don't look at reviews unless they come
[15:39]from trade publications.
[15:41]I really try to stay away from good reads
[15:43]and Amazon and anywhere else.
[15:46]But occasionally there are still people who just troll you
[15:50]and go on your social media and write ugly things.
[15:55]And so that sometimes it's hard to bear in that.
[15:58]So my mom, yeah, she really did give me this speech
[16:00]that was like, don't, who cares what anonymous people
[16:03]are saying about you.
[16:04]And it's all, and you know who you are
[16:07]and we, your family know who you are and state,
[16:09]that use that as your anchor and stay grounded in that.
[16:12]And just the rest is all just noise
[16:14]and it's keeping you from doing the job that you love,
[16:16]which is telling stories.
[16:18]And you know, telling stories that matter to you
[16:21]and that you think that the world should hear.
[16:24]That's awesome.
[16:24]I love your mom now.
[16:26]And so Daphne tells Ethan, who is another character
[16:30]in the book early on.
[16:31]I wouldn't excuse, and he is not in the world family either
[16:34]but and they have this sort of interesting relationship
[16:36]all there on.
[16:37]But anyway, she says, and he's commenting
[16:39]on her relationship, her would be relationship with the prince.
[16:43]I wouldn't expect you to understand.
[16:44]Relationships never make sense from the outside.
[16:46]The only people qualified to weigh in on them
[16:48]are the people in them.
[16:50]So I feel like you dig deep into a variety of kinds
[16:52]of relationships, from true love, to social climbing,
[16:55]to relationships out of duty and a sense of responsibility.
[17:00]Does your own interest in sort of understanding
[17:02]those intricacies of relationships, color,
[17:04]all your writing?
[17:05]Is that something?
[17:06]Absolutely.
[17:06]And I think that's why I love telling a multi-POV story.
[17:10]So the really fun thing about this book
[17:12]because it is narrated by four young women
[17:14]in alternating chapters.
[17:16]And as the reader, probably at the beginning,
[17:19]you feel a little bit bewildered because you're thinking
[17:20]why am I continuing to meet new people?
[17:23]When am I going to get back to the first person
[17:24]I met that doesn't happen until chapter five?
[17:26]I didn't feel like that.
[17:27]I'm glad you didn't feel that.
[17:28]I didn't feel that.
[17:29]But I love stories like this.
[17:30]And as a reader, I gravitate towards big fat books.
[17:36]And I love, I mean, I do read, like I said,
[17:38]a lot of historical fiction, but some fantasy.
[17:40]I always love books that have a lot of front matter.
[17:43]So by that, I mean, they've got math.
[17:45]So they've got family trees.
[17:46]And it's sort of a promise to me that the world
[17:49]might be really big.
[17:50]But as the reader, if you stick with me
[17:54]and invest a little bit of time,
[17:55]it's going to pay off a thousandfold.
[17:58]And that is what comes from having a multi-POV story.
[18:02]And so the story turns and the drama and the excitement
[18:05]all come from the fact that you're jumping from one character
[18:08]to another, and you're seeing a moment or a conversation
[18:12]from one character's point of view.
[18:13]And then you get into another character's head
[18:16]and you realize that the second character interpreted
[18:18]it completely different.
[18:20]One of my favorite examples of this,
[18:21]I don't know if you've rather watched Game of Thrones.
[18:24]My kids have unfortunately with their kids,
[18:27]but I have not.
[18:28]This is my kids' own example,
[18:29]but it's basically there's a character named Jamie Lannister
[18:33]who in the first two or three books
[18:35]and the beginning of the TV show as the reader
[18:38]or viewer, you just hate him.
[18:40]Because you is only people who are narrating
[18:42]are people who despise him for various reasons.
[18:45]And then he finally starts narrating
[18:47]and I think it's book four.
[18:48]And everything changes because you hear his side of it
[18:51]and you understand completely differently.
[18:54]And that's what storytelling is for.
[18:56]As it's core, it's the whole reason
[18:58]that people invented language was to share experiences
[19:02]and to, as a reader, the reason you go to a book
[19:05]is to put yourself in the position of someone
[19:08]whose life you haven't lived and could never live.
[19:11]So that's the real fun of this book
[19:13]is that there are so many relationships
[19:15]because you've got four main characters
[19:17]and then a lot of secondary characters.
[19:19]So the knot can become really tangled
[19:21]and that's one of my favorite things
[19:22]is always to ask people, who is your favorite character
[19:24]and who are you shipping, which relationship
[19:27]are you rooting for?
[19:28]And it's always different.
[19:30]And sometimes people name relationship pairings
[19:33]that I haven't even thought of introduced yet
[19:35]or thought of or sometimes I have thought of them
[19:37]and they're coming in book two
[19:38]and I haven't told people.
[19:39]And I'm like, oh, yeah, are you in the process?
[19:42]I'm in the process of writing the second book.
[19:44]Excellent.
[19:44]What is it also called American?
[19:46]What's it called?
[19:47]Do you have a title?
[19:48]I do have a title, but we haven't publicly shared it yet.
[19:50]So I can't.
[19:51]So I will keep watching your instagram paper.
[19:53]It'll be an effort to be an Instagram.
[19:55]But it's the same characters.
[19:56]It's the same characters.
[19:57]Oh, I picked up about six weeks.
[20:00]your book one is. Oh, good. So it's, oh, good.
[20:02]It was removing. I'm so excited. I felt sort of sad to say goodbye to these characters, so
[20:06]oh, I would never end the kind of cliffhanger. Okay. Don't worry. All right. Interesting. I thought
[20:11]that was like one and done. I didn't know. So that would be very cruel of me to end like that.
[20:17]I feel like I didn't think it was cruel. I don't think it's cruel. I thought it was an
[20:20]interesting ending because you're less wonder. It's not totally resolved is yes.
[20:24]Well, interesting. Oh, that's so cool. So how long does it take for you to write these books?
[20:28]tell me a little more about your process. It should take about a year or start to finish,
[20:32]but I can get slow sometimes. And I read you have like huge outlines and you're like a big
[20:37]potter. I do. I make a huge plotter. But again, because of the multi POV, it's really hard to,
[20:43]I don't think I could write this kind of book just with a blank pay. And I know others like that.
[20:48]I was just with one last week. And it's so, it just goes to show that everyone needs to find
[20:53]their own writing process because this is Condarible who writes the theater crowns.
[20:57]series. And when she's describing her process, she goes, yeah, I just said to my computer and I
[21:02]wait for inspiration to strike. And I just think if I was waiting, I would be waiting all day,
[21:07]like a little surfer out. Just never catching up. I feel like I have to sort of, I'm more
[21:15]hacking my way through a forest with a hatchet. I don't know. I'm like, okay, I have to,
[21:19]the story's here. And I just have to find it. And I go down some wrong paths before I find
[21:23]the one that feels right. But I definitely outline first because otherwise I would have, I need
[21:29]a roadmap. And then I change a lot through the process. Sometimes I take away a whole character's
[21:35]story and rebuild it from scratch. But at least I have something that I'm rebuilding versus
[21:40]at blank page syndrome is a real thing for you. That is a scary prospect to just look at a
[21:45]computer and not know what you're writing. At least this way I say, okay, this is the scene
[21:49]that I'm writing today. I'm writing these two characters in this place. And this is what they're
[21:53]talking about. And then maybe I'll change the whole thing halfway through, but it's our starting
[21:57]place. And where do you like to write? I work from home. I have a home office. I live in my hometown
[22:03]of Houston, Texas. And my office is on the first floor. And it's got a lot of natural light. And I,
[22:10]yeah, I love silence. It's kind of, I mean, I was a library worker in college. And, you know,
[22:16]I mean, it led to just like Nina. Yeah, I don't do well in really crowded or loud places,
[22:21]although it's really funny when I visited the friend I was telling you about with the history
[22:25]degree. She is studying at the University of Berlin. And so I visited her last year in Germany.
[22:30]And I ended up working a few days in cafes in Germany. And it totally worked for me. And I
[22:36]think it's because I don't understand. And so it all just sort of melted away into background noise.
[22:41]But when I'm anywhere crowded and people speak English, it's really, I just, the words sort of
[22:47]attack my brain. And I feel like it's really hard for me to create my own words because I'm
[22:50]hearing too many other ones. I don't listen to music either. I'm pretty weird. Like, I feel like a lot
[22:54]of authors have soundtracks. But I just listen to music as a break to sort of clear my head. But
[22:58]otherwise, yeah, silence. So that's, I love working from home for that reason. And you have
[23:02]some fuzzy slippers. You're like, if I have fuzzy slippers, I have a caught. Yeah, I really do wear
[23:06]them every day. They live under my desk. And I put them on every day. I have routine like that.
[23:11]Yeah. You know, it's like your work hat, your work shoes. It's like your, you know,
[23:15]I used to get dressed up. Well, obviously, when I back when I had an office job, I always wore
[23:20]dresses and heels and tried to look nice. And now it's like, I wear jeans and jeans and
[23:25]jeans. It's beautiful. It's very comfy. And he's wearing this gorgeous red dress and looks amazing.
[23:31]Yeah. Well, today, today, I'm not wearing clothes. No slippers today.
[23:36]Wait. So let me just ask you one other thing. You went to business school. I did. So I saw that
[23:40]you asked me. Yes. Yeah. I, I also went to business school as sort of a non-traditional business
[23:44]type person. I love to write. And I would like write for the paper. And I felt a little bit
[23:47]always like sort of an odd ball among some of them where I analytical only type people.
[23:52]Why did you end up in business school? And how do you think it's helped you writing if at all?
[23:55]I do think it's helped. I was a lost soul as many people who go to business school are.
[24:00]So I worked as a book editor in New York for four years straight out of college. So I worked at
[24:06]actually at Warner Brothers. And it got to edit some amazing books like the Pretty Little Liars series
[24:11]and the last four vampire diaries. So I was working in sort of the, the teen franchisee space.
[24:18]And I was having a lot of fun at my job, but it ultimately I felt like I a few years in,
[24:24]I really had learned everything and I was just executing, which is always a sign that you should
[24:29]pause and reexamine what you're doing. I mean, certainly as a writer, I feel like I'm still learning.
[24:34]I probably will never stop learning. And then not just learning the history facts, but learning
[24:38]how I do my own job. It's, it's always changing. And I did feel like I, you know, I was sort of
[24:44]of hitting a wall. I didn't really want to stay in book editing forever, but I didn't know
[24:48]where I wanted to go. And so like many confused people, I took the GMAT and ended up getting into
[24:54]business school. And so I went at the time. I thought that I would stay in entertainment and work
[25:00]somewhere on the business side anywhere from being, I don't even know at a movie studio or at
[25:07]Netflix or somewhere or or some other form of entertainment. I actually interned in between my first
[25:13]and second summers at a mobile gaming company, which was really fun and very refreshing. I learned a
[25:18]lot about teenagers and, you know, what they're doing on their phones. I don't want to know,
[25:23]I don't want to know. But I, you know, ultimately it wasn't my passion. And so I had always
[25:30]wanted to write. And I feel like I am a very unusual person because most people go to business school
[25:36]and try to relax for two years and sort of re, you know, obviously learn a lot about business,
[25:41]but they're not trying to do things on the side. Whereas I started writing the 2004 books on the
[25:46]side and wrote the first book in between summers in between the first and second year and not summer.
[25:52]And then I sold it. And then I kind of had this decision to make of am I writing full time or
[25:58]am I letting the writing go? And because I did get a full-time job offer from the mobile gaming
[26:05]company. And then also I was interviewing with Apple. And none of it just really felt like what I
[26:10]wanted to be doing. And so here I am writing full time. And definitely most people at business
[26:15]school, you know, are not going into a creative field. But I do think that it has helped. Certainly
[26:20]I feel very equipped to handle as a business side of my own writing. And that's something that I
[26:28]think a lot of young writers struggle with or don't know enough about. And I wish there were more
[26:33]resources. You know, it's, it's just nice to be able to read a contract and know exactly what I'm
[26:38]getting into to have taken a few marketing classes to feel like I, you know, I can even those
[26:45]books are a creative business. They're still a business. And it's it's nice that I can do some of
[26:50]that on my own. I don't know if I would love it. If I had to really rely on outside people to help
[26:56]me with all the moving pieces of the business. When I was in business school, one class that I was
[27:00]in, they said for a writer, you're still manufacturing a product and your product is words
[27:05]probably so the two. Anyway, no, yeah. And I think about that. And especially with this book,
[27:10]you know, my marketing team at Random House has been absolutely amazing and they're so fun to talk to,
[27:14]but, but I try to lead them down that path because it's so easy to sort of do the same thing
[27:21]over and over. And I keep telling them, you know, let's pretend like pen this isn't a book at all.
[27:25]Pretend it's a lip gloss. You know, how, like, what would we be doing? How would we market it?
[27:30]And that's especially good and until exercise because it helps you think outside the box,
[27:34]aside, what can we do aside from bookstore events? What can we do aside from buying Facebook ads?
[27:39]Like, let's try to think of new and creative and fun things. And that's led to some really
[27:43]cool events. And, you know, it's, that's great. I don't know if that
[27:47]has helped people find the book, but I'm always looking to help new people find stories that
[27:53]they love. And I think that, you know, the readers who are coming to bookstores every week,
[27:57]they don't need my help. They're going to find what they want to find and whether it's my book
[28:02]or someone else's. But there are plenty of people who might be more of TV watchers or might,
[28:06]you know, they might consume their entertainment in different form and they might not know
[28:10]like how what book to be looking for. So I was driving at Madison Avenue yesterday.
[28:15]And in one of these abandoned storefronts, there was a huge poster covering all the windows of
[28:20]the floating feldmans by Alyssa Friedblend who's been on my show. I was like, that's so genius.
[28:26]Like, why not put, you know, ask to put a basically a poster in any way. I thought that was cool.
[28:31]Do you have any advice to aspiring authors? I always tell people read as much as you can,
[28:35]read everything you can get your hands on. I think the more you read, the more it helps you hone
[28:40]your own specific voice. And especially to read widely. So for instance, you know, I try to not read
[28:47]even though it's very tempting to not just read fiction, and particularly not just read
[28:52]women's fiction or contemporary fiction because the more variety of content that you're
[28:57]consuming, it keeps the creative well really full. And then of course, I mean, these are very,
[29:02]they sound really obvious, but they're actually hard to put into practice is to keep writing.
[29:07]And to write often, I find that the longer I go without writing, the harder it is to start back up.
[29:14]It's like the gym. Yes, it's just like the gym or to go to put this in business school terms in
[29:20]a class I took operations first year. And an operations one of those few things that took away
[29:25]from that class was start up costs. And that's like a factory term where if you're a factory
[29:32]making a blue stationary and then you need to switch to making yellow stationary, there's a cost
[29:37]for shutting down the machine, changing out the inks, whatever it is, that's like the change
[29:41]over cost from one thing to another. And then to start it all back up is you really high,
[29:46]depending on what you're making. But for me, in particular, making words, it is really high.
[29:50]it's hard. And so I find that even if I go and I write something, I'm not going to use at all.
[29:58]And it's just 250 words. It's
[30:00]So much more worth it for me.
[30:02]No matter how busy my day is, if I can,
[30:04]to try to take an hour or something,
[30:07]just to be in the document, to stay in the world,
[30:09]because I don't want to have to face
[30:11]that really hard startup cost.
[30:13]And I'm gonna have to face it next week
[30:14]because I haven't touched the book in about a week and a half.
[30:17]And it's gonna take me for real about a day,
[30:20]just to get back into it.
[30:21]And I'm gonna probably have a day of useless work.
[30:23]And then eventually I'll be able to,
[30:25]my machines will be up and running,
[30:27]and then I'll be back in.
[30:28]But I do think that writing is like anything
[30:32]that if you do it with discipline, it will pay off.
[30:35]Who would you appoint Queen of America right now
[30:37]if there was actually a monarchy?
[30:39]I know.
[30:40]So the cheesy answer would of course be
[30:42]that we should all be the Queen of America
[30:44]because we don't actually need monarchy clearly.
[30:47]I mean, Beyonce would be a great answer.
[30:50]The thing about having a Queen,
[30:52]which is like the way that that would be
[30:54]a different structure, what we have is of course
[30:56]that we currently combine our head of political,
[31:01]how did the executive branch and our head of state
[31:03]into the same person.
[31:05]And so if we did have a Queen,
[31:06]I feel like their role is just to be head of state.
[31:09]It's just all the symbolic stuff.
[31:11]It's just to be, you know,
[31:12]it's we need someone who like everyone can get behind.
[31:15]And I feel like nobody,
[31:17]like who doesn't like Beyonce.
[31:18]I totally let her represent us on the world stage.
[31:22]That's awesome.
[31:24]Well, thanks so much for coming in.
[31:25]I loved your book.
[31:26]It was amazing talking to you.
[31:28]It was so fun.
[31:29]Yeah.
[31:30]That's to black with everything.
[31:30]Thank you.
[31:31]Thanks again to my sponsor, Lauren Gabrielson,
[31:34]the women's war brand that creates elevated essentials
[31:37]for the modern women's war drove,
[31:39]Lauren Gabrielson.com.
[31:41]Thanks for listening to moms don't have time to read books.
[31:43]You can follow me on Instagram at moms don't have time
[31:46]to read books.
[31:47]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound
[31:50]for the sound editing.
[31:51]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[31:53]for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music.
[31:56]Thanks for listening.
[31:57]You could always email me at zibi at zibiowans.com.