Rex Ogle, PUNCHING BAG
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[0:41]Rex Ogle is the author of Punching Bag.
[0:44]Rex has been on this podcast before for his first book, Free Lunch.
[0:48]Rex was born and raised mostly in Texas.
[0:50]He moved to New York City after college to pursue an editorial career,
[0:54]interning at Marvel Comics before working at DC Comics and later its classic and little brown young readers.
[0:59]He's championed over a dozen New York Times bestsellers on major brands such as X-Men,
[1:04]Justice League, Star Wars, Lego, Power Rangers, Transformers, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
[1:09]But writing for himself was always the ultimate goal.
[1:12]He has written under a lot of pen names, most notably Trey King, honestly, and Ray Terseiro,
[1:18]which is just a spaniel for Third King, which is apt since Rex is Latin for King,
[1:23]and Rex is the third Rex in his family.
[1:26]Now, he lives in Los Angeles, where he writes full time when he's not outside hiking with his dog Toby,
[1:31]playing Mario Kart with friends and losing terribly or reading.
[1:35]Welcome, Rex.
[1:36]Thank you for coming back on Moms and have time to read books to discuss Punching Bag.
[1:41]Thanks for having me.
[1:42]Actually, I'm holding this up, but I have another copy of it somewhere, but sorry, I'm holding up the galley, so anyway.
[1:48]That's the one I was reading.
[1:50]As you know, I was such a huge fan of Freelage when it came out,
[1:53]along with a lot of other people, of course, because it was beautiful and pointed and moving and all the rest.
[1:58]And Punching Bag is the next phase of your life and your past and how you got through so much of it.
[2:06]What is it like writing your way through these really painful moments and why keep going back to it?
[2:14]Like, why the continuation, why that a continuation essentially, but why keep going from Freelage, why another volume essentially?
[2:20]That's a good question.
[2:22]I mean, with Freelage, I felt there was such an important need to talk about, you know, living and growing up in poverty and it was really important.
[2:32]And it was hard to write, but it felt necessary.
[2:35]With Punching Bag, it kind of actually came out of Freelage.
[2:38]Freelage was originally about twice the length.
[2:41]And when I was writing Freelage, I kept coming back to my sister.
[2:45]And my publisher and my editor basically said, you know, this is such an important story.
[2:51]It doesn't feel like it goes in Freelage.
[2:53]It feels like it deserves its own space.
[2:56]And so I agreed to it, not realizing how much more painful it would be to write.
[3:01]Freelage was difficult.
[3:02]Punching Bag was probably 10 times as hard.
[3:04]And it's one of those things where with Freelage, I've done school visits.
[3:10]And I've met so many people who reached out and said, thank you for writing the book.
[3:15]And so that kind of helped me through the darker times of writing Punching Bag.
[3:21]Because it certainly was not an easy book to write.
[3:24]Wow.
[3:25]He wrote in the beginning how it might be triggering for some people.
[3:28]There was sort of a word of wording.
[3:30]Why include that?
[3:31]You know, I talked about it with my publisher.
[3:34]And again, it was one of those things that it just felt there's a lot that happens in the book.
[3:39]There's a lot that's that's really heavy.
[3:41]And we wanted people to kind of know what they were getting themselves into ahead of time.
[3:45]So he came up with the idea and I was 100% on board.
[3:48]I thought it was a good idea because it's it's not an easy book to sit down and read.
[3:53]No, but so powerful.
[3:55]I mean, is that one of the goals of a book, right?
[3:59]It's just like for me at least it's the ability to create such an intense feeling.
[4:06]Right.
[4:07]Like I could be going through my day and love a line that I sit down to read a few pages of your book.
[4:11]And I'm immediately like horrified and gross.
[4:16]You know, feel so bad for you and all the stuff that you went through.
[4:20]And yet at the same time, so impressed that you've overcome all of this.
[4:24]And even Rex at the end.
[4:26]Like your afterward that can I read part of this or you know,
[4:30]I mean, I guess it's not a plot spoiler that you survived because here we are talking.
[4:34]But the afterward you wrote, I survived repeating that is good.
[4:37]It's important to remind yourself after something truly awful has happened to you that you are still alive that you are still kicking.
[4:43]You can keep going that you survived.
[4:46]We are all survivors.
[4:47]We all have a past.
[4:48]We all have tragedy in our lives.
[4:50]We all have dark moments that we want to forget or at the very least forgive.
[4:54]And forgiveness is important.
[4:55]And then you went on to explain some of your decisions in terms of forgiveness of various people and your family.
[5:01]And you say how as hard as it was, I chose to let go of toxic relationships and focus on positive connections.
[5:06]I have new friends, new family, a new partner and a good life.
[5:09]I am learning to be happy.
[5:11]I am telling you all this because I want you to know again that I survived and that whatever you've gone through,
[5:16]you've survived it to be here in the present now.
[5:18]But if you're anything like me, you're carrying a lot of pain.
[5:20]My advice, let it go.
[5:22]Let the past be the past move forward, which is so beautiful and inspiring.
[5:28]How do people move forward from this?
[5:32]Like how?
[5:33]I mean, for me, it's been a lot of therapy.
[5:38]I'm on antidepressants.
[5:40]I still deal with anxiety and depression every day.
[5:43]I've been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
[5:46]And it's not easy.
[5:48]Even this morning I woke up and I was just, it's a little gray here in Los Angeles
[5:52]and I didn't want to get out of bed.
[5:54]And I had to just kind of push myself to get out of bed and remind myself
[5:58]that it's going to be a nice day, even if it's cloudy and just to stay positive.
[6:03]And it's not something that comes naturally to me.
[6:06]And I think that a lot of people struggle with staying positive.
[6:09]And it's, oh, it's not easy, but I put in the work.
[6:13]And I think putting in the work is so important.
[6:16]Well, I didn't want to get out of bed this morning either if it makes you feeling better.
[6:20]I think there are a lot of people that can relate to that.
[6:25]But the amount of violence that you not only witness, but where they're recipient of.
[6:32]And I mean, there's like two pieces to it.
[6:36]One is watching the violence between your stepfather and your mom.
[6:41]And another is when you were caught in the crossfire.
[6:44]Somebody told it to the subject of it yourself.
[6:47]And, you know, in somebody's ways.
[6:50]I don't know how you go about, like, it's your own pain, but it's also what you saw.
[6:55]Right? Like there's there's two pieces to it.
[6:57]Do you ever, like is it worth even teasing them apart?
[7:00]Or is it all just like one big thing to you?
[7:03]You know what I mean?
[7:04]You know, I feel like, I mean, they were separate instances because witnessing,
[7:09]it happened to my mom made me feel so helpless and so powerless.
[7:13]But then also receiving it kind of did the same thing just in a different way.
[7:18]You know, for me looking back, it's it's just such a hard thing to deal with it.
[7:25]Like I can't even wrap my head around it sometimes.
[7:27]It feels like it happened to a different person, but it so viscerally happened to me.
[7:31]And it's yeah, I don't know.
[7:33]I mean, it's.
[7:34]All right, bad question.
[7:35]I don't know.
[7:36]It's not a it's not a bad question.
[7:37]It's just it's one of those things.
[7:39]Whereas I recall it is it feels like it.
[7:43]It's just so visceral and it's not one of those things that I'll ever be able to forget.
[7:48]I, as I was reading, I kept sort of hoping you would be safe.
[7:52]Right.
[7:53]Somebody was going to swoop in and that it went all sort of end and everything would be great and whatever.
[7:59]And the one scene where the police came in the beginning and towards the beginning, I guess.
[8:04]And you, you would just moved and I guess your new neighbors must have heard of their violence and reported it and they came and there was that moment with you and the cops are crashing down early September.
[8:17]Like looking into your eyes and you don't thinking like, should I say something and then be like, no, I can't leave my brother.
[8:23]And I, you know, what what would happen if I said something and then that decision right then I felt like that was such a, you know, like a turning point.
[8:31]Like you were like, I'm in it, I'm in it because I, you know, we're a unit and this is just how it has to be.
[8:37]But I wondered like what if, you know, what like at these different turning points like.
[8:43]I don't know.
[8:45]How, you know, is that how you sort of look back and I'm sorry, we can change the topic.
[8:50]It was great day and sort of make it more happy.
[8:55]I kept, you know, I mean, even as a little kid, like I had fantasies of being like rescued by my real parents.
[9:01]Like I kept thinking like, maybe this isn't, these aren't my biological parents or my mom.
[9:06]I'm because obviously I was with when I stepped out, but I kept hoping that like secretly I had a different mom somewhere and that she would come in and rescue me.
[9:14]But I also had dreams of going to live with my way low, which I ended up doing. I moved out when I was 16.
[9:19]I moved in with her to finish high school.
[9:22]And yeah, it was one of those things where it was hard because I would see other kids at school dropped off by their parents and, you know, their moms would give them a hug and a kiss.
[9:33]And it instilled in me like a sense of envy and I was just like, I want that.
[9:39]But the truth is is that you never know what other people are going through.
[9:42]You know, for, for all I know those kids were going through something similar.
[9:46]You know, and that's the thing is that, you know, I've chatted with some of my friends who I went to high school with since the book came out.
[9:53]And a few of them were like, you know, we suspected like we knew. I mean, you came to school with bruises all the time and, you know.
[10:00]But I have other friends who were like, I had no idea.
[10:03]Like, you were always such like a happy person.
[10:05]And I was like, I was a clown,
[10:07]like I was really putting on a show for people at school.
[10:11]And it was, I think I needed to fake it till I make it.
[10:14]That was kind of what I did back then.
[10:16]That's still kind of what I do now.
[10:19]You know, I put on a brave face,
[10:20]but inside sometimes I feel like I'm falling apart.
[10:23]And I think a lot of people do that.
[10:25]Especially, you know, I know a lot of young moms
[10:28]who are dealing with that.
[10:29]My sister-in-law just had a baby.
[10:30]And she's struggling right now.
[10:32]But I mean, if you look at her Instagram,
[10:34]she looks like she's having the best motherhood ever.
[10:36]And it's just, it's one of those things to keep in mind.
[10:39]Like, it's easy to think other people have a better life.
[10:43]But until you really engage with them,
[10:45]you don't really know.
[10:46]That's true.
[10:47]That's true.
[10:48]But I also think what you're lacking,
[10:50]there's an extra spotlight that goes on that particular thing.
[10:53]Right, yes, they might have had something terrible
[10:55]going on at home, but you were so desperate for that hug
[10:58]that it became, you know, like in marquee lights
[11:02]and, you know, Times Square type of thing
[11:04]because it's like what you were so lacking, right?
[11:06]So it just was magnified.
[11:07]That's the word comes magnified.
[11:10]But it's true.
[11:11]I mean, that's the crazy thing about people
[11:14]is that we decide what to show who and when at any time.
[11:19]And you can just essentially act.
[11:21]I mean, right?
[11:22]You can just say, I mean, I went through a period of time
[11:26]where people were surprised to hear stuff that had happened.
[11:30]And, you know, I'm like, well, that's what I do.
[11:33]Like, I could be crying an hour ago
[11:35]and then I could be on the news and I'm going to be fine.
[11:38]But you don't have to know that, right?
[11:40]Like, it's just that's, I don't know.
[11:42]They're all these different parts of us that enable us
[11:44]to really navigate the world.
[11:46]And I don't know if they're coping mechanisms.
[11:48]I don't know what it is, but I don't know.
[11:50]You never know what's going on behind closed doors.
[11:52]I guess it's the point.
[11:54]Anyway, well, okay, to put a more positive spin.
[11:58]And I know this is such a dark place and I am hesitant
[12:02]to like take you back into it.
[12:03]I know we're here to talk about the book,
[12:05]but it is powerful and it is raw and, you know,
[12:09]so, so worth reading for everybody out there.
[12:12]I mean, to get this for anyone who hasn't been involved
[12:16]in a in a family situation or hasn't seen violence,
[12:20]but it's only heard about domestic violence some way.
[12:23]Like, this is so important.
[12:25]It's your work is so important and aggregate to know the effect,
[12:29]like what it looks like up close and you effect on the child.
[12:32]And of course you've done the work and here you are,
[12:35]but like, you know, it shouldn't be taken lightly.
[12:39]And especially now with everybody being home
[12:42]and that was one of the things I thought about a lot
[12:44]in COVID during lockdown at the beginning,
[12:46]in particular, like what about families
[12:47]where it's not safe for kids to be locked in all the time.
[12:52]Did you feel like that at all back then too?
[12:54]As soon as the quarantine started back
[12:57]what two years ago, I, like my heart started aching
[13:01]and I was like their kids who are now trapped in their homes
[13:04]with their abusers and if their parents are laid off,
[13:08]like I can't imagine, like I thought it was bad
[13:12]and I had the escape of school.
[13:14]Like school was a Monday through Friday escape that I got
[13:18]where I could go and feel like a normal kid
[13:20]or, you know, focus on educating myself,
[13:25]focus on reading, focusing on being social,
[13:28]like it was an escape and so when COVID started
[13:31]I was just like, oh God, like there's gonna be so many kids
[13:34]who are stuck at home with these parents who are,
[13:38]I don't wanna call them monsters, but, you know, abusers
[13:41]and my heart breaks thinking about what that's like
[13:46]and I really hope that these kids are having some outlet.
[13:51]I will say that there's so many resources now
[13:54]and kids have easy access to Wi-Fi and air and that
[13:58]and et cetera, et cetera and hopefully they are
[14:01]taking advantage of those 1-800 numbers
[14:03]because I didn't know stuff like that existed.
[14:05]You know, I mean, given I was a kid 30 years ago
[14:09]was, you know, that stuff existed
[14:12]but I don't think it was not easy to find
[14:16]and so I'm hoping that kids are taking advantage
[14:18]of these resources that are out there.
[14:20]Have you thought about, like, any way to prevent it?
[14:24]Like, are you involved with things to help other kids
[14:28]or are there charities you like or is there any
[14:32]aside from 800 numbers, like anything you've sort of clung to
[14:36]or that like you could like, what about people
[14:38]who wanna help, like, because what can you really do?
[14:41]What can we all really do?
[14:43]I mean, I speak in so many schools and so many libraries
[14:47]and that is kind of like my gateway to kids
[14:50]and reminding them that there are resources out there
[14:52]that they could take advantage of that are anonymous,
[14:54]that are free because some of these kids
[14:58]just need someone to talk to.
[14:59]And so, you know, in visiting these titleman schools
[15:02]like I remind them, like you need to take advantage,
[15:05]please take advantage, you know, if you or someone
[15:07]you know, is going through that, you know,
[15:09]and for that I talk to a lot of teachers
[15:11]and a lot of educators and they're like,
[15:12]well, what do we do in these situations?
[15:14]And, you know, I hate to say it,
[15:16]but I tell them to call child protective services,
[15:19]which, you know, I had it called on me several,
[15:24]or all my parents several times,
[15:26]nothing came of it because it was Texas
[15:28]and it was 30 years ago.
[15:29]And I think, you know, it is what it is.
[15:32]Like, I still think that there's generational violence,
[15:36]like this is how some kids are raised
[15:39]because this is how their parents were raised
[15:41]because this is how their grandparents were raised
[15:43]because that's how their great grandparents were raised.
[15:46]Like, it's generational thing passed down
[15:48]from generation to generation.
[15:50]And, you know, people who are abused as kids
[15:52]are much more likely to abuse their kids.
[15:55]And it's a devastating fact that this is the truth,
[15:58]not just in America, but in the whole world.
[16:01]And I think it's a silent thing that we don't talk about.
[16:05]And so, yeah, I encourage teachers and educators
[16:07]to use those resources and to reach out and, you know,
[16:11]try to be there for these kids to go into this stuff.
[16:14]Have you done, and you probably have,
[16:16]and I just didn't see, but have you done any videos
[16:19]of you kind of talking just like this, like on YouTube,
[16:22]like just to the child who's out there,
[16:25]like the young you type of prison?
[16:27]I haven't because the discoverability is weird.
[16:29]Like, I don't know that people would be able to find it,
[16:31]but maybe I should.
[16:33]I mean, it's one of those things where I'm kind of embarrassed.
[16:40]I feel arrogant for me to step out of my shoes
[16:43]and be like, oh, I should be doing this stuff.
[16:45]But I know that the books give me a platform
[16:48]and I should utilize that.
[16:50]It's just, I don't know, I'm like, who am I?
[16:52]I'm just a writer, like I'm not a therapist
[16:55]or a psychologist or, but I'm a survivor.
[16:58]I guess that gives me a reason.
[17:00]I mean, I think you could just say that.
[17:02]Or maybe I'll just put this on YouTube, and there you go.
[17:04]My swollen red nose and, you know,
[17:08]but seriously, I mean, I think, let's just say one boy finds it.
[17:15]Like the nephew, amazing.
[17:16]Yeah, that would be.
[17:18]Right, and he's like, oh, wow.
[17:20]If he got through it, like maybe that boy doesn't have access,
[17:22]maybe he can't read that well,
[17:24]or maybe he's not, I don't know,
[17:25]but I know you have other ways.
[17:27]I don't know, maybe just any better time.
[17:30]Makes me think I should do my homework
[17:31]and like get on YouTube and see what is on there
[17:34]and see if there's something that I can add to it
[17:36]at the conversation.
[17:38]Yeah.
[17:39]I mean, everybody has their own story, right?
[17:41]And you've written it so beautifully
[17:43]and I don't know, just cover up, yeah.
[17:46]Maybe you just get out there.
[17:47]I'm just, now can you put that visual of the kids
[17:50]stuck at home and looking online only for help, right?
[17:55]And not in the library because library's closed
[17:57]and they can't afford books.
[17:58]And, you know, all that, I don't know.
[18:01]Yeah, it's fair point.
[18:04]I like this.
[18:06]I mean, you're so good at talking, you're so articulate
[18:08]and I don't know.
[18:09]I'm not sure everybody is this comfortable
[18:12]being able to talk about it.
[18:14]Yeah, I mean, I think it's, I mean, being in therapy
[18:18]for the last 20 years helps.
[18:19]I think it was also one of those things
[18:21]where, you know, when I started writing,
[18:23]like I didn't want to write about this stuff,
[18:24]I was writing sci-fi and fantasy and skier novels
[18:28]and it was one of those things that I avoided
[18:30]like the plague and put upon writing free lunch.
[18:34]I realized that, you know, it is important
[18:36]to tell these stories and I need to take out the,
[18:41]that feeling of like who am I because again,
[18:43]like I do feel arrogant.
[18:44]I feel awkward talking about myself,
[18:47]but then I get so many emails
[18:49]and so many Instagram direct messages
[18:51]and I get so many Facebook people saying like,
[18:53]I read this to my class or I read this to my son
[18:56]or I read this to my daughter and it's,
[18:58]and I mean, these people are like thanking me
[19:00]for helping spread empathy and for talking about this stuff.
[19:03]And, you know, there's even a lot of librarians
[19:05]and teachers who reach on that, say,
[19:07]I went through similar things when I was a kid.
[19:08]So thank you for writing this.
[19:10]And it breaks my heart, but at the same time,
[19:12]it also, I think it's important for these people
[19:15]to feel sane.
[19:16]And so yeah, I mean, as hard as these are to write,
[19:19]I'm glad that I wrote them.
[19:20]All right, well, this is your homework
[19:22]on this great day in LA when you don't want to go out
[19:25]to bed, it's like, we're gonna get off
[19:27]and you just like do a quick video to the kid
[19:30]and just say, I'm a writer.
[19:31]I don't feel like I have any right to do this,
[19:33]but I'm gonna do it anyway
[19:34]and maybe somebody out there will find it.
[19:36]And then if that one person writes you back,
[19:38]then you can write me and be like, it was all worth it.
[19:40]Yeah.
[19:41]Yeah.
[19:43]Okay.
[19:44]Okay.
[19:45]Okay.
[19:46]Okay. Anyway.
[19:47]So what else do you have going on?
[19:49]You have these two books out now.
[19:50]I know you're always doing a thousand projects.
[19:51]So what else is going on?
[19:53]Well, right now I'm working on something called
[19:56]a boiler, don't forget me,
[19:57]which is about my grandmother.
[19:59]If you.
[20:00]And my books, you know, what a powerful force she was in my life.
[20:03]And she was always there for me.
[20:05]She was an angel.
[20:06]She was a court system.
[20:07]She was always encouraging me to do better to get out there,
[20:10]go to college, et cetera, et cetera.
[20:12]So she's, you know, both my parents are not great,
[20:16]but she's always been amazing.
[20:17]And right now she has dementia.
[20:21]And it suffered a few years ago.
[20:22]And it's been getting worse and worse.
[20:24]And she got COVID early on.
[20:27]And, you know, went into a hospital for three weeks.
[20:30]And this was at the very beginning of COVID.
[20:32]They put her in a room for three weeks by herself.
[20:34]And like, there's a big locker in there
[20:36]because she kept trying to escape
[20:38]because she didn't know what was going on.
[20:40]She kept forgetting.
[20:41]And hospital, she didn't know what COVID was.
[20:43]So she declined really, really horribly.
[20:45]And she's just forgetting a lot.
[20:47]And, you know, I try to visit her as often as I can.
[20:51]Because she's down in Texas.
[20:52]And it's every time I see her, she's a little more diminished.
[20:56]So I've been writing down all the memories I have of her,
[20:58]but I've been writing it down in free verse
[21:00]because I wanted her to be able to sit down
[21:02]and read something very quickly
[21:04]and hopefully, you know, remember it.
[21:06]And so I started as something for her.
[21:09]But now I'm, you know, I showed it to my editor
[21:12]and he's like, let's make this into a book.
[21:14]So it's very much a love letter to her
[21:16]and to all grandmothers out there
[21:18]who helped their grandchildren.
[21:20]Because I, you know, I don't know
[21:23]that there's a lot of books about how great grandparents are.
[21:25]And how, you know, even if your parents aren't great,
[21:29]like grandparents can really help change your life.
[21:32]So that's what I'm most proud of that I'm working on.
[21:35]And then I have a lot of other books
[21:36]that are graphic novels and prose that are fantasy.
[21:40]And I'm very excited for those
[21:41]because it's a little bit lighter fair.
[21:43]One of them is called Supernatural Society.
[21:46]And it's about three kids who live in a town full of monsters,
[21:49]myths, magic, and mad science.
[21:50]And only they can see it.
[21:52]So they, it's up to them to save the town.
[21:55]I have another graphic novel called Swan Lake Quest
[21:57]for the Kingdom coming out.
[21:58]And that's takes the ballet and turns into an action
[22:01]adventure fantasy.
[22:03]And so yeah, I'm working on a lot of books
[22:05]and they're also fun and it's really great
[22:07]to kind of get out of my head.
[22:09]But I, the books that I'm writing under my own name
[22:13]that are facts that are memoirs, you know,
[22:18]those are the hardest but in a way
[22:20]they're the most rewarding.
[22:21]Well, I can't wait to read the one about your boy life.
[22:25]You should take lots of pictures and stuff
[22:26]I'm sure you are but I feel like you put that in the book.
[22:29]So we have, you know, like her life.
[22:32]Yeah, I just send a bunch of pictures to my other day
[22:34]and I was like, we have to include these in the back of the book.
[22:37]All right, yeah.
[22:39]I actually talked to my editor of my memoir.
[22:42]It's gonna be out in July.
[22:43]And I was like, I think after this I want to write
[22:45]about my grandmother and she was like,
[22:46]okay, yeah, let's talk grandmother stories.
[22:48]And I was like, okay, all right, put it fit in that.
[22:52]Such a great relationship with my grandmother
[22:53]and she was so funny.
[22:55]I don't know if she was such a character.
[22:56]I feel like the problem with me is like,
[22:58]I can't remember like my memories living so fast.
[23:01]Do you ever feel like I feel like I have to
[23:03]asking my husband all the time like, wait,
[23:05]I know she says to me funny to her and that was like,
[23:07]when did she say that did her remember?
[23:08]What was it?
[23:09]You know, so I'm like, how can I write more memoirs
[23:11]like, I can't remember anything anymore.
[23:14]Yeah, it's one of those things.
[23:16]Like I feel like I'm dumber than I used to be.
[23:18]I used to have such a big vocabulary now.
[23:20]I'm like, do I don't have a vocabulary anymore?
[23:23]And I don't know, COVID has been hard too
[23:25]because I feel like for two years,
[23:27]I wasn't being as social as I used to be.
[23:29]And that makes conversations hard.
[23:31]It's just a weird time to be alive.
[23:34]Yeah.
[23:34]Well, you know, you can start a podcast.
[23:36]You'd be talking all the time.
[23:39]I haven't left my house much in two years,
[23:41]but I, you know, I had lots of conversations.
[23:43]Yeah.
[23:46]Not to say my vocabulary is a great shape,
[23:48]but you know, better than it would be probably.
[23:52]Memory, I don't know, got nothing.
[23:55]So what advice would you give?
[23:56]I know you've given this before,
[23:58]but I like to ask, you know, especially after projects,
[24:01]you know, somebody who's trying to write something,
[24:03]maybe advice to someone who's trying to write something
[24:06]is really hard for them or that it's,
[24:08]they've been avoiding like,
[24:09]how do you get them to go there?
[24:11]That's an awesome question.
[24:13]I would say, first of all, be easy on yourself
[24:16]if you're not in the right head space,
[24:18]you're not in the right head space.
[24:20]But there is something to be said about sitting down
[24:22]and forcing yourself to kind of go through it.
[24:24]There were times when I didn't feel like writing,
[24:26]but I was like, okay, I'm going to sit down and write.
[24:29]Then if I, I'd give myself an hour and if I, you know,
[24:32]it wasn't productive, I would, I would take a break,
[24:35]but then there were times when it's like,
[24:36]I'd be really depressed and I'd be like,
[24:38]okay, you know what?
[24:39]This is the perfect mood to write it
[24:40]because I'm not going to get anywhere else than I am right now.
[24:42]So I might as well just dive right in.
[24:45]And some of those were the best chapters
[24:46]because I was really pouring what I was feeling
[24:49]into the books and to the chapters.
[24:52]And then afterwards, you know, sometimes I would have
[24:54]to have a good cry, sometimes I would get outside
[24:57]and go for a run, sometimes I would open up a bottle of wine
[25:01]and be like, okay, you can drink at least half of this.
[25:03]So it's, there was a lot of self care involved
[25:08]and I think that's really important, not just in writing
[25:10]but in everyday life.
[25:12]It's so easy to forget to take care of yourself
[25:14]and it's so important, especially if, you know,
[25:18]you're busy, if you have a lot going on, you know,
[25:20]it's easy to be like, okay, I'm going to put myself
[25:22]on the back burner and I'm going to focus
[25:24]on all these other things.
[25:25]So yeah, definitely, definitely take care of yourself
[25:28]and yeah, when writing just really focus on the important
[25:34]stuff and make sure you address the five senses.
[25:37]And yeah, I don't know.
[25:40]I don't want to do like a writing 101,
[25:42]but I would definitely say self care.
[25:45]Amazing.
[25:47]Well, hopefully this conversation, even if you don't do
[25:50]your own YouTube thing, hopefully this will find someone
[25:53]who needs it out there, I'm hoping.
[25:54]So yeah, and just keep doing what you're doing.
[25:58]It's so amazing.
[25:59]I have so much respect for you seriously.
[26:01]I just, in so many ways, all of it.
[26:04]I'm just ability for you to write it down.
[26:06]The fact that you got through it all that you've just like,
[26:10]I mean, you've had every sort of disadvantage, right?
[26:14]Every from the withholding of maternal love essentially,
[26:18]which is the most basic thing, most human beings are given
[26:21]and that you come out of it helping other people.
[26:24]It's really beautiful.
[26:25]It's really amazing.
[26:26]So well, thank you very much.
[26:27]I appreciate that.
[26:28]Anyway, and that you're such a great writer.
[26:30]So I'll take it.
[26:33]All right, Rex, we'll have a great day.
[26:35]I hope it turns around that the sun comes out too.
[26:39]Yeah, feel better.
[26:41]Okay, thanks.
[26:42]All right, bye-bye.
[26:43]Bye-bye.
[26:45]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time
[26:48]to Read Books.
[26:49]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens
[26:52]and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[26:54]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com
[26:57]and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors
[26:59]on Zoom every other week.
[27:01]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan,
[27:02]in fact, Texture Sound for the Sound Editing.
[27:05]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[27:06]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.
[27:09]Bye-bye.