Teresa Sorkin and Tullan Holmqvist, THE WOMAN IN THE PARK
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[1:00]Zibi Owens.com. I'm excited to be here today with both the authors of the woman in the park,
[1:05]Teresa Sorkin and Tulon Homquist are co-authors of both the novel and the screenplay for the woman
[1:11]in the park. Tulon is an investigator, writer, and actress. Originally from Sweden, Tulon has a
[1:16]master's degree in political science from the University of Florence with literature and language
[1:20]degrees from universities in France and Italy. She has also studied screenwriting and acting at NYU
[1:26]and B.U. She currently lives in New York with her husband in two cents. Teresa Sorkin is
[1:31]a TV producer and founder of Roman Way Productions, a graduate of New York University, and Batchoni,
[1:37]I guess Batchoni University of Milan, Teresa started as a journalist for our AI TV for which
[1:43]she hosted her own show. She currently lives in New York with her husband and two children.
[1:47]So welcome Teresa and Tulon. Thanks for coming on most of our time to read books. Thank you for having
[1:52]us. Thank you. We're so excited. I'm so excited. I'm like deep in my head and the woman in the
[1:58]park. Having just finished it. So I'm like really eager to talk to you about it. Okay, can you tell
[2:03]listeners please what the woman in the park is about? Well, it's a psychological thriller about a
[2:09]woman who is in her 40s and sort of dealing with a new stage of life and she meets a man in the park
[2:19]one day and her life sort of unravels and there's lots of mystery, but it's also a mystery of
[2:26]who she is as a person. And we slowly find that out as the book goes on, which is hard to say
[2:33]too much because there's a lot of things you want to find out because it's sort of twists and
[2:39]and things like that. So maybe it's a mixed between who done it and who am I?
[2:44]That's a nice psychological component, which we really wanted to bring out this woman in the
[2:51]middle of her life and in a set in New York, so the park is central park, so many ask a park isn't.
[2:57]Yes, I recognize many. Like we have to play ground or they're talking about. So how did you
[3:03]find each other and how did you decide to embark on this project? We met in the park actually.
[3:09]We're moms at the same school, Italian school, in this area, actually, where the book is set
[3:16]and I live in that area too. So it's a very familiar place. We spent a lot of days where our children
[3:22]played in that park and both Tulan and I are, so I'm a TV film producer and writer and Tulan's
[3:29]a writer, a screenwriter and actor, and so we were moderating an investigator. That's an important
[3:36]private investigator and we were just basically working. We'd work on something together and we
[3:42]were working on something else and then the story sort of came to us one day.
[3:48]Well, tell me more about that. How did it come to you? Tell me about that.
[3:51]Where did it come from? We talked a lot about ourselves and how we connected and I think we both
[3:57]connect. We're both very empathetic and can feel a lot and it's kind of at this stage in your life
[4:02]when you have kids and do this woman Sarah Rock, she's married. She has two kids and the kids
[4:08]are getting a little bit older. They're trying to move on in some ways and you kind of find yourself
[4:14]looking at your own life and who am I? What did I want to do? Where do I want to go? And you're
[4:20]kind of at a different stage in life, but you're still the same person inside in some ways,
[4:24]but in other ways not. And there was actually a woman that we used to see in the park that kind
[4:29]of sparked our imagination, but that was the seed and it was she was always by herself.
[4:34]She was alone in the park, beautiful blonde woman and we just started to both of us imagine
[4:41]what her story would be, what she was really doing. She was there quite often and we had different
[4:48]versions actually what we thought. So that was like, oh, this is interesting because you know,
[4:52]and when I was thought, oh, she's talking to herself. They are the one thoughts. She was on the phone
[4:58]and we saw her all the time and it was just this kind of very different. She seemed to maybe not
[5:04]know who she was or where she was and it was just an interesting what if that were me,
[5:08]what if I don't really know what, you know. And then I have a good friend who's the head of Bellevue
[5:15]Hospital for 25 years. His name is Dr. Samuna Med. So we started asking him questions about what
[5:23]a certain disorder would look like in that space and what if this woman had something like that.
[5:30]So we did a lot of case study research to really get the psychological component perfect
[5:37]because we didn't want to, you know, make it seem frivolous or just brush upon it. It needed to really
[5:45]feel real for us. So yeah, was Torres-Reccan one of your favorite books. How did that
[5:51]amelzo lie? It was scattered at the beginning of every chapter. You had a little quote and it
[5:56]coursed throughout the book. How did you pick that? So I love Torres-Reccan. It's one of my favorite
[6:02]all-time thrillers ever because it's about, again, this madness and this thriller, like for me
[6:11]and for too long when we were discussing it is that sometimes just that the thrilling, like what's
[6:16]going on inside of you so much more scary than what's actually happening outside in which
[6:22]Torres-Reccan that was happening quite a bit. And so we really wanted her to have something
[6:28]that she would go back to when we tied in a lot of her imagination with what was happening in the
[6:36]book and the characters and it's kind of like a mirror to her story in some ways and that's kind of
[6:43]she goes to the park to read so that is the kind of the anchor that brings her
[6:48]but follows along the whole story. And you talked a lot about when Sarah's sitting outside central
[6:54]park where she used to play with her kids and her character. She's feeling a little bit sad, a little
[6:59]piece of melancholy as she was sitting there and you say she reflects how I'm quoting. She remembered
[7:04]those days finally and she had felt a slight pain of jealousy as she had once also had so much hope
[7:10]so much engagement with her life. The kids had needed her, Eric had needed her, life had been so
[7:14]busy so full. She'd taken it for granted that it would always feel that way and now, got that.
[7:21]So did you draw on your own experience or how old are your kids or is this from a place of
[7:27]you know personal experience or how you imagine this time of life might be?
[7:31]I think we both have definitely we've talked about this a lot. There's a kind of when the kids are
[7:36]very small, you're such a fool and intense life and you kind of like almost you want to get out of
[7:42]that stage but then it shifts so quickly. My kids are a little bit younger than Teresa as I have a
[7:47]12-year-old and a few more weeks I'm gonna be eight. I think I drew upon the sadness more because
[7:56]my kids are a bit older. My son's 16 and my daughter's 13 so it's sort of when there's little
[8:05]and you're in the park and you're living in the moment a lot more than when they get older. As they
[8:10]get older you're living not as much in the moment because you're planning well they're going to
[8:15]go to college and then what and that's you know in the park it's the moment are they going to fall
[8:21]they're playing you're talking to your friend it's it's really sort of I would say hold on to those
[8:28]moments because they're so precious and special and then it does become a little sad it's exciting
[8:35]to think your your children are successful and they're moving on and they're doing wonderful things
[8:40]but it is sad to think that you know they won't be there for you to take to the park as you did
[8:47]once upon a time so that was I think we're me in the moment today as you know and you in the future
[8:54]maybe. I think it's the nature of human beings I mean it is constant change and we have different
[9:00]phases in life so and and there's always the light and the dark and good things and bad things
[9:07]but with kids it gets so it's true when they're small it's so you have to be in the moment you
[9:12]can't really be anywhere else because it always ever changing but but then they you want them to
[9:17]go on and live their lives but it's an adjustment I think as a parent you said on this topic you said
[9:23]no in the book no one had ever told her meaning Sarah that being a parent involves so much a loss
[9:29]all that significance a child would never understand so wonderful and fightful at the same time
[9:33]and then you go on to say about the playground area how it was no place for adults without
[9:37]children even those who had once been mothers and I thought that was so interesting because
[9:43]are you not a mother when your kids go away or like can you not maintain that identity? Do you know
[9:48]I mean like can you not call yourself a month I mean I think I think for Sarah she felt that way
[9:54]because we wanted her to really emphasize this feeling of
[10:00]She lost that ability to be a mother.
[10:03]For me, myself, obviously, your mother forever.
[10:07]And they need you, no matter what, even when they're, you know,
[10:10]35 or, and it's a different stage in a different place.
[10:14]But she was in, she, Sarah, is in the space of who is she,
[10:19]and she's not this, she's not that.
[10:22]She's experienced loss and trauma of some sort
[10:25]that, and she feels that has been taken away from her as well.
[10:29]Which we learn later on why, and what, what the impetus for that was.
[10:34]But no, not, it's more her and her reflection of her mind, really.
[10:39]And I think it was also, I mean, the way we felt about this particular,
[10:43]it was kind of like, there's so much love that instant that you become a mom,
[10:46]or I'm, I'm sure it's the same.
[10:48]There's so much love, but there's also so much fear that that is born with it
[10:52]in the same moment that you didn't even know that you had.
[10:54]I mean, I definitely discovered parts of myself, but I didn't know existed.
[10:59]And, and it's, you know, both for the good and the bad.
[11:02]But it's, it's, it's an interesting thing to ponder.
[11:04]Before I had kids, I would jump out of a plane.
[11:06]No problem with it.
[11:08]What, jump off a cliff and crawl copy?
[11:10]Okay, let's do it now.
[11:12]Oh my God, I can't even, you know, do anything without worrying.
[11:16]They're gonna not have a mother if I die.
[11:18]So it's just the whole, your whole world changes in that instant.
[11:23]And so it's, it's, it's interesting and we've wanted her to be vulnerable
[11:27]because I think a lot of people don't get it.
[11:29]They see these beautiful women who seem to have it all and everything seems perfect.
[11:34]And meanwhile, it's, it's never perfect.
[11:37]No one has no fear.
[11:39]Right.
[11:39]Yeah.
[11:40]I feel like I alternate my worrying between something happening to a child of mine
[11:45]or something happening to me.
[11:47]I could be exactly right.
[11:48]Which is what I mean.
[11:49]Anyway, like what if, what would they do without, I mean, they would be fine eventually without.
[11:53]You know, I mean, it would be fine.
[11:55]But still, I'm like, how could I have to be so careful with me?
[11:58]And yeah, I have to be so careful with them because God forbid, you know,
[12:02]I could I even, anyway, it's my own neurosis.
[12:05]I can tell you what, it's almost new, it's like you need to suddenly
[12:09]a new method of how you steer your mind to, to the positive and not not.
[12:13]And again, I live in memory and right.
[12:15]Right, right.
[12:16]At the moment, it's hard to do that as, as, you know, as a mother,
[12:20]but as a human being in general, but as a mother, it's even harder to just live in that
[12:24]moment without all the what it's right.
[12:27]Yeah, I've been experimenting with deciding not to worry about certain things
[12:30]and seeing if I can actually do that.
[12:32]I do the same, like, flight that I had to, it had to be on time or it would be a big mess
[12:37]if I was late.
[12:38]And I was like, it's going to be fine.
[12:39]I'm not going to worry about it.
[12:40]I can't worry about it.
[12:41]I just can't.
[12:41]And I didn't.
[12:42]And it worked out.
[12:43]And I was like, wait, is this the answer?
[12:46]Is it that simple?
[12:47]Yeah.
[12:48]Like, oh, this health scare is it can be good news or bad?
[12:50]I'm not going to worry about it.
[12:51]It's going to be fine.
[12:52]And it was fine.
[12:52]I don't know.
[12:53]I don't know.
[12:54]I'm like, it's very messy.
[12:54]I'm wasting to know when you can change things and when you can,
[12:58]and when you can, there's no point in really time.
[13:00]But it's hard.
[13:01]It takes training.
[13:01]It takes training.
[13:02]It takes training.
[13:02]Yeah.
[13:03]And then it might backfire because I could have easily missed that way.
[13:06]And children are such a learning.
[13:07]I mean, they teach us so much, you know, the whole experience.
[13:11]So it's, if you see it in that way, I think it's the joy of life.
[13:15]I actually, my heart went out to your character, Sarah.
[13:18]And I felt like there's so many moments I could relate to with her
[13:21]in the beginning.
[13:22]She's looking in the mirror, sort of assessing herself and her aging.
[13:26]And I mean, what mom R.H.
[13:28]is not like, had a moment where they're like, oh my gosh.
[13:30]Anyway, and she's looking at her body and saying like, is that why I'm so upset?
[13:35]Is it my aging body or wrinkles or whatever else and says, was that really the problem?
[13:39]No, she could hide those changes under her clothes.
[13:42]Her eyes were the real difference.
[13:43]Those seas of blue sadness was nothing to hide behind.
[13:47]And she also thinks in that moment how she's feeling so trapped,
[13:49]how could she feel lost, trapped in her own home.
[13:52]So tell me about that moment in the mirror.
[13:54]Is that, again, is that, did you guys have that moment?
[13:57]I mean, I know.
[13:58]I've had a moment like that.
[13:59]For sure.
[13:59]I mean, definitely.
[14:00]I've had it.
[14:02]Yes, I've had, I mean, I've had it in a different way, in different moments.
[14:06]And, but it's funny because you don't notice the changes until it's like,
[14:13]all of a sudden one day, you're like, oh my god, my stomach isn't just this time.
[14:18]It doesn't matter how many soul cycles I go to or how much gym or whatever.
[14:22]And sometimes it's too much and people overdo it to get back to what you are.
[14:26]It's just not going to happen.
[14:27]You have to accept it.
[14:29]And I think Sarah is struggling with that as well because, and like we all do.
[14:35]So that for sure was something I've experienced.
[14:38]And I think there's a deep fear.
[14:41]I don't know, I've had nightmares my whole life, unfortunately.
[14:44]I mean, they're coming over.
[14:46]But there's kind of a fear, I think.
[14:48]And many have felt that you kind of, you don't know where you are.
[14:52]And that, I felt like that it really fit with this,
[14:56]Sarah had that feeling of kind of, she doesn't, she wakes up.
[15:00]She doesn't really know where she is or who she is.
[15:03]And that, I mean, I can definitely relate to that.
[15:05]I've moved around a lot.
[15:06]Especially if you travel a lot.
[15:08]You kind of sometimes you wake up.
[15:10]You don't really know.
[15:10]And if you're like dreaming that you're your 25-year-old self,
[15:13]and you wake up and you're like, not.
[15:15]It's a shock in the mirror.
[15:16]You're like, oh, wait a minute.
[15:18]That's not who are you?
[15:19]And even the fact that she could tell that her eyes look sad.
[15:22]I feel like sometimes you can't tell that about yourself.
[15:24]But she could see it.
[15:25]Yeah.
[15:26]Right?
[15:27]I don't know.
[15:27]I thought that was really cool.
[15:29]For me, my cousin, and Italy, and my parents are Italian,
[15:32]she would always say to me that I had sad eyes or, you know, my eyes sometimes showed sadness.
[15:40]So that came to me a little bit when I was writing that.
[15:43]Because I mean, my mother was a very difficult personality growing up, which is a little bit
[15:48]of why I'm interested in psychology so much.
[15:51]And so I think our eyes really don't hold experience of our lives or in your eyes regardless.
[15:58]So, I want to hear more about what you just said about your growing up.
[16:02]Can you tell me, do you want to talk anymore about what?
[16:04]No, no, no, it's fine.
[16:05]Because I've opened up a lot about it in the past few years, especially.
[16:12]No, my mother was very mentally and sometimes physically abusive too, both myself and my brother.
[16:18]More so to me.
[16:19]And I think that had a lot to do with the fact that she never really grew up, you know.
[16:25]She was almost very childlike and we had to treat her more like the child than the parent.
[16:30]And my dad was kind and sweet and he tried the best he could.
[16:34]But he couldn't really manage her so much.
[16:37]So she ended up being very, which is why I developed a lot for books and stories because I would
[16:42]read or go into the corner and hopefully she wasn't in a bad mood today.
[16:47]And to this day, she's still that way.
[16:49]And so I've had to distance myself from her to protect myself.
[16:54]But does she know that she's like that?
[16:56]No, no, no, no.
[16:58]I mean, she's like mommy dearest, you know?
[17:02]Something will trigger and then all of a sudden she goes off and it could be anything until
[17:07]never apologized or but it's been quite scary abusive things.
[17:12]Like things she would say that would be just really awful.
[17:16]And so I learned to put that as a child and then as an adult, it sort of helps me in ways
[17:22]in certain aspects of my life because I was able to like nothing shocked me.
[17:28]You know, no mean person at work or in my business could ever, anything they said,
[17:34]I would never flinch because it was nothing compared to what I dealt with as a child.
[17:39]And I think it also made me a better mother because I'm totally 100% the opposite of what she would
[17:45]ever be.
[17:46]And so but I think that sadness is always in me and in my eyes or my voice or the way I even
[17:55]you know, relate in general to people sometimes because of it.
[17:59]And we all have something Sarah had heard trauma from her childhood to one has her
[18:05]staff that she deals with you.
[18:07]Let's go into two months now.
[18:08]Let's just give it up to you.
[18:10]Thank you for sharing this.
[18:11]Of course.
[18:12]Did you have a similar experience?
[18:14]My father young was a teenager.
[18:16]So that was I would say that was a big trauma in my life.
[18:20]I mean, I moved around a lot which was both beautiful in some ways as a family,
[18:24]but it was also hard.
[18:25]I changed schools many times.
[18:26]We moved to different countries and it was very exciting in some ways, but also it is
[18:32]traumatic as a kid.
[18:33]I think to all your friends suddenly you uprooted and moved and it was like in first grade and
[18:39]then a fifth grade and then sixth grade and then so it's yeah, it's been in my father
[18:46]passed away when I was 17.
[18:47]So then I realized that put a kind of a, I mean, for good in fact too.
[18:52]I mean, it was it was so difficult at the time, but I also learned to really take advantage
[18:58]of the moment and my family and I think with my mother and my sister as we became very close.
[19:05]But it's something you don't you just learn to live with it.
[19:07]It's not I mean, I still miss him and then I lost my mother last year.
[19:10]So it's that's been really in the year of very well.
[19:14]We were we were writing this actually.
[19:16]It was it helped me.
[19:17]I must say I set up many nights, you know, kind of she was very sick at the end and I
[19:23]it helped me.
[19:24]I was also far away and she lived in Italy and it was but it's I mean, it's part of life.
[19:29]We all have loss and but I think you can it's an easier way to connect than it's also
[19:35]I think it's a beautiful way to connect them on a more deeper level.
[19:38]Yeah, you could you could feel it in this book.
[19:40]Like that's why I kept asking is this for personal experience?
[19:43]Because I just felt like there was so much real like there was so much it just felt too
[19:47]real to be a complete fiction as most I mean, most novels come from some place, but still
[19:52]it just I'm not like surprised to hear not that I wanted to hear.
[19:57]But you could I'm trying to say this
[20:00]in positive way that you could feel it in the book that
[20:02]it felt very authentic, despite it being fiction.
[20:05]And I'm sorry it came from a place of pain.
[20:07]But no one, we also wanted, there's a fine line
[20:11]between we all have maybe an infatuation with someone
[20:15]or we sometimes don't know who we are and so on.
[20:17]And then there's, of course, there's another level
[20:20]where it becomes a psychosis.
[20:22]But somewhere we can all connect and we all have worries
[20:26]and dark things.
[20:28]And I think if we can understand each other better
[20:31]through, and that's the beauty of books,
[20:33]I think in our general, we can connect on a different level
[20:36]and can be helpful too, to know that I'm not the only one
[20:39]feeling this way.
[20:40]I mean, I know in my growing up too,
[20:42]I ask a lot of questions always, even sometimes just
[20:45]in my mind or just reading too, it just really helps
[20:48]to know that there's other people that feel the same way.
[20:54]OK, that's the whole thing is trying to make people
[20:57]feel not alone, right?
[20:58]I mean, that's the worst.
[20:59]It's to feel such pain in whatever way
[21:01]and think it's just you.
[21:03]Right.
[21:03]Somehow it makes you feel better knowing that other people,
[21:06]it's like you're not weird.
[21:07]Exactly.
[21:08]Especially certain times of the year like this
[21:10]during this time of the year, it's, you know,
[21:13]people feel much longer and so you just really want.
[21:16]And sometimes what is that loneliness take you to who knows?
[21:19]So we wanted to really explore that part of it
[21:22]and drawing upon stuff that we've gone through
[21:25]with helps for sure.
[21:27]But we wanted it from her perspective.
[21:29]So it's kind of a small, especially in the beginning,
[21:31]it's a kind of a small world.
[21:32]And we did that on purpose.
[21:33]It's not a touristy of a revision of when you work
[21:35]with someone.
[21:36]It's her how she sees her daily life.
[21:39]At the beginning, I was like, wait,
[21:40]I thought this was a thriller.
[21:41]Yeah, because it was, I'm like, this is just
[21:44]like a scene out of my life.
[21:45]So I thought we were just hanging out in the park
[21:47]and like walking in this afternoon.
[21:48]Anyway, how did you both bring your other jobs into this?
[21:53]I wanna hear a little more about your investigative background
[21:56]and being a producer.
[21:58]How did you, how did those lenses sort of
[22:00]inform the writing of this?
[22:02]Well, for my investigative work,
[22:04]I do a lot of corporate investigations on fraud
[22:07]and due diligence and internal investigations and so on.
[22:10]And I think it's just, it's similar to the writing,
[22:13]I think, because it's about, well, like I mentioned,
[22:16]just questioning.
[22:17]I'm always interested in how things work
[22:19]and how people, especially people,
[22:21]what makes people tick and why do people do things?
[22:25]And it's kind of similar, actually.
[22:27]You just have to get behind people's mind
[22:29]and I love that.
[22:30]And I always put myself in a situation too.
[22:32]Like, what if this is me?
[22:34]What, how do I feel about this?
[22:37]And also, because we had Sarah had to become
[22:39]the investigator at one point and it's to save herself.
[22:43]So we wanted, and that's helpful with two lines background
[22:46]and what the right questions to ask would be and all of that.
[22:50]So because then it did become much more of an accelerated
[22:54]thriller at one point when you realize something is awry,
[22:58]she realizes it at the same time we realize it as the reader.
[23:01]So, and we wanted that purposely so that the reader
[23:04]is on the same journey as Sarah completely.
[23:06]And, you know, because of our back,
[23:08]well, my background as a producer and film person,
[23:12]which I've been doing for quite a while.
[23:13]And, and fortunately and unfortunately,
[23:16]I was developing for about six years
[23:18]for the Weinstein company, basically consulting
[23:21]on all their projects.
[23:22]And we wrote this at first as a screenplay
[23:27]because, and it reads very cinematic in many ways.
[23:31]So I think we brought that structure to our writing,
[23:34]which helps a lot because we see things in scenes visually.
[23:40]And even though it's a literary experience,
[23:44]you as a reader always visualize.
[23:46]And so we want that experience even more.
[23:49]So as I think a film person that helped a lot,
[23:54]and the structure is just kind of similar
[23:57]to writing a novel actually,
[23:58]writing a screenplay.
[23:59]It's just, it's kind of the bones
[24:00]and then you fill it all in with the rest, you know.
[24:04]I think that's how we worked together
[24:05]because working in two, we kind of,
[24:07]we thought through the whole story,
[24:09]kind of like a film.
[24:10]And then, and then we took turns writing.
[24:12]So that's, did you do different chapters each or how did you?
[24:16]No, it was more, again, like we made it.
[24:17]It was great for a big chunk, kind of.
[24:19]But we had the story together.
[24:21]We knew what the twists were gonna be,
[24:24]the plot points, and where we wanted them to happen.
[24:28]And then we filled in her life and journey.
[24:32]And, but it was always going to the same place.
[24:35]But she took on her own life.
[24:36]Yeah, as we kind of, you kind of create a character.
[24:39]Yeah, and then they take off.
[24:41]So that's the fun part of it, you.
[24:44]We set up the scene, let's say.
[24:46]And then we let her speak.
[24:47]So are there plans for this to be a movie?
[24:50]So yes, we've been working quite diligently on that.
[24:54]It was actually part of on the Weinstein slate
[24:58]before everything happened.
[24:59]And that whole craziness, which was inevitable
[25:03]and I'm happy it did happen the way it did.
[25:06]But so now we have it with our agent
[25:09]who's provided to certain talent who's interested in it
[25:13]and we'll have some news soon, hopefully.
[25:16]But yes, it's either a film or it's a TV series.
[25:20]Like a, yeah, like a limited TV series, yeah.
[25:23]I feel like all the best things are limited.
[25:25]I know.
[25:26]Who even wants a movie?
[25:27]Because it's just a different world.
[25:30]It goes to the movies anymore, like they used to.
[25:32]It's very rare, so.
[25:34]And are you two planning on writing more books together?
[25:37]Yes.
[25:38]Are you already doing one?
[25:39]Yes, we are.
[25:40]We're deep into the second novel, which is also
[25:45]psychological thriller with elements of the woman in the park
[25:49]and about.
[25:50]It was sort of a parallel story, not exactly a sequel.
[25:54]Right.
[25:55]It'll all kind of.
[25:55]Women in the playground.
[25:57]Yeah.
[25:58]Women on the beach.
[25:59]It's going to play exactly.
[26:01]Yeah, I know.
[26:01]It's in and on the rest of the day.
[26:04]This is a story.
[26:06]We have a little bit of an ensemble here
[26:08]so that it's more characters and their experience,
[26:11]as friends.
[26:13]Sometimes we think we know our friends
[26:15]and we think we know what's going on and really we don't.
[26:20]And then it all culminates.
[26:22]We have them on a trip together.
[26:25]Sort of like a summer trip before their kids
[26:27]go off to college.
[26:28]Oh, nice.
[26:29]Yeah.
[26:30]Excellent.
[26:30]You can just like follow this through my whole life.
[26:33]You can just go through all the life changes.
[26:35]It's a little bit older.
[26:36]Yeah, exactly.
[26:37]I've come back to you in like 20 years.
[26:39]OK, I'm about to be a grandmother.
[26:40]I need a thriller about.
[26:42]I'm not on that stuff.
[26:44]Exactly.
[26:45]Exactly.
[26:45]Oh my gosh.
[26:47]Do you have any advice to aspiring authors?
[26:50]Well, I would say write and read a lot.
[26:54]And write what you like.
[26:56]Don't worry so much about what other people
[26:58]but take yourself seriously.
[26:59]I think in a good way.
[27:00]Like, and find the joy and I think the way it finds itself.
[27:06]Like, I've always been writing.
[27:07]And there were times I was very frustrated about it.
[27:09]But then it's kind of like you just have to.
[27:11]No, I love this more than anything else.
[27:13]So I'm going to do it either once person reads it or no one.
[27:16]But this is really important to me.
[27:18]And then I think the way it's kind of open up somehow.
[27:22]And I would say read a lot of your genre that you're
[27:25]going to write because that just
[27:27]trains your brain to write that way.
[27:29]And also, go to places like BookCon and these conventions
[27:35]and meet people because in meeting people that are in the industry,
[27:40]they can always help you to get to that next level
[27:43]as you're writing and doing your craft as best you can.
[27:47]Because there's a lot of room for a lot of voices and stories
[27:51]out there.
[27:51]And I think don't give up.
[27:52]I'm like, oh, I'm never going to get it done.
[27:54]Love a blog.
[27:55]Just really try.
[27:57]Excellent.
[27:58]Well, thank you, ladies.
[27:59]So much for coming.
[28:00]Thank you so much for having me.
[28:01]Thank you very much for having me.
[28:02]Thanks for having me.
[28:03]Thanks for joining the book.
[28:04]I really appreciate it.
[28:05]Thank you so much.
[28:06]Thank you.
[28:08]Thanks for listening to Mom.
[28:09]So I have time to read books, the award-winning podcast.
[28:12]Today's episode of Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books
[28:14]was sponsored by pediatrician in your pocket
[28:17]by Dr. Jennifer Tractenberg, Dr. DashGen.com,
[28:22]and her code PIP20PIP20 for 20% off of these can't
[28:27]miss modules that will make your parenting life so much easier.
[28:30]You can follow me on Instagram at Mom's Don't Have Time
[28:33]to read books.
[28:34]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound
[28:37]for the Sound Editing.
[28:38]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[28:40]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.
[28:43]Thanks for listening.
[28:44]You can always email me at zibi at zibiowans.com.