Marian Schembari, A LITTLE LESS BROKEN: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole
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[0:42]Marianne Shambari is the author of a little less broken, how an autism diagnosis finally made me whole.
[0:48]Marianne is a writer whose essays about travel, friendship, money, and love have appeared in the New York Times, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, and Goodhousekeeping.
[0:57]At 34 years old, Marianne was diagnosed with autism, which she chronicled on the lifestyle site Cup of Joe.
[1:03]She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and daughter.
[1:06]Welcome, Marianne. Thank you so much for coming.
[1:08]And mom, I'm starting to have time to read books to discuss a little less broken, how an autism diagnosis finally made me whole.
[1:14]Thank you.
[1:15]I'm so excited to be here, especially with you. I'm just such a super fan, so this is great for you.
[1:19]You are.
[1:20]Yeah.
[1:21]Well, your book was so good. I mean, so good.
[1:25]The way you tell both, you basically share with the reader all this information about autism, but that's not even the point.
[1:33]But at the same time, you're educating us and giving us your whole story.
[1:37]It's like, I learned, I learned terms that I didn't even know, like, spoons, like spoons and whatever.
[1:43]I think it's so brilliant by the way. I want to talk about that because we're going to use it all the time now.
[1:47]I totally am, but also just the heartbreak of growing up and not understanding and misdiagnate.
[1:54]Anyway, it had all the good things.
[1:56]I'm so glad you did a great job.
[1:58]It's a really great job.
[1:59]Thank you.
[1:59]So maybe I should back up. So for people who don't know what we're talking about, yeah, give a little glimpse into the book and when you decided to make it a book and sort of the trajectory of your experience.
[2:12]I feel like you actually already did an amazing job.
[2:14]Okay, great.
[2:15]It's about my autism diagnosis. I was diagnosed autistic at 34 and I had absolutely no intention about writing about writing about it at all.
[2:24]I'm very private and personal, but then I did because when you're a writer, how can you not?
[2:29]And so I wrote like a very short essay about it for like this lifestyle website of all places.
[2:34]And the comments just like blew up.
[2:36]It was like their most popular website of the month and the comments were from a lot of autistic people who'd been diagnosed late in life.
[2:43]But they were also from people who were diagnosed with ADHD or sensory processing disorder or OCD or endometriosis, right?
[2:50]Just like all these women being like, yeah, when I got a name for the thing that I thought was broken about me, it completely unlocked my whole life, right?
[3:01]And through those comments, I really felt like there were so much more to the story not just about me and you know, like my little diagnosis.
[3:09]Just about the ways that women and girls in general are like all marginalized genders are so we all kind of wear these masks, right?
[3:18]It's just like term in the autism community called masking and it's especially important for women and girls where we, you know, go through our whole lives pretending to be something that we're not.
[3:28]That in particular for autistic people, it feels really relevant to women just in general.
[3:35]So it felt it's both so basically that's my very long answer to it is the story of my autism diagnosis.
[3:41]It looks through the lens of my childhood and my first boyfriend and my college roommate and my employment history.
[3:48]And it also kind of layers this, how are women getting missed, why do we only care about autistic boys and is it bigger than just autism is it also all, you know, neurodivergence.
[3:59]So yeah, that's kind of it in a nutshell.
[4:01]Yeah, pretty much.
[4:03]There were so many parts of this that that broke my heart and then put it back together again.
[4:08]So you start the whole book from hiding in a closet while girls make fun of you and you are writing down the insults and being like,
[4:15]did I get that right? Let me write this down, which of course like breaks your heart as as me breaks.
[4:20]It feels like you're talking about somebody else truly like it breaks my heart to hear you say that.
[4:25]I'm like, oh, that poor girl, right? That poor girl. Should we do a little reparenting today, Marion.
[4:30]That's gonna be great. Thank you. I have literally I have that notebook in my bookshelf right now. It's really depressing. It's so sad.
[4:38]But then you go through all of this and then you get to a point where you finally meet people who get you more like your roommate in college and yet you're still relying on these external markers like all the things.
[4:55]I feel like this is like the sadness of the notebooks could be your subtitle, right?
[4:59]Then like you have her diary and you're, you know, like having to think through what are the things that annoy her about you and like, oh, right this. Oh, right that.
[5:07]And like trying to be so intentional, but then you get to like the blackboard and you come out of the notebook and writing on the blackboard with your husband now it's like freeing and you're like,
[5:18]you made me sound like I did all of that on purpose and I did not, but that is such an interesting through line that you identified. Wow. Right.
[5:26]Thanks.
[5:28]Well, it's, you know, as I said, you do this great arc of the story. How when you're looking back, do you feel about, I mean, I know you said like sadness for this little girl, but when you were writing the book and looking back on all the times, like were there times that made you tear up.
[5:48]Thinking back were there times where you're just like, I mean, I know there must have been like, I wish this had been different or I wish I had just known.
[5:56]It's so funny because I actually don't and I think that's part of the tricky piece about writing memoir is you are yourself as a character. Right.
[6:06]Like you have to be and I think I even just hearing you say that it felt like who was that girl like who it feels totally different from me now as like an adult who has this knowledge.
[6:21]So like, absolutely, I wish that I had known I was autistic when I was nine right that would have made things so much easier for myself for my parents who like loved me and didn't understand me.
[6:32]My relationship with my parents is completely different than what it was three years ago before my diagnosis. So absolutely, I wish things were different.
[6:41]And I mean, it's so cheesy to say, but obviously like I wouldn't be the person I am without that and I think that.
[6:48]I don't know. I just I feel a distance and an empathy for like the Marion back then and it allows me I think to be gentler with myself now as an adult knowing that I cannot change who I am and I am going to have the reactions and the behaviors that I'm always going to have.
[7:04]There's no changing that.
[7:05]So yeah, I kind of I've had to read through the book like 12 billion times and at this point it feels like it's written by somebody else even like the diary thing that you mentioned to like for context.
[7:16]There's like a chapter where I read my best friend slash college roommates diary in college and it's like my deepest darkest secret is it is the thing that I didn't even tell my therapist until like last year when I was like, Oh, I'm going to write about this in a book.
[7:30]So I'm just getting on TikTok left a review of the book and like lovely review and she mentions oh and Marion read her roommates diary and I was like, that's right.
[7:39]But like, I just the idea that like other people are going to be consuming this has not quite hit me yet.
[7:45]So like, ask me this in a month when the books actually out.
[7:48]The fact that people are talking about it on TikTok is a very good thing.
[7:51]I guess, but I'm like, but that's none of your business.
[7:55]That's why I'm not on TikTok.
[7:58]You also had something really interesting because you traveled abroad and lived abroad and went to New Zealand and that now I'm never going to go because I don't like bugs either.
[8:07]Oh my god.
[8:09]That sounded like not so good.
[8:11]But one thing you said in passing was how a lot of autistic people and this happened to you feel much more comfortable in another culture because you're not the only outsider.
[8:20]Like you're just different because you are from somewhere else.
[8:23]Like tell me more about that.
[8:25]Honestly, that was the most interesting thing that I learned through this whole book because while I was writing it there were so many stories where I felt like, oh, I have to write about being locked in the closet and fourth grade and I have to write about the diary and I have to write about meeting my husband like there's all these different points that felt really important to tell.
[8:42]But I could not navigate this or at least I couldn't marry this idea of being a highly like over easily over stimulated person with the person who lived abroad for essentially a decade.
[8:59]How could I do that? How could I completely fall apart in college where I'm like almost failing out of school to like traipsing around New Zealand with like me and like 60 strangers.
[9:11]And so I had this gap in the book. I had this many year gap where I was like, okay, I'm just not going to write about this because it doesn't fit with this narrative.
[9:19]And that's when I asked Sarah Hendrix, who's this like amazing brilliant autistic activist in the UK. She's written like a billion books. I love her.
[9:27]And so I called her and I asked her I was like, I cannot marry these two things and she's like, Marion, like I am autistic and I live in France, but I'm not French.
[9:35]I'm not autistic. I'm just foreign. And that that phrase I'm just foreign. Just like hit me like a ton of bricks like oh like no wonder I had spent all this time living abroad.
[9:47]I couldn't stay in one place. I kept having to make new friends because I'm terrible at making friends and socializing. So like of course every six months I wanted to reinvent myself and live in this new country because in New Zealand.
[10:00]And I wasn't harsh or moody or over sensitive
[10:03]or all the different terrible names that I'd called myself,
[10:06]I was just an American and that's okay.
[10:08]So my weirdness was like easily brushed off
[10:11]by being a foreign person.
[10:12]And now that I know that the more autistic people
[10:14]I talk to are like, oh yeah, I lived abroad
[10:16]for like a decade or two decades,
[10:17]or I still live abroad now,
[10:19]because all of my like quote unquote bad habits
[10:22]are brushed off as being like,
[10:23]oh, she's just not from this place.
[10:25]And that's why she's weird.
[10:27]And then you wonder why they think
[10:28]Americans are a certain way.
[10:30]Yeah, I'm just kidding, I'm totally kidding.
[10:35]And that's not even what people think about Americans.
[10:37]They think, you know, we're, I don't know,
[10:39]input your own whatever stereotypes of us,
[10:42]American folk, you know,
[10:43]traipsing all over Europe, it's so funny.
[10:45]When you met your husband,
[10:46]you had this heartbreaking moment again in the bathroom
[10:49]where you were gonna have to have eye contact with him.
[10:53]And you were like, I can't do that,
[10:55]eye contact is the hardest.
[10:56]Which by the way, you're doing now,
[10:57]which is like, you know,
[10:58]I'm actually looking at your,
[11:00]this is like fun fact video calls.
[11:02]I hate video calls number one, but number two,
[11:04]it's an easily fixable thing,
[11:06]because it looks like I'm looking at you,
[11:08]but I'm not actually I'm looking at a screen.
[11:10]It's just a different vibe.
[11:11]Also, I look at people's ears a lot.
[11:14]That's like my pro tick earrings, ears,
[11:18]tip of nose, interesting.
[11:20]Fun fact, you like my earrings.
[11:21]I do like earrings.
[11:23]I noticed them on me daily.
[11:24]I was like great hoops.
[11:25]Thank you.
[11:27]They're just lines.
[11:27]I can't tell.
[11:28]They're actually weird.
[11:29]They're like, see like feathers.
[11:31]They're like, like, likes or something.
[11:35]Like I was, I was influenced
[11:36]like a Pinterest ad.
[11:38]Yeah, they're cool.
[11:39]I really liked them.
[11:40]Okay. What was they say?
[11:41]Husband has been eye contact.
[11:43]And you're in the bathroom.
[11:44]And you were like, I don't think I can do this.
[11:46]You had already moved in.
[11:47]You were totally in love.
[11:48]And you were like,
[11:50]once you see the real me,
[11:51]you're not gonna love me anymore.
[11:52]And he was like, no, I am.
[11:54]And I'm here.
[11:55]And that was amazing.
[11:56]But like, take me back to that moment.
[11:59]Do you feel like writing about that?
[12:00]Like break your heart?
[12:02]It's so funny because now my husband is like my biggest,
[12:08]it's hard to think of him.
[12:09]I love him so much.
[12:10]She's the best.
[12:11]He's kind of like my caretaker a little bit.
[12:13]And that sounds like a weird thing to say.
[12:15]And sometimes I worry that he has to take care of me
[12:17]more than I take care of him.
[12:19]But looking back on, you know, me at 26,
[12:24]not ever really having any sort of like
[12:26]authentic relationship because it was trying to be somebody else.
[12:30]And the first six months that Ellie and I were together,
[12:33]I did all the things I went to him.
[12:35]I went with him to a concert.
[12:36]And we'd like go running through San Francisco.
[12:39]And we'd like go out for drinks at night.
[12:40]And like I'm fucking miserable
[12:41]because I hate all those things.
[12:43]But I thought I needed to be like this cool girl.
[12:45]And so when he kept saying, well,
[12:47]I love you and I'm not gonna leave.
[12:48]And like it's okay.
[12:49]Like we don't have to do X, Y, or Z.
[12:51]I'd be like, yeah, but you don't really know the real me.
[12:53]So I think I got very lucky because I think Mary,
[12:57]we got married before I knew I was autistic.
[12:59]We got married before I'd ever like fully revealed
[13:01]myself to him, I think.
[13:04]And so it could have gone very badly,
[13:05]but it didn't somehow.
[13:06]And he's only become at this point like even just,
[13:09]I had this in the book, but I took it out
[13:10]because I was getting too long.
[13:11]But like a couple of years ago,
[13:13]we were at our daughters like kindergarten like meet
[13:16]the teachers and meet other kids at the playground.
[13:18]And so we did that.
[13:19]And it was so overwhelming.
[13:21]It was just like too many kids screaming,
[13:23]too many things I'm supposed to do.
[13:24]And I just had this shut down.
[13:26]And so we get home and we're having lunch
[13:28]and my parents are there and I'm having to force through
[13:30]and socialize and all these different things.
[13:32]And he just like looks at me and he's like,
[13:33]go upstairs.
[13:35]And that like little, like,
[13:36]he is constantly giving me permission
[13:39]to like do the thing that I know I already need to do.
[13:42]And I don't know, it could have gone
[13:44]in a terrible direction.
[13:45]And so I think that makes me sadder than
[13:47]like looking back on that because it turned out so well.
[13:51]He is so like, do you need me to lay on top of you?
[13:53]Do you need like your whatever stimulation?
[13:55]Do you need me to get you something?
[13:56]Do you need quiet?
[13:57]Let me take our daughter out for that.
[13:58]You know, like he's just,
[14:00]wow, he's the best.
[14:01]Mentioned.
[14:02]I know.
[14:04]By the way, the, I feel the same way
[14:06]about the kindergarten meet the parents, whatever.
[14:10]It's terrible.
[14:11]Yeah, it's a lot.
[14:12]A lot of the school events I find to be a lot
[14:14]and trying to, you know, I love,
[14:17]I mean, I really like everybody one on one,
[14:19]but it's a lot in a group.
[14:20]It's just, and for like kids who are trying,
[14:23]I mean, I could go off on a whole tangent about this,
[14:24]but truly like back to school night,
[14:26]that my daughter's school is my worst nightmare.
[14:29]And every year I'm trying,
[14:30]okay, I put my earplugs in, I put sunglasses on,
[14:33]so I don't have to deal with eye contact or bright lights.
[14:35]We'll go exactly when our teacher meeting is or whatever,
[14:38]but like it doesn't matter.
[14:39]It's whatever 300 people in that,
[14:42]that like, echo we school hallway, screaming,
[14:45]all these different activities.
[14:47]And I'm like, I can't meet the teacher like this.
[14:49]Like, I can't hear what she's saying.
[14:51]And my daughter gets so disappointed now that I can't go.
[14:53]And it's just, it's stupid.
[14:55]And I wish we would, I wish schools
[14:56]were a little bit more sensory friendly.
[14:58]Interesting.
[14:59]Actually, I feel like your depiction
[15:01]of sort of over sensory stimulation
[15:04]was better than any I have read
[15:07]because you were talking even about rushing your hair.
[15:09]And I've read a lot about autism for various,
[15:12]whatever, I'm very interested.
[15:13]And, you know, I've heard other descriptions,
[15:15]but the way, and I wonder, I think I dug here
[15:18]at this page, the way you had described,
[15:20]even just, we'll describe it now.
[15:23]Put it here on the screen.
[15:25]Well, you were saying like, you know,
[15:26]you have the stickiness of the hair product
[15:28]and you have the sound
[15:29]and then you have the brushing of the hair
[15:31]against your shoulders and like, you know,
[15:33]don't get you started on clothes, right?
[15:35]It's just like all the things.
[15:36]Like, if we could all imagine that like,
[15:39]every hair follicle was speaking to us,
[15:42]like how that would drive us all mad
[15:44]and realize that like, that is what's going on here.
[15:47]I feel like people would have a lot more understanding, right?
[15:50]It's like, yeah.
[15:52]I just don't understand how people can go through life
[15:56]doing the things that we're all expected to do
[16:00]like every day.
[16:01]And like if I'm going to like take this interview,
[16:04]I wanted to look nice and we were gonna be on camera.
[16:07]So I had to like do all these things.
[16:09]I'm sorry.
[16:10]No, no, no, I'm so thrilled to do it.
[16:13]And I feel cute and I'll go out and do something
[16:15]in the world today.
[16:16]Well, actually, I probably, that's sorry.
[16:17]That's just a lie.
[16:18]I'm not going to because it took a lot of like,
[16:21]it took a lot of like sensory like sensation
[16:24]of washing my face, hate washing my face
[16:26]because it's the water and then it goes down your arms.
[16:29]And it just feels like I can't,
[16:32]I don't even know how to explain it.
[16:33]I feel like I did a better job in the book,
[16:34]but those things washing your face
[16:37]so that stuff is going down your arms
[16:38]or putting like acne medication or makeup.
[16:40]And then your face has like this,
[16:42]this like viscous kind of texture
[16:45]that's always on it or cutting your hair,
[16:48]blow drying your hair.
[16:49]I have curly hair.
[16:50]So when I brush it,
[16:51]which I know I'm not supposed to do about whatever,
[16:52]when I brush it, it feels like all these liberal needles,
[16:55]like each hair follicle is a needle
[16:57]that's been like tapped into my head
[16:59]and then it's being like dragged down my scalp.
[17:02]And that's just like one thing, right?
[17:04]So to do all those things before a speaking engagement
[17:07]or an event or back to school night or whatever,
[17:10]means that then that thing is all I can do that day.
[17:15]Like after this, I will wash my face
[17:18]and it's gonna be fucking terrible
[17:20]to like get all this shit off my face.
[17:22]And then I'm just gonna like lie down
[17:24]and not talk to anybody in like a dark room
[17:25]for the rest of the day.
[17:27]And I just don't understand how people can do this
[17:29]and then go out and like go to work
[17:32]or teach in front of, you know, 30 students.
[17:35]And obviously I know these people
[17:36]are not necessarily neurodivergent,
[17:38]which is part of it and why I wrote a book,
[17:41]but I also just feel like I do continue
[17:45]to do these things because it's like expected of me,
[17:49]like as a woman, right?
[17:50]Like I've had so many conversations with people
[17:52]about this lately that like,
[17:54]if I were to show up to something like this
[17:57]with like my shitty, like my messy bun falling over
[17:59]and like no makeup and wearing like my old ratty t-shirt,
[18:03]people are not gonna take me seriously.
[18:05]My husband could do it.
[18:06]My husband could show up to something like this
[18:08]in his normal clothes,
[18:09]but like it's harder for a woman to do that
[18:11]without being judged or being deemed unprofessional.
[18:14]So this is all these like gendered layers on top of that
[18:16]is like the things that I find sensory like nightmares
[18:22]are expected of me.
[18:23]And I have to choose whether to continue
[18:26]to participate in these things
[18:27]while being like physically uncomfortable
[18:29]or say fuck it and be my authentic self,
[18:35]but like it's hard.
[18:36]It's not black or white
[18:37]and sometimes they make different choices on different days
[18:39]depending on my capacity, but the sensory stuff is hard.
[18:42]It's like it's hard to be in a very noisy world,
[18:45]but part of this whole thing is that well now I know, right?
[18:48]Now I can actively make those choices
[18:50]without feeling like there's something wrong with me
[18:53]or I can create a life for myself
[18:55]and to be fair, there's like a lot of privilege here
[18:58]and like, you know, I've gotten very lucky,
[18:59]but like I can have my own office space that is quiet
[19:03]and is surrounded by trees
[19:05]and I have a job where I can work from home
[19:07]so I don't have to be in an office
[19:08]and I chose to only have one child
[19:11]because children are sensory leeches.
[19:14]So, you know, I've also made a lot of choices
[19:16]to try to mitigate that as much as possible.
[19:20]Interesting.
[19:21]Well, I mean, how many people do you think are undiagnosed?
[19:26]Like what person is that like millions?
[19:29]Yeah, millions probably.
[19:31]I think it's so hard to say,
[19:34]oh, it's so complicated and it's so hard to say,
[19:36]but I can't remember the exact number.
[19:38]It's like, I think it's like one in 36 right now,
[19:41]it's autistic and that's up from like one in 40
[19:44]a couple of years ago.
[19:46]And I would say this is based on no science at all.
[19:50]Yeah, that's fine.
[19:51]I feel like a quarter of people are neurodivergent
[19:54]in some way, most people I know
[19:57]and part of it is like I'm in a creative field
[19:59]and most of the people.
[20:00]Well, I know we're also kind of hermits in their house.
[20:03]I have ADHD or OCD or Autistic,
[20:06]or just identify with the term neurodivergent,
[20:09]regardless of an actual specific diagnosis.
[20:12]And there's a quote, it's in the book,
[20:14]and I don't have it handy,
[20:15]but Catherine May said something really beautiful.
[20:18]Oh my God, I'm obsessed with her.
[20:19]In her book, The Electricity of Every Living Thing
[20:22]about her autism diagnosis in her 40s, I think.
[20:26]She talks about how she might not have been so strange
[20:30]in a previous time.
[20:32]So part of what she finds overstimulating
[20:39]is the hot, loud sound of a hairdryer,
[20:44]kids screaming at like a local school,
[20:48]the constant pinging of her phone, right?
[20:50]The things that are like available to us
[20:52]in like our modern times might make us more obvious
[20:57]than we might have been centuries ago.
[21:00]Again, based on science, but I love that.
[21:03]I love the way she described that
[21:05]because when I think about my perfect life
[21:07]or the least aggressive life on my nervous system,
[21:12]it's a lot of like living in a hood,
[21:15]the woods and not talking to people,
[21:16]which might have been okay.
[21:17]It's just, it's not really now for me,
[21:19]but I don't know, it's another life.
[21:22]I noticed that you would quote it, Katherine May,
[21:24]and I hadn't read that book at first.
[21:25]I read Wintering and the next one that came out.
[21:29]The enchantment and chanted had her on my podcast.
[21:32]Anyway, she says I need to go back and read that book.
[21:35]It's very good.
[21:36]Her description of sensory stuff is unreal.
[21:39]So what can, and by the way,
[21:41]I should have addressed what you have to do
[21:43]to recover from this interview
[21:45]and I feel like very guilty about that.
[21:46]No, I'm so sorry, I'm so thrilled to be here.
[21:50]I would not have cared, and by the way,
[21:52]I have had men show up, disheveled,
[21:55]some one man came on, like having just woken up
[21:57]and was 20 minutes late and basically in his pajamas,
[22:00]and I noticed just FYI, like I'm not gonna not notice
[22:05]that about men, I feel like I'm so glad to hear that.
[22:09]No, you should not feel guilty at all.
[22:10]And one thing I really loved about my publishers
[22:13]is from the very first phone call with them.
[22:16]They said, what do you need on this phone call?
[22:18]Is it okay for multiple people
[22:19]to show up or would you prefer to do it one-on-one?
[22:21]Is Zoom okay or can we do phone?
[22:23]And ever since that first call,
[22:25]I have only done phone with my editor.
[22:27]Just, and they have always been so accommodating
[22:30]and they asked right before,
[22:32]because I'm about to go on like a six-city tour
[22:34]and TV interviews and like all the things.
[22:36]And they asked, do you wanna do this stuff or not?
[22:38]And the fact that they asked was amazing.
[22:40]And I want to, like I genuinely want to do this stuff
[22:44]and I do love talking to people
[22:47]and I do like feeling put together.
[22:50]And I know there's gonna be recovery time after that,
[22:54]but now I can make these informed decisions
[22:56]in a way that I couldn't three years ago.
[22:58]So it's not a bad thing at all
[23:00]and I'm thrilled to be here.
[23:02]What can people do?
[23:03]Because I'm sure a lot of people listening and out there
[23:06]know somebody who's autistic or neurodivergent in some way,
[23:10]love somebody or caring for someone or whatever.
[23:14]What do you need the most?
[23:15]Or what should people know
[23:16]who are not neurodivergent living in a world
[23:18]with neurodivergent people to make life better?
[23:21]Yeah, I think there are two things.
[23:24]Number one, if you're close to a person
[23:26]and even if you're not like flat ironed my publisher,
[23:29]they're literally just asked,
[23:30]what do you need on this call?
[23:31]Is this okay?
[23:32]And I actually didn't need anything in that moment
[23:34]but the fact that they asked,
[23:36]because at the time I'd been spoken to like
[23:38]a bunch of publishers and after they asked that,
[23:41]I was like that one.
[23:42]Like that's the, those are the people
[23:43]that I wanna work with
[23:44]because they were the only ones to be like,
[23:46]what do you need?
[23:48]So that's number one.
[23:49]Is there like, are you okay?
[23:50]Do you like, in the book?
[23:52]Not to like spoil anything,
[23:53]but there's a scene with my mother
[23:54]where she's like, are you having a meltdown?
[23:56]Do you believe?
[23:58]And I was like, yeah, I do.
[23:59]Thank you for asking.
[24:00]Cause it's hard to like constantly
[24:03]be giving yourself permission to ask for what you need,
[24:06]especially as a woman when we're constantly told
[24:08]not to be bossy or rude or bitchy or whatever.
[24:11]And so just being asked,
[24:13]do you need to leave, do you need this?
[24:14]Do you need fewer people?
[24:16]So simple, very easy to give folks what they need.
[24:19]That's what that's number one.
[24:21]Number two, and this is like hard for people
[24:23]cause I think that they don't know that they do it.
[24:26]But one of the things that I,
[24:27]this is such a silly thing,
[24:29]but like in my 20s, I needed a lot of downtime.
[24:32]I needed a lot of quiet.
[24:34]I went to bed early and it was like a running joke
[24:36]in my friend, like of my friends at the time
[24:39]that I was a grandma and anytime we were out,
[24:41]I'd start to like shut down a little bit
[24:44]and get really serious and people thought
[24:45]that I didn't like them.
[24:46]And so they'd make fun of me.
[24:48]Be like, oh, Mary, and it's like,
[24:49]gotta go her bedtime again, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[24:51]And it's silly cause it's kids in their 20s
[24:53]like teasing each other.
[24:54]But like it messed with my head a lot.
[24:57]It made me feel like I wasn't any fun
[24:59]that I didn't deserve to have friends.
[25:01]It was part of that, the language that I used
[25:04]to talk about myself that I wasn't fun.
[25:06]And like teasing people for like just being who they are.
[25:09]I mean, it's, I sound like a kindergarten teacher.
[25:11]But like it, it makes a huge difference
[25:14]when people, I don't know.
[25:16]It's a hard, it's a hard thing to like tell people
[25:19]like, don't make fun of each other, it's so stupid.
[25:22]It's not stupid.
[25:24]It's so nice like now and again, I'm like older
[25:27]and my friends are like a lot more subdued
[25:29]than my friends in my 20s.
[25:31]But like I'll go out with two mom friends that I know
[25:34]and at like nine o'clock, I'll start to shut down.
[25:36]And instead of being like, oh, Mary needs her bedtime again,
[25:38]you're like, oh, like time for bed,
[25:41]like we'll see you tomorrow or whatever.
[25:42]And like that, just like that understanding,
[25:44]it feels like I'm being seen.
[25:46]And it feels like I'm still like a valuable member
[25:49]of this friend group.
[25:51]And we went out to an event a couple of weeks ago.
[25:53]It was like an overnight.
[25:54]And afterwards, they were like, you did really great.
[25:57]Like good job, I know that was really hard for you
[25:59]to like be in a room with all those people.
[26:01]You did great.
[26:02]Just like, oh, people being nice to me
[26:04]and like seeing me for who I am and not making me feel bad.
[26:07]Like truly it sucks to be teased
[26:10]about the same thing over and over and over again.
[26:13]And so like, I don't know, don't be a dickhead, I guess.
[26:18]You're gonna have to bleep so much of his fun.
[26:20]I'm not bleeping.
[26:21]I'm not gonna bleep.
[26:22]I'm not bleeping.
[26:23]This is great, this is great.
[26:26]So in addition to learning all of this about yourself
[26:29]and sharing it, you have accomplished writing this memoir,
[26:33]which in and of itself is a huge accomplishment.
[26:36]So what advice do you have for aspiring authors?
[26:39]And what else about the process of writing,
[26:42]would you like to share?
[26:44]This is my favorite topic.
[26:45]I love listening to writers talking about writing,
[26:48]especially because I just want people
[26:50]to be like really specific
[26:52]instead of like talking generalities.
[26:54]I feel like a lot of your guess,
[26:56]Catherine Newman in particular,
[26:57]you had Catherine Newman on a few weeks ago.
[27:00]Oh, so good.
[27:01]And just like so specific about like,
[27:03]here are the things I struggled with
[27:04]and here's what comes easy for me.
[27:05]So anyway, my favorite topic,
[27:09]I feel like I cannot give advice
[27:11]because this fell in my lap,
[27:13]the book deal fell in my lap,
[27:14]my agent fell in my lap.
[27:15]I was not querying for like 10 years.
[27:17]I think I wrote and sold my book in four weeks.
[27:20]Sorry, not wrote the book.
[27:21]I wrote the proposal and sold the book in four weeks.
[27:24]No, took me a lot longer to write the book.
[27:26]So part of it is that I think this fell into my lap.
[27:29]So I don't know that side of publishing at all.
[27:32]And I really think being paid for your work
[27:36]before you do it is great.
[27:39]You know, like I think that we dismissed that a lot,
[27:41]that like, oh, I should have been able,
[27:43]this should have been my like deep passion
[27:46]and I should have woken up at five a.m. every day
[27:48]before my day job to write before my daughter wakes up
[27:50]and just hustle like that
[27:52]and then eventually you'll get it published.
[27:55]That just like wasn't how I was gonna do this.
[27:58]Like I think writing this book was my day job.
[28:02]I got paid to do it.
[28:03]And then I quit my regular day job so that I could do it.
[28:06]I could not have done this on top of parenting
[28:09]and on top of trying to earn money.
[28:10]So I just feel like there's this expectation
[28:15]that all writers need to be these like passionate artists
[28:18]and that's the only way to do it.
[28:19]But I really don't want to discount the like privilege
[28:22]that comes with getting paid before a book is written.
[28:25]Like, I don't know what else to say about that.
[28:27]But I do, I think because of that
[28:31]it definitely instilled some very good habits in me
[28:34]that I hope to take to the next book,
[28:37]which nobody is paying me to write.
[28:38]So what is that?
[28:40]Well, oh, the next book you mean?
[28:42]Oh, I'm writing about abortion.
[28:44]Oh, it's fun, but nobody's paid me to do it.
[28:46]But I have these habits now where I get to where I'm like,
[28:49]okay, well, like this is my job and I have a deadline.
[28:52]So every day I must sit down at my computer
[28:55]and I can't schedule a doctor's appointment for 9 a.m.
[28:57]because if I do that, my like energy
[29:00]and creativity and capacity has gone.
[29:01]So eight to around 12 is like my sacred,
[29:06]it's not really sacred.
[29:07]I just sit down and I turn off my phone
[29:08]and I write for four hours.
[29:10]And that's it.
[29:11]If I can do that, I can write a book.
[29:13]If I can outline and do the whole shitty first draft thing,
[29:16]I can write a book.
[29:17]So I learned a lot about my,
[29:19]the things that I need to write a book
[29:22]that were not out there from like other authors
[29:24]and their advice.
[29:25]And one of them was money.
[29:27]And the second one was a super strict day job style
[29:31]writing routine.
[29:32]And the third was I now know that I am a platter.
[29:35]Like I have to,
[29:36]I have to have it completely outlined.
[29:38]Writing the proposal was really, really valuable for me
[29:41]because I had to do the whole chapter outline.
[29:44]I had to outline what I was gonna do in every chapter.
[29:46]And I thought, I don't know why I thought this,
[29:49]but I thought that people just sat down
[29:51]and wrote an outline in a day
[29:52]where I got that like 24 hour thing from.
[29:56]But it took me a month.
[29:57]It took a month of sitting down
[29:58]and be like, this chapter's gonna...
[30:00]be about this and this chapter is going to be about this. And many chapters got deleted and having
[30:04]that outline allowed me to then, okay, I've got however many chapters, I've got 20 chapters.
[30:09]That's if I do a chapter a week, I can get a first draft done in six months or whatever,
[30:14]not doing math very well right now. But basically, that's just kind of how I did it.
[30:19]It was like with a lot of rigidity and a lot of structure. And like through that, there were still
[30:23]a lot of like creativity and going off in crazy directions and tangents. But like having that
[30:30]framework allowed me to be followed through on it. Whereas how many half finished books do I
[30:36]have sitting on my desktop that I never followed through on because I didn't have those
[30:40]things beforehand. Amazing. Marianne, thank you so much. I hope you do so much.
[30:46]Have a peaceful afternoon resting in the dark. I wish I could see that, but I am rushing to school
[30:52]pickup and then the passport agency and then after school and you know, whatever work.
[30:59]When you're like, how do these people do these things? Like, and I'm like, she wouldn't feel like
[31:04]my day, you know, this would not work for you. I know, including my life. And you just talking
[31:09]about it. I'm like deeply exhausted. Yeah, I'm sorry. I won't even hide. I won't even.
[31:13]Are you deeply exhausted? Like, do you feel like that? No. No. Are you neurotypical? Is that
[31:21]okay to ask? I think so. I don't know. I don't know. I think part of me does all these interviews
[31:25]because I'm like, well, maybe I'm this. Maybe I'm that. I don't know. I don't know what I am.
[31:28]I don't know what I am, but I found something I love and now I'm like Holland and you know,
[31:33]whatever. But yeah, if I go to the grocery store, I want to die. The grocery store. I can't.
[31:38]I'm a home and I die. I mean, I don't know. I think I've also well, anyway, our brains are different.
[31:44]I mean, our brains are different. But I have finally realized like, I don't think I'm like going
[31:49]out to dinner. This is not good news to my head. No. But I'm just like, I always want to leave.
[31:54]And as soon as I get there, I'm like, let's order and like, let's get out of here.
[31:58]I'm like, maybe I just don't like it. Maybe you just don't like it. And that's okay.
[32:03]Oh my God. I love that. I love that knowledge for you. Ridiculous.
[32:08]Not quite as groundbreaking as figuring out exactly who you are, but you know, we all do our stuff.
[32:14]Anyway, Marianne, thank you so much. And this was so fun. Thank you so
[32:17]fun. Thank you so much. I'm really rooting for you. I can't wait to give it up. I will see you.
[32:22]I will see you. I will see you. Okay. All right.
[32:27]Thanks for listening to moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. If you love it, please leave a review
[32:31]and follow us on social at City Owens and at City Readers.