Audiobooks and DIY Writing Retreats - Interview with Stephanie

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hello. Welcome to Secrets and Lies, a Storytellers podcast. This is Carolyn. And today, super happy to have a guest co host with us. Hi, Stephanie. [00:00:13] Speaker B: How are you? I'm good. [00:00:15] Speaker C: How are you doing? [00:00:16] Speaker A: Good. I realized this last week that I have been in North Carolina for a full year. [00:00:24] Speaker B: Amazing. [00:00:24] Speaker C: I can't believe it's been an entire year. [00:00:27] Speaker B: I know. [00:00:28] Speaker A: And it's so much quieter here than Baltimore, obviously, but just Maryland in general. It's very serene. I feel like a different person. [00:00:40] Speaker C: I kind of felt that way moving to the county from the city, honestly. [00:00:44] Speaker A: I imagine so. This spring, we didn't have very much of a winter here, but this spring I've been spending a lot of time working on the yard. I had two giant pallets of stone delivered, and I'm doing little stone edging, and I'm taking care of rhododendrons and plants. I had no idea what they were before I moved here. And it's all very kind of soothing in Zen. So I think my transition into full blown grandmother mode, minus the offspring, has happened. I've become an old person living in North Carolina now. [00:01:22] Speaker C: I have been an old person since I was 26, so. [00:01:26] Speaker B: Right. Welcome. [00:01:28] Speaker A: We love it here. [00:01:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:31] Speaker A: I mean, yeah. I'm doing the paint by numbers now, and I can't see the little numbers. I get the. I get the ones, like, they give you the option of how many paint colors you want, like, how detailed you want it to be. And I always get the most detailed ones available because they'll look nicer when they're finished. But I can't see that. I can't see it. I have my magnifying glass out there and I'm, like, peering. It's. I'm in my sunroom and I'm peering at the little. [00:02:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:03] Speaker A: So that transition into full on old person has happened in this last year. But how have you been? [00:02:11] Speaker C: I've been good. [00:02:12] Speaker B: I've been good. [00:02:14] Speaker C: Not a whole lot. [00:02:16] Speaker B: I guess we must have moved probably. [00:02:19] Speaker C: Right before you or right after you from the city to the county. Not a great distance, but it's only 15 minutes up the road. But it has made a world of difference. We also have taken up gardening, like, with actual dirt instead of little home depot buckets on our pavement. [00:02:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:37] Speaker A: I still can't grow cilantro. It's some sort of. [00:02:41] Speaker C: It's a needy plant. It's very needy. [00:02:44] Speaker A: I can't do it. I'm like, o for six. [00:02:47] Speaker C: It is a very nice plant. You have to, like, clip it back every two days. [00:02:51] Speaker B: It's very. Yeah, I don't recommend it. [00:02:54] Speaker A: Yeah. If we want cilantro, we're gonna have. [00:02:57] Speaker B: To just go buy it. [00:02:59] Speaker A: All right. One of the things that I find super interesting about you is that you regularly are all on top of the audiobook. And I used to be more into audiobooks when I had to drive to work. And I would be sitting on the car on 95 on my way to Columbia, and that was the only thing that kept me sane. But I have fallen out of the habit of either checking them out from the library or buying audiobooks. And I am not reading as much as I wish that I was. So I think that's something I've got to get back into. What have. What have you been listening to lately? [00:03:43] Speaker C: You know, it's really interesting that you mentioned the gardening, because gardening and audiobooks. [00:03:48] Speaker B: Go really well together, actually. [00:03:50] Speaker A: Really? [00:03:51] Speaker C: I like. That's how I get through most of my audiobooks, because you can't just. You can't just sit and do nothing. Like, you have to be doing something. [00:04:01] Speaker B: But it has to be something that doesn't require, like, actual attentive, you know, listening. [00:04:07] Speaker C: So driving or going for a walk or gardening. I like to listen to audiobooks while. [00:04:12] Speaker B: I'm vacuuming, things like that. [00:04:16] Speaker C: But I'm. I think. Let's see. I keep track of the books that. [00:04:20] Speaker B: I read every year. I try to get to 100 every year. [00:04:24] Speaker C: I frequently fail. I think I've only done it once in the past five years. I mean, that's about 20 books this year, and I think most of them are audiobooks. [00:04:33] Speaker B: Wow. [00:04:35] Speaker A: Any favorites? [00:04:36] Speaker C: Well, yes, there's some. It's really interesting. Some of them are really good. But maybe we're not a great choice for an audiobook, and I'll explain why. So sometimes I just download things because they're at the top of the bestsellers list. I don't read the description or anything. I'm just like, all right, let's give this a run. [00:04:54] Speaker B: I like this author, and I downloaded. [00:04:57] Speaker C: The women, which just came out not too long ago by Kristen Hanna. [00:05:03] Speaker B: I don't know if you've read this yet. [00:05:06] Speaker A: I have not. [00:05:07] Speaker C: So, really good book. Excellent storytelling skills. I didn't realize until I was about 20 minutes, 30 minutes into it that it's about Vietnam. Not an uplifting topic. [00:05:21] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:05:23] Speaker B: Yeah. It's a heavy topic for an audiobook, so. But it was. [00:05:27] Speaker C: It was a good book. I just. [00:05:28] Speaker B: I given. [00:05:30] Speaker C: Given the information I have now, I would have read that one on paper. [00:05:34] Speaker B: But I just finished that one. [00:05:35] Speaker A: I, um, I haven't been through, I haven't been through too many bestsellers lately, except for Holly. The Stephen King book. I did buy that and read it immediately. [00:05:47] Speaker C: Yeah, that one was really good. Of his best in a long time. [00:05:51] Speaker B: I really liked it. [00:05:53] Speaker A: I really enjoyed, I really enjoy his recent stories. I mean, starting with, you know, mister Mercedes in that trilogy which Holly is introduced in, and then the outsiders and whatever. I enjoyed all of those. And I'm pretty sure that most of those I listen to on audiobooks, but. [00:06:15] Speaker B: Not a hundred percent. Yeah. [00:06:17] Speaker A: Anyway, I'm, I'm looking for. We get vacation. We haven't had a much vacation time in the last year that didn't involve either packing boxes or unpacking boxes or fixing things. But we have a real vacation coming up at the end of the summer, and I intend to, to get some either reading or audiobook listening done over. [00:06:41] Speaker B: That period of time. [00:06:43] Speaker A: We had, a couple of episodes ago, an audio engineer who talked to us a little bit about the process of recording audiobooks. I had recorded a version, you know, my collection of short stories, and I learned so much doing that, mostly that it's harder than it appears that it is. [00:07:07] Speaker B: And it's, it's. [00:07:08] Speaker C: But it makes a huge difference, the, the actor doing the audio, the narrator. Yeah, huge difference. Because sometimes I've listened to good books that were kind of ruined by a bad narrator. [00:07:23] Speaker A: Right. [00:07:24] Speaker C: Or bad audio engineering. Actually, there was one book I listened to. I don't remember the title. I wouldn't say it anyway. But there was one book I listened to, and you could hear the actual, the narrator swallowing. [00:07:35] Speaker B: I couldn't get through that one. [00:07:37] Speaker A: One of the things that he told us, both Vicki and I were breathing wrong when we were to be breathing through your nose and not. And I'm like, I don't know how to make that work. [00:07:50] Speaker C: So interesting. [00:07:51] Speaker A: Yeah. So harder. Harder than I thought. I could get through, like, two stories before my voice would just quit. Really? And you could hear the strain on it. [00:08:03] Speaker B: Three stories was pushing it. [00:08:05] Speaker C: You know who's really good at audiobooks as a narrator? [00:08:09] Speaker B: Meryl Streep. [00:08:11] Speaker A: Really? [00:08:11] Speaker B: Yes. [00:08:11] Speaker C: I'm going to admit here that I actually buy a lot of my audiobooks. I'm an audible person. [00:08:17] Speaker B: I have an account, I have a membership. [00:08:20] Speaker C: I don't go searching for the free. [00:08:21] Speaker B: Ones as often as I should, but. [00:08:24] Speaker C: They do a lot of read by, you know, famous actor books. And Meryl Streep has done a couple for them. [00:08:32] Speaker B: She did Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. [00:08:36] Speaker C: I think that's how you say it. She did a really good job. [00:08:40] Speaker B: She's an excellent narrator. [00:08:43] Speaker A: One more thing. Meryl Streep is a genius. One more good thing. Add that to the list. You'll never measure up. Vicki goes to. She calls it her own sort of diy writing retreat. And she goes to like, an Airbnb in Waynesville, which is west of here between here and the smoky mountains. And she spends some time out there working quietly in this little place where there's a creek and a coffee shop and whatever. And she gets stuff done. And I'm. I would love to do that. And I thought of our do it yourself train writing retreat the other day because something. Something new has popped up, which I'll tell you about before. But anyway, for those of you who are listening, we had really wanted to do that Amtrak writers residency thing some years back that I don't even know who. I mean, I don't remember hearing anything from any of the people who actually got that thing and got to ride around in their little train compartment and make art. But Stephanie had this great idea that it was. How long was that train ride? [00:10:09] Speaker B: 8 hours. [00:10:10] Speaker C: 8 hours, I think about it was. [00:10:12] Speaker A: From Baltimore up to Vermont via New York City. We rode the train and worked on writing projects. And it actually was kind of cool because you could get up and walk around unlike, you know, a plane or a bus or. [00:10:32] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:10:33] Speaker A: Forms of transportation. [00:10:35] Speaker C: I cannot do anything productive on a plane. I just. [00:10:38] Speaker B: I cannot. So. [00:10:40] Speaker C: But train, I mean. And I think we. [00:10:42] Speaker B: We had. [00:10:42] Speaker C: For the most part, we each had our own like two seats to ourselves. I think after New York, good portion of the ride. [00:10:48] Speaker A: There may have been some people between Baltimore and New York. But after New York, it was not empty, but definitely spacious. [00:10:57] Speaker C: Very few people heading to Vermont anyway. [00:11:01] Speaker A: So that was cool. And then we stayed up there, what, two nights? So that we weren't like, you know, going to sleep and getting up and we had time to check out the local sites. Burlington, super cute town. We got to hang out with Chelsea. [00:11:16] Speaker C: Yeah, that was really fun. I've never been to Burlington, so I was super excited about that. And Ben and Jerry's was always worth. [00:11:26] Speaker B: The trip for sure. [00:11:28] Speaker A: Yeah. And. Yeah. It's just such nice people up there. Really. Plus I got several stories, if not finished, you know, semi mapped out for the ten dysfunctions book. So what were you working on? [00:11:43] Speaker B: Gosh, I can't. [00:11:44] Speaker C: It's been that long. Most of my writing is like just journaling. I don't write for publication the way you do. But writing is how I work through my shit. [00:11:57] Speaker B: And so I do a lot of. [00:11:59] Speaker C: It for relaxation and focus. I do occasionally write some essays, but for the most part, it's free, free thought, journaling kind of stuff. [00:12:07] Speaker A: No, I think that's great. Sometimes in order for me to try and organize how I feel about something or what I think about something, I have to write it down and sort of work through things. [00:12:20] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. [00:12:21] Speaker B: And the thing about, like, what I really liked about that trip, being on. [00:12:26] Speaker C: A train, you can get up and move around. You can go to, you know, get a snack or whatever, look out the window, stretch out. But also, there's very limited places you can go or things you can do. So it does sort of force you. [00:12:39] Speaker B: To focus a little bit. [00:12:42] Speaker C: And I think that's. That's what I struggle with most, is just making time for focusing on, well, writing, but just about everything in my life. [00:12:49] Speaker A: But I agree with you 100%. I think that's why writers go to coffee shops. And when I was in Baltimore, I used to go to the Goucher library. The Goucher library is a great place to write, and they have, you know, those little cubbies, and it would be right next to the windows, so you could see campus, but there was hardly anybody there. It was very quiet and nice. That was one of my favorite, favorite spots to do some work. I know when I was working on my thesis, my novel, my novel I had gone to at the time, my uncle had a condo in Ocean City, and I had gone out there in the wintertime when there would be nobody. I didn't even know how to take the shutter things off of the windows in the balcony. So I. There literally, there was, like, no light. I did. I sat inside and I did some work. There was nobody in this building, really. And so it was great. I did get to walk on the beach, and I brought my dog with me, and that was nice. And I know that's a thing that. That you've done, too, is gone to the. Gone to the beach and hole up there for some time to do some. Some thinking and some writing and some. [00:14:10] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:14:11] Speaker A: It's like, change of venue. [00:14:13] Speaker B: It is. [00:14:13] Speaker C: It really is. It really is. And, like, there's especially being somewhere where you. The problem with home is there's so many other things you need to be doing. Like, you almost feel guilty for not doing those things, but when you go to someone else's home, there's nothing you need to be doing, so. And I love the beach. [00:14:32] Speaker B: In the winter. [00:14:33] Speaker C: I loved it more before the pandemic. I admit that a lot of people moved to Ocean City, Maryland during the. [00:14:39] Speaker B: Pandemic because of remote work. [00:14:42] Speaker C: And I was down there this winter and there were a lot more people than there were before the pandemic. [00:14:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Now they have a thing I found by accident called getaway. And I should preface this by saying that my wish, should the lottery ever grace me with millions and millions of dollars, is to either buy a big old farm or a, an old summer camp and fix it up with like little cabins or little mini homes and some common area and full on run, like, writing retreats for people who want to work through some things and have some quiet little space of their own. Like, I totally want to do that. And in looking for things like that, just, you know, instead of actually doing any writing, I found this company called Getaway. And they are like little glamour. Are you familiar? They're like little glamour. [00:15:43] Speaker B: I am familiar. [00:15:45] Speaker C: Little tiny, tiny home, like a tiny. [00:15:46] Speaker A: House trailer sort of thing. And everybody gets their own like Adirondack chairs and fire pit and whatever. And they have them all around. And I thought, this is great. And they have an artist fellowship. You can register, like that Amtrak thing to be chosen for a free night at one of these locations. And you can go and do your work, do your writing or do your work in this space. So I will put a link, our Facebook page if anybody is interested and wants to check that out. But they look super cute and they have them all around. I think the closest one to where I am is maybe between here and Charlotte or maybe just a little north of Charlotte. [00:16:41] Speaker B: I'm not sure. [00:16:42] Speaker C: Yeah, they've got some just outside of DC and I think their most popular ones are in New York. [00:16:49] Speaker A: Upstate New York is on my bucket list. The whole Hudson River Valley thing. [00:16:55] Speaker B: At some point I want to, I. [00:16:57] Speaker C: Actually looked at getaway and I looked at their New York ones and I was like, I could make that drive, right? Like pack the Subaru and just go like. [00:17:05] Speaker A: Totally. Yeah. [00:17:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:07] Speaker C: They look really neat. I haven't done it yet, but it's. [00:17:09] Speaker B: It'S also like on my list. [00:17:11] Speaker C: I love the idea. [00:17:12] Speaker A: Well, if you figure, I mean, I don't want to. [00:17:13] Speaker C: And the thing about I don't live. [00:17:15] Speaker A: In one, but, uh. But I would like to visit. [00:17:18] Speaker C: No, I don't want to live in one either. [00:17:20] Speaker A: I think it would be cool to get like a group of writer people together and everybody gets their own little cabin or whatever, unlike I did. I did a. I thought it was a writing retreat in the woods of Virginia once, and it was, like, the meanest workshop ever. One woman quit the night before it started. That's. That set the tone. [00:17:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:46] Speaker A: She didn't even make it to the first morning group thing. They were all having dinner together. I missed the dinner because I had a work, you know, job, and I had to drive down there on a Friday night after, and so it was dark, and they had gone to dinner already, and when they came back, she was crying and. And she quit, so. [00:18:07] Speaker B: Wow. [00:18:08] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:18:08] Speaker A: That was mean. That's not really mean workshop, but. [00:18:13] Speaker C: Well, maybe we can throw together a DIY workshop with a bunch of writers. [00:18:18] Speaker B: Tiny house. [00:18:19] Speaker A: I would love that. [00:18:21] Speaker B: All right. [00:18:22] Speaker A: Are you ready for a little truth or fiction? [00:18:26] Speaker B: All right, this is. [00:18:28] Speaker A: I'm going to give you a scenario, and then you tell me if you believe that this is a true story or a made up fictional story. All right. There is a toddler. She's three. She keeps telling her mom that there's a monster who lives in her wall. And she had just seen Monsters, Inc. And so mom gave her a little squirt bottle with some water and told her it was monster spray. And, you know. Yeah, she kept insisting, no, there's monsters. There's monsters. There's monsters. So finally, her mom has somebody come to check this out. They knock a hole in the wall, and this goo comes out, and it all looks very bloody and gross. Truth or fiction? [00:19:33] Speaker B: Oh, no. Oh, no. That sounds. That sounds awful. [00:19:38] Speaker C: It also sounds like something you would write, so I'm going. [00:19:41] Speaker A: It is. I'm very sorry. To tell you the truth, it was 20,000 bees and 100 pounds of honeycomb inside the wall. And these bees had gotten in. [00:19:55] Speaker C: Oh, that's. [00:19:56] Speaker A: I know, right through a dime sized hole in a pipe by the chimney. I am told there is a TikTok video of this woman talking about this bee infestation in her house, but I am too terrified to watch it. I'll post a link to the news article in the. On our Facebook page, too, so you can read more about it if you want. But those bees do not care about your little bottle of monster spray at goo that came out of the wall, as I'm sure you guessed, was honey. And when it was coming out over her pink walls, it looked like blood. [00:20:48] Speaker B: That is horrifying. [00:20:50] Speaker C: At least, yes, it was honeybees, right? [00:20:52] Speaker B: Like, if you're going to have a. [00:20:53] Speaker C: If you're going to have a bee infestation, I would take honeybees any day over, say, a yellow jackets burrow. [00:21:00] Speaker A: So they all got relocated. In case anybody was concerned about the fate of the honeybees, they were moved. Yikes. All right. One of the other things I like to do is talk a little bit about the new cool places I have found in my exploration of the area here. And it's been a little while, so I actually have a good list of awesome places that we have found. And so when you come down to visit, these are places you can select from to go for snacks and drinks. The first is a restaurant in Asheville called Chestnut, which, this is going to sound crazy, but one of the coolest things about this restaurant, it has this giant painting, like, louvre style, louvre size pink. It's enormous. [00:21:52] Speaker C: It's. [00:21:53] Speaker A: Yeah, in the front room by the window. And it's so amazing. I took a photo of it and a photo of, like, the artists. It's a pair of artists. I'll post those on the page, too, so you can see. And I just was so, like, attracted to this painting. It's just a painting of a chestnut tree and rivers and rocks and whatever. But anyway, that place had the best lobster bisque I've ever had. [00:22:21] Speaker B: It was really good. [00:22:22] Speaker A: Last weekend, mom and I visited a place here called Daddy D's super soul food. And it had the best Mac and cheese I've had in North Carolina. And, yeah, I mean, full on, they had, they had like the Sunday, you know, post church lunch buffet thing. So fried chicken, fried pork chops, fried fish, green beans. You know, the kind that cook, like, all day with a big hunk of pig in it, sweet potatoes. They bring you cornbread and you get dessert with this whole thing. There was salad, but we're not wasting any time on the salad. They had rice and gravy and beans and all kinds of things. Anyway, dessert was a gingerbread cupcake, like a muffin, and that had like a lemon glaze on it. And my mom and I had a full time warp thing happen because my grandmother used to make lem, or spice cake with a lemon sauce, a warm lemon sauce. And this just so reminded us of my grandmother and my grandfather. And, you know, my summer spent in North Carolina. And this is the kind of food you would eat. And then we had that gingerbread with the lemon sauce. Anyway, totally recommend. And then last week, Dave and I checked out a couple of places in flat rock, which is just outside of Hendersonville. Blue ruby, which had croque monsieur. It's been years since I've had a croque monsieur delicious. And we went to flat Rock village bakery and got, like, handmade pizza. And they. There's a bunch of places down here that have, like, the really cool brick, like, pizza ovens. And that's become our kind of go to because Dave can't really find New York style pizza here. [00:24:26] Speaker C: Makes sense. I really like wood fire. [00:24:29] Speaker A: It's really good. [00:24:30] Speaker C: It is delicious. [00:24:31] Speaker A: So really delicious. So those. And then that's next door to a place that's called, wait for it, hubba hubba barbecue. And the barbecue, like, all of the barbecue in this state was good. But the standout there is that they have a caramel banana pudding while supplies last. And we happen to snag one. And it is definitely next level. Highly recommend. Lastly, a non food related place I visited lately locally last week. [00:25:08] Speaker B: Last week. [00:25:09] Speaker A: Week before last, I went to Hendo kickboxing for a women's only self defense class. And let me tell you now, I'm not an athlete by any stretch of the imagination, but it was so much fun whipping up on pretend attackers for an hour and a half or so. I left there feeling like a million bucks. Like, I just was in such a good mood that I got to, like, WHOOP up on. [00:25:48] Speaker B: On people. [00:25:49] Speaker A: So I'll definitely be going back and. And doing that. There's something, like, really empowering about, I don't know, you're in a situation where normally it's out of your control and whatever and turning the tables, and they were fierce. They're like, make it so they can't see, can't breathe, can't walk. That gives you a little flavor of the level of ferocity of our defense. Can't see, can't breathe, can't walk. I'm like, yes, I will be back. [00:26:18] Speaker C: So you actually, like, actually, like whooping up on someone, like a person in some sort of protective gear? [00:26:24] Speaker A: Yeah, break the eyes. Lots of throat punching. I'm totally in favor of that. [00:26:31] Speaker B: And then. [00:26:32] Speaker A: Yeah. And then, you know, the expected kick them in the jewels. But, you know, it wasn't all about that. Anyway, super, super loved it. I liked the space. Yeah, it was really a lot of fun. It was really a lot of fun. So, yeah, I may go back and take, like, a full on krav Maga class just because, I don't know. Are you working on anything? Any writing projects now? Anything going on? [00:27:02] Speaker C: I am not working on anything currently. Work has been super busy, and I am lacking that focus. [00:27:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I've got a couple of things that are. I should be working on and I haven't. I did wake up very early the other day, and I started a whole piece that I am calling it unsolicited advice for my super cool and completely fictional neighbor, Janice. That's its current title, and it really is just a list of, like, random advice y things. So I don't know what I'm going to do with that or what that's going to end up being, but I've got that going, and then I've got another story that I, again, should be working on, and I really haven't been, but I need a better understanding of how apple air tags work, and I haven't found anybody who can explain it to me. [00:27:54] Speaker C: Yeah, can't help with that one. That is not my stuff. I'm a full on Android user. But now I want to know about Janice, though. [00:28:03] Speaker A: My super cool and completely fictional neighbor, Janice. [00:28:06] Speaker C: Beehive? [00:28:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:08] Speaker C: Like, I don't know why, but immediately you said Janice. I'm like, she's blonde with a beehive. [00:28:13] Speaker A: Well, if she wasn't before, she is now. Writes note to also, about this time, I normally share a writing tip. Honestly, I'm just too exhausted to give anybody any additional advice, except just do what you can. You do you. Because, I don't know, this is one of those things where sometimes the practice is more beneficial than the actual result. That, and I would say submit, um, some work. Take some stuff that you have, uh, have worked on. Um, I have a piece that was rejected by the. The entity I had sent it to. I had created it for, and I am going. I have made a commitment to myself to try and find other, um, other places where that might be a good fit and actually send it to. And follow through on that. So you guys will hold me accountable. [00:29:13] Speaker B: To actually do that. Nice. Yeah. [00:29:16] Speaker C: Yeah. I've been trying to write, like, two sentences at the very least before bed every night, just to clear my mind, but also just to practice because it is just so easy to go five days, seven days, twelve days a year without doing something that you. [00:29:35] Speaker A: Yeah, I think maybe you might be more disciplined about that than I am. [00:29:41] Speaker C: Oh, I have to be, though. Like, it's not just, it's not just like writing, though. Like, I try to read at least one page a day. I try to write at least two sentences. I have a thing where I try. [00:29:52] Speaker B: To clean for ten minutes, just something every day so that I don't feel. [00:29:57] Speaker C: Like I'm getting behind, but that's. That's my type. [00:30:00] Speaker A: Yeah, you're definitely more focused than I am. Yeah, every little bit helps. It's kind of a cumulative thing if you try and make this a practice rather than a sort of end result driven thing sometimes. [00:30:18] Speaker B: And it'll help you keep connected. [00:30:20] Speaker A: Anyway, thank you so much for hanging out today and chatting. It's been awesome. [00:30:26] Speaker C: Yeah, it was great. [00:30:27] Speaker A: Let me know about this whole New York writers retreat, because I'm definitely in. [00:30:32] Speaker C: Yeah, well, if you want to do getaway, you gotta schedule it really far in advance. Oh, they sell out to know. [00:30:39] Speaker A: Awesome. All right, thanks, Steph. [00:30:42] Speaker B: Thank you.