Podcasting has made it so anyone can have their own talk show, but I have new respect for podcasters. It’s hard. I’ve been podcasting False Alarm, my novel about the sports industry, and talking “live” about my former career managing professional athletes and their money—spilling the dirt on things like poor spending habits, the entourage, and driving without insurance. I’ve been going to a little recording studio for bands making CDs, and I sit in a booth. It’s just me and Adam across the room—he’s the sound engineer, who’s super nice and funny but also makes comments like “you’re clicking your tongue” and “just talk.” Apparently I’m supposed to go at like I’m talking to my best girlfriend, but it’s more like I’m talking to a shrink and everyone’s listening. It’s an excruciating process–confessional. “At the sports firm I was one of the boys, but also not one of them…” I begin. I forget to breathe. You really have to pace yourself! And I realize that there’s a reason why authors hire professional readers who do not stutter and gulp, whose Adam wouldn’t say—“I think you might want to do that part over?” or “You’re talking about the dogs again.”  What I also realize is that it’s easy to hide behind the written word—especially in fiction (that’s why I haven’t written a memoir yet). Of course you wouldn’t actually say the things your characters would say or engage in the behavior they would—the characters write themselves and all that writing folklore. But then if you’re reading your work, you’re saying it out loud and have to own up to it somehow, and sometimes have to have an explicit rating. It makes me wonder about my books. I was driving my daughter and her friends and they were talking openly among themselves the way they do when they’re pretending you’re not there. One of them asks my daughter whether she’s read my book, and she says, “Mom writes adult novels.”