Laura Tremaine, THE LIFE COUNCIL: 10 Friends Every Woman Needs
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens, and you're listening to moms don't have time to read books.
[0:06]This 30 minute podcast features a new author interviewed by me every single day, 365 days
[0:12]a year for about 30 minutes.
[0:15]I am also the publisher for Zippy Books, which publishes 12 books a year in fiction
[0:20]and memoir.
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[0:31]That's at zippymag.com.
[0:33]We have classes, it's a B-Classist.com, and I recently opened a book store in LA called
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[0:45]I hope that you are able to enjoy some of our other offerings, but this here podcast is the
[0:51]basis of all of it and started in 2018, and no matter what I do, this is basically my favorite
[0:57]thing.
[1:03]Laura Tremaine is the author of the life council, 10 friends, every woman needs.
[1:08]Laura is a Hollywood housewife, she says, but she's also a writer, avid reader, and enthusiastic
[1:13]podcaster.
[1:14]Laura grew up in a small town in southern Oklahoma and moved to Los Angeles, sight unseen
[1:19]when she was 22.
[1:21]Years of film and production, followed, and in 2007, she married the director she met
[1:25]on her first movie set.
[1:27]For six years, Laura wrote regularly at Hollywood Housewife, a blog that opened doors, a
[1:31]friendship, and opportunity all over the world.
[1:34]Eventually, she closed the blog and moved toward podcasting, where she launched 10 things
[1:38]to tell you.
[1:39]She is the author of Share Your Stuff, I'll Go First, and her second book, The Life Council,
[1:44]10 Friends, Every Woman Needs.
[1:45]Laura lives in LA with her husband and two children.
[1:48]Welcome, Laura.
[1:49]I'm so excited to have you back on mom's and her time to read books.
[1:53]I feel like your last book just came out, wasn't that like a minute ago?
[1:55]Anyway, back with The Life Council, 10 Friends, Every Woman Needs.
[1:59]When did your last book come out?
[2:01]How much time has been in between?
[2:02]It's almost two years exactly.
[2:05]It came out in 2021, but I remember being at your house at a beautiful party and telling
[2:12]you that I was writing The Life Council, and like that feels like a minute ago too.
[2:17]Right?
[2:18]Yeah.
[2:19]I remember that party, and I don't know, somehow between 2021 and now has like slipped
[2:24]by me completely.
[2:26]Like wait, it's 2023, the pandemic was three years.
[2:29]Like what?
[2:30]No.
[2:31]How could that be?
[2:32]It's crazy.
[2:33]Right?
[2:34]Yeah.
[2:35]Okay, 10 Friends, Every Woman Needs, I was like mentally trying to slot all my girlfriends
[2:38]into these roles as I read through your different classifications, and I was like, hmm, I don't
[2:43]know.
[2:44]Anyway, talk about what this book is about, why a book about friendship and why these
[2:48]friends and all of that.
[2:50]Well, I'm writing about friendship again.
[2:52]Other stuff was also a little bit about friendship from a different angle of like connecting,
[2:57]you know, sharing yourself in order to connect, mostly with friends.
[3:01]This book is about actually adult friendships because on my podcast and on my social media,
[3:08]I feel like it kept coming up over and over again, like how difficult adult friendship
[3:15]can be or complicated or we feel, you know, obligations to friends.
[3:20]We don't really know how to be a new friend.
[3:22]We definitely don't know how to make new friends, like out of the blue, keeping up with
[3:27]old friends sometimes is complicated.
[3:29]This theme just came up over and over again and I felt like it isn't a relationship
[3:34]that gets a lot of talk or instruction like we get all kinds of books about marriage and
[3:41]parenthood and we just don't get a lot of talks about friends because it feels like friendship
[3:48]should be like this unending resource, right?
[3:51]Like if one friend doesn't work out, there's always another person.
[3:55]And I guess that's sort of true, but that's not really true in our hearts.
[3:59]Like we really want to feel deeply connected to people and this is certainly not an instructional
[4:04]book.
[4:05]I'm not a psychologist or a therapist or anything like that.
[4:08]It's more just a way to look at the landscape of the people already in your life and see
[4:15]how they can fit into your friendship structure.
[4:19]Instead of feeling like, oh, I don't have any friends or I only have acquaintances or
[4:25]too busy to do the friendship thing like all these obstacles that get in our way, I wanted
[4:31]to lay out how I had worked it out for myself and it's a lot about the way you think
[4:36]about it.
[4:37]It's not about like a ton of action.
[4:39]I don't want to give people a new to-do list here.
[4:42]It's looking at your own landscape and being like, what is this person bringing
[4:45]to my life?
[4:46]What am I bringing to theirs?
[4:48]Not all friendships have to be deep.
[4:50]Some friendships can just stay in their lane.
[4:52]You can have a work friend only.
[4:54]You can have a mom friend only that you only see in the bleachers.
[4:58]And that is still like very fulfilling, like in a life, you know?
[5:03]I feel like I particularly liked the obsessive, you know, because I feel like different,
[5:07]I've been obsessed with different things over the course of my life.
[5:10]And then through those things, you know, you attract different people, you know, who
[5:16]like then you go on to something else and then they're not as relevant in a way, you know?
[5:21]Exactly.
[5:22]And also like, is there anything more satisfying than a friend that is also obsessed
[5:26]with the thing you're obsessed with, like you can obsess together?
[5:30]Yeah.
[5:31]Sometimes that's just like a season.
[5:32]Maybe you're only in delight, running or embroidery or whatever, for like a minute.
[5:38]And then you're not anymore.
[5:40]But when you have that time together, it's like bonding, it feels good.
[5:44]Again, it doesn't need to go the huge distance, but it is like something that brings something
[5:50]to our life.
[5:51]And I feel like friendships like that don't get a lot of credit.
[5:54]The only friends that get credits are like old friends, bridesmaid-level friends, like friends
[6:00]that help you through your toughest time.
[6:02]And those are beautiful relationships, but those are unique.
[6:06]And they're kind of a different animal.
[6:08]And those aren't the things that like keep us from feeling lonely all the time.
[6:12]We can alleviate some of our loneliness with the people who are like daily in our life
[6:17]or even on a screen, you know?
[6:19]Yeah.
[6:20]No, it's so true.
[6:21]I had a friend, I really only connected to about the show Homeland, do you remember that show?
[6:26]Yeah.
[6:27]I was obsessed with Homeland, and I had this one girlfriend, and we would like compare
[6:32]notes and watch together.
[6:34]No, I love that.
[6:35]Actually, I want to say more about that because the internet is a gift to us in that way
[6:40]because you can find fellow obsessive so easily.
[6:43]Like there's like Facebook groups or Reddit threads or whatever about whatever thing
[6:48]you're into.
[6:49]Yes, that's true.
[6:50]Especially if it's like a TV show or a band or podcast, and maybe that's all you have
[6:55]in common and maybe that's enough.
[6:57]Did you know, and I'm probably the last to know this, and this isn't like totally relevant,
[7:01]because we're talking and we're diagramming friends and random places.
[7:05]When I was on LinkedIn last night, it all of a sudden it popped up, and it was like,
[7:09]would you like to join this group of 10,000 writers and authors?
[7:11]And I was like, okay, did you know there were groups on LinkedIn?
[7:15]No.
[7:16]I'm not on LinkedIn.
[7:18]Oh, are you on LinkedIn very much?
[7:20]Yeah.
[7:21]I mean, I have a page.
[7:22]I'm just not very active on it.
[7:24]I mean, I've been, you know, I've been like building a company and hiring people, and
[7:28]then like I realized I could post on it, like anywhere where I can post news.
[7:32]But anyway, you could find like minded people even on LinkedIn, I guess is my point.
[7:37]Yeah.
[7:38]Love it.
[7:39]Anyway, sorry.
[7:40]Tangent.
[7:41]What else?
[7:42]The battle buddy.
[7:43]That's like the mom and the trenches.
[7:44]Correct?
[7:45]Yes.
[7:46]Yes.
[7:47]Anyone in the trenches, I feel like it can be a battle buddy.
[7:50]And I feel like I'm just going to beat this drum.
[7:53]It doesn't have to be a lifetime relationship.
[7:57]Like you can have a battle buddy with someone that you went through one day.
[8:03]Like you had a traumatic thing happen one day or, you know, it doesn't always have to
[8:07]be bad necessarily, but like one thing that really bonded you that was short term.
[8:13]It doesn't have to be like a lifelong battle.
[8:15]It can be.
[8:16]Of course, we have these battle buddies that help us through a diagnosis or, you know,
[8:21]a really hard time.
[8:22]But a battle buddy can be like the friend that I write about in the book was my roommate
[8:28]for just one year.
[8:30]We barely even talk much anymore, but that one year was so formative for me.
[8:36]The other battle buddy that I write about, we are dear friends, but it like our friendship
[8:41]came to be because we were on a trip together, like a trip that lasted less than a week.
[8:45]And it was sort of difficult trip.
[8:46]We kind of went through this thing.
[8:48]So like a battle buddy can be sort of short term that you have this bonding thing
[8:54]that like you went through it together and you'll always have that connection.
[8:59]We accidentally met this other couple on my honeymoon with my first marriage.
[9:04]And like they ended up being living nearby and we became friends just because of that.
[9:08]Yeah.
[9:09]I have an idea for you.
[9:10]I just thought of.
[9:11]I was thinking how it would be so cool to write an essay about each of these friends, like
[9:15]as a writing prompt, right, like write an essay about your, you know, daily duty friend
[9:21]or whatever, write an essay about this thing.
[9:23]So I think you should teach a zippy class and the assignments should be to write these essays
[9:28]and that you have like 10 classes and then you talk about those essays.
[9:31]I would love that.
[9:32]Great.
[9:33]Let's talk about it.
[9:34]It is a really good journal prompt or writing prompt essay prompt because I don't want
[9:40]people to be so married to the 10 archetypes that I share.
[9:44]Like I tried to make them general enough and I also shared my own experience, but I do
[9:48]hope that when people are reading through those different stereotypes that it is like getting
[9:52]their juices flowing of like, well, who is this friend to me or this doesn't exactly
[9:57]fit, you know, maybe it's spark.
[10:00]what someone else is to you. So like, it, they would be great journal prompts, but also you can
[10:04]take it in your own direction of like, ah, this is really making me think of what this person
[10:08]meant to me, even if it doesn't fall in this exactly definition, you know.
[10:12]But how nice would it be to to have everybody then send the essays to those 10 friends?
[10:17]Think about all the joy. Let's say you had like 20 people and they each wrote essays about
[10:20]10 friends and then they all sent them to those friends. Like, think about how many people's,
[10:24]I mean, I don't know what's that 200 or something? Like, lives that they know better.
[10:28]I don't know. It'd be fun. Yeah. That's true. Beautiful. All right. Think about it. Yeah.
[10:32]You joked in the book about how growing up in Oklahoma, you expected that a bigger community would
[10:37]yield more friends whereas in truth, it was easier to have friends in a smaller community. Tell me
[10:42]about that. So I grew up in not only Oklahoma, but a small town in Oklahoma, it's like the type of
[10:48]town where everybody knows everybody and you know, for better or worse, everybody knows everybody.
[10:53]I went to school with the same people that I, you know, learned how to read and write with
[10:58]and elementary school. Like, we graduated at the same time. Then I went to college where I was in
[11:03]a sorority and I just felt like when I got to adulthood, I didn't realize like
[11:10]that friendship had sort of been handed to me on a silver platter this whole time. I could
[11:14]had just been served up, small town. You just know people sorority. Like, here's the people
[11:21]that you're going to be friends with. You know, when I got in sort of the real world and I moved to
[11:25]Los Angeles thinking, I was like wanting to broaden my horizons, which moving to LA did broaden
[11:30]my horizons in a lot of ways. But I thought, well, there's, you know, five million people here,
[11:35]five million options to be friends. I thought it would be easier to make friends and it would be
[11:40]with a small town. And the opposite was true because when you were in a smaller community,
[11:46]whatever that is, your town, you know, your church, your work, or whatever, a smaller community,
[11:52]the connection there feels easier because you're under the umbrella of something you already
[11:57]having common. In Los Angeles, this was not true. It's five million people going in five million
[12:03]different directions. And it didn't feel like that they were like as interested in investing in
[12:09]deeper relationships. I mean, this city has a reputation for being shallow and that can be true
[12:15]in some instances, especially like just on the surface. It felt like like all of the girlfriend
[12:22]rules that I knew were different in LA. Like people are flaky here, especially when they're
[12:29]22 years old, you know, they're like me to hit the bar or don't. Like I just felt like nobody
[12:35]here kept their word. Nobody here wanted to have deeper conversations. Everybody was a little
[12:40]bit out for themselves. I don't feel that way in Los Angeles as a whole. There's amazing people
[12:46]here and I've made amazing friendships. But it did take me a long time to find deeper friendships
[12:53]here. And I've always likened it to Los Angeles because that's where I was. But part of it
[12:58]also might have just been like post college life in your 20s is like is a mess. Like a lot of
[13:05]people are selfish and flaky and whatever. So it might not even be LA specific. It was just that
[13:10]moving to a big city from a small town, the the friendship rules and expectations were so different.
[13:18]And it led to like a long time of loneliness for me. Like I felt like I live here, but all of my
[13:24]connections, all of my deepest heart-centered friendships were back in Oklahoma for a long time.
[13:31]In fact, I didn't make good friends in LA with a few exceptions, but I didn't make my deepest
[13:36]friends in LA until I became a parent. And then I made some mom friends because again, we had this
[13:42]thing in common right off the bat like that put us in in the same space or maybe in the same mindset.
[13:50]Before that, I mean, there's so many different types of people in LA. There's so many ways to be
[13:55]in a big city. And it's just a different lifestyle. When you're in a small town where you're like,
[14:01]there's only so much to do. So getting together with people is like the thing to do. Obviously,
[14:08]that's going to bring tons of connection. And it's just not true here. Not true in Hollywood, I'll just
[14:14]say. I had the exact same experience. I moved to LA after college in 1998. And I had the hardest time
[14:22]like meeting like-minded people. I missed my friends so much. I was like, oh, there's so many young
[14:27]people in LA. It's going to be amazing. And I didn't have that structure in my job. So I did my job.
[14:34]And then I left. I made like, I mean, actually one lasting friend, but sometimes friends in
[14:38]situations like that, you don't even realize like you become friends 10 years later after you
[14:42]experience it. Like it takes a while. Yeah, just like instantly make best friends. But anyway,
[14:46]I had the same feeling, but unlike you, I left. I went back to New York. I was like, I can't,
[14:50]I can't do it. So I only lasted two. Do you have better friends in New York? Or like,
[14:56]did you when you were young? Yeah. And also like, oh, my college friends moved to New York. And
[15:01]I was like the only one who moved out west. And it was for a boy at the time. And I wouldn't have
[15:07]done it otherwise. But then we broke up. And I don't know. And even when we were together,
[15:11]he worked all the time. So it's like, what am I supposed to do here? And I was so used to working
[15:15]hard in college. And then all of a sudden, I was like, done with work at five. And I was like,
[15:19]what on earth am I supposed to do now? I'm used to working till midnight every day, you know,
[15:23]so it was sort of a sad time. Yeah, that's what my story was too. I was just super lonely.
[15:29]You bet I didn't meet you. I was just a few years behind you. You know, I will say like going with the
[15:36]theme of all of your work, one of the things that alleviated my loneliness was I started a book club.
[15:44]Yep. Because I was like, I need friends. I like invited a couple of people I knew. And then
[15:51]also like a new worker at my husband's job, like a total, like it was just totally like,
[15:56]does anybody want to be in a book club? But the benefit to a book club for making friends was that
[16:03]it met regularly. So it was once a month on the calendar. You didn't have to like figure out
[16:09]something new and exciting to do. Like it was already a built-in structure that was already like
[16:16]on the calendar. Like I didn't have to reach out and be vulnerable every time and be like,
[16:19]do you want to get together? You know, like we had this set thing. And even once a month, which
[16:25]isn't very often, of course, was enough to feel like, okay, I have some friends. I have some book
[16:30]club friends. Yeah. It's true. By the end of the time, I had like four really close friends,
[16:36]but it did take a while. And it wasn't the same. But now there are still my really
[16:40]close friends. But it just takes a little bit. But anyway, I feel like there's shame around
[16:44]that. And your book really makes it like, okay, you know, it's not you. It's not like you're
[16:49]unpopular, undesirable, or like the people don't want to be your friend. It's like there are times
[16:54]of life when it's easy and there are times of life when it's hard. And it's okay to be friends with
[16:58]people for different reasons at different times. And it's sort of all sanctions, which is great.
[17:03]Yeah. Yeah. And I start the book off with a friendship reckoning that I had during the pandemic.
[17:12]Yeah. I mean, I didn't want to start the book with like, I have the friend thing figured out,
[17:16]because I don't. I wanted to share like right from the get go, the pandemic, the last few years,
[17:23]you know, the political division, like all the things has made friendship harder. Like people
[17:28]have had a lot of struggles with friends. And myself included, like I thought,
[17:36]this friend and I were going to break up like we had to sit in the backyard. This was the very
[17:40]deep pandemic times, six feet apart and have a really hard conversation. And I just wanted like
[17:48]people to know that if that happened to you or in the midst of happening to you, like that's
[17:53]happening everywhere. People aren't really talking about it. It's not the type of thing you post on
[17:57]social media. Like, oh, I had a friend break up. You know what I mean? It's true. It's true.
[18:01]Actually, there's a woman who's coming to my signing at the bookstore this weekend named Annie
[18:06]Catherine, who wrote a book called The Friendship Breakup. Oh, so you might be interested. It's an
[18:11]novel. Yeah. But I feel like the two of you might want to chitchat. She has a podcast. I feel like
[18:15]you even, yeah, I'll connect you to whatever. If she LA, she's local. No, she's flying in from Chicago.
[18:22]Wow. She's lovely. Yeah. But I'm also curious how you maintain your friendships.
[18:29]Hey, because I'm beginning to look here. You keep talking about how selfish you are, which I highly
[18:33]doubt. And B, you don't email like at least for professional reasons all the time, right? You have
[18:38]like an auto reply that like you've chosen not to email that much. And I think that is amazing. Tell
[18:43]me about that. So part of this is like not to joke about this, but actually, there's so much
[18:53]digital communication these days that it just pings off my anxiety. Like I have two kids who are in
[19:00]sports who, you know, so I'm just kidding. I feel like I'm on text threads all day long. I get a
[19:07]million emails for work. There's obviously like DMs and all the social media places. There's so
[19:13]many ways to communicate. And when I get all this incoming communication, I just like shut down,
[19:17]like I don't communicate with anybody, which is, you know, terrible for friendship. I did realize
[19:24]a few years ago, like I used to sort of use that as an excuse, right? Like I, this makes me very
[19:31]anxious. I'm not going to be good at it. Like if I don't text you back, you can't take it
[19:35]personally. Like this was sort of my mantra for a long time. And then I realized I was actually
[19:41]damaging some of my friendships by taking that stance. And it doesn't mean that I can't take
[19:47]your my mental health and like stay aware of it. But also, this is the way that people communicate.
[19:53]This is how people are doing friendships in 2023. So I guess I could choose to totally be like
[20:00]a smaller circle and not nurture some of those friendships or whatever, or I could try and
[20:06]work with it.
[20:08]And so what I do, I have to do this for myself is I like set a timer and sit down and
[20:13]reply to texts because this is how mom life friendship works for me.
[20:20]Like this is how people are checking in on each other.
[20:22]This is how people are showing that they care.
[20:25]And now I also do, like, we can get together and do normal things, like mom's
[20:31]branches or mom's night out or taking a hike with a friend or like the normal things
[20:36]that sort of friends do.
[20:37]But honestly, in this life for me, it's a lot of it is texting or liking your people's
[20:44]Instagrams, just sort of showing that you care in these smaller digital ways.
[20:49]And I was just not doing my friendships any favors when I refuse to do that.
[20:53]So like the email auto responder, that's for work only.
[20:56]So I was like, I'm going to have to do this in places, take care of myself in places where
[21:00]I can.
[21:01]So in work situations, I have an assistant now or I have an auto responder.
[21:05]And then in places where it really matters, like relationship, I am going to have to make
[21:10]it work for myself.
[21:11]I'm going to have to take care of my mental health while also nurturing these friendships
[21:15]in the way that they need to be done.
[21:18]That's not easy for everybody or that's not a priority for everybody and you have to
[21:21]like sort of think about it for yourself.
[21:24]But these are definitely things to think about if you're like, oh, well, I'm never on Instagram
[21:31]or I'm never on Facebook.
[21:32]I don't do social media.
[21:34]And then, but then if you notice, like, that's where a lot of your friend group is communicating
[21:38]or sharing their lives or whatever, that's going to be a trade off not telling you to get
[21:43]on social media.
[21:44]That's like what your choice is, but you also can't then some ways we can't have our
[21:47]cake needed to like, oh, I refuse to do X, Y, Z.
[21:51]Why am I so lonely?
[21:52]You know, I mean, you have to like recognize there's some trade offs, you know, interesting.
[21:58]So give me the whole rundown of all the things you're doing now, still what you're starting,
[22:03]what you're ending, books you're writing, all the stuff.
[22:07]Well, I'm just trying to launch the life council first of all way into the world.
[22:12]I really care about that.
[22:13]I still do my weekly podcast.
[22:15]It's called 10 Things to Tell You and it is a place where I talk about topics and offer
[22:21]journal prompts and conversation prompts for people to connect with others.
[22:25]That's kind of my gig is sharing yourself.
[22:27]So I'm podcasting writing books.
[22:29]I want to write another book after this.
[22:32]I have not started it.
[22:33]I just I have lots of ideas.
[22:34]I ran a class called journaling for grownups that was gang busters because I really care
[22:41]about teaching grownups to journal because a lot of people think journaling is for, you
[22:46]know, angsty teenagers or something.
[22:48]And I feel like no, journaling can help all of us.
[22:51]So those are kind of my biggies right now.
[22:53]And I'm loving it.
[22:54]I love podcasting.
[22:55]I love writing books.
[22:56]It's just where I am.
[22:58]It's amazing.
[22:59]If you could be friends with somebody you don't know now, who would it be?
[23:04]Oh gosh, that's such a good question.
[23:08]You know who I'm like loving.
[23:10]Do you follow Sharon says so?
[23:12]No.
[23:13]Sharon McMahon, do you know that is she calls herself a governor and she's a former government
[23:18]teacher?
[23:19]Maybe a current government teacher.
[23:20]And she just posts like from a neutral place, like an unbiased place.
[23:24]She kind of like translates what's happening in government in the news and politics.
[23:28]And in like she makes it really understandable.
[23:32]And I just find what she's doing to be so relatable and so smart and needed.
[23:41]And I've just been soaking her in.
[23:43]She's Sharon says so on Instagram, she's a pretty big following now.
[23:47]I started following her kind of when she was new, but now she's really grown her platform
[23:51]and I do not know her in real life and I would love to.
[23:54]I did not know I was going to say that.
[23:56]She just came out of the blue.
[23:57]That was a good question.
[23:58]Well, there you go.
[23:59]That's awesome.
[23:59]I feel like I would like to know Sarah Jessica Parker, but maybe it's really Kerry Bradshaw,
[24:07]but I don't know.
[24:08]Like either of them, you know, either the character or the actual Sarah Jessica Parker.
[24:12]She's so into books and she lives in New York and I don't know, I feel like we'd have
[24:15]a nice chat.
[24:16]Well, if we're going to take that route, I really want to know Reese Witherspoon, who
[24:20]also lives in LA and is also into books.
[24:23]I feel like we would be friends.
[24:25]Yes.
[24:26]I'll give you that.
[24:29]What advice do you have to aspiring authors?
[24:35]Just start writing.
[24:37]I put off my writing a book for a long time, but you know what I did that ultimately served
[24:45]my other ship was I started blogging.
[24:48]Now blogging is like, it's a little bit of a different world.
[24:50]I started blogging in 2010, so obviously the internet looked different back then.
[24:55]But writing somewhere every day completely changed my writing life.
[25:01]Nowadays, even if you were writing something every day on social media, that still counts.
[25:06]You are really learning in when you're writing for an audience, which we can do like instant
[25:13]gratification and get feedback.
[25:14]You can see what hits and what doesn't, what people respond to, how long is too long.
[25:21]If you can edit it down to be very short, like giving yourself an assignment and writing
[25:26]every single day for an audience.
[25:29]If you write every single day for yourself, you're still writing.
[25:33]I'm not discounting that, but it's maybe a different learning curve because you're not
[25:37]getting the feedback.
[25:38]Like I wish I'd started writing books earlier, but definitely writing publicly on a blog
[25:44]and then on social media taught me lessons I never could have learned if I was toiling
[25:49]away on my own, like in a closet because I used to be a lot fluffier with my writing.
[25:58]Like I used to maybe take a tangent that I don't know.
[26:02]Just writing for an audience and you'll see, if you give yourself an assignment, like
[26:05]I'm going to post every single day, a few paragraphs or whatever, you'll really start
[26:10]to sharpen how to make a point quicker, how to land a joke, maybe what didn't work,
[26:17]like all of those things and not that all writing is, you should not always have your
[26:23]like audience tip top of mind, like we want to create art and do that kind of thing.
[26:28]But look, let's be honest, in this publishing industry, like you're writing for an audience.
[26:34]You just are.
[26:35]And when you learn to do that, you're going to have a better shot at putting together
[26:39]a better proposal, building a platform, which now seems so important and selling your
[26:43]book, which is what we want.
[26:44]If you're an aspiring author, you want people to read the stuff that you're writing.
[26:49]So you have to learn to write for the current reader.
[26:52]I love that.
[26:53]Excellent advice.
[26:54]Thank you.
[26:55]Amazing.
[26:56]Laura, this is so fun.
[26:57]I hope I'm in town when you're doing your event in April.
[27:00]But if not, I hope to see you at something else soon.
[27:03]And yeah, I hope I can make it into your extended council of friends.
[27:07]Oh my gosh, Sibi.
[27:09]I always love chatting with you.
[27:11]I'm so glad that we've become a client in the past couple of years because I love what
[27:14]you're doing.
[27:15]I feel like you're just opening the doors for authors and giving readers like a broader
[27:21]experience.
[27:22]I really appreciate what you're doing for this whole industry and for this whole world
[27:25]that we're in.
[27:26]It matters.
[27:27]Well, I appreciate what you're doing because connection is sort of the by-pride, like that's
[27:33]what I'm after is getting people to connect over books, right?
[27:36]And you're just going straight there.
[27:38]It's much more direct for it now.
[27:42]Anyway, all right.
[27:43]Well, I hope to see you soon, Laura.
[27:44]Thanks so much.
[27:46]Thank you, Sibi.
[27:47]Bye.
[27:48]Bye.
[27:50]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[27:53]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zibbowens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[27:58]Also sign up for my newsletter at zibbowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet
[28:03]lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[28:05]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan Beck, Texture Sound for the Sound Editing.
[28:09]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim
[28:13]music.