Ep. 254: Laura Hankin on How to Use Your Favorite Writing to Inspire Your Own

Laura Hankin is the author of Happy & You Know It. She has written for publications like McSweeney’s and HuffPost, while her musical comedy has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Funny or Die. She splits her time between NYC, where she has performed off-Broadway and acted onscreen, and Washington D.C., where she has sung to far too many babies. A Special Place for Women is her most recent release. 

Transcript:

Rachael Herron: [00:00:00] Welcome to “How do you Write?” I’m your host, Rachael Herron. On this podcast, I talk to authors about how they write, what their process is and how their lives fit together. I’ll keep each episode short so you can get back to writing.

[00:00:16] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #254 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. So glad you are here with me today, as we talk to Laura Hankin and kind of repurposing and looking at your own favorite writing in order to inspire your own. And even though it’s been a minute since I talked to her, these interviews are kind of stacked behind me. It was so enjoyable to talk to her. And I know that you’re going to enjoy this interview. So where am I, if you’re looking at me on the YouTube, I am holding the microphone because I cannot make my microphone stand work at this particular desk or I am. So I look like I’m about to break into song, which I promise you I will not, but I am excited to be able to use good audio again. Hopefully, this is sounding better than some of the past ones have sounded when I’ve been in some strange places, still in a strange place in a very strange place, indeed. I am in a Russell, New Zealand. I am not in a bathroom. I’m not locked in a cabinet somewhere. I’m in a gorgeous house, a big house. That’s on the water of the bay of islands. Well, let me tell you a little bit about it. 

[00:01:32] So this place is way out of our budget, way, way, way out of our budget. But the owners of this house also had a little apartment in the town of Russell and it looked gorgeous. It was within our price range. It had a hot tub, but when I asked the owner, if it had good wifi, because both my wife and I need good wifi, especially my wife, to do our work. He said, no, actually it doesn’t. And we haven’t gotten fiber there yet, but I do have a house that’s on the beach and nobody’s in it because there are no tourists who are allowed to enter New Zealand for the last year and a half. So no one’s in it. Why don’t you have it for the same price? So we have this gorgeous house on the water. It has no address. He just told us where to enter the beach, where to drive down onto the beach and turn left. There are five houses on this little Cove, where the fourth house or the one with the green roof. And you can only get to it when it is low enough tide to drive to otherwise, you can walk to it from the car park, which is not far away. And we tend to leave the car in the car park because who knows when we might want to use the car. However, what I will say is really using the car way less than we thought we would. We arrived last week. We had a couple of delicate days of walking the coast and we went and did some tours in Russell. We went to the old printery where the first books in New Zealand were ever printed. And we went to the white tangy treaty grounds. We did some touristy stuff, which feels weird again when you’re the only tourist around and then on Tuesday, right after I’d gone to the doctor to ascertain that, yes, I had broken two bones in my foot a month ago, right before we left that I had been completely ignoring.

[00:03:21] And which apparently I only need to continue ignoring, which I was hoping was true. Right after I went to the doctor, we were alerted to the first case of COVID in the country, in the community for a very long time. New Zealand shutdown in 2020 for about eight weeks. And it’s been open since then. They shut it down. They didn’t let people move around. And they took care of it. So this community case was a very big deal and they shut the country down that day. They locked it down. We were at lockdown level four, and for people who have not been at levels like America, level four, mean to don’t do crap. You do not do crap. Every business has shut down except for essential services like supermarkets, gas stations and doctors, hospitals, testing sites, those kinds of places. It’s not like in the United States when we’re talking about essential workers, it seems like that there were a lot of essential workers here, there are fewer. It’s not like there are any restaurants that are open. There’s no takeout food. There’s no cafes. There’s no nothing. There’s just the grocery store, just the gas station. And you are not allowed to move. You are not allowed to drive. You’re not allowed to walk out to someplace unless you are going to the grocery store or to the doctor. Other than that, you can walk in your area, safely distance from others. But you must stay in your bubble. You must not drive anywhere. You can’t cross regions. You can’t, you’re really locked down. They’re serious about eradicating this. And indeed, this was Tuesday and we got the first case and by Friday, it was a Delta case. It came in from New South Wales, Australia, by Friday. We have 32 cases now in the country. So it’s kind of a panic crisis moment. We’re expecting more, a hundred or 200 cases to show up because, some of the vector sites were one was a church. One was a bar. Most of the people who have it are in their twenties and thirties, and they were all hanging out and going out late and doing stuff, which is why they got around so much.

[00:05:31] So we are locked down. We are unable to move. We are unable to go to our next Airbnb place. And no one is available, no one is able to come to this Airbnb place. So the host just said as he has to say, but he was awesome. Said stay as long as you like. So we are here for the duration of the lockdown, at least while we’re on level four and maybe when we’re in level three, I’ve done a bunch of reading about driving, being able to drive during level three. And I’m not quite sure of the things. This is a little bit of a splurge for us still. A little bit higher than we wanted to pay, even though it’s not at its actual rate. So I would like to move at some point just to save a little money, but in the meantime, the house, all the windows, just look out on the water, this particular bedroom that I’m recording in is the only room I’ve been in without a view. When I’m in the bathroom, I’m looking at the empty moored sail boats on the water. We’re watching birds. There’s nothing else to watch. There’s nobody who comes on our beach. There’s a guy who lives next door and he has a little border Collie slash Springer spaniel puppy. So we get to watch him walk and that’s about it. We’ve, I’ve seen one woman walking on the beach. I think she lives further down the road and that’s it. We are alone here and we can’t go anywhere. So it’s been honestly a delic. It delic, I wish that this was not happening. This is a terrible thing that is happening, but where we got stuck is heaven and I am so freaking grateful that we get to do this. So this is the end of a workweek as I’m recording this, I forgot to release this yesterday because time zones and days have me all messed up. So I apologize for that. But that means that at the end of today, it’s our weekend and we can’t go be touristy. We can’t drive around and look at things.

[00:07:30] We are not even supposed to kayak. We have kayaks here and the water’s really still, but you’re not supposed to boat or hike or do anything that may bring emergency services to you that may, that you may need emergency services to get out of. So even though I have been kayaking here before the lockdown, I don’t think I’m going to do it. Cause I feel morally torn about that. I definitely, who plans on needing emergency services. That’s the thing. If I go out on the water, I’m not planning on needing emergency services. I’ve kayaked a million times, but yeah, so we’re walking, we’re walking around the bay and looking at the things that the tide washes up and throwing clams that are tightly closed back into the water. The shores are just covered with clams and birds who eat the clams. And I dunno, maybe you can hear my voice that I’m just tickled and delighted and happy to be in such a safe and gorgeous location. I’m trying to pretend while we’re here, that we live here, that this is my house and I’m doing a really good job of it.

[00:08:38] So, what else has been going on? I had been writing every day, I came up with a new way, you know, I love a new way to me, of keeping track of if I’m getting stuff done, because with all the upset and turmoil and moving and stuff that we’ve been doing, it’s been easy for me to let days go without getting things done that I really need to do, like connecting with the people that I love, like meditation, like getting my deep work done, like getting work done on my secondary project. So I made myself a little chart. And I have all these boxes I can fill in during the day and I get a hundred points per box. And so I put this in my email that I sent out yesterday. So if you’re not on my email list, you want to be on that. You can go to RachaelHerron.com/Write and then I can send you the example of what this looks like, but I put some interesting things on there on my list of things that I want to do, that I get a hundred points for. I get a hundred points if I spend 30 minutes a day reading a book for pleasure during my work day. And by knowing that I can so easily get a hundred points, I have been doing it. I have been leaving work to go read on the couch, even though to me, it feels like you’re not getting enough done. You’re not checking off the to-do list. That is really important for me to do, I get a hundred points if I stopped working by 5:00 PM. Guess what has been making me close my computer at 4:59? I wanted those hundred points. So I stopped working. I don’t know. It’s been really awesome. So I’ve been getting a ton done and also relaxing cause there’s really nothing else to do.

[00:10:11] So that is what has been going on around here. Kind of a lot of things and also nothing. So, I just wanted to give a quick “Thank you” to new patrons, Nikki Woolfolk. Hello, Nik! Marie and Claire both edited their pledge up. Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much. It always makes me feel like a million dollars when you do that. So thank you to Claire Cutler and Marie. And a bumper crop of Jennifer’s came in this morning, Jennifer Flanker and Jennifer Zeitler. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. I hope that you enjoy the essays that I’m writing right now about this big move and this big change. And yes, there will be one on lockdown and how different it feels to be here under a government that really, really cares about its residents, and does the right thing to protect them and to get business back on track. New Zealand lost a ton of money. There’s a technical financial way to do that. They went into great financial distress when they shut down for eight weeks, this last time. And they gained up all of it. All of the money back. On the very first day of this new lockdown, they already had the business forms in place for companies who could apply to pay their employees. The very first day, everything is in place here and it, it made me cry the first day when just Cindy, the prime minister, went on the news. She goes on the news every day. Every single day at 1:00 PM and talks to the nation and takes all the questions. And if she doesn’t have an answer, she comes back the next day with the answer. If she didn’t have it the day before she goes on there with her health minister and they just talk every day to the nation, it made me cry to see this happened with so much concern and so much care and people doing this for the right reasons, shutting down for the right reasons in order to save lives. 

[00:12:07] And it just makes me feel like I did the right thing by moving here. And I’m so happy and privileged, and I feel so patriotic to my country of New Zealand when something like this happens when I listened to her. So that’s been awesome. That’s been truly awesome. So let us jump into the interview now. I know that you’re going to enjoy this one. And in the meantime, I hope that you are getting even a little bit of writing done. A little bit every day adds up. And interestingly, if you do 10 minutes a day, and 15 minutes tomorrow, the next day you’re probably want to spend 20 minutes on it. It’s a, it’s pretty awesome how it grows. So do that, come back, find me online, tell me what you’re up to. I just glanced back at the video. If you never watched me on YouTube, don’t worry about it. But if you are watching on YouTube, the light in here is very strange. So anyway, happy writing to you all, I’m so glad to be in contact with you and to be part of your writing community, it means so much to me that you let me in to your ears and you let me talk to you and you let me talk to you about writing and about life and about how all of this feeds and informs our writing. So keep it up. Happy writing. We’ll talk soon. 

[00:13:23] Hey, you’re a writer. Did you know that I send out a free weekly email of writing encouragement? Go sign up for it at www.rachaelherron.com/write  and you’ll also get my Stop Stalling and Write PDF with helpful tips you can use today to get some of your own writing done. Okay, now onto the interview. 

[00:13:41] Rachael Herron: All right. Well, I could not be more pleased to welcome to the show today, Laura Hankin. Hello, Laura!

[00:13:45] Laura Hankin:  Hi! Thank you for having me. 

[00:13:47] Rachael Herron: I’m thrilled to have you, let me give you a little bit of an introduction here. Laura Hankin is the author of Happy & You Know It, and she has written for publications like McSweeney’s and HuffPost, while her musical comedy has been featured in the New York Times, The Washington Post and Funny or Die. She splits her time between New York City, where she has performed off-Broadway and acted onscreen, and Washington D.C., where she has sung to far too many babies. A Special Place for Women is her most recent release. And I have just got to tell you how much I enjoyed your book. I had a recent complaint from somebody who’s like, Rachael, we never believe you because you always enjoy people’s books. But the thing is I don’t interview people whose books I don’t love. But that’s how it goes. And yours was just such a treat. And I saw somewhere, I can’t remember where I saw it. But it was like, maybe you said it somewhere now, what I’m saying? Like it was kind of almost, it touches on like a mashup of secret history meets practical magic, which I couldn’t let go of like two of my favorite books of all time. And you’re so funny and it’s so, but yet I’m settling in spooky and all of those things. So I just can’t recommend A Special Place for Women more. And I would love to talk to you about the writing of it and when, so this is show for writers about process. How do you write on a daily basis?

[00:15:17] Laura Hankin: Okay, well, there’s, you know, my ideal writing in a day and there’s like, what actually happened.

[00:15:24] Rachael Herron: I would love to hear about both. Yeah. Great. 

[00:15:28] Laura Hankin: So yeah, on a good writing day, I wake up in the morning, I like don’t look at my phone too much. I go for a nice long walk with a thermos of coffee. I leave my phone at home for it and so all I do is just like think my thoughts and get a little bored, and then I come, yeah. I mean, I know it’s like a luxury to also have the time and space to do that, but then I come back and I try to turn off my internet and write for the rest of the morning with a few wi-fi breaks and I aim to get out about a thousand words a day that way. And recently I’ve been trying to do it like Monday through Friday and then do whatever other stuff I have to do in the afternoon. And then actually let myself have weekends because, you know, as a writer, it can be very easy to be like, I need to write all the time, otherwise, what am I doing? 

[00:16:18] Rachael Herron: Yeah. I kind of binged between like writing none of the time and then writing all the time to deadline. So, and thousand words a day, five days a week is just sounds perfect. So what is the actual writing look like? 

[00:16:31] Laura Hankin: If I’m blocked for whatever reason or if there’s something else going on in my life, that’s taking a lot of my focus, sometimes it’s more like 200 words in a day and they’re really just kind of outlining or like free writing. And then occasionally the moments that I love the most are when I get like go away for a few days when I am able to make my schedule work in this way, where I can get like a cheap, cheap Airbnb or stay at a friend’s or something like that. And just know that for two or three days, my job is to write as much as I possibly can. And that’s when I like knock-out, you know, 7,000 words and a few days, and be like, I am a writing god!

[00:17:20] Rachael Herron: Have you had the chance to get away during the pandemic? Have you been able to sneak away a few times or? 

[00:17:25] Laura Hankin: I have, I found it a couple of really remote Airbnbs and been able to just like go to the country and not really see anybody and do that and I will say, you know, it’s interesting because I have written as my full-time job, like that’s what I’m doing now. And I feel very, very lucky to have that. And then I’ve also written while working a bunch of day jobs and had to like fit it all in there and it’s a lot tougher that way. 

[00:17:56] Rachael Herron: Not tougher, but let me ask you, honestly, because when I had a day job, I’ve been doing this full-time now for five years. When I had a day job, I almost swear to God that I got more writing done, sometimes. So I haven’t actually tabulated it and figured out like how many books were when, but, there is something about being a full-time writer where you’re like, well, you know, okay, 200 words. Whereas if you’ve got to work a 12-hour shift, you’re like, I got to get those 1500 words right now. What do you think about that?

[00:18:20] Laura Hankin: I think that’s really true. Yeah. And especially at least for me, because the end game was to become a full-time writer, and so I felt like I’m working these other jobs. The sooner I write this book, the better I can make my- like the sooner I can make my dreams come true, you know? Whereas now the amount of writing like expands to fill the time that you have. 

[00:18:44] Rachael Herron: Yes. There are a lot of people listening who want to make this, the, you know, the day job, dream thing. And please tell us how it felt when you did that. 

[00:18:54] Laura Hankin: Oh, I like almost couldn’t believe it. I’ve been wanting it for so long. Yeah. Every once in a while I sit back and I’m like, wait, I get to do this? And then of course I’m like, what if all my books flop? And then I can’t do it anymore because I think that’s the sad secret, right? Is that like, you’re never guaranteed to be able to do it for your whole life. 

[00:19:19] Rachael Herron: What is your backup job? Because I’ll never go back to the career I was in, my backup job is Trader Joe’s cashier. 

[00:19:27] Laura Hankin: Cause you have to be like really friendly. 

[00:19:31] Rachael Herron: You gotta be really friendly. You get like, it seems like they employ awesome people. They have good benefits.

[00:19:33] Laura Hankin: Yeah. 

[00:19:34] Rachael Herron: Do you have one in your head? 

[00:19:36] Laura Hankin: Great! Well the problem is that all the jobs I’ve ever wanted to do are like extremely impractical and difficult. So my back-up job. 

[00:19:45] Rachael Herron: They probably don’t pay much

[00:19:46] Laura Hankin: Oh, an actor, you know, audio book narrator. 

[00:19:51] Rachael Herron: Have you ever done audio book narration?

[00:19:52] Laura Hankin: I have gotten to do my own, which is really nice

[00:19:55] Rachael Herron: I’ve done one of my own, and it was so fun, 

[00:19:58] Laura Hankin: Really?

[00:19:59] Rachael Herron: But you obviously have the acting prowess and skill and I do not, but have you done all of your books?

[00:20:07] Laura Hankin: Yeah. I’ve done two. I also wrote a book like way back when that did not get a wide enough release to have an audio, but the two audios that I have, I-

[00:20:17] Rachael Herron: That’s so cool. 

[00:20:18] Laura Hankin: Yeah. The first one though, was like, you know, it was my first one, so I was supposed to have a really hands-on director and

[00:20:24] Rachael Herron: That was Happy and You Know It, right? 

[00:20:25] Laura Hankin: That was Happy and You Know It. And then the pandemic happened and they were like get to the studio tomorrow read until you can’t read anymore. Pray that the city doesn’t shut down before your time.

 [00:20:36] Rachael Herron: Oh my God. And did it get done? Well, obviously it got done 

[00:20:39] Laura Hankin: It got done, but I will say A Special Place for Women was a nicer process in terms of like being able to take my time with it and try different things and have a hands-on director. Yeah. 

[00:20:52] Rachael Herron: That’s so cool. What is your biggest challenge when it comes to writing?

[00:20:56] Laura Hankin: I think, accepting in my heart that the first draft is going to be bad, you know, I’m always like, but maybe I shouldn’t write anything if it’s not going to be perfect. Right away. 

[00:21:09] Rachael Herron: Isn’t that we know it sticks with us forever. Like I keep feeling like I will someday get to the point where I know how to write a good first draft. But I won’t! That’s fine. 

[00:21:18] Laura Hankin: Sorry. 

[00:21:21] Rachael Herron: What is your biggest joy when it comes to writing? 

[00:21:23] Laura Hankin: How I love writing dialogue. I think that’s really fun. And also maybe this isn’t great to say, but I kind of love the part where I’m not really writing, but I’m just thinking about like the plot and what’s going to happen.

 [00:21:37] Rachael Herron: Nobody ever says that, but that’s so enjoyable. 

[00:21:39] Laura Hankin: Yeah. The most fun that I have is when I pull up a word doc and I’m like, okay, you know, word vomit out, everything you think might happen in this book. And yeah. You’re just like playing with your characters, but you don’t. You’re not judging yourself in the same way. 

[00:21:54] Rachael Herron: Yeah. The dialogue that you’re strengthened dialogue, does that come from being an actor and, you know, being on stage and all that, do you think that’s where it comes from?

[00:22:03] Laura Hankin: I think it does help that I had so many years of being in various plays and that’s your tool, the dialogue and the plays. And yeah, you get to play a lot of different characters and feel the way it feels to talk as different characters, which is really helpful. And so sometimes, you know, I think like reading your own dialogue out loud and maybe trying to do the voice is a little bit, it could be a useful tool to hear if everything just sounds way too much. Thank you. 

[00:22:33] Rachael Herron: I love that. The book that I narrated was non-fiction so it did not have my fictional voices. I don’t think I could ever do that, but I could try it in my, you know, in my home office. 

[00:22:43] Laura Hankin: When no ones watching you, I, it’s, 

[00:22:46] Rachael Herron: I can do a very good job. I’m an expert. Can you share a craft tip of any sort with us? You kind of just gave us one 

[00:22:58] Laura Hankin: Yeah. I guess in addition to that so, okay, well this is one that I’ve never actually used, but my friend said it the other day and I thought it was, it seems so interesting and I’m saving it in my back pocket for if I ever get stuck. But she said that when she has a lot of trouble writing, sometimes she’ll like pull out a book that she really loves and just type out a few pages from it. So she can literally feel the rhythm of like writing good sentences and it inspires her to keep going. 

[00:23:29] Rachael Herron: What book do you think you would pull out if you did that? 

[00:23:33] Laura Hankin: Oh my gosh. I love, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. Did you read that one?

[00:23:39] Rachael Herron: Yeah. I loved that book. 

[00:23:41] Laura Hankin: Yeah, I know people don’t really talk about it, but I’ve made it my mission in life to talk about it all the time. 

[00:23:53] Rachael Herron: What do you love about the writing itself?

[00:23:54] Laura Hankin: Oh, I just think the narrator is so charming and it’s funny without being like laugh now audience. Yeah, 

[00:24:06] Rachael Herron: That sounds like you’re writing. 

[00:24:08] Laura Hankin: Oh, wow!

[00:24:11] Rachael Herron: I really can hear that echo. That’s very, very, very cool. Thank you for that. I’m going to think about who I would choose. Okay. What thing in your life affects your writing in a surprising way? 

[00:24:23] Laura Hankin: I mean I think my day jobs in a way have affected my writing a lot. Like I’ve pulled a lot from them for material, which is great because I always feel like, oh, all that time that I thought maybe I was wasting and doing something that wasn’t my passion actually fed into my passion and, you know, helped inspire me creatively.

[00:24:46] Rachael Herron: Can you think of a time that you pulled directly from that? 

[00:24:49] Laura Hankin: Oh yeah. I mean with Happy and You Know It, that was a book about a playgroup musician for wealthy New York women who like gets drawn into a club. 

[00:24:58] Rachael Herron: So I haven’t read that one. And that is just directly from your life? 

[00:25:02] Laura Hankin: Yes. It’s directly from my life. Plus, it’s a playgroup now conflating my two books. Yes, but yeah, that one was entirely inspired by my day job. 

[00:25:15] Rachael Herron: Did you ever hear back from people who wondered if they were, you were writing about them or did they just kind of keep that all to themselves?

[00:25:21] Laura Hankin: Maybe they kept it all to themselves or maybe I just did a really good job of actually making up fictional characters and creation.

[00:25:30] Rachael Herron: Yeah, great.

[00:25:32] Laura Hankin: I think I certainly wasn’t thinking about specific people when I wrote the characters. So that’s 

[00:25:38] Rachael Herron: that’s, I think about a specific person and then like five pages in they’re gone, and my new character in there. I could be accused of stealing characters sometimes.

[00:25:47] Laura Hankin: It happens sometimes, I’ll like download pictures of celebrities that I would cast and things and look at them whenever I get stuck.

[00:25:56] Rachael Herron: I really love doing that and I really liked doing that for a particular character that they play in a show, so it’s not necessarily Nathan Fillion, but it is Nathan filling in from firefly.

[00:26:08] Laura Hankin: Nice 

[00:26:09] Rachael Herron: As opposed to whatever that other show that he was really big in, or he was a writer, but, you know, picking there, I forget to do this, but when I am stuck on a character that often, often helps because then their characters come built in, nobody will recognize them. And you’re gonna change them anyway. 

[00:26:26] Laura Hankin: Changing a lot. Right, exactly. But then if you ever are stuck, you just like look into Nathan Fillion’s eyes and you’re like, oh, that’s how I would describe these eyes. 

[00:26:37] Rachael Herron: Yeah, exactly. What is the best book that you have read recently? And why did you and why did you love it?

[00:26:44] Laura Hankin: Well, I’m currently right in the middle of this book, The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton.

[00:26:51] Rachael Herron: Never heard of it

[00:26:52] Laura Hankin: It’s fantastic. So it’s similar in a way to Daisy Jones and The Sixth, if you 

[00:26:57] Rachael Herron: I loved 

[00:26:58] Laura Hankin: Yeah. This one’s also an oral history of a fictional group musical. 

[00:27:04] Rachael Herron: Wow!

[00:27:05] Laura Hankin: Which is funny because when I say that, I’m like, oh, you would think that they’re exactly the same, but they’re not, they’re quite different. And this one’s about this duo, a white man and a black woman in, I believe the sixties and this like, show that goes horribly wrong and the repercussions of that, and it’s really good and just feel so

[00:27:27] Rachael Herron: Wonderful

[00:27:28] Laura Hankin: Yeah, and you’re like living in the world. 

[00:27:32] Rachael Herron: What’s the feeling? The tone of the book, is it light, humorous? Is it dark? Is it?

[00:27:36] Laura Hankin: It’s darker because it deals with some really serious issues. But at the same time, all the characters are so engaging. And there are some who are incredibly funny, like whose voices are incredibly funny. So it feels like a page turner and I do laugh even as I’m like, oh, wow, this is intense at times. 

[00:27:57] Rachael Herron: I just going back to your book, which we’ll do right now. I just love, I love books that make me laugh in that almost like painful, I’m not even smiling at the book way, but just, oh, it’s so funny. It’s so freaking funny. And you’ve got to keep turning the pages cause it’s like the pain almost painful humor in the best way. So can you tell us, please about A Special Place for Women?

[00:28:20] Laura Hankin: Yeah, yeah, sure. So it’s about an undercover reporter named Gillian who is in a bad spot in her life. She feels like her chance to have the career that she wants as passing her by, her mother has recently died. She’s lost her journalism job. And so she’s like one more big swing I’m going to infiltrate this top-secret-women only club for the New York taste-making elite and she’s heard all these rumors about this club, including that they, you know, helped elevate new York’s first female mayor. And then they took her down again when they found or when she started to come for their fortunes. And so Jillian’s like, I’m going to get in there I’m to expose all their secrets only to find out that they’re far more powerful than she ever imagined. And it’s like funny, but twisty, there’s a big controversial twist in it 

[00:29:16] Rachael Herron: It’s so high concept too. It’s just like one of those pitches that you can say, and we understand what it’s going to be about and we just want to be there, so

[00:29:23] Laura Hankin: Yeah. I just want all the readers to feel like they are also being sucked into this club full of like, potentially very dangerous, but really magnetic women. And they’re having so much fun that they can’t get out, even though maybe they should. 

[00:29:40] Rachael Herron: Well, I loved it. I really loved it. And where can we find you out there on the internet?

[00:29:43] Laura Hankin: www.LauraHankin.com, I’m on Twitter (@laurahankin) and Instagram (@laurahankin) at Laura Hankin. I’m probably the most active on Instagram, but yeah, also in Twitter too, 

[00:29:55] Rachael Herron: Thank you so much, Laura for this interview. We were talking beforehand that I had to reschedule you to due to a migraine. Thank you for your grace in that. And I just. So appreciate your book. So appreciate the time you’ve taken to talk to us about writing. 

[00:30:08] Laura Hankin: It was really fun. It was nice to meet you. 

[00:30:11] Rachael Herron: You too! Happy writing to you. 

Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of “How do you Write?” You can reach me on Twitter, twitter.com/RachaelHerron, or at my website, www.rachaelherron.com, you can also support me on Patreon and get essays on living your creative life for as little as a buck an essay at www.patreon.com/rachael spelled R, A, C, H, A, E, L and do sign up for my free weekly newsletter of encouragement to writers rachaelherron.com/write/

Now, go to your desk and create your own process and get to writing my friends.