Marissa chats with Liza Wiemer about her newest YA contemporary - THE ASSIGNMENT - as well as protecting yourself emotionally while conducting a lot of difficult research; choosing to include multiple perspectives in a book (and one way to handle third person vs. first person POV); how books can inspire readers to stand up in the face of injustice; and saying "yes" when opportunities come along, because you just never know where life is going to take you.
Books discussed in this episode can be purchased from your local independent bookstore or buy them online from the Happy Writer bookshop.org store (that benefits indie bookstores) at https://bookshop.org/shop/marissameyer
Find out more and follow The Happy Writer on social media: https://www.marissameyer.com/podcast/
Marissa chats with Liza Wiemer about her newest YA contemporary - THE ASSIGNMENT - as well as protecting yourself emotionally while conducting a lot of difficult research; choosing to include multiple perspectives in a book (and one way to handle third person vs. first person POV); how books can inspire readers to stand up in the face of injustice; and saying "yes" when opportunities come along, because you just never know where life is going to take you.
Books discussed in this episode can be purchased from your local independent bookstore or buy them online from the Happy Writer bookshop.org store (that benefits indie bookstores) at https://bookshop.org/shop/marissameyer
Find out more and follow The Happy Writer on social media: https://www.marissameyer.com/podcast/
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Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to the happy writer. This is a podcast that aims to bring readers, more books to enjoy and to help authors find more joy in their writing. I'm your host, Marissa Meyer. Thanks so much for joining me. One thing that has been making me happy is that last night was a new moon. Um, and we ended up sitting out on our back patio for a couple of hours just looking up at the stars and we saw three shooting stars last night. And I'm sure there are people who live out in the country who maybe see shooting stars all the time. But I had not seen a shooting star since I was a little girl out on a camping trip with my family. And so it felt extremely magical. And I was so excited and my girls were so excited. Um, and of course we all made, uh, probably way more than three wishes. Cause how can you stop once you get started? So it was a beautiful little moment that we had last night that made me very, very happy. Uh, and of course I am so happy to be talking to today's guest. She's an award winning educator and the author of the why a contemporary novel. Hello, her newest contemporary. The assignment just came out on August 25th, please. Welcome Lisa. Wiemer. Thank you so much for having me, Marissa. This is just so great. My pleasure. I'm so excited that you could be here. How, how is life in your bunker? I don't even know where you're located. I am located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and you actually kind of got me inspired to want to watch the night sky and see if I could see a student star. Cause it's been awhile for me to, as a matter of fact, I was thinking, I don't even remember the last time I saw a shooting star, so, but I know I have seen one. Yeah, at least 20 plus years, at least. Yeah. Are you kind of somewhere rural? Um, I'm in a suburb. So there are times that fits a cloudless sky without a doubt. You can see the stars and, and get a beautiful view of the night sky. Yeah. Far enough away from the city that, that I have that privilege. Yeah. Yeah. I've forgotten where actually in Eastern Washington right now, we usually live over in Tacoma, Washington, but we're on the other side of the state right now. And so things are just darker. There's just not as much light pollution. Uh, and so I actually, like, I downloaded this app on my phone that tells you what the constellations are and we found four planets and I'm like, who knew that those were planets up there? I mean, I knew kind of, but I didn't know which ones. And I dunno, it was just so cool is really cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It sounds like so much fun. And what an amazing
Speaker 3:Same thing to do with your girl?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, they were enjoying it for sure. So it was, it was a really special night for all of us. Uh, I hope I hope that you do go and that you get to see some shooting stars soon.
Speaker 3:That would be wonderful. Lots of wishes to me.
Speaker 2:Yes. Um, so the assignment is your new book that's coming out. Um, or when this airs, it will have been out for about a week. Um, and I have to say the assignment is one of those books that I just know is going to stay with me for a long time. Uh, you know, sometimes you read a book and you just know like, I'm going to be thinking about this book years from now and something will strike a memory or a thought or a feeling, and I'm going to go straight back to the assignment and the story that you told, I don't know of course, if that was something you were intending to do when you were writing, but you definitely did it for me. So I'm so excited to have you here and get to talk about it.
Speaker 3:Thank you. I mean, I think for every single author, that that would be a dream come true. We all right. Hoping that it will stick with readers and especially something as important as a novel that promotes being upstanders versus bias standers
Speaker 2:[inaudible]
Speaker 3:It really does make a difference. You would hope that if someone were to experience an injustice or witness an act that was hateful, that they would remember of all and have the courage take courage from that and speak up because silence never helps. Those that are victimized. It only helps those who are, uh, the ones that are perpetrating the acts of hate. So we must speak up.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You know, and it's so easy to stay silent and so hard to speak up. And I think that a lot of people, they want to be the courageous ones that stand up for what they know is right. They want to be the ones that, you know, when they see an injustice, they don't just stand on the sidelines and watch it happen. But I don't think everyone knows how to do that. And this book, in some ways, it's almost kind of gives a roadmap for, here are some things you could do to make a difference in a situation like this, which I find very empowering. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Very important to know that there are different ways of making a difference. When you see an injustice, not everyone is going to be like my main characters, Cade and Logan. And that was the reason why I put in secondary characters that show different ways of having an impact. Uh, I'm not going to give a spoiler, but there's one character Heather. She does something that I absolutely love as a way of protesting. And then there's Daniel. He does his own thing and also Mason, and they all take different approaches, but each one is equally important. So you don't have to always make a grand gesture. Not everyone's going to be comfortable with that. And so hopefully by the time readers finish this book, they will be thinking about ways that they would be comfortable to make a difference. It's also much easier when you're in a huge crowd and you're not alone and you're all marching together. But when it's just you or you and one other person, it can be tremendously frightening to stand against the crowd, or I should say, speak up against the crowd. So, and that's just part of human nature, human nature. We have this, you know, fight and flight and, you know, instinct. And so we naturally want to protect ourselves. And I think it's the second thought that comes in. Oh wow. Maybe I should do something about this. So we're fighting something. That's just part of our natural instinct. And I think that's what separates us from being animals and what makes us wonderful human beings is the ability to make that choice. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So now I feel like I should probably put a pause there and why don't you tell listeners what exactly the assignment is about?
Speaker 3:So the assignment is about two teens who receive an assignment in their history class from their favorite teacher. And this assignment asks them to pretend that they're Nazis. Not only are they supposed to pretend that they're Nazis, but they need to take the perspective of either exterminating the Jews during world war two, or to put them in ghettos work camps and sterilize that, and this was actually based on a real debate that occurred during the Wannsee conference on January 20th, 1942. And it really, they called it a be a debate, but there was actually no debate. It was a conference that brought these 15 Nazi leaders together, where they talked about deciding how to implement the elimination of Europe's 11 million Jews, which we all today know as the Holocaust. So yes, at that time there were a few Nazis that said, well, you know, instead of just killing them outright, maybe we could sterilize them. Maybe we could put them in work camps. And as my brilliant editor, Beverly Horwood said it was either murder them right away or work them to that. And so that is really not something that anyone should ever debate. It crosses a moral line and to ask students to justify genocide is absolutely wrong and that's what happened. So I went into the book, you know, I'd heard of kind of a synopsis of what the book was about. And I had made the assumption that the assignment that inspired the book was, uh, the third wave experiment, um, which I had read about long time ago. It was happened in the sixties, in a high school classroom, in which a teacher, more or less pretended the liquid let's all get together and use the classroom as a social experiment and how easy or difficult would it be to get my students to conform similar to how the Nazis did. Um, and it turns out it was extremely easy, um, and really quite, quite frightening. And I'd heard about that as a experiment and I just assumed that that was what you were basing the book on. Um, and then of course reading the book and reading your notes about it and discovered no that what you took inspiration from actually happened quite recently. Can you talk about that? Yeah, absolutely. So there definitely has been references to the book that you're talking about and the real experience that became a book by Todd Strauss called the wave. And my editor Beverly had also referenced that when she received the manuscript for the assignment, what ended up happening is I was in upstate New York in April of ninth of 2017. And it was April 4th, pouring rain. And I got to the small town where I was supposed to have a book signing. I was there early in desperate need of caffeine. And I pulled into the parking lot of a grocery store, unfortunately because of the rain, I couldn't get out of the car without risking being drenched. And I did not want to go to my book signing, soaking wet. So I went on Facebook and that is when I saw an article about two teens refused to do an assignment advocating for the Holocaust. What shocked me was that at that very moment, I was in that small town and I went, Oh my gosh, how is this possible? I'm a girl from Wisconsin. And I'm in a town that has given an assignment, asking students to advocate for murder. And I contacted my aunt who had posted the story, asked her, you know, a little bit more about it, told her I happened to be in that very town at that very moment. And she started sending me more articles. I picked up my cell phone and called a few other friends of mine saying, can you believe it I'm in this small town, you've got to read this article. And I saw that the two brave teens who had spoken up were a Jordan, April and Archer shirtless. And I was thinking that if I had been at that high school to speak, I would have sought them out. And I would have actually said something like, Oh, you know, these incredible two brave teens. And given them the recognition that I felt that they deserved, but I wasn't going to be at a high school. I was going to a bookstore. So I wasn't sure what to do. I just knew I had to do something. And I decided that I would ask the bookstore owner if I could purchase copies of my debut novel, right. Each one of the teens in note and ask him to send the books to the teens. So that was my plan. Well, it turns out the plan wasn't needed because I took four steps into the bookstore, looked up and there was Jordan April. And I said, Oh my gosh, it's the world famous Jordan? And she said to me, how do you know who I am? You gotta look at my phone. I've been telling everyone about you and what you did. And I think you are so brave. And that was a defining moment. And, you know, one more situation that led to writing this novel. So that seems like it was the beginning. And seeing that article was the beginning, but actually it started on July 25th, 2016. When the librarian who had invited me to the area, contacted me and said, would I be willing to come to the area to, you know, some high schools? And she would work with me to arrange this. She'd never done anything like that before. And so for both of us, it was a bit of a gamble, like, alright, what, what might happen? So I think it's a great lesson to everyone about how saying yes can have a profound impact and change not only your life, but potentially the lives of many, many other people. Hmm. No, that's so true. You never know what something is going to lead to. Exactly. Well, I, for one, I got to say, I'm really impressed with your ability to remember exact dates. I worked on that exactly what day? That's amazing. I can't remember what happened last Tuesday. I can't remember what happened last Tuesday, either last Tuesday, what day was that? I have no clue, but it's, so this book, it obviously it's drawing a lot from the real world. Um, and it's kind of difficult as a reader to kind of know where the line is drawn between fact and, and what's based in reality, obviously inspired by a true high school, uh, assignment inspired by two truly brave teens. Um, and of course all of the stuff, the Holocaust and Nazi Germany, and just all of the horrible, horrible things that happened during that time. Uh, what, I mean, I imagine you must have done a ton of research into Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, and it's still hard. There's so many awful things to learn and to read about how take me through your research process a little bit. And how did you kind of, I don't know, mentally or emotionally protect yourself while researching, you know, so many of these things. Wow, that's a great question. It was not easy. And looking back, looking back at this three year journey, I can tell you, there were definitely times when I was a very intense person. I didn't realize how intense I was until people pointed that out to me. And it was mostly, you know, maybe, you know, a family member or my agents saying, wow, you know, it's okay. You're, you know, you're, you're really intense with us right now. And that, that made me pause and think about how entrenched I became in living in a world that was filled with so much hatred and learning about what happened and researching the history really put me in that mindset pretty much all the time, because even when I wasn't writing, I was thinking about it. Or if I wasn't writing, I was doing research. I was on the internet and watching original footage during that time period. And that was extremely intense. I conducted interviews with real people. I listened to interviews. I read book after book after book. And one thing that I realized is that I had thought before I had gone into the writing process, that I had known a lot about the Holocaust. And what I realized now is that I will never know that much about the Holocaust, unless I chose to become an expert in that field, but even experts in the field, there is still so much to learn and so much to discover because everyone who was involved during that time period has a story. So, and it was so vast. And so one of the challenges for me was deciding what to include in this book and how not to make it too heavy and too burdensome to create light and fun moments and hopefully to create moments where people would laugh or at least smile. And that was truly a challenge for me. So I am glad I'm done with that intensity, but it gave me a sensitivity and an appreciation and a respect for those who survived it and came out of this experience, being able to live their life and contribute to this world in a positive, amazing way. And I also mourn the loss of the millions and millions and millions of people who were murdered. And we will never know what their potential was because it was snuffed out. And so we have a responsibility to day to speak up against all hatred. And we have a responsibility to not allow anyone to perpetrate acts of violence against those who are in a position of being marginalized. And that's not easy because as we talked about, it's easy to turn our back. It's easy to say this isn't my problem. Or, you know, I'm not a part of that group. Someone else can deal with it. No, the only way that we can learn from the past is if each one of us says we are not going to turn away when we see injustice.
Speaker 2:Yeah. If he could see me, I'm just sitting here nodding, along to everything you say, you could be a great public speaker.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:I would say I stand with you. I stand behind you. I believe everything you're saying,
Speaker 3:Yay. We won. Stand with me, speak with me.
Speaker 2:It was interesting. Cause I know, you know, as a reader, you only see the tip of the iceberg as far as research goes. Um, and you know, that you'll only ever get that tiny little bit that the author chose to put into the book when really there's so much more, um, that must've been uncovered, but even the nuggets of information and fact that you put into this book. I mean, I was constantly turning to my husband as I was reading it and saying, did you know this happened? And did you know they did this? And how about this? And I mean, by the end of it, we were both just like, man, the Nazis really sucked. Like this is so, so terrible. And I would, you know, of course, you know, it was terrible, but to hear, I don't know, it really, it really, I can see how you would put into a really emotionally
Speaker 3:Difficult place learning about all of these stories, because it is so hard to, to learn about and to know the reality of it, but at the same time, so powerful then to be able to take what you've learned and put it into this book, um, that I hope will go on to empower and, and inspire a lot of readers. Thank you. You know, how often us authors are told to describe your book in six words. So what you said actually reminded me of something and uh, this is my six word pitch Nazi suck. Don't be a Nazi. Yeah. Right. I want to also go back to something you said where, you know, it is, it's a difficult topic. There's a lot of really emotional moments throughout the book, but you also do balance it with, you know, there's a really sweet romance story and um, some really great family moments like, so it's yeah, it, we don't want, of course downplay the seriousness of the topic, but it, it doesn't read like a doom and gloom book. Um, I really found it to be quite uplifting by the end. I loved writing those romantic scenes. Those were some of my most favorite, favorite, favorite moments. And you know, I am a romantic person at heart, you know, so I wanted to put a little bit of that in there. And I didn't, I didn't want it to detract from the story, but just enhanced the story and, and Hance the relationship between Kate and Logan. And so those were really fun to write. And so I hope that people will enjoy those. And I think we need that break. We need a break from the intensity of the assignment and what was going on and to also show that these are multidimensional characters that they have real lives and real feelings and those emotions and that kind of do you, do you not move forward with a friendship where you know that the two of you are never going to be together or, you know, perhaps that's the chance that you will never be together again, which you get go off to college now, what do you do? And I think many teams face this. So I wanted to explore that. And I also, you know, found little moments to bring in a sense of humor. So like calling mr. Berkley, mr. Barfly.
Speaker 2:Yes, the friend. Oh my gosh. She's so great.
Speaker 3:Great. I love Blair Blair. That's right. Yeah.
Speaker 2:She was a great addition.
Speaker 3:I love Blair.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And you're right. I mean, you're not, you're not writing a, a scholarly textbook. I mean, this is a story. And one of the things that gets us into stories is the characters and you know, how much we can relate to them and you know, how much we want to go along with them on this path. And we want happiness for them. We want romance for them. So it really just humanized. Um, and it's specifically Kate and Logan a lot and I was so happy for them. And so there's some of those cute moments. I was just gritting so much. Oh yes, I do. I love that you chose to include multiple perspectives throughout the course of the story. Obviously Logan and cave, there are two main protagonists and so they get the bulk of the chapters. Um, but then you kind of weave in these extra little subplots that are kind of going on behind the scenes. Um, and some of them were really unexpected. Like you get some of the classmates, but you also get a little point of view from the teacher or some of the people in the community. And I thought that was so interesting. Uh, and, and a really great way to kind of show how this assignment is affecting, not just Kade and Logan, but it's affecting everyone in this classroom. And really it goes on to affect everyone in the community. Um, at what point in the writing process, did you know that you were going to be including different points of view?
Speaker 3:That is such a great question from moment one, as a matter of fact. Yeah. From moment one, I, this is, this is, I think people find this kind of interesting, especially as writers, I originally wrote this novel in third person omniscient. Hmm. Yeah. And so I wanted to show so many different perspectives. And when I was looking for a new agent, I had sent it out and three agents came back and said, you know, immediately, you know, love this concept, but you must turn this into first person. And yeah, they're like why, this is why a, you need to do it in first person. And I knew I was breaking, you know, barriers or breaking rules or whatever it is. And yet I also knew that I really wanted this book not to stay in my computer and to get out into this world. And I figured, all right, you know, you could ignore one agent, but when three, tell you the exact same thing, that was it. So I started over and I knew that I really wanted to include these other perspectives. And I also wanted to give them a little bit of a distance. That's why I wrote them in third person, those secondary characters versus Kayden Logan who are written in first person. The thing is this wasn't in the assignment that just impact these two main characters. It had wide grips on different individuals. And so I kind of look at it this way. It impacted the students and impacted the class. It impacted the school, it impacted the community. And then it had a global impact and all the assignments that I have researched similar to the one that I wrote about every single one of them has the same pattern. There is always a teacher that gives it an offensive assignment. It impacts a student that student's speaks up or a parent speaks up. Then, you know, members of the class get involved and parents get involved in the school, community gets involved and then the wider community gets involved. And I wanted to show that the implication for this kind of situation can be absolutely detrimental and traumatizing on a much broader level. And so that's what I sought out to do. And I was adamant about pursuing that. And I'm so grateful that I have an amazing agent that supported that. And in turn an incredible editor who also felt that that was important. Yeah. Were there any points of view that you really wanted to include or that you thought about including that ended up not in the book for one reason or another? I didn't cut out the reporter. I had her point of view and that chess got to be too much. There's probably, there was probably a couple more that I had in definitely additional scenes with the teacher and the principal that ended up getting cut. So it was trying to find a balance how much of, what the teacher was thinking and how much of his perspective should I be sharing with the reader? That was definitely challenging. Yeah. Not easy. Yeah. I gotta say I ended up really liking the teacher. I'm so happy that he's a gray area character, for sure. Like, you're not really sure as a reader, if you're supposed to like him, you know what I mean? But he was so complicated and like in reading it, you could tell he has really good intentions. Like you can, you can understand what it is he's trying to accomplish. Um, even if his methods are, you know, clearly misguided and ended up being very hurtful. But I, I really, I ended up sympathizing with him, uh, in a lot of ways and really excited that I said that. So what are your feelings about, about the teacher? Well, that makes me so happy because everything you said really reflects on my intention and writing mr. Bartley was by far the most challenging of all the characters and the reason why is because oftentimes in the media, the teacher involved in a situation similar to this is demonized. Yeah. Right. And we know that people are really complex and they're not just one thing. You know, this is not, he's not Hitler, he's not an evil person. He makes a mistake. And he does what many people do when faced with confrontation. You have a tendency to dig your heels into the ground and stand firm with position. And he really felt that he was coming from a good place. He had his justifications and he had the support of the principal. I mean, knew that he was a, you know, a good educator. So when you have a student or students say you're wrong, that's not an easy thing to take. I think for any of us, if someone were to say, Oh, you're wrong, I disagree with you. Our natural instinct is to become defensive. Yeah. For sure. Those walls immediately go up. Yeah. So I, I could sympathize with mr. Bartley. And even though he definitely made some mistakes and there were some scenes that made me cringe and I certainly felt compassion for Kade and Logan, I too, at the end felt so, you know. Yeah. I felt for him and I got teary eyed over what he experienced, because I think he is a good guy. So you were also a teacher for a long time. I read, yes. How did being a teacher impact the experience of writing this book? How much did it influence what you did with this story? I definitely put myself in mr. Bartley's shoes. And the, honestly, before I started writing this book, I asked myself the following question, what would a teacher's motivation be to give an assignment like this? Because I knew that I would not be able to tackle this book unless I could come up with some kind of logical explanation for doing something so horrific. I mean, this is a horrific assignment. So I had to really think about it and come up with some justifications and explore those justifications in order to create a character that wouldn't have come off as being evil, but really just a regular human being. Like all of us are, you know, we're all imperfect. And so thinking about my own experience as a teacher, I also know the child. We know it's hard and it's because of COVID, it's become so much harder. I didn't want any teacher to pick up this book and say, Oh my gosh, I can't handle this. This is awful. You know, this is, I wanted them to pick up this novel and think, Oh, wow. Yeah, this is, this is tough. All right. Uh, I am teaching this subject or I give assignments. Hmm. How careful am I, how, you know, could my assignment create some trauma or some difficulties? Is there going to be controversy? So not that I think that educators should avoid difficult topics it's in the sensitivity and how you present it and ask students to learn the material. And you must be very, very careful. And I'm certain that educators will read that this novel from that perspective.
Speaker 2:Um, I did, I also, I have to mention that one of the major themes throughout this story, of course, there's a lot of talk of hatred, a lot of talk of prejudice and a lot of horrible stories out of the Holocaust. But if anything, I feel like one of the major messages cared about the book is one of kindness. Um, and, and one of my favorite quotes from the book was, uh, I even wrote it down a small kindness, could transform a person's life, even save it. Um, and I love that quote because it, in particular, it emphasizes a small kindness could transform a person's life or save it. Um, and I think that I agree with that 100%, but I think that some people find that that's a very naive idea, but I don't, I think that the small kindnesses add up to a lot. Um, and so I really love that there was this message throughout that, even in the face of horrible things, even during the Holocaust, there are still these stories of people showing compassion and love for one another, which is far more powerful than, than any of the, the hatred
Speaker 3:Love and kindness. And compassion must win. That I think is a powerful lesson. We react more to hate and the negative experiences that we have in a day, we could have, you know, 15 great things happen. And one thing that wasn't so great and we are just, again, it goes back to human nature. We end up focusing on that one little negative. And again, that is our human nature to protect ourselves. But what makes us extraordinary to be extraordinary human beings is to rise above that and to really do everything that we can to be kind and to be compassionate and to be caring. And we've seen it over and over and over again, how kindness transforms and, um, you know, I'm, I'm so glad that you pointed that out from the novel. Thank you. Well, thank you for writing it.
Speaker 2:Like I said, it's one of those stories that's going to stick with me. Um, it's, it's a really powerful story. And even just a lot of tiny, powerful stories mixed, mixed into one. Um, and I am, I'll leave it there. That's a vague way of saying I, cause I don't want to spoil things, but there was one particular story in the book that comes to light. That was just so emotional and so powerful to read about. Um, and, and I'm, I have to assume that it's was inspired by some true events.
Speaker 3:Yes, actually it was inspired by, um, many people that I have met, um, at least a handful of people I've heard similar stories and I was determined to share that story with them. So I know exactly which one you're telling me they're talking about. And, um, people will just have to read the novel, but yeah, that, that particular scene, I cannot read that scene without breaking down and sobbing. I pretty much sob every single time. Yeah,
Speaker 2:Really a really touching stain, you know, this team that made me cry. Cause I did, I did cry during this book. Um, and again, I'll try not to give be spoilery, but there's a scene, um, with a, a, a war hero, um, uh, a prisoner of war kind of telling, telling his story. And he goes over five questions, um, and asks the class to consider what their answers to these questions would be. And I forced myself to stop and consider what my answers to these questions would be. And I was crying by the end of it. It was, yeah, it was tough to read, but also very powerful.
Speaker 3:Wow. Thank you. That, that means the world to me really. Cause that scene writing that scene, I know exactly where I was when the inspiration for that came. I was actually in a moment of desperation. Um, this comes toward the end of the novel and I was not sure what to do. And I saw a school teacher and I just said, you know, I've, I've got the situation at the end of my novel and I'm not sure what to do. And this person just kind of looked at me like, okay. And I thought, Oh, maybe I could do this. And maybe I could do that. And then I just looked at this person, then I said, Hey,
Speaker 4:Yeah,
Speaker 3:He didn't say anything to me, but it was just the fact that he was in front of me. Yeah. It was really, it was wild. I was running in to pick up some food at, you know, I'd been writing nonstop and I didn't want to cook dinner. So I was running in to get some takeout and I saw him there and I'm like, you're a teacher and I gotta figure this out. And just seeing him was the triggers. Oh my gosh. That's so funny. I love that. I love those perfect moments where the solution to whatever book, problem that you've just been agonizing over and it just falls into your lap. And those are the best. That's what being a writer is all about. Right. It's so true. They are the best moments. That's where you lift your arms up high and you go, yes.
Speaker 4:Okay. Lisa,
Speaker 3:You going to wrap up this interview with our happy writer lightning round. Okay. What book makes you happy? Oh, I would say Mandy from my childhood, uh, it was written by Julie Andrews Edwards from the sound of music and it was the first book I ever purchased with my own money. And I still have this book. Oh my gosh. What a cool memory. How do you feel the creative? Well, I will go for a walk and I live fairly close to Lake Michigan. So when I feel like I'm struggling, I will go down to the, to the lakefront. And usually I do it very early in the morning to watch the sunrise sunrises without a doubt, fill me up and fuel me for the rest of the day. That's a beautiful ritual. What advice would you give to help someone become a happier writer? Don't compare yourself to anyone else. This is your journey, embrace your journey. And someone once said to me, actually, a neighbor of mine said, you know, he's a, you need to enjoy your journey a little bit more. You're always looking at the edit goal, but you know, just go with the flow a little bit. And at the time I was a little taken back and you know, like, wow, you know, kind of course there's an end goal. And of course I got to focus on that end goal, but she was right. And, um, actually was my neighbor, Maureen. And it was her husband who had said it. Uh, David, he was the one who was sad. You need to enjoy the journey. So I have reflected on that a lot. And it's true. You've got to recognize that writing is a process. And if you're always focused on that end goal, it can be really, really difficult because there's rejection that takes place. And then you feel incredible disappointment. So just go with the flow, enjoy the journey. Don't compare yourself to other authors. Your situation is not going to be the same as another authors. It's just not so appreciate what you're going through. Know that you can accomplish your goal of getting published, finding an agent, getting published. If that's your goal for writing, you can do it. Of course you can do it, but we don't know how long it's going to take. We don't know if it's going to happen with the book that you're working on right now. I know, I know that it's the most painful thing I could ever say. I know. I feel you. I feel you. I have so many books that are just sitting in my computer. It's okay. I know it doesn't feel like it's okay, but it's okay. Go with the process, stick with it. And I have a phrase that I said to myself while I was writing. Hello. And that is perseverance is the act of true role models and heroes. And I would say that over and over again, and that helped me approach every single day and do what I needed to do to get to the next step. Lastly, where can people find you? You can find me@lizawiemer.com. L I Z a w I E M E r.com. And it has all my social media.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Lisa, it was so great to talk to you. Thank you for deciding to come on with me today.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. This has been a blast. I loved it.
Speaker 2:My pleasure. And I just, I have to throw out that you mentioned before we started the recording that you and I actually met eight more than eight years ago during my very first book tour, my book tour for senders. So it's so, so cool to get to talk to you now, all these years later,
Speaker 3:It is such an amazing, uh, situation back on January 23rd
Speaker 2:More dates
Speaker 3:20. Well, what is so amazing is I re-read cinder. I absolutely loved it again. And it just is more relevant today than back then, who would have ever known,
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, no kidding. Right?
Speaker 3:It was it's amazing. And inside my book was my ticket for Anderson's bookstore. I happened to see you and Megan Miranda. It was Monday, January 23rd, 7:00 PM. Number 19 for the signing line. I love the fact that I kept,
Speaker 2:Oh, me too. That's so cool.
Speaker 3:And what was really awesome is that not only did I get to see you at Anderson's, but several years later, I got to see you in, uh, Austin, Texas at the book people. Oh my God. For another book signing, which was absolutely amazing. And I was, I went with Katie from Monday moms. Yeah, she's great. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I love it. I feel like clearly we should be best friends and hang out in the world, goes back to normal.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. We, you know, we have to see each other again in person. So this was so great. I'm so who would have ever thought that, you know, a moment back, you know, eight plus years ago could lead to something like this. You just never know. That's true.
Speaker 2:True. That's true. Again, you just never know where life is going to take you. Well, thank you again, Lisa, this was such a pleasure and congratulations on the launch,
Speaker 3:The assignment, and I can't wait for your next book. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Definitely check out. Lisa's newest the assignment, which is in stores. Now we always, of course encourage you to support your local indie bookstore. If you can, if you don't have a local indie, you can also check@ouraffiliatestoreatbookshop.org slash shop slash Marissa Meyer to see all of our podcast guests and help support Indies all across America. Please subscribe to this podcast. If you're enjoying these conversations, you can find us on Instagram at Marissa Meyer author and at happy writer podcast until next time stay healthy and cozy out there in your bunkers and whatever life throws at you today. I do hope that now you're feeling a little bit
Speaker 1:[inaudible].