Amy Chozick on Sex Work and Motherhood
[0:00]Welcome to Totally Booked.
[0:02]I'm Zibi Owens.
[0:04]I've interviewed more than 2,000 authors on this show
[0:07]and learned endless amounts about storytelling,
[0:10]reinvention, and life itself.
[0:11]Because when you talk about books,
[0:13]you're really talking about life.
[0:15]So get ready to hear from today's best authors,
[0:18]the best-selling and the not yet discovered.
[0:20]Come find your next great read
[0:22]and the story behind it.
[0:24]Enjoy.
[0:25]Amy Chosek is the author of With Friends Like You, a novel.
[0:31]This episode was recorded in front of an audience
[0:34]at the Children's Museum of the East End in Bridge Hampton,
[0:38]New York.
[0:39]I loved interviewing Amy, who I actually met through a mutual friend,
[0:43]her cousin, and an old friend of mine,
[0:45]and have been following her work for years
[0:47]and just was so excited to interview her in person this summer,
[0:52]especially on the heels of her work being highlighted
[0:56]on the today show by fellow podcast guest, John Serals.
[1:01]Amy Chosek is a best-selling author, screenwriter,
[1:03]and award-winning journalist who has covered the biggest stories
[1:06]in politics, business, and media for The New York Times.
[1:09]She is the author of The New York Times bestseller Chasing Hillary,
[1:12]which she adapted into the HBO Max series The Girls on the Bus.
[1:16]In addition to the times, Amy's writing has appeared in Vogue,
[1:19]Vanity Fair, and other publications.
[1:21]Amy is currently adapting with friends like you
[1:23]into a major motion picture with fifth season
[1:26]and Academy Award-winning producer, Brad Weston.
[1:30]She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and son.
[1:32]Welcome, Amy.
[1:33]Thank you so much for coming on Totally Book to talk about
[1:36]with friends like you and thank you to everybody here
[1:39]at the Children's Museum of the East End for our live event.
[1:43]Thank you so much for having me.
[1:44]I'm so excited to be here and thanks for everyone for coming.
[1:46]Oh, it's always so nice to be able to be in person
[1:49]to talk about books and all of that.
[1:51]This book so many twists and turns, like literally at one point
[1:56]I was like, oh my gosh, like out loud.
[1:58]So I won't give anything away, but there is there is some of that.
[2:01]Why don't you tell listeners and everybody here
[2:03]what with friends like you is about sure.
[2:07]So it's a psychological thriller about a new mom named Emily
[2:11]and she's lost and lonely after having her baby
[2:14]and she's just trying to find out who she is postpartum
[2:18]and she decides that the answer to all of her problems
[2:21]is finding her best friend Daisy.
[2:23]They were best best friends in college
[2:25]and then she, they were roommates and then Daisy disappeared.
[2:28]First she had, she dropped out because she couldn't afford
[2:30]to pay her tuition.
[2:31]She became a stripper and then a sex worker and then 15 years ago
[2:35]they have not seen her heard from her sense.
[2:37]So Emily falls down some very dark rabbit holes looking for Daisy
[2:42]and it's not a spoiler to say that she finds her and for a while
[2:45]it seems like Daisy is the answer to all of her problems
[2:48]and then things get a little crazy.
[2:50]And she starts to wonder is Daisy saving my life
[2:53]or is she destroying everything?
[2:55]So that's the long, long line.
[2:59]When I started reading it, I was like,
[3:01]okay, this is going to be about hunt for a long-lost friend
[3:04]and what that says about what Emily is missing in her own life, right?
[3:09]Because Daisy was sort of this wilder influence on her
[3:13]who was encouraging her to pursue her artistic dreams and all of that.
[3:17]But then I got to the point and I was like,
[3:18]oh, okay, well now she found her.
[3:20]So okay, that's not what this book is about.
[3:22]Let's see what happens next.
[3:23]And then you just, then it got very intense.
[3:27]It got, you know, I really think of that it's even more than post-partum.
[3:30]It's about female friendship.
[3:31]It is.
[3:32]And I've had people come up to women come up to me and say I had a Daisy
[3:35]that best best friend, especially at that point in your life
[3:38]when you're like 18, 19 years old and you're so close
[3:41]and you think we're going to be best friends forever
[3:43]and then life just takes you different directions
[3:45]and you always sort of wonder about that friendship.
[3:47]So it was like I really wanted to explore that idea.
[3:50]And then when they come back into each other's lives,
[3:52]they have this very co-dependent relationship that ends up spiraling
[3:56]in all kinds of ways.
[3:58]But even though that is the plot and the plot has so many twists
[4:01]and turns, it's what you write in the sentences.
[4:05]That's like, that resonates so much that it has so much authenticity
[4:10]and everything.
[4:11]You write about, yes, the struggles of new motherhood,
[4:14]but also the physical, like the debilitating physical symptom
[4:18]she had Emily has a really, really difficult pregnancy
[4:20]with a lot of lingering health issues and trauma,
[4:24]which a lot of women haven't don't talk about.
[4:25]Actually, let's just pause the beat.
[4:27]Why don't you talk about that before we move on?
[4:29]Because people have asked me why I had Emily go through that.
[4:34]And two reasons.
[4:35]One is like you said, we don't talk about it enough.
[4:37]I really thought that you either had a caesarian
[4:39]or you had a healthy seven-pound baby.
[4:41]I didn't realize that so many things could go wrong
[4:44]in childbirth.
[4:45]And then after I had my baby, it was like all these women
[4:48]came out of the woodwork of I had this happen
[4:50]or I had this emergency blood transfusion
[4:52]or this, you know, the cord was wrapped.
[4:54]You heard all these stories.
[4:55]I was like, why didn't I know that going in, you know?
[4:58]So I wanted to be better.
[5:00]Maybe better.
[5:01]Maybe better, you're right.
[5:02]So I wanted to, you know, I think it's very common.
[5:05]I don't think it's talked about that much,
[5:06]but also just from a character, from a plot perspective,
[5:09]Emily goes a little crazy, as you mentioned.
[5:12]And I thought she really needed to not just be lonely
[5:14]and bored and trying to find out who she is.
[5:16]And she really had to be physically feeling not herself.
[5:19]I mean, the book is essentially a loss of identity.
[5:22]She doesn't know who she is.
[5:23]So in addition to the kind of postpartum depression,
[5:26]I just want her to physically feel a strange
[5:28]from her husband and like the world, you know,
[5:30]just taking her stroller down the subway stairs
[5:32]and kind of the physical pain.
[5:34]I needed that character-wise to push her
[5:38]into the kind of crazy things that she ends up doing.
[5:40]I felt like it needed that.
[5:42]It couldn't just be, I'm bored
[5:43]and I'm not sure I'm cut out to play magma tiles all day, you know.
[5:47]But there is a lot of, there are a lot of references to brands
[5:53]and things and restaurants.
[5:54]Things in New York City that will root any reader
[5:57]who has a child in New York City.
[5:59]And those who want to know like what it's like.
[6:02]And as a mom who had kids and has kids in New York City,
[6:05]everyone's always like, oh my gosh.
[6:06]How do you do it?
[6:07]How do you have kids in New York?
[6:08]And I'm like, oh, well, this is one way, you know.
[6:12]And Emily is not happy about it.
[6:14]Yeah.
[6:14]There's one scene too because it involves this type of parenting
[6:18]is almost intertwined with her perception of wealth, right?
[6:22]And the things that she wishes she could do differently
[6:25]if only she were in a different situation.
[6:28]And if only she, you know, which is why this 527 park
[6:31]becomes like such a beacon.
[6:33]But there's one part where I think it's Daisy
[6:35]or maybe Penelope, somebody says something like,
[6:38]you think about wealth too much or is wealth mean too much to you.
[6:42]And she's like, well, it has to because it's the gateway
[6:44]to it's what's getting in the way of what I want in life
[6:47]and what I have.
[6:48]So talk a little bit about that.
[6:49]Yeah.
[6:50]I feel like there.
[6:51]Well, I think nationally millennial moms are in crisis mode
[6:56]and it's kind of impossible to balance a job
[6:58]and child the cost of childcare or the cost of mortgage.
[7:02]All of these things have become exponentially harder.
[7:05]So but I think nowhere is it harder and more pronounced
[7:08]than in New York, right?
[7:09]So I think it's like a hyper version of what's happening
[7:12]nationally.
[7:13]But also I just think that, you know, before I had a kid,
[7:16]I didn't really think about like I was just having fun in New York
[7:20]and do you go out?
[7:21]And you're like, yeah, you live in your small apartment.
[7:23]And once you have a child, I think economics
[7:25]becomes so pronounced because you start to see parents
[7:28]who can afford to get their kids in the feed or preschools
[7:31]that go to the good you start thinking about I'm hurting
[7:33]I'm actually like hurt in my financial situation
[7:35]is hurting my child.
[7:36]I'm going to have to leave them in this sad little daycare
[7:39]where they have too many butts to wipe and don't give them
[7:42]any stem toys or stimulus while the other kids are getting
[7:45]they're like Montessori toys and learning Mandarin.
[7:47]And I think it becomes so pronounced
[7:50]the inequality of the city once you have a child
[7:53]and Emily and Roman are not poor.
[7:54]Like they both have college degrees and good jobs.
[7:57]And this was like before everyone was talking about
[7:59]affordability in New York.
[8:00]I'd be like, now everybody is.
[8:01]But this was it's just like Emily becomes hyper focused
[8:05]on this idea that like if we don't not only do I have to go
[8:08]to my sad job and my cubicle just to pay for someone else
[8:11]to take care of my child who I'd really like to see
[8:13]but also all of these kind of classes and preschools
[8:17]and stimulus and all these things that she thinks
[8:19]she doesn't have access to.
[8:20]So in addition to like not having good health care
[8:23]and having all of this debt and having physical therapy
[8:25]to recover from her birth.
[8:27]It's just a real pile on and I'm glad you noticed that
[8:30]because I do think a through line in the book
[8:33]is the inequality that she feels in New York City
[8:35]even though they're not poor.
[8:37]They're just having a hard time.
[8:40]I think a lot of this comes out at her husband
[8:42]and I know your husband's here somewhere
[8:45]and I was like, oh, this is hard, but you know,
[8:49]Emily's relationship becomes quite strained with Roman
[8:51]and there's a lot of resentment there.
[8:53]And there's that sort of I won't say typical
[8:57]but the like I got home from work and work with stressful
[9:00]and she's like, do you think it was really so easy being here
[9:02]and no, I don't like it and like nobody is happy.
[9:05]And instead of being a team about it,
[9:07]it's just so easy to fracture and take it
[9:10]because where do you put that anger and resentment
[9:12]and like just no one is happy
[9:14]but you're supposed to be happy
[9:15]because you have this brand new child
[9:16]you're longing for.
[9:17]So what is happening?
[9:19]Yeah, Roman.
[9:20]So I read a lot of books about postpartum
[9:24]and I think often the husband is like a monster.
[9:26]They like cheat or they're just completely absent.
[9:29]I really wanted to make Roman a nice guy.
[9:31]He's like doing his best
[9:32]but he's worried he's going to lose his job
[9:34]or get replaced by AI
[9:35]and he's just trying to keep his head down at work
[9:38]and write by his family by providing.
[9:40]And meanwhile, he like knows Emily struggling
[9:43]but he doesn't know really how to help.
[9:44]And by the way, if he stayed home,
[9:46]he'd probably be doing it wrong.
[9:47]You know, like they stay home to help
[9:48]they're usually doing it wrong.
[9:50]So no, I think Roman is like a nice guy.
[9:52]Hopefully you empathize with him
[9:53]where the tension is coming from
[9:55]is that there's a line in the book
[9:56]where she says like that she could strangle him
[9:58]while he sleeps, but she's not really mad at him.
[10:00]She's mad at the idea of him.
[10:02]And I think that we are just living in a structure
[10:05]where the man goes back to work, you know,
[10:08]like maybe two weeks of leave after you have a baby
[10:12]and then they go back to, I remember when we both had
[10:14]like big careers, we both had big social lives
[10:16]and then like he went back to,
[10:18]he was in his work clothes like leaving and I was like,
[10:19]what, I'm home all day?
[10:21]And you're just like back to normal.
[10:23]You know, should I turn the butter?
[10:24]Well, I'm home, you know, it was very strange
[10:27]because I just think I do think the gender roles
[10:30]become so pronounced once you have a baby.
[10:32]And I think Emily's like really struggling
[10:34]to process how course he's sleep deprived
[10:37]and trying to help and doing his best,
[10:38]but like he's basically going back to his old life.
[10:40]He's going now for drinks with his work friends
[10:42]and he's like, but I will never go back to who I am.
[10:46]I'm a mother now and I think that that she's really struggling
[10:49]with just, it's almost, it's more societal
[10:52]than like him personally.
[10:53]I think he's a pretty nice, he comes off
[10:55]as a pretty nice guy for the most part.
[10:57]Well, I remember just being so shocked when I had my twins
[11:00]and this is like 19 years ago now,
[11:01]but I was basically like,
[11:03]modern life is not set up for this.
[11:07]Like I can't have my life depend on my feeding schedule.
[11:10]Like there is the chronology of life and time
[11:13]and nobody else slows down just because you have a kid.
[11:16]It's like an illness almost, right?
[11:18]Like you have your own set of timetables
[11:20]and it doesn't integrate necessarily so easily.
[11:23]No, not at all.
[11:24]And that's why I think, you know,
[11:26]if the person you're closest with, it's easier for them
[11:28]than you're just feeling so isolated and lonely.
[11:31]Yeah, isolated and lonely and you get like resentful
[11:33]even though it's not really their fault.
[11:35]So she has a lot to process there.
[11:38]And also just like the kind of mechanics of the delivery
[11:41]and how much the baby depends on her body
[11:43]to stay alive and not his, you know,
[11:45]it's just kind of all of that is hitting Emily
[11:47]at a time when she could really use her best friend Daisy.
[11:50]Yes, and that's why she goes in search of her
[11:53]and gets on this, you know, this being her bonnet
[11:55]that she has to find her.
[11:56]And I just want to underscore that
[11:58]despite the plot mechanics and everything else,
[12:02]your voice is so great in this book.
[12:05]Like you're writing the voice that you have for Emily,
[12:08]et cetera, is great.
[12:11]Like funny, like, but not snarky,
[12:14]but like it's just somebody you would wanna hear
[12:17]talk about their days of early motherhood.
[12:19]Oh, I'm so glad.
[12:20]So I feel like that was one of the strongest.
[12:22]I mean, everything else is, but like that's the part
[12:25]like you don't wanna rush through a single sentence
[12:27]because like this is on the sentence level.
[12:29]It was really, really brilliant.
[12:31]Thank you so much.
[12:32]That means so much.
[12:32]And actually it's really, I have to say,
[12:35]I'm really honored you felt that way
[12:36]because it's really, really hard to write like a friend.
[12:39]I wanted it to sound like a friend telling you a story.
[12:40]Like a crazy friend and a fever dream telling you a story.
[12:43]And it's really hard to write that way.
[12:45]There's an old Elmore Leonard piece of advice
[12:48]that I've always used as a writer.
[12:49]If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
[12:51]And it's actually very hard to write like that.
[12:54]But if you do it well, it seems not hard at all.
[12:56]It seems like you just sat down and we're like,
[12:58]hey Zippy, so this crazy thing happened to me, you know?
[13:00]But it actually is quite arduous.
[13:02]And I would go days where I would write something.
[13:04]And maybe like I liked it.
[13:05]And the writing was, I thought it was nice
[13:07]or the plot was that I was like this sounds like writing.
[13:09]It doesn't sound like a friend telling you a story.
[13:11]Like it does like Emily's voice.
[13:13]I need to channel her and write as if she was telling us this.
[13:17]And it's hard to do.
[13:18]So I'm glad, I'm glad you thought that.
[13:20]Thank you.
[13:21]And I also, the baby, I'm not trying to like compare myself
[13:24]to Salinger here.
[13:25]But the baby's name is Holden for reason
[13:27]because I feel like she is,
[13:29]I want her to have almost a Holden
[13:30]coffee of millennial moms, you know?
[13:32]She's running around New York.
[13:33]She thinks everybody's full of shit, you know?
[13:35]She feels very isolated and lonely
[13:37]and just like hopefully want to give her a hug.
[13:40]I did want to kind of channel that feeling of catcher
[13:43]in the rye and her voice.
[13:46]The scene with her mom, by the way,
[13:48]was like a full on like mic drop moment.
[13:51]Oh, so glad.
[13:51]I'll just leave it in that.
[13:54]I remember when you came for the most anticipated party,
[13:56]you were talking to everybody about how a journalistic
[13:59]assignment that you did led that you down
[14:01]this sort of sex worker, you know, industry.
[14:06]And that was part of what inspired the book.
[14:08]Can you talk a little about the shirt?
[14:09]Yeah.
[14:10]So I spent most of my career as a journalist
[14:11]in the New York Times and I was on maternity leave
[14:14]when I was three weeks postpartum
[14:16]when Vogue asked me to profile Stormy Daniels.
[14:19]This was 2018, so she just become really famous
[14:22]for taking on Donald Trump.
[14:23]And of course I was like, you don't say no when Vogue.
[14:25]They were like, any leave, what's the shooting it?
[14:27]It's gonna be her first big interview.
[14:28]So I was like, okay, I'm doing this.
[14:30]So it was the first time I left my baby
[14:32]was to go to strip clubs in Milwaukee.
[14:35]So this wasn't even like high end Vegas.
[14:37]This was like Midwest, her midwestern,
[14:39]make America horny again to her.
[14:41]And I was interviewing sex workers,
[14:43]Stormy's a mother.
[14:44]I talked to her about balancing her work and motherhood.
[14:47]And then I came home and I always read every,
[14:51]whenever I interview someone,
[14:52]I read every other interview they've done.
[14:53]But she was only famous in the adult world
[14:56]until the Trump thing.
[14:57]So I bought all these old magazines,
[14:59]old penthouse and Playboy on eBay
[15:02]because she had interviews in them.
[15:03]And I didn't realize if my husband was like,
[15:05]you're interviewing nannies over a stack of smut.
[15:09]I was like, the magazines are on the table.
[15:11]And I was like, it's research.
[15:13]She was like, she's gonna think we're perverts.
[15:14]Like, so that scene is actually directly in the book.
[15:18]But the idea of those two worlds, new motherhood
[15:23]and sex work were just so strange to me
[15:25]that they had collided.
[15:26]And I thought that's such an interesting backdrop
[15:29]to explore because even though they're completely different,
[15:32]there was also something weirdly the same
[15:34]in that you feel like your body is not your own.
[15:36]And you feel like your body is like,
[15:38]it's okay for the world to judge you.
[15:40]If you bounced back or oh, you look this or that.
[15:43]And it was something very vulnerable and exposed
[15:47]about both.
[15:48]I was like, there's a lot of bare breasts in both.
[15:50]They just felt like there was some weird,
[15:52]there were some, they weren't as different
[15:55]as you'd think and what a strange collision.
[15:57]And I'd love to set a book in that.
[15:59]So that was kind of the seed of the idea.
[16:01]And had you always wanted to try fiction?
[16:03]I'd always wanted to try to novel.
[16:04]I actually like studied poetry in college.
[16:06]I moved to New York and I was like,
[16:09]I gotta get a job.
[16:10]I got no one's paying me to be a poet.
[16:11]So I started as a news assistant at the Wall Street Journal.
[16:15]And I love journalism and worked as a journal.
[16:18]And I covered Obama and Hillary and the White House.
[16:21]And I was a foreign correspondent.
[16:22]I had a great ride in journalism,
[16:23]but I always had that novel under my bed
[16:26]that I never finished and always wanted to write fiction.
[16:29]So then when my first book,
[16:31]it's called Chasing Hillary, it's a memoir.
[16:33]That came out.
[16:34]I adapted it into an HBO Max show called The Girls on the Bus.
[16:37]And that is fiction,
[16:38]even though it's inspired by my book,
[16:39]it was very much fiction.
[16:41]And that was my first experience
[16:42]just like making things up.
[16:43]And I was like, oh my God, this is my soul came alive.
[16:46]It was so fun.
[16:47]And then when I had the opportunity to write a novel,
[16:50]I was really excited to try that medium.
[16:52]Wait, so what was that adaptation like?
[16:55]Oh, it was really fun.
[16:56]It was, so it was basically a chapter of the book
[16:59]called The Girls on the Bus.
[17:00]The book is about my experiences covering Hillary's
[17:02]presidential campaigns and sort of how she took over my life.
[17:05]It's very personal, even though it's a memoir.
[17:07]It's sort of like member Julia and Julia,
[17:09]but politics instead of cooking.
[17:11]So my producer Greg Berlanti said the show
[17:14]lives in this chapter called The Girls on the Bus
[17:16]about me and my girlfriends and how the days of the boys
[17:20]on the bus, if you remember the Timothy Krause,
[17:23]the kind of the rolicking, Hunter S. Thompson.
[17:26]It was always like great men covering other great men.
[17:29]And suddenly we'd be female candidate.
[17:30]And then lots of female candidates.
[17:32]And the press corps was predominantly female.
[17:34]The vast majority of the reporters were female.
[17:36]And so he thought that was really interesting.
[17:38]And we ended up kind of building this world out of female.
[17:41]We had female friendship on the bus
[17:43]of these different characters covering a fictional primary.
[17:45]So it was fun.
[17:47]And then seeing it come to life.
[17:48]Like I think writing, mostly I'm a TV writer now.
[17:52]And to me, it's like Harold and his purple crayon.
[17:55]It's like I just wrote that Democratic convention.
[17:57]And now I'm standing in a fictional Democratic convention
[18:00]with 50,000 balloons ready to draw.
[18:02]Like it's really incredible when it works.
[18:05]And you actually get to produce what you wrote.
[18:07]Like I remember writing this scene like someone's fancy office.
[18:11]And I said, Renuncula's in a stupid voss.
[18:13]And it was just like a detail.
[18:14]And then I was walking on and sat.
[18:15]And I was like, they got the Renuncula's.
[18:17]I wrote that.
[18:18]And they got them.
[18:19]And he's like, yeah, it was in the script.
[18:20]Like it's just such a crazy feeling to me
[18:23]to write something and walk around and see it come to life.
[18:26]Like so I do that is really magic when it happens.
[18:29]I texted my producer when I was walking around
[18:31]in our fake Democratic National Convention.
[18:33]It looked amazing.
[18:34]And I wrote like this is a peak life experience.
[18:36]We just like rewrote the ending of the Democratic National
[18:39]Convention.
[18:40]And this book also is already in the works as a film.
[18:43]Yes.
[18:44]As a feature film, I'm writing the script.
[18:47]I wrote the script with a producer named Brad Weston
[18:50]and fifth season as a studio.
[18:51]And so we're in the works of making the movie.
[18:55]So who are your casting dreams?
[18:57]I have.
[18:58]I'm very superstitious about casting.
[19:00]Oh, OK.
[19:01]Yeah.
[19:01]But I like to hear people's ideas.
[19:03]That's always fun to me.
[19:05]So if you guys have ideas.
[19:07]I was kind of feeling like an Anne Hathaway.
[19:10]Oh, yeah.
[19:10]Like for Emily.
[19:12]Yeah.
[19:12]It's like a little.
[19:13]And she's pregnant on her.
[19:13]She's pregnant on her.
[19:14]Yeah, she's amazing.
[19:15]But like when she looks the dragon, you know,
[19:18]like pre-glow up.
[19:20]Yes.
[19:21]You know, I've got to worry about it.
[19:22]I don't know.
[19:22]Anne Hathaway and anything.
[19:23]Well, yeah.
[19:24]Yeah.
[19:25]I don't know if that's who first came to me.
[19:26]I love that.
[19:27]But I don't know.
[19:28]We'll see.
[19:30]So you said you're mostly doing TV writing now.
[19:32]What else are you working on?
[19:33]So I'm actually in a writer's room right now
[19:35]for a new HBO family drama.
[19:36]Also from Greg Burlandi.
[19:38]And it's a beautiful, beautiful show called,
[19:40]How to Survive Without Me with Ray Romano and Kayleigh
[19:43]Cuoco and Josh Jackson and Rita Wilson's The Mom.
[19:45]And it's a big family drama set in LA.
[19:47]So I'm a writer on that show.
[19:49]And then I'm adapting.
[19:50]Do you remember the nanny diaries?
[19:52]Of course.
[19:52]It was huge.
[19:53]Yes.
[19:53]I'm adapting that book into a TV show for Netflix.
[19:57]Oh, my goodness.
[19:57]And I'm going to be show.
[19:58]Cos remember when I was next to the press?
[20:00]Yes.
[20:00]Yeah.
[20:01]Yeah.
[20:02]Oh, my gosh.
[20:02]Because it was a movie with Scarlett Johansson.
[20:04]And Scarlett Johansson is executive producing
[20:07]the TV series in Netflix.
[20:08]So I just got that script in.
[20:10]And we're, you know, we always have,
[20:12]like, multiple projects going.
[20:14]So really exciting.
[20:15]Yeah.
[20:16]That's awesome.
[20:16]Wow.
[20:17]So where does novel writing fall into this?
[20:19]You can write another novel or what?
[20:21]The problem with the novel is that you have to write
[20:23]the whole thing, as you know, before you know,
[20:25]if anyone is going to pay for it or publish it.
[20:27]So I feel like it's, I always have, like, a day job.
[20:31]And I can never find the time to write.
[20:33]But I have another idea.
[20:35]And I loved writing a novel.
[20:36]The thing about writing a script is there's a lot of math
[20:39]involved in a script.
[20:40]You have to think about, like, is this produceable?
[20:42]Can we afford this car chase?
[20:44]And you have to, there's a real formula in script writing.
[20:47]Like the acts have to end in a certain way.
[20:50]So when you're writing a novel, it was just like a blank page
[20:52]that was really freeing and fun.
[20:54]And I'd love to do it again.
[20:55]But I just don't know when I will do it with, you know,
[20:58]kid and a day job.
[21:00]It's okay.
[21:00]It's okay.
[21:02]You don't have to do it again.
[21:03]Who is a friend in your life that has meant a lot to you?
[21:07]I mean, part Daisy is somewhat inspired by our college roommate
[21:11]I had who we were really, really close.
[21:14]And it was under very different circumstances.
[21:16]But she did start stripping.
[21:18]And then she got into drugs and fell into like a really dark place
[21:21]and passed away when we were really young.
[21:24]So partly this was a way for me to kind of rewrite my roommate's
[21:30]story, you know, like what if she had actually had a long
[21:33]interesting life?
[21:34]What if she, one of the things I learned about Stormy
[21:37]is that like there's this perception of like, oh, poor sex
[21:40]worker, they did this because there were no other options.
[21:42]She was like very in charge of her own career.
[21:44]She was one of the first, she was the first woman to write
[21:46]and direct in her own movies.
[21:48]She really took power and took control.
[21:50]I was proud of her career.
[21:51]And I wanted Daisy to have that same sort of, you know,
[21:54]like Emily thinks, oh, poor Daisy.
[21:56]She disappeared in this and so she's like, what are you
[21:58]talking about?
[21:59]I'm living in an oligarchs $34 million dollar condo.
[22:01]Like I'm good, you know, I wanted to give her agency and show
[22:05]that she had actually carved a really interesting career
[22:07]for herself out of this work.
[22:10]And also in some ways rewrite my friend's story.
[22:13]But yeah, no, I'm so, I have so many good friends
[22:15]who I'm so grateful to.
[22:17]Don't you love your kids that, did you meet so many friends
[22:19]through your kids?
[22:20]I did, I did.
[22:21]Actually, I'm such a gift.
[22:22]A group chat because my oldest are going to college now.
[22:24]And now the same kindergarten moms group chat.
[22:27]We're all like, the first one of the kids left yesterday.
[22:31]And we're all just like, oh my gosh, I have two weeks.
[22:33]I have three weeks left.
[22:34]Oh my gosh, I need each other for that, I know.
[22:36]That's so nice.
[22:38]Another friend is about to become an empty nester
[22:40]like entirely.
[22:41]And I was like the first night, you're alone.
[22:43]Just come over and have dinner.
[22:44]Just like, you know, the second, this new phase is crazy.
[22:48]So yes, essential.
[22:50]It's essential at every stage.
[22:51]Yes, the village.
[22:52]Exactly.
[22:53]Do you have advice for aspiring authors?
[22:56]You know what, I really, I feel like I was trained as a journalist
[23:00]and my late mentor David Carr, who was a columnist
[23:03]at The New York Times, used to say, keep typing until it
[23:06]turns into writing.
[23:07]You know, I think there's this idea that like,
[23:09]I need to be inspired to write fiction.
[23:11]And I need to like go for a walk and have in spirit.
[23:13]I'm like, no, no, no.
[23:14]Just sit down in the chair, treat it like a job.
[23:17]If it's not good, you can rewrite it later.
[23:19]But I really do just like ask in the chair, do the work.
[23:22]And I even know what I'm writing like, I know this isn't good,
[23:25]but I'm going to keep doing it.
[23:27]So just keep typing until it turns into writing, I think,
[23:30]and really treat it like a treat it like a job, you know?
[23:32]Because I think there's this idea that it's my art.
[23:35]And I can only do it this.
[23:36]And I'm like, no, no, no, no.
[23:37]Like there's no such thing as writer's block.
[23:39]Like I was used to like, I would file a story
[23:41]on the back of the campaign bus, you know, with spotty Wi-Fi.
[23:43]Like you don't need to have your perfect setting.
[23:46]It's great if you do.
[23:47]But if not, like bring your laptop and while you're waiting
[23:49]and pick up line, you know, write a few sentences.
[23:52]So just squeeze it in, I think.
[23:54]And then last question based on the motherhood theme.
[23:57]What is your favorite part of being a mom?
[23:59]You know what?
[24:00]It's so funny.
[24:00]My son tells me I say this at every age.
[24:02]I'm like, I can't believe you're going to be six.
[24:04]And then I'm like, six was the best age.
[24:05]Don't be seven.
[24:06]And I'm like, eight is the best age.
[24:08]And he's like, you say that every age.
[24:09]But really, I think you get, I got scared that he was
[24:13]going to get older in this and everything.
[24:14]That's like every age is great.
[24:16]And you just like embrace every age.
[24:18]And you can kind of like be sad that they're not
[24:20]like cuddly little babies anymore, but really every age is great.
[24:23]That's, I don't know if that's like the best advice.
[24:25]But I'm probably not like the bet.
[24:27]I've never done, and you don't only have one,
[24:28]and I won't never done this before.
[24:29]So I'm not sure I'm the best mom to give advice.
[24:31]No, no, you have four.
[24:33]And then you're going to college.
[24:34]So I need your advice.
[24:36]Hi.
[24:38]Which leads us to our next forecast.
[24:39]No, I'm just kidding.
[24:41]Well, Amy, thank you so much with friends like you.
[24:43]So good.
[24:44]Thank you, writer.
[24:45]As you know, but really fabulous voice driven
[24:49]and clutch driven narrative, really great.
[24:51]Thank you so much.
[24:52]So we're talking to you.
[24:53]Thank you.
[24:53]And thank you for coming.
[24:54]Thank you for coming.
[24:56]Thank you for listening to totally booked with Zibi,
[24:58]formerly mom's don't have time to read books.
[25:01]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review,
[25:04]follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens,
[25:07]and spread the word.
[25:08]Thanks so much.
[25:10]Oh, and buy the books.
[25:11]Thank you so much.
[25:12]Thank you.