Julia Whelan, THANK YOU FOR LISTENING
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens, and you're listening to moms don't have time to read books.
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[1:03]Julie Wayland is the author of Thank You for Listening, a novel, deemed the Adele of
[1:08]audiobooks by the New Yorker.
[1:10]Julie Wayland is a screenwriter, lifelong actor, an audiobook narrator of over 500 titles.
[1:15]She has won numerous awards, including Audible's narrator of the year, and the best female
[1:20]narrator, Audie.
[1:21]Audie of file magazine has given her its lifetime achievement award, quote, golden voice,
[1:27]and her performance of her own debut novel, The International Bestseller My Oxford Year, garnered
[1:32]a Society of Voice Arts Award.
[1:34]Her new novel, Thank You for Listening, was a best of 2022 pick at Amazon, Audible, and NPR,
[1:40]as well as a Goodreads Choice Award nominee.
[1:42]She is also a Grammy-nominated audiobook director, a former writing tutor, a half-decent
[1:47]amateur baker, and a certified T, Samuel Ye.
[1:50]Welcome, Julia.
[1:51]Thank you so much for coming on mom's don't have time to read books to discuss.
[1:54]Thank you for listening.
[1:55]Absolutely.
[1:56]Thank you for having me.
[1:57]I would hold up the book, but it's next to my bed where I have been reading it as my
[2:01]treat every single night, like, hey, you're excused, you're excused.
[2:04]I should take a picture of it over there.
[2:07]Anyway, congratulations.
[2:09]What a fun but heartfelt and entertaining, and I mean, it has like all the good things
[2:14]that a book should have, really.
[2:16]Oh, thank you.
[2:17]Yeah.
[2:18]Like, past traumas and working through things and friendships, and I don't know, it's like
[2:23]the full package, but the sense of humor is really, I think, my favorite, I think it's
[2:27]so, it's a wit to it.
[2:29]Okay.
[2:30]Tell listeners what thank you for listening is about.
[2:32]Please.
[2:33]Sure.
[2:34]Yeah.
[2:35]Okay.
[2:36]So thank you for listening is about Swani Chester, who used to be an on camera actress, but
[2:39]something happened to her, which we find out later in the book, but something happened
[2:43]to her, and she doesn't do on camera anymore.
[2:45]She just does voiceover, and specifically she narrates audiobooks.
[2:50]And she has one rule, which is that at this point in her career, she doesn't like to record
[2:56]romance anymore, because that's how she started her career.
[2:59]And she's so cynical that she just doesn't buy what romance is selling, and she doesn't
[3:04]want to do it.
[3:05]But eventually, she is given an offer for something she cannot refuse, because she's trying
[3:10]to take care of her ailing grandmother.
[3:12]And this would give her enough money to be able to do that.
[3:16]And she finds herself in a romance novel, hitting trope after trope after trope, and some
[3:22]sort of meta and very self-aware.
[3:24]And it's a book about self-acceptance, and how to make peace when our life doesn't
[3:30]go the way we thought it was going to go.
[3:32]Amazing.
[3:33]That was another piece that really resonated for me.
[3:35]I remember when I would visit my grandmother at her nursing home, and there was that wing
[3:39]where you're like, oh, that's the next level up, are we going to get there?
[3:45]And then when you're touring it, you're like, oh, well, no, of course not, but then everyone
[3:49]ages.
[3:50]Yeah, that would possibly be for her, but that relationship was also, that was great, and
[3:57]the dad is not as into it anyway.
[3:59]So that was another piece that I really liked, that was sad.
[4:02]Yeah, I think that's the most personal piece to me probably.
[4:05]I know that because of my I'm an audiobook narrator, that's my day job, and I think that
[4:10]people think that that's the autobiographical part, but it's not like the ailing grand
[4:15]parent is the autobiographical part, and so that's like where the heart for me is in
[4:20]the book.
[4:21]No, which grandparent was it of yours?
[4:23]My dad's dad, so my father died very suddenly with, like when I was 27, and I sort of inherited
[4:32]my grandfather and my step-grandmother, and so I was taking care of two 86-year-olds for
[4:37]the last three years of their lives, and I had, that's actually when I was recording
[4:41]a fair bit of romance during aliens to pay for that.
[4:45]And so I just had a, that slow deterioration and wanting to do everything you can to protect
[4:52]someone and take care of them, but unlike with kids or something, you don't, you never
[4:58]have this sense that it's going to get better.
[5:00]Like they're never going to get better, it's not going to improve, it's just a, you
[5:03]just want to make them as comfortable as possible until the end, and so that was a really
[5:08]formative experience for me, I think.
[5:10]Oh, sorry.
[5:11]That is so hard.
[5:12]That's hard.
[5:13]I mean, yeah, but it's hard, and it's also beautiful in a way, like I know that if my
[5:17]father had been alive, I probably wouldn't have been as involved as I was, and I wouldn't
[5:21]have had that final connection with my grandfather, the way that I was able to, you know,
[5:27]at the end when it's like dressed us, and you know, that's, there's something beautiful
[5:31]about that too, and being able to be there for someone like that at the end is a privilege
[5:36]in a lot of ways, even though, like, I don't know if I could back on my late 20s, and
[5:39]like I didn't have late 20s, I was just like a, you know, what most people deal with with
[5:45]their parents at like 50 or 60, that's what I was doing at that time.
[5:49]So do you feel like that whole experience made you treat your own health and your own body
[5:54]and life a little bit differently?
[5:56]You know, yes, I think I wish I could say yes, I'm also like terrible at prioritizing
[6:01]any kind of self-care, but I will say that I think particularly my father's sudden death
[6:07]was gave me that message very early on of life is short, and I've definitely taken that
[6:13]for the last, you know, 10, 12 years to to heart, and I think that's why I'm a little
[6:18]bit pedal to the metal about things.
[6:21]So yeah, it's definitely formative, definitely.
[6:24]Can you talk about how your father passed away?
[6:26]Well, we think, I mean, it was as far as we can tell a heart attack.
[6:30]He was a type one diabetic, and he was also a firefighter, so there was a lot of mileage
[6:35]on that body.
[6:37]He was really the person who was responsible for my grandparents, and so we just assumed
[6:42]there'd be this sort of like line of care, and then when there's not.
[6:46]And I think that for me to put that into the book, I didn't want to do a completely, you
[6:52]know, point-for-point retelling of my own life.
[6:54]I don't write memoir for a reason, right?
[6:56]I want to be able to have the flexibility to change what I need to change for the story
[7:00]to work to make the point that I want to make, but I do think that for all intents and purposes
[7:05]Henry is pretty absent.
[7:09]You know, her father, and blood with son, is pretty absent, and it's just been like
[7:14]the two of them trying to work this out.
[7:16]So that was my version of it, I guess, my fictional version.
[7:20]Interesting.
[7:21]Yeah.
[7:22]Anyway, it's a rom-com.
[7:23]No, sorry, I know, I make sure that people are clear about that.
[7:28]I'm sorry, I know, I go right to like the upsetting, you know, the, I don't know, I'm
[7:33]sorry.
[7:34]I said it was entertaining and funny, and it is like, well, you're writing about grief,
[7:40]and you've done that, and I think that there's something, I mean, I guess that's just
[7:43]me, that's why I don't think I can write like a frothy, you know, as much as I love
[7:49]to read those books, I don't think I can because I like my happily ever afters earned,
[7:54]right?
[7:55]Like, I like a little bitter with my sweet, that's just, that's my sensibility, and that's
[8:00]what I enjoy.
[8:01]And, you know, I think it just enriches the whole experience in books and life.
[8:06]Of course, you have, you know, Swani getting up there in this romance audio book, romance
[8:14]panelist role saying, you know, don't do this because there is no happily ever after.
[8:20]And it's, you know, don't believe it.
[8:22]And like, silence afterwards.
[8:25]It's so funny.
[8:26]Well, and you don't want to say that in a, at a moment.
[8:30]Yeah, she's like, oh my gosh, what did I just say?
[8:33]Oops.
[8:34]That's so great.
[8:35]And then you also, of course, have what you talked about a minute ago, these sort of expectations
[8:40]and how, as friends, you set off on these goals, right?
[8:43]We all start out not all, but many friendships start out from college or school or a place
[8:50]where we're all, our launching off points are the same.
[8:54]And then we go in such huge different directions like Swani and Adako, who's like, really
[9:00]made it as a movie star or getting her first big thing and first big milestone that
[9:07]they had come up with together and that sort of, that sense of longing and jealousy,
[9:13]but also support.
[9:14]I mean, it's an intricate piece of relationships that I think is really highlighted during
[9:20]that time of life that age.
[9:22]Oh, thank you.
[9:23]Thanks.
[9:24]Yeah.
[9:25]I think that's true.
[9:26]We've actually having this conversation in an interview with Emily Henry about Happy
[9:29]Place.
[9:30]Have you read it yet?
[9:31]Okay.
[9:32]No, but I have it here and I've read the other words, but I have it and I'm getting
[9:35]to it.
[9:36]I would suggest just flip it at just like put that at the front of the list.
[9:39]I know.
[9:40]I know.
[9:41]I know.
[9:42]I'm sorry.
[9:43]I have this for these.
[9:44]No, but just for these themes and like this, this point of like, you get to your early 30s
[9:48]and I think that's kind of the first time where like the paths do start diverging like
[9:52]you either people are married or they're still on the apps or they've got kids or they
[9:56]don't have kids.
[9:57]And like suddenly the it's.
[10:00]fractal like how people's lives start diverging and changing and you're like what do I actually
[10:05]have in common with this person anymore other than just history and those relationships that's
[10:11]why they become very dynamic and and fragile but it's a it is definitely an interesting moment
[10:17]in friendships. And of course you took your audiobook narrator piece of life and put it into the
[10:24]there is that funny scene where it's funny is that the bar trying to convince the bartender that
[10:31]yes she does all the voices in the book and he's like no really you know you're so good at
[10:37]dialogue too I really love that you but I would get that a lie I mean that was one of the thing
[10:41]early on that was a question of how much audiobook is too much audiobook in this novel like you know
[10:47]how much do people need to know about the industry and and I just kind of made a list of things
[10:52]that I get all the time like what are the most common questions and can I kind of get out in front
[10:57]of it and answer it in some way so that everyone's on the same page when they start reading and that
[11:03]was one of them is I will get still to this day comments of people being like well so who else is
[11:09]doing the recording with you it's like unless it's a multicast like unless it's clearly multiple
[11:14]narrators I'm doing all of it I'm doing all of the characters and you know that's uh it's hard
[11:20]for people to get their head around but were the other ones that you wanted to make sure people
[11:23]knew I think the prepping question you know like there was a what it what goes into doing an
[11:28]audiobook so there's you know a paragraph in there about her seeing her prep a book how that works
[11:35]the questions of how you record you know I mean it's for the most part it's just going into the
[11:39]booth and self-recording and just talking to yourself except when we get to see them in the
[11:45]studio together which is rare but does happen when for for uh duet narration particularly and
[11:52]yeah I mean I think it's the the constant just care and attention to your voice like always being
[11:57]aware of you know or her little when she just tenses up at mispronunciations
[12:04]and just really told being totally unfit for any kind of human socializing
[12:09]izing point. I loved your mischievous mischievous you know yes mischievous is my
[12:17]mischievous yeah that's like that's what I'm talking about.
[12:22]Did you get into their audiobook narrating after wanting to be a non audiobook actress?
[12:29]Right yeah my story is a little bit different I think I think now because audiobooks are popular
[12:34]and people actually see it as a career path you know somebody will say I want to become an
[12:39]audiobook narrator but when I was starting most people we just kind of all of us like fell
[12:43]backwards into this industry and it's because we were actors and I had been a child actor and
[12:49]then left the business and went to college and was focusing on creative writing and English and
[12:56]was you know graduate and come back and and act on camera but also right screenwriting but then
[13:02]also pros and then this just kind of came in to pay the bills and I remember thinking if I could do
[13:08]like one audiobook a month and that would just take some of the pressure off while I'm doing
[13:14]everything else that would be great and then within like a couple of years I was doing 70 books a year
[13:19]and it was just like my full-time job and I was leaving no room for writing and everything that
[13:24]I had intended to do and so a few years ago I just started I made the concerted effort to get back
[13:30]into writing and start pulling the books that were you know sitting in my hard drive just not
[13:36]collecting digital dust like started bringing those back out and working on them so
[13:42]and tell me what that path was like like selling the first book and all of that.
[13:47]Yeah so the first book actually my Oxford year came out of a screenplay that I had been
[13:54]hired to work on at Sony and I think the producer who's got to know my opinions about it and
[14:01]and everything that I wanted to bring to the book and the story and what was important to me and this
[14:05]was actually right after my dad had died and I was like there's a whole book here about grief
[14:10]and carrying on and what that looks like and I want to make sure that you know I was always trying
[14:17]to bring that to the screenplay and there's just there's limitations there and there's only so
[14:20]much room and one of the producers said do you think there's a book here? It's like no story has
[14:26]ever wanted to be a novel more the story this like a book about an English professor at Oxford
[14:32]like oh so that's how that came about and they gave me free reign to tell the story that I really
[14:40]wanted to tell which I will be forever grateful for so that sold to Harper Collins but I wrote
[14:45]that book really fast because we were trying to beat the movie like the movie was kind of in like
[14:50]pre-production there was a cast it was going you know and so just trying to do that trying to be
[14:56]quick on a publishing timeline isn't possible but yeah and then and then what about this one?
[15:02]So this one was after my because I was writing literary fiction I came out of a literary program and
[15:08]so I was I was writing like short story collections and I had a historical fiction manuscript
[15:15]going for a while and and then I wrote my Oxford here and it was kind of like sold and marketed
[15:20]as a romcom which it's like not but at the time I don't think we really knew what to call it so
[15:26]it was sort of like what's your next book going to be and I was like I don't know this is not
[15:29]the way I think I don't think in this market in the genre but I had been playing around with
[15:34]and again a screenplay idea set in the audiobook world that was a romcom and I just thought
[15:40]actually this could be a book and I think it would be a very bookish book that bookish people would
[15:44]enjoy the book about books so yeah with some reworking and cannibalizing Swani from another novel
[15:53]that I was working on and folding her into it just finally was able to bring this idea to fruition
[15:59]after about 10 years of noodling on what a good story set in the audiobook world would look like
[16:05]so yeah wow that's so cool so now is it going to go backwards like is will this be
[16:11]a movie or a screenplay like are you adapting this? I don't know no I'm not I'm not doing anything
[16:17]right now with it I'm letting it sit there I'm working on the next thing and just moving forward I
[16:23]my experience having been you know in Hollywood most of my life is like for me it's a question of
[16:31]people have to come to you like everyone has to think it's their idea or anything to work that's
[16:36]my sense so I don't I'm at this point I don't like to pitch things or go in and try to sell them I
[16:43]just feel like it's got to happen organically for people to have enough passion about something to
[16:48]carry it through to the finish line because that's the hardest part interesting really kind of
[16:53]should I know what you were in as a kid am I embarrassed to not know oh no it was a very popular
[16:59]for like a very small group of people but really wonderful critically acclaimed series called once
[17:05]and again it was on ABC and I'm still super proud of it like you can't even stream it it's one of
[17:10]those it's just in that like black hole like late 90s early 2000s where like those those shows just
[17:16]aren't anywhere yet but recently someone sent me like one of the episodes on that was up on
[17:23]YouTube and I was like it's so good it is objectively and it holds up and it's just we had a great
[17:28]cast and fantastic writers it was the guys who'd done 30 something in my so-called life and it was
[17:33]just like it's a really good show but it ruined me for all other shows like I just like if I don't
[17:40]if I'm not getting to do this writing on a weekly basis I don't want to do it so awesome I'm gonna
[17:47]look it up maybe I watched it and I you know my brain doesn't work properly anymore so I feel like
[17:52]all show knowledge has like seeped out of one of my ears or something so do you listen to audio
[17:58]books yourself or are you like over it by the time you finish recording yeah you know it's funny it's
[18:03]not that I'm over it but I don't have a commute and I I can't have any more narrative in my
[18:10]head like between the books that I'm writing and the books that I'm recording and then the books
[18:15]that I'm being asked to blurb or something like I can't jump into there have been so many books
[18:20]that I get to blurb and that my first instinct is can I get the audio before realizing the books
[18:26]not out yet no one's done the audio for you I get a book to prep myself for audio and it'll
[18:32]occur to me I'm like I wonder if it's on audio and it's like no honey you're doing the
[18:37]so any opportunity I have in life to listen to audio just doesn't happen but that said I
[18:45]I kind of like that in a way because the people that I love in this industry and I do love love
[18:50]love like my fellow narrators are just amazing and they're people who I just like is people
[18:56]well and without necessarily knowing their work and there's something really kind of freeing about
[19:02]yeah so do a lot of narrators really use pseudonyms that we said in the book
[19:07]yeah yeah for romance particularly but sometimes so sometimes for different narrators I always
[19:12]like to take the opportunity to explain this to people and why we do it but I mean novelists do the
[19:18]same thing so it's not unfamiliar but for some people it's just a question of keeping like the
[19:23]branding straight like if I'm recording children's books or YA you know I don't want a kid to
[19:29]like stumble upon something they shouldn't if they're looking in an audible catalog right
[19:34]but for other people they have very real-life concerns I mean for me I was as a child actor
[19:42]I had weird kind of stockery interactions and I never wanted those men to be able to listen to me
[19:51]recording like reading them erotic scenes that felt like a huge invasion of privacy I didn't
[19:58]want that other
[20:00]people have, you know, contentious custody issues or something and they don't want to give
[20:05]the ex-husband a reason to be able to say, you know, she's unfit in some way, even though
[20:09]it's a job and it's romance and there's nothing shameful about it, but this is the society.
[20:14]We're in. So I always tell people fans like, we all appreciate when you hear somebody's voice
[20:19]and you love it and you want to help other fans find that person by saying, you know,
[20:23]did you know they also record under these names? But you can't do it. Don't do it publicly.
[20:28]You had privately if anything, but that is important to so many people and you do not have
[20:35]the right to out someone, whether intentionally, even if it's best intentions, just be,
[20:41]you know, you'll, you can Google the person and you'll find out very quickly whether they're
[20:46]open about it. Some narrators like some authors like Nora Roberts will be saying, I'm also J.D. Rob,
[20:50]you know, and some narrators are very clear they have, they work under both, but some are private
[20:55]about it. So just I ask for politeness and consideration and, you know, hopefully people get that
[21:04]every, everyone in every industry deserves, but that doesn't really get. Some hat just doesn't
[21:09]happen. We just don't don't. Great information is too easily spread these days. What is the
[21:14]organization that you have met so many like, is there an organization like the ABA for books or
[21:19]something like that for audiobook narrators and is that how you've become close with them or is it
[21:25]through informal ways like just conferences? Like is that community conformed? Yeah, that's a good
[21:30]question because this is again how much the industry has changed over the years. So when I was
[21:34]getting started, we were still recording in studio. So you would meet people in the studio and in
[21:39]2012 particularly there was this audiobook boom where audible really dialed everything up and was like,
[21:46]we want to put, I think it was like, it's so ambitious. Like we want to put every book ever written
[21:50]yeah. And we were pulling like, there were studios in LA that were open 24 hours. We were pulling
[21:56]graveyard shifts. We were just, it was recording, recording, recording. So I got to know a lot of the
[22:01]LA narrators from that. And there is a, the APA, the audio publishers association is how we have
[22:09]our yearly conference and awards show the, the audience. And, and that's kind of, we all come
[22:15]off of our islands and meet up there. And then a group of narrators just started the professional
[22:22]audiobook narrators association, Hannah, where literally if you've recorded one title, but you
[22:29]want to join, you can. And I'm on the board of that full disclosure, but we just wanted to be a
[22:36]safe space for narrators that are not about publishers. The APA is wonderful. And, but they really
[22:42]they're, they're for the publishers. And there's, we have sag after our union that is incredible
[22:48]for negotiating for our purposes, but not every audiobook narrator is a union member. And so we just
[22:54]felt that there was this vacuum. And that's how we're trying to build a sense of community and
[22:59]bringing people together through that organization. So that's great. I've recorded four audiobooks.
[23:06]I'll have you now. Wow. Wow. Did you find it? I'm curious because I would direct audiobooks
[23:12]or I did in the past and I would direct a lot of author reads. And I always have like I would run
[23:18]through my list of things to give them ahead of time. And like here's how you may feel and trying
[23:22]to, but at the end of the day, all I could really do was just be there for them for whatever
[23:27]would come up. Did you find it difficult or? I went into it having had lots of authors tell me how
[23:33]emotional it had made them, not in the context of me, just like as I was interviewing them.
[23:38]So I, I had a heads up that there might be floodgates that I knew to be prepared. I brought tissues
[23:44]whereas had I not gotten that I would have been blindsided and perhaps more emotional for some
[23:48]parts of what I was reading. I found it really fun. You know, I love to read. I read my kids. I read
[23:54]out loud. I love, you know, I'm used to talking into a microphone, but all the interruptions like,
[24:00]okay, let's take it back from there. Okay, let's just say this one again. Like, okay, uh, you know
[24:04]what, that whole part where you were just like crying hysterically about your grandmother dying,
[24:09]I'd like just do that one again. Like, right, it wasn't clear. We didn't totally get it. So if you
[24:13]could just go back, yeah, I'm like, really, really again. And then I would like to do it again and
[24:18]cry again. I just just the last little bit. So, you know, it was funny and I enjoyed it.
[24:25]And I was like, this would be a great job because you read books all day. That was what I was
[24:29]I could totally, I wasn't that good at it. But if I were good at it, it would be a really great job.
[24:33]You know, so well, no, and I think that that's the, I mean, look, everyone who, because there's
[24:38]not a lot of money in it. So the question is like, even for other voiceover actors, it's like,
[24:43]if you don't love books, you don't love spending eight hours a day in the booth, you're going to
[24:49]hate this. Like, this is not, this is not worth it. So it's a very, and I think this is why I like
[24:54]all of the narrators in the industry because it's a very, it's self-selects people who are
[25:00]fine, you know, just living in the world of books, talking to themselves, being a little bit
[25:08]vampiric in our booth. It's like never seeing this on. It's a very specific type of person.
[25:14]Well, we should really do like a big markety campaign to get our books just into audio book
[25:21]narrator's hands. Do you think they're all such big readers have, you know, outside of work,
[25:26]you know, so yes, yeah, and a lot of people, I mean, that's the thing is that I think, you know,
[25:30]especially now, audio book narrators have their own followings that they bring. Yes,
[25:34]really both too. So you're able to borrow the audio book narrator's fans. And it's a, it's a,
[25:41]it's a very change of rapidly changing, really profitable industry. And I think everyone's trying to
[25:48]figure out what it's going to be in the next five years. And it's a, it's dynamic. And I just,
[25:55]we all, we do it because we love it. I mean, that's what it comes down to. And it is fun,
[26:00]and it's fun. Amazing. So if you had to choose audio book recording or writing and you had to give
[26:06]up one, which would you give up? Oh, man. You know, I think for me, I would probably go with writing
[26:14]just because that is what I always was setting out to do. And that's what I've been kind of my whole
[26:20]life. That's been the impulse. And I have so many stories that I want to tell. And when I'm recording
[26:27]other people's stories, I just don't have the time to tell them. And again, we go back to
[26:33]in a nice narrative device to loop back to the beginning of the conversation. But that life is too
[26:38]short thing, you know, is always hanging over me. And I've recorded over 500 books in my career.
[26:45]And I love it. And I love what it's given me. And the relationships it's given me in the authors that
[26:50]I have become close with as a result. And I love it. But I don't think at the end of my life,
[26:56]I would look back and say, I really wish I'd done another audio book where I will absolutely say
[27:00]I really wish I could have written another novel. Interesting. That makes sense. That makes sense.
[27:06]Are you working on another novel? I am. So this was not part of the plan. But I, this one story
[27:12]could not let me go. And it's the book that they're recording. And thank you for listening.
[27:16]No way. The promise novel that they're recording.
[27:20]Oh my gosh. Which started as, you know, what's the most ridiculous romance premise I can come up with.
[27:26]And then I had to work out so much of the story and the characters to make the scenes work. And
[27:30]thank you for listening. But I was like, actually, this is way more interesting than it has any
[27:36]right to be. So yeah, I'm exploring that. I'm hoping to do that soon. I think it's mainly for
[27:42]audio. I'm going to just do the audio and and then move on to the, to the next thing. But this is
[27:48]just I got it. I got to get it out. I got to share it with people. Too many people have asked for it.
[27:53]And I'm really enjoying it as ridiculous as it is. I think that is brilliant. That's such a great idea.
[28:00]I can't wait for that one. Yeah. Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
[28:05]For aspiring authors. I'm not a prescriptive person. Like, I'm not, you won't, you won't hear
[28:11]from me. You have to write every day or you have to have so many rejections or whatever. I don't,
[28:16]I don't do that. I think everyone has a process that works for them. But the one thing I will say,
[28:21]because this is what my job, my day job has given me is read widely, read, read, read, read, read,
[28:28]and read also in categories that you do not want to write in. Because that's the thing that
[28:35]being a narrator, you know, it's like, I don't know anything about sci-fi. But like, I would get a
[28:40]book and it'd be like figure it out. And I sometimes when you only read in your genre, you don't
[28:47]have like, it's, it's helpful to see how a sci-fi writer solves the third act problem. Or how,
[28:54]you know, a horror novelist does a hook. Like, those are things that when you read in your own
[29:00]genre, sometimes become invisible. And so read like a writer, read like you're trying to figure
[29:05]out how something was constructed. And sometimes that's easier to do when you're reading outside of
[29:09]your own genre. So that's my advice. Okay. Excellent. Very specific and actionable. I like it.
[29:17]Here we go. Okay. Good. Well, thank you Julia. Thank you so much for the book and the conversation
[29:23]and the tips and all of it. So thank you. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. This was lovely.
[29:28]Thank you for listening. Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[29:37]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[29:42]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet
[29:46]lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound
[29:51]for the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this
[29:55]fantastic intro and out trim music.