Susan Choi, TRUST EXERCISE
[0:08]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast,
[0:11]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Thanks so much for listening to my podcast.
[0:15]If you like what you hear, please follow me on Instagram at ziviowens and also at
[0:20]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books and sign up for my mailing list at ziviowens.com,
[0:25]where I'll always keep you updated on what I'm up to. Thanks so much for listening. Enjoy it.
[0:29]Today's episode has been sponsored by Minnie Rose, which is an amazing sweater
[0:35]cashmere company which I am just obsessed with. It's named after Lisa Goldberg's grandmothers
[0:40]whose names were Minnie and Rose, the knitwear company Minnie Rose specializes in cashmere
[0:45]of all styles and colors. You can shop at MinnieRose.com and get 10% off with code Zivi10, capital Z-I-B-B-Y
[0:54]10. You can see some of the sweaters I've been wearing lately on my Instagram lives,
[0:59]and try to shop those. They're so lightweight and comfortable and they fit great and I'm a huge fan.
[1:05]I was able to do an Instagram live with Susan Choi, which was so much fun. Susan's first novel,
[1:12]a foreign student won the Asian American Literary Award for Fiction. Her second novel,
[1:16]American Woman, was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize. Her third novel, a person of interest,
[1:22]was a finalist for the 2009 Penn Faulkner Award. In 2010, she was named the inaugural recipient
[1:28]of the Penn slash WGC Bald Award. Her fourth novel, My Education, received a 2014 Lammy Award,
[1:35]and her fifth novel, Trust Exercise, which came out in April 2019 and is the one we're going to be
[1:40]talking about the most, won the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction. Her first book for children
[1:47]is called Camp Tiger and it came out in May 2019. A recipient of fellowships from the National
[1:52]Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, she currently teaches fiction writing at
[1:57]Yale and lives in Brooklyn. Hi Susan, how are you? Can you hear me? I can. Can you hear me?
[2:04]I can and I can see you. Did you have a nice mother's day? I did. I had a really
[2:11]peaceful mother's day. How about you? Yeah, it was nice. It was nice. Really kids
[2:17]breakfast and bed the whole thing so that was really special. Oh, that's great. What did you get to
[2:23]eat? Pancakes and some scrambled eggs. Although once I was in bed with all the food,
[2:29]they just wanted to eat it out. So I might have had like two bites. But I was going to say,
[2:34]when you said pancakes, I was like, that's suspiciously sounds like, you know,
[2:37]and then you choice that might have had more to do with them than you, but yes.
[2:42]But the bites that I had were great and I was always happy when they're eating something,
[2:46]so how about you? Did you have breakfast and bed? I did not. I did not, but I had a really lovely day.
[2:53]So I have to ask, did you somehow reunite with your hairdresser? Because I've been watching your
[2:59]Instagram posts about how sad you are that you don't have the same perfect Bob at last time,
[3:04]but it looks so perfect to me today. Oh, you're so nervous. You do it. No, there's been no,
[3:09]there's been no reunion and no one could come over. I love that. My hairdresser who I adore
[3:15]actually posted a video of himself on Instagram. Like, you know, that style of like the Bob Dylan
[3:21]holding the flakards and then like going through and the message is like, don't touch your hair.
[3:26]I, nothing's happened to my hair except that I slat iron it like a crazy person,
[3:31]so that it's all just going to fall out one of these days. You know, this is all an illusion.
[3:36]Like I think it probably looks a lot better than it feels because of my cool,
[3:42]constant ironing to keep it under control. So that's my quarantine secrets.
[3:47]quarantine secrets. Love it. Well, whatever you're doing, I will have to invest in a flatter
[3:52]and I guess, because maybe that's the trick. Yeah, I have to say I couldn't live without it.
[3:57]All right, you do. There you go. Well, thanks for doing this with me. And I know you have a big
[4:02]event tonight at McNally Jackson with like, okay, how is that right? Or did I get? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[4:06]That's tonight at seven. We're really excited. And I just, my favorite writer is also one of my
[4:12]favorite people. So I'm so excited to talk to him. I love talking to him about
[4:17]anything. The fact that we're going to talk about my work seems to me like surreal.
[4:22]Maybe we'll just talk about other stuff. Yeah, you'll have to just divert the conversation
[4:26]back to his work or something. Yeah, or just, you know, him, his his career, his writing process.
[4:33]I'm excited to just kind of talk about writing with him. We're also colleagues. We teach together.
[4:40]And so we might even talk about that. We might even talk about our lives as teachers, which
[4:46]is a really important part of life for both of us. And you went to Yale and you teach at Yale,
[4:52]is that right? Yes, that's right. I went to Yale a long, long, long time ago. And I've been teaching
[4:58]at Yale for not that long. I've been there since 2015. I went to Yale too. I know. I know, but I don't
[5:07]think we overlapped. I think I'm older than you a little bit. Although I have to say the writing
[5:12]class I took at Yale was one of my favorites anywhere. And I wish I could remember the teachers
[5:16]name, but it was like a pro's writing class. And I still have essays I wrote for that. I should
[5:20]dig them up somewhere. You should. I'd be so curious to know who your teacher was. There are people
[5:27]who are there. People who's been there a long time. I think it's it's a great place to teach the
[5:33]students. This is going to sound in modest. I'm not talking about myself, but just from my experience,
[5:38]the students are amazing. My students that I teach when I was a student, I don't think I was
[5:42]amazing. But as a teacher, I find the students to be just incredible. I love, love teaching them,
[5:50]and I learn a lot from them. I feel like the standards go up every year. I feel like there's no way
[5:56]I could get in now. If I were like a young person, I guess it's a 40%. You know, I forget it. I mean,
[6:02]I'm not I'm not coming to hand you. I'm sure you could. I feel the same with myself, though,
[6:06]absolutely. And like good friends of mine that I meet while I was at that school, we all agree,
[6:12]you know, we would never get in today. We were so lucky. I mean, I was clueless, you know,
[6:18]when I arrived there. And I mean, clueless like about a lot of things, but also just academically,
[6:23]not super prepared. And my students are just radioactive. They know so much. I don't know
[6:30]how it happens. They're so smart. I'm feeling badly for my own kids who are very bright,
[6:36]but I don't know. I mean, you have to be like a rocket scientist to get into school these days.
[6:40]But anyway, that is not. But so much of what you end up writing about takes place in academic
[6:46]settings. And so I feel like you must have this special affinity towards not only teaching,
[6:50]but writing about teaching. It's all sort of becoming very meta. Yeah. Tell me about this
[6:57]draw you have to sort of academia and also writing about it. Yeah, I do. I sort of feel like I
[7:05]need to get over it and stop writing about it. No, you're not at all, but it is funny. Like one
[7:12]of my one of my dearest friends said after reading a draft of a new book of mine, he said, you just
[7:17]can't leave back a demia alone. And that was my second book. And now it's five. It's pretty clear,
[7:25]but I think part of it is just my background. My dad immigrated to this country from Korea to
[7:32]seek an education. And he became a professor. And he, you know, was one of those parents who really,
[7:39]if he imparted anything to me, it was the importance of education and how much it would mean to
[7:43]him for me to get an education. And so that's sort of what I grew up with. And I think that that's,
[7:49]you know, I think like if I'd grown up an army brat, maybe I would write about the military,
[7:53]but I grew up in in that culture. So that's the one I write about. And now I work in it too,
[7:59]you know, I'm a teacher. And so I'm thinking about students and teachers all the time. And I also
[8:05]think that, you know, the relationship between students and teachers, it's super ordinary,
[8:10]because we've all had that relationship. And it also can be really fraught and like rife with danger
[8:15]depending. I mean, it's it's the kind of relationship that can, can, you know, span the spectrum from
[8:21]being hopefully just a basically successful relationship to not hopefully, but often a really,
[8:27]really strange relationship, you know. And so I think I'm always drawn to when relationships that
[8:33]could be normal aren't. Have you ever had an experience with the student, even since 2015,
[8:39]that's towed the line of normal stay in some way? That's a good question. I want to say,
[8:46]from my perspective, the answer is no. And I hope to God that that's true and that I don't,
[8:50]you know, I don't have a student out there who feels like I cross the line or, you know,
[8:56]abused my relationship with them in some way, because I think about it all the time, you know,
[9:00]I think constantly about the fact that it's not just by like not doing evil that you're a good
[9:07]teacher, you have to really kind of actively do good. Do you know what I mean? And you have to
[9:10]constantly be thinking about the fact that you have more power than your student, like even though
[9:15]these students are like we just said so smart, it doesn't mean that they're my equal. I always
[9:20]have more power than they do. And I have to be careful, you know, anyone who has more power than
[9:24]somebody else has to be careful all the time. You can't just sort of assume like, oh, I've
[9:29]good intentions. I'm not going to do anything that's going to hurt anyone. So I hope the answer is
[9:35]no, but you know, it's complicated. I meant it more from their perspective, nothing you would
[9:39]abuse your power. I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I felt like that went without saying that you would
[9:43]not do that. I just kind of like, did you have any, you know, I feel like adolescents in that
[9:47]particular time of life is when so much comes out. I mean, different mental illnesses and not
[9:52]I mean, this is sort of going out of tangent, but you know, like, even things like schizophrenia and
[9:56]all these things come out during adolescents. And I always wonder like, if you're a teacher
[10:00]in those scenarios and different kids have different things occurring to them. How does that
[10:04]all interact in any way? Oh, yeah. I mean, it's complicated. Yeah, I've definitely, I've had
[10:10]students who were troubled. I've had students who had terrible experiences elsewhere in the
[10:17]institution that they, you know, needed to work out. You know, I've had students who clearly
[10:22]like we're struggling with things and I've always hoped to be helpful, but it's so complicated.
[10:29]It's so complicated. I think students are dealing with so much. It feels to me like,
[10:32]you know, they're both smarter than we used to be, again, not easy to be with me. But also,
[10:37]you could please include me, yes. But I just feel like their world is so much more complicated
[10:44]now than at least my world was as a student. And there's just a lot, you know, there's a lot to deal with.
[10:50]This idea that students are snowflakes, I think is really unfair. I mean, I'm like, look at the world,
[10:55]our kids are growing up in. This is not like, look at what we're doing right now. I look at
[11:00]what's happening. So it's, it's, they have a lot to deal with. Yeah. Yeah. Well, tell me a little more
[11:08]about how you approach your novel. So you've, each one I've read is you take you about five years
[11:14]on average to write, to end this exercise was almost like your diversionary tactic from
[11:20]procrastinating from another book that you were also and perhaps still writing.
[11:25]So tell me just a little bit about that and how you pick your projects and what the process is
[11:30]like when you're writing. Yeah. Trust exercise was my diversionary project, but that doesn't mean
[11:35]it didn't also take five years. It's like, even though it was a side project, I was also working on it
[11:40]for like at least that long. It's funny, the way I work has changed so much. And I'm only like now
[11:46]wrapping my mind around how different it is. When I wrote my first novel, I had been struggling for
[11:53]so long. I had pieces of it that really came out of like writing. I was doing when we were in college,
[12:01]you know, like short stories I was trying to make work. I went to grad school. I was still trying
[12:05]to make it work. I still just had a pile of junk. I left grad school with like nothing to show for
[12:11]it and had a full-time job and I would like go home at night and eat a can of tuna and just like
[12:18]try to make this book work that I've been dragging on for years and it finally came together like
[12:23]a patchwork quilt, you know, like all these different pieces. And after that I was like,
[12:27]I will never write a book like that again. Like that was a mess. So I started doing this thing where
[12:34]I would write a book almost like on a dare to myself. Like this happened with my third book
[12:41]and my fourth where I just I started and I thought every single day I'm going to write forward
[12:47]and I can't look back. I can't change anything. I have to write a certain number of words a day
[12:53]I don't get lunch which is super motivating. Like if you start working in the morning I'd be like
[12:57]I've got to make my word count or like no lunch. Sounds a little obsessively. Did you enforce that?
[13:04]Did you go days in that lunch? No, no, no. I just I just wrote bad words.
[13:08]You just wrote bad writing. Anything to get to lunch. But so I wrote I wrote these books like
[13:17]in this kind of super rigorous way where I just like drove myself forward
[13:22]and in the end huge amounts of revision were required like one of these books halfway through I
[13:30]just hated one of the main characters so much. I just like continued as if she didn't exist anymore.
[13:35]I was like she just can't be here and I was like I'll fix it later and I did you know another one
[13:40]of these books it was in first person and at some point I was like this is unbearable and I switched
[13:44]to third and I was like I'll just fix it later. And so that worked with those two books and I thought
[13:49]like I had it all figured out and in fact would tell my students like this is how you write a book
[13:55]and then it just all felt it pieces and I was trying to write this book that is the one that
[14:03]like I've mentioned and interviews at Trust Exercise I couldn't make work. I was doing all my old
[14:08]tricks you know lunch word count forward every day and it was it was just horrible. It's like a
[14:16]truly I mean you'll have to take my word for it because it's never going to be published in its
[14:21]current state but this book just doesn't work wouldn't work and I was so yeah I was just so thrown
[14:27]for a loop because I was like I thought I had the formula and I didn't and so meanwhile just in
[14:34]order to like make that daily word count I started kind of doing other things on days that I
[14:39]just couldn't stand looking at this book anymore and Trust Exercise ended up being one of those
[14:46]other things and it was years like years of running away from this bad failed project and kind of
[14:53]like sneaking into Trust Exercise and writing enough to earn lunch and then you know after many
[15:01]years of this I realized I have a big pile of this Trust Exercise thing and I have a big pile of
[15:06]other thing and I need help and so I showed both piles to my agent and she said I think it's the
[15:14]Trust Exercise pile we're going to go with and it was such a surprise but you know and now all bets
[15:20]are off because I'm like clearly that like recipe that I figured out for novel writing was not
[15:26]the recipe like now I have to invent it all over again.
[15:30]Oh my gosh a little demoralizing or maybe it's just the one book that didn't fit like maybe
[15:38]that's the aberration that that's the outlier. I mean it's also kind of empowering I have to say
[15:44]to just sort of realize like there's all sorts of different ways to do this and you know I've now
[15:51]kind of stumbled upon a couple of them and there's probably as many other ways as there are other
[15:58]writers and it's actually been great for my teaching too because I tell my students I'm like you
[16:02]know what there's like no secret to this. You may think you found this secret and it's going to stop
[16:07]working one day and you just got to roll with it and be like I guess I have to find a new secret.
[16:12]This is reminding me so much of parenting because I have one thing now you know this is how
[16:19]I handle tantrums and like the next day comes and it doesn't work and I'm like oh I thought
[16:24]where I have no confidence now because I can't rely on anything. Oh my god and you have so many
[16:29]kids right? Yeah I have four kids. Yeah see I only have two and I've totally had that experience
[16:35]already like with my first one we did sleep training this this my first one is he's 15 now so this
[16:41]is a long time ago. We did sleep training he was like the textbook baby for sleep training. We
[16:46]thought we were such geniuses like the annoying parents of one child who would tell every other
[16:52]parent of a newborn like oh it's just like this. This is all you have to do. Just got this book
[16:57]everything will be fine. Our second child came along. Again all bets were off. Sleep training
[17:03]total failure. It's exactly like what you say where we were just like it's as if we've never had
[17:08]a child. Yes I can't imagine having that happen four times. Oh I mean I can't even like remember
[17:19]the sleep training at the last one but well I didn't have to wait so it wasn't you know one
[17:23]after another so I cheated in that way. No but so glad that brought you those pancakes yesterday.
[17:28]You deserve like yeah I deserve pancakes like wrapped in gold or something but it's a kind of
[17:33]glitter campaign too. No but I feel like I talked to a lot of authors who say the same thing is you
[17:41]that with each new project it's never a sure thing and I think from a reader's perspective having
[17:47]followed careers like yours and other authors you just assume that when they start and you're their
[17:51]next book like boom no problem. But it seems to me that everybody is filled with all sorts of
[17:57]insecurities and worries and like that it's this like magical thing that happens and it might not
[18:04]happen again and it's so interesting to hear that's basically happened to you. Absolutely I mean I'm always
[18:11]not to be judgmental but like when writer friends that I know speak of just like always doing
[18:18]things a certain way or just you know having everything under control in terms of their process
[18:22]I'm always like highly suspicious. I mean I don't think that they're I don't think they're
[18:27]deceiving me but I just I find it really hard to believe because I find it so much more common to
[18:32]you know talk to other writers who say yeah I feel like I've never done this before you know I mean
[18:38]somebody can be mid-career even late-career and they're and they're like I just don't even know
[18:44]it's like I'm just starting out and again like it's useful for teaching in a way because I always
[18:49]say to my students I hope this isn't discouraging to you but yeah there's no like there's no like
[18:55]cryptic secrets that's being like guarded by those of us who've published books and like you're
[19:00]never going to get into it. I'm like we don't know we just like we have managed to figure it out
[19:06]like totally through trial and error sometimes more than once but it just keeps being the same
[19:14]trial and error. Yeah. So I think it's just you get used to it. Why do you keep going back to the
[19:21]book that you feel like it's so difficult and it's not working? Why not just abandon that
[19:25]project and start something new? Like what is it about that project that's like making sure you're
[19:31]agreeing with like the devil on one shoulder who's like just dump that project? I'm not trying
[19:36]to encourage you to dump it. I'm just saying there must be something really compelling about it that
[19:40]makes you keep going back to it. You know it probably end up winning like the National Book Award
[19:44]again it's going to be this like amazing book for the ages but what is it that is like
[19:49]your stumbling block with it and what is it that keeps drawing you to it? Yeah and I was hoping
[19:53]you were encouraging me to dump it. I was like yeah this book is complicated because it's about
[20:00]family. And so I think in the same way that like your family is and my and I mean my extended
[20:06]family it's about my grandfather mainly and my and somewhat about my father and you know family
[20:11]history is weird that way it's like sometimes you just think I don't want to deal with us.
[20:16]I don't care like this is the past I'm shutting the door but you never can right you can
[20:21]like never shut the door on your own family's history and also it's really compelling so my grandfather
[20:27]this is my dad's dad my dad's a Korean immigrant he came to this country in the mid 50s after
[20:32]the Korean war had ended and his family was I think like a really remarkable and sort of fascinating
[20:39]family my grandfather his father was a scholar a literary critic a fiction writer a translator
[20:48]and his focus was English and European literature so all of the stuff that I was studying in college
[20:55]my grandfather that was his field and he I mean he did crazy things like translated Joyce
[21:02]into Caribbean oh my gosh what I mean can you even imagine no and not speaking Korean myself there's
[21:10]like no way for me I mean I can barely read Joyce in the language in which it was written but anyway
[21:15]so I'm fascinated by this this person because you know not only did he love the things that I
[21:23]love literature and writing but he also had a really sort of he had a really kind of controversial
[21:31]career in Korea because of Korean politics during his lifetime Korea was colonized by Japan
[21:39]it was a very unhappy relationship and so without like getting too complicated because we could
[21:45]talk about this for an hour and I've been researching it for a decade under like the colonial
[21:50]occupation of Korea by Japan if you were if you were a successful person that was suspicious right
[21:57]because you know what were you doing to make the Japanese authorities leave you alone my grandfather
[22:04]published a literary journal and during the war years when you know Japan was allied with the
[22:10]Axis powers and was sort of using the Korean peninsula as like a staging ground for their war
[22:16]effort and imperial expansion and you know committing atrocities in China and you know this is
[22:23]this is a whole lot of history here it was very hard to publish a literary magazine as you can
[22:27]imagine that wasn't exactly a priority and it was very easy to suppress that kind of publishing
[22:35]if you were the Japanese colonial government you could just not give people paper you could
[22:39]just be like we're sorry little seditious Korean patriotic magazine we were just out of paper for you
[22:48]oops and no one in the international community could really accuse you of censorship because there's
[22:53]just no paper and the Japanese colonial government was really good at that kind of oppression
[22:59]but my grandfather's journal had paper right he continued publishing deep into the war years
[23:06]and after the end of the Second World War when Japan was defeated and Korea was liberated anyone
[23:13]who had been moderately successful during occupied during the occupied period came under suspicion
[23:20]including my grandfather you know what what what did he do to get along with the occupying forces
[23:26]what did he do to keep getting paper it's such an unimaginable thankfully situation for us to
[23:33]admit to live ourselves to sorry I'm losing my words here it's unimaginable for us in the world
[23:39]that we live in now blessedly so I'm fascinated by it and I'm always like always just wishing that
[23:45]I could learn more about what his life was like especially because of these controversies I
[23:50]think that that kind of draws me sort of irresistible so are you writing it as fiction or is
[23:57]memoir such a good question and that's like that's one of the problems I've been writing it as
[24:03]fiction and it's not really working in my opinion and so I've wondered like is this a memoir I'm
[24:10]not a memoir writer I love fiction because I can take things in the real world that fascinate me
[24:17]and then I can bend them to my storytelling will and and take liberties and make the best possible
[24:25]story without necessarily being bound to the facts because facts are you know facts are facts you
[24:32]can't bend them if you're writing history or if you're writing memoir so I don't know I've
[24:41]been graphic I think you should try writing it all as truth and then go back and do your big edit
[24:49]thing and then make it better where you need to but why don't you just get it all out just like get
[24:54]all the facts out yeah I'm trying and it's it's interesting because every time I think like I'm
[25:00]so done with this something happens that kind of pulls me back like just last week this professor
[25:08]an American professor at the University of Minnesota got in touch with me and said you know
[25:14]I've learned that you're the granddaughter of this this literary figure I'm translating his work
[25:19]into English and I need permission to publish the translations and can you give me permission
[25:24]because like I don't know who else to ask really and I was like oh here I am hooked again because
[25:29]my grandfather's work is like still relevant kind of intellectually and politically
[25:35]and people are working on it like scholars of Korean history are actually studying it so
[25:41]that makes it hard for me to just go I'm not gonna I'm not gonna look into it anymore so I'm
[25:47]gonna try what you suggested write it all down give me before lunch then as you're having your
[25:54]Tina's image you can say see that works so well today I will I will or I'll text you and be like
[25:59]damn you zippy I can't do this and I'm hungry I'm sure you'll find the words you know you can
[26:05]just like bang on that you know I mean this rescounds but anyway well head wanted to talk to
[26:12]you about trust exercise but all this stuff is so interesting to me yes so much more interesting
[26:16]I mean not more interesting I but just the idea of how your creative process is working
[26:21]oh it's fine yeah to talk about it but what was it like what was it like for you and I
[26:25]read one interview when you it was about to be the award ceremony and you were trying to be all
[26:30]cool about it like it's okay if I don't win it's just an under-to-be nominated but then
[26:33]he went up in one so I was just wondering what was that like the sort of Oscars of the literary
[26:39]worlds feeling like was it like an Oscar ceremony for you what was that moment like oh my god it
[26:45]was like an Oscar ceremony for me and I'm so I'm gonna cry I'm so grateful I mean obviously
[26:52]like I'm so grateful to one but I'm so grateful we had a ceremony you know like I just
[26:58]when I think about that night it was it was in November November 19th or 20th it was the week
[27:05]before Thanksgiving and just the excitement of like I rented a gown I didn't own a gown so I
[27:13]rented a gown I really liked it and you know getting dressed up and going to this ceremony
[27:21]that started with like a huge cocktail hour and everyone buzzing and you know I'll be able to
[27:27]although like meeting other right I really admired John Waters was there and like a broke
[27:32]heed suit that was to die for and I was so tongue tied I literally like I stood next to John
[27:41]Waters like a weird stalker for maybe 10 minutes and couldn't even bring myself to introduce myself
[27:47]to him but just that excitement of like being in a room full of people I just I hope whoever is nominated
[27:54]for the national book or this year and and for any other award like that I really hope that
[27:59]they get that celebration I just thought it was amazing to have that experience and then actually
[28:04]win but now it was just amazing to have that experience you know and and then afterwards there was
[28:09]a dance party and at some point I was like oh my god it's almost two in the morning I have to
[28:14]go home like I haven't been up this late since I can't remember when so it was such a fun night
[28:21]it was just it was a blast I have to say I feel really lucky to have gotten it
[28:26]that's such a nice story and yes I feel like there's so much longing now for all sorts of celebrations
[28:33]like that one oh I know I mean we appreciated them then but like god we just had no idea how much we
[28:39]would miss it I know it's really it's really crazy so do you have any other side projects that you're
[28:46]using just to get through your other big project like if you have another simmering novel that's like
[28:54]shredding along I do yeah I do actually it's another it's this all kind of goes back to what we
[29:01]were talking about when we first started talking about like my what I thought was my method and how
[29:07]it's clearly not because I you're not your hair you mean I mean I used to really like work on one
[29:18]thing and I was like this is what I'm working on and working on anything else is like cheating
[29:24]and I'm gonna stick with this until I finish and I've found that I've like turned into somebody
[29:28]who's working on like a bunch of different things at once and like all the stuff that's like
[29:32]been on the back burner for so long that when I actually look closely at it I'm like there's a lot
[29:38]here so there is another project in addition to this grandfather one that is a story about a family
[29:45]and I started working on it years ago and it's another one of these things that like every once
[29:50]on for some reason that I can't explain I want to write about them again and I kind of go and find
[29:56]that file and add to it and I've been recently looking at that.
[30:00]material more and it's exciting if something that you wrote you wrote like several years back still kind of captures your attention, you know, I there's a lot of stuff that I've written that like I look at it again and I'm like, oh, you know, no, but this stuff it's still kind of tugging at me and that's exciting. So that's what I do, I do
[30:20]you're beating yourself up over your process with an actuality. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just the way you work. It's okay. Like it's great. How great to have multiple projects in the works.
[30:30]No, absolutely. I totally agree. And it's not I wouldn't say it's beating myself up so much as like I'm constantly surprised by the changes, right? But I'm getting I'm getting better about that. I'm getting I think I'm getting to be more aware that there isn't one right way.
[30:46]You know what I mean? And that it's like really helpful to kind of be attuned to different modes in yourself and not to think like, oh, I'm being lazy or oh, I'm avoiding something, but to think like, oh, I'm in like a different mode right now. I'm in a space where this is what's interesting to me and I can just go with that and that's okay instead of, you know, feeling like I'm slacking off.
[31:12]Well, I feel like we are all in a different mode these days. So tell me about it. They just perfect sense.
[31:18]And we have a lot of time to like be aware of our modes. Right. Yes. Yes. And to sort of reflect on them. Yes, perhaps too much time.
[31:29]Well, thank you so much for sharing your time with me today. And you are so fun. Oh, it's great to be with you and I have to say I'm so grateful that I've had my phone propped up between a pair of five town weights and I'm so happy that it hasn't fallen over. So it's like the little things to be grateful for in life. Thank you.
[31:51]I have not even like picked my weights up off the ground in the garage for this entire job. So at least you're using yours.
[31:58]I'm not using the weights to work out.
[32:01]But I am using them to prop up my phone and they've done a great job. So thank you five pound weights and maybe I'll actually work out with you someday also.
[32:11]Thank you so much. Thanks, Libby. Thank you.
[32:16]Thanks again for listening to my podcast. Moms don't have time to read books. If you liked this episode, please follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens and at moms don't have time to read books and sign up for my mailing list at zibi Owens.com.
[32:30]So you can always hear about the latest things I'm up to. Thanks a lot.
[32:34]Today's episode has been sponsored by Minnie Rose. Check it out at MinnieRose.com and get 10% off with code Zibi 10, Z-I-B-B-Y, 10, and it goes shopping for some sweaters.
[32:45]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the Sound Editing and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.
[32:53]Thanks for listening. You could always email me at zibi at zibi Owens.com.