Freelance writer Amy Weinland Daughters mostly wrote about college football until she decided to try her hand at, in her words, “a hilarious time travel novel.” That novel, You Cannot Mess This Up: A True Story That Never Happened, turned out to be a catharsis, giving her a whole new look at her childhood and her family. It’s gone on to win the Silver Winner for Humor in the 2019 Foreword INDIES and the Overall Winner for Humor/Comedy in the 2020 Next Generation Indie Award.
Amy and I talk about the experience of writing about sports as a woman, what happens when a creative project becomes “real,” the importance of supporting each other’s creative dreams, even if they seem a little crazy, and just how she re-constituted Thanksgiving weekend 1978, and her whole family from an adult point of view, in her book.
Episode breakdown:
00:00 Introduction
01:22 Always creative, imaginative childhood eventually inspired writing.
09:27 Support networks vital for achieving difficult careers.
10:42 Creative doubt and imposter syndrome affect identity.
18:23 Creating requires empathy; art preferences are subjective.
21:14 Believe in yourself; push to create magic.
27:52 Unexpectedly transformative journey, beyond initial intentions.
36:41 Book evoked nostalgia, laughter, and personal reflection.
38:59 Embraced younger self, now proud and united.
45:44 Memories change with age and perspective.
52:18 Nostalgic, relatable, thought-provoking, humorously realistic moments.
53:12 Misunderstood as sci-fi; divided reader opinions.
59:29 People share personal childhood stories with Amy.
Amy Weinland Daughters Show Links
Amy’s website
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Transcript: Amy Weinland Daughters
Please note: This is an unedited transcript, provided as a courtesy, and reflects the actual conversation as closely as possible. Please forgive any typographical or grammatical errors.
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:06]:
Welcome to Follow Your Curiosity. Ordinary people, extraordinary creativity. Here’s how to get unstuck. I’m your host, creativity coach Nancy Norbeck. Let’s go. Freelance writer Amy Weinland Daughters mostly wrote about college football until she decided to try her hand at, in her words, a hilarious time travel novel. That novel, You Cannot Mess This Up: A True Story that Never Happened, turned out to be a catharsis, giving her a whole new look at her childhood and her family.
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:39]:
It’s gone on to win the Silver Winner for Humor in the 2019 Foreward INDIES and the Overall Winner for Humor and Comedy at the 2020 Next Generation Indie Award. Amy and I talk about the experience of writing about sports as a woman, what happens when a creative project becomes real, the importance of supporting each other’s creative dreams, even if they seem a little crazy, and just how she reconstituted Thanksgiving weekend 1978, and her whole family from an adult point of view, in her book. Here’s my conversation with Amy Weinland Daughters. Amy, welcome to Follow youw Curiosity.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:01:19]:
Thank you so much, Nancy. I’m very excited about being here.
Nancy Norbeck [00:01:22]:
So I start everybody off with the same question. Were you a creative kid or did you discover your creative side later on?
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:01:30]:
No, I was a creative kid in a lot of different ways. A lot of pretend, a lot of makeup stuff. You know, even when I was by myself, I would run through the woods and make up like alternate worlds. Not fantasy as in dragons and swords, but more like I live on a farm and I know I’m going to go pick these onions as if this was a crop, you know, so always creative. And, you know, I didn’t really pick up the creative writing, you know, I think I did a little bit of that poems and I always kind of thought it was funny. But then as I went through high school, I started to write more, write short stories. And so I think it’s always. That’s always been in me some somehow, but it didn’t really manifest itself to later in my life as a real component, you know, of a career or, you know, where I took it seriously.
Nancy Norbeck [00:02:23]:
Were you encouraged as a kid to keep doing creative things even if you didn’t recognize that it was a real thing for you?
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:02:30]:
Yeah, I think that’s a tricky thing because I was kind of very exuberant child. And so I think, you know, my dad, who was not around me most of the day, encouraged me more than my mother. But I think I was a handful and I think she liked that about me. But also this was like the 70s and so. So that had to been managed in some way. But I was encouraged, and I’ve always been encouraged. And the thing that they encouraged me to do the most was I would come up like crazy ideas. They’d be like, yeah, that’s a great idea.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:03:01]:
And I think that ties into creativity. So I definitely feel like it was never completely squelched. Not the creative part of my personality, kind of out of control part. I know that’s a lot of personal information, but all that’s wrapped together though, you know, it’s part of my personality. It’s part of your personality. So.
Nancy Norbeck [00:03:18]:
So, yeah, absolutely. So when did you start really looking at writing as a real thing?
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:03:25]:
Well, you know, I wrote short stories and I had an English teacher in high school. I think it was my junior year of high school. And I showed her the stories and she’s like, you know, Amy, these are pretty good. And I wasn’t, you know, a great student in that. I’m not a super book smart person, you know, I’m more of an outside the box person. But when she told me that, I was like, wait a second, you know, I was. She was somebody I really respected. And so then I got more serious about writing the stories.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:03:53]:
And so when I got accepted to. This was back when you got accepted to college and you didn’t declare your major right away. Like, you didn’t get into college to go to business school. You would have had to get into business school once you got to college, if that makes sense. So I went to Texas Tech and this was like 12 hours from my house. I grew up in Houston and I was standing in this, you know, the student union building with my father. And if I went this way, I was going to go be in the business school. And if I went the other way, I was going to be in the journalism school.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:04:23]:
Because I think I knew then that I wanted to write and that a little bit of encouragement from my teacher, you know, made me think maybe that was a thing. And my dad, God bless him, didn’t tell me what to do. And I really think he wanted me to go the business way because he felt like that was my. The best way to support myself, which would have been the whole point of him paying for all this. But he didn’t say anything. He was like, it’s your decision. And I went to business school on my own. It was my own decision.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:04:50]:
I never regret it. I got a degree in business management and I went and worked in purchasing for probably a dozen years in Houston. After I graduated, moved up the ranks there, loved it, thought it was great. But I was always the girl who reread her emails to herself like eight times. And like I write the memo for the picnic and like it would be like funny. You’d laugh, you’d cry. It was an experience, you know, so I was still doing it, you know, at that point I didn’t know I was doing it though. I just like, that’s part of me, that’s part of who I am.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:05:22]:
And then we had a major turning point in our family. My husband’s job, we both were moving up, you know, in our respective careers and his job said, hey, why don’t you all move to the UK for three years? And we were like, that’s cool, we’re in our 30s, you know. And so we did it and so we move over there and I don’t have a work visa, I’m going to suspend my career. Which looking back it’s almost seems, you know, like what were we thinking? But it was so, it was such a grand adventure. And so at first I was like, well I have one kid and he went to school. And I was like so what am I going to do? Like I’ve never done this before. And so I went to the university near where I lived and took history classes, which was fascinating. But then I was like, okay, I’ve got to do something else.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:06:04]:
It was almost out of desperation, I was like wait, all right, you know, and so I like out of left field. And I think it just kind of hit me when I was writing emails home. It was before social media and I would like kind of update on everybody what was going on in English England, you know, like funny haha. But like real information, like this is the struggle with dial up Internet in England because it was like 2000 so and like pictures of castles of me wearing a kilt, you know, all that kind of stuff. So I did that and then I started looking around so the Internet was, you know, starting to blossom. I was like wait a second, I think I could do something with this. So I started submitting things and I had so much time to do this so I could really got invested in it. And then people started buying my stuff and I was like wait a second, there’s something to this.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:06:49]:
And by the time I got to the end of England I was, I was making, would have been the equivalent of a part time job. And then voila, we get back to Houston, I’m pregnant with my second kid. And so I’m like, I don’t Want to get, I don’t want to dip my toes back in full time because I need to have this kid first. And so then when I got back over, somehow magically, I’ve always loved sports. I started writing for this guy, like freelance writing, college football. And he’s like, well, here’s a contract. Why don’t we just do this for real? Then I started working for the Bleacher Report. So I never went back to purchasing or any outside of the house career.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:07:24]:
I just, I just rolled with this writing thing and it turned into a full time job. And never in a million years, Nancy, would I have thought that this would have been my career path, you know, And I found myself in this process and I found really what I really think what I was supposed to be doing all along.
Nancy Norbeck [00:07:45]:
It’s so interesting that it didn’t turn out to be, oh, I made the wrong choice when I went for the business degree that it worked out that you liked it, but you still ended up essentially kind of having made both choices at the same time.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:08:01]:
Right, right. And I guess life just pulled me that way. And the other thing I have is I have a super supportive, like in my house, support network and I have people who take me seriously, including a spouse who’s like, that’s a great idea. But I also think he felt like he sacrificed, like I sacrificed so we could go do those things. But it doesn’t always work that way in a relationship. And I realized that someone who is a creative person who wants to, you know, pursue, especially in the realm of books where there’s no promise while you’re sitting here, you know, flogging yourself for hours, doing this thing going. And everyone around you has got to be going, oh my gosh. But I’ve been lucky because he has really supported me.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:08:40]:
Not in just, you know, go in the other room and roll his eyes, which I’m sure he’s done that because this is marriage, you know, but he’s been like, no, we’re going to take this seriously. Your mom’s in there, you know, and she’s got to go somewhere for the weekend and do this because you people are allowed. I mean, I’ve been taken seriously that my children have taken me seriously. So I’ve been super. And I don’t think, I think any successes I’ve had has a lot to do with my support network. It’s almost like being a quarterback and going to an NFL team. And like Patrick Mahomes went to Kansas City and he had that entire support network, you know, and then somebody else went to the Cleveland Browns and didn’t win the super bowl, and they were both great quarterbacks. I’m just saying, I think that’s really, that that’s been a big component of the trajectory of my writing career.
Nancy Norbeck [00:09:27]:
That makes sense to me because I’ve talked to so many people now, and one of the biggest themes that I’ve heard over and over again is how much of a difference it makes when you have that support network. You know, especially as a kid, if your family is not sitting there and saying you can’t write or be a musician or whatever because you’ll starve and you’re never going to make any money and so you have to go into the family business or go get the business degree or whatever. There’s a huge difference. You know, the people who succeed in those fields that we typically tend to think of as difficult to succeed in. Like, you know, if you want to be a professional musician, what are the odds that you’ll actually manage it? Have all had that kind of support. And so, you know, it’s. I think it’s so much easier to doubt yourself and to give up on yourself if you don’t have that sort of cheering section. So I’m not, I’m not at all surprised that you think that that made a difference.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:10:27]:
Right. And I think, you know, to doubt, I mean, back to doubt anybody does something creative, there’s already the built in doubt without having the people doubt you around you. Because I know that. And I think as a woman, I think that the doubts even compounded, you know, and.
Nancy Norbeck [00:10:41]:
Absolutely.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:10:42]:
And when you do something creative, like writing, like you said, making music, making art, whatever you want to call it, I mean, the doubt. And I think that really my, you know, path through the business school and the business world or whatever you want to call that, that made me even feel less like a writer. Because I still to this day don’t want to say, like, I want, you know, like, I’m a ribbon dancer. I want to say something else because I don’t, like, there’s still a part of me that’s like, I don’t really fit in. Like, I was looking at the guests that you’ve had on your podcast. I was like, oh my gosh, like, look at these esteemed people. And then here’s the girl who wrote herself back in time, you know, funny ha ha girl, but that, but that. And they call it imposter syndrome.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:11:23]:
I don’t know if that’s what. But I think we all have A component of that, you know, because, you know, I’m not a professionally trained writer, and so what am I doing? Writing. But that’s, I think that’s what it’s important about podcasts like yours and what I’ve listened is because you’re empowering people to feel like, by hearing their stories, to feel like, hey, look, if he can do it, if she can do it, you know, this is a path for me. And maybe it’s not writing, maybe it’s whatever their, their thing is. And that’s very powerful stories.
Nancy Norbeck [00:11:49]:
I hope so, because that’s a big part of why I do this. So, yeah, I think there are ways to do the things that we love. Even if it’s not a full time job and even if it hasn’t been so easy to figure out what that is or how to do it. I think you can find your way. Which is why I talk to people that, you know, friends of mine from high school that nobody else has heard of, who do, you know, really cool things on the side. Because, yeah, go do your thing on the side. Go do it for 15 minutes after work. You know, if that’s all you have, do it better than not doing it at the end of the week.
Nancy Norbeck [00:12:33]:
You’ll have done a couple hours worth and look, you’ll have something to show for it, and who knows where it’ll go.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:12:39]:
Well, then that’s what. And then also those are the things that feed, you know, people’s souls. You know that. Those are the things that really make us who we are. And I think it changes every other component of our lives. You know, we become better people. We became better moms, better sisters, better brothers, you know, whatever, co workers, whatever it is. You know, my story at work is great because I was a better employee when I was over there rereading my emails because I was so, you know, enthusiastic about that part of it, that it made me, you know, a happier, better coworker, better employee, all the rest of it more effective.
Nancy Norbeck [00:13:16]:
And that’s how, you know you’re really a writer, right? Because you’re sitting there rereading your email 16 times before you can finally hit send, right? That’s just how we’re wired.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:13:26]:
That’s right. That’s right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:13:28]:
Yeah. So you mentioned, like, the extra pressure of being a woman. And that’s one of the things that I wondered about since you’ve done sports writing. How, how was that?
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:13:37]:
You, you know, when I started, you know, doing it, seriously, it was like 2006 maybe. And really, I’m happy to report that the, it has changed a lot in those years between now and then. I’m, I’m. This is last season. College football season was the first season I didn’t actively write about football because I had stuff happen with my, with both my books and I just, it was, it was too much. I couldn’t do it and I really missed it. But at the beginning it was, I mean, you know, and we’re in the online so you can picture it. It’s.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:14:11]:
First of all, we’re online where everybody can say whatever they want to, you know, second of all, I’m a woman writing about college football and it’s so opinion based because that’s what they want. They want your opinion and the people want to kick it around. But if you look at your objective, you know, male sports writers take a lot of grief as well, not just women. But if you attach that you’re a woman, then you’re really going to get it. So I really got it at the beginning and I really had to learn how to manage that because I’m kind of a sensitive soul at the end of the day. And you know, kind of what I finally, you know, I had a couple things I did. One, I didn’t read all the comments. I couldn’t because it would just, I would just mess with me.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:14:50]:
If somebody sent me an email, even if it was a horrible email, I’d respond and just say, I’m not going to, I’m not going to listen to you. And the other thing I started doing because I’m real numbers based person, so a lot of things I wrote about were about statistics. And so at the bottom of every one of my articles I started linking the statistics sites that I use. Just saying statistics courtesy of. Because that shut a lot of people down. Shut a lot of people down. Because what I learned is I could back up everything, my opinions with actual data. Not because I’m a woman, because that’s how my brain works, but I put that at the bottom.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:15:23]:
It’s like, okay, I mean you can argue with me, but the numbers are the numbers. And that, that really helped me. And then I really got the support. What ends up happening is you get a, you know, a support group of readers. I did a lot of radio of listeners and then of editors and other sports writers. And all those people I’m talking about are usually males but they start to see the merit of your work and then you just focus on that feedback. And I think the other thing that it did for a while, it Held me back from getting better at what I was doing because I was so, you know, I was so engrossed with the fact that I was just getting like. And I mean, a literal get back in the kitchen type comments.
Nancy Norbeck [00:16:03]:
Oh, I’m sure.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:16:04]:
Yeah. So. And much worse. You know, but that has changed. It absolutely has changed. And I’m sure it’s changed for me because I got better at it and because I had some kind of traction and, you know, people have maybe heard of me or not heard of me, but then it goes back to. Also I took myself more seriously and gained confidence.
Nancy Norbeck [00:16:27]:
Yeah. But I think you must have really figured out how to. I don’t like this expression. But grow a thicker skin or armor yourself for. Yeah, because that’s. That’s just such a rough thing. And I, you know, everybody always says don’t ever read the comments, and I agree with that. But I also know it is the hardest thing in the world not to read the comments.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:16:50]:
Oh. Oh. And if you’re in a. I mean, like, that’s like in a vulnerable position. Like, you get in bed and you have your phone. Not a good idea. Because you’re gonna. You’re gonna.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:16:59]:
That’s when you’re gonna look. You’re. When you’re off guard, you’re gonna look. And you, you know, authors, same way. Don’t. The comments are. That’s a different thing. But it’s.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:17:08]:
But it’s very difficult. And I think you have to know yourself and you have to respect your own boundaries because that’s what the sports writing where I finally had to do. That’s not gonna be. Do me any good. And I’d have friends be like, oh, my God, you gotta get on there right now. They’re hammering you. I’m like, you guys go do all that. That’s not gonna do me any good.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:17:23]:
And make a boundary and say, I’m not going there. I can’t do it, because I just can’t. I can’t go on if I do it.
Nancy Norbeck [00:17:30]:
Yeah. And I. Now that you mentioned that, I had an experience a couple years ago with somebody who was a friend of mine who was like, you know, people are talking about something you said on your podcast, and they’re saying that it’s not actually true. And I’m like, well, did they listen to the podcast? Because the guest said it, not me.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:17:46]:
Right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:17:47]:
You know, but. And they thought they were doing me a favor, but all it did was just like, my adrenaline was sky high. I was trying really hard not to freak out. And, you know, talking to somebody else about it later, they were like, why was that even any of your business? It’s not something that I would have encountered if they hadn’t mentioned it to me. You know, I would have gone right on with my day, no big deal. And instead it was just like, ah, you know, for a couple hours until everything just settled back down again. And I think, I think people think they’re being helpful, but they’re really not.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:18:23]:
Right. Right. And I think that, yeah, unless you’re on the side of the creating, it’s hard to know what that is like, you know, it’s hard to know because you get a lot of comments even about the books, and you just think you, you’re, you’re discounting because you look at other authors, you’re discounting even if you didn’t like it, you know, all the work that went into it and books and articles and music and art. It’s like wine, you know, just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s any not good. And I would never come up to you and say, I cannot believe Nancy, you drink chardonnay. I mean, you lightweight, you know, but people will come up to other people and say, I can’t read. I can’t believe you read Danielle Steele. Like, what were you thinking? And that’s ridiculous because if you like Danielle Steele and I’m still reading Nancy Drew, who cares? I mean, that’s the thing.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:19:14]:
If we could take that, you know, but wine people can be that way too, frankly. But I’m just saying, if we, but that’s like all of life, like your one small voice inside of you pushing you to do these crazy things, you know, if, if, if we could all just support each other on our different tracks rather than, you know, try to tell each other, you know, no, no, this is the way to do it. This is the blueprint, you know, rather than saying, oh my God, that’s nuts. Go do it. Let’s go. That’s crazy, you know?
Nancy Norbeck [00:19:38]:
Yeah, I like that. That’s nuts. Go do it. Totally, totally. Hang that like on my bathroom mirror. But yeah, yeah, if we all encouraged each other the things we would accomplish.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:19:54]:
Oh, yeah. And if you felt like you had that real support from other human beings, you know, if you’re like, you know, you’ve got this one friend who’s like, yeah. And then I’ve had, with the first book, which I never thought I was going to write, I had a set of probably three, three different friends who would every Once I’d be like, where’s the book? Like, are we gonna do it or we’re not gonna do it? Like, what are you doing? And that. Then I. That was there in the back of the. There are the acknowledgments of that book. Because it was like, y’all made a difference. You guys checking on me.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:20:21]:
Because it made me feel like it was real. And you were holding me accountable to what I said I was gonna do. And the whole time, I thought, that’s nuts. I’m not actually gonna do that. And then, voila. I’m talking to Nancy.
Nancy Norbeck [00:20:34]:
Well, and, you know, that whole thing about feeling like something’s real is something we don’t talk about. I don’t think anybody’s ever really brought it up before on this show, except maybe me and a pep talk, maybe. But there is something that happens when a project starts to feel real to you and not like some loopy flight of fancy that, you know, oh, you know, I was just really tired, and I don’t know where this came from, and that was a dumb idea. But there’s something that happens when it starts to feel real that is almost magical. It’s like it takes on a life of its own to an extent, at that point.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:21:14]:
No, you’re 100% right. And when you get there, it is a magical moment, if you can just push yourself just. And believe enough of your own crap for long enough to get there. Because, you know, with my novel, the time travel novel, I remember, I. You know, I wrote the whole thing, and my husband was like, what are you going to do with it? And I’m like, I need an editor. This is before I thought it was going to get published. And he’s like, well, let’s hire somebody. And he said, that way we at least leave our kids with something they can read, you know? And that’s what I’m talking about.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:21:47]:
Him taking it seriously. I was like, okay. So I get in my first meeting with this lady, and she’s, like, trying to tell me, like, we’re talking about the narrative and the storyline and the characters and, like, stuff I need to cut. And I stop her. And I’m like, wait a second. I’m like, so you think, like, this is a real book? And she’s like, I don’t understand what you’re saying. I was like, no, like, it’s a real book. Like, you really feel like it’s a real book? She’s like, what are we doing here if this isn’t a real book? Like, yes, this is a real book.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:22:13]:
Like, she was like, I don’t understand your question. And I was like, no, like, really, this is like a real book? And she’s like, yes, let’s move on now. We’re going to have to, you know. But it was that. That’s how much I didn’t believe it, you know, That’s. That’s how much I didn’t believe it. But then once you let yourself go where you have that moment, you’re like, oh, my gosh, this is real. You know, it is like the.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:22:36]:
It’s like this magical point in your life that you could have never imagined.
Nancy Norbeck [00:22:42]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I’m thinking now, when I wrote my book, it was my MFA thesis, and I don’t know how, when. When that moment might have hit, because, you know, when it’s an academic thing, it’s sort of real and sort of not all at the same time. And yet it’s a real book.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:23:02]:
Yeah.
Nancy Norbeck [00:23:03]:
Caught a couple boxes in my guest room.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:23:06]:
So do I. In my guest room.
Nancy Norbeck [00:23:08]:
Yeah.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:23:08]:
That’s where the books go.
Nancy Norbeck [00:23:09]:
I guess it’s a real. A real thing. Maybe it was when I graduated, you know, and I had to get up and do a reading and print out all 300 and some pages and stick them in one of those ugly black thesis binders that goes in the library and all of that. Maybe it was then. I know right after that, my cousin took my file to work and had it printed up and spiral bound and, you know, not an actual paperback copy of something, but it still looked a whole lot more real than it had before. And that was a moment.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:23:43]:
Right, Right. And I think that if people could just hang on long enough and believe just long enough that it could be something that you can get yourself to that moment, you know, because I had that moment when I asked her, and I didn’t even know it was going to be a book at that point. I just wanted someone in the book world to think it was a real book. Like, think it had the potential to be a book. But like you said, that moment when it clicks in your own brain, whenever that is in your heart, you’re like, wow, you know?
Nancy Norbeck [00:24:13]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The day that the paperback proof arrived was definitely another one. Oh, yeah, it’s definitely a real book. Like, holy cow.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:24:22]:
Yeah. That’s otherworldly for sure.
Nancy Norbeck [00:24:24]:
Yeah. Yeah. I remember taking pictures of it and sending it to people, being like, it’s a real book.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:24:32]:
Yeah. Yeah. No, that’s. But that’s exactly how it feels, though, because it’s, you know, you don’t quite believe it yourself.
Nancy Norbeck [00:24:39]:
Right, right. And even then, you know, you’re kind of sitting there looking at it, going, so there are words inside there. Right. They’re the ones that I wrote. It’s not. It’s not just a little illusion that’s sitting on the coffee table staring at me.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:24:51]:
Right. And then you’re like, oh, my gosh, now I can’t change any of that. Whoops. You know, now it’s so for real that I can’t take it back. And then years pass and you’re like, you progress as a person. And, you know, you might have said things differently, but I do think that there’s something so profound about the book being three years old or four years older because it captures a snapshot of who you were at that time. And it’s so terribly brave because you don’t know that. I think you know that with the second book.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:25:22]:
But it’s so terribly brave to allow a snapshot of your life or yourself out in the world and you’re willing to stand by that. I think there’s something very freeing about that. And I think that what comes with that is you almost the freedom to do something else crazy. Because, you know, it’s out there. It’s very brave. And I think that’s not recognized in the publishing process either.
Nancy Norbeck [00:25:43]:
Oh, yeah. No, not at all. Not at all. But you’re right, it is. It’s like this little moment captured in Amber, and it is what it is. It sits there and it’s like, I might not be that person anymore, but I was that person once.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:25:57]:
Right. And this may not be perfect, but you know what? It was pretty good at the time and I did my best.
Nancy Norbeck [00:26:03]:
Yeah. And hopefully I had fun doing it.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:26:06]:
Yeah, 100%.
Nancy Norbeck [00:26:08]:
So let’s talk about the time travel novel memoir. Because I’m so fascinated that you started out thinking that you were going to write this hilarious time travel novel.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:26:24]:
Right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:26:25]:
And then you ended up with something so different, which ending up with something different than you start with is not that uncommon. But in your case, it was a big. I want to say a big shift, but maybe it wasn’t really a shift. And it was always that, and you just didn’t know it at the beginning. I don’t. I don’t know.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:26:42]:
I don’t know. It was so non intentional that, you know, like you said, I had the idea to write a hilarious time travel book where I wrote myself back to my own childhood. And I had this idea for, like, Eight years. I was probably still, it was probably pre moving to the uk and I had thought about it and thought about, because I love everything vintage from the past. You know, I have a metal detector, I like the Sears catalog. I, you know, this before YouTube, I would get my hands on anything again. Old newspapers, magazines, whatever, the History Channel. I like all of it.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:27:14]:
And then I think I’m funny. And so those two things, I was like, this could be really funny. You know, she goes back in time, gets dropped off at her parents house. They’re the same age as her, they don’t know who she is. And then she’s got to deal with her 10 year old self. And I didn’t realize it before I started writing it. Once I started writing it and I think it was the moment in the book like, you know, I did the whole, you know, I used an airplane as my time travel mechanism. I think when she gets to the house that she grew up in and the pilot is dropping her off and tells her, you have to go in there for 36 hours, they think you’re their cousin and she knows where she is.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:27:52]:
And I think when, when my dad opens the door in that book, that’s when I started to realize, wait a second, this is going to be way more than some little troll up through time. You know, it’s going to, you know, it’s going to be. And then when the grandparents show up who passed away, there’s just layers and layers and layers. And I’ve had so many people ask me, so did you work with your psychologist before you set off on this journey and you were like trying to get to this land of catharsis? I was like, no, no, no, I wasn’t trying to do that at all. You know, I was not. And I realized that this was going to be something that was going to change me, you know, and that was not my intention at all, which I actually think is good that I didn’t go in with that intention because I think it was a lot, the way it happened organically, it’s probably a lot realer. And then that editor I mentioned that I worked with, there was points where I didn’t go far enough in the first version of the book. And she’s like, wait a second.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:28:50]:
You know, she was like a great reader’s advocate, which a story editor should be. She was like, you’re going to have to go further. We can’t leave everyone hang on, you’re going to have to go deeper. And that was hard to do. I mean, parts of that book were really hard to write. And because. Because basically what it is is it’s a memoir, you know, and it’s wrapped in this tortilla of fiction because it’s time travel. So basically I had the privilege of writing about my life as if it was fictional, but most of it’s nonfiction.
Nancy Norbeck [00:29:21]:
Yeah. As I was reading it, there were moments where I was like, how is she doing this? She’s got both of these things going on at the same time. And how in the heck do you even make this work? But it. But it does. Did you, like, have any conversations with your family before you started it? I mean, I know I read the acknowledgments, and it sounded like you mostly talked to them about it afterwards. But I mean, I’m kind of like, where did you know? Because you’re. You were 10. So.
Nancy Norbeck [00:29:54]:
So, so much that you weren’t necessarily aware of, like the party after the kids went to bed on Thanksgiving, you know, and things like that. Where. Where did you find that or how much of it did you end up just making up?
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:30:08]:
Well, I talked to my mom quite a bit, both my parents, and. And then my own experience as a parent, realizing that these people that I gave birth to don’t know what’s going on here, you know, and so I would say about 75% of it is stuff I remember as a kid now. Like the scene of. I used. I. You know, my parents had a swimming party a couple times, and I use those memories to write the part about the party, you know, But. But. But most of it, you know, is real memories.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:30:38]:
And I did talk to my parents about the relationship between their two sets of parents, because as I got older and watched them as an adult, I could see some of that myself. So I used some of my adult experience with these people to write what I. What I would imagined it would have looked like, you know, and kind of turning my memories on their head. And some of them were real childhood memories, which is hilarious, because my brother and sister were like, that never happened. I was like, this is my book. You have no idea what happened. They’re like, she made that up. I’m like, that’s real.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:31:10]:
You know, we argued over the finer points, but I didn’t. I didn’t have deep conversations with either of them about it, because we’re from the 70s. We don’t talk about our feelings. You know, I mean, why would we talk about that? And I think that, yeah, so I didn’t spend a lot of time talking to them. I Did have a couple real long conversations with both my parents and my dad. They were all so good about. And it amazes me about my mom because I write a lot about my mom and our relationship, like a lot of people’s was difficult with their mother or their father or with a parental figure. But my dad was like, you know, don’t ask us permission, just do what you got to do.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:31:47]:
And I wonder if he ever.
Nancy Norbeck [00:31:50]:
Amazing.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:31:51]:
Yeah, so I was given the. I was given that even my mom, who I was really afraid to have her read it. You know, she was at the front of every book signing, sitting in the front row. She’s been. And she. I think she really loved the. You know, because one of the themes that runs through the book is me watching my mom, you know, me being B and 48 something, her being 48 in the book, me watching my mom, maybe in a 90s, 2000s mom watching my 70s mom going, oh my gosh, she’s doing all that same stuff, only she don’t have the Internet or she doesn’t have the support that women have in 2010. She has zero.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:32:27]:
She’s not the 50s, but she’s, you know, she’s not 20, 20, you know, for either. And I think she loved me thinking that my dad’s a great guy, but is that the right guy for her? She loved all that because I think she felt so much more seen in a lot of the parts of the book. And I think that’s a very relatable theme to a lot of, you know, mothers and daughters, women, large, even men, though, you know.
Nancy Norbeck [00:32:53]:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s amazing because I did, you know, what’s the right way to say this? Like, you, your look at your mother, as far as I can tell without having been there is. So it’s objective, but it’s simultaneously kind of really sympathetic, but also, oh, good God, what’s going on here?
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:33:22]:
Right?
Nancy Norbeck [00:33:22]:
And that’s. That is such an interesting combination. And I think that is, you know, if you had the opportunity to go back, that’s probably exactly what you would be thinking is, wow, you know, I never noticed this, but what is happening here? And holy cow. You know, so, yeah, when I was reading it, there were a couple of times when I was like, I wonder what her mom thought about this. Yeah, but you’re right, you know, I can see where she would feel really seen.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:33:51]:
Right. Validated. And.
Nancy Norbeck [00:33:53]:
Yeah.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:33:53]:
You know, and at the same time, you know, she had a difficult relationship with her mother. And that’s, I mean, that’s in the book, too. And so, yeah, I read it, you know, and it’s hard to read your own book as, you know, objectively.
Nancy Norbeck [00:34:07]:
Yeah.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:34:07]:
But, you know, I think that what I did, though, to create that, I. Because my kids were little at the time. And so I actually went away to this hotel, like the 70s hotel south of Dayton, Ohio, where we lived at the time. And I did, like, you know, three nights, like, go down to the 70s salad bar and eat, you know, have a glass of wine. But then I had like, a vcr. I took a VCR with me. I brought all the tapes, I had all the photos laid out in this room, and I just tried to put myself back emotionally. Like, what would this really look like if I actually did it? And the other second key thing that happened is when I was writing the book, our house, the physical house, went up for sale.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:34:50]:
And so I flew back to Houston and got a showing of the house. And I invited. Here’s who end up going to this showing. My mother and my father and my brother and sister and I. So we go back into this house, and it had been redone. Parts of it have been redone, but we physically inhabited the space together, the five of us. And it was such a valuable spatial. And these people are kicking around memories because we’re walking around this house and this poor real estate agent thinks we’re actually interested in buying it, you know, But, I mean, it was a great move for the book, you know, but those two, those weekends, plus that combined, I think, is where I got the emotional, like, my tact, like, how would this actually look for me? And then once I got rolling on that, then it, you know, it.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:35:37]:
It seemed to. I just. I guess I actually, you know, had a time travel experience in my own head, I guess is the best way to put it that I wrote about.
Nancy Norbeck [00:35:47]:
Yeah, yeah, it’s. It’s funny when you’re talking about going back to the house. A year or two ago, I went to see my parents, and we spent the first night that I was there, all of us on our own separate devices, looking up old houses on Zillow.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:36:03]:
Right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:36:03]:
And looking at all the pictures. So I haven’t been back to the house that I grew up in, but I’ve seen it, and it looked so small.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:36:10]:
That’s it. That’s it. And that’s why when I. When I write the scene, when I come through, dad opens the door, I come through. I wrote that entire scene based on my entire reaction when I walked in that house again, you know, in 2000, whatever that was. 2016, 18, I don’t remember. But that entire thing was like, oh, my gosh, this is the. And I think it’s so relatable because any one of us who walked back, you know, because everyone I talked to about this book, you can see it.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:36:36]:
It’s like, click, click, click, click, click. They put themselves in Big Amy’s.
Nancy Norbeck [00:36:39]:
Absolutely.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:36:41]:
And then they say, what about little Nancy? Like, what would that look like? What would that feel like? And it’s immediately that’s. I’m really proud of the story because what I could have never guessed in a million years, and I’m not tooting my own horn here, I’m just saying this is what ended up happening. I wrote a catharsis, and people feel like they had their own reading the book. And if you would have told me that, I just want everybody to laugh out loud in the bus station, you know, that would have. I would have been fine with that, you know, but. But what a great honor, though, to, you know, basically reintroduce people to their own younger version of themselves, because that’s what this book ended up doing and, you know, evoking all these great memories, you know, and making people laugh, which is the thing that I like the best about it. So.
Nancy Norbeck [00:37:25]:
Yeah. And I think. And obviously you can correct me if my read is wrong, but as I was reading it, I’m not going to lie, there’s a part of me that’s like, I want to write my own book like this now. Except I think if I did, I think you’re right. You had the advantage of not knowing that’s where you were going. And I think that probably made it better. But, yeah, I was like, boy, I could use an experience like this to go back and, you know, even in my own head, hang out with my younger self and kind of get to encourage her and talk to her and have her back when it seemed like maybe nobody else did. And, you know, all.
Nancy Norbeck [00:38:01]:
All of that. I mean, that’s. That’s a powerful thing that you kind of accidentally wandered into.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:38:08]:
Yeah, no, it’s. It’s profound. And, you know, the. The person most changed by the entire experience is obviously me, you know, because. Because I went into writing that book when I first sat down with those. There’s one clip on this family video. You know, they had it put on the VCR tape because that was like all world technology because it was on the 8 millimeter reels when he took it. And so there’s this one video, and I’ outfit For a Christmas play and these tights.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:38:34]:
And I’ve got this Blur shirt on, this little hat, and I’m running around like I’m all up in people’s faces and I’m like, oh, my God, what, for the love of God, is happening with this kid? And I was. And I wrote that. I mean, it’s really. And people have said, you’re really hard on yourself. It was all from watching this VHS tape. I was like, she’s got to stop. Like, you know, And I was trying to. If I had to witness that lie, you know, that’s how I felt.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:38:59]:
But I went from, like, literally wanting to run from her at the beginning of that book to wanting to be her at the end. And I still say stuff to her like, I mean, this sounds like totally, like, psycho stuff, but I’m like, little Amy, man, we’re killing it. Are you kidding me? You know, because I. And I feel like I lived until I wrote the book. I lived away so many great things about her, about my younger self, you know, and now I want to be part. Especially as I, you know, I’m 50, I’m mid-50s now. Now that I don’t care anymore what anybody thinks, like, we’re rejoining together here, you know, and somewhere in the future, 80 year old Avery’s like, yeah, let’s go.
Nancy Norbeck [00:39:39]:
Who cares?
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:39:41]:
Y’all, don’t screw it up no more. Get here. You know, but. But it is. And that’s so relatable, you know, my life was so normal and so like, you know, and. But it’s so relatable because that. And I think that would be so true of so many people. They’d be like, cringe, but they’d be like, oh, my God, I love her.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:40:01]:
Oh, my God, I love him.
Nancy Norbeck [00:40:02]:
Yeah. Yeah. We had all of our old home movies put on video, and then my dad put them on DVD a couple years ago. And, you know, when we actually sat down and watched them, it was sort of. Sort of the same thing. I just was like, boy, what a little ham I was. And something happened because I haven’t been like that in a long time, you know, But I was. I was just coming right up to the camera and smiling and dancing and waving and the whole thing.
Nancy Norbeck [00:40:29]:
And I was like, wow, where’d she go?
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:40:31]:
Yeah, I read that in your bio. You know, the choir and the. And the. And the. And the singing and the, you know, singing for other people individually. Very interesting, because you would have seen that. I’m sure you would have made that connection with your life story. And it would have.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:40:46]:
And the other thing, it would explain some stuff to you. You know, you would have seen some stuff that you couldn’t put into context. It makes me really want to go back in time.
Nancy Norbeck [00:40:55]:
Like, you know. Yeah, especially because, you know, we’re about the same age. And so I was sitting there going, okay, 1978, I was like seven.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:41:06]:
Oh, yeah.
Nancy Norbeck [00:41:06]:
So we are there, you know, so. So a lot of the things that you mentioned, I remembered or was surprised by. And like the level of detail that you had in there, like the name and the model number of the little micro cassette recorder. I had to go look it up because I was like, were those really around in the 70s? Because I really thought those were an 80s thing, you know, But I pulled it right up on ebay. And I was like, well, look, there it is. That’s exactly what I was picturing. So clearly they must have been. But yeah, I mean, how much time did you spend just looking for that kind of stuff?
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:41:42]:
Oh, a lot. And it was delicious because again, that’s who I am. I mean, I enjoyed every bit of it. And we had to cut so much of it because there was so much. It was just too much of it. And trying to pick the parts that were most, you know, that, you know, people would most connect to. But I, you know, newspapers, and I spent a weekend at the downtown Houston library, and I read all the newspapers, magazines, and YouTube and, you know, it was. It was so fun.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:42:10]:
I mean, I have three boxes of research from the book and I enjoyed every minute of it. Like, the outfits are all from the Sears catalog from 1977, because I didn’t want anybody from Spring, Texas to be too in style because that wouldn’t have happened in 1977. We weren’t living in, you know, like, New York, but it. So all of that. And again, that was one of the reasons I did it, because I wanted to write all that. Write all those things and weave all those things in there. And those are some of my favorite parts of the book. You know, the funny stuff and the back in time stuff.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:42:39]:
So.
Nancy Norbeck [00:42:40]:
Yeah, and it wouldn’t work if you didn’t have details like that in there. You know, it would. It would just kind of be okay. It’s supposed to be 1978, but it could be 1983, you know, whatever. But you’ve really hit all of those details that just, you know, I mean, they’re complaining about the fabric and all of that stuff. I was like, oh, yeah, we didn’t wear A single real thing in the 1970s. Probably a good chunk of the 80s, too. Like, what’s cotton? It’s all polyester and not even good polyester.
Nancy Norbeck [00:43:10]:
And everybody thought it was great.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:43:13]:
Yeah. And that was the thing, you know, I had a set of eyes from 2015, and I was looking at all that as one of us. And so the things that stuck out, you know, to me were the things that were going to stick out to everybody else. Like, what, are you kidding me? You know, there were so many things out and, you know, there’s the whole scene where we’re watching TV and that commercial comes on for that ABC movie of the week about. About the. About the lesbian couple who, you know, have kids and they’re trying to get custody of their children. And I could not believe, like you said, about the Olympus Pearl quarter or what. Whatever the little.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:43:49]:
Because that player was called. I could not believe that that was actually a thing because I saw it in a TV listing. I had a TV Guide for Houston, like, you know, the one that came in the newspaper. And I was looking and I went and looked up everything on the TV Guide to kind of see, you know, of that week or the month, I don’t know what I did. And I was like, that can’t be real. I wouldn’t actually watch the movie. It was terrible. I mean, it wasn’t terrible.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:44:10]:
It was just terribly done, you know? But I could not believe that that subject matter was being covered in 1978, because if you would have told me that, I would have. And I’m somebody who has read a lot, I would have said, you’re wrong. Absolutely didn’t happen. And it did. Yeah.
Nancy Norbeck [00:44:26]:
And yet, you know, that’s when Soap was on tv.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:44:30]:
Right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:44:30]:
And I was never allowed to watch that because, oh, my God, there was a gay character.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:44:35]:
Right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:44:35]:
You know, I had no idea why until I caught it running on Comedy Central in the 90s and started watching. It was like, okay, I get it now, why I wasn’t allowed to watch this, but good God, it’s hilarious, right?
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:44:47]:
Right? Yeah. And that’s why my dad Ninja rolls across the thing to change it when the kids come back downstairs, because that’s exactly the reaction you would have gotten in 1978 on behalf of the. Behalf of the parents. But there was a lot of things that I found in the research that surprised me. Target being open on. On Thanksgiving. That was. That was a.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:45:07]:
That was a real thing, too.
Nancy Norbeck [00:45:10]:
Yeah. No, but I like you in the book. I was like, wait, what?
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:45:15]:
Yeah.
Nancy Norbeck [00:45:16]:
Isn’t that like a late 90s, early 2000s ish kind of thing, but clearly not right. Yeah, but there, there were, there’s like all of those little, the little things that I was like, oh, I’d forgotten all about that. You know, the kids wearing their tuff skins from Sears and you know, my mother loved those things because they were indestructible. It didn’t matter what my brother did, he wasn’t going to destroy them.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:45:44]:
No, it was the only one you’d have to put knee patches on and now you would just throw them away. You wouldn’t put a knee patch on there. But I think that whole thought line there really lends to another theme in the book is like, you know, our memory, you know, how we remember things and how we would remember them differently. Like we might have, like, let’s say you And I were 40 in the, in the 70s rather than 10 and 7, you know, we would have remembered those things. You know, Target being open. We might have remembered them differently because we would have been adults. And then that’s another thing that Big Amy realizes that all the stuff she remembered as a kid, she remembered it as a 10 year old. You know, as a 10 year old that was bound to not understand the dynamics of what was really happening.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:46:32]:
You know, and I think that’s another, for me, that was another kind of profound thing that happened from writing the book is that, you know, our memories are, you know, they’re not static, they’re very malleable based on who’s doing the memory with the memory and how old they are, what kind of life experience they have, you know, and I think that’s, you know, makes, you know, that’s something repeated throughout human history.
Nancy Norbeck [00:46:56]:
Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, when you’re talking about how your brother and your sister are like, ah, she made that up. That didn’t really happen. You know, my, my brother and I had a conversation like that back at, I think, Thanksgiving, you know, where he was like, you don’t remember this? You know, it’s like, no. And, and I realized later that it was because I so hated everything that was associated with it that, you know, it. We were talking about when we had soda in the house, because we never had soda in the house.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:47:25]:
Right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:47:26]:
But my dad liked to renovate houses and those days there would, they would order out for pizza, they would get 2 liter bottles of soda and whatever. And I think I didn’t remember it because I just hated that whole thing so much.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:47:40]:
Right, right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:47:41]:
And so it was not Enough to sweeten the deal for me.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:47:44]:
Right, right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:47:44]:
So it didn’t register the same way. And meanwhile he’s looking at me like, you’re, you’re going crazy, you’re losing your mind, you forgot this thing. I’m like, no, I think it just wasn’t important to me.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:47:54]:
See, that’s really interesting because sometimes it’s self preservation, like you don’t want to remember it. And so then you just, or like you said, you just didn’t like it. So it doesn’t show up in your highlights, you know, like your top 10 plays of 1978. It doesn’t show up there. But why it happens, no one knows. Except for we all carry different. We remember different things differently or remember the same things differently. And if we got to remember it again as who we are now, we’d remember it totally differently.
Nancy Norbeck [00:48:23]:
Well, and that’s like they say, you know, you can grow up in the same house but have completely different experiences because, you know, your, your relationship with one parent may not be the same as my relationship with the same parent and vice versa.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:48:36]:
Right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:48:37]:
So yeah, it’s all, it’s all different. You could get, it’s kind of like a weird family game of Whisper down the Lane. You know, it was the same experience. Experience, but totally differently rendered for each person.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:48:49]:
No, I like that a lot. You know, and at the end of the day, it’s, in most cases it’s just done to survive the whole thing. And that makes it sound like it was bad. But the truth is real life, we just try to get up every morning and do the best we can. And I saw that in my parents in writing the book, you know, because at the end I’m like, the one thing I know for sure is, please tell me my kids aren’t going to go back in time and write a book about it. You know, oh my God, I’m going to be, you know, they’re going to be like, mom, you were completely off the chain. But that’s the thing. They were doing the best they could.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:49:24]:
10 year old Amy, she was doing the best she could back in time Amy, she was doing that. But that’s what we’re all trying to do. And that Whisper down the Lane, people who love each other are just trying to love each other and survive for the next day. And you can’t really control anything that’s happening and it’s just life is happening all around you and it’s, you know, that’s the way it works. That’s what we’re Doing today.
Nancy Norbeck [00:49:46]:
Yeah. And I think that’s where we kind of forget to give ourselves grace and compassion. You know, we all think, especially now that we have the age of Instagram and all that kind of stuff where it’s like, oh, but you know, my next door neighbor is like, off in Boca Raton or wherever, wherever you go. And I’m stuck in my house and they’re obviously doing so much better than, Than me. Well, no, they’re just taking better pictures than you.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:50:11]:
Yeah, yeah. And they’re, they’re sharing, you know, certain things and not sharing all the rest of it. You know, it’s. It’s like memories. Who knows what the, the real truth is anyway, you know, But I think you’re. That, that giving yourself the grace is, is hugely important, especially when you’re looking back in your past and, you know, like what I said about little Amy, I should have given her and myself a lot more grace. And I think the other thing that I learned from writing the book in that same vein is that, you know, our stories matter to us. Like, it matters to me what happened with little Amy.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:50:45]:
You know, it matters to me what happened with Lil Kim and Lil Rick. I mean, that, that matters profoundly. And it doesn’t have to. It doesn’t mean it has to matter to Good Morning America or it doesn’t have to matter to People magazine. I mean, it matters to the people who care about me and love about me, but, you know, love me. But you know what? It matters most of all to me. And that’s okay. It’s okay for it to matter to me.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:51:06]:
It’s okay for it to matter to you. Not just okay, that’s what it should be, enough to investigate and discuss and figure out how we feel about it and then to move forward, you know, and that’s. And that’s. I think that’s one of the takeaways from the book that I’m the most proud of, is that, you know, I found out that my stuff matters and I put it out there for the whole world to see, you know, and I hope other people will be inspired to do that too, because that, that is one of the lessons of the story. It’s just a normal story, you know, told in a humorous way.
Nancy Norbeck [00:51:35]:
Yeah. And I think, you know, my impression certainly from the book is that you did walk away with a lot more compassion for your younger self and probably for your present day self at the same time.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:51:46]:
Oh, absolutely. I’m a different person who started writing that book, you know, to the one who wrote It. And now the one who went through the process of losing her mind and sharing it with the whole world, that’s, you know, that’s kind of what it feels like when the book comes out. You’re. Why didn’t someone tell me that people were going to read this? You know, I mean, well, that seems pretty logical, guys, you know, so.
Nancy Norbeck [00:52:12]:
But yeah, what’s the reaction been from people that you’re not related to who aren’t in the book?
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:52:18]:
Oh, I, you know, the reaction was much stronger than I thought it would be. Just people feel like they went back in time on their own back in time journey. You know, they loved the nostalgia, they love that. And, and people have told me that the thing they like the best is, you know, it’s so relatable. But they like how, like there’s some serious point, you know, like some thought provoking moment where she makes some self realization and then it’s just like, wham. There’s something ridiculous and silly right in the middle of that, you know, And I, I’m proud of that reaction, I really am. Because I think that’s what real life is. That’s what humor does too, is that in this moment of like profound realization, you know, where you take yourself so seriously, then something ridiculous happens right in the middle of it, you know, and you’re like, oh, okay, you know, this is, that’s real life.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:53:12]:
And so, yeah, so the reaction has been, you know, people have, you know, I think, I think there was people at the beginning who thought it was gonna be a science fiction book. You’re like, how did she go back in time? Like, how did that. Because I got a bad review. It was like, the sci Fi guy was like, I could not wait for it to be over because she never said how she actually got back in time. But that’s back to the whole, I drink white zinfandel and you drink cabernet. I mean, we’re fine. Like, let’s both just drink and get on Zoom. Who cares? We’re fine.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:53:44]:
But it’s a fair reaction. He just shouldn’t have gotten the book, you know, it didn’t.
Nancy Norbeck [00:53:50]:
Yeah, wasn’t the audience for the book and.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:53:53]:
Right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:53:53]:
And having started and never finished a time travel novel myself, you can twist yourself into knots over how the time travel works. And the thing is, nobody knows because as far as we know, it doesn’t work.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:54:06]:
So you can make it up.
Nancy Norbeck [00:54:08]:
If you spend all your time trying to explain how it works works, I think you’re probably losing. So, you know, you fell asleep on a plane and you woke up wearing bad polyester and going, where in the heck am I?
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:54:21]:
Right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:54:21]:
I think that’s as legit as anything else.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:54:24]:
Yeah, well, yeah, no, for sure. Especially for someone who’s not a scientist. You know, the space time continuum or commendium or whatever that is. That’s probably how it happened. And I can’t even say the word. So therefore. Therefore I’m not your expert.
Nancy Norbeck [00:54:39]:
Right, right. And I think. Yeah. If you. If you spent that much time trying to explain it, you’d never get to the actual story. So the story is the important part.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:54:49]:
You’d never get to Bonanza. Sirloin pit.
Nancy Norbeck [00:54:51]:
That’s right.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:54:54]:
That chopped steak in that salad bar, that would have been a real shame. That Thousand island dressing would have to go on another book. And for that it would have cost all of us friends.
Nancy Norbeck [00:55:03]:
Yeah, yeah. No, I was laughing at that because I was like, I remember that. It may not have been exactly the same thing, but it was close enough. I was like, yeah, I remember that. I do not remember it being $1.99. And I can imagine my father complaining that that was too expensive.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:55:19]:
Right, right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:55:19]:
You know, when. Now.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:55:22]:
Yeah, that. Well, that’s the thing. I had this group of people who I’ve befriended because of this book, and they grew up in Minnesota, and they feel like their experience was so similar to Houston, Texas, like, almost blueprint, you know, and that’s made me really happy, too, because, you know, I wondered if it was too regional, because I do. You know, I’m proud to represent Houston. I mean, that’s where I’m from. But we had. So many of us had such a similar experience growing up, only we didn’t have the Internet to connect us. But we were connected all along anyway.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:55:50]:
From our memories. Yeah. Of shared things, you know.
Nancy Norbeck [00:55:55]:
Yeah. I grew up in central Pennsylvania, and it was pretty relatable for me. I’ve. I’ve been to the Houston airport, but that’s as close as I’ve been to. To Texas, so. Yeah, but it’s still there. You know, going to the mall. I don’t remember having to dress appropriately for the mall, but I remember the fountains and the, you know, all of that, all the glory days of the mall.
Nancy Norbeck [00:56:16]:
And now you’re lucky if half the stores are even there.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:56:20]:
So I got. Somebody tagged me on Facebook today, that mall in the book, Greenspoint Mall. They are closing it down permanently this month. So, I mean, it’s sad.
Nancy Norbeck [00:56:29]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where do the kids hang out if they’re not hanging. I guess they hang out on their phones. I don’t. I don’t know. I’m not. Not sure that’s a good thing either, but that’s a whole other subject.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:56:40]:
Yeah, it is.
Nancy Norbeck [00:56:42]:
Yeah. But I have to tell you, I. I went for the first time in a long time. I went to a thrift store a couple days ago, and I was walking through and looking at all of the kitchen stuff, and there was my mother’s crock pot from when I was a kid. I mean, a lot of that stuff is, like, when you mentioned the Mr. Coffee, I’m like, I bet there was one of those at the thrift store. There probably was. And so it was really.
Nancy Norbeck [00:57:10]:
It kind of added a little bit to the surrealness of the experience of reading about 1978 and then going and looking at stuff at the thrift store and going, yeah, a lot of this. This is stuff from back then. It was a little. Little wild. It just kind of. It added to the experience.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:57:27]:
And doesn’t that like seeing that crockpot. Did that evoke something inside of you? But it’s hilarious because it’s a crockpot, Nancy. But, but. But there’s something. There’s some kind of emotion evoked when. When you physically are. You know, when you’re sharing physical space that can put your hands on something from what. Something that seemed like your own past.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:57:50]:
You know, that is your own past. And I think that’s what this. And I’m not. Just don’t want to just talk about my book on and on. But that’s what. That’s kind of what the book does, though. It evokes this, you know, that kind of. And whether it’s nostalgia or longing or.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:58:04]:
I don’t know. I don’t know what that. What that is, but there is a emotion associated with that.
Nancy Norbeck [00:58:10]:
Yeah, well, I like to look at that. I mean, it was an ugly avocado green, right. Little crock pot. Like, they couldn’t sell a crock pot. You know, now they can sell, like, the little ones for dip and stuff. It wasn’t that small, but it was, you know, it was the crock pot, but nowhere near as big as they are now. But, you know, take one look at that, and I can smell the sauerkraut cooking in it.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:58:32]:
Oh, yeah.
Nancy Norbeck [00:58:33]:
You know, it’s. It’s a whole. It’s a whole thing all on its own. Even though it’s just a crock pot on a shelf that’s. They’re probably selling for five bucks.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:58:42]:
But you’re right. Like, it evokes all your senses. You can smell, you can kind of feel the room, the kitchen. You can hear, you know, the presence of your mother. I mean, it’s a very. It’s a very powerful emotion. And I think as we age, it becomes more powerful. And that’s where that.
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:58:57]:
I don’t know if it’s a longing. It depends on. I don’t know. There’s something about our past, though, you know, that’s very. There’s an emotion, a set of emotions with that.
Nancy Norbeck [00:59:08]:
So, yeah. Do people ask you, like, for. I don’t know if advice is the right word, but I’m going to run with it on going back and exploring their childhood that way. Are there people who are like, how do I write a book like this? Or how did you. You know, how do I. How do I reimagine my family?
Amy Weinland Daughters [00:59:29]:
And I’ve been asked that the things people have most done is shared their story, like their story with little Julie or little, you know, and then you, you know, they’ve told me that they’ve gone that, you know, and like, sat down and really thought about it and tried to put themselves in that position. I, you know, and. And I have had people ask me, like, what was the process, like, how did you get yourself to that point where you could write about it? And I told you the story about getting in that hotel, and so I’ve told them that. And I haven’t had any other writing. People, like, ask me about, like, how to write about time travel or writing back to their own childhoods. I think they immediately. People just immediately associate themselves with it, and then that’s one of the questions. But more than anything, people have felt the need to really share deeply about.
Amy Weinland Daughters [01:00:20]:
And I think sharing with me, they feel like I get it because they feel like I. Because they feel like I did it. And that’s. Then that’s an honor though, too, you know. But there is an emotional birth there, too, because you got people telling you, you know, these very. Because I’ve got these very long emails which I’m honored to read, you know, about what happened to them as a kid and how this book made them feel, whether there was healing or remembering or it was hard or it was easy. And that’s the biggest thing that. In that vein that people have reached out to me about.
Nancy Norbeck [01:00:50]:
Yeah, and I think that’s true. I mean, obviously my experience is only my experience, but I can’t imagine it being very easy to read that book without putting yourself in that situation.
Amy Weinland Daughters [01:01:02]:
Right. And then I think what comes with that, and I. This is something I didn’t expect is that people with childhood trauma, you know, I inadvertently opened up a can of worms, good or bad. And that. And that clearly was not. I had no mal. Intent in writing this book. Again, I was funny.
Amy Weinland Daughters [01:01:19]:
Haha, girl, from the emails at work, you know, I was not trying to, you know, and I, you know, I’ve had quite a few of those emails and. But no one’s been accusatory. No one said, you know, I read your book and it, you know, it made me so. But it did scare me. Like, are those people out there that I. That this was like a step back for anybody? Not my intention at all. But I mean, you know, real life means there’s stuff to all of us that was unsavory, that happened to us. And some of us unfortunately, you know, you know, much higher level of, like I said, trauma or, you know, you know, things that happened that were, you know, criminally not good.
Nancy Norbeck [01:01:58]:
Right, right.
Amy Weinland Daughters [01:02:00]:
And I am, I am. It’s funny though. I wish I would have been. I, you know, again, you can’t walk into something and know everything, you know, on the back end of it. You just can’t.
Nancy Norbeck [01:02:09]:
Yeah, yeah. And you can’t account for every single person who’s going to read the book either.
Amy Weinland Daughters [01:02:14]:
Right, right.
Nancy Norbeck [01:02:15]:
You know, you need to tell the story that you need to read and hope that it reaches the right people and that they can approach it in a helpful way and, you know, if it hits them in an unhelpful way to be able to do something about it, you know.
Amy Weinland Daughters [01:02:29]:
Right.
Nancy Norbeck [01:02:31]:
Yeah. Especially if, you know, if it brings up something that you’d forgotten about or whatever. It could, in a way be kind of a gift because it opens you up to doing something about it.
Amy Weinland Daughters [01:02:40]:
Right. And that’s where the catharsis, you know, is for the reader, hopefully. But again, if you would have told me that at the beginning of that whole journey, like, this is going to be a real catharsis and it’s going to be on feelings.com, i would have been like, you’re kidding, right?
Nancy Norbeck [01:02:56]:
Or you’d have been like, I’m not doing this.
Amy Weinland Daughters [01:02:58]:
Yeah, no, exactly. I’m glad nobody told me because I was like, no, I want to talk about JCPenney. I mean, let’s go. Yeah. You know.
Nancy Norbeck [01:03:04]:
Right, right. All of. All of those old stories that don’t exist anymore. Let’s talk about those. This is just a fun trip back to 1978 for 36 hours, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that it’s. It’s certainly unlike any other memoir or time travel novel I have ever read.
Nancy Norbeck [01:03:24]:
And I, I’m amazed and impressed that you managed to pull it off because like I said, I kept reading it going, how is she managing to do this? She’s, like, fitting so many things in here, so it’s very cool.
Amy Weinland Daughters [01:03:36]:
Well, I appreciate that’s a high compliment. I’m quite, you know, humbled that you read it, that you have those words and that you have me on your program, which is excellent. So thank you.
Nancy Norbeck [01:03:46]:
Oh, thank you. I’ve enjoyed talking to you. That’s our show. Thanks so much to Amy Weinland Daughters and to you for listening. Please leave a review for this episode. You’ll find a link in your podcast app, so it’s really easy and it’ll only take a minute. If you enjoyed our conversation, I hope you’ll share it with a friend. Thanks so much.
Nancy Norbeck [01:04:08]:
If this episode resonated with you, or if you’re feeling a little bit less than confident in your creative process right now, join me at the Spark on Substack as we form a community that supports and celebrates each other’s creative courage. It’s free and it’s also where I’ll be adding programs for subscribers and listeners. The link is in your podcast app, so sign up today. See you there and see you next week. Follow Your Curiosity is produced by me, Nancy Norbeck, with music by Joseph McDade. If you like Follow Your Curiosity, please subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And don’t forget to tell your friends. It really helps me reach new listeners.