Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, MAMA'S SLEEPING SCARF
[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]Chimimanda Adichi is the author of Mama's Sleeping Scarf as well as many other wonderful
[1:09]vlogs.
[1:10]This episode was guest hosted by Alicia Fernandez Miranda, who's the author of My What If
[1:15]Year, a memoir published by Zippy Books.
[1:18]Chimimanda was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World in
[1:23]2015.
[1:24]In 2017, Fortune Magazine named her one of the world's 50 greatest leaders.
[1:29]She is a member of both the Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts
[1:35]and Sciences.
[1:36]Her most recent work, Notes on Grief, an essay about losing her father was published
[1:40]in 2021 to incredible acclaim and success.
[1:45]She also wrote Dear Ijawale, or a feminist manifesto in 15 suggestions, which was
[1:51]published in March of 2015.
[1:53]Her first novel, Working Backwards Year Purple Hibiscus from 2003, won the Commonwealth
[1:58]Writers Prize and her second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, 2006 won the Orange Prize.
[2:04]Her 2013 novel, Americana won the U.S. National Book Critics Circle Award and was named
[2:10]one of the New York Times Top 10 Books of 2013.
[2:13]She has delivered two landmark TED Talks.
[2:15]Her 2009 TED Talk, The Danger of a Single Story, and her 2012 TEDx Houston Talk, We Should
[2:21]All Be Feminist, started a worldwide conversation about feminism and was published as a book
[2:26]in 2014.
[2:28]She demanded divides her time between the United States and Nigeria, where she was born,
[2:32]and where she leads an annual creative writing workshop.
[2:35]FYI, she graduated Summa Cum Laude from Eastern Connecticut State University with a degree
[2:40]in Communication and Political Science and, as a master's degree in creative writing from
[2:45]Johns Hopkins University and a master's of arts degree in African history from Yale University.
[2:52]She was awarded a hotter fellowship at Princeton University for the 2005, 2006 academic
[2:57]year, and a fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute of Harvard University for the 2011 academic
[3:02]year.
[3:03]In 2008, she received the MacArthur Fellowship.
[3:06]To Amanda, welcome to the podcast.
[3:08]Thank you.
[3:09]I basically, like, elbowed out everybody to steal this absent from when she had a conflict
[3:16]with her time because I'm such a fan of your fiction, of your essays.
[3:21]We should all be feminists.
[3:22]So I was like, I don't even care what book this is.
[3:24]I want to do this interview with her for sweets, but I didn't care that it was 8, 30 at night
[3:29]here in Scotland, and I was going to be like, you know, that's practically my bedtime,
[3:33]but I was like, no, no, we're doing this.
[3:35]So I am so excited that you are here to talk about Mama's sleeping scarf.
[3:40]Yeah, it's exciting for me as well.
[3:42]I haven't really done many sort of promotional things for it, so it's still sort of exciting
[3:49]and fresh.
[3:50]It's a lovely story.
[3:52]It's a perfect bedtime story.
[3:53]I was telling you before we started the interview that I made, my kids read it with me before
[3:58]bed, even though they are almost 12.
[3:59]So maybe slightly out of the appropriate, well, not appropriate, but the kind of target
[4:04]age for this beautiful book, but it's just, it's such a great story.
[4:08]It's beautifully illustrated.
[4:10]And so, you know, it's like the perfect kid.
[4:13]She's so polite.
[4:14]I need to know if you were the perfect child, or if you are raising the perfect child,
[4:19]and that's how you get this example, because I was amazed by her manners, frankly,
[4:23]throughout the story.
[4:24]Ah, it's interesting.
[4:26]No, no, no, I was not the perfect child.
[4:29]I mean, I wish I could lie and say that I was, but you know, I feel like somebody would
[4:33]send you a message and be like, she's lying.
[4:36]Actually, it's interesting that, huh, she have, okay, I guess so.
[4:40]I think my daughter is better than, she's better than at the stage to eat than I was.
[4:47]Okay.
[4:48]So it's interesting because she's actually quite fierce and she has her opinions and she's
[4:51]very good at saying, no, but we do try to teach her.
[4:56]And in some ways, also, just sort of very, I think Nigeria, an African idea that you,
[5:01]you know, you should be polite to adults, that kind of thing, but also to have the sense
[5:06]of autonomy.
[5:07]So I think, in some ways, I think that this book for me was about, I think also just respecting
[5:12]a child's autonomy.
[5:13]So she gets to be, obviously, within limits, because I just don't think that we
[5:18]should be a children's friends.
[5:20]I think we should be a children's parents.
[5:22]Yeah.
[5:23]But I think just within sort of a certain boundary, to have an autonomy, so she has
[5:28]this car, she just sort of does what she wants with it because it's, you know, safe and
[5:33]fun.
[5:34]And so I think, I think my daughter is reasonably well-mannered.
[5:40]I just, after reading it with my kids, I was like, do you see how much more often you
[5:44]should be saying, please, and thank you.
[5:46]This is obvious in this book.
[5:48]You know, she definitely has this, and it's so funny, isn't it, with our kids, because
[5:52]I always feel like when I see my kids have a little bit of fire, I'm always like, I love
[5:56]that you have that.
[5:57]I wish you were not deploying that weapon against me.
[6:00]Like, save it for the rest of the world, but just be obedient and listen to everything
[6:05]I say, why can't that happen?
[6:07]Oh, my goodness, I feel like exactly the same way, exactly the same way.
[6:11]You want that for them, because you know that I think you're preparing them for a world
[6:16]in which they will need that to survive, but you don't want them to, you don't want
[6:20]to see that.
[6:21]We just saved this, save this, you're going to need it.
[6:25]But right now, please just get in the shower and go to bed.
[6:28]That's all I really like.
[6:30]So now you have written, you know, I started going through your bio, you've written so
[6:35]much.
[6:36]You've been writing for such a long time, but this is your first children's book.
[6:40]So what made you decide to write this book and how did the idea of the scarf kind of come
[6:46]to you?
[6:47]Well, why did I decide to write this because I had a child.
[6:51]So before my daughter is eight, like I said, before I had her, I just wasn't interested
[6:56]in children's books.
[6:57]And I thought I wasn't the right person to write children's books, because my vision
[7:00]is very dark.
[7:01]You know, I'm interested in things like war and injustice and all of those things.
[7:06]And then I had my daughter and we would read to her.
[7:08]So we started reading to her quite early.
[7:10]And I just started thinking about writing a book, you know, because of her for her.
[7:15]And then I remember this day that I'm holding her.
[7:18]She was still maybe, you know, she wasn't maybe one, maybe a little less than one.
[7:22]And she pulls off my scarf because I always had a scarf around my head when I sleep.
[7:27]And you know, it was just, you know, one of those moments, but it's so ordinary, but
[7:30]it's also so perfect.
[7:33]And I was so moved by it.
[7:35]I mean, having this child completely changed everything for me.
[7:39]So, you know, I was one of those annoying mothers for whom every little thing became very
[7:43]precious, you know.
[7:45]So it's like this moment is precious, I'm going to forget, I'm sorry, I wrote it down
[7:50]because I make notes all the time.
[7:51]And then my parents, I was very close to my parents.
[7:54]My father died and my mother died a few months after.
[7:56]My father died in June of 2020 and it was still is actually really, just really difficult,
[8:02]you know, really difficult.
[8:04]And so it was those two things that memory and then my parents dying and this feeling
[8:09]of just being on wood and wanting to, so I'm so desperately wanting to hold on to memory
[8:17]because of my parents.
[8:18]And they have lowered my daughter.
[8:20]I think my parents were not sure that I would have a child because I've sort of always
[8:24]been the strange, you know, child.
[8:26]And I have five siblings and they're all sort of, you know, good, lower-biting people who
[8:33]have good jobs and who have children and I was sort of the strange one.
[8:37]And I wasn't sure I wanted children.
[8:39]So I think when I had my daughter, my parents were so thrilled and so surprised.
[8:44]They worshipped her and I wanted to remember that for myself and for her.
[8:50]So all of these things came together.
[8:52]And I think also just the idea of the scarf I was thinking about and really interested
[8:57]in that idea of making small things, the small things of our lives familiar to everyone.
[9:03]And so I think that for most black women having something, the scarf, something around
[9:07]you here when you're sleeping is normal.
[9:09]But I don't think it's normal for many people who are not black.
[9:12]Right.
[9:13]And I kind of love the idea of celebrating this little thing, a scarf, but also just making
[9:18]it familiar to everyone.
[9:20]And so that's kind of all of that came together and this happened, now let's sleep in
[9:24]scarf.
[9:25]That is so beautiful.
[9:26]And I think, you know, did you, did you find when you had your daughter and you started,
[9:32]I would presume reading more children's books than maybe you had before.
[9:36]You know, you have spoken your amazing TED Talk about the dangers of a single story.
[9:41]I mean, did you find that in children's literature?
[9:43]Did you find a good enough selection of stories that were reflecting the type of world you
[9:48]want to do, daughter to see and the things that were familiar to you?
[9:51]Or did you feel like having a child and maybe seeing what was out there, it was important for
[9:56]you to have a book where she saw someone in it that looked like her?
[10:00]That's actually really, and that's a good question and it's sort of a good, it's, it's,
[10:06]it's always it's both. So when I started reading children's books, I really hadn't read
[10:10]any until I had had no reason. So I just wasn't interested. I think I'm Dr. Seuss on the weekends,
[10:17]like I'm like, yeah, this is my weekend reading, yeah, but that's not. But you know, we would
[10:21]read to her and two things I realized that there's so many animal characters and children's books,
[10:28]which is fine, obviously. But, but I just thought I wish we had more people. And so we would go to
[10:37]the library and I would go looking for books that had a wide range of people. I wanted her very
[10:42]early on to see the world as it is. I'd probably be able to see herself. And the other thing I noticed
[10:49]was how often the books that had black children were about sort of serious things. And I remember
[10:55]at her baptism, we had a baptism, we had a big party. And people gave her presents. And one of
[11:02]the presents was a book about a black child who was going off to be an activist. And I just thought,
[11:09]you know, I mean, yeah, I mean, activism, activism is wonderful, but really, you know, for,
[11:14]and I thought, how about the child just go off to, I don't know, explore and flirt for treasure or
[11:19]something. So for me, it was wanting to see more black children in books who are doing absolutely
[11:26]ordinary things. You know, it's not about fighting, racism or all of those things. And also,
[11:32]I wanted, I mean, I missed, I think, seeing books that were ordinary. So I was telling a friend
[11:37]about this book, mother sleeping scarf. And he said to me, oh, that's a surprising. I expected
[11:42]this scarf to become magical. And I think it's the expectation we have about a lot of children's
[11:48]literature that something sort of extraordinary has to have. You know, you fly around the scarf or
[11:52]the scarf, you know, that sort of thing. And my daughter loves books like that. We're reading a book
[11:57]now where something about underpants. So somebody's underpants sort of takes in a life of its own
[12:02]and goes to different parts of the world. And she loves it. But I wanted something more ordinary,
[12:09]you know, because I think there's so much beauty in just the ordinary. And yeah, so I,
[12:15]I mean, I think we, I think there's more work to be done in diversifying children's books. But I
[12:20]think it's much better to date than it was, you know, 20 years ago, for example. I think that
[12:25]I think the publishing world is making an effort. Yeah. I, so I guess my kids were born in 2011,
[12:33]but I have never really thought about it. But I'm trying to think of any books that I read them
[12:38]that had people in them. And I'm really struggling. We did a lot of Julia Donaldson because we're
[12:43]in the UK. A lot of Dr. Seuss. Yeah, mostly like giraffes who don't know how to dance or
[12:50]unicorns. Oh, I love that one. My girls, I love that giraffe. I do love giraffes can't dance,
[12:55]actually. That's such a good book. But it's amazing. So okay. So you published, we should all be
[13:01]feminists in 2014. I've bought copies for almost everybody. I know probably at different stages
[13:06]of the last almost 10 years. And this was adapted from a TEDx talk you did in 2012. So it's been
[13:12]more than a decade. You had a child in that period. What do you feel like has changed since then
[13:18]for you and for the kind of broader space that you're operating in? Very little.
[13:26]No, I think nothing. Well, well, you know, I mean, so I find it increasingly interesting to talk
[13:35]about feminism because I think on the one hand, there's a lot of talk. I mean, I think that what
[13:41]feminism has become a lot more familiar to people. It's thrown around very often. But it just
[13:46]seems to me that the fundamental issues really changed. I mean, I think there's just so much
[13:52]that I'm still very dissatisfied with. I'm still angry about. I think that there's nowhere in the
[13:59]wall today that we have real gender equality. No way. No way. And you know, God bless no way. God
[14:05]bless Sweden and Denmark, but they do not an Iceland, but they do not have gender equality.
[14:10]I've just I've just been reading a book by she is the wife of the president of Iceland. I
[14:15]think that the prime minister and he's so interesting and she's Canadian. And you know, Iceland
[14:20]is often talked about us. You know, this wonderful place where those gender equality. And in
[14:24]this book, she talks to just ordinary Icelandic women. Right. And I would talk by how the issues are
[14:31]the same. You know, this idea that women constantly have to compromise more. Women have to deal with
[14:37]the kind of professional women have to deal with the kind of sort of, you know, casual disrespect
[14:44]that, you know, always having to prove that, you know, what you're doing. And the only reason
[14:48]you have to do that is because you're a woman. And obviously, you know, that the difficulty
[14:53]of wanting to put on could have it all, which is just such a strange thing for me because
[15:00]yeah, it's a conversation about domestic life and domestic work. And women are still doing the
[15:06]bulk of it. And, you know, for many of them, it's unpaid. I mean, all of those things, I think
[15:11]are still interesting. And of course, being Nigerian, being African, you know, I really care a lot
[15:16]about things that still haven't changed very much. Things like child marriage, you know, female
[15:21]circumstances, decision is decreasing in many parts of Africa, but still isn't gone, you know,
[15:27]so there's still, I mean, I think we can all sort of it's cool and Beyonce did the thing on
[15:32]feminism. And I think, oh, they're both, you know, I t-shirts on the runway. Yeah, you've, you've
[15:37]had a lot of pop culture. I have. I have. And I like it because I think, you know, I do the thing
[15:43]that talking about things makes a difference. But I think that the more we talk about something,
[15:47]the more that we make it front and center, then I think that the greater the light,
[15:52]you know, some kind of change, you know, but I think there's still a lot of work to be done.
[15:56]So am I happy at the state of women in the world? No. And do you, do you feel optimistic
[16:05]about the future your daughter is going into? I want to say yes. I want to be optimistic because,
[16:12]you know, this child is my life. And, but I realize I spend a lot of time worrying about
[16:17]her future. And so my latest obsession. And yes, I'm one of those annoyingly obsessive. I mean,
[16:23]I don't know what it was like for you. But obsession and anxiety came into my life the minute
[16:28]I had a child. And so I'm constantly worrying about her. But no, worrying about, you know, what's
[16:35]her dollars going to be like? And now I'm really obsessing about social media because I've just read
[16:40]this book about the increase in anxiety and depression among young people. So that, you know,
[16:47]the more they use Instagram, the more likely they're to the anxious and depressed. And I just
[16:52]find it so worrying. And I think also for me, the question is, how does one deal with it? Because
[17:01]in the 100, you're not going to, I don't think it makes sense to say I'm to ban her from all
[17:06]social media because it's just not practical. And then on the other hand, I'm thinking, well, how do
[17:11]you sort of try and strike that balance where you're guiding her against depression, anxiety.
[17:18]And it's just, yeah, so I am my optimistic. I usually am optimistic. I think this is one of my
[17:24]doctorate. I know I was like, depends on day you catch me on. But I had twins. So I didn't have
[17:30]a lot of, I mean, there was definitely a worry, anxiety and just exhaustion. I think, oh, my,
[17:36]I couldn't. But I would say now, you know, about to turn 12, this is probably 50 to 75% of the
[17:43]conversations I have with other parents of kids my age, but like, do they have a phone? When you
[17:47]getting them a phone? What are the permissions they have? What can they use? What can they not?
[17:50]And it is very scary because it feels kind of unknown. I mean, maybe this, here's social media is
[17:57]a nice dark topic for your next novel. There you go. Oh, thank you, Alicia. I hadn't thought about
[18:04]that. But now that you've mentioned it, it's, it's actually, I think it's too big a topic for
[18:08]me to even deal with infection. But so what, what I'm curious, what is your taste? So you're,
[18:14]you're 12 year olds, what do you have? I mean, what's your, do they, what do you have?
[18:19]Probably on the, on the stricter edge, I would say they don't have phones. They won't get phones
[18:26]until they need them. Like when they're doing more independent things outside of, outside of me.
[18:32]And I'm very anti social media. Like I say that. And now everybody who's listening is like,
[18:37]but you're on Instagram 24 hours a day. So I'm working on my own social media. But for kids,
[18:43]I think I've told them 16. That's what I've said to them. I said, when you're 16,
[18:47]you can have it, but not before then. And you can hate me. You tell your therapist later,
[18:53]but I'm gonna draw my line and I'm just stick to it. I love it. I love it. See, I'm, I'm taking
[19:00]notes. I'm just asking women who are older kids because you're saying 16. I was telling my husband
[19:05]maybe 25, right? I can't, I can't, for a while when they were really little and a lot of
[19:11]this news is coming out. I just kept thinking like, maybe there won't be social media will
[19:16]somehow disappear it by the time they're adolescents and I won't have to worry about it. But
[19:19]it doesn't look like I'm going to get that. No, no. But it's just all, it is all scary. It's
[19:24]all scary because it's like your heart walking around outside of your body. So, you know, it's so
[19:30]terrifying having children and putting them out into the world. And so I'm glad we have books like
[19:36]you're extremely just sweet, almost like a poem like a lullaby book that I can still force them
[19:42]to listen to. And they, and they have no choice. Well, tell them I said, I'm so sorry and I send them
[19:48]alone. They're listening to it every day. They're, they're we're going to be like, it's momma's
[19:52]sleeping scarf time guys. I was interested because you did mention that you typically write about kind of
[19:59]of dark.
[20:00]topics. You know, have you ever thought about writing a children's book on some of those darker
[20:05]things? The thing that came to mind when I was looking at everything you've written about recently
[20:09]was grief and grief for children, which is certainly a topic that I have struggled to find a lot
[20:15]of good books on kind of in real journey with my kids. Have you, would you write out their children's
[20:20]book? Would you keep it nice and light or do you think might do something more serious next?
[20:24]See, one of my things is never say never because I realize in my life I say never and then I
[20:29]end up doing it. But it's not something I'm thinking. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I'm maybe at some
[20:37]point in the future but not now because I think that I'm still trying to make sense of grief for myself.
[20:42]And I don't think I'm in a position to make it digestible for children. My daughter, she,
[20:49]I was so worried for her when my father died and then my mother. And she, I mean, I wasn't sure
[20:57]if, obviously, they don't fully understand because she looked sad. And then after a while she said,
[21:04]when is grumpy, I'm going to wake up again. And that just completely broke my heart. She doesn't
[21:10]actually understand, you know. And so it's that I think to write for children about grief would be
[21:17]finding a way to let them know that grumpy is never going to wake up again. And that's a lot.
[21:23]Yeah, it is. Maybe that's why there aren't so many books. There are some great resources,
[21:29]but my husband lost his father and brother in 2021 in very close, close succession. And it was,
[21:36]I found telling the kids actually maybe the most difficult part of that whole process.
[21:40]And so I was desperate for, because this is always my struggle. This has been my parenting strategy.
[21:44]Anything I don't want to talk about, I'm like, let's get a book about it. You want to learn about
[21:48]sex. Amazing. We're going to get this book. You read it. And then you ask me any questions you have,
[21:53]because I just think all the answers can be found in a book somewhere. So I'm still holding
[21:58]out for a book to solve all of my parenting dilemmas for me. Maybe the, you know, the ballot of
[22:02]social media sasters. It's coming. And I won't have to worry about it. So tell me what's next
[22:10]for you. What are you working on now? I am working on a novel. I don't usually talk about
[22:15]working progress, but because I am, I think it's kind of a good dish place in the book. So,
[22:21]and I haven't written a novel in so long. And that times when I'm thinking, wait, I actually wrote
[22:25]novels in the past time. I think it would actually finish up. So I'm not even joking. So I'm in my
[22:31]study. And usually I have my own book. So I look at them and like, I finished this. How?
[22:37]Because it's been quite, yeah. And again, I blame my daughter. I blame my daughter for everything.
[22:43]But I feel as though my creativity stopped the minute I got pregnant.
[22:48]Wow. Something happened to my brain. Something just happened. And I just could not create for a long time.
[22:55]Honestly. Yeah. Yeah. And it was the worst thing you've, is this the first
[23:01]you were, I guess not the first thing you were in. Or is the first thing you've written since
[23:04]happened? It is the first to create, I mean, it's the first fiction. I haven't written a novel in
[23:09]10 years. Yeah. And, you know, and I even just remembering that it so just makes me really unhappy.
[23:17]So we, my publishers were celebrating the 10th anniversary of my novel. And I just thought I
[23:22]don't want to hear it. Because all it's saying to me is you haven't written a bloody novel in 10 years.
[23:28]But it's going well. So that's what I'm just really trying to focus on not doing too much travel and
[23:32]just really, you know, reading and writing. What do you think it was? Because I had a big epiphany when
[23:38]my kids turned eight. Actually, that was like a very important year for me when I finally
[23:42]feel like I got some brain space back. Or did you just feel like you were ready finally to get back?
[23:49]It's so good to hear. I'm just really happy to hear that. So it was the year for me.
[23:54]Well, you did have twins. So that's like trouble. Exactly. But once when they were, they were settled
[24:01]in school. They were sort of building their own lives. They were like more or less functionally
[24:05]independent. And then, well, I mean, I then I went off and I went and did all these internships and
[24:12]all the jobs I wanted to do when I was a kid. I quit my job as a CEO. And I wrote a book about it,
[24:16]which is how I eventually found Zibi. So I didn't just like go back to my creative practice. I kind
[24:21]blew up my entire career and put it back together. But it was, I do think it was like eight years
[24:26]old. It was like the magic birthday for me. And I know other mothers who have had similar things.
[24:31]So did you feel ready to write again? Or was there something else that was kind of spurring
[24:36]you on to work on a new novel? I mean, I've been waiting to be ready, you know, when I had
[24:42]had, and I have to say when I got pregnant, I thought, oh, I can handle this. You know, I thought I
[24:45]went to, you know, I'm pregnant. I went to write a novel by the time she's too old, have the
[24:49]first novel. And when she's four, I'll have the next novel. I thought it was all, I, you know,
[24:52]I thought, I can handle this. And then I realized I couldn't because I really wanted to be ready.
[24:59]I would sit at my laptop. I had help. So it wasn't about, you know, being over, even though,
[25:05]you know, this is the thing I did have help. So my mother came. And then after that, we had
[25:10]someone who would come in for few hours. But here's the thing, I would be in my study and I would
[25:14]be staring at the camera, watching them. Oh, my God. We have all been there. We have all been there.
[25:20]And my husband would say to me, the whole point is that you have time to do your own work.
[25:24]I'm like, yeah, I know. But then I'm like, but I'm not sure I liked how she changed her.
[25:30]So I mean, and also I like to joke and see that it might also be about being an older parent.
[25:35]Like, you know, I had my daughter when I was 39, 30 years. And so I think maybe, because I was thinking
[25:43]maybe five, where I don't know, 27, maybe I wouldn't be so obsessive. I don't know. But
[25:50]I've been waiting to be ready. I've been waiting to be ready. And it just slowly, I think in the
[25:54]past year, and I think maybe grief had something to do with it because I did like a long essay about
[26:00]losing my father. And obviously it wasn't fiction, but it was also the first time I was kind of
[26:06]sort of mining my soul, you know, getting inside myself. And I think that maybe that
[26:12]is part of what made me start to feel okay. I really can create now. I can, you know, I can,
[26:18]I can go into characters heads, that kind of thing. But still, I'm so slow now, you know, when I
[26:24]was honestly, I'm just like I finished novels in the past in like three years. And I'm now,
[26:31]I don't know how they like to do this.
[26:34]Well, no pressure, but I cannot wait to read what you do next. Now, okay, I'm right. I'm right.
[26:41]Feel free to send me some pages. I'm just happy to read it. But we like to finish up our
[26:46]interviews here on moms. Don't have time to read books with any advice you might have for aspiring
[26:51]writers. The most obvious thing is right. And I say that because lots of people want to write,
[26:57]and they don't. I think people sometimes wait for the perfect time. There's never a perfect time.
[27:02]So I'm really a believer in doing the, you know, setting minutes, you know, just carve out
[27:07]some time. It doesn't matter how small. And I also personally believe, and I do this quite a bit
[27:12]in keeping in touch with my own work. So if I've done, if I've written two pages, and it's,
[27:18]and I want to write, and it's not happening, I go back and look at what I've done. It just,
[27:22]you know, to keep in touch with my own, just to, you know, remind myself, right? The many
[27:27]stories I've started in the past years and never finished, but I go back and I look at them.
[27:32]So I'm, in some ways, I'm saying to myself, this is doable. You do it. And I also really believe
[27:37]in reading as, as a way of teaching yourself, not just what you want to write, but what you don't
[27:44]want to write. So the second books I read and I like them, but I never want to write like that.
[27:49]Yeah. And then the book that I just, I'm thinking, who the hell published this thing? And then
[27:53]the books I'm reading thinking, thinking I want to write like this first. And I read a lot of poetry
[27:59]and I'm writing fiction. I really think it just helps, it just helps with language. You know,
[28:04]you're just sort of, you immerse yourself in language. And I think it's very beautiful. So yeah,
[28:08]so I'm very practical about writing. I think, you know, just tips actually. I'm going to go
[28:13]do all of these things. No, you know, you have to keep going. You have to, sometimes it's a
[28:18]grind. You have to keep going. So I have this thing where I sit up my study table. But again,
[28:23]you know, sometimes you end up looking at the time around looking at the babysitter and other
[28:27]times, you know, sometimes I shop for shoes. You know, all of these things, but I'm just
[28:32]productive. You're, you're facing your brain for the ideas. I think shoe shopping is a very important
[28:38]part of the writing process. Exactly. Oh, this has been a true joy. My sleeping scarf is out. You
[28:45]can buy it. I highly suggest you do. It is a beautiful book. I have just enjoyed this conversation
[28:50]even more than I thought I would, which is, I had pretty high expectations. So thank you so much,
[28:55]and I'm so grateful to you. Thank you. Thank you, Alicia. Thank you. This was lovely. Thank you.
[29:01]Thanks for listening to this episode of moms don't have time to read books. Don't forget to follow
[29:05]me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at moms don't have time to read books. Also sign up for my newsletter
[29:11]at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every
[29:16]other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan. Heck, texture sound for the sound editing. And thank
[29:20]you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.