Making It Up with Angie Kim, author of Happiness Falls

"I remember rereading it and being like, 'This is what I have been looking for... through all of these jobs and career to careers, that thing that brings me happiness on a day-to-day level.' And also that macro level satisfaction of like, ‘I'm kind of proud of what I created,’ you know? It's those two levels that I think are really, really hard to find. And I think it's worth trying to go from thing to thing, trying to find that for yourself, whatever that may be." — Angie Kim 

Angie Kim moved as a preteen from Seoul, South Korea, to the suburbs of Baltimore. She studied philosophy at Stanford University and attended Harvard Law School, where she was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Her debut novel, Miracle Creek, won the Edgar Award and the ITW Thriller Award, and was named one of the 100 best mysteries and thrillers of all time by Time, and one of the best books of the year by Time, The Washington Post, Kirkus Reviews, and the Today show. Happiness Falls, her second novel, was an instant New York Times bestseller and a book club pick for Good Morning America, Barnes & Noble, Belletrist, and Book of the Month Club.

Among other things, Angie and Carter discuss how Angie immigrated from Korea in middle school, using writing as a form of therapy, and how Angie fictionalized her personal life and started her writing career. At the end of their conversation, they make up an intriguing story using a line from Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Friends, hello, this is Carter, and welcome to this episode of Making It Up, my podcast where I just sit down with other writers and chat. Before I get to today's guests, go check out my website, Unboundwriter, at Unboundwriter.com, because by the time this episode airs, we should have some good information and perhaps the ability to book uh the writing retreat we are going to be offering in Paris. That's not Paris, Texas, it's Paris, France next year. Uh, May 3rd through 6th, 2027 is myself, Alex Finlay, Clemence Michelin, and unnamed guest stars at this point. Um, four one half days of instruction, nice cocktail party, a nice literary tour. It is going to be amazing. Um, so if you're interested in that kind of thing, go to unboundrider.com, check out the retreats page. If it's not, if the details aren't there yet, you can at least um sign up on the interest form, and I will email you as soon as the full details and ability to book are there. All right, let's get into it. So today I had my friend Angie Kim on the show. So Angie, uh, so I met Angie because I was asked to interview her when she was coming to a library here in Colorado. And we actually did two sessions because she's so popular. Um we did two sessions. We did like a mid-afternoon interview and then we did an evening interview. So I got and we got a lot of time in the green room together. So I got a really really got to know her well. Realized we had kind of met before um at Thriller Fest. Um, but Angie, uh Angie has two books out. Her most recent book, which is Critically Claim, Instant New York Times Bestseller, Good Morning America Book Club Pick, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, is called Happiness Falls. You have probably heard of it. Um, but you know, she's got quite um, she's got quite the pedigree when you read her bio. And then we got into her background quite a bit in the show, and it's it's so interesting because it's you know, her background is really a life of struggle. Um kind of all starting from coming from Soul Soul South South Korea to the US as a middle schooler with zero English um skills at all, and just kind of what, you know, all you know, all the damage that it causes to your psyche when you are, you know, trying to just um climatize to a new culture. Um, but she um she ended up going to Stanford um to study philosophy, but she also was into theater in high school. And then she went to um Harvard Law School, where she was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. And so her, you know, she was going to become a litigator because as she says in the podcast, litigating was like performance acting. Um, that's where she what she really wanted to do. But when she realized that was only about 5% of the job, she only lasted five or six years. So it wasn't until her 40s that she really wanted to get into writing. Um, and so we kind of just talk about that uh journey as well. So as she says that you know, writing is her fifth career, and it's been very successful so far. The two books that she has out have done really, really phenomenally well. Um and she is a very valued member of the writing community and beloved by many readers around the world. Um, so it's it's kind of a dream story for most writers, coming from somebody who didn't speak English at all to being a best-selling novelist in that language um X number of years later. So uh, but she's very easy to talk to. We did a great storytelling. Um, she's somebody I could just sit down, have a cup of coffee with, and and you know, talk for a couple hours. Um, so it was nice to catch up with her. This is my conversation with Angie Kim. So, you know, and I I want to get into a little bit of what we kind of talked about um in Broomfield. But what what was interesting to me was hearing about you coming from Korea here um as a kid and the language barriers. And I'm always so because I had a call earlier with Clemence Michelin, and I'm always so impressed by people who have a second language and then like, oh, I'm just now gonna write best-selling books in my non-native language. It may really, it just is so impressive to me, even though, yes, I understand, you know, you've been rooted in in learning English for quite some time, but it was a little bit of a struggle.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

Yeah, it was a struggle at first, certainly. And I think that's one of the reasons why I kind of stayed away from writing um for a really long time. I didn't really think of you know English or having anything, anything having to do with English as being a forte for me because I'd been because there was just so much trauma around middle school when I came over from Korea and I didn't speak the language.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

So you came over for middle school years.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Yeah, in that's really tough. Yeah, so middle school is so tough anyway. And so coming over then, and then, you know, feeling feeling like I didn't belong, not looking like anybody else, um, wearing really weird clothes that nobody else was wearing. This is during the 80s, like during the whole preppy, you know, and we could not afford those ISOD shirts with those alligators or polos or anything like that.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

And you came over with zero English language skills or very little, or yeah, zero.

SPEAKER_02 6:00

Like, I mean, my dad, I think, taught me how to say hello and goodbye on the airplane. I had this book that was supposed to teach you how to speak the most basic English conversational language, you know, like phrases. Yeah, but like, for example, one of them is um, where is the laboratory? Right, and nobody says laboratory, they're like, Well, exactly, nobody says that, and also like Koreans can't say v, like the V sound and the R sound, and so it came out as laboratory. So then, you know, the teachers, when I ask, like, you know, I'm just saying that word over and over again, and they're like, Oh, here's this geeky Asian kid, she wants to see the science lab because right when you're going over and peeing in the science lab. Yeah, and so you know, so that and and so they're taking me to the lab, and I'm like, what the is going on? Wow, you know, like um, yeah, that was not the first day of school was not a good day, and um yeah, so between all of those things, and then once I started um sort of picking up English, I think you pick up um, you know, listening, uh receptive language comes more quickly than expressive language. And so I could understand much more than I could say.

SPEAKER_03 7:33

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

But because I still couldn't say anything, and certainly not with like the right grammar and you know, and the accent and all of that sort of stuff, everybody still thought that I couldn't speak English or understand it at all. And that's when you start realizing like, oh my God, these people don't think that I can understand anything. So they're talking about you in front of you, which is like a particularly humiliating thing, you know, to go.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

I think you even said in Broomfield that it extends to them thinking that you're just dim in general. Well, and not just so like naive.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

Right, but not just them thinking it, but you feeling it yourself. Like, so I really felt so stupid. I and and which is funny because I kept on trying to tell myself, it's not like my brain has changed. It, you know, like I'm still the same person. I can still do math at least, you know, like um things like that, but not being able to speak and not being able to understand, but but I mean, even more than the understanding, not being able to say anything and articulate your thoughts makes you feel thoughtless, makes you feel like you have no thoughts, like you have no worth and you have no intelligence. And so I really that's really the first time that I really started realizing something that I had never thought about, which is that we all, including, you know, I this certainly did this as well, we all equate oral fluency with intelligence. And so not being able to speak, I felt really stupid. And I think I carried that with me even after I learned English and even after I started being able to speak. Um, and it's not just for English either, it's like it carries over into other languages. So I took, you know, French in high school, and I was supposedly, you know, like fluent or whatever by college, but and I went to France um over the summer for like a summer program or whatever, and I could not bring myself to say anything in French because I was so embarrassed. Yeah, you know what I mean, at the prospect of speaking, and now I'm doing the same thing. Next year I'm planning to go back to Korea for the first time since I've been here. Oh wow. I know, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Since middle school.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Since middle school, yeah. We had plans like lots of other trips, but like weirdly, like you know, like some medical issue would come up, and um, or one time, like I was pregnant, and so and I found out that I was pregnant, like I was far enough along, and that and something was happening with the pregnancy, such that the doctor was like, you can't really, you know, like we don't want you traveling, um, like stuff like that. And so, and then another time there were like riots and stuff in Seoul, and so we decided not to go.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Well, fingers fingers crossed, we're not jinxing it for next year.

SPEAKER_02 10:42

But you know, but um I'm like really stressed because I don't speak Korean very well anymore. I can still understand everything, right? But speaking is kind of hard for me, and also not only that, but you know, here I am an adult and I speak at like at best at a 10-year-old level, right? Yeah, and so I'm I'm a little I'm I think I'm gonna it's gonna be an interesting trip to, you know, see how I feel about um, you know, being Korean and looking Korean and um and having grown up there, but then not being able to really speak very well. So that's gonna be really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

And I would think the other thing coming to the States as a middle schooler and going through everything you were talking about, it feels like the other um the other offset of that is you it drives you inward, right? So socially you're not just approaching, which is hard to do anyway, as an eighth grader, but socially you're just like, I, you know, I I don't have any friends because I'm not approaching anybody.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

Yeah, and and also like you start thinking about the meaning of friendships too, because there were some kids who were very nice to me from uh kind of like I was their pet project kind of you know thing, you know what I mean? Like um almost like they were doing public service, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Like community hours, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:14

Um, by by being nice to me and by inviting me to do things and whatever, but in a very performative way that um, you know, we hadn't really thought about back then because we didn't have social media and stuff like that. But I I I was thinking about this the other day. Like if we did have social media, I wonder like what kinds of things people would have like posted, you know, those especially those girls, the the the girls who took me on as their as their favorite pet project kind of thing. So interesting. What they would have done, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Well, I think about that a lot in terms of just smartphones and social media in general, about you know, people of our age who didn't have that growing up. Would you have ever become a writer if your formative years were spent scrolling instead of reading, you know?

SPEAKER_02 13:07

Absolutely. Instead of reading, and in my case, I really think what fed my um my love for a story is that I didn't have many books that I could read because I, you know, there was a time when I didn't I couldn't read English, right? And I only had a few Korean books. Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Access to Korean books back in the 80s in the States was not easy, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

Exactly. And so I think I brought over this set of books, but it was like seven books, and um, and so I read the same things over and over again. And so I basically was like writing essentially fan fiction in my head and like acting it out. Wow, you know what I mean? Like of of alternative um timelines or what's going on in between the scenes or what's you know, sort of going on after the story is over, that kind of thing. And so I think that's what fed, you know, my love of thinking about you know, fiction and and making up these worlds and characters and things like that. And if I had just like had a constant source of entertainment, you know, by by virtue of having this nifty thing, and also if I could like, you know, zoom like uh do cacao talk or WhatsApp with my friends, right? Um, that I the like I wonder how it would have changed the way that I made friends because I was basically cut off from my friends, right? You're you're on a deserted island, yeah, and from Korean and everything, and I was just like forced into this weird world, and so it really it does make me there's definitely a part of me that's like, you know, when I'm talking to like, you know, kids who are immigrants and things like that, I just kind of want to be like, you know, you have no idea how easy you have it in some ways because you go.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Totally, yeah. Much more connected to people who speak their language. And um, but it also, I mean, and the other thing is too, is like all that pain that you went through, also it it it almost forced you to go through this reawakening that you didn't have this comfort, you didn't have this ability to communicate in your native tongue as much. And that probably really broadened your horizons much more than somebody who can come here and still be really immense, uh, you know, immensely connected and not having to be forced, forced out of their shelf.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

Right. Because then the the total immersion concept doesn't really apply if you have such a portal, you know, in your hand to like anything that you want back home. Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Um or you can just translate it on the fly through your phone. Um and it's it's amazing. So did you, when you as you as you went through high school and started thinking about college, you know, uh clearly you had a very active imagination, which would have existed whether you stayed in Korea or came here, I'm sure. Were you thinking about going into literature or the creative arts at all?

SPEAKER_02 16:15

No, I don't think I ever thought that I was I would be good at literature again because of, you know, like my being intimidated by the English language and things like that. But I did go to um a high school at um at this place called the Interlock and Arts Academy in Michigan, which is an arts um oriented school. So it's a boarding school for um for kids who want to go into you know some kind of performing arts. And they do have creative writing, but I never took creative writing classes or anything like that. Um, and I was actually in theater and also music. So I played piano, but I um but I more than anything else, I was in theater and so and I did musical theater. And so I did a lot of improving and you know, like being um doing a lot of method acting and things like that that I think um really helped me once I made the transition in my 40s to try my hand at creative writing for the first time. And actually, I'm sitting here right now at the Writer Center in Bethesda, uh Maryland, which is where I took my first fiction writing class when I decided to try my hand at fiction. So yeah, so I'm I'm here, like it's full circle.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

So, with this arts background, what did you end up doing in those years before before 40?

SPEAKER_02 17:49

Right. So um, so being a writer is actually my fifth career.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:54

Um so I um weirdly went into litigation. Um and the story behind that, it actually kind of still makes me mad to think about it. But when I was in the uh when I was in musical theater, my teachers at that time, when I was a senior, they were like, hey, um, Angie, you're not thinking about going into drama, right? As a profession because um, because you're Asian and there really aren't Asians, you know, that uh for or there aren't really roles for Asians in TV or we're talking like late 80s kind of at this point. Yeah, this is 80s, this is late 80s, uh-huh, and um and which is true, like they're like it's it's hilarious now. It's very ironic because when we're like trying to cast, you know, um we're talking about casting for various adaptations for like my books and things like that. There are Korean American roles, obviously. Um, people who are would be kind of my age, like 40s, 50s, that kind of thing. Yeah, and you can't we can't like there's like two, like other than Sandra O, there's really no other Korean American, you know, she's not even Korean American, she's Korean Canadian, but whatever, you know what I mean. Um it's just it's so people, I think my age around that time were really discouraged from going into those fields. And I think, you know, my and those teachers had really good hearts. I think they were doing it from a place of concern. Like, we don't want you to starve to death. We want you to be able to do what you're good at, and we hear that you're good at, you know, academics. So why don't you go do something in that? Um, and so I decided I was like, what can I do in academics that like acting? And then I was like thinking about those, you know, lawyers on TV, like LA law, LA law, right, right at that time was LA Law. And, you know, and uh the Lincoln lawyer, you know, like all those things. And so I was like, I will be a litigator, you know, and so just like that, like so I went to law school, you know, very expensive, obviously, a lot of uh, a lot of time. And then once I graduated from law school and went into actual practice of law, that's when I discovered that yes, I do love being in the courtroom. I really did love that part. I loved objective. You like the performance? Yes, I like the performance. I like telling the story to the judge or to the jury, you know, all that kind of stuff. Um, and I like convincing people, I love all that kind of stuff, but that's like five percent of your of a lawyer's, you know, a litigator's professional life is actually that's the only part that the TV shows, but uh yeah, exactly. And and everything else, I really I hated everything else, like it was so awful. You're just basically fighting with these people and like who are making everything really personal for no reason whatsoever.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

It's right, everything about law is rooted in just conflict, and which is why my daughter's in law school, that's why I could never do it. It's like I don't want to spend my day like being snippy with somebody, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 21:26

And I would come home and I would be like, My, you know, these people were really mad at me and they were so mean to me, and they were like, and my husband, who's he's a great litigator, and he would be like, Yeah, that's of course they're gonna be like that. That's like they're just being, you know, they're just being lawyers. And I'm like, I don't like that. Like, I hate conflict. I hate fighting for the sake of fighting, unless it's you know, in the courtroom for a fun performance. Um yeah, so I I I got out of the legal world almost immediately. Like I think I was. In a lawyer for like four or five years.

SPEAKER_03 22:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

And then I went into I transitioned to business. I was um I was a consultant at McKinsey, which likes um to hire ex-loy former lawyers and then give them this crash mini MBA course.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Um I just read the book when McKinsey comes to town.

SPEAKER_02 22:21

Yeah, yeah. Oh my God. Is it is it like really everything you would want to, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

I read mostly nonfiction. And and I was a could, you know, I've been in uh my former career was hospitality consulting. So I I knew all the ENYs and the Kent Leventhals and the Arthur Anderson and stuff like that. So I like literally the six months ago I read when McKinsey comes to I'm like, holy shit.

SPEAKER_02 22:44

And is is it like juicy? So I should read it, huh?

SPEAKER_00 22:47

It's very juicy, okay. But it's not salacious, it doesn't feel like hearsay, it feels like highly researched.

SPEAKER_03 22:55

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Really like it's well, it's well written, um and it's comprehensive, but it's it's and and it actually talks a lot about you know the associates who are very um, you know, do have their sights on you know being being a force of change for the good, and then slowly seeing like, why are we doing business with this government or with this company or with this person? Um, our values don't align, but yeah, anyway, it's a great read.

SPEAKER_02 23:26

Okay, okay. Definitely you were with McKenzie. Yes, I was with McKenzie for a little bit, and then I um left with some of my friends to go start a dot com during the 90s because this was that was the 90s. That was the thing to do. Um, raised a bunch of money, um, hired a like, you know, we became like a 450-person company within two and a half years or something. And then um, and then we were about to IPO, and then the whole bottom fell out.

SPEAKER_04 23:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

Yep. Um, and my son was born in 2001. Yeah. Um, and it was the same month that we were sold off um in pieces to a public company. And um, and then so it seemed like a good time to just kind of like, you know, take a step back. So get some get some sleep, you know, de-stress a little bit, you know, that kind of thing. And and I blame a lot of what happened from a medical perspective to my first son on just the stress of that time when I was pregnant. Because I fired like 400 people when I was in my third trimester.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

And so that's gotta have some some kind of, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 24:43

Which is a great basis for a story to begin with. I'm sure you had a nickname.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Oh my god. Um, it's just so horrible. And and so he was born with he was born really early with like lots of medical issues. Um, and so I just got to know sort of the hospital system and the insurance system really, really well. Yeah. And then just turned out, and he's totally fine now. Like he's living the best life with his girlfriend in New York. Um, but um, for the first like four or five years of his life, there was a lot of medical drama.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

And then and he probably needed constant, you know, attention. You probably need between you and your husband, it was probably difficult to be like, let's how do we work?

SPEAKER_02 25:35

Because yeah, well, my and my husband was still a litigator, so he was like doing the whole law firm thing. So I was home, I was a stay-at-home mom, we had three boys, and all three kids ended up having some kind of weird medical issue, totally different from each other, um, all as babies. All three are great now.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

Um stressful though.

SPEAKER_02 26:01

Yeah, but it was so awful. And so I feel like it was so that was like when I say that being a stay-at-home mom was like my most stressful and taxing and you know, most intense career like I've ever had and will ever have.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

Like, that's so uh I it was I mean you can't quit for for first of all.

SPEAKER_02 26:25

Absolutely, right, right. Like, can't quit, like have to do all the stuff, and it's all right. And there was like one day when I was um in the middle of like grocery shopping, which I hate, I hate grocery shopping, I hate cooking, and I had to cook everything from scratch because one of my kids had celiac disease back when they did not have gluten-free aisles.

SPEAKER_04 26:50

Right.

SPEAKER_02 26:51

Um, and then another kid had um was deathly allergic to all nuts and shellfish. So, like anything that you could use to make gluten-free flour at that time, he was like totally allergic to. Um and so I was like in the middle of this Whole Foods, and I I was like so exasperated because I couldn't find anything that I could just buy for their preschool snack or whatever, you know, that I could just send along. And they were like refusing to eat any more apple slices because that's what I gave them every single day. And I was just so upset and I started crying in the middle of Whole Foods, and this friend comes up to me and it's like, Angie, is that you? We haven't seen you in so long. Like, where have you been? And she's giving me this huge hug. And so I like unload and I tell her my whole story, and then I felt so much better, right? Like having told you needed that, yeah. And so that night after the kids went to sleep, instead of like cleaning dishes and you know, all that kind of stuff that I should have been doing, I just my husband was like away on a trial or something. I just like forgot about everything, and I just opened up my laptop and I just started writing. And um, and I wrote like, you know, essays based on what I'd been going through with my kids. And it was so cathartic. I had never really kept like journals and you know what I mean. So it was really like the first time that I was writing something that was really meaningful in that way and personal. And when my husband came home and then he he read it, he he loved it and he said, you know, I should you you should really try to get this published, except he was like, but you know, um, he was worried about medical privacy issues for our kids and like, you know, future insurability, things like that. I mean, obviously he's a lawyer, you can tell. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

You're discussing all these pre-existing conditions, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:56

Exactly. And so he was like, that's when he was like, why not try fiction?

SPEAKER_04 29:01

Right.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

And I was like, I don't know how to write fiction. Like I'm I've been an avid leader, but I've never I don't know how to write like stories. And so that's when I came here to the writer center because somebody had told me that they have classes on fiction writing. And I took my first workshop on short story writing, and that was I was in my 40s, and that's when I first started.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

That's uh and that's amazing. And I think you know, people don't appreciate how much you know, you think about a fiction writer and a novelist, and especially one who's a career novelist, and and I think the outside world looks at that person and says, Yeah, they're a very creative individual, and they have the ability to do this thing, like a scientist has an ability to do a certain thing. And I and I don't think there's an appreciation for the fact that for us it is therapeutic. Um there is, even if if it's a story that you think is disconnected from you, it never really is. There's always stuff that you're subconsciously, I think, working through in a way or exploring. And I think when you get to mystery suspense thriller, you're able to kind of explore stuff that's a little scary from from from a place of safety. Um and because you know, all right, I see and be like, why did that come out of my head?

SPEAKER_02 30:23

Yeah, right, right, right, and also explore why people do bad things, right? You know, and to really like and to ask those questions like could somebody who's like a normal, normal, good person do that?

SPEAKER_00 30:41

Could I do that, right?

SPEAKER_02 30:42

Yes, and could I do that? Could I have those thoughts? And yeah, you know, we all do, right? We all have those thoughts that we would be so ashamed to say out loud. Yeah, and so you can give them to characters and explore that and really like explore the nuances of things like that that you yourself would never want to do because it scares you too much, you know.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

Totally, yeah, I know. And I'm sure you've gotten asked this question too. And I certainly get asked this question, like, well, why do you write such dark stuff? Yeah, and and I just it it feels like a very naive question to me because to your point, everyone has these thoughts. So, for example, yeah, a person who constantly goes to the worst case scenario in their head, like, I haven't heard from my spouse in 20 minutes. What if they're dead, or whatever it is? Yeah, that's what we're doing. Yes, you know, we're we're just exploring, like, well, what would and then we start taking it further. What would that mean, therefore, to this character if that person is dead?

SPEAKER_04 31:42

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

We all have these thoughts. We're just we're just kind of really exploring the ramifications of them, I think.

SPEAKER_02 31:49

Yeah, and in a way that I think is probably healthier, you know.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

I think that, yeah, I mean, I I think that's true. I mean, it's the cliche that we've heard is like thriller writers are just the nicest people in the world, and best writers are are can be really horrible.

SPEAKER_02 32:06

Yeah, I mean, I remember because my first novel, Miracle Creek, has to deal it, you know, there's a dead child who dies, like in, you know, the very, very beginning of it, like the the page number three or something like that. And, you know, and that's like my that was my worst fear, you know, and so it's exploring those worst fears and then seeing like if that happened to somebody like me, what would that, yeah, what would that do? And how would that person react to like if they were accused of that child's murder? And how would they react? And you know, all of those things.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

Yeah, and I think it's funny how you kind of talk about, and it's fascinating how you talk about your your entry into writing through nonfiction therapy. Um, and I think the hard part, I because I think we all kind of start that way, whether we're intentionally writing fiction at the beginning or not, we're all writing from a place of you know, getting emotions out and exploring what we do. And I think the talent that you have to discover writing fiction is all right, is this interesting? Just because it's what I would do, does that make it an interesting commercial story? Because I I struggled a lot with my early books, the ones that didn't sell, with my heroes being too weak. Because I'm like, What would I do? I'm like, I'd get my ass kicked, is what would happen. And so my characters are always getting their asses kicked, right?

SPEAKER_03 33:39

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

And everyone, like, no one wants to read that. And I'm like, all right, how do I take what I would do and add 30% more bravery or whatever it is?

SPEAKER_04 33:47

Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 33:49

And that's a really hard for me, it was a really hard thing to learn. And that's yeah, you get that from reading and and watching shows and stuff like that, and what resonated.

SPEAKER_02 33:57

Yeah, I you know, I think for me that that's what differentiated nonfiction from fiction. So it it could be that just the way that I started writing fiction helped me because so my first story that I ever wrote, what I did was take that essay that my husband said was like, you know, great, but you know, it's too, you know, revealing, blah, blah, blah, blah. Um, and to fictionalize it, I had to make the narrator into somebody who was different from me. I had I made the kids, you know, deliberately different from my kids so that they would be disguised. And I've still put them in the same um kind of shoes as far as uh the situation of it, just the basic outline of it. But for the most part, like for me, the process of fiction was okay, if these people are different and their backgrounds are different and their thought processes are different, how would they handle this situation different from how I would?

SPEAKER_04 35:06

Right.

SPEAKER_02 35:07

And really thinking about that and trying to make myself kind of like method acting, but I call it method writing, you know, putting myself into making myself into a different person and really trying to think and feel like that other person would feel that um and and I had to basically put the constraint that I put onto it was that they have to react differently than I would. Because again, the whole point was to try to disguise it. Right. And so I think because I was doing it that way, it made it easy for me to try to fictionalize in a way that is naturally different from how I would do it, even though a lot of my you know, tendencies and the situations and maybe even the conversations might be from real life.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

Or even or even some of the subject matter. So, for example, like obviously talking about your kids and their medical issues, like happiness falls, you have a kid who has some medical issues, and so you're you're still trying to distance yourself, okay. But I'm the mom uh of this fictional kid, and I gotta react differently than I would react, but it's a situation that I have some familiarity with, right? That's that's really that's fascinating. And I wonder if your, and I'm sure your your training in in acting probably did absolutely like help with that, because you're like, Yeah, I'm studying this, I'm doing a character study, and I've got to work within the parameter of this care. So, do you sit down when you're working on a novel, at least with your protagonist, and really flesh that person out before you even start writing?

SPEAKER_02 36:50

I don't. Um, I flesh that person out as I'm writing. Yeah. Um, so I threw a lot of free writing. Um, so I don't do like bios and things like that. Um yeah, I mean, to me, that just feels artificial. I think um, because I think when you do it with a character that you're playing, you have the situations in front of you. Right. So you can like flesh out the character's background and things in a way that makes sense for that character's, you know, words and actions.

SPEAKER_04 37:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:25

And I think in for me, for novel writing um or storytelling, I think it's much more, you know, where I'm trying to discover what they would do. And by doing that, it's like it's an iterative process of trying to figure out this person's makeup and background um as they are kind of expressed and realized through the story's, you know, dialogue and other things that are going on.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

Totally. There, I I find that the main character's core emotion is not something that I can necessarily from the outset say it's going to be this. It it evolves, and you and you know, I think it's a little precious when people say the characters start talking to me and all that stuff. But for me, I do believe like, and maybe it's my core emotion of that moment, of that year, whatever coming through. But all of a sudden, I'll realize like this person, I feel they they just feel more naturally angry than I think I expected. And so I'm gonna lean into that, yes, and that that informs how they make certain decisions, and then you why are they angry? And then you're like, what happened to them in their past?

SPEAKER_02 38:38

Exactly, exactly. It's that iteration back and forth that I love, and it's just that's that's when I feel like the magic happens, and that's when I feel like, yeah, like you do feel like the universe is kind of like feeding you and giving you little gifts, you know.

SPEAKER_00 38:52

Yeah, and I agree. And I think I think for aspiring writers, I think what's scary is if you're a natural pantzer like I am, like yes, you start having those feelings, and then you start to be like, Well, I'm a hundred pages in, and if they're really like X, then I've gotta, you know, you start getting scared about uh having to make major changes.

SPEAKER_04 39:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:16

And you just can't let that limit you. It's gonna be hard no matter what you do. But I think if you write to like what you're feeling is the core of this character in an honest and organic way, yeah, you know, the the rewrites won't be terrible.

SPEAKER_02 39:31

Yeah, no, absolutely. No, I think and I think the rewrite is the first draft for me is like kind of discovering the outlines of that character, and then the rewrite is when you can, you know, really fill in some of those details that you didn't know when you were first writing, you know.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

Yeah, I know. I I'm very much a believer in that first draft being, you know, I'll look at it once, like halfway through, I'll go back and reread it just to remember because a lot of times I don't remember what I've even. Oh, yeah, totally. Um, but I'm always kind of surprised about how much, like how little rewrites I I do like probably three or four rewrites before I give it to my agent, but I'm not gutting it. Um ultimately there's just stuff I can't see.

SPEAKER_04 40:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

Um, and that's where I rely on my agent, my editor. And I might have months of rewrites based on what they see or what their reaction is. Um because they also know the market, you know, and they're thinking about that and your your own personal kind of what you maybe your readers are expecting from you. Um so it gets it gets hard, but there's only so much you can do before you need that second opinion.

SPEAKER_02 40:44

Definitely, yeah. I write in order to give to other people and see what they say, right?

SPEAKER_00 40:50

Right. Do you are you still in like a critique group and stuff like that?

SPEAKER_02 40:55

I'm I'm in several, yeah. I love critique groups. I um and I have like critique partners, um, that you know, we I just actually got uh one full-length novel today from one of my critique partners. I'm so excited to start reading. Wow. Um that's a big commitment. It is, it's a huge commitment, especially, you know. Um, I have some medical issues that limit my reading time. So I am having to sort of do more less line editing and more just like kind of high, high, you know, overview, like pacing, you know, that kind of thing. Um, so it'll be interesting to see how I'm able to do that kind of critique partnering. Um, and you know, as as I go through this. But I also have uh the same monthly um in-person critique group that um came together here at the writer center. We still get together like once a month, maybe once every two months, um, just depending on people's schedules now. But yeah, we still do that. And it's a really it's it's so valuable. Like that's that those are my deadlines. Like that's you know, because otherwise that's a good point too.

SPEAKER_00 42:05

Yeah, right. Yeah, I was in critique group for about 20 years, and then a couple years ago I left it. Um and you know, I just at this point, I just I'd like to be in my head for that first so no, you know, I I'm at the point now where I yes, I need to give my agent, my editor, some kind of idea of what I'm working on. Um, and then I'll give them the first hundred pages just to make sure it's not like a shit show. Um, but otherwise it's just I like to be in my little because things change all the time.

SPEAKER_04 42:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

So I would find with a critique I'd give them a chapter and realize like later on, like this chapter's not even in the book anymore.

SPEAKER_02 42:43

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I know so many people who just rely, you know, only on like maybe their spouse or you know, something like that. But but for the most part, just their agent and their editor now, you know, especially the people who do a lot of um, you know, who who write a lot more fast like you do. Like I know Chris Pagelli, and he was, we were in a it was funny because we were on a writing critique group together, and he was like, you know what, guys, I'm not gonna actually give you guys anything to critique because I just I don't like showing my work to anyone except for my agent and the editor. And we were like, Oh, we feel so guilty, like having your the value of your input, but not you know giving back.

SPEAKER_00 43:26

But if it works for for them, that's fine. Absolutely. I I find it, you know, fascinating that, and I've you know, over 250 episodes of this, just hearing how people become writers, it's and 80% of the time it's was never what they intended to do, right? Um in fact, I have probably several dozen people who were lawyers first. Yeah, I'm sure you're listening to your story and especially the angle of Of coming to a country where you don't know the language, a very difficult language for somebody without a romance language background, you know, and then becoming a writer in that language. It just proves that you know, if you're a writer, it's going to come out. It's going to come out.

SPEAKER_04 44:17

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 44:18

You know, whatever and what the circumstances will always align. And I think the hardest part of it is then recognizing that and then sticking to it. Because those two things, you know, are the sword that cuts down most writers. It's it's they don't see that, you know, they they don't take it seriously, and then they they're not consistent with it. Um but it's it's fascinating to hear like this is your fifth career, but this is probably, with the exception of also maybe acting, this is probably what you were meant to do with your life.

SPEAKER_02 44:52

I hope, yeah. I mean, I really do feel like when I finished that first story, I do remember, and like, you know, and not just finished it like drafting it, but like really revising it and you know, having it be ready for submission um to a litnag or something like that. I remember like rereading it and being like, this is what I have been looking for, like, you know, through all of these jobs and job to job, career to career is like that thing that brings me like happiness on a day-to-day level and also that macro level satisfaction of like I I'm kind of proud of what I created here, you know. It's it's those two levels that I think are really, really hard to find. And I think it's worth trying to go from thing to thing, trying to find that, you know, for yourself. Totally, whatever that may be.

SPEAKER_00 45:48

Yeah, and it's a very intangible feeling, but it's a sense of it's a sense of I'm being true to who I am.

SPEAKER_04 45:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:56

And and that's not to say you can't get that with other jobs, of course you can, but you know, all my work in the corporate arena, I might have loved the job, I might have certainly loved the people I was working with, but was it my vision? Was it my like, would I have started this company? And you know, and so you always kind of felt like, yeah, it's fine, and you know, yeah, but as a novelist, you can be making a fraction of the money and be like, Yeah, this is this just comes out of my head and I'm learning, and it's just it there's you can't replace that, I think.

SPEAKER_02 46:34

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 46:34

I think he is trying to figure out how to make money doing it.

SPEAKER_02 46:37

I know it's just great, yeah. It's just like it's we're very, very lucky to be doing what we're doing and to actually be able to, you know, totally like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:48

Totally. Well, Andy, we're gonna wrap up before we do, we're gonna do our little storytelling. So I've got three books here. We're gonna pick one of them, and we're gonna pick a random sentence from a random page, and I'm gonna read that sentence, and that'll be the first sentence in like a two-minute long short story. We'll just alternate sentences and see where it goes. Okay. Um, I've got Allie Land's uh Good Me, Bad Me, um, nonfiction, uh uh Joan Didion's uh The Year of Magical Thinking. Okay, which is very depressing, but beautifully written, and Darcy Coates horror novel From Below. So choose one of those.

SPEAKER_02 47:23

Um, I will do I will do Joan Didion just because we haven't done nonfiction, and also it's nonfiction, and you know, yeah, it's beautifully written.

SPEAKER_00 47:34

Give me a page between one and two twenty six.

SPEAKER_02 47:38

Um 185.

SPEAKER_00 47:41

Okay, I'm gonna quickly scan 185 and see it's the beginning of chapter 16. Um, I'm just gonna read the first line from this chapter and you can do whatever you want with it.

SPEAKER_04 47:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 47:51

Um I knew what John meant when he said we were not having any fun.

SPEAKER_02 48:02

Does it matter that I don't know who John is? That I don't know who I'm gonna do. It's your story. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 48:07

This is all improv.

SPEAKER_02 48:11

He meant, of course, that he wasn't having any fun.

SPEAKER_00 48:20

It was a tired discussion in what was rapidly becoming a tired relationship, ten years in, and he still thought the marriage would be what it was from day one.

SPEAKER_01 48:39

But of course, that's all my fault too.

SPEAKER_00 48:48

But I don't think he knew. I don't think he really knew. I don't think he knew what I was doing on those nights, on those weekends, but there was something he could sense about me that had changed. And so when he said there was no more fun, he meant I was no more fun.

SPEAKER_02 49:13

And it made me wonder, was that because I was saving all of my fun for other people other than him? Because I felt like I was still having a lot of fun, probably even more fun than I had back when we first started. And he was the only partner with whom I was allowed to have any fun.

SPEAKER_00 49:41

All of this raced through my head to such an extent, I think I lost time, forgetting he had barely even muttered those words. And the only thing that pulled me from my daydreaming was when he pulled the car over onto a dirt road that I'd never seen before, slowed and said, We need to talk.

SPEAKER_02 50:07

What do we need to talk about? I said. And exactly, where are we again? Because I feel like this is kind of a dangerous place for you to pull over.

SPEAKER_00 50:24

I stared at him, not wanting to make eye contact, but just a glance. And that's when I noticed the sweat on the back of his neck, on the side of his face, the white of his knuckles as he gripped the steering wheel, even though the car wasn't moving.

SPEAKER_01 50:42

Honey, I said as gently and softly as I could.

SPEAKER_02 50:49

Is something going on? Because I thought we were having a nice discussion about our relationship and how we need to put a little more life back into our, you know, relationship.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

Life, he muttered. And he chuckled to himself in a way that I don't think I'd ever heard before. Yeah, let's talk about life.

SPEAKER_02 51:20

And that's when I started to get scared for the first time since I had met him in college, and I thought, why are we actually here? Has he brought me to a place that is isolated and scary and dark on purpose?

SPEAKER_00 51:46

Oh, I think we call it there.

SPEAKER_02 51:48

All right, I got scared. That was so fun.

SPEAKER_00 51:51

I know, isn't that fun?

SPEAKER_02 51:53

It's so fun.

SPEAKER_00 51:54

I'm like, how do we how do we turn this into murder?

SPEAKER_02 51:57

Yeah, exactly, right? Yeah, as soon as, like, as soon as you went there, you know, at first it was like just you know, domestic.

SPEAKER_00 52:05

It was very Joan Diddy-ish.

SPEAKER_02 52:07

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 52:08

And then it went to Angie and Carmen.

SPEAKER_02 52:11

Yeah, it went into like serial murder.

SPEAKER_00 52:15

Angie, what a pleasure to talk to you again. I was I felt so honored that I got to talk to you on stage in Broomfield, and it was nice. And I feel like we didn't really cover all the same stuff, so it was good to explore your brain a little bit more.

SPEAKER_02 52:27

You were like the best interviewer, and we we and we even did two different sessions one day, but you made it so fun. Oh, good, and um, and I'm so I'm so happy that we got to do this, and especially this little story creation thing at the end. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 52:47

I love this so you're good at that, and you're very easy to talk to. And um, yep, absolutely. Let's keep in touch.

SPEAKER_02 52:54

Okay, great.

SPEAKER_00 52:54

All right, Angie. I'll talk to you soon.

SPEAKER_04 52:56

Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 52:57

Bye bye. All right, that is it. That is my conversation with Angie Kim. We really went into good detail on that story. It was kind of philosophical before it turned suspenseful, and then before it turned what I assume was going to become murderous. Um, if you want to know everything about Angie, you can check out her website, which is angie kimbooks.com. Um, hop on over to CarterWilson.com if you want to buy my books. My 11th thriller, um, When They Find Me is out this November. Please pre-order it if you like my stuff, because pre-orders make a massive difference. Um, you will be my best friend if you pre-order my book. Um, and you can pop on over to unboundwriter.com if you're interested in one-on-one coaching or our Parisian writing retreat with Alex Finlay and Clemence Michelan next uh May, May 2027. All right, that is it. Thank you as always for watching andor listening to this. And of course, another episode out just next week. In the meantime, friends, take care of the