The Squeeze - Karen Kingsbury: Someone Like You

Episode Date: April 3, 2024

Karen Kingsbury knows a thing or two about writing books, with over 70 of them published. She joins the Lautners today to discuss her first film adaptation of a novel, Someone Like You, with��part of the proceeds going to 10 non-profits, one of them being Lemons! Karen shares how she got into writing and how she got her start in journalism. She talks about the feeling of putting out her first book, what keeps her motivated, and how beneficial writing has been to her mental health. She shares why Someone Like You was chosen to be turned into a film, and how she came up with the high-concept story. Lastly, she shares why she was compelled to share the proceeds and how she chose the 10 recipients.    Be sure to follow Karen @karenkingsbury and check out Someone Like You in a theatre near you: https://www.someonelikeyou.movie/  Thanks to our awesome sponsor for supporting this episode:  Vessi: Step into Summer fun activities with Vessi. Visit vessi.com/THESQUEEZE for an automatic 15% off your first purchase at checkout!  To email us your questions or share your story, you can reach out to [e-mail]. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the podcast so you don't miss an episode! Plus, follow us on Instagram, @thesqueeze and personally @taylautner and @taylorlautner + on TikTok @thesqueezepodcast    To learn more from The Lemons Foundation, follow @lemonsbytay on Instagram and visit lemonsbytay.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

My job was to figure out why would friends do this to their friend. So I had to go to prison, to the prisoner of the jail and interview the killer. And she actually ended up confessing to me. So it was this whole thing. What? When life gives you lemons, what do you do with them? Over here at the squeeze, we talk about it. Oh, hello, hello.

You little lemon drops. You little lemons. Welcome to Wednesday. Or whenever you're listening. No, Wednesday. Okay. Welcome to Wednesday. Welcome to Wednesday.

We are happy to have you. We are. Quick little reminder. If you are seeing me right now, click down below and hit that subscribe button. If you're listening, go ahead and click that follow button. We want to make sure you guys do not miss out on any squeeze. I was going to try to say squeeze updates.

I don't know. I was thinking squeezing two and then I was trying to. Any juice. Any, okay, yeah, juice probably, but I'd just find the better. Better answer. We don't want you missing any juice. We got all the juice. All of the juicy juicy juice.

I miss those juicy sweatsuits. L-O-L. That is so random. Juicy sweatsuits. Do you remember those? Okay, but yes, of course I do. Do you actually miss them? Absolutely.

Okay. 100%. Well, that's questionable. Those were like the best things ever. What happened to them? I don't. I don't know. The freaking rhinestones.

Yeah. The little J on the zipper. I would wear, I would wear that every, I mean, it's not, is it surprising because look what I'm wearing right now. It's, it's, it tracks, tracks back to my early days. It tracks. It tracks. It's track and suits. I don't know.

Forgive me on that one. I tried. With the puns today. We have a fun episode. We do indeed. Today. We do indeed. We have.

Ms. Karen Kingsbury on the episode today, and she has written over 70 books. Yes, she's been... She's literally has lost count. She is not... She doesn't even know anymore. Yeah. She's been writing for over 30 years, and she's written about two books a year. But, yeah, she's amazing. I had no idea of her background, though, before she started writing, you know, fiction novels.

Yeah. She started as a journalist and she covered like these crazy like stories. Some like crazy crime stories. And you guys know how much we love for our crime docs. Yeah. So we talked a little bit about some of those stories that she covered. And a few of them turned into books. Yeah.

But she's unbelievable. Yeah. She has one of her books, someone like you. she just made into her first movie. Yes. And it is out in theaters right now. Right now. We've seen it.

It's great. Yes. There's one little part that I'm not going to tell you now because you're going to have to listen to the interview. But there's a special thing about this movie that ties back to us here today. Yeah. Lemon squeeze. So definitely go. Definitely go watch the episode and then go watch the movie because it's a very heartwarming film that is beautifully shot.

The locations of this film are insane. So I think you guys are going to love this episode and we'll see you on the other side. Karen, welcome to the squeeze. Thank you so much for joining us. We're so excited to have you. Thank you. Yes, it's an honor to be with you. This is super exciting.

Super exciting. Well, we have a lot to dive into. But before we do any of that, we do start each episode with a game called Citrus Got Real. And in this jar, we have a bunch of random fun questions. Typically, you would choose one, but since you are not here, I will choose on your behalf if you're okay with that. Thank you. Okay. What if she was like, no, I only want girl take. Yeah. What do we think looks good? I don't want, you know, I don't want the top. Yeah, I'm going to get in here. I want something down. Okay, here we go. This was one in the middle. Okay. All right.

Stop. What? This, people are not going to believe that I randomly chose this for her. I'm scared. These questions are usually hot dogs or hamburgers or what's your favorite emoji to use or just something random. This one I pulled for you. If you could live in a book, which book would it be? Oh, my word.

That is so crazy. If you could live in a book. Yeah, I mean, goodness, I've written a number of them. So I think it would have to be, I've already done that, right? I've lived in those books before I could ever give them to anybody else to read. But I think it would, because I've spent so many hours with this one that we made into a movie, someone like you, I think it would be someone like you because to be, I would love to be in the room to watch those are the two moms when they, you know, at the end. There's an ending point.

You know, because you've seen it. I would have loved to have been in the room. I would have just been a quiet, like, fly on the wall. But that's the one I would live in. Wow. All right. Oh, I love that. Very fitting.

Yeah. That's actually kind of crazy. You picked that. I know. Who would yours be? I could live in any book. I know. We're so bad.

I would be like, I'd say like, I'd say like Lord of the Rings or something just to like be in the beauty of it. Like I just think of like a world that just like looks unbelievable. Or like chronicles of Narnia. Oh, yeah. You know? Getting to be a Narnia. Beautiful. Yeah.

Now maybe I need to do my answer. Great. Yeah, I think my way probably be Narnia. You just steal all my answers. Well, to be honest with you, I was going to say Twilight because that's really the only book I've read through. I'm not a good reader. So, yeah, yeah, very true.

I mean, yeah, well, on the topic of books, correct me if I'm wrong here. You wrote your first book 30 years ago, a little over in 1991. Yeah. And then since then, I, actually tried to count how many books you've written. And each time I counted and scrolled through the internet, I got it wrong. How many books have you written? Yeah, let's hear it from the horse's mouth. Oh my goodness. I don't even keep track of that. Isn't that funny? I would say it's

around 70, like something like that. We were raising our six kids and I feel like we were doing two, I was doing two books a year and sometimes three. And I write really fast. So that's a secret. and that'll be between us. But if I didn't write quickly, there's no way that I could have done that. Because my kids thought it was like a part-time thing. Wow. Two books a year for 30 years is mighty impressive. Yeah.

And you have over 25 million books in print, which is just like I can't even comprehend. Like that's so crazy. Many books. What I just want to know, like what got you into writing? Like when did you start finding a love for writing? You know, I loved writing as a kid, so I would staple pages together. My first book was called The Horse. I have no idea why. Like I wasn't the horse girl. I was actually afraid of horses. But maybe I was conquering my fears in my own way. But it was called the horse and I wrote it in crayon and all the lines slanted downwards. Like it was just, you know, almost every word spelled wrong. But my mom, she saved it and she like gave it to me on my college graduation as a gift, which. I mean, she's like Karen, I mean, I don't even think I remembered that. She's like, you loved writing literally from the moment somebody put like a crayon in your hand.

You wanted to write a book. So it's always been there. Did, um, Girl Tay told me this. Um, and I wasn't aware of it. Did you start as a journalist before you started writing books? I did. In fact, um, yeah, so I went through school doing the writing thing. I was like, you know, I don't know, junior high, middle school, we did the creative magazine.

And I got to have, I don't know, entries of short stories and poems. And then high school, it was journalism, wrote for the newspaper. And then I got my degree in journalism. And as a senior at Cal State Northridge, which is not too far from where you all are. Yeah. That was when I got an internship at the L.A. Times. And it was a super coveted position. And everyone was like, well, you know, you're still just a senior in college. And they hired me.

They actually hired me full time to be a sports writer, which honestly at that point, that was, they were trying, they were, it was all men in the department and they were trying to fill a quote I really believe, which isn't my favorite way to get hired. But you know what? I took it. And I was so thankful. Yeah. I could, I could write. Did I know sports? Not so much.

But the sweetest thing, my parents always supported, like they always believed my dreams. And one of the coolest things I think was that when I got hired it, and I'm here, I'm an L.A. time sports writer. And I have to go cover some stories. And I don't know the end zone from a red zone from a touchdown. So funny. And I've been just a fan, you know, not taking any attention. And my dad went with me for those early games. And he would sit in the stands with a notepad and he would keep track of what was happening.

I would be on the field and having to dodge players because they don't stop at the, out of bounds line. Yeah. It killed. And then the game would be over and I would go with my dad back to the office and he would tell me what happened. And these were just high school games because I was, you know, new at it. And I was getting assigned to do high school.

And I knew what to write because my dad helped me. It was my secret that nobody knew and did that for probably, you know, I quickly rose up to doing feature stories for like the pro sports. So Dodgers and Lakers and. you know, getting a chance to the Raiders, you know, getting a chance to interview players. I kind of do the feature. They realized she's probably not the game girl, but she could do the feature. And they kind of started saying, if it needs emotion, then give it to Karen.

And so it was super fun. I really loved it. And it was just about a year and a half later that I got moved to the front page. And then I was doing much more serious stories. Wow. Was when you started doing those more serious stories, is that where? Because I know you wrote a book called Missy's Murder. And is it true that you were covering this real story?

And that's what inspired that book. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I was the one that they would just kind of give a story to and say, you have all week to work on it. And it had, you know, it was emotional. And there had been this girl, Missy, Avila, who was killed in the Bekoyma area of California. And nobody knew what had happened to her. Hikers found her body.

But there was a detective, Melinda Hearn. And she was the one who she kept, the killers had cut off Missy's hair. She had long hair. And so Melinda Hearn always thought that women were involved. Because that's just, she wasn't, you know, she wasn't assaulted. She wasn't sexually assaulted. She was just like there was this cutting off of the hair and it felt like, you know, and then they had taken a 100-pound log and put it over her back in a stream.

So they drowned her that way. Anyway, it was this tragic, a tragic story. But for three years, it went unsolved. And Melinda Hearn kept believing that somehow there was. be a way to solve this crime and get justice for a missy. And finally, one of the four friends that went up there that day, she couldn't live with that anymore. She was having mental breakdowns and seeing images of demons and things just in her bedroom.

It was just awful. So she called the detective and she said, I could tell you what happened. And after that, so I got the story upon the arrest of the best friend. Her best friend was the one who was jealous, jealousy over a guy. and they yeah they took her up there to the to the hills and she had no idea what they were doing and then they turned on her cut off her long hair and put her face in the stream and put the log over her back and so my job i know my job was to figure out why would friends do this to their friend so i had to go to prison to the prisoner of the jail and interview the killer and she actually

ended up confessing to me so it was this whole thing what that was crazy Okay, so one of my favorite things about living in L.A., Southern California, is that we have the ability to go on hikes, go to the beach, going to the city, go to dinner. There's just so many things we can do all in one day, but that is, if you want to face the L.A. traffic, but that's a different story. and the weather in L.A. has been pretty unpredictable these past couple months, so it's nice knowing that even if we get caught in the rain while we're out walking the dogs are running some errands, we don't have to worry about getting our feet wet with Vessie. Bessie Stormbursts low tops are one of my favorites. They are truly fit for any occasion, whether that's out with friends, walking the dogs, running errands, going to the beach, whatever

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Obviously, the story is not fun at all. Yeah. Very sorry to the family, but this is like, I never knew this about you. that's crazy that you got to like you know we watch we love a docu-series we love documentaries we love crime ones and you know like the journalists that are there covering it and you know getting the interview the killer and the family and that was you that's crazy like that's where the karen kingsbury started yeah that's right i mean who would have ever thought and it's so funny because

in my personal life i had gotten married and you know i was having kids now we had our second child at that point. And I had post-it notes around my screen of my computer that were just like scriptures and encouragement because it was so dark to write about these books. And so yeah, that one, Missy's Murder became a, I covered the trial and the whole thing. And she confessed to me that it was just, you know, these are rough kids anyway. Wow. Anyway, so I wrote the story for People Magazine.

People Magazine ended up covering it. And it was, it ran the month that our, this one, this particular first one, because I wrote four true crime books. But the first one was the month that Kelsey was born, our oldest child. And we've been praying for a way for me to stay home to be able to do my writing at home. But I had told my husband, like, there's no way I'm going to make, you know, the salary that I make, which was hardly anything. But as a reporter, because I was new. But I didn't know how I, you can't freelance that. You know, like people paid $750 to do a three page feature.

So, like, you're not going to make your money at, you know, living at this. But, you know, my husband's amazing, and he prayed faithfully. I prayed doubtfully. And, you know, that's called. And it was, it was this agent who had seen the story in People magazine. And he said, this Missy story about Missy out of this would be a great book. And I'd never even read a true crime book. So I had to quickly get versed on, like, the whole, not only like the cadence of a true crime book,

I'd never written any book. I was like 25 at this point. And so, yeah, and I had to cover the trial then for the book. And he ended up getting it into the agent, got it into a bidding war between Avon and Dell, two different publishers. And they actually, the advance was like three times my annual salary. So I did that get to go in and quit my job and start writing books. So I did four true crime books where I was in and out of prisons, in and out of courtrooms. and getting all the documents.

And I was on shows like Inside Edition and all these detective shows, you know, kind of recounting and being like their narrative voice to kind of talk about these various crimes because those shows were popular back then too. But it was so dark. Like you couldn't find the redemption. And there's no healing in it. Yeah. That is so crazy, though. I never knew that about you. That's really cool, though.

What was the feeling after putting out your first book? Was it excitement? Was it nerves? Like putting out your first baby into the world. Like, what was that like? You know, I've been really blessed to have a lot of first of like dreams that have come true as a writer. And unlike the first one was probably getting a feature story in the L.A. Times. Like, I couldn't believe I was an L.A. Times writer. Like, that was so surreal as a 22, 23 year old. And I remember feeling like the, you know, back then you had the newspaper delivery boy who would kind of come down the street with his sack of papers. And it felt like you might as well have been Santa Claus. Like it might have been Christmas morning.

Like I've been hearing that paper slap on the ground. It was like, I have a story in there. It looks so exciting. But yeah, the first book, I mean, obviously tragic story. So that was hard. It made it harder to be like, woo, you know. But it was very well received. And I think it was handled delicately.

I got to know the family very well and get their opinions and their perspective into the story. And the grief that that caused. In fact, the girl at that. In that case, she moved in with the family, the one who did the murder. Nobody knew who had done it. Obviously, you know, was unsolved for three years. She moved in with the family, the grieving family, and wore the best friend's clothes and slept in her bed. What?

I know. And she bowed. She said, I, and we are going to find the animal who did this to my friend. And it was her underneath their own roof. Oh. Yeah. Very, very bad. I still get.

I still get calls from reporters. This is a story. People still want to talk about. It was so, so crazy. Jeez. Do I feel a new Netflix documentary? Yeah. Do we feel a new docu-series?

I know. Coming up. That's so great. I'm curious, out of all of these 70-something books that you've written, what keeps you motivated to keep writing? Because that's a lot of writing in, you know, truly not that long of a span. That's a lot of books. Well, after the four true crime books, I wrote my first novel, and it was called, it is called Where Yesterday Lives. And it was a little

bit like autobiographical because in many ways, the girl, the main character is Ellen. And she is sort of me, the oldest of five kids. And at the time, I was very concerned that my dad was going to die. He was in his like 50s at that point. And maybe he was in his late or late 40s, but he just had all the things. You know, like he smoked and he had stress. I was like, oh, you know, I was so worried that I was going to lose him. And in many ways, I think I work out things in fiction that I don't know how to work out in real life. And so I wrote this story about that. Like that was like, what would I do? Like, what if he died? How would that work? I was living in Arizona with Donald, my husband, and our two kids. And I felt like if he passed,

I mean, it would be, like, it was such a tragic thought. And my husband said something to me that he regrets. But he basically said to me, well, you know, honey, if he dies, I'm really busy. It's basketball season. And he's a basketball coach. And he said, so I don't know that I could go to the funeral. I was like, what? He's like, no, I mean, I would want to, but like, your dad wouldn't be there anyway.

Like, you know, he would be in heaven. So I'm like, and of course, my husband's amazing. He would have gone. But in that, I was kind of a little bit ticked. And so I wrote up an outline about a girl who loses her dad to a heart attack. And she comes, has to go back home for the funeral. Only her husband won't come. And so she goes back to the hometown and all the different conflicts with her siblings and why not,

but also one old boyfriend who still lives there. And so that was my, that's the fictitious part of it, obviously. But I wrote it in about like 10 days. And I sent it to my publisher who was doing my true crime. I didn't know how those things worked. And they were like, well, no, we'll pass it over to fiction, you know, see what they say. So they passed it over in the fiction department at Dell said, oh, you know, we loved it. It made us laugh and cry.

Like, we really loved it. But where yesterday lives is not for us because it doesn't have sex. or language. It's just not gritty. Like we like grittier things. And I said, well, she comes close to having an affair. But yeah, you're right. I mean, I don't. And they said, no, it doesn't seem like it even needs it.

It's such a good book, but we just can't publish it. So that started a one year process for me where I couldn't. I was getting rejection after rejection after rejection. And it wasn't until I read Francine Rivers book redeeming love. But I said, oh, okay, there could be room for something like this. But someone mentioned, you know, what about Christian fiction? And I'd never heard of that term. I was a new believer.

And I'd never heard of that term. And it sounded kind of watered down. Like I didn't think it would be what after writing true crime, like, what would this be? So I didn't think it would work. But anyway, finally with Multnomah was the, which is now Random House, they wanted it and they wanted a three book deal. Like, it was nowhere near the money I was making initially, you know, for true crime. but it was so fun and I loved it so so much. So that was a beginning.

And I had six books where I didn't know if I'd have to like wait tables to support my writing habit. And then then I started writing about the Baxter family and the floodgates open. Wow. That's so crazy. Yeah. From the sounds of it, even you just talking about that one experience, it sounds like right, One of the major reasons you continue doing it is because it is, it is like therapeutic for you. I was going to ask like what kind of an outlet has writing been for you.

And do you feel like writing has a positive impact on your mental health? I so do. Like my second one, I was called Waiting for Morning. And Waiting for Morning, we had, again, we had this like Bible study group. we had joined new Christians. And one of the women was really joyful. And somebody said to me, do you know that woman? And I said, I don't really know her.

I'm pretty new. And they said, well, she lost her husband and one of her kids in a drunk driving accident. And she took a Bible to the guy who killed her family and forgave him. Wow. And I was so funny because in high school, I was one of those students against drunk driver, people like I just got I was like really against drunk driving I used to dream about ways that you could you know stop that from ever happening like if it's it a breath thing and the steering wheel like it just seems so unfair that someone could just drive on the freeway the wrong way and kill a

family or whatever yeah and when I heard about this woman and I saw her joy I thought I didn't understand it so again I said I'm going to write about it I'm going to write about a different situation, but, you know, a family that loses a dad and a daughter to a drunk driving accident. And how do you find forgiveness? And I learned how to find forgiveness writing, waiting for morning. Like, his mercies are new every morning, but how do you wait for that morning? How, what is it like in the waiting time? Why you can't forgive? And I cry when I ride. Like, I have tears streaming down my face. I am so in it that I feel like I'm just, very first reader. And so it's wonderful for my mental health. Yeah, that's really cool.

Unless I'm on deadline and it's, you know, the book's overdue. I'm curious because I know I have some friends that actually like, I feel like could write a book and can be authors. We have friends that are authors now. But what would you say to someone that is maybe like looking to write a book has an idea and wants to write it, but is a little timid or fearful of doing that. Well, first, I would love to speak to parent. Like, if there's parent, like a parent who is going to, and I know you have mostly young people who probably be the ones wanting to write, but parents need to really encourage their kids.

It's just so important to believe in their dreams. You know, that's, I had that. And I don't know where I'd be if I didn't have a dad who would look at me and say, you know, parent, somebody has to be the next bestselling author. And I think it's going to be you. or saying to me, you know, Karen, one day the whole world is going to know your writing. You would say that. I'd be 12, 13, 14.

Wow. And so I think if you're listening, you know, and you are a person who wants to write, let me say that to you. Somebody has to be the next bestselling author, and it might be you. So keep writing. It's really two things. It's writing and reading. So say you want to write the next Lord of the Ring, you know, then you need to be reading Lord of the Ring. Let that stir your creativity, let it feed into your imagination, and then

start outlining whatever story it is that comes to your heart. And maybe you'll outline 20 books before you decide to actually write the one that's in front of you, but you still are putting the time into it. And remember, until you get a contract, you're on your own schedule. You don't have to be that person who's, you know, like, oh my goodness, if I'm not writing four hours a day, then I'm not going get this isn't going to be a good no book or I can't be an author you can be it might take you longer but that's okay yeah that's great advice wow I love that props to your dad too that's unbelievable yeah I know a lot of your stories deal with the sames that are important to you in your personal life values like forgiveness compassion and faith and mental health is definitely a theme throughout

your books as well what has your personal journey looked like with your mental health and was there a time you remember maybe like first struggling with it? Definitely for me. You know, when we date guys that are the wrong guys when we're younger, you know, it's just one of those things that that can just mess you up. And I dated a guy for six years and this is a thing. So he drank a lot and I had a students against drunk drivers bumper sticker on my car. And he would drink a lot before we would ever go on a date and then I would feel scared to drive with him, but I would go and that wasn't good for me.

And so I began getting panic attacks. And around that same time, there was a moment where I was at his parents. His parents were amazing. And I was at his parents' house. And they were serving ice cream. And they said, hey, Karen, do you want some ice cream? And he answered for me. And he said, oh, she doesn't want any ice cream.

She's trying to lose five pounds. And I was like, I know, right? And so I left her, I left their house that day. I was like 20, maybe. And I went, maybe 19. And I went and bought a pint of ice cream. I ate the whole thing. Amen, sister.

Amen. Yeah, exactly. I was like, I'm going to do what I want to do. But then it turned into bulimia. So for like three years. Wow. I was dealing with bulimia and panic attacks. Like, I was a mess.

I was really a mess. And I figured out that, well, I knew I couldn't, the panic attacks were extreme. I couldn't deal with them. So my mom got me an appointment with a counselor. And, you know, she was just so sweet, so gentle. And I just, I ride my bike over to her office. And she was just, she would ask me questions. And I think counseling a lot of times is question asking to make us think about the thing

we've put aside or that we're stuffing down and we just don't want to, we're not trying to deal with it. And when we ignore those things, it bubbles up and it's going to be something. It might be, for me, it was panic attack. The bulimia was intentional, but the panic attacks were not. They would just show up. Yeah. Yeah.

So I'd sit there with this counselor and she would say, like, basically, in short order, she was able to ask me about my specific situation. Like, why are you staying? Like, why are you putting yourself? Couldn't you go home and clean a closet? Like there's going to be something better to do with your time. And of course, you know, when you date somebody and you're young and you think, well, they're your best friend. You know, you don't want to lose your best friend.

Like, who are you going to talk to with your broken heart? So that shows up in a lot of my books, just the idea of that young love and how that can really do a number on your mental health. But that counseling time was only about three or four months for me in that situation. and I was able to break up and move on. And I stopped the bulimia. I just knew I was hurting myself and that I love myself. I don't want to hurt myself. So that became a time of learning of just how crippling, you know, mental illness, struggling with mental health, how crippling that can be.

And it taught me a lot of compassion. I'm sure. Well, thank you for sharing that. Yeah, absolutely. I'm curious. So you have so many amazing books and stories. Your new movie, which is out now, someone like you, is based off your book, someone like you. How do you decide which one of your books is the one to make into a film?

Like, what was it about this story that you were like, this one out of everything I have, of all the masterpieces, this is the one. You know, when I was, I cried a lot writing that story and I really felt for all of the characters, they, like they never, I never feel like I'm making it up. It always feels like it's just sort of a movie in my head. And then I just get the privilege of capturing it, like what they're seeing and thinking and feeling and hearing and doing like all of that. I get to capture it and weave it together into a story.

And so what I'm reading, it's very common for my husband's, walk by and see me just like if I'm if I'm reading you know what I've just written or if I'm writing it that I'm just crying tears are streaming down my face and when I wrote um someone like you especially as I finished it the last page it was almost like I heard a voice like this is going to be your first movie wow and I think there were several things you know and you both would understand this and Taylor you especially like if you were going to make a movie you need something cinematic like how does this why is it more important for you? for this to play on a big screen rather than on a streaming smaller screen.

Why is what's the difference? And we were a lot of lake shots, a lot of jet ski scenes, that sort of thing. So I knew it had that. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. Yes, I knew it had that. And then a storyline that, like, there's, I don't think that there's ever been a story that's been written about embryos separated at the petri dish and two sisters who did not

have the privilege of ever knowing each other. and all the emotions that went into that of finding out that you aren't really really, it was so complicated. I do think that high concept is really important if you're going to try to do a theatrical release. Like, again, you can tell a sweet story and you can have it on Hallmark or, you know, you can make it a little more complicated. It can be on Netflix. But if you're going to have something on the big screen, it has to have high concept.

Yeah. How did you come up with this idea specifically? Like, was that? She's just like in my brain and just comes. I know. But like was that a was was that you know? Because it is truly the story the storyline when we watched it for the first time. I was like, wait, this storyline is actually insane.

Like I've never, I've never thought about that before. Yeah. What was, I mean, IVF or like, was that a part of your life in any way? Like how did that come to be? Yeah, no, I mean, we knew people. We actually had a, an, exchange student from London, like 25 years ago. And he was the very first IVF baby from Europe, I mean, ever. That was like his story. And it was like people didn't actually, people had written about him,

but not by name. So, but his parents told us. So that was an interesting thing. It was kind of always there. But then I went and spoke at this event. And there was a woman running around with three triplets. They were like four years old. And my hostess for the event, you know, said those little babies are embryo adopted. I said, what? I'd not ever heard of that. She said, yeah, she was like, you know, half a million embryos on ice at these adoption facilities like waiting to be adopted.

I was like, what? Yeah. Well, that was mind blowing. I had no idea. I think, you know, for me, I walk around life as a detective of the emotions. Like, if it makes me feel something, you know, that I'm going to end up writing about it. If I'm crying, if I'm wiping tears or my eyes fill up, I'm like, okay, there's something here. And I think what I thought about in that moment was I wonder about the family that gave those up.

Like, let's look at that family. That would be a family who desperately wanted children and couldn't have them and resorted finally to IVF. Now they go through that whole procedure and it's a procedure. All of the different, you know, hormones, different things you have to take, the vitamins, I mean, it's just, it's a big procedure. They go through that entire procedure and they get, they're happy, surprised by getting more embryos than they thought. And actually, I kind of just found this out that you can, you can even start with like 18 fertilized eggs and only end up with one embryo. So it's a process.

And it's a, it's a very unique process that's very much individual to each family that does it, you know, and it's a heartfelt decision. It's not what they had wanted to do, but it's a beautiful way to have kids if there's a way. So I thought about that family, having their babies, and they implant one, and then a couple of years later take another one off the ice and implant that and everything's going great. And now they have these leftover embryos and they don't want to throw them down the sink. So now they would love to have those children. But there's only so many babies a mom can have or, you know, there's health issues, things like that. So there they go and they donate them to someone else. Now, these are full-blooded sibling of their biological kids.

You see the complex nature there. And I just thought, well, I wondered, like somewhere out there, those three little triplets have full-blooded sibling. And do they know? And I just started researching it. Like, it's really, in most states, it's not considered adoption. It's considered property transfer. And so, which, you know, I mean, in a way that makes sense.

sense at the time like you have these embryos and you just if you want you can find them off to someone else and and it's a super loving thing in the way that like there's some moms out there that would love to experience birth and you know rather than adopting a different way this is the way they want to adopt they want the embryo implanted so it just became this thing in my mind i couldn't get around it and and then the movie starts to shape in my head and and it was this beautiful story of two sisters that never knew each other and a love story of a guy who loves this girl, but she didn't love him back. They were just friends. And the idea that something tragic then happens to her and he finds out in a sad conversation with her parents that we should

have told her about the other embryo. For a while, that was the title. It was kind of a joke, but we're like, the other embryo had the same break. Someone like you. But, um, You know, he's a great guy and he decides he wants to go find the other. If it's a brother or sister, he just wants to find London's sibling. And it just took shape and it became this beautiful. And I just thought like, how, first of all, how heartbreaking would it be to be in love with somebody for 10 years? And then meet a girl who looks just like her and she doesn't even know you. Oof.

Like that's, yeah. I just, I mean, I remember like wiping tears writing the outline for that book. Yeah. Yeah, so it was amazing to be able to finally see it at my head and then to be able to write it was just I loved every minute of it. I loved it. I bet. I get chills, you know, even listening to you, talk about the story, but we've seen the movie and it's fantastic. And it's very heartwarming.

And like Tay said, it's also very beautiful. It's one of the most beautiful things, the cinematography in this movie is just, you guys did a great job with location and everything. It looks so stunning. Yeah. Yeah. So congratulations. I highly recommend people go check it out. But something really special that you are doing with this movie in addition to how beautiful the movie is itself is you are donating 10% of the proceeds to 10 nonprofits. One of those nonprofits is the Lemons Foundation. So first of all, thank you again from the bottom of our hearts. It has been massive for us. But no, when you go see Karen's movie, someone like you, 10% of those proceeds are going to 10 unbelievable nonprofits.

What a beautiful thing. I've never heard of happening before. where did that idea come from and why did you feel compelled to do that and how do you choose those, you know, 10? Yeah, you know, it was funny. The only way to have the movie look like it did in my heart was to pay for it ourselves. So that meant there was a cut. I mean, on the one hand, that was a huge leap of faith.

Like, just to say, it reminded me of my days as a sports writer actually where an MLB pitcher, he throws that fastball over the plate. and the batter has like half a second to decide whether to swing. And for us in the fall and the summer of 22, it felt like that. Like we had a half a second to decide whether to swing. We had had an investment that came to fruition. We had some. It was really like our savings.

Like we've invested in other things. But this was like, okay, we have this cash. We have two million. What are we going to do? Should we buy some more houses or like do we? What could we? Could we really? Could we make a movie?

It was so terrifying. Like Taylor, you can imagine. It was so terrifying just because there's so many ways to make a movie look bad. You know, and I got together with, we had a DP in mind. We brought him in and we said, you know, he showed us the light between the oceans. You ever seen that beautiful movie? It's so good. It's older, but it's like super beautiful.

So he showed and he said, I can shoot you a movie this beautiful. And I was like, okay. I'm going to believe you, but here's how it's going to go. We have the low budget. I won't take any money for the movie. We'll figure out ways we can cut corners, but we cannot cut corners on how it looks. So I want you to be sitting there at the premiere one day, and I don't want you to be saying, oh, we should have used this filter or that filter or this lens. Get it now.

Make it beautiful. Make it look like it's a $30 million movie. So he was all in for that. But again, we got to make all the decision. The beautiful thing was without studio money and without any investor money, we actually ended up with a pretty low, for $3.5 million, that's including all the marketing and P&A and everything, that we would be made whole. So, I mean, that's extremely low. We would actually be in a position to have back end. When I realized that, I thought, you know, there wasn't a single organization I wanted to hire to handle marketing.

I thought who would want to handle marketing? Like if it were me, I feel like I'd rather partner with people who I believe in. And if I believed in these different organizations and I started thinking of ones that like compassion international that as you sponsor children are just different ones. And I thought if I could partner with them, they could get the message out to their people. I could share the profits. I would write a check to these organizations anyway. That's kind of what I was thinking. and the 10 came to mind in like a way that was just like kind of rounded so like in when it comes

to mental health that's a lemon that's like that's what you that's the Lenton foundation is what you know what you do keeping people here you know preventing them from from not walking into tomorrow like you're helping them just to want to take on the journey of tomorrow that's a beautiful thing and I've written about characters who have taken their life I've written about characters who don't because someone stepped in and helped them. And that's emotional to me. You know, it's emotional to me that you would take on this task of helping people with mental health. And I want to do whatever I can.

And I feel like, yeah, every ticket purchased to see someone like you is going to actually help, you know, somebody at one of these 10 organizations that I'm behind. And so it's a thrill for me. I can't tell you what a thrill because I think it's going to do so well. And I hope that I am writing you a big check. Oh, my gosh. Oh, thank you. It's unbelievable. But yeah, the movie, it's so crazy because going back to you just talking about your goals and taking that leap of faith and, you know, kind of taking matters into your own hands because, I mean, it's your baby.

Like, it is. And you know. But just hearing from the start what you. what was important to you. It's pretty cool to say to you, and I know you know this, but it's pretty cool to say to you that, like, you did it. Yeah.

Because it really, I mean, it looks unbelievable, and it pulls at the heartstrings. I think a lot of people are going to be touched by it. Yeah, I cried. Yeah. Yeah. So I was just like to say congratulations, because it's a great one,

and I'm excited for people to see it. Well, thank you. We got to get you in the next one, right? There we go. There we go. Maybe it's my idea of you. I think you got some options. I mean, it just was when I watch it and, you know, when you make a movie, it's the fun thing on this is like I say, paying for it. You get to make the decisions. We got to hire a casting director, but I was in on every, I mean, I literally had, I feel like I had a Pinterest board for every character, every location. I found half the locations, you know. So we really, really, like, it wasn't a moment or a thing, a part of it, even now, making decisions about what to spend money on.

Is it Delilah show? Is it NBC with the world bigger skating championships? Yes. Okay, all of it. And getting the trailer to play there. And when I do, it's like, I think, okay, we had to have this conversation, my husband and I. Like, okay, what if we lose that money? What happens?

Are we, like, different or are we sad? Like, does it feel like we're lesser in some way? we just laughed. We're like, no, we're fine. Like, we'll be fine. It's okay. And then we thought, what if it makes $100 million at the box office? Like, let's go to the extremes, you know. Are we different? Are we happy? Are we okay? Like, yeah, and we get to write big checks to places like lemons.

Like, this is a win. It's all a win. And either way, like when I watch it, we've watched it 100 times, I still cry. It's exactly the movie. I love every second of it, and it's exactly the movie that I wanted to make. So I am, there is no regret. I'm just so thrilled to be this far along, like mile marker 23, you know, for a marathon. But we're just for all this. Our whole family is like on pins and needles.

Can't wait to have the world watch it. Yeah. That's so amazing. I'd love to know and just kind of like end with this. What is your hope that people take away from this movie? There's a line in the movie that always stands up to me and always stands out to me. And it's that the world is divided enough. You don't want your family divided too.

And I just think that was a part of the story is that we live in very divided times. You know, the book came out in 2020 and we were a pandemic and, you know, all the police stuff. And it was just so much division everywhere you looked and then the vaccine was divisive. It was so many things. And, you know, I felt like it's important that we love people, that we let them be seen. And so one of the things I'm loving people saying advanced screenings of the movie, they go in and they see someone like you and they say, I was healed watching this movie. Like I had a broken heart or I was angry. I was angry at God. My husband died. I'm only 40. Why did he die? I couldn't I couldn't pray. I couldn't be happy. I had no joy. And now I cried buckets that I'm leading with hope. I think hope is the main thing. I really believe people are going to walk out of the theater going, I can take a breath.

Like I have hope and I feel healed. And, you know, that's the first step when it comes to mental health is just knowing there is hope and there's a chance for healing. Yeah. Wow. For sure. I know that people are going to walk out of the movie feeling that way. Yeah. Congratulations.

Everybody, go check out someone like you. In addition to it being an amazing story in a great movie, you also are. contributing to 10 unbelievable non-profits, one of those being lemons. So thank you so much, Karen. We've really, really, really appreciated and love you. Thank you. And I love you both. And I love what you're doing for people. Like I said, I said, the Satei, when she was on my podcast, I said, imagine the day, one far, far, far off day in heaven when there's this long line of people and they're in line behind the two of you. And it has nothing to do with film or fame. That's everything to do with how you help them through a difficult time in their life.

How you brought their mental health to light and help them to step into their future. So I thank you for what you both are doing. It is a beautiful thing and I'm honored to be a part of it. That's very sweet. Thank you so much. Got me emotional. I know. Quite the thought.

Yeah. I'm so sweet. All right. Well, thank you, Karen. Thank you for being on the squeeze. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much, Karen, for coming on the squeeze. We love you. We are so honored to be a part of the nonprofits that you are giving back to. It's really so special. We can't take you enough for wanting to include us and believing in our mission. So. So. So, lemon drops. What we're going to need you to do is hit that subscribe button.

Or? Or? The follow button. The follow button. And then close your little lapy topy or whatever you're watching this song or listening. And book your tickets and drive yourself to the movie theater. Yeah. Check out someone like you and support all these amazing.

Tag us. If you go see it, Tag us. Oh, yeah. I would love to see. Who goes. I'd love to see lemon drops watching the movie. That would be awesome. Oh, so sweet.

Yeah. Tag us. Check out the movie. Yes. Someone like you. We'll see you next week when the drops. Woo! This podcast has been brought to you by Podcast Nation.