Episode 3: The Future of Female Filmmaking with Soraya Simi

Welcome to the Entertainment Business Podcast. I'm your host, Tisha Morris. Join me as we go inside the entertainment industry of film, TV, books, music, and all content creation, where we'll weave together the creative and business of entertainment with practical tips, inspirational interviews, and insider information of all the latest trends. And with that, let's get on with the show. Today I'm so excited to have on the show Soraya Simi. Soraya is a film director and producer specializing in documentaries, television, and commercials. Soraya is originally from Arizona and moved to California to attend USC's film school, where she directed multiple award-winning documentaries including her poetic thesis film Saltwater, along with her environmental and sailing documentary Where the Water Takes Us. Soraya regularly writes, directs, and produces high-level branded content and commercials, sometimes featuring celebrities such as Meghan Markle and David Chang. Her first documentary feature is Row of Life, and it follows the harrowing story of Paralympic ocean rower Angela Madsen. More recently, Sariah is co-directing her first true crime docuseries, El Grande. So without further ado, welcome to the show, Sariah.

Thank you so much. Happy to be here.

Yeah.

So just for context, so I met Sariah through the 805 Film Company. 805, for those who are not familiar with that area code, it's the area code that encompasses Santa Barbara, Ojai, Ventura, and some of the surrounding areas. And we'll hear more about the 805 Film Co. in a minute. But just wanted to— I had the pleasure of meeting Sariah through that group, and I just really champion any, any women in film. And that's, that's one of the main reasons I want to have Sariah on, but also because you just have had your hands in such interesting projects. At an early stage of your career. And I just see you as one of the big up-and-coming directors and filmmakers coming up. So yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna call it now. Yeah.

Oh, that's really nice to hear. Thank you.

So let's go back in chronology for a second. I want to hear, when did you first know you wanted to be a filmmaker, or in at least, or in the industry in some capacity?

Oh, what a great question, because it's actually a funny story. It was— I was 14 and I was over at my friend's house and her brother had just found out he had been accepted into USC's film school and he screamed from his bedroom and he ran downstairs and everybody is freaking out and I have no idea what was going on. He's waving this paper and everybody calms down. I'm like, what's going on? He's like, they got it. He got into USC film school. And I said, what does that mean? And he's going to college to learn how to make movies. And I was like, you're kidding me. That's like an actual thing. People can do. And it planted this seed of, that's incredible. Its reputation is like academically sound. This seems like something that my parents wouldn't be upset if I picked. And it all at once sort of just coalesced everything that I had been interested in, all these varieties of storytelling and topics that I wanted to pursue but didn't know how to turn everything into a profession. And to me, once I understood what filmmaking was as a tool, I just completely set my sights on it as anything I'm interested in can be incorporated under this umbrella. So it was just such a cool path forward. And then I set my sights on USC truly just because of that moment. It was just that simple of a, of a kismet thing.

Wow. Yeah, that's— isn't that amazing how we— I mean, we get a lot of— we hear a lot of conversations and— but those ones that stick with us, you know, stick with us for a reason. And you were in— you grew up in Arizona, correct?

Yes.

It's not like you grew up at Beverly Hills High School or anything.

No. Yeah, like adjacent. I didn't even know anyone who was a filmmaker. Like, it just was so out of the— out of my mindset of a possibility.

Oh, that's awesome. Um, so you set your sights on USC and actually went there?

Yeah, I, I went to a very, um, academically rigorous high school. It was a STEM-focused school, which I realized, uh, very quickly wanting to pursue film that that was inconvenient, and, uh, petitioned, uh, the school board to offer more arts and humanities classes. So they started a photography program, and then I, um, asked if we could do something more in film, and they didn't— they didn't have anyone locally to teach it, so I volunteered to teach it at 15 years old. And it was a very cute after-school program called Movie Club where we watched classic films. But over the 5 years that I ran it, we eventually were like a full-fledged mini production thing. Um, and it was very charming. And yeah, it just— it was just so helpful in retrospect to just be so laser-focused of what I wanted. And I, and I know it's rare. I don't— I, you know, a lot of people my age weren't— didn't have that same focus. But it just made the goal so concrete. And once I set my sights on it, I just worked really hard on the whole manifestation game. And then also knew I could only go to USC if I got a scholarship. So it really underscored working hard academically and making, making sure I would be able to do it.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So your, your first film, or maybe not your first film, but your first notable film, which was part of your thesis coming out of USC, was called Saltwater. And so tell me, kind of, and I'm asking this question also for people who maybe for their first film, whether it's for school or not for school, did you like direct, produce, do the cinematography, the DP? Like, did you do it all?

So in that particular class, that's a class you take your junior year at USC, and it's called 310. And 310 is like your, in quotes, thesis film, which is a crude way to put it. But you work in a team of 3, and over the semester, each person writes and directs, produces and does sound, and then shoots and edits, and you rotate the roles of the 3. So in one semester you make 3 films as a trio, and that was the one that I wrote and directed. So I did not do the producing, I did not do the sound, I did not— I did some of the cinematography, but I don't know that we're allowed to. I did the underwater stuff and the editing. And so that was just a great introduction to the inherent collaborative spirit of film. Like, people would get really precious about, but I wrote it, I directed it, it was mine. But it would have been impossible to make unless you had those other people to lean on.

So, yeah, so one of the things I love about being a part of the industry is it is part of a, like, such a collaboration and all the, each person doing what they do best coming together for this joint project. At what point? So let me, I want to hear about the first film you did outside of school and how that came about, because I'm sure that took some guts when you're not like on assignment?

Yeah, so I, uh, in film school— I mean, growing up in Tucson, Arizona, I always had this love affair with the ocean and knew as soon as I could just be coastal, I was gonna set up shop in a driftwood shack and never leave the beach. And, uh, so most of my stories in this era all revolve around the ocean. And so I had heard about a study abroad program early when I was at USC called Sea Semester, where you get to live on a sailboat and research climate change and travel. And I had also minored environmental studies, so climate change was just a huge point of my, um, storytelling that I wanted to focus on. And so here came an opportunity that included this sort of adventurous spirit that I had, um, front row seat to the ocean, uh, climate research, and then an opportunity to tell a story. So unfortunately USC didn't, um, see it as a legitimate study abroad, so I took a leave of absence that semester. It's totally worth it, And I produced a 20 to 25 minute short film called Where the Water Takes Us, which at first I wanted it to be about climate resilience across the Caribbean, different examples of how these islanders are adapting to various issues of climate change, but realized really quickly you can't effectively tell a story about people you don't know really well. And it almost immediately, oh, the people I'm going to know the best at the end of this experience are my shipmates. So the story as I was making it kind of took a 180. It's very messy. It's definitely not, you know, the film I would point to as the best example of my filmmaking. It was hard as hell to make a film on a boat. I was extremely seasick. It's a mess all the way around. But it was such a labor of love and like a commitment to finish what I started. And not to jump ahead, but it was because of that film that actually had the domino effect into my next project, which would be Rove Life with Angela Madsen. She saw it at a sailing club, and so it was just one passion kind of led to the next.

Yeah, so it sounds like that film was a lot of growing pains, a lot of learning and growing pains, um, and the best and the best and worst ways. Um, yeah, so I love the word like messy, and like, explain how I don't know that I'm— this is actually not a leading question. Um, as an attorney, sometimes my questions tend to be leading, but this one actually isn't because I don't know the answer of is it kind of good or bad to get emotionally involved with your— I mean, as a documentary filmmaker, obviously if it's scripted, it's, or, you know, a narrative scripted, that's different. But with documentary filmmaking, is it to your advantage or disadvantage to get emotionally invested?

I think it's neither good nor bad. I think it's inevitable. I think as a human being who, you know, chooses storytelling as a life pursuit, you kind of inherently are really empathetic, and you can only pursue that kind of work if you have a natural capacity to really bond with people, you know, and bear witness to their experiences in a way that matters to them.. And so in the instance of learning this lesson a really personal way with Row of Life, my film about Angela Madsen, she called me like a month after I graduated from USC because she had seen this sailing documentary. And actually it was a Facebook message at first, and she said, hey, I'm gonna row the ocean solo, do you want to make a video about it? And it was this random person, I had no idea what that meant, like No. And then she called me and I realized she was this 60-year-old woman, this crazy mop of gray hair, this super inappropriate sense of humor. And oh yeah, she was in a wheelchair and I was so blown away by her and it just completely subverted all expectations I had. And then after Googling her, I realized she's this formidable athlete, 3-time Paralympian, 14-time Guinness World Record holder. And I'm like, holy smokes, why is she coming to me? I'm just like a nobody. Um, but she wanted to work with a young woman, and she wanted to work with someone who had a passion for the ocean and was comfortable in the water. That was a really clear guideline for her. And yeah, just based mostly on that kind of shared passion, we became really fast friends. And, um, she had a daughter who had actually passed away the year before, um, that I met her, which I actually only learned way later in our relationship as a filmmaker and protagonist. But yeah, we just had a bond. And it's just kind of one of those things that happens in life that, that isn't scripted and you can't control it. It just took on a life of its own. And what went from a little video turned into my first feature film. But yeah, I was just incredibly close with Angela and her partner, Deb. Because I felt really protective after I was learning what it meant to live in Angela's shoes as a paraplegic woman, a Marine veteran, someone who had been through some of the most extreme situations life can throw at you, and to still wake up every day with the level of optimism and go-getter attitude and, and have such unbelievably ambitious dreams and the confidence that she was going to make them happen. It was just like an addictive personality to be around, but also one I felt very protective of because I saw how mistreated, you know, disabled person is day to day. And it just bred this awareness. Suddenly I'm bearing witness to someone I care about suffering to a certain extent. So yeah, it just happened the way it happened and it's happened in every single project I've worked on since. You just get close to people and, you know, you in documentaries at least, the reality of it is when things go wrong, they really go wrong. You know, there's no reverse, there's no rewriting the scene or hiring new actors for it. It's, it's life. And in the case of Angela, which her role ultimately has a pretty tragic twist, it was just such a sobering— I was 23 at the time, just like a crazy way to start my film career of, oh my God, like the worst case scenario has happened. And What am I doing, like, pursuing these kinds of stories of these kinds of people without being skewed of films like Free Solo or like these, you know, things that were so popular at the time that I'm graduating? And what I loved about Angela is she was such a different character in every sense of the word, um, from anyone I'd ever seen before. But you get this skewed perception that these sort of extreme sports kind of always work, even though the stakes are high. Like, you've only ever seen films where there's a payoff and it's successful. But what happens when it's not successful. And I think this film really inadvertently explores the consequence of that, which was absolutely not an intention on the onset. It's just what gets revealed in the making of.

Yeah, it's hard not to draw some Naiad comparisons.

Totally.

Yeah, which is the funny thing, that Diane and I had an Angela Madsen—

yeah, yeah. Um, when does this— when, when would this be publicly released? I can't wait to see it.

I can't wait either. Um, it is picture locked as of a couple weeks ago and in the, um, vague world of pre-sale now. Okay, so as soon as someone wants to buy it—

okay, all right, so anyone out there listening that you might be interested in Rule of Life, um, contact me. I'm just kidding. Um, Have you had any films in a film festival? Have you done the film festival circuit yet in your career?

Yeah, I did quite a bit of film festival tours with that short Saltwater and a couple of others like that. Sailing Dock did a big tour of yacht clubs across California. Unfortunately, a lot of those coincided with the pandemic, so many of those were virtual and not in person, which is another kind of interesting I don't know, window into like this professional coming-of-age chapter where me and my colleagues from school, we all talk about this, but like, oh, we graduate, we're all hungry for work, and then bam, the world goes offline for 2 years, and then we think it's coming back online, and bam, there's a strike.

Right.

It's just been like a fake career. But, uh, just totally joking with that. But yeah, so not, not very many I got to experience in person, which would— which I'm eager to do. Like really proper film tour.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, you've really like started out the gate with some of some tough hard life like realities. Um, so I have a feeling you're going to get a nice smooth sailing, um, in the near future. Um, so you've had these, um, kind of nature and water themed, um, projects and pictures, uh, so far, and then you kind of took a you've taken a— took a pivot, and I'm curious, and you've taken a pivot into true crime, and was that an intentional pivot to kind of not brand yourself as the water filmmaker, or did it just come about? So if you want to tell us about a little bit about this true crime.

Sure, of course. Yeah, the pivot was not intentional at the time. Today, I'm really happy that I made the decision to not stick to any one label. Even documentary filmmaking, I'm trying to stay away from that because I'm fascinated by scripted stories. I've had so many ideas for scripted stories that I just don't want to stay in any one box in my career. But this true crime series, a friend of mine who is a very prominent attorney in Tucson, Arizona, where I'm from, called me at the beginning of 2022 and he said, hey, I've got a story idea and I think it's finally time to tell it. And I don't know how to get something made. You're the filmmaker that I know. How do we get a TV show made? And I said, okay, I don't know, but let me— I'm curious to learn. Like, let me look into this for you. And he starts telling me the story, and it's immediately extremely fascinating. It originated in 1992 in South Tucson, and it is about a triple homicide that happened in a market called El Grande. So the show is called El Grande, um, and it's essentially a story about a wrongful conviction of a 17-year-old boy, um, in, in this case. And as Michael was revealing the layers of this story, which are completely staggering, I was hooked. And true crime is something I've always been a fan of but have never personally, like, thought to pursue, um. And so right away, I actually told him Okay, this isn't going to fall under my purview of something I'll direct or anything, but I certainly want to help you move this forward. Maybe I could be a producer on it, and I just want to learn how something like this gets made. So I went back to my professors at USC. I had one professor who did the O.J. Simpson series, and I talked to her, and her first— Wendy Lee, awesome woman, shout out Wendy— right away she looked at me and was like, 'Oh, don't tell yourself you can't do this. You can do this. Like, you should do this. This is an incredible story, and this isn't as hard to make as you think.' I mean, like, she just demystified the process. And she said that, and then another producer I met with who had done the Making a Murderer series said the same thing. He's like, 'Oh, don't undermine your ability to do this. You can do this.' And it was so formative. I cannot express this enough, to hear that from people who in my mind were 20+ years ahead of me. And so it took 2 years of developing this show bit by bit, getting advice and figuring out how to plot a story, figuring out what the temperature of the industry was. True crime seems to outlast anything. It's always a hot topic. And then bit by bit, we were getting really good reception. Scout Productions, who did— who've done Queer Eye and a ton of TV, said yes right away. And then we redevelop it with them and I'm like learning so much in this process. And then Get Lifted, John Legend's company, came on board and that was incredible. And then now we're working with Universal as well. And it just was this crazy snowball kind of all at once, once you built the idea ironclad enough. So that's going to go— I mean, production has kind of started, but really officially it will start this summer and that will be a 4-episode series that I'm co-directing with one of my best friends. And it's been great. It's been a huge learning experience so far. But to circle back to your original question about that development of a relationship with characters, when I met two of the women who are main characters in the show, the wife and daughter of the man who was wrongfully convicted, that was another turning point for me where so immediately I felt personally connected to these two women and fiercely protective over them the same way I felt about Angela. And they made it very clear that they wanted— they would only participate if I were going to be a part of it because we just had— they just trusted me. And we just had this connection as young women of color living in Tucson, Arizona, just this kind of basis line. They did not want, you know, a white guy from LA coming in to like film them in their house. And I understood that. And It was something I had to wrestle with for a while privately of, can I really commit to telling another story that might pull me into some darker corners, which I've not learned yet how to frankly, like, separate. I think it's really hard as a filmmaker, and I imagine for people like therapists too, when you are absorbing other people's stories, I don't know how you like peel yourself away from it. You just you're a sponge, you take it in and you have to filter it somehow. And that's the creative process. Yeah.

And also that when actors do like biopics, you know, acting is kind of a tragic character. Imagine like when they make the Joker, for example.

Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I think, you know, what you're saying, I'm just reflecting back about like just how important it is to have films made from the female perspective. It adds such another layer that— not that male producers aren't— or directors and producers aren't great, but we need these films told from a female perspective. And I think obviously we both share that, that perspective. And you actually had the Women in Film part of the 805 Film Company. Tell a little bit about your inspiration behind spearheading that. Sure.

So, um, I— after, um, Row of Life, the film with Angela the rower, went on pause, uh, I took a year away and I lived in Portugal, um, and peaced out. I didn't know I was coming back to the United States, um, and eventually I moved back because a friend was subletting their studio in Santa Barbara, and I thought, oh, what a nice way to reenter. I was pretty done with living in LA, but didn't know how to reengage with it, didn't know how to reengage with my career. It was just this kind of messy time. And 3 months in Santa Barbara in front of the beach sounded awesome. So I said yes to that. And when I got here, I realized pretty much immediately that I was never going to leave. And that created an interesting conundrum of, oh, Darn, I'm not living in the— in LA, New York, like central hubs for my career where I'm, you know, not rubbing shoulders with people who would really help me move forward. There aren't dozens of production companies laying around to go get work. Um, but bit by bit, I was meeting one person after another. I had this crazy Zoom call with an editor I hired for this crime series I mentioned earlier, and lo and behold, he like happened to live in Santa Barbara. We found out in the Zoom call.

Like, it was—

I learned so many people had actually relocated to this area during the pandemic and that in general there, there was quite a substantial, um, crew of people here that maybe just live a little more discreetly, wanted to be big city adjacent. And it just seemed, as I kept meeting people, it was more a question of, um, just missed connections, like needing, needing something to kind of concentrate it all. So it started really casually with just mixers at a brewery, and I mean, 60+ people would show up to those, and we did those several times. And then people would have ideas like we should do screenings, so on and so forth. So it just kind of— the idea just grew on itself, like, um, and, and, uh, yeah, it became 805 Film Co. officially at the beginning of last year, 2023, where, um, we made it a point to host a monthly event that would, um, kind of unite the film community and to also do something in each different city. So Santa Barbara, Ventura, Ojai, Another leg that came out of that is this wonderful Women in Film chapter, which was a specific focus on the women in this area, what they're making, who they are, what's being contributed, and also just kind of like a safe space for us to talk about our careers and what's going on. But yeah, it's, it's now a database of I think 300-something people and growing daily. That's literally like an online database. You can log on and find out who's who. Um, and just a lot of cool ideas coming forward in the future. And a lot of people who, as, as it runs, have more contributions and want to help. So I'm really optimistic it will continue to grow. And there's no, um, there's no like capitalistic mindset here. It's just, while it's a useful resource for the community, then let's keep it going.

Yeah, I love it. I'm a card-carrying member myself. And any listeners who are in the 805 area, then any area of the industry, check 805filmcode.com.

Is that correct?

Yeah, go check it out. And yeah, the resources that you've said are the resource page and all of it is, is wonderful. All the— by the way, all of you should definitely check out Soraya's Instagram. You're— it's clear that you come to the lens naturally. Your, your photos you take are just cinematic within themselves. And so before I forget, your Instagram handle is Soraya Simi. Sorry, Simi.

Yep, thank you. Just my name. That's really sweet. I appreciate that. Thank you so much.

I love seeing your posts. Um, yeah, so, so for someone who is got— maybe, maybe they're past the age of going to school or going back to school, or— and but they have this itch to, to make a film or somehow to, you know, embark on some kind of filmmaking, where would you advise them to start?

That's a great question, and I don't think film school is necessary. I fall in that camp of you don't have to go to film school to know how to make films. What I learned in film school— that was— I had a wonderful experience. I learned how to work with other people early in my career, and I learned how to give and take notes really well. And then of course the exposure to just great events, great films, just sort of increasing your film literacy. But you don't need to be in a school to do that. So I think right away it's a matter of exposing yourself to the classics. Of course, you have to have some kind of library of thought, but also just what's cutting edge, what's unique, what's coming about. I think just a constant literacy of consuming great cinema is just— it's doing so much work in the background of how you are nurturing your own taste, basically. And then from there, just doing it. And I think as absolutely heinously difficult as all the independent projects I've worked on have been, nothing has taught me more than the, um, the jump start of all of those. And then also to be graceful with yourself that you don't necessarily have to be good at every job. I think filmmaking fundamentally is not that. It is a collaborative team effort. You do not have to have the skill sets of a producer, You do not have to have the skill sets of a director or a sound operator, or there's specialized roles for a reason because we all bring these unique skills to the table to bring it forward. So it's also a process of elimination of what really speaks to you. Suddenly you're in the edit and maybe you're just on fire and you can't stop. For me, that was the opposite. I thought I wanted to be an editor for a while and I went blind. Like, I couldn't be in the basement that long. But you just learn that about yourself. So it's— I think the first thing I teach on an after-school program to kids still to this day for filmmaking, and the first question we ask them is, what do you care about? Because I think if there's a, um, you know, just a seed of something that is genuinely, authentically, um, there, a passion that you have, you're going to put in more effort to, um, make it come to fruition in a way that has integrity for you. And so a lot of them, you know, it's like, I care about my dog or my little brother, but there's, there's an attachment, right? A connection there. And, um, and so we start there and you build those ideas forward. But if there's something you truly care about, that passion is going to get communicated. It's through osmosis in your work. It touches everything you do. You're going to know the right person to go interview or the right time of day to go shoot something because it's, it's you, it's in your DNA. So my long-form answer— short, short-form answer to a long-form answer is you just gotta go for it and make it and and embrace the suck. Yeah. But it's also, you get like a weird nostalgia for it after the fact.

Yeah. You kind of answered my next question of like, is it like trying to find out where your niche in the whole process lies? And I guess you kind of obviously had done a lot of experimentation of, and you've learned that it's not editing and so forth. But I think probably the one through line with all of it is a desire for storytelling. Right. Like that, that desire has to be there. And regardless of if you're doing scripted or non-scripted, because that's at the end of the day, what, what you're doing, that urge for, for that urge for storytelling, even in the edit post, you know, post-production and editing, like that's so much of the storytelling and, and, you know, and the editing process, even on the tech, on the technical side.

Totally. Yeah. And I think, um, just to echo what you just said. Yeah. I, I'm actually, um, also writing a book right now, a novel. Based loosely on my experience of when I was living in Portugal. And it just— one, I was like, "Gosh, I have this story that's in my mind and I can't believe it's a fictional story that's so unlike me." And it just seemed like the best medium to tell it was going to be in a novel format. And so I gave it a go and started writing even though it wasn't at all in my, you know, portfolio of something I did. But I think the right story finds the right storyteller. I believe to my deepest bones it's an absolute alchemy that has to happen. And I believe the right— the story has to also find its right medium. Um, so not every story you hear about, uh, belongs to you. It's not going to be yours to tell, but it's great if you think of the right match for it, you know, if maybe someone else would be the right producer for it or whatever. Um, and I just think there's this, uh— I like to believe there's a world of like a different kind of currency where we all live just spreading a different kind of energy about what stories actually give us because they, they're everything. I think it's how we've boiled down all this wisdom over, you know, millennia of being alive. And we, you know, story— look how much we've built around storytelling, you know, in our life.

As a creator, I think what you said was so astute in that we have— we're as creatives, we're flooded with so many ideas that come to us. And I love your kind of your suggestion, so to speak, of knowing which one is for you. And there's always also a timing. I've learned there's a timing. I've had ideas that came to me. An idea came to me 8 years ago driving up Big Sur for a, for a novel. And that was, yeah, 2014. And it just came back around to me and like a new aspect of it. And And so the timing of how things come to us, um, is nonlinear. And as creatives, and you, you obviously have, or just, I'm sure have ideas like just flooding to you constantly and, and, um, knowing which ones to, to jump on and which ones to let go of. But I think as creatives, we, we'll, we'll always have more ideas than we have time in our lifetime to, to create. Um, So is there like a certain gut feeling you have about something, or is it just when something just starts coming, when people start, you know, coming to you with, with, with, with action steps, or what is that for you when you're— when it's a yes?

Um, so yeah, I absolutely love this question. I think ideas are their own like sentient beings, and when they need to get born, they're, they're going to be born, whether it's— you as the birth canal or something else, which is why this whole idea of the zeitgeist, right, where we have a lot of similar things come out all at once, it's just, it's the idea of time, totally makes sense to me. I totally believe in that. And for me personally, you know, in the instance of Roe v. Wade, for example, that story is so undeniably mine to tell. It has become so personal. It was a person's last request here on Earth that, you know, I tell this story. So that, that's just without question, no one, no one will ever be able to take that away from me. And that, that's a pretty easy one, right? Of like, okay, I'm signed up for this one whether I like it or not. And then, yeah, with the El Grande series, I actually didn't think for a long time I was the right storyteller. And that gut feeling happened when with those two women, when they told me they wouldn't participate unless I was a part of it. And it, yeah, that was a really sobering moment where I realized that this attachment to them as people and to honor their story was just hinged on my participation. So that was, you know, a specific gut feeling. In the instance of the novel or other ideas I have baking in the background of my mind of things I'm really like itching to develop in the next couple of years, It's those things that won't go away, I think. Just keep coming up, you keep revisiting them. Oh, that's still a good idea. I had this idea 5 years ago and it's still a good idea today, and I haven't seen anyone do it. Um, so I think that's something else, but it's not necessarily like— and I'd be curious to hear your own experience with it— like, it's not a one-and-done thing. It's just sort of subtle differences between each.

Yeah. Yeah. I find that too, of, of it won't go away. It won't leave me alone. Um, yep. That's been the case for, for my books so far. Um, I just finished a memoir that I'm shopping. And, um, after this book, so I heard, I heard a speaker once at a writing conference say, uh, after you write the book that you know you have to write, you can write anything. I think that's true for any creative project, not just books.

Totally agree with that. Yeah. All right.

So we should be on the lookout for Row of Life. I cannot wait to see that, to when that comes to screen. Tell listeners the best way to find you online and to look out for your work.

Sure. Yeah. Thank you so much for this interview and this time. I've absolutely loved it. I'm on Instagram. Soraya.seemy.com— or .com, what am I saying? Instagram handle. I have a website. I try not to be on social media. I'll do cleanses often. I think the best way, if you really care to follow along, I have a newsletter that I haven't sent one in a long time, but I'll send one probably this weekend. And it's just a more in-depth compilation of what's going on. It's information I don't necessarily care to put on on a social media platform, but just a lot more, um, just deeper dives into my work, what's going on, reflections about life and all the things. So, um, that newsletter you can just sign up for on my website. And, uh, yeah, awesome.

All right, well, thank you so, so much, and we'll be seeing you down the road on screen.

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you like the podcast, please like, subscribe, maybe even share to your friends. And for more information about my services, visit my website at tishamorris.com. That's T-I-S-H-A M-O-R-R-I-S. Well, that concludes today's episode, and I wish you all the best. Until next time, keep creating, and please take care.