Laurie Elizabeth Flynn, THE GIRLS ARE ALL SO NICE HERE
[0:01]Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast, Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
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[0:35]Okay, now back to this amazing podcast.
[0:38]Laurie Elizabeth Flynn is the author of The Girls Are Also Nice Here, A Novel.
[0:43]She's a former model who lives in London, Ontario with her husband and three children.
[0:47]She's the author of three young adult novels, first a Y-A-L-S-A Best Fiction for Young Adult's Pick,
[0:55]along with last girl lied to and all eyes on her, under the name, Ellie Flynn.
[1:00]Her adult debut, The Girls Are Also Nice Here, has sold in nine territories,
[1:04]and has been optioned for television by AMC.
[1:07]Welcome, Laurie. Thank you so much for coming.
[1:09]And Momstone Have Time to Read Books to discuss.
[1:11]The girls are all so nice here, A Novel.
[1:14]Thank you so much for having me on here.
[1:16]Thrilled to be able to come on and talk to everyone.
[1:18]Awesome.
[1:19]So for those who aren't familiar with the plot of this book, what is this book about?
[1:23]It's been pitched as a darker, more disturbing mean girls with a touch of,
[1:27]I know what you did last summer.
[1:28]So I think that's the best elevator pitch for the book.
[1:31]I think it holds up pretty well.
[1:33]It's a dual timeline story.
[1:35]It revolves around a college reunion in the main character,
[1:39]and Bosea Wellington receives an invitation to her 10-year college reunion.
[1:43]And she immediately doesn't want to go because she's hiding an incident that happened
[1:48]in her past when she was in freshman year.
[1:51]However, she receives a note along with the invitation that says,
[1:54]we need to talk about what we did that night, and she feels that she has no choice,
[1:58]but to go because she believes she knows who the note is from.
[2:02]And she's more afraid of what will happen if she doesn't go.
[2:05]However, when she gets to the reunion,
[2:07]she realizes that the note is not from the person she thought,
[2:11]and it turns out she's being circled by somebody who,
[2:14]somebody else who knows what happened that night and who wants revenge.
[2:17]I mean, that's a great pitch.
[2:19]Well done.
[2:21]How did you come up with this?
[2:22]I was reading this, and I was like, I wonder if she came up with this
[2:25]because she got an email about her reunion and was like,
[2:27]what if, what if, what if?
[2:28]Is that what happened or did I just make that up?
[2:30]No, I've actually never been to a reunion.
[2:33]I think, like, I knew what I wanted to set a story on a college campus.
[2:36]So that was my what I kind of went into this story with,
[2:41]and I didn't have anything plotted.
[2:43]I just, because I don't usually plot ahead of time, I just kind of write.
[2:47]So I kind of had this idea for a reunion as the perfect framework
[2:51]and having the two timelines each set of the same campus,
[2:55]but with, and with largely the same cast of characters,
[2:58]but with sort of different outcomes and having those secrets from the past,
[3:02]fuel what's happening in the present and have these reveals kind of
[3:06]peel back.
[3:07]So that really the only thing I knew when I started writing was that I wanted
[3:11]to explore that college setting, especially.
[3:14]I just think it's so right for exploration for a lot of people at
[3:18]their first time living away from home.
[3:20]There's a lot of intense pressure to rebrand yourself
[3:24]and align yourself with the right friends.
[3:25]And I thought there was so much to explore there that would also make
[3:29]for a really interesting framework for a psychological thriller.
[3:33]So true.
[3:34]How do you pronounce M?
[3:35]You and Breja.
[3:36]You call her M.
[3:36]Yeah.
[3:37]And one of the things I liked the most was when she was in,
[3:41]I think the cafeteria getting to know the different girls,
[3:43]when she first got to school and was trying so hard.
[3:46]Like you captured that moment so well of like,
[3:49]okay, so this girl who was like even more sort of unsavory
[3:52]than she viewed herself as comes and like sits next to them.
[3:55]And she's like, okay, good.
[3:56]Like we've got that girl.
[3:57]But like, I want to be friends with that girl.
[3:59]But now she's looped me in with this other girl because they're both from
[4:01]New Jersey.
[4:02]And it was like this whole like you could just feel her being pulled.
[4:04]And like, why is the the cooler girl or essentially like not talking to me.
[4:08]And then of course the roommate who is like this,
[4:11]I don't know, Draper James Clad type Southern Bell ish.
[4:16]But just that sort of feeling like, oh no, my moment is passing.
[4:19]And like, if you grew me with the wrong person,
[4:22]then that's it for me forever, right?
[4:25]Tell me just a little more about sort of those moments and those like very
[4:29]fraught friendship.
[4:30]Like it's almost like the social intelligence, you know, games.
[4:35]Like it's like a video game of like what women do all the time
[4:39]with their networks, you know, like a pack man or something.
[4:42]Yeah, I think that was just something, as I started writing that I knew,
[4:46]the story was going to be a big focus is that these relationships between women and
[4:50]things that some people might not even pick up on when you're not in that dynamic.
[4:55]But that most women, I think we can all relate to that feeling where you're
[4:59]wanting to be portrayed a certain way.
[5:01]Especially when you've started college and it's a fresh start from high school.
[5:05]And if you feel like you were uncool in high school or, you know, you want to get out of that
[5:10]stereotype everybody had doing in high school, you feel like you only have that one first shot.
[5:15]And that scene that you're talking about, I remember writing it and feeling like
[5:20]flashbacks on us to like those awkward feeling.
[5:23]And oh my God, did I, did they blow my opportunity to
[5:27]to make an impression on these cooler people and be seen as one of them.
[5:31]And I think that insecurity and that vulnerability is so real that we have all felt at one stage
[5:38]in our life, but is especially fitting when you are starting at a new job or a new school or
[5:44]any sort of new environment, there's so much pressure both internal and external to
[5:49]come across a certain way.
[5:51]And in embroider's case, she is coming off of a high school experience where she was
[5:57]blindsided by a cheating ex-boyfriend, she feels kind of expendable and she wants to be seen,
[6:04]she wants attention, she wants validation for herself.
[6:07]And when she sees these cool girls, she's both intimidated by them and fascinated by them.
[6:13]And she knows immediately that she doesn't want to be like one of the uncool people.
[6:19]However, having them around is a source of comfort for her because she feels like she doesn't
[6:25]have to impress them.
[6:26]Whereas the cool girls, especially Sloan Sullivan, she feels like she has to always be
[6:32]increasingly escalating in her behavior to sort of stay within their orbit.
[6:37]And I think that's something that that a lot of young women can relate to as well.
[6:41]And having that that pressure to, you know, keep appearances and to keep up with the group.
[6:48]I think it also, you know, her entry into college where she realizes like the things that made
[6:52]her cool at Central or wherever she went to high school were actually totally different
[6:57]criteria than would would make her cool in college and that she was wearing these like skin
[7:01]tight dresses and like had to look a certain way and carry like saved up all her money to buy
[7:05]the Louis Vuitton purse. And then in college, she's like, oh, no, no, no, no, this is like
[7:08]totally not right. And to the point where she leaves the Louis Vuitton purse like on the floor at
[7:13]a party, I was like, there is no way she would have done that. Like I'm like, I have to like
[7:16]scamper into this novel and snatch that up and like resell this purse because come on, really?
[7:24]But it's so true. And it's also like when you think about the advice that you get in high school
[7:29]and like all these awkward times of like personal development, if you will, like to be yourself or
[7:35]whatever that means. Like this constantly changing goal posts or just this are just a reinforcement
[7:41]of that. Like what's cool one place isn't cool the other place. You might as well just like
[7:44]do what you think is cool deep down, right? But it's like impossible at that time.
[7:48]What was your, I mean, was that your experience?
[7:51]So true. You can like, you know, get familiar and feel like you're totally on top of the code
[7:58]at wherever you came from. And it's like you finally figured it out. You finally figured it had a
[8:03]dress cool and how to, you know, how to act, how to talk and, you know, to sort of assimilate
[8:09]with these cool girls. And then it's you get to a new campus or a new setting. And it's a whole new
[8:15]ballpark. And you realize that what was counted as really cool back home might not be the same.
[8:22]And I really wanted to lean into that because I think it's, it's also something that's really
[8:26]relatable. And that made Anne really relatable is that she, yeah, she has this, she's sort of abiding
[8:33]by the code of cool from the place she came from. And that's like, you know, flaunting your designer
[8:39]labels if you get can and she's, like you said, she saved all her money to buy this, the,
[8:44]it bag, the monogrammed bag so that everyone would know that she had in the Louis Vuitton bag.
[8:49]And then she gets to, to Wesleyan and the girls are so much more understated with their labels.
[8:54]They're not having to flaunt anything. They're not wearing these skin tight jeans and like sky high
[9:00]heels to show off all the time. And she's sort of realizes that she's not going to be immediately
[9:06]cool. And she has to figure out how to stand out. And obviously, as the book goes on, she stands
[9:14]out in some pretty bad ways. Yes. You also have this interesting thing about Instagram influencers
[9:21]because, you know, Billy is an ins, her friend Billy is an influencer. And he said she has an online
[9:27]persona blog called girl mom that became an Instagram account. And she has like 30,000 followers
[9:33]and hashtag two under two and moms who wear their babies like clingy purses over skin
[9:38]tight yoga pants. But then you write, I don't have, this is am talking, I don't have Instagram
[9:43]for that reason because I don't want to cultivate a hashtag no filter life, a pastiche of fake smiles.
[9:48]I learned it Wesleyan, the people don't envy the girls who are the smartest and prettiest.
[9:53]They envy the ones who are smart and pretty without trying. Unlike Billy's, my attempted
[9:57]effortlessness played out live. There was no delete, but-
[10:00]and no way to undo.
[10:02]That was great.
[10:03]Love that.
[10:03]Thank you.
[10:04]So cool.
[10:05]I think there's a lot of the pressure there to,
[10:09]it's one thing to be envious of somebody,
[10:11]but I think the real envy comes from that carelessness
[10:14]when you look at someone who seems to have it effortlessly
[10:18]together, and that's sort of what I was going for there.
[10:21]I feel like no one has it effortlessly together.
[10:23]I mean, is that even a thing?
[10:25]Does that happen?
[10:26]I definitely don't.
[10:27]But I think it's so easy to portray online
[10:32]that you do by showing this highlight real.
[10:34]And I think so many people have bought into it
[10:37]that it's easy to fall into that Instagram scrolling
[10:42]and sort of see all these other people's lives
[10:44]and compare yourself to them and wonder why
[10:47]you're not as together or polished.
[10:49]But I think everyone's life is not what it appears on Instagram.
[10:54]And obviously, when I'm bros just growing up,
[10:56]there is no Instagram.
[10:58]But she still finds herself envious of these girls
[11:02]who everything seems to come easy to,
[11:05]like, Sully can eat whatever she wants and doesn't gain weight
[11:08]and all these things like that.
[11:09]And I'm realizes that nobody wants to see the work put
[11:13]into something everyone just wants
[11:14]to see that how that effortlessness will play out.
[11:17]I've spent so much time thinking about that whole concept
[11:20]of being able to eat whatever you want and not gain weight.
[11:22]I feel like I've changed that in my head so many times
[11:25]because I've always had this battle with pounds
[11:29]and whatever else.
[11:30]And when I was deep into weight-watcher land,
[11:33]I was like, oh, I can eat whatever I want and not gain weight
[11:36]because I want different things.
[11:38]It's the middle word.
[11:39]It's what you want has to change.
[11:41]And then you can eat anything.
[11:42]And now I'm like, I can eat whatever I want and I can't wait
[11:45]because I weigh so much more than now, basically,
[11:49]I can maintain, but look where I am.
[11:52]So I don't know.
[11:53]I've spent a lot of time with that phrase in my head.
[11:56]Yeah.
[11:57]Tell me about your process of writing this book.
[11:59]Well, my process is that I don't plot ahead of time.
[12:02]So I kind of just started with this campus idea
[12:07]and let things on school.
[12:09]And I wrote the past tense timeline first,
[12:12]the freshman year because I tried to write one chapter
[12:16]and then one chapter of the present.
[12:17]And it just wasn't working.
[12:18]It felt really disjointed.
[12:20]So I just kind of quit that and wrote the entire freshman
[12:23]year timeline first.
[12:25]And then I went back in and wrote the reunion timeline
[12:27]and printed out both timelines and spliced them together.
[12:32]It was an interesting process because the first draft of this book
[12:35]was like 130,000 words.
[12:37]It was huge.
[12:38]And it was a lot of stuff that obviously ended up completely
[12:42]never made into the book for good reason.
[12:44]But that's sort of my process.
[12:46]I might first draft 10 to be kind of bulky,
[12:48]but I think it's just because I'm getting to know these characters
[12:52]and some of the scenes I'm writing,
[12:53]as I'm even of them writing them,
[12:55]I know they're not going to make it into the book.
[12:56]But it's sort of just allowing me to get into their head space.
[13:00]And once I was able to figure out what
[13:03]needed to be deleted and what wasn't important to the plot
[13:06]or advancing things, I cut that out.
[13:08]I remember physically having piles of papers all over
[13:13]the floor and multiple piles.
[13:16]So I could, one for each chapter and kind of trying
[13:19]to put them together in an order that made sense.
[13:22]And then going back in and finessing it from there.
[13:26]And that was the process.
[13:28]It certainly wasn't glamorous.
[13:30]It was a lot of finessing and trying to figure out
[13:33]what scenes needed to go where to and what
[13:36]reveals from the past would inform the present.
[13:39]And so the timing had to be right.
[13:41]And luckily once it came together, I felt good about it.
[13:46]It was funny, even though I wrote the timeline separately,
[13:49]it was like my subconscious was at work the whole time.
[13:51]And sort of allowed me to put them together
[13:55]in a way that flowed nicely, which was good.
[13:57]You have this pillow behind you on the couch.
[13:59]Sorry to snoop into the background of your zoom
[14:01]called Don't Over Think.
[14:03]Is that the thing you had to remind yourself
[14:04]with the book or is this more like in your personal life?
[14:07]Oh, that's my writing life.
[14:09]Absolutely 100%.
[14:11]I saw that pillow at the store.
[14:12]And I was like, I need to take that home with me
[14:15]because I find that if I get too much in my head,
[14:19]when I'm working, I don't get anything accomplished.
[14:22]I just, my inner editor will take over.
[14:24]And it's just so frustrating because I get in these moments
[14:28]where I won't even, everything I put on paper,
[14:31]I feel like isn't good enough immediately.
[14:32]So instead of thinking that way and trying
[14:35]to have perfection the first time around,
[14:37]I just sort of give myself permission,
[14:39]especially with these first drops
[14:41]to just make a mess a little bit.
[14:43]And then know that it'll all be cleaned up later and revised,
[14:46]but that the canvas needs to exist first.
[14:50]I was trying to write something this morning
[14:52]and every time I started, I was like doing that same thing.
[14:54]I was like editing myself so much
[14:56]I couldn't even like really get into it.
[14:58]So finally at the top, I just put draft one of three
[15:01]so that I would like trick myself that like,
[15:03]it's okay cause you're gonna do like two more of these
[15:04]after.
[15:05]So let's just like do the first one and then like get to it.
[15:07]And then once I started, it was easier.
[15:09]But anyway, that's how I tricked myself today.
[15:12]That's good.
[15:13]I like that.
[15:14]How did you end up being a novelist?
[15:15]How did this happen in your whole life?
[15:17]He says you were a former model.
[15:19]What was that?
[15:20]I mean, tell me about how we went
[15:21]from modeling to writing to, you know.
[15:23]Yeah, it seems like very like to totally separate careers.
[15:28]And it really it is, but interestingly enough,
[15:30]like modeling was something I did in my early 20s
[15:34]and some of my teens as well,
[15:36]but mostly my early 20s.
[15:37]And I feel like it in a lot of ways prepared me
[15:40]for the world of writing,
[15:42]because modeling's a lot of, you know,
[15:44]what rejection as well.
[15:46]So it's interesting when I started out writing,
[15:49]I kind of had the thick skin built off already
[15:52]from being in an industry where rejection is rampant
[15:55]and that where you have to not take things personally.
[15:58]So when I decided I wanted to write
[16:01]and I wrote it finally wrote a book
[16:04]and started querying it and got all the rejections,
[16:07]I remember, you know, it's hard at first not to take it
[16:10]personally, but I kind of got into that mindset
[16:13]where I took feedback as constructive
[16:15]and I didn't take any of those rejections personally
[16:18]and I just kind of applied everything
[16:20]to working on the next thing.
[16:22]And I also went to journalism school.
[16:25]I thought that's what I was gonna do with my writing,
[16:28]but I, and I think part of it was I didn't think fiction
[16:32]was, writing fiction was like a actual lifestyle,
[16:35]like a career and I talked myself out of it
[16:38]because I just thought it was too far-fetched
[16:41]and I was trying to be more practical,
[16:42]but journalism really didn't give me that fulfillment.
[16:46]I think it, I'm really glad I went into journalism
[16:49]because I think it did help my writing a lot
[16:52]and I'm grateful for that experience,
[16:54]but I think it made me realize more than anything
[16:57]that I needed to tell my own stories
[17:00]and that I had these fiction ideas
[17:02]and it was time to see what happened with them
[17:05]even if nothing happened.
[17:07]And I think a lot of it was the fear of failure
[17:10]and the fear of the unknown.
[17:12]So I was a secret writer for a lot of years
[17:15]where I barely knew what I was doing
[17:18]just because I was so afraid of putting it out there
[17:21]and then having people ask so many questions about,
[17:24]oh, when's your book coming in and then feeling
[17:27]that feeling of failure from both other people
[17:31]and myself?
[17:32]So I kept it a secret for a while
[17:35]and I wrote two books in secret
[17:37]that they're definitely were not good enough.
[17:41]They were my starter books and I'm grateful for them
[17:43]for teaching me a lot
[17:45]and then I published three young adult books
[17:48]before the girls are also nice here came out.
[17:50]So that's sort of my trajectory.
[17:52]When you were modeling, what type of modeling did you do?
[17:56]I don't talk to that many models.
[17:57]Yeah, but I did runway work and magazines as well.
[18:01]So yeah, it seems like it totally different lifestyle now.
[18:04]I could totally different life, but it was fun.
[18:07]And I will say it did inspire some of the themes in my work
[18:11]because anytime you put all these young women together,
[18:14]you're gonna get compared and you're gonna get competition.
[18:17]Even though these are your friends
[18:19]and people that you know, it's still that judgment
[18:23]and that being analyzed and that thing of where women
[18:28]are sort of pitted against each other almost,
[18:31]which are themes that sort of factor in my work a lot.
[18:34]Wow. And what's coming next for you?
[18:36]You have another book in the works.
[18:37]I do.
[18:38]I'm working on my second adult novel right now,
[18:40]which is sort of a bridesmaids meets Jillian Flynn
[18:44]as how I've sort of pitched it.
[18:46]So it sort of goes into the stereotypes
[18:49]and the expectations of the wedding industry place on women,
[18:53]which I think there's so much to say about.
[18:56]So yeah, that's what I've been working on.
[18:58]I'm excited about it and I'm excited to share more
[19:01]when I can.
[19:03]This is great because you start with college
[19:05]and now you're going to the wedding
[19:06]and now we can eventually maybe you'll get to motherhood
[19:08]or like, you know what I mean?
[19:09]You're gonna go through all these lights.
[19:10]Yeah, exactly.
[19:12]I love it.
[19:13]Excellent.
[19:14]Well, what advice would you have for aspiring authors?
[19:16]I think just to write anything
[19:20]and just don't try not to edit yourself
[19:24]and critique yourself too much
[19:25]because that's where I got hung up in those early days
[19:28]was just, you know, I'd have an idea in my head.
[19:32]I'd try to get it on paper.
[19:33]It wouldn't come out how I expected
[19:35]and I'd get frustrated and I would just give up
[19:37]for a few days or a few weeks even
[19:39]or just feel like I wasn't good enough
[19:41]or I wasn't telling the story I wanted to tell.
[19:44]And it wasn't until I sort of gave myself permission
[19:46]to not tell exactly what was in my head
[19:50]and to let things have a life of their own
[19:51]and to not be so hard on myself
[19:53]that I actually started to get in and groove with writing
[19:56]and actually make progress with my book
[19:58]because, you know.
[20:00]You can sit there and look at a blind word document and be frustrated with yourself and it's so easy to do that
[20:06]But I think just giving yourself permission to write even if it's even if you know you're gonna delete it later
[20:12]Or even if you know it's not great or if you feel like every word's terrible
[20:17]I still have days like that
[20:18]I don't think it ever goes away and I think that just writing through it and
[20:23]Trusting your subconscious and trusting your instincts and
[20:27]Believing that you have this nobody can tell the story except for you and
[20:31]Sort of just believing in those parts of yourself, which is easier. So then done
[20:35]I think that's my top piece of advice and then also just to read widely read all the time and read different genres read and figure out
[20:44]What makes a book great if you read a book and loved it?
[20:49]And you think you know this I want to write something like this
[20:52]I think it's just a matter of looking at it critically and figuring out well what worked from that book
[20:58]What what made it so great because looking at books that I love critically you're I feel like it's always a good
[21:04]Exercise and if I'm feeling stuck and you know it's just sort of looking at what worked for for that story and then trying to
[21:14]Figure out what works for your story. Perfect. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you
[21:18]Laurie, thank you so much for coming on mom's time to read books to discuss the girls are also nice here
[21:23]I love it love the lipstick. I hope you're doing some like clever thing with this like lipstick promotion
[21:30]You should be like sending out lipsticks or something especially with you. Yeah, he's in lipstick on your lips
[21:35]My Canadian team at Simon and Tuster actually had a lipstick designed by the improsia. It's beautiful
[21:41]I was like that is the coolest thing to ever happen to me as an author because I love lipstick so much
[21:47]I'm totally obsessed with it. So that was pretty neat. Wow. Well, you should like sell that on your website because I would totally
[21:53]Serious think about it anyway. All right. Thank you so much. It was lovely chatting today. Thank you so much. Okay. Take care. Bye. Bye
[22:03]Thanks for listening to this episode of mom's don't have time to read books
[22:07]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens and at mom's don't have time to read books
[22:12]Also sign up for my newsletter at zibi Owens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on zoom every
[22:18]Other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at texture sound for the sound editing and thank you to morning moon productions for providing this
[22:25]Fantastic intro and outro music