How To Leave the Law with Amy Impellizzeri

What happens when a high-powered attorney swaps her briefcase for a pen? Join us as we welcome the inspiring Amy Impellizzeri, who shares her remarkable journey from the legal world of New York City to her newfound passion for writing. Amy recounts the pivotal moment she realized her creative calling surpassed her legal ambitions and how her couch, alongside her loyal dog, became her sanctuary for inspiration. Discover the freedom and joy she found in letting go of traditional career expectations to embrace the art of storytelling.

Amy opens up about balancing her multifaceted life, from writing and teaching to family commitments. She shares the emotional depth of her recent works, including "Easy Street" and "Secrets of Worry Dolls," which weave personal stories with themes of resilience and survivor's guilt. As a mentor in Drexel's MFA program, Amy provides insights into the unique challenges of debut novel writing. She also teases the revival of her virtual book club podcast, offering a glimpse into her creative world that has continued to evolve since the pandemic.

We also explore the broader theme of transitioning careers, with fascinating examples of professionals who have successfully shifted to creative pursuits. Amy discusses her perspective on the versatility of a law degree, highlighted in her works "Lawyer Interrupted" and "How to Leave the Law." The episode wraps up with a heartfelt appreciation for local bookstores and a call to action to support local authors, with Amy leading the charge as a shining example of creative reinvention. 

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Welcome to The Brad Weisman Show, where we dive into the world of real estate, real life, and everything in between with your host, Brad Weisman! 🎙️ Join us for candid conversations, laughter, and a fresh take on the real world. Get ready to explore the ups and downs of life with a side of humor. From property to personality, we've got it all covered. Tune in, laugh along, and let's get real! 🏡🌟 #TheBradWeismanShow #RealEstateRealLife

Credits - The music for my podcast was written and performed by Jeff Miller.

Chapters

• 0:32 From Real Estate to Real Life
• 12:52 Navigating Writing, Family, and Vulnerability
• 16:57 Transitioning Careers
• 26:37 Author Promotion in Local Bookstore

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:33

from real estate to real life and everything in between, the brad weisman show and now your host, brad weisman. All right, we are back in the studio once again. Hugo, hello, how you doing, buddy? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing great, man doing great. Hey, I'm here on a thursday and I'm having fun, so that's all that matters. That's all that matters. So we have a really cool guest here. You might see some of this stuff here on the desk. We are now in this thing of having authors on here, a lot of authors, and maybe that means I should write a book, hugo, what do you think?

Speaker 2 1:09

I think so.

Speaker 1 1:10

You've been saying it for quite a while I have been saying it and I got some ideas, but I don't know. It takes a lot of time. But we have a great, great guest here today. Actually, we met her through Heather Christie. She was on here not too long ago. In fact, her book's here in the studio. It's called Love Notes Great book from what everybody says. And also she's got a show coming up too there too, called Love Notes, from what I remember. And but today it's about Amy Impella Zeri. Did I say it right, impella Zeri? That's probably the first longest name that I didn't screw up. I usually do screw them up almost every, almost every time. So how are you doing, amy? I'm great.

Speaker 2 1:48

Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1 1:49

Yeah, I'm glad you're here. What's funny is like we live in the same town. We do.

Speaker 2 1:54

We're neighbors.

Speaker 1 1:54

How did this happen that I didn't know about this amazing author that lives right here in Berks County?

Speaker 2 1:59

Because I've been in my basement writing.

Speaker 1 2:02

Is that what it is? That might be what it is, so, so, okay. Is that where you do your writing in the basement? No, no, Okay. I always picture like this nice little like. I always picture like a nice little room with a place you can put your coffee. Now do you type it on an old typewriter?

Speaker 2 2:20

No no no, no. I will tell you, you just ruined my whole thought. After I sold my first book and I was like oh, now I'm a writer.

Speaker 1 2:29

So I took a room in my house and I painted it and I bought a writing desk and I and a writing desk and and a writing desk and I never write there. Never knew about it.

Speaker 2 2:39

Never write. Are you kidding me? No, it's, it's. It's a beautiful guest area.

Speaker 1 2:43

It just doesn't feel right, it doesn't feel right.

Speaker 2 2:46

I I'd spent a little time there writing my second book and then I would just realized, like the reality is. I write on my couch, cross-legged with the dog.

Speaker 1 2:56

Yeah, interesting, but that's where you're comfortable. Yeah Right, isn't it funny how we build up on our minds what it's supposed to look like or how it's supposed to be.

Speaker 2 3:04

It reminds me of first-time moms. You know, the first time maybe, and then you start buying left and right, exactly, and you're so right.

Speaker 1 3:12

And then second-time moms. It's, you know, the first time mom. Yeah, she's third time mom actually. Yeah, so yeah, but it was funny about that. You're right, how that works.

Speaker 2 3:22

But I've spent a lot of time letting go of what life is supposed to look like I was supposed to be a lawyer for for the rest of my life that's the part that's crazy and I I read about that yeah

Speaker 1 3:33

you know, because typically when you see somebody that that that goes through everything you went through to get your law degree, they usually stick with it, regardless of whether the hell they like it or not, right? So tell me about that struggle, because I would think that had to be a little bit of a struggle there going oh my gosh, my whole life, or my whole school life, I'm trying to be an attorney. Now I'm an attorney, I do it, and now I'm like saying you know what? This isn't me, it's not me.

Speaker 2 4:01

Well, I, I, I, yeah. I never wanted to be anything else professionally but a lawyer.

Speaker 1 4:06

So I was always going to be a lawyer when I was in college, I was going to be a lawyer.

Speaker 2 4:09

When I was in high school, I was going to be a lawyer and I was just was back at my alma mater last week, allentown Central Catholic, and I was talking to them about my career path, which is a little windy, and I was remembering sitting in those seats like that's what I wanted to do. But and I went to law school and I was a successful lawyer by all appearances In New York City. I ended up in New York City. I was working in big law. I was a trial lawyer.

Speaker 2 4:34

I started out my career in D York city. I was working in big law. I was a trial lawyer. I started out my career in DC. Then I worked for a small firm, uh in, in Newark, new Jersey. Actually, I worked outside of New York, cause I wasn't. I moved to the New York area but, I, wasn't barred in New York, so I had taken the Pennsylvania New Jersey bars and I was working as a trial lawyer.

Speaker 1 4:50

I've been to a lot of bars, but that's different of bar okay, go ahead.

Speaker 2 4:53

Same kind of headache, but, um, very well played, well played, yeah, okay so yeah, and then I always say, like I loved being a lawyer until I didn't and I was I was a trial lawyer and I loved it and I was doing well, and then I moved into. I got this fabulous job offer with this huge law firm it's one of the biggest law firms in the country.

Speaker 2 5:14

It was very prestigious and on paper it was like everything I had been working for and I was there 10 years. I practiced law for about 15 years, so in that 10 year period.

Speaker 1 5:26

when did you go? Holy crap, this is everything I've ever but, but now I don't want it. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 5:35

Yeah, that was it I. I mean, I started to, uh, I started a family during that time. I had all three of my kids while I was still practicing law.

Speaker 2 5:43

That was not a thing that people did. Um, people there were no. I was working in a very male dominated arena. There were no female mentors who were working moms. You, they were. Either they either left, they had babies and left, or they chose not to have babies. So, um, I was really adventurous and I decided to have three kids while I was working, and I worked out a secret deal with the partner I worked for. I've hit. I hit my pregnancy till I was basically in labor. It was like oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 6:12

And then, once I decided I wasn't leaving, so I went, I worked out this deal with the partner where I would. This was there was no remote work, there was no hybrid work, there was no zoom Wow. There was no part-time policy, there was no maternity leave policy, and this was 2003.

Speaker 1 6:28

This wasn't the 1950s. I was going to say no, no policy. That's interesting.

Speaker 2 6:33

No, you just had a baby and left. So I worked out a secret deal that I would basically go off the partnership track, work in the office three to four days and bill from home the rest of the time.

Speaker 1 6:47

I thought you were going to say that you have to have the baby on your desk. No, no, no we're going to bring in a midwife, we're going to bring in a midwife and you're having the baby right now.

Speaker 2 6:54

I had to hide that I was having kids. I did not have pictures of my kids in the office.

Speaker 1 6:59

That is terrible.

Speaker 2 7:00

Well, that's what.

Speaker 1 7:00

I'm sorry, that sucks.

Speaker 2 7:01

That's what eventually happened. Eventually, I realized this is terrible. That's terrible. You're supposed to celebrate that no, no, no no no. Oh, that would go into my end of the year review. Now remember when I left, my oldest was five, um, and the partner would say to me you're doing a great job.

Speaker 1 7:19

Nobody would ever know.

Speaker 2 7:20

You have kids and I don't know if that's actually that's like anti-culture, like yeah oh my gosh, so I. So what happened was I put it out into the universe. I said, you know, I just don't know if I can keep doing this. And uh, lo and behold, the universe answered with a really bizarre proposition. So Lehman Brothers collapsed as you may recall in 2008, 2009,. Right, and a lot of the law firms were laying off.

Speaker 1 7:47

I remember that too, and Skadden.

Speaker 2 7:48

I worked for Skadden Arps. They were not laying off and a lot of the big firms, instead of laying off Skadden decided to do a program called Sidebar Plus and they offered people could apply for basically a year-long subsidized sabbatical.

Speaker 1 8:03

Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 8:04

And I was like sign me up. So I applied for this one-year sabbatical and the partner I worked for said no, that's not for you. Okay, I was a litigator.

Speaker 1 8:13

Litigators were still busy.

Speaker 2 8:14

It was like the acquisitions, mergers and acquisitions, the deal makers they were not busy, so it was really supposed to be for them. But all the litigators applied and they were like no, no, no, this isn't for you. And I was like, please, it's just a year Just a year, right so you were supposed to go out into the world and do PR for the firm. Like go do pro bono.

Speaker 1 8:32

There's usually something attached to a sabbatical.

Speaker 2 8:34

There's something attached to it, but like that will make us look good, and then this is all going to be over in a year. This, all this mess out, there is going to be over in a year and you'll come back and everything.

Speaker 1 8:42

By the way, real estate sucked back then too.

Speaker 2 8:44

I'm sure, I'm sure Everything. Build a lot of character for me, A opportunity. I had a year long subsidized sabbatical to figure out what I was going to do. And I hit the ground running. I was like I, you know, I joined boards, I worked, I was doing pro bono work and I started writing and, and, and. That was like a reconnection with an old love of writing. I hadn't written in my own voice since college and I started, not surprisingly, writing a story that was based.

Speaker 1 9:16

It was basically about a woman who was at a crossroads in her life.

Speaker 2 9:18

It was not autobiographical, but it was sort of like a sliding doors story. She could go through this door or that door and I started writing it and by the end of the year I was working for a startup company. I had realized over the year oh wait, I can actually, I'm a lawyer. I can actually do other things besides practice law.

Speaker 1 9:41

People think this is.

Speaker 2 9:42

You know, people are interested in a legal mind, legal training. And I started working for a startup company, not as their lawyer. They were venture capital funded, they already had a legal team, but they needed someone to translate between the legal team and the creative team and that became my job, and alongside that, I was writing what became my first novel, years and Years of Love.

Speaker 1 10:02

And which one was that?

Speaker 2 10:03

So Lemongrass Hope was my first novel. It just celebrated its 10th anniversary. So we just released the 10th anniversary edition of it, and isn't it a different cover or no?

Speaker 1 10:12

Yeah, I noticed that.

Speaker 2 10:13

It's a different cover because it's a really cool cover the reason for this cover.

Speaker 1 10:17

It's a really cool cover yeah, it's really cool, I like that so this was the original cover for lemongrass.

Speaker 2 10:21

Hope it fit perfectly. The time. It's a, it's a magical realism um novel but and I was never going to write a sequel to this book, never but okay I ended up in 2020, writing a companion novel for it called I know how this ends which is that one? And it came out the first week of march.

Speaker 1 10:40

Another great cover like you're seriously your book covers. They're really bold, they're really good.

Speaker 2 10:44

This is wyatt mckenzie is my publisher and a great job they do a great job with the cover, so once, well, so this book came out march, first week of march of 2020. So you can imagine the disaster that was um, um, because the book that wasn't a good time either.

Speaker 1 10:58

You have all these times that were not so good, like 2008 sucked, 2020 sucked, but I make the most of them. Yes, you do.

Speaker 2 11:05

Because what happened was, uh, my, I was actually out in the Hamptons the last week of February. We're talking about this like thing that's happening.

Speaker 1 11:14

Should we be canceling flights? I had a book tour.

Speaker 2 11:17

I was like should I be canceling event? No, I'm not.

Speaker 1 11:19

No, it's ridiculous. Give it a couple of weeks. This never happens in the US, like the Lehman Brothers, I don't know.

Speaker 2 11:24

a week or two and I'll be fine.

Speaker 1 11:26

Too big to fail.

Speaker 2 11:27

And the book is set against the backdrop of something that that never happened? There was no, there were no graduations, but I was always fascinated by that class because they were the nine, 11 babies. They were the babies that their mothers were pregnant on or around nine 11. So they never knew a world before nine 11.

Speaker 1 11:48

So I was always fascinated with that class.

Navigating Writing, Family, and Vulnerability

Speaker 2 11:50

And that's what. That's a little part of this book. So anyway, I ended up doing you know, we took the promotion online I ended up starting a podcast, which was a virtual book club, which became a podcast. That was my COVID project. So when we did the new cover for Lemongrass Hope, I wanted them to look, I wanted them to sort of go together. Oh yes, it does. So they do, and it has bonus material and it has an excerpt of I Know how this Ends.

Speaker 1 12:29

I feel like if I put my sunglasses on, I could be on one of her book covers.

Speaker 2 12:32

I don't have them with me, but maybe it's not me. None of them are me. People always ask that I don't model for my covers.

Speaker 1 12:38

That's funny so okay, so let's talk about we talked about this a little Um, what's your favorite book that you wrote?

Speaker 2 12:46

Okay. So I always say, like my best book I hope is my next book, cause I do. I do think that I keep getting better at the craft of writing. When I first wrote Lemongrass Hope, it took me four years to write. I teach writing. I have um, I'm an adjunct in the Drexel.

Speaker 1 12:59

MFA program. I always tell my writing students.

Speaker 2 13:01

you never have as much time as you do to write your first book right. It's like a hot mess and then after that it's like deadline. But and I do love the series I love my newest books are part of a series.

Speaker 1 13:14

These are awesome. Yeah, if you can hold those up. I love the covers of these two.

Speaker 2 13:18

They all go together this is the brand new one Easy street that just dropped recently. Just dropped this last month. I love it, love it, love it. But I, I have three kids. I do not have a favorite kid now we talked about this.

Speaker 2 13:30

What's funny off the air, she said she did no, what I did say was no, I'm kidding, I'm kidding I don't have a favorite kid, but uh, there's always like one. That makes it hard to not have a favorite right, right, right. Yeah, there's always that one I always have like that one carson and katherine.

Speaker 1 13:46

I do not have a favorite, Just so you know. I'm just going to put that out there. Carson and.

Speaker 2 13:49

Catherine, he's lying. That's funny. No, my grandmother, who had 10 children, said your favorite. I know God bless her she said the favorite is always the one who's sicker furthest away. So I do kind of adhere to that?

Speaker 1 14:01

I think yeah.

Speaker 2 14:02

But my book. That makes it hard not to have a favorite is. Secrets of Oriental. So that was my second novel.

Speaker 1 14:10

Another great.

Speaker 2 14:10

And I do think that is the novel that I left the law to write. I didn't know it at the time, but it's like a very personal not out of.

Speaker 1 14:17

There's a lot of you in there, though.

Speaker 2 14:19

But very personal story. Yeah, it's a. It's a book about survivor's guilt and resilience. It's set in a fictional town called rock Harbor, New York, which is based on bell Harbor, New York, where.

Speaker 1 14:29

I lived where there was a plane crash. I got to look that up, yeah.

Speaker 2 14:33

There was a plane crash in November 2001. I lived there. My the author's note. In the beginning we'll tell you a little bit about um, the premise of that book and what's the emotions that it's based on and the event that it's based on. It starts with a fictional plane crash, totally fictional, but it is a book that was like very personal to me and very cathartic.

Speaker 1 14:52

Hard to write them because they're personal or easier to write.

Speaker 2 14:57

There are parts that are hard for me to release into the world. Like parts that are hard for people. You know that was a hard book to release and have people. It wasn't hard to write, necessarily, but it was hard to know that people were reading that Because you're putting it out, there You're putting it out there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a very vulnerable act.

Speaker 1 15:14

It is Absolutely, especially, if you can. Now, the thing is, these are all fictional, though. All fiction, yeah, but there's still parts of you, just like when Heatherie was here, the book that she wrote she said there's parts of reading yeah that are in that book. She said if you're from here, you'll know it yes when you're reading it yes but if you're not, you won't. Yeah, you probably won't yeah and I don't.

Speaker 2 15:36

Uh, interestingly, I don't think there's any berks county influence in any geographically yeah, that's all right but they're based a lot in places. I've lived in new York and DC and um and New Jersey and they the characters are composites of people.

Speaker 1 15:51

I know there's no.

Speaker 2 15:52

I always say like, just because it's fiction doesn't mean it's not true.

Speaker 1 15:54

Absolutely there's. There's something in there, yeah.

Transitioning Careers

Speaker 2 15:57

There's stuff there. It's very personal, the emotions are very personal. So how many books have you written now?

Speaker 1 16:10

novels eight novels and two non-fiction. And then I am uh, my essay is featured in love notes, the new anthology by awesome. Yes, yes, that's right, that's right, you are in there, right? Yes, I forgot about that.

Speaker 2 16:14

Yeah, that's very cool yeah, it was a very cool project I wanted to.

Speaker 1 16:18

Um, I was thinking something I was thinking about here. Um, I know how's this end? You have the podcast. Yes, we didn't talk about that, but you're going to start picking that up again, you think, after done writing yeah, yeah, that is not done writing after you're going through your writing right now.

Speaker 2 16:31

Yes, yeah, as you know, it's a lot of work yes, a lot of work and, uh, I know how this book ends is based um, I, I read all the books. So I read the books, and then I, and, and then I decide I read a lot of books until I decide which authors I want to invite on, but I I've had some really fun experiences.

Speaker 1 16:47

Yeah.

Speaker 2 16:47

Like it's based on a virtual book club that I started during COVID. Candice Bushnell, who wrote Sex and the City, was on the book club. Susanna Hoffs from the Bangles.

Speaker 1 16:56

Yeah, she wrote her first novel. She was on the podcast. There was a guy on one of the last ones you did in May. Yeah, was a guy, was an actor also, john oh, yeah, yeah, yeah john, yeah, yeah yeah, uh, john lundstrom yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, oh, that's cool, very cool, so cool he's. He's seen really cool like I listened to a little bit of it, yes, and he has taken up fiction writing as a new career.

Speaker 2 17:18

Amazing as a second chapter and it those stories fascinate, yeah, yeah yeah, that's very cool, yeah.

Speaker 1 17:23

So here's the one that really think is funny. You'll get a kick out of this one, hugo. So she, she wrote a book that uh kind of explains kind of how to get out of being a lawyer or not to be a lawyer anymore. So what, which? Which one's that?

Speaker 2 17:37

Well, so this is this, this the American bar association published this book, book which you're kidding.

Speaker 1 17:43

Yeah.

Speaker 2 17:43

That got a little press, is that?

Speaker 1 17:46

why it looks familiar Maybe this was um.

Speaker 2 17:49

I mean, this was featured in some places.

Speaker 2 17:51

So the Atlantic did a piece on this, like I can't believe the ABA is helping lawyers leave the law Right. But the reality was so. What happened with this book is I was writing lemongrass hope. I was trying to figure out how to get my first novel sold. I was writing. I told you I was on my sabbat, hope. I was trying to figure out how to get my first novel sold. I was writing, I told you I was on my sabbatical. I was like really filling my days and I was doing a lot of writing about the sabbatical and what I was learning about the versatility of the degree and an agent called me and said we're really trying to pitch this book to the ABA called Lawyer Interrupted, but we haven't found the right person to write it.

Speaker 1 18:23

Would you write it?

Speaker 2 18:24

And I said, well, I'll write it. But then if I'm going to write it, like I want to write the pitch, I want to tell you I want to, you know, I want to sort of shape this.

Speaker 2 18:34

So we wrote the pitch together, they greenlighted the project and and that actually and so then I went and took Lemongrass Hope and to a publisher and on my own I hadn't gotten an agent yet and I said I just sold a book to a nonfiction book, like you know, and I have this novel, and they were like, well, you know, we can kind of strap the marketing together. So that actually helped me sell lemongrass hope.

Speaker 1 18:54

Yeah, because you it put you on the map. Yeah, yeah, it's cool.

Speaker 2 18:58

It's not about. So what I would always say when I was interviewed about this book and it is true, it's not about, it's not the reason the ABA supported is because it really is about the versatility of the degree and all the things you can do, and it this book in particular is a synthesis of a lot of interviews with a lot of transitioning lawyers.

Speaker 2 19:16

I then was asked to write co-write with Liz Brown, who's a Harvard trained lawyer who's she's left the law. So we wrote together a book called how to leave the law lawyer who she's left the law. So we wrote together a book called how to Leave the Law Unbelievable, but it also is just, you know it's a little bit of clickbait.

Speaker 1 19:30

Because, it also is about the versatility of the legal degree and I agree, you know, I know several friends that are attorneys that do not do the normal attorney job, and I think that's the thing that people like as owning a business, hiring somebody that has the law degree to not do law but to be there is huge. Because if there is ever a time when there's contracts or something that needs to be looked at, yeah, give it to the person that has the law degree. It doesn't mean you have to practice law.

Speaker 2 20:02

Right and people don't understand that, because when you're, when you're living in that life, you think there's like nothing else you're qualified to do and if you, like me, love it until you don't, you start to really question like, oh my gosh, is there anything else I can do? I don't know, but for that sabbatical I might not have spread my wings and and really learned like oh, this is a really marketable background and it's been wonderful for me to take that into the next.

Speaker 2 20:27

I always say, like I didn't leave the law behind, I brought it with me.

Speaker 1 20:30

Yeah, Well, yeah, and it's not like you, it's like anything, it's not. Look at, there's the comedian that, uh, that was on hangover. Uh, that he was. He was um Asian guy, that's on Hangover. Oh yeah, he's like a stand-up comedian and he's an MD, but he actually practiced medicine for a very long time and ended up wanting to get into acting, ends up getting that part and now he's like a stand-up comedian. It's incredible.

Speaker 2 20:58

Well, you know what's interesting. I think this is probably true for medicine too, but it's definitely true for the law. I think the law attracts creative people.

Speaker 1 21:07

I think the law attracts creative people and then it doesn't always.

Speaker 2 21:08

I used to think like oh, this is so strange that I left the law and I'm right. But then I started realizing that there are so many former lawyers who are creatives that it actually attracts creative people?

Speaker 1 21:19

I would think so.

Speaker 2 21:20

Yeah, it doesn't always give them an outlet for that creativity Right.

Speaker 1 21:22

So then, yeah, I creativity right. So then, yeah, I'm looking for it. Yeah, I guess, if you're writing um something for you know, for the questioning for the next day, or you're getting doing through discovery, you probably there's creativeness in that and thinking on your feet, obviously it's creative.

Speaker 2 21:34

Yeah, litigation for. Yeah, definitely looking for creative solutions. I mean negotiating settlements. I negotiate settlements all the time. I was always trying to think of creative solutions.

Speaker 1 21:41

Yeah, yeah, that is definitely creative, yeah so if somebody looks wants to write a book, what? Where do they start? What, like? What do you suggest? You just suggest, like, write as much as you can just get it out.

Speaker 2 21:52

Yeah, well, yeah, cause I I always um, I've taught a lot of writing classes over the years. As I said at Drexel, I've also taught at Yoakum and I often have people say, like I have no time, I have no time to write, yeah, but the reality is uh, if you just dedicate a little bit of time every day, you'd be surprised. So I always actually do that with my students for the first exercise, I just have them write freehand for 15 minutes and just show them like if you just spend 15 minutes a day writing, like what you'd have Now.

Speaker 1 22:20

Meanwhile there's a lot of everything, but sometimes people just forget if you just quiet yourself for a short period of time I had an English teacher would say that when we were writing, when we did writing, she would say just put your pencil to the paper and start writing. Something will come out and eventually your mind will start doing something and you'll come up with something that you actually are proud of. We used to do journal writing a lot in school which I thought was very, very helpful later on in life. Yes, it really was.

Speaker 2 22:46

The author, flannery O'Connor, says I don't know what I think until I read what I wrote.

Speaker 1 22:50

Oh, that's good, that's my favorite. Say that again, say that again. That's a good quote.

Speaker 2 22:54

I like that one. I don't know what I think until I read what I wrote. And that is how I operate. I have so that's good. So, but I do. I do think that you should take advantage of writing classes, writing seminars, writing workshops, really study the craft. I mean there are a lot of great craft books, and Lamont's bird by bird and Stephen King writing are like the two, two of the Bibles.

Speaker 1 23:20

Yeah yeah, he's written a really great on writing book.

Speaker 2 23:25

And so that's a lot about the craft of the book, the craft of writing, and I'm very structured now it's taken me a long time. Lemongrass Hope was very disorganized. I went through a lot of edits.

Speaker 1 23:38

So when you say structured, does that mean that you get up in the morning like somebody going to work and you're writing. You're a certain time block. You're writing yeah, to work and you are you're writing. You're a certain time block, you're right.

Speaker 2 23:47

Yeah, I, when I'm, when I'm on deadline, I usually have weekly um word count deadlines or word count limits that I want to do. Some people do daily.

Speaker 1 23:55

So you owe so many words to the publisher after a certain amount of time. No, but I I owe a draft and the only way I'm going to get there is if I write so many words.

Speaker 2 24:04

So I usually have like a 5,000 word thing when I'm on deadline. I'm usually trying to write 5,000 words a week because, um, they're not all going to be keepable. Yeah, right, right, you know and a book is like 70 to 80,000 words, so I'm trying to like write words 70 to 80,000 words.

Speaker 1 24:20

That's crazy, but that's. That sounds intimidating until you just sit down and start writing. So.

Speaker 2 24:25

I, I actually make. I mean, people do all sorts of things, but I actually make a board. I have, like I, when I I outlined the story, I spent a lot of time outlining the story board yeah. And a lot of time like outlining it, figuring out what the chapters are going to look like, so that when it's time to write, I off the board and start writing, and then, if I don't want to work on that, I can work on another.

Speaker 1 24:50

I always thought that was interesting about writing. Almost like a movie too, where you're like do you ever you really have to remember what the character is doing or what the character has said before? How the character acted before To me, because that's all about continuity. You want to make sure that it all makes sense. That's a lot.

Speaker 2 25:02

Yeah, that's why I've become and now I'm writing. I mean, I write thrillers, suspense, you've got to have, you know. I mean I write like a lawyer too, though I cross examine the plot, I make sure there are no plot holes.

Speaker 1 25:13

So now that I write legal.

Speaker 2 25:15

yeah, Now that I write legal thrillers, like it has to be. I have to make sure.

Speaker 1 25:19

So that's what those are, yeah.

Author Promotion in Local Bookstore

Speaker 2 25:28

Legal thrillers the newest series, um, and listen, I was never going to write legal thrillers, like when I left the law. Is it fun? It's so much fun, but I did have to decide that I wasn't going to go back to practicing law before I did this, because it's really like the secrets yeah, it's really about, like, the corruption and the underbelly of the big law scene like it's not. I was not a criminal lawyer, I was a civil defense lawyer, so all the sexy gritty stuff was all happening behind the scenes.

Speaker 1 25:50

And so that's what this is about. Yeah, good stuff.

Speaker 2 25:53

So yeah, so I had to really decide, like if I was going to torch the bridges.

Speaker 1 25:57

Yeah, you're like okay, this is it, there's no going back, I just call them all jerks.

Speaker 2 26:02

I actually went. My agent, my literary agent, she's a former lawyer. We actually both worked at the same huge firm in New York, but not at the same time, and our firm was celebrating its 75th anniversary last year Huge gala at the Lincoln Center and we both went back and you could divide the room, like you could see the current lawyers and the alum, the current lawyers looked like zombies.

Speaker 1 26:24

Yeah, right, right.

Speaker 2 26:25

And the alum all looked happy. And I thought yeah, I made the right decision. You did Absolutely.

Speaker 1 26:31

Well, thanks so much for coming in here today.

Speaker 2 26:33

This was great.

Speaker 1 26:34

I just can't get over it. Like you can barely see me because all the books she's written I mean not that I'm tall or anything like that. But well, hopefully we'll have you back on again sometime when the next book comes out. We can have you on and we'll have to put one of your books up here on the shelf too. We'll have to do that. All right, we'll have to take one of Heather Christie's away. You know what?

Speaker 2 26:52

I mean no, she might get a little upset about that. Put it next to it. Put it next to it.

Speaker 1 26:55

All right, thanks so much for being here. I appreciate it. Thank you, unbelievable, but yeah, that's incredible. I mean, if you're going to be looking for books, I think what you should do is go out and look for her books here, and she's got this one, the Easy Street, which is a whole series. Really good stuff. The Lawyer Interrupted sounds really cool too. All kinds of good stuff. But definitely look her up. She's local here and also you can get it on Amazon, I'm sure anywhere else, right? All right, that's about it. Thanks for hanging out.