Navigating the Journey from Silence to Significance

Amy Stone [00:00:04]:
Lee Lincoln, welcome to the art of imperfect adulting.

Leigh Lincoln [00:00:07]:
Thank you for having me.

Amy Stone [00:00:09]:
I’m so happy you’re here. Are you ready for a fun chat today?

Leigh Lincoln [00:00:12]:
I am so ready.

Amy Stone [00:00:14]:
Yeah. This is going to be great. All right. I start almost every interview by talking to my guests and asking them where they are talking to me from today. So where are you today? What part of the world are you in?

Leigh Lincoln [00:00:27]:
I am in Southern Georgia today.

Amy Stone [00:00:31]:
Yeah, there you go. Southern Georgia, which is not too far from me. I’m also in the South. I’m so far south that I’m in the tropics, not the deep south, but that is where we both are and where we call home. So I want to learn a little bit more about you personally before we dig into the topic of the day. Not like super deep or anything, but could you tell us a little bit about yourself outside of work, outside of your family? Me? But just, you know, something, maybe a hobby or something you enjoy? Something just about you to connect before we get started. As little or as much as you want.

Leigh Lincoln [00:01:08]:
Well, I love hiking and I love beaches, and I love to combine the two. And so I love going to beaches and taking long, long walks, preferably barefoot, which is. Yeah, I’m just one of those people, right? So. So it doesn’t matter where I am, whether it’s a sea beach, whether it’s a river beach, whether it’s a lake beach, I don’t care. Just give me a beach. Let me go wander.

Amy Stone [00:01:36]:
Very good. So I was the first thing when you said hiking and beaches. My immediate thought was, I wondered what you were wearing on your shoes, because there’s really. There’s all kind of things. Some people will run on packed sand in shoes. And I like. I like you. I like to walk barefoot, like, right close to the water, which is easier on a soft, sandy beach than a rock, rocky river beach, I think. And it’s just a lot of choices, but initially, I was wondering whether or not you were gonna say you were out there in hiking shoes in the beach, which would have been, you know, which would have been interesting.

Leigh Lincoln [00:02:09]:
No.

Amy Stone [00:02:10]:
Yeah, there you go. All right, very good. So now we’ll get to the topic of the day, which is you proposed the topic of talking about how you accidentally. Accidentally wrote your first novel and how this led you into realizing that your voice mattered. So does that sound like something fun to talk about today?

Leigh Lincoln [00:02:28]:
This is something I talk about quite a lot because it kind of throws people. People are like, wait, how do you accidentally write a book?

Amy Stone [00:02:34]:
Yeah, that is One of my very early questions. But first I want to set the time frame. How long ago was this?

Leigh Lincoln [00:02:42]:
It was in 2016.

Amy Stone [00:02:44]:
2016, and we’re in 2025, so almost 10 years. Yep, almost 10 years ago. All right, so let’s back up a little bit further before we dig into actually writing the book. When you think of yourself as a kid, maybe middle school age, did you have dreams of being a novelist or a writer, or was there something else that was on your future plan?

Leigh Lincoln [00:03:08]:
I don’t really think I ever thought of myself as being anything other than a mom. But again, back in the day, I’m old. I know women were supposed to be caregivers, so I, I think I always thought I would be a wife and a mother and I don’t think I really had any big goals in life. And then at some point I thought I was going to be a minister and that kind of didn’t turn out. So, you know, But I was a mom. I still am a mom. I have a kid, but.

Amy Stone [00:03:40]:
All right, so the path that was laid out for you was. What are the words that we could use to describe this? Let’s say traditional.

Leigh Lincoln [00:03:47]:
Right.

Amy Stone [00:03:47]:
The traditional path that was offered to you was one of parenting and caregiving. And that’s what you thought about. And what’s interesting about that, like now that you’re adultier, is the idea that it was 100% of what you were expected to do that would be your whole life. Because raising children predominantly is like 25ish years.

Leigh Lincoln [00:04:17]:
Right.

Amy Stone [00:04:17]:
And for some of that they’re pretty independent. Right. So the idea that it would be all you would do is kind of a crazy concept once you get past it. It doesn’t feel like a crazy concept when they’re small and can’t do anything for themselves. Gotta just throw that in there. Like then it does take. It’s all hands on deck. Small people are not self reliant. Okay, so now, now let’s dive in to this, this idea of accidentally writing a book. So writing a book is something that lots and lots of people want to do. It’s a thing that not everybody does do. It’s a thing that is perhaps easier to make official in modern times with self publishing than it was in like the 1960s or whatever. But still most people don’t do it.

Leigh Lincoln [00:05:02]:
It’s not easy to do.

Amy Stone [00:05:04]:
Well, yes. So just did you sit down with like a post it note at your kitchen table and write a book? Like, how does it, how does this accidentally happen?

Leigh Lincoln [00:05:12]:
No, for years I Was involved in a lot of community service organizations, mostly around homelessness and povert. And I volunteered for a whole bunch of different things. And so I would go to all these community meetings. And at one point I went to this community meeting and the topic was really interesting to me that and I was trying to get my point across. So I kept raising my hand and the guy who was running the meeting just completely ignored me. He pointed to the politician, to the businessmen, all the people in town that had standing, and he just ignored me. And at the end of the meeting, I went up to him and I tried to get my point across. And he completely shut me down. And he gave me all these excuses why I did not matter to him at all. I was just a woman. I was just a single mother. I was a single mother who homeschooled at that. And I was just a volunteer. I’d never had a real job. I didn’t have a degree. And I did not matter one bit to this man. And as I angrily stomped home from that meeting, I realized that he was not the only one who had treated me this way for something like 30 years. I was irrelevant. And it didn’t matter that I’ve been doing all of this work for years because it was all volunteer and I was all of these things that he listed. No one cared about me at all. I did not matter. My voice didn’t matter. My opinion did not matter. And so when I went home, because I was a homeschooling single mother, of course, what do we have at home? A gazillion empty notebooks. Right? Because we had all the things, right? So I grabbed one of those books and I just started pouring out my heart in it and I just started just writing everything that made me mad because I realized there were a lot of things that made me mad. And after several months, I started looking over all of these notebooks that I had filled. And there was a lot, really, like I had a lot to say when I.

Amy Stone [00:07:29]:
This sounds like this was journaling at the start. If you were to category.

Leigh Lincoln [00:07:34]:
Yes, it was journaling or free writing. Yeah. And I’d never journaled before this. And when I really looked at what I’d written after several months, I realized that at some point I had flipped from writing about myself to writing first person narrative from the perspective of a homeless woman, which I’d worked with thousands of homeless women in 30 something years at that point. And I realized that. That I don’t know exactly when I flipped because I wasn’t writing dates on the pages. But I do understand why I flipped. Because all of those women that I’d worked with for all of those years felt the same way I did. Devalued, ignored, invisible. Invisible. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I accidentally wrote a book. I had no intentions of writing a book. I don’t know exactly when I did it. I just know I did it.

Amy Stone [00:08:30]:
So let’s back up a teeny, tiny bit. So you were involved in community organizations as a volunteer for homeless or. We would say. And the more contemporary way we’re talking about this community is unhoused and the housing challenge market. Right. People who really struggle with finding secure housing in your community as a volunteer.

Leigh Lincoln [00:08:53]:
Yep.

Amy Stone [00:08:54]:
One of the things that I really think is interesting about that is that this is the advice that we give to women who are in the ages of raising our kids, that if you want to make friends, if you want to keep your skills sharp, what you should do is go and volunteer and give your work for free to the organizations in the community. And I believe in volunteering, and I think that volunteering is very good. But I think that one of the worst piece of advice that we can give people is that there’s some point where this volunteer experience becomes commercially relevant. I have literally never, ever, ever, ever, ever seen in all of my years somebody who’s working for free be reached out to and be like, oh, you know what? Now I’d like to pay you. Come join my corporate staff because you’ve given up. And there is a. It’s something that, you know, definitely can make me very angry if I think about it too much, because we really do exploit this very smart, very capable group of adults by putting them in a position where we expect them to work for free. You’ve got people who are working in marketing, in finance, in promotion, in logistics and operations. All of these are real jobs. And you just. You’re like, yeah, please do this for free, and we’re not going to take you seriously. And then I think there’s a lot of people listening who have been in that situation, that they are very knowledgeable as a experienced worker, like, as a person who’s been through an experience and they have someone who’s in authority, just completely devalue their experience, their life experience, and ignore them in lieu of somebody else who’s got a certificate from somewhere.

Leigh Lincoln [00:10:36]:
Yeah. And over the years, as I’ve shared my story, it’s amazing how many women who have said, oh, yeah, something similar to what you just shared has happened to me. And I’m like, why is this a thing? Like, why do women especially get treated like this? I mean, it’s just wrong on so many levels and really frustrates me, you know, because I thought I was the only one that this happened to. And then I hear this all the time. I’m like, how is this a thing? I mean, we talk about, you know, women are now on the same level as men. No, they’re not really. We’re not.

Amy Stone [00:11:15]:
Well, one of the things that I always tell people is so funny is that I, you know, I was working and then I had a kid in a stroller, and it was like, crazy to go from, like, a working professional who had, like, a certain amount of self confidence and respect and like, a position of authority. And then, like, just a few weeks later, walking through someplace with a stroller, and people were speaking to me as if I needed basic help with, like, just fundamental things like math and, like, logistics and opening doors. And I was like, I did not. Like, why did I become, like, why did it become this assumption that I’m just unable to make it through the world now that I have a stroller in front of me? You know? And then on the other hand, there are many situations with a small child in the stroller where I was very thankful for support because you can’t open doors and push a stroller at the same time unless it’s an automatic door, you know, so it’s. It is a weird, weird thing. And I also, hilariously, one time I was called into school for one of my kids, and I was coming from, like, a workout, and it was a big group of people. I walked into an office with a big group of people, and I had on, like, a completely inappropriate outfit, like, you know, bike shorts. And, like, I was sweaty because they had called and said, it’s important, please come now. And they asked me a question, and I, like, paused. And I, like, I said in my exact words was like, okay. I was like, listen, I know that I don’t look the part here, but I’m just going to need you guys to take my word for it and take me seriously. Even though, like, I showed up in my workout, you called me, you know, this is what I was wearing. I came because I respect you. Please don’t discount me because I’m here wearing, like, my gym outfit. I don’t know if they did or not, but I gave it my best shot. All right, so this starts as a journal, and you pouring out your heart, which is a wonderful thing, you began to shift to watch it to writing narrative stories based on the people that you had come into contact. As a volunteer, do you remember what the time frame was between you had this showdown in this community meeting with this not nice guy? And when you had a manuscript, like, how long did it actually take you time wise to come up with what you’d call a manuscript for your first book?

Leigh Lincoln [00:13:23]:
Well, I journaled for about three months before I looked at what I had and realized that I had accidentally switched and written this story. And then I worked with a local writers group for a couple of months and got it cleaned up a little bit. And then I. Well, I’m not going to say I worked with an editor, I fought with an editor because that was my first book. And I just was like, well, no one’s going to read it anyways because everybody’s been ignoring me for years, so it doesn’t have to be perfect. And so I did that for a couple of months and then it came out in the fall of 2020, 2016. So overall it, it was from the, from the day the fight happened until when it was released was something like seven months. It was really quick and none of my fast. Yeah, none of my other books have been that fast because I’ve learned a lot. But again, when I threw that baby book into the world, I was like, yeah, I’ll be lucky If I sell 10 to 20 copies. I’ll raise maybe 10 bucks for charity. I will call it a day. Right? Because no one is going to buy this book. No one’s going to care about this book because no one cares about me. I still had that mindset, so I really didn’t care if it was perfect or pretty. And so that first book, Road Home, is, is a hot mess. And over the years, several people have told me I need to go back in there and like really clean it up professionally because I really didn’t that first time. And I’m like, no, I am proud of it the way it is and I don’t care if it’s a hot mess because it shows my journey as an author and it made a statement. So I’m like, no, I’m not going back and fixing it.

Amy Stone [00:15:16]:
So I think that’s amazing because I like on one hand, what I hear you saying is, and I think that it’s very valid is that you still were very much in a state of mind where you’re like, this is not important enough for me to put the time and money into doing. And that’s not a great place to be in terms of personal mindset. But on the other hand, I really think that there’s a lot to be said for the fact that people can get stuck in trying to make things perfect and trying to make things professional before there’s any reason to do that, you know, so, you know, investing. Build an entirely professional, you know, office to write the book instead of writing at your kitchen table, checking the formatting for six months instead of showing it to somebody and letting them read for the content. And so there’s a. The. The flip side of that is the. The advantage of get it out there, like, ship it before it’s finished. And I. That I think that it shows. What does it show? Motivation from you, I guess, or a desire to complete. Would you say you’re a person that completes tasks, that you’re motivated by getting things done?

Leigh Lincoln [00:16:24]:
Yeah, I’m more motivated by getting things done and less by getting things perfect. I’m, as a person, I’m very spontaneous and a total hot mess, and I’m perfectly okay with that. Just don’t come into my house.

Amy Stone [00:16:39]:
Just. Or if you do, don’t bring a camera. Don’t bring Architectural Digest to your house.

Leigh Lincoln [00:16:44]:
Yeah, just. If you’re a guest at my house, just accept that it’s a hot mess and that I. I’m happy in my house.

Amy Stone [00:16:53]:
We have an ongoing perpetual discussion where when people are coming over, there are people in my family who want to remove all signs that anybody has ever lived here. And I believe in cleaning up the house when you’re having guests. Like, I think that’s very nice and obviously, like, all of those things. But I also don’t have any desire to pretend that I don’t actually live here. Like, if you come and there’s, like, a mixing stand in my kitchen, I’m like, yeah, because I mixed things like this. This is not a museum. This is the kitchen.

Leigh Lincoln [00:17:17]:
Right. There’s no dirty dishes. We’re all good, right? We’re all good.

Amy Stone [00:17:23]:
Exactly right. There’s a. There’s a line. But not everybody is like that. I never once have worried about somebody inspecting my baseboards in my house. If they do that says about them. That’s talking about them, not about me. All right, so. All right. So I got the impression from when you submitted this topic that you did not feel like you had a lot of support around you when you were doing this. And so I did want to ask you how you figured out the steps to go through and write and edit and publish and promote this book.

Leigh Lincoln [00:17:57]:
Well, I went to the local library And I. Because libraries are great. So when I realized I had the beginning of a manuscript, or maybe all of a manuscript, as it turned out, I asked the local library, is there a writers group? And there was one at the local library. And. And then the writers group, they were like, well, we can only help you so much. You really need an editor. And then they. They had an idea of how to find an editor. So it was. It was just by asking questions because really, I had no idea what I’m doing. And I. You know, six books in, I kind of still don’t really know what I’m doing. And that’s okay, because, again, I don’t have a degree. I’ve never had a real job, so that’s good. And. And for marketing, I think a lot of authors have no idea how to market their books. Doesn’t matter how many books they have. So. But here’s the thing. You. You publish a book, doesn’t matter whether it’s a novel or nonfiction, you’re instantly an expert in whatever the topic is. And so, ironically, all of those people have been ignoring me for years. Well, I published a book about a homeless woman, and I started getting asked to speak on homelessness.

Amy Stone [00:19:17]:
All right.

Leigh Lincoln [00:19:18]:
And so that marketed the book, right. You know, hey, we can have her come and speak, because clearly she knows a lot about homelessness. Right. She published a book on it. Hi. Okay. Sure. So, you know, I kind of, like, fell into a lot of things just by accident or by asking good questions. And I think a lot of authors. This is kind of how they work things out, because there aren’t a lot of people that really can without paying a ton of money. I don’t think a lot of authors can really, you know, get the good answers to their questions. So I think a lot of them just figure it out on trial and error.

Amy Stone [00:20:03]:
I think that’s. I mean, that’s the dirty secret of making it through adulthood, that we nobody. There’s a point where most of us don’t know what we’re doing, and we just have to have the courage to try so and figure out if it works. So I do think, though, that there’s a choice that you made in there that shows a lot about your fortitude as a person, because you could have looked down at your journal and said, oh, look, there’s a story, and just said, yay, all done. Not gonna do anything else. And so what was your thinking, if you remember? Because you might not sometimes these are little, tiny mental shifts that we don’t pay any Attention to. Do you remember what we were thinking when you were like, I’m gonna go to the library and see if I can find a writer’s group? Like, what was your. What was your very, very early little nugget of a shift when you saw that there was a story?

Leigh Lincoln [00:20:48]:
Well, my thing was, is, you know, maybe I could turn this into something and I could raise a few bucks for charity, because I’ve been trying to raise money for charity for years. And I was like, well, maybe this is another way I could do that. And that was my whole thing. You know, I wasn’t looking to make a ton of money with it. I wasn’t looking for anything for myself or fame or recognition or anything. Like, a lot of people write books because they want to be famous or make a ton of money, right? And. But that wasn’t my goal, and it still isn’t my goal. I still sell my books and give a large portion of the proceeds of the books to charity, which kind of throws people because they’re. They’re still like, wait, what? And, you know, they’re like, your motivation is very different. And. Yeah, my motivation is always really different than I think a lot of people’s.

Amy Stone [00:21:47]:
Yeah, well, it should come. It’s yours. It doesn’t have to match other people’s. Right. So what kind of support now that you’ve done this six times? So this is slightly a ridiculous question because I’m going to ask you about something as if you could rewrite the past, which you can’t. But for people listening who are representative of an earlier stage, you, somebody who’s dreaming of writing a book and has the benefit of hearing from you before they get started, what kind of support do you wish you had had as a new and emerging author who had an idea but no idea what to do?

Leigh Lincoln [00:22:23]:
I think every author really does need to be part of a writers group. You really do need that support of other authors. Doesn’t matter what genre they’re writing in. But being able to bounce ideas off of other creatives is so critical. I know the writers group that I’m currently part of, you know, we. We do role plays together. We do. We do various little technique plays together. And if you’re not a creative, sometimes when you try to bounce ideas off people, people kind of roll their eyes and go, I don’t get it at all. Like, you know, if you’re trying to, you know, do something creative, like pick a word and then start a story with that word, you know, people are like, I just don’t get why you would even do that. Well, it’s to try to really get your brain focused on something than the story that you’re working on. Because sometimes in your stories, you get really stuck and you really need something to get yourself out of your own head. And being in a group of other creatives, they get why you’re having issues, they get why you’re having problems, and they can really help you rethink things. And I think that’s really critical.

Amy Stone [00:23:44]:
I do too. And I think it’s, you know, writers groups are writers groups, but I think that it’s very, very true for a wide variety of people who are creating things. The other thing that’s interesting, when you get a group of people who are actually doing the work of creating stuff as opposed to evaluating and judging. Right. So like a room full of editors versus a room full of writers or a room full of editors instead of a room full of, like photographers is. They tend to be incredibly forgiving and supportive of making mistakes. Like, it’s a place where you can go in with something that’s like, so beginner. And the people will be like, oh, look what you did. You made this thing. You put these words on this piece of paper. Good for you. Maybe try again.

Leigh Lincoln [00:24:31]:
Yeah. Yeah. Because our group that I’m part of right now, you know, we ne. We never bash each other’s work. We just say, well, that’s a really good beginning. Have you ever thought of.

Amy Stone [00:24:43]:
Yeah.

Leigh Lincoln [00:24:44]:
And you know, we build each other up. We don’t tear each other down. Which. An editor, their job is to tear it apart and tell you what you did wrong. That’s their whole entire.

Amy Stone [00:24:56]:
That’s their whole job.

Leigh Lincoln [00:24:57]:
Different focus and mindset. It is.

Amy Stone [00:25:00]:
But if you mix. Yeah, exactly. And if you mix them up, if you mix them up, they. You can find yourself wishing for a. A new group and a new group. So, yes, I think that’s a really good thing. How do. How do. Do you have any. So you found your writers group through the library? How else?

Leigh Lincoln [00:25:16]:
My first one. My. Yeah, my one that I have now, I found a different way because I have moved since I wrote my first book. But.

Amy Stone [00:25:25]:
And how did they. So is it an in person group? Like, these are people, you know, face to face, or is it an online sort of situation?

Leigh Lincoln [00:25:31]:
I. The group I’m in now is an online group because I travel so much, I can no longer do an in person group.

Amy Stone [00:25:37]:
And so this is an online group. And do you have a suggestion that you want to offer people for how to find a welcoming writers group.

Leigh Lincoln [00:25:45]:
I found the one I’m currently in through Facebook. There are several that are fairly active on Facebook. The one I. I am part of is not accepting people, or I would tell people about it, but there are several on Facebook, and that is a good way to find writers group. And of course, your local library, there are several small community centers that have writers groups. So there. There. There’s various ways to find them.

Amy Stone [00:26:14]:
Okay. All right. Those are all very helpful suggestions. Thank you for sharing those. Okay, so. Because I think that sometimes when you’re outside of it, knowing where to start looking can be the hump. You know, do I walk into an English class? Like, do I ask my high school writing teacher? Like, what do I do? All right, so now let’s talk about the shift between. And I think you’ve alluded to at least the beginning of this, how writing the first book eventually turned in to being able to convince yourself or owning the fact that your voice matters. So you told us the story of being in the meeting and realizing that the guy running the meeting or the guy you were talking to was not going to pay attention to what you had to say. That sounds like it felt terrible. You shared that. You realized. And if I’m speaking for you and it’s not right, correct me. You began to realize that that was something that was echoing through other parts of your life, that you were sort of surrounded by people who were not valuing your voice. How does writing the book then lead you to discovering that your voice matters overall?

Leigh Lincoln [00:27:20]:
Well, I think the big part of it was realizing when people read that first book, wrote home, and then I started getting feedback, and people are like, wow, this book is really powerful. This book moved me. I saw something in myself that I didn’t like because of something you wrote in this book. Right. And I realized that I was changing hearts and minds, and that wasn’t my intention. Right. I was throwing this book out there and. And then getting asked to speak and. And being asked to be part of panels to discuss issues and topics around homelessness and poverty. And I was like, you know, all of a sudden, people were wanting to hear what I wanted to say. And then that was so validating to me and to realize that. That I did matter and I had always mattered. It just was. It was just an issue of getting that breakthrough of somehow getting people to see that I wasn’t this invisible little mouse in the corner.

Amy Stone [00:28:34]:
Wow. Okay. So I love the piece that you said where it was that you had actually always mattered. It wasn’t writing the book that shifted who you were or the value of what you were saying, but that it had always been there. So this next part of this question might be a little too personal, and you can tell me to buzz off, but do you have an idea of the origin story or where it began? The concept and the feeling inside you that your voice was not one that mattered might have come from.

Leigh Lincoln [00:29:04]:
Sure. But I feel. I just think that because I was always at home and I was always behind the scenes, and I think a lot of it is the cultural values that we have that just certain women are put in this box, and I was clearly in that box for so many years. But I think it’s the way our society views women. Okay. And. And so I think it was partially just my age, too, of how society views women. And, you know, women just shouldn’t be vocal, because if they’re vocal, they’re pushy.

Amy Stone [00:29:58]:
It is. Yes, it is. Well, and we get nicknames, too. We get nicknames if we speak up.

Leigh Lincoln [00:30:05]:
So I. You know, I just always was in the background. I was, you know, always behind the scenes. And for a long time, that was okay because that was a woman’s role.

Amy Stone [00:30:19]:
And you thought you were following the rules, you were doing the right things.

Leigh Lincoln [00:30:21]:
I was following the rules, but. But I realized that that was not okay. You know, through the whole process of getting this book out there, I realized that’s not okay. And. And that should never have been okay. And so I’ve just now gotten to the point where I throw out all the rules. I just do whatever I want to do, and I just don’t care what people think anymore.

Amy Stone [00:30:42]:
Right, Right. So. And I say right, because I’ve heard this from different people throughout the. Throughout the show, throughout my life, throughout my experience, but there’s this realization that the rules that you’re following may not actually have been written to help you.

Leigh Lincoln [00:30:57]:
Yeah.

Amy Stone [00:30:58]:
And so. And so then should we follow them? Like, is it for, you know, like, who’s this for? Who’s this for? And is it to my advantage? All right, so I keep mentioning that this was your first book, and you’ve mentioned that you have other books. You’ve gone on to write a few more books. Six more books.

Leigh Lincoln [00:31:15]:
So six in total? Well, six novels in total. There’s a few other things, but six novels. And that’s what I really focus on, is my novels.

Amy Stone [00:31:24]:
And so go ahead and tell people where they can find your books, if they would like to buy them and read them, and how they can find you online.

Leigh Lincoln [00:31:32]:
The easiest way is to go to my website, leelincolnauthor.com all of the books are listed there and all the various ways to purchase them are there. If you purchase the print books on my website, they’re always signed by me, no matter where I travel. I have a way to do that which is really cool and fun.

Amy Stone [00:31:53]:
So very cool. And you have a special offer for the listeners. The your website is in the show notes and in the email that I will send out to the subscriber. You have a special offer for the listeners which is a free short story. The title is Ryan and you can get that@leelincolnauthor.com get your free short story. So I put that link in the show notes and it comes in the email for everybody. Lee, I want to thank you very much for that generous offer first of all and for everybody who’s listening and watching, if that offer sounds good to you, but you’re driving or you’re out for a walk or you’re doing laundry or you’re mopping the floor, you’re talking to your friends, whatever it is, don’t worry about remembering the details. Join the imperfect adulting email community and we send that directly to your inbox. It’s absolutely the easiest way to do that. So now, Lee, are you ready for the final three questions? The rapid fire fun questions. Okay, let’s do it. Let’s do it. The idea is these are just for fun. Just say whatever comes to mind in a few words. I write these before we have the interview, so sometimes they’re completely off topic and other times I kind of accidentally nail something that we talk about. All right, so imagine that you’re invited over to a friend’s house for dinner and they say that they want to cook your favorite meal for you. What do you ask for? Paella. I love that. That was instant. There’s a couple different kinds of paella. Which kind of pale do you like?

Leigh Lincoln [00:33:20]:
I really like the, the seafood paella, preferably like from the canaries. That has the octopus and the squid and the shrimp in it. But I know some people that kind of grosses them out. But it’s really yummy. So we’re all getting.

Amy Stone [00:33:37]:
I have a very close friend who has a paella catering business. She comes and prepares the paella live at events, which is an all day thing depending on when it is. And so she’ll do that one. She. That she. That’s exact. She’ll do that one. She’ll do another type of protein she does a veggie one and other things like that. Okay.

Leigh Lincoln [00:33:53]:
So because some people do paella very differently, it depends on where you are. In Spain, when you order paella, what you get.

Amy Stone [00:34:01]:
And not everybody likes to see shrimp in different forms. Like, people are very. Not everybody likes that.

Leigh Lincoln [00:34:08]:
Well, you can go to a different part of Spain and get chicken. You can go to a different part of Spain and you can get sausage in it. So you just have to wander around Spain and order paella in different places.

Amy Stone [00:34:17]:
I wonder if there’s a tour for that. I wonder if somebody has, like, a Spain pie. That is. That’s. Okay. My mind. I’m off topic. I’m off topic. That does happen. Okay. Lee, do you have a favorite flower or plant?

Leigh Lincoln [00:34:31]:
Yes, roses. Preferably pink or pink and white striped.

Amy Stone [00:34:35]:
Love it. Love it. If you are in the grocery store shopping and a song comes on, you know, the grocery store music that is like. That doesn’t have the lyrics, but it’s playing the things, and it’s a song, you know. Do you sing along softly in public, or do you not even notice the music that’s playing in the grocery store?

Leigh Lincoln [00:34:55]:
I usually not only start singing along softly, but I quite frequently start dancing like I did the other day, and this guy was laughing at me.

Amy Stone [00:35:04]:
That is. That is similar to what happened to me a little while ago, which inspired this question. I was in. In the grocery store, not even thinking about it, and there were several of us singing along in the same aisle in the store, and I was just, like, laughing. I was like, this is really funny. This is really funny. It’s just really funny. That’s it. Lee Lincoln, thank you so much for being an amazing guest on the Art of Imperfect Adulting.

Leigh Lincoln [00:35:26]:
Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun.