Angie Kim, HAPPINESS FALLS
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[1:03]Angie Kim is the author of Happiness Falls, Angie moved as a preteen from Seoul, South Korea
[1:08]to the suburbs of Baltimore.
[1:10]After graduating from Interlock in Arts Academy, she studied philosophy at Stanford University
[1:14]and attended Harvard Law School, where she was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.
[1:18]Her debut novel Miracle Creek won the Edgar Award, the ITW Thriller Award, the Strand
[1:23]Critics Award, and the Pinkley Prize, and was named one of the best books of the year
[1:26]by Time, The Washington Post, Kirkus, and The D'day Show.
[1:30]One of Variety magazine's inaugural 10-story tillers to watch, Angie is written for The
[1:33]New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Fogue, Lamer, and numerous literary journals.
[1:38]She lives in Northern Virginia with her family.
[1:40]Happiness Falls is her second novel.
[1:42]Welcome, Angie.
[1:43]Thank you so much for coming on Mom's Intertime Tree books to discuss Happiness Falls,
[1:48]your novel, the huge sensation this fall picture, like everything imaginable, you must
[1:54]be freaking out.
[1:55]Oh my God.
[1:56]Thank you so much for having me, Zippy.
[1:59]I can't thank you enough for all of the support that you have shown this book.
[2:03]I'm so grateful, and I'm so excited to be going to Zippy's in just like a month, something
[2:10]like that.
[2:11]I'm so excited.
[2:12]I'm so excited to.
[2:13]I saw your books are already there in our upcoming event section at the bookstore, and I was like,
[2:17]yay.
[2:18]It's going to be there myself, but thrilled that you'll be there, and I know all the
[2:22]Santa Monica people will be thrilled as well, so I can't wait.
[2:25]Wonderful.
[2:26]I have to say Lee Haver, who is consulting with us on a bunch of things, like a couple
[2:31]of months ago, was like, Zippy, I really think you're going to like this book, having
[2:34]this false.
[2:35]And I was like, yeah, yeah, I bet I will.
[2:36]And she kept being like, have you ready yet?
[2:38]Have you ever?
[2:39]What do you think?
[2:40]Have you ready yet?
[2:41]And I was like, I just haven't gone to you.
[2:42]I'm going to get to it.
[2:43]And then I started it.
[2:44]And I was like, oh my gosh.
[2:45]Oh, I'm so glad to hear that.
[2:48]That's amazing.
[2:49]Thank you.
[2:50]First of all, how do you feel about all this publicity and selection and all that?
[2:54]And second, I want you to just tell listeners about your book, and we'll talk about the
[2:57]book and stuff.
[2:58]But just first, like, how are you doing with everything?
[3:00]You know?
[3:01]So yesterday was actually my four week, like four weeks into the publication journey.
[3:08]And I was actually remembering that yesterday was actually my original pub day.
[3:13]Oh my gosh.
[3:14]And then before the GMA selection, which moved it up to September 5, and then the B&N club
[3:19]selection, which moved it further by a week.
[3:22]And I was just remembering all of that sort of stuff and just thinking, you know, I have
[3:27]a lot of stuff in the book about happiness and about your baseline and setting your expectations.
[3:33]And I was just remembering back to sort of my original baseline as a writer, which really
[3:39]is, you know, when you start a story, and you have no idea if you're going to be able
[3:44]to finish it, let alone get an agent, have an editor and sell the book and have it come
[3:50]out in the world and be a real book, you know, that's being read and talked by people.
[3:55]And so just really remembering back to that baseline for me and just sort of thinking
[4:00]how much that original baseline writer me would have killed for all the stuff that's
[4:06]happening now and just getting really teary eyed about it.
[4:10]So it's been amazing.
[4:12]It's been an amazing journey.
[4:13]Oh my gosh.
[4:14]Congratulations.
[4:15]Yeah.
[4:16]First, tell listeners who have not read happiness follows yet what it's about.
[4:19]Yes.
[4:20]Absolutely.
[4:21]So happiness falls is a story about a family in crisis.
[4:25]It opens when the father of this biracial Korean American family goes missing.
[4:31]And the only person who might know what happened to him is 14 year old Eugene, the baby
[4:37]of the family who cannot speak because he has a rare genetic condition called angelman syndrome
[4:42]along with a dual diagnosis of autism.
[4:45]And so the family has to really come together and truly try to connect and communicate
[4:52]with each other, especially Eugene, not only to find the father, but also to protect
[4:57]Eugene from the police and their suspicions.
[5:00]So that is in a nutshell.
[5:03]And I, you know, there is a missing person mystery at the core, but I sort of like to think
[5:08]of it as almost a Trojan horse, a way in to pull the readers in and get them turning the
[5:14]pages.
[5:15]And while you're there, we're discussing things like disability justice and racism and what
[5:21]it's like to be biracial in this society today and language and linguistics and philosophy
[5:28]and all sorts of things.
[5:29]Yeah, you're really packed it all in.
[5:32]Well done.
[5:35]Amazing.
[5:36]There are so many different parts of the story that I found fascinating, but one part that
[5:42]emotionally felt so resonated with me was when the police or child protective services
[5:47]whoever came first when they were there and wanted to take Eugene away from his mom.
[5:52]And the mom was going to do whatever she could, like that fierce mom, a bear instant came
[5:57]out to protect him.
[5:59]And just to be like, you don't understand him, you can't treat him this way.
[6:02]Like, my heart was like outside of my chest in that scene and how the length parents
[6:07]will go to protect their kids, to make sure they're okay to set them set them up for success
[6:14]and the fear that what if we actually can't protect them?
[6:19]Yeah, absolutely.
[6:20]And that is such a hard thing.
[6:23]I think as parents to do, it was a hard thing for me to do as the writer who's writing
[6:30]these characters.
[6:31]I actually thought it for a really long time.
[6:35]I, you know, I write organically, I don't write with an outline.
[6:39]And so I was kind of like when that happened and the police were being really harsh with
[6:44]Eugene and they are, you know, they put handcuffs on him and it is a really, really horrible
[6:52]moment.
[6:53]And I was writing it and I was like, Oh, I don't want to do this.
[6:56]I don't understand why this is happening.
[6:58]And it was it was one of these things.
[7:00]And it does bring out the instincts and not only for the mother, but also for the siblings
[7:06]nearby who are, who are watching.
[7:08]And you know, the story is narrated by 20 year old Mia who likes to think she's cool,
[7:13]who likes to think she knows everything, who likes to think she's a cynic and doesn't
[7:17]really have, you know, those pesky little things called emotions getting in her way.
[7:23]And yet, you know, in that moment, she freaks out the whole family is freaking out and
[7:28]because they just, they have this need to fiercely like protect him.
[7:34]And I think that really comes out.
[7:36]And that was a hard scene for me too, because I just, I love that family.
[7:39]This family has been with me for so long.
[7:41]Okay.
[7:42]Okay.
[7:43]So take me back now.
[7:44]Where did this family come from?
[7:45]Where did this book come from?
[7:46]And also just describe like your life as you're like, where were you living, like,
[7:51]just give me some context for like where they're intersected with the regular you.
[7:56]Absolutely.
[7:57]So I started writing in my 40s, being a writer is actually my fifth career, even look
[8:03]like you're in your 40s.
[8:04]I am like, I am shocked that just came out of your mouth on the scale.
[8:07]No, I'm like 50 something.
[8:10]And so, so I started writing then and one of the first short stories I ever wrote.
[8:16]Wait, backup.
[8:17]Well, it's a, what were the other four careers?
[8:19]Okay.
[8:20]Yeah.
[8:21]So I was a litigator first.
[8:23]Then I was, I decided right away that I hated that, except for the courtroom part, which
[8:29]is like 5% of your life.
[8:30]So I left in my 20s and then I became a management consultant.
[8:35]And then I was a dot com entrepreneur.
[8:38]And then I was a stayed home mom for a long time, as soon as my first son was born.
[8:44]And he is now 22.
[8:45]So it was 22 years ago.
[8:47]And then all three of my kids, they're all fine now, but they all had medical issues
[8:53]as babies and as preschoolers, toddlers and all different ones, like completely different
[8:58]things.
[8:59]And they were all like medical mystery type things that like, you know, we had to go to
[9:03]the hospital and be like, well, does he have Wilson's disease or like does he why can't
[9:08]does he have hearing loss?
[9:09]Like all of these is a genetic like all of these things that were going on.
[9:13]And so I just out of sheer frustration, I had always been an avid reader, but never had
[9:19]written in my life.
[9:20]I was actually a theater person.
[9:22]So I did a lot of character work, but you know, still an improv, but not really not writing.
[9:29]And so I started just writing one day, just essays, just about what it's like.
[9:34]And I found so much catharsis in that and it was amazing.
[9:39]And my husband said, you know, these aren't really your stories.
[9:42]You're telling there are family stories, there are children's stories too.
[9:47]And there's like issues of medical privacy, he's a lawyer too.
[9:51]And also, you know, you don't really have their consent because they're so little about
[9:56]their stories being told in this way.
[9:59]And I said.
[10:00]And he said, why not try fiction?
[10:01]And I was like, fiction, I don't know how to write fiction.
[10:04]So I started taking classes.
[10:06]And it was like, in going from job to job, career to career,
[10:11]I had been trying to find something that fulfills me
[10:13]on a day-to-day basis, as well as like makes me
[10:17]kind of satisfied on the macro level.
[10:19]And I found that with, you know, writing these stories.
[10:24]I started with short stories.
[10:25]I fell in love with the form.
[10:27]And one of the first short stories that I wrote
[10:30]was about this family written in the voice of Mia,
[10:33]who is the same narrator that we have,
[10:35]except she was 14, so younger at that time.
[10:38]And they were dealing with their youngest brother,
[10:42]their baby brother, and they were living in Seoul.
[10:45]And they really felt responsible for the fact
[10:48]that he was a non-speaker, that he couldn't talk,
[10:51]because they did something a prank on wrong
[10:53]when the mom was pregnant with Eugene.
[10:55]And so they're actually literally trying
[10:57]to find his voice in a graveyard
[11:00]where this prank gone wrong had happened
[11:02]when she was pregnant with him,
[11:05]using this haunted, what they think is a haunted status scope.
[11:08]It's a funny story.
[11:09]But anyway, so this family has been with me ever since then.
[11:13]And so then I wrote my debut novel, Miracle Creek,
[11:17]and which really delves into some of the same issues
[11:20]as happiness falls except from the parents' perspective,
[11:23]the extreme parenting sacrifices that we make.
[11:26]And then in writing happiness falls,
[11:29]I really came back to this family,
[11:30]which had never left me.
[11:32]And this voice by Mia, which had never left me.
[11:35]And when my own kids were going through college application
[11:40]process and things like that,
[11:42]I would be wondering, oh, John and Mia, who are twins,
[11:46]I wonder where they're applying to school.
[11:48]I wonder if Mia is writing about that incident in Korea
[11:53]in her college essay.
[11:55]Like just thinking about them as if they were real people
[11:58]because they had just sort of stayed with me
[12:01]and they stuck with me and they wouldn't let go.
[12:03]And so yeah, so that's how this story kind of came to be
[12:08]with me hearing about some therapies
[12:11]and then actually seeing these therapies
[12:14]of non-speaking autistic kids who were learning
[12:18]to communicate by pointing to letters on the board,
[12:22]word by word, and spelling words out painstakingly.
[12:26]And when that happened,
[12:28]these kids who had been assumed their entire lives
[12:31]to be cognitively deficient were coming up
[12:34]with the most amazing gorgeous things to say.
[12:37]And then I got so moved by that.
[12:39]I started volunteering at a nearby therapy center
[12:43]that does this work and started teaching creative writing
[12:47]to these kids.
[12:48]And I just couldn't let this go.
[12:51]And I just thought, I wonder what's happening with Eugene.
[12:54]I wonder if this family is trying this with Eugene, you know?
[13:00]Wow.
[13:01]Yeah.
[13:02]That's crazy.
[13:03]It's like, I mean, that's just wild.
[13:06]It real, as you were talking, I'm thinking to myself,
[13:09]like all these characters, not just in your book,
[13:12]but in all these novels that I'm reading
[13:14]and that the characters are so real to the authors
[13:17]and then they get into our heads.
[13:19]And it's like, maybe they're real somewhere.
[13:22]Because they come fully formed and then they do things
[13:24]on their own that, you know, all fiction writers,
[13:27]like, and then this happened, I couldn't quite believe it.
[13:29]Like, where is this all coming from?
[13:31]Who's to say these people don't just exist somewhere?
[13:33]I don't know.
[13:34]I'm just throwing it at you.
[13:35]I love that idea.
[13:36]I feel like that could be an amazing novel
[13:39]like in and of itself.
[13:41]That could be a great story.
[13:42]Can I steal that from you?
[13:43]That's amazing.
[13:44]I love that idea.
[13:46]But you should write that.
[13:47]You should write that.
[13:49]Okay, well, there are all these characters,
[13:52]you know, in this world.
[13:53]Like, and maybe we as writers,
[13:56]what we're doing is we're actually being allowed
[13:58]like in this matrix type, type world,
[14:01]we're being allowed to like connect with
[14:04]and download these stories that are being fed to us.
[14:08]And it's almost like an experiment
[14:10]to see what we do with these stories.
[14:12]You know?
[14:12]It's true.
[14:13]I mean, it could be that way.
[14:15]I know I always think it would be,
[14:17]what I really wanted to do is do it a novel
[14:19]where characters from different books got together
[14:21]and then interacted.
[14:22]Like, I would like, you know, Mia, to me to,
[14:25]I don't know, what else am I reading?
[14:26]Like, I just think, well, that's a memoir.
[14:27]So that doesn't count, but I don't need it.
[14:29]Just like a character in another book.
[14:31]Yeah, absolutely.
[14:33]There was one point I actually connected to authors
[14:35]and I was like, I really think your main characters
[14:37]would be friends.
[14:38]They should go to lunch
[14:39]and they were like, okay, no, I feel like
[14:43]you should write that together.
[14:45]Absolutely.
[14:46]Well, writing together, I don't think we've ever seen it all
[14:49]on that.
[14:50]Like, yeah, yeah, on that, but I have done that.
[14:53]Like, I have actually met authors of books that I love.
[14:57]And then like, I really wanted to go to drinks
[15:00]with your main character.
[15:02]And so since I can't do that,
[15:04]at least I can go grab drinks with you.
[15:06]Can I please buy you a drink, buy you a drink?
[15:08]And then they're like, okay, you're a little weird,
[15:10]but I guess so since you like my character, you know?
[15:14]But then sometimes it's really not the same.
[15:16]It's like, my mom would tell me when I was a little girl,
[15:19]I would be like, you should be best friends
[15:21]with so and so's mom because she's so amazing.
[15:22]And she's like, I love so and so,
[15:24]but that doesn't mean I love her mom.
[15:26]I mean, because you love the book,
[15:28]doesn't necessarily mean you love the author.
[15:31]It's not, they're not the same people,
[15:33]which obviously, but anyway, I'm sounding ridiculous,
[15:36]but no, no, no, not at all.
[15:37]I love this idea and I have these thought experiments
[15:41]all the time about it.
[15:43]I feel like Mia, if she were listening in on this conversation,
[15:47]would write a really cool footnote about it now
[15:51]and then do all this research on all the novels
[15:54]that have like written about characters
[15:56]from different places intersecting and interacting
[16:00]and all that kind of stuff.
[16:01]I feel like she would totally do that.
[16:03]Yeah, okay.
[16:04]You know, you take the idea.
[16:05]I don't want this idea.
[16:06]You can take it, do a short story, do whatever you want.
[16:10]I'm not gonna write this, but you can,
[16:12]you do it and then I'll understand
[16:13]we're having red ears.
[16:14]Okay.
[16:15]You're funny.
[16:17]But I think part of this whole,
[16:19]assuming what's in people's minds,
[16:22]whether you're autistic or you're just really shy
[16:25]and you're not talking,
[16:26]like they're all these assumptions people make
[16:28]when you can't hear,
[16:29]when people can't clearly communicate with their thinking.
[16:32]And so then you think so differently,
[16:34]all these shortcuts and it's just a constant short changing
[16:37]of people who aren't verbally gifted.
[16:41]Yeah, exactly.
[16:42]Yeah, no, absolutely.
[16:43]And it comes from my own experience as a Korean immigrant
[16:47]because I came from Korea to the US
[16:51]when I was in the love, when I was 11 in middle school.
[16:54]And that's such a hard time to be, you know,
[16:56]getting used to something anyway.
[16:59]And so overnight I went from feeling like a,
[17:03]you know, pretty smart,
[17:05]kind of sassy, you know, like gregarious kind of girl
[17:09]outgoing, all that kind of stuff.
[17:10]And then overnight I couldn't speak English.
[17:13]And so I would kind of shut down.
[17:15]And so there was that frustration
[17:16]with not speaking the language, of course,
[17:19]but it went beyond that.
[17:20]It went to, I was embarrassed.
[17:23]It was a deep shame because I felt stupid.
[17:26]And I was treated as stupid.
[17:29]I could tell that people sort of were looking at me
[17:32]in that way.
[17:33]And then once I started speaking English to the point
[17:38]where I could understand,
[17:39]but I still couldn't understand it,
[17:40]but it couldn't speak it very well,
[17:42]then I really did get that people were making fun of me
[17:46]and right in front of me.
[17:47]Oh, no.
[17:48]And so it was just such a humiliating, awful experience.
[17:51]And it's something that really affects me even to this day.
[17:55]So, you know, that's why I think it really did a number on me.
[18:00]It was the first time I realized that our society
[18:03]and not just the American society,
[18:04]but like the world over,
[18:06]we equate oral fluency with intelligence.
[18:10]And so when I lost that, I felt stupid.
[18:15]And I just don't understand why we have this assumption.
[18:19]It's in me too, you know, it's in all of us.
[18:22]Like, you know, we see people who stutter
[18:24]who write beautifully.
[18:25]We know that they're brilliant.
[18:27]You know, people who have aphasia
[18:30]or have some kind of medical condition.
[18:33]And yet, you know, people who are deaf.
[18:35]And for the longest time like we in our society
[18:39]have had this kind of like ableist assumption
[18:41]that, yeah, like if you can't speak fluently,
[18:44]even if there's a really good reason for it,
[18:47]like you speak another language really fluently
[18:51]and Hannah, the mom here, she's a PhD in linguistics.
[18:55]But she speaks with an accent.
[18:57]So her kids kind of look down on her a little bit, you know?
[19:00]And then they're surprised when she's able to deal
[19:03]with situations in a really competent way.
[19:06]And I think we have that and we carry that around with me,
[19:09]with us.
[19:10]And I don't understand why we do that.
[19:12]So I'd really like to challenge that
[19:14]and challenge all of us to sort of think
[19:17]through those assumptions and not make those shortcuts.
[19:20]So true.
[19:22]I went through a period of time when I was a teenager,
[19:24]when I just like could not talk,
[19:26]like I just couldn't talk.
[19:28]I was so shy, like in certain situations,
[19:30]in group situations, and people would make fun of me a lot.
[19:34]Oh, wow.
[19:35]I didn't realize because you're so at the center of like,
[19:40]you know, like social, so many things
[19:42]that I wouldn't have guessed that about you.
[19:45]It's true.
[19:46]Yeah, I was actually going through some diaries recently
[19:47]and I was literally writing the summer program.
[19:50]I could not talk.
[19:51]I was like, I cannot talk.
[19:52]People are like, why are you just sitting there
[19:54]and like, come on, did you have anything to say?
[19:57]And it's like, I had a million things to say.
[19:59]I just couldn't say.
[20:00]Hey, them. I was thinking them. Yeah. And I think this is why also I'm attracted to
[20:04]A books like yours, but also stories where like the diving bell and the butterfly or things
[20:10]like that were like you find a way to write. And then all of a sudden you can communicate.
[20:15]It's like mind blowing. It is. Yeah, it's mind blowing. And you know, one of my one of the
[20:22]most amazing things about this whole experience, this publication month in September, for me has
[20:28]been when GMA came down to Virginia, which is where I live with my family. And they did,
[20:35]and Judy Chang was with me the whole day, like with these kids that I teach creative writing to.
[20:44]So she actually, we actually got to speak in that classroom. We got, she got to talk to the kids,
[20:51]like have conversations with them. And when they were pointing to letters, she actually
[20:55]subscribed for them. So she was writing down what they, the letter by letter, what they were pointing
[21:01]to. And it was just so meaningful because that sort of the kind of thing that a fiction writer
[21:10]doesn't usually get the chance to do, you know, really get to not only talk about my book and
[21:17]what inspired it, but really get to show the world in this huge way. And so that was really
[21:23]meaningful to me. I think that was my favorite part of this entire process. That's amazing.
[21:28]Sarah, have you become this advocate or are you involved in non-profits or how are you helping,
[21:34]you know, and I can't imagine you're just like sitting with this. You seem like such a doer.
[21:38]Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, so that is this association that happens to be near me. That happens to be
[21:44]local to me, just to gift. It's called the International I ask International Association for spelling
[21:51]as communication. And that is, yeah, it's a global organization. And I'm very involved with it.
[21:58]They were showcased in this in this piece in GMA. I am, you know, continuing to work with them
[22:06]on telling their stories. That's what I really want to do. I want to enable the gifted
[22:12]writers that I have come in contact with who are non-speakers to tell their own stories. That
[22:18]would be just so meaningful. Yeah. I feel like you should do an anthology of their stories.
[22:23]I know, wouldn't that be amazing? Yeah. That would be so, so amazing. Yeah.
[22:27]Oh, my God. That's a great idea, Zibi. We should talk. We should talk. Look at all these
[22:33]projects I have lined up for you. I know my editors couldn't be like, you can't talk to Zibi
[22:41]anymore because you have to work on your next book. Excellent segue. What is your next bag?
[22:48]So my next one, I'm not really completely sure that I have it down to the point where I can
[22:54]really talk about the premise. Yeah, because I'm still exploring. But I am really excited that
[23:00]it's a little more on the dystopian side. So dystopian, it's got little flavors of, you know, sci-fi
[23:08]kind of stuff there. And it's also, I think, going to be in the form of linked stories, which is
[23:12]my favorite form of storytelling. So I'm really excited about that. It's about people who are going
[23:18]through society level change and how they cope with it with the loss of connection.
[23:27]Yeah. That sounds amazing. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. You don't have to tell me, but do you
[23:31]have a working title that you like? I don't actually. It's funny because for this time, for
[23:37]happiness falls, my working title was happiness quotient about the whole idea of, you know, your
[23:42]relativity of happiness and happiness being really relative to your expectations and to your baseline
[23:48]and all of that sort of stuff. And then everybody told me, you know, that's not like the most
[23:53]selling title. So we have to think of something else. So I've kind of given up on titles. And
[23:57]same thing happened with Miracle Creek. My working title for that was Miracle Submarine, which I
[24:02]that was a kick ass title. And they were like, no, people hate it. People are saying that like,
[24:08]it's the worst title they've ever heard in their lives. Who are these people? Well, you know,
[24:14]they're like people in sales and, you know, yeah, retailer or world, whatever. And so we changed
[24:22]it to the name of the town that it was set in Miracle Creek. And so I actually joke that because
[24:28]of Miracle Creek, happiness falls, the next one is going to be like, love ocean or something like
[24:35]that. Totally. Lovely. A few more syllables though. Yeah, I'm an amorous, amorous like yourself.
[24:45]That's pretty good. And it's making it in a different direction. You never know. Love it.
[24:52]So having taught yourself fiction at, you know, an older age, what advice do you have for aspiring
[25:00]fiction writers who feel like this is a tough, a tough nut to crack? Yeah, absolutely. You know,
[25:06]I was just listening not that long ago to Ashley Audrey's podcast with you. And she, and I so I feel,
[25:14]but I feel like she was on several months ago. So I can repeat a similar advice that she gave,
[25:20]which is to really let go and not worry about the fact that you're actually writing something for
[25:26]an audience. So even as I'm in my writing closet here, I actually, it's a literal closet that I
[25:33]write. I'm looking over the screen at something that I posted up on the wall, which is it says
[25:39]in big letters, this is not a novel. And it's something that I put up there when I started working on
[25:44]Miracle Creek because it was my first book. And I had always understood from other friends that
[25:50]like your first book, you finish. And then you put away the drawer. And then you like get really
[25:55]started on your real first book. You know, it's a practice book. So I told myself, it's a practice
[26:00]book. It's okay. It's not going to see the light of day. I can put anything in it. All the shameful
[26:07]thoughts that I've had that I know my friends have had on that my characters have had. I can put
[26:12]that in without worry. And it's okay that I'm doing weird things like starting a murder mystery
[26:19]without having any idea who did it or how or why or, you know, and all of that. And I had seven
[26:26]different POV characters, which is very ambitious for a first novel, especially. And I was like,
[26:31]it's okay. All of these things are okay because it's not a novel. And so I really feel like that
[26:37]sign helped me to just take risks and tell the stories that I wanted to tell and just get it out
[26:44]there. And so I had the same sign up. And my husband walked in when I was writing happiness falls.
[26:50]And he was like, honey, I hate to tell you this, but that sign has to go because it is a novel.
[26:56]It has to be a novel. You have a contract. You've been paid. You haven't edited
[27:02]a deadline and is waiting for it. And so I wrote like a little handwritten in, this is not a
[27:11]missing person novel. And I did that as a way to remind myself that I'm writing, I was writing the
[27:18]story from the perspective of Mia in first person. And when I write because of my theater background,
[27:25]I write in this way called method that I call method writing where I really try to get in the
[27:30]character's head and really inhabit them. And like method acting. And so I was trying to remind
[27:39]myself that perspective, it's not a novel that I'm writing. It's not a missing person novel that
[27:47]I'm writing. This is a real thing that Mia is going through. So things like, you know, are the twists
[27:54]like illuminating or, you know, are there twists to begin with, like all of these things,
[28:00]those don't matter. That's not what matters is how she's feeling, how the family's feeling,
[28:07]how the mom is feeling. And certainly they also, they want to find out what happened to the father.
[28:12]But actually, what's most important, it what becomes most important is really protecting Eugene.
[28:19]And so really thinking about the story from that perspective, from the characters, and trying to
[28:25]stay true to that, instead of worrying about, oh, are people going to get annoyed with this? And
[28:32]you know, are people going to be satisfied with this plot twist or, you know, lack thereof or whatever?
[28:39]And so really reminding myself of that. And that's the best advice that I can give to people. Don't
[28:44]try to write to what you think that some imaginary reader out there is going to be what the market is.
[28:51]But really try to write what you want to write. That's true to what the characters in your stories
[28:57]would want. I love that. That is such a good advice. I really, really love it. When I started my
[29:04]memoir after I had a contract, I could not do it. And finally, big all caps, like huge font.
[29:10]I was like, no one will read this but me. Exactly. Exactly. You have to do these tricks,
[29:16]like, just to get over the hump and just get to where you need to be emotionally or something.
[29:21]Exactly. Absolutely. No, I love that. I feel like what we did is so similar. Same thing, same thing.
[29:29]Yeah. Totally. Love that. Amazing. Angie, I could talk to you all day.
[29:33]Well, hopefully we'll talk to you again in some other context or something. And I'll see you in
[29:37]person. But thank you so much. What a great book. And I'm so impressed with with just all of it.
[29:42]So great. Thank you so much. I'm just thrilled to meet you. Yeah. I know it's by Zoom,
[29:49]but I feel like we have such a great connection. I can't wait to meet the person. That would be great.
[29:53]That would be great. I would love that. Okay. All right. More soon. Okay. All right. Bye, Angie. Bye.
[30:00]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[30:05]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram, at Zebi Owens, and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read
[30:09]Books.
[30:10]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and
[30:15]meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[30:17]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan in fact, Texture Sound for the Sound Editing.
[30:21]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.