Rosie Walsh, THE LOVE OF MY LIFE: A Novel
[0:01]Hi, I'm Sivi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast,
[0:05]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
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[0:32]And now back to our daily author interview site and a quick hello from some of my kids.
[0:37]Hi, hi, hello.
[0:38]Enjoy the show.
[0:41]Rosie Walsh is the author of The Love of My Life, A Novel.
[0:45]And this is the Instagram Live that I did with the GMA Book Club after Rosie's novel was chosen
[0:52]as the March 2022 Book of the Month by GMA Book Club.
[0:56]Rosie was previously on my podcast for her novel, Ghost It.
[0:59]So here's her bio.
[1:00]Rosie Walsh is the author of The International Bestseller, The Man Who Didn't Call,
[1:04]which was a New York Times bestseller in the U.S., under the title, Ghost It.
[1:08]The book was published in 35 languages and has sold more than 1.5 million copies.
[1:12]Her next novel, The Love of My Life, Jessica published with translations all over the world.
[1:18]The Love of My Life has already spent several weeks in the top 10 bestseller list in Germany after an early release.
[1:23]Rosie came to writing after a career in factual television, which took her to some of the most remote places on earth.
[1:29]She wrote her first novel while living in South America, where she met her partner George.
[1:33]They now live in Devon in the UK, with their two young children.
[1:36]Hello, hello to the big deal.
[1:38]Hello, everyone else.
[1:40]Yes, hello, everybody.
[1:41]Thank you for coming and letting us talk about Rosie's amazing new book.
[1:44]The Love of My Life with this beautiful GMA seal.
[1:48]Oh my God.
[1:49]Hey, were you so excited to tell me about finding out?
[1:52]I was insane.
[1:53]We've just moved to hell, so everything was in chaos.
[1:56]I knew that it was possibility.
[1:58]I knew that we were in the running, but obviously, you never assume it's going to happen.
[2:04]And I think they'd said, oh yeah, well, nobody entered the week.
[2:06]And it was 5pm on the Friday afternoon.
[2:08]And I suddenly remember, and I was like, oh man, never mind.
[2:12]Another one bites the dust.
[2:14]And then I looked at my emails for something else.
[2:18]And there was an email from the head of publicity at Paladomans and Viking, who published
[2:23]me.
[2:24]And it was literally written in the subject line.
[2:27]And I just, it just everything stopped.
[2:31]And I just looked at it and I opened the email because I just thought, well, that can't actually be.
[2:35]It's not going to actually happen.
[2:37]And of course, it had happened.
[2:38]And I couldn't speak.
[2:39]And I had tears in my eyes.
[2:41]And I just showed the phone to my partner.
[2:43]And I don't think I'd even told him I was in the running.
[2:46]And he was just like, what is this?
[2:50]And I didn't have the words.
[2:52]It was, oh gosh.
[2:54]I mean, talk about dreaming.
[2:56]It's like so many things that have happened since I wrote ghosted.
[3:00]I just don't.
[3:01]I can't believe it's real.
[3:02]You know, I am just a mom running round with disgusting nappies or diapers,
[3:06]as you guys would call the.
[3:08]You know, I.
[3:10]I'm just a mom dealing with, yeah, with nappies all day long.
[3:14]And stuff like this going on in the background across the Atlantic.
[3:17]It's, it's quite unreal.
[3:19]The last time I spoke to you, I feel like ghosted was just coming out.
[3:22]I don't even know if it had come out yet.
[3:24]And then of course, that one on the cell,
[3:26]what over million countries.
[3:27]It's so amazing translated into all sorts of languages.
[3:30]And now this, it's really so exciting to watch your whole career.
[3:34]Like blow up like this.
[3:35]It's amazing.
[3:36]And when you post it this morning about your, your house and the acres of
[3:40]and being in this like medieval castle.
[3:43]Doing your live events from the one clean corner.
[3:45]And the rest was like completely messy and boxed.
[3:48]And every like, thank you for giving us the visual,
[3:50]because I think it's easy to think that everybody else is gracious.
[3:53]I'll tidy a need and in the order.
[3:55]But you know,
[3:56]I think anyone who's followed me on Instagram for longer than five minutes,
[3:59]knows that my life is never in order.
[4:02]Or if I house even when I haven't just moved into it.
[4:05]So yeah, if your life is chaotic too,
[4:08]you're in good company.
[4:09]I feel like you've nailed it though, Libby.
[4:11]Like you, you know, your, your, your whole handle,
[4:14]moms don't have time to read books.
[4:16]Like I, I don't.
[4:17]I really don't.
[4:18]But you seem to not only be able to read books,
[4:21]but also write them and interview about a million authors.
[4:24]And, you know,
[4:25]now be a broadcaster and all of the other many things you do
[4:28]will be events you hold.
[4:29]And like you, you really are nailing it in a way that I am convinced
[4:33]they'll never will.
[4:34]That's very sweet of you.
[4:35]But I have to say,
[4:36]your kids are like five and five.
[4:37]I mean, my kid and my youngest child is seven.
[4:39]So I'm dressed now.
[4:40]It's like a, it's a huge turning point.
[4:42]Is there a light to end the tunnel then?
[4:45]There is, that's what I'm trying to say.
[4:47]Yes, this morning I was like, you know what,
[4:49]I'm just, I'm leaving the cereal out and saying like,
[4:52]pour it in the bowl yourself.
[4:53]And they did it.
[4:55]My daughter's like, oh, that's great.
[4:56]She wouldn't got the milk.
[4:57]I was, that's of course they can do this.
[4:59]There's seven and eight years old.
[5:00]But it's a huge difference.
[5:01]It means that like,
[5:02]I don't have to be on top of them.
[5:03]And I don't have to worry that someone's going to fall
[5:05]down the stairs.
[5:06]And I don't have to be so physically involved the way you are
[5:09]right now.
[5:10]I mean, you're like in the thick of it.
[5:11]The idea that you can write these books is like mind blowing.
[5:14]So when did you find time to write this new book?
[5:17]How did you write your last book?
[5:19]Like how do you get the mental clarity even when you're not
[5:22]like totally overwhelmed to focus on your characters?
[5:25]So I mean, as you know,
[5:27]it really doesn't work the way it needs to.
[5:29]The way it needs to work is,
[5:31]okay, baby's napping.
[5:33]I've just done a vague job on the devastation of the kitchen.
[5:36]Sit down.
[5:37]Go.
[5:38]It doesn't work.
[5:39]It doesn't work.
[5:40]But unfortunately, it needs to work because that is quite
[5:42]literally your only time.
[5:44]And I had this whole lovely section on my website before about,
[5:48]you know, how boundary I was with time.
[5:50]And I use a Pomodoro technique.
[5:52]And I do eight of those a day.
[5:53]And I go out for a walk.
[5:55]Obviously then I have children.
[5:57]And this situation changed quite significantly.
[6:00]Shall we say.
[6:01]So it was, I will be honest, you know,
[6:04]this book for love for my life has spanned my entire period
[6:08]of only motherhood.
[6:09]My son was five months old when I started it.
[6:11]And I finished it four years later last November,
[6:14]at which point my daughter was one and a half
[6:16]and my son was four and a half.
[6:18]And my writing has been totally chaotic.
[6:22]I've had to literally delete that entire page from my website
[6:25]because it's all lies now.
[6:27]And read and relaxed, I am.
[6:29]So you've got to take a walk because even though it takes time
[6:32]out of your day, like it's opening time up.
[6:34]No, no, no, no.
[6:35]That is not the case anymore.
[6:37]There's nothing else you can't give the time.
[6:40]Exactly.
[6:41]Exactly.
[6:42]So I don't actually have a good answer to your question.
[6:46]I have just written whenever I've been able to.
[6:48]Morning sickness was a gift because both with both pregnancies
[6:52]it really brought me to my knees.
[6:53]So I spent any time that I could when I didn't have my
[6:57]time to grow with me in bed.
[6:59]Sort of crying and writing, crying, writing.
[7:02]Because I felt so awful.
[7:04]And for me, I thought you morning sickness went on
[7:06]for the full nine months with a children.
[7:08]So that was helpful.
[7:09]I mean, to a friend extent, sorry.
[7:11]The first person I've ever heard who said morning sickness
[7:14]was a gift.
[7:15]So I just wanted to flag that.
[7:16]But anyway, you go.
[7:17]I feel like a gift.
[7:18]And some days I would just sit there googling.
[7:20]Can you dive morning sickness?
[7:22]Or morning sickness has ruined my life.
[7:25]There were often days I got there.
[7:27]But also to a certain extent lockdown was a gift.
[7:30]Because even though it was pretty awful,
[7:32]I think for anyone with small children,
[7:34]I got two hours a day when my partner would take our kids out,
[7:38]you know, come rain, come shine.
[7:40]And you know, it was in the winter.
[7:42]So like muddy walks, not pleasant muddy walks in nice fields,
[7:46]you know, horrible walks in overused woods and fields
[7:49]because the entire city that I used to live in was just full of
[7:52]people desperate to do something with their children
[7:54]because everything was closed.
[7:55]So that was the salvation too.
[7:57]You know, I went through phases where I would, you know,
[7:59]go work at a co-working space and that was helpful.
[8:02]But the short answer is that there was no time.
[8:06]And I fitted it in as and when I could.
[8:09]And it took me four years to write.
[8:10]You know, I don't think it needed to.
[8:12]Although I'm glad I did.
[8:13]You know, it's I do think it's a better book for that.
[8:16]There was a lot of other thing and a lot of layering.
[8:18]Did you know how it was going to end up
[8:21]and how everybody was related and all that
[8:23]from the start because when I was reading it,
[8:25]I was continually kind of surprised by the way.
[8:28]It was weaving and barbing and all of that.
[8:31]Good.
[8:32]Thank you.
[8:33]I'm glad that experience.
[8:34]Did I know?
[8:35]No.
[8:36]Again, you know, all of the writing experiences
[8:39]I've had prior to this have been fairly boundary and tidy
[8:42]and sane-ish in as much as I'm ever going to be saying,
[8:47]this one was absolutely insanity from start to finish.
[8:49]You know, I didn't have a solid plan.
[8:51]I didn't know what Emma's secret was.
[8:53]I didn't know what she was hiding from Leo.
[8:55]I didn't have any twists.
[8:57]And I had endless ridiculous conversations with all
[8:59]of the friends with editors and my agents about what the
[9:02]twist is going to be.
[9:03]And, you know, twist is either going to happen or not.
[9:05]You've just got to wait for it.
[9:07]But yeah, normally my books have planned
[9:09]quite meticulously in advance.
[9:11]And this one, I think I've been sort of officially writing
[9:14]it for like six to eight months.
[9:16]And I still hadn't written a word.
[9:18]So at that point, I just thought,
[9:20]I've got to just sit down and trust this is going to happen
[9:23]because I cannot sit around here planning any longer.
[9:26]You know, I've got a young child.
[9:28]Like, this is the situation.
[9:30]The conditions are not going to improve.
[9:32]So that's what I did.
[9:33]I just started writing and hoped it and prayed it would work out.
[9:37]And it did and it didn't.
[9:38]You know, there were some pretty hairy times where, you know,
[9:44]when I hit the big reveal that those of you who've read
[9:47]the book will know about, you know, when we actually finally
[9:50]find out why Emma has been lying to Leo for all these years,
[9:53]I couldn't find a way of doing that without it just being
[9:55]a massive information dump.
[9:57]And then after that point, just a sort of a bit of a dump.
[10:00]squid. What you have now once the information is revealed is quite a dramatic story in the past
[10:04]and followed by what turns into quite a dramatic story in the present tense. But I didn't have that
[10:09]at the beginning. So I got stuck for ages. I got stuck for ages and I kept on going every single
[10:16]day because there is no other option. You know, there is no solution to writer's blog other than
[10:20]to just keep showing up at your desk every single day in a matter what. There were days when I
[10:24]write with the font color turned to white so I couldn't even see what I was writing.
[10:28]Oh my gosh, I'm sorry. Because I just wasn't going to make any progress otherwise.
[10:33]And that was quite good because it stopped me going back and editing work that probably was going
[10:37]to get to bed anyway. Oh my gosh. Wow. That's crazy.
[10:43]Wait, tell me about developing a character who is in a literary writer because I love reading
[10:48]a literary. They are the best times, as you said, and you hear something at the most helpful
[10:52]stories because they find the good in people's lives as opposed to bad news. That must have been
[10:55]fun research today. Fun is the wrong word. That must have been interesting research today.
[11:00]Oh no, it was great fun. Well, I think what most people don't know about obituaries is the
[11:05]obituary writers. There's like a global community of them. They're a thing and they've got online
[11:11]forums. They've got closed websites. So, you know, they've got all of their Twitter hashtags
[11:15]that they follow. And best of all, and I love this and I'm devastated that I've not made it yet,
[11:19]largely because of COVID and having children. There's an international obituary writers conference
[11:24]every year and obits conference. I mean, how awesome is that? I think they call it the grimies
[11:28]and they have a what, you know, they have an award set that they can call the grimies.
[11:32]It's the most fascinating world and it's fascinating because, as you've rightly picked up,
[11:38]it's a joyous profession and it's a joyous subject area. It's not about death. It's got nothing
[11:44]to do with death. And actually, the only sort of encounters that a bit through writers have with
[11:49]death are when they sometimes do need to speak to the family, which does happen fairly often.
[11:53]And I've watched them have those conversations and they're very business like, you know,
[11:57]they're, of course, they start with their condolences and sympathies. But, you know, really
[12:01]they're just interested in information. They are interested in only in a life and painting
[12:06]a portrait of that life. And as it says in the novel, the day you tell a graph in London,
[12:12]I believe it's considered that the world's standard in a bit tree. So that's where I asked if I
[12:16]could go and hang around a bit tree's desk. And they were wonderful and they kept apologizing
[12:22]how boring it was. And I was just saying, you cannot imagine how fascinating this is to an
[12:27]outsider. They were dealing with some aristocrat who he'd just died. And one of the things he'd
[12:33]done before dying was to he'd knocked over some man, he hadn't shot it, but he'd knocked over some
[12:38]animal whilst driving one. It's probably drunk. Not that that's funny. And he wanted this entire
[12:42]animal mounted on the fender of his car. And that's one of the last things he'd do before he died.
[12:49]I spent my whole time there laughing. They write about extraordinary people.
[12:54]They love their work. And generally they're brilliant writers. They're sharp as hell. They're witty.
[13:00]I think actually it's one of the best jobs on the news floor in any newspaper.
[13:07]I feel like I would want to see my obituary. Like, not that I would necessarily get one, which I'm
[13:11]probably wouldn't, but let's just pretend there was one. Like, if I didn't, I would like to know and
[13:15]have it be able to have it in place. Like maybe your next book could be like happens when
[13:20]all the files for all the obits go out and everybody reads there in obituary when people change
[13:25]their lives. Well, that's a thing. And I believe actually JMA's book club pick a couple of months,
[13:30]a few months back, was about a similar subject. And I deliberately haven't read that book because
[13:34]you know what it's like, it might just drive me mad and make me go crazy. But you know,
[13:39]I read a little bit of her description of the book and it sounds great. But you know,
[13:43]she was talking about exactly what interested me about obituaries, which is the agency that we
[13:48]have in our own story. And the stories we tell ourselves about our own story and how much we can
[13:54]affect what other people, you know, the extent to which we can curate our lives and make people
[13:59]you know, sort of buy into these, you know, these ideas about us that we that we want them to believe.
[14:06]And it all came about actually as a result of a conversation of slightly awkward dinner party.
[14:12]The conversation was not flowing. But then one of the guys said that he was writing in a
[14:16]bit tree for somebody and I didn't realize that a bit tree is written in advance. I had no idea.
[14:21]And it just started me thinking, gosh, you know, if you knew you were going to die, would you start
[14:26]sort of, you know, taking a bit tree right out for dinner and sort of just dropping,
[14:30]dropping, you know, wonderful anecdotes about your life and your goodness and your kindness into
[14:34]the conversation. You know, we we're so obsessed with our story and it's really funny and it's sort
[14:40]of tragic comic that we that we sort of still want to control how people feel about us after we've
[14:46]gone. One time it really doesn't matter. So yeah, that's that's what started it or this fascination
[14:53]with not just the art of writing in a bit tree because it really is an art, but our obsession with
[14:59]you know, with our story, what we think our story is and that the the tragic comic lengths we go
[15:05]to to try and propagate that story out in the world, both during and after our lives.
[15:11]And what about marine biology? These are very different professions and things you have to
[15:17]one minute, you're analyzing crowds and then the next minute, yeah, you're dealing with
[15:23]a bit sadness and whatever. So what was that? What was that like? Do you have an inherent interest?
[15:27]How do you even pick that? You're just was a totally random or was it so that you could be on a beach
[15:32]or instead of being a beach community or like whatever, I'm just kidding. It was purely selfish
[15:37]and you've read ghosted. So you will probably remember that, you know, in ghosted the the British
[15:42]countryside, the natural world was almost like a third character in the novel, a sort of signed
[15:47]third character and I knew that I had that's what I wanted to do. I you know, I wanted to write
[15:53]books that brought the natural world into the story and into the characters DNA. And so as soon as
[16:01]I had my headline idea, which was a bit three rotors starts researching his wife's life
[16:08]discovers that she's not who she said she is. My first thought of course was well who is she?
[16:13]What's the secret? The answer to which was I don't know what I did know straight away was that I
[16:19]wanted her to be alone with those secrets under a vast sky with waves rolling in and out.
[16:25]That's all I knew. That's how integral the natural world has sort of become to my process now.
[16:30]Just that image alone is enough for me to start. And so I knew straight away that she had to have
[16:37]some kind of a job to do with the sea. And I just thought great marine biologist done
[16:42]then discovered that there's about a thousand different jobs within that within the term marine biologist.
[16:48]So I had to speak to a whole load of people most of the months, expecting people that I'd
[16:52]tracked down on Twitter about their jobs until I spoke to somebody at the marine biological association
[16:58]and Plymouth who is an inter-tidal ecologist. And when I listened to her talking about what she does,
[17:03]I thought yes, that's the one. And so as with many, you know, many of my books, once I've got
[17:09]the jobs that the people do, I get to go and spend a bit of time in those workplaces.
[17:14]And as soon as I'm wandering around in those workplaces with my notebook and as soon as I'm
[17:17]wandering around outside somewhere in the natural world, I do use them with beautiful with my
[17:21]notebook. The idea is to come. And I will not stop scribbling. So I have hundreds and hundreds of
[17:27]of pages of notebook musings, you know, that aren't that aren't research, although I have hundreds
[17:32]of those two pages of those and about hundreds of books of those, just musings that I write when
[17:38]I'm in situ researching somebody's job or, you know, some beautiful outdoor place.
[17:43]Can you use any of those things for your next project or subsequent work?
[17:47]Yeah, it's a really good question. I would like to because I've got so many beautiful things
[17:53]that I've seen and experienced and heard and listened to and and smelt like I do a lot of
[17:58]smelling. Well, when I'm researching a book because actually the smell of the air is, you know,
[18:05]smell, smell is so evocative for so many of us. It's, you know, for me, it's the sense that
[18:10]it's most likely to make me cry within seconds, you know, a smell that will take me back to the
[18:14]time for my childhood or something. So I do a lot of sniffing. But yeah, it seems to shame to waste
[18:20]all of those smells and sounds and tastes and and for you. Maybe. Good idea. I might return to
[18:25]my notebook, although the next book I think is going to be set largely in Thailand. So,
[18:31]might just have to open to Thailand. How have you started that? Like what's the progress on that?
[18:37]What's the progress or the premise? Well, actually. So the premise, I probably I don't know if
[18:43]I should be talking about this, but what the hell is my book? At the beginning of the book, we
[18:47]meet a young couple, sort of backpacking couple who have just got married on a beach in Thailand.
[18:53]They've been together a while, although not for a hugely long time. And they've just got married
[18:58]and it's beautiful and the sky is darkening and, you know, all the fairy lights are coming on.
[19:02]And you can see the squid boats out at sea with their amazing beautiful lights on. And,
[19:07]you know, it's just that lovely and the music starting. And then the beach is strobed with
[19:12]the lights from police cars. A whole bunch of police cars descend on the beach and they,
[19:16]they arrest the husband, this young man. And he's taken away, you know, she's screaming trying to
[19:20]stop it. And he's taken away and in spite of her attempts to stop it, he is imprisoned in a
[19:27]Thai jail for life. And she never sees him again. Right. And until the beginning of the novel
[19:31]20 years later when she's married and has children. And this guy who she loved so much turns
[19:36]up at her doorstep. I have written about two paragraphs of the prologue, but I have now stopped.
[19:44]I need to get something down so that I don't panic, but I've stopped now. I'm not going to
[19:48]start writing it for quite a while because I need a break. I really need a break. If I'm going to
[19:53]write a good book next, my next book, I need a break. I feel like how could she just leave
[19:57]them in the prison all that time? Wouldn't she have all this?
[20:00]She's going to fly her father over to her father's a lawyer to try and get him out like she's going to be doing a lot and I think over many years
[20:07]she would have gone over there trying to get him out of to find him, you know, before she finally gives up and then falls in and up with someone else.
[20:13]This is 20 years later Zippy. Come on.
[20:15]Okay. Okay. 20 years.
[20:17]All right.
[20:18]Okay.
[20:19]We'll do it for 20 years if you were imprisoned.
[20:22]Yeah.
[20:23]You better.
[20:24]You better.
[20:25]Yeah.
[20:26]Thank you.
[20:27]Thanks.
[20:28]20s.
[20:29]You know, I think.
[20:30]All right.
[20:31]Okay.
[20:32]And if, you know, she'd be losing her child bearing years.
[20:34]No sympathy.
[20:35]Little bit.
[20:36]Okay.
[20:37]Maybe to rethink this story then.
[20:39]No, I love that.
[20:42]So that's the important thing.
[20:44]I love the idea of turning up at your doorstep and you know, all those stories about war where people think that they've lost about, you know, and then years later they're in their other lives and somebody comes back.
[20:54]Oh, it's fascinating.
[20:55]But what people have, how they deal with that situation.
[20:58]So it's the same thing.
[20:59]I can't wait to read it.
[21:00]It sounds amazing.
[21:01]Well, right.
[21:02]Wait.
[21:03]I know.
[21:04]Quite a big obstacle being here and there, but that's fine.
[21:07]I mean, I, again, with little kids at home.
[21:10]I mean, it is hard.
[21:11]I mean, for even the most focused mountain person to be creative on demand is tricky.
[21:18]I mean, it's tough.
[21:19]Constant distractions in any way.
[21:22]I've decided I'm going to get a writing coach for this one.
[21:24]Not a creative writing coach.
[21:25]I feel like I know how to write a book sort of, but like one of those coaches that helps you with blocks and just getting a bum on seat and getting certain amounts of work done every day.
[21:34]I need that because I spent, you know, four years trying to do that with this book and I got nowhere.
[21:39]So I'm excited to invite some help in.
[21:41]Have you got someone for me?
[21:42]Yes.
[21:43]I have someone who's like a book therapist.
[21:45]Oh, yes.
[21:47]Okay. I'll DM you her information.
[21:49]I need her.
[21:50]I just need to commit to getting bubble seat and keeping confidence high, you know, even when you're in that difficult middle bit.
[21:57]Yeah.
[21:58]That's what I need.
[22:00]I love how you brought in the diary class journal as a mechanism in this book.
[22:06]Do you keep your own diaries that are not musings on places that are specific?
[22:11]I don't.
[22:12]I journal therapeutically sometimes when I need to figure out something that's bothering me.
[22:19]But no, I don't keep a diary and I've really tried that my experience since becoming a writer is that I just, I don't want to do any writing.
[22:26]I don't even want to send a text message these days.
[22:29]I want to write my books and then that's it.
[22:32]So no, I don't do any journaling and originally actually those Janice chapters were narrated by her for various reasons that didn't quite feel right.
[22:42]So that's how it came about really.
[22:44]It was more a process of trial and error rather, but actually I think they work better as diary entries.
[22:49]One of many things that my editors suggested that I got rid of because it wasn't working.
[22:56]I mean, so many of the good bits in this book are as a result of feedback from someone else.
[23:00]It really, really does take a village as I'm sure you know.
[23:04]Yes.
[23:05]I know you're like stick of writing.
[23:06]What about Rita?
[23:07]Do you like to read while you're writing or are you one of those people who's like, I can't read.
[23:11]It'll distract me.
[23:12]How do you feel about it?
[23:13]No, I think I think it's hugely important to read whilst you're writing.
[23:17]And my problem again has been time.
[23:20]And also, you know, an unexpected side effect of having an unexpectedly successful book is that you get sent about a billion books for review as I'm sure you know.
[23:31]And, you know, plenty of them are from friends as well as it's a really difficult situations being because I just can't read all of them.
[23:37]I just can't.
[23:38]And I constantly feel like I'm letting people down.
[23:42]But I am reading finally.
[23:44]I realized recently that I hadn't properly read a book in about nine months.
[23:47]I read bits and books.
[23:48]But I, so I am prioritizing that now.
[23:51]And I'm making myself go to bed 15, 20 minutes earlier.
[23:54]So I have now carved out 15 to 20 minutes a day to be reading.
[23:58]And gosh, isn't it lovely?
[24:01]It is lovely.
[24:02]The joy of reading a book.
[24:04]And I thought so.
[24:05]I've got a lot more brutal these days.
[24:06]Like if I'm not interested, it's gone.
[24:08]I won't even read chapters.
[24:10]If I'm not hooked by the first chapter.
[24:12]No.
[24:13]So what is that book that's gotten you to actually focus before bed?
[24:16]Yeah.
[24:17]What are you reading?
[24:18]What is the book?
[24:19]Can you say it or not really?
[24:20]Well, I'm reading at the moment.
[24:22]Yeah.
[24:23]I've literally just finished one two days ago, which was called Nora goes off script.
[24:30]I believe it's coming out soon.
[24:32]Yes.
[24:33]April?
[24:34]Anything like that.
[24:35]And I loved it.
[24:36]It was really good fun.
[24:37]Maybe a lot.
[24:38]Have you read it?
[24:39]I'm interviewing her.
[24:40]I think in two months.
[24:41]So I've seen it then.
[24:42]It would have been really good fun.
[24:44]And, you know, I've read some quite tough meaty things lately.
[24:48]So I've just finished that.
[24:49]Oh, yes.
[24:50]And I did stop my next book last night.
[24:51]Finally, I'm getting around to reading the Sanatorium by so appears.
[24:54]We're finally meeting.
[24:55]We have an editor in common.
[24:57]And we live really near each other.
[24:59]But we both have crazy lives because we're both full-time writers with young children.
[25:02]So do not feel any guilt.
[25:04]So, you know, obviously it's the name of my whole show.
[25:06]So time to read back.
[25:07]So no shame.
[25:08]There is time.
[25:09]A couple minutes here there.
[25:11]The idea of, you know, there will be time.
[25:14]And, you know, there are different ways to read.
[25:16]There are different seasons and reading, if you will.
[25:19]So I have no doubt that you're staying in the game.
[25:22]Yeah, I'm a die-hard reader.
[25:24]I always have been.
[25:25]I used to devour books as a child.
[25:26]I know my time will come again.
[25:28]I'm just in the season of raising children.
[25:31]So it just, yeah, something has to go.
[25:33]And it can't be my children's welfare.
[25:35]I mean, sometimes it is.
[25:36]It will get better.
[25:37]It will get better.
[25:38]It will get better.
[25:39]And I keep proudly telling people that the love of my life
[25:43]is a book that will make people neglect their children.
[25:46]And jobs with children.
[25:49]Read this book.
[25:50]The love of my life.
[25:52]No.
[25:53]It has a lot of air and head and motherhood and all that too.
[25:56]So it's on theme, if you will.
[25:58]So Rosie, this was so fun.
[26:00]I could talk to y'all today.
[26:01]Thank you so much.
[26:02]I'd love to carry on that we must have.
[26:05]Well, best of luck.
[26:07]Congrats again.
[26:08]I'm being at the JMA Book Club pick for March of 2022.
[26:11]It's really, really exciting.
[26:13]And I'm so thrilled for you.
[26:15]Good morning, America.
[26:16]I still can't believe it.
[26:17]And thank you, Dizzy.
[26:18]It's so nice to chat to you.
[26:20]You too.
[26:21]All right.
[26:22]Good luck.
[26:23]Have a good day.
[26:24]Bye-bye.
[26:26]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[26:29]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at the Be Owens
[26:32]and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[26:34]I'll also sign up for my newsletter at Zebioins.com
[26:37]and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors
[26:40]on Zoom every other week.
[26:41]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing.
[26:45]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[26:47]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.