Live from Zibby Retreat: Tommy Tomlinson, DOGLAND: Passion, Glory, and Lots of Slobber at the Westminster Dog Show + THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: One Fat Man's Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America
[0:02]Hi, I'm Sivi Owens and I am the host of this podcast, Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:08]I am also a newly minted USA Today best-selling author of The Novel, Blake,
[0:14]and created a whole community of book lovers around this podcast, a publishing company,
[0:19]reading retreats, a bookstore, and more. Learn more at ZiviMedia.com or follow
[0:24]me on social at Zivi Owens or join the community at ZiviReaders.
[0:31]Tommy Tomlinson is the author of Dogland, Passion, Glory, and Lots of Slobber at the Westminster
[0:36]Dog Show, and also the beautiful memoir, The Elephant in the Room, one fat man's quest to get
[0:43]smaller in a growing America. Tommy and I did this podcast live at the Asheville retreat,
[0:50]which was so much fun. He was a participant for the whole retreat. Really got to know him. He's
[0:55]fabulous, and these books are really first-rate. Here's his bio. Tommy is the host of the podcast,
[1:02]Southbound at WFAE, Charlotte's NPR station, and he also does weekly commentaries for the station.
[1:09]He has a sub-stag news letter called The Writing Shed and has written for publications,
[1:13]including Esquire, ESPN, the magazine, Sports Illustrated, Forbes, Garden, and Gun, and many others.
[1:18]He spent 23 years as a reporter and local columnist for the Charlotte Observer.
[1:23]He's a graduate of the University of Georgia, and was a 2008-9 Neiman Fellow at Harvard University.
[1:29]Tommy and his wife, Alex Felseng, live in Charlotte. Welcome, Tommy. Thank you so much for
[1:34]coming on moms. Don't have time to read books. It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
[1:38]My pleasure, too. So we have two books to talk about, and we are doing this as a live event
[1:43]in the Asheville retreat ballroom here, and my dog Nia is literally next to your foot,
[1:48]so I could not have arranged this any better. It's the perfect setting.
[1:52]It's the perfect setting. Okay, two books to discuss. Your book that is just coming out now
[1:57]is called Dogland. Can you tell everybody what it's about? Sure, it's about a lot of things.
[2:02]It's kind of about the Westminster Dog Show. That's what the subtitle is. Glory, passion,
[2:10]and a lot of slaughter at the Westminster Dog Show. But the Westminster is just sort of
[2:14]risen to talk about the connection that people and dogs have, which has developed over
[2:21]30,000 years. I think there's a case to be made that the dog is mankind's greatest invention,
[2:27]because we created them from gray walls, and every dog that exists in the world today
[2:34]has to set it from the same gray walls. And we have developed them over thousands of years
[2:40]to do all sorts of things for us. But it turns out that they've developed us too. I think
[2:46]we can say that they investigated us as much as we domesticated them. And that book is about that
[2:51]connection. So you talk in the book about how you can go to all these dog shows. Each one's a little
[2:56]different. Nobody's barking. And are the dogs even happy? What could they possibly be experiencing?
[3:01]What is your view on this now that you've been on the road and checked it all out?
[3:05]Well, I think this is kind of what the book comes around to is that the idea of what makes us happy.
[3:11]So this book kind of originated with this idea as a bunch of a dog show tonight, and just sort of
[3:17]thought of those dogs happy or not, because they live such a different life than regular dogs.
[3:23]And after experiencing that for about three years, going to probably a hundred dog shows. And just
[3:29]being really in person that world, I think they are happy. But I think it depends on how you see
[3:36]happiness. And I come down, I want to kind of spoil any of the book. But I sort of come around to
[3:43]philosophy of happiness that I think applies not just to dogs, but to everybody. And I think that
[3:50]you've figured out how to get us to make them happy in the same way that they make us happy.
[3:57]Okay, you can't keep the secret of happiness, the secret.
[4:00]Oh, yeah, I can't try it.
[4:03]I can't keep the secret of happiness, the secret.
[4:06]Most powerful.
[4:07]And then it makes me think it's down to the way I describe it as dreams and talk.
[4:15]So just think about the people in your life that make you look at where they
[4:21]they they provide you with treats. I mean, they like shower you with gifts, but they're
[4:28]they give you things through their personality or their heart or whatever it is.
[4:34]That makes you want to be around and more. And they spend time. They spend enough time that
[4:40]they know you they care about you. You come and care about them. This is what dogs have figured
[4:46]out. If you give it to all you have treats, you still have time and they'll love you forever.
[4:51]And they figured that out about us too. And so I think that's for whatever the secret of happiness
[4:57]is in regards to this book. Anyway, I think that's it.
[5:02]When you set out to uncover the secrets of this whole world's best in show style, if you will,
[5:09]what is something that you were not expecting that you saw or heard on the road?
[5:14]Well, the first thing I was expecting in the beginning of the book, I'm talking about this,
[5:19]is is the lack of things. Like when I first got to the West with your dog show and no dogs are
[5:25]barking, it's just such a weird experience to be around $2,000 that aren't making any
[5:32]difference. And so that that thought of that there's so well trained that they don't
[5:39]barking when they're around, you know, the old dog I had him, he was around one other dog.
[5:44]He would get crazy, right? But beyond that, I think the day the day thing that really struck me
[5:50]was how he critically detailed the grooming of his dog is. So I thought this one dog through the
[5:58]old narrative, a selenic striker is a long time champion show dog. He takes about six hours to get
[6:06]striker ready for the show every day, just combing, bathing. There are like six different types
[6:13]of cones. There are all these different, you know, there's three different blue dryers. It's like
[6:19]when you see these time lapse photos of like a highly good actors in a something but you
[6:24]really have lots of special effects and you see them like make up for six hours, that's what
[6:30]this is like. And I was not expecting that level of detail to make that look as perfect as possible.
[6:38]He's like a talk show host. I referenced this last night, but you wrote so beautifully
[6:43]about it. I'm just going to find this passage. You wrote so beautifully about your own dog Fred
[6:48]and how much joy he brought you. So let me just, can I read a paragraph? Is that okay? Okay,
[6:54]this is just one paragraph to talk about Fred. Fred was an orphan and we tried to imagine what the
[6:59]the first few weeks of his life were like before he found us. He startled easily. For a while,
[7:04]he would camp out under our coffee table. But anytime there was a sudden movement, he'd leap up
[7:08]and bonk his head on the underside. We suspected he got a couple of dog concussions, but he was
[7:13]also scared of odd specific things. He cowered from white vans. He was terrified of children,
[7:18]not just children, but stuff that was child adjacent. One morning when we were out on a walk,
[7:22]he circled way out into the street to avoid a big wheel. Some kid had left on the sidewalk.
[7:27]We pieced together a dark story in our heads about mean children and white bands. We wish to
[7:32]could tell us what had happened to him so we could keep him safe. Yeah, so there's a kind of
[7:37]you don't live in this book where the midst of all the options stuff. I talk about the dog and my wife
[7:42]and I had for 14 and a half years who showed up in her front yard when they had a ditch as a puppy
[7:51]and we believe somebody could go and we had this entire life. And I think that all the stages of
[7:58]bonding with the dog in that connection and all the things that I try to get to in a bigger picture of
[8:03]the book, try to tell them sort of a miniature version when it comes to friends. They're the
[8:07]thing about dogs and they're funny part of them too. So I want to make sure that it's clear. But
[8:14]think about the dog or any pet. Is this already in Ferguson had to warn her? Right? As a, as
[8:20]those of you who are parents, you expect to die before your children do. But when you have a pet,
[8:26]when you, as soon as you take that pet on, you probably know that it's going to die before you do.
[8:32]And so you have to experience that sort of reversed wave of grief in a way that you don't usually
[8:38]have to, but if you're human children, you know, there's a lot of research involved in
[8:44]going to let them. So that how sometimes people could be harder for a pet than they do for
[8:50]the other humans in their lives. There are a lot of reasons for that. I think the main one being that
[8:54]it's just a little complicated relationship. But also it does get that orders reversing. It's
[9:04]something that our nature does not expect to happen to another. Well, this book is truly beautiful
[9:14]and anyone who's ever had a dog will not only be interested, but it will bring tears to their
[9:19]eyes and make them laugh, which is just great. And I know Naya really appreciates us discussing it
[9:24]today. She seems to be handling it well there. She literally has her paw wrapped around Tommy's
[9:30]heel at the moment as we're like literally. But today is a twofer because Tommy also rode the elephant
[9:36]in the room, one fat man's quest to get smaller in a growing America. This book is so good and I am so
[9:43]sad. I have not finished it in time for this interview because I only got it when we got down here
[9:49]and it's so good. I've already started recommending it and it's amazing. And this I definitely want
[9:53]to read. Can I read the beginning of this? Just like the first page. Okay. I'm going to just jump to
[9:58]New Year's Eve to 2014. Okay.
[10:00]New Year's Eve 2014. I weigh 460 pounds. Those are the hardest words
[10:05]I've ever had to write. Nobody knows that number. Not my wife, not my doctor, not my closest friends.
[10:11]It feels like confessing a crime. The average American male weighs 195 pounds.
[10:16]I'm two of those guys with a 10-year-old left over. And the biggest human being, most people who know me,
[10:22]have ever met or ever well. The government definition of obesity is a body mass index of 30 or more.
[10:28]My BMI is 60.7. My shirts are size XXX-X-X-X-L, which the big and tall stores shorten to 6X.
[10:36]I'm 6-bit one or 73 inches tall. My waist is 60 inches around. I'm nearly a sphere. Those are the numbers.
[10:44]This is how it feels. I'm just going to read one more paragraph. I'm on the subway in New York City,
[10:48]standing in the aisle clinging to the pole. I live in Charlotte and don't visit New York much,
[10:52]so I don't have a feel for how subway cars move. I'm praying this one doesn't lurch around a corner or
[10:57]slam to a stop because I'm terrified of falling. Part of it is embarrassment. When a fat guy falls,
[11:02]it's hard to get up. But what really scares me is the chance I might land on somebody. I glance at the people wedged around me.
[11:08]None of them could take my weight. It would be an avalanche. Some of them stare at me and I figure they're thinking the same thing.
[11:14]There's an old woman sitting three feet away, one slip, and I'd crush her. I grip the pole harder.
[11:19]My palms start to sweat. And all of a sudden, I flash back to elementary school in Georgia, standing in the aisle of the bus.
[11:25]The driver haulers it made a fine deceit. He can't take us home until everybody sits down. And the only one's standing.
[11:31]Every time I spot an open space, somebody slides to the edge of the seat and covers it up.
[11:36]Nobody wants the fat boy mashed in next to them. I freeze. Helpless. The driver glares at me in the rearview mirror.
[11:42]An older kid sitting in front of me, a redhead freckles. I'll never forget his face.
[11:47]Has a cast on his right arm. He reaches back and starts clubbing me with it. Below the waist, out of the driver's line of sight.
[11:54]He catches me in the groin, and it hurts. But not as much as the shame when the other kids laugh and the bus driver gets up and storms toward me.
[12:02]And the train stops and jolts me back into now. So incredibly powerful.
[12:11]Well, thank you. So when I, there's a fairly long backstory of this book, I was afraid to write it for years and years.
[12:20]Like this scene out at New York is a scene where I'm actually sitting down on my agent telling them kind of the story.
[12:27]Or some more story things like, we'll do that some book you want to write.
[12:30]And then I didn't write it for like three more years after that.
[12:33]But when I did decide to write it, I'm glad.
[12:37]So you know, I've written a lot of profiles for other people.
[12:40]Long down journalists wrote big profiles for like, that's why I used to be in those places.
[12:46]And I decided when I was going to write it, then I was going to do it.
[12:50]I was going to hold myself to the same account that was my house, which is I want to tell the truth the best I can.
[12:58]And not leaving anything out that needs to be in there.
[13:02]And so once I set out to do it, I tried to treat myself like somebody I was doing a story on.
[13:11]Because that's kind of what was happening.
[13:13]And of course I knew a lot more about myself than I would have had anybody else ever covered it.
[13:19]So I didn't write a lot in there.
[13:22]I tried not to write sort of lower details just to have them in there.
[13:28]I wanted everything to have a meme to it.
[13:31]And to be part of the larger stories.
[13:34]So there are stories that I left out of there.
[13:37]But that was sort of the litmus test for me as I was going through.
[13:42]Is this story mean something to the story I'm trying to tell in this book?
[13:47]If it does, I'm going to leave it in whether it makes me look at it or not.
[13:52]And you talk a lot in the book about how you are essentially slowly killing yourself.
[14:00]And how you don't know why you're doing this to yourself.
[14:03]But you are.
[14:04]There are so many experiences in life that you wish you had lived.
[14:07]But you've been held back your entire life.
[14:10]And then you go into not only does it put you at risk.
[14:13]But then you talk about the loss of your sister and how tragic that was.
[14:17]And the impact of that on you and your family and the suit you had to wear.
[14:22]And the meals that showed up and the way you process the grief and your mother who live next door.
[14:27]Can you just talk about that a little bit?
[14:29]And I'm so sorry for your loss.
[14:32]Who has wanted to talk about?
[14:34]So one of the things that sort of pushed me into this book was that my sister died just.
[14:41]I love this.
[14:42]Eight years ago now, almost ten years ago now.
[14:44]Of Christmas Eve.
[14:45]She and then who were like me.
[14:47]And had not really paid attention to her health very much.
[14:51]She had a stronger life that got infected and didn't get up to that.
[14:56]And she died.
[14:57]And we went to her funeral.
[15:00]And I wore like the one suit that I owned basically.
[15:05]And as I was supposed to see her in the family section.
[15:09]And it turned around to look to solve these people alone all my life.
[15:13]And I thought, you know, if I don't get healthier, they're going to be back soon for me.
[15:18]And so that's what sort of pushed me to sort of not just write this book,
[15:23]but to go on a path to be out there.
[15:25]I'm much, I mean, much better shape now that I was in the telling of this book.
[15:31]I lost probably a lot of 100 pounds.
[15:33]And all the health markers are much better.
[15:38]I can't get on the damn line.
[15:41]Monjaro or whatever.
[15:42]Because I don't qualify.
[15:44]I'm like, you know what?
[15:45]Die better.
[15:46]Or pre-died better.
[15:47]You got not.
[15:48]My doctor said, you're too healthy to get on this damn babysitter.
[15:51]And so there's big blessings there.
[15:54]But that sort of pushed me in many ways.
[15:59]Because I didn't want to be a burden.
[16:01]I don't want to be a burden on my family.
[16:03]You know, my wife has put up on me for 25 years.
[16:07]She's dependent on me in lots of ways.
[16:10]It's a lot of depend on her.
[16:12]And I don't want her to feel like she gets left behind.
[16:16]Because I didn't take care of myself.
[16:18]And so all those things sort of play into if you're a babysitter.
[16:23]And you sort of get lots of other problems.
[16:25]All those things sort of like play in your head on a loop.
[16:29]And you know, though, you mentioned the funeral food
[16:32]and especially in the South of true everywhere.
[16:35]But somebody knows what they do.
[16:36]They bring food.
[16:37]And so there's like this giant parade of like, you know,
[16:41]fried stuff.
[16:42]I mean, into that.
[16:43]That's a very moment that I needed the least.
[16:46]So those kind of things.
[16:49]And just sort of my upbringing.
[16:51]I think one big thing that, you know, people,
[16:55]I try to think about like, why did I get this okay?
[16:58]Because nobody was like, it's my generation.
[17:01]And there's several people in my generation who are amazing.
[17:05]My family was very hard to do a better job.
[17:08]Only I was in my generation.
[17:10]They worked very hard so that I wouldn't have to.
[17:13]But we ate the same food.
[17:15]And that was fuel for them.
[17:18]When they had to go out and like, you know, work at the seafood
[17:21]land all day.
[17:22]But for me, going to a desk job, it just landed on me
[17:26]differently.
[17:27]And that's been a huge reason I think for obesity in America
[17:31]is that most of us now do sedentary jobs.
[17:34]And we eat the same meals that we ate when people weren't working in factories.
[17:39]Also, I think the way they make the way they make food today is even less healthy
[17:44]with all the chemicals and all of that too.
[17:46]The way that you talk about your parents and the things that have happened to them
[17:51]all they've sacrificed their hard work.
[17:53]You talk about when your dad has a stroke or your mom had a stroke.
[17:59]Somebody had your mom had an accident at the CTAC factory and damaged all the nerves
[18:05]in her neck and shoulders.
[18:07]And then your dad got sick and couldn't work.
[18:10]And then she had to go back to being a waitress at Denny's carrying trays
[18:14]on the shoulder that was injured for 16 years.
[18:18]Talk about that.
[18:19]And what does that do for you?
[18:21]How do you carry that and then go out into the day and write an article
[18:25]or profile a celebrity, keeping all that?
[18:28]Well, for one day, I've never had any issues with it.
[18:31]What I do is hard.
[18:32]You know, there are difficulties to it.
[18:35]And there are days when I feel like I'm struggling.
[18:38]But I've never worked a day of my life that was hard as a normal day
[18:43]and my mom's dad worked.
[18:45]And so, you know, I mentioned a little bit the other day about I think we're not very educated,
[18:51]but very smart.
[18:52]I think it really hurts.
[18:53]In fact, that's, I think, the key or why I do what I do is that my dad read his two secret texts
[19:01]which were the Bible and the best for a shop's catalog.
[19:06]And my mom, to flower the little paperback romance novels,
[19:11]she would go to the used bookstore and literally buy like a box bowl.
[19:16]Take them home, read them all.
[19:18]Fill up the box, take the box back and fill up another box.
[19:21]You know, this would have been like six times a year at her house.
[19:24]And so they were a relations reader and also a big readers of the newspaper.
[19:29]And so that's, I think, why would you have a journalist?
[19:32]Because I saw how much it meant to them to read and to keep up with the world.
[19:36]That way, even though they didn't have much of an education,
[19:40]they could understand the world through the newspaper.
[19:43]And so, they were great role models today.
[19:47]They, I think, struggled vitally with trying to figure out why I was fanning they weren't.
[19:55]Because we were all eating the same thing.
[19:57]My mom told me much later that she might dance.
[20:00]Soon, bad at night, we'll talk about it and try to figure out what they could do.
[20:04]And back then, you know, there weren't many good plans I remember going to some
[20:09]die talking around, I was like, 12, and before I was lucky, the only game, you're like,
[20:14]if that means, you know, like, very, very colored pills that made me feel great,
[20:19]I could play basketball today, but it didn't really affect my appetite when we were the other.
[20:24]And so, there's just been, I think, until these, it's like, the last group of weight loss
[20:30]drugs, it seems to me, pretty amazing. As the Americas, we just haven't had a really good way to tackle
[20:36]this problem, because it goes far beyond just whip out. Right? There's so much chemistry,
[20:42]and genetics, and not only that, the answer is, it's like, the way they make food now and
[20:48]the way that food gets advertised, and all those sorts of things. They just make it very,
[20:52]very difficult for people who have this problem. And so, I think people who don't have it often
[20:59]really, especially if you're a friend or a family member, to some really struggle without a like,
[21:04]bridge that gap. Yeah. You wrote in the book that people who don't get it, you know,
[21:12]feel like it's, it's in your control. It's a laziness factor. It's something wrong with you,
[21:18]and then you have to carry that sort of shame around with you when you're already struggling.
[21:22]So, how do you reconcile those two? Well, I first of all, I don't put it all on
[21:29]outside forces. I've made a lot of really more decisions in my life when it comes to food. But,
[21:37]you know, I think at some point, no matter what your addiction is, everybody's got something,
[21:43]writing whether it's, you know, something mild or something that's like destroying,
[21:49]everybody's getting some little advice that they indulge in. And I think one key to getting over
[21:56]the top of it is to give yourself a little grace and to understand that it's not,
[22:02]it's like that seeing a good one. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault.
[22:07]Well, I do believe that anybody who has some wrong with addiction like this,
[22:14]part of it is their fault, it's not fragile. And you have to address that as well.
[22:19]But I think you also have to realize that it's part of a much bigger picture,
[22:24]much of which is not your control. And to give yourself the grace to say, I'm going to tackle this,
[22:32]not the cause, I'm a bad person, one of them, a good person. But because I'm a good person,
[22:37]I just want to be healthy in this way. That I think is a, a switch that a lot of people find
[22:43]very hard to flip. But when you do it, it kind of leads you out of the nothing. And the vulnerability
[22:51]in this book is just so impressive, raw, open, wonderful, but also paired with fabulous writing.
[22:59]And as you told us yesterday, you endeavor to write in a way that is accessible to everyone,
[23:04]which comes across because it just feels like the most immersive story that anyone
[23:08]ever told you. How did it feel with it coming out? And how has the reception been? And has,
[23:14]has there been any blowback in any way? Like, are you glad you did it?
[23:19]I'm extremely glad. First of all, I'm extremely glad that it. First of all,
[23:24]it was a story that I just had a bottle of inside me for a long time just to get it out.
[23:29]It felt better. It's like a giant couch or something, you know?
[23:32]And there were, there were things, you really asked her, there were things I had not talked to my
[23:40]wife about, not talked to anybody about. And part of the process of the book was,
[23:45]as I was writing these things before, it, you know, you can turn it in. I had conversation with
[23:50]my wife and family members about all this stuff. And that was not just enlightening, but
[23:57]really made our relationship stronger, I think. So that was sort of a great qualification. Once
[24:03]it came out, I was, I wasn't happy. I was so gratified in the reception. The only downside
[24:12]at all is very, very bad. It's like I had lots of people emailing me every day to tell me about
[24:17]their new type, man. You know, that's whatever. Whatever's odd at the time, like when this came
[24:23]out like fasting was a really big thing. It's why I had like 100 people a day emailing me, well,
[24:28]if you had just done this, you know, you'd be fine. And, you know, people aren't mostly coming at
[24:35]this come on up and going like that, right? And so I took it that way. That was just a small
[24:43]portion of it. The vast majority of the feedback I've got was just seeing a lot of the stories
[24:50]asked about this folks who have five years, I still get emails about every single day,
[24:55]from people who saw their story in my story. And what really interesting to me about it
[25:01]are the things that's continuing to me is that it's not just people who are meetings,
[25:07]like I get a letter in the mail like an actual poster letter from a guy in Austria.
[25:17]I don't know how the hell you found my book is posturing up, but he did. And he wrote me
[25:22]about this student page letter about how much you enjoyed the book and how much it turned me on,
[25:26]like page eight. He said, by the way, I'm, you know, I'm personally healthy. I've got to be
[25:32]said all, but it's not a depression. And depression has made me the same symptoms being things
[25:39]and causes. It's just man in a different way. And I find that's true for
[25:44]most sort of a dignity of sense of behavior is that there's so much in common between
[25:51]how the holidays and public handlers, who these people know that sort of thing. So I think a lot of
[25:57]people have found something meaningful in my story, even if it's not their particular details,
[26:05]and that to me is just the best thing you can have.
[26:09]Well, in addition to being so open, the way you write and the way you use details,
[26:14]we were just talking about this and Kelly McMaster is writing workshop yesterday,
[26:17]even the details of how you go into a diner and have to scope out the seats and is there
[26:23]enough room in that bankhead and how you looked at the floor plan ahead of time and how some
[26:28]chairs are too creaky and how navigating even just the simple act of sitting down is such a massive
[26:34]challenge. I mean, you put us in your head and it is so, it's just amazing. It's just you're
[26:39]such a brilliant writer. And anyway, it's amazing. What advice do you have for aspiring authors?
[26:46]Well, I think first of all, you have to author something. I see a lot of aspiring authors who
[26:57]seem to have great ideas and I'm like, so how much have you written? And I'm like, well,
[27:01]I haven't really put anything on the page yet. You're not a writer too, but it's a amount of
[27:06]page. And even if it's like the crappiest crap imaginable, I really interview with your
[27:13]people years ago with the guy who writes for the sentence. There were many of their
[27:18]most famous episodes. And his process is, he says, I pretend that there's this crappie little
[27:24]elf who comes in, well, I'm not looking at writes the first draft of my story. And this
[27:31]crappie little F has no idea how we're right. He just puts in like Homer says something funny
[27:37]and they move to a new play. It's just like the worst thing to mention, right? And the crappie
[27:43]little F tips has had and goes to bed. So the next morning, the writer, the entire writer gets
[27:48]out and sees what the crappie little F is not. And says, well, this is terrible. But I can
[27:54]work with this, right? It's a start. And the biggest leap in any creative endeavor is from nothing
[28:02]to someone. And so if you're still at the point where you have nothing, you gotta do something.
[28:10]And I promise you that once you have something on the page, it gets better from there. That blank
[28:16]page just kills more writing careers than anything I can think of. So once you get started,
[28:23]once you get something going, you'll find that thing that the revising part for me anyway,
[28:28]just the fun. Is that first getting out that first sort of crappie draft of whatever it is that
[28:36]is the hard part of what you get that done, the rest is relatively easy. And so just others.
[28:45]I used to say I was a non-practicing writer. Like, why do lawyers get to say that?
[28:51]Right? Like, sometimes things get in the way. Anyway, Tommy, thank you so much for coming on.
[28:55]This was amazing. Thank you. Congratulations. The elephant in the room, five years strong,
[28:59]dog land, just coming out. Congratulations. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you.
[29:08]Thanks for listening to momstone have time to read books. If you love it, please leave a review.
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