[SPEAKER_00]: Five, six, seven, eight, Joey.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hi y'all, welcome, we're welcome back to Gilmour To Read.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host Haley and I'm so glad you're here today.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is the first Gilmour To Read episode as we head into Gilmour Girl season, the twenty-fifth Gilmour Girl season which is absolutely incredible that we have had the show for that long and then we get to celebrate twenty-five years of our favorite girlies.

[SPEAKER_00]: Today's guests watch the pilot when it first aired, and that is New York Times' bestselling author and fan-girl extraordinaire Ashley Posten, who wrote Sounds like Love, our July pick for reading it's sexy.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sounds like Love is perfect for anyone who wants to flesh out more of Lane's musical dreams than a different East Coast small town.

[SPEAKER_00]: A little bit about the book.

[SPEAKER_00]: Joni Lark is living the dream.

[SPEAKER_00]: She's one of the most coveted songwriters in LA, and she can't seem to write.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's an empty-ness inside her, and nothing seems to fill it.

[SPEAKER_00]: When she returns to her hometown of Vienna, Shore's North Carolina, she hopes that the sand, the surf and the concerts at the revelry, her family's music venue will spark her inspiration.

[SPEAKER_00]: But when she gets there, nothing is how she left it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Her best friend is avoiding her, her mother's memories are fading fast, and the revelry is closing.

[SPEAKER_00]: How can she think about writing her next song when everything is changing without her?

[SPEAKER_00]: Until she hears it, a melody in her head, learclist and half formed in an alluring and addictive voice to go with it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Belonging apparently to a rhyme musician with hangups of his own, surely he's a figment of her overworked imagination.

[SPEAKER_00]: But then the very real man attached to the voice shows up in Vienna shores.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's aggravating and gruff on the outside, nothing like the sweet funny voice in Johnny's head.

[SPEAKER_00]: and he has a plan.

[SPEAKER_00]: They'll finish the song haunting them both, break their connection, and hope they don't risk their hearts in the process.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because that song second their heads, maybe it's there for a reason.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ooh, I love this book so much.

[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, has that magical element of the two of them being connected through telepathy, but don't let that hold you back because it still really feels like a contemporary romance.

[SPEAKER_00]: with just this magical realism element.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll definitely talk more about it in the episode, but before we get into my chat with Ashley, I want to remind you of our reading a sexy book club pick for September.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing could possibly feel more appropriate for a Gilmore girl season than a cozy magical romance about an in-keeper in the community around her.

[SPEAKER_00]: It sounds rather familiar, but it is done very differently.

[SPEAKER_00]: in a witch's guide to magical in keeping by San Guamandana.

[SPEAKER_00]: But about this book that we're going to read in September, Sarah Swan used to be one of the most powerful witches in Britain, then she resurrected her great Aunt Jasmine from the very recently dead.

[SPEAKER_00]: Losmos of her magic befriended a semi villainous talking fox and it was exiled from her guild.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now she reluctantly [SPEAKER_00]: and just a bit grumpily helps Jasmine run and enchanted in in Lancashire where she deals with her quirky guest shenanigans tries to keep said talking fox and check and longs for a future that seems lost to her.

[SPEAKER_00]: But then she finds out about an old spell that could hold the key to restoring her power.

[SPEAKER_00]: Enter Luke Larson, a handsome and icy magical historian who arrives on a dark autumn evening, and just might know how to unlock this spell secrets.

[SPEAKER_00]: Luke has absolutely no interest in getting involved in the mad cap on goings of the inn [SPEAKER_00]: and is definitely not about to let a certain bewitching inkeeper past his walls, so no one is more surprised than he is when he agrees to help Sarah with her spell.

[SPEAKER_00]: worse, he might actually be thawing, running in reclaiming lost magic and staying one step ahead of the watchful guild is a lot for anyone, but Sarah Swan is about to discover that she doesn't have to do it alone, and that weird wonderful family she's made might be the best magic of all.

[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like that last line really encapsulates why you're going to love this book if you love Star's Hollow, because of course there's no real magic in Star's Hollow, and this book does have witches on it, but it's in that same way that it feels very natural and feels like it fits into a contemporary world.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, of course in England there are witches.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you know what I mean?

[SPEAKER_00]: But that last line, the weird wonderful family she's made might be the best magic of all.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's exactly how we all feel about Star's Hollow.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is this aspect of the book where there is a spell accidentally placed on the inn where people who needed will be able to find it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And for me, really is giving where you lead.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will follow.

[SPEAKER_00]: I just really think you're going to love it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I adored it.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you want something soft and cozy with a huge heart in pacing that keeps you positively captivated, this one is for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I hope you join us on Patreon for September to read it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is free to join.

[SPEAKER_00]: And saying go, Mandana, we'll be on the podcast in the next couple [SPEAKER_00]: with weeks.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now back to today's guest, a bit about Ashley Postan, Ashley Postan, this is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Dead Romantics, the seven-year slip, and I'll love story and sounds like love.

[SPEAKER_00]: She has written over a half a dozen young adult novels.

[SPEAKER_00]: After graduating from the University of South Carolina with a BA in English, she pursued a career in the publishing industry where she helped to design and implement marketing strategies for novels.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now she writes full time from her little grey house and spoils her three cats.

[SPEAKER_00]: When not writing she bides her time between South Carolina and Newark and all the bookstores between.

[SPEAKER_00]: In this episode, Ashley and I talk about the journey through rejection.

[SPEAKER_00]: How creative burnout almost had actually putting her pin down, but but ultimately inspired the arc of the main character in her latest novel.

[SPEAKER_00]: We also might cry a couple of times in the spoiler section at the end.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do love that Ashley is a big fan of Gilmore Girls and I loved hearing her thoughts on our favorite show and I hope you do too.

[SPEAKER_00]: So without further ado, [SPEAKER_00]: here is actually posted well actually I feel like I've caught you in the middle of a bit of a whirlwind you just were on the New York Times bestseller with sounds like love it debuted at number four you're in the middle of a book tour that is not quite done how are you feeling how are you doing right now you know I am I have you know the morale is still high I'm excited to [SPEAKER_01]: to do the second leg of my book tour, but man, airline travels not making it easy.

[SPEAKER_01]: I had awful planes, trades in automobiles situation, trying to get back home from the first leg of my tour.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it was awful.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was so bad.

[SPEAKER_01]: I missed my connection by a whole five minutes.

[SPEAKER_00]: No.

[SPEAKER_01]: In Atlanta, the day after Atlanta had been killed.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so all of the like planes that like weren't already scheduled were like down for maintenance and so I just I just didn't have another flight out that night and all the rental cars the one-way rental cars were all taken Naturally and so my publicist like somehow pulled a miracle and got me a car The poor guy drove me three hours home [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, they didn't even get your car to ride, and they got you a car to drive you for three hours.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nice to tell you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Tell about your book.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know what?

[SPEAKER_01]: We talked about that.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's five star ride.

[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.

[SPEAKER_01]: We just like, we just like, because we vived and we listened to the disgraced land podcast, and it was just, it was great.

[SPEAKER_01]: We just, we just kind of like, [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we were like, you know, best friends by the end of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: He met my dad.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was great.

[SPEAKER_00]: Perfect.

[SPEAKER_00]: It feels like it's out.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's Elmo's story.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've had a story.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, absolutely.

[SPEAKER_01]: And like, it wasn't the first time I've had to like catch a car that I did not rent from Atlanta.

[SPEAKER_01]: So at this, at this point, Atlanta is, is on my, can, can we curse on this podcast?

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, one hundred percent.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, Atlanta's on my shit list.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you should call me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was, I'm in Atlanta.

[SPEAKER_00]: I could have just driven your home.

[SPEAKER_00]: What?

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Next time.

[SPEAKER_01]: Next time.

[SPEAKER_01]: Next time.

[SPEAKER_00]: We would eagle eye.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was that coming up.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's coming up, so I'll go back to it later.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm driving this time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, great.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, that's me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Eagle is a great bookstore, but I have to say you are going to New Romantics in Orlando in July.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is my favorite bookstore.

[SPEAKER_01]: be too.

[SPEAKER_01]: I love it so much.

[SPEAKER_00]: If they are the best there, what do you love about?

[SPEAKER_00]: I guess in that case, like that's like such a fan girl moment because it's like a Taylor Swift romance book store that feels like the perfect place to meet both readers and fan girls like yourself.

[SPEAKER_00]: What is that like?

[SPEAKER_01]: I just really love the vibe of the new romantics.

[SPEAKER_01]: I love how it's so romance forward.

[SPEAKER_01]: In like a way that a bunch of indie bookstores in the last like ten years have it been, but are now becoming more like, okay, romantics is cool.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this is great.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah and I just really appreciate it and I really love how like romance is now kind of front and center whereas like the romance genre has always always been the top seller of any fiction genre for the last like forty years.

[SPEAKER_01]: So now to finally like get our moment in the sun it's just it's just really nice and to have like just boutique bookstores that are just neon and pink and you can just find you know [SPEAKER_01]: The cutest little romance beside monster fucking.

[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a perfect spot.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you like doing events like that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Does it mean you nervous or is it like just exciting to meet readers?

[SPEAKER_01]: She's exciting to meet readers most of the time because I don't really like talking about my own books hugely because.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, mostly because if you read my books to read my books and that's really cool, but I but I I feel like when I talk too much about it, I spoil the book or [SPEAKER_01]: or like the reader's experience for the book.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I like talk around the book usually and talking around the book just basically has me fangirling over everything else that I really love.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then other readers also are like, oh, I also really love that thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's just a connection of two people just really enjoying this trope or this or this like place or this like architect of a character.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I just, it's magical.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I feel like that's true of just your books in general is like in writing.

[SPEAKER_00]: You have a lot of references.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like very much a Gilmourkel's fan would like this because I mean even in the Dead romantic there's a little star's hollow mention that like it feels like the people who like read your books will find other things that they love there and like see you through that which I personally really love.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's like one of my favorite things is to put little tiny kind of markers in the books that kind of ground you to this contemporary place or setting because there are more fantastical elements in my novels, so to be able to round it with references or certain real moments because my books also deal really heavily with grief and with loss and also with love too.

[SPEAKER_01]: it's really fun to play with all of that together and try and figure out okay what references and what like memes and things will date this book in ten years and then what won't and I love like like making those bets.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is that something that you think about a lot because I know there's been conversation surrounding like putting references in books because you're gonna quote unquote date them and on my end I'm like yeah we can say that book came out in two thousand seven and dated to two thousand seven but I think a lot of people like [SPEAKER_00]: want a more universal experience as they continue on that like if it's like five years dated you're like oh that's cringe like they've references thing that's older but it's like well that was relevant at the time and it dates it to when the book came out.

[SPEAKER_01]: Every book is going to be dated no matter what.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like either either from the technology that's in the book or the socioeconomic [SPEAKER_01]: you know status of the culture and like a lot of different things can and will date a book it's just what will date a book faster or slower like putting in like a meme from TikTok will absolutely date a book very quickly whereas like say mentioning stars hollow or Gilmour Girls kind of won't because it's been in the culture and and like the the community of a fandom especially internet fandom for such a long time it has has a longer shelf life yeah [SPEAKER_01]: So it really, it really all depends, I guess.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I think, I mean, every, I talk about this in, I think the acknowledgments or the authors know it in seven years slip.

[SPEAKER_01]: Whereas every book is dated from the moment I like type the end because that story is [SPEAKER_01]: is frozen, it's there forever and it's not going to change, it's going to stay the way it is and I'm going to keep moving forward and I'm going to keep like learning and growing and writing different and maybe not better but more more adapt stories and I don't think like dating a book should ever be like [SPEAKER_01]: a bad term.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, oh, this book is so dated because it has this meme in it.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, no, that's, that's really interesting because it shows like, it was a sign of the time and it was really important in that moment and why was it important in that moment?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think that that's something that like a lot of people love about gumarkles though.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, there's so many conflicts in gumarkles that wouldn't exist because like, worries is a pager and she's waiting for Dean to come and it's like, that wouldn't have happened because she just would have called him on her cell phone.

[SPEAKER_01]: Or, like, they would have had the, like, find my app.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: She would have looked and see, oh, he's at dosis.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, let me call dosis and see what's going on there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I know that you're a big Gilmour Rolls fan before you get into that before you get into more of your writing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted time travel a little bit.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know you're familiar with a little slip through time.

[SPEAKER_00]: A little slip through time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Gilmour Rolls came out in October, two thousand.

[SPEAKER_00]: What were you writing in the year two thousand?

[SPEAKER_01]: I was writing fanfic in the year, too.

[SPEAKER_00]: Love it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was one hundred percent just like, that was when I was first skating into fanfic, too, because my parents had just bought a, bought an old compact computer and had dial up a write and so it had the whole, the whole dial-up connection thing and I could only only be on the internet for so long before my mom had to hop on the phone to like talk with her mom.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I had a small window.

[SPEAKER_01]: when I could actually be on the internet and and poor poor little young me found a message boards and fanfic maybe a little too early but I don't think so there's nothing as to how old were you then I was ten so you found it early what were you what fanfic were you like being drawn towards and then like to read versus to write [SPEAKER_01]: Ooh, I was, uh, because I was really big nerd even back then.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I really loved a reboot and I like Sailor Moon and Dragon Galaxy.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was like, I'm going to find a fan of those.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's basically how, how, like, where I was and how it started.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then I do remember, um, watching like the premiere of Gilmore Girl.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, really?

[SPEAKER_00]: Watching it live.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, watching it live.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I love that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like there's not a lot of people that we find to watch, like the first episode on the WB, like most people found it on ABC Family.

[SPEAKER_01]: They did, yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, no, my parents really liked sitting down and watching TV with me at night because it was like a family thing we did.

[SPEAKER_01]: So my parents were like, oh, this seems really fun.

[SPEAKER_01]: And my parents are so, or like, absolutely suckers for like, [SPEAKER_01]: a good drama and it's just seemed like something that like we would enjoy and kind of gravitate towards.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, that's kind of how that started.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, before we get in to Chemicals, I have literally so many questions to ask you about your Chemical Rows Journey.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to ask you more about like your all of your adult novels have this like element of paranormal you were talking earlier about like dating them and like rooting them in contemporary and that's kind of always how I felt about them is you write contemporary romantism like yeah he's a coast [SPEAKER_00]: Of course.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's ghosts.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're like, they're slipping through time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, obviously, or like, in this one.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, she's talking to him in his mind.

[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, that would happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, this is contemporary.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, no worries.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there's just that element of it that feels so real.

[SPEAKER_00]: But was there anything that you were reading around this time or growing up or even older that influenced you wanting to include this like, magical realism in your books?

[SPEAKER_01]: Ooh, I guess I would still go back to fanfic because, um, so a lot of fanfic tropes are, are these, like, kind of, like, soft, magical elements.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, oh, you meet your soulmate and you have, like, the number on, on, like, tattooed on you of, like, the, the countdown to, like, when you'd meet them, like, small magical things like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I always gravitated towards, like, kind of, like, those magical elements because I personally cannot just write a regular contemporary romance.

[SPEAKER_01]: I get way too bored.

[SPEAKER_01]: way too quickly.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I applaud every author who does and you know who like racist, beautiful, you know, contemporary romance that doesn't have a magical unicorn in it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like how do you do that?

[SPEAKER_01]: It's right.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like how do you do that Emily Henry?

[SPEAKER_01]: How?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'd make it feel like magic, but there's not magic in it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that is that is a special kind of like talent that so many my contemporaries possess and it's just something that I'm just I'm just not interested in I'm just like I'm gonna go and I'm gonna put you to ghost or I'm gonna put in some time travel or [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to put in a contemporary portal fantasy where she ends up in the town of her favorite romance.

[SPEAKER_00]: Which is everyone's dream honestly.

[SPEAKER_01]: Every one's dream, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I like those like small bits of wish fulfillment, but I also find that the more I write and the more I like travel through these magical stories.

[SPEAKER_01]: The more I realize that these magical elements in my contemporaries are just an extra foil to look at the very real situations that the characters are in.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know, I just really enjoy it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like putting like an extra hard mode onto a story.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, a little deeper into into the meat of these characters and the relationship.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I love that you were saying like you applaud the your contemporaries and your the contemporary romance genre.

[SPEAKER_00]: that they are able to do that, but like I feel like it's so much harder for you to create this world, what feels so real and normal, like to get to the point where like, yeah, they can talk to each other in their mind.

[SPEAKER_00]: No one's alarmed by this, of course.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I feel like that's like you creating an entirely new level of the genre to like convince us of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think you do that quite well.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much.

[SPEAKER_00]: What makes you want to tie the magic to romance specifically?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because I mean you could you could have magic in like a women's fiction story or just like in a family drama.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what makes you want to tie it together between the two people in love?

[SPEAKER_01]: I just grew up on Nora Afron.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just a sucker for a romance.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, like, there's, there's just something so cathartic about reading and writing like that one.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, shit.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm in love moment.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it's just, there's just something so lovely about that moment.

[SPEAKER_01]: I, I, I joke, I always joke that I like dog ear pages and I like mark up my books and, and I have so many readers are like, you do what?

[SPEAKER_01]: I do say.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're books are like that for me.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean I I just I I man handle I know yeah, I want to be a part of it exactly and so and so what I also do is for the meet cute I cracked the spine and when the meet cute is resolved I cracked the spine again because those are my two favorite places [SPEAKER_00]: I love that so you can just like naturally fall open to it magically.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, magically.

[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of your own magic, I love that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have like one that like over a month so you've been loving lately or like a backlist one that like has a really like really cracked spine?

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I feel like this is always my go to, but [SPEAKER_01]: the one book that is most loved in this household is House and Being Castle by Diana when Jones and it's not even really a romance.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a some people put it in middle grade, some people put it in YA, some people put it in adult.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it's Diana when Jones either way and she like she goes through this like really rye and like witty story and there's like romance in it but you have to kind of read between the lines and I kind of really love that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think I think that's what I really love best is finding like the secrets between the words.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a great way to put that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like that's something that can you can easily see that you're influenced by that in your books in the best way possible.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we have a lot of people in our book club who are writers or listeners of the podcast for our writers.

[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of people talk about the drafting process, but a lot of questions that get asked in the book club is more of like what happens after the draft.

[SPEAKER_00]: So what is the best piece of advice you've gotten or can offer for someone in regards to the editing stage of an awful old.

[SPEAKER_01]: I like editing the best actually like drafting is fine.

[SPEAKER_01]: You get to like feel through the story, but like editing is for me where all the no pun intended magic happens.

[SPEAKER_01]: So when you're when you're editing a novel and when you're parsing through what your editor or your banner readers have given you, if it's not something that you completely agree with, but it is something that like [SPEAKER_01]: You you do feel like there is something like not quite right with like what they have pointed out.

[SPEAKER_01]: The answer might not be the answer that that they gave you in in the edit, but there might be actually be something like not wrong, but something that you can tweak in that scene or in that like through line or sub plot.

[SPEAKER_01]: So always go with your guide.

[SPEAKER_01]: And even if you completely disagree with what someone says about something, they said it for a reason.

[SPEAKER_01]: So inspect it.

[SPEAKER_01]: But if you feel strongly about keeping something the way it is, go with your gut all the time.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because you're writing for you, you're not writing for anyone else.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's really, really hard, especially when you want to be published and you want to go with the market or you want to beat the market to something.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're never going to beat the market no matter what you do.

[SPEAKER_01]: The market is always going to be one step ahead of you.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so always write the book that you want to read.

[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like that's like the easy answer is right.

[SPEAKER_01]: The book you want to read, but also like edit the book you want to edit.

[SPEAKER_01]: Don't don't edit for everyone else.

[SPEAKER_01]: But take everyone's edits into consideration.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, I think that's perfect.

[SPEAKER_00]: When you get like, I mean, you submit your draft and you get your edits back.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is that something that you're really excited about or is that like a mortal wound that it feels like getting notes back on a book?

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh no, I love it.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of my favorite things like whenever I get notes back and I'm like, yes, this is how I can make this better because when you turn in a draft, it's not gonna be the best thing you ever wrote.

[SPEAKER_01]: You might think it is for a second and yes, firing on all cylinders.

[SPEAKER_01]: It has an engine, it's great.

[SPEAKER_01]: But then when you get notes back for me, like for a second it might be if it feels a little demoralizing but then I'm just like, oh no, this is how I make my book better.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is how I learn to craft a better story.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so for me, who always wants to keep learning and I want to keep growing and keep figuring out the best way to tell this story because it's not going to be the same way that I told every other story because every book is different and so it's basically like learning a new skill over and over and over again.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well speaking of like getting better, like doing the same thing, getting better and better, something you've mentioned before is you wrote six manuscripts before you query your seventh with a ton of rejection, and I'm sorry for bringing it up now, but I do only because your last four books have been New York Times best sellers, and I feel like a lot of people love to kind of like hear that story.

[SPEAKER_00]: What got you through that rejection and was it stealing I got with your boyfriend?

[SPEAKER_01]: It was in fact stealing a yacht with my boyfriend, sadly.

[SPEAKER_01]: My publishing journey has been really weird.

[SPEAKER_01]: I did write six books and then the seventh one turned out to be the one to get to like basically show colors for my agent, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like I was like a pretty pretty peacock showing my feathers and finally my agent was like, yes, you.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so that was that was difficult, but also with that said the other like six manuscripts weren't there yet.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're still in like my my my desk drawer.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're never gonna see the light a day and that's perfectly okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Why don't like dispose of them or get rid of them is because I have taken like bits and pieces of those and I've kind of cannibalized them into other books.

[SPEAKER_01]: So long story short with my with my publishing journey is I [SPEAKER_01]: Queeried, Holly Root, who is my agent.

[SPEAKER_01]: And she was like, yes, no, this is great.

[SPEAKER_01]: I always wanted to, you know, wrap a Y author who wrote a sci-fi, like, space fantasy.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what Heart of Iron was.

[SPEAKER_01]: And she was like, we're gonna go out with it and it's gonna be great.

[SPEAKER_01]: And she was like, do you wanna write anything else?

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, yes, I wanna write everything else.

[SPEAKER_01]: She was like, fantastic.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm the perfect agent for you.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, perfect, you are, you are.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I've been with her ever since.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's been like ten years at this point.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so we went out with Heart of Iron and we submitted it to editors.

[SPEAKER_01]: And while, while it was on submission, an editor at Quirk Books came to me and it was like, hey, I really like your voice.

[SPEAKER_01]: I like the way you write comedy and contemporary enrollments.

[SPEAKER_01]: We want you to try out for this IP project.

[SPEAKER_01]: and an IP project is basically a work for hire with a with a story with characters that aren't yours.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was like, cool, yeah, no, absolutely.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so the pitch was basically what turned into giga-rella.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I wrote like a chapter or two and I submitted it and I got the contract weirdly enough like wildly enough.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I signed the contract for giga-rella before a heart of iron.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so heart of iron sold six months later.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, it was weird.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then, so I basically had two books a year from, twenty, eighteen to twenty, twenty.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was Geekarella and then two more, two more books in that series, Princess in the Fan Girl and Bookish in the Beast.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then, with my heart of iron editor, it was heart of iron, the sequel Soul of Stars, and then stand alone, why Romanticie among the Beast and Rires.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then, twenty-twenty happened, and [SPEAKER_01]: We all know what happened in the twenty twenty.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you don't even have to say it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we got it.

[SPEAKER_01]: We got it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I went out with with two other YA books and they both died on submission and I was like, Oh, no.

[SPEAKER_01]: My career is stalling.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what to do.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so my agent was like, write something weird.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right, what you want to write, like the world is burning, just do something for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I like that the word that came about was weird.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do something for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do something you like weird.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, weird.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like Holly's, Holly's thing is like the weirder, the better, and I was like, you, you gotcha.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's my middle name.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, it's like, well, they don't call me Ashley though we were posted for nothing.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, so I had a toy with this with this with this railofic for like a good chapter to have and it was like an alternate universe where like they worked in publishing instead because I used to work in publishing as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, so I kind of like knew that like like those those like stopping grounds right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I pulled it out of Raylo and I was like, no, I like this plot a little too much.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to make it something else.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I shook the fanfic out of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it was really easy because it was an AU contemporary instead.

[SPEAKER_01]: There really wasn't any Star Wars IP.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but so ever.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then I was like, oh, I'll have a ghost to it because that sounds like fun.

[SPEAKER_01]: And because like that was just like me being tongue-in-cheek because the main character is a ghost writer and I'm like, oh, wouldn't it be really funny if a ghost writer could see ghosts?

[SPEAKER_00]: Which isn't a fantastic concept.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like the way that that comes about, it's just so perfect.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, thank you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was writing something just for me.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I was just, you know, I was just having fun and just, you know, writing the book that I wanted to read at the time.

[SPEAKER_01]: And at the time, a paranormal romance was not selling whatsoever.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like there were, I didn't have any cops for it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so when I was like so holly, I do have something that's kind of weird, not sure if you can sell it.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's what you said.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what you said.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then she was like, oh, no, this is great.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is amazing.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, challenge accepted.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so we went out with it, and like a month later, the Dead Romantics sold super clean.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I've been with my editor Amanda Berger on EverSense, and she's just been like, hey, the weird or the better, and I'm like sweet, the weird or the better.

[SPEAKER_00]: Are there any like star wars like references that you included just to like, I guess like reference back to the heart of it, where you began?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so Ben is the love interest in Ben Solo.

[SPEAKER_01]: But his name is Benji Andor.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's he works at Falcon House publisher.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: So yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Lawrence's best friend is Rose.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I like kept the little things around, which is like, Teehee.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I love that so much.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I went through sounds like love and when I was reading it, I was highlighting a couple things that I was like, oh, my wonder if this is true about actually herself.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I have a little bit of a true false, a handful of things before we get into talking about Gilmore girls.

[SPEAKER_00]: What I'm sure everyone wants to hear from you.

[SPEAKER_00]: But you can just say true false to these.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of them are super easy.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of them.

[SPEAKER_00]: I recognize just like a southern girl myself.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, hmm.

[SPEAKER_00]: She's definitely from around here.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the first one is, you love music, to your health.

[SPEAKER_01]: True.

[SPEAKER_00]: I need that one was true, but who is your artist?

[SPEAKER_00]: My gosh.

[SPEAKER_01]: My favorite artist is a band and that band is Motion City soundtrack.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: I love Motion City so much and for so four sounds like love I did a lot of research and so I did quite a few informational interviews.

[SPEAKER_01]: And one of them was with the Leedsinger Emotion City, Justin Courtney Pierre.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it was just so cool to sit down and talk to someone who I have been influenced by for like the last fifteen years.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he just ends up being a really cool dude.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, oh, so it is kind of cool to meet the people that you look up to.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's so risky.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know.

[SPEAKER_00]: Back to Dreamfault.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is just going to be true of us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry to bring that on you.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've tried and did not enjoy bacon ice cream.

[SPEAKER_01]: Faults.

[SPEAKER_00]: You liked it or you haven't tried it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I liked it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's really.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think the quote from Joni is meaty.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's meaty.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I was like, I can't tell.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is very meaty.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, but I'm like the kind of person who will put like peanut butter on like lunch meat sandwiches.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: No judgment.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not a good person.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're a cookout regular.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh true.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because that's when I was like, oh, where's she from?

[SPEAKER_00]: And I like looked up to see, I was like, okay, this makes sense.

[SPEAKER_01]: That was Hushbobby's band.

[SPEAKER_00]: On Uncle Rick's barge, you would prefer a mocktail over a cocktail.

[SPEAKER_01]: True.

[SPEAKER_00]: Same, very, very much a mocktail girl.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're a fan of boy bands.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, true.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have a fave?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, but it changes.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, right now, my favorite boy band is from K-pop demon hunters.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's the Sahaja boy.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, we, I did see you talking about the sun threats.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, I just, it's, it's, it's a great film.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's fun.

[SPEAKER_01]: But an actual answer to this is, yeah, I was definitely more of a backstreet girlie than in sync early.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: All of her mom's mix tapes.

[SPEAKER_00]: You love making a playlist.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, do you like sharing them with people like mom does?

[SPEAKER_01]: I do.

[SPEAKER_01]: I have a, I have a Spotify account where I make playlists for all of my novels.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And every time I go on like a road trip with my friends, we all do like a group playlist together.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's one of my favorite things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And my last one is kind of a moot point now because I said based on the a o three tags mentioned in regg.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're a fanfiction girlie.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we don't even end it to answer that question.

[SPEAKER_01]: No false.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not a fanfiction girlie.

[UNKNOWN]: Please talk about.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've just like pet back pedaling on everything we've said thus far.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, no, sorry.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not a fanfiction girlie.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm an a o three girlie.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, fair, fair, fair, fair.

[SPEAKER_00]: But one of the things that I do with reading a sexy book club is a kind of like to find books that not all of them, but books that like could be Gilmore Girls fanfiction, if like we changed some of the names, some of the setups, some of the things that are happening here, which is why I picked sounds like love for a book club.

[SPEAKER_00]: The way that I described it was like Vienna Shores, it stars hollow if it was coastal, diverse, and had a place for laying to rock out.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that kind of felt like the perfect sort of entry point.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like Lane was really like the focal point here with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: It sounds like love because I was like, I want to give this small-town musician the like main character love story that she deserves.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, please.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is where a lot of that came in.

[SPEAKER_00]: But before we get into the lane of it all, I want to know more about your history with the show with watching Gilmour Girls because when I was booking you for the podcast, I heard that you are a massive Gilmour Girls fan, which I was like, thank the, thank the publishing gods.

[SPEAKER_00]: But you were saying that you watched with your parents back into those end.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so so so I watched the first season with my parents and then we actually dropped off for a while.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure I'm not sure why it might have been it might have been because like that was around the time when we were moving and have we didn't have TV for a hot minute.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I got back into it when I met my best friend who moved down from Ohio and she was kind of obsessed with Gilmourgerals and also Dawson's Creek still.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so we just had like weekends where we would just sit down and we would just like watch it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm really dating myself here.

[SPEAKER_01]: She would record it on VHS.

[SPEAKER_00]: No way.

[SPEAKER_00]: We know, you're not the only one who did this, Jasmine Gillier, you want to have her friends, like, had a VHS of an episode she mixed and mailed it to her.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you're in good company.

[SPEAKER_01]: Good, good, fantastic.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, had so many like recorded VHSs and we were just like, you know, fast forward through the commercials and everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: The commercials are the best part.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like a moral say.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know what, that might be true in Star's Hollow.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not for like fifteen-year-old girls just like wanting to get to it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.

[SPEAKER_00]: So have you like been keeping up with it or are you like a one-and-done sort of watch girl?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you rewatch it all the time?

[SPEAKER_01]: So when I was learning how to write scripts for a high school level, one act to play competition, I would go back and I would re-watch certain scenes of Gilmore Girls.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I would write down the dialogue tags and I would figure out why is this so good and why is it so snappy and what makes it so engaging.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's still kind of what I do when I write my novels now is I do the dialogue first and then I put in I call of the basically all of the like [SPEAKER_01]: like theater and motion instructions around it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: People always are like, well, not always, but sometimes people are like, oh, I love your dialogue.

[SPEAKER_01]: Where'd you get it from?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, how did you learn how to write dialogue that's not still fit and feels organic?

[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, well, one theater into Gilmore Girls.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you remember what episodes you would go back and study the dialogue of?

[SPEAKER_01]: It had to have been like the second or third season.

[SPEAKER_00]: Does that mean that you are just girly?

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so I have a complicated relationship.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm one of your more.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, so do I think, do I think Jess is good for, for, or no?

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: No.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's like Dean kind of like, probably should have, well, early Dean.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I would say that's a hot take.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, early Dean, not, not, not, yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I just, I just love Jess as a character.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just, you know, he's like the quintessential like cinnamon roll bad boy kind of and like he has so much depth to him and you can tell that the writers really, really, really love the writing and character.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, definitely.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we talk about all the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, was he a good boyfriend?

[SPEAKER_00]: No, I would have cried if he was my boyfriend.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, same like every day.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I love him as a character and I love his relationship with Luke.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's like the best of him is like the two of them and they are arc together.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, no, absolutely agree.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's where like those like both of their characters shine.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Very much.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like I don't think that Gilmour Girls is is great for like romance a subplots, but oh man.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some like so the way I view romance is like is not always like a relationship between between two like lovers, but like the relationship like the romance with with a town or with like [SPEAKER_01]: other people like just like loving and caring other people and I think Gilmore Girls really like shines with like the interpersonal quote unquote romances between like family and like friendship and and the town that you grew up in and and where you end up going and who you want to be versus who you end up being yeah yeah now I'd completely agree they do community so well speaking of hot takes what are your hottest takes about Gilmore Girls you said dean for a second I was like well [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, gosh.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think you already know my, my heart is dean take is that he's, he's granted the beginning and he sucks at the end.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he has this like YA hero quality about him in the first season that you kind of just like, like when he jumps on the bus when she's going to school, you're kind of just like, oh, yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then he cheats on his wife and you're like, can't anymore.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, just like, well, [SPEAKER_01]: You were jumping on the bus and now you are cheating on your wife.

[SPEAKER_01]: Congratulations.

[SPEAKER_01]: But also it takes it takes two to take what that scenario.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's not just his fault.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, but it is also yeah his fault.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it is also yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: See, my heart is taken.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's it's a really hot take.

[SPEAKER_00]: We love them.

[SPEAKER_01]: The newest season doesn't exist.

[SPEAKER_00]: I [SPEAKER_00]: completely agree.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like I think if you were watching Gilmour Girls like in like it's prime like in the two thousand two thousand seven and then like had that nine-year gap like coming back to that like I was devastated when Gilmour Girls ended like I remember we were sitting and remember how I fell.

[SPEAKER_00]: I remember staring at the TV for like two hours afterwards because like my show is over.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's over.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then coming back to it, I like cried a lot in the revival because I was like, oh my gosh, my friends are back.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the more I thought about it, I'm like, they're saying really odd things though.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they're doing really strange things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I like that she got to come back in in the show, the way that she wanted to.

[SPEAKER_00]: And like, after, like, the Chris Cuffle with the studio.

[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, it's a pretty common take around, around this here podcast.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, good.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so glad I'm not alone in that.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have some like crossover, like Ashley X, Gilmore Girls question for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Would you rather get coffee from coobins or from Luke's Dine?

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's that's that's that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I guess that includes like you can sit down and have coffee too, like you can experience the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, so [SPEAKER_01]: Because there really aren't, there isn't any indoor seating for cool beings.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm probably gonna go Luke's diner.

[SPEAKER_00]: You just need to sit outside the sun.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[SPEAKER_01]: And like, I'm pasty.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's just not work too well.

[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, no, definitely Luke's diner.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I always say like I would go to lukes for the community and go to westerns for the good coffee because I imagine they like have oat milk and all the things that I like but I've yeah I'd want to go to cool be in strunned Sebastian fell personally [SPEAKER_01]: You never know, he might get rooped into like working behind the counter once a month.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can see it happening.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if there are two characters that you could pick from Gilmour calls to fall into a time warp together, who would it be and like what stages of the season?

[SPEAKER_00]: I guess like an early seasons person and a late seasons version kind of having a time warp together.

[SPEAKER_01]: Ooh, kind of like seven years slip?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's where I'm getting at, yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would like season one, Rory to deal with last season, Rory.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god.

[SPEAKER_00]: Diabolical.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I wanted.

[SPEAKER_00]: She's just a confront her.

[SPEAKER_00]: You would think that like the older version of her would be coming to younger her and being like, hey, listen, but it really would be younger her going to older her and being older her.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, listen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I thought you're running pick one of the love interests, but like, that's way better.

[SPEAKER_01]: I want Rory to call Rory on her own bullshit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, perfect.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you a favorite Gilmore girl?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you can include Emily in that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I like all three generations for different reasons.

[SPEAKER_01]: I love Emily because like she's no bullshit.

[SPEAKER_01]: She has like a rough exterior, but obviously she has more going on underneath.

[SPEAKER_01]: I like Lorelei because she is like bad choices personified.

[SPEAKER_01]: But she's so real about it though.

[SPEAKER_01]: And she's like so earnest.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I love that in both like a mother figure and also just a main character, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: and I love Rory because she basically exists and she makes like dumb teenage mistakes and we're not gonna talk about that last season.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah and it's like Rory shows us that like yeah it's okay to like change your mind and to like be like imperfect and to not want to [SPEAKER_01]: not want to have what you think you wanted your entire life.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's perfectly okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Me too.

[SPEAKER_00]: I like that perspective on it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's really different than a lot of the discourse that happens surrounding her.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Who's your favorite?

[SPEAKER_00]: on my favorite Gilmour Girl?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, that's a hard question that I know.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, growing up, it was worry.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, like, I, it's one of those things of like, did I like to read or did Rory Gilmour make me interested in reading and like that, which went, came first?

[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that because I was so invested in her boyfriend's as like a teenager, like this was my, Kimmore Girls was my life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like everything around my life started on to Kimmore Girls.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like I was doing my homework to Kimmore Girls.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it was like always there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I, like it was like, I would watch Rory and it was like that Rory, Gilmore, like study in Spau.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I was like, I could do my homework better if I'd Gilmore Girls on, which my mom didn't understand.

[SPEAKER_00]: She was like, you need to turn it off.

[SPEAKER_00]: Which she loves to talk about now.

[SPEAKER_00]: She was like, never gonna get a job watching Gilmore Girls.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, actually, is it turns out?

[SPEAKER_01]: Guess what, I made my own job.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, perfect.

[SPEAKER_00]: But as I've gotten older, and now I'm more or less age, and like the pilot, I'm like, well, maybe she's my favorite character, because we believe that a lower light is the main character of Gilmour Girls, and that the story really is about her and everyone around her, even though it is plural Gilmour Girls.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is, but I, one hundred percent agree.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think like most of the focus is around lower light.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but those are my, those are my Gilmore girls questions that I have for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so I just I love so much that you love the show as much as I do, but I love having books like yours in the book club.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not only because like it has that like small town trope that we have a musician who wants to make it big from her small town.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it's also the voice really, because like you were talking about the dialogue, there's so much about Gilmour calls that is just like beyond the tropes and the themes.

[SPEAKER_00]: It really is that dialogue, it's the references, it's the humor, and that's something else that I look for in book club picks is that like unique voice that we can follow up in love with, and I feel like you fit that prompt so perfectly.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much.

[SPEAKER_01]: Highest compliment.

[SPEAKER_00]: So with sounds like love, how would you pitch this book to Gilmour Girls fans or any reader really, but our audiences mostly, Gilmour Girls fans?

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's see here.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, my normal elevator pitch is sounds like love is about a bird-douse songwriter and it has been musician who find themselves inexplicably telepathically linked when they can't get a song out of their heads.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it's also about the main character, Joni, returning to her roots after being gone for a while.

[SPEAKER_01]: So if you didn't like that last season of Good Worker, and thought that like, Roi could have handled things just a little bit better, it's [SPEAKER_01]: It's a great book for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like this one is just like so perfectly for that like cathartic lean storyline.

[SPEAKER_00]: If we didn't talk much about it, but I just feel like that's that like she should have been the center of her own story that she really should have.

[SPEAKER_00]: She didn't need to have twins.

[SPEAKER_00]: She should have been a famous rock star.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, exactly.

[SPEAKER_01]: She should have gone off and she should have experienced this artistic version of her life that we know she should have.

[SPEAKER_00]: Which I don't say that she couldn't have twins and do that, but I just feel like they just stuck her in the storyline that was like, keep her ear in town.

[SPEAKER_00]: She's not gonna live out her dreams despite the fact that her entire teenage years were about the fact that they were under the floor board, but I need to see them on a billboard, if you will.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just like like if they would have had lane actually going out and like trying to accomplish your dreams while also like wanting to be like a mother and wanting a family that is that is something that almost every single woman deals with is like we have our own dreams aside from family.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, and family is really important to a lot of us.

[SPEAKER_01]: I am personally like childless by choice and like I have three cats and that's fantastic.

[SPEAKER_01]: I have both of my best friends have two kids each and they are also pursuing their dreams and it's really really hard.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it would have been, I don't know, it would have been a much better story or at least a good, a better ending for her otherwise because there would have been her just trying.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, absolutely.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like it's just like such a compelling tension to have like because it's like something that's own people face, whether or not you're being a rock star or not, but just like that working relationship that you have with like wanting to be a mom and wanting to as Lane says rock.

[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_01]: And like pursue, pursue this kind of legacy artistic version of yourself or that is like, I don't, I don't see music and art and books as just like you wanting to go out and be famous, but as you wanting to connect with other people, there is a part of connection and also a part of you existing far longer than your [SPEAKER_01]: You're blood in your bones, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's you as to like take something from Hamilton planting seeds in a garden you you never get to see growing right you you want to like spread your your artistic talent and your and your love for something and like have other people yes and it and just it just keeps going that way.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, I totally agree.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that that's something that like what I love about the book club is being able to explore kind of those alternate endings that we want it or like sometimes it's like couples that you wish would have ended up together.

[SPEAKER_00]: So like in my mind, Sebastian fell a little bit like that Dave Regowski boyfriend that she had where like this is how it should have happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's very very different than that character because Dave Regowski's perfect and has no flaws.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're not wrong.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry Sasha's perfect and has no flaws.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's so fair.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think that maybe his family history is a little bit different.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe the direction that I was going with with that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like Roman Fels, a bag of dick.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Mr.

Rigaoski seems to be very well adjusted, given his son.

[SPEAKER_00]: But as we get into sounds like love, this is always a spoiler chat.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you have not yet read sounds like love, I'm gonna give you a chance to pause.

[SPEAKER_00]: Read the book, come back, press play, and now you've joined us because you are ready to talk about this book as a whole, or if you've already read it and you're just continuing along, thanks for sticking with us.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we can talk about this without any sort of restraints of spoiler warnings or anything because I know that you mentioned that you have a hard time talking about it like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: We always do a spoiler chat where you just kind of take the [SPEAKER_00]: training wheels off and you can talk about anything you want as we continue on.

[SPEAKER_00]: So as I really to sound like love, what was the first idea you had for this book and what did you do with it?

[SPEAKER_01]: So the first idea I had was I want to make a telepathic romance because so I'm a big romanicy girly.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: I read too.

[SPEAKER_01]: And one of like the big romanicy things is like a telepathic connection between mates, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was just kind of like, oh.

[SPEAKER_01]: what if I try that but in a contemporary setting and then what would that look like and then I I also really love a good rock star romance and so I was like well, why don't I just like Hannah Montana this and just you know best of both worlds yeah and so that's kind of that's kind of what I ended up [SPEAKER_01]: doing, but how I ended up actually figuring out the whole, uh, to lepathy thing is I start.

[SPEAKER_01]: So once I knew that I wanted it to be to lepathy, I went back to the main character, Joni, who's originally a journalist, but I thought that was a little too long to know, and then I had, and then I created her brother, who is Mitchell, so their names are Joni Mitchell.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why I didn't put that together because he's called Mitch so much that I just, that's so perfect.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I created her and I built out like who she was, what she wanted to do, like why she's coming back to Vienna Shores, who her family is, and then also like what she needed to learn.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I had written two drafts before this.

[SPEAKER_01]: They were very bad her name was Jolene.

[SPEAKER_01]: At that point, and so I was like, well, this isn't working.

[SPEAKER_01]: My editors and back editors that were a mile long, and every single part of the book had edits in it.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I didn't agree with all the edits, but I did know that something was wrong with the book, and I didn't know what it was.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I was sobered out at that point that I was like, oh, I'm going to take two weeks off.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to attempt to not run off into the woods to go grow mushrooms as a new career.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's valid career though.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Mushrooms don't need help growing so it wouldn't really easy.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I took two weeks off and I went back to my roots and I wrote like a fifty thousand word fan thick in two weeks.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was, it was a lot and it was fun and it reminded me, oh, I do know how to write.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know how to do characters.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know how to do dialogue.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know how a story works because I've been doing this for over ten years at this point.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was just really, really, really burnt out and so I went back to sounds like love and that was when I created Joni and I was like, okay, she's dealing with creative burnout because that is what I know best right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is what I can [SPEAKER_01]: actively talk about because I'm still getting out of it so that was how she that that was her genesis was was was a very career forward woman with creative burnout who returns to her family's concert hall and so after I created her I created a Sebastian aka Sasha [SPEAKER_01]: And I made him like a foil for her because I knew I wanted her to have creative burnout and I wanted him to help her shake that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I created him as a kind of character to like help her through that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But he also has his own hangups to obviously with like being in like the shadow of his dad and being unable to shake it and not really [SPEAKER_01]: Liking is dad for very valid reasons.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so that was something that Joni could help him with because she has a very good relationship with her parents and with her career.

[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, you know, aside from the creative burnout stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's always how I craft my main couple is they have to be foils for each other and they have to learn something from each other during the romance.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then I was like, well, to Lepathy has to go on top of that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So their like character development has to come from the telepathy somehow.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it took a minute to figure it out.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I was like, oh, creative burnout is basically like whatever I burnout creatively.

[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of don't want to show anyone anything.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm kind of really [SPEAKER_01]: I feel really bad about what everything that I'm writing, I feel ashamed.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so, Joni feels the same way and what better way to get someone like to like shake that than to have someone in your head all the time, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so, that's kind of how the telepathy came about because the magic always has to be a foil for the character arcs of the two main characters.

[SPEAKER_01]: For, well, especially for the main character.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, for Dead Romantic, [SPEAKER_01]: Lawrence had to learn how to let go and the best way to do that is through and like what better way than through than falling in love with a ghost who literally comes back like that's the that's the whole like thing of a ghost is back because they can't let go for seven years slip it was about [SPEAKER_01]: like realizing that who she wanted to be isn't the person that she actually wants to be now.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so what better way to figure that out than through like a time slip where she falls in love with someone seven years with the past?

[SPEAKER_01]: For novel of story, LC feels like a secondary character in her own life.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so what better way to explore that than to put her in the town of her favorite romance series as a secondary character, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And so for sounds like love, Johnny and Sasha don't quite know how to open up to each other or open up to anyone and to actually like share their creative endeavors.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what better way to explore that than there's someone, you know, you can't really get out of your head.

[SPEAKER_01]: But then like with with that, I had to put rules on the telepathy because otherwise it's very intrusive to have someone in your head all the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they can only hear each other's thoughts when they think when they're actively thinking about each other.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's kind of like the like like it's kind of a knock on the door basically right.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's kind of how I circumvented the whole intrusion of privacy thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because it's like if you're in my head all the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not safe.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not good.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not good.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no.

[SPEAKER_01]: So like they're like they are in their head and in each other's head almost all the time, but it's because they're thinking about each other all the time because they're just like because they're either wearing about how to get each other out of their head or they're just really attracted to each other.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so that leaves still like hygiene says and stuff, but they're all but they always have to be thinking about each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I love the idea I hadn't even like put it together that like I love faded mates and I love when they can talk to each other Whether it's like whether or not they're realizing that's why they can talk to each other But like that's one of my favorite elements of romanticy and so like to have that here I like never once put that like comparison there and I was like oh my gosh, of course, that's why I loved it because I love faded mates [SPEAKER_01]: Right it's it's so good and like I love that kind of like intrinsic connection between us.

[SPEAKER_01]: Please I will eat that up.

[SPEAKER_00]: One hundred percent.

[SPEAKER_00]: I really love that the magic is a foil for them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like that's such an interesting idea and when it comes to like quote unquote having the voice stuck in your head did you immediately associate it with music because like it could have been like you know anything could have been a writer could have been painter any sort of thing but like [SPEAKER_00]: with the idea of like having a voice and a song stuck in your head.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's like just such a like a fantastic little turn of phrase idea.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I always knew I wanted it to have something to do with music because I love the idea of like you it's like I don't know about you, but I get songs stuck in my head all the time and they're just earworms, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm like, well, what if that earworm came with a voice?

[SPEAKER_01]: It wouldn't suck.

[SPEAKER_01]: But also be kind of sexy if you were attracted to them and they were attracted to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: That'd be kind of nice.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like confirmation from your crush, straight to your brain.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right straight to your brain.

[SPEAKER_00]: Kind of perfect.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, do you like me?

[SPEAKER_01]: Check yes or no.

[SPEAKER_01]: Don't even have to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, don't even have to check.

[SPEAKER_00]: We already know.

[SPEAKER_00]: I already know, but I like that your creative burnout, which is hard, but I like that your creative burnout inspired her to take a new direction after you had some not such good luck with the first two drafts.

[SPEAKER_01]: book is different.

[SPEAKER_01]: It sounds like love to three drafts.

[SPEAKER_01]: Seven years looked like seven drafts.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that are light.

[SPEAKER_00]: Perfectly.

[SPEAKER_01]: It just it just worked out that way.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't like it.

[SPEAKER_01]: But then we're dealt that way.

[SPEAKER_01]: Dead romantic is the only book that only took one draft.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, wow.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not a lot of story took four drafts.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as much as like it's nice to like the seven year slip, all the lines with seven drops.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, also hearing that I'm like, that makes my heart sink into a stomach.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, especially when have you read seven year slip?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we're here.

[SPEAKER_01]: So obviously I have a lot of really deep connections with like the loss in that book and everything and that was still very very fresh.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, that makes a lot of sense.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and so I had written [SPEAKER_01]: I think it was like two or three drafts before my grandfather died.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then after that, I realized that, oh, I was writing that kind of grief like in that picture-perfect way that I thought that that kind of grief would go.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it turns out, it doesn't go that way, it's messy, and it's raw, and you have a lot of conflicting feelings at the exact same time.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's perfectly okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's why it took so many drafts because I was actively trying to put down my own thoughts and feelings of my grandfather's passing into the book.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's a really hard sometimes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then there was like, oh, sometimes I feel like all the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's really hard.

[SPEAKER_01]: So difficult.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then like also I'm not good at time travel.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm I'm a simple girly at heart.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't do math, you know, my like cousin like loves Excel spreadsheets and I'm like, how do you do that?

[SPEAKER_01]: What is what is Excel?

[SPEAKER_01]: So so that was also very difficult.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's just like with everything said it just took seven drafts.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I love it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love the symbolism of the seven all working out there.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will say in that book when I got to the end.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like I was feeling a certain way and then I read the authors note and I have never cried so hard.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like reading an author's note and then immediately wanted to like flip back through the book and like read it again and go back through all these moments because I was just like [SPEAKER_00]: the poignancy with which all of this was delivered would just felt so natural and then to get to the end which just I'm very sorry for your loss.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_00]: But like getting to that point.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know we're talking about sounds like love but like that I just like that's like one of those like core reading memories is like you finish a book and you're like oh let me go to the acknowledgements because I love reading acknowledgements.

[SPEAKER_00]: I like never skip them.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love like hearing about all the people in a writer's life who like got them there even if I don't know them I'm like yay such is the part of people I love them.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, a little community.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.

[SPEAKER_00]: I like to see what they say about their husband or their loved ones just like to like make an onto them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you flip the page and that was there and I was just like, oh my gosh, that was that like that that moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like you can have like these like little core memories of reading and that one's definitely one for me.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like with so there's there's there's there's something similar and and sounds like love to yeah but but me and my editor for seven years slip we talked for quite a while about whether or not to add that into into the acknowledgements whether it would like [SPEAKER_01]: change the reading experience and like obviously it was going to when like you like learn that a lot of those feelings are very raw and very real yeah but ultimately it was a good choice that we did end up adding it into the acknowledgements it was it was my it was my editor's idea because [SPEAKER_01]: I'm very bad at sharing things.

[SPEAKER_01]: I keep a lot of stuff close to my chest when it comes to personal matters.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it was a challenge and a challenge for me to do that and same with sounds like love.

[SPEAKER_01]: My grandmother who basically raised me, she passed away quite a few years ago from dementia.

[SPEAKER_01]: The last word she said to me was who are you?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so like I talk in the acknowledgements all the in the authors know about about the long goodbye and and like how we don't really get to say that goodbye.

[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I just for for sounds like love, I wanted the experience of going through of like Joni going through like [SPEAKER_01]: her mother's early stages of early onset dementia in like a slightly like fantastical way because I think there are a whole lot of books that do the reality of it a lot better still Alice is one of them and I I wanted to write my good goodbye right [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that was kind of how I ended up doing it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it was very cathartic.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was nice.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I love that you mentioned in the author's notes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sounds like love that it was a really long goodbye that you never really got.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like so many people will relate to that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that something that's so beautiful about both seven year slip and sounds like love is how well they're received.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like I cannot tell you the amount of friends that I have whose favorite book in the entire world.

[SPEAKER_00]: is this happened your slip that it's like one of those books that it's like if you could read it again for the first time like wipe your memory and have that book that one like shows up every single time in those lists and I don't know how often you see things like that but I feel like I have to tell you that because like it's one of those things like it can be so hard to get through that but to know that like it's received so widely and so beloved I feel like that's something that is so special for those books [SPEAKER_01]: I have to say that makes me feel not quite so alone.

[SPEAKER_01]: And like that grief sometimes, especially when like a reader will come up to me and say, hey, I have the same pain you do.

[SPEAKER_01]: I thought I was alone, but I'm not.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, oh, I thought I was alone too.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's nice to know that [SPEAKER_01]: because grief is so isolating especially that kind of grief is very very isolating and also the grief of losing a loved one to dementia is also very isolating and so just being able to connect readers with each other who are like oh I had this experience you did too I think that's [SPEAKER_01]: That's just the power books, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Books can do that, not just mine, but just a whole host of books can do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just in general, that's the true magic of reading and the book community and just being like, oh, I have this one very specific experience and I thought I was alone in this, but apparently I'm not.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it makes dealing with that kind of heavyness so much easier.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, not not easier, but it makes it [SPEAKER_00]: It's terrible.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love it.

[SPEAKER_00]: We both found that word, but I literally am about to cry actually.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just like talking about this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Cause it's just like, I think that like so much of what you write is just like so touching, but I think that romance is like the perfect place to explore that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like it's like the softest, silliest, like gaseous place to like insert like your grief to it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know a lot of people are like, [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, romance is just fluff, it's whatever, but like it's really- They have a red romance because it's just like the safe place to feel all these things that you're like a shame-dove or that are so hard and I feel like your books fit that perfectly.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's just a safe place to just feel.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it really is.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's about the tough parts of love too because you can't have love without grief and without loss and without sadness and you can't have grief and loss without having loved something.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I feel like they just go hand in hand.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.

[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: So perfect.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to move on to a different question now to get get the mood back up.

[SPEAKER_00]: But like, yeah, let's do the same tone.

[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the question was, were there any real life musicians that inspired Joni and Sasha?

[SPEAKER_00]: or like what sort of music research did you do because you were talking about talking to various other musicians as you went through that because I think it's kind of uh there's so many fun research rabbit holes to get stuck in with this book so how did how did that all come about?

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so it kind of came up, like I do preliminary research for everything in my books, like for Dead Romantics, I did informational interviews with people who owned family owned funeral parlors and stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: And for seven years slip, I had informational interviews with chefs and also with people who had lost loved ones to suicide as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're not a love story, I shadowed a booksellers.

[SPEAKER_01]: I went to go like, live up in like the Hudson Valley for like a hot minute.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is stuff like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: I talked with like widowers.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so for sounds like love, you know, the same ML.

[SPEAKER_01]: I, I chatted with with just a corny pier, mostly city soundtrack who introduced me to Cassidy Pope.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then I read quite a few nonfiction books on boy bands.

[SPEAKER_01]: Love because [SPEAKER_01]: Who doesn't?

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, when my favorite is everything, I need I get from you by, oh gosh, Caitlyn Tiffany, I think.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it's about the one direction fandom and how it changed internet culture forever.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, wait, I've heard of this one.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's, it's very, very fun.

[SPEAKER_01]: I read books and research papers on like the music industry and strangely enough, there's not a lot of information about songwriters in the industry.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's mostly because less than five percent of songwriters are women and queer people.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, that's great.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And like most of those are Diane Warwick and Taylor Swift.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's incredibly [SPEAKER_01]: male-dominated industry, and it's a boy's club.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Talk about a boy band.

[SPEAKER_01]: Talk about a boy band.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so trying to get any information about songwriting, especially songwriting for big labels and how that goes about [SPEAKER_01]: and how songs are chosen and how producers are pitched songs and all this stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was like, well, that's not the book I want to write.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think I am the person to write that book.

[SPEAKER_01]: I hope someone does because it would make a great book.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that's not me.

[SPEAKER_01]: So while I learned about all of [SPEAKER_01]: That part of the industry, I didn't include a lot of it because sounds like love isn't about the song industry.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is about creative burnout.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I pivoted a little bit and I read research papers about creative burnout and [SPEAKER_01]: like what it is and what it does to your body.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, oh, cool.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm experiencing all of this.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's great.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're like, these are all my symptoms.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, guys.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, this is all of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then I also read quite a few like accounts and like read it threads actually of like people who own music venues and like the trials and tribulations that they had to go through read it is a gold mine for that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I love that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I went down so many rabbit holes in that regard because wild things happen.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm using venues just absolutely wild things.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can only imagine.

[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, so I did a lot of research in that regard.

[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like it's just various different parts of like little pieces of like the entire music industry exist in both of these characters.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because I keep seeing fan castings and all of them are Harry Styles or Sebastian.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, wait, it's all okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I will say I was like, you know what, Harry Styles would be fantastic.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I would say it's Harry Styles is like vibe, but with like, hold your space.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's great.

[SPEAKER_00]: We love to hear it for the very tortured past.

[SPEAKER_01]: very, very tortured past.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's one of my favorite things.

[SPEAKER_00]: I caught man tragic backstory.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's me every time.

[SPEAKER_01]: Every single time.

[SPEAKER_01]: And like, you know, people can be like, oh, I've read this before to my guests, but you haven't read it telepathically.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's one of the best parts.

[SPEAKER_00]: You were talking about the music venues.

[SPEAKER_00]: How did the revelry come about?

[SPEAKER_00]: Was it from these like Reddit threads that you were scrolling through?

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the revelry actually came about because there's this one music video in Asheville, North Carolina that I really love.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's called the Orange Peel.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's where I saw my first concert that I went to go see myself.

[SPEAKER_01]: I got myself into a car, I drove four hours up there and I saw a band.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I modeled a revelry a lot after the Orange Peel because the Orange Peel was also in a defunct automotive warehouse that was made of brick and [SPEAKER_01]: The only thing that I did not put into the revelry that is in the orange peel is like they have this gigantic metal fan that just circulates, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: And it was nice to have.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right?

[SPEAKER_01]: I can't also put that in there.

[SPEAKER_01]: And at one point there were there were seagulls that roosted in like the the top of the top of the revelry.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like I can't have good consciousness but a huge bird.

[SPEAKER_01]: Bird killing fan.

[SPEAKER_01]: Where where these seagulls would be but then I ended up taking out every single scene where the dad just fought off those seagulls Those those seagulls were his moral enemy and they were really great scenes I might put them in like a bonus thing on my side [SPEAKER_00]: But they were fun.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, offer it to the people.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.

[SPEAKER_00]: How did you pick the chapter titles for the book?

[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like that requires so much research and effort.

[SPEAKER_01]: So go back to those playlists.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just chose the song that vibe the best with that scene or that chapter.

[SPEAKER_01]: The song might not have anything like [SPEAKER_01]: directly to do with the scene or the chapter in question.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like I think chapter fourteen is the cheeseburger and paradise one.

[SPEAKER_01]: They don't actually have cheeseburgers at the restaurant that that you and and lemon are opening.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love I love seeing them.

[SPEAKER_01]: I had like they had they had a much bigger role in and I think draft two, but that was one of the notes that my editor gave me.

[SPEAKER_01]: She was like it's it's detracting from the main story.

[SPEAKER_01]: So pair it down a little bit and I was like dang it.

[SPEAKER_00]: again now she was right so one thing that I really love when I'm reading is the moment I finish a book and read that last line I immediately go to the first line to see how either they relate to each other or how they book in each other [SPEAKER_00]: I do that too.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I try to read it as like a complete thought almost.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when I read yours, I was like, oh my gosh, this is fits like the way that it reads together so perfect.

[SPEAKER_00]: But even more than that, even like heightening that, like there's like a prologue and an epilogue, but in the first chapter and the very last chapter, they start with the same sentence.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, actually, you did this for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, this is exactly the kind of story that I love to read where it just feels like it's so bookend where things are exactly the same, but everything has changed.

[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, that is, that is my favorite thing to do.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because like for me, all stories are like cylindrical anyway.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're all just like a circle.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I always like to start where I'm going to end, but obviously everything's going to change because it's not a circle.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a spiral down or a spiral upright.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I appreciate that someone, no one else has actually talked to me about this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Really?

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is my favorite thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like I have a list of like my favorite first signs and last signs.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this one is definitely making the list this year just because it feels like such a, like the book feels like a complete thought because of the way that relates to each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: I kind of want to read like them back to back.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, loud.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me find the the last one.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because at first I was not reading it from the [SPEAKER_00]: Like the, it's a very short prologue in epilogue to the chapters.

[SPEAKER_00]: At first I was reading it from the prologue to the last chapter and I was like, oh, this still fits really perfectly.

[SPEAKER_00]: But so it reads, is most summer nights in the small beach town of Vienna shores, North Carolina, there was a music at the referee.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it sounded still soft, still unsure, like a song.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I just like I get chills like at like the the story world of like the building of that you talked about that something that you really love like what is important to you about putting those book in not only like in the epilogue and the prologue but in the chapters themselves too.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it scratches a part of my brain that really like puzzles in my games.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a huge gamer.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I love narratives that come full circle.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I especially love narratives that like on like a line by line basis also come full circle too.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I like the challenge of trying to me and my editor we call it landing the plane.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you take off your circle a little bit and then [SPEAKER_01]: And then in the end, you have to land the plane on the same runway that you came from.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but but the plane is like lighter because it's used fuel and like, you know, the the people on it are maybe a little bit unhappy because it's going to be on the ground, but you still got to land it and you have to land it perfectly.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's always the hardest and like most rewarding part for me is that [SPEAKER_01]: When I do finally land the plane and I do like get those like that that last scene and those last sentences hurt like right I I know they're right and they're usually the last things that I write as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know like how I want to end it but I don't [SPEAKER_01]: actually write that sentence or those or like that scene.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so like the rest of like the story has pulled itself through to the end.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that I know like whether or not it actually works and I can't actually like like land those play it exactly the way I took off.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I feel like you have to like create the puzzle piece so that it can fit into that last slot and slot exactly.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you change the first line as you go through that process or just like the first part always stay the same and you're trying to connect it back to that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So because I'm drafting my next book now, I can say with certainty that the first line always changes.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it changes based on how like the feeling of the story or where the story is going changes.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so at the beginning, I always either like pose a thought or an idea like like a like a [SPEAKER_01]: like a moment captured in time right and then in the end it's that same moment but it's a different time.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so the first like the prologue and like the first lines of a chapter usually always changed depending on the rest of the book.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like so the last things I always like finish are the first and the last.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so one of the things that we talked about briefly while we were both crying is the relationship that she has with her mom that is so heartbreaking.

[SPEAKER_00]: Something that I love from that is the use of like breadcrumming to work your way through the story because the surprise of her having known Sasha's mom was just so devastating, but like brilliant and beautiful.

[SPEAKER_00]: How did you set that up?

[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like that's something that you're so good at as keeping the reader so invested in these teeny tiny details, which is what Romance is.

[SPEAKER_00]: You want to stay invested in the small, but you do such a good job at the breadcoming of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: How did you, I guess, map that out to keep the reader invested in what was going on there?

[SPEAKER_01]: Ooh, that was definitely a joint effort between me and my editor.

[SPEAKER_01]: I cannot overstate enough that my books are only half as good because I have a brilliant editor who is very hands-on and who likes to get down in dirty with all the little things and she will do line edits where she will have this like one really nit picky edit and she's like, I know you can do better than this.

[SPEAKER_01]: or like, she'll be like more.

[SPEAKER_01]: And like, it's like the most beautiful sentence I've ever written in my life.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you'll be like, you can do better.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're just like encouraging, but at the same time, you're like, but that was really good.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, but it was good.

[SPEAKER_01]: But in the end, it ended up not being that good.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just thought it was good in the moment.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, you know, and so most of that bread crumming came from my editor Amanda, just being a very, very, very tight.

[SPEAKER_01]: reader and and being like could you add a little more of this here or can you breadcrumbs some more in this scene or ooh how about adding some kind of like foreshadowing here and I already like peppered that in a little bit but sometimes I'm a little heavy handed because when I'm writing it in the moment I have to remember that this is there so I'm very heavy handed in it and then I keep going.

[SPEAKER_01]: and sometimes she's like well pull back a little bit or like maybe make this a bit more like anonymous and so Amanda's just great with that.

[SPEAKER_01]: She's a fantastic editor and we're a pretty good team I think.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah I feel like that's so essential to have someone who can like understand your brain and understand it's like capabilities so that like when you are writing something and she's like you can do better and then you're like well [SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, I did do better.

[SPEAKER_01]: Unfortunately, you were right.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then like when like she knows like this is the best I can do and I she will she'll be like this is beautiful.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is great because like she actively actually knows how good I can be when I apply myself.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's always it's always good to have an editor who can do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: How did you decide that her mom was going to have known his mom and kind of give him that treat of like getting to hear a little bit more about her?

[SPEAKER_01]: I knew from the very beginning because that's part of the magic of the telepathy.

[SPEAKER_00]: But like give me chills.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was so I [SPEAKER_01]: a little bit history.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I believe.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think this was also in Elizabeth Gilbert's big magic for her like a nonfiction where she talks about how if you don't like put [SPEAKER_01]: put an idea down to paper.

[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't just go away.

[SPEAKER_01]: It finds someone else to tell the story.

[SPEAKER_01]: I really love that idea.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's so beautiful and it also takes like the pressure off of me to like to like write the idea that I want to read on like no.

[SPEAKER_01]: Someone else is going to do this.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like this is fine.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I will absolutely read it and I will love it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's happened so many times.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I kind of like [SPEAKER_01]: believe that like sometimes you are at the person to to write this story or this idea maybe this like does belong to someone else and I and I don't think like to to me fair I don't think like like ideas belong to anyone but I do think that some people can like you know [SPEAKER_01]: they can put their own like lived experiences into this one type of idea or this one type of a story better than other people can because we all have different lived experiences and we all have things that we're really good at or really bad at like I'm really bad at intergenerational stories so so that's never something that I'm probably going to write but I will devour all of right [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's kind of like one of the things that I believe.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I kind of put that a little bit into the telepathy of the song, where it's like, well, the original songwriters, the Johnny's mom and Sasha's mom, they didn't actively get to finish this song.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so it carried on to someone else and that someone else ended up being their their kids and ended up like bringing them together.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I do think that like art and creation in and of itself like has the magic of doing that and bringing unlikely people together and into these collaborations that just [SPEAKER_01]: change how you create and how you see art.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I just really love writing about that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, now I love that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love that you call back the idea of like the big magic that Elizabeth Gilbert writes about because I love that book and like her very like fantastical imagining of what ideas do and how they arrive to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so the idea of imbuing the creative process with that magical realism that you already have [SPEAKER_00]: and like offering it to their kids.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like I literally, when you said that, like, who knew that they were gonna kid, then kids were gonna kiss, and then they were gonna have the songs like in their head while they can both talk their minds.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's just big magic.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's just big magic.

[SPEAKER_00]: The song that Joni and Sasha, Sebastian Wright, gets sung by the person who played Anna in Frozen, the musical on Broadway.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, by Patty Mirri.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's wild.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I saw her in pre-shows back when Frozen was doing pre-shows on Broadway and I loved her so much.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then as it turns out, she loves my books.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so we started messaging on Instagram.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then this past January, she was doing the Disney Broadway thing in Epcot.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I was there with my parents and then with a writing retreat.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was like, hey, want to get, want to get drinks?

[SPEAKER_01]: And she's like, I would love to.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we ended up getting drinks and she was like, I would love to read your audiobook.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, well, that's fantastic because I have a book that needs someone to sing.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's how that worked out and she was the perfect, she's the perfect journey.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh, I haven't listened to the audiobook yet, but like I want to knowing that she reads it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, she reads it and then and then her her husband Colin Donald who's also a Broadway star and he also was Tommy and Arrow and so you know he's he's great.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was like, hey, I really dig these lyrics.

[SPEAKER_01]: I want to see if I can write like an actual song for the end of this audio book.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it'd be cool to use like, do you have like a melody?

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, well, yeah, the melody is on the cover because I also have a background in music.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, really?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah!

[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, that's so cool.

[SPEAKER_01]: So like sadly, it's not a one for one, but it's close enough because I was also a graphic designer back in the day.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I know that it couldn't be a one for one and make it look like it was swirling around them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not how music is written one hundred percent.

[SPEAKER_01]: But there are bits and pieces of like the actual melody.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the cover.

[SPEAKER_01]: And also that man bun is my man bun.

[SPEAKER_01]: I had to fight for that man bun.

[SPEAKER_00]: He needs it.

[SPEAKER_01]: He needed.

[SPEAKER_01]: He needed the man, but yeah, like I thought tooth and nail for that man.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh, I love it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, everyone needs to appreciate it even more now.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can't read music, but I'm just staring at it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like I can, like I'm like, oh my gosh, that's so cool.

[SPEAKER_01]: Wasn't cool though was was the fact that he was like, well, can you send an audio recording of you singing the lyrics?

[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, [SPEAKER_01]: You know my voice actually.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to embarrass myself in any way shape or form on this panel.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was like I'm not I'm not a singer.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, oh, don't worry about it.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's fine.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I'm nothing but worrying about it actually.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, oh, this is my worst nightmare.

[SPEAKER_01]: Congratulations.

[SPEAKER_00]: Did you do it?

[SPEAKER_00]: Did you send it?

[SPEAKER_00]: How did you feel?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you want to sing it now?

[SPEAKER_01]: No.

[SPEAKER_01]: No!

[SPEAKER_00]: Just checking, just checking.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know what?

[SPEAKER_01]: I am good at just a few things, singing is not one of them.

[SPEAKER_00]: So fair.

[SPEAKER_01]: There is a reason.

[SPEAKER_01]: I decided to dedicate myself to the quiet arts.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will say I can't sing, but I sing all the time on the podcast, so.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I sing in like a joking way.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I can't actually carry a tune.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I have not even a bad.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but I can like he were pretty good pitch because I was in margin man for a long time.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I can like hear myself being off key and that's the worst thing in the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so he was like, oh cool awesome.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then like three hours later, he turned around with like a whole ass production.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, what what?

[SPEAKER_01]: What?

[SPEAKER_01]: This is wild.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, you can hear that clip of the song at the end of the audiobook and also you can hear it on Spotify and Apple Music and everything and it's really cool.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you've been using it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I found it because I was looking for a song to attach to an Instagram post I was making about it and I went to yours.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, what songs have she've been using for this?

[SPEAKER_00]: And I saw it and I was like, well, so if you want to hear it, you want to find it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's called Sounds Like Love.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sounds like love, not job.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you know what?

[SPEAKER_01]: It sounds like love.

[SPEAKER_00]: It does sound like love.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you listen hard enough, it sounds like love.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, sounds like love.

[SPEAKER_01]: What happened?

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's just such a cool way for that to come about that your Disney girl, Patty's a Disney girl.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I was just like, are you, are you kidding me?

[SPEAKER_01]: This is, this is beyond my wildest dreams.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.

[SPEAKER_00]: So for the last question about this book, something I ask everyone is, what was the hardest part of writing this book and what is something that you're most proud of?

[SPEAKER_00]: They can be different or they can be the same.

[SPEAKER_01]: The hardest part of writing this book was writing this book.

[SPEAKER_00]: So fair.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: I talked earlier about creative burnout.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I was kind of like joking when I said I was gonna take two weeks off and then maybe like fuck off into the woods.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was actively wondering if I had another book at me.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was actively wondering if like, oh, is this it?

[SPEAKER_01]: Is this where I go back to what I did before?

[SPEAKER_01]: Which is I was a marketing designer for publishing.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I loved that job.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a great job.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it was probably my favorite job I've ever had.

[SPEAKER_00]: But other than writing, but not at the time.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no, not at the time.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so, and so I was like, oh, is this it is this is is this it right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and like obviously it wasn't, but I was I was so [SPEAKER_01]: So caught up in like feeling like a failure because I just could not get this book right and we were down to the wire and I We I had to have this book in by like been November and it was September and Yeah, and I was just like I'm like tearing up thinking about it because it was It was really really really hard and I'm not used to disappointing people and I really really hate disappointing people [SPEAKER_01]: So having all of that in my head and having to deal with being unable to figure out a voice or a way into this novel, it was really, really hard.

[SPEAKER_00]: If I can tell you, this is your best book.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is like, I've read them all.

[SPEAKER_00]: This one, there's just something about this that I clicked so perfectly from the beginning of this, because it got sent to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, oh, of course I'm going to read Ashley Posson's new book.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I probably got like two chapters into it and I was like, oh, this one's the one for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it like carried that way.

[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like the whole of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: So like knowing how much of Joni is in you in your process feels that much more.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to say earned because that's the wrong way.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a really horrible feeling to have earned because that's so scary to think that this thing that you love is not something that you can do anymore because of what your brain is doing for you, which is normally the place where all of the good ideas come from.

[SPEAKER_00]: But no, now it's worrying with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: But like this one, it's just like every time I sunk back into this world, it was some place that I really wanted to be.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like I saved it from my like nighttime reading when I got in bed at night.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, it wasn't my like, I had like various places where I place books.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, and where I like read them throughout the day.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this was like my bedtime read, because I knew that I was gonna sink into a good, soft place where I wanted to be.

[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe it was like that back of my mind faded mates, having their like telep- [SPEAKER_00]: Catholic conversation that was there, but this is your best book and knowing that you went through that to get there.

[SPEAKER_00]: I hope that that I hope that that lands on listening ears.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: That means a lot to me because I do feel like I did have to like work and I did have to earn that book a little bit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: But not in like a bad earnings.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, I don't think earned as bad.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, like earned can be like, oh, I just had to like, I think I would have had that problem with any book.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would have written next because it wasn't the book itself.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was, it was the fact that I had gone so many years [SPEAKER_01]: writing books back to back to back to back without any chasing my joy basically that I had to that like I was going to to break down at some point but it just happened to be this one and I'm really glad that it was this one actually and that it wasn't one of the ones that I have in the future because goodness knows it would have been bad if it was the one that I had to write like three months ago yeah [SPEAKER_00]: No, but I feel like there's like an element of having your life in this story that can be very vulnerable.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I think that me and everyone who helped get this book to number four debut at the New York Times, like I feel like that's wild.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's, it's wild, but again.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was interested in three to sandwich.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, um, McFadden sandwich, excuse me, free to McFadden.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, like, like, like, like, like, toppling freedom, like, fatten at this point is just congrats, man.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's wild.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's wild at this point.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I'm in a sandwich.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I can test it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nonetheless, like, during this time, when, like, so many good books are coming out, there's just so many, like, like, it's just, like, such a yummy, wonderful time to be a reader because such books like this summer, we are eating.

[SPEAKER_01]: We are doing this.

[SPEAKER_00]: So well being well fed and I feel like this one is like so good to take to the beach like it's like at that summary vibe But like personally when I'm at the beach, I do want to like have like a touch of tears.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do want to cry just a little I like a little melancholy summer So like this one feels like it fits that bill so well But you were talking about your next book.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do want to read a thread post.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what we call them I keep like sewing or needle [SPEAKER_00]: Is it a thread?

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it might be a thread.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's it's a post that you made.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's a post I made.

[SPEAKER_00]: But you said I'm gonna read to see this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes I'm like, is this embarrassing of me to have found this and read like something from the internet from them?

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, but they wrote it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no.

[SPEAKER_01]: I I wrote it in the internet is forever.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So now I'm just like, you're even more looking at my nightmare.

[SPEAKER_00]: You wrote, I'm currently drafting a novel that I'm having such a fun time with.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to stop writing it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can't remember the last time that happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is this the next book that we're going to get from you?

[SPEAKER_01]: No.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it is the, at this moment, it is the last scheduled book you're going to get from me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not even coming out next year.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because you were talking about the book.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think he said you turned in a book three months ago.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is that right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: I turned in a book three three months ago that one hasn't been announced yet.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's going to be announced.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it might be announced in New York Comic Con.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a YA book.

[SPEAKER_01]: That was one that I was writing earlier.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then I had fifteen days to write the one that I was having a lot of fun with.

[SPEAKER_00]: Fifteen days?

[SPEAKER_01]: Fifteen whole days between contracts.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So...

Do you see?

[SPEAKER_01]: Nope.

[SPEAKER_00]: What?

[SPEAKER_00]: How many words was it?

[SPEAKER_01]: It was seventy-three thousand words.

[SPEAKER_01]: Four first draft and it's a romanticy so it's going to be at least a hundred and twenty.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not a romanticie.

[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, I'm so excited.

[SPEAKER_00]: and like hearing your experience with this book and like reading this like now having learned this about you feels like like I feel so proud of you to have like gotten to a point where like you're like really enjoying reading again or reading rather writing again both actually I think one of the best parts about if there can be a best part to your creative burnout was it in those two weeks you were like I'm gonna take a break I'm gonna continue writing [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I've written for so long, like writing has been such a deep part of my life for so long.

[SPEAKER_01]: I can't, like, even if I wasn't a writer, I would still be writing.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's how much I just love telling stories.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, even if I didn't find success in this career, I would still be writing because I can't think of a different thing to do with my time.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just really love it.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's just one of my favorite things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you're doing great on it.

[SPEAKER_00]: My last question, speaking of reading, is do you have a book that you would recommend for Gilmore Girls fans?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I do, actually.

[SPEAKER_01]: I have two.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're both at the same author.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's Sanghu Mandana.

[SPEAKER_01]: The her first one was the very secret society of regular witches.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Amazing.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I really, really love the one that's coming out this summer.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it comes out this month too in July.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's called, uh, which is guide to magical in keeping.

[SPEAKER_01]: Listen, it's cozy.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's so pretty.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's so good, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll say here.

[SPEAKER_00]: It may or may not be our booklet pick for September.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's gonna be so my god.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's Kilmergirl season.

[SPEAKER_00]: In Keeper, like, cozy, like magic.

[SPEAKER_01]: Cozy and magical.

[SPEAKER_00]: Perfect recommendation.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, please, yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is fantastic.

[SPEAKER_00]: I hope people will get excited for it because we will be reading that one this year.

[SPEAKER_01]: I hope they fall in love with it as much as I have.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just love Sanko's writing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like her prose on his sentence level.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, majestic.

[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like having that within like a cozy book to all the better.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Ashley, thank you so much for giving you so much of your time and so much of yourself in this conversation.

[SPEAKER_00]: I had such a good time talking to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: If people want to keep up with your sub-stack, where can they find it?

[SPEAKER_00]: In the event that you drop these little Easter eggs that you have been mentioning.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is actually posting.substuck.com.

[SPEAKER_00]: Perfect.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure if you had to your website or your socials, you can find it there.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to stay updated on this next book that YA and then Romanticie.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, actually my next book is my next romance coming next June.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I'll leave it there.

[SPEAKER_00]: That actually, thank you so much.

[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, thank you so much.

[SPEAKER_00]: My book Loving Besties, thank you so much for joining me today for another episode of Gilmour to Read.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you'd like to join the book club conversation, head over to Patreon where you can join for free.

[SPEAKER_00]: For a September, we are reading a Witches Guide to Magical Inkeeping and my next guest will be Sarah McLean.

[SPEAKER_00]: But until then, happy reading friends.