Nick Hornby, JUST LIKE YOU: A Novel
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[0:36]Hi, hi. Hello.
[0:38]Enjoy the show.
[0:40]I had the best time interviewing Nick Hornby.
[0:43]I have been a fan of his forever and ever, as probably many of you have as well.
[0:48]Nick is the author of seven other best-selling novels, including high fidelity,
[0:53]about a boy, and a long way down, as well as several works of nonfiction.
[0:57]Many of his books have been turned into successful films and TV series.
[1:01]He has been Oscar-nominated twice for his screenplays of an education and Brooklyn.
[1:06]His 10-part short-form TV series, State of the Union, directed by Stephen Frairs,
[1:10]has recently been broadcast by the Sundance Channel and the BBC and has won three Emmys.
[1:15]He currently lives in London.
[1:17]Welcome, Nick. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books
[1:21]to discuss your latest book just like you.
[1:23]Thank you.
[1:24]You're welcome.
[1:25]In a way, it is just like me, because I got divorced when I was, I guess, 39,
[1:32]and I'm now remarried, but I was a single woman for a minute, just a minute back in the day.
[1:39]I didn't end up with Joseph, but, you know, I did end up with someone younger, so anyway.
[1:43]I asked, this is the book for you.
[1:46]So this is the book for me. You have found your audience.
[1:48]But I also have to say that yesterday, as I was, as I just told you,
[1:55]I had this, I was in the hospital for one thing or another, and I was very stressed out,
[1:59]and I still had the end of your book to read.
[2:01]So I would pull it out of my bag, and after I was like, you know, like so worried,
[2:05]I pulled it out next, you know, I'm like in the waiting room, hysterically laughing.
[2:08]And I was like, this is so bad.
[2:11]And now, and then I was embarrassed looking around at the people who weren't laughing,
[2:14]and I was like, oh, no, maybe I should just put it back in my bag.
[2:17]Yeah, actually, you made me look bad.
[2:21]It's like, but you made yourself look bad, certainly, but you made me look bad too, I think.
[2:27]Like, well, you love why you want to run your son something in procedure.
[2:31]Yeah. But you, I mean, you are so funny.
[2:35]I love your sense of humor.
[2:37]That's like dry, very dark, kind of funny.
[2:40]Oh my gosh, I just, I just eat it all up.
[2:42]It's hilarious.
[2:43]So thank you.
[2:45]So you are so accomplished.
[2:47]So many of my favorite bugs, about a boy.
[2:49]Oh my gosh, all this stuff.
[2:51]Just like you, why did you write this book?
[2:54]Why this, why at this time in your career, why now give me the whole spiel?
[2:59]Well, it literally started with me watching someone in a shop, a guy and a girl.
[3:06]And the guy was older and, and the girl was of color.
[3:12]A young black woman.
[3:13]And they had something going on.
[3:15]They had a little flirt.
[3:16]And all the way home, I thought, why can't those people get together?
[3:23]What are the obstacles?
[3:24]Because I knew they were not going to get together.
[3:26]But what are the obstacles?
[3:27]And so I started to think about them, about age and race and class and thinking of
[3:35]inventive ways in which they could be overcome should these people wish to do so.
[3:41]But it got part there, you know, for two or three years.
[3:44]I could see that it might be fun to write, but I didn't really know what to do with it.
[3:48]And then when we had our Brexit referendum, and it felt like one side of the country
[3:55]would never speak to the other again.
[3:57]I mean, you, in America, have experienced something similar.
[4:01]I thought I will maybe, this is the time to write a book about difference and a partness.
[4:07]I guess the idea I started with is that face-to-face confrontations, political confrontations
[4:14]cannot resolve anything if you're just getting each other's faces and shouting each other.
[4:20]And that has to be a way around the back.
[4:22]And most of us have a way around the back with people, whether it's our kids or our sports teams
[4:28]or whatever it is, you can always find common ground.
[4:32]And the stuff that divides us can be temporarily forgotten.
[4:37]So it seemed like fertile ground to try and write the novel.
[4:41]And I didn't have to predict what was going to happen.
[4:44]It was really just about those few months and after the referendum.
[4:50]Interesting.
[4:50]Yeah.
[4:50]And of course you introduce this with the sign and the store and should the signs say one thing.
[4:55]And then he has its marked the store and is like, well, I'll just put up the other one then.
[4:58]They're like, what?
[4:59]You can't just like switch it.
[5:00]What is your point of view?
[5:03]Yeah, that was pretty funny.
[5:04]And I became increasingly frustrated with my own side during the Brexit referendum that I
[5:12]voted to remain to be a part of Europe, which in your country is like voting for Hillary in 2016.
[5:21]And the kind of smugness and ruin of my own team began to repel me.
[5:26]It's like, you're never going to persuade anyone by just telling them they're stupid over and over and over again.
[5:32]And one of the funniest things about the referendum I thought was that the day after it happened,
[5:38]I got tons of emails from people who were trying to start a petition to have the vote overturned.
[5:46]And I was thinking, well, they were saying like, we've already got one million signatures.
[5:50]I said, yeah, but you need 17 million signatures because that's how many people voted for the other way.
[5:56]So if you get up to 17 or 18, let me know.
[5:59]And I was fine, my name.
[6:01]The idea that one million signatures is meaningful in some way when 18 million people have just
[6:07]voted, voted the other way.
[6:09]I just wanted to throttle people and they said, why won't you sign the petition?
[6:13]So because it's not democratic.
[6:16]Oh my gosh, that's so funny.
[6:19]Yeah, and you have all these mass generalizations, like, well, did you vote this way or do you?
[6:24]Well, my parents did, but they live in Kent and like, you just like, leave it at that.
[6:30]It does, it did become some sort of a, of a shorthand of, in a way,
[6:34]people trying to figure each other out very quickly.
[6:36]A whole kind of mind, you know, we judge people on mindsets and geography all the time.
[6:43]It's true, or, you know, where they went to school.
[6:47]My husband, who was not from, I'm from New York City, and he grew up in Florida.
[6:51]And when he moves here, you know, with me, everybody would ask him, like, where'd you go to school?
[6:55]And he's like, why does everybody ask?
[6:57]He's like, I don't know.
[6:58]I went to like Venice High.
[7:00]Like, nobody's ever asked me that before.
[7:01]And I was like, how does it work for you out?
[7:03]Yeah, yeah.
[7:05]I mean, we have, I guess, an equivalent in England, which is our private school,
[7:11]state school, and, you know, there's this shocking fact that two schools in England have provided
[7:18]something like 50 prime ministers between them, two schools.
[7:22]And, you know, if anyone asked me where I went to school, it's like, I tell you, you've never
[7:27]heard of it. So let's move on.
[7:29]I'm sure your husband feels the same way.
[7:32]Yes, he's like enough of this.
[7:33]I don't get it.
[7:34]Wait, there was, I probably won't be able to find it.
[7:36]But there was that whole section in this book about when she goes on the,
[7:40]on the dinner, to the dinner party.
[7:41]And he wants to know his kids, wait, now I'm getting it all wrong.
[7:45]But she was so funny.
[7:46]She didn't she say, I just want somebody who says, you know, I don't send my kids to your school
[7:50]because it's full of like psychopaths.
[7:51]And I would never, she's like, I will date him no matter what he's like.
[7:54]If he says that.
[7:56]That's her first, like blind, blind date, internet date, or she set up the,
[8:01]he says something about private school, and she wishes people were honest about
[8:05]why they sent people to private school.
[8:07]I think that's that's part of your sense of humor in all these scenes is like
[8:11]the thing that isn't being said, you just like make it be said so that it's very uncomfortable.
[8:17]Yeah, I think that's the great thing about fiction is that you can set up the scene
[8:23]and the people as realistically as you possibly can, but then you can just cross the line
[8:28]into making explicit and have way more fun than anyone would have in real life.
[8:33]And that's Lucy's whole approach dating too.
[8:36]And she's like, she's like, oh, I'm never going to see these guys again.
[8:40]So I might as well just say like, oh, yeah, it didn't work out with your ex.
[8:44]Why? How was your sex life? She's like, what not?
[8:47]Oh, my gosh, just made me laugh so much.
[8:49]I also liked what term did you use to describe Joseph's job? What did you call it?
[8:53]I have to look it up, but how like so many people these days, you don't just have one job.
[8:57]Yeah, you support failure.
[9:00]Yes, support folio's strategy to to a career and how he's sort of a DJ, but really, he's a babysitter
[9:06]or he works the future.
[9:10]I wonder if that will happen more or more as we go through this.
[9:14]I found that too hiring for a while. I was like, well,
[9:17]people would say how many people are like helping you run your business and all this stuff.
[9:20]And I'm like, well, kind of seven, but everybody has another job.
[9:25]And everybody does everything. So
[9:28]it seems like a pretty great thing while you're finding your way in life, actually, not to get
[9:33]too bored in one thing, because typically when you're starting out in your 20s,
[9:38]you do pretty bad jobs. And if you can switch one bad job to another bad job in terms of
[9:45]repetitiveness and not being able to make your own decisions, if you limit the time in that,
[9:50]or my son is my 19 year old is currently working in a football club in the ticket office.
[9:58]I saw an Instagram.
[10:00]I mean, you were like, my son learned from the ticketing office.
[10:02]And you're like, oh, yeah, it's right there on his shirt.
[10:05]I said to him, how was it?
[10:07]He said, I had to send out 2,400 emails.
[10:11]And I said, that's, you know, that's the job we all did.
[10:14]There isn't a job where you tell people to send out 2,500 emails.
[10:18]When you're 19, I'm afraid you have to go through that.
[10:22]Yeah.
[10:23]Of course, when I was 19, they're barely wearing emails,
[10:25]but that's OK.
[10:25]Oh, that's funny.
[10:29]Why could you not barely in?
[10:31]Because when I was 19, I think there were stamps.
[10:38]I think they'd been invented, but that was a battle.
[10:41]We had to go to one place on campus.
[10:43]There was like one center we could go to do email.
[10:46]Yes, I was reminiscing with a friend the other day
[10:49]about how we used to get music tickets, which was
[10:53]to send a stamp to dressed envelope off to some place.
[10:57]And then maybe you would, and you had to get a poster
[11:00]order because I didn't have a checkbook to get a poster
[11:03]order from the post office, then get two stamps, one
[11:07]so they could send it back.
[11:08]And I was thinking that one of the offshoots of that
[11:12]is that you get a lot of people at concerts who
[11:14]don't really want to go to that concert.
[11:16]But it was easy to buy the ticket because it was like one
[11:19]click on something or other.
[11:22]And I missed that because when I looked around at the concerts,
[11:27]I went to when I was a teenager.
[11:28]I looked at the other people.
[11:29]I always thought they really wanted to be here.
[11:32]They all sent off their stamp to dressed envelopes.
[11:36]They showed commitment.
[11:38]It's true.
[11:38]You're just like, well, maybe I'll go.
[11:40]I might as well.
[11:41]If not, I just put it on the resell thing
[11:43]and then sell it off again.
[11:45]Somebody once told me that the shows
[11:47]that are advertised like one year in advance,
[11:50]like a big show in Madison Square Garden next summer
[11:53]that quite often the front row is empty
[11:55]because the first people who bought the tickets
[11:58]forgot that they bought them, it's just incredible.
[12:02]And they quite often do it drunk late at night as well.
[12:05]That's why I have my settings to remind me of things like this.
[12:08]Apparently, stand up comedy is particularly affected by that.
[12:11]I could see that.
[12:12]I could see that.
[12:13]Yeah, my calendar is like, this was the JoJo Siwa thing
[12:18]you got for your daughter in the middle of the pandemic.
[12:20]It's back on tomorrow night.
[12:21]I was like, well, I'm not doing that.
[12:23]What are you talking about?
[12:25]Pandemics have been great for spending money on tickets.
[12:29]And you think, well, it happens that because they postponed it.
[12:31]I don't know if they paid me back.
[12:32]They told me it would be reorganized.
[12:35]I'm quite happy to give money to musicians,
[12:37]but it's the right mess right now.
[12:39]Yes, it's true.
[12:40]Sorry, this is getting off the subject.
[12:42]Yeah, I know, of course, but yeah.
[12:44]Okay, the subject.
[12:45]So your book, the other thing that was so funny
[12:48]was when you were, had the two ladies talking, right?
[12:51]You do friendship so well.
[12:52]And Lucy, who just tells it like it is
[12:55]and her annoying sort of blonde friend who follows her around.
[12:58]And how she is so into, and this is a scene from the start,
[13:01]but how she's so into her love life, right?
[13:04]Like, okay, well, do you think you're gonna have sex?
[13:06]And I do you think, what's gonna happen?
[13:08]And she's like, well, I don't know,
[13:09]what about your husband?
[13:10]And she's like, oh, well, we can't talk about my husband.
[13:12]And she's like, why not?
[13:13]She's like, well, we've been married for 30 years.
[13:15]And she's like, well, then why do you get to talk about
[13:17]who I'm gonna have sex with?
[13:18]And she's like, oh, come on, it's not the same.
[13:20]He's like single people, a fair guy,
[13:22]but they provide vicarious pleasure to the rest of the world.
[13:26]So funny.
[13:26]And also, I mean, you have the poignant stuff in here too.
[13:29]Like, having alcoholism and drug addiction, all of that,
[13:33]like, I'm roaring back.
[13:35]And what is it like to be the child of an alcoholic?
[13:37]And, you know, you're sort of, you take it more,
[13:40]you take it less from the boy's perspective
[13:42]and more from Joseph and the mom
[13:43]when during their first interaction,
[13:46]that dad shows up sort of drunk and ruins the whole night
[13:49]and everything and you have the boys finding out.
[13:51]And they're like, no, no, they know what he's like,
[13:53]but it's hard to just be so,
[13:55]not that it was flip, but from there,
[13:57]if they were writing this book,
[13:58]what would it be for them?
[14:00]The effect of having this type of parent, what happens then?
[14:03]Yeah.
[14:04]I guess with kids, it depends on which day you're asking them.
[14:07]Most of the time, I think they would rather be flip
[14:10]and not think about it very much.
[14:13]And then, of course, on some occasions
[14:15]where it becomes overwhelming,
[14:16]then they would maybe want to splurge or get upset.
[14:20]But in my experience, then if you're living
[14:23]through extreme circumstances,
[14:25]you reorganize everything pretty quickly.
[14:28]So they're no longer extreme.
[14:29]They're just part of the fabric of your life.
[14:33]True.
[14:34]I do feel like there are many sort of personality hits.
[14:37]You take, if you have a parent like that
[14:40]that may come out to later, right?
[14:42]It doesn't...
[14:42]Yeah, who knows who knows.
[14:44]With everything in parenting, of course.
[14:46]Yeah, I mean, I often wonder what my kids
[14:49]will be talking about on a therapist's couch
[14:52]when they're 40, because I know they will be.
[14:55]And it will probably be something I did or their mum did
[14:58]or, you know, hopefully, then I'm not me.
[15:00]I remember being very struck once by talking about my grandfather
[15:08]who I never met to a friend who also had a grandfather
[15:13]and she'd never met.
[15:14]And thinking, wow, this is...
[15:17]If these guys knew that some 60 years later,
[15:23]two people would be standing outside a restaurant
[15:26]in North London talking about them
[15:28]when they didn't even know we existed.
[15:30]And the way that family runs through you
[15:34]and affects you in ways that no one could possibly predict
[15:39]is kind of great as well,
[15:42]because you do stay alive.
[15:43]I think even if you've never done anything,
[15:45]you stay alive in people's minds.
[15:48]Speaking of grandparents,
[15:50]you had this really funny scene when Cassie is talking
[15:53]to Joseph and she's trying to...
[15:55]They both work at the butcher shop
[15:56]and she's trying to ask him about if he has ever dated,
[15:59]he's black and she's asking,
[16:01]has he ever been with somebody who's white?
[16:03]And she's like trying to dance around it
[16:05]so she doesn't offend him or something,
[16:06]but he didn't...
[16:07]He just wouldn't let her get away with that.
[16:08]And finally, he's...
[16:11]He says, how am I supposed to know?
[16:13]Would you go out with a white girl?
[16:14]Why don't you ask me whether I have gone out
[16:16]with a white girl?
[16:17]Oh, have you?
[16:18]Of course I have.
[16:19]And did anyone like disapprove?
[16:21]Yeah, her granddad.
[16:22]Was he a racist?
[16:23]No, he was a vegan.
[16:25]Didn't like be working here, really?
[16:27]No, he was a racist.
[16:31]That made me laugh at that last time.
[16:33]Cause they just like calls it out, right?
[16:36]And the poor girl,
[16:37]you can just feel her mortification and everything,
[16:39]yeah, it's the tip towing around so hard, you know,
[16:43]and we've all done it about gender and sexuality and race.
[16:47]And, you know, I think it's good that we're having to learn
[16:51]the language and find the ways in which we are not offensive
[16:55]because so frequently, especially people of my age,
[16:59]you know, we've sort of blundered on for years.
[17:02]And I think this is a great time of putting it all out
[17:06]on the table and people telling us,
[17:08]we don't want each to call us this.
[17:09]So we don't want each to call us that.
[17:11]And I find that incredibly helpful.
[17:13]Have you gotten any, you know, pushback?
[17:16]I know there's sort of a movement in fiction
[17:19]to in today's culture.
[17:20]Is it okay to write from a point of view
[17:22]that is not your own?
[17:23]Right?
[17:24]This book is a 22 year old black man and a 42 year old
[17:28]white woman, neither of which you obviously are.
[17:31]Is it okay to write from their points of view?
[17:34]And how do you feel about that?
[17:36]Well, I know one said anything to my face about it.
[17:40]I don't know what goes on online or anything like that.
[17:43]I don't look.
[17:44]But, you know, I live in London,
[17:46]which is this big multicultural city.
[17:49]And I kind of would fight for the right
[17:53]to write about what I see when I look through the window.
[17:57]And if someone's telling me, well, you can't see that,
[18:01]you can't see that, you can't do that.
[18:03]I don't know.
[18:04]I think I'd have to pack it in, actually.
[18:07]You know, it's like, I've got nothing left.
[18:09]My first two or three books were about guys like me,
[18:12]a bit like me.
[18:13]Yes.
[18:14]And as my career's gone on,
[18:16]I think I've got nothing left to say about guys like me.
[18:19]So I'm gonna write about other people.
[18:22]And it's helped keep my career alive and fresh.
[18:25]But I think it's impossible to write,
[18:29]move this or TV or fiction
[18:31]unless you're given the permission
[18:33]to imagine what it's like to be somebody else.
[18:37]I mean, I can't take a position for a start.
[18:41]I can't write about half the human rights, which is women.
[18:44]That seems to me an absurd position to end up in.
[18:47]I agree.
[18:48]Yes.
[18:48]But you do it quite well.
[18:50]I must say.
[18:51]Well, I took advice.
[18:53]I mean, I've always taken advice.
[18:54]And I think that's the best thing you can do is imagine
[18:59]as carefully as you can, what it would be like to be this person.
[19:02]And then let somebody who is as close as you can find
[19:06]to being like that person reading the book
[19:08]and saying, well, I'm not sure it's like this
[19:11]or I'm not sure it's like that.
[19:14]Although even that's a dangerous game
[19:15]because you're presuming that one or two or four women
[19:19]can speak on behalf of hundreds of millions of women.
[19:24]And so you have to take that with a pinch of salt as well.
[19:29]Many of your other books have gone on
[19:31]to become something in the visual arena, movies, et cetera.
[19:34]What, when you're sitting down to write for this book,
[19:37]for example, do you see it in your head
[19:39]kind of playing out like a movie or does it,
[19:42]like do you see things visually?
[19:43]Or does it matter to you where it ends up
[19:46]as long as you get it down on the page?
[19:48]Like what is your relationship these days
[19:50]to how things are depicted and what medium?
[19:52]Well, I think I see things visually
[19:55]because that's the kind of writing I want to do.
[19:59]I mean, I think they're.
[20:00]There are probably two kinds of writers in this sense, which is that some writers want to provide a clear paint of glass through which you can see the characters and the narrative that they've created.
[20:14]And there are other writers who are much more interested in language and and so they are drawing attention to the glass rather than what's beyond the glass.
[20:24]And I know I'm the kind of writer who creates the or wants to create the clear paint of glass. So if that's what you do, then of course you see things visually when you write.
[20:36]That doesn't mean necessarily that it has a relationship with TV or movies. I mean for a start, one of the problems with TV and movies is that everyone who is an actor is better looking than the rest of us.
[20:49]I mean it's true that is the definition. If you're not better looking than the rest of us, you're a character actor. But the big ones are all good looking.
[20:59]That's the first qualification for the job and if they can act as well, then they're really valuable.
[21:06]So, you know, I'm writing these books which are about, you know, the people I sort of know and the people I've seen and they don't look like Hugh Grum or John Cusack. So when the movies are made, think whoa.
[21:20]That guy wasn't who I was thinking of that that's what has to happen. You know that if you want the movie you have to have the movie start.
[21:29]I mean, is John Cusack that good looking, you think? I don't know. Well, I think that if John Cusack were having a drink in a pub, you'd notice him.
[21:39]I've never seen him in real life. But in 1990, whenever we made that movie 1999, if they were like a load of guys standing at the bar and one of them was John Cusack, I think you'd pick him out.
[21:52]I think you're probably right. Yeah. And constantly, if he was certainly if he was holding the boombox over his head still.
[21:59]And I definitely, you know, what's I can't even find my word say motion am over or whatever you want to call it.
[22:08]So when you're writing, do you do it? Like where do you write? Do you write where you're sitting right now? Like what's your process like?
[22:15]I have a studio apartment out of the home, which I probably have no need of anymore because it came from a time when the kids were small and school days are really short.
[22:29]And so I needed to go somewhere or I could do a day's work without people getting my face. So it's a short walk to work.
[22:38]And I do everything there like a nine to five. And then you're able to just leave it or does it sit with you all night and you're like mulling it all over.
[22:45]I don't think you can ever leave it. I think it's a peril of the profession. I think there's not really a lot of difference between your waking moments and your trying to get to sleep moments.
[22:58]And you're doing the same thing all day, which is you're not only doing anything physical, you're not writing.
[23:06]And that it's always the thing I've struggled with with writing is that if you write a thousand words a day, you're having a good day that that's a decent chunk.
[23:16]And put out a thousand words from another book that would take you about 15 minutes. You see what I mean. So the difference between actual writing and what goes on for the rest of the day is I think the hardest thing to manage as a writer.
[23:32]And that's why you've got to be careful with YouTube and phone calls and emails and live news.
[23:40]And you've got the pandemic and elections and things. If you've got constant access to a computer and you're feeling vaguely anxious about the world, you're refreshing every couple of minutes.
[23:49]So, you know, when I'm being really disciplined, I use an app that blocks you out of your own internet.
[23:55]And also, I quite often have a jigsaw puzzle on the go because you can't really get stuck with a jigsaw. You just kind of plot on and if you can't find this bit, you work on another bit and you make kind of easy, slow progress.
[24:11]But you're not thinking about it. And so it doesn't take me out of the mindset of the world that I'm trying to think about.
[24:18]Because if I'm watching 1980s highlights my football team, which is the other thing that happens on YouTube, I am out of the world of the book.
[24:27]I mean, the way you described doing a jigsaw puzzle could also be the way you describe writing a book. Right.
[24:32]Yeah, it's not working. You go to another part and you plot. Yeah, I'm not very good about going to the other part. If it's not right, I can't go on. So I've not, I've not never written a book or a screenplay.
[24:44]Unconsectively. When I'm stuck, I'm stuck. I don't move on. Oh, okay. I'm not saying it's a good idea. No, I find that interesting.
[24:52]I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I can't figure out this math problem. Should I just move on to language arts and I was like, I don't know. This is the big question.
[25:00]Do you keep trying to bag your head against the math or do you want to take a break. Anyway, yeah, you moved on. But she then she went back in case you're.
[25:08]And I've often found actually that when you can't move on is because something's wrong further back. You know, it's like you've got a bad shoulder because you have lower back problems.
[25:19]It's that sort of thing. And quite often, if you've run out of road in a book or a screenplay, it's because you took a wrong turn further back.
[25:28]Love it. Very interesting. Okay. What project comes after this?
[25:32]Well, it's quite a busy year. I've got some things that are sort of done and ready to be read or seen.
[25:41]So in a couple of weeks, I've got a TV show on AMC Sundance called State of the Union as the second season. The first season was with Rosman Pike and Chris.
[25:53]I doubt. And the setup is it's the 10 minutes that a couple spend before they go into marital therapy. So you never go into the room with them.
[26:00]And when we were talking about the season two, I thought I'm done with that couple's problems. I'd now like to write about different sets of problems. So this season it's Patricia Clarkson and Brandon Gleason.
[26:11]So it's much further on in life and actually the stakes are higher, I think, at that age. So that's that's coming out in mid fab.
[26:20]I've just written a very short book about Prince and Dickens as in Prince the musician and Dickens the writer.
[26:27]That's it.
[26:29]And it's about creativity. They were kind of the most creative people that I've ever consumed at least.
[26:38]And I've just poured out of them and it's about what they had in common and what happened to them as a result of being over creative, you know, they both died.
[26:48]As it were within six months of each other, if they'd been born in the same year, neither of them made it to 60.
[26:55]I think we're probably killed them. Both movies were a big part of their careers, even though Dickens never knew about it until the 20th century.
[27:04]They both had terrible childhoods, et cetera, et cetera. So I'm kind of switching between these people to find out about the key to intense creativity.
[27:14]And right at the moment, I'm adapting two books that I love one for TV and one for movies, one's called Wild Game by Adrienne Broadway.
[27:24]Oh my gosh, I love that game and I love Adrienne Frederick. She is amazing. I've worked with her and asked in words and everything. I love her. I loved that book so much.
[27:33]Yeah, well, I think it would make a fantastic movie. I'm so excited you're doing that. That's awesome. Yeah, it is exciting. And I have a I'm working with a really great director on it.
[27:44]And then the other book I'm adapting for TV series is Make Mason, Sarah and Bliss. I don't know if you like that was also amazing. I loved that. Oh my gosh.
[27:54]I like it because they're like my two favorite books in the last 12 months or whatever. And I'm working on both of those. I still picture those characters and make Mason's book like sitting on that catch.
[28:04]You know how they were all in that room for so long sitting in a tiny little love seat and like watching. Oh my gosh. Wow, those are great books. Amazing. Yeah.
[28:13]And I cannot say that you'll ever see them because it's a very perilous profession, but I'm enjoying doing them. Well, I can't wait. I hope I hope to see them, but fantastic. Well, okay, last question. Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
[28:27]It's so basic, but I think people do forget you have to read and you have to write. You have to read a lot. You have to read for two reasons. You have to read to find out what sort of stuff is being published what sort of stuff has already been published.
[28:43]And because you need to find out what good writers do. I mean, I think the more you consume the better you get at it, it was something that was very clear actually in the prints and Dickens research that I was doing that they were both unbelievable consumers of stuff.
[29:00]That now can drive well thing about 10,000 hours of practice. I'm not sure it always works, but I do think 10,000 hours of consumption gets you quite a long way.
[29:11]And, you know, lots of young writers asking me about how to get an agent and how to get a publisher and that is not the problem. The problem is writing something that anyone wants to publish.
[29:22]If you write something good, you don't need to worry about the agent and the publisher that will take care of itself. I think the simplest advice is, you know, like if you've got a job or your student or whatever it is you're doing.
[29:35]If you can manage 500 words a day, which is too long paragraphs.
[29:40]If you think about that, then in 160 working days you all have a novel length book. I mean, it's pretty incredible that that's within everybody's grasp, I would say.
[29:52]You don't have to work weekends. It's, you know, so you can get a book finished in a year, even if you're doing other stuff and not by staying.
[30:00]way on into the night.
[30:02]But I think the thing about writing every day
[30:04]and writing a decent piece every day
[30:06]is really, really important.
[30:08]And not to leave things too long
[30:10]because you, between paragraphs or between,
[30:14]you can't leave something for a month
[30:16]and expect to pick it up straight to row, I don't think.
[30:18]You need to be in a groove.
[30:20]Love it.
[30:21]Amazing.
[30:22]Well, thank you so much.
[30:23]This has been so fun, and it's good.
[30:25]It's fun for me, thank you, Zibi.
[30:27]It's been really wonderful.
[30:28]I can't wait to see and read the rest
[30:30]and figure out the commonality between Prince and Dickinson.
[30:34]Oh, yeah.
[30:34]Well, I'll come back on and we can talk about it.
[30:37]I would love it for a bit.
[30:38]All right, thank you.
[30:39]OK.
[30:40]All right, take care.
[30:41]Bye-bye.
[30:43]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't
[30:45]Have Time to Read Books.
[30:46]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens
[30:50]and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[30:52]Also sign up for my newsletter at Zibi Owens.com
[30:54]and sign up for my virtual book club
[30:56]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[30:58]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[31:01]for the Sound Editing.
[31:02]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[31:04]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.