81. Changemakers: Using History as Inspiration, with L. M. Elliott

Midlife Change And Why History Matters

Cheryl Fischer 0:00

There are women all around us making just amazing changes in the middle of their careers, in the middle of their lives, in midlife. And sharing those stories has been so powerful for me and hopefully for you. And today we get a little added bonus because not only are we going to talk to a New York Times bestselling author, change maker, we're also going to talk about standing up for ourselves and trusting ourselves as women and what that looks like over various generations. So stick with me. Welcome to Mind Your Midlife, your go-to resource for confidence and success, one thought at a time. Unlike most advice out there, we believe that simply telling you to believe in yourself or change your habits isn't enough to wake up excited about life or feel truly confident in your body. Each week, you'll gain actionable strategies and, oh my goodness, powerful insights to stop feeling stuck and start loving your midlife. This is the Mind Your Midlife podcast. You may have heard me say before that for 12 years I was a high school teacher. You may not have heard me say this before. I worked in the corporate world, I changed careers when my kids were young so that we would have summers, we would have afternoons together, and I became a high school math teacher. Now I had actually studied economics as well, and this is relevant, I promise you. I had studied economics as well in college and in grad school. So at some point, sort of midway through this 12 years, I realized that maybe I'd like to also teach economics. I taught at a school that was an IB school, and if you don't know IB, think of it as AP. We had an advanced economics class. And so if I got certified to teach history, economics was part of that. Now, the interesting piece was I hadn't ever been that interested in history, except as it pertained to what I had studied with economics and international affairs. So there's a little bit of interest there. It's all related. You can't really take one without the other. But I studied and studied and studied. I took the teacher's exam, and in Virginia, those teachers' exams are nothing to play with. They are not easy. Your teachers in public school really do know what they're talking about. And so I passed. So technically, even though I only taught economics and math, I was actually certified to teach history. And it really kind of piqued my interest in terms of the fact that history does repeat itself. And we as women have had so much change over my lifetime, my lifetime of 55 years. So from the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, the teens, now into the 20s, more than halfway through the 20s, so much change. And yet, so many things are the same, or either they're circling back. And I say that broadly, societally, but I also say that personally. How we look at ourselves, the things we struggle with, how we make decisions, and then in midlife, what we're faced with in terms of, you know, so many changes going on. So if you are intrigued with that like I am, you are going to love today's guest. LM Elliott was an award-winning journalist at a magazine before becoming a New York Times bestselling author of historical and biographical novels. She has written 14 novels. She has been a finalist for multiple awards, and she just released a YA book, Truth Lies, and the Questions in Between. And we're going to talk about that a little bit because I just read that and was fascinated. She also holds a bachelor's degree from Wake Forest University, My Alma Mater, and a master's degree in journalism from UNC Chapel Hill, the enemy, we might say, from Wake Forest. So of course I'm joking. I'm super excited to have Laura here today. Welcome, Laura. I'm so happy to have you here. Thank you so much for having me.

From Magazine Reporting To Novels

Laura Malone Elliott 4:29

I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

Cheryl Fischer 4:31

So let's let's kind of jump into it. You were a writer for many years for a magazine in my area, the Washingtonian magazine, and you segued in midlife, it sounds like, to writing novels, one of one of which I just finished, in fact. So how did that shift happen? Tell us more of that story.

Laura Malone Elliott 4:55

You know, it was a really wonderful adventure. Uh, and I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into. So a little bit of backstory of my time at the magazine. Um, I was incredibly lucky to enter the magazine world when it was in its heyday, when city magazines like the Washingtonian was thick, thick, thick. It was like, you know, the Rolling Stone of Washington, um, the political of Washington. It was so rich and full. And, you know, it was the time that people were turning to magazines for all sorts of cultural understanding, a political understanding. So I was typically writing five to eight thousand-word or even a couple of, you know, fifteen to sixteen thousand word stories for the magazine. I tended to focus on women's issues, health and education and the performing arts. Part of that was when I walked into the magazine, lucky enough to be hired right after grad school, pretty much, I was one of very few women there. And the men were mainly focusing on politics and business. And so, and I bring it up now because in our midlife changes and making uh choices about our lives, you uh you always need to be watching, I think, for holes in coverage. And there was a big wide hole on coverage when I walked in, which had to do with women's issues. Now, I'm gonna date myself a lot. We're going back at this point, hard for me to believe 40 years, more than 40 years. In the mid-80s, right? Early 80s, mid-80s that I joined. And so I had been blessed to do these, what we call just narrative journalism or new journalism at the time. And now you could get a very fancy MFA in creative nonfiction. But it means writing, you know, journalistic pieces in scenes and a narrative so that I would be following people for a month at a time or more, so that I would be actually watching them going through whatever kinds of um crises that they might be going through, the decisions that they're going to be making. And I did things that weren't being written about much at the time. Again, think back to the 80s. I wrote about domestic violence, sexual assault, child issues, um, child abuse, those kinds of things that were still kind of taboo at the time. And was really privileged to be invited into these survivors' lives to talk about how they made the choices they did, how they put one foot in front of the other to deal with um these enormous challenges, how they safeguarded their family. I mean, it w it I couldn't possibly have been a better training to be a novelist or to just learn about life and to become a a writer attuned to the real um heroism, fears, and heartbreaks and triumphs, all of those things of a human being. I had been called into my editor's office and who was a wonderful man, old-timey um wire reporter. Oh wow. The wire reporter, UPI, and he still actually used a manual typewriter when I first came to work for him, and he was a man of little words, very succinct and very pithy words. And I was called into because I was sometimes kind of categorized as being the emotions writer because I was writing about women and family issues and those kinds of things. He gave me the dreaded holiday assignment. And I say dreaded because every December issue back then, there would be some hopefully really beautiful story about the holidays and the meaning of the holidays for the December issue. And he he was he leaned back in his chair and he put up his his feet and he was looking out the window and he said, Now, Laura, I need this to be not just a story about this particular holiday season, but you know, what let's think about the meaning of religion and why do what why do human beings feel the need for holidays? And what is it basically, what does it all mean? And I'm thinking, oh my God, I'm gonna lose my job. In one story. Okay. And then bless him, he made it worse, although it was the best advice in many ways for writing. He said, now with this kind of story, Laura, don't forget, it's really, really important to do the two most important things in writing. To make people laugh, and you're not very good at that, Laura. Oh my goodness. And to make people cry, and you're really good at that. So I thought, okay, I'm dead. I what what the heck am I gonna do? And fortunately for me, after I left his office, tearing my hair out, because of course, you know, at that point I couldn't come up with anything that wasn't cliched, like a, you know, cat up a tree with Santa Claus saving it, kind of something. Called it's a lot of my sources at hospitals and I just wasn't thinking of anything. And I always tell young writers in particular to always be saving strength, to always be listening and absorbing what's happening around you, because life will drop the most amazing stories at your feet if you're paying attention. And I remembered that the absolute best story I had ever heard in my entire life, and I hadn't heard it often because my father got really emotional when he talked about it, was his surprise homecoming from World War II, which was my father was a a co-pilot on a bomber. He had gone missing in action for months, his family thought he was dead. Daddy literally showed up in the driveway of the family farm five days before Christmas, 1944, unannounced. Oh my goodness, that's a movie scene. Absolutely. Yes, it was, and World War II is full of those kinds of moments. I always tell people too if you can't write a good World World War II story, I'm sorry, you you need to find another profession because all you have to do is just listen, listen to these stories because it's just so extraordinary. So, long story short, at this point, I I wrote that piece for the December issue, and I received so many beautiful, heartbreaking, heartlifting letters. We received letters in those days from people telling their stories about their experiences in World War II. Either people who didn't come home or um uh just amazing like vignettes of that moment where you knew your loved one was safe. And I thought, you know, I need to expand this, especially my children. My daughter was one of those precocious, she was um younger then and one of those incredibly precocious readers. She was lucky enough to know her grandfather. Most of them already at that point weren't. Um so, with a lot of encouragement, I was encouraged to try writing more about it. I initially, being a journalist and having spent years doing, you know, factual, highly researched, corroborated pieces, I initially thought of trying to do uh a um a nonfiction account. But like all flyers who were on the run and gotten picked up by the Maquis, the reason I exist, but more importantly, my children exist is because of some French teenagers who saved my dad.

Cheryl Fischer 11:54

Wow.

Laura Malone Elliott 11:54

And got him moving down a rat line and got him absorbed into these pockets of Maquis resistance fighters. Like most of those boys who survived the war that way, they didn't know where they were. They moved them, not telling them where they were going or who they were going to be with to protect themselves if the, you know, the flyer was caught, that literally that information couldn't be beaten out of them. Um so he'd he couldn't really tell me enough about where he'd been or how it had happened. Or so I decided then too that I really was already learning the power of story to retell history, you know, to to um add a beating heart to it, right? So that's how that's a long way of telling you how I came to decide, okay, I'm gonna try this and take a step. Um now I was incredibly lucky, Cheryl. I had already written um a nonfiction adult book about a domestic violence case that I had done that was very controversial at the time because this is pre-OJ Simpson. Okay, you all are gonna think I'm like 130 years old.

Cheryl Fischer 12:56

But um No, no, no, the audience will understand. No, no, no.

Laura Malone Elliott 13:01

But but it was I had already done that because it was a very controversial case, and people were very skeptical of a quote unquote white-collar domestic violence kind of case. Um so I had an editor and I had a publisher. So I wasn't going out there, you know, right.

Cheryl Fischer 13:18

No safety net at all.

Laura Malone Elliott 13:20

Yeah. Um, so I it I was able to place that story much more easily than normal and was incredibly lucky.

Juggling Work Parenting And Writing

Cheryl Fischer 13:29

I love that you said it was because of the power of the story, because I can hear that throughout everything you've just said. And I I want to talk about your book, the one that I've read anyway, in a little while, but I felt it in that too, because you have such a nice mix of teaching and also telling a story. And so I I love that. I I think that's gonna be a powerful message for everybody who's listening. So what about the concerns or worries you might have had at the time? Did you have to leave your job at the magazine or could you do both? How did that go?

Laura Malone Elliott 15:02

Okay, here's a really typical with women our age, I tried to do it all. My my editor was incredibly gracious. He said you can take a leave. He did this for uh writers all the time. Take a leave of absence, but then I want you to come back, which I was incredibly grateful for. Um so I took a leave of absence. So I wrote that book very, very quickly. Um, because I I after doing a lot of research, and it is highly fictionalized. I will tell anybody who knows under Wartorn Sky, I always get, well, how much of it is your dad? The pilot's personality, a lot of the um persona types that he met, the conflict that he has with his father back home that he he is he goes on a dual odyssey, this escape from from capture from the Nazis and his own kind of redefinition and defining himself by his in his own terms. But you know, other than that, it was highly it it's fictionalized. Error to became an every man. Um so so it was concerned about whether I would be be able to actually write in a in a fictionalized way, having always been such a stickler for fact. Now, I will tell you, I hope I've turned that into a strength with my pieces because I there's nothing in there that isn't either factual. I don't mess with facts, I don't mess with time. If there is a historical figure who is in my books, he was, he or she was there that day in that place, however the weather was that day. I research it all. Adds a whole lot of extra work. But I really firmly believe that that's my responsibility because so often when people are reading historical narratives, they they think this is fact. And if it's done well, if it's done well, they are reading fact. It's just fact is presented in a character that hopefully is kind of an everyman. I keep using that term because they should be representative of the type of person who had to survive that kind and my characters are always amalgamations, combinations of all I've read about and researched. And I wasn't sure to do that. So that was the first like concern for me. And then I did because Jack was so gracious and let me come back, I tried to do, you know, the the continuing fiction because I was so lucky with that particular book. It's still my best-selling book all these years later. Okay. My editor wanted more. He wanted me to keep working, and I had two children who became highly competitive, involved, a competitive equestrian theater girl, and um going to TJ. If you're in the area, you know what that all entails. And a son who was um a gifted writer himself. He is now a novelist as well. My daughter's in theater, but he was an incredible athlete early on and you know ended up playing soccer in a D1 college. I mean, so I was on the road, I wrote chapters in the back of the horse trailer on the side of the pitch line. And eventually I realized that I couldn't I couldn't do all three equally important things. So I eventually left the magazine and I still miss it. I missed that experience of being welcomed into someone's heart and soul and struggles and thoughts and philosophy and beliefs. And it's it was it's a real honor to do that kind of story, real privilege. You know.

Cheryl Fischer 18:30

Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate that you were kind of able to be at least thoughtful about okay, there's three things that are majorly taking time in my life. And three things is too many. So what are we gonna let go of?

Laura Malone Elliott 18:46

Right. Well, you know, I I just couldn't do all three. And then the oh, and oh gosh, yeah, the fourth, me. Right and my actually sleeping occasionally, um, so that I could be the best I want it to be for you know, for everybody. So um but I didn't make that say I didn't leave the magazine entirely until I uh about five or six books in. I, you know, he was really good about, he was incredibly kind about letting me juggle things. And he also, again, he was unusual. I was really lucky to have the situation I did. He was unusual in that as long as I turned my stories in on time and they were good, then he didn't care where I did them, how I did them, or when at 3 a.m. or and you know, I wrote pieces for the magazine with one of my kids sitting on my lap. I did, I used to drive in carpool and I would this is back in the day, that I would literally call my my answering machine at home and leave a message of thoughts of, you know, it was a dark and stormy night, and on that night when Henry was walking through the, you know, and leaving messages. So, you know, I mean, it was juggling. You know, I in many ways I've thrived doing that, and I found that these two the well, the two professional components really complemented one another well. And with these beautiful, inquisitive, extraordinary kids I have who are now adult creative artists themselves, I had my muses and my best editors, you know, in the car with me. So we used to joke that it was kind of a family affair because we did so many of those things together. And sometimes when I've been on a really horrendous deadline, and even now, you know, they will help they will do research for me, and they are always my best editors in them. Sorry, I to my Algonkin and Herbert Cone. But I mean, they're the best, they're the best professional ones, but in terms of those first readers, and because of them, I could tap into what interested them. And there's certain characters who became far more became bigger in the narratives because of their reactions to them and the questions.

Cheryl Fischer 20:56

Yeah, that's great. I like that a lot. And I'm sure that made them feel good being involved and being able to contribute.

Laura Malone Elliott 21:02

I hope so. It was a beautiful thing for me. And we we still talk about that we have these writers' colonies when we were together in terms of and I hope I'm helping them and what the you know the things that they're doing now too.

Cheryl Fischer 21:13

So yeah.

Laura Malone Elliott 21:15

Very lovely symbiosis.

Writing Lessons That Still Hold Up

Cheryl Fischer 21:17

I like that a lot. And there there's so many ups and downs as kids grow up and go through the teen years and then become adults, and the r relationship changes so much that I love that you figured out something that could link you like that for sure. So I wanted I want to ask you about kind of how things have changed over these 20-some years that you've been writing. And I also just want to give a little extra kudos to this original boss that you're talking about. Because if we remind ourselves, back in the 80s or the 90s, it was not, or even the 2000s, it was not the norm to be given an assignment at work, do it wherever you want, give it to me when it's ready. It was not the norm to work from home. It was not the norm to have a flexible schedule. Like none of that was the norm. So kudos to him for sure.

Laura Malone Elliott 22:08

No, and I should say it's Jack Limpet we limpert. We've recently lost him, sadly. He was in his 80s, I think, at this point, but he was extraordinary that way. And very he was uh so old school in so many ways, and yet such a progressive feminist in in kind of a matter-of-fact way. So yeah, no, he was he he was extraordinary, and I was really lucky to have worked for him, really. And the other thing, there's certain things that I still, when I'm talking to students, I will I will point at this, you know, make people laugh and made people cry. I really thought I was like, oh my god. He said the same, very good at that. The other thing he said to me, which I always remember, is that if people are reading their thinking, do not preach to them. Don't point out, hey, this is a symbolism right here. You know, you want them to be that engaged because the more they're engaged in thinking and potentially challenged a little bit, giving them, you know, one of the wonderful, I call it a magic trick about historical fiction is that especially for high schoolers who are having to memorize and regurgitate so many what seems like dry statistics, if they're reading a story that they care about, and I'll just I'll stick to the World War II one for a minute, and they're worrying about like, are there Nazis around the corner? You know, they're not, they're not aware of everything they're learning. It's just like they're breathing in all those revealing details about the Maquis or about France or about, you know, FDR or about Churchill. You know, that it's just if it's written well, it's just there. It's like a tapestry and they're just breathing it in.

Watergate ERA And Women In 1973

Cheryl Fischer 23:48

I agree. I agree, I agree. And you know what? Let's stay on this for a minute. I'm thinking about your recent book. So Truth Lies in the Questions in Between, which I just finished reading this weekend. And if you're listening, it's a story of a woman who is in high school who is a page for the Senate back when almost no women were pages in the Senate or the House. And I I grew up in the 80s and 90s. And so I I was shocked, really, is the right word to take in all the changes, even in 15, 20 years, that were different for women. Because what you describe in this book, the way women were treated, the way people spoke, I didn't feel that way growing up. And it was only a space of 15 to 20 years difference. I I I found that just shocking and fascinating.

Laura Malone Elliott 24:50

Oh, good. I'm so glad. Well, that was that was that was the point in many, many ways. I should tell you that that particular book, it I call it a docunovel because I hope you all will read it. Um, but it's laced through with a photo essay of factual events and headlines month by month so that you can experience the events and the statements that were affecting the lives of my characters. Both their mothers, right? They're they're very important minor characters mothers who go on a very similar parallel journey to Patty and her becomes a good friend, uh, Simone, um, but it's set in 1973. And it's the third of these kind of fraught political eras that I've written about. The first one's about McCarthyism, the second one was about the Berlin Wall in 1961. And then my editor suggested why don't you take on Watergate? And the thing was is that 1973 was the year of the Watergate Senate hearings, where where the sh the country was just being rocked by one stunning revelation after another that was coming through witnesses at the Senate hearings. I mean, shocking, dirty tricks and you know, bags of money being left as bribes to keep the burglars quiet and you know, literal enemies lists that they were anyway, that they, you know, using the IRS and the FBI to go after. I it was just but it was also the year that the ERA was going through for ratification. It had been passed by the Senate in the stunning 84 to 8 vote. I mean, Republicans were all in on the ERA back then, even Strom Thurman voted for it. At a time that the sexism, as you mentioned, was right. It was everywhere. It was systemic. It was, and even though I had lived through that as a very young, like a preteen, early teen, I had forgotten what it sounded like the way people talked to and about women. So it is a dual political ground shift going on. And the way that I figured out that I could manage to do it, both Watergate and the ERA, because what happened was it had this amazing passage, and at the beginning of 1973, 30 out of 38 states required had actually ratified it. But then, since you've read the book, as you know, uh from the hinterlands rose Phyllis Slaffley in this anti-ERA, stop ERA movement, this kind of juggernaut. Um, and there's this irony, the kind of linking irony is that truth eventually works in Watergate. People begin to listen. We are allowed to hear evidence, you know. So it works. You know, he eventually is told by conservative Republicans that he needs to resign, and he does. While disinformation and fear-mongering begin to unravel the ERA, which we can talk more about if you wish. But it played into what was kind of this lingering belief that women were didn't have good judgment, couldn't be professionals, that they were emotional, that they were, you know, all the stuff that we're beginning to hear a little bit more again. Um, and what saved me was I was thinking, how in the heck do I write these two major things and find legitimately one character who can experience it both. And having grown up in Washington, you know, just outside and then worked in Washington for so long, I knew about Capitol Pages. And history saved me because I did the research and I found out 1973 was only the second year that they allowed a handful of young women to be pages, and only in the Senate. There weren't any in the House yet. So those were, whether they wanted to be or not, whether they were conscious of it or not, those young women were such groundbreakers and under so much pressure, so much pressure to, you know, play run with the boys, basically, literally, as they're running the halls with with errands. So yeah, it was quite an eye-opener. And I hadn't really focused on the fact that for instance, part of the way that the momentum for the women's movement in the late 60s and early 70s happened was to have that women's national strike of March in 1971, August 1971. Um, and that was only on the it was on the 50th, no, sorry, 1970. It was the 50th anniversary of women having the right to vote. It's not that long ago. Right?

Cheryl Fischer 29:26

Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's such a it's such an interesting mix of in these 20-year periods of time, moving forward to now as well, so many things change, and yet so many things haven't changed. So many things haven't changed. There's so many parallels. So I might leave that one there, but if you read the book, you'll know.

Laura Malone Elliott 29:51

Yeah, no, it's so many parallels and so much resonance. And I hope I've actually started writing a substack now, kind of taking the fact the historical content from these three magazine pieces with my little tagline is looking at history so we can better understand today and ourselves. Like how do we get here? You know, and what's, you know, and I'm hoping I'm hoping that these these books, these documentovels really do that for you all. Because, you know, the thing about history, and I've really learned this both from my 20 years as a journalist now, 20 years as a more than 20 years now, as a historical novelist, is that we go in this um, it's this push-pull, it's this kinetic kind of, you know, forward and then backlash. And the backlash typically comes with people who feel somehow displaced or disrespected or disenfranchised by um a movement to include more people, you know, a movement for equity. So yeah, and I that definitely happened in the 70s, you know, and it I mean it's happening again.

Cheryl Fischer 30:58

Yes. The other interesting thing is, and I know if you're listening, you'll probably at least some of you will understand what I mean. I don't think that I, meaning really any of us that were in middle school and high school in the 80s, actually learned very much about what happened in the 70s in history because it was so recent. It was like the last chapter in the history book, and we hardly ever got to it because we ran out of time and we were just like Watergate, president resigned, okay. And so I learned quite a bit that I didn't even know because at that point it was history, but it wasn't history, you know? So that was big for me. Yeah.

Laura Malone Elliott 31:39

Well, I'll tell you a part again, talk about, you know, looking watching for holes in coverage. I have found, I I also the great joy that I have now, the new joy I hadn't anticipated. I know you were going to ask me about that, but one of the parts I hadn't expected is that I get to go, I'm in schools all the time, colleges and high schools and middle schools. And it I just love being with them. You know, they're they're just so um, they've got all that angsty idealism and so many questions. And often I'll ask them, hey, what do you know about? And I have to tell you, these three books, McCarthyism, Berlin, and this one, all came about from my being there, just like you're talking about, end of the year, World War II. People ask me to come in. I have four World War II novels, so I'm often asked to come in and speak during this. And they have like 10 more days until the end of school. And they're gonna try to go rocketing through it, and they can't. And it's not their fault, it's because they've been, you know, given so much to teach. And so I found that kids had no idea about McCarthyism, which again talk about book bans, censorship, yeah, polarization, hate labels. I mean, this there's a lot of echoes in that today, too. I talking to, you know, a lot of kids that are in really you know lucky circumstances, they have all the opportunities in the world, they have great schooling, they know that Nixon was sweated a lot and that he left a lot. And that's I mean, that's about it. That's what they know. And I can't tell you how many millennial and Gen Z women have looked at me with like, what's the ERA? They don't know. Now, again, it's not their fault, but it because it, you know, I mean, it was but they need to know. They need to know what was promised and what can be fact if that becomes part of the constitution. So with all that, I was like, okay, well, obviously that's a story that needs to be told.

Cheryl Fischer 33:30

Yeah. Yeah.

Laura Malone Elliott 33:31

I would you know, it and that applies metaphorically to everything in our lives right now, especially in this point in our lives, in our midlife, is what needs to be told. What do you feel like you need to do, you know, and and do it now? Because, you know, now's the time. And we're smarter now at this age too. You know, we see things, we have a far more um depth of own personal experience or absorbing our kids' experiences, our friends' experiences, and our parents, you know, we've lived a longer and fuller, more complicated often life, but that gives us empathy, and the empathy often translates to commitment, action, wanting to do something about what we're what we can see.

Cheryl Fischer 34:17

So recognize. If only we would trust ourselves. So I appreciate you saying all of that because I think what makes us sort of fall down is we have the wisdom, we have the empathy, we have the intuition, the gut feeling, and yet we don't necessarily trust it. We don't trust ourselves to be right or to be know enough to stick our necks out or whatever the the fallback is. That's where we get stuck a lot.

Laura Malone Elliott 34:44

Yes. And you know, again, it's completely understandable. We've had our heads filled our entire lives with you can't do that, you can't do it all, you might be emo, you know, you might be emotionally vulnerable. I mean, it's the language from the 70s is so similar to the language that we're getting these days. You know, if there's a strong-willed, outspoken woman, she's crazy, she's, you know, strident, she's yada yada yada. And so, I mean, I would I would I would challenge your listeners to uh think through things logically. Are there people you love and trust who trust you who come to you? It must be for a reason, it must be because you know what you're talking about. Or you will or you you are going to do the best you can to learn and to help and to stand by somebody when they need it. Women at this age have done that repeatedly at this point. And you know, if other people trust you in a crisis, then you should be able to trust yourself.

Cheryl Fischer 35:45

Yeah. Fully, fully, fully, fully agree. We are so hard on ourselves compared to other how we look at other people. Fully agree. Are there any kind of really major challenges or something really difficult that you have had to work through as you've gone through this change to becoming an author and over these years of writing?

Laura Malone Elliott 36:07

Well, going back to Jack Limpert again, he was so sweet about this. He was being interviewed because I I I was up for an award and they called him to interview him briefly. And he said, I don't know why she gave up a good paying job to do what she's doing. So it was a leap of faith. You know, I'll tell you, I always say this to, you know, again, would be writers, is you're never going to be rich unless you write about vampires. Um, and so you you want to be rich of spirit, right? So there was that. That was a pretty that was a pretty big. So, you know, I had to learn how to supplement the income, which I do through speaking and various other like freelancing, writing kind of thing. So that meant that I was giving up a safety net of having, you know, regular every two-week paycheck. And that was pretty darn scary. I also didn't have any insurance. Big, you know, bugaboo that we all deal with. So those things were a big concern for me. Um, and it's partially why I kept doing the dance. And and again, I was lucky to have an editor who believed in me who would let me do it. Uh, you know, I he he kept me on the insurance, even though I might take a sabbatical for, you know, four or five months. And he was he was really gracious. And um, thank you for pointing out how rare that was to all. Oh my gosh. And if all employers could be like him, you know. So I was I was very lucky. And it was at a time where magazines were, you know, thick and covering everything under the sun. And they're just, you know, it's different. It's so much harder for them now. So it's very, very true.

Cheryl Fischer 37:45

Very true.

Laura Malone Elliott 37:46

Those are the main things. And that was those are the main things. And and the kind of living and working completely on your own and in your own head.

Where To Find Laura Plus One Takeaway

Cheryl Fischer 37:54

That might be one of the reasons I'm not a writer, because I don't know how I will how well I would do on my own and in my own head. That's a good point. Okay.

Laura Malone Elliott 38:00

So tell us how can people find you? Thank you for asking. So you can find me. I do have a website and being a compulsive researcher and feeling like if I'm writing about history and you guys want to learn some more, I have essays, I have interviews, I have links to learning more on my website, which is simple. It's lmelliot.com. Elliot has two L's and two T's. It's all run together. I do have a Substack that you will see on my website. I love that.

Cheryl Fischer 38:26

Yeah, and Instagram too. And I have learned a lot from various Substack subscriptions lately. So I'm excited about yours as well, for sure. Okay, so here's the last thing that I ask every guest because I think when people listen to podcasts, they're listening oftentimes while driving or doing the dishes or whatever, and just have it in the background. You can't remember everything. What's the one thing that you want somebody listening to really take away from this discussion?

Laura Malone Elliott 38:55

Well, to keep your eyes open for these kind of like small doors that may be opening in your lives that could be this extraordinary path that you hadn't ever conceived of before. And that it's okay to try that and to not hesitate, you know, to have faith in yourself. I mean, you don't want to take a you know wild risk, but I mean, if at sometimes, and I've learned this so much through my own personal experience, but also writing some and watching people for these kinds of narratives and also reading so much history. For instance, I have to tell you that most of the people in the Maquis who might have saved my father's life, the type of people, they often weren't in the Maquis. They weren't part of the resistance. They literally might have been walking around a corner and stumbled onto some poor flyer who was dragging his parachute behind him, all bruised and battered up, scared to death. And that person made a split-second decision to take that kid in. And it's not like you were going to end the war by saving that boy's life. It was just these extraordinary split-second moments of courage and and kindness. I mean, real, you know, generosity of spirit and belief in humanity. I think that oftentimes, and and they're there's small windows. You all have to, you know, you kind of have to just keep your eyes open.

Cheryl Fischer 40:16

Yeah.

Laura Malone Elliott 40:16

I agree. And they can be a beautiful thing.

Glimmers Pulling Threads And Closing Thoughts

Rate Review And Take Better Care

Cheryl Fischer 40:19

So I love it. Thank you for that. That's a great way to finish this discussion. And you never know what idea we might get, what little thing might work out. Absolutely agree. Absolutely. Well, Laura, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you so much, Cheryl. As Laura was talking about keeping our eyes and really all of our senses, just keeping our attention open to small things that could potentially become something that could make a difference. I thought of a couple of ideas that might help you to keep this in your mind. One is I've heard it described as pulling every thread, meaning I'm a knitter, so this kind of visually agrees with me, but it could be material unraveling. Think of like your cutoff shorts, the threads that are pulling out of it. If we pull every thread, maybe we eventually find the one that we really need that really takes us far and gets us out of the knot or achieves what we're trying to do when we're changing something about this fabric. But some of them don't. And we have to pull on different ones before we figure it out. And to me, that's kind of what she is saying. I also thought about glimmers. And you've heard me talk about this earlier this year in my episode about how to take a little bit better care of yourself. This is one of the pieces that I want you to try and practice. Looking for moments of joy, tiny moments of joy. It's kind of like gratitude and even smaller and even easier. When something goes right, and by that I mean you got a great parking space, or an idea popped into your head, or someone called you that you are so excited to hear from, or your coffee tastes amazing and you got the creamer and sugar exactly right. Tiny things. If we get in the habit of appreciating them, taking a minute, appreciating, feeling that, then we teach our brains to look for more and look for more. And you can absolutely apply the same concept to what Laura is saying about looking for little ideas, little opportunities, seeing what happens. So I love the fact that we wrapped up with that. If you are listening on Apple, make sure that you scroll down, that you tap the five stars, go in there, leave a review. It doesn't even have to be more than a couple sentences. It makes such a big difference. Tell me in the review what jumped out to you in this episode, what made a difference for you, or what's been your favorite episode? Easy as that. And in the meantime, keep remembering to take just a little bit better care of yourself in midlife. This is your time. And I mean on the inside, meaning mindset, and on the outside, meaning take care of your body. Just a little bit better, makes a big difference.