Good Life Project - Sabaa Tahir | All My Rage

Episode Date: August 8, 2022

Imagine leaving everything you know behind to start a life in a brand new country, all in hopes of providing a better life for yourself and your family. After all is said and done, and you've made sacrifice after sacrifice to feed, clothe, and care for yourself and eventually, children, in this new and unfamiliar place that doesn't even feel all that welcoming all the time, your biggest hope for your kids is that become self-sufficient, and ideally, make you proud in the process. This, like many other immigrant families, was the hope of Sabaa Tahir's parents, and as a NY Times bestselling author, it's safe to say she's fulfilled her parents' hopes and dreams despite where she came from. That's why I'm excited to dive into this chat with Sabaa today, where she tells me more about how a girl who grew up in her family's eighteen-room motel went from devouring fantasy novels to writing hit ones of her own.Sabaa was born to Muslim-Pakistani immigrants in Great Britain, and she lived there for the first year of her life before moving to California, where she grew up in the Mojave Desert in the middle of a naval base at the small motel her parents owned. She's been a professional author since 2015 and a journalist at The Washington Post before that, and Sabaa's books, including her critically-acclaimed Ember in the Ashes series, have sold more than a million copies worldwide, are New York Times and international bestsellers, and have been honored by TIME Magazine on a list of the 100 best fantasy books of all time. Her work has appeared on numerous best books of the year lists, including Amazon, Buzzfeed, The Wall Street Journal, TIME, and Entertainment Weekly. Her latest book, All My Rage, draws heavily from her experiences and feelings of isolation growing up as an outcast as one of the few South Asian families in her small military hometown, and in my conversation with Sabaa today, we explore those external, as well as the internal, influences that helped her tell a story that embodies a deeply personal, but universal, rage. Of course, none of us can choose where we come from or where we grew up, and certainly, none of us can control the injustices that happen every day in this world. But in this chat with Sabaa today, we pinpoint how she's used storytelling to face the ghosts that haunted her, access emotions like rage that have traditionally not been reserved for those like her and tell a story that's been brewing inside her all along. You can find Sabaa at: Website | InstagramIf you LOVED this episode you’ll also love the conversations we had with Valarie Kaur about her experience integrating two cultures.Check out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKEDVisit Our Sponsor Page For a Complete List of Vanity URLs & Discount Codes.Air Doctor: Code GOODLIFE Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Telling these stories, my hope is to let people feel witnessed, let them feel they're not alone, and to share something that on the surface seems very specific, but to find the universal in that, to find the humanity in that, because ultimately that is what we are looking for in each other, in the art that we create, in the art that we consume. That is the thing that I am always looking for. So imagine leaving everything you know behind to start a life in a brand new country, all in the hope of providing a better life for yourself and your family. After all is said and done, you've made the sacrifice after sacrifice to feed and clothe and care for yourself. And eventually, children in this new and unfamiliar place that doesn't even feel all that welcoming all the time, your biggest hope for your kids is that they become self-sufficient and ideally make you proud in the process. This, like many other immigrant families, was the hope of Sabah Tahir's parents. And as a New York Times bestselling author, it's safe to say she has

fulfilled her parents' hopes and dreams despite where she came from. But what about her hopes and dreams? What about her life? What about her experience of growing up? That is why I'm so excited to dive into this chat with Sabah today, where she shares a story about how a kid who grew up in her family's 18-room motel in the Mojave Desert went from devouring fantasy novels to writing mega-hit books of her own. Sabah was born to Muslim Pakistani immigrants in Great Britain, and she lived there for the first year of her life before moving to California, where she grew up in the Mojave Desert in the middle of a naval base at the small motel her parents owned. She has been a professional author since 2015 and a journalist for the Washington Post before that. And her books,

including her critically acclaimed Ember in the Ashes series, have sold more than a million copies worldwide or New York Times International bestsellers and have been honored by Time Magazine on a list of the 100 best fantasy books of all time. Her work has appeared on so many best books of the year lists, including Amazon, BuzzFeed, Wall Street Journal, Time, and Entertainment Weekly. And her latest book, All My Rage, is different. It draws heavily from her experience and feelings of isolation growing up as an outcast as one of the few South Asian families in her small military hometown in the middle of the desert. And in my conversation with Sabah today, we explore those external as well as the internal influences that help to tell a story that embodies a deeply personal but universal rage. Of course, none of us can choose where we come from or where we grow up.

And certainly none of us can control the injustices that happen every day in this world. But in this chat with Sabah today, we pinpoint how she used storytelling to face the ghosts that haunted her and access emotions like rage that traditionally have been really hard and sometimes even dangerous to be expressed and tell a story that's been brewing inside her all along. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday.

We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is?

You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. It's interesting, you know,, learning about how you grew up. I'm in Boulder, Colorado right now. And after being a New Yorker my entire life, and we just got back from an overnight, about an hour from us is Estes Park, which is the gateway town for the Rocky Mountains. But it's also the site of the Stanley Hotel, which is sort of where

The Shining and countless other movies were filmed. And we took this tour at night and they were taking us to like the caverns and the tunnels and the hidden rooms. And there were tons of ghost stories. And I know you grew up in a small town in the Mojave Desert in your family's basically motel, 18 room motel. And I have to imagine that growing up in that setting, there's got to be like all this lore and all these stories and ghosts floating around, real or imagined as a kid. Absolutely. Not just ghost stories. Actually, our town existed because of a Navy base. So it was called China Lake Warfare Station at the time. I'm not sure if it's changed the name now. And they did a ton of, they created the Tomahawk missile, the Sidewinder missile.

They did a ton of like bomb testing. You know, it was totally normal to see like these little like mushroom clouds, you know, to hear the sonic booms, to hear like, you know, to be in the middle of class as a third grader and hear this enormous explosion and just keep going, you know, because we were right. My elementary school was on the base. Most of my friends, when you said, you know, what do your parents do? They would just say they work at the base because they weren't allowed to talk about their jobs or what they did. A lot of them were engineers. A lot of them were,. A lot of them were weapons designers, weapons builders. So it had ghosts, but it also had this really rich sort of almost like UFO otherworldly lore, stuff people had seen out in the desert, stuff that had happened to people out in the desert.

We were right on a road called the 395, which is a very, very lonely stretch of California highway. And there's a place on that highway where there are just these abandoned train cars way off the road, just miles and miles off of the main highway. And everyone always sort of thought those train cars were abandoned. And then I remember one day driving with my mother at night, you know, back home after visiting, you know, wherever, Los Angeles or something, and seeing a truck, a huge truck turn off onto a dirt road, which only led to these supposedly abandoned train cars, you know, and sort of wondering and being like, hmm, I wonder if they're really abandoned. So there were a lot of stories like that. And then our motel itself, I remember there was a shed in the back and it actually was just home to a lot of cats. But strange sounds would come out of the shed at night because there were cats living in it. And so my brothers convinced me that it was haunted when I was a little kid. And so it's always, even as an adult, I like gave that shit a wide berth because I felt like it was probably haunted. It's like, right. You only go out there at night

if somebody is accompanying you. Yes. That's so fascinating. So, I mean, it's interesting also, because the town with the town's history also, it sounds like there is, there's like this built-in element of secrecy about how the grownups, like what are the grownups doing when they leave the house during the day for a lot of families in the town? Which, you know, growing up the way that you grew up and growing up with your family, Pakistani American in that town, I have to imagine that you were not like a lot of the other families that were in the town. No, we definitely weren't. And we knew it. We were reminded of it on a pretty regular basis. You know, there are always people in a town who feel like it's theirs and who don't want anyone who they consider to be outsiders to come into the town. But I think what made my childhood more bearable was the friends that I had who were accepting, who didn't see me or my

family as outsiders. I think a lot about how difficult it would have been to survive if I didn't have those people, if I didn't have those friends who were there for us. But it was a struggle, right? You're sort of constantly reminded that you're different, whether it's, oh, you're ugly and not really having an explanation as to why people are saying that or, you know, getting teased because I didn't understand what Christmas was and why people celebrated it. I didn't understand what Easter was and why people celebrated it because my parents didn't, you know, they didn't really think it was worth explaining because we weren't Christian. That was hard. And it was more than that, right? It was actual physical violence,

you know, getting pushed around as a middle schooler, my siblings getting, you know, targeted, my parents a lot of times getting targeted. You know, my father was arrested at one point for, you know, no reason. He called the police for help and they instead arrested him. You know, my parents had businesses, so we were in constant interaction with the public. And I think that made it so much worse. I do wonder if, you know, my parents had had, so we were in constant interaction with the public. And I think that made it so much worse. I do wonder if, you know, my parents had had jobs where they just sort of, you know, went into work and I imagine it probably would have been maybe a little bit better, but I don't know, maybe it would have been just as bad, you know? Yeah. I mean, it's interesting, right? Because you're having that kind of job and also you being

a kid in a family where it sounds like you were also sort of like working in various ways in various places at a pretty young age. Also, like I have to imagine that you get exposed to how different people, complete strangers who are constantly stepping into your lives and your family's lives and your family's businesses view you and treat you and interact with you and value you in a way that the typical kid wouldn't. Yeah, it was such a vast diversity of people who came through this town. So it is sort of the gateway to Death Valley, which is the lowest point in the continental United States. It's a big park that a lot of people like to go to. And it's on the way to Mount Whitney, which is actually the highest point in the continental United States, sort of right in between.

And it's near the Pacific Trail. I forget what the exact name is, but it's a huge trail along the Pacific Coast that goes all the way from south to north. And as a result, we had tons of people coming through. And, you know, some people were really incredible. One thing I remember is that all of our German tourists were so nice. And even though I actually was born in Britain and my father grew up there for most of his life, my parents would always comment that the British tourists were always kind of the meanest to us. So that's something I still remember to this day. I remember, you know, within the space of a week, we would have, you know, somebody say, oh, you know, I went hunting and I caught, you know, their, you know, big, scary, whatever, you know, boyfriend, brother, father, whatever to threaten my parents and say, you know,

you better not, you better not kick her out if she's not paying or if he's not paying. Right. So it was kind of a very vast array of experiences. My parents also had a gas station for a time and I worked there too, you know, like many immigrant kids, I worked at all the businesses in the way that kids can work at a business. So, you know, I answered phones, I would fold laundry, sometimes fold towels. My parents primarily, they didn't really let us clean the rooms. That was not something that they were willing to let us do. So we did, you know, we swept and ran towels to people or toilet paper, you know, whatever it might be. But you can kind of see that in the book, In All My Rage, kind of the way that the motel, which is where this character, Salahuddin, he's one of the main characters, the way that Salahuddin, the motel is such a huge part of his life, right? And he kind of knows that world so well. And you only get that when you've spent a lifetime, you know, a young lifetime, I guess I could say, growing up at a place like that. Yeah. I mean, I got to imagine it just exposes you to so many layers of humanity and also just how people treat each other. And it just like you have a lot of

contrast in that experience. I'm curious also, when you reach an age where you get to step out and become an adult and start to create your own career path, is there an expectation? Because you could almost see like these two different paths. Well, one, you know, we've worked really hard to build family businesses or the other is we've worked really hard so you don't have to be in this life and then go and do something else. I'm curious what your experience of expectations around sort of like how do you step into adulthood were in your family? Oh, it was a hundred percent option two. It was, we are doing this, so you do not have to. It was, you know, we, we sort of got stuck in this position, but we don't want you to. So my parents were very focused on education, very focused on us having secure careers.

All they really wanted was to make sure that we got out. I don't think they ever thought they would stay in this town for as long as they ended up staying in this town. Ultimately, they ended up living there for 20 years before they eventually left, but that was not the plan. And so I actually think that us leaving, their children leaving, was a huge part of them being able to leave, right? Sometimes kids come back to where their families are, where their parents and aunts and uncles are, but this town always felt like a stop on a journey, I think, to my parents. They never really felt like it was permanent. So we never felt like it was permanent, which I think ultimately

was a good thing for us. We got out, we pursued different careers. But at the same time, I sometimes long for my hometown in this really weird way because I did grow up there and it was the only home I knew as a kid. And there is something very nostalgic about that and something kind of indescribable about going back to a place like that and realizing you're never going to live there again, but that it's still where you're from. So I visited my hometown recently and I took my children with me and it was a really, a really crazy experience because it was such an emotional experience for me, but so educational for them. I had told them

about my hometown, but they didn't really understand. And even now, a year later, they'll still sometimes talk about it. And they usually talk about it when we're talking about anything desolate. My son is really into science, my 10-year-old, and so he'll talk about the moon or Mars. And I remember him talking about Mars and being like, I bet it looks, you know, like the desert where you grew up. And I was like, yeah, it probably does. So it was just interesting to take them there and to see their reactions to it. And then also to kind of make my peace with it and be like, hey, it's okay that even though this town treated us like garbage a lot of the times that I still have a love for it. It's okay to feel two things at once or three or five, right? We don't have to just pick one path in terms of how we feel.

So I can sort of love the town and hate the town at the same time and that's fine. Yeah. And I think a lot of people have that type of relationship when they reflect back on their past. Like either it's the hometown they grew up in or particular places they stayed for like a solid chunk of time. Part of it is also, it's what we know. And there's a lot of history there that just is anchored there and will be for our entire lives. The good, the bad, the ugly, like everything has just wound up in it. Was the hotel still there when you went back? Yep. The motel was still there. In fact, we drove up to it and I actually just wanted to drive by. And before I knew it, my husband was parking the car and getting out. He's super friendly. He could become friends with like a rock. And he was talking to the people at the front desk and saying, hey,

you know, my wife grew up here and we're just passing through and, you know, just wanted to say, and they were such nice people. They invited us inside. They were like, do you want to eat? We didn't end up, but, you know, cause it was the middle of COVID at that time, but they were very, very nice people. They were South Asian, you know, like, like me and good to hell. They were just trying to make it work, you know, just like we were, they were just, they were just trying to, to make a life and they had little kids, you know. When you first see it, did you have any sort of emotional reaction or were you just kind of like, I'm done?

I was sad because the grass in the front where I spent a lot of time playing was concreted over. There were these three trees in the front that my mom would always say, you know, that's you, and that's your brother, and that's your other brother. They were gone. But I was also like, hey, I'm happy it's still here. I think one of the joys of entering the middle part of your life is the ability to have a little bit of distance and to be able to start putting some of your ghosts to rest. Writing this book was a great deal, me putting some of your ghosts to rest. Writing this book was a great deal me putting some of my ghosts to rest, but also allowing myself to know that I have been witnessed, that I sort of was the witness of my own life and that I can share that with people now, even though the book is partially autobiographical

and that it's based on this place where I grew up, but it's not entirely autobiographical. The main characters are a little bit different for me. They share some of my characteristics, but they're also significantly different. But I was still able to put in a lot of the things that the town sort of did and the harm that it caused, as well as some of the good that it gave me. And so that's really what I was thinking about when I rolled up to the motel. And I was wondering also super mundane things like i wonder if that you know that dog who used to bark at us every day when we'd walk to the bus stop is still there and like immortal but no he was gone you know and then there were things i was shocked that they were still around like there was this um really really ugly fence that one of my neighbors had

and it was still standing and i was like wow i thought that would have been knocked over by a windstorm by now but no it's like apparently the ugliness roots grow really deep into the ground and keep the fence up. And the book you're referencing is so powerful. All my rage. And I want to dive into some of the moments and the stories you share in there and sort of like explore how they relate to your life. I'm curious before we get there, as you said, your parents' aspiration was we're doing this so you don't have to do this. You go out and been more upset that I didn't end up going into medicine. I sort of realized, I worked at a hospital my senior year of high school, and I realized it wasn't quite for me. Then I tried to stay in sort of a medical track. I

worked at a chiropractor's office for a long time. I thought, okay, I can do this type of medicine because I'm not working in a hospital. And that also just didn't ultimately end up appealing to me. And journalism is something I had just always done. Storytelling is something I had done since I was little. I didn't actually think fictional storytelling could be a job that I pursued until I was in my early 30s and I sold a book. That is when I was like, oh, I could actually do this for a living. And then that's a gift. But my parents, they wanted me to become a doctor. But ultimately what I realized about my parents is they really just wanted me to stand on my own two feet. They wanted to not be worried about me. And if they got some bragging rights in the process, that would be great. They would like

to be able to say, my kid did A, B, and C, but it wasn't a requirement. They wanted me to be self-sufficient. Yeah. As I think so many folks want that for their kids. I know you shared that you're a parent. I'm a parent as well. And I think at the end of the day, we wanted kids to be happy and safe. It's like that's what it comes down to.

Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die.

Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. You mentioned that you're in your 30s and you sell that first book. That was in fact, that was An Ember in the Ashes, right?

Yes. So that was a fantasy book. And that was a fantasy book that also set in the desert. My childhood did have an impact on that book too, but in a, in sort of a weird way. It was a book about a girl who starts off, you know, who starts off the story as a coward. And I was, you know, very terrified as a 17 year old. I was kind of afraid of everything. I was afraid of upsetting people. I was afraid of losing friends. I was afraid of my own shadow in a way. And it is about this girl and how she finds

her courage throughout the story and how she's able to be a voice for her people. That is a story that I thought was needed because I love fantasy. I've read a ton of fantasy and I never saw myself in fantasy. And I think it's important that that doesn't mean I didn't love the fantasy I read, you know, but I did feel as I was writing I didn't love the fantasy I read, you know, but I did feel as I was writing that I wanted to write a book that, you know, my kids could read, for example, and they could see themselves in it. And I was just seeing such a huge impact with my children reading now versus when I was reading. Like, I do feel like there's almost always a distance between me and the books I was reading because they were never about people like me. And I don't think everything we read has to reflect us.

I don't think that, but I think it should happen at least some of the time. We should be able to see, especially children, should be able to see themselves in the book. They should be able to see themselves as heroes, as leaders, as powerful, because that helps you make sense of the world, and it helps you interpret the world and it helps you think, hey, that could be me too. Because I didn't have that, that's what I wanted to create. And that's what I did with An Ember in the Ashes. That was my focus with An Ember in the Ashes was sort of creating these heroes and world in which kids who look like me or like my kids were kind of in the lead. All My Rage is very different.

It's just such a different story. Yeah. I mean, it's a different story, different genre. You know, so A Number in the Ashes leads to sort of like a series of books that becomes this just really powerhouse series, sells over a million copies, New York Times bestsellers, all the yada yada, all the good stuff like any rising writer would just like absolutely love to see happen. So here's one of my curiosities, as you just said, All My Rage. It's a very different book. It's contemporary. There are definitely threads that weave through all of the different things, but there's this mythology in

the writing world that says, okay, so it's brutally hard to get into the world in the first place. It's really hard to write YA, young adult stuff, and then fantasy and somehow differentiate yourself from what you're doing. So if you step into that and you have pretty wild success, you know, which you had, a lot of the guidance in that space is, okay, just keep doing what you're doing. Stay in your lane. Don't go left, don't go right. Get a little bit creative because we want to see new stuff coming out, but don't step out of that lane because this is what we know is going to really keep you safe, keep you okay, keep you in your career. So I'm really curious because All My Rages is such a different book. Did you have any sort of internal struggle in saying,

okay, I'm going to write something very different? Oh, yeah. I was like, this is stupid. What are you doing? I knew that it was going to be a bit of an uphill battle. But I had had this book in my head for 15 years. I had been working on it on the side. I didn't work on it all the time. It wasn't sort of my primary series. That was obviously the fantasy series. But every time I was really angry, I would work on all my rage, which I'm sure you can tell from the title. Every time I was frustrated with the world, with myself, with my life, I would work on this book until eventually I had so much material for it that it started kind of taking over. So when I had finished the third book in my Ember series, which is called A Reaper at the Gates, I needed a break. Reaper kind of took it out of me. I was really tired. I had been in this

fantasy world for years at that point. I just needed a little bit of time. And what I did is I started working on All My Rage. And I started really working on it and really figuring out the story. And sort of around the same time, someone in my life passed away of a drug overdose. That had a pretty big impact too, because it really made me think about the shame around that particular type of death and how in certain communities, many communities, it's not really accepted as something you can talk about, right? It's sort of like, oh, you know, they had an accident. Nope, people didn't want to admit what had happened. And I thought about that a lot. And the stories sort of started coming together. I'd had a theme

of addiction in the book from the beginning, but this kind of crystallized. It made me realize, hey, I shouldn't be afraid to write about that. You know, I should be able to write about it, not just in terms of, you know, that, oh, this is something that happens, but in terms of, well, how does denial and shame kind of morph a life and manipulate a life in such a negative way that it can really change things for the worse for a kid who has no control over what's happening and who is not the person using, but is affected by the people who are dealing and fighting these addictions. So it kind of lit a fire in my head. And that's how all my books are, right? Like they're just like a little fire burning and I can't stop thinking about them. And so I started working on All My Rage more steadily. And even

though I had a deadline for my fourth book, and I finally called my agent and I said, I don't want you to kill me, but I've been working on something else and I'm wondering if I can send it to you. And she kind of was like, oh, but she said, okay, well, just send it to me and then I'll take a look. So I sent it to her and she said, I loved it. Go write it. I understand that you have another book due. I will deal with that. But I think that you're not going to be able to write a good fantasy book until you get this book out of you. So I actually wrote this in between my book and then I finished it, turned it in, and then I wrote my fourth fantasy book. And then it was just about waiting till the series was done

before All My Rage came out. And so it was a weird experience. And I've had to also accept that All My Rage is not going to have the same audience as An Ember in the Ashes. People aren't going to respond to it in the same way, you know, and that's just the nature of a contemporary book, you know, especially during COVID. A lot of people really want the fantastical escapes, you know, like people still love reading Ember because it is such an escape, but All My Rage is a little bit more of a reminder of what's happening here and now. And I think that can be harder for people. So I do think that it is a book that I needed to write and the story I needed to tell. And my hope is that it will find its way

to the readers who need it, who need to read it as much as I needed to write it. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like it's the type of book where it's a thing you couldn't not write. You know, it's like you wake up, you know, the fantasy is something where you like, you wake up, you love doing it. There's a certain element of delight to it. You get to create worlds and do, but there's this other thing where it's like, it just keeps coming back and coming back and coming back and coming back. It's sort of like, there's the weird analogy popped into my mind as you were sharing that which is like in meditation which is the core instruction often is if a thought comes to you while you're trying to sit in meditation you know just gently acknowledge it and let it go but if it keeps coming back and

coming back and coming back let that essentially become the center of the meditation let that thought become the mantra and just be with that let And it sounds like that book over a 15 plus year window kind of started to become, it just kept coming back to you in different ways and shapes and forms until finally, sounds like that one catalyzing event with a friend passing ODing was the thing that said, okay, this actually has to take form and shape on a whole different level and in a different timeframe. That's a hundred percent. That's a hundred percent right. And you know, Ember was that for me too, right? Like Ember was, for me, it was a story I had to tell. I couldn't stop writing. It took me six years to write an Ember in the Ashes. Oh, no kidding. For the first book?

For the first book. And then the rest of the series took a further five, six years. And so it was a long process, right? However, it's exactly as you said, you know, when Ember sort of became a book that I, a story that I understood how to tell, I knew what I was doing and I just needed a little bit of space from it. This became the story that kind of jumped in front, you know, and said, my turn, you know, and it's always my, I always kind of see it as my characters, you know, coming to the forefront of my mind and kind of whispering to me and saying, Hey, I want to tell my story now. So, I mean, the, the setting for All My Rage is in fact a motel.

Yes. So you're, you're really drawing, definitely seems like a lot of moments and elements and sort of like storylines draw from your own personal life. But interestingly, that's the set and setting, but it's not the story. And I wonder if there was an evolution over time. Was the early thing like, I had a really unusual childhood, like growing up in this place where I literally grew up in a motel. What a unique experience. Let me tell the story around that and the characters and the people. And did it evolve away from that over time into something different? Yeah. It started as a book about the motel itself and the people who were tenants there. It started as something where I talked about the tenants more

and all the weird little stories that I'd collected over the years. It was more obviously autobiographical. It was one of those stories you write in your 20s where it's like really raw and you just take everything from your own experience because you don't have any life experience. And then over time, I started becoming interested in one of the main characters, which was the mother figure at this motel and kind of everything that she had done to keep it alive. And I started telling that story. And then these children kind of appeared from that. And it was actually a secret project for a really long time, right? So this is a book that deals with a lot of very tricky subjects. And first of all, it was a sort of creative space where I could work on something that nobody knew about. Nobody had any expectations for it. And that was really

wonderful. But then because it was kind of secret, I was able to explore some of the more difficult themes in the book and I didn't have any pressure, right? So I needed to know as I was writing it that if I got the story totally wrong, it was okay because the book would never see the light of day, right? And I also wanted the freedom to sort of draw from my life without telling the story of my life. Right. And that is where things began to shift for the story. Like I stepped away from my life and was like, I don't need to tell that story. I need to sort of draw from some of the things without it being entirely autobiographical. And that happened a few years. And I started realizing a few years in that like, Hey, I don't want this to be an autobiography. And all those years spent working on it kind of

allowed me to work out, you know, the things I experienced or witnessed in a way that didn't really feel overwhelming. It really was like therapy, but with fake people. That is how the book felt as I wrote it. And then by the time I got to the later years where I was really working on what felt like a very different story than from what I started off with, it felt like a natural evolution. That's the thing though, right, is I had the time to work on it because I didn't tell anyone about it. I think that's the thing that writers need the most of and that they don't get. Writers really are expected to produce and creatives in general, whether it's a show, whether it's a play, musicians, artists are expected to, if your work becomes popular, to produce really, really quickly.

Because you have to take advantage of the fact that you're popular because in a second, it could be taken away. But I had to remind myself of why I write to begin with. I do not write because I want tons and tons of people to read the story and I'm trying to get as many people as possible. I write because I feel like I have to share the story and whoever it makes its way to, that's who it's destined to make its way to. And I have to be at peace with that. And that is really why I was able to just completely change directions. And my next book is a fantasy book and it's not a fantasy book because because I'm being told you must write a fantasy book now. I've already done the thing where I went off in a random direction. So it doesn't really matter what I write next.

I'm writing a fantasy book because that's what's calling to me. That's the fire in my head currently. And I hope my hope is for more authors to be able to sort of follow the story and more artists in general to be able to follow the stories that story and more artists in general, to be able to follow the stories that they want to work on as opposed to what everyone is telling them to work on. It's such an interesting tension. I'm four books, five books into writing a completely different type of book, much more prescriptive. And yet the next book that I'm about to start on, like for me, is actually something that I'm not telling anyone what it is or what it's about. For the first time, I'm not under contract to write it. And it's a lot of what you were just describing. There's something inside of me right now. There is sort of like

a series of stories and ideas that just need to get out. I don't know if they'll ever see the light of day. I'm literally writing them two and for one person. Maybe after that, it becomes something where I'm like, oh, this is something that I'd be okay sharing with the world. And maybe my publisher is interested and maybe it goes out and somehow it lands in a meaningful way. But I feel like the books that I've written to date, I've been under contract with, there's a certain expectation. There's a promise that I made when I sold the book about what it would be and who it would speak to. And I want this next project to absolutely be unbound by all of those things. And I just want to write the book that needs to be written, even if it never sees the light of day. It just has

to get out. But that's a really hard thing for somebody to do, especially early in their career. You know, when they don't have the traction, they don't have anyone lining up to do, especially early in their career. You know, when they don't have the traction, they don't have anyone lining up to say, okay, so we'll sort of like, this is what's possible for you. And you have the freedom and the background and the history and the track record to be able to do that and not freak out about paying your rent. Yeah. I mean, when I wrote Ember, what I was writing, YA was still big, but YA, it was really YA dystopia that was huge. And I was writing a YA fantasy. You know, it was writing, YA was still big, but it was really YA dystopia that was huge. And I was writing a YA fantasy. It was special white girls who are really popular in covers. And I was

writing about a cowardly brown girl and a soldier. The book is violent. It is based a lot on what's happening in the world at the time, everything from child soldiers in Liberia and Congo to genocide in Sudan and occupation in Kashmir. And all of those things made their way into the book. And I felt really weird about it because I was like, I don't know if anyone will care. I don't know if they'll think it's too dark, you know. But you do have to write wherever you start, whether it's with a fantasy or, you know, whether you're mid-career, you know, like I am and you're working on, you know, a completely different book. I do think you have to follow kind of the voices in your head, you know, who are telling you what to write because the market will always deceive you. What's popular will always deceive you. No one knows what's popular. No one knows what's going to be huge. By the time you know, it's done. The trend is over. So it's always better, I think, to sort of listen to what the story that you know you're going to never get sick of. You know, the story that you are going to be able to work on day and night that is going to light that fire in your

head, you know, that you're going to want to tell everyone about or not, right? Just, you know, if you just want to explore it the way you and I are, you know, the way I did and the way you're doing right now. But the story that is the most important and the closest to your heart, I tell young writers this as well, you know, even when they're starting in their career that, hey, not all of us are able to sit down and write a book without interruption. So many people have day jobs. I had a day job when I started writing Ember. So many people have kids. I had two kids in the middle of writing Ember. People move. People have parents they have to take care of. People get kicked out of their houses. They lose their jobs. And you can't always work on a book every single day. You can't always work on your dream every single day. But if you can stay connected to it for even 15 minutes a day, whether that's rereading something you've written, whether that's spending five minutes writing,

whether it's just reminding yourself of what you love, that is the thing that got me through those six years with Ember and through 15 years with All My Rages, just making that connection pretty regular. One day I'm going to write this story. One day I'm going to tell this story. One day this story is going to be in the world somehow. That is the thing I can recommend because, you know, I do think there's this sort of awful misconception that has been promoted by so many popular writers. And you have a lot of popular writers. And the reason they're popular is that, you know, they are from, right, the class that has been dominant for so long. We have a lot of white, male, straight writers who are super, super popular, and they are the ones who've been

giving advice for many years because they were the only ones who were making it and who people wanted to listen to. And what you hear a lot is, oh, you got to write every day. You have to really commit to it. Quit your day job. And that's not realistic for so many people. They can't quit because they have mouths to feed or they have family to support. So I think that it is a very tricky thing to tell a young writer, hey, you know, don't do something that's commercial. Do what you want. It might be commercial, but it also the caveat of, you know, do what you can. You know, like I know plenty of writers who started their careers doing IP work and the IP is really freeing. It's not it's not very restrictive. You know, they're able to create what they want to create and create worlds that they want to create. And then they kind of use that to leap into writing things that are non IP. And I think that's a wonderful way to get into the writing world. It is interesting. There's so many different paths. I remember reading the book Daily Rituals, which I think my producer, Lindsay,

has said I bring that up often because it really, it was fascinating to me. And this was a book that sort of like looked at a 24-hour cycle. I don't know if you read it, but it's really interesting. It's a day in the life of all these different creators,

writers and painters and artists and scientists and different people, very successful people. And one of the things that jumped out at me then, so many of these folks that we know them for their, like whatever their art is, whatever their great work is, like that's what we know them for. They had day jobs, you know, like they worked in a nine to five. That was not terrible.

It was not great, but it gave them this sort of like the tethering to whatever illusion of security they needed to feel like, and it gave them, and it wasn't so draining that it left them with nothing to give to their craft in the evenings and on the weekends. And it gave them the freedom to say, I can step into my craft, let's say, if it's a writer, I can write exactly what I want to write, what's in my heart, what needs to get out. Because I don't need it to land. I don't need it to pay the rent. And it's so much more freedom to be able to do that.

And there's that mythology that you have to go all in. You have to quit everything. You have to, like, live the life of an aesthetic if you need to for years. It's like, no, actually that's one storyline, but it doesn't have to be the storyline. Yeah, I mean, I worked a day job. I mean, it was actually at night because it was at a newspaper,

but you can call it a day job. I had two kids. I was a stay-at-home mom for four years while I was working on All My, sorry, An Ember in the Ashes because it was actually cheaper for me to stay at home and take care of my kids. And we saved more money that way than if we sent them to daycare, which was so expensive. And, you know, I had to work in between and on the edges and when

kids napped and, you know, when I wasn't doing any contract work and that's just how it was. And I really, really wanted to write this, you know, this book. I really wanted it to get out in the world, but I also didn't owe anyone anything. You know, there's this beautiful tension and stress that comes with being under contract, right? Because you're like, yes, I have a contract. But at the same time, you're like, ah, I have a contract. You know, I'm sure you know that feeling. Yeah, totally. I mean, it's sort of like the person who has an idea for a startup or a new business, and they're fortunate and somebody backs them. And it's like, yay, the day you get the check in the bank. And then it's like utterly beholden to somebody else's expectations and timelines and demands and all that other stuff. It's definitely an interesting dance. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever,

making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required.

Charge time and actual results will vary. Everything finally comes together. All my rage goes from being this 15 plus year journey of recording stories, shifting, expressing things that need to get out into an actual book. The book tells the story of these two high school kids, Salhuddin and Noor. And like you said, there are parts of you woven into this and there are parts of your town and the culture woven into it. But like you shared also, it became really clear over time, this was not your story. It informed it in different ways, but it was not, in fact, your story story and there are all

sorts of other ancillary characters one of them also being um like the mother um and the way that you write it i thought was really fascinating the book is structured as sort of like these entries you know from these different people sort of like dropping in almost in real time back and forth it's very alive and it's very visceral. And when I think about their relationship, they've been best friends, they grew up together. There is a deeper interest going on. There's a lot of tension. When I think about the title of the book, when I think about rage, and when I think about the stories of these kids, brown kids growing up in a small town, motel and really the really similar businesses.

You know, one of the things that's spinning through my mind is rage about what, you know? Rage about race, rage about checked out parents, rage about addiction, rage about grief, rage about sacrifice of identity. It feels like all of these things are woven in in different ways and different contexts. And as I'm reading this, I'm a middle

age white dude. I'm the farthest from sort of like the demographic of like who these kids are. And I'm transferring in and feeling and just like everything all at once. And I'm feeling some of the rage myself. And I thought it was really fascinating how you wrote this in a way that invites, I have to imagine, so many different people from so many different walks of life to transfer into the experience of these kids and the families that wrap around them and the sometimes deeply concerning, tragic experiences that they have on a regular basis. It was deeply moving to sort of like feel that transference happen. I'm happy that that resonated with you. You know, music's a huge part of this book, right? And when I was young, when I was, you know, in my teens, I loved essentially really angry white guys singing.

Like I love the music of really angry white guys, right? So, you know, All My Rage, if you are a, you know, 80s or 90s kid, probably, you know, Smashing Pumpkins, you know, the song Bullet With Butterfly Wings. And that is where, you know, the line, you know, despite all my rage, I'm still just a rat in a cage. You know, that's where the words All My Rage kind of what they were inspired by. And I think one of the reasons I related so much to that music was that this was a group of people that was free to express their rage. And it felt like without serious repercussionsuffle on Twitter because of the phrase Muslim rage. So it had been used on a magazine cover, and all of these Muslims were hashtagging it and joking about it. And they were saying, oh my God, someone just stole my parking lot at the mosque. Hashtag Muslim rage. Oh my God, that girl's wearing the same hijab as me. Hashtag Muslim rage. And it was very funny. But at the same time, I thought how sad that an emotion as simple and as elemental to humanity as anger can't actually be expressed by specific groups of people without it being a source of fear for non-Muslims in this case, right? So, you know, if a woman shouts or cries,

right, because she's angry, she's being seen, she's seen as out of control. That is really what a lot of media and a lot of the world tells us. If a Black man expresses indignation at being slammed to the ground during the arrest, he is a threat and he has to be taken out, right? If you have a young person saying, hey, what we're doing to the environment is wrong. You know, it's wrong. We have to change things. Or, you know, what is happening across America with these school shootings is wrong. We have to change this.

They're seen as being childish or naive to the ways of the world. And none of these folks are allowed to have their rage recognized. And I think that as a result of sort of being told that, you know, you're going to be punished or mocked for showing your anger and showing your passion, your frustration, so many of us hold a lot of anger inside and we can't express it without potentially serious consequences. And that's like such an unjust thing. And because I can't change it, you know, I wanted to write about it. You know, these characters are really forced to hold on to so much of their rage inside and it's tearing them apart. And a huge part of their

journey is dealing with the rage, acknowledging it and figuring out what to do with it. And I don't think that they're the only ones who need to go on that journey. I think a lot of us have a lot of rage, especially from the last few years of everything that's been happening in the world. And we're not allowed to really express it or taught how to express it in a healthy way. Obviously, there are extremely unhealthy, awful ways to express it, which I do not recommend, but to be able to just talk about it, to put it into art, to be able to be witness, to be able to just talk about it, you know, to put it into art, to be able to be witness, to be able to say, I am angry about this thing and to have someone be like, I hear you, you know, that could mean so much to so many people.

And so that's what a lot of the book is kind of talking about. Yeah. And I mean, it feels like also layered onto that, right? Is it the experience of feeling like there are no good choices? There's no pat answer. There's no easy, there's no like, oh, here's the door that lets everything be okay. It's like, no, like let's actually deal with reality where it's just hard, you know? And how do we grapple with that on a day-to-day basis and find some way to be able to breathe? That's the thing is, again, I think young people, especially in the past few years,

have had to deal with so much. And it is a question I get all the time from young writers and just from young readers who are like, hey, how do I get through this? You know, and to me, I tried to demonstrate the answer in this book in as much as I could, and actually in all my books, which is just these little moments of hope, you know, these little moments of light that kind of, you know, you kind of hop from one to the next. And so you go through your days and you have to find those moments. And I mean, I find hope in like the tiniest, dumbest things, right? Like my coffee in the morning is probably one of my happiest moments.

You know, recently my kid started reading the Ember series and he's reading Torch right now. And he's a sweet kid. And so I don't ask him to because I'm like, no, I want you to have your privacy. If you hate the book, I want you to be able to hate it in peace. You don't have to like it. But he'll come and kind of update me and he'll be like, well, I'm at the part where this happens. Why know, why'd you have to do that? But, you know, that's such a joyful thing for me, right? To be able to think like, wow, I started this book when you weren't even born, you know, and I was writing it while I was speaking into like one of those little like MP3 recorders that were popular in like the late 2000s because my phone, you know, I didn't have a good phone and telling the story

into that while I was, you know, giving you your bottle, right? And now you're reading it. To me, that's just such a beautiful thing, you know? And I also think it's why people probably love stuff like TikTok, you know, and Instagram Reels like so much because that's a distraction from the world. And I think that's okay. There's a lot of judgment of how young people deal with the pressure of the world, but they are dealing with it. And that's a good thing. However, that may be happening. Yeah. And I think when you write a book

like this, you know, part of it is just, it's letting people know, hey, you're not alone. Yep. There's a line in the book. There's so many lines in the book where that are just so beautiful and poignant. Noor says, I miss things I can't put into words because they were taken before I knew how precious they were. And I'm like, how many times have I felt that? As a parent, as a human being, as a brother, as a son, as just a friend, as just somebody who's struggling

to figure out which way is up. I'm like, it's so relatable. There were so many other just lines where you just, you have this just stunning ability. And maybe that's what I was talking about, where it's so easy to transfer into the stories of people who seem on the surface to be so different from you, but the experience and the way that you give language to their experience feels so universal that I could just transfer right into that and say, yes, I have felt that so many

times over in my life. And whether it's a kid reading this or whether it's I've met somebody in their seventies or eighties from a different country, the universality of the experience, I think, especially at this moment in time feels so poignant. It's one of the things that makes books so special, right? Is being able to read about an experience completely different from yours and still to be able to relate because as you said of the universality of the experience, one of the things that I try to do to make a story feel real is I try to never lie in a book, even though technically as a storyteller, you're kind of our professional liar, right? But about people's feelings, about what would actually happen, I really stop and think.

So I love my characters. They're sort of like my imaginary children. And I always want to pull my punches, right? I always want to be like, no, I don't want that terrible thing to happen to them. I want them to be happy and get to eat cake. And then I have to ask myself, what would actually happen in the world? And sometimes that's very hard because I know that my readers are going to feel pain and be like, oh, why did you have to make that happen to Salahuddin or to Noor? But you said earlier, as we were chatting about this idea of no good choices, that is the case for so many kids right now and adults too. We're going through life and there's no easy answer to anything, whether it's, you know,

how we move through the day at work, whether it's how we take in what's happening in the world, whether it's what we do to kind of get through all of that. All of those are, our responses to them have become very, very complicated and we can't always do the things we want to do. And there isn't an easy answer. And I think our tendency as people is to be like, oh my God, it was so much simpler when we were young. But, you know, I've, I talked to, I thought that recently, I found myself thinking that. And I, then I, you know, called my parents and I talked to my mom and she was just like laughing. She was like, no, it wasn't. She was like, you know, it was just as bad. It's just that now you're in it. You're in the thick

of it because you're, you know, you've got the young kids and you're living in this world and it is really just as hard. It's just a different time period. You know, telling these stories, my hope is, again, as you said, to let people feel witnessed, let them feel they're not alone and to share something that on the surface seems very specific, like two kids who are Pakistani growing up in a California desert town at a motel, like that's very specific, but to find the universal in that, to find the humanity in that, because ultimately that is what we are looking for in each other, in the art that we create, in the art that we read or that we consume. That is the thing that I am always looking for. Why else would I watch

a period piece about 20th century wealthy landowners in England than because I relate to the fact that they're two star-crossed lovers and the dad's trying to control everything? It's like you relate to the humanity of the experience, not the outer stuff, you know? Yeah. And I just love that notion also, what you were sharing. I mean, you liked it. The idea of when you're sort of telling that story, there can be an inclination to sort of pull the punches and be like, hmm, let me soften this a little bit. But then you think to yourself, well, that's not reality. I mean, we had Katie Camilla on the podcast a little while back. And I remember her, and you know, she's well known for writing these books that are like

kids' books, especially young kids' books that can be really, they're hard truths. And she said, you know, she said she always believes, tell the truth, but leave them with hope. She's like, kids can handle so much more than we think they can handle. Like be honest. And at the same time, tell in a way that just doesn't leave them feeling absolutely like, like life is futile and nihilistic, right? Like give them hope because in reality, I think that's what we're all looking for at the end of the day, right? Yeah. It's not just kids. I mean, I, I need, I mean, this may seem childish to some listeners, but like, I need my books to have hope at the end.

I don't need happy endings. I don't have to have a happy ending. But I need to know that when I close this book, I will feel like there is still good in the world. And even if I've just been through unexperience, whatever that might be. So that's what, again, what I try to put into my books and what I look for in the books that I read. I want to close the book and feel good and feel okay. With All My Rage, it's been really interesting. I've done some book club talks and I've had people tweet at me about it or DM me on Instagram. And a lot of them are like,

hey, are they okay? It seems like they're okay, but can you confirm, you know, that they're fine? And I just, I find that incredibly beautiful. Like, what a lovely thing that people connect so deeply to the characters that they want to know if these fictional people are somewhere in some universe, even if it's just in my head, if they're okay. That also shows how much we love our fellow man. And that is a beautiful thing, right? There's so much about how everyone hates each other. No one can get along, but it's like, if that were completely true, I would not be hearing from kids being like, hey, please tell me these two are doing great. So this brings up another very practical question for me. So from what I

understand, the book has been optioned for TV and you're actually writing the adaptation for it. So now we're in a totally different medium. There's much more creativity and it's not just you and your editor or words on a page. And then it goes out where you have a lot. There's a certain amount of relinquishing of control over the final thing. There's the edit, the co-writing, all the other stuff, the acting. That question that people are coming back to you and asking you about the book that you very intentionally, I would imagine, didn't really answer. You hinted at things, but you left it open. Do you feel a compulsion when you're writing for TV in a different format? Or do you feel like the people who you are working on this project with are going to sort of

like say, we need to have this question answered within the story? You know, it's so early in the process. It's really at the pilot phase now. Like I'm on the third draft of the pilot with my co-author and it's early enough to where that question hasn't really come up yet. But I always say that when it comes to transferring to another medium, as long as the soul of the story is the same, I don't mind changes and shifts, right? So it would be weird if Noor and Sal were suddenly singing musicals and dancing up and down the street. That would be strange, unless they were dancing and singing about somewhat difficult stuff, right? Listening to Smashing Pumpkins in the background. Right. Listening to Smashing Pumpkins. Right. Exactly. But, you know, if their story takes some shifts and turns along the way, I really don't mind that. I think that film is such a vastly different medium than writing that I have to have trust in my partners in the process who, you know, this is

their medium, right? If they were coming to me and they were giving me a book and saying, you know, like, how do I make this book? You know, I would want them to trust my understanding of how books are written. I'm thinking about when I worked as a newspaper editor, you know, writers who are newer writers trust, like, okay, you know, you've been an editor for a while. Like, what should I do? So in this case, I trust the partners. I trust their process. And I trust that they'll help me tease out the best way to tell the story.

Yeah. It's like you hold the soul of it tightly, but the expression of it lightly. Um, very cool. This feels like a good place for us to come full circle in our conversation as well. So in this container of a good life project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good in it somewhere, whether it's like, oh, I learned something today or, oh, you know, I offered someone comfort today. But for the most part, I've been really fortunate and I've had a lot of days where I get to the end of day and I'm like, wow, I laughed a lot today, you know? So I think for me being able to just laugh and smile

and find hope in life, like that is what it is to live a good life. And to also understand that each day is going to add up to something bigger. And you don't really know if it's been a good life until you're kind of at the end. You're just sort of trying to make it forward in little chunks. And that's much more doable than to think about the whole, you know, expanse of one's life. And the pressure of that is, I think, a little bit too much. So just little bits at a time and finding places to find joy and to laugh. That's, to me, that's a good life. Thank you. Hey, before you leave, if you love this episode, say that you'll also love the conversation we had with Valerie Kaur about her experience integrating two cultures. You'll find a link to Valerie's episode in the show notes. And of course, if you haven't already done so, go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And if you appreciate the work that we've been doing here on Good Life Project, go check out my new book, Sparked. It'll reveal some incredibly eye-opening things about maybe one of your favorite subjects, you, and then show you

how to tap these insights to reimagine and reinvent work as a source of meaning, purpose, and joy. You'll find a link in the show notes, or you can also find it at your favorite bookseller now. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch,

getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun.

On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk.