Rewriting Motherhood: Real Stories on Memoir, Identity, and Connection with Nicole Graev Lipson | Ep. 75

What happens when you stop performing the “perfect mother” role and start telling the truth? 

Nicole Graev Lipson shares how writing about the raw, unpolished sides of motherhood not only shaped her memoir but also built a genuine connection with readers.

If you’ve ever wondered how to write your personal stories without oversharing, how to get published without a massive platform, or how to promote your book in a way that feels authentic, this conversation is for you. 

Tune in to discover how honesty, community, and choosing the right strategies can spark visibility and book sales.

In this episode, Allison and Nicole discuss:

• 04:10 – How motherhood opened the floodgates for Nicole’s writing
• 12:35 – Writing about taboo topics without oversharing
• 22:50 – Why her memoir succeeded without a huge platform
• 33:40 – The marketing strategies she focused on (and skipped)
• 47:15 – Nicole’s go-to trick for starting when you don’t know what to write

Nicole Graev Lipson is the author of the USA Today bestseller Mothers and Other Fictional Characters: a memoir in essays. 

Resources Mentioned:

• Nicole’s Website: www.nicolegraevlipson.com 
• "Thinkers Who Mother" newsletter signup: https://nicolegraevlipson.com/contact 
• Nicole’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nglipson 
• Nicole’s book: Mothers and Other Fictional Characters: A Memoir in Essays: https://bookshop.org/a/55773/9781797228563 
• Book Reco: The End Is the Beginning: A Personal History of My Mother by Jill Bialosky: https://bookshop.org/a/55773/9781451677928 

If today’s episode inspired you, please take a moment to rate and review The Author’s Edge on your favorite podcast app. Your support helps us reach more authors and bring you honest strategies that actually work. And if you know a writer who needs encouragement, share this episode with them today.

Rate, Review, & Follow The Author’s Edge

“So incredibly helpful!” >>> If that sounds like you, I’d be so grateful if you’d rate and review the show! Your support helps more authors build their brands, reach their audiences, and launch their books successfully.

Here’s how:

• Click here, scroll to the bottom, and tap to rate with five stars.
• Select “Write a Review” and tell me what you loved most about the episode!

And don’t forget to follow the podcast if you haven’t already. I’m sharing bonus episodes packed with insider tips, and I’d hate for you to miss out. Hit that follow button now.

LinkedIn @allisonlanelit
Facebook @allisonlanelit

🔔 Subscribe for more tips and insights on writing and publishing!
👍 Like, comment, and share this video if you found it helpful!

Transcript

NICOLE: 0:00

In many ways that was the very point of writing this book, was to connect with readers. And I've often thought of this book as almost, or the writing of it as a hand reached out in the dark to other readers, other women predominantly. Almost asking out of my own need first and foremost, am I alone here? Am I the only one who feels this way?

Allison: 0:53

Welcome back to the Author's Edge and ooh, do we have a treat? Because I know that there are things that you've read that just make your heart ache because you feel so seen and understood. And then, you have to put the book down, or turn away from the essay to get your breath back and then pick it back up because everything about the book is just speaking to you, that is how I feel about this next author. And Nicole Graev Lipson, who's the author of Mothers and other fictional Characters. This is a memoir in essays and I got to say, if we think about stories we tell about motherhood and womanhood aren't really the whole story. So, today, Nicole Graev Lipson is going to join us and talk about writing when we're challenging the stock characters we've been handed. And how she's helping us rewrite the stories, even the stories we accept in our minds, because those are all baloney. I should point out that Nicole is a push cart prize winner. A bestselling author fierce, tremendous woman, and I am very lucky to know her personally and have seen this book come into the world. So, if you think, oh, it seems like they know each other. A little. Yes. Over the last couple years we've got to to know each other. So, thank you Nicole, for being here. I'm so happy that I get to talk to you in the middle of your national book tour. Tell us about this unexpected journey from solitary writing where in between carpool drop-offs? because I know your life is the same as mine to public facing author. Can you just take us through the process of getting the agent and finding the publisher? And getting it, doing it.

NICOLE: 3:16

Yes, I'd be happy to. And first, I just want to say thank you, thank you for that beautiful introduction. I am honored and touched by everything that you've said. And yeah, mothers and other fictional characters began several years ago. I have as many writers feel, always been a writer, right? Since, I was a young child. And writing has been central to my life and career at certain points in my journey. Spending time as a freelance writer in my twenties, teaching high school English for many years while also writing on the side. But interestingly enough, and counterintuitively, I think it wasn't until I had children, and I have three of them. That writing really began to take center stage in my life. I felt after I had my children almost like the floodgates open, I felt as if I had so much to say, almost as if my children and the experience of motherhood was my muse. I don't mean that in any romantic way, but I just mean that those experiences filled me with creative energy. And while I found, while my children were very young, I found it hard to write for all the obvious reasons. All of the ways that our energies are drained, the million directions were pulled in. But once my youngest was about two, and I was past the sort of breastfeeding, diaper bag.

Allison: 4:59

Laundry. Laundry, laundry.

NICOLE: 5:01

Yes. Once I had landed on shore after those years, I was actually filled pretty suddenly with a urgent and desperate need to center my writing life in a way that I hadn't for a long time. And I've thought a lot about that, and I'm happy to get into any of it if you're interested.

Allison: 5:26

I'm interested in everything you have to say. I know you're listening and you're like, Allison, please control thyself. But you know, when someone captures in their own intimate act of writing about their life. What you also feel but you haven't been able to put into words, it makes you want to throw the book across the room. And also hug you really tight. And that is how I feel when I hear you read during our literati club, our writer's group meetups. And that is how I feel I mean, it's your writing is so rich and potent that it's like a flowerless chocolate cake. I can only take in so much. And like how do you capture these moments and then whittle them down to five words, which other writers would take five pages to explain to us. I feel like I'm in the room with you. So, as I know that this is for sure gushing and effusive because that is me, but I also want you to help people understand that the thing that you're writing for yourself. Understanding your own experience is worthwhile and a memoir in essays is possible. And it connects people. Can you talk a little bit about how that act of writing that helps you connect with yourself is actually something that is now out in the world? What does that feel like?

NICOLE: 7:17

In many ways that was the very point of writing this book, was to connect with readers. And I've often thought of this book as almost, or the writing of it as like a hand reached out in the dark to other readers, other women predominantly. Almost asking out of my own need first and foremost, am I alone here? Am I the only one who feels this way? And when I say this way, I should probably backtrack and say, that a lot of what inspired me and motivated me to write was this feeling after I had children that I was at once myself and not myself. I felt in many ways that I had stepped into this sort of fictional character of Mother with a capital M. And that I was almost living two lives at once. This sort of complex, complicated, messy, contradictory inner life. And this much more simplified outer life as a mother. And trying to perform this character of Mother as I believed at the time I needed to perform it in order to be a good mother. And by the time I was I had a few years of motherhood under my belt. Had learned a few things. Had become more questioning of the kind of fictions that had been spoonfed to me about how I was supposed to live my life as a mother. I really got to a point where I couldn't take the psychic dissonance anymore. And the writing for me was a way of sorting through the fact and fiction in my own life. And trying then to speak to readers. Readers whose lives might look like mine or might not look like mine. Because I think while the feeling of embodying both a fictional character and your own self can feel really acute for women. I think it's something anyone can relate to. And it's also something I go into in my book as well, talking about the fictions that men and boys have to contend with as well. You know, I'm heterosexual woman, married to a man, and I'm the mother of a son and two daughters. But I think a lot about those fictions as well. So, I wanted the writing to feel always while I was going along and crafting these pieces like I wanted it to give readers that feeling that you have when you're sitting down with one of your closest friends. And you are listening to them offer up something vulnerable and intimate about themselves. And it feels like such a gift because it gives you permission as well to open up and share something vulnerable and true about yourself. And I think what we're doing as humans when we confide in another trusted person is asking, hoping in some way. Do you feel this way too? Am I alone in this feeling or can I find community in this complexity, this discomfort, these questions?

Allison: 11:01

Oh, you're doing it again. You're making my heartache. Oh, your language is so precise and crisp and warm. And I know that comes from practice and really understanding your experience. And yet now, I think we can tell that you're not an extrovert, likely I'm guessing. And yet, you are promoting a book that's an entirely different skill. But what I see you doing is not selling, but you're sharing, you're welcoming conversation and observing other people as they also enter the conversation. Can you talk a little bit about the difference between writing something that you know is revealing. And then the risky, jumbled feelings of going on stage or being in front of people who have read your work. And they, of course love it. USA today bestselling author, congratulations. It's a freaking amazing thing to have achieved. But also these people know so much about you. How are you handling or navigating those conversations because you're doing it so masterfully. But I think people, when they write memoir or essays that are memoir, their first worry is, but people are going to know so much about me. It's healing for me, but when I put it out there, people are going to judge. Can you talk about the side of I'm sharing versus I'm revealing too much?

NICOLE: 12:55

Hmm. Yeah. I've thought a lot about this and I would absolutely say that my book is one that would get described and has been described as risky in some ways, in some of the material that I share, some of the feelings that I share. For instance, I write about finding myself attracted to a younger man in the midstream of an otherwise happy, healthy, long-term marriage. I write about the feeling of wanting to escape my family and my children for solitude. Not forever, this sort of real urge as an introvert and as somebody who needs alone time, like I need air and water almost. You know, I write about that desire. I write about the struggle to decide what to do with frozen embryos left over from a successful round of IVF. And really thinking, contemplating what these embryos are? If they're not life and yet, which I firmly believe as a pro-choice woman. And yet finding myself attached to them, right? And what does that mean? So, all of these things, I think might be described as taboo topics in certain ways, but really when I think about it, is it so taboo to be in a long-term marriage and find yourself fleetingly attracted to another person? Is there any long-term married person who hasn't felt that way from time to time? I think what I came to discover is that a lot of these things that we as women especially have been taught are unspeakable, are actually just very normal, natural parts of being human. And we have been taught that they're unspeakable because for some reason it is inconvenient to our culture and the patriarchy for us to speak them. And so, I began to really think of sharing these truths as a way of just doing my own small part to normalize some of these conversations that women are afraid to have and carry secretly inside of themselves and feel burdened by. So, I think it made it much easier for me to write about and then to speak publicly about some of these things when I began to really understand them in my mind as things worthy of being spoken and things that our culture needed to hear, right? In certain ways. So, I guess because I felt like I had a larger mission than simply airing my own dirty laundry, that really gave me confidence and security and a feeling of safety talking about these things. Also, I will say that, as a reader, as a passionate reader of memoir, I make this error myself all the time where I'll finish a memoir of, and I will pretty much feel that the writer is my best friend. Like I will feel that I know them inside and out the way that I know my closest friends. And the truth is that this book is highly curated. And everything that is on the page isn't something that came out in a fit of passion, or rage, or heightened emotion. But something that is a detail carefully selected. And for every detail that I included, there are thousands, perhaps millions that didn't go in. So, I feel like I can stand by what's there because I've thought so much about it.

Allison: 17:01

I just want to peel back some of the things that you're mentioning here because memoir is hard. Memoir is hard to write because the memoirs who want to publish their work struggle with what the story is they're going to tell. Oftentimes those memoirs start as essays, and then they become a novel about them. Or it's a memoir in essays like you've written, or Mariana Marlow has written a memoir of a feminist. I have it behind me somewhere. It's called Portrait of a Feminist, which is also memoir and essays or anything that Abigail Thomas has written people. She is, I love her word, freaking delightful. And her latest still life at 80 she is wonderful, but it is revealing, but it's not meant to be an expose. You are not putting yourself on Jerry Springer. And it might have been when you first, on that first draft, when you're like, I have got to get this down, but you're not polishing or curating when you're writing that first draft in your car during carpool waiting, which is when I usually get my greatest ideas when there's just a pencil in the back of a dry cleaning receipt, you know? Yes, absolutely. Why wouldn't you? Exactly. So, your ability to go through that process of the draft, the understanding yourself. Then, understanding that this is going to be curated for publication to the world, and it's not about exactly what happened to you. It's about the themes and the universal connections that can help all of us understand ourselves and each other better. I love what you said about, you know, this happened, but please tell me I'm not alone in this. And I think by you sharing those experiences, you're saying, yeah, let's talk about it. It's the more you say something, the less shameful it is. I mean, the word menopause, used to be something that, oh, she's going through the change and we even had to whisper the change. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. She, breast cancer used to be a you, nobody would talk about periods. I mean, god forbid. But my mother was a language arts teacher for seventh grade, and seventh grade is a really interesting hormone charged age. She would, throughout the eighties, make all the kids say over and over, vagina. And I'm saying it loud for you. Vagina. Until it wasn't even funny or embarrassing anymore. And then, she'd do the same with a penis, penis. Because you have to say the words. Yeah. Otherwise, if you don't say the words, the one word that does come out that you haven't heard in a while, yeah, maybe that's a shock. Yeah. But you're taking all of the shock out of it by just talking about it. Thank heavens.

NICOLE: 20:24

Yeah. And I will say too, that while there is discomfort in speaking something that feels risky, there's also great discomfort keeping it to yourself at times and hiding it. So it sounds, and so much loneliness. And so much loneliness. So, at some point it becomes almost like which of these two, which of these two uncomfortable spaces do I want to be in? And for me, there was no question. But I do want to say something important that is, I think a more recent kind of revelation to me, although it shouldn't have been. That one of the reasons why I could write what I write is because I feel safe in all of my relationships, right? I could write about some of the things I write about because I know that I am in a marriage that can tolerate a degree of complexity. I would not have written the things that I wrote if I thought that there was the potential that they would destroy my life. And I think for any writer, those risks are going to look different. The circumstances are going to be different. And I'm really hesitant to talk in any prescriptive ways about how someone should or shouldn't write about things that are deeply personal to them. Because everyone has to weigh those own risks for themselves, knowing the relationships in their life, knowing the people in their life, knowing their own tolerance for discomfort. And that's also a journey, I published a number of these essays as standalone pieces along the way, so I got some practice along the way, right? In feeling what it's like to share some intimate truths publicly. But I do think it's very private and personal. We are all different.

Allison: 22:23

So true. Let me look at your journey here from another perspective. So many authors are advised, essay collections don't sell. There's no market for memoir, yet yours hit a major national bestseller list with the USA today bestseller list. What strategies or moments helped this book break through?

NICOLE: 22:53

I wish I knew. I Mean, I think I don't have some tremendous platform. I think if I were to try to gas part of it is being in community with other writers and other people who care about some of the things that I write about. So, while I'm not some sort of, influencer with thousands and thousands of followers, I do feel like I am somebody who has connected with a lot of like-minded people within my own community, my own, you know, you can go in concentric circles here, right? My own town, my own state, my own, you know, to like the internet writing spaces online. And I think following my interests and my own passions led me to meet other people who share those interests and passions. And I think from there, word of mouth because when you're connected with readers who are like-minded and who are excited to read your book, if they read it and love it they're going to spread the word. And I really, I'm no expert, but I think if I were to try to learn from my experience publishing this book and apply it to whatever my next book is, I think just personal relationships. It seems so small, right? Like how can my relationship with this one person who isn't a celebrity, just is another, debut author who lives all across the country for me. How can that help me? But it does personal relationships and caring about other people and following the passions of your work, I think does have this kind of momentum building effect. So, that's what I would say about that. And like always. I know this is so cliche. It's so cliche, but I guess there's a reason things are cliche sometimes, right? Because there's truth in them. I was very nervous before my book tour not so much about speaking about private things, but simply because I spend most of my life in my pajamas at home writing, you know? With my children. Before this book, I can't say this is true now, but before this book, I did not have a ton of public speaking experience. I was not very public facing and I was really nervous about that. And it was very hard for me to picture what this persona was going to be that I brought into the world as a published author, you know? And I felt like I had to think about that and how did I want to present myself and what should my talking points be? And so forth. And what has been so wonderful to discover along this post-publication journey is oh, I can just be myself. And if I am myself in this public way, maybe I'll connect with the same types of people who I connect with in my private and personal life, right? And the people that I connect with in my private and personal life and who are my friends and. A lot of them enjoy my writing. And so maybe if I just act like myself as my public self, I'll find those other people out there who are like-minded and would enjoy my writing. So, that's been honestly one of the greatest surprises and joys of this process is feeling like I could just relax into myself eventually and trust that the more that I am myself in this promotional publicity stage, the more people will find this book for the right reasons.

Allison: 26:57

So true. I have a couple things to say about your own assessment where you've said you're not an expert but you're going to guess, I am an expert and I'm going to tell you why your book has stood out as an observer, and we have not talked about this in advance. But here's what I observe you doing is that every author's marketing campaign is different. As different as eye color. Every eye color is absolutely, you might have blue eyes and I might have. I have one blue and one green like a weirdo. But you know, later when we're together again, you'll be like, oh, it's super weird, Allison. I know. But you chose what worked for you. You don't have to do everything. In fact, just like when you go to the Cheesecake Factory and they hand you that telephone book full of the menu and you feel like you have to, do I have to read everything? No. You want a salad with chicken on it. Just go look for that, right? Yeah. Or you want the like veggie spring rolls. Don't feel like, you don't even have to learn the whole menu before you decide. I know, kind of the spaces that I like and that fit my life. You've done, i've observed you do being interviewed on podcasts, and I've observed you setting up and appearing in person at book events, either at bookstores. And I think you coordinated that with a summer family vacation, like spring break. Let's go the little family trips and then along the way we're going to stop at some places. But I don't see you creating lead magnets and doing courses, and traveling internationally. I mean, there are so many ways to market a book and yourself that run people ragged. And the biggest mistake that authors make, particularly those who don't have a big marketing team behind them where they feel like they have to do it themselves is that they try and do a little bit of everything. Nobody ever orders the sampler platter. And there's a reason why, because it sucks. It's like maybe two things you like and four things you don't like, but you think, we'll get a couple of things. No. The sampler platter, if you ever go to a restaurant, no one ever orders it because it blows. And there's a reason why that also doesn't work in marketing. You have to choose what works for you, what fits into your life, and then rinse and repeat because you only get better and one win leads to the next win. Which is often a bigger win opens the next big door. And you've done that so well.

NICOLE: 30:11

Thank you. It's really interesting to hear, right? Like an outside perspective on what Yes. My assessment of you. Like what I'm just doing Like fumbling in the dark. But I think yeah, what you say, I'm sort of, and this has just always been part of my temperament. I'm easily overwhelmed. I'd like to focus in and lock in on a really intensely. On a small number of things as opposed to try to keep lots of plates spinning in the air. As a mother of three and.

Allison: 30:41

Right. They have your plates spinning.

NICOLE: 30:42

We have a lot of plates spinning. So, I try to really focus on what's essential and that's hard to know with a book where there really isn't a playlist right. And you're feeling things out. But just almost by necessity I didn't have the time or the emotional bandwidth to do anything that I didn't enjoy doing. I enjoy going on podcasts and talking with people about writing, or womanhood, or feminism, or motherhood. I really enjoy in person bookstore events. I love bookstores. I love getting the chance to meet readers one-on-one. Like that all is very exciting to me, and I'm sure there are other things that I would enjoy. It's not that I wouldn't enjoy teaching classes or taking on manuscript consultation clients or whatnot. I think I would, but I feel I can only do so much.

Allison: 31:33

Right. And then, the mechanics of the behind the scenes, it's like an iceberg. We see you at the event. But there's all the preparation and the driving there and back, and then what are you going to say, and emails back and forth. So, there's a shit ton of activity and the person who attends the event sees you for an hour and a half. Right. There was a lot that they didn't see and that you have to do. For the person thinking like why can't she do three events a week? That's only one an event's one hour. Like it's really not. It's one event is probably 10 hours of communication and coordination and emails back and forth, and is this date okay? And then, promoting it and so you do want to choose these tactics, these activities. If you're going to focus on podcasts, and I've said it before and I'll say it again. Podcasts sell books, your book, and the link to it will be in the show notes. So, podcast sell books because the audience has already self-selected a topic. It's not like media coverage, which is general. Maybe you're in Newsweek, or you're in, I don't know, Cosmo. But that reader could be reading for the latest like, I don't know, like is the leg of the new pants going to be like a bell bottom or is it cropped? Who knows? Like they might be there or they might be flipping to the book recos. But podcasts are different because the audience is already segregated. They've already said, we are here for this. So, that's so smart. And it's repeatable. So, it becomes easier for you.

NICOLE: 33:28

I think that's really true. Yeah.

Allison: 33:31

And yeah. So, also I wanted to point out that for those who don't know you, your newsletter that I subscribed to thinkers who mother really signals a belief in writing communities and the power of community. So, how has showing up for other people shaped your visibility or your activities as an author?

NICOLE: 33:56

Yeah. I mean I think it goes back to that idea of community and that comes really naturally because writing is so solitary, I don't want to feel alone in it. And thinkers Who Mother, which is by the way, the title of one of the essays in my book which explores the under acknowledged intellectual aspects of caregiving and motherhood. Every issue, I open with some reflection on the writing process where I've been, you know, was sort of like, sort of mental writing space I've been in. And then, I always spotlight, I call it My Thinker Spotlight. And it's somebody who is a caregiver, who also is a creative person in some way. So, it's a lot of visual artists, mothers who are visual artists, writers who are visual artists. And it's my chance to ask them questions about their process and their work. I was an art history minor in college, and so while I'm not, I don't have any particular, visual art skill myself, but I really enjoy thinking about it and talking about it and observing it. So, that's been a really lovely outlet. And again, I think just having the kinds of genuine conversations that I'm drawn to and then putting them out in the world publicly, like it feels almost like a dinner party. Not forcing anyone to the dinner party. I'm not like, get inside and sit down at my table, but it's there. I'm not one of those people who has like publishing schedules for my newsletter. I'm not like, I have to post c hell or high water, like every third Thursday. Like I just wait until there's a good space in my work life. And I ends up being probably around once every month or five weeks I put out an issue. And so, I just never wanted it to feel like it was pulling me from the core of what I really want to be doing, which is.

Allison: 35:56

And it shows up like a little gift.

NICOLE: 35:59

Yeah. So it's fun. It's a different type of writing outlet. But I never wanted to feel like I couldn't get to my essay or book writing because I had to put out a newsletter on a certain schedule. But I really enjoy doing it and seeing who shows up.

Allison: 36:16

Okay. I want to pivot. I want to ask you as a reader, what's a book you are loving right now and you think people should know about?

NICOLE: 36:25

Well,

Allison: 36:25

I recently finished Jill Bialosky, The end is the beginning. Do you know about this book? I don't know. No.

NICOLE: 36:33

Okay. It's this beautiful memoir. Jill Bialosky is like a sort of beloved celebrated editor. I think she's the publisher at Norton or executive editor at Norton. And she's a poet and she's written several books. But this memoir is a memoir about her mother who died actually during COVID. But it tells her life story backwards. We start with her death, and then she tells the story of her life, like moving backwards through the decades. So, she gets younger as the story unfolds, and you just begin to understand her character more and more deeply. It's almost like you're digging back further with each chapter into her origins and also the historical period that she grew up in, right? Like having come of age in like 1940s, 1950s. And what the limitations of her environment at the time, what was possible for women and the trajectory of her life after that because of her circumstances. And I just you know, I've thought a lot about this, but I think there's so much, especially when writing memoir about real people. A lot of times there's this kind of knee jerk assumption that there's something inherently unsavory about. Like, Oh, you're airing other people's dirty laundry, or you are crossing some line. And absolutely, there are memoirs out there that I think have crossed bright red lines and written about real people in ways that aren't loving or sensitive. But this memoir to me is such a beautiful example of how writing can be an act of love and writing about somebody in their truest, capturing their truest essence. Not looking at them with rose colored lenses, but really seeking to understand them and all their complexity in some ways is just a profound gift. So, I was very moved by it. Highly recommend it.

Allison: 38:35

I love it. We will have it in the show notes. Now, before we call this podcast complete, what's one step that authors can take today to capture their experience. What would you invite people to do to either connect or write so that they too can connect with, and be a connector like you have?

NICOLE: 39:06

Well,

Allison: 39:06

I don't know.

NICOLE: 39:07

You know,

Allison: 39:07

some people keep journals, some people don't. I think sometimes it's hard to know. If there's something that you want to write about like, what's the way in?

NICOLE: 39:16

And the facing the blank page can be very scary. So, if there's anyone listening who thinks there's this thing that I have wanted to write about, but I don't really know my way in, I don't really know where to start. One little trick thing that I like to do sometimes is not on the computer, not on a laptop, not in a blank document, but just handwritten in a journal. Just start your sentence, I want to write about. And then just go. Because it gives you, it's so funny because just those four words or however many words it is I want to write about. Creates a little bit of comfortable distance between for me, at least myself as a writer and what it is on the page. It's not that I'm writing the thing, I'm writing about wanting to write about the thing. And that allows me to just get it out. I want to write about that time my brother X, Y, Z. And then, I'm just writing about wanting to write about it. And what I might write for I to write about it. But I'm not writing the thing proper yet.

Allison: 40:21

Right.

NICOLE: 40:22

You're getting ready to get ready. Yeah. But sometimes you have to give yourself like, this is what I'm going to do when I'm ready, because otherwise you really haven't decided what the action is.

Allison: 40:38

So, that's really helpful just to define what is it that you're going to write about and give you that kind of North star.

NICOLE: 40:46

Yeah, exactly.

Allison: 40:48

Oh, you're so wise and amazing.

NICOLE: 40:52

I mean,

Allison: 40:52

Can you just follow me around every day telling me that. Yes, you have my cell phone number. I will be texting you once a day every day.

NICOLE: 41:02

I should wish my children just said Mom, you are just so wise and amazing.

Allison: 41:08

Yes. My children don't think that I'm either one of those things either, but they do brag about me. Oh, but not to my face. That's nice. No. Yeah. Not, they tell people like, my mom's a writer. I'm like, actually, I'm a book coach and a marketer. But yes, we're all writers and we all yes should be. Nicole, thank you so much for being here and sharing your personal story and your insights and inviting people to join you and community. And all the fictional perspectives of motherhood, which there are many. I hope that you listening as you are sitting there waiting for your daughter to get out of basketball practice. That might just be me. Maybe it, I'm not talking to myself. I'm just saying I know your life. And it's time for you to write. I know you've been thinking about it and putting it off. And thinking maybe I'll go to a cabin in the woods. You don't need to do that. You can write in the slices of moments of the day. You really can. And if you are a mom doing carpool. Carpool is the greatest time to capture a fleeting thought. Don't put that pressure on yourself where you feel like, oh, I have 45 minutes, now, I sit down and then you end up, checking your email for the 45 minutes instead of writing. It's too much pressure. What you want is your favorite pen. And I suggest, and Nicole, I'm sure you have a favorite pen, but I suggest just because we need to be efficient. A pen with a clicker. Don't get a pen with, I call this like my go bagg is, these pens for my Go Bagg clicker. But also this is a energy gel, but it's permanent gel ink. I don't know why would they have to say permanent. Middle tip and it. It dries faster than you think, so you don't have to wait and it's not smudgy. Get yourself a pen and be ready to capture your thoughts. If you think, oh I have a long commute, get Otter AI on your phone. It is free. It's an app, and you can talk out your thoughts and capture them. What we don't want is for you to try and make mental notes like, oh, when I do finally sit down and get the whole 35 minutes to myself, this is what I'm going to write about. You won't remember and someone will interrupt you. So, I'm telling you now. These are my tips. Nicole, do you have a favorite pen or a tip that you want to.

NICOLE: 43:59

I wish that I had it, next to me so I could just hold it up, but I am, no, I do not have, I don't really use fancy pens. My favorite pen is just like the, oh gosh, is it Bic or paper mate? But it does have a top, it says the pointy top and it's clear. You know which one I'm talking about? It's yes, I do. I have some it's like hexagonal, it's hexagonal Yes. In nature. And it has a black end or a blue end. And Yes, they last, yes, they're old school and you can get old school a pack of 20.

Allison: 44:29

A pack of 20 for eight bucks. Yeah. Yes, I would hold it up if I had it, but we will have that link in the show notes too because those are old school. And just so you know, this is not a fancy pen. This also comes in.

NICOLE: 44:41

I think of anything that's not a that bicker paper mate thing is fancy.

Allison: 44:46

Yeah. The great thing about those bicks is that the ink does not fade.

NICOLE: 44:53

That's exactly it. And it lasts forever. I don't know why they don't run out, but they just don't.

Allison: 44:58

Because it's not gel. It's actually ink.

NICOLE: 45:00

Yeah, it's a good thing.

Allison: 45:02

So, the gel gets juicy. It's gross, so we don't want a juicy pen. When you're busy and you're trying to capture something, don't get the juicy leaking pen.

NICOLE: 45:13

No. My little bick paper mate thing When I see them, they look like friends. Oh hi. There you are again.

Allison: 45:18

Mm-hmm.

NICOLE: 45:19

Yes. Flying around my bag.

Allison: 45:21

Exactly. I do have a bunch, but mine are upstairs because I was writing letters to my daughter who's at camp. Yes. And I love writing long hand, but of course she can't read cursive because they don't teach cursive anymore. Mm-hmm.

NICOLE: 45:33

True. True.

Allison: 45:34

Which is terrible because my print looks like chicken scratches, but whatever. I'll work on it. I will work on my handwriting. You work on your writing. Nicole, keep sharing what you have. You're a genius and I appreciate you.

NICOLE: 45:52

I appreciate you too, Allison. Thank you so much for having me on. This has been such a joy.