Leslie Lehr, A BOOB'S LIFE

2021-03-11 · 26:23 · Leslie Lehr · Podcast Audio

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[0:38]Leslie Lair is the author of a boobs life. How America's obsession shaped me and you

[0:44]Leslie explores the duality of today's women to navigate a new path between sexy and sacred

[0:50]She's a prize winning novelist and nonfiction writer whose books include

[0:54]What a mother knows a target recommended read wife goes on and 66 laps?

[0:59]Which was winner of the Pirates Ali Faulkner prize her nonfiction books include welcome to club mom club grandma

[1:05]excerpted on fissurepice.com and Wendy Belissimo nesting featured on Oprah

[1:10]Leslie's personal essays have appeared in the New York Times modern love column and was narrated by Katie Kirk on NPR

[1:17]Huff post your tango and in anthologies including mommy wars the honeymoon's over and on becoming fearless

[1:23]She wrote the original screenplays for the indie romantic thriller heartless and the comedy drama club divorce

[1:29]Leslie has also worked in film production including princes sign of the times Charles Bikowski's barfly and the cult thriller

[1:35]Whichboard she has a BA from the USC school of cinematic arts where she won a student Emmy and an MFA from Antioch a breast cancer

[1:43]Survivor she is chemo chick on sick of pink dot com Leslie is the novel consultant for Trubie writer studio and taught for 10 years in the writer's program at ucla

[1:52]Leslie is a judge for the wfwa debut novel contest a member of pen the author's guild wg a

[1:58]Women in film the aclu and the women's leadership council of LA

[2:03]Leslie has two daughters two cats and lives with her husband as close to the beach as possible in southern kelfornia

[2:08]Well, lovely. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Coming on mom's don't know time to read books to discuss a boobs life

[2:15]I'm so excited to hear a super fan. I'm so excited. You're here as I mentioned to you

[2:20]I've had your book for like I don't know almost no couldn't have been a year

[2:24]Six months or something and so I've been just like super excited to talk to you about it

[2:28]And do you think about your boobs all the time and think about the book and when you put your bra on in the morning and

[2:33]I mean everybody has to deal with their boobs every day. I just have put my bra on and hope it fits

[2:40]Not being too tight today. Yeah, and during covid though, you can just you know

[2:44]It would kind of kill the bra in a lot of ways. Yes. I feel like I've moved more into sports bras on a regular basis

[2:49]Me too. I'm wearing a real one for you special today, but other ones also worked

[2:54]Although actually I should I don't even know

[2:56]You just got this one, which I can show you because it matches your cover. Oh, that's nice

[3:02]I feel like I should give this to you

[3:04]Now I'm wearing a blue one today, too. Are you I've never had a blue one before and yeah, there you go

[3:09]It was meant to be. I think I bought a new bra in like years. Anyway, we'll bravo

[3:14]I got some special ad for that color and I was like, okay, sure. It's my favorite color

[3:19]Anyway, and I hadn't even had time to put it away. There we go. Okay. Anyway, a boobs life

[3:23]How America's obsession shaped me and you I've had this by the way on the floor of my

[3:29]Sun's room for the last couple days and he keeps being like boobs

[3:35]Anyway, it's like why are you reading about boobs? Anyway, so why are you writing about boobs?

[3:40]Why don't we start there? Because well why I started writing is because I got to the shower one night

[3:45]And I had gone through breast cancer and we were in this cool new place to live and we were so sad this romantic evening

[3:51]And I looked in the mirror and my boobs were covered and I was so angry

[3:56]And I know it was just grateful to be alive

[3:58]But I just thought I've suddenly kind of rehashed my whole life after everything

[4:03]I'd been through with my boobs couldn't they be perfect and I wanted to fix them so bad

[4:07]My husband said I was obsessed and I'm a feminist. I was totally insulted by that

[4:12]So like how could I be obsessed by boobs? And so I kind of settled down and we watched TV and David Letterman was doing his last

[4:18]week on the late show

[4:19]And he's like the famous comedian for being smart, right?

[4:22]He got the Mark Twain or and everything and all these stars were guessing and on his monologue top and monologue

[4:27]He tells a boob joke and not just a boob joke

[4:30]But about J-Lo who was producing a new fabulous series that was a huge hit

[4:36]I think specific blues or something and I looked at my husband as like I'm not the only one if it's true

[4:41]And it's like date night was off. He went to bed and we had just moved in so I had all these boxes and I thought

[4:47]Okay, it why am I obsessed?

[4:50]This is a weird thing and I started going through my scrapbooks

[4:53]And I did call my doctor first to say, you know, leave left a message about my boobs

[4:58]And I I mean, I know people who

[5:01]Breast cancer people who spend like two years of surgeries to get their boobs back

[5:04]Anyway, I looked through my scrap my

[5:07]Scrapics, you know the old-fashioned kind where yeah, you actually cut out articles and clippings and newspaper and song lyrics and with pictures

[5:15]And I thought wow, you know this is bigger than just me and I saw this old picture of me and my sister

[5:21]My mom and we all have red bikinis on it's in the book

[5:24]And I remember I just looking at that picture makes me laugh because my one and a half year old sister

[5:30]Has this teeny tiny yeah, we have this teeny tiny strips, right?

[5:34]And my sister could not keep it on her nipples

[5:37]I mean, she's one and a half but I was three and it was a big deal

[5:40]And I realized wow, I knew it three years old how taboo breasts were and I thought yeah, this is totally my nest book

[5:48]So I had I had figured out and I didn't know if I'd ever write another book

[5:51]So I came up writing for a really long time my like analytics

[5:54]I came back

[5:55]I was working with other writers

[5:56]But creatively and then suddenly it was just like oh no, no, this is I have to explore it

[6:02]And so I had to kind of use my life and honestly, I'm very nervous

[6:07]Whatever everyone's going to think about my personal life

[6:09]But I had to use it myself because it turns out my whole life time wise was an example of all this stuff

[6:14]That happened in the United States

[6:16]That made us obsessed with boobs in a way that's beyond biology

[6:19]Your book, it's interesting how you use that but it's really your life story

[6:24]Right, I mean, it's really a beautiful memoir

[6:27]And you were able to weave in really unique sort of like packaging for it almost with the boob thing

[6:34]Especially with breast cancer and I'm so sorry that that happened and all of it

[6:38]But it's at its core. This is a beautiful memoir about your life and everything from like diving off the high board to

[6:47]Falling in love and having your core the course of your life get knocked off and I mean, it's really I don't know

[6:54]I just loved it. I loved it is what I'm saying. Thank you

[6:57]I mean, there is some stuff that happened in my life that didn't have to do with my boobs that is right in it

[7:01]Okay, but I just thought you know

[7:04]I really

[7:05]Most women can look at their lives from puberty wanting big bigger boobs

[7:10]You know the cheerleaders and Playboy and Victoria's secret and wanting all that and then having to hide your boobs to work

[7:17]Showing them to date and then getting bigger to breastfeed and then getting all saggy and droopy afterwards and then lot

[7:23]Many most popular elective surgeries breast implants and one out of eight of us gets breast cancer

[7:28]So it seemed like the stages of my life were really

[7:31]Similar to many women today and nobody had looked at that cute that whole picture

[7:37]I mean, I found books on breast cancer books on breast feeding and if you Google breasts, you'll also get chicken recipes

[7:46]And if you go to boobs, it's mostly porn and nobody I mean

[7:49]Breast aren't they're an organ that makes blood in a milk and yet there's not even a medical

[7:54]Speciality just for breast. So I thought I I I couldn't find it's like

[7:59]You know Tony Morrison. I said I think said if you

[8:03]Haven't found the book you want to read you have to write it or something like that in this point in her

[8:06]But it was like this was the book I needed to see

[8:09]someone's whole breast whole life

[8:11]from the breast perspective

[8:13]And to see how much the culture has affected how I feel about me

[8:16]How's the amount my body how I judge other women and how really it's held us back even in terms of

[8:21]Trial care and abuse and all this kind of stuff

[8:23]So but there's a lot of funny stuff, you know with as you know

[8:28]Yeah, you had one line in there, which now of course

[8:31]I can't find now that I want to quote it back to you

[8:32]But it was something like how at work your whole you had to cover up your breasts and yet as I'm as a new mom at home

[8:41]Like they were the sole foundation of your survive your baby survival and everything and how

[8:46]Identity and your identity as a mom, right? Like that's what you're doing

[8:50]It's amazing like the physical handling that is involved in breastfeeding

[8:55]No, I know yes, I work it

[8:58]Going from like being you know conservative in one respect and then like literally like having your shirt flown open

[9:06]You know walking around the house that way and how that makes you question like well

[9:10]Who are you really if these are the two parts of your life like what what is you the essence of you right then?

[9:15]I don't know. I found that's so interesting. Exactly. I did too

[9:20]That's why you wrote about it maybe

[9:23]Yeah, wait. Can we talk a little about your breast cancer?

[9:27]Because I know that I know that came later in the book and I loved all the intro not intro the preamble to the breast cancer

[9:34]Which was a bulk of the book anyway

[9:35]But just take me a little bit through that and how that's now affected not just

[9:41]Just how it's changed how it changed the course of your life

[9:44]How it and how you see it now?

[9:46]Well, I was completely surprised by it

[9:49]I don't have the broccoli gene and most people think that you do if you get it and 85% of us don't and I was totally healthy

[9:57]You know, I exercise ate a lot of vegetables and when

[10:00]I look back at it though I did have a lot of drama and stress in my life from like my family and my ex-husband at that time and, you know, the regular drama you have with a lot of kids and just life.

[10:13]And I had always been the person you like to care business, right?

[10:16]And I really think that your emotions and lack of self-care affect your immune system.

[10:22]And in fact, there's this gene that I found out that actually can trigger a weakness in your immune system so that women are more vulnerable to breast cancer.

[10:31]When I got it, it was a total surprise and I wasn't good at self-checks and although 40% of people who are diagnosed find their own things.

[10:40]So do that.

[10:41]I'm a bad example.

[10:42]But I got a mammogram and I was like, oh, there's a thing, whatever I'll do it again.

[10:46]I'm a half glass food person.

[10:48]I'm like, nothing's wrong with me.

[10:49]And the radiologist was, I know if that's my wife, I check it now.

[10:53]And so they checked it now and sure enough.

[10:55]And we not checked it now.

[10:57]And this is the creepy part.

[10:59]I would probably have died because it was a really fast growing thing.

[11:02]By the time I had a surgeon and everything nailed down, it had quadrupled in size.

[11:06]And I was just, it was just freaky.

[11:09]And I never had imagined.

[11:11]I mean, I feel immortal.

[11:13]You know, I'm strong.

[11:14]I try to do everything.

[11:15]I've been through some rough times, you know, but I was really kind of what I was doing well.

[11:21]and so it was a real blow.

[11:23]And it becomes a lifestyle breast cancer.

[11:25]And we had surgery, I, it's me and my boobs, that surgery.

[11:29]And I thought, I was fine.

[11:30]And then suddenly, oh no, you have to do all this stuff to prevent it coming back.

[11:33]The whole chemo and radiation and all the drugs for years and years.

[11:36]And it just struck me that so many women go through this.

[11:41]And you don't feel like it's a thing.

[11:43]And then seeing the pink is like, yeah, yeah, we know.

[11:46]And yet that really does save lives for people to get checked.

[11:49]So the experience, I mean, I really resented people to say, Oh, you have to be great over your life.

[11:54]Cause I always was a person who will smell a flower and be really happy about it.

[11:58]You know, but I really do feel like I got lucky.

[12:02]And I survived her a reason.

[12:04]And so anything that I can do to help women be kinder to themselves, you know, and take better care of themselves and ask for help.

[12:11]So we don't have this kind of responsibility and get childcare and get fair everything.

[12:16]So that we're not so stressed out because we're getting, this is killing us.

[12:20]You know, we don't need all this responsibility.

[12:22]And our culture is really contributed in a bad way by objectifying our breasts to make them for men instead of just this wonderful women baby thing.

[12:30]And I'm part of the culture.

[12:31]So I mean, I have implants.

[12:33]I liked when I got them.

[12:34]I mean, I didn't mean to get them.

[12:35]It was it was a whole deal.

[12:37]But I think it's a double edged sword being beautiful.

[12:40]We want to be beautiful.

[12:41]We live here and yet our breasts, they feed our babies and they can kill us.

[12:46]And so now I'm kind of all about self care.

[12:48]I don't think it's a cliche or a trend on Instagram.

[12:51]I think it's really important every day.

[12:53]We have to do something just kind to ourselves and we have to not be afraid to ask for help.

[12:57]And we need childcare to never be equal because that's just how our bodies are built.

[13:02]Did my mother call you like how you to say this to me because she was literally on the phone with me yesterday, like saying the same thing.

[13:10]Like take care of yourself. You have to take care of yourself.

[13:13]Well, so what up?

[13:14]So my friends, I kind of have a habit of now saying, so what are you doing for yourself today?

[13:18]So what are you doing for yourself today?

[13:20]And it can't be exercise.

[13:21]And if you know.

[13:22]Yeah, but this is kind of work.

[13:24]This is what you do.

[13:25]You know, you have to do something just for yourself.

[13:27]Even if it's just five minutes to chill out or something unrelated to work or exercise or your kids.

[13:33]I mean, you have to really.

[13:34]It's like the oxygen mask on yourself.

[13:36]That seems like a cliche.

[13:37]It's true.

[13:38]It's what I do.

[13:39]And I really have extra physical.

[13:41]I do believe my work is a form of self care for me because I like created it to do something that I would bring my host up to and would enjoy.

[13:50]So I feel like she did the whole thing, you know, because you love what you did.

[13:54]Trust me out.

[13:55]Right.

[13:56]Because you still have deadlines and obligations.

[13:58]Yeah.

[13:59]Like when I say when I'm not really joking, like doing this conversation with you, I will now be able to go out and deal with the rest of the day with the kids.

[14:08]All right.

[14:09]Much better way.

[14:10]Okay.

[14:11]So I have these like built in resets.

[14:13]All right.

[14:14]But I would like to I should like take a walk or something.

[14:16]I guess I should take a walk.

[14:17]Okay.

[14:18]Fine.

[14:19]But it doesn't need to be a chore.

[14:20]You can just sit down and like clip your nails or watch some garbage TV for five minutes.

[14:23]I mean, just something that allows your body to reset.

[14:27]You know, because we're just on go all the time.

[14:30]And I didn't realize that.

[14:31]And I'm just as bad at it.

[14:32]What do you do for self care then?

[14:34]I didn't have the beach.

[14:35]Like this morning, I didn't have time.

[14:36]So I just walked around the block.

[14:37]But I listened to a podcast.

[14:39]And you know, and I just really try to notice things outside of myself.

[14:43]I guess they would say mindfulness.

[14:45]But it's weird.

[14:46]It's like our bodies, our minds are physical.

[14:48]It's all together.

[14:49]So to answer your original question.

[14:51]The breast cancer.

[14:53]I don't want to be the breast cancer person.

[14:55]I mean, I sick a pink was my kind of nickname.

[14:58]I'm sorry.

[14:59]I didn't mean to make you.

[15:01]No, my point is, I don't think anyone who gets sick should let cancer define them.

[15:06]So for me, like in the book, only two chapters are on breast cancer.

[15:09]I know.

[15:10]I know.

[15:11]No, no, no, but it is.

[15:12]But it is really important.

[15:13]I'm drawn to like overcoming challenging things.

[15:16]So I just.

[15:17]Of course.

[15:18]I think life is really challenging.

[15:19]And we should.

[15:20]We should try to be like cheater cells like little kittens.

[15:23]You know, give ourselves that love.

[15:25]Or treat ourselves like we would a best friend.

[15:27]And I think we're really hard on ourselves.

[15:29]Women because it's our job to take care of everybody.

[15:31]So that's kind of what I learned from having things.

[15:34]And I don't want to get sick again.

[15:36]So I'm like, but I also I also feel like, you know, I want to get this book out.

[15:40]I want because I think that's part of the message.

[15:42]And I do feel like I have things I want to do on this earth before I die.

[15:46]Because I feel like that could be taken away from me any time.

[15:49]So it didn't make me feel more mortal.

[15:51]You know, and yet I'm not quite as strict about, you know, certain things.

[15:56]Like I'll have a cupcake.

[15:58]Yeah.

[15:59]I just had a cookie and I didn't even have cancer.

[16:01]So, you know, what is on your bucket list?

[16:04]What do you still want to do?

[16:06]I want to write.

[16:07]I'm working on another book.

[16:08]I want to finish that.

[16:09]This book was picked up.

[16:11]Some of Hayek is making it into a TV series for HBO Max.

[16:15]And I really want to do that.

[16:17]I want to see that in it.

[16:19]My boobs are going to talk.

[16:20]Me and character is me.

[16:22]So, and she is in it in a really funny part.

[16:25]But I want to be and I'm not writing it.

[16:28]It's not the book because like totally me.

[16:30]But I just want to enjoy myself.

[16:32]I want to take the time and I want these projects.

[16:35]I want to see them, you know, kind of get out in the world.

[16:37]Because I kind of feel like as a writer,

[16:39]we get the chance to be have a voice.

[16:41]And that's the kind of writer I am.

[16:42]I'm not like, oh, I'm horrible at marketing and technology and stuff.

[16:45]And I have a lot of clients I work with who do various things.

[16:48]And I'm really good at story structures.

[16:49]So I deal with that.

[16:50]But I can't like write a book every six months or a science series or something.

[16:55]I really only write because of I mean, my first book was this multiple club mom.

[16:59]It was essentially a bunch of rants about how weird it was to be a mom and stuck at home.

[17:03]And it was great.

[17:04]But oh my God.

[17:05]And I kind of every book I write has something that I want to say.

[17:08]And it gives me a way to say it and get heard, you know.

[17:11]And so that's that's what I like to do is like to give my opinion out and writing it down as a way to do that.

[17:17]And so what is this next book about?

[17:19]Can you say miss an awful and it has similar themes, you know, has its period piece, but in a very cool period.

[17:25]And it has, you know, but it kind of brings in everything about with relationships and betrayal and family and different races.

[17:33]And it's like this whole microcosm of the example of everything.

[17:37]And it's a real outgrowth of this.

[17:38]And also it's based on something that really helped me in my life.

[17:40]And I'd wait for certain people to die to write.

[17:43]And now it's like, oh, now I can write it.

[17:45]And now I can do it in different points of view to see what they were really thinking.

[17:48]And I can make it into a story that has a nice resolution.

[17:51]So that's for me, you know, what novels are.

[17:54]And in this book in a boobs life, what was really fun also was seeing the patterns of all the stuff that happened in my life.

[18:01]Not just in my boobs, but in my relationships and in my family, my mom and my dad.

[18:06]And, you know, my ex husband who's no longer with us and my current husband.

[18:11]And just to see how the relationships and men and women are so related to our boobs and our identity and pulling it towards this conclusion of, okay, here's how we got to today.

[18:22]And here's how we can try and make a world better place.

[18:25]And it kind of can start with our boobs, you know, so it all relates.

[18:29]And I really loved how you showed us the relationship between your parents and what your mom when she went through her really hard time.

[18:38]I mean, that scene was amazing where you were when you found out that she was like, comatose on the, I mean, that's like, I seen it's your life.

[18:46]I'm sorry.

[18:47]I'm like, yeah, that's a great scene you're out there.

[18:49]I expanded it in a fictional way in the next thing.

[18:52]But it's like, yeah, because it's weird.

[18:54]It's like, I think when you didn't write that much about it, by the way.

[18:57]No, it wasn't.

[18:58]And I was like, what?

[19:00]What?

[19:01]What is this?

[19:02]And I like, so I like keep prep reading.

[19:03]I went back and I like before.

[19:05]And after I was like, did I miss something?

[19:07]Where is the whole story?

[19:08]Was your mom like tell me, maybe go into that like a smidge.

[19:11]Mom, I'll go into that in my novel.

[19:13]Okay, but she's the point.

[19:16]And for me, it's like, I had so many things like that in this book that are just these little, oh, yeah.

[19:20]And then, but I can't go back into them because I wanted to focus on the boobs and how we got out of it.

[19:25]And my mom is fine today.

[19:27]She's, you know, she actually just read the boobs life.

[19:30]It was, you know, tricky.

[19:32]I actually didn't want her to read it while I was writing because I didn't want her to, she would influence me.

[19:38]I would like make it all good for her.

[19:40]And I did.

[19:41]I was very careful as you say.

[19:42]And even with my dad, he hasn't already yet either, but I'm sure he will.

[19:46]Any minute now.

[19:48]I hope that by the end, I hope that by the end, they understand that I understand how the culture created this situation where we all have these expectations for our lives that has to do with having boobs.

[20:00]than how people, we think judge ourselves

[20:02]and what our expectations are with the other sex.

[20:05]So I kind of give everybody a pass, you know?

[20:08]But because we have to live here,

[20:10]but I think if we're aware of how we are

[20:12]and how things are, we can kind of do better

[20:14]and be better for other people.

[20:16]But anyway, my mom now did read the book and loves it.

[20:20]She's very happy with it.

[20:20]So, phew.

[20:22]Good.

[20:23]Wow.

[20:24]Also, I think when you tell,

[20:26]when you say anyone in any books here is right or tip,

[20:28]anyone you want to talk about to say they're beautiful

[20:31]or if they're man, they're really well endowed

[20:32]and you can pretty much get away with everything.

[20:34]And that's what they're doing.

[20:36]You were super complimentary about your dad.

[20:38]I mean, in the beginning,

[20:39]like what he looked like, this like tall bronze,

[20:41]Princeton guy and, you know, obviously your feelings

[20:45]about him like, you know, yeah, anyway,

[20:47]but at least physically as a specimen.

[20:50]Yeah, well, he was, you know,

[20:52]and he was a prime example of the Playboy man

[20:54]and the Mr. America, and he still is that way.

[20:58]Only now that's, you know, that has shifted.

[21:00]It's a very tricky thing.

[21:01]I think for many of us who have family members

[21:03]who we don't agree with.

[21:06]And yet they so have influenced us through our lives

[21:09]and it's hard how do you love them

[21:10]and still think, how can you, you know.

[21:12]Yeah, so there's a lot of that in the book.

[21:15]But clearly he was a boo man

[21:17]and like many in that generation grown up with Playboy.

[21:20]And then we were raised with Victoria Secret,

[21:21]you know, my daughters, you know, you're 13,

[21:24]you go in there and then you want to be an angel

[21:27]and those women are freaks in nature.

[21:29]So, you know, it's a strange culture we live in.

[21:33]And I just want everybody to know that

[21:35]I'm not the only one who's obsessed.

[21:36]We all are.

[21:37]We take it for granted.

[21:38]We don't even, you know, it's insidious kind of.

[21:41]It's like we don't realize how much.

[21:43]And even me, I'll see someone like I'm now getting,

[21:46]you know, reach out from people I know from high school.

[21:48]I went, I grew up in Ohio.

[21:50]And was one of the girls,

[21:51]suffer Columbus up in Arlington.

[21:53]My family's from Dayton, my family is,

[21:55]oh, Dayton right Pat,

[21:56]I went to a lot of swimming.

[21:58]They are actually when Keating gave out gold dollars

[22:01]for people if you won your heat at the swimming.

[22:03]And it was Keating right before the biggest gamble.

[22:04]Anyway, so yeah, I know about that.

[22:06]Oh, Dayton had a pretty cool.

[22:08]Okay.

[22:09]Sorry.

[22:10]I lost it.

[22:11]So many reach out from high school.

[22:13]And I'm thinking she had really big boobs in high,

[22:16]in high school, Virginia high.

[22:18]And I thought, oh, she's so tacky.

[22:20]And she was really popular with the older guys.

[22:22]And now I think she has no idea I thought that.

[22:25]She's doing really nice to me.

[22:26]And that was my judgment because we think,

[22:28]oh, people with big boobs are tacky.

[22:30]And I like when I did get a big job,

[22:33]I was like, no, I'm in intellectual.

[22:34]I need to be more flat chested, you know,

[22:36]but I did want to feel womanly.

[22:38]But it's now, I mean, Dolly Parton and Sam Hayek

[22:42]have used their boom power for good.

[22:45]So I'm all for whatever it takes to get attention

[22:48]so that you can do good things like give money to COVID

[22:50]and be really influential in empowering women

[22:54]and make great movies like Sam Hayek.

[22:55]So I think that we, you know,

[22:58]and I don't, I like the note to know

[23:00]that I automatically judge women by how they look.

[23:02]And so I judge myself too.

[23:04]And I think that's just part of our awareness

[23:06]and the obsession that we don't realize we have.

[23:08]Because we all have boobs every day.

[23:10]We get up, like you said, gotta do something with them.

[23:14]And you have feelings about them.

[23:15]Everyone has boobs stories, right?

[23:17]So I'd like to hear all of them, you know,

[23:19]but mostly I just want people to love your boobs

[23:22]and whether that means you're gonna do something with them

[23:24]or not, it's your choice.

[23:25]It's your body just be aware.

[23:27]That's really what I'm calling for.

[23:29]It's just to let people know this is a big thing.

[23:32]Love it.

[23:32]Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?

[23:35]Oh, yeah.

[23:36]I would say first read a lot.

[23:38]It's amazing how many people want to write who don't read

[23:40]and read like a writer.

[23:42]If you read a book and afterwards,

[23:44]think about how they constructed it

[23:45]because that magic didn't come easy.

[23:47]And also study the craft and become craft

[23:50]and get your butt in the chair.

[23:52]That's the biggest challenge.

[23:53]You know, keep your butt in the chair.

[23:55]And then obviously I only write about things

[23:58]that I have real passion about.

[24:00]I mean, I have sometimes I'll have clients

[24:02]because I work with other writers who will say,

[24:03]well, should I write this or this or this?

[24:05]And it's like we can go through and see which will actually

[24:07]make the best story in terms of its lower line

[24:09]and all that kind of stuff.

[24:11]But if they don't really care,

[24:13]probably shouldn't write any of them

[24:14]because writing is hard.

[24:16]It takes a really long time you're alone.

[24:18]You're crazy like with people in your head for hours, you know?

[24:21]And I don't believe you have to write every day.

[24:23]I think women can't do that.

[24:25]We have other responsibilities.

[24:27]But if a story is strong enough to be standing your head,

[24:30]that's the one you got to write about.

[24:31]And even this book took a really long time to both write

[24:35]and I was constantly updating it.

[24:37]I even updated it after the election.

[24:39]That's why it was coming out during International Women's Month,

[24:41]you know, that was all intentional.

[24:44]And it's just, it's a long haul

[24:47]but you can't, one thing my dad did always tell me

[24:49]is that you can't filter your quit.

[24:51]And I think writing is one of those things that it's a vocation.

[24:55]So don't do it if you cannot do it

[24:58]because it's really hard.

[24:59]But when you do it, it's like then you have something

[25:01]that's like everything in your heart

[25:04]that you wanted to say and other people get to hear it

[25:06]and whether they like it or not,

[25:08]you've had a chance to have a opinion out there.

[25:10]So it's very exciting.

[25:11]It is very exciting.

[25:12]And it allows you to connect with people.

[25:14]Like I felt like I read this book

[25:16]and then like we were already in the middle of a conversation

[25:18]by the time we started talking.

[25:19]That's right.

[25:20]We're already friends.

[25:22]Well, Leslie, thank you.

[25:24]I'm so glad we got to chat

[25:25]and I hope we get to meet in real life.

[25:27]And I'm excited for your book

[25:29]and love the story.

[25:31]And we'll be holding my breath alongside you

[25:34]to hear your dad has to say.

[25:35]Yeah, thank you so much, Debbie.

[25:39]I've just been, I mean, now I can listen to you

[25:40]every day on your podcast.

[25:42]And I think I got to talk to you too.

[25:43]So I'm thrilled.

[25:45]I'm so thrilled I can tell you.

[25:46]Oh, I'm so glad.

[25:48]So thank you so much.

[25:49]And love your boobs.

[25:50]Okay, you see work.

[25:51]Okay, all right.

[25:52]I'll try.

[25:53]All right, bye bye bye.

[25:56]Thanks for listening to this episode

[25:57]of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.

[25:59]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram,

[26:01]at ZB Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.

[26:04]Also sign up for my newsletter at ZB Owens.com

[26:07]and sign up for my virtual book club

[26:09]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.

[26:11]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound

[26:14]for the Sound Editing.

[26:15]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions

[26:17]for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music.