Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, and welcome to A Time to Thrill. It's me, your host, Amy Austin. It is.
This is for November. So today's guest is a woman named Marilee Albert, who is a very. It's a very interesting conversation, not so much about books, but also what we really got into. She was a philosophy major at Yale is what come up in the interview. So we had a long conversation, I will say, about some of the grand changes in the creation of content in la movies, books, screenplays.
So much has changed in such a short period of time.
It's just such a monumental change. And the question is, if art is being created by machines, then what are artists going to do?
And also what's going to happen with movies and TV living in Los Angeles or California, which is a whole different conversation.
So with all that said, it's just. It's a conversation that I think you'll enjoy. That's a little different than my usual conversation because unlike many of my guests, she hasn't written like 20, 30, 50, 100 books. She's written two. So she's had more time. And she's a screen screenwriter, so she's had more time to write in a very sort of different genre than people I usually talk to. What I will say is this.
My experience of screenwriters who move into publishing is they're very, very good at storytelling and very, very good at being moving stories along. I think book writers can get lost in the weeds, and people who write and wrote for film and TV do not move a story along because they have time limits. Books do not have page limits. I mean, there are some genre limits, but people who write for TV, movies, you know, you got 45 minutes, you got two hours, you got eight episodes, you got 12 episodes. But you have a very specific time limit, and that makes you move the story along. And I will say I admire that they have that skill set that I don't quite have.
But there's other people I've interviewed on the podcast who too came from that background, and they do so well because they have a handle on how to strip down a story to the really important parts and get it on the page.
They don't spend a lot of time discussing wallpaper or driving or all the things that the rest of us do get caught up in. So I think you'll enjoy that.
The other one thing I want to say is if you'll look, I have an actual paper copy of Leave at the first lie. The advanced review copies came.
I actually took a video of it. I don't even maybe it'll be up by then. They came so happy. Took Printing is taking months now. Oh, my God. It's just crazy. Took a long time.
Took a long time. And then one day I hear, like somebody shoving something heavy at the front door.
And it wasn't the usual Amazon box of whatever. It was actual books from Amazon.
It's amazing. So it's.
I'm really excited that it's coming out. I'm really excited that it's in paper. If you would like an advance for your copy, email me or DM me on Instagram or you can DM me on Facebook, but I don't check it that often, to be frank.
And then you too can get an early copy and find out what happens to Summer Morris. Poor Summer.
So all that, let's see, there's that. You can always read His Last Mistress.
The Politics of Justice will be focusing on Caged now.
And I think that's about it for November. It's my birthday month. I'm getting old.
I'm at the age I heard that there are people who are out here getting senior discounts, but that seems to be in the South. I just texted a friend from college. She's in so bad North Carolina, and she's like, I'm getting a senior discount. I was like, I don't know you. I don't think they have senior discounts in la. And if they do, I don't want to hear about it. I'm not ready save 10% on a Tuesday.
Oh, my God.
I met her when she was 17. I can't. I can't. I can't with the idea that somebody I met at 17 could get a senior discount.
But here we are. I guess it's good that we're alive while kicking and still living our best lives.
So without further ado, let's get to my interview with Marilee Albert. I have so many questions.
Before we dive into today's conversation, I want to take a moment to thank this episode's sponsor, Audible. You know how much I love a good story. I write them, I read them, and sometimes when I can't sit down long enough to open a book, I listen to them. Lately, I've been listening to Audible while I walk, travel, or even sometimes while cooking dinner. There's something about hearing a story perform that makes it come alive in a different way. I just finished. Okay. Julie Chan Is Dead by Leanne Zhang, an Alice Feeney book, Blue, Beautiful, Ugly, and the latest Linley book by Elizabeth George. So I'm going to be honest, this is how I do it. I get a book both on Kindle and on Audible and I go back and forth listening to both. So when I'm driving in the car or with my son at some activity, I will listen to audiobooks and then when I'm home I read them on Kindle and Audible makes it easy to switch back and forth in the app.
Honestly, I do it every time. I just, I want to keep the book going while I'm driving and so I just switch to the audiobook and then when I get home I switch back to the Kindle because honestly, I can read faster than I can listen anyway. The best part is that with Audible you get a 30 day free trial. You can start listening today. You get one audiobook you can keep forever even if you cancel. So if you've been wanting to read more stories that pull you in and won't let go, including my own Casey Court series, which are all available on audible, go to audible.com the link is in the show notes or in the alternative ebooks buzz Audible.
Hi, welcome to A Time to Thrill. It's me, your host, Amy Austin. This month I have the absolute delight of speaking with Merilee Albert. Hello.
[00:06:30] Speaker B: Hello there, Amy.
[00:06:31] Speaker A: How are you?
[00:06:32] Speaker B: I'm doing fine.
[00:06:34] Speaker A: So I will just say this, I am jealous. She lives over in a very pretty area of Los Angeles. I live right in the middle. It's all packed in with people.
So you have nature on your side. Although I'm going to be honest, when I lived in the Hills, it was still packing with people, just with poor apartment.
[00:06:49] Speaker B: Well, also you do have better restaurants, better ethnic food and I guess maybe you're closer to some of the museums.
[00:06:58] Speaker A: That is very true.
So when I lived in the Hills for like maybe 14 years before getting divorced, but it was okay because I already lived here and then sold that house and moved there and it was okay. But when the minute I divorce, I'm like, I think I'm back. Like I'm back to. I don't. I didn't want to stay up there. Like hiking up and down the hills with no sidewalks and parking only on one side of the street and all of that.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: I know there's pros and cons to
[00:07:26] Speaker A: all of it, but I can say I've had all of the experiences, happy to have had all of them, so.
[00:07:32] Speaker B: Exactly. So am I. Yeah.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: So you're a native to la, which I find absolutely, like fast.
I know.
[00:07:40] Speaker B: It's like you live in the one city in the World where if you say you're from that city, people think it's weird.
And as I was just telling you a minute ago, my dad's also from la, which is weird.
[00:07:51] Speaker A: I can't. Like, I was just like, so my dad's from New York City and also has my mother. So I just like, okay, so they were here before everybody else was here. Like in New York, everybody was already there. So, I mean, it was already crowded when my parents were born and when my grandparents moved there. But how. Let me ask you this, okay, so you've seen the evolution of the city, and I've even seen it over 25 years. I was driving somewhere the other day and I was like, this is not even the same place I moved. I think it's driving through Century City or something. And my son was asking about the buildings. I was like, there used to be like a couple, and now there's all of these in the hotel and, like a train line and all this other stuff. How have you found the evolution of the city? Do you think it's changed like the.
As I was asking somebody yesterday, the soul of the city.
[00:08:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
Two things that are the most prevalent changes, obviously, the traffic.
And like, when I was a kid, we lived up in Northridge, and you could take a drive on a Sunday and you could drive to the beach and then we could drive down Sunset Boulevard and go to, you know, not to date myself, but Tower Records.
And you could take a drive, you could go around the city. We used to go on hikes. My dad had this book about hikes. And we would go up into the Angeles National Forest and we could live and interact in the city.
Within reason.
Now I feel this pressure if I have to go somewhere. It's very stressful because I know I'm going to be dealing with outrageous amounts of traffic. So the traffic is absolutely awful. I also feel like when I was growing up, obviously, the homeless problem, even in the last 20 years, obviously, you know, that's exploded. And I never even saw it when I was a kid. And then when I first. When I was living in Hollywood Hills, like 20 years ago, I would say it's 50 times worse now.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: No, it. You have. So the thing is, we were talking about before, like, so I do spend the summers in Budapest. I remember at this point maybe 10 years ago, I came back and I was driving downtown. I was going to. This is before COVID going to, like a romance authors meeting. And so I had to drive through the 101 through downtown, which is not A place that I normally drive. And I was driving and I was like, are those tents? And I just couldn't figure it out because I'd never seen a tent, like, in New York City. It's too cold. So people didn't. That was not a thing. And I was like, other tents. And I'm literally on the phone, I called a friend who works in that space or worked in that space, and I was like, can. What, what, what is going on? I was like, I got off a plane, I drove to this meeting, I came back and I'm under the underpass and there's tents on, on the underpasses. And I was like, what has happened? And so to me, I still, like, I keep reading articles about it and I keep. People keep telling me about it, and I don't think to this day I will quite understand what has happened. But there's nothing, nothing prepared me for it. I didn't, like, it's just, it's something that's so foreign to me that I just didn't see. Like, if you had said this when I moved here, like in 2001, if you said, there's going to change this way, I would have been like, wait, what?
[00:10:54] Speaker B: Yeah, it's very, very, very sad. It's heartbreaking. And I think it's just a combination of so many problems. Like, for example, the mental illness problem. We have so many mentally ill people on the street because I think there are some programs to help people, but you can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped. Right. So we have that problem and then we have the problem of actually, like, solving homelessness with tents.
So LA doesn't feel like the, the kind and gentler place that I grew up in.
I just grew up in a much simpler community. And it just didn't feel as oppressive. It didn't feel, you know, just between those two big problems, it. We did have more smog, weirdly so
[00:11:36] Speaker A: that I, when I moved here, sometimes, like, there were weeks, you know, I'd look out and I was like, what?
[00:11:42] Speaker B: Wait, what?
[00:11:42] Speaker A: I don't understand why. Oh, it's not clouds.
[00:11:46] Speaker B: Yeah. We used to, like, when I was in elementary school, they would have smugglers and you couldn't go outside. And so I, I, that is one small thing that's improved. Obviously, that that's a hugely beneficial thing.
And then what else? Like, I just feel like LA had like a, you know, when we used to have like, a lot fewer chains, a lot fewer chain cafes, a lot fewer chain restaurants, it felt More ethnic, more kind of casual.
I just didn't feel that it wasn't as oppressive. And the main thing for me that's so awful or just the. The. The traffic and the. And the homelessness. Like, I feel like we get those two things under control, and then you say, well, how the heck do you get traffic under control? And I don't have an easy answer for that. We've tried with, you know, some public transport. Is that really helping? I. I don't know. And I. I feel like people are afraid of violence. Like in Venice, it used to be a place where you could go down. Oh, also Santa Monica, The. The Promenade used used to be a lovely place to go, and now apparently, it's like a ghost town.
[00:12:47] Speaker A: It's. So I drive. Saying I drive through Santa Monica all the time, and I still bike down there a couple days a week, and you wouldn't recognize. So when I first moved here, I used to love to go to 3rd Street Promenade, and there are people outside, and you could have, like. You could go to, like, local restaurants and have seafood and all that, and they all left. And then it became chains. And this actually also happened in New York City. So I'm not saying it's local, but I remember going to New York the last time I went to New York, and I was like, I'm gonna do some yoga. And I looked down. It was like Target and Bed Bath. I mean, and that's dating myself, because Bed Bath's already gone. And I was like, so what? Why? Like, I was. I. I was intrigued because the reason I like cities is because I can have niche things that I otherwise wouldn't be able to have. And yet now it's like Chipotle and. I don't know. A place my son talked about, which I don't think is on this side, is like, raising canes or something. I just heard about it. They sell chicken strips. I'm.
[00:13:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Raising canes as to how that's a
[00:13:41] Speaker A: whole thing, but okay.
[00:13:43] Speaker B: I know our kids have grown up in such a chain world, and I feel like that's happened globally. Like. Like, I used to live in Rome, and you couldn't find a chain. I couldn't find Mexican food, nothing. And I love that because it was unique to Rome, and. And Paris was the same way. And now it's just. There's just so much globalization.
[00:14:04] Speaker A: They're both so different. So I'm in Paris every year, once a year. And I was in Rome 20. What year is it? 2025, I think. Was the last time I was there and I was like, so, well, I'm glad everybody has Starbucks. Like, I guess we're all. This is what we all want. Like, is that what everybody wanted?
[00:14:20] Speaker B: And I was, I mean, a Starbucks in Rome? Are you kidding me?
[00:14:24] Speaker A: No.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: I mean, it was literally like designed from Italy. Like, you don't need to put a Starbucks in Italy. It's tragic. And then, you know, I heard that cafe life in Paris is waning because people are wandering around with coffee in their hands now. And it used to just be culturally just anathema to do anything other than what they do, you know, so that's happening everywhere. And so even in la, there used to be more holes in the wall and it used to feel more relaxed and. And again, I can't get enough of the. How different the traffic is. It just changes your. What you're willing to do on any given day.
[00:15:00] Speaker A: Yeah. So it makes my life surprisingly. It's surprisingly small.
So yes, like, even shrink it. It's surprisingly small. So I drive within 8 square miles. I like, I literally turned in a car that I'd never driven outside of LA county. And I just, you know, I. It's really small because I'm like, well, if I'm going to dedicate this 50 minutes, I'm only going to be able to go eight miles, right. And so these are eight miles. I'm going. And even so this book.
So I love Los Feliz. I will never live there, but I like the idea of it. And I, When I researched books, I used to drive there and I was thinking about filming something there for promo and I was like, so when would I do that? Do I have to dedicate a whole day to drive. Drive their park and do it before the Griffith, you know, the traffic box up behind Griffith Park. Like it. And I was like, that's a whole plan to just like have a. There's no frolic to like, let's go to Los Feliz and let's see. You know how it is. So I do.
I wish that were different. I don't know, way to change it. And I have.
I got nothing. Where does your book take place?
The one that's coming out in Hidden Hills.
Oh, I have so many thoughts. Okay.
[00:16:12] Speaker B: Do you know. Do you know Hidden Hills? Yeah, about the Kardashian and so, you know, I actually, I never actually lived in Hidden Hills, but my kids went to private school right near Hidden Hills.
So I was. And I ran the annual fund at the private school.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:16:28] Speaker B: Okay. So I I. It was the private schools in Calabasas, and Hidden Hills is basically adjacent right in Calabasas as well. So I did go inside Hidden Hills, and I thought, this is the greatest location for one of these stories. Like, honestly, like, I couldn't think of a better spot. Originally, I conceived it as a TV show with housewives doing nefarious things, and.
And then I eventually turned it into a book.
[00:16:54] Speaker A: What was your planned career trajectory being in Los Angeles?
[00:17:00] Speaker B: Excellent question.
I started as well. You know, I had sort of an odd career trajectory, which is I started out in film, and I wanted to do film, you know, screenwriting and making movies and things like that. And. But I studied philosophy, which. Okay. So people are like, why did you study philosophy? I'm like, I don't know.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: I just.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: I just did.
I did also study film studies, but it was the pretentious thing. It was semiotics and.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: Oh, God. Okay.
[00:17:29] Speaker B: But I did. I did get a double degree, so I studied that, and then I moved to Rome to work in the movie business.
And so that's where I started. My first job was Coppola's philosophy tutor, which is. I throw that in a lot because it's such a colorful first job to have.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: Yes and no. So I know a lot of people have had a lot of. I don't call them odd jobs. Specific jobs for very specific people.
I'll put it that way. But.
[00:17:57] Speaker B: Okay, good. You know, others.
[00:18:00] Speaker A: This is la.
[00:18:01] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. And only in LA would a bunch of people have weird jobs like that. Right. Because celebrity culture, you know, it is that, like.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: That's. Yes. Celebrity culture calls for people to have oddly specific jobs. I'll just say that. So how did you.
Okay. A lot of people I know started out as, like, PAs, so that's like, you know what I mean? Or, you know, whatever.
[00:18:22] Speaker B: I should have just gone and been a PA because my job was so complicated, you know.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: So how did you come to that job? Because it is, to be honest, oddly specific.
[00:18:32] Speaker B: It's so specific. Well, it's such a great story. I wrote a whole book about that as well. That's my first book called the Tutor. I was in Rome, and I was sort of. I decided to go to Rome and get any kind of a job, and I was making, like, art movies, and I had just graduated from college. I was just like, I'm gonna go to Rome. Just whatever.
And I'm standing in a bar, and this guy asked me if I was an actress. It's one of those classic stories It's a classic Hollywood story. So I'm standing in a bar with my friend. I was on a date, actually, and this guy came up to me, this Italian guy, and he said, are you an actress? Do you want a screen test with Francis Ford Coppola? And I'm like, yeah, I'm an actress, and, yeah, I'll have a screen test. So I went and, like, made a fake resume and, like, got a fake headshot. I had my friend who's a photographer do, like, this whole headshot. And then I took this fake resume with all these fake credits, like, from New York, like, all this fake stuff. And I said that I was a theater major.
I made it all. It was all fake. And I go down there to Chinichita, and I arrive on the day. They were casting extras, okay? So I thought, oh, this is bullshit. And everybody warned me. They go, you're not gonna have a screen test. It's all bullshit. You're not. This is. Something Went side. This guy was just trying to hit you, you know, hit on you or whatever. So I went down there, and then somehow I had a meeting with Coppola.
Don't ask. I don't know why you'd have to ask him. He doesn't remember. I'm sure this was so long ago, but.
And I. Believe me, I wasn't the first girl to have a meeting with Coppola. So I went in there, and he said I could have a part. He said I kind of, you know, I could have a part because I was bilingual, I spoke Italian, and he thought I was Italian. I kept saying to him that I wasn't Italian, but he decided I was Italian. And then I got this part, and then he's. At the same time, I told him I was a philosophy major, and he said, oh, I've been looking for a philosophy tutor.
As if. Right?
[00:20:35] Speaker A: No one. Well, one person said, no one ever.
[00:20:41] Speaker B: So I went home and I told my friends. I go, well, it looks like I got a part. And also, I'm going to be a tutor. And they go, no, you're not. He's full of. And all this stuff. And then, like, I decided to brush up on my philosophy, like, just in case.
And I was, like, reading stuff and all this kind of stuff, and I was, like, catching up. And then, like, about. Oh. And then I ran into him again at the cafe where. It was at the wine bar, where we all ran into each other, where I met the original guy.
[00:21:08] Speaker A: And.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: And he was kind of, like, flirty, to be honest. And I started getting kind of nervous that it wasn't a legit thing. And then I got a call from his assistant asking me how. How much I was charging.
And I tried to charge him $100 an hour or a hundred thousand lira an hour, and he didn't like that. And then he tried to tell me I should do it for free, okay? Because he said, I'm Francis Coppola. You should work for free. Anybody would. And I said no. And then he tried to do 10,000, and we got it down to 50,000 lira, which at the time was about $50 an hour.
So then I. I went down to China and started tutoring him in philosophy. And frankly, nobody quite believed that that's what was going on.
[00:21:52] Speaker A: It's because it's so specific.
[00:21:54] Speaker B: It's so specific and weird. And, like, I was, like, showing up with, like.
Like, the way I dressed, and I had, like, the brown long hair, and I was. I was inappropriate in a way. Like, I just wasn't.
I didn't look right. I didn't look right.
[00:22:08] Speaker A: It didn't.
[00:22:09] Speaker B: It didn't have. It didn't pass the smell test to people.
So the whole time I was on his movie, like, tutoring him, the whole. Every single person thought I was his girlfriend. Like, literally every single one. And I was not. And he never approached. He never, like, tried anything, I think. I don't think he would have minded. You know what I mean? Like, I don't think he was, like, all that opposed to it, but he was never inappropriate. It was like. It wasn't like a Harvey Weinstein.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:38] Speaker B: And he. He was always like, we had dinner, you know, we hung out. And it was one of those pivotal stories in my life as a young woman. And the weird part of the whole story was I had presented myself as an actress, and I. The whole time, I never told him that I wanted to make movies and stuff. There was something really weird about me. I was so insecure and so nervous, and I was even working on a script, and I never told him. I was so embarrassed and, like, uncomfortable and stuff. And I could tell he thought there was something off about me. Like, he just. He knew that there was something weird about me because he could tell I wasn't really an actress.
I mean, he did give me a part. My part got cut out of the movie, though, but. And then, you know, I just used it for years as, like, a good story.
It helped me when I moved back to LA eventually and got work. Everybody loved that story. It actually helped me get jobs. And I wrote a whole novel about it. Because at one point later, I realized it was so crazy and stupid and effed up and inappropriate. And like, you said the thing about being a pa. I should have just said, hey, look, you know what? I made up a story. I'm not really an actress.
I really would like to just learn about movies and get a PA job. But instead, I was, like, swanning about and selling myself to him as a movie star and trying to sell it. He was coming up with this new movie idea, and I'm like, I'll be in. It's just so.
And then I got super confused about myself, and I was like, well, maybe I should do the acting thing. And then I studied acting a little bit, and I realized it just was so stupid. Like, it. Just Because I just think it looks so easy. Like, oh, he's. He's telling me, I can do this. I'll just get my. That'll be my way into the movie business. But that's not how it works.
You know?
It's not. And.
And then eventually I just realized that the whole thing was just like a fever dream. And eventually I also realized that it was also really rather inappropriate.
And.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: Wait, so I have a question, but do you know why?
Okay, so my mother majored in philosophy. I don't know. I don't even know if I have that kind of interest in it. I don't think I ever took a philosophy class. What was he looking for?
Because he was older. You know, we're all seeking truth now,
[00:24:57] Speaker B: but, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was. A couple things that were legit was that he had lost a child. And now you and I are both mothers. And at the time, I had never had a child, obviously at that time. And he had lost his child in an accident. One of his kids died, like, about. I want to say, like, five or six years before I met him. And he told me, I'm trying to find meaning. Like, when he told me that, I was like, oh. Because a lot of people said to me, be careful. He's trying to hit on you, and all this. And then I went home and told my friends. I go, no, he lost a child. He's trying to find meaning, and I'm gonna help him. Like, we're gonna look through all the philosophy texts and try to find some meaning. And I think legitimately that was true. He was. He was trying to get his mind off of things, trying to find meaning. And I think if you lose a child, that's what you're Gonna do. I can see you're gonna look for meaning somewhere. And he probably did it in other areas like with religion and things like that.
And I think he was also just looking for someone to talk to.
I, you know, I think it's really hard to be a guy like him. Everybody's just kissing his ass. And I wasn't really an ass kisser type, so like I was kind of.
I treated him like a normal person.
And yeah, he was legitimately trying to seek. He was a seeker. He's also an intellectual. He liked it intellectually. I was teaching him phenomenology, which really isn't going to tell you anything about what happens after you die at all.
Like at all.
[00:26:18] Speaker A: What movie was he working on at the time?
[00:26:21] Speaker B: Father 3.
Not to date myself.
[00:26:25] Speaker A: No, I was just thinking. I was just actually talking to somebody about Mary. Anyway, different conversation.
[00:26:30] Speaker B: Anyway, it was a good. It was a good story from, you know, a young girl's perspective of an entry level type of job. And it was also like messed up.
It wasn't. I wasn't supposed to do that. Like you're supposed to like get a normal job.
Get a normal job, take yourself ser. You know, it was, it was just a lark. It was kind of like a crazy.
[00:26:49] Speaker A: So I have to ask you this then. What made you go, well, we say back east, but you, for you it's not back anywhere.
[00:26:55] Speaker B: We say back east, definitely. Yeah.
And I was just really into leaving.
It was not common. Like my best friend and I both were into this academic like thing and like we're really ambitious and we were the first two people to go to Yale from my high school, other than this Olympian that went there. But like mostly it wasn't really common.
In fact, at first I was looking at the women's schools. So it's funny because you went to Smith and then I just. I had been encouraged by this guy from one of my summer programs to apply to the Ivy Leagues. And I was like, you know, my parents didn't know anything about it. They were terrified because they thought it would be. They couldn't afford it.
And you know, the Ivy Leagues are very forgiving if you're poor. And my parents had no money, I think so still.
[00:27:44] Speaker A: Even now? Still even.
[00:27:45] Speaker B: Oh yeah. They're like that.
[00:27:46] Speaker A: And now people don't have loans either. So that.
[00:27:49] Speaker B: No, I know. And I did my. I had loans. And now they. You're right. Now they don't. They don't burden the kids.
They also look out for them in the summers. Like I Was always waiting.
[00:27:58] Speaker A: It's so different. So my friends, My friend's daughter graduated from Yale. What year?
It must be two years ago. No, I don't know.
[00:28:06] Speaker B: Whatever.
[00:28:06] Speaker A: 20, 25, whatever that is.
[00:28:08] Speaker B: Yeah, last year.
[00:28:09] Speaker A: And so it's.
Her experience is not nothing like it, but it's so different than everybody I know who went to school in my era. And so they did, they had a list of things because we were talking about it, and she was like, what happened to students who didn't have anywhere to go in the winter? And I was like, that was always a huge dilemma because they closed the dorm and, and I don't know because I went home, but I mean, there was a lot.
[00:28:33] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, they closed the dorms. You'd have to go home with someone. Yeah.
Oh, they, There were opportunities to work in the cleaning of the dorms in the summer. You could literally clean as a job.
[00:28:45] Speaker A: I didn't know that.
[00:28:46] Speaker B: But in my, in my years there, you had to work as part of your financial aid package. You had to have a job, and then in the summer, they didn't look after you. It's. You couldn't go and do interesting internships. My son went to University of Chicago.
I mean, he dropped out, but he did. And they, they were offering him money to go do an internship and there were no loans for him. So, I mean, that's not, you know, I, I, we all, we did not. In my generation, it was not expected to just waltzer. You had to come back a little bit burdened. You had to do a lot of jobs and you, you had to take the loans out. And I didn't think anything of it. We, we didn't. I didn't feel entitled to anything. You know, I, I didn't mind it. I was just, frankly, I was just glad to be there altogether, you know.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: Let me ask you this. We had to do over again. Would you do the same thing? Yeah.
[00:29:38] Speaker B: Oh, I would go there again.
[00:29:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay.
[00:29:40] Speaker B: For sure.
I, I don't know about my major. Interestingly.
I, I wish I'd had a couple extra years. I think I would have liked to do a couple years of history.
I don't feel like I was well educated enough. So I feel like ideally I would have gotten to college for maybe five or six years and done two years of history, but, like, I don't. That sort of seems stupid in a way. Like, why spend all those years in college? So I think if I had to do it all over again, I would still probably have gone to Yale. Definitely. I Don't have any problem with it. What I would have studied, I don't know. Now that I think about it, on the other hand, kids aren't really going to college as much now. I mean, I don't. I don't even know. My kids are both college dropouts.
[00:30:22] Speaker A: No, it's. It's different. It's. I was just. So I have a friend from undergrad who is a college counselor now. And so we spend a lot of time talking about that landscape because clearly she's in it. And it's very, very different than, than, oh, my God, the 90s. So it's very, very different than the 90s. And what people expect from it is different. What people expect the outcome to be is different. What people think is going to happen afterwards, different. And for, like, for almost everybody I know, they thought it was a guarantee that you could enter the middle class or stay in the middle class or whatever. What people are looking at other than people who had a lot of money and those people were at school as well, and they were there for that. They had a different life. So. But that was the expectation. And now people are going there with a lot of different expectations. But they do feel a little burden in terms of, like, I have to have this internship and I have to have that internship. And there's a lot of.
I worked at somewhere in this, in my summer job, was a telephone operator. But people now, like, their summer jobs are way more serious, you know, And I had like a TV internship, but it was all very, like, you know, okay, you know, we'll see how it goes.
[00:31:29] Speaker B: Yeah, we took what we could find,
[00:31:30] Speaker A: you know, and these people are way more serious and directed than anything I ever did. So it's, it's just a different life. But I don't know. And I asked my friend about this recently.
How does that bode for, like, artists? Because if you have the time to, like, if you slow down enough to think and everything isn't like, I gotta, like, at least my week after I graduate, you gotta work at CNN or you gotta get, like, at cbs, you gotta get the page job at NBC or whatever those things are, then when do you slow down to, like, think and, like, live a life so that you can tell stories based on something.
[00:32:07] Speaker B: Excellent, excellent question, huh?
[00:32:09] Speaker A: Well, because you. So your first book, like, you wrote based on, like, you had this experience? I don't know. Do you know, like, if you had graduated now, I don't know if that would have been similar.
[00:32:19] Speaker B: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. First of all we didn't have the kind of perspective we do now. You don't go. And, I mean, all the stories in my book, the Tudor which really happened were a lot of. It was just really inappropriate men at the job sites. Like, I had a boss that spent the whole time trying to get me to be in a porno movie. And this was at a TV studio when I was working, you know, behind the scenes. And I. It was very hard to escape sexual harassment.
In fact, Coppola was like, the least of my problems. I had all kinds of problems dealing with sexual harassment in the workplace. That wouldn't happen now. And then the other thing that wouldn't happen is a guy like him would not be able to do that because there'd be too much spec, there'd be too much observation of him.
We'd be too observed, we'd be too scrutinized. And his producers would be concerned that I could sue the production so they wouldn't allow a girl like that inside the trailers and privacy. It just wouldn't happen.
Girls now are very astute.
And you can see sue, you can. You can speak up and.
I mean, I would have had nothing to sue with Francis, but he was very appropriate and very, very respectful. But nobody would have allowed that type of behavior. It was just a free for all.
[00:33:42] Speaker A: So, yeah, between that and social media, which is the other.
[00:33:45] Speaker B: Yeah. And you can't do anything crazy now. Like, it's all recorded. Like, when I was in my, you know, teens and twenties, I was doing really crazy stuff. Like, we were running around Italy and flashing cars and what if that were caught on camera? Like, just all the crazy stuff we did, I was doing really, really wild stuff. And it's. None of it's recorded, so it's all back in the day. Right. And then the thing about college, which is so different, is you don't need college to gain information.
You know, we needed to go and learn from somewhere, a library and a teacher, and we needed to get that education. Now you can get it all off your phone, you can take courses online, you can learn.
So the only thing that college really is good for now, I think, are relationships and, you know, to develop relationships with people and to get into communities of people and develop interconnections and things like that. But I think that those are just such huge shifts in society for me.
[00:34:47] Speaker A: Unexpected. But. But, like, what's, like, the home. It's like all the things in la. It's just. If you had said to me it was going to be this way I'd be like, oh, that's not what I saw coming at all. It's very unexpected. But the lack of gatekeepers, or the greater number, the fewer number of gatekeepers. It's all very interesting. So let me ask you this. Given, like, your experience, that early experience, well, maybe you're a good prognosticator. Did you see the evolution of the entertainment industry morphing in the way that it did?
[00:35:19] Speaker B: Absolutely. No.
No way. Like, the AI thing is the biggest.
I mean, the, the, the. The evolution of AI has been the most shocking and swift development in the last couple years, especially with writing as a. Because I write screenplays. That's how I make a living. And, and I've been handed screenplays by people who've never written before. Suddenly they've shown me their screenplays and there's always something a little off about them. And I'm like, oh, my God, come on. No, you're not writing a screenplay. And I.
[00:35:54] Speaker A: My.
[00:35:54] Speaker B: My son is just starting to work in the film business and he's worried, you know, he's worried that they're going to. All the actors will be replaced. And, you know, the writers I know who've spent years developing their craft are now at risk of not having jobs.
It's true. You and I were talking about it just as fiction writers as well. So I do feel like that's the most shocking development in entertainment. I'm not super shocked by streaming.
I'm not shocked by the technology that developed through that, like direct to video sales or, you know, the fact that we don't get DVDs anymore, we just have streaming sites. That doesn't seem all that big of a deal. I know it's affected the economics, but we found ways to change that. Writers don't make as much money, but there's more work, there's more opportunities for writers, there's more jobs. I mean, not right now, but up until a couple years ago.
But the AI is just really existential. And I feel as a writer, it's the most existential because people are now just literally faking that they wrote something. It's so overwhelming to me. I didn't see that coming.
[00:37:05] Speaker A: Well, I'm not gonna say. Who could. I did not. That one I did not see coming. Did you see? And this one, actually, even I think I saw. Were you surprised at the productions leaving the city or the area?
[00:37:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I didn't expect. I didn't expect California to lose so much work. I saw it sort of starting with Canada, like we all saw A lot of jobs go up north and we're like, hi, man, what's happening? And then suddenly people are going to Georgia and they're starting to go to other places, states. If California doesn't do something, it is just devastating for this industry. I know they recently passed a post production tax credit just like a few weeks ago. But yeah, it's very devastating and I hate to see that. I mean that. I grew up in the shadow of the entertainment industry, living in the Valley and there was so much filming. They filmed E.T.
they filmed so much. Every time I would drive down the street I'd see something.
[00:37:58] Speaker A: The Star Wagon, some of those. I mean, I haven't seen one in Jesus actually now I think about it now they said it out loud. I've seen one everywhere.
[00:38:05] Speaker B: They were everywhere, everywhere. And you know, the greatest talents are still here and nobody really wants to leave.
[00:38:11] Speaker A: No, that's the funny part like, but
[00:38:13] Speaker B: I, I'd like to see that change. I don't think California can move on. I think I'm glad Paramount isn't leaving. I'm glad that worked out. But we need to keep production here. So yeah, I'm not happy about it and I didn't really see it coming all that much.
I can't believe California is allowing it to get so bad.
I know, it's so sad. It's just heartbreaking. And we need to do. It needs to be dramatically changed. I don't know what the candidates for governor now are saying, but it needs to change. California needs to.
It's what built the state long before tech came along. The entertainment industry is the biggest bread and butter of Los Angeles. And I know so many people that aren't working. It's just dreadful. It's just absolutely dreadful. People came here for a reason. We had great weather, great opportunity. This was the heartbed of entertainment. We need to bring it back. We cannot. And it feels like almost like point of no return. Like people just aren't.
I'd like to see a dramatic change. I'd like to see California do something very dramatic. I hope they will.
[00:39:17] Speaker A: Film studies and philosophy notwithstanding. What made you want to write science screenplays? Because I know how can I. Let me say this. Whenever I go anywhere in LA and people say, what do you do? And I say, I'm a writer. And the first thing they're like, oh, TV or film. And I'm always like no, no, no, no, no. But yeah, but you can.
[00:39:35] Speaker B: It's very simple. The only reason I started writing scripts was because that's the first step to making movies, like, honestly, I was working in development.
I didn't really like having a job, even though it's a great job.
And it just seemed like the only thing to do to make a movie was to write the script first.
And frankly, it's that simple. And then I discovered that people would pay me to write scripts, and I just sort of fell into it. I never wanted to. I wrote so much in college, and it was such a grind.
Also, I'm not that great of a screenwriter. I'm okay of a screen.
So I just started for that reason.
And then I segued to trying to be a producer because I didn't like trying to navigate as a writer. I didn't like hawking my wares and trying to make someone else happy. I do not like trying to make people happy.
It's very hard to make someone happy. When someone hires you to write a script, you're kind of trying to read their mind and you can't. And then they don't like what you did. And then you get into a dispute and then you try to give them what they want, or a lot of times they gave people what they wanted, and I didn't like it, and I didn't think it was very good. And frankly, a lot of times it wasn't.
So then I've. In the back, in about the past five or six years, I've segued to producing. And so right now I'm focusing most of my time on not writing, not writing my books, film finance, which is.
[00:41:03] Speaker A: That's different. I assume it's a different. We used called the Couch and Water tour. I guess that's a different.
Different, right?
Yeah.
[00:41:15] Speaker B: Yeah. It is so hard to do. It is so stressful. But I figure if I can get that piece of it under control, then I could take all this stuff that I've written all these years and just funnel it through my system and start just churning out the work that I've been writing that never gets made. And that was another reason I started. I finally decided to start writing books is because the scripts were never getting made. It was frustrating. And I also didn't like to try to read other people's minds. And then, you know, screenwriting is always collaborative, even if it's good, it's collaborative. Even if the experience is good, even if the person you're working with is good, even if the result is good, it wasn't your own result.
[00:41:53] Speaker A: Okay. I always wondered that. So a lot of.
As we age, the people I know who are enjoying it the most are either showrunning and writing with a small room. Whether that's economics or preference is a different conversation, or in the alternative, doing the writer director thing so they wrote and sold it, or they directed other people's things with all sorts of results. And people have a lot of feelings about how those things turned out. But the writer director model for, well, the financing, separate issue is something I think people I know who are still, still doing this enjoy the most. Or is the. I don't say it's the least friction, but it has less friction than only being one piece of that puzzle.
[00:42:38] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Well, think about it. You're in control creatively, which is what, you know, writing books is.
[00:42:44] Speaker A: Yes, that's the thing. Like, I go to these screenings and people are like off mic bitching about, like, whatever. The thing is, they have to deal with the. The studio or the production or the studio head has changed every five seconds or any of those things. Or like, they attach the star and we can discuss like, all the bad behavior and then they have to, like, put up with this person. And they've already put all the money into the person and all that. So there's a lot of that. And I sit there sometimes and I think, oh, my God, I'm gonna go home. And it's just me. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I don't have to run it by anybody. I don't have to talk to anybody about it.
I produce the thing. And yes, there are edits, but it's never the core idea or people just don't buy it, in which case then, you know, that's a different conversation, but that I don't have to deal with the core idea. I don't have to, like, take on other people's burdens of like, actors or deals they've made that don't fit my vision. Like, I just don't do that. And I. I know that some people in tv, maybe TV more than movies, have said that they like the collaborative nature because then they don't have to come up with all the ideas themselves. And, you know, I'm not like writing 10 or 20 episodes or something, so, you know, who knows? But I always like the idea of doing it alone. So for you, what's the comparison? I assume it's. I assume it's delightful because I think it's delightful. But people love TV and movies, so, like, who am I to say?
[00:44:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I love TV and movies when they're good. I love watching something great. But I love reading a great book. And the thing that's great about a book, I mean, you know this, Amy, you write a book, it exists in and of itself. It's a completed object. It's a complete product.
It exists. It's. It's not a blueprint. A screenplay doesn't mean anything.
[00:44:29] Speaker A: It's.
[00:44:29] Speaker B: A screenplay is a blueprint. Right. And a book is a finished product. And you've got to write it, direct it, control it, cast it. Each description of this and then the
[00:44:39] Speaker A: editing can be its own. Like.
[00:44:42] Speaker B: Yeah, and, and you know, my publisher, God bless him, Tyson at Rare Bird, he doesn't, he doesn't control the creative edit. He. He has a developmental editor look at the two books I've written and give me a. Give me suggestions. And that's all it's been, is a suggestion. He's never once told me what to do. I love that because it's given me this massive freedom and I, yeah, I can fail. My book might not resonate, but it's freedom. And you know, even a writer, director, they have to deal with an actor, like you said, they have to deal with casting. They have a production designer who may not give it the exact right vision that they want. The musicians might not give you the exact sound you're looking for.
And then the final product, it always has this kind of frisson. It's like sometimes a happy accident, sometimes the mistakes or things you don't expect. But it's never exactly what's in your mind. But a book. A book is exactly what was in your mind, sort of. I mean, there's always a, you know, you know, you know, final products are always what they are. Or you might have feel like, oh, I could have done better. But you just, you have nobody to stand behind, which is the bad part. Right. You get blamed for it. But it's so liberating creatively. And I love that.
I love that. I know that's not true for all authors. I know some authors have to be gatekeeped through some tough editing and some tough editors at like, maybe one of the larger publishing companies.
[00:46:05] Speaker A: But it depends.
It's all over the place, to be frank.
[00:46:09] Speaker B: Yeah. And with screenplays, like, I've written specs that didn't sell. I've written specs that did sell, but I wrote a lot of stuff with writing partners.
Yes, it's a little easier. Look, it's a little easier to get the product done because you don't have to come. You know how hard it is. I don't know how you feel. You're very prolific as an author, but for me, I perseverate over every sentence and take forever to write. My two books that I wrote, and I didn't do that with scripts. Like, I work with a partner. We have a story, we rewrite it a few times, sometimes we sell it. Sometimes I get hired to write something, usually with a team, usually with, like. My husband's also a screenwriter, so we've worked together.
But, you know, you're usually navigating all kinds of things. And if you work with other writers, you're navigating what they want and you're arguing with them. And like, my husband and I just. I brought him in on a project that I was writing and producing, and he's arguing with me and he's like, I don't like that. And he'll put it back in and then I take it out. Okay, but you don't have any of that with books. And I just love that. I love that so much. And I. I feel so happy to have a finished product, you know, like the book. The book itself exists.
I don't have to worry, like, if it doesn't get made into a movie, I don't care. It's a book.
[00:47:23] Speaker A: I'm all for it. So. Okay.
[00:47:24] Speaker B: I've controlled everything inside that book.
[00:47:27] Speaker A: Okay, so when is your book coming
[00:47:29] Speaker B: out now, the new one, it comes out in November.
[00:47:32] Speaker A: And what. Okay, what is the inspiration for that?
[00:47:36] Speaker B: So wait, first.
[00:47:37] Speaker A: Is that your dog?
[00:47:39] Speaker B: Yes. Sorry about the dog.
[00:47:40] Speaker A: And what is your dog's name?
[00:47:42] Speaker B: So my dog is a Boston terrier named Tux.
[00:47:45] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:47:45] Speaker B: He's been kicked out of this room. I came into this little room, this little guest room, because they would. They would be in here barking. But my. My book was inspired by a couple things. First of all, I'm obsessed with true crime. My book was inspired by my own love of crime fiction. First of all, I love crime fiction. I've always loved, like, everyone from Patricia Highsmith to Michael Connelly to. I love Harlan Coban. I love all the Japanese crime writers. I don't know if you're familiar with them. There's a. There's a lot of really good crime fiction adaptations.
[00:48:17] Speaker A: No, I mainly read. I can't believe I was gonna say this, but I mainly read Scandinavian crime writers.
[00:48:21] Speaker B: Oh, I love the Scandinavian stuff too.
[00:48:24] Speaker A: Scandinavian and then Irish crime writers. Australian. Oh, I haven't read any of the Irish stuff. Really good. Like a ton of French is really good. Australian. I have mixed feelings because it's always like very dry and deserty. And I'm always like, that just seems very, like, harsh, like harshly. Yeah, like Harper or something like that. But okay, so Japanese. And then. So you read a lot of crime and then you watch the, you watch the shows you watch?
[00:48:47] Speaker B: Yeah, so I've read a lot of crime fiction over the years, tons of crime fiction.
I love the psychological stuff, like, like the Japanese. And I like. Iris Murdoch is very psychological crime, like Patricia Highsmith. And, and, and I've read a ton, like, just. Oh, like the domestic thrillers. I love Gone Girl and all that stuff, Girl on a Train. And I just. When I started reading the, the everything from Girl on a Train to the Silent Patient and Gone Girl, I said to myself, I can do this. Oh. Another thing that also led me to writing it is I've been writing crime thriller screenplays.
That's most of what I've sold are these, like, mysteries and crime stuff. And so I had the true crime obsession. I had the crime thriller books. I had the crime thriller scripts that I've been writing. And then also I was in the mommyland zone. You know, you're in mom land now. And I was hanging out in Hidden Hills and at the private school with my kids, and I just started thinking, you know, this is a great location.
I had read all those domestic thrillers and I'm like, I can mix all of this stuff into a big pot of soup. And so my character's obsessed with true crime because I had this idea, like, everybody's watching all this crime. Does that mean that they'd be good at crime?
Because you know what to, like, avoid, like a drop of sweat.
There's, there's familial DNA, like, how do you prevent getting caught? You have to remember that they look at your habits. So if suddenly out of nowhere, your phone is turned off for 24 hours, that's going to be a red, a red flag. So maybe you have to start a year before, like, constantly turning off your phone so that your lawyer could say, oh, that. That person always turns off their phone. It's not unusual for them. And then another thing is you have to make sure you're not being tracked. You have to figure out where all the cameras are.
[00:50:39] Speaker A: So this is the thing, like with the ring cameras now, like, so I eventually got one. People convinced me, oh, I love the ring camera. I, I hate the ring camera. So. But what I didn't know before I got one, I've had it. Maybe I don't know if I've had it. A year is that every, like, on the alerts is like, everybody else's camera. I was like, I don't even know if I need this level of granularity with, like, everything that my neighbors have seen.
[00:51:03] Speaker B: Oh, I know. The neighbors are always posting there. They're like, this. This man stole the package.
[00:51:07] Speaker A: My package. Always constant.
[00:51:09] Speaker B: This weird animal walked in front of my camera. I know the neighborhood. Social media is something that's gotten really weird.
[00:51:16] Speaker A: Like, occasionally I look at it because I just am like, what? Because not all of them come through. And I'm not sure why, and I'm not sure what I should turn off and on because I don't pay that much attention. But it's just like, this is a lot of surveillance. So sometimes I think if I were to commit a crime and I'm not that person, but if I were to do it, how do you overcome the ring cameras?
[00:51:35] Speaker B: Like, because that's exactly what I'm saying.
[00:51:37] Speaker A: Even, like, the flock cameras, like, it just feels like between ring and flock, it would just be like, hey, there she is. There she is.
[00:51:43] Speaker B: They're everywhere. They're everywhere. So in my book, I decided I wanted to make all the characters pretty smart, right? Like, how do they get around all of it? And so there's a couple of things. First of all, they're in Hidden Hills. Hidden Hills is. There's. It's very dark.
There's no street lights.
There's a big diff. There's a big gap between the street and the front doors.
And they're in a gated community, so there's less likely to be ring cameras. But I had it where there were a lot of cameras because I had it where there was, like, a crime spree going on. And I wanted cameras because I wanted to give it a little bit of, like, extra layer of stuff. But the cameras were focused on the street, and all you saw were some of the sides of the cars. So it really wasn't that helpful. And then I had the character whose car they were driving was a guy who liked classic cars. Because nowadays, if you use a brand new car track, you're gonna be track.
Yeah, it's all tracked. And for some reason, I had the guy be a car collector. But then years later, when I was turning in my final draft, I'd forgotten, and I used the Tesla.
Okay, I completely forgotten. And my friend.
Yeah, the most track car in the world. And my friend goes, what are you doing? This is a Tesla.
You. Every single movement this car makes is tracked. And I'm like, oh, my God, for like the last five years, I forgot that I had made the character a classic car collector to avoid this issue. And I used the Tesla for a couple years, completely forgetting that. And at the very last minute, I removed the Tesla, which meant I had to go through the whole book and change it to A N. A 2007 Mercedes just before the cars were tracked or some year, which I had to find out what year it was or something. So. And then you have to think of every single granular detail and how to avoid it. Like, for example, the cell phones, cameras on street corners. How do the characters avoid. Because in my book, there's a car, there's a body in a car. There's a lot of movement with the cars.
And so, like, one of the characters gets caught with their car inside of Hidden Hills where they're not supposed to be in there. It was the night of the crime. There's missing bodies, there's missing cell phones. I try to think of every angle, but the one thing I had the characters be super smart.
But there was one problem with the characters is they all had like a blind spot to something. And for example, one character brought in another person to help with the crime, and they ended up bringing in someone who's really off, like, off kilter and does a lot of crazy stuff.
Like she sleeps with someone she's not supposed to, and it gets them all into further trouble. So it's like rule number one of crime. Don't bring in other people that you might. So they all think they're so clever, so smart, and they keep making up that one little tiny problem and mistake. So I was trying to make everybody pretty smart with a blind spot.
And there's a big mystery in it. I have a four point of view structure and I have like a PI that follows everyone around and she's trying to figure out what's going on. And she's pretty smart too, but she's got missing information. If.
[00:55:02] Speaker A: Okay, you know how those, like, you have become, well, your ride or die friends. And they're like, if you need me to bury a body, like.
[00:55:09] Speaker B: That's right.
Yeah.
[00:55:13] Speaker A: With that. Yeah, I was gonna say, did you have.
[00:55:15] Speaker B: So I. The book came about when there were some financial issues going around in society. And I looked around and I'm like, what would I do? How far would I go?
What would I do to protect my children and the life I have? And I thought, well, I wouldn't kill someone, but like, what if I were asked to bury a body? Like I did ask myself that, and I thought, well, it would depend on how much money, you know. And then I came up with this idea that the character had to wanted money and was offered this kind of deal to, like, do something.
And she took a morally gray decision. Well, not gray at all. She took a morally rotten, foul choice to help someone do something. And then she brought in her ride or die friend who also needed money. That's the character that she brought in who ended up being, like, a little bit of a change agent and created a lot of problems.
And it was like a morality thing, like, how far would you go? And then everything kept getting worse for them. And then she was trying to stay out of prison.
And I. I don't want to give it away, like, whether she ends up in prison or not, but it was basically like the answer to the story was, don't do it. Like, go drive an Uber instead. Like, just don't do it because you're gonna get in trouble. Something not so good is gonna happen. And maybe it's better to not, because there's nothing gray about it. Like, she's rationalized every decision she makes, and everybody who does something bad in my book has rationalized it.
[00:56:49] Speaker A: So. Okay, then I have a completely different question.
What. How did you.
What was your publishing journey like? How did you make those choices about, like, choosing a publisher and that kind of thing?
[00:57:01] Speaker B: Well, that's an excellent question. And, you know, it's really hard to get a published book, as, you know, it's hard to find a publisher. And what happened was I went. My first book was published independent, not independently, with a boutique publisher here in Los Angeles. Great publisher. But then with my second book, I thought, well, maybe I should go and try to get a bigger publisher. And because it's domestic thriller. And so I went and I found an agent, and he gave me notes that took me a year and a half.
I mean, it was really overwhelming. And I was like, okay. So I did a whole rewrite. Took me a year and a half. This was during COVID I had kids, teenagers in the house. I was trying to do this.
And then what happened was he sent it out to the big places in New York, and they didn't. There was, like, maybe four of them. And they all said no. And I thought, oh, you know, it's like in Hollywood, they tell you they're gonna keep going, and then they just.
He kind of lost steam. And at that point, I'm like, you know what?
I kept trying to figure out what they would like. I was trying to figure out what. I was trying to read the minds of these people. And every time he would get a no, I would tweak it. And I was kind of trying to figure out how to make other people happy. And after that happened, I said to myself, I'm going to do another rewrite and I'm just going to make myself happy. I'm going to. I rewrote the book much darker. I'm not going to tell you what I did specifically because I'll send you a copy when I get. My arcs are imminent, Amy. And I haven't gotten them yet, but what happened was I just took a
[00:58:34] Speaker A: month to print this. I'm just going to say, yeah, they're
[00:58:36] Speaker B: just about to get my. My publisher keeps telling me they're coming. So what happened was I decided, you know what? No, I'm just going to write what I want to write. It's going to be very dark. And it became very, very dark. And I, and I, I needed to do it. It worked better for the story. And, and I said, I'm going to write the book that I want to write and then I'm going to go back to my original publisher because he doesn't. I don't have to read his mind. He doesn't micromanage. I'm just going to give him the book that I personally like. And I'm not going to try to read the mind of a publisher. I'm just going to write the book. So I spent like another six months or maybe another year rewriting it again.
I mean, I started writing this in 2018. It's 2026 now.
It's no, 2016. It was like a 10 year of thing.
And so what happened was I rewrote it how I want to write it. It was very different. It got a little darker and I gave it to my publisher and he liked it and he decided to publish it as it was. He didn't tell me to make any changes.
So that's what I like about him.
[00:59:31] Speaker A: Okay, so I'm going to ask you about this because I have feelings about agent. Okay. There's. Well, there's a lot of kinds of agents, but basically they fall into like the editorial camp.
You know, I'm gonna help you shape your book into a sellable thing or the I'm just gonna sell it camp. And you know, what happens happens at the end of the day, knowing what you know now. Do you think the editorial changes helped? Did it make it more sellable? Did it make it a better Book or did either happen?
[01:00:01] Speaker B: I guess I think both. I think that the rewrite. He gave me a very loose idea for a rewrite. He didn't give me really distinct changes. He just said, maybe you should make it a bigger book and have more POVs. That's all he said. And so I went and made all the decisions, I made all the creative choices. But in my mind, I kept trying to read the minds of these people. And each time I would get notes from one of the publishers, I would kind of tweak and I was trying to figure out what to do to fix it.
So I think he did a good job. Giving my book is definitely better. It's a bigger book. My book originally had one point of view and then I made two points of view. And then when he told me to expand the book, I put four points of view and I have two timelines. So the book jumps back and forth in time.
And it's complicated, but I think people, I think it. I was trying to give it like a lot of suspense. You know what I'm talking about? Suspense is key. And so structurally, that's what I was trying to do. And so, yeah, definitely, I feel like it's better. But the funny part is I ended up going back to my original publisher, but I still think it's a lot better. It's. Sometimes you have to work extra hard on a book.
[01:01:07] Speaker A: So what was the time, I guess between the first submission to your original publisher and the submission for the second book?
[01:01:17] Speaker B: You mean when I gave him the first?
[01:01:20] Speaker A: When he said he would publish the first one and then the second.
[01:01:24] Speaker B: Oh, my first book was published in 2019.
[01:01:27] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:01:28] Speaker B: And now this can be seven years later.
[01:01:29] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:01:30] Speaker B: And it was published right before the pandemic.
So my book, my first book, which I thought would be something people would like to read, it really didn't get a lot of attention.
Was a combination of like, it's hard to like pinpoint what kind of a genre it is.
And then very hard to market a book during pandemic. Like, there was a lot going on. You have people dying and like, I have a book about a girl in Rome. Well, we have these big social shifts and changes and people were being killed by this virus. I'm going to talk about a little ditty in Rome. It just. I couldn't walk my way through that very well. But I also think it just wasn't genre wise. It really wasn't a big sellable category. Like my husband said, oh, I knew nobody would really be interested in that book.
[01:02:19] Speaker A: Well, what category did you want? Because it's not a memoir, because it's fiction. So then.
[01:02:23] Speaker B: Well, it's Romana Clay, which is a memoir disguised as fiction. I was just trying to sell it as a coming of age.
[01:02:30] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:02:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Coming of age of a female sexuality.
I don't know. I thought it would be entertaining for readers, but I think people want a very clear cut genre. They want to know what they're reading.
[01:02:42] Speaker A: Okay, I will say this and let me ask you this. It is my.
When we authors and I discuss coming of age, it feels like a very male genre.
And I don't like there is. There was like coming of age for men and then like chick lit for women. But they're not the same thing.
I mean same age range and probably similar lessons, but written very differently. I mean, what the vehicle is. Do you feel that you were in that category of.
Oh my God, it's such a. It feels like a very male coded.
[01:03:16] Speaker B: You know what, that's a very good question and very good point. I definitely didn't feel like it was stylistically like Chiclet.
And I think that's another problem with it. It was the way it was presented and the way that it was written.
Yeah, I think it just, it's just a fi genre and I think it's not a book you pick up and just like read by the beach.
So I think that's what made it harder to sell. Plus at the time my, my publisher was boutique and he didn't have international distribution. Now he has Simon and Schuster. So I think it's just, you know, I've written in a genre that I think people are more interested in reading. Thrillers, domestic thrillers.
So I think, yeah, it's very hard to pinpoint what my book was because it was like travel, because it was in a foreign country. And there's also. Is densely written a lot of words.
A hundred thousand, maybe 110,000 words. Probably too densely written. Definitely not a little summer book, a little beach read. So you're right. I never really thought about coming of age as being a male kind of construct. But that's a good point. Never even crossed my mind.
[01:04:23] Speaker A: Well, it's something we authors and I talk about all the time.
Not. Well, not as much anymore. But like when in the era of bookstore placement where you slotted in the bookstore was very important and people who, sometimes people who.
Let me say this, cross genres, bent genres, whatever that is, did well. But sometimes it fell by the wayside and it, it actually, it depended A lot on, like, bookstores and how they would place it or where they would place it or how they would sell it. And not every.
Not every book got the same treatment when that's just life. I mean, that's a whole different conversation.
[01:04:59] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good point. Like, I don't know where they would have placed it. You're right. It would have been a lot easier to sell if it had just been a straightforward memoir.
[01:05:09] Speaker A: I think so. Well, memoirs come and go. I'm trying to think 2019, because, you know, they come and they're like, they're hugely popular and then they. Then they wane and then they come back and, you know, it's.
There's always trends and the trends, I guess with ebooks now, the trends move more swiftly than they used to.
So either people. Either people who either write to market and then you have to write very quickly while the market is still hot, or they luck into writing something that is where the market is going and then there's everyone else.
[01:05:40] Speaker B: Right.
[01:05:41] Speaker A: You know, that's it.
[01:05:41] Speaker B: Yeah. It's so hard to say, you know, And I was just trying to write what I felt like writing. And I don't know. I mean, that is a problem. Like, where would they place it, genre wise? I think that was probably one of the biggest issues.
[01:05:55] Speaker A: So what? Okay, so. Well, now that. Okay, now that it's not a thousand degrees, all of my air conditioning's on. So who am I to say, what are your plans in terms of, like, marketing for this book? Because this is a much easier placement. Like, this is clear. Like, it's clear, you know, where you'd place it and who the readers would be.
[01:06:14] Speaker B: I know, absolutely. I'm trying to get it to sort of, like, weave its way through the book talk space and get some viral interest. I just feel like it's the kind of book that might spark conversation because I have, like, a lot of hooks. I have the true crime hook. I have other hooks that if I told you, it would give away the ending. But like, really viral hooks about women and men and marriage and also women people, like those page turners, you know, they keep you up all night.
What's gonna happen? And so what I need is for a number of different influencers to read it and tell everybody, oh, you know, I'm hoping to get that type of interest because they don't have the big marketing budget, like, from the big publishing companies, Although people have told me that that's not really a thing as much anymore anymore.
[01:07:06] Speaker A: I wish I could Say it's a thing. I think about it often because when I, when I first started writing and publishing some, the kind of marketing budget people had was sort of like being in high school, you know what I mean? So some people, like, we'd go to a conference and some people would have the side of a bus and some people would have like, like a slot in People magazine. And then some people would have like two lines. And so you knew how much your publisher loved you by how. Whether you got the buzz slot and the that or you got the two lines in the back of whatever publication. So but that has changed dramatically and they're not spending the marketing budget that on. On a lot of things. And what they're using, it's super interesting because what they're doing is they're using social media, but that's not a marketing budget. So they're, let's say, even if they pay influencers, it's not a bus advertisement or it's not tv and you know, all of that, it's.
It's much more like social engineered, socially engineered marketing. And that is very specific. And I will say that influencers or booktok people, a lot of them are overwhelmed because once people realize like that space can be exploited or used or whatever you want the word you want to use, then a lot of people like, rush to that space. And publishers, it's actually, it's funny to watch because you watch some people do it and then publishers run and then people are like, okay, well what, what's the next thing we can like, you know, we can discover.
But that also given like, how social media and all of in the Internet is moving more swiftly, it's not because I remember, like, people were like, okay, I had a side of a bus or I was placed in like People magazine. Oh, that's still kind of a thing. Or I'm like, I'm Good Morning America or whatever that is. But that was like moving slowly and you knew it was coming and like there was a whole like, lead up to it. And now it feels like it's it. You know, it moves like very, very swiftly. But I do think I love the title because I think, I think, I
[01:08:54] Speaker B: think, yeah, like, they call the title Sticky, right? He's gotta go. No, I know what you're saying. The thing that troubles me a little bit right now with some of the influencers is like, some of them actually want you to pay.
[01:09:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:09:07] Speaker B: Quite a lot of money.
And I'm like, I thought the whole point was to discover, work authentically And I got, like, super bummed about. I'm like, I thought it was like, you're gonna read a book and be honest and give an honest review and champion a book if you like it. I'm not asking for a fake review. I. I just. So when I was asked by a few influencers to give them three grand, I was like, that isn't what I thought, that nobody even.
[01:09:35] Speaker A: Influencers. Like, I was talking to one today who I know from a. She's a writer. And she. Because her writing became popular, I guess she's now an influencer. And she was discussing how her inbox is full of people who want her to, what I would say, hawk items that do not fit with her. I don't want her brand, like, her morals. Her brand is a different thing.
And I thought that was interesting. And she was like, people think just because I have this audience, I'm willing to do whatever for it. She's like. But other people, she's like, if they have to pay the bills, she's like, I understand that they might say, hey, you know, I'm gonna take the. Take the cat. So it's all over the place. And, you know, and even now, that's changing. I was watching a little show my son has me subscribed to, like, a tiny documentary network, which I'm like, okay.
And. And it's. Even. That's changing. There's. It seems to be like, sort of a schism between people who want to stick with what they're doing and then people who are like, I gotta make as much money as possible before the whole thing goes away, you know?
[01:10:32] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, like, you and I were talking. I mean, the whole thing is strange now because the market is probably just being absolutely flooded with people who never wrote a book and who have now produced with ChatGPT, a fake book. And that's going to create a whole other burden onto the system. And I did think about that when I. When I went back to my publisher, I went as quickly as I could because I was like, pretty soon he's going to get a much bigger volume of books.
[01:11:05] Speaker A: That's a huge problem. So a friend and I were talking, and his agent hasn't been open to queries since the dawn of time. And the reason is, is because people are using AI to write queries, and so they can just write 50 or 100. And because, okay, when I first wrote queries, you know, you had to.
And then put them in an envelope and put a stamp on it. So, you know, there was A whole lot of points of friction, and now there are pretty much zero points of friction.
[01:11:32] Speaker B: It's very troubling.
And also, like, what does that say about where our brains are going to end up? They're going to end up like, mush. You're not even coming up with your own letters. Like, no.
[01:11:43] Speaker A: It's interesting, too. I was recently at school for Parents Day or whatever. It's my second to last one. And one of the teachers was showing research from, like, AI and so people who are using it for homework initially did better in school, but by the time they got to testing, they did really poorly because they had absorbed no material.
So they were able to excel in homework but not able to test and come back with the material.
[01:12:11] Speaker B: I cannot imagine what, what AI is going to do to their brains, to the kid. Like, you know, it's like any muscle, it's. I, I don't understand what it's going to do. And I've, I've heard that Columbia is not going to allow any technology in the classroom. No.
[01:12:32] Speaker A: So that's the, that was the thing he was talking about. So I don't. Well, I don't know if your teachers, a lot of the teachers from the schools that my sons have gone to or the Columbia, like, school of teachers. You know what I mean? And so he was talking about that. And so even my son's school is moving toward that where it used to be. And the first school he went to did not really buy into technology. I know there were some schools, one in West Hollywood over there that was like, had iPads. And I was like, I don't even have an iPad. And I was so surprised back, back then, who have, who went down that road and now are backing away from that road. And so even in, in many of his classrooms, they're like, you know what? We don't need the laptop. We're just to go back to the way we did things because we really want you to be engaged. And one teacher was saying that even when they open their laptops, like the notifications and whatever come up so much that they immediately, like, pulled away. And so even the thing that they were going to do is lost because they're immediately pulled away by email or texts or, you know, discord. I don't know. It's awful.
[01:13:30] Speaker B: My kid, we paid for private school, and my kid was shopping on Amazon during the school day, and I'm like, I pay for the school and you're shopping on Amazon, like, take that device away from my kid, please.
And I Have heard like in the Scandinavian countries as well, they're going back to pen and paper. And I've also heard that there are some places where people are trying to just go back to like, like they go into these churches and like read books for like six hours and they've banned technology here and there. And I think the kids, we better do something quick in the schools because we're going to produce a bunch of mindless people. If you don't have to think at all, if you don't have to come up with ideas at all, your brain is going to start to rot. And we're just going to dumb ourselves down and we're going to hand over the reins of storytelling and ideas and thought processes to a, to an algorithm, to a machine. And we're going to be in a very, I mean we, we got so smart, we created this AI, right? And now we're going to dumb ourselves down and what are we going to end up like pets? Just sitting around.
[01:14:40] Speaker A: I know, just sitting around. Like consuming.
[01:14:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Like pets. Scrolling. Yeah.
[01:14:44] Speaker A: Just.
[01:14:45] Speaker B: Yeah. So you know, when they decide to kill us, we shouldn't be surprised.
No.
[01:14:50] Speaker A: So. But I don't know. I don't know. I'm just, I'm trying to. Hang on. I. Let me say this. I think about this sometimes. I'm very grateful that I became a writer in an era where you had to learn to do it.
Because me too, if I had, I
[01:15:04] Speaker B: don't think I would do it now. That's the first thing I was like,
[01:15:06] Speaker A: I don't know if I would do it.
[01:15:08] Speaker B: Now I'm competing against fake writers and I, I don't even. I'm wondering if I'll ever write another book because I'm competing against fake writers. Just try to think about that.
People that are fake, faking it, faking it and perfectly happy to fake it. Like if you go to the Louvre and you see the Mona Lisa and then your painting is next to it but you didn't really do the painting, are you going to feel good about that?
A lot of people are because they just want the glory.
[01:15:37] Speaker A: I went to an exhibit about that a couple months ago, but that I have a lot of thought.
[01:15:41] Speaker B: Really?
[01:15:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Like in Budapest they had an. Every five years they have this one exhibit. And I went, this, It's a five year anniversary and I went in the back room was about AI and art creation. And I like, I think I had to sit down. I was like, oh, this is like bigger than I thought because I didn't realize like, they had statistics from years ago and like, how many millions of images are created daily. And I had no idea people were using AI that heavily. Like, I didn't. Like, I know in the Google search you have to like, put no AI to like, or you have to scroll down really far to figure out anything and results. But I didn't realize people, most people were using it far more often than I thought. And so when they had all the statistics, I was like.
And so they were discussing the future of art and what it would be based on that. And I was like, I'm gonna sit on this bench and just have a moment because it's bigger than even I thought. I don't know what universe I'm living in. But I guess I didn't know.
And I guess I didn't know.
[01:16:32] Speaker B: Yeah. So content creation of any kind.
And especially with writing and painting, like you said, I'm just wondering if I would have done it now.
I'm just wondering if I would even bother fighting against a wave of fake.
[01:16:47] Speaker A: Well, even that with photography or image creation, any of those. And I was like, would you do it with all of. I mean, and spend other time? Like. And I, you know, I went to an art school because they had an open house and I just wanted to see the building it was in, to be honest. And I was like, would I spend all the time with like the drawing and the this and that and learning the paint strokes and like blending and colors and pigment? And I'm like, that is a lot of work. Work that maybe is not necessary for that thing. And I wish I would like people to continue doing it, but I don't know, they're like in their 20s. And I was like, oh, this is like different math than I did in my 20s. Like, this is really different. And I don't know.
Well, I don't know the future. So, I mean, I don't know. But as a 20 year old, it seems like a lot of different choices.
[01:17:31] Speaker B: Yeah, it saddens me with the kids. Like, I'm telling you, a kid who just graduated from a master's program in writing, like, somebody that went to Iowa and spent years developing their craft. And they say they're 29, they're 30, maybe 35, and they're competing against people that are faking it. Like, I can't process that. And it's specifically with writing because right now they haven't replaced the actors yet.
Okay, we haven't really replaced it. But with, with art, like you say, and with writing, you're competing against phonies. Like, I'm. I don't know. I'll be honest with you. I don't think I would go into the arts now. I think I would just go get a job and work in some capacity in the industry, in the movie business and just let it, let it rip. Maybe just focus on producing because I just don't want to compete with people that are fake. I don't want to compete with that. And I didn't have to before. Like, my writing skill mattered. Your writing skill matter.
And I personally feel like I can spot it. But somebody says to me, oh, that'll be changing soon. It'll be better and better.
[01:18:34] Speaker A: So, yeah. So readers, from what I understand, my friends, I don't talk. The readers actually who email me, don't email me about that. Interestingly, they mostly email about the story or when you're. When's your next book coming out. But some of my friends, readers who read especially romance, which is obviously popular, and then therefore, like a. A space to enter, saying, they say that their readers can tell the difference, but their readers are now spending a lot of time discerning. They're like, I'm going to download this. I've never heard of this before. Oh no, am I going to do this? And that's like producing some level of fatigue.
And so I don't know how long that discernment will go on. And so for people, and this is so interesting, so for people who are my age, we know how long they've been writing and we know like, that they've built up that skill. But then, look, we're not all gonna live forever. You know what I mean? And a lot of people I know are getting close to retirement or slowing down. So then what does that leave?
[01:19:27] Speaker B: I know. I. I don't know. I have read that they're thinking of embedding into the AI some kind of watermark.
[01:19:35] Speaker A: I heard that too. So I guess.
[01:19:37] Speaker B: But how is that going to help if somebody copies it into a different program and slightly changes it? But maybe that. At least they've done that. At least they've rewritten it. But if you can embed into the, into the writing some kind of watermark and maybe prevent some usage. But I don't know. I think it's just sad. The writing specifically saddens me.
[01:20:01] Speaker A: No.
[01:20:02] Speaker B: Because I worked really hard at my writing.
You worked really hard at your writing? I spent years developing the skill of writing. And even like what I used to be able to take jobs sometimes of rewriting People's books and stuff. I noticed people aren't really hiring so much for that because there's just using AI to. They don't even. They don't. They don't even write it themselves. And I. All the emails I get now that are just so written.
[01:20:26] Speaker A: Oh, no, we discuss every email I
[01:20:28] Speaker B: get now from people.
[01:20:32] Speaker A: So many. Like, if you had told me my box, my inbox is going to be flooded every morning with, hi, Amy, we love this novel. Would you like to join the book club, get this published, whatever. And I'm like, this is so much. And actually the biggest problem I've had. And I. Well, we'll see. I don't know if you're gonna have this problem. The last book I released, the.
[01:20:51] Speaker B: Which.
[01:20:52] Speaker A: Oh, I think it's this one. And I don't know what year at this point. Maybe 20, 25.
I. So normally you go through the reviews and you get your regular reviews and like, one came in, like, sparing. Like, I was scrolling through email and I realized it was an AI review. It was written exactly like those emails. And I was like, so the next book I'm about to, like, you know, like, it's gonna be on the. Up on NetGalley. And I'm like, oh, my God, what if NetGalley is just all gonna be, you know, all gonna be like. And we really enjoyed Summer Morris's story. And like, it was so like, you know, the. The flowery AI words. And I thought, oh, I think that I was like, so I'm gonna see how this one goes. I was like, but then reviews may be dead too. Like, that may just be a different area.
[01:21:32] Speaker B: And you know what saddens me? Are the writers themselves gonna get lazy and just use AI to write to. Just because they don't feel like writing anymore. They're like, oh, well, I've written for 25 years. I'm just going to use AI too.
[01:21:46] Speaker A: I have so many questions, but I don't have. I have very few answers.
I have very few answers.
[01:21:53] Speaker B: It's incredibly dismaying for me as a writer. Like, that is the biggest sadness that I feel with writing. I do not believe that I would do it now. I just don't want to. I don't want to have a battle with some faker. I don't want to compete with someone who didn't write anything. I don't want to compete with a machine and a fake human, a fake person. I don't want to compete with that. I'm not interested. So I don't Even know if I'll write another book. I mean, if my book is well received, I probably will. Or like, maybe I'll write another book just because I enjoy the process and I enjoy the challenge. And I don't believe AI is even a good writer. I've asked AI to rewrite an email for me just to see what it looks like and I can't use it.
[01:22:37] Speaker A: No, I think AI uses. I think they. It reminds me of. Well, no, I can't say that, but it's just. It uses too many words. I'll say that. So it's, it's like a text expander. I'm like, okay, that's a lot of words. That's not saying.
[01:22:50] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a lot of words. It's, you know, the formality of it. This, there's a stiffness to it. There's this hyper enthusiasm and. Yeah, and I was raised on the Strunk and White style of writing, so clearly they didn't teach the AI.
[01:23:05] Speaker A: I know, be spare.
[01:23:06] Speaker B: Be spare with your words. But I do. There is one positive, which is people I know who couldn't write even a sentence. They get the your and the yours wrong and the there and the there. Okay, maybe for those people who are totally illiterate, okay, maybe I'd rather see a well structured email from them.
But that doesn't even bother me as much as the creative writing. Honestly, I'm troubled by it. I'm very troubled by it.
[01:23:31] Speaker A: Do you think that, okay, if your book is well received, would you write more in that vein?
Because we do love women in life and crime.
[01:23:40] Speaker B: It was open ended. The ending is open ended.
[01:23:43] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:23:43] Speaker B: So it was designed to be part of a, like a trilogy kind of thing.
[01:23:47] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:23:47] Speaker B: So, yeah, if it's received well and has some interest, I will definitely write the next book in that series. It's designed to be a series. In fact, it could hypothetically be go more.
So I'll see. Yeah, I mean, I would, and I would, you know, fight the battle of being an authentic writer.
Obviously that's what I would do, but I don't think I would start a career in writing now.
[01:24:13] Speaker A: I, I don't. I don't know if anybody's asked. Okay. I have one person's daughter who wants to do it. And I was like, she wants to be in journalism. I'm like, God bless her. So we'll see how that goes.
[01:24:24] Speaker B: I feel bad for the kids. It's a very dramatic time.
[01:24:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I know, because I don't. I feel like I know, she wants a job that. That she understands how it exists now. But I'm like, by the time she graduates from college, the things she may do may not even exist. And it's very hard to, like, prepare for something that's inconceivable.
[01:24:41] Speaker B: Well, yeah, like. Like, if you look at, like, some of the news sites, I don't think they're hiring writers anymore. They're just all spitting out AI stuff.
[01:24:48] Speaker A: Well, I know Bloomberg admitted it, but I don't know about the other ones, but some of them do. They said that financial writing is easier. It's financial and sports, apparently, because it's very sad.
[01:24:58] Speaker B: Listen, human beings need something to do, right? So we're literally taking away. It's an existential crisis. We're taking away human activity. You know, I studied philosophy, and Heidegger said that work is what frees you from angst, and angst is that black sense of doom and facing death. And work is what you need to avoid that feeling. So we're removing work for people. We're taking away work, which is what propels us to live. So what are people going to do?
[01:25:35] Speaker A: I don't know if. To use me. Like laundry?
[01:25:37] Speaker B: Yeah, like, no, the robot's gonna do the laundry.
[01:25:40] Speaker A: Well, I want the AI to do the laundry.
[01:25:43] Speaker B: I want the AI to do the
[01:25:44] Speaker A: laundry and mop the floor and do the things that I don't want to do. I can do the writing and you mop the floor.
[01:25:50] Speaker B: Yeah, but the. The writing is going to be written with AI and the next generation might not even care. They might be like, whatever.
I don't know. I hope not. I hope there's a big backlash to creative usage of creativity because human beings need to create for the act of creation, not for the result of that creation.
[01:26:12] Speaker A: No, for the sense of purpose, I think.
[01:26:14] Speaker B: Yes, for the act of the creation and then the other jobs for sense of purpose. But humans need to take one good, long, hard look at themselves right now. We need to take a good, hard look at ourselves. And it's very easy to just default to.
I don't have any ideas for this book. Can you just give me an idea? Oh, give me an outline for my book. It's going to start out as a slippery slope. Like, there will be authors that will not even come up with ideas. They'll just be like, I don't know what to do in the second act. Can you tell me? And then the computer will tell you. And then you stop thinking. And then little by little, you slowly stop thinking and you tell yourself you're not, and then you do it anyway. And I think that our natural instinct is, is to be a little bit lazy. Right?
So I am concerned for all of us.
It is. It's the number one thing. It's the biggest technological.
We have other technology that we've developed, but we didn't develop the technology that replaces us.
[01:27:10] Speaker A: No, no, no. And yet here we are.
[01:27:14] Speaker B: And yet here we are.
[01:27:16] Speaker A: I don't even know what to do with it. So I want to thank you so, so much for taking the time today in the. It was wonderful when you could be out with the dogs and the weather within 90 degrees. I know, I know, it's 87.
[01:27:27] Speaker B: I just looked.
[01:27:28] Speaker A: I know. I didn't know that was coming.
But I wish you the best of luck with your book. All right.
[01:27:35] Speaker B: It was wonderful to talk to you.
[01:27:36] Speaker A: It was wonderful meeting you and I thank you so much for taking the time.
[01:27:40] Speaker B: You too, Amy.
[01:27:42] Speaker A: This has been a time to thrill with me, your host, Amy Austin.
If you enjoyed today's episode, I hope you'll share, rate and leave a five star review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. It'll help others find and enjoy my conversations with brilliant women creators. Also, please hit subscribe button on your podcast app. In addition to hosting this podcast, I'm an author. I'm excited to share that I have an essay featured in the Narratives of Hungary, now out in paperback and available available for purchase both here in Hungary and abroad. It's a collection of stories from expats and locals navigating life here and mine is in there alongside some wonderful writers. And if you love a good psychological thriller, I'd love for you to pre order my upcoming novel, leave at the first lie, releasing January 2027. Pre orders make a huge difference for authors, so if that sounds like your kind of book, I'd be so grateful for you your support. I'm also the author of the Nicole Long and Casey Court series of legal thrillers. Fifteen books between them, available wherever books are stolen. Your local library and also an audiobook. You can follow me on substack, Instagram, Blue sky, Facebook and TikTok, all @LegalthrillerAuthor. Thank you for listening and I'll be back soon with more great conversations.
