Liz Fenton & Lisa Steinke, HOW TO SAVE A LIFE
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[1:09]We've had a long spring. PageOneBooks.com. Welcome to day three of my second week of my July
[1:17]book blast. So I guess technically this is day eight of my July book blast. And today is
[1:23]Beach Reads Wednesday. I'd love Beach Reads. I wish I had more time to just sit on the beach and read
[1:28]as I'm sure we all do. But instead of that, I'm offering up all these amazing beach read
[1:33]books, which you should definitely check out this summer and beyond. Liz Benton and Lisa Steinke
[1:38]have in best friends for over 30 years. They are the co-authors of seven novels,
[1:42]including the Amazon charts bestseller The Good Widow. Their most recent book How to Save a Life
[1:47]is a dark heart-pounding love story with a groundhog day twist. Lisa and Liz hosts the popular
[1:52]podcast We Fight, so you don't have to. And our monthly unair contributors and their local news
[1:58]with Liz and Lisa's book club in their former lives. Liz worked in the pharmaceutical industry
[2:02]and Lisa was a talk show producer. They both reside with their families and several rescue dogs
[2:07]in Southern California. So welcome Lisa and Liz to momstone. I have time to read books. Thanks for
[2:12]coming on. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Maybe just announce who you are. I can see because I'm
[2:18]like watching you, but whose voice is his. This is Liz. This is Lisa. Thanks for having us.
[2:25]Excited to be here. So how to save a life is your latest novel. Can you tell listeners please
[2:31]what it's about? It's about it's a dark heart-pounding love story and it's about Dom and Mia.
[2:37]So 10 years ago, Dom and Mia were engaged and they broke up. So fast forward a decade and
[2:44]Dom runs into Mia at a coffee shop. And he's kind of never really gotten over her. He's always
[2:49]regretted breaking up with her and he hasn't really moved on. So we asked her on on the date. It's
[2:54]Tuesday asks her up for Thursday. They go out Thursday night to the San Diego County Fair
[2:59]and she dies on a ride. So obviously he's devastated. He wakes up the next day. It's still Thursday
[3:06]and he has another opportunity. So he's not quite sure what's going on. So he asks her, you know,
[3:12]they have their date but obviously he plans something else. It doesn't take her to the
[3:15]carnival. It's like maybe we shouldn't go and she dies again. So what happens after that is he's
[3:20]stuck in a time loop trying to save her life, trying to save what they had together and then there's
[3:26]also different pieces of his life in that day that he's trying to figure out almost like a puzzle
[3:32]he's trying to put back together. And what made you, how did you come up with this? It's like sliding
[3:37]doors ish but you know it's like the new is over and over again and like wanting to have a different
[3:43]outcome. Isn't that what they say? Like the definition of craziness is? I feel like my therapist might
[3:47]have told me this at one point is doing the same thing over and over inspecting a different outcome.
[3:52]Yeah. Well, yeah, our last book, the two by the Bennett's was a sliding doors concept. So we
[3:58]had already tried that. But we were on vacation and we were trying to figure out we're in the pool
[4:03]or drinking cocktails. We were trying to figure out what to do and we first were going to do like
[4:08]a groundhog day twist but with more of a suspense angle like our previous books. And then we just
[4:15]Liz got to talking about the seven and a half lives of Evelyn hardcast. Yeah, one of my favorite
[4:22]books. I had brought it on. Yeah. And so that book, you know, is a man who wakes up every day in
[4:32]a different person's body at a party. And so we kind of were talking about that and just tossing
[4:37]it around and and we eventually came to this, you know, I guess just as a brainstorm goes.
[4:43]But we wanted it to be like lighter and more of a love story that we could play out in it as well.
[4:49]And I was sort of struck. I feel like it's been a long time since I read a novel by two women
[4:54]from the point of view of a man. So when it started about like the bulge in his pen, I was like,
[4:59]wait a minute.
[5:03]That was Liz's line. She's notorious.
[5:07]Line in a book. Thank you, Lisa. Our first R.J.D. novel, the opening line is my mouth tastes like
[5:15]ass. So we got to read to find out why. But that, you know, that was actually from a rewrite.
[5:22]That wasn't the original first line. And then when we went to edits with our publisher,
[5:26]we ended up kind of restructuring the first one third of the way we were telling the story. And so
[5:33]we had to jump off from their engagement. And you know, the first page, you know, as a reader and
[5:38]also an author, like the first page is so important to pull people in. Well, that's I think we're
[5:43]hoping that pulls people in. And it was also fun to write from the male point of view from the first
[5:48]for the first time. I don't know if we were just shying away from it. We're not men. And it's not
[5:53]as comfortable. But we just wanted to get out of our comforts out and and give it a try. And then
[5:57]then we both kind of ended up falling in love with him a little bit. I haven't made your
[6:02]crush on him. I mean, so it was fun. I think, you know, we get bored. And I think it's why like
[6:08]our first three books were magical realism. Then we just went to suspense. And now we're back. I
[6:12]think that, you know, we pivot a lot good for good or bad, right? Like for of our career. Like we
[6:19]pivot. So I think with us, like you never really know like what you're going to get in a book.
[6:23]Because we always want to write what we love. And so we just found when we don't do that,
[6:28]there's problems. So whether like we just write what we want to read and what we love in that moment.
[6:34]And we hope our audience will come along for the ride. I feel like it's so easy to tell when
[6:39]somebody's not passionate about what they're writing about, right? If you can feel the lack of
[6:43]fire behind it really, really notes sort of intangible. But so how did the two of you originally
[6:49]get together? Have you been like, what's your whole story? And how did you decide to start becoming
[6:53]co-authors? We've known each other a very long time. 30, like four years or something. We're
[6:58]losing track at this point. But went to high school together and college together and roommates
[7:03]afterward. And, you know, we just threw the course of all that just talked about it. But not
[7:09]really thinking it was ever going to actually happen. It's like one of those things because we've
[7:13]always been like voracious readers since we were very young. And so it was, these authors inspired
[7:19]us. But, you know, we never thought it was going to happen. And then one day, I don't even know
[7:23]out of the blue, like 15 years into our friendship, I brought it up again. And I had written something
[7:29]and I sent it to her and the rest is kind of history. Like we just did not expect it. But we're
[7:35]so happy it actually ended up taking off. That's amazing. And talk about all of your external
[7:41]support for the book community at large and how you're on the San Diego show and all the rest
[7:45]of it. And the original influencers essentially. So we're at least a mention we're huge readers
[7:52]and we're huge hand girls of authors. And so, you know, long before we were champion books before
[7:58]we got our first book deal. And then now we continue that. We're lucky enough to have on our local
[8:04]news. We have a monthly book club segment every month where we get to talk about books. And we
[8:10]have a podcast. We fight. So you don't have to. Which is why that's what we also talk about
[8:15]books. But we also, we think that we're like sisters. So we, we're hoping people can learn from
[8:20]our, they're also partnering with Warwick's bookstore in La Hoya who's our local independent bookstore
[8:26]for a couch surfing book tour. We connected with them right when COVID happened. And we're like,
[8:31]how can we help? Like, what can we do? And so twice a week, we have authors on and talk about their
[8:37]books. And that's been really rewarding and really fun. And it's fun to help the authors who
[8:44]have their books coming out. And they're disappointed. And it's been great to partner with Warwick
[8:49]who we adore and hopefully drive some book sales for them. So rightly, I mean, I think it's been
[8:55]really rewarding. And like this. Yeah, it's been a nice to be on in the other seats sometimes
[9:00]because there's so many books to grammars and people like you that are just so supportive of us.
[9:06]And so we're always thinking about what we can do to get back. So it's a reciprocal situation
[9:11]because we wouldn't be where we are without the Instagram books to gramm community for sure. So
[9:17]it is nice to give back a little bit too. So tell me about your fighting.
[9:23]Let me hear some of these fights. Give me like a few examples.
[9:26]Oh, I have a different journey or these fights. What are we talking here?
[9:30]Well, we, we've gotten a lot better. So, you know, this is an evolution right. I think we've been
[9:35]riding together at this point about 10 years riding together. We've been friends with 34.
[9:41]We're really like family. You know, I think in Lisa, I'll let you speak to this, but I think
[9:46]transitioning from a friendship to running a business together is a really interesting thing,
[9:51]especially with something creative like riding, but Lisa always do a good job.
[9:55]Yeah. Well, thank you, Liz. See that.
[10:00]It's a perfect example of how far we've come.
[10:02]Yeah, there's been some door slamming.
[10:04]There's been a lot of just emotions
[10:07]that we can't control over the years.
[10:09]And it was never really in regard
[10:11]to what we were going to write about or anything like that.
[10:15]It was just other stuff.
[10:16]It's kind of like a marriage when you're fighting about the toilet
[10:19]paper, but it's not really about the toilet paper.
[10:21]And it took us many, many years to figure out
[10:24]that this wasn't just a friendship.
[10:25]It was a business relationship, too.
[10:28]And we'd never sat down and had a conversation
[10:31]about how different we are and how that was going
[10:34]to play into our writing process.
[10:37]And so a few years ago, everything kind of came to a head.
[10:40]And we talked about maybe not continuing,
[10:42]because we couldn't figure out what the problem was.
[10:44]There had been so much tension.
[10:46]And we'd had a really rough edit and some other things
[10:49]that happened in our personal lives at the same time.
[10:51]And so just all kind of came together.
[10:53]And we had to step back and just start
[10:55]talking about our business and our roles in that.
[10:58]And once we kind of ironed all that out,
[11:00]we've gotten to a much better place.
[11:02]I'm not saying we don't ever have an argument,
[11:04]but we definitely have avoided many, I think, as a result.
[11:09]I think, too, if I could add, Lisa, I think one thing.
[11:12]You can.
[11:12]You've got, thank you.
[11:14]I think that we've gotten better at is, I think,
[11:17]it's like a seesaw, and we lose the balance.
[11:19]Like, sometimes we're just all business all the time.
[11:22]And then we kind of forget that we're best friends who
[11:25]like having a good time together.
[11:26]And I think we've gotten better at balancing those things,
[11:30]because it just became like all business.
[11:32]Well, we're still friends that need each other
[11:34]and need that support and need to talk about, like,
[11:37]our teenagers being idiots or, like, whatever,
[11:39]it's not teenagers if they're listening.
[11:41]But they're not listening, they're not clear what we're doing.
[11:45]We're not listening in the arts, but at least mine are.
[11:48]But, you know, I think we, I think the best thing
[11:51]we've done probably, and honestly,
[11:53]probably just in the last six months,
[11:55]I think we've gotten better.
[11:56]I mean, that's how like we're always evolving,
[11:58]is getting better at that balance of friendship versus business.
[12:03]And so we're, I think we're both a lot more fulfilled
[12:05]with each other.
[12:06]That we sound like we're married, like,
[12:07]and we're in therapy.
[12:08]I know, we do.
[12:09]Our, like, in couples, counseling or something,
[12:11]it's really getting-
[12:12]Tell me, let's just change this.
[12:14]Yeah, let's move on.
[12:16]Let's talk more about the fight.
[12:17]I had the lovely ladies who wrote the book called
[12:20]Work Wife on My Show, Claire in Erica.
[12:22]And you should, like, maybe just pick that book up,
[12:24]because it's all about this,
[12:25]it's about how to navigate the complexity
[12:28]of female friendship at the same time
[12:30]as running a business together.
[12:32]Oh, yeah, that sounds, that's gonna be helpful,
[12:35]because we're always, always learning.
[12:37]I also feel that, like, creating, being creative together
[12:40]is different.
[12:41]It's not like you guys are producing sweaters or something,
[12:43]right?
[12:44]Like, it's your, it's stuff that's usually lives
[12:46]in somebody's head,
[12:48]and to make that a joint production.
[12:50]That's tricky.
[12:51]Like, I'm on such awe of all co-authors, right?
[12:54]Like, who writes what?
[12:56]How do you do it?
[12:56]Like, how do you actually do it?
[12:58]Do you use Google Docs or do you get together in person?
[13:01]Like, do you switch chapters?
[13:03]How do you, how did you do this?
[13:04]I was like, we do not get together in person.
[13:08]The nanny diary girl told us once that they sit at a computer
[13:13]together and, like, write every line together
[13:15]and, and Greer Hendrix and Sarah Peckinin
[13:18]or, like, on a call all the time, like,
[13:20]doing their lines together.
[13:22]And we're just, we're very different than that.
[13:24]We, we separately will write, so I'll write a chapter.
[13:28]And this is just what we came up with years ago
[13:30]and it's just never changed.
[13:31]So I open a word document, I write a chapter,
[13:34]I send it to Liz, she'll edit it and send it back.
[13:37]And we do keep passing it back and forth
[13:39]until we feel like it's in a good place.
[13:42]And then Liz will write a chapter
[13:43]and then we'll, we'll just do the whole book that way.
[13:46]And it's as far as like, what we're gonna put in each chapter,
[13:49]we do sit down and kind of map out maybe five
[13:52]or six chapters at a time, but it's still very loose.
[13:55]It's up to the person writing the chapter.
[13:57]There's a goal to accomplish within it,
[13:59]but it's up to them how to get to that goal.
[14:02]So I don't know, it just works for us.
[14:04]I know there's, like, fancy, like, writing tools online
[14:08]and things like that, but we're just,
[14:10]we're old school, we're dot girls.
[14:12]Until the very end and then we do move over to Google.
[14:14]I do use Dropbox, I do use Dropbox.
[14:17]That's new, yes, that's new.
[14:19]And then we do Google Doc at the end
[14:21]because during edits you just,
[14:23]we used to edit separately and send it back and forth.
[14:25]And then one day someone was like,
[14:26]there's something called Google Docs
[14:28]and I'm like, oh my God, that's great.
[14:30]So I think it was one of our kids.
[14:34]The other day I accidentally deleted like my whole team's
[14:37]Google Doc with like the entire schedule of like,
[14:39]every guest and everything.
[14:42]Cause I had like to leave someone who left our business.
[14:44]I didn't know that like, it was attached.
[14:47]Anyway, so mental, no, if you ever change your email address
[14:49]or something, like, oh, yeah,
[14:51]save that document, that would be,
[14:54]you can get it, you can get it back,
[14:56]you can get it back after the mistake for a little.
[14:58]Okay, okay, all right, just heads up on that.
[15:01]I'm making Google Docs friends.
[15:03]So in terms of when you generate new ideas,
[15:06]I know you said this one,
[15:07]you were just like hanging in the pool
[15:08]and it just came to you.
[15:09]Is it always like that?
[15:11]Like it seems like you guys just have such an easier
[15:13]for that things just like bubble up.
[15:14]But do you ever like, do you ever get stuck on like one
[15:17]of you wants to write something really badly?
[15:19]And the other one is like, no, I don't want to write that book.
[15:21]What is cruise ship idea?
[15:23]You could tell.
[15:24]Well, yeah, I'm feeling piano people, but anyway.
[15:27]Well, typically we'll throw out a lot of ideas.
[15:31]And I think at this point, like she knows
[15:33]if I'm in Google an idea and I know she's like,
[15:36]she's mentioning the cruise ship.
[15:37]We went on a trip to Europe two years ago
[15:40]with our family and we were on a cruise ship.
[15:42]And I really want, there was these dueling piano people
[15:45]and that the guy and the girl clearly, that was the sense.
[15:49]There was something going on, like their attention arena
[15:51]and I was really into it.
[15:53]Maybe I was just drunk every night when we were there
[15:55]and I really wanted that.
[15:56]I could tell she wasn't going to do it.
[15:58]So I dropped it and she wanted to do this weird,
[16:00]light crouch rip off book
[16:02]because I was in the pharmaceutical industry
[16:04]for 20 years and she knew I wasn't into it.
[16:07]So we don't argue about it.
[16:08]We couldn't just move on because when the right idea,
[16:11]I'm getting goosebumps as I say this,
[16:12]when the right idea comes, we both know.
[16:17]And I don't know it's something that intangible
[16:20]and I don't even know how to explain it,
[16:23]but we both know it's a guess.
[16:24]We're writing that, let's go.
[16:26]In the creative, at least I mentioned earlier,
[16:28]the creative is not what we find about.
[16:31]We try to about like someone sending an eyeball emoji
[16:34]and a text and they're like,
[16:34]what do you try to say?
[16:35]Why the eyeball emoji, like we're dumb.
[16:38]Like we find about stupid stuff when we're cranky
[16:42]or frustrated with our kids or something
[16:44]and we take it out on each other.
[16:45]I love how in this book,
[16:46]your character, Dom, is always wondering
[16:48]what people are thinking like analyzing
[16:50]the relationships between everybody else.
[16:52]Like I'm always doing that myself.
[16:54]Like if I'm on vacation and you're like,
[16:56]ooh, is that the nanny or who we do that all the time?
[17:00]I have that exact, I was just on vacation.
[17:02]I had that exact, is that the nanny situation?
[17:06]And my husband and I, it was like five days
[17:09]and we still don't know.
[17:11]Wasn't the nanny or was it the mom?
[17:14]We do not know.
[17:15]But yeah, I think sometimes I even do that to myself.
[17:18]Like what must people think?
[17:19]I wonder if other people are wondering
[17:21]if this is my nanny or this is my sister
[17:23]and if they would ever be able to guess
[17:25]that it's actually like my sister and Laura,
[17:27]I don't know whatever it is.
[17:29]But it's so great to give like a trait like that
[17:31]to the character and as like a journalistic tool
[17:35]for how he like sees the world and everything.
[17:37]Anyway.
[17:38]Yeah, thanks for noting the label.
[17:40]Yeah, that was a fun little thing to put in for him.
[17:43]Do you believe?
[17:45]I know this is like a bigger sort of fate based question.
[17:47]But do you believe that things are meant to happen?
[17:50]Like me is going to die every day no matter what happens.
[17:54]And that's just fate or that we are actually in control
[17:57]of what's going on on a fundamental moment.
[18:02]I like this is more a year wheel health list.
[18:05]Yeah, I know.
[18:06]I was watching your eyes before I knew you were going
[18:09]to pass this one to me.
[18:11]You know, I think it's cool.
[18:12]I think that sometimes the things are meant to be,
[18:15]but I also think our energy and our attitude determines
[18:18]like what we're attracting to ourselves.
[18:22]And I tell my kids this all the time, you know,
[18:24]if you say I'm in a fail or I'm going to do this,
[18:26]well, you're sending all that energy to there.
[18:29]So I don't know if this is even in it.
[18:31]I think it's a little bit of both.
[18:32]I think the universe, I think sometimes things are fated,
[18:35]but I do think we have control over attracting positive energy
[18:39]for positive results in our own and our own life.
[18:42]And it's something that we try to do a lot.
[18:45]You should see, we have a whole manifestation board
[18:48]like in our online side pointing here to my right ear.
[18:51]And really try to attract that positive energy
[18:54]and bring it to other people and situations.
[18:57]Because who knows, right?
[18:58]You might as well just be positive
[18:59]because we don't really know.
[19:01]Right, very true.
[19:03]Do you have any advice to aspiring authors?
[19:06]Woo, yeah, I would say right what you want to write
[19:10]first and foremost, do not try to chase the market,
[19:13]do not try to write what the latest hit book was.
[19:16]Like that was a mistake we made very early on.
[19:20]And that's why it took us three manuscripts
[19:22]to eventually get there.
[19:23]So that would be my advice, throw it to Liz now.
[19:28]Yeah, I would say just keep writing.
[19:31]I mean, we, as Lisa mentioned,
[19:33]we got our book deal with Simon and Schuster
[19:35]on our third manuscript.
[19:37]And it had been five years.
[19:39]And we both were pretty successful in our own,
[19:41]career's Lisa and TV, and I mentioned it myself in pharma.
[19:45]But I was done.
[19:46]And Lisa really pushed that she wanted to write one more book.
[19:50]And had we not done that, we wouldn't be here.
[19:53]And I was like, hey, I'm really good at this.
[19:55]And this is a great job.
[19:56]And I don't know.
[19:57]I mean, I have two kids.
[19:58]I don't know if I need to do this.
[19:59]And so.
[20:00]I think you have to push through that I've mentoring someone right now who's in their third manuscript
[20:04]and I'm really pushing them because they're talented or pushing her because she's talented
[20:10]and it just reminds me so much of us.
[20:12]So I just think that even people forget to that even as published authors like,
[20:17]we're dealing with rejection all the time and I think they think once they get on this path
[20:21]like being a published writer, like they never get rejected again and it's like amazing
[20:25]and I'm like, oh no no no, you're going to still get rejected all the time in all these
[20:29]these little ways and that's just part of life and you're part of this business.
[20:32]So I think that the inspiring writers need to remember that, that you're always being rejected
[20:37]but you just got to push through it.
[20:39]Very true.
[20:40]I've actually decided that I think I'm going to start taking a survey because it seems
[20:44]like everybody who sells a novel has had two rejected first or two, like it just seems
[20:49]that way.
[20:50]Or a bunch of rejections before they ultimately finally got there but it was like 50, 60
[20:56]and like a JK Rowling or whatever.
[20:59]So yeah, you just, it's true, you just have to keep pushing forward.
[21:02]I'm sure there's a lot of us who have manuscript sitting in the drawer, you know.
[21:06]So what's your next project?
[21:09]What are you working on next?
[21:10]What's it about?
[21:11]It is.
[21:12]Well, we can't talk about it too much because we're trying it.
[21:14]We're just finishing it up and we're not sure what's going to happen with it but it is
[21:19]in the same vein as how to save a life and we haven't even have like a set title.
[21:24]So, but it's in the same vein and we write a lot about regret and fate and actually
[21:30]to your question that you asked, it kind of asks that question, that's really the
[21:34]narrative question of the book and I hadn't thought about it that way but so thank you
[21:38]but it's really is something faded or can you control it and that's the premise of
[21:43]the entire book.
[21:44]Oh, I can't wait to read that one.
[21:46]I'm excited for you to read it.
[21:49]Okay.
[21:50]Well, thank you so much for coming on mom's time to read books.
[21:54]Thanks for all the stuff.
[21:55]You also do for authors.
[21:56]I am so glad to be joined by people who enjoy interviewing other authors as much as I do.
[22:02]So yeah, I think it's super fun.
[22:04]So thank you for all that you do.
[22:06]It's amazing and we're so appreciative and thank you for having us today.
[22:10]Thank you.
[22:11]Thank you.
[22:12]Bye.
[22:13]Bye.
[22:14]Bye.
[22:15]I hope you've enjoyed this speech read on B Treats Wednesday, part of my July book
[22:20]Yes.
[22:21]Thanks again for listening to my podcast, mom's don't have time to read books.
[22:24]If you liked this episode, please follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens and at mom's don't
[22:30]have time to read books and sign up for my mailing list at zibi Owens.com so you can
[22:35]always hear about the latest things I'm up to you.
[22:37]Thanks a lot.
[22:38]Thanks so much to page one books for sponsoring today's episode.
[22:41]I hope you'll all check out my summer beach bundle at page one books.com.
[22:45]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at texture sound for the sound editing and thank you
[22:49]to morning moon productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.
[22:53]Thanks for listening.
[22:54]You could always email me at zibi at zibi Owens.com.