#27: How To Write A Dating Memoir Shockingly Well - Arielle Miller

In this episode of the highly successful 'What! The Heys' podcast, LA native Arielle Miller gives the lowdown on her recent book, 'F*ck Me: A Memoir', which chronicles her various post-divorce relationships. 

She also gives her candid opinion on the #metoo movement, her experiences editing the book, and her current work in progress which revolves around the lives of four middle-aged women in LA.

Perfect for readers and creators everywhere.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hello, welcome to another episode of What the Haze. I am your host, Hayes Wolfenden. And I'm here today with the LA author and memoirist, Ariel Miller. So welcome, Ariel. Really excited to have you on my show. Can you first of all just tell everybody a little bit about your book, please?

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Sure. First of all, thank you so much for having me on this podcast. I've listened to a bunch of episodes. I'm really excited to be here. And I did catch you, you did mention reading my book in one of the recent episodes. So that was very cool to hear that. Well, my book is a memoir of my experience after getting divorced and getting back into the dating game, trying to kind of pick up the pieces of myself as a human being, as a woman, as a mother, trying to kind of put all of those pieces together and figure out what my role was in the world, because the world had changed in the 20 years since I had been out of the game. And I made a lot of mistakes trying to figure it out. And I felt very alone throughout the process. And I think one of the reasons I wanted to publish this book was one, because it was funny. A lot of people told me these stories were kind of funny and interesting, but because I never found a book like that to read to feel like, okay, I'm not I'm not the only one going through this.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

So I mean, yeah, I totally agree. I've not read a book like that before. Um the only thing I can think of is something like Fifty Shades of Grey. I've not read it, so I I'm not, I'm just just from my popular knowledge. I like the fact it's very honest and it's very straightforward. It's interesting you mentioned about being alone. When I was reading the book, I didn't feel like you were lonely. You came across as really confident to me. But that's that's that's the thing about loneliness and and or lacking confidence. You can feel it.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

I didn't intentionally. I wouldn't say that I was lonely. I wouldn't say that I was lonely. I'm not, I don't tend to be a lonely person. I'm very comfortable being by myself. I meant alone in the journey I was going through because all the other, first of all, I don't know a lot of other divorced women. So that was one of the reasons. And the women that I did know who were divorced either got remarried very quickly or didn't date for various reasons. So when I say alone, I mean in the specific kind of way that I was leading my life at the time. I wasn't like the married women I knew. I wasn't like the divorced women I knew. I didn't know where I landed.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Yeah, totally get it. Yeah, that that does make a lot of sense. Are there any of the relationships that you were, you know, that you went on that like stood out for you in any way? Like when I when I'm reading the book, for me personally, the the the boyfriend or the ex-boyfriend, because it's the boyfriend, is the ex-boyfriend, and the Viking, for me, come through really strongly. And any thoughts about those at all? Because to me, they came through as characters in a really strange way.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Yeah, I would say that those were obviously the most the the longer relationships I was in and the more intense relationships on a deeper level, not on a superficial level. A lot of the men that I talk about and the experiences I had with them were one or two or three dates. But obviously, the boyfriend I was dating for almost a year, the Viking, well, I can get into this more later about what happened after the book was over with him. But he became an intense part of my life because I spent a lot of time with him. And it wasn't just that I spent more time with them than the other men, but that they gave me a profound sense of myself in how I behaved with them. And I think it was very therapeutic and very, very cringe to really read about my experiences with them and see how I reacted and how I behaved in those situations because of the vulnerability that I was feeling at the time and the lack of confidence that I felt at the time. Um I think we can all relate to that, that we were not our best selves. And I think I fell into these patterns with those two men in particular, where I just couldn't stand up for myself. And so that stayed with me a lot. And that actually helped me to become, I would say, a stronger person coming out of those relationships.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Okay, that well, that's fantastic. Yeah, I mean, the the ex-boyfriend one or the boyfriend and the ex-boyfriend. If if readers don't understand what I want to say, one thing I really like about your book is where you arrange your chapters throughout the different dates or the different relationships. And I I found as a reader, I was really able to track what was going on. It wasn't just like chapter one, two, three, four, five. You obviously do a title on the various relationships. And sometimes what I would do is at you know, at the end of the day, I look forward to what I'm going to read tomorrow. And I like to go, and I do this a lot with reading books actually. I like to look in like the index, you know, the contents, and just see what chapters are coming out. You're like, oh, well, in four or five chapters time, it's the ex-boyfriend. And so you it it for me personally, I started to look forward to like right, okay, there's something more going on that's gonna be more. Yeah, it's a fair point. I mean, when I was reading the book, in these relationships, I can I can tell, and I think it comes through quite strongly that you're you're looking as well for an emotional attachment, and you get none. You know, I tell what I felt for you on with it was with the ex-boyfriend, and you you're making notes and like you you arrange to go. I think you there's a few times you go away together to you know various weekend retreats, and then you you you're making notes, and and I realized that the boyfriend didn't offer to pay or or something, words of that that it and yeah, I I mean I I felt for you there because you again for the reader, you start to kind of get pieces of the puzzle and start putting them together, and like oh, right, yeah, and then and then because at first I I think like yourself, I thought about the ex-boyfriend. Oh, he's just a musician, maybe doesn't have much money. And then as as the relationship relationship goes on, and you you find out more about him, which you then give to me and the audience. You're like, wait, I think he's got a bit of money here. He he came across actually towards the end as quite you know, really quite wealthy. I think he owned his own house in LA, which can't be cheap. It's not that's not a hundred thousand dollars. You know, and I've been to America, I I know that you know LA is gonna be, you know, you know, prime pre uh prime piece of property and all that. So I did feel for you on those occasions actually. I was like, yeah. So I I knew I knew a girl, you know, going back a few years, and she'd been in a relationship, she came out of the relationship, and I found out that the the ex-boyfriend had made her pay for everything for years. And she thought, oh, I thought it was normal.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

I'm like, Yeah, I I think there were a c I think that speaks a lot also to our age discrepancy. I think that we fell into this pattern of me being the adult. I hate to say that, but I just had more roots, I had more responsibility, and it just I just naturally went to, okay, we're doing this, so I'll just pay for this and we'll just do this, and we'll just and then only at some point in the future did I say, wait, I would never have let someone do that. I would never have not contributed. And it spoke a lot to kind of his immaturity, I think, overall. But I also think it's interesting what you said about looking at the the titles of the chapters and looking forward to how how everything was going to unfold. And I I did that with a lot of care because I didn't want to give away too much. Obviously, if you look at the table of contents, I don't want you to know the ending. But I did want you to see, okay, well, there are a lot of cliffhangers at the ends of chapters, but things come back because in real life, that is what happens. In real life, you don't just say, okay, goodbye, and then that person's out of your life forever and you forget about them. In real life, people kind of feed back in and things kind of overlap. And I really wanted to present that in the chronological way that it happened. And one of the hardest things for me to do was as I went through this long, tedious editing process, which took almost two years, I didn't want to give away anything until it was chronologically at a time that I discovered that thing. Okay. So, like with the money, I didn't want to foreshadow in the first few chapters what was happening. This is how I saw it at that time. And as it was revealed to me, I revealed it to the reader so that they could go through it with me. So I'm glad that that kind of sounds like it worked, in at least in your case.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Yeah, completely. Like I say, as well, you can kind of go into the table of content a bit as well and go and kind of, you know, look up what's gonna happen. Yeah, another character that came through, like I mentioned, the Viking. In some ways, he came through as like a book character. And I don't mean like two-dimensional, I mean the kind of character that you might read about about in a book where you want them to develop, if that makes sense. I actually quite liked him. There was something very mysterious about him. And and you you're just trying to like again, like like reading a book, you're like, who are you? Trying to figure figure them out. And and and to be fair, I feel your frustration. You don't really get it. And there's like it's like the like maybe at the end of your day, it's like the the curtains are pulled every time, and like he's holding something back.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

It's interesting because he is the favorite character. Everyone tells me he is the favorite character, and I don't know if it's because he's the most different, you know, and I and I think why was I attracted to him? Why was I interested in in my life when he was so emotionally distant, he was so closed off, he was so mysterious. But there's something fun in that, isn't there? And and we do tend to fill in those gaps when we meet someone who doesn't give us everything that we want with either the best or the worst. And and I think what I was doing with him was filling in with the best. But what's so interesting about that was he's actually the only person who knew I was writing the book and asked me to put him into the book. And this was obviously a long time later. So while we had this very jarring kind of weird, emotionless, mysterious situationship that was taking place during that chronological period that I wanted the book to cover. At the actual time I was writing the book, I had developed a deep friendship with this person. He knew about the book. He actually sent it to publishers for me, tried to help me develop this, and had asked me specifically, he's like, How can you not put me in this book? Which I thought was really, really funny and interesting. So that was the hardest person to write about because the the nature of our relationship had changed so much after the fact when I was writing it, that I didn't know how much to give away. And and I also didn't want to hurt his feelings by saying kind of the horrible ways he was treating me, which were true, which I had talked about with him later on, but at the time were kind of devastating to me. But like I said, I think what's interesting about that too is that when someone ghosts you, when someone treats treats you in a way that is so baseless, so, so irrational, the first thing I think most of us do is go, what's wrong with me? What am I doing wrong? You know, what can I do differently? And I think that's that's kind of a recurring theme personally in my life anyway. And he was really important to me as a final step of kind of like, okay, I need to stop this. I need to break this habit. If I want to actually get close to a person, I need to pick a different kind of person, and I need to stand up for myself a lot more. So it it it was an interesting, it was it was interesting trying to write about that.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Yeah, I can imagine. I can imagine. And so obviously originally he wasn't in the book because you became a friend and you and then it yeah, I can imagine in some way, like personally speaking, and as as a reader right now, like it's really good that you know there's a bit of closure here. You've developed this friendship with him. So personally speaking, as a reader, I'm like, yeah, great, fantastic. Yeah, he comes, he came across as a bit of an Aragorn, like this this character with a past that you cannot see, but you know that there's like there's something like oh, like the iceberg, that there's you can see the tip, but this is whole. Yeah, I think that's why it's gonna surface.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

That's another thing that made it difficult was trying to write from the perspective of when I was living through it, when I had become friends with him and filled in those gaps later on and knew where he was coming from and what his past was. And one, I didn't want to put, because he's kind of this famous person, I didn't want to put too much about him that people could figure out who he was. So I had to change some of those things. But I think that the most closure I got from that relationship was figuring out, oh, this is him, this is not me. And I only knew that later on. If things had ended where they end in my book, I never would have thought that. I would have forever thought, what did I do wrong? So I guess that was lucky. And as a reader, I can imagine just being like, what the hell was going on? What what happened here, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Yeah, yeah, totally. One other thing I like about the book actually is because obviously it's about dating, and you especially the first dates, and you you're meeting up in various bars around LA. I found, because you write in a very, very clear way, and I find it easy, very vivid way, and I find it really easy to like place myself there. I felt like I, as a reader, was being taken all around LA in these different bars. So when you when you're writing about, you know, meeting, especially on the first day, I think it was the Vikings, a really good example. It was like a loud club, if I remember, a loud bar. And as a reader, you you're placed in the scene. So I found a way, there's a bit of escapism for me. Because I'm like, oh, I've never been to LA, but now I can go there, you know. And I think in my experience, the best books are like that, whether it's fiction or non-fiction, you you're there in the scene. So I want to say, well, well done. That's that's one of the actually the most it was one of the most exciting actually things for me about the book. I felt like I was placed in a lot of the scenes and it was very vivid, and there's a deep emotional connection, I think, with with everything that was going on. I find myself randomly thinking, you can always ask this answer this question, Ariel. Like you you you when you go on a date, you get a glass of wine. And I find myself thinking, because I'm thinking about the club, because I'm like, hey, this this is kind of expensive. Is it expensive? Like like if you order drinks, it is very expensive.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

And uh, you know, I've often thought about this that there are so many women who expect men to pay for everything. And I often think, I think men probably would date more if they didn't have to pay for expensive drinks and expensive dinners and these expensive dates. And and personally, in my real life, after this first year of madness that I went through when when I was kind of honing in on more realistic people to date, I often offer a hiking date or a coffee date or walk around a park or something where I feel I don't owe anybody anything. They don't owe me anything, and we're not stuck in this situation where money is defining how long we can be out for. But it's definitely an issue in Los Angeles.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, it's interesting, like a hiking date. I I've heard of this before from other people. The only thing I worry about, and uh do you not worry about like if you go on a hiking date and it's not sufficiently in public, you know, if you if you if you meet a you know creep, for want of a better word, like do you not worry about your safety? If I was going on a date and I was asking a woman or a girl to go on a d come on a hiking date, I would feel self-conscious that that I was asking them to do something a bit dodgy. I don't know. Well, what do you think about that?

SPEAKER_00 16:21

I think that's an LA thing as well, because hiking trails are so packed with people. That's one of the reasons I choose it. You're never gonna go. I mean, you could pick something deep in the mountains, but there are like four or five places near where I live that you you couldn't avoid people if you tried. So, you know, you're not you're not hidden away. You're in the middle of a packed area.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

Oh, that that that's again, you you're talking, and I can just imagine the whole thing. I'm like, I wouldn't mind I wouldn't mind going there. I I have been to America a few times, but not not till LA and not to that part of the USA. So another question I want to ask now is you mentioned earlier about editing, and it took two years. What was that process like then? And how did you edit it? Did you use professionals or or friends, anything?

SPEAKER_00 17:08

I used a lot of things. I did, I did have a professional editor at the very end. She wasn't a developmental editor. She was more of like a copyright type editor just to make sure everything was was perfect. But I did have, I would say, at least 50 beta readers throughout. I was giving chapters to everybody in my life. I was getting feedback from everybody. And I think it took so long because when I first wrote it, I wrote these funny stories about these funny men that I met. And I wasn't in the stories. I didn't write anything about myself. I didn't give any of my history. I didn't give, I gave my reactions in the situations, but I barely had even, I didn't even describe what I looked like in the book because I didn't want to write a book about myself. I wanted to write a funny book about these experiences I had had and let other people, as you said, come with me. What is it like to go on a date in Los Angeles, put them in that room, put them with those men to see what they think about it. And a lot of people had a problem with that when they were reading these chapters. They're going, but where are you? This is your life. This is your experience. I want to see it through your eyes. I want to see your reaction. So I went through several iterations of how much of me to include, how much of my history to include, how much outside of the dates to include. At one point, the manuscript was over 500 pages, and that was really delving into my mind and into my reactions, into my past, into my therapy, into my family and friends. And obviously, I scaled back from there. So, yeah, the editing process was brutal for me because I wanted it to be quick-paced. I wanted it to be fun and funny, but I knew there had to be an emotional base to keep people interested.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Okay, yeah, okay, interesting. Yeah, two years. I think again, beta readers that you know, I'm asking, you know, lots of different people about this, and a lot of people are recommending them now. And I I've I've used them quite extensively. If ever you want a beta reader in the future, love to do it. To be honest, love to do it.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

That is great to hear, actually.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Yeah. I was gonna ask you as well, but you mentioned about in the book, you used to go to Berkeley. Like, did you do any like any writing courses there that like helped you? Like okay. So it's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

I'm so glad you asked this actually, because the reason probably the first book I published was a memoir was because I've always had an interest in autobiography and memoir. And at Berkeley, I was an English major and a creative writing minor. And I took a lot of classes that focused on memoirs and autobiographies. And actually, after that, I did my master's in education. But after my master's, I had actually considered going back to do a PhD on the autobiography of the author, looking at the relationship of someone's writing style and how they use that to manipulate the reader to tell the story of their life. I never ended up doing that. It's still always in the back of my mind, but I definitely took classes in it at Berkeley. I definitely, most of my creative writing, I would say, was based in my life. I had always had at the back of my mind that I wanted to write stories about my life.

SPEAKER_03 20:11

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

But then when I went on to, you know, I moved, I moved to Israel as an adult and I worked in educational publishing there. And then that was creative in its own way, but it was really based within, you know, the structure of a textbook or an online course. And then I was teaching at college and same thing. There was some creativity, but it wasn't about my life. So it was really fun coming back to that initial idea I had as a kid and as a teenager and then in college about writing those stories that are most important to us that are actually about our personal experiences.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, I I I did like a master's degree going back, well, 15 years in creative writing. It's something I'm really aware of now that it's still really helping me and guiding my writing. I I think different like yourself, if you've done you know creative writing classes, I do think it's a huge help. Huge help for your writing. It's always with you when you're writing, when you're drafting, when you're editing, that kind of thing. So can I ask as well about your time in Israel? Uh it's not really in the book, it's it's in very much in the background. How has that had like a big impact on your life? I know obviously that's where you came family, obviously.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

But yeah, I mean I do have I do have a lot of personal ties to Israel because my father grew up there, some of my extended family lives there. So I moved back there. I learned Hebrew, I lived on a kibbutz, I got my master's degree there actually, and then I was working in educational publishing there before I came back here and became a college instructor. That is, as you say, where I met my husband. That is where I got married. I had my first kid there. I came back pregnant with my second child. I think living in Israel, just like I'm sure you know, living, you know, anywhere abroad gives you. Such a bigger perspective on the world that you don't necessarily get from you wouldn't know this, but from growing up in America, which is very American-centric. Growing up in LA, which is very industry-centric. I think it gave me a perspective that I cherish on both sides of knowing what is more important, I think, than a lot of maybe people in Los Angeles don't think about in the greater, in the greater world, but also really appreciating the everyday things that are available and accessible to me here that you can't get in a lot of parts of the world. So I mean, it completely changed me as a human being living there.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

Yeah, I can imagine. I've not been to Israel, but I do keep meaning to go one one day. It's just not possible right now with a family. Yeah. I have mentioned it to my wife sometimes. Hey, what about Israel? I think, you know, the flights are cheap these days to nowhere.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Yeah, I would not go these days. I think waited out a little bit. I mean, I I was lucky enough to take my kids there two years ago. We got a little sweet spot kind of at the end of one part of the war and before the next part with Iran started. And we were very lucky to have a very quiet time there. But I I definitely wouldn't recommend going now. But in general, I recommend it to anybody of any background, of any religion. It's just this living history. It is just this beauty and this historical place that I really don't think there's anywhere like it in the world that's so important to so many different people in so many ways. And it's just fun. And it has amazing food and it has beautiful people and it has great beaches. I mean, it really is a spectacular place.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

Yeah, interesting. Yeah, the beaches thing. Yeah, that makes sense. But it's not a well-known thing about Israel. And I think it it's a lot of countries are like that. I'm living in China right now, and like China's famous really there's only two cities famous in China, Beijing and Shanghai. And you may you may have heard of others, but most people have only heard of them. And Chinese people are always surprised when someone hasn't heard of another really big city. Like there's a city next to Hong Kong called Shenzhen. It's really famous in China. Not many people know it outside of China. And yeah, it is real, yeah, it's similar beaches. And I think it's because of all the conflicts and stuff and the history that that's why. Are you gonna write about like your time in Israel at all in the future or not? Or is it is have you not decided yet?

SPEAKER_00 24:32

I don't I don't know. I've thought about it. I had started writing a few stories years ago. I mean, obviously when I first moved there, it was everything was so exciting. I was writing everything down. Maybe much later on. I I don't know that that, you know, originally I had even uh considered writing an a sequel to this book. I think I'm done with my life for for the time being. I think I'm I'm moving towards fiction. I have a new pro fictional project that I'm extremely excited about. I think I had a lot of focus on my life, and it was different than I expected. And I think I want to break from that. If I were gonna write about anything, I think honestly, I would probably write more about my childhood and my teen years growing up in LA. Because I think that I have some other really fascinating stories that people would find entertaining. And I think that there are some really important stories that I would like to tell at some point.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

Yeah, I mean, it could always be possible. I I remember the the author, George Orwell, who wrote a short story, but it's not it's not a story, it's uh it's nonfiction. About his time in Burma when he was a policeman. I don't know if you I'm not sure if you've read it. It's quite famous. It's called Shooting an Elephant. And it's just a short story about him as a policeman, and he has to shoot an elephant just to please the crowd because he's seen as being the imperial authority. And if he doesn't shoot it, then they won't, you know, that the his authority would be eroded. And it's great, it's really, really, really good story. But the point I'm making is you could just write one short story about it, and that's it. But I I totally get it as well, by the way. I I don't write short stories about my time in China, I write poems, but lately I feel like I've done it so much, I don't quite feel like I've got the desire. You mentioned at the end there about like you're writing a fiction book, and one thing I do like, and I think I really applaud is like I like the idea that you you're a memoirist, you've had these experiences, but now you get to put this, put yourself into this like fictional context. I think I think that's great, to be honest. Are you able to say anything about like what the new project is about at all?

SPEAKER_00 26:50

Yeah, I would I would love to tell you a little about it. I think, to be honest, there's a lot of similar themes as found in my book in terms of this period, this phase of life for mothers, this these 40s or late 30s or early 50s, I think is a really important phase of people's life where they've been building towards something in their life for so long. They may have reached their goals, they may not know what's next, or they may not have reached their goals and they're not sure if they should completely change course. I suddenly just literally one day sat down and wrote out the outline of an entire novel about these four women all around my age, all in different with different backgrounds, different family situations, but all mothers whose lives, you know, intersect at some point, they become friends, they all have kind of hidden secrets, kind of problems, challenges that they need support from someone. They don't have that support, and they become each other's kind of extended family to get through that period. And it's been so fun because I've been able to include, like weave in all of these stories of different people that I know and characteristics and thoughts I've had or memories into these different characters that are all not me, but all partially me and all partially women that I know that I'm friends with, that I love. But then put in bizarre, fun, random fictional things that are juicy and exciting and and you know, create a page turner. So I've just never really been able to focus on such a huge fictional project before. And I don't know why this just struck me one day, but I'm nearly at the end of the first draft of it. So I'm just I'm I'm trying to write a chapter a day. I'm I should be done in the next week or two. And yeah, I uh it's just something so different. But it still talks about, you know, motherhood, being a single mom, problems in relationships, problems with marriages, dating, juggling dating and children, juggling, having your own career or your own dreams and that of your partner or those of your children, moving to a different place, feeling left out of groups of people that should be your peers. Just a lot of themes that I think we can all relate to.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Yeah, it sounds really interesting. It sounds like you know a lot about it as well. I like the idea that you're you know you're writing one chapter a day. It's something I try when I'm when I'm writing. It's not always possible. How often do you write for every day? And do you have like a like a set like routine or a set place to write, that kind of thing?

SPEAKER_00 29:36

I do, I do. I have a pretty set, you know, I have three kids. So my routine is between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., obviously, because those are the hours that I have, Monday through Friday. Those are the hours that I have. And I'm I'm uh, like most of us, a creature of habit. I wake up, I take the kids, I walk the dogs, I work out, and then I sit at the computer until I pick the kids up. So that's my routine. Works really well. I do tend to get a couple of hours a day. And I would say with my memoir, I was writing up to eight hours a day. And I was killing myself. And I was so obsessive about it. And I said, this time I'm gonna be very different because I don't want to burn out because this is something that I need time to think about. So when I'm not writing, I'm constantly leaving myself voice memos of oh, change this character to this or change this to happen to this, or this person should say this. So every day, first thing I sit down and I put in all of the memos. So I change whatever needs changing or add in little notes to myself to go back to when the when this draft is done. And then I move on to the next chapter. And the chapters are quite short, they're like five pages. So I'm tending to just get it out on the page, just make sure everything is on the page. I don't care how it sounds, I don't care if it's perfect. That will come later. I just need to know that it's complete because once it's complete, this is how I worked in my last book. I can take each chapter on its own and perfect it. And then take multiple chapters, put them together and make sure it runs correctly, make sure that it's consistent. As long as I have, you know, doable little chunks, I know I can stay on top of it. I think the hardest part about writing a book is it seems so vast. There are so many things to keep in mind. So I actually also have an Excel sheet of characters. And every single character I introduce, I write their name, their origin city, their age, their partner, their kids, their personality, anything that I know about them, and I add through it as I add in the manuscript. So I can always look back at that for consistency state sake, and because I don't always remember every detail I include. But also to see, like, okay, do I have a variety of characters? You know, is there a diverse amount of backgrounds? Are there over uh uh overlaps of things? Like, does this make sense? And it helps me keep track of what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

Yeah, you're not the first person that said that, though. That's what they do. They have an Excel sheet. I don't, and I probably should do, to be honest, to keep track of things. I'm always like worried about wait, how many what eye colour is that character again? Is it green? Is it blue? I can't remember. And it's like the main character or something. It's not even a minor character. Yeah, I I like your writing style. I think I think that's good. I think it's very like less is more it's something I do encourage with with with writing, especially if you're writing a novel. Just you don't have to write the novel that day. You know, yes, you've got a burning desire. You should have a burning desire to write, and I think that's always a good sign, I think. And but you can just do you can write it in little bits, and then you're totally right as well. You can edit it in little bits, and it all just kind of fits together in little chunks, and then it it all comes it's it's in some ways if you step back and you think about it, it's like magic. Like you think started with like one word, and and of course you you're adding to that all the time. I I'm re-editing some of my books at the moment, and I'm like, did I really write all these? It's been amazing, right?

SPEAKER_00 33:09

Yeah, you look back and you think, I made this, right?

SPEAKER_03 33:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

What was interesting to me in the editing process, the long editing process of my memoir was I guess it didn't occur to me how many times I was gonna have to sit and read it from cover to cover to make sure that it was working. I mean, I got to the point I almost had it memorized, and I would have to take off even a few weeks and come back to it because I was reading what I thought was there, not what was actually there. And then I would get to the point where I couldn't remember was this in the last draft or was this in this draft? Like, is this really happening? And I would try to read through it as quickly as possible in two days if I could. Which, you know, 350 pages in two days of something you've read 50 times. But if I didn't do that, I wouldn't catch things.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

So I don't, I and I keep dreading, and I'm not letting myself think that far yet. I'm dreading having to reread this whole book because that was already, you know, I knew the facts and it's me. So it's pretty easy to keep track of it. This is four and a half main characters, each of which have partners and children and backstories, and it it's pretty sprawling. It has it has a lot going on. I don't know that I'm gonna be able to sit there and read that 300 pages in two days, you know. I guess eventually I will. I don't know. I don't know how I'm gonna do it.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

I think what if you if you're talking about your final edit, one thing I do recommend is just take a break, take a week or two weeks off if you've been doing it, and then just dedicate yourself to it. I I always find that. I always find some sometimes I know when I'm burning out, and I know that like I I can't do this.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

I this yeah, your eyes start having stars.

SPEAKER_01 34:54

Yeah, and I and I know that I mean maybe I can do it, but the quality would be quite low, and I wouldn't be doing it 100%. I always say this about writing sick. I always say it's if you're sick, and I don't mean a little bit. I mean, you know when you when you're sick, when you're properly sick, don't write.

SPEAKER_03 35:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 35:12

Anything you write won't be that good anyway. You're wasting your time. You may as well just wait till you get better, even though you at you at that amazing cliffhanger in your butt. It'll be better for you.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

So it's funny, it's funny you said this because when my kids had spring break last month, I got the flu. So I was sick for five days. So already I wasn't sure how my writing schedule was gonna be with the kids home for two and a half weeks.

SPEAKER_03 35:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

And those first five days I was sick. I couldn't even look at it. After that, I said, you know what? My head space is not here. I'm just taking these two weeks off. I'm gonna wait till the kids go back to school and I can be back in my regular schedule. And I know that my head is there. And I got really nervous stepping away from it because I'd been so immersed in it. And it's like, I know these people. The characters are like people in my real life. I know everything about them and I'm worried about them and I think about them all day, and I wonder what's gonna happen to them. And then I took this two-week break and I thought, how am I ever gonna get back into it? But the next day, boom, I was right back in. So I I I agree with you completely.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Yeah, I think sometimes w in these situations, it is your body telling you, and maybe your mind as well, you do need to take a break. You, you know, you maybe you as you you you're certainly really busy doing it as well, and you're just doing it all the time, and you do slowly get tired, and you slowly get maybe even sick. And I think sometimes you have to give a bit back to yourself. And like I said, you know, Rome wasn't built in a day, you you can get back to it later. I was gonna ask you as well, it's kind of brought up a bit now, obviously, going back to the dating memoir, but also now as well with with the the writing that the fiction book. How were you able to like juggle, you know, dating and of course writing with having three kids? Like to me, that sounds like pretty difficult.

SPEAKER_00 37:01

It's very difficult. It still is very difficult. I will I will admit that so two of my kids go back and forth between me and and their father, and one of my kids lives full-time with me, and that's been for the last year and a half, and I will say I have not dated for the last year and a half. So maybe I don't do a very good job at juggling it, or maybe I have my priorities wrong, or maybe I have my priorities right. I'm not sure. But my kids are always gonna be my priority. So for me personally, my kids are the priority. If they want to do something, I put the writing aside. If they, if they want to live with me, I put the dating aside. And that's just how it's gonna be for a couple of years, I think, because my kids are teenagers. And I think this is just the most important time for me to be with them. So I I don't know how everybody else does it. I know everybody has their own way of doing things. And I know people say, you know, you need to have your time. And I talk about that in the book, but I think there are degrees of that. And I think that that's also why I'm writing a little less and taking a little less time to write now than I did with my memoir when I had 50% of my time. I didn't have kids at all in my house. So I had those long days to fill. I didn't have as many, you know, I didn't need to drive to this place and that and run to school and wake up for this and that. Um, I had that time to myself more and I don't now. So I'm the energy.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

Yeah, it sounds interesting to be honest. It's well, challenging as well, I'd say. Yeah, I feel a bit bad for you saying that you you've not dated for two years, a year and a half? Because in the world, in the book, it's so there. That's what you're writing about, of course. It's it's your lived experience. Are we able am I able to ask about like what's happened to any of the relationships that you know you you had in the book, like after the book had finished? Is there anything like anything continued or not?

SPEAKER_00 38:56

So, like I said, with with the Viking, it did continue for I would say a year, a year and a half until he he actually moved out of LA. But it did not, it ended very amicably. And with Thunderthighs, I think you had written me a question about that. So I ended up seeing him for several months. Well, unfortunately, really more for him than for me. He had a a real drinking problem and some other issues, and it was not something that I could continue, but again, ended very amicably. No, no problems with me, but I could see that he was, he had a very, very difficult past. He was still kind of suppressing rather than dealing with. With a few of the other men in the book, I'm definitely still friends with a few of them. Most of them. A few of them know about it. A few of them have written me letters of apology after reading the book, including the boyfriend who read the book the first day it came out, and the next day wrote a very long letter of apology to his credit. With the writer, he also was very unhappy with the way that I had the light I had shown on him, I think, shined on him in the book and said that he was making some changes to his life because he did not want to be that person. So, and we're still friends, no problem. The photographer is one of my best friends. Where he read the book, he was happy with it. I'm happy, you know, he he's in a very loving relationship right now. I'm very happy for him. I don't know, I can't think of who else. The crazy Italian, interestingly, though I blocked him and thought he was gone forever. Exactly one year to the week we had had that date, I got a WhatsApp message from him. And I did not know that you had to block people separately on WhatsApp than from your contacts on your phone. Okay. So he very was very creepily tried to friend me on social media and and message me on WhatsApp about a year later, which was just bizarre. I don't know, were there any other specific people or specific follow-ups you you were hoping for?

SPEAKER_01 41:08

It was the one who was the musician.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

I never spoke to him again. Literally, that was, I have to say, that was the the only real heartbreak in the book. I think the real, real heartbreak because that was a friend of so many years.

SPEAKER_03 41:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

And I think sometimes friendship heartbreaks are the worst ones that we can go through because there's no reason a friendship should ever end. Relationships, romantic relationships, you know, might have an ending. But with friendships, there's never a reason that they should end. But I guess I was wrong. I guess I was wrong about that one. And I kept thinking as I wrote it in the book, and I never spoke to him again. Oh, but I'm sure at some point I will, and then this won't be true. But I didn't. I never heard from him again.

SPEAKER_01 41:49

Yeah, interesting. Yes, sorry, shame. But yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, catch up on these, on what happened afterwards. I was gonna ask you as well, because you mentioned this a couple of times in your memoir, like about you know the Me Too movement. And what is your opinion to the Me Too movement, particularly with regards to like LA and Hollywood?

SPEAKER_00 42:11

I mean, it's it's gonna sound very cynical, but I think it's done nothing. I think nothing has changed. I would love to say that it's changed. I think the rhetoric has changed. I think what people can publicly say and how they can publicly behave has changed. But I mean, just look at the Epstein files. Just look at, just look at any any page of the news, and you'll see that the same things are still happening. We just have different ways of talking about it and and publicly shaming it now, whereas in the past it was just fully accepted. I've I have two teenage girls, and I would like to think that their lives are gonna be very, very different. And and I hold hope. But I think that it was a very long established I think there was a very long established permission given to those in power, and specifically men in power, that they could say and do whatever they wanted. And if you wanted to be in the game, if you wanted to play, to your to your point about the industry specifically, you had to play by their rules. And that that was just that.

SPEAKER_01 43:15

Yeah. I was thinking obviously about Harvey Weinstein as well. And it was it's been obvious to me for some time that you know, obviously, when it came out, it was like, oh, oh my God, oh my God, I had no idea. And everybody was saying, I had no idea. You did.

SPEAKER_00 43:29

Everybody knew everything. Everybody knew everything. Everybody, you know, I mean, we can we can call out lots of specific names who are in the news a lot about these kinds of things. That's why I say, like, it used to be there was a public permission. Now maybe there isn't. Maybe it's more like, okay, we have to be hush about this. But everybody has always known what it has been going on. And what I went through was, I think, extremely typical. Not out of the ordinary at all. It was completely what every person I knew. Was going through.

SPEAKER_01 44:01

Wow, okay. Yeah. Brutal. Brutal. Thank you for that. I was going to ask you as well about your memoir. You only really touch on it. I was wondering why you don't write about it more. Obviously, you got divorced. Of course, you've got you've got three kids. I was wondering why you didn't write more about the divorce. I mean, if that's okay to ask, of course.

SPEAKER_00 44:21

You can ask. I mean, it's just a private matter that I think involves another human being that didn't give permission to be spoken about in public. So I'm not gonna air anything that might be private to him in public. I don't want any legal issues from it. But I also think it's hard enough to come to an amiable place with an ex that you share custody of children with without dragging a divorce out into public. I mean, I wouldn't want to do that even with my closest friends, you know, point fingers or place blame or say he did, I did, whatever. And that was just not the point of the book. The point of the book was you might have had the most wonderful divorce in the world. You might still be best friends with your ex-husband. You still have to figure out your life now. And of course, what you've gone through in your past experiences will shape who you are and how you approach this. But I think most people that I've talked to, and going back to how we kind of started this conversation of the feeling of being alone, I now do not feel alone at all. Every person who reads my book who is divorced says, I went through that. That's how I felt. I could have written this book. I went through these experiences. I thought that, you know, at that time. And and I realized that whatever, regardless of what our past are, we all end up in the same strange place of wow, you're in your 40s. You thought your life is gonna be set and your life has been turned on its head, whether you decided it or your ex decided it or you decided it together. What am I gonna do about it now? So I really wanted to focus on the aftermath and not on the divorce or the marriage or anything that took place before that.

SPEAKER_01 46:10

Yeah, I think that's great. That makes perfect sense as well. I was gonna ask you as well, what what are your thoughts on online dating then? Like for it, against it? Is it just a bit mere? What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 46:20

I think again, LA is just such a strange place. And I I I can't speak to any other place other than I have girlfriends, you know, in Israel. I have girlfriends in, you know, different parts of the states who are also using online dating, and their experiences are extremely different than the ones that I've had. I think it's really bad here. I am no longer on the apps, no longer have any faith that uh, first of all, apps were set up as games. They were set up to keep you on the apps, they were set up to get you to buy, you know, purchase in-app things. They were not set up to actually be matchmakers. So already you're kind of set up to fail. And then in LA, where it's, I don't know, the culture is just different than any other. I've lived in a few different places and I've just never experienced the kinds of things that I experience here. And I think it's also speaks to vanity a lot. I think most people here, I'm sure this is this is the same in a lot of parts of the world, but they swipe based on what you look like. They do not read your profile, they do not care what your circumstances are, they do not care what you're looking for. They just swipe on what you look like. And I don't like that personally. Uh, and I'm not like that. So for me, it's very hard to just look at a picture in three set. Some guys don't even put three sentences. They put their name and their age, maybe not even their name, maybe a fake name. They don't they might put their occupation and that's it based on your face in this. Like you might be cute, but that doesn't mean I want to go out with you.

SPEAKER_03 47:50

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 47:50

So for me personally, I I don't I haven't used other, you know, like match.com or those kinds of sites that maybe delve deeper into personalities and values. I'm not, but as for the apps, I'm I'm not for it. I'm over it.

SPEAKER_01 48:05

So so I know I know obviously at the moment you you can't date right now, but obviously because of one of your daughters and you don't have time. But just say for argument's sake, you find you've got time. How would you go about dating? How would you secure a date, so to speak?

SPEAKER_00 48:19

So, I mean, I I also don't want to misspeak. It's not that I don't date at all. It's just I used to try to go on a date, you know, a couple dates a month or even one date a week. Now I definitely think I personally I would love for someone to set me up. Someone I know, someone who knows me. I think that would be the number one best way just to meet through friends. And even in my book, the first thing I did, and the first thing a lot of people I know who get divorced do is go back in their past. Okay, who's available based on people I know, people I feel comfortable with, people I trust? Let's see if there's anything there. Because the thing about the apps is it's like you're taking people from all different backgrounds who have nothing in common who like each other's faces. It's very rare that that's gonna actually work out in a relationship. So I think meeting through friends, people always say, Oh, you can meet a nice single dad at school. And I'm like, why would I want to date someone at my kids' school? That sounds horrible. You know, I think that that's a little too close for comfort. But I think I've also started going to some singles events, which I think are taking off more because people are so sick of the apps, going to events specifically, and these can be things like bowling or things like Western nights I've gone to, where they have bands that say, like, I'm single or I'm taken, I'm just here with a friend. And they have games that get people to talk to each other. They encourage ways of meeting new people. And at the worst, you talk to a bunch of lovely people. You know, at the best, you go home with a couple of phone numbers, right? I like that idea. I think face-to-face, in 30 seconds of face-to-face time, you know, more than in four weeks of you know, texting on an app.

SPEAKER_01 50:02

Yeah, for sure. I did online dating. Yeah. God, I'm thinking, how old am I? About 20 years ago now. I'd I'd broken up with a serious relationship, and I'm like, right, need to date. It's just when online dating really took off. Uh yeah, I found it quite it was it was okay. It was like you you'd meet people, but that's all I could say. It was just very odd. I was meeting people that really had nothing in in common with, and now if I was single, no, no chance would I do that again. It no chance. I think people are very judgmental, I think, as well. I just that was the impression I got. They look at you and you're you're this, this, and this in two seconds or in a swipe. Um I do tend to recommend things like events. A woman at work, uh, I could tell she was asking me, like, how do I get a boyfriend? And she was saying she was she was saying it in a in in a more of a neutral way, but I could tell she was saying, and I said, honestly, join a hiking group. And she looks at me like, Well, I said, Yeah, join a hiking group. Because if you go there, there's actually a lot of single people, but you've got what are you talking about? Hey, well, you both like hiking, nature.

SPEAKER_00 51:08

Exactly. You already have something in common.

SPEAKER_01 51:10

Yeah, and I I met my wife hiking, I know someone else that met their wife hiking, I've met other girlfriends. It that doesn't mean to say that the relationship will work out. You we both know relationships are a bit trickier than that. But I think things like that, I think I mentioned hiking, and it could be a big thing.

SPEAKER_00 51:27

But there's common ground.

SPEAKER_01 51:28

Yeah, common ground. It could be painting, photography, or like a book club.

SPEAKER_00 51:33

Like that's another thing that I've talked is that a lot of bookstores now are holding these monthly book clubs. So, you know, you can go and already you know you are like-minded with someone who has read not just a book, but you know, sometimes it'll be I'll notice because I'm like, oh, I read that book already and I loved it. So I think that's another nicer, more realistic way to meet somebody that you have something in common with.

SPEAKER_01 51:56

Definitely, oh, for sure. For sure. I think it is what, yeah, you get to know people, know their interests, and maybe you can have that little small talk first that's you're not on a date and there's no pressure, no barriers.

SPEAKER_00 52:09

Exactly, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:10

Okay, Ariel, I think we can end things there. Okay, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you just now. Just want to recognize everybody, first of all. Just get her buck. I think it's really, really worthwhile.

SPEAKER_03 52:23

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 52:24

I'm gonna put some more reviews around Instagram and Facebook around the next week or so.

SPEAKER_00 52:29

So that's amazing. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 52:33

Yeah, it's been one of the best books I've read recently, I've got to say. For a memoir, it's great. Really felt like I was there. It's so fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 52:41

Really appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me on today.

SPEAKER_01 52:44

Oh, you're perfectly welcome. Okay, thank you. See you later.

SPEAKER_00 52:46

Bye bye. Okay, have a great day. Thank you. Bye.