It's All Write to Be the King of Swords

Season two kicks off with It's All Write's very own Meryl Branch-McTiernan as our guest, discussing the inception of her debut novel, What You Should Worry About, writing during lockdown, being inspired by horny jews, and the joys of chosen family. 

Get your own copy of What You Should Worry About, release June 2, wherever you get books (preferably from you local bookstore or library). And catch Meryl on the road. Follow her on Instagram @outerboroqn for tour stops and readings this summer!

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Catch Meryl on tour with her debut What You Should Worry About. See which cities she's hitting next by following along on instagram @outerboroqn

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Follow us on Instagram @itsallwritepod. And send us a note at itsallwritepod@gmail.com.

Transcript

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Ariana 0:04

We are back with season two of It's All Write, The podcast about the writing life and those who live it. My name is Ariana McLean.

Meryl 0:14

I'm Meryl Branch McTiernan.

Ariana 0:16

And today is a special episode because I will be interviewing our very own Meryl here, And I am so proud and excited that her debut novel, What You Should Worry About, is hitting bookshelves IRL and online June 2nd, this episode is airing. Meryl's prose is delicious, smart, and specific. It's full of sharp observations that will have you laughing to yourself, but also feeling really Through the main character of the novel, Layla, who is bold and a little preoccupied with pretty much everything, often thinking what many of us are even too embarrassed to admit we think about our friends, our exes, our family, and even death. But ultimately, this novel, in my opinion, is about seeking and discovering connection. We start with Layla taking her connections and obsessions for granted, as we all did in the BC times, before Corona, and we are with her through the tremendously lonely, disorienting, confusing, weird, anxious times of the COVID shutdown. And finally, she risks infection to be with old and new friends on the Fire Island.

Meryl 1:28

In the, is it- so

Ariana 1:30

like I said, Meryl's book is released officially June 2nd. So if you haven't already pre-ordered, you should buy yours now at anywhere you get books. preferably a local bookstore but you know, do what you need to do. But today is May 26th, so Meryl, how are you feeling right now about it all?

Meryl 1:54

I feel, I, it, I feel like it's a lie to say that I feel like I'm in my 39th week of pregnancy, 'cause I don't really know what that's like, and I'm sure I'm feeling better than someone in their 39th week of pregnancy. But I guess I'm ready. I feel ready to have it out there and stop living in the pre-world, but also unsure of what the future will look like. Um, We did tarot yesterday, Ariana and I. Yeah. And I was getting the the moon card, which is all about the emotional and not, the not knowing, the,

Ariana 2:27

the mysterious realm

Meryl 2:28

myst- right. And then the hermit, which is like having trust and whatever. I don't know. What is it? Your own intuition. Your own

Ariana 2:35

My own intuition and your own light. Yeah.

Meryl 2:37

So yeah, it's hard to I don't know. Words. Sure.

Ariana 2:42

sure. I will also bring up 'cause I thought it was also important that you had the king of swords and the queen of cups, which I felt like really defined who you are, where You really know your stuff. You know writing. You read. You know how to tell a story. You are a writer. You've been a writer, and now you're about to be the, quote-unquote, "published author," which I don't think... being published, we were talking about this earlier, where being published doesn't define you as being a writer. But for some reason it still does feel, in this capitalist world,

Meryl 3:16

Right. Right. So it's like a credential on-

Ariana 3:19

of some way. It's a

Meryl 3:19

credential right.

Ariana 3:20

and so you just are gonna command these stages as you go on your book tour and just let the book shine and know that you are in command. You're both the king and queen of your domain.

Meryl 3:30

Yes. And master for the Seinfeld fans, except not really. I'm not master.

Ariana 3:37

Since you brought up Seinfeld um, throughout the book we get references to just classic sitcoms, Seinfeld, Golden Girls,

Meryl 3:46

cheers. Cheers. Frasier. Thank you. Yeah.

Ariana 3:49

I was like, I almost said Who's the Boss, but I don't think you you act-

Meryl 3:51

is in my heart. That's in your heart. That

Ariana 3:52

That is in my heart. That's in your heart. I was like, I- That

Meryl 3:53

that is very much

Ariana 3:55

Yeah. And I feel like your own love for television and classic sitcom is apparent both in your writing style like little Easter eggs, but then also I love that the chapter titles to me felt so much like episode titles. Like, I'll just read a couple. So chapter one, "Layla wants to go to the party." Flip, flip, flip Chapter two: Layla doesn't steal anymore. Layla in the sky with edibles Layla doesn't have a song."

Meryl 4:20

So I'm glad you bring that up because the way that those actually came along was at a certain point where I had a lot of the manuscript done and I was just trying to figure out does she have wants? Are there wants that keep her driven? So I decided to go through the book and identify what she wanted in every chapter. So as like a note for myself, okay, Layla wants to go to the party. Layla... Just making sure that the chapters were driven by desire. And so I just had those in. I was never someone who intended to name my chapters, but I kept it in and then I had a friend from Jennifer Belle's workshop Barbara Miller read the book, and I was like, "What do you think about those fucking chapter titles?" And she was like, they really remind me of sitcom titles." Oh. And she's "I like them. They're fun." And I was like, "Oh, I hadn't thought of that." So I changed them around so they're not all Layla wants. And they do change in the middle when she's stuck and she doesn't have... it, there's a pattern that goes away that comes back with the titles. But I appreciate you noticing that.

Ariana 5:27

Yeah. And since you mentioned that, that part where the pattern goes away I know that you are talking about when the shutdown happens. tell us a little bit about how you used writing to reflect how we felt during that time.

Meryl 5:43

So initially, I had the whole book standard, like the chapters are about eight to 10 pages each. And I felt like when you were, when there's momentum, that worked for like, all right, you could be in two chapters and you've gone to two different places. But once she was no longer going anywhere it felt hard to kinda string the chapters together for that amount of time because there wasn't that much to say. So I was looking for a way to show time moving differently. And I had taken a class on fragments and fractures with Robert Lopez, and so I started thinking like, "How about if I made that part more fragmented?" So in that middle section where she's alone during the pandemic, I have some chapters that are one sentence- or a poem, or just something to show like, oh, a day went by or a week went by and nothing happened. So I wanted it to feel that way and not to be boring, as the pandemic sometimes was.

Ariana 6:42

I remember there's this moment where she's making Kraft macaroni and cheese, and she hasn't done that since childhood, and was like, "Oh, man, this is way more orange than I expected."

Meryl 6:50

Right, like the mundane all of a sudden, like that was the day. Like discovering Like I discovered for the first time that they were doing the Kraft macaroni and cheese differently now, and it was a lot easier than it used to be. And that could be a revelation if... of course it was different I think for people who were, like, raising families and stuff like that. But if it was just you bumming around.

Ariana 7:10

And I think you touch on that with Layla's friends who do have kids and partners who some are supportive and some aren't. I do think you do a good job at showcasing at at least a couple perspectives of the pandemic, but in a way that I found myself still flipping through the pages as I did in the beginning when it was just like a bit of an adventure we were finding Layla, hooking up with people and going to parties and going on bad dates in that beginning part. But still even when we hit lockdown, you do a good job of amplifying the mundane, but then also having these these flashbacks that, that contrast well and give us a little bit more insight and move the story along obviously.

Meryl 7:53

Thank you.

Ariana 7:58

Tell us a little bit more about how this book came to be, how you crafted it together. Did you, or did you always know this was what the story would be? Did it come about in a certain way?

Meryl 8:09

I had no fucking idea what the story would be. Absolutely not. I had no idea. I started writing very, i've always been a writer, but I've always also struggled to be disciplined, and during the pandemic, that was all I did besides make macaroni and cheese, was to write. I was just recording what was going on. I did write for 100 days straight for the first time and the only time in my life. I was going my friend Aaron Zimmerman runs something called New York Writers Coalition, and they were offering free to $5 classes four times a day on Zoom. So I was kinda doing that. I would just go on, get a random prompt and just go with it. So by six months I had over 100 pages of gobbledygook about the pandemic, and I didn't really know what the story would be. So I was I was writing a lot, but I'm like, "Oh my God, this is so boring." So yeah. I brought it to my grad school, the class, hoping that they would solve the problem for me and was sorta like, "All right, guys," "what do you want this book to be?" And it just didn't, it did not go well. Oh. It was not... maybe that was unfair to ask. It wasn't really the right audience. Some of the people in the class were offended by s- things that went on in the book. But, maybe that's ridiculous to try and hope that other people are gonna solve your problems. So I needed to keep living, keep thinking, keep working with with Susie, keep working with Jennifer Bell's workshop before I kinda figured out what all of these pages could- add up to.

Ariana 9:42

I'm curious, did it feel like a... Did you have an epiphany, or did it, would it, was it a slow burn as it, came together? Well- Or something else?

Meryl 9:52

I think it, the the, a big thing that happened for me is that I made a movie. And so after I did that, I was able to write this fantasy of what happens in the beginning of the book in which my character is somewhat successful in a way that I hadn't been. And I found her flashing back to b- the before times, and at a certain point, I think actually I got this from Dawnie Walton. She said, "If you find yourself wanting to flash back a lot, maybe you're starting in the wrong place." And then there were certain things that I'd written about as just standalone or flashbacks that I moved into different parts to make them happen in the present, to add more drama. So in that, I d- I created that whole part one, which was before the pandemic, so that you could live with her and see what her life was like before everything shut down. like, I feel like I finally understood what an arc was in a way that I didn't in the beginning.

Ariana 10:49

Like-

Meryl 10:50

Something that you're just, "Oh, all right. I could put this story in there," but to have that story happen in real time all of a sudden adds more weight.

Ariana 10:58

Okay.

Meryl 10:59

So yeah, puzzling things in the right places. I've been accused in a negative way of writing episodically, and that is just what I do. And like it or don't like it, I don't know.

Ariana 11:12

Yeah.

Meryl 11:12

Yeah. But I think in this book, what I finally was able to do was to make the episodes-

Ariana 11:19

Arc

Meryl 11:19

arc. Yeah. Make it be like, all right, maybe you don't see why these are connected at the beginning- Yeah but they will all come together.

Ariana 11:25

Right. So it's no longer

Meryl 11:26

a sitcom,

Ariana 11:28

It's a miniseries.

Meryl 11:29

Right. It's an HBO max. Right, right.

Ariana 11:29

miniseries. I think, yeah.

Meryl 11:31

Yes. And maybe some of them won't come together, but hopefully you just enjoy them for what they are. Yeah, but

Ariana 11:35

that's But I think that's what makes novels good. Because then everyone will have a little moment they'll take away, and you'll think about it on a random, Tuesday.

Meryl 11:45

Yeah, whatever it is, whatever random little character or you've, f- yeah, you connect with or remember, like I'm happy if that happens.

Ariana 11:58

I really felt like novel was an example of how close comedy and tragedy are, And maybe not tragedy in the COVID was a tragic time, but just those sentiments of sorrow, sadness that are paired with humor and levity. Was that something intentional? Is that, I don't know. What do you think about that?

Meryl 12:19

I guess I feel like that's just who I am. That's, I who are my influences? Oh, you probably shouldn't say someone like Woody Allen. But yeah, it's w- someone like Woody Allen or- His work his work. Not his life. Yes. Not his lifestyle, not his life. But the horny Jews, as I call them. I feel like the people from the last century who I feel like death and sex and humor are all together all the time.

Ariana 12:46

They're like the only interesting things.

Meryl 12:48

Right. So that's just where my head is.

Ariana 12:51

Yeah. Even when I first started reading your writing in workshop, I always enjoyed it because Your work often took bold stances on sex, politics, death in a way that felt unapologetic, which made it exciting. And a- as opposed to... and it's not a bad thing, but I do think there are a lot of writers, especially in MFA programs, who are just trying to elevate their voice, and then it just becomes pretentious. And so you're, like, talking about death like this, like I'm imagining beatniks

Meryl 13:24

and- and

Ariana 13:24

stuff. But you just go out and say things, and I think you make really great,

Meryl 13:28

feel like

Ariana 13:28

i'm just complimenting you now.

Meryl 13:30

It's fine.

Ariana 13:32

Really great. I took some notes of of things that I liked but just really great stances or metaphors or comparisons to things that I wouldn't have put together but I totally get once I read it.

Meryl 13:43

Oh, yeah. Do you wanna tell me?

Ariana 13:44

Don't know if this is an example, but I love this the endings of your chapters are also just great buttons. So this is like the end of some chapter. I don't remember which one. "The notion of a has-been made me suicidal. I'd spent most of my life in the state of chase. The future tense held all the glory. How much time could a person live in the actual being stage where the present is perfect before being sentenced to the present perfect? A misnomer if you asked me.

Meryl 14:09

I

Ariana 14:09

don't know. I just enjoyed that little snippet.

Meryl 14:12

Thank you. That is a real thing that I believe. Just the idea, I fucking hate when people say what have they done lately?" Or just like you bring someone up, who has been in, whatever their art was, a mu- a mus- or is, a musician, a writer, an actor. And they've done some great work, and when someone's "But where are they?" Or, "They're random," or, "They're a has-been," like I just think that's so ridiculous. And I hope to be like if I'm-- I would like to write another book, and I'm ha- I'm writing other books, but if I never did again, I would like to be like, "Oh, you wrote that great book. You are always-" Yeah. you're always relevant."

Ariana 14:47

Here. Oh. Yeah, there's just some great ones Or like this one. "I remember when Adrienne used to call me her sister from another mister, but we weren't really family. It was just a thing you said to your friends before meeting your husband. Families came from fucking. Families came from giving birth. What were you supposed to do if you weren't fucking anyone when the plague came to town?" I was like, that's like a very I don't, I don't even know how to describe it. I was just like, yeah. Yeah, it's more than that, but I feel like we've all been in spaces where you feel that way.

Meryl 15:22

Yeah. I think the, one of the saddest things about getting older is your relationships changing with people, my, my aunt and I were just talking about the term starts a family, and it's- and we were both... she brought it up as a rid- not a ridiculous, but like a weird way of talking that way. But it's yeah, now they're in a family, and it's you're no longer on the, you're not the same. You're not... Yeah, so that's a lot of what this book is

Ariana 15:48

about.

Meryl 15:48

about. Yeah.

Ariana 15:49

And it's Yeah, I think there is like this weird, and I think it comes from Christianity,

Meryl 15:52

damn. But

Ariana 15:53

like or, organized religion where when you're a woman, you like leave your family to go to your

Meryl 15:58

husband's family. Start a new one. Yeah.

Ariana 16:00

Start a new life, yeah. And that's such a... I don't think that's a natural way of living. And I think, we've seen... There's so many stories of just like these, extremely depressed housewives, in suburbia where people were so isolated and that just became even more apparent during COVID for sure. Yeah. And we don't have to live that way.

Meryl 16:20

Right. I think it's probably worse now than it was in the '50s. Because there's no it's-

Ariana 16:26

now we have the internet, which is like a false- Exactly sense of community

Meryl 16:30

Right. I think in the '50s at least they were all drinking wine together- lamenting, and here we're just scrolling and drinking wine by ourselves.

Ariana 16:37

Yeah. Yeah, Gen Z, they're

Meryl 16:39

they express that whole- They're not even drinking wine. Yeah.

Ariana 16:41

But they express that "I just wanna be around people." Yeah.

Meryl 16:45

Yeah. And so to have, have that be the policy for years, I think that we're really fractured.

Ariana 16:53

Yeah. Which is... Okay, bringing it back to the book, not that we have to, but bringing it back to the book in our, in the third part, when Layla goes to Fire Island and this group house this place she's been going for so many years and now it's w- under this new guise of COVID or, this new normal as we love to say. She's not t- what's that word? You're kinda like going, you're like unsure. What's that word? Trepidatiousl- Trepidatiously. Yeah. Yeah. But I don't think she was that trepidatious. She was not that trepidatious. But

Meryl 17:21

but

Ariana 17:21

but okay, all right. I j- I'm trying to be, I'm being like that MFA person I was just complaining about. I was gonna say. All I wanted to say was- in that part we start to see how family can be from not fucking, right? Right. Family that is, is from actual caring and sometimes it's as mundane as just being together in a space.

Meryl 17:42

Right. Right. Being able to- Sharing experiences. You know how I feel like a lot of adult hangouts, like you're at a restaurant, you're talking the whole time. You're not just like sitting and looking at a magazine or staring at the wall. But that's what you do with family. And so that I think is part of the share house experience- Right is just to blah with people. Yeah.

Ariana 18:02

Yeah. Just blah with people. I know I was like the, my best friends I always say are those people that you know you can be with when you wanna be alone, and you're like, "Oh, but you don't count." Like- Right "i just wanna be alone, but you don't

Meryl 18:14

count." You don't count.

Ariana 18:14

Yeah. We can be together because it's those people where you don't feel like you have to perform, you don't... You can literally just be yourself in a space, say nothing, read a book, drink some wine, chitchat if you feel like it. That's so special, and I think we forget about that.

Meryl 18:29

And also, I think one of the things that my character struggles with, what I struggle with, is Being alone sometimes is easier because you don't have people weighing in or- Sure. Yeah getting annoyed or whatever, but then also you don't have support. The pros and cons of community versus solitude. You have to give up some control when you're around other people, but maybe it's worth it

Ariana 19:00

There's this underlying current, I'll use that word intentionally, current in our mermaid lagoon. But there's an underlying current through a whole book that you, or at least I feel like sometimes I'd forget about and it would creep back in, of Layla still grieving her father, of losing her father um, pre-pandemic and has that weighing and it comes out throughout the book. How was writing that and what was the importance of having that as part of the novel?

Meryl 19:28

I guess that is personal to me. A lot of what I was writing that came from those prompts that I was getting during that time would be about my own father. I was actually living in his apartment without him. So that was there. Like when you're in a house of ghosts not- Yeah that was very much part of my experience. And so that was reflected in the novel.

Ariana 19:55

I know some people are proponents of writing as catharsis and others are not. Did it feel, like helpful for you to write about that?

Meryl 20:04

I don't know if it's- I don't know if I fi- found it cathartic, but I just, I I don't know.

Ariana 20:11

Okay.

Meryl 20:12

It's also weird because the writing, I feel like I wrote it so long ago. Like I was doing a lot of edits throughout the past, year. But I don't think I could write that book now.

Ariana 20:24

Isn't that

Meryl 20:24

crazy? Yeah. It just feels, I feel very disconnected from the writing of the draft. There's a character named Nathan in the book which was inspired by a person or people from my past. And one of my friends who'd read the book was like, "Oh, was that guy that important?" yes, then. But I do feel on the other side emotionally about a lot of the things that I was writing about then. That's why I feel like I don't know that I could get to those emotional spaces again.

Ariana 20:56

Which is actually

Meryl 20:57

of- So maybe that is cathartic, but,

Ariana 21:00

Oh, no, but it's kinda cool then that, it's such a gift to us, the world, that you recorded so many of your feelings in the time of, during COVID and living through it, and now we have this artifact to kinda stand the test of time as art does, right? So it's speaking to a time, it's reflecting a time we all experienced. And to write... A- and you're saying that right now to write that now, that wouldn't... it wouldn't have the same emotional drive probably.

Meryl 21:26

Yeah I wouldn't know how to really get- Tap into it tap into it in the same way. Sometimes when I read it I'm like, "I wrote this?" I-

Ariana 21:34

I feel that way... Okay, not even COVID writing, but I'll, Sometimes I hate rereading stuff I wrote. I need a lot... I need time to pass before I reread stuff 'cause I just I cringe when I reread things I write. But then sometimes I'm like, "Damn, I can

Meryl 21:49

write." Yeah. I love that. Yeah. No, even those things, 'cause I feel like

Ariana 21:54

what

Meryl 21:55

eventually happens, I feel like a lot of the further phases are the cleaning up, the m- bringing in the metaphors and

Ariana 22:02

the,

Meryl 22:04

I don't know, just prettying it up. But you have to be able to put that initial stuff down there. So I feel like I've lived in that space of prettying things up for the past few years, and not the- Ah, yeah the

Ariana 22:17

the excavation. How do you feel about the editing process?

Meryl 22:21

It's interesting. In general I prefer to write over edit. Like, when I'm in the I think it would just be like, "Oh, this is free. I'm just writing it." Yeah. Whatever. Versus I don't know. But this process was not really what I expected because when I signed with Akashic, they were your book's pretty clean. It's almost there." And I was like, "Oh, is it?" Because 55 agents didn't want it. Okay. You think so? And then when I gave them, I did some work on it myself. I gave it back to them and got, some line changes and notes, but nothing really significant. So I, part of my insecurity was like are they missing something? Did they really read it? Because, there's so many problems with it, obviously. But then I was like, oh maybe it's brilliant. So I just had to be like, "All right. They like it, so I just have to make sure I like it." And-

Ariana 23:10

You have to be the king

Meryl 23:11

of swords. I had to be the king of swords and be like, "Okay they're letting me put in what I want," which is rare. I feel like a lot of people have heavier edits and a lot of word police and PC police, and I really didn't experience that. So that was really nice. So I had to be like, "W- well, can I stand by these words? Are they gonna sicken me in the future?" And, What's the answer? I, I'm not reading the book every day- but I think I like... Whenever I do engage with it, I'm like, "Oh, this is good."

Ariana 23:38

Um- Yeah, that's how it should be. So since signing your... Is it a contract? Sorry. I- Yeah, I need the

Meryl 23:44

a pr- a deal, a contract? I

Ariana 23:45

know.

Meryl 23:46

Yeah.

Ariana 23:46

Since signing,

Meryl 23:47

Sign-

Ariana 23:48

since getting signed on as a writer for Akashic with this book what has happened since? H- how has everything progressed? What was your experience?

Meryl 23:57

It all It moved pretty quickly, although it all feels like a long... basically, so we, we signed the deal and then I wrote the flap copy. And then what did I start doing? Oh, and then it was like, "All right give us your draft that you'd like us to edit." So took some time with that. Then they came back with their changes. So it was not that many back and forths, maybe four. So from January to, what, the end of May, it's been just a lot of PR pumping myself up. Yeah, it's been a weird time.

Ariana 24:32

Um, As this, has been a dream of yours- Has there been anything that's been particularly surprising

Meryl 24:39

Yeah. I think trying to explain things to people, like I realize that a lot of people don't know anything about publishing, and not that I was an expert, but just like how things work. I went to a weird networking hang or whatever the fuck a friend-making activity, and I sat with this person and I'm like I'm actually getting my book published." She's "Like a real publisher or like self-published bullshit or something?" And I was like it was a real publisher, but what if it had been?" Like- Right. it's offensive what kind of thing is that to say to someone? Bullshit. Like...

Ariana 25:10

yeah. A thing my mom started saying is, like what made you think that was okay to say?" Or "Why'd you say that?" Right. "Why did you say that?"

Meryl 25:17

Right, and and depending what somebody's career goals and life goals are, like self-publishing makes sense for some people. Like- Right I totally understand why someone would choose that route.

Ariana 25:26

Yeah, and some people are incredibly successful at it. Yeah. And whether you are or you aren't, like who's to say that's, it's also the same thing, like, when people have thoughts about if you should have kids and get married,

Meryl 25:36

like is,

Ariana 25:37

this is- Oh my God everybody has their own life.

Meryl 25:39

Everybody has their own life. Yes, exactly. Like-

Ariana 25:40

no one metric to success. Yeah. Do you have any questions for me as a reader

Meryl 25:50

Well, Knowing me and knowing a bit about the book, is there anything that surprised you when you were reading it? Is it what you expected or

Ariana 25:57

Oh, that's such a

Meryl 25:58

loaded question I know. That's-

Ariana 26:00

I guess I was most... and it's not actually surprising 'cause I've always enjoyed things you've written. I look forward to it in workshop. Unfortunately there are people who I'm like, "Ugh, I have to read their work." And I know other people love it.

Meryl 26:14

That's why there's- Right There's readers for everyone. Yeah

Ariana 26:16

readers for everyone th- there's readers for everyone. But I I guess I was surprised how into it I got. Especially in the COVID section, I mentioned that earlier, 'cause I didn't really know how you would handle that. 'Cause I'd only read the beginning of your book a few times. Not anything else after before you got it published. But I was, like, out. I decided to go sit on the water and read a little bit on the East River on a little bench, and I was, like, reading it, and then the streetlights clicked on, and I was like, "Oh, I should go home." Oh. So I did feel super captivated and transported to COVID times, not necessarily in a bad way, but I immediately went to go text my friend who I was supposed to meet up with for drinks, and I was like, "What bars will, take us?" And I was like, "Wait a second, we're not

Meryl 27:00

in

Ariana 27:00

cOVID times." Right. Right. Like, all the bars are

Meryl 27:01

open. You don't have to get a sandwich and sit outside and

Ariana 27:04

I... Yeah, so I guess I was surprised I was, I was like taken back to that time. Almost like when you have a dream and you wake up and you're like still in the dream. I did feel that way. Transported. Transported.

Meryl 27:15

Oh, that's good. I think

Ariana 27:16

I've...

Meryl 27:17

If those of you who follow me on social media, like I really struggle to tell people what the book is about because I start talking about COVID and it doesn't... I feel like it's not appealing.

Ariana 27:27

It's not about COVID, it just happens

Meryl 27:30

during it. Right. But it's... I have yet to find like a good elevator pitch. because I feel like it, it's hard for me to speak a sentence that sounds good, that...

Ariana 27:41

that's why you wrote a whole

Meryl 27:42

book. Yeah, exactly.

Ariana 27:43

you couldn't say it in one

Meryl 27:44

sentence. Right, right, right, right. right.

Ariana 27:51

Is there anything you're most looking forward to this June?

Meryl 27:54

Like on my book tour or in life?

Ariana 27:57

Both

Meryl 27:57

Both. I don't, I just can't even picture anything. I can't picture what it's gonna be... Like, I'm

Ariana 28:01

really ex- You're jumping into the

Meryl 28:02

water I'm just ex- I'm excited to have all these parties and events. We can post my book tour schedule on the podcast page. I'm excited to visit different cities. I'm going to Chicago for the first time. I'm excited to share the work with people from different avenues of my life, and I'm really excited to meet new people who discover me through my work and wanna engage.

Ariana 28:28

Yeah.

Meryl 28:29

And I do feel like somehow I wrapped all of the preoccupy preoccupations of the first 40 years of my life into something, and now what is the next...

Ariana 28:39

What are you gonna be preoccupied

Meryl 28:40

with? I don't know. I hope it

Ariana 28:41

Whatever comes. Yeah,

Meryl 28:42

i-

Ariana 28:42

you are, you're so full of life I can't imagine it

Meryl 28:45

wouldn't.

Ariana 28:51

All right. To end the show, I'd love for you, Meryl, to read a little bit from the book and whet our appetites.

Meryl 28:59

Sure.

Ariana 29:00

So I think you should read from the beginning of the, quote-unquote, COVID pandemic section.

Meryl 29:08

Sure. There we go. With nothing to do and nowhere to go after weeks of sustained pressure, I felt like Rapunzel, trapped inside a castle with hair that refused to grow and a prince with no GPS. When I had a deadline, the busyness buzzed inside me, especially when I was actively avoiding my computer. Oh, then I was really swamped. No time for anything. There were so many pennies to roll and bring to the bank. Oh, yeah, I forgot I wrote about this already. I wanted to write about my pennies thing. Anyway and I needed to read up on the Tompkins Square Park riot of 1988. How could I possibly set my show there if I didn't know more about the 1:00 AM curfew imposed on the previously all-night

Ariana 29:48

park?

Meryl 29:49

But now nobody cared what I did as long as I stayed inside. Lying in my parents' bed, I turned on Cheers, hoping that a bar where everybody knew everybody's name would make me happy. Sam was reading War and Peace to impress Diane in front of her pompous ex. I should have been laughing, but I hated seeing Norm and Cliff sitting smugly on their stools with their uncovered mouths, trading barbs and swinging beers. For them, family wasn't something you clung to. It was something you escaped from. I hated Diane getting up in Sam's grill, their sexual tension slicing through decades since the show first aired. I even hated the guffaws of the studio audience, who sat for hours laughing on command during the recording of a 22-minute show. Sitcoms were an early addiction for me, the first way I escaped from my family. Television families always seemed more legit than my own. I should have known Nathan was the wrong person when he unabashedly mentioned he didn't like sitcoms during the third stop of our first date. After two bars, we were eating at Palm's Thai on Hollywood Boulevard. A Thai Elvis impersonator was singing "A Little Less Conversation," and I asked him, "Would you ever date a vegetarian?" He shook his head I wouldn't date anyone who wouldn't let me order off the wild things section of this menu." When we got to the restaurant, he had immediately turned to the back page where wild things were listed. I worried that he was going to order the frog with green peppercorn or the deer in curry sauce, so when he ordered the quail with chili and holy basil to share without my approval, I'd been relieved. All right, I'll just stop there.

Ariana 31:23

Wait. I wanted you to read one more

Meryl 31:24

part. Oh, sure. Let's go back. This is good. It's fun to

Ariana 31:27

be- To be directed?

Meryl 31:29

And it's just nice to read the thing in a book and not on a fucking screen.

Ariana 31:33

Oh, yeah oh, I like this part.

Meryl 31:35

Perfect. "I asked him what he was laughing at, and he said he liked the idea of someone jerking off to pre- breastfeeding porn, that I should have more stuff like that in my script. Later that night, he texted me, 'It's not that I think your work is bad. It isn't. I just think you're being held back by the form.' I didn't know how to respond. The form had brought me to Hollywood. The form was why he knew me. The form was what I had chosen, or maybe it had chosen me. Sitcoms had always been my bedtime companions. I went to sleep with the lullaby of laughter. I didn't care if the laughter was real, fake, or dead. But now I couldn't seem to watch a show without getting angry at the happy people sharing space, hugging, kissing, and touching each other, and only wearing masks on Halloween. On Facebook, everyone was talking about their pandemic binges, and I was suddenly on a

Ariana 32:22

purge." Yeah. I like that. I just feel like that really captures the many things. 'Cause we talk about form, and it's such a writery thing, and I think I love that you put that in there. And then also just remembering we were just always on social media, and people were always posting shit, and you're just like, Ugh." But then also then you would post stuff 'cause you wanted to showcase that

Meryl 32:44

you

Ariana 32:44

were You were like, yeah doing something.

Meryl 32:46

Yeah, but I, just seeing those pieces, I'm like, oh yeah, this is all like splicing together. Like random shit that I wrote spliced with other random shit to, yeah. Is that what writing is? To make... I guess that's what writing is. You just write some things and then put them with other things. And you get a book. It's very easy.

Ariana 33:04

There we

Meryl 33:05

You get a book. There you go.

Ariana 33:05

Oh, I think that's a perfect time for

Meryl 33:07

an it's all right. I know. Inspired by our conversation, it's all right to just write random scenes and go back and splice them all together, and the book may be born that way.

Ariana 33:19

Nice. Should we just list off some other fun ones? I don't know, it's all right to have a fourth cold brew of the day.

Meryl 33:28

It is.

Ariana 33:29

It's all right to be happy for your friends.

Meryl 33:34

It's all right to not be happy for your friends. It's

Ariana 33:39

all right to it's all right to be frustrated. It's all right to be unsure.

Meryl 33:46

It's all right to worry. It's all right to take the summer

Ariana 33:49

off. Yeah. So great to talk to you about your actual book. I, I remember it's, it's been a wild ride. We started this about a year ago, more than a year ago, and and we were both just wanting to talk about writing and stay in that writing space and keep each other motivated and also vent, and now look at you, published author Meryl Branch McTiernan.

Meryl 34:13

I know. If you're feeling depressed about your life, go back to season one, episode one, where I was just venting and ranting- like a crazy Facebooker. Thanks for listening. I hope you pick up the book anywhere you buy or borrow books.

Ariana 34:28

Yeah. We'll have links in the show notes to Meryl's website, where you can see where she'll be. What cities are you hitting so far?

Meryl 34:36

So we're starting off in Bushwick at, at a book club bar.

Ariana 34:41

As a millennial would.

Meryl 34:42

As, yes, perfect. And then Rockville Center Library ,Porter Square Books in Cambridge Head House Books in Philly. Then we're going to San Diego, Book Catapult. Book Soup in LA, and something in Chicago that I can't remember.

Ariana 35:01

Chicagoans. Uh, It's okay. But come out.

Meryl 35:04

Yeah. Yeah, and then I'll tell you about July later. That's all in June.

Ariana 35:07

yeah, so I'm really excited to share a bunch of new episodes this summer. I hope you listen. On the beach would be a great place to listen. If you're t- taking any sort of road trip or maybe you're just taking a walk

Meryl 35:21

Or a bath.

Ariana 35:22

Or a bath. Ooh, a bath. Maybe... And you know what? We're not offended if you wanna listen to us while you do

Meryl 35:26

dishes. Sure.

Ariana 35:27

Cause at least, the, it needs to get done. Yeah. So we'll, let us entertain you.

Meryl 35:32

Let me

Ariana 35:33

Let me entertain you. Let us entertain you. thanks for listening. Tune in for new episodes. We'll put 'em out semi-regularly, probably every two weeks. We have some great writers that we've interviewed for your listening enjoyment. Later. Later. Later, gators.