Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Blowing up Your to Follow Your Dreams Life with Elle Cosimano

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00:00:30.000 Hey, Joe here, and you are listening to Under the Influence.

00:00:34.260 Today is a rerun. I know, that's crazy, right? I haven't really done reruns before,

00:00:41.240 but trust me, I have a really good reason for doing one today.

00:00:45.540 My friend Elle Casimano's new book, Finley Donovan Digs Her Own Grave,

00:00:49.260 is out today wherever you buy books. I love Elle so, so much. We first met at a book event

00:00:57.380 at Bluebird Bookstore down in Crozet, Virginia. I talk about them all the time, too. It is owned

00:01:03.020 by my friends Flannery and Chelsea. Fully women-owned, woman-operated. They are badasses. 0.67

00:01:09.560 They are doing signed and personalized copies of Everyone is Lying to You for Me, 0.62

00:01:13.740 and they're just good people. And I truly believe that good people often bring together other

00:01:19.720 good people. So Flannery knew that Elle and I had to meet. Before this book event, I binged Elle's

00:01:25.900 entire Finley Donovan series. It is a delight, okay? These are cozy murder mysteries about a

00:01:33.020 very real and authentic heroine. She is a harried mom of two kids. She is all of us in so many ways. 1.00

00:01:39.900 I just binged the hell out of them. And so when I met Elle, I was a little bit starstruck,

00:01:45.660 but she was just so freaking amazing right off the bat. And her story about blowing up her life

00:01:53.080 to follow her dream just blew me away. I think about aspects of it all the time. I really do.

00:02:00.440 I quote her. I once quoted her to her, which is like that scene in When Harry Met Sally,

00:02:05.380 where Carrie Fisher quotes Bruno Kirby back to Bruno Kirby. Also, can we talk about how the

00:02:10.580 Carrie Fisher-Bruno Kirby love story in When Harry Met Sally is really underappreciated?

00:02:16.600 I love me some Bruno Kirby. I love that mustache, and I love me some Carrie Fisher. I love the two

00:02:21.400 of them together. Wagon wheel forever. Okay, that's a diversion. I think Elle's story about

00:02:27.320 blowing up her life to become a writer is more important now than ever, as we're seeing so many

00:02:32.960 jobs shift and change and disappear. And I think all of us are trying to figure out what we're

00:02:37.760 going to do next. So I want to bring back my interview with Elle in celebration of her new

00:02:42.320 book, Finley Donovan Digs Her Own Grave. If you haven't started the Finley Donovan series yet,

00:02:47.820 You're in for a treat. You are. Everyone that I recommend them to just loves them because they're

00:02:52.820 fun and they're filled with joy. And that is what we need right now. It truly is. This episode is

00:02:59.000 also fun and filled with joy and a lot of wisdom. I hope that you will also be quoting Elle back to

00:03:05.040 me and maybe back to Elle one of these days when she and I are reunited at a book event,

00:03:09.100 which I hope we are this summer. I first met today's guest at a reading retreat in Virginia.

00:03:22.240 Yes, a reading retreat. Those exist, and they are magical. They are. We had only known each

00:03:28.500 other for a few minutes when Elle Cosimano told me the story about how she blew up her life as 1.00

00:03:34.780 a real estate agent, as a breadwinner, as a mom of two kids, and moved to Mexico with her entire 0.95

00:03:40.780 family to try her hand at writing a novel. I love this story. It gives me chills, I tell it to people

00:03:48.200 all the time, and it inspires me to keep going and creating and inventing and trying new things

00:03:53.980 because I think a lot of times as women we need permission to do things. And stories give us that

00:04:02.580 permission. Elle is the New York Times bestselling author of many, many, many books. Her Finley

00:04:10.300 Donovan series is one of my personal favorites, and I gift it to almost everyone that I know.

00:04:17.060 Today, Elle is going to tell us a little bit about that moment when she did blow up her life,

00:04:21.120 when she did sell everything she owned and moved to the jungle of Mexico to pursue her dream.

00:04:25.960 And then we'll also talk about the tribe of women Elle found to support her,

00:04:29.320 because none of us can do this alone. We can't. We can't. We need each other.

00:04:41.660 Hello. It's so good to see you today. It is amazing to see you. It's been too long.

00:04:47.940 Oh my God, it has been too long. I mean, it's just, ah, this is just like the exact breather

00:04:53.580 that I needed is just to like sit and shoot the shit with you, one of my favorite authors 0.98

00:05:01.200 and hardworking ladies in the world. And so ever since we met, we first met in, and I feel like I 0.99

00:05:10.320 know you because I love the Finlay Donovan series so much, but since we met in real life, I have been

00:05:16.040 thinking about your personal story. And I will tell you that as I've gone through the rollercoaster

00:05:21.880 of ups and downs and hard times of publishing The Sicilian Inheritance, you have just been

00:05:28.240 the shining beacon of light for me. And I go back to the things that you told me and I'm like,

00:05:34.260 oh my gosh, like I just, I feel invigorated again and excited. And I needed you to know

00:05:42.140 that you did this for me while I was embarking on my tour. You made me feel amazing right before

00:05:46.680 I went on tour I am blown away and honored and it is it is lovely to hear it because um you know

00:05:54.680 I think you're doing so much of the same for me as I'm watching you on this wild adventure you

00:05:59.740 are working harder than anyone I've seen work in this industry and to see all of it coming together

00:06:05.780 like the you know the rubber hitting the road and everything is working is such an inspiration and

00:06:10.700 there have been days you know these these last couple months have been hard work for both of us

00:06:14.840 there have been days when I just look at it and I'm like, I can't, I can't do it today. And I look

00:06:19.920 at you and I'm like, I can, I can do this today. Look at Joe, look at what Joe is doing. I can do

00:06:24.580 this. Oh my gosh. I love that. I love, I love a mutual, mutual admiration society. It brings me

00:06:30.960 so much, Joe. It really does. Well, I want to, I want to start out by, by telling our listeners

00:06:37.060 the story that you told me about how you started writing books in the first place and how you blew

00:06:44.140 up your life and how your mother helped you, because we talk so much on this show about how

00:06:50.040 it really takes a village for us to do anything. Because I've been telling your story over and

00:06:55.700 over again. I was driving to Midtown Scholar in Harrisburg the other day with another author,

00:07:01.220 Jenny Herrera, who wrote The Hunter, and telling her your story. And she's like,

00:07:06.440 I love El Cazamano's books, and I didn't know any of that. And now I love her even more.

00:07:11.220 i love it oh that's awesome it is kind of a wild and unique story and i love to tell it because i

00:07:18.480 do think so many of us need to hear you know that we're not alone in this and while not everybody's

00:07:25.420 story a lot of people's story is not going to be like mine i think we all struggle with so many of

00:07:29.920 the same things so many of the same obstacles and so i do love sharing this story because i think

00:07:35.980 people do find inspiration and hope in it. And that's, I think, something we can all give each

00:07:42.820 other. Yes, yes, yes, and yes. So let's start at the beginning. Where were you before your life

00:07:51.780 as an author? Yeah. So gosh, before my life as an author, I spent more than a dozen years

00:07:58.700 doing real estate sales and marketing and building a career out of that. And I was very successful.

00:08:05.660 I, you know, I like to look back and say I had a fantastic, solid career.

00:08:11.180 I was very good at what I did.

00:08:13.360 I trained other people to do what I do.

00:08:16.140 I, you know, I had a fantastic, robust clientele.

00:08:22.060 I had a team of people working under me.

00:08:23.900 I was very successful.

00:08:25.260 I was the breadwinner for our family.

00:08:26.780 And I was miserable.

00:08:28.880 I had two small kids in elementary school at the time, you know.

00:08:34.960 I think there were probably five and eight when I started down this road and I was feeling like

00:08:43.660 I just kind of hit this wall where I knew I wasn't doing anything I wanted to be doing with my life

00:08:50.440 I wasn't where I wanted to be I didn't know what I wanted I just knew I wasn't fulfilled

00:08:57.880 and I was exhausted I was I was working way too hard you know in real estate you're working nights

00:09:03.740 and weekends and that's when your kids are off school and your family is home and I felt

00:09:07.700 like I wasn't being enough of a mother I felt like I wasn't being enough of a spouse I wasn't

00:09:13.740 I wasn't being enough of any one thing to feel good about where I was in my life

00:09:18.360 and um and so that's more or less where I was before I started writing

00:09:25.140 and I think I was I guess that was about what 20 2010 I guess okay okay yeah and I think

00:09:33.740 This is not uncommon. This is not an uncommon place for women and the mothers of young children

00:09:40.440 to find themselves in at a certain point. You've worked, you've done the things that we've been

00:09:45.820 told to do. You've started a career, you've had the kids and gotten married, and you just feel

00:09:52.200 like you haven't done the things you wanted to do and that you're not getting to spend your time

00:09:58.020 the way that you want to be spending your time um and i hear that a lot i hear that from a lot

00:10:03.940 of women and then i also hear but i'm scared to try anything new but i don't think i i don't think

00:10:08.760 i can i don't think i could take that leap and you took you took the leap yeah and i think it's

00:10:14.140 even more than i'm scared i think for me it was guilt right i would feel selfish imagining anything

00:10:24.440 for myself. We are conditioned, I think, so often, especially as moms. And our whole identity is

00:10:31.900 wrapped up in giving of ourselves for the people that we care for, you know, the people we're

00:10:37.240 responsible for. You know, we're every, like every drop of blood in our body, every piece of energy

00:10:44.620 that we have, you know, goes into taking care of or nurturing or handling things for someone else.

00:10:50.640 And so there's this guilt in addition to the fear. I think there's this guilt that comes with just the notion of trying to picture something you want just for yourself. And so that for me, I think, was the biggest stumbling block was, you know, this feeling like I shouldn't like I should put my life on hold because this is this is what I am.

00:11:10.280 I should be where I wanted this is what I thought I wanted and it is I loved my kids and I love my

00:11:15.380 family um but I wouldn't you know I couldn't accept the fact that there was something that

00:11:20.940 I wanted for me too yeah yeah and I feel that so so so hard I mean I I feel weird guilt and shame

00:11:31.160 around so many things that I don't think I should feel guilt and shame around I felt

00:11:35.640 I felt terrible leaving them to go on that book tour last week. Even though, you know, Nick was

00:11:43.880 here and my mom was also here and many, many a babysitter were here. They were fine. They were

00:11:50.340 fine. They were fine. And I want them to see their mother go out and do things she loves and work

00:11:56.420 and have purpose and create. And still, still, every moment that I was away, I felt guilt. It's

00:12:02.060 not it's irrational it's wholly irrational and yet it's ingrained in us you know it's ingrained

00:12:07.160 in us exactly and i you know i moved back to philadelphia because my mom's here uh and also

00:12:14.520 it's the greatest city in america i love it here but we have a lot of help and if i didn't have my

00:12:21.020 mom helping me with the kids and she takes the big kids on overnight she sleeps here when i'm out of

00:12:26.380 town. I don't think I could do the things that I do because it takes such a village. It takes so

00:12:32.160 many people to do this. And your mom is the one that helped you decide what to do next, right?

00:12:39.780 Yeah. I mean, I've always been a little fearless in terms of change and trying new things. And so

00:12:46.800 it wasn't really the fear of doing something new. It was like there was something else holding me

00:12:50.420 back. And I think in hindsight, I needed someone to give me permission to do something for myself.

00:12:57.120 And she was that person for me. So we were, you know, we had gone down to visit. My parents at

00:13:04.340 the time lived, they were living their awesome retirement life in the Mexican Riviera. And

00:13:12.620 we went down for a very short vacation to visit because, you know, that's all I would give myself

00:13:18.180 was a very, you know, tiny couple of days off from work to take the kids down and see their

00:13:22.420 grandparents and sit on the beach for a couple of days. And while we were there, you know,

00:13:27.260 my mother looked at me, she said, you, I think she just kind of looked at me and realized I was

00:13:33.000 about to hit a wall that I was, you know, she basically told me, she said, you're going to

00:13:36.920 have a midlife crisis if you don't stop and figure out a way to, you know, get yourself out of this

00:13:46.200 place that you're in. And she said, why don't you bring the kids this summer? Take a summer off work.

00:13:52.240 Bring the kids to me. You stay here for the summer and write a book. And at the time, I thought that

00:14:00.480 was, I mean, I couldn't, it was, it felt like it was coming out of left field. I was like, where is

00:14:04.620 this coming from that you would even think? I said, this is the most selfish, irresponsible thing I

00:14:08.920 could imagine doing. I can't just take off work. Like I'm, like my money's paying most of the bills.

00:14:14.960 I have clients I have customers I have people that you know that I'm training I can't like

00:14:20.660 you know the kids have school we've got all this stuff going on like how

00:14:24.880 how could I upheave my life just so I can take two months to do something that frivolous

00:14:30.220 and she said just think about it and I went home I took the kids home after that vacation I did

00:14:37.820 think about it and I kept thinking about it and then I couldn't stop thinking about it

00:14:41.480 And two weeks later, I called her and I said, we're coming. And I don't know what happened in those two weeks, except that something she said felt like she had given me permission to make a decision for myself to do something for me.

00:14:58.160 And maybe that's all I needed was to hear it from someone else, that it was okay to be selfish, that it was okay to take a break, that it was okay to ask for help, that it was okay not to do everything on my own.

00:15:13.120 And like something clicked and I just, I said, we're coming.

00:15:18.360 And that summer I took two months off of work and that's what we did.

00:15:22.040 Oh, I get, I have heard this story now and I have told this story to other people.

00:15:26.960 And I still get chills when I hear it because the way you described having permission and that you felt like you needed permission.

00:15:37.600 And then you did do it.

00:15:40.220 You went down there.

00:15:41.020 You went down there and you let your mom watch your kids and you wrote every day, right?

00:15:48.500 Yeah, it was funny too because, you know, I got down there and it's tempting to want to not do what you're down there to do.

00:15:55.300 or you tell yourself you're getting down there to do because the beautiful beaches and beautiful

00:15:59.240 weather and the kids are off gallivanting and having a wonderful time with their grandparents

00:16:04.200 every day. And all I could think was, gosh, maybe I could just enjoy a two-month vacation.

00:16:09.380 You know, and in addition to being the person that gave me permission to do this,

00:16:13.100 she was also my accountability partner. Every morning, my mom would take the kids and I had

00:16:17.920 two little boys who were very, very high energy kids. And so, you know, every morning she'd take

00:16:24.380 the kids and and put them in their bathing suits and take them to the beach and she'd take them to 1.00

00:16:30.240 the pool and she'd run them ragged and you know feed them and dress them and bathe them and

00:16:34.640 and she'd send me upstairs to this little dark room in the attic it was the only quiet place

00:16:42.280 where I could get you know some writing done and she sent me up there every day while she took the

00:16:47.160 kids out to have fun and she said go write your book and at the end of every day she would wait

00:16:52.820 at the bottom of the stairs. She'd have a hot dinner on the table. My kids were bathed, ready

00:16:58.920 for bed. There was nothing I needed to do. All the mom load had been done for me. She had washed

00:17:06.880 their clothes. She had prepared their meal for the night. She had done all of the tough stuff.

00:17:14.240 And I could come down at the end of the day and she would stand at the bottom of the stairs and

00:17:17.500 hold out her hand and ask for my pages and I would have to I would have to at the end of every day

00:17:23.500 send her my chapter that I wrote and so in two months the very last day we were there I typed

00:17:30.080 the end of my first horrible terrible most horrible sloppy awful novel ever written

00:17:37.880 but it was finished I had done it it was finished and it was the most amazing feeling in the world

00:17:45.360 like what a sense of accomplishment to have done it and it felt so good but there's no way there's

00:17:51.240 no way I could have made that leap that I could have done even that much without accepting help

00:17:58.860 right right yeah yeah and I think sometimes accepting that help is the hardest part

00:18:04.140 yeah of it yeah especially if we're you know they're I'm the kind of person who has to control

00:18:10.440 everything like I have to I have to feel like I have my finger on the pulse of everything and it's

00:18:14.640 very very hard for me to ask for help or accept help and so that was a really big step and I think

00:18:21.200 she knew that and she just sort of took the reins and just she she just handled mom business she did

00:18:27.620 what moms do she handled the business but she did it for me and she did it for my kids and

00:18:31.460 and that was really the only thing that made that leap that summer possible and that was what opened 0.95

00:18:37.460 the door to what would become a whole life upheaval and career change.

00:18:43.540 Well, I want to take a quick break here. And when we get back, I want to hear about that

00:18:47.840 life upheaval and career change. Definitely.

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00:19:12.960 and contains no added sugar.

00:19:15.020 Because true strength isn't about being able to take the hits.

00:19:18.500 It's about being able to bounce back.

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00:19:31.440 And we are back.

00:19:32.860 So you've written the first draft of this novel, and you're still down in Mexico with your mom, with your family.

00:19:42.240 What happens next?

00:19:43.360 What do you do with the draft of that book and the rest of your career?

00:19:48.380 Yeah, so this is, you know, this is where the fun started.

00:19:52.040 We came home, and I have to preface this by saying that I'm married to the most supportive, amazing partner ever.

00:19:59.120 he and I have been together since since I was I was a teenager we were we were in college

00:20:06.040 and he's never batted an eye a single one of my ridiculous impulsive plans or anything I've ever

00:20:14.280 suggested or done and so of course like when I told him I was taking the kids to Mexico for the

00:20:18.540 summer so I could you know take two months off and write a book he he was very supportive he

00:20:23.540 looked a little like a deer in headlights at the time but he was very supportive and he said of

00:20:26.940 course, if you feel like that's what you want to do, we'll do it. But at that point, I came home

00:20:31.780 and I could see the relief just wash over him when he asked, Crate, you finished. Is it time

00:20:37.800 to go back to work now? Because at the time, my career was sort of the one that we were really

00:20:44.440 relying on. And so he very gently asked if I was ready to go back to work. And I said, I think we

00:20:52.680 should talk about that because I really had a good time doing this. I feel like I've found

00:20:57.520 something that I want to do and I feel like there's something here. And he asked a question

00:21:04.560 at that point that was probably the most important question anyone could have asked me. And he said,

00:21:11.140 well, how do we know if you're any good at it? Oh. The people in your life give good advice and

00:21:18.480 also ask good questions i will tell you that yeah and it's like it was so honest like you know he

00:21:23.740 said are you good at it and i said i don't know the answer to that question he said well how do

00:21:27.880 we find out like how do we find out if this is something you can do and that was the question

00:21:33.080 that i needed to hear that was the permission again that i wasn't willing to give myself

00:21:38.420 to keep pushing forward and so him that prompt that how do we find out what's the next step

00:21:45.840 what do we do now was just the kick in the pants that I needed to go do my own research. So I got

00:21:52.900 home and I had this manuscript and I wasn't entirely sure what to do it with it. I had no

00:21:56.900 training in this whatsoever. My degree was in psychology. I'd been selling houses for 12 years.

00:22:02.240 You know, I had no clue, no clue at all what I was doing. So of course I did, you know,

00:22:08.220 what anyone would do at that point. I jumped on Google and I did a ton of searching into the

00:22:12.760 industry? What's involved with publishing a book? What is a literary agent? What do they do?

00:22:18.060 Who are the publishers? How do I start? Where do I start? And that process led me to my first

00:22:25.760 writing workshop. And there happened to be literary agents and editors who were going to be there.

00:22:34.300 And I was very, very fortunate in that my first experience with that was really positive. And I

00:22:39.000 got some great feedback that encouraged me again to keep pushing forward. And so I took that very

00:22:46.360 messy, awful, horrible first draft and ended up, you know, I'm still not entirely sure how it

00:22:54.620 happened. You know, I'm sure luck and timing probably had a lot to do with it and a very,

00:22:59.580 very solid query letter. And I ended up landing with my first literary agent. And at that point,

00:23:07.020 I think we my husband and I both kind of looked at each other and we knew that maybe this was

00:23:12.160 possible I hadn't yet let go of the reins of my career in real estate I was sort of I had a foot

00:23:18.220 in both worlds at that point but this was a very promising sign that that maybe there was something

00:23:23.740 here I love that and I also love what what happens happens next um and so you you've got you've got

00:23:35.000 this agent you did well and you also you know let me back up for a second you did the work

00:23:39.580 and i think i mean the publishing industry is is so seems so daunting from the outside it's like

00:23:46.480 how does this even work how do you even even begin and i actually i did a book event at midtown

00:23:52.920 scholar in harrisburg the one that i was driving to jenny what driving to with jenny uh the other

00:23:57.500 day and instead of doing like my regular like talk about me and the sicilian inheritance which

00:24:03.340 you know i'm i'm sure everyone is sick of hearing about me i wanted to do an event called how to

00:24:08.880 write and publish anything where people could just ask me questions and it could be more of

00:24:13.200 like a town hall and yeah we we talked a little bit about sicilian but it was so vibrant and

00:24:18.640 exciting um to hear like what other people wanted to know about this industry it was so cool and

00:24:26.020 and the biggest question is most people think that you can just go directly to a publisher

00:24:29.880 with an idea and don't understand, you know, you have to query agents and then be chosen by agents

00:24:36.740 in a process that is weirdly similar to sorority rush. And then, you know, then the agents go to

00:24:45.380 the publishers. And so, yeah. So even once you get to the agent, like what happens next?

00:24:52.740 Yeah. You know, there's so many misconceptions. And I can see why. I mean, it's not the most

00:24:59.280 transparent of industries. And there's so few people that are doing it successfully that there

00:25:04.240 are not a lot of resources out there. And I think the internet makes it so much easier to do the

00:25:09.980 research. So much easier, yes. But still, there's this demystification that happens when you really

00:25:15.480 do a deep dive. And so a lot of people really, I think, don't realize how challenging it is,

00:25:21.680 how hard it can be to make that leap. And, um, so yeah, it was, it was a process of kind of like

00:25:30.540 you said, sorority rush, you know, you, you make your dream list of agents and try to find the

00:25:34.960 right fit. And then you polish, you know, you polish up your work and try to put your best

00:25:40.860 foot forward with this very professional business letter. It's essentially the query letter,

00:25:46.020 which is the pitch, to try to see if someone will want to take you on. And I was very, very fortunate

00:25:54.040 that one of the agents I had queried saw something in this manuscript. You know, it clearly needed a

00:26:02.640 lot of work, but she liked the voice, which is another word that we hear a lot, you know, that

00:26:07.680 needs some demystification also, probably. But, you know, she liked the voice of the character,

00:26:13.740 and I guess in the way I was trying to tell this story

00:26:16.260 and she saw something in it

00:26:17.720 and she was willing to take a chance on me.

00:26:22.520 Which has to, I mean, what was that moment like

00:26:24.780 after all of this, after you've, you know,

00:26:27.080 blow up your life to go away for the summer

00:26:30.780 and then to have someone validate you in that way

00:26:35.340 and kind of answer the question,

00:26:37.080 how do you know if you're any good at this?

00:26:38.700 What was that feeling like?

00:26:40.960 So there's so many moments about motherhood

00:26:43.400 that ground us even in the you know when when when something's going so right and we want it

00:26:50.640 so badly just to take a minute and let it go to our heads there's always something grounding about

00:26:54.900 motherhood and I think for me it was when I got that call that this agent wanted to take me on

00:27:01.260 if I remember correctly my kids had the stomach flu yeah that sounds right that sounds right so

00:27:06.720 I've got the cordless phone propped up between my ear and my shoulder and I've got one of them

00:27:11.860 going from one end and one of them going from the other end. And I'm trying to be really,

00:27:15.460 really excited about this. And at the same time, you know, there's, you know, there's always this

00:27:23.620 doubt in the back of your mind kind of shadowing every success, you know, with, are there more

00:27:29.120 important things I need to be worrying about? You know, should I really be taking this time

00:27:33.500 to celebrate? And so that day was just a blur, you know, it was a blur of just, you know, laundry

00:27:40.960 and doctor appointments and spit up and and and taking people's temperatures and um yeah it would

00:27:48.300 but i think at the end of the day i was able to sit back and still feel like i had accomplished

00:27:53.900 something for myself like i this was this was huge this was the first massive hurdle i was

00:28:00.620 going to have to overcome if this was going to be a reality this totally reminds me of when i found

00:28:07.420 out that we sold the Sicilian inheritance to Maya, my editor at Dutton, I was in a Burger King

00:28:16.040 bathroom, you know, much like the Humpty Dance, and just staring down, staring down a two-year-old

00:28:25.340 on the potty who refused to poop. And I had to pick up the phone because it was my agent. And

00:28:30.880 I pick it up and I'm talking to her and I'm like, oh my God, oh my God, you know, the book,

00:28:36.100 the book, the book got sold. Uh, and, and at the same time, I'm just like dead staring my child

00:28:42.960 being like, poo, poo, poo. And then, and she did it like freaking magic. And I'm like, this is how 0.97

00:28:50.220 women get it done. Isn't it funny how all of our great successes are still like, they're still, 0.95

00:28:59.440 there are little milestones in there that are so interwoven in our roles as moms and i've always

00:29:06.400 wondered like do men in their careers have those same experiences or are they able just to enjoy

00:29:12.620 that moment without sitting on the floor of the burger king bathroom with their kid like trying

00:29:17.540 to push one out like what i mean like i can't even imagine we are going to take one more quick break

00:29:25.600 here. Be right back. And we are back with El Casimano, one of my favorite people in the world

00:29:40.960 and the author of the best-selling Finley Donovan series. When we left off, we were sharing stories

00:29:47.160 about writing milestones amidst the madness and insanity of mothering many children.

00:29:57.160 I do not think that my husband marks every career milestone with a scene from a Burger King bathroom

00:30:03.200 or holding a puking child. I think it is a woman thing, and I think it is a mother thing.

00:30:08.360 And, you know, I've reached a place of acceptance with it, too, that I am both of these things,

00:30:15.820 that I am a mom and I am a writer. And I actually know that there's a few female writers out there

00:30:25.280 who really don't like to be asked about how they do both things, how they parent and also have 0.99

00:30:32.540 children because male writers don't get asked that question. And I get that. I do. But at the

00:30:39.120 same time, if we don't talk about it, if we don't talk about how we juggle these things, then 0.99

00:30:44.280 younger women who want to do these things won't have role models. They won't see how you're doing 1.00

00:30:50.120 the labor and how you're doing the work. And maybe it's not fair that we get asked the question,

00:30:53.680 but I like to share how I'm doing both of the things. I think it's also important the more

00:30:59.540 we talk about it, the more people recognize it. And I think that's important too. It's easy

00:31:06.140 to kind of push those roles aside or, you know, cover them up or not talk about how taxing they

00:31:14.980 are or the impact they have. And then I think in doing so, sometimes we tend to continue burdening

00:31:21.720 ourselves, like because we're letting people continue to put things upon us, if that makes

00:31:27.700 sense. Where I think sometimes it's important to put it out there and say, hey, this is also

00:31:32.680 happening in our world all at the same time. And just be out there with it. Because I can't

00:31:40.820 imagine my work day not intertwined with all of those other parts of who I am and am expected to

00:31:49.360 be. Exactly. And I like what you said about showing the labor. I think when we don't show

00:31:55.400 the labor, the labor gets discounted. Yes. Yes. You said that so much better than I did.

00:32:01.020 And that's exactly how you said it.

00:32:02.500 That's exactly how it came to my ears from you.

00:32:04.540 So, you know, and so, all right, so you get this agent and you've got a manuscript and

00:32:10.820 what your agent, you had told me the story, your agent connected you with other women,

00:32:16.880 which is another part of the story that I love so much.

00:32:19.100 Tell me about that.

00:32:20.740 Yeah.

00:32:20.900 So, like I said, I had no idea what I was doing.

00:32:24.460 This is all very, very new to me.

00:32:26.620 My book was a mess.

00:32:27.760 my agent was struggling a bit with me because I was having a very hard time understanding why it

00:32:34.460 was a mess and how to fix it. And she, while she was a very savvy business person, she wasn't

00:32:39.220 necessarily a great writing teacher, writing coach. And so we kind of hit this point where

00:32:45.420 she was getting frustrated with me and I kind of felt like she was on the brink of giving up and I

00:32:49.180 was getting frustrated, feeling like maybe I couldn't do this. I couldn't get this book to a

00:32:52.580 place where we could actually do something with it. And she said, what you need are some critique

00:32:57.120 partners. And at the time, I didn't have anyone. There was no one in my world that I could share

00:33:01.780 this experience with other than her. And so she put me in touch in an email thread with two other

00:33:12.400 debut novelists who she had recently signed on as clients who were in a very similar place in

00:33:18.720 their lives. They were both mothers of pretty young kids. They were both coming from completely

00:33:24.140 different careers. We were all very, very new at this. None of us had degrees in this. None of us

00:33:29.760 knew what we were doing. And I think we're all to some degree struggling and we had no support

00:33:33.580 system. And so she put us in an email thread together and she said, you know, Ashley Elston,

00:33:40.780 Megan Miranda, El Casimano, introduce each other. You all are now a critique book. Go fix each

00:33:47.720 other's books. And it was kind of this terrifying moment, like kind of being thrown into a party

00:33:55.140 and not knowing anybody. And so we spent a couple of tentative emails back and forth introducing

00:34:01.560 ourselves and chatting. And what we realized very quickly is we had so much in common. We were at

00:34:08.180 these very similar points in our lives with a lot of the same fears and hesitations and the same

00:34:12.500 challenges in terms of how do we do this? Right. And we bonded almost immediately over that and

00:34:19.300 very quickly started sharing work and realizing that this was not only a compatible working

00:34:24.920 relationship, but it was a really compatible friendship, too. And we became very, very close.

00:34:30.160 And that was back in, I guess it was 2011, maybe. Yeah, probably late 2011 or mid 2011. And we have

00:34:40.500 been writing partners and critique buddies ever since. So, but not only that, like, you know,

00:34:46.340 I can't think of a day that goes by when we're not texting each other or talking about, you know,

00:34:52.300 work-related things or how our kids are doing or what it was like to send them off to college. And,

00:34:57.360 you know, like we've been there for all of it. And it's been such an amazing and beautiful thing.

00:35:03.080 And when I look back, there were so many times, and you know it, there's so many times when this

00:35:08.160 career just wants to crush you this industry wants to crush you it is designed to weed people out

00:35:13.440 and it can be soul battering and there were days when i thought to myself why am i doing this you

00:35:21.700 know why am i why am i beating my head against the wall why am i cutting myself open and putting

00:35:27.380 my guts out on the page for the you know for the world to to abuse for for in some you know at the

00:35:35.240 beginning for, you know, pennies, like, how is this? How is, why did I do this? And then they

00:35:40.860 were the ones who always reminded me why. There's a community here. They are, they were the ones who

00:35:48.020 on the hardest days made me laugh, reminded me about the fun parts of this job and encouraged

00:35:55.600 me to keep going. And in some, in some cases kicked me in the ass and told me, you know, 0.98

00:36:00.460 just go back to work like keep keep working keep writing you've got this and and they've been 0.99

00:36:06.700 throughout this entire journey sort of the joy but also the backbone for me

00:36:13.480 yeah yeah I will I will say that my female friends and especially my female writer friends

00:36:20.620 namely like Glynis McNichol who's on this podcast a lot and I have to get you a copy of her new book 0.95

00:36:27.540 I think I mentioned it to you. It's the one, the memoir where she went to Paris the summer

00:36:32.440 after the pandemic as a single unmarried woman and just had a lot of sex and ate a lot of cheese.

00:36:37.320 I love it.

00:36:38.820 I know. I know. I mean, it's just everything I want in a book, just sex and cheese. And she,

00:36:44.900 I mean, she's my backbone. She keeps me going on days when this is hard and soul crushing.

00:36:52.620 And I mean, I think a lot of industries are difficult, but you know, not every industry

00:36:57.240 are you kind of putting yourself out there in a way like this where for people to critique you

00:37:03.960 i mean i i i made the mistake of reading a podcast review today which was dumb and i'm not letting

00:37:09.640 myself read any sicilian inheritance reviews i'm not um but i the women that have supported me and

00:37:16.880 the women that have supported me in the past two weeks this community of authors is really amazing

00:37:20.920 and you are one of them and i've just gotten notes uh when we didn't make the new york times

00:37:26.040 bestseller list, which, you know, I work, it's very hard right now. And I worked so hard

00:37:30.900 to do it, not for any ego reasons, but because, you know, it just, it makes it easier to sell

00:37:36.360 another book. It makes it easier to do the things I want to keep doing. And, but I heard from,

00:37:42.000 you know, Patty Henry and Fiona Davis and all of these incredible women that I look up to as

00:37:47.260 authors who've been here to support me. And I just, yeah, that's the importance of women

00:37:54.440 supporting other women and building each other up. It's one of the main themes that I like to

00:37:58.840 write about. And it's so important. It's the one thing I want to talk about literally every day

00:38:05.440 in every podcast episode. And I think that was really, for me, so much of what became the heart

00:38:12.140 and soul of the Finley Donovan books. I mean, those books were inspired by a moment with my

00:38:18.700 critique partners. But the relationship has inspired kind of the soul of the series. It's

00:38:26.660 really the heart of what those books are about. It's about, you know, women lifting each other 0.62

00:38:32.320 up and supporting each other unconditionally. And the importance of that, like what we stand 0.99

00:38:38.680 to lose when we don't have it. And it was sort of my homage to that relationship.

00:38:45.940 Yes, I adore Finley and Vero's relationship in the Finley-Donovan series. And what I like about it, and I like a lot of things about it, they're very funny. You make me laugh out loud on the page all the time.

00:39:00.620 but it is it's the support and it's the fact that you write about their friendship the way that a

00:39:08.080 lot of writers would write about a romantic relationship in that you give it the same weight

00:39:12.460 and the same stakes and the same consequences and I don't think we see that enough on the page

00:39:18.280 even though I know I know that so many of us women are living it in real life yeah yeah and

00:39:25.060 it's funny because that's one of the biggest questions that I always get at events is are you

00:39:30.300 you know we had a couple of very spectacular romantic interests in the book and of course

00:39:34.760 everyone wants to know who's my favorite are you team nick are you team julian like and my answer

00:39:40.100 is always i'm team vero like at the end of the day this book is a you know we've got some great

00:39:45.720 relationships going on because in these books we explore every facet of what it means to be a woman

00:39:51.040 and those are parts of that but the heart of the story is the friendship and the real relationship

00:39:57.040 at its core, at its center, is Finley and Barrows. And so for me, at the end of the day,

00:40:04.040 you know, as long as the two of them end up on the couch together, eating bonbons and watching TV

00:40:10.020 and remembering that they're each other's ride or die, like, I've done my job. Like,

00:40:14.220 I feel good about that. And I think so many readers and so many women have found that that

00:40:22.880 surprised them like how much they also maybe needed that too to read about that because the

00:40:27.560 romance is a lot of fun and it's you know it's I love I love to read romance it's one of my very

00:40:34.140 very favorite genres to read when I'm reading for myself but I think there's something exceptional

00:40:40.920 and extraordinarily unique when we also look at the depth of a great friendship and and what it

00:40:50.740 can be. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Have you watched the TV show Younger? No. Oh, it's

00:40:58.940 good. Oh, if you want just bite-sized candy about the publishing industry, it's delightful and

00:41:04.800 delicious. And I binge-watched it because they hired me to write a book that had been mentioned

00:41:10.440 in the TV show, which is just like a sassy, trashy romance. And it has a love triangle in it. And

00:41:19.360 people are constantly asking me the same thing. Are you team Charles? Are you team Josh? And I'm

00:41:22.660 like, I'm team Liza and Kelsey. Like I want their friendship to succeed. I'm always like rooting

00:41:26.920 for the female friendship. Everything about our talk today just inspired me. You continue to

00:41:33.860 inspire me. You do. You do. I feel like we were, we were destined to meet in Crozet, Virginia.

00:41:40.580 Well, here's the thing again. Were we destined or was it women helping other women? Because

00:41:45.420 if you think about it, it was a phenomenal woman who connected us.

00:41:49.160 It was a phenomenal woman who connected us. Flannery Buchanan, who launched the Bluebird

00:41:54.900 Bookstop bookstore, connected us. She has been my champion for the past two years.

00:42:03.420 Did I tell you that she drove up here with all of the copies of The Sicilian Inheritance so that

00:42:09.160 I could sign them? And she has just been hand-selling that book. And she told me from

00:42:13.140 the very beginning she's like you two have to meet you two have to meet and then she made it happen

00:42:17.240 so it wasn't destined it was it was designed by by another human extraordinary woman exactly

00:42:24.940 exactly i love it so much i love it i love it i love it almost as much as i love the finley

00:42:30.540 donovan series which i which i have bought for so many of my female friends it's now one of my go-to

00:42:36.060 birthday presents. Oh, I love hearing that. I love hearing it. That series is just one that

00:42:44.840 begs to be shared. It's one that it's almost more fun to read it with a friend. Exactly. Exactly.

00:42:50.640 And so, yeah, I have been I've been just handing it out like like strangers hand out candy to

00:42:55.700 children in the 80s to everyone that I know because I love it so much and I love you and I

00:43:02.600 will see you very soon. I cannot wait. I love you, too. It's been wonderful. You're the best.

00:43:09.980 Oh, and that is all we have for today. Elle brings me so much joy. I love her story about

00:43:16.780 blowing up her life, about being given permission, about how she thought she needed permission,

00:43:22.360 because I think a lot of us feel the same way. I think we have big dreams and we want to make a

00:43:30.060 change. But we often, as women, need someone else to tell us, it's okay. Try this thing.

00:43:38.820 I will help you. And yeah, I still get chills when I hear her story. I also love the part where she

00:43:45.540 is paired up with other women writers who are also switching careers, and they just lift each

00:43:50.980 other up and support one another. And it is gorgeous and beautiful. If you happen to be

00:43:57.920 looking for a cozy mystery that is also hilarious and just a fun read, please pick up the Finley

00:44:05.980 Donovan series. There's many books that you can binge right now. They are everywhere where you

00:44:09.800 buy books. And you know what else is everywhere you buy books? The Sicilian freaking inheritance.

00:44:15.900 Get it now. Get it while it's hot, my friends. I'm heading to Puerto Rico for my husband's 0.97

00:44:21.400 50th birthday. He's 50, and now I can officially call him an old man, and I'm very, very excited

00:44:27.420 about that because everyone thinks he's younger than me because he has such great hair. Yeah,

00:44:32.560 yeah, it's annoying. All right, go have a great day. Bye, guys.

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Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - March 05, 2025

Blowing up Your to Follow Your Dreams Life with Elle Cosimano

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