58. LAUREN KUNG JESSEN: Fake Dating, Healing Heartbreak, and Finding Balance Beyond Perfectionism

Lauren Kung Jessen kicked off my reading in 2025 with a five-star delight. "Yin Yang Love Song" is a heartbreaker musician and a heartbreak-healing herbalist fake dating, and it is so good. Explore all the layers in this book through this fun conversation with the author.

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Transcript

00;00;03;06 - 00;00;10;24
Speaker 1
I have no idea what's coming. You're my first yin yang. Love song interview. So I'd like.

00;00;10;24 - 00;00;33;25
Speaker 2
Let's see, Hi, and welcome to Literary Hype. I am Stephanie here. Literary Hype Woman. And today's author conversation is a returning guest that I am so happy to be having back. She wrote Lunar Love. She wrote Red String Theory, and now she's back with Yin Yang Love Song. I loved her first two books, but this one is even better.

00;00;33;29 - 00;00;54;19
Speaker 2
Which is which is a high bar like this one was one that I just had to savor. I kept trying to slow myself down to savor this book because it is so good. I mean, fake dating between a heartbreaker and a person who kills heartbreak. It's so good. OK, so without any further ado, here is my conversation with Lauren Jackson.

00;00;55;05 - 00;01;00;19
Speaker 2
Welcome back to Literary Hype. It's so exciting to have you back on for a second time.

00;01;00;19 - 00;01;03;04
Speaker 1
Thank you for having me. So excited to talk to you today.

00;01;03;04 - 00;01;15;13
Speaker 2
We're talking about your brand new book, Yin Yang Love Song. But before we get into talking about the book, we have very important things we need to discuss, and that is your stamp for the year. What's that going to look like? Yes.

00;01;15;14 - 00;01;43;04
Speaker 1
So I'm so excited about it. I always love to do a theme. So there will be flowers involved and this is a different shape. So the past two were more square like and this one is not at all. And then I also had another one made a very, very small baby one for all of the watercolor art cards that I'm hand painting for the preorder exclusive goodies through Parnassus.

00;01;43;04 - 00;01;44;27
Speaker 1
So I have two sails coming this year.

00;01;45;01 - 00;02;02;15
Speaker 2
That is so exciting. And for Parnassus because that's a fantastic bookstore. I'm so jealous that you're close to them. Yes, I love them. So for anyone who hasn't seen the young love song already popping up on the Internet, which it is all over the place, tell us a little bit about what this is about. What this book is about.

00;02;02;15 - 00;02;33;24
Speaker 1
Sure. So Young Love Song is a rom com about a traditional Chinese medicine herbalist and chef who fake dates a bad boy heartbreaker cellist. In order to boost both of their careers, there is a Heartbreak Healing Inn on Whidbey Island in Washington called The Wildflower End, and there's a cast of meddling aunties. There is a equally kind of bad boy reputation brother.

00;02;34;26 - 00;02;50;17
Speaker 1
And we get a lot of discussions around burnout and rest, healing, music, nature. And there's also a curse. So there's a curse breaking that happens too.

00;02;50;20 - 00;02;53;06
Speaker 2
What was your initial spark for this story?

00;02;53;10 - 00;03;14;04
Speaker 1
I always have a lot of different kind of like seeds of ideas floating around in my head, and a lot of the work is just figuring out how to pair them together. So I remember I was like, OK, what's my third book going to be? And I saw a photo of Yo-Yo Ma, like playing in a forest, like some kind of still photograph.

00;03;14;04 - 00;03;39;16
Speaker 1
And I was like, What if he was a bad boy? Like, what if Yo-Yo Ma had this reputation for being a heartbreaker? And I love that idea of music. He was sitting in nature and music and nature goes so well together and then the other seed that I had was traditional Chinese medicine. I had been doing acupuncture and loving the results of that, and I really wanted to dove in and explore more about what he meant, what it looked like.

00;03;40;08 - 00;04;04;06
Speaker 1
And it is a very complex system, and so I wanted to keep it more high level with the benefits of flowers and the Chee and flowers, which was the life force and flowers. And so ultimately I was like, that would be a really fun combo to pair TCM together with music. And I ended up doing Cellist and he's more of like a rock cellist.

00;04;04;06 - 00;04;38;11
Speaker 1
So they play rock music and more music and classical form. So that was kind of a fun pairing. And from there I just kind of spiraled about Chrissie, who heals heartbreak with theme Healing Hearts and healing through healing, grief and heartbreak. And I wanted to really think about what that would be. And so in TCM you're it's really focused on preventative and not just focusing on the issue at hand, but what's causing that issue so what is the root issue that's actually the problem.

00;04;38;27 - 00;05;02;23
Speaker 1
Can we fix that? And if by fixing that, we actually fix the problems. So I thought that was really interesting. Heartbreak which can cause a lot of different things like insomnia, anxiety, not wanting to eat. There's a lot that just comes from like physical ailments and symptoms. And so that just kind of from that there spiraled the wild flower in and heartbreak healing.

00;05;03;04 - 00;05;11;21
Speaker 1
And then I wanted I love opposites attract, so I really wanted to pair that against someone who heartbreaks and yeah, everything just kind of went from there.

00;05;11;27 - 00;05;25;15
Speaker 2
What was your research process like for the TCM stuff because you said you wanted to keep it high level, but also you don't want to misrepresent it. And that's a theme that is brought up in the story itself with Kristi of not wanting to do anything fake.

00;05;25;26 - 00;05;47;08
Speaker 1
I do so much research because I get very nervous about not accurately representing something or missing a detail that I would love to include. And it's about finding that balance between how much detail to include, because there's a lot that I could have added in, and I'm constantly reminding myself whatever book I'm writing, I'm not writing a book about the Chinese Zodiac.

00;05;47;08 - 00;06;10;06
Speaker 1
I'm not writing a book about traditional Chinese medicine. I'm not writing a book about myths. And so I'm always like, This is a romance at its heart. What are the details I can pull in to complement that and make the characters believable? So I did do a lot of reading and acupuncture traditional Chinese medicine, flowers, and what those benefits are.

00;06;10;15 - 00;06;34;23
Speaker 1
I did learn about prodigies. That was another thing I really wanted to understand about Ben and his childhood of being a prodigy. So I researched and read books on that and watched the videos of cellists playing. I had to really understand what that meant. I've never played. I did consider taking lessons, but I ultimately didn't get that far because I had to like rent the cello.

00;06;34;23 - 00;06;56;20
Speaker 1
It was a whole over the whole thing. But I love the research process. I love asking about the research process and talking about it. A lot goes into it and I'm researching constantly before, before, during, after, up until the very last stage of editing where I can no longer add anything new, then I have to stop because I'll find a detail that I really want to include.

00;06;57;09 - 00;07;08;17
Speaker 1
I did also do some research on music. There are some references to curses in music, and I really wanted to parallel that with with Kris's curse. So just small things like that.

00;07;08;25 - 00;07;16;02
Speaker 2
At the end. You do talk a little bit about your journey with TCM. How did that impact your your mindset while you were working on this story?

00;07;16;09 - 00;07;38;29
Speaker 1
I feel like every book teaches me something and I grow through every book. I've never grown more than through the writing of this book, not only on the writing process itself, which was so different than my first two books. It was such a challenge. I didn't have the sophomore slump of my second book, but I definitely had the junior slump, I guess you could call it.

00;07;39;21 - 00;08;08;26
Speaker 1
I was I mean, at that point as the first book I had written where I had received feedback from readers, it's trade reviews I had. I now kind of was immersed in this world and it was writing a book for the very first time, having been exposed to that. And I think I really felt that with what's the right answer for the story and what's the right way to go and that took a really long time to get to the core and the heart of what this book was supposed to be about.

00;08;10;27 - 00;08;34;18
Speaker 1
And I, after having published two books with the full time job and promoting two books, I was feeling the burnout. So everything that goes into this book that I wrote into this book was something that I hadn't personally experienced with I Am Terrible Arresting. I and still my husband still has to be like, You can just not do anything.

00;08;34;18 - 00;08;50;09
Speaker 1
You can rots just for the sake of wrestling. You don't have to even be doing anything while you're doing that. And that was such that is such a hard concept for me to grasp. And every conversation that Christy was talking to then about was were conversations that I was basically having with myself or that I've had with my husband.

00;08;50;26 - 00;09;11;26
Speaker 1
And so that was all so personal, and I feel like I needed that so much during the writing of this book. And even now, I think about like the lessons that went into it and how I need to still be applying those to my life. I had done acupuncture, and that was kind of my entry into it. And I just kind of learned as I went.

00;09;11;26 - 00;09;30;12
Speaker 1
A lot of a lot of in the book is Food as Medicine, which I have a food background. So it was natural for me to make her a chef and for me to be really drawn to that world because of how food can be so healing. I drink flowers every day, which I love so much is my new it's like my tea.

00;09;31;08 - 00;09;57;22
Speaker 1
And yeah, I also kind of went through something very similar to Chrissy where she had dropped out of med school because of a health situation, a health struggle that she had. And on a year ago from this month, when my second book was coming out, I went through something very similar to her, and that was kind of my sign that funny enough, it was I signed a slow down and a sign that I really needed to take care of myself.

00;09;57;22 - 00;10;13;12
Speaker 1
25 for it was my busiest year, maybe ever. Like I was traveling so much for book events. I was traveling kind of for fun. A lot of our personal trips kind of fell to the wayside but it's a huge mentality that I'm taking into 20, 25 about resting and taking care of myself.

00;10;13;20 - 00;10;19;09
Speaker 2
So, Christie, those yin nights to relax. What is your favorite way to relax and rest?

00;10;20;23 - 00;10;23;03
Speaker 1
That's like the hardest question you're probably going to ask me.

00;10;24;17 - 00;10;27;16
Speaker 2
But I need understanding, you know.

00;10;28;15 - 00;10;44;27
Speaker 1
I that's so hard because depends on my mood. Probably if I'm like, OK, I have some energy to cook, I would love to make a meal, make a dessert. Yesterday I made chocolate chip cookies and I was like, it was just like a spur of the moment thing where I was like, I really am craving not so much right now.

00;10;45;12 - 00;11;05;22
Speaker 1
And that felt so good to do I usually love like either reading or watching a movie. Depends what I'm reading. If I feel if I am like I'm into the book and it's not necessarily totally for work, that's always a really nice way to spend the night. A movie that is guaranteed good. There's so many movies now that you're just it's hit or miss.

00;11;05;22 - 00;11;18;16
Speaker 1
On if you're going to enjoy it. And I feel like at the end of a movie that you don't enjoy, you're like, Oh, I should have just done something else. So that is kind of a tricky, tricky one. I'm still trying to find the right answer for that one thing.

00;11;18;26 - 00;11;34;11
Speaker 2
This itty bitty, teeny tiny detail that I loved was that there is a Beets reference and you actually put the periods in for me because it is an acronym. So thank you for that. Yeah, so happy to see it actually.

00;11;34;26 - 00;11;35;08
Speaker 1
Yes.

00;11;35;27 - 00;11;41;07
Speaker 2
If you had a phantom name, what would it be? Oh.

00;11;41;23 - 00;11;58;24
Speaker 1
This is a really good question. I feel like it would surround itself around Elk. Jay So something with elk. Jay Elk. Jay stirs elk. Jay Oh my gosh, that's a hard one. What do.

00;11;58;24 - 00;12;08;02
Speaker 2
You think? I have no idea. I was just with all the fandom because you list a bunch of fandoms and it's like up with yours. B Yes.

00;12;08;09 - 00;12;11;13
Speaker 1
That's a great question. Definitely something that like Janet.

00;12;11;21 - 00;12;32;06
Speaker 2
And going along with that little K-pop because the Chow brothers are so famous that when they get photographed with a girl, it's automatic dating rumors, which is something that we see a lot in K-pop. Why is it, do you think, that we're so obsessed with celebrity musicians and like who they might be dating?

00;12;32;17 - 00;12;58;17
Speaker 1
I feel like we have this pop culture obsession with like people that we feel so connected to through movies and TV, people that we grow up with. I think that Taylor Swift, Travis Kelsey relationship is a really good example of how we just love the spark of something new and the potential of what it could be. I think that's it's always so exciting and so thrilling.

00;12;58;17 - 00;13;23;10
Speaker 1
It's the start of something. There's so much and there's so many emotions that come with the start of a new relationship. And watching that unfold, even even if it's like not great, how those photos are captured, it's exciting for people who feel like they know you. It's kind of a weird relationship where we feel like we know these people and we don't like actors, musicians, you know, they're just on our screen.

00;13;23;10 - 00;13;31;18
Speaker 1
They're in our living rooms, they're in our phones and our laptops that it's such an intimate, it feels intimate, but it's not.

00;13;31;22 - 00;13;48;19
Speaker 2
Chrissy And then they are fake dating at the beginning of this, which, you know, there's always the rumors of celebrity fake dating, but you have a line that fake dating has to be built on truth and trust. So talk a little bit about crafting the truth and trust behind the lies.

00;13;49;02 - 00;14;09;23
Speaker 1
Yes, I think there has to be that real reason why you would ever do that. And we're talking about a situation that like I've never heard of. Well, you know, fake dating, I think happens in PR relationships. So I guess that kind of goes against we're all like, oh, fake dating doesn't happen in real life. It does if you can.

00;14;09;23 - 00;14;38;22
Speaker 1
Considered celebrity life, real life in real life very rarely. I feel like maybe more now that I've maybe, you know, romances has such an influence. I would love to see more real life fake dating that turns to real love. But there's always a reason. So for Chrissy, it's it's her business. It's the flower tease her celebrity endorsement actress has dropped out and she needs the replacement.

00;14;38;22 - 00;15;10;22
Speaker 1
And for Vin, he needs somebody to break up with so which is kind of an interesting way to go about that of he needs to perpetuate this reputation and this idea of him in order to sell concert tickets so I think also for Chrissy, she has a really strong motivation to not do things that are fake, not consume things that are fake, to do things that are real and so by having at least some kind of kernel of truth that helps her get through like this very odd situation.

00;15;11;03 - 00;15;18;05
Speaker 2
And for Chrissy, like she's also got this family curse. So talk a little bit about crafting this curse because it is very in-depth.

00;15;18;16 - 00;15;44;09
Speaker 1
This was the thing that almost broke me the curse felt like a true curse. I loved her and I never considered taking it out. I did think it was a really interesting challenge to solve because my books are all rooted in reality. So as soon as you hear Curse, you're kind of like, it's speculative. Is it magic? Are there elements of like a spell that you need to have?

00;15;44;15 - 00;16;07;24
Speaker 1
And I had to keep reminding myself like, this is not any of those things. There is no spell to break it. But a lot of times we can feel so cursed in what we believe about ourselves, our families, stories that we've heard that we might actually feel curse it's a little bit kind of like superstition sometimes where it can feel like I believe this so deeply.

00;16;07;24 - 00;16;33;02
Speaker 1
I've seen it happen with every single family member. How can it not be true so I really needed to root it from a place of reality. And, you know, it's just generational trauma. It's generational stories. That get passed down over and over and over again. And for a very long time, every single floor woman had been Kirstin, broken up with never to find lasting love.

00;16;33;18 - 00;16;59;19
Speaker 1
And so Chrissy, after her ninth breakup, now truly believes this. And that had to be so believable in order for us to believe why she does anything that she does and why I should care so much about helping people with their heartbreak. And then there's also curse breaking. So it has to be rooted in enough reality to feel like we can actually go through slash understand the curse.

00;16;59;29 - 00;17;16;20
Speaker 2
Christy is not the only one that feels this curse. She does have all her her aunties and her mom. And I love that all of these women have flower names so when you are crafting these characters, does the flower come first or the personality traits to go with it?

00;17;16;28 - 00;17;38;25
Speaker 1
Oh, great question. So I knew I wanted to have every ever. Chrysanthemum was the only name Chrissy could ever have with a y, c with a Y because I wanted her to be named after a flower and everyone is named after TCM like flowers in TCM. I did have to change names once I realized there was like some of the flowers were poisonous and I was like, OK, no, it has to be a flower.

00;17;38;25 - 00;18;02;01
Speaker 1
You can consume for reasons that are in the book. But also I just wanted them to to have a good thing associated with them. So Chrysanthemum was always was always chrysanthemum from the get go. And then it was about finding had I had a long list of all the flowers that I could pick from. And then it was about finding which ones suited the personality.

00;18;02;01 - 00;18;27;26
Speaker 1
So like into Rose is the oldest. She was a divorce lawyer. She is the she's the one looking out for the family. She's a little bit more serious and roses have thorns. And I liked that visual of her just kind of being a little bit more prickly compared to Violet and Daisy, who are total opposites of her. But they can all still grow in the same garden.

00;18;27;26 - 00;18;34;21
Speaker 1
So and the flower means flower and Chinese. So there's always a play on something going in my books.

00;18;35;13 - 00;18;42;10
Speaker 2
And we're here for it is Kinetics. Explain that in the book and you're like, I see what you did there.

00;18;45;18 - 00;18;55;23
Speaker 2
Your other two books, they had locations and settings that were personal to you, and this one does with with Tennessee what is your connection to Seattle?

00;18;56;11 - 00;19;00;23
Speaker 1
I'm from Seattle, so I was born and raised in Seattle. And so you.

00;19;00;27 - 00;19;02;11
Speaker 2
Mentioned Seattle last time.

00;19;02;11 - 00;19;25;05
Speaker 1
So does I know I live so many places. I feel like at this point I don't even know like where I live. My family moved out of Washington, so there are still some family there. But I'm from, I am from and born and raised in Seattle and like Seattle proper and then moved around to various parts of Washington.

00;19;25;16 - 00;19;54;15
Speaker 1
I got married on would be Island. And so the whole the islands and Seattle have a very special place in my heart. I was really excited to be able to go back home in this book to the Pacific Northwest, which is such a such a beautiful, vibey place. Like it's such a mood I feel like the book cover captures it perfectly with the kind of like chills and the the shade of very light gray behind that blue, because Seattle is mostly mostly that.

00;19;55;06 - 00;20;12;05
Speaker 2
So you got to have a little Franklin, Tennessee up in here as well. And when they get to Franklin, they're going to his parents house and she shows them this cookbook library, and it made me so jealous. Have you actually seen one of those? And like, tell me, tell me all the things I.

00;20;12;05 - 00;20;44;09
Speaker 1
Have not seen one with my own eyes in real life. I love looking at like celebrity homes and just these like giant fancy, luxurious homes, like the oven stove that she covets is also very, very fancy and aspirational. This cookbook library, I was like I was like, well, I'm making it up anyways. So why not just add in all the things that I would put in my dream kitchen and a cookbook library is definitely one of those.

00;20;44;14 - 00;20;47;23
Speaker 2
Is there a favorite cookbook that you would want in that library?

00;20;48;12 - 00;20;54;18
Speaker 1
I love moon cakes and milk bread by Christina Cho that I would definitely keep in there.

00;20;54;18 - 00;21;03;04
Speaker 2
And you mentioned that Christie is a chef and that you do have a background in food and there are recipes in here. So how much fun was it for you to get to create some recipes to share with readers?

00;21;03;10 - 00;21;24;11
Speaker 1
It's always so fun to do that. I have a hard time picking which ones to make. I feel like I've added some pretty tricky ones into my books. Like in the last book, it was Ice Cream, and this one, it's Egg Tarts, which is more like multi process so you have to make the dough, you have to make the filling, you have to fill the dough.

00;21;24;22 - 00;21;46;12
Speaker 1
It's like such an effort. But I also feel like food is my love language and like whether I'm making it or my husband's cooking dinner for me while I'm writing, or we go out to eat together and, and food is just like how I express and accept love. And so I want to give that back to readers through these recipes.

00;21;47;09 - 00;21;56;17
Speaker 1
And this egg tart has some chrysanthemum and honey in it and lavender. And so it's such it's so good. It's such a good one. They're fun to.

00;21;56;17 - 00;22;06;20
Speaker 2
Make a little bit about your process in like crafting this recipe and how you went through the steps to make it to four before you decided that this was the final version to put in the book.

00;22;06;27 - 00;22;27;01
Speaker 1
Narrowing down which ones to do is the hardest so sometimes I'll make a few and then kind of see like which one fits the essence of this book the best? And like even if it's multi step doing, there's a big process to it. I do want to honor like I want to honor that. I don't want to get to the back of the book and then be like, Oh, that's a really random card.

00;22;27;02 - 00;22;56;26
Speaker 1
We mentioned recipe that you put in there Chrissy makes egg tarts for a show. She puts she's kind of recipe testing herself. So I just had to kind of become Chrissy and do that try out different doughs, different ratios, different measurements. Think about how much honey versus lavender versus chrysanthemum. I wanted chrysanthemums already very, very light in flavor so that the benefits are still there, but the flavors very light on the tongue.

00;22;57;07 - 00;23;15;19
Speaker 1
But you do have honey and lavender which are much stronger. So I played with ratios like that. Same with the bath balm that's in there. And just the first one, I don't have to edible recipes do not have bath bomb. And that one too. I was like, OK, well how much? I don't I try to avoid food coloring whenever I can.

00;23;16;12 - 00;23;27;28
Speaker 1
And so I use this purple sweet potato flower to get that purple coloring. And I was thinking about how, how strong of a purple I really wanted it to be. And I played it around with measurements like that.

00;23;28;08 - 00;23;44;11
Speaker 2
There's a reference in the book to the classic room service meal, and you are not the first author I've heard mention Caesar salad and fries as the room service meal yes. Where did where did this come from? Why is this the meal for authors? That's a.

00;23;44;11 - 00;24;06;12
Speaker 1
Great question. For me, it's just more like, OK, you're you're tired and you're in the hotel and what do they always have? A Caesar salad, right? Classic and fries. So you I also think it's about balance, right? You have your salad, you get the vegetables and then you get some fries, ketchup, all the stuff ranch. And then I mean, that's a that's a healthy meal right there.

00;24;07;09 - 00;24;10;01
Speaker 2
OK, so I'm talking about food because I'm getting really hungry.

00;24;10;01 - 00;24;12;17
Speaker 1
So I want French fries. I want a room service meal now.

00;24;12;28 - 00;24;27;05
Speaker 2
Right? Like, where's my husband to feed me at this particular moment? Yeah, but so while they're in Tennessee, they get to partake in this Firefly lottery. So talk a little bit about how you found out about this and if you've ever experienced it yourself.

00;24;27;09 - 00;24;46;03
Speaker 1
I tried to I did not win the lottery. I put myself in this year and I lost. And I was so excited because I was like, no, I wrote about this. I should know. And I did not get picked. It's a car lottery, so you can have one. You put your name in at the beginning of the season.

00;24;46;03 - 00;25;11;12
Speaker 1
There's like a week where these fireflies show up and synchronize and in the mountains, like in the Smoky Mountains, and you can bring a carload of people. But yeah, I didn't win. It is a real thing. It's sounds incredible. I just learned about it by googling. I wanted to find something really special for the Tennessee scenes to make it.

00;25;11;12 - 00;25;19;28
Speaker 1
Really, we're not there for long, so I really wanted to find a special, a very special moment and I felt like that one was so unique and special.

00;25;20;07 - 00;25;34;08
Speaker 2
So with this book, we do have a little nod to Red String Theory, but it's not an on the page. The other characters are involved like we saw from Lunar Love to red string theory. So talk a little bit about crafting this particular Easter egg.

00;25;34;14 - 00;26;02;14
Speaker 1
A great nuanced question I, I did. I had Olivia and Bennett up here in red string theory, and that is always the question of how much of a character in the past to bring in to this world. It's all the same universe, but what would really serve to have them show up on the page? And so for this one, I really wanted there's so much there's so many other things to focus on with these characters that I didn't really see how it could make sense for everyone to come together in one location.

00;26;03;04 - 00;26;30;15
Speaker 1
But I did want to have a nod. So in red string theory, there is an Easter egg to Chrissy in the chapter where Chrissy, her mom, and Talya are in her apartment doing the phone call. So she's drinking a tea given to her by an herbalist because at that point she is heartbroken from losing Jack. That one word was the Easter Egg for this whole book, with Chris Christie being that herbalist who gave her the tea.

00;26;30;22 - 00;26;36;03
Speaker 1
And in return, Roni gives Chrissy the chrysanthemum red string art.

00;26;36;15 - 00;27;00;28
Speaker 2
That is way more in depth than I even put together because it's been so long since I read. Read. Got your smarts thank you. Your publicist told me this was your best book yet. And like, you hear that a lot from publicists, like, oh, it's their best book. But this time it really feels like that. What does it mean to you to keep leveling up your writing as you progress?

00;27;01;06 - 00;27;19;10
Speaker 1
Oh, my gosh. We could talk about this for hours because it is. I once it's so important to me, especially as a I call like a recovering perfectionist. I'm really trying to get better about not being such a perfectionist, which is something then struggled with. And it kind of opened my eyes up to I write about perfectionism and I was like, OK, lots of things for me to work on here.

00;27;20;01 - 00;27;50;00
Speaker 1
And I always want to be getting better and then what does that even mean? Because every book is so different, like the book, book one, book two, book three are also different from each other. They all had such different challenges. I wasn't writing about curses in those books. I wasn't writing about TCM or fate. So it's tricky because each book is its own, its own thing, its own kind of like world, its own process.

00;27;50;14 - 00;28;10;09
Speaker 1
And so when I think about leveling up, I think about where are my, where can I develop, where can I strengthen my skills? And then I try to apply that to the page. But I'm sweating now just thinking about like this next draft, I'm writing right now, I'm like, Is it better? Is am I leveling up? And, and I am trying to balance that against.

00;28;10;09 - 00;28;12;29
Speaker 1
While these challenges are different, it's a different book.

00;28;14;22 - 00;28;15;02
Speaker 2
You're.

00;28;15;02 - 00;28;16;01
Speaker 1
Going to have to just do the best.

00;28;16;01 - 00;28;19;20
Speaker 2
That you can do. What can you tell us about your next book?

00;28;20;25 - 00;28;27;11
Speaker 1
I don't actually know what I can say I do have another book coming. We haven't made the announcement, but I do have another book coming.

00;28;27;18 - 00;28;37;15
Speaker 2
I guess I'll have to take that as a scoop. Oops. Let's just go, though, just because mine is there's your others, since they tend to be around Lunar New Year.

00;28;38;01 - 00;28;39;13
Speaker 1
It is same, same timeline.

00;28;39;22 - 00;28;42;09
Speaker 2
We looking for this? Yes. Once I know.

00;28;42;09 - 00;28;42;22
Speaker 1
More.

00;28;43;23 - 00;28;48;18
Speaker 2
Like, hello, tell me all the dates. Now we got time for the last question.

00;28;51;18 - 00;28;53;29
Speaker 2
Since this is literary hype, what books are you hyped about?

00;28;54;10 - 00;29;23;00
Speaker 1
I am hyped about. So right now, doing a lot of reading right now for the future. I'm doing a lot of blurbs thing. And so one book that's coming is called Alice Trenton's Reality Check, which is kind of like a romance cozy mystery. It's like a murder mystery, but more romance reality TV, like the behind the scenes of a reality TV show on a remote island by Kalu and Jennifer Young.

00;29;24;11 - 00;29;45;28
Speaker 1
That one's really good. I'm currently reading Slipstream by Magic Miracle, and that one I'm loving and then I'm doing a lot of reading of craft books. Because to your last question, I'm like, how do I go deeper? How do I kind of hone and sharpen those skills? So I just finished one by Maggie Smith called Dear Writer, which is coming out in April.

00;29;45;28 - 00;30;10;00
Speaker 1
And that one's amazing. I thought Matt Bell's refuse to be done is incredible for drafting and revising, and I like books. There are craft books that have made me cry because I'm like, not happy tears because they're so intense. But these ones are all just like very practical, encouraging, gentle, inspirational, actionable. That's what I need. Like, I need bite sized moral morsels of tits.

00;30;10;21 - 00;30;15;06
Speaker 1
I do not need to be confused and feel like I don't know what I'm doing about anything in my life.

00;30;16;16 - 00;30;24;11
Speaker 2
External to the craft books because I do want to get back into creative writing this year. So craft books are on my goals list this year. So.

00;30;24;14 - 00;30;27;25
Speaker 1
OK, good. Well, if you have any that you recommend, I'm always.

00;30;28;08 - 00;30;51;27
Speaker 2
I'm currently reading an arc of the Happy Writer by Marissa Mayer. So it is the bite sized like it's like a page or two that like just a whole bunch of like these are different things. I tried maybe they will help you and like trying to keep a better attitude about writing. Good. Because you talk from the beginning about like playing Candyland with her two year old and they're like, Oh, Mommy's finally happy so she's like, Oh, well.

00;30;52;23 - 00;30;54;20
Speaker 1
Fascinating. Relatable.

00;30;54;29 - 00;31;07;05
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess I feel like it's relatable. It's just creative in general. Totally. Totally. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for taking time to talk to literary hype again about Yin Yang.

00;31;07;05 - 00;31;16;16
Speaker 1
What's on these are such great questions. And you covered you covered more than I could have imagined. Thank you for having me. So it's always so great to talk to you.

00;31;19;07 - 00;31;34;22
Speaker 2
Thanks again to Lauren for taking time out of her day to talk about the young love song. This book is so good, so you need to go down to the links in the description and get yourself a copy of this book. Like I put so many times in it. And most of the time I type things. Her questions.

00;31;34;22 - 00;31;55;07
Speaker 2
This I like had to get a separate color because I had to mark things that were just so beautiful and so well written and just kind of as a perfectionist. A little bit of a step is savvy, but it's OK. It's OK because you know what? We're both recovering perfectionist and it's OK. So definitely check out the show notes and look for the links for how you can get a hold of this book.

00;31;55;07 - 00;32;08;28
Speaker 2
And definitely, definitely do it and give Lauren a following while you're at it. If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe to the literary podcast. Give us some stars and share it with a friend. Thanks so much for listening to the Literary Hype podcast.