Josie Balka, I HOPE YOU REMEMBER: Poems on Loving, Longing, and Living
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[0:44]Josie Balka is the author of I Hope You Remember, Poems on Loving, Longing, and Living.
[0:51]And by the way, this book hit The New York Times bestseller list, and it's first week
[0:56]out, and I am just so excited for Josie, this is so amazing.
[1:00]Josie Balka is a broadcaster, voice-over artist, and poet.
[1:03]She holds a diploma in radio television and film from Niagara College, and has worked for some
[1:08]of the largest media companies in North America as an on-air personality.
[1:12]She can often be caught recording viral poetry in her soundproof closet.
[1:16]She was born and raised in Toronto, and lives in Calgary, Canada.
[1:19]Welcome, Josie.
[1:20]Thanks so much for coming on totally booked.
[1:22]I'm so excited to be talking to you about, I hope you remember, congratulations.
[1:26]Oh my gosh, thank you so much.
[1:28]Thank you so much for having me.
[1:29]Oh, it's my pleasure.
[1:30]I loved watching you with your hard covers in the very room where I'm interviewing you
[1:34]now, holding them up and thanking all your fans, and it's just so exciting.
[1:40]It's contagious.
[1:41]There it is.
[1:42]I am so excited.
[1:45]Oh my gosh.
[1:46]I have to tell you personally that I read the arc of this during the LA Fire, so I came
[1:52]out, like the arcs came out last December or something, and it got me through the whole
[1:58]thing.
[1:59]Oh my gosh.
[2:00]That was the only answer.
[2:01]Thank you so much.
[2:02]That's so sweet.
[2:03]So now it will forever sort of be linked to the thing that helped me through the most.
[2:06]Wow.
[2:07]That's what I haven't, like speech as well about.
[2:10]Thank you so much for saying that and I can't believe what you guys went through over there.
[2:14]I was just watching all the news from here.
[2:16]I was in LA recently for the first time when you were bookstore, but I just can't believe
[2:21]that that happened.
[2:22]I can't be there.
[2:23]I was here when it happened.
[2:24]But anyway, whatever.
[2:25]But thank you.
[2:26]Okay, Josie, tell everybody what your book is about.
[2:28]Okay, and then we're going to dive into how you got this incredibly amazing voice of
[2:33]yours.
[2:34]Okay.
[2:35]My book is just kind of about, it's very emotional.
[2:38]I think I'm a very emotional person, so we decided to just break it into three chapters.
[2:42]I always get the order wrong longing, loving, longing, and running.
[2:46]Yeah.
[2:47]And just because it was kind of all my emotions are always all over the place, which is
[2:50]the way that it was, and originally I was like, we could have this scattered.
[2:54]And then it was like, okay, not everybody's brain is like, okay to go from this topic
[2:58]to this topic to this.
[2:59]So it's basically just like love, friendship, loss, love, situationships, toxic relationships,
[3:06]like body image issues, body image positivity, like everything kind of tied into one.
[3:11]It's like an all over the map of being alive kind of poetry book.
[3:14]Yeah, that's a good way to say it.
[3:17]It's so emotional.
[3:19]In fact, that I can just watch one of your videos on TikTok and cry.
[3:24]Like today I cried about the dog video as I sat next to my dog, like how all the
[3:30]dents and the floorboards are what you're going to miss the most.
[3:33]And I'm going to, I can't even talk about it.
[3:34]I'm going to cry.
[3:35]So dogs are like such an emotional point, our dogs getting older, like how old is your
[3:40]dog?
[3:41]10.
[3:42]Yeah, our most 11.
[3:43]Yeah.
[3:44]And we look at him and we're like, you're getting old, their hair gets gray, suddenly
[3:49]all these things like this scratched up hard one and that little like, I don't know,
[3:52]I just start thinking about all of them in like more of a nice way instead of a thing
[3:56]that you want to change.
[3:58]And I think that's kind of a theme of kind of the way that I like to write things when
[4:03]it comes to your pets or anything like your body or relationships to kind of twist it.
[4:07]Like start with a thing that is probably negative to you, but like turn it into something
[4:11]that could be positive.
[4:12]And then at the end you'll always tie it up with like some sort of life message, you know,
[4:16]like you're like the things that annoy you or the things you're going to miss the most.
[4:21]Because it applies to so many things, you know, it applies to my kids going up and like
[4:29]everybody has their things, right?
[4:30]And it just touches that nerve, you just you just like go in there and touch the nerve
[4:34]of everything.
[4:35]Oh, well, thanks.
[4:36]I, yeah, I like to look at things to this.
[4:39]I've heard somebody say this once and I feel like a lot of what I write now that I'm
[4:41]saying this a lot of never thought of this before, but like is from the perspective
[4:45]of you in 50 years, like looking back, being like, my God, put me back in the moment,
[4:51]you know, like I loved that body and that dog and that house and those kids at that age
[4:56]and, you know, just like everything that you have right now will be something that you
[4:59]look back and you want back in some form or some classity.
[5:03]And I think me being so scared to like get older and grow up and like move on with my
[5:10]life is part of the reason why I'm writing all this kind of stuff, but yeah.
[5:15]And you tell me more about, so when I read the book, I honestly not to embarrass myself,
[5:21]but I hadn't been following you.
[5:23]I didn't know of you.
[5:24]I just was like, oh, this looks like a good collection of poetry.
[5:27]And I didn't even realize that you were young, like I didn't know anything.
[5:33]So because your voice and your thoughts are so wise, like they're so full of soul and
[5:39]so wise that not that young people can't be wise and it's not like you're 12 or anything.
[5:44]Like, how did you get this way?
[5:46]Where did you come from?
[5:47]What is this?
[5:48]I feel like, I mean, I'm not that young, I'm, I'm my early 30s and 31, but like, I,
[5:55]I don't know.
[5:56]I think it's kind of happened over the last little while and it's kind of weird.
[6:00]I feel like I just fell into this place where I started to understand myself and understand
[6:05]the world a little bit better.
[6:06]I don't know if my friend to lull, like finish developing or something and then I would
[6:10]even see straight, but I remember I used to have this therapist and she's very spiritual.
[6:14]and she was called an open heart therapy and she would always talk about having like
[6:18]an open heart and I could not run my head around with them and I was just like, I don't
[6:24]get it.
[6:25]And she was like, just open up your heart and you'll see that like, you'll see everything
[6:28]in a different light and you'll be able to attract things and I was like, I don't understand
[6:32]what you're talking about.
[6:33]Like that makes no sense.
[6:34]And then there was literally one day where I was like, oh, an open heart.
[6:40]I feel it.
[6:41]Like it's there.
[6:42]And I don't know if it just like took time because I wasn't even really focusing on
[6:46]learning what it was, but I think at that point, it kind of opened me up to see things
[6:51]from a different perspective a little bit.
[6:54]How have you been seeing things before?
[6:56]Like, have you always been a poet?
[6:58]Like you consider yourself a poet because you don't know me.
[7:02]I consider myself a radio host.
[7:04]That's my main job.
[7:05]So I like, consider myself that mostly and then I guess this kind of, yeah, it's hard
[7:10]to put a title to it.
[7:11]Like it's hard to believe it.
[7:12]I have a bit of imposter syndrome, but I guess before I was pretty closed off and very
[7:17]negative.
[7:18]Like everything was happening to me instead of for me and like there was just no looking
[7:26]ahead and only looking back.
[7:28]And I guess that I do that a lot.
[7:30]Like I do a lot of past revisiting, but I do a lot of revisiting of the past still, but
[7:35]kind of in a way that I see that it was for a reason, you know.
[7:38]And I just read like this one excerpt from your, from loving at least, I mean, I could
[7:43]really be any page because they're all equally beautiful.
[7:46]But what did being loved by me feel like?
[7:49]What was it like for you during the time that I thought you hung the moon?
[7:52]What was it like to sit across from someone who thought you could do no wrong, even while
[7:56]you did the wrong things?
[7:58]Did you feel privileged while I felt pathetic?
[8:00]Did you feel important?
[8:01]Well, I felt insufficient.
[8:03]Did you feel loved while I felt lost?
[8:06]I don't ask because I hope it was awful.
[8:08]I ask because I hope it was worth it.
[8:10]I hope for you, the storm felt cozy.
[8:12]I hope my umbrella went to good use while I stood in the rain.
[8:16]I hope I made you feel good about yourself.
[8:18]And I hope you feel warm when I crossed your mind because it makes you think of a time
[8:21]when somebody loved every single thing about you because I did everything except the fact
[8:27]that you didn't love me back.
[8:30]Oh, it's very interesting to have never had somebody read me something I've written.
[8:36]I really ever read it on paper or read it out loud.
[8:40]So that was crazy experience.
[8:42]So thank you for having a whole open up a whole new world for me.
[8:46]But yeah, I forgot about that one to be honest and wow, I like it.
[8:52]Right?
[8:53]It's good.
[8:54]Thanks.
[8:55]Tell us the imposter syndrome aside.
[8:58]Honestly, I was like, well, you have such a nice reading voice, but yeah, that was a
[9:02]crazy experience.
[9:03]Thanks.
[9:04]Oh my gosh.
[9:05]It means totally freak you out, but that was great.
[9:10]When you wrote this, for example, how close was this to when you felt this way?
[9:15]Like, was it you were just thinking back on this time or was it something you wrote in
[9:19]the moment that you like pulled out of a drawer and you kept writing, how how close are
[9:24]we to this?
[9:25]You're like often all hear something or see something or drive past something or think
[9:31]of something that reminds me of a feeling that I felt.
[9:34]I wrote all of the poems in this book in the last couple of years while I've been in
[9:39]a relationship.
[9:40]I got engaged in November and I'm writing married in October.
[9:42]So I'm so excited.
[9:44]Congratulations.
[9:45]Thanks.
[9:46]And like, obviously these aren't about him because that would be a huge problem.
[9:49]But like there are some ones that are like about being in love and those are about him
[9:52]and like the feelings that I felt when I've been in love, but it's mostly just feelings
[9:55]that I remember.
[9:57]And I honestly think that not feeling that way anymore.
[10:00]or is the reason that I'm able to like sit down
[10:02]and put it into words because it's not happening.
[10:06]And there's just something that happens
[10:08]with these big emotions that you feel
[10:09]where they get so simple to you after they're over.
[10:13]And you can actually look back and be like,
[10:15]whoa, that was me doing everything
[10:16]and you doing nothing the whole time.
[10:18]And I see that now.
[10:20]Because in the moment, I really thought
[10:21]you were gonna wake up one morning
[10:23]and start treating me in the same way that I treat you.
[10:26]So it just obviously such a classic,
[10:29]I can say 20, 20, but I can look back
[10:31]and be like, oh, that's exactly what was happening.
[10:33]And I know how I felt.
[10:34]And now I can see clearly how you felt
[10:36]because you were showing me.
[10:38]And it just kind of makes it easier to write about.
[10:41]Can I read one more?
[10:42]Yeah, of course I was.
[10:43]Yeah, no, no.
[10:44]You wrote, one day the people who love you
[10:47]will receive the news of your passing.
[10:49]Their phone will ring and they will find
[10:51]that the most important person to them
[10:53]is not here anymore.
[10:54]This is not something that might happen.
[10:56]It is something that will happen.
[10:58]You will be a voicemail that people listen to again
[11:01]and again, just to hear your voice.
[11:03]You will be a picture in a frame
[11:04]that stops people in their tracks,
[11:06]breathless in the hallway.
[11:08]You will be the root cause of countless moments
[11:10]of insurmountable grief for the people who love you the most.
[11:14]And it is not later that you become like,
[11:16]I'm gonna cry.
[11:17]And it is not later that you become someone
[11:18]who would leave a hollow pit in the center
[11:20]of someone's world with your absence.
[11:22]No time is needed to make you into someone
[11:24]who has changed people's lives to a point
[11:27]where they question whether or not they could go on without you.
[11:30]It does not have to be 50 years down the line
[11:32]for the lack of you to be inconceivable
[11:34]because you are so important right now as you are.
[11:37]I know it's a twisted way to look at it.
[11:39]A destructive point of view for the sake
[11:40]of pointing out something positive.
[11:42]But the space you take up, no matter how big or small,
[11:45]is far too grand to ever be filled.
[11:48]It won't be.
[11:49]You belong here.
[11:50]There is nobody better for it than you.
[11:54]Well, thank you for reacting to it that way.
[11:57]I'm telling you, every film of yours, I start crying.
[12:00]It's like, it's so bad.
[12:02]And it made it so good, but, you know.
[12:05]I remember when I wrote that one
[12:07]because I was thinking about a friend who has lost a parent.
[12:09]And I, like, they've opened up to me on several occasions
[12:13]but like when they found out and like,
[12:15]I just was thinking about them one day
[12:17]and how awful that must have been.
[12:18]And you know, and how that's gonna happen.
[12:21]And like to either me or my parents
[12:24]cause like, you know, you never know which way
[12:25]it goes right with life, nothing guaranteed.
[12:28]And I was like, but what is guaranteed?
[12:30]Like it will happen.
[12:31]Like one day, I get a call, or you get a call
[12:36]that this has happened.
[12:37]And there's literally no way for it not to happen.
[12:40]And I just like kind of opened my brain up to be like,
[12:42]whoa, like, and I know it's so simple.
[12:45]Like we're all good as I one day,
[12:46]but you really do bury that in your mind.
[12:49]Like you worry about things from a day to day.
[12:51]Like you hope that your health is good.
[12:52]And this and that, but it's just this like inevitable thing.
[12:56]And I feel like, I don't know why,
[12:58]but there's one day there's just started to feel really real.
[12:59]And I was like, well, one day my like future children
[13:03]or whatever, like if I'm lucky and things go
[13:05]as they're supposed to go and live a long time will lose me.
[13:08]Like it that's the crazy.
[13:10]And they're gonna be so sad about it
[13:12]because I haven't mattered to them.
[13:14]And like it was just this whole weird epiphany of feelings.
[13:17]And then that's what it came out as, but yeah.
[13:20]No, I think about that a lot.
[13:21]I think about death a lot.
[13:22]And I think about like, oh my gosh.
[13:26]Like not that I'm so indispensable to my children, obviously,
[13:29]but hopefully by the time I die,
[13:31]they'll be able to do all the things that you do on their own.
[13:34]But I won't be there to make them feel better.
[13:37]I know, I know.
[13:39]So helpless and it's gonna happen and it is so terrible.
[13:42]Anyway.
[13:43]No, it's like, it's like, it's weird.
[13:44]I think about death all the time too.
[13:46]And like all the things that I already regret
[13:49]not doing and not saying and all the, you know.
[13:51]So it's just, it's just like a weird, a weird thought to have,
[13:54]but that was kind of my thought process.
[13:56]That's what I wrote that.
[13:57]Oh my gosh.
[13:58]No, it's all so good.
[13:59]You have all these powerful thoughts and feelings
[14:02]and have found a way to articulate them
[14:04]in a way that's simple enough for really everybody to get.
[14:07]And by the way, I work on it with, you know,
[14:09]I have a whole team of people.
[14:11]And I mentioned that I was about to interview you.
[14:13]And they were all like, oh my gosh, that girl really
[14:16]are no way.
[14:17]Oh yeah, that's crazy.
[14:19]Okay, cool.
[14:20]So your stuff, I know you know you're going viral,
[14:22]but like it's one thing to say,
[14:23]I'm viral and take it back in another to be like,
[14:25]oh no, actually like everyone sitting around this table
[14:28]has gotten your videos and loves watching them.
[14:31]Wow.
[14:32]That's crazy.
[14:32]So what, what are you going,
[14:34]how are you going to like use your power for good?
[14:37]Like how are you going to leverage this?
[14:39]What are you going to do with this celebrity,
[14:41]this newfound sort of platform, right?
[14:44]Because essentially like TikTok stars are the new celebrities,
[14:47]right?
[14:48]That's a really good question.
[14:49]I like have never even come into the realm of that question
[14:52]before in my head.
[14:53]What am I going to do to use my power for good?
[14:55]Well, I'm hoping that just in the,
[14:58]I guess the niche that I've fallen into where it's more.
[15:02]So I guess I just hope that people can use me
[15:06]to feel less alone in the same way that I'm using them
[15:09]to feel less alone.
[15:10]Like I don't want my followers to be like what she's using us,
[15:12]but when I post something that I've been through
[15:15]and there's hundreds of comments being like,
[15:18]oh my gosh, I see this.
[15:19]I've been there.
[15:19]I feel that I'm going through that right now
[15:21]where I went through that before and I'm through it.
[15:23]If it's something that I'm like currently going through,
[15:25]like selfishly I, that helps me so much.
[15:29]And I guess I'm hoping that when people listen to this
[15:33]and like feel along with me,
[15:37]like I hope that they feel helped in the same way
[15:39]that I do when I find out that they relate to it.
[15:41]So in one of the videos I watched,
[15:43]you said you had like pinned up these.
[15:46]So you're in a little, what looks like a sound box,
[15:48]like an audiobook recording studio.
[15:50]Yeah.
[15:51]How did you make this room?
[15:52]Are you literally just like two panels
[15:55]you put on your wall?
[15:55]Like explain this to me.
[15:57]Are you in your house?
[15:57]Like where are you?
[15:58]Yeah, so I'm in my basement.
[16:00]Like I got really lucky when I moved into my fiance's house
[16:03]a couple of years ago.
[16:03]It's like an actual house.
[16:05]I've always looked in a apartment downtown
[16:06]and now we're like in a home in the suburb.
[16:07]So we got some space and we don't have any kids yet.
[16:10]So it worked out that I could utilize one of our guest rooms.
[16:14]The problem is is that I am a project starter.
[16:17]Like this room was a work in progress for a while.
[16:20]But it started for voiceover
[16:21]because I do a lot of voiceover work.
[16:23]So I just set this up so that I could have a place to do it.
[16:25]And now it's like this kind of like there's like shelves
[16:29]and stuff in here.
[16:30]There's a computer and then it goes all around
[16:32]and then the door here,
[16:34]which leads into a podcast studio that I need to put together
[16:37]but it's just furniture at the moment.
[16:39]Like I need to do,
[16:40]but it's been sitting there for months.
[16:41]Like I have to figure my life out.
[16:43]But yeah, this room is just a closet.
[16:46]Like literally a walking closet.
[16:49]Oh my gosh, that is so neat.
[16:50]And where did you buy all the panels?
[16:52]Just online.
[16:53]It's not really.
[16:54]Oh my gosh.
[16:55]At Amazon, I got the little ones.
[16:57]You can get like a pack of like 10 or 20 of them
[16:59]for I think it's probably a couple hundred dollars for all of them.
[17:02]And then there's like big one on the door.
[17:04]I got from a sound and like music store called Long McGlade
[17:08]where you can rent equipment.
[17:09]And originally like,
[17:11]because you know, investing in building a studio
[17:14]isn't cheap.
[17:14]So at first when I went to Long McGlade
[17:16]to get like these pads,
[17:17]I also rented a microphone and an interface
[17:20]and I was like paying monthly
[17:21]and like paying all this interest on them
[17:22]so that I could like eventually pick them off
[17:25]with the work that I was hopefully eventually going to do.
[17:27]So at that paid off, which is great.
[17:29]But it's been definitely a weird journey
[17:32]out my co-host at work always jokes
[17:34]because he's like, you just come in here
[17:36]and you say you're going to do something
[17:37]and then you do it.
[17:38]You were like, I'm going to go buy some pads
[17:40]or long McGlade and do some voice over work
[17:42]and I gloss it and I was like, you got it.
[17:45]And then I came in a couple of years.
[17:46]Like I think I'm going to start posting my poems online
[17:48]and he's like, great, so I was good.
[17:50]And I'm like, just all these weird things that I say
[17:53]and they've been coming to life.
[17:55]But I think that whole open heart thing
[17:56]that I talked about at the beginning kind of ties into that.
[17:58]I don't know why it feels like I opened myself up to it
[18:01]and then it happened.
[18:01]Wow, that's so cool.
[18:03]Do you have a carpet too?
[18:04]I'm trying to make some something similar.
[18:06]That's what I'm asking.
[18:08]Yeah, it's like the same carpet
[18:10]outside and then I actually have like this here on the wall.
[18:14]I literally have one underneath the desk on the floor
[18:17]because when I got this closet installed
[18:20]with all the shelves and stuff,
[18:21]it kind of got really echo in here
[18:23]and I needed to do it down.
[18:25]So even in these shelves where there's supposed to be books,
[18:27]I just have like these pads of soundproofing.
[18:30]But it's like offline.
[18:32]I can totally help you with this.
[18:34]Like, I'm very excited about that.
[18:35]I'm so sorry.
[18:37]No story, but I love talking about it.
[18:39]I'm like, what equipment do you have?
[18:41]Anyway, thank you.
[18:42]Thank you.
[18:43]I can't.
[18:44]Thank you.
[18:45]Yeah, first, that's what you should really,
[18:47]like that's one of those things you could do.
[18:48]You could like be it like an Amazon affiliate
[18:51]and then like anybody could buy these things
[18:53]and you could.
[18:54]All of those are studio loud.
[18:55]That's really smart.
[18:56]You could earn money then.
[18:57]Yeah, it's you just apply.
[18:58]Like you'll get in two seconds.
[18:59]You like apply.
[19:01]And then I already have that.
[19:02]I could just totally make like a little more store friend
[19:05]and then link it to like a post or something.
[19:07]And then anybody who can like make your own studio
[19:10]and like start recording.
[19:11]Wow.
[19:12]Okay, I'll do that like literally
[19:13]right after we have the phone.
[19:15]It's gonna be the link and I'll be your first customer.
[19:17]Perfect.
[19:18]That's awesome.
[19:19]There we go.
[19:20]I love it.
[19:21]That's great.
[19:22]So this is what happens when you do.
[19:26]You put two microphones together and see what happens.
[19:29]Oh my gosh.
[19:30]So I feel like it would be it will be so easy for you
[19:33]to scale like writing poetry in book form
[19:36]because you're like constantly reading them.
[19:39]You must write.
[19:40]You must have so much in store.
[19:41]Are you planning on doing like tons of collections
[19:44]and what's your plan as of right now?
[19:47]The only one that's like officially out there is this one
[19:52]but I definitely have since even handing
[19:55]because you know the process with books is long.
[19:57]Yeah.
[19:58]When you're doing it traditionally.
[19:59]So I handed.
[20:00]in the manuscript fact like a year ago for this and we work we've worked on it for a long time so
[20:07]obviously I've written a lot since then I think if I were to do a second book it would be a little
[20:13]more sewn into a topic that is important and that if it were to ever happen it would come out
[20:22]not too long after this one but I don't know giving very cagey so I won't I won't I won't push
[20:30]where do you write these poems is this like a late at night thing or you don't just do them
[20:36]on the fly right you write them and then read them right yeah I do them but pretty on the fly
[20:40]like I'll usually write it and then come down and record it right away like usually if you see one
[20:45]I probably wrote it recorded it and posted it all the way but it comes to me in like weird ways
[20:52]I tell this very little time but like someone told me once that they heard an interview with like a
[20:57]tell where she talked about how when she gets an idea for something it like feels like it like
[21:02]gravitates into her brain from out of nowhere and I feel like that happens to me but even
[21:06]be like a line from a song or I'm driving like I mentioned earlier so I'll write down the thought
[21:11]prompt like in my phone and then I'll come back to it when I get home when I'm laying in bed
[21:17]or I'll come down here and write it on this computer or I have a walking pad upstairs in the room
[21:21]that I do I make a bed and sometimes I'll write and walk at the same time and I'll kind of
[21:25]go through all of the one line prompts that I wrote for myself so I could remember and just decide
[21:30]if anything so resonates with me a couple hours later when I get home but it's kind of all over the
[21:34]place but the whole book was written in my notes out on my iPhone which is crazy that is crazy
[21:40]that's so cool though you know it's so cool because it can it makes it feel like anybody can
[21:46]try doing this and like it doesn't have to necessarily be at your level right but if everybody
[21:51]just starts expressing their thoughts and getting them down on paper and it feels doable
[21:57]yeah and we'll get so much more great art and people will help each other more. I think there's a
[22:01]lot of power in like all different types of writing and there's like I guess this is more like
[22:07]prose than poetry right but there's a lot of power no matter how you do it and if you're somebody
[22:12]who loves to use like super powerful metaphors and big words and you know like different things
[22:17]that have five different meanings and you can go look them all up and take it from all different
[22:21]angles and I can still appreciate writing like that. I personally just the way that it actually
[22:26]comes to me is to write in a way that I'd say it out loud so that you're reading it and you don't
[22:30]have to check on any of what any of the words meant and you like aren't confused about what
[22:34]any of it means and you're just like this must mean exactly what it means and this is exactly how
[22:39]I'm taking it and that everybody who reads it kind of takes it the same way and I think that
[22:45]with that in mind if you're not somebody who loves to use like big words or metaphors or whatever
[22:51]like it doesn't mean that you can't write because I'm writing these things from a very simple
[22:56]standpoint and very simply put and I think it's the best thing to remember is if you want to
[23:01]start writing and you kind of like feel in your heart but you don't know how to get it out
[23:04]is that the only person who's ever gonna read it is you unless you let somebody else read it
[23:09]you don't have to put it anywhere and you don't have to ever be embarrassed when you're by
[23:12]yourself because it's just you so put it on paper or put it in your notes out for something
[23:17]and then keep it yourself forever if you want but I think like it would really benefit everybody
[23:21]to try if they have that in them and they want to do something like that. Amazing.
[23:25]Josie thank you. This has been so awesome. I'm such a fan and I just love the way you write
[23:31]and I'm I don't know. Congrats. Well thank you so much. It means so much coming from you
[23:36]and I caught in the book world so I really really really really appreciate it. Thank you.
[23:39]It's time to have me on and talk to me about it and I think you're reading it like that means
[23:44]more to me than you know. Now as I said it helped me through a really tough time and I feel
[23:49]indebted so thank you. Well thank you. Okay. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to
[23:57]totally booked with Zibi, formerly momstone have time to read books. If you loved the show
[24:03]tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens and spread the word.
[24:09]Thanks so much. Go and buy the books.