The Stories That Shape Us

Some stories don’t tie themselves into a neat bow. They pull you backward through memory, family, and the moments you’d rather skip, until you finally see what shaped you. That’s why I wanted to sit down with Annie Dike, author of “Clovis”, a character-driven coming-of-age novel that’s raw, funny in places, and unflinching where it counts.

We talk about what’s rooted in Annie’s real life and what becomes fiction, why the book opens with Callie in a hospital bed, and how childhood instability can echo into adult choices. Annie shares why she writes from multiple points of view and how stepping into a parent’s mind can change everything, especially when you’re trying to untangle trauma, identity, grief, and forgiveness. If you love literary fiction that feels emotionally true, this conversation digs into the craft behind that honesty.

We also go beyond the page. Annie explains how she built a law career that supports writing and travel, why she moved away from defending corporations, and what it’s like to work behind the scenes as an attorney. Then we get into sailing, cruising life, and the surprising truth that the ocean isn’t always the scariest part, sometimes it’s being alone with your own thoughts.

If this hit home, subscribe to Virago 24/7, share the episode with a friend who loves powerful women’s stories, and leave a five-star review so more listeners can find us. What line from a book has ever made you stop and rethink your life?

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Everyday growth, everyday healing with everyday warriors!

Music by Deli Rowe: "Space to Move"
Logo by Kaylin Talley

Transcript

A Story That Unravels

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Some stories don't just unfold, they unravel layer by layer, truth by truth, until you're left staring at the parts of yourself that you've tried to outrun. Today's guest is someone who understands that kind of reckoning intimately. I'm joined by Annie Dyke, the author, attorney, sailor, and storyteller whose novel Clovis is as raw as it is unflinching. Through her work, she explores the messy intersections of trauma, identity, and what it really means to come of age when life doesn't give you clean lines or easy answers. In this conversation, we're diving into the emotional undercurrents of her writing, the personal truth is behind Clovis, and what it takes to face your past without losing yourself in it. Let's get into it. Hi,

What Virago 24-7 Means

SPEAKER_00 0:57

I am your host, Leonette Talley, and you are listening to Virago 24-7. Virago is Latin for female warrior, and 24-7 is for all day, every day. Virago 24-7 is a weekly podcast that brings diverse women together to talk about life and our experiences in this world. We share our views on self-love, mental health, marriage, children, friendships, and really anything that needs to be talked about. Here you will find everyday growth, everyday healing with everyday warriors. You look great. So it's good to meet you, Annie. You too. Thank you for having me. Yeah, I'm so happy to have you. Um, so we have Annie Dyke on with us on Virago 24-7. And you're on here. You have a lot of titles, but you're on here mainly because I read your book. Um it's called Clovis. Yes. And for the past month I've been reading that book, and I really like it. Yeah, what do you think? I really like it. I'm the kind of person that I like I like to read things about relationships and just everyday life. And I'm not a sci-fi person or you know, big like random, just fake worlds. Like these are real people with real feelings and emotions and why they do what they do. And so I did, I loved it. I really, really did. It's it's my genre, it's the kind of stuff that I like. So I am so thrilled to hear that because mine is definitely character driven.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

I am um it gets plot heavy towards the end, but in the beginning, you just really need to care about these characters, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Like you lay the foundation. So I I was trying to figure out where we should start because you're also a lawyer, yeah. And you're also a sailor. I saw I saw that you sailed. Um, but let's start. We'll

What Clovis Is About

SPEAKER_00 3:04

get to all of that, but I do want to start because we are talking about the book, and it is your first fiction book, correct? It's my first literary fiction. Okay, literary fiction. I've written one other fiction book. Okay. And so let's let's uh let the listeners know like what it's about and like lay the foundation for that because I do have a lot of questions about what's fiction and what is like based on your life. Because I know you're that's my main question. Yeah. So many people ask me that one, don't worry.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

So yeah, so Clovis is um, it's a great coming of age, and it's uh a good bit my story. It's not like autobiographical or memoir, but a lot of truth there for sure. Um, you're gonna follow Callie, who is um not so quietly me. That's the central character, um, from about age six to age 30. And you're gonna go through her relationships with her parents, how they evolve, break up, come back together. Her sibling relationship is huge. And you're just gonna see an emotional journey from the viewpoint of someone that I hope a lot of people relate to, a woman who is, you know, initially a girl, a young woman who, you know, struggles so hard and tries for everybody in her family to the point of breaking, you know, which we often all do, and watch this woman evolve and first run away from her roots and then realize how important they are and embrace them towards the end.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Nice. So you are from there. And the the book, you know, there's a lot of different characters and relationships. And um what is it from your background that want like made you want to write this book?

Childhood Roots Behind The Book

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Like what what were your experiences in Clovis?

SPEAKER_02 4:47

Yeah, and definitely the the reason for starting this book was childhood stories, and I've told everyone that it's just I my childhood was um, you know, a little bit strained and tortured, you'll see, with a lot of things that went on, but it was also so rich in that I experienced so much, probably because my parents were divorced and I was sort of pulled all over the nation dealing with family issues, but it also, you know, expanded my world. It blew it up threefold. And that was really cool. I've always wanted to share that. And also I think the resources my parents had were very minimal compared to what you know, a lot of kids have these days, and the fun and creativity and things we were able to capture and create just with less money and resources. I've always wanted to share that because I think I think kids these days, I wish they had more of an eclectic upbringing, outside adventure, skinning their knees, dirt under their fingernails, you know, and so I always want to share stories like that. And the um the maxi pad story, Lena, if you remember that one.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Thank you. Always use that.

SPEAKER_02 5:48

That's a fun one. So that's just a prototypical example of that.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

So that really that really happened. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

Yeah. Oh, that's 100% true. 100% true.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

I love that. That's hilarious. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:00

So that's see, that's not a rumor. I could share that one briefly. But I was trying to show, showcase, I really wanted to highlight my parents. Um, I mean, a lot of my family members, my brother, essentially, he's the main main character. But I wanted to put a flashlight on both of them, my parents, my mother and father, good and bad, you know, their flaws, their depth, their um the joy they brought me, but then also the pain, the lessons, you know. And to do that, I felt like these stories would really help because the MaxiPad story is a great example of it's silly, it's funny, it's something my dad did in an odd moment where he's dealing with a little baby girl. I mean, a cowboy doesn't really know what to do with that and which way to hold it upside down or right side up. You know, he was always like, What do you want, babes? Am I supposed to touch that? And I'm like, get in there, dad. But uh, he was great and that he tried, you know, and he was resourceful. And um, so there's dark elements to that story in that we're divorced, and my brother and I were with my dad, and things are looking a little like I don't know if our teeth are gonna get brushed and we're gonna go to bed on time, but we're gonna have an adventure and we're gonna have an amazing, irreparable, you know, moment that just can't be recreated. And I wanted to capture those things and that kind of childhood, the honesty of that kind of childhood.

unknown 7:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

And then there was um your your mom, and that's a complicated relationship as well. And I love how you, you know, Callie is the main character, and and a lot of the story is in her voice, but then there are chapters where you use the other voices, and it's fascinating to me how, you know, we as children, because I come from similar background where it's just kind of not stable and young parents and they don't know what they're doing. And now that I'm old, yeah, now that I'm older, I'm like, okay, you you forgive and you and you give grace and all of that. So I love that you get in the mind of the characters, like you see Callie's point of view, but then you see the parents' point of view and what they are thinking. And you know, it may not always make sense. It's like, well, you didn't have to handle it that way, but for them, it made sense. Like it's their I did, I appreciated um getting into the minds of the other characters and what their thoughts were. Um I'm glad you really love that. That's a that was a really cool element. Um, also, like a lot of the themes that stood out to me were just like perseverance and resilience and and um forgiveness and and loss and grief. And so what have you learned from like living this life in Clovis? Like what made you because I feel I I was like, I hope she's Cali. I hope she's Cali because I really love it. I love I love how like strong, I love strong women. What what is it inside of you that just keeps going and keeps persevering?

Point Of View And Cowboy Wisdom

SPEAKER_02 8:53

Great. And those are both kind of two questions, so many things are running through my head. I think a lot of it is it's my mom and my dad. My dad, you'll see in the book, he was always joy in the face of to me as a kid, even kind of insurmountable grief and sorrow. You know, he was just he would sing, he had songs, he was the dancing cowboy is what it kind of felt like. And he always taught me that that you can choose how you respond to a situation. And um, you asked me to, so I will, which is great. My dad, there's a passage in the book that I thought that'd be really fun to share. Um, and this is um, you talked about the other voices too, so this plays in really well to talk about that briefly. I did I wrote the whole book first in first person. So it was Callie, which is me, and it was totally her, and it was just stream of consciousness and flew out of me, Lynette. This book was like three times longer when I started. Okay, yeah, yeah. It was um, I don't know if you write much or kind of in that world, it was uh 255,000 words, which about 70,000 is one book.

unknown 9:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Well, you had a lot to say, and I'm sure a lot of experiences, yes.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

A lot to say. But what a cool, a cool thing when I did the big editing project, which was amazing and fun for me, it was uh it was an awesome, awesome experience. My editor, um, I just had a few voices, not very many. It was like mom, dad, and maybe Jude, just a couple times at the very end. And he was like, for whatever reason, you have a knack for this. Like you sounded like a completely different person, which totally threw me away. But that was really cool. So I did a couple chapters there in different voices, like you said. So you get to hear from the other characters in the book from their point of view. Because to me, one of the huge things of the book, um, the other passage I have is it is about point of view. As a child, I'm gonna see my mom in a very immature and you know, adolescent way. I'm gonna see her through eyes that are righteous, and I think I'm so right and I know everything. And I'm gonna judge her for her decisions and what I think is poor decisions, you know? And so, point of view is super important. So, like you said, I want you to get in the mind of the parent and see what they were dealing with and what they had going on. Maybe it didn't make sense to you as the kid on the other side, but if you get in their head, maybe you'll understand, right? So, one passage here, this is from my dad, and he's talking to me, Callie, in a letter. And my dad has always taught me this from the beginning. I this is from when we were children. It's about aging. And so he's telling me, Callie, it's actually a peaceful feeling growing older, I have found. It calms you, gives you footing, and makes you see outcomes developing early on. Bad decisions and bad people become easier to spot. Age also makes you aware that things are always constantly changing, and that's okay. Necessary even. It's a strange but humbling and comforting feeling that you're not nearly as in control as you would like to be, babes, and that's okay. That's just straight up what we call it, cowboy wisdom from my dad.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

So it's so I love that. It's so funny because you know, I read the book and there there were two things that stood out. The one that I want to read later, and then literally that one. Like, no lie. Oh, really? No lie, no lie. I picked it, um, I wasn't, I I actually screenshotted it too. I screenshot it two paragraphs, another one, and then that one. So it's funny that you read that.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

Wow, that needs to be on my tombstone because other people have picked that one too.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

So really, it's just um, I I love lessons. I love like I love words of encouragement, life lessons. And so that's what that meant to me when I read it. Um, so Callie, you know, we we see her at the beginning at a young age and like all the struggles, and then she becomes a career woman and becomes a lawyer, which is where lawyer comes in. So,

Choosing Law As A Way Out

SPEAKER_00 12:37

what was it that made you want to be a lawyer? And are you still practicing?

SPEAKER_02 12:43

I I so I am I am practicing. I don't represent clients, particularly me. So I usually work for other lawyers. Kind of lawyers tap me to do their briefwriting and motion practice and all that stuff. Um, so I'm kind of a little, I'm active, but a little behind the scenes, which I like. So I'm not front row and in the jury trials, like front and center. I do a lot of the support work behind the scenes, which is great, Lynette. And the reason I structured it that way is so that I could travel. You know, I could work remotely and use this law degree to make money to write and travel. That would be the end goal of all of this. But um, I would say being a lawyer is you'll see in the book, it's very true to form, especially my childhood years. My brother, my brother's actual name is John. Um, but same thing. We're three years apart. He was always teaching me, um, educating me. And we both knew that that was our ticket out of Clovis. We both felt that way. And just as kids do, we were like, I'm gonna be a doctor, I'm gonna be a lawyer, you know, anything that had the big salary. I mean, I hate to say it, but that's what we're like, yeah, whatever gets us out of here. We're like shooting harpoon guns, you know, just hoping it'll stick. And um, we're good with words. My brother and I, you know, we wrote a lot growing up. I even have I was writing back then, little um, I used to do newsletters, like Sweet Valley High kind of newsletters.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Oh, I read all those books.

SPEAKER_02 14:00

I love those books, love those books. So I would do that as a kid. I was always into words and writing. I was like on the journal team and the high school yearbook and all that stuff, you know. And so um, lawyer just was a good fit. I knew words were a skill for me. So, you know, reading, writing, I just went with lawyer, but I I will say when I started practicing, you know, you go through law school and the bar exam and all that. When I started, I was on the defense side, um, just like Callie is in the book, um insurance defense. And I did not love that practice. When you get deep into that and feel what defending corporations feels like and can be like, and I'm proud of myself for stepping away from that. That was not the law that I wanted to practice for the rest of my life. And now I work on the plaintiff side, helping, you know, sort of small firms go after the big dogs, and that feels so much better. I love that stuff. So I do love it. I still love doing that, and you'll find it's kind of cool, it's coming out later. But in the sequel to Clovis, which I'm working on now, is a huge legal plot. So Callie's like taking down the bad guys and stuff. So that's happening.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Oh, good for you. Oh, okay. I can't wait to read that one. Good for you. Yeah. Um, I I love that. And so, where does sailing come

Sailing Enters The Picture

SPEAKER_00 15:14

from? Because I I've read that you have written books about sailing. Is that true? Okay, so where does that come into your life?

SPEAKER_02 15:22

It crashed into my world about like you're saying it. Like I did not see sailing coming. What happened was, as I should put it, is I met I met a boy. You know how these things happen. I was working in um Mobile, Alabama, which is pretty far south of Alabama, so it's pretty close to Pensacola, Florida, which is where I'm at now. And um just started hanging out with some friends who are in Pensacola. And one night, this is a terrible story, but I'm gonna tell it. A good friend of mine's like, hey girl, come to this bar. I got a really cute guy I want you to meet. I'm like, okay, all right. And so I come to Pensacola, and she points him out, and it's Philip, my partner now, who I'm with and have been with now, don't tell the world, but like 15 years. So I mean, we're we're set. Um, but I met him that night, and I'm telling you, Lynette, he was talking about I'm gonna get on a boat and cruise around the world. And I was like, Holy crap, that sounds amazing. I'm coming. And I kind of told him that jokingly, and it's been a hundred percent true.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

So that was all Philip was was he was that's funny. My husband's name is Philip. Oh was he sailing before that, or he's just like, I'm gonna sail and we're gonna go.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

So an amazing, it's a really cool story. And the reason, a lot of the reason that I am the way I am now, very um people see me as like adventurous and willing to just try all these different careers and go travel the world. And a lot of that is because of Philip, and I will tell you because he just came to me as a completely fresh human. I was so used to men, and I hate to say, but they were just hunting, golf fish, and that's just what they were devoted to. It's what they love, which is great, awesome. I'm not, and I just wanted more, I wanted to do more and see more. And so Philip presented with that. Like, I'm gonna get on a boat and sail around the world. His actual background is um, he's a Marine, he was in the Marines, and um, very cool story there, and that he wanted to do that as a very young age, at like age six, and wrote the Marines. Like, I'd love to be a part, and they're like, We want you to get your education first, so go to high school. And his mom still has the letter, it's a whole thing. That is so he's a very yeah, it's a neat story. He's a very driven person too, and um, so he is in the Marines, and then he went to law school and he um had sailed some with his uncle um just around Pensacola Bay. Not the sailing we're talking about is like live on your boat, like you know, you're on the boat and you go, you know, across oceans and long passages. That's the kind of sailing he was talking about, which he had not done. Um, because you kind of have to find the right person to do that with, you know. Um, but when he met me, his uncle, who was very dear to him, who got him into sailing, was in the middle of like prostate cancer and passing away. And so Philip was very much in the mindset of the clock is ticking. I am serious to this sailing dream. I'm committed. And so kind of meeting me in that moment, and I was fresh off divorce. I wanted fun, change, excitement. We just kind of collided at the right moment. And so he was serious, I was serious. We started cruising about a year or two after that.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

How awesome! So tell me, I love to travel, but yeah, and I love the ocean, but being in it, like I like to look at it, but being in the ocean terrifies

Fear On Water Versus On Land

SPEAKER_00 18:33

me. How how like where have you gone? Like what adventures have you been on?

SPEAKER_02 18:37

Oh my god, we've had such a great time. I'm so glad you're asking about this. So we started, of course, in Pennsylvania, Florida, you know, and um uh across the Gulf of Mexico is that can be an arduous passage. Like, don't let the ocean, you know, fool you that it's the only thing out there that can kick your butt. Yeah, the Gulf of Mexico is huge. Um, so it's big. Uh so we would do that a couple times to just kind of start. And then we um in 2016 we did Cuba, which was the coolest thing we've ever done. Hands down, Philip and I will never regret having done that. It just opened. So we did that, which was amazing, and then we've done the Bahamas a lot several times, and we've crossed um on other boats, not our boat, but we've crossed over the Atlantic to France and then from France back to the to the BBIs and USBIs. So we've done the Atlantic Circle, which is cool. Um, you're asking though about being out there. I will say, and I've told a lot of people this, I'm more scared, Lynette, on the interstate in a vehicle going 80 miles an hour than in a boat. And I can assure you, I've I've never feared for my life out there as much as I do every day in just regular traffic because everything goes so slow. I mean, the fastest you're gonna go on a sailboat, our boat, which is an even a pretty high-end boat, is like six miles an hour.

unknown 19:50

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

Okay. You're going, I mean, maybe eight or nine if you're lucky and the wind's great and you're just really cooking, you're cooking at eight miles an hour. You're flying with that. I mean, whoa, big deal. So you're going really slow. I mean, in the ocean. That speed is scary in a marina because you're gonna hit everything coming in, but you know, in the ocean, mainly the things that are gonna get you out there is um it's psychological. Like you're gonna start thinking about the things in your life you've wanted to change, regrets, people you've wanted to say things to that. You haven't, that's what will start eating at you. You're really in a battle with yourself. Oh wow, it's the biggest thing I can say, which sometimes is the worst battle. Some people really struggle out there, they do not like being alone. Yeah, I do. I like that that's so true.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

I like being alone. I can be by myself. Me too. Yeah, I don't I have conversations with people about that a lot. Like people that have to stay busy, busy, busy, busy and do this and do that. It's like, hmm, there's something going on that you just can't sit still and be by yourself. Yeah, yeah. They start to buzz out out there and they they kind of lose it. I

The Grief Questions That Hit Home

SPEAKER_00 20:53

want to read, um, since we're talking about thinking, the the one passage that I wanted to read because you know, I've I've experienced death and and loss and and that. And these this little paragraph here, I was like, okay, it's something that I just most people should be thinking about these things. So it says, um, this is it. I have to wonder if I did enough with my time here. Did I touch people? Did I make them feel loved? Should I have broken my promise to Rachel and reached out? Should I have tried to be a father to that little girl? And did I not because I was scared or because I thought it was the right thing to do? Did I show Levi enough love? Um, the amount he deserved. Did I make Hallie strong enough? Did I teach her enough? I'll never know. And I don't want to keep reading because it might give some things away. And and I I love those questions because since I've been doing this podcast, that's the kind of stuff that like comes up with with a lot of conversations. It's like, what are we doing? What's our purpose? Like what why are we here? here, what am I leaving? And I I really, really, really liked that. So I wanted to share um that what from the book with all the care first of all, before we what are the what characters are are all they are all of them real or some of them made up?

SPEAKER_02 22:21

Very few made up. But um I get so Levi is my first completely fictional character, which I was very proud of him. I love him. But he was my creation. Mariah's real Jay's real Jude, mom, dad, all the all of it.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

And all the stories are real.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

I would say I would say for the most part when I get to college when Callie gets about in college level, that's when things start to turn to fiction. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

Um with with that with that um is that something with what I just read is that something that happened I'm trying not I'm trying not to I know I know you're doing you're doing great.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

I think the best way to answer is um is no thankfully but my goal in all this and in any book I write for me to showcase love I feel like you have to lose it. You know you have it has to be taken away at some point. You know the person leaves your life or they move to a different place or they pass away or you know you have to lose that love in order to understand what you had you know and I was I was nervous to do that in the beginning I'll tell you Lynette because I was like oh man what I'm gonna take these people showcase their love to you and then I'm gonna you know make things happen in their lives where it shows how deep that love is and uh a lot of tears were shed in this book a lot of crying a lot of pacing around right here in this very living room and I would wring my hands and be like and get up from my keys and have to you know air up my armpits. I'm sorry but when you write excitedly like that you just you know your body's feeling it and um I felt like that was the best way to showcase what what actually existed is by showing a loss of it. Um so I thought that was powerful right when you started reading Lynette's funny because when you start reading I have no idea what you're about to say very exciting and right when you said this is it like I knew who it was like my whole body just went I know I know and my brain and my heart goes there and I feel that scene and that was a lot of it was fun to write though. I mean it's a challenge that's really cool to sit down and do.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

I was gonna ask you that so I was going to ask you all the emotions that you went through um how long did it take you to write it was it easy writing about yourself actually that part I would say is easy.

SPEAKER_02 24:36

I get vulnerable pretty easy a lot of people ask me that just how do you get so vulnerable and um I'll tell you Lynette it's come with age and the reason I pick that age quote often is and people kind of don't believe me they think I'm blowing smoke. I am so happy getting older I have enjoyed aging it's been a privilege I mean it's just I've gotten wiser and more comfortable with myself and I think a lot of women everyone I talk to does this you know I get this every time and I'm like and I feel like we just were not talking to each other in our 20s and 30s. We thought we couldn't share we thought we had to be strong thought we had to go to work and leave all our crap at the house you know that's just how you did it and that's how you function that's how you succeeded. And that's how we grew up and I just I feel like now I'm learning that so many women felt exactly like I did. No and had we just shared I wouldn't have felt so alone you know um so that's a wonderful thing I always want to open up and share about the aging and um God what was your question?

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Come on I forgot I'm just listening to you because I love this conversation because I agree I completely agree I know it's it's just about getting older.

SPEAKER_02 25:38

I think it was like the characters and who I was writing about but I think the reason that I want to share about the aging is the more I talk to other women it's mostly women um I think the women it's it's easier to oh you asked how it was easy to write that's right it's easier to age and I will say that the writing for this reason because I feel like we're coming into our own and we're stepping into power that we've we've just now realized and we've had the whole time. And and I'm not saying we're getting mean and and you know not taking care of our men and those things. I don't want to be all like I'm feminist I'm not here to be a team player but I'm here to vocalize how I really feel which I haven't done for years and years and I I should have but that's my fault but I feel like I can say these things now and being vulnerable to me helps me with those things. When I release them and share them and people go yeah me too and much worse I feel so much better. And I will tell you half the book and the reason this is half fiction because the beginning was all me. It's so easy to pour out Lynette's just my life my thought my words but what I did with the second half of the book and this is really cool about cruising this is what we call um when you live on your sailboat and actually like you know go around place to place you're a cruiser and so there's a lot of women cruisers out there that are cool awesome women you can imagine the kind of women that get on a boat and decide to go sailing are pretty rugged amazing women and a lot of them have been through life stuff I can't even fathom. I I don't even know how they get out of bed with smiles on their faces the kinds of loss that they have suffered. So I talk to them like in the laundry room walking to the grocery store and they tell me these things and I'm like oh my gosh I have a a pretty storied life but it doesn't even compare. Which makes me feel so welcome, so humble and so half the other half of the fiction book is from other women cruisers that's their story.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

Oh

How Forgiveness Actually Happens

SPEAKER_00 27:26

how cool so like let's I want to talk about like yes the book but it's it's you how how did you learn to forgive and give grace because in the book it's there is a lot of forgiveness and a lot of uh Kelly realizes oh you know my dad wasn't always perfect my mom wasn't always perfect but we're gonna forgive and we're gonna let go how how have you done that in your life like most people just want to hold on to grudges and you hurt me and there's no going back. So what do you say to that?

SPEAKER_02 28:00

And I the the benefit for me and I think if you have which I've held on to grudges for years and years and years. You know what I mean and Callie was alone at all those college years I hope you guys notice as you read the book the reason she's struggling and and is you know hurting so badly is because she's alone and she's holding a grudge like that's the biggest thing she's holding on to alone in her house you know so I hope you see that because I've done that I've done that many many times I have the benefit of my brother and I will say that he when we he and I talk about the past and our childhood and stuff he has such a better perspective because he was a little bit older you know just three years older and you'll see in the book several times that Jude actually educates Callie of like no that's not exactly how it went down you know I didn't I wasn't actually ex whatever the thing is you know there was more to it it was more complicated and I think if you can dive into those situations it's a lot of what we talked about about parents doing things that upset you because those are grudges against your parents are the ones you're gonna hold probably the biggest and longest. So if you can get in their head just a little bit a little bit of empathy to see what they were going through it just helps it helps you forgive it helps you say you know what I'm gonna make some bad decisions too and what I think is great about Callie is when I don't think this gives anything away when she's in the hospital bed towards the end because she starts in a hospital bed so that's nothing but she's there and she sees her mom and she was so judgmental of her mom all of her younger years like oh my God you made all these bad decisions blah blah blah she's in a hospital bed broken down you know about to face legal charges you know and so she's the queen of bad decisions. So you when you start screwing stuff up you have a lot of um empathy you know for the the other decisions you judge so poorly so that's too getting older you start making more mistakes you realize hey this ain't so easy so that helps too with forgiveness age helps a lot with that for me it's perspective and and time I guess is the way it works for me.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Have you had to do any type of therapy or is this just kind of been something that you've been doing on your own and and figuring out on your own I would say Clovis was my therapy.

SPEAKER_02 30:05

I poured into that book and um and I I have a lot of friends who are psychologists and and friends that have gone to therapy and I I love it. I think it's a wonderful thing. I think anybody should talk to therapists at any time and it's wonderful now that it's um like telehealth you know you can do it remotely which is great. I haven't just yet but I'm not opposed at all and would love to talk to anybody if I feel like I'm struggling with something and can't be vulnerable and share like this. But for me Clovis um a short share and it doesn't have to be the center of anything but um in the middle of writing at Lynette my mom passed away and I didn't expect it to happen and we were kind of in the place in the book where you see not in the best place, you know, that I wish we could have been somewhere better. But when you ask about therapy, you know what happens at the end of the book how that that shift of perspective and how Callie sees her mom and what she thinks about her mom. Those are things that I would have loved to have told my mom in real life but I did get to say them in the book. So that's a very cool thing.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

I feel you I um yeah I haven't done therapy either I was just asking because um I feel like when we're open books and we're able just to talk openly to me that's therapy. And it is and when you talk openly then people share and then I get from everyone like okay I'm not gonna do that but I could take a little bit from here and um and similar my you know my my dad passed away 13 years ago and there was like you know like how you describe kind of just me not understanding his choices or you know the way he was and yeah when they pass it's too late. It's too late.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

So yeah it's too late now you know and so it's all the more reason today to be like you know what what is that grudge really doing for me what mental energy am I devoting to that that I could just put down yeah yeah no that's true that's true. So what are you doing like now you've written Clovis you shifted you know when did you shift like the um your practice like when you became a uh was the defense lawyer working versus yeah so um kind of cool strokes and this will tell you all the books so um I started practicing in 07 that's when I graduated and did all that stuff and I met Philip in 11. So in about 2011 I was like all right I'm getting out of this I was kind of looking for a you know light on the horizon. And um so I decided to start working remotely I left my firm which was pretty surprising they um they really didn't believe that I was gonna leave and the reason I started working remotely I'll tell you this is 100% true is I kept telling them like here's the day I'm gonna leave it was August 13th I'll still remember it 2013. And I was like this is it I'm leaving I'm leaving they're like okay oh sure and they kept giving me cases and give me work and I was like I kept doing it but I thought okay my day's coming and about a week before it they were like oh my gosh you're really leaving I was like yes so they were like well you're gonna have to work remotely because we just gave you all these cases and stuff and I was like that I can work on a sailboat I think so I started working remotely and so that's that's what started me working remotely as a lawyer which was I'm glad that happened you know that was a tough transition. It was scary it was painful but gosh now I have the platform to work remotely as a lawyer and I did not have that before that's a huge asset. So

Remote Law Work And New Books

SPEAKER_02 33:22

started traveling with Philip and um the writing side I just started writing for fun um to Philip actually I would write him emails in the morning. This is silly and he was like you're so great you should start a blog so I started the blog so have one will travel is the blog it's been going now for gosh like 13 years. And there I started writing articles and then I cobbled those into my sailing books. So that there's like three sailing books which are wildly funny. That's just mainly my personality out there dealing with everything that's happening and I'm like holy crap what is this rope and where does it go? And I'm just trying to figure myself out. I love it and it's it's very entertaining. So those are just fun and very easy reads. And then I wrote um there's a women's fiction so it's called a civil affair and that's sort of a legal romance kind of thing which is a very fun book. And um so now I'm at Clovis which is the literary fiction and first one I wrote and it's done very very well I'm excited. It's got some awards and a nice Kirkus review and um so I started on the sequel and Austin is the name of the sequel and it's about I would say like 90% done. It's kind of exciting. Yeah so when do you think we can read the book I know right I think the fall of this year because I have a lot of editing you know you want to spend some good time on editing and um and I'll just be honest Philip and I are going to uh Africa this summer I was gonna ask I was gonna ask on other travels okay some travels so during that month I will happily say I am not doing anything with my book I'm gonna be pet and elephant so sorry y'all are gonna have to wait.

SPEAKER_00 34:52

Wow so for a whole month wait are you sailing there?

SPEAKER_02 34:55

No I was gonna say oh my gosh so you're Africa for a month how exciting we're excited about that I mean it's like 21 days but I'm gonna call it a month going for it right so excited any other like sailing sailing adventures that you guys have so we have actually I'll be honest so our sailboat right now is for sale so we're on a um international travel chapter so we're um we want to do a lot of skiing and Africa is a big one and so we'll probably get a motorboat I think in the next two or three years because we just love being on the water it's just so it's so amazing. So we're we got the boat for sale because we want to do Africa and I think Croatia is really high on the list Alaska things that we haven't been able to do when you have the boat it's very consuming. It's kind of like your only hobby so now we have time to kind of do different stuff which is really cool.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

So that's so exciting. I love to travel and now that my kids are getting older we're traveling more and it's just fun. I love it. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 35:52

It's so good for kids and I will tell you travel and my dad told me this all the time it's the best educator. Like you just see different cultures you see the way people live differently and I think children especially can see cultures different than American culture you know that just aren't so consumerism driven and you get a lot more experience and I just think that's wonderful. So that's a great thing. Keep going.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

Yeah um is there anything else I want can you please send me the link or like send me like hey hey the book is out there to to buy because I do want to read the sequel. Yeah don't forget don't forget that please and because I really I I really honestly I'm not blowing smoke up your ass or anything it was a good it was it was I enjoyed all the characters I enjoyed the journey I was like where's the in the beginning it's like okay where's this going? Because like you said it starts in a hospital bed and then it goes back in time and I was like wow I couldn't I was just constantly like okay what's gonna happen now what's gonna happen with Cal I'm so glad you said that because it's so nerve-wracking for me I have to trust you so much as the reader to both entertain you but not beat you over the head you know that's such a fine game to play with it was good I recommend everybody go buy Clovis and hey who say that again just go by Clovis yeah go buy Clovis and and read this was my pleasure thank you so much for talking today I appreciate I appreciate you coming on and can you come on when the sequel comes out and we can talk about that oh gosh absolutely 100% absolutely okay I'll email you directly and be like all right it's time okay no for real let's do it for real you kidding I'll need all the promotion I can get I hope you're for real I am for real I am for real I love talking to people that are just doing big things and that's what it sounds like you're doing we're trying we're it's fun it's all about just putting the stories out there I I believe in stories yeah and I believe in connecting people this is a good one it's about I mean it's even about identity and like figuring out who you are as a person. So it's about so much so many things loyalty oh man yeah a lot of everything aging yeah aging it's great it's great so thank you good luck with this next one this one is fabulous and I hope you get lots of readers hope and lots of your mouth the readers' ears yeah thank you it was my pleasure Annie and we'll talk soon I'll leave you all with this life is a paradox in order to heal you must hurt in order to love you must break open in order to have peace you must face chaos never regret any experience in your life because it is always meant to bring you balance the light always follows thank you so much for listening to Virago247.

Final Reflection And Listener CTA

SPEAKER_00 38:39

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