00:01:26.160In fact, there's an entire real syndrome called Paris syndrome about the depression that people feel when they go to Paris and it doesn't live up to their expectations.
00:01:35.760Paris has always lived up to my expectations.
00:01:37.600I mean, of course, but I mean, I try to keep my expectations very real and take away the Instagram and the movie and the Emily in Paris filter.
00:01:47.380My guest today is author Danielle Trussoni, and she has a new mystery out that's set in Paris called Murder Most Delicious.
00:01:53.260For this one, she's writing under the name Danielle Postel-Vignet, which is actually her husband's name because she's married to a Frenchman.
00:02:00.260And I wanted to have Danielle on to talk about why Paris is the ultimate escape, like why Paris continues to captivate readers and travelers and visitors and how Paris is somehow shorthand for the good life.
00:02:10.860We're also talking about the writing process, parenting, women's pleasure as an act of rebellion, and my ultimate life hack, why you should be taking two-hour lunches on Mondays.
00:02:35.300Although, I've got to tell you, I wish that I was in Paris right now.
00:02:39.920Me too. I'm one of those people that think that Paris is always a good idea.
00:02:45.460And usually I do go, you know, fairly often.
00:02:48.820I'm not sure how often you go to Paris.
00:02:50.360I know you have a book about Paris coming out.
00:02:52.420And my new book is out, you know, set in Paris.
00:02:57.060So, yeah, I always love to talk about it, to go there and now to write about it.
00:03:02.300I know. No, I go to Paris at least usually at least once a year because, you know, it's such a great place for stopovers.
00:03:10.500Like we usually fly through Paris and we'll try to stay for a day.
00:03:14.600And then I was there so much researching Parisian heist.
00:03:17.820I mean, for me, it's my perfect city vacation because I know it well enough at this point that I can just arrive.
00:03:26.300I know what I like. I know what I don't like. I know where I want to stay.
00:03:29.960And Paris is also one of those places that I think truly just lives up to expectations. Right.
00:03:36.320Like it's like you said, it's always a good idea.
00:03:39.600It's always a good idea. And I think finding those places that you like to be makes a huge difference.
00:03:46.760It took me a while to find those places. And then now that I do have them, like you, I go kind of to the same little corners of Paris. And of course, you know, I'll venture out and go to like museums and go to different restaurants and things. But there are little corners that I love. And I get to know, you know, those shops, those bistros, those bookstores, all of that.
00:04:10.120yeah no exactly i mean i go to one bra place every time i go and i buy my buy like two new
00:04:16.780where is it it's in the marae i always forget the name of it but the door is pink and it is
00:04:23.280the bras are perfect even my even my husband who like is not like a lingerie dude like i could be
00:04:28.120wearing anything and he'll be like you look so pretty and i'm like i know but look at this
00:04:32.060beautiful bra that i just got thinks that they're they're fancy and impressive so yeah exactly you
00:04:38.020find the places that you love and yeah it's great and i just but i think it's really interesting to
00:04:43.560think about paris in terms of place and setting because i also think it's a perfect place to put
00:04:50.380a novel i will tell you when we were trying to figure out what to call parisian heist
00:04:55.680readers told me they're like i'll just buy anything with paris in the title and i'm like
00:04:59.600what if it ends up being bad and they're like i don't really care they don't care yeah it's like
00:05:03.940a rocket ship i was saying this to my editor um you know i'm writing a new book now and it's not
00:05:09.200in paris and i'm like you know with when you know with um murder most delicious paris isn't in the
00:05:14.380title but because it's set in paris like people just want to read it and you do have i think you
00:05:21.480have your book the paris heist you know has a you know really big advantage first of all because of
00:05:26.760the heist that happened there last year at the louvre and that everybody is you know everyone
00:05:31.420And it went completely viral, you know, this this heist and that your book is set in Paris.
00:05:38.200So, yeah, I think you have a lot of elements.
00:05:42.220So what I wanted to ask you, as someone who has spent so much time in Paris and has set a novel in Paris,
00:05:47.200what do you think it is about that city that really captures, you know, our attention?
00:05:52.920That is like such a great, great escape for so many of us.
00:05:57.360I feel like it's like Oz, you know, I feel like it's like it's a place.
00:06:01.420for me personally, and I think for others, it's a place that you can escape to. When I was for years,
00:06:08.240so I lived in Paris. Actually, I lived in the south of France for four years. And then I met
00:06:12.920my husband, who is Parisian. And we go every year to the same neighborhood. We go to the 7th
00:06:18.640Oranisman, where his parents have a home. And so we are there constantly. And I have been there so
00:06:25.340many times over the past 15 years. And yet, every time I go to Paris, I feel like I'm stepping into
00:06:30.840a kind of like fairyland where, you know, you step up to a patisserie and everything is so
00:06:38.280perfect. And you look in the window of like, for example, your lingerie shop and everything is
00:06:43.140just perfect and delicious looking. And for me, you know, I wanted I wanted for years and years
00:06:50.700to set something in that kind of fantasy space, but not but have it be realistic. Right. When I
00:06:58.640was doing you know research many years ago for some another project that i wanted to set in paris
00:07:03.120i found and you probably have found this too this idea of paris syndrome um where you know and this
00:07:10.260is an actual in the psychology book syndrome where people who have an idea of what paris is
00:07:18.720and then they actually go to paris and they're disappointed so much so that they have a kind
00:07:24.400of nervous breakdown and it was shut your mouth i had no idea that this is a real thing yes it was
00:07:29.740coined because many japanese women right so many japanese women have this fantasy of paris you
00:07:35.820know with audrey hepburn and the food and the lifestyle and then they get there and they're
00:07:40.540like oh my god it's a there's dirt on these streets and oh my goodness everybody doesn't
00:07:45.680look like they just stepped out of a magazine and so it's a real like dsm you know actually
00:07:51.520diagnosis to have Paris syndrome. I'd wanted to write about something like that for years,
00:07:57.640but couldn't quite find my way in. But I think that it puts its finger on why I'm so attracted
00:08:04.000to Paris, why readers are so attracted to Paris, why that city is such a great place to set a
00:08:09.360novel is because we all project things on the French and on Paris, right? And, you know,
00:08:14.760their luxury. There's also like, you know, probably a billion dollars of marketing that
00:08:18.400goes behind that, right, with all of the luxury brands and everything that happens in Paris. But
00:08:22.680as you said, when you get there, it kind of lives up to it. You find yourself suddenly
00:08:27.000slowing down and enjoying your time a bit more, having long lunches, buying kind of
00:08:34.880little treats, luxurious treats, like a new piece of lingerie or, you know, the thing that I always
00:08:41.140do when I go there is I buy like pajamas, you know, sort of like pajamas. Oh, there's good
00:08:45.840pajamas yeah super soft full pajamas so um yeah i think that's why and i think that readers like
00:08:53.400to sort of fall into that world and just swim in it it's true it's true and now i'm obsessed with
00:08:59.900this paris syndrome situation yeah it it truly it truly like it's it's so fascinating it's you
00:09:08.140know the official definition is a sense of extreme disappointment exhibited by many individuals when
00:09:13.200visiting paris that the city does not live up to their expectations that happens to all the time
00:09:18.100when i travel like to a lot of places and i actually think that instagram has made this
00:09:23.240kind of i think we should coin something new it's like in instagram travel syndrome because
00:09:27.980instagram makes every place look beautiful and then you get there and you're like what the f
00:09:32.260like this is not right this is not what i saw and like the taxi driver just ripped me off it right
00:09:38.620Exactly. But the thing that's interesting about this is this was this diagnosis was the syndrome was created well before Instagram. So I think that Paris Paris. Yeah. Right. Right. Even in the 19th century, Paris had this allure on travelers and people from abroad. So I think that it does.
00:09:58.060You know, maybe it's the first instance of it. But now, yeah, of course, like you see that. I see pictures of places that seem absolutely insanely beautiful. But then I know that when I go there, it may not be.
00:10:10.280No, no, this is not for me. This is not for me. Well, yeah, apparently as early as the 1600s, there was a doctor who speculated that when you're touring cities that get very built up in the mind, that there can be an extreme culture shock and disappointment because they never turn out even how you read them.
00:10:29.720So not even necessarily how you saw them on Instagram, but when you read about these like world capitals and then they don't fulfill all of your dreams and expectations, there can be a really big crash there.
00:10:43.340Fascinating, but it's also like fiction, right?
00:10:45.100Like we love to project and fantasize about everything.
00:10:48.820And, you know, for example, in the book that I just wrote, Murder Most Delicious, it's basically a sort of marketed as a culinary novel, culinary mystery, because there's a kind of fetishization or fantasy world around food and wine in this book.
00:11:06.560So the murder happens in a bistro, and then basically all of the clues in the rest of the book revolve around food and sensation and these kind of fantasies. But I think that the human tendency to fantasize about other things and things that are outside of our daily life, and like Lord knows, you know, daily life, especially in the States, sometimes can be really overwhelming and fast and full of things that are not fun.
00:11:34.940And so I think that's one of the reasons I read books. Actually, I read fiction is because I like to escape.
00:11:42.320Yeah, I agree. I agree. And I want my fiction. And I think that you feel the same way.
00:11:47.240You know, I've read so many of your books at this point. I want my fiction to feel very escapist.
00:11:52.040I want to transport my reader somewhere else because I think that that's what good fiction does.
00:11:59.680I want them immersed not just in the story but in the place and I always think about place
00:12:03.580as another character in my book like I want it I want it to feel so vibrant that you can taste
00:12:09.520that butter okay that you and that you get hungry when I when I signed Sicilian inheritance
00:12:14.520to someone who hasn't read it yet I put a warning label on it and I asked my publisher to put a
00:12:19.900warning label on it and they wouldn't do it which was so so weird uh but I was like you should read
00:12:24.640this with snacks because it's gonna make you hungry and I murder most delicious makes you
00:12:28.740very hungry. Right. You want to jump on a plane and go eat French food all the time or go to a
00:12:34.020French. Actually, if you're in a town that has a French restaurant, you just go there. But
00:12:37.400you can go to a good bistro and get some like good, good, like good steak a poise and some frites.
00:12:43.860I want to take a quick break. And when we get back, I want to dig in a little bit to the plot
00:12:47.560of your brand new book. Okay, we are back. Talk to me about this book. I mean, it's just, it's
00:13:01.360juicy. It's delicious. It's fun. It's escapist. It's in Paris. It's all of the things that I want
00:13:06.680in any kind of read, but especially in the summer. Like, that's just, that's what I want.
00:13:11.160It's what I want to be reading at the pool. Yeah, I mean, so I'll tell you the basic plot,
00:13:15.120and then I'll tell you like why I went in that direction. So the story is about a woman named0.89
00:13:21.780Olivia Beach, who is a young but supersonic sommelier. She's a master sommelier. And if
00:13:29.140you know anything about wine, this is like there's maybe 250 of them in the world and not very many0.95
00:13:34.220women. And tragedy strikes. She loses her sense of taste during COVID. And this is an annihilation
00:13:42.500of everything she loves. She knows so much about wine, her work world, all of her friendships are
00:13:46.920around wine. She loses, ends up losing her job. And then she is invited to go to Paris to sort of
00:13:53.740audition at a bistro. So she goes and she's very nervous. She can still smell wine. She can't taste
00:13:59.660it. So she feels like she can get through this kind of audition with her nose alone. But she
00:14:04.860gets there and she smells something. There's six glasses of burgundy set up before her and she
00:14:08.740smells something kind of off in the wine. But when she, you know, so she doesn't want to drink
00:14:14.280it. So the chef who is testing her takes a sip and he dies from poisoning. Okay, so all of that
00:14:21.500happens like in the first 10 pages. And the rest of the book is Olivia getting enmeshed in this
00:14:27.760neighborhood in Paris. And these people who are friends of the chef and sort of part of the
00:14:33.040neighborhood help her solve this crime. So that's the premise. And, you know, I myself, like, this
00:14:39.960is the kind of book that I was dreaming of reading. I don't know, you know, some people say, like,
00:14:43.800what do you, what inspires you? And, you know, how, you know, what is it, what's that thing that
00:14:49.160gets you to commit to writing a certain type of book? And it's always a different reason. And a
00:14:54.020lot of the time for me, it's like you, it's place, right? You know, I've had a book set in Italy,
00:14:58.180And I've had books set in all, you know, basically all over the world, one in Japan. And with this one, it wasn't I mean, although I did want to escape in my imagination to Paris. But one of the main compulsions that I had with this book was escaping into pleasure. And there's like many different types of pleasure in the book.
00:15:20.660There's wine and food. There's the place. There's friendship and community. There's perfume. There's sensation of different kinds. There's flowers. Like, there's basically all of it. And so that was how all of that came together with this book is this kind of need to escape. And whether it's summer or winter, you know, I feel like I want to escape every season.
00:15:43.840I want to escape every season. And I love what you just said about exploring pleasure and especially women's pleasure, because more and more, what I want to see are stories about women truly enjoying their lives. And my best friend, godmother of my children, Glynis McNichol, wrote Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself about a woman.
00:16:08.980Ben gave me that. We have a mutual friend, Ben, and yeah, he gave me that book.
00:16:12.220Yeah, it's so good. And, you know, about a woman enjoying herself in Paris, but it's not just, it's not just, you know, intimacy with another human. It's enjoying yourself through food, through friends, through the freedom that, you know, women have more and more in the world today.
00:16:32.160and all of these little things that we seek pleasure in.
00:16:36.340But I think for a long time, we weren't seeing those kinds of stories.
00:16:40.180And that's why I love, love a book like this,
00:16:43.520seeing a woman truly finding ways to enjoy her life.
00:16:48.980I also think that there's a component to our life that maybe in the last 40 years,
00:16:55.18030 years, even like 10 years, we've lost more of, and that's enjoying time.
00:16:59.420You know, I think as someone who, you know, I've been writing now for 20 years, and I'm a mother of three, as you are. And, you know, you find that your time becomes this precious commodity. And taking the time to do something like have a two and a half hour lunch, right?
00:17:19.880Or to just take a walk with no real destination in mind, but just to take a walk to discover something alone or reading books, right, without any sort of reason to read them other than it's interesting and it's pleasurable and you're relaxing and you're thinking.
00:17:40.320of like these sorts of things, especially in this age of like sort of hyper movement and AI and all
00:17:47.480the things that are coming at us feel really kind of clandestine and almost like a rebellion.
00:17:54.000And so, you know, for the for me with this book, like the narrator, you know, it is a mystery and
00:17:59.140it's kind of fast. But strangely enough, like in the chapters, there's always these moments of pause,
00:18:04.460right where there's conversation about cultural elements of france and the u.s where there's just
00:18:12.140you know a moment where they're baking something there's the detective and um the main character
00:18:18.540olivia baker souffle which is notoriously difficult and it just these moments in the
00:18:23.580book and and i've been really trying to implement in my life these moments where i have nothing
00:18:29.840structured. Right. And sometimes it's, you know, you feel like, oh, my God, can I really do that?
00:18:34.600Oh, I should be doing something on social media or, oh, I should be doing this thing for my book
00:18:38.600or for work. And it's a real act of rebellion to just say, listen, I don't care about the
00:18:42.980consequences. I'm just going to take a day off and do nothing. It truly is. And I think that it is
00:18:48.380also an act of rebellion to buck the traditional norms of the workday. And this is something that
00:18:56.300that I've been trying to do more and more of lately. I mean, I work so many hours in a week,
00:19:02.680but I also work for myself. And that does mean that I don't necessarily have to be at a computer
00:19:08.880from nine to five, Monday to Friday, but it's very hard to break free of those mental constraints.
00:19:15.740And for my husband, too, who runs this media company with me, but we're trying to, right?
00:19:22.180We're trying to go out for two hour lunches on a Monday because, you know what?
00:20:05.200But I think it's important to try to reprogram ourselves.
00:20:08.700And a lot of it comes with the fact that I think, you know, all of our lives, you're in school, you know, nine to five or whatever, you know, eight to three.
00:20:18.220And then when you have a sort of traditional job, you're like doing that.
00:20:22.080And then when you work for yourself, I mean, I know that I do this.
00:20:25.880I'm in my office at eight after I drop my daughter off at school.
00:20:29.940And I'm there and I feel like, oh, my God, she's going to be home at three.
00:20:33.640I better like, you know, use this time and do everything I can.
00:20:38.540But the truth of the matter is, is we can only be full human beings for ourselves, for other people, for our friends, for our spouses.
00:20:46.920if we take that time to really explore who we are and find what makes us us finds find the things
00:20:55.380that make us feel good about being alive i mean i've seen i have so many friends who are workaholics
00:21:02.460and um you know a little i have to say that i probably am too but who who have not over the
00:21:08.920years found a way to create space and they really it's to the detriment of their books to their you
00:21:15.100know if they're writers or their family life too so i don't know i'm really advocating it's a new
00:21:20.540like stage in my life that i'm advocating for like taking time off getting away escaping escaping
00:21:27.040taking time off taking time for you like no matter how small it is for a long time even though this
00:21:32.940is a very vital part of my work i felt weird reading books during the day yeah me too i mean
00:21:41.540I was column for the New York Times book review and I was supposed to be like, that was supposedly part of my job. And yeah, I couldn't do it for a long time. I still have a hard time doing it. I'll admit like I read at night because that's when it feels like you're supposed to read because that's when you're allowed to relax. I mean, these are really rules that I don't just want to break for myself, but I'm hoping to also break for my children so that they see me model these things.
00:22:09.240I will tell you the one thing that is the one thing that's making it a little easier for me
00:22:12.780to read during the day this is a new thing for me I got a kindle this is my first kindle y'all
00:22:18.120wow that's I know I know and I love it I got it because I wanted to be able to read books in
00:22:26.520advance right but it makes it so much it just like it's I always keep it and it's pretty little pouch
00:22:33.520in my purse and then slip it out at odd moments of the day and then find myself I mean this is
00:22:38.720like very recent and i'm like oh i'm gonna pick i'm gonna read a chapter instead of scrolling on
00:22:43.240my phone because it's somehow socially acceptable to scroll your phone in the middle of the day
00:22:48.340which is doing nothing for you you look for it well it's co it's co it's somehow coded as work
00:22:54.900right right right yeah yeah i mean these are just things i just want to break it all and fix it
00:23:02.020and give us back our brains and our time and our happiness, right?
00:23:08.020Well, sometimes it takes extreme measures to do that, right?
00:23:11.480I was finding that I couldn't do that.
00:23:31.100And so my husband and I moved to Mexico. I live in Mexico now. So I am living kind of off the grid outside of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. And I have so much more space. You know, now the mental pressure is really from me. Myself.
00:23:49.280Right. I don't have people on the outside saying you should be doing this and come and do this and I'll meet you for lunch. And that when you can't, sometimes you feel like you can't say no to people in your work environment if they're right there next to you.
00:24:01.140I realize that not everybody can do that. Right. But there are that's the extreme sort of measures that I took to to read to break my life and reform it. But I feel like in everyday life, like you can do that. Right. Even if it's like scheduling it into your agenda. Right. Like on your computer in your I have a like a paper agenda that I write what I'm going to be doing in.
00:24:25.280like schedule an hour like I'm going for an hour long walk or I am reading at this time
00:24:31.740and putting it in so it feels like it's part of your schedule oh I do the same thing now I put
00:24:36.920these things on my calendar I might do the same as I would put a meeting because you know the way
00:24:43.300we care for ourselves should have equal measure with the work that we do for money I think and
00:24:49.680not everyone can do it but I know that I can do it and so I'm trying to do it more and just like
00:24:54.700you said no is a very powerful word and i get invited to things all the time and i cannot do
00:25:00.620them all yeah and i've i've really started to just be better at i'm gonna say no not because
00:25:06.800i have something else to do but because i want to do nothing god that's so hard even with the
00:25:12.840extreme measures i've taken to like move out of an environment that was really um high energy
00:25:18.960I still have a hard time saying no, especially if it's work related. But yeah, learning to say no
00:25:25.420is a huge thing. It's a huge step in the right direction. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right.
00:25:32.440Let's take one more quick break. And then I want to we have so many, so many aspiring writers
00:25:38.300in the audience of the show. I want to hear a little bit about your process for making books.
00:25:48.960Okay, we're back. Like you said, you moved to Mexico. You were bringing me down for this
00:25:57.300wonderful festival, but this literary festival down there, you do have a lot on your plate.
00:26:03.660So I feel like you are such a great person to talk to about craft and process because
00:26:10.240you bring so many incredible writers to you instead of having to go to them all the time.
00:26:16.540how do you even how do you start a book like you've got an idea and then what happens next
00:26:20.320oh god so i'm in that process right now and i have every time that i'm in this process i remember
00:26:26.820how uncomfortable it is i thought before you actually know what you're going to be writing
00:26:31.360you have the idea and you have to map it out um so for me i've written nine books um the first
00:26:37.480five of those books i did not outline um maybe even the first six but no i think the first five
00:26:43.380I did not outline. And I would write into the character or into the situation until I kind of figured it out and then would, you know, maybe sketch out like a rough outline, like, oh, in the middle of this happens and then it ends this way.
00:26:56.260What I've done for the past three books, and I think it's really helped a lot, is that I do create an outline to help me get through the book.
00:27:07.780I work a lot before I start writing I guess I should say like right now I'm spending I've given
00:27:14.900myself a month to really explore the world that I'm going to be writing about do the research
00:27:21.160that I want to do about this place write about the characters explore the characters figure out
00:27:26.760who's going to be narrating the book what point of view like basically getting all of this the
00:27:31.900pieces of the book together in my mind and on paper before I start. And then when I actually
00:27:38.700write, as I said before, I'm in my office 8.30 to 12.30 or 8.30 to 1.30, depending on the day,
00:27:45.000and I write by hand. This is another thing that has really helped because I shut off all
00:27:52.120electronics. I don't have my phone around. I'm not on my computer. I have this certain type of
00:27:57.600paper that I like that I have to buy in France it's kind of ridiculous um and I write kind of
00:28:03.280ridiculous that's kind of ridiculous and I love it what is this kind of paper no it's called
00:28:08.380Clairefontaine paper and you can get it in notebooks and you can get it loose leaf and it's0.95
00:28:13.580like glossy so that my pen my pen actually goes faster on it it's really this is one of those
00:28:18.420weird little peccadillos that are complete people will ridicule me about but I guess I'll own it
00:28:49.160So depending on, you know, the last book I wrote, this one, Murder Most Delicious, I had a really hard deadline for it. And I don't always have that kind of deadline. Usually, often I write the book first. But this book, it was, you know, I basically talked through the idea with my editor. She said, I love that idea. Let's do it. Can you get it to me in like five months?
00:29:11.820And I'm like, oh, my God, I don't know.
00:29:16.040And so I started the process of having a daily word count and sort of factoring in how many days hitting that word count would it take me to write the book or a draft of the book.
00:29:29.520And that was an incredible learning experience for me after having written eight books before this where I never paced myself in that way.
00:29:37.640I just sort of was like, let's, you know, see how it goes today.
00:29:40.560And either I'd leave my desk feeling great or I'm feeling demoralized, having, you know, sort of this watery idea of what my goal was for the day.
00:29:49.580But having a really strict word count made me feel like I'd accomplished something because I would sit there until I made the word count.
00:30:02.140And then typing in those handwritten pages into a Word document is a second draft.
00:30:09.600So I do that and then I have a second draft and then I print it and read it and write all over
00:30:13.720those pages and then type it in and it becomes a kind of circular experience, I guess. So that's
00:30:19.500the basic, that's the nuts and bolts of it. I love that. I've always committed to a word count.
00:30:25.720It just keeps me, it keeps me like on, on point. Also, I love a to-do list, right? So I'm like,
00:30:31.740okay, like you just did this, you got it done. It doesn't matter if the words are totally crappy.
00:30:35.760i still just do i do it i'm like whatever i'm like i'm done i got it done i did this thing
00:30:40.000yeah with every with everyone is lying to you we had three months to write it so because i gave
00:30:44.160them the idea and i was also like get this out quick because silly me thought the trad why that
00:30:51.180i had to write a book about trad wives last summer and that it would be over but you know look what
00:30:55.620happening yesteryear this year so you know what i thought that there was an expiration date for it
00:31:01.820And I guess there was not. Maybe I was too early. I don't know. But yeah, I banged that out in three months and it was about 2,500 words a day, which did nearly kill me because I like a sweet 1,200 word sweet spot.
00:31:15.900Yeah. Yeah. My when I had to do so, I ended up writing Murder Most Delicious in about three months to the draft. Of course, there's editing after. And I was doing 2000 words a day. So, yeah. And that's higher than what I normally do. I usually I like 1200, 1500 words a day.
00:31:32.540yeah exactly exactly and and yeah a 1200 is really nice and but also i don't plot so like
00:31:40.660my first draft is always my outline i'm like i'm flying by the seat of my pants i don't know what's
00:31:45.820going to happen and the way that i describe it is how can i write an outline i just got on a first
00:31:50.140date with these characters like i can't ask them to go home with me yet i don't know anything about
00:31:54.480them i love that it takes me a while for them to start talking to me and for me to feel comfortable
00:32:00.660you know manipulating their lives and an outline just feels so I don't know like it's not intimate
00:32:07.800enough for me than to just be writing them on on the page like you said so yeah but I know a lot
00:32:14.420of writers really freak out about that they're like how could I how am I how am I supposed to
00:32:17.120know what are where I'm going every day if I don't have an outline and I'm like I know I know
00:32:21.620but having an outline would just give me hives I know well so I've done it both ways right like
00:32:27.360most of my books I've done where I write through it and then I figure out the story and I go back
00:32:32.200and rewrite a lot. And that sort of early process is communicating with the characters and figuring
00:32:40.160out who the characters are. Like Puzzle Master, which was published in 2023, that ended up,
00:32:47.860I was writing, I thought that the book was focusing around a totally different character
00:32:52.680than the person who ended up being the hero of the book.
00:32:56.060And I had to write it like 100 or 125 pages
00:41:36.960If people enjoy it and it's an escape, then I don't care where they put it.
00:41:40.720But it is really fascinating how they classify absolutely everything, depending on your narrator, your main character, where it's located, what you talk about.