Nicole Baart, THE LONG WAY BACK
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[1:03]Nicole Bart is the author of the long way back, a novel.
[1:06]This episode was guest-hosted by Julie Chavez, host of the podcast Ask a Librarian and
[1:12]author of an upcoming Zippy Books title, everyone but myself.
[1:16]Nicole Bart is the author of 11 novels, including everything we didn't say and the long
[1:21]way back.
[1:22]The co-founder of a nonprofit and mother of five, she lives in Iowa with her family.
[1:27]Nicole, thanks so much for coming on today on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[1:32]I'm so excited to talk to you.
[1:33]Julie, thank you so much for having me.
[1:35]I'm thrilled to be here.
[1:37]I can't wait to talk about your latest book The Long Way Back, which I just finished.
[1:44]I feel like I will have a hard time talking about it because I don't want to give anything
[1:49]away.
[1:50]So we'll mostly talk around the book because I also have about a million questions for
[1:55]you about writing and your life and the other things that you're doing.
[1:58]So I can't wait to talk to you about it.
[2:00]This book was really good.
[2:02]Thank you.
[2:03]It is a little tricky.
[2:04]We're having a hard time selling it actually, at least marketing it, I guess, because it's
[2:08]hard to know what to say.
[2:09]It's a little like, what's about this mother-daughter Instagram influencer duo and the daughter
[2:13]goes missing?
[2:14]They're like, and?
[2:15]Well, I really can't tell you, and yes, you know, and this really speaks to me because
[2:21]I'm a total book pusher where I'm just like, don't ask me to tell you about it.
[2:25]Just do it.
[2:26]Just read it and do what I'm telling you to do, right?
[2:28]Trust me.
[2:30]Yes, famous last words, I love it, but it is.
[2:34]I feel like we can start there.
[2:35]So, you know, this is a book about Charlie and Eva.
[2:39]So it's Eva, right?
[2:41]Yeah, Eva.
[2:42]You say it, Eva.
[2:43]Okay.
[2:44]I was wondering that.
[2:45]Yeah, I do say, Eva, but I know it should be, it should probably be Eva.
[2:49]No.
[2:50]I think Eva's fine.
[2:51]I think it's the most names that I always kind of mess up, right?
[2:54]It's a little tricky.
[2:55]I always think of the Christian Kirsten's of the world and just like, poor, poor
[3:01]people just, yeah, exactly, mispronounced forever.
[3:04]Okay.
[3:05]So Charlie and Eva, and they go on a boat and then Eva is gone.
[3:12]Now this book made me want to a take my teenagers phones and throw them in the garbage.
[3:18]Because it was so, I guess, yeah, I can see how you're having a hard time chatting about
[3:24]it because there is, it starts out fast too.
[3:27]I will say the things that I loved about it.
[3:30]It's super well paced.
[3:32]I really was, I was riveted by it.
[3:36]I definitely wanted to keep turning the pages.
[3:38]I wanted to see how it ended and something I really liked that you did really well.
[3:43]You really wrote well from both of their perspectives and you wrote Eva as a teenager.
[3:51]And was that hard to do or did you feel like it was natural?
[3:54]Could you, were you using, because you have four kids, correct?
[3:58]I have five actually and four of them are teenagers right now.
[4:02]Okay.
[4:03]You can send a wine and chocolate in prayers highway, you know, 100% but just jump down
[4:08]your address.
[4:10]No kidding.
[4:11]Okay.
[4:12]So you have five kids, 14 majors.
[4:14]So did you use, did you have to mind deeply for these sorts of moments or was it just
[4:18]right there for you?
[4:20]You know, it was pretty natural.
[4:21]I've been a mom of teens for almost a decade now based on how my kids are all spread
[4:25]apart.
[4:26]And I, before I started writing, I was a high school teacher.
[4:29]I love teenagers, maybe that strange, but they are just such a fun age group to me.
[4:34]I find them fascinating and interesting.
[4:37]They're endlessly entertaining.
[4:38]So writing about a teenager was really fun for me to try to get into her head.
[4:42]Because I feel like I have these conversations every day with my kids.
[4:46]It wasn't too hard.
[4:47]Yes.
[4:48]Well, you're exactly right.
[4:49]I think that teenagers are so, it's such a specific time of life.
[4:55]So in some ways, that makes it easy to write.
[4:57]And I know I can remember being a teenager, which is shocking and horrifying to my teenagers
[5:03]because they're like, you were born an adult.
[5:06]You were never right.
[5:07]Yeah.
[5:08]Right.
[5:09]And never cool and never young and never wrestled with things.
[5:11]No, absolutely not.
[5:12]I know nothing according to them.
[5:14]No.
[5:15]Right.
[5:16]Yeah.
[5:17]You don't understand.
[5:18]It's like, they just, that's such a weird concept for them.
[5:22]So, yeah.
[5:23]Okay.
[5:24]How did you come up with the idea for this?
[5:25]Where did it start?
[5:26]Yeah.
[5:27]So it was kind of a convergence of three things.
[5:28]It was the perfect storm.
[5:29]So 2020 is spring and summer of 2020.
[5:32]And I don't really need to go there.
[5:34]But it knows what happens then.
[5:35]Yes.
[5:36]But if we all remember.
[5:37]But over the course of those months, I just became very aware of how interconnected we are
[5:42]and yet how disconnected here we are living online all the sudden, we're not seeing people
[5:46]in person anymore.
[5:48]And so much of my connection with people in the way that I interacted with them went online
[5:53]went to Facebook and Twitter and Instagram.
[5:56]And we all know that.
[5:57]We all experienced it.
[5:58]And then, of course, we saw this uptick in all sorts of things, you know, in different
[6:04]conspiracy theories and division between people and radicalization and all of a sudden,
[6:09]we were believing things that we probably weren't believing before.
[6:11]So we were all aware of that.
[6:12]Right.
[6:13]Like I was watching that stew happening.
[6:15]At the same time, my daughter, who's my fourth child, turned 13.
[6:20]So that was the first time we had four teenagers in the house.
[6:23]And in our house, when you turn 13, you get a phone.
[6:26]What teenager is when the phone is bestowed on you.
[6:29]And it begins with, you get to call, you get to text, you get like one game on it.
[6:33]There's no social media or anything.
[6:35]But for some reason when my daughter got a phone, I, and maybe this is terrible, but I felt
[6:39]different.
[6:40]The rest of my kids are all sons.
[6:42]Okay.
[6:42]I was so aware of and afraid of what she was going to come into contact with online.
[6:49]And the pressures that I think are unique to girls and women that you have to be beautiful.
[6:54]You have to have your life together.
[6:55]You have to have your house together.
[6:56]You have to be, you know, athletic and fun and perfect and pretty and just absolutely
[7:01]everything.
[7:02]And I wrestled with that so much handing her that phone and feeling like this could
[7:07]be your downfall.
[7:08]And I'm just handing it over to you.
[7:11]And then finally, that June, she turns 13 and May.
[7:15]So pandemic, my daughter turns 13 and then in June, we just had to get our family out
[7:20]of here.
[7:21]We live in Iowa in a small town and we ended up going to Duluth, Minnesota.
[7:25]I fell completely in love with the North Shore in that area, but it also put me in mind
[7:30]of simpler times about 10 years before that.
[7:34]My whole family had taken across country trip in her pop up tent trailer from Iowa to
[7:38]British Columbia where my husband's family is.
[7:41]And I was just reminiscing about that time and then nostalgia of it and it felt like
[7:45]the perfect juxtaposition between the digital world that we were currently living in and
[7:49]the completely disconnected analog world that we had for that month while we were on
[7:55]the road.
[7:56]So those three things just kind of created this, I don't know, which were native of ideas
[8:00]in my head and that's where the book came from.
[8:03]Well, there's so much depth to it and you really can feel that when you're reading it.
[8:08]I mean, I think I loved that part of it where you can tell that you've considered a lot
[8:15]of those ideas and issues and the ways that things shift based on how we're communicating
[8:21]and whether we are in a digital world or a real world kind of thing.
[8:26]You did a really nice job with that.
[8:28]It felt very deep and like I said, considered.
[8:31]So I enjoyed.
[8:33]I enjoyed reading that because you have, it's a page turner.
[8:39]I loved it.
[8:40]The thriller aspect of it.
[8:41]I mean, I wanted to know, but also I was thinking this is so true and so timely also.
[8:48]And especially as we come up to another election season and all of these things, it just,
[8:53]like I said, jokingly makes me want to throw away their phones because I think there is
[8:58]our kids are growing up in a time of complexity that really outstrips what we experienced.
[9:04]So seeing how they deal with that and I do agree with you.
[9:09]I have many moments where I think I'm thankful to have sons because they don't, you
[9:15]know, and also the specific sons I have.
[9:17]I'm sure that there are other kids who maybe are regardless of their gender are more prone
[9:22]to maybe being influenced or, or just even kind of beat down by the internet.
[9:29]It's just such a, it's such a tough place.
[9:32]Oh, it is.
[9:33]Yeah.
[9:34]Our poor kids.
[9:35]Oh, I know.
[9:37]And yet I think about the opportunity for connection that they have.
[9:42]And I think about even myself, you know, connecting with other authors and reading about
[9:46]them on Instagram.
[9:47]I was checking out your Instagram.
[9:49]So it's this, it's such a weird time of knowing how to sort out what's real and what's
[9:53]not.
[9:54]And teenagers are not great at that yet.
[9:56]Absolutely.
[9:57]I mean, I'm only like a little bit better anyways.
[10:00]So I have my own addictions and hang ups when it comes to social media.
[10:04]My goodness.
[10:05]Oh, who doesn't, right?
[10:07]I tell when you were talking about that, I was telling my husband the other day.
[10:10]I got a, I need to get in the real world.
[10:13]I need to, I need to be here and it's funny how you can kind of have that.
[10:18]I have a question for you.
[10:19]So you've written a number of books and you've been writing for a long time.
[10:24]And it feels like when I was looking at the covers, it's like you took the long way
[10:28]to thrillers.
[10:29]Are you now?
[10:32]Because just even looking at the colors.
[10:34]And also, you know, I saw your example of the month when it popped up.
[10:38]And I'm going to go back and put it as an add on because I have a major
[10:41]addiction to book of the month.
[10:42]And now I can't wait to read the back list.
[10:45]Me too.
[10:46]Is this kind of your new vein or is it not new?
[10:49]And you just feel like this was your sweet spot.
[10:51]Tell me about that.
[10:52]How your hair is evolved.
[10:54]So I've been writing for 15 years now.
[10:56]And I started out writing, I love what I do.
[10:59]I hope I write my last book when I'm like 85.
[11:01]I hope it's the last I do.
[11:03]Yes.
[11:04]I just love it.
[11:05]Yeah.
[11:05]So I started out writing just contemporary books.
[11:09]My first three were kind of an homage to my grandmothers and the two main
[11:12]characters are named after my grandma's Nellie and Julia.
[11:15]And they were just such fun, almost memoir-esque books, I guess.
[11:20]But I'm in a eclectic reader.
[11:22]So I ended up becoming a very eclectic writer.
[11:24]Like I've written kind of contemporary romance, those first three.
[11:28]And then I did some literary fiction.
[11:31]And then I started doing mystery.
[11:33]And now I'm just fully entrenched in, I think my editor called it up
[11:38]market to spend.
[11:40]So it's like thoughtful suspense.
[11:44]And hopefully the pros is, you know, good and entertaining.
[11:49]And the story is something that you can chew on with a friend.
[11:51]Maybe do it with a book club or something.
[11:53]So that's my sweet spot right now.
[11:55]I'm loving it.
[11:55]My next book will be that too.
[11:57]So, but who knows what's next?
[11:59]Exciting.
[12:00]This would be a great book club book because exactly to your point, there's a
[12:04]little bit more to talk about, you know, a lot of thrillers have other
[12:09]storylines to them.
[12:10]But this one has a lot to discuss and kind of chew on.
[12:13]So I love hearing what categories people are in because it just is, you
[12:19]know, you write the book, but then there's this whole machine that
[12:22]exists outside of that, that for marketing and publicity, that's just a
[12:28]completely different thing.
[12:29]And I feel like I'm always learning something.
[12:30]So I never would have thought of up market applying to suspense.
[12:34]But that is perfect way to go editor.
[12:36]Good job.
[12:37]Yeah.
[12:37]They apparently know what they're doing.
[12:39]Yes, they do.
[12:42]When you, okay, I have a question for you related to this book
[12:46]specifically.
[12:47]So we had, and I don't want to say incident, a situation recently where I had
[12:55]one of those moments of, wow, you can know your kids, but there's also a
[13:01]weird distance in the knowing, especially as they get older.
[13:05]And I think that's something obviously that's applicable for this book
[13:09]because there's a question as to whether Charlie really knows Ava as well
[13:15]as she believes she does.
[13:17]Is that something that you think about in your own life where your own kids is
[13:22]that, is that a question kind of that?
[13:25]How well do we know the people we love, especially our kids?
[13:30]I, what are your thoughts on that?
[13:31]I kind of want to hear more what you have to say about that.
[13:34]Absolutely.
[13:34]So I have to go back to my developmental psychology classes in college when
[13:38]I was ready.
[13:39]I'm a teacher, right?
[13:40]And learning then and reminding myself, kind of on a daily
[13:45]basis right now that, that keeping secrets and having an interior
[13:50]life and, and having things that are hidden from your family and the
[13:53]people around you is developmentally appropriate.
[13:55]Like, this is what teenagers do.
[13:57]And this is how they develop their own identity and become people
[14:01]outside of our home.
[14:03]And you know, out from under our wings, I would love to keep my kids
[14:06]there forever.
[14:07]I wish they'd never have any secrets from me, but I've been
[14:09]pinned back to my relationship with my parents when I was a teen.
[14:12]I loved them.
[14:13]And I knew that they loved me.
[14:14]I kept a lot of secrets from them.
[14:16]Yes.
[14:17]Yeah.
[14:18]And it didn't mean that I hated them.
[14:20]It didn't mean that I, you know, was this terrible child, but it was really
[14:24]important for me to define the boundaries of, of myself.
[14:28]And how I was going to interact with them and the rest of the world.
[14:30]So as hard as it is, I think as a parent, the, the difficult thing now,
[14:35]not being a teacher and not being a teacher myself, but looking at my own
[14:38]kids, knowing when I need to cross that mind and, and press myself into a
[14:43]place where they probably don't want me to be because I feel like they could
[14:46]be unsafe or something might happen that can't be undone.
[14:50]So the innocent things that they might do borderline, in a sense, secret
[14:55]keeping, I, I kind of pretend I don't know about.
[14:59]Yes.
[14:59]And it's the stuff that, that could get them in trouble when I try to
[15:03]intervene, but that's hard.
[15:05]That is, that is a really difficult thing as a parent.
[15:07]You are constantly a detective.
[15:10]Yes.
[15:11]I'm kind of sick of being a detective, like, what's going on?
[15:15]Who are they talking to?
[15:16]Where have they been?
[15:17]And then it's hard, but it never ends.
[15:21]You're so right.
[15:22]And I'm noticing to the interrogation techniques, right?
[15:25]Like, you really have to watch what you're doing because you can't push too hard.
[15:31]Are we good cop bad cop?
[15:32]Like, how are we, how are we playing this, right?
[15:35]Because they're cagey.
[15:37]They are cagey.
[15:38]Yeah.
[15:39]And you're right, it's, it's exactly what they're supposed to be doing,
[15:42]but it's just such a strange game of mothering, right?
[15:47]Where you start out and you know everything, you control their world.
[15:52]And then they're just going to grow up and do their thing.
[15:54]It's dumb.
[15:55]So no, it, it hurts my feelings.
[15:58]Like, I changed your diapers, dude.
[16:01]Exactly.
[16:03]I know.
[16:04]It is amazing how we understand our own parents as our kids grow.
[16:07]I was like, oh, yeah.
[16:08]Okay. I can see how that annoyed you, mom and dad.
[16:10]Right.
[16:12]I've been my 40s and I still go to my mom and dad and say, thank you for
[16:16]loving me when I was 16 and ridiculous.
[16:19]Totally now.
[16:20]Ridiculous is the right word for it.
[16:22]Gosh, they're amazing.
[16:24]And yet I'm with you.
[16:25]I love teenagers.
[16:26]I think it's the best.
[16:27]I wouldn't go back to the toddler days.
[16:30]If you paid me, I mean, I love those.
[16:32]Yeah, I'll go back for a day.
[16:33]Just one.
[16:34]I'm the same.
[16:35]And I find them endlessly entertaining, post your videos about your
[16:38]creating toddlers on Vine and I will love them.
[16:41]Oh, 100%.
[16:43]Yes.
[16:44]I am glad we didn't have as much social media when mine were little,
[16:47]because I think I would have been way more addicted too.
[16:50]Right.
[16:50]Me too.
[16:51]Yeah.
[16:52]What do you think is what have you enjoyed?
[16:57]So your last book was a market suspense.
[17:00]What have you found?
[17:02]Has it been different to see what you hear from readers and how you
[17:06]interact with readers based on the topic?
[17:08]Or is it the same?
[17:10]Oh, that's a great question.
[17:12]Suspense is a little bit different because people really want.
[17:16]They stand in this place where they want to know the ending and they want to
[17:18]be able to figure it out, but they want to be surprised by the twist.
[17:21]And kind of you can't get it right, because if you, if they're not surprised,
[17:25]then they feel like, oh, it was so predictable.
[17:28]And if they are surprised, then they feel a little bit like, why
[17:31]I didn't see that coming at all?
[17:32]Like, you must not have done a very good job before shadowing that, because
[17:35]usually I can figure these things out.
[17:37]So you're trying to walk that line in between, um, you want the ending to make
[17:43]sense.
[17:43]You want them to go, yes, yes, I saw this all along.
[17:47]It makes perfect sense, but you don't want to give too much away too.
[17:50]So that, that dance is difficult.
[17:52]And it's even difficult after the book is out.
[17:54]And people are coming back and asking you about it and trying to figure out
[17:58]why you made this decision or that.
[17:59]And honestly, sometimes I don't remember.
[18:02]Like I wrote that book two years ago.
[18:04]That is complete sense to me, because I used to think like, how could you not know?
[18:09]But I, I get it.
[18:10]I mean, you look at it so many times too.
[18:12]It just becomes like white noise, right?
[18:13]You're like, yep, this looks good.
[18:15]Okay, great.
[18:16]Send it on your, yeah.
[18:18]And then you've moved on to the next book.
[18:20]Like, I'm already writing another book.
[18:22]So sometimes people will say a character name and I'll go, oh, shoot.
[18:24]Who's that again?
[18:25]Right.
[18:26]Remind me?
[18:27]Yeah.
[18:28]You're so right.
[18:29]So it sounds like I can see totally that the, the suspense audience might be a
[18:33]a little bit more, not demanding, but maybe a little bit more, uh, yeah.
[18:38]But maybe a little more demanding in a good, in a good way.
[18:41]I mean, it keeps on your toes, but also like you're right.
[18:44]You really are trying to hit it just right.
[18:47]And it depends on what kind of flavor people like.
[18:50]People are very specific about their suspense and thrillers.
[18:53]That is exactly right.
[18:55]And back when I was writing contemporaries, people would relate to the
[18:58]characters and say, Oh, this reminded me of my friend or I cried at the end,
[19:01]or it may be happy and it was, it kind of stayed there.
[19:04]Yeah.
[19:05]We begin to it deep when you're talking about a mystery or a suspense.
[19:08]Oh, funny.
[19:09]I love, I love that about readers.
[19:11]Readers are such thoughtful people and they just really will get in there
[19:15]with you.
[19:15]But I can imagine that it would be a different experience based on the book
[19:20]that you're right.
[19:21]Interesting.
[19:22]Do you, okay.
[19:23]So do you want to tell us a little bit about what you're working on now?
[19:27]Yeah, I'd love to.
[19:29]Yeah, my next book is another upmarket suspense.
[19:32]And it's another, it's about a woman who loses her husband when they're
[19:36]really young.
[19:36]They're only together for a couple of years.
[19:38]And she remarries in her 40s.
[19:41]And after they've been married for a couple of years, her new husband goes
[19:44]missing.
[19:44]So it's another missing person thing.
[19:47]I think killing people.
[19:48]I think I know in suspense, there's supposed to be dead bodies.
[19:51]But I fall in love with my characters.
[19:53]And I'm like, could there be redemption here?
[19:55]Or like, could they maybe find their way back to each other?
[19:57]But yeah, I love writing that.
[19:58]And I'm super excited.
[20:00]about the setting. I live in Iowa right now, but my husband is from British Columbia, Canada,
[20:04]and we lived there for several years. I'm also a Canadian citizen. So I'm setting it in in the
[20:09]Rockies, the coastal Rockies. So super excited about revisiting that area. And yeah, the time
[20:16]that we lived camping and hiking and being in the mountains. So that was so cool. I can't wait to
[20:23]read that. And I love what you said there about redemption because that is when I think of the
[20:29]common thread about stories I love, they always have redemption. And that is like my favorite
[20:35]theme where you can kind of see not only transformation, but oh, okay, it can, we can have a win in the
[20:44]end. I need that because so much of life you don't get a win in the end or it doesn't go the
[20:48]way that you want it to. So I'm not saying it has to be a perfectly, you know, every bow tied up,
[20:53]happily ever after ending, but I want there to be some hope there. It's kind of not worth reading
[20:58]for me if there's not. That makes sense. Yeah, I don't need my sister. I will not say the name
[21:06]of the book because I don't want to throw shade, but it was a tremendously successful book.
[21:11]And it had zero redemption. And my sister read it and she called me and said, stop reading that.
[21:18]And now she even sometimes will go into bookstores and actively like move it.
[21:23]It's terrible. I mean, it's all gazillions of copies. So it's fine that I'm just doing fine,
[21:30]but it just cracks me up because her bitterness level about it is not ebbed over the air. So
[21:35]I bring it up sometimes just to needle her. That's what I love to do. Right. Absolutely. I really,
[21:41]I like you do a good job in this book of just having the right themes. I'm so excited to read
[21:47]your other one too. So you're in kind of the market suspense. Does this feel like your sweet spot
[21:52]or do you think you'll move on at some point? I think I might move on. Like I love what I'm doing
[21:57]right now, but yeah, I have a lot of author friends who are like, I don't know what I'm going to do
[22:01]next. I don't have another idea. And I have the opposite problem. I have literally dozens and dozens
[22:07]of ideas like I could write until I'm 85, which is probably why I would like to. Yeah, I have a
[22:12]yeah. Where do you have ideas come from? That's a great question. Sometimes they just arrive
[22:18]fully downloaded in my brain, which seems kind of weird. And other times it's just the inkling
[22:25]of something that begins. Like I fall in love with a person that I meet, maybe not even a friend,
[22:30]somebody I see on a street. And there's something about them. It's just so arresting to me. And I'm
[22:35]so interested in who they are. And I can't help but think about them and wonder about their life. And
[22:41]something happens in mine. And suddenly it feels like the perfect segue into a new story. And
[22:47]they're the perfect character for it. So I think I'm just an observer of the world around me. And
[22:54]people I really love people. I really love meeting new people. And I feel like there's always the
[22:58]seat of a story there. Yeah. Are you an extrovert? No, which is valid. Right. Yeah. I am pretty
[23:08]introverted. Like I deeply love people. And I love a one-on-one conversation. Get a little overwhelmed
[23:14]in party situations and big groups. I'll tend to shut down and just be a listener. But when you're
[23:19]listening, you can observe a lot. And yeah, that works its way into my books. That makes so much
[23:25]sense. I feel like that's a skill too that gets better with age or at least it has for me. Right? I'm
[23:31]becoming a better listener as I get older. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. So what is there a genre that you
[23:41]don't think you would ever write? No. You know what? I would never write horror. And I was just talking
[23:48]to somebody was talking to me about my book a few days ago. And she said, you know, I was reading it
[23:53]and it struck me that I could give this to my 13-year-old daughter. And we could co-read this
[23:57]together. And I was like, yes, you absolutely can. Because I, it's not that I don't like it in
[24:02]books that I read. You know, sometimes I'll read very graphic books. But I could never write
[24:07]a book that's graphically gory. Sexual has, you know,
[24:13]exploitative language all over the pages. That's just not me. So you might find the occasional
[24:19]cuss word. And maybe I'll talk about sex off the page or somebody dies that I'm not going to
[24:24]illustrate somebody on the page and talk about their battles filling out. That's just not going to
[24:28]happen. So Nicole will not be writing about entrails. That can be the quote that people take
[24:35]from this. I'm with you. No, horror is I can't. I feel like I'm just at the age now where I
[24:42]can read suspense. I went through a long stretch of time where it was too stressful for me.
[24:48]And obviously, and I had a very anxious period where it was very bad for me to encounter
[24:54]anything like that. But yeah, it is about kind of what what feels true to you. But it sounds like
[25:02]some of that has evolved for you over time. And you're just kind of following the path to where
[25:07]it goes. How did, how did writing start for you? Like, how did writing come into your life?
[25:13]Oh, I have kind of a tragic backstory, but it's long. I'll try to make it short.
[25:19]Great. I'm here for long. Yeah. Okay. So I was born with a birth defect. And my family,
[25:26]my parents and my pediatrician didn't figure it out until I was about three. And at that point,
[25:31]my left kidney had been poisoned to the point where I was losing part of my kidney. So
[25:36]I had several surgeries between the ages of three and 16, had a little bit of a break,
[25:40]and then had several more in my twenties. But when I was a kid and going to the hospital,
[25:46]they did not have like a children's hospital like we have today and they didn't have child life
[25:50]specialists. So I vividly remember going into have my blood drawn the day before surgery because
[25:56]they had to do a blood draw and having like three nurses plus my mom and dad have to hold me
[26:02]down in order to do it because I knew this is going to be bad. Like, I'm going to get poked. I'm
[26:08]going to get prodded. I'm going to have to go to the hospital. I'm not going to feel good for
[26:10]several days. I never came out of anesthesia well. And the more anesthesia I had, the worse it was for
[26:16]me. So even to this day, if I get put down, it will take me about three days to clear it from my
[26:20]system. Wow. And yeah, so it was really hard and really traumatic. And I don't really think I
[26:28]even put words to that until I was in my thirties and thirties. But the one saving grace of all of that
[26:34]was my dad or my mom, the name before I had surgery, they would go to the library and get a whole bag
[26:39]of books, just brand new books that I had never read before. And yeah, this is before smartphones,
[26:44]this is before tablets. You know, I didn't have a TV in my room and that wouldn't have comforted me
[26:48]anyway. But I sat on my dad's lap. He tended to blank it around me. And he or my mom would just
[26:54]read and read and read to me. And they even have a photograph of the nurse came and put me on the
[27:01]gurney. So I'm laying on the gurney. And my dad is walking beside the gurney, holding the book,
[27:05]finishing it because we had a couple of pages left. And to me, as a little girl, books were
[27:12]escape and comfort and happiness and the wholeness. And I just, I loved it so much. And I was
[27:19]probably in kindergarten first grade when I started to, I didn't even realize this was what I was doing,
[27:24]but I started writing fan fiction. So the book would end. And you would just pick it up.
[27:30]I would. Yeah. I just picked up the story from it ended. And then I'd keep writing it. So my mom
[27:36]she still has it in my cedar chest. Yes, I have a cedar chest. Of course, as one does when you're
[27:42]born in the late 70s or the 80s. But I would write these pages, you know, of this is what happened
[27:50]after Anne of Green Gables ended or whatever. So I've been writing since I was five. I really don't
[27:57]remember a time when I didn't want to do this. And the fact that I get to still feels like a dream
[28:02]come true every day. Like, I, I pinch myself. I feel like I'm living a dream.
[28:07]That's so wonderful. Wow. What a gift your parents give you. That's awesome. They loved you really
[28:13]well in that time, specifically. Wow. And they still do. Yeah. That's so wonderful. But I'm sorry
[28:22]that you had to go through that as a kid. Just you're right. No child life specialists were so lucky
[28:27]to have that now for kids because those sort of traumatic medical experience and it sounds like
[28:34]yours was extreme. I mean, even small ones really stay with kids. So. Oh, yeah. Wow. Yeah,
[28:41]just no support for that when I was younger. So you just kind of muscle through and yeah. Yep.
[28:47]Yeah. We'll just read these books. And wow. Well, I'm so glad you became a writer. It sounds
[28:52]like you are exactly where you're meant to be. Thank you. And I am so excited to explore your
[28:58]backlist a little bit. And then when I do have one question. So your first book that you published,
[29:04]what feels different about if we look back to the first one versus this one and kind of where
[29:10]you are in your career now? Like what, what stands out to you the most? What was something you
[29:15]didn't know or something that you didn't know you would love so much? You know, at this point,
[29:22]I don't know. What do you think about when you reflect on it? That's a great question. When I
[29:27]started writing, I had no idea what I was doing like none whatsoever. I was an English major in
[29:33]college, but they don't teach you how to put together a novel when you're, you know, majoring in
[29:38]English. So yeah, I literally had no idea. I was flying by the seat of my pants. I was, you know,
[29:44]Googling things trying to figure out what to do next. But yeah, that was 15 years ago. So there
[29:48]weren't the resources that are around now. And now, like, I'm a lifelong learner. There is
[29:54]nothing I love more than sitting at the feet of somebody who's wiser than me and just absorbing
[29:58]all of the things that they...
[30:00]get to share. There's so much wisdom out there. So to go from not knowing anything to being just this
[30:06]constant consumer of new ideas and information. And I read all the books and I go to as many conferences
[30:11]as I can. And I kind of know what I'm doing now. And my process is really, really specific. Like,
[30:19]I put together a plot outline. I'm not a pantser. I'm a plotter. Like, I need to know what's
[30:23]what's happening, especially if I'm writing suspense. And I do the character arcs and I do all of
[30:28]those things. So I think my process from beginning to end has just completely transformed. And
[30:33]if you would have talked to me even five years ago, I would have said, Oh, I'm a pantser. I just
[30:36]start putting it down and see what happens. And that is just not the case anymore.
[30:41]Interesting. So it sounds like you wouldn't have anticipated all the ways you would change.
[30:48]Oh, yeah. And that it would change just in terms of your trajectory.
[30:52]Yeah. And I'm a completely different writer, although I think if you picked up the first one
[30:56]and picked up this one, you'd still see me in it. It's still me. That's a good feeling, right?
[31:01]That feels, yeah. If when you're writing something that's true, that's true to you regardless of
[31:08]what it's genres or what it's going to do in the world, that that's a good feeling.
[31:12]It feels right. Yes. What is your let's end with what your best hot tip for the aspiring writers out
[31:22]there? Okay. It's going to be an unpopular one. Great. I love unpopular.
[31:28]Okay. My hot tip is get off your computer, get a pen and paper and try to write that way.
[31:35]Even if it's only a paragraph or two, there's just been so much research on how it uses a
[31:40]different part of your brain and unlocks different areas of your thinking and accesses.
[31:46]Yeah, just a part of you that does not exist on a screen. And when you're typing,
[31:52]you can type one word and delete it immediately, type and delete and type and delete. And your
[31:56]brain is so many different places. If you put yourself in a quiet place with a pad of paper
[32:02]and a pen, you'll be surprised what comes out there. And I write my entire first draft on pen and
[32:09]paper. I was just going to ask you that. Yeah. Yeah. The yellow legal pads and pens. The
[32:16]yellow pad. Wow. What kind of pen do you use? That feels important to me. It has to be felt
[32:22]tip. Okay. It has to be like a really fine felt tip. And I felt tip. Okay. Yeah. I'm not too
[32:29]picky with a brand as long as it's a good fine felt tip. Okay. And you write your entire first
[32:36]draft like that. I do. And I don't necessarily recommend that everybody does that. I know that
[32:43]yeah, even things with I know people who have carpal tunnel or yes, can do with their hands or
[32:46]whatever. But, but even if you can, if you're feeling stuck, if you don't know where to go,
[32:52]if you have a scene that's not coming together for you, step away from your computer and see what
[32:56]happens. I think you'll be really surprised by the results. That is such good advice. And I can tell
[33:03]that you your developmental psychology and your psychology classes from college are still with you.
[33:09]All that brain research is so fascinating about how things work and how we unlock them.
[33:15]Oh, absolutely. Well, that was a very good hot tip. I will be using it. And I'm always looking for
[33:21]the perfect pen. So, oh, me too. And that's probably why I don't have, yeah, I use lots of different
[33:27]ones. But if I find the right one someday, yes, I'll be loyal. Please and also please share that
[33:32]because it will save me a lot of time and money on pens. Well, thank you. Nicole, this was such
[33:38]a joy to talk to you. Thanks for the time. Thanks for sharing about you and your process in your
[33:44]book. And I can't wait for people to read it. And then we'll be able to talk to them about it.
[33:50]Thank you, Julie. I'm so grateful. It was great to be here. Thanks for coming.
[33:55]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[33:59]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebiowens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read
[34:03]Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and
[34:08]meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound
[34:13]for the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this
[34:17]fantastic intro and outro music.