What could be steamier than a summer of fashion, frolicking, and fun in the Hamptons?! When one influencer is cancelled, she moves out east for the summer, only to find out her neighbor is the journalist is the one who canceled her! And wait until you read what comes next. Want to see Tinx and Zibby in conversation?! Here's the video on YouTube!

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Tinx. Thanks so much for coming on Totally Booked with Zibby to talk about Hotter in the Hamptons. Congratulations. 

Tinx: Thank you. This is the first podcast that I'm doing about the book, so I'm very excited. 

Zibby: No way. 

Tinx: You got the best version of me. By the end, I'm like, oh, read it or don't, I don't care. So now you'll get the best freshest version of myself.

Zibby: I am totally honored, especially from someone who has a podcast, which is so amazing, and.. 

Tinx: Thank you. You're so sweet.

Zibby: I got to listen to you. I was gonna ask you about the new adaptation of the book from the Foster Sisters, and then I heard you talking all about it and how excited you are. But first. Why don't you tell listeners what your book is about?

Tinx: Yeah. My book is about an influencer who gets canceled and she has a steamy fling with someone unexpected, and it's a spicy summer read, and it's very fun and juicy. There are some, deeper themes. You can take what you want from the book. It can be as fun or as deep as you want it to be.

And it's my first work of fiction. It is a work of fiction. I think people hear oh, it's about an influencer. They assume that it's about me. Obviously, they say to write what you know, and I do know a lot about the influencer industry, but it is fiction and yeah, I'm so excited. And what made you write fiction?

I had read a couple of articles about how romance novels were really popular kind of regaining popularity and had brought on this new life with book talk and I'm on book talk and I loved how passionate everybody was about this category and I didn't know a lot about romance prior to a year and a half ago.

So I started reading a lot of romance and kind of fun, like fun romantic reads. And I really enjoyed, but I often found myself.. I don't know. I found that a lot of the time the protagonist was so perfect, she was like a princess or she was like, worked at an animal shelter. She was like a neurosurgeon or whatever, like these really perfect women, which I love.

I think women are perfect. But I was like, what if, I love intricate messy women. I think we all contain multitudes. And I just thought to myself what if the protagonist, she had some flaws and what if, the story wasn't as clear cut as just, some of the ones that I'd read, which were all fabulous by the way.

And so I got started thinking about that. And then when I was growing up, I started thinking about I read the Gossip Girl books and I loved them and I remembered that. One of the reasons that I loved 'em was because they were so replete with details about place like New York and the Hamptons.

And when I was growing up, all I wanted to do was live in New York. Like I was obsessed with New York, so many young people are. And I would write down like all of the things in the book, I'd be like, oh, they go here and they wear this. And it was back in the day before social media. So that was my window into it.

I wanted to combine all those thoughts and I, it's also like a very spicy book and I like talking about sex. I like. I think being horny is a good thing. I think, it's human nature. My community and I, we really go there on the podcast. We go there on my, ask me any things and I, I just all came together in this idea of this first book.

Long-winded answer, but.. 

Zibby: No, not at all. That's why basically you decided to do it a year ago and you just whipped it out and now it's like this great book. 

Tinx: Yeah. 

Zibby: And the rest of us are just banging our heads against the wall, so thank you for that. 

Tinx: No. It's yeah, it was, it's been.. 

Zibby: Read a few romcoms and you too can have a bestselling book.

Tinx: Exactly. 

Zibby: Was it easier or harder than you thought? You have so many creative endeavors going on, like this is a different part of the brain. 

Tinx: I, it's definitely hard, but I. Really writing because, I went to school for writing. I did undergrad English major, and then I have a master's in journalism.

So for me, it's a break from online, and I don't mean that in a holier than that way at all. I am 100% addicted to my phone, and I hide under the fact that it's for my job. And so for me, when I write, it's using a different part of my brain and it genuinely feels like a relief. And if I really wanna get something done, then I kind of stick to the schedule and it, so it's just, it's nice.

It's nice to get away from my phone for an hour a day or whatever it is. 

Zibby: Is that how you did it, like short chunks each day versus. 

Tinx: Yeah, short chunks. I'm someone who like. I don't know. I think this is very Virgo of me. I like to lay everything out like literally so that I can fill it in. 'cause like the satisfaction of filling out a chunk, whether it's a paragraph or a chapter, is very satisfying to me.

So that's like the only way that I can get anything done. And, but writing or beyond, like I have to, make it mini chunks and then just fill 'em out, then it's not scary. Even with like big projects, a long time ago I read an interview with Emily Weiss, who's the founder of Glossier, and I think she's really cool and, she's been villainized in the media for, I don't really know why, but she, I remember like reading an early interview with her and she said, they were like how did you start Glossier and Into the Gloss?

And she said she got a whiteboard and she wrote down all, every single thing that needed to happen for her too. For her to do, for her to launch these companies and or whatever her website, like very minute things like figure out the font of this or whatever. Like tiny things. And it was like hundreds and hundreds of things on her list and she just went to work on them.

And that has always stuck with me. I must have read that 10 years ago, and it's always stuck with me and it's always been a really helpful framework for me. So I use that a lot. 

Zibby: See, that makes me wanna curl up and do nothing. Just have that overwhelming a list. 

Tinx: I know. I know for me, if it's on a list, it's plausible.

If it's not, then I'm like, oh, it's so scary. And it's it's just like a big thing to do and I don't know how to attack it, but yeah. 

Zibby: So in the book, you, as you mentioned, there are a lot of themes, one of which really is about figuring out who you are and what you want out of life, and are you with the right person?

Is that person bringing out the best in you? How much are you willing to give to someone else? 

Tinx: Yes. 

Zibby: Tell me a little bit about that and where do you find yourself on that spectrum now? 

Tinx: I think that, something I've always spoken about on my platform is, how important it is as a woman to find yourself and to know yourself?

It's always been super important to me, probably because I didn't do it for so long and it, it made me more miserable to not figure out who I am and I felt very depressed and, just a loser for a lot of my twenties because I wasn't focusing on the most, the hardest but most important thing, which is to work on the relationship with yourself.

It's easy to chase after jobs and boys and money and clothes and all those things, like that's an easier pursuit than just quiet, quieting the noise and going, okay, who am I and what do I want? And, finding your edges is so important. And so I think that's why I wanted that to be a main theme for Lola is, she gets a little lost and we often do, right?

We often do and I've found nine times outta 10 when you feel super lost, the answer is within you. You don't need to look outwards, you need to actually look inwards. As cheesy as that sounds. It's very true and it's a ma the kind of the theme of my first book. So I wanted to, illustrate that somehow in, in this. 

Zibby: Sometimes though, it does take these precipitating events and you have the one in your book, but I feel like life in general, like with friends or me or like there, it takes some thing where life is going a certain way and then it suddenly veers off and you have to come head to head with yourself and figure out where you go.

Tinx: And sometimes you don't even know that you've lost yourself, to your point until something happens and you're like, oh, I actually don't know who I am right now. And so that was very important for me to explore. 

Zibby: I feel like Lola, the way you showed it, it happens slowly. Like you don't lose yourself overnight.

You lose yourself little tiny bits, and then you don't even notice. 

Tinx: Exactly, and I feel like it honestly happens to a lot of, not even just women, but people in their twenties. I think twenties are a very mis marketed decade, and because of that, people don't spend a lot of time being introspective in their twenties.

I sure didn't, you leave college and you're. Bright-eyed and bushy tailed. But you have a sense of self, even though it's like super naive you know who you are and you have ambitions and you have goals. And then in your twenties you're just like, I hate my job.

I can't find a boyfriend. I don't know what city to live in. Should I go to business, school, whatever. And sometimes it's until, it's not until you hit the 30 mark. I think for a lot of people, the event that triggers the introspection is turning 30 and then they're like, whoa. Do I even want the same things as I did?

Is this even the right path for me anymore? And for me, I know that's true. I moved to LA when I was 29 and I was so lost. I was just so completely off of the path that I thought I should be on and had been on, and it took it took a million things for me to do some introspection.

Introspection. But yes, I think I wanna encourage even young people to, to not lose themselves and to really get to know themselves like you are. You should be your best friend, your great, your own greatest ally. You should really know yourself. And I really do wanna encourage young people to do that at younger so that they can make good choices about who they spend their time with and what they spend their time on.

Zibby: I think part of it I'm. Much older than you. At this point, I'm like 48. Like I feel like it's easier for me to say, gosh, I wish I had clung who I really was through those years. And I was like, maybe not with the right people for me or whatever. But I feel like when you're going through it, it's like you're, it's like you're on a unicycle, like trying to balance because you're changing as everything's happening to you.

And it's like impo, it feels impossible. 

Tinx: It does. Yeah. And it's no, you make a great point. Like it's not easy because in your twenties you are quite literally fighting to survive and you don't know like you're sink or swim and it is really overwhelming. So I agree. It's sometimes it's a unicycle is a great, image to have in your mind when we're talking about this because it's just.

It's really hard, and then all of a sudden you wake up and you're like, I don't even know what I like anymore. And you have to relearn that and allow yourself the space to get to know yourself and reconnect with 

Zibby: Who you really are. I think that's why, characters like Lola are so vulnerable to this passionate relationship with the person that you know, whoever it is, right?

Tinx: Yeah. 

Zibby: You can just, you fall so deeply when you don't have your own guardrails up. 

Tinx: Totally. And you can, you try to like create your identity around the people that you date, which is like another theme that I really wanted to explore because I think that's another trap that a lot of women fall under is like they.

And falling in love is amazing. I'm not saying don't fall in love in your twenties and have those amazing relationships, but it's very easy to just take on a role of the person that you're, yes, you're dating partner or whatever. And I think that for longevity, happiness, all those things you have to work on yourself and grow as well, even if you're in a relationship. Otherwise, you do get to that point where you wake up and you're like, oh, I don't really know who I am. 

Zibby: And that's why the allure of the confident other like Justin is so together exactly. Like he's a doctor, he's got it all together.

He's, straight, he's got his path and it's oh, I'll just jump on that path. That's good. 

Tinx: It's very attractive. 

Zibby: Yeah, very attractive. You have a lot of fashion in the book, which is very fun. So I was wondering on the side, did you have to think hard about these? Were these actual brand partnerships or was it just fun because these are brands you love?

Tinx: I thought a lot about Lola and who she was. I did a lot of work, like I did all of those exercises at the beginning where. You go through like pages and pages of what's Lola's favorite color? What's her favorite food? What does she wear? What's, what annoys her? I did a lot of that upfront, which was honestly really helpful because I would I used it as my guiding light and with the fashion, that's what came first to me.

I was like, I saw her in exactly the boho dress that she was wearing to go to the interview. Like I saw her, you know how she doesn't really take care of her clothes that well, but she loves them and I really like, I saw her in my mind's eye and that. That was honestly some of the first detail that came to the forefront because I love fashion too and being in New York, I get to see the most fashionable girls in the world walk around all the time.

Like I feel like even just walking to get my coffee every morning, I see these girls and I'm so inspired by them, how they put their outfits together and throw fits even on a random Sunday morning. So yeah, I'm, yeah, that was a fun part. 

Zibby: I'm sure this is probably in the works, but it would be great to have buy Lola's attire shop. Are you gonna do that? 

Tinx: Wow. No, that's a really good idea. We have to get on that. We really have to get on that. That's a genius idea actually. Yeah. I just, I love clothes and again, I love when there's like those details in books for this type of book. I think it's so fun to really see the little details of what she's wearing so that you can really imagine, you know what she's like.

Zibby: Yeah. I was like, I would like to click on this page. I would like to click here. 

Tinx: Yeah. 

Zibby: Some sort of interactive. 

Tinx: My God, my agents are gonna have a field day with that. 

Zibby: Have fun. I would like 10% of everything you sell. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. 

Tinx: Yeah, absolutely. 

Zibby: Another theme is friendship. And it's like when you're going, like with Lola, she's going through all of this excitement and lust and you, she's so wrapped up in herself, even the hard parts that often her best friend Ryan gets. He, she doesn't even think about him, but it's not because she doesn't care about her friends. She's very caring. It's just there is almost no room. And then of course she feels horribly guilty about it and all of that. And I feel especially when you're going through hard times, there is that tendency to feel like everyone else will just be there.

But you have to tend to those relationships too. 

Tinx: I think she's also like a little selfish. Like I wanted to make her, like I said, flawed and she is a bad friend. Like she is a little self-centered and it's up to the reader to decide whether that's her personality or that's a bad, circumstance of her job where she just takes things for granted and, s into the cracks on that one.

But I think she, she's a little, that's like part of her journey is realizing like, oh, it's not all about me. And another thing that I wanted to make, a detail is like Lola doesn't really have that many girlfriends, and I like that, that we get glimmers of that at the end. She doesn't have a huge circle of trusted, girlfriends, which is something that I think is really important.

And so I think the, her summer is also about realizing like she being vulnerable with people and being them for being there for them in return is a beautiful thing and something that can actually really help you grow and figure out who you are. Yeah, she's like a little bit of a shitty friend, but I think she's by the end figuring out what she needs to do to be a better one. 

Zibby: Oh, I feel like deep down she is a good friend. This stuff just gotten away. 

Tinx: Yeah. 

Zibby: I have a lot of hope for her. 

Tinx: Yeah. Yeah. 

Zibby: So meanwhile you've developed, tinks world. It's like you have your whole universe and it's amazing. And the way you even talked in this conversation about your followers, like with such respect, like you're all a team, right?

You're community, your platform. Tell me a little bit about that and how you grew that so and organically. You're, it's, yeah. Tell me more about that. 

Tinx: I have nothing but respect for my community. I think I'm very lucky with the people that follow me. I always say the people who follow me are girls who want the best for themselves and the best for the world, and they're a very conscientious bunch.

They are really hardworking. They are smart, they wanna be smarter and I think that I feel the duty to deliver great work to them, whether that's the podcast, whether it's a book, whether it's an Instagram story, like I really try to add value to their lives because I see them following me as an investment.

Like I see when they follow me, that's them like, putting their faith in me. So it's up to me to deliver. And that's how I've always thought about it, is I need to deliver. This is my job. And. I want to make them feel happy and seen and engaged every single day. So that's how I think about, feeding the community and being there for them.

Zibby: I've been following you for years and I was just wondering, I, we, my husband showed me one of your rich mom videos. In like in the beginning of Covid or something. So I've been following you since then and like laughing and watching your rise and it's been very exciting from the sidelines, so very cool.

But is there anything, you seem like you put it all out there. Are there parts of you that you have like off limits? Like I've said to myself, I'm not posting myself in my pajamas. That is my limit. 

Tinx: Yeah, I sadly post in my pajamas all the time. I do have things. I think I've drawn that boundary now. I've definitely share less and less in my personal life just because I don't really talk about my own dating life unless it's like a small little funny story just because I feel like it was too confusing for me.

I am a natural storyteller and when I was at a point where I was sharing everything about who I was dating. This sounds psychopathic, but I would, I could, I, the line was so blurred between the story I was telling and how I was feeling. And I couldn't separate them. And if you are creating content based off of your own personal life every single day, you can't find the line.

And that scared me because I was like, I felt like I was feeling things so that I could make the story a certain way, and that's really dangerous and weird and scary. And so I just decided that dating is like something that I'm gonna do by myself. I share the funny stories or like the one-off dates, the mishaps, but when I'm dating someone seriously, it's mainly just private.

Zibby: Awesome. And where do you want to take this whole thing? Do you have a grand vision? Are you just rolling with it? Is there a goal out there that you're, I know this adaptation was a goal of yours for a long time, and that's so exciting. 

Tinx: I really just try to follow my curiosity. I feel like now more than ever, I don't know exactly what I'm gonna do in the future, but I know who I am and I know what makes me happy.

I love creating work like I love creative projects I have no interest in being a manager or being managed I like this life of creative projects. I'm so lucky that I get to do it. And like I said, I don't really know what's in the future, but I know that I'm super excited about the TV adaptation.

I'm super excited about writing. So I think, and I love my radio show. I love my podcast. So I think if I get to keep doing this, a year and a half ago I didn't know that this would be my next project, but I just, I always like follow my curiosity. Like I just had this random idea for this hotter in the Hamptons and I just called my agents and I was, because I was actually writing the proposal for a different book, another nonfiction book about living on the internet and like I had finished the proposal and it was like good, but I just had this imagination thing and I was like, wait, I wanna do this right now.

And so I think just following my creativity and my curiosity if I get to keep doing that, I'll be so happy. 

Zibby: Which was the, what was the germ of the idea that you were like, I have to write this. 

Tinx: I just was like, it kind of all the things that I was talking about came together and it was honestly a lot of my rich mom content.

Not even the big full starter packs, but I would write on Instagram, like these detailed, more detailed, like snarky, like funny. The stories I would just post in an outfit and it would be like a random backstory. 'cause when I wake up I free write. And it's always like about a woman, like in a cool life, like usually in New York, and people would always say, I wanna know the rest of her story.

I wanna know the rest of her story. And I was like, wait a second, let me combine all these things and that's it. And that sounds so fun. Also, the other thing is I always try to create what I want to consume. When I was like reading all those books, I was like, what do I what would my version, what would my ideal version of this be?

I think about that with content. I'm gonna think about that with the TV adaptation what do I wanna see? And let's make it that, because I've always found that to be a great way to create authentic work. People are like, throw that around that word all the time. Oh, what's authentic? Like, how can you be real?

The most real thing to do is to create what you wanna see. Because then you're not thinking about, oh other people what do they want? How can I adjust it to make it more marketable or whatever. Create what you wanna see. That's the most authentic thing you can do. 

Zibby: So true. That's excellent advice.

And how involved do you get to be in the adaptation? Are you gonna write it, like what's the whole thing? And they'll write it. 

Tinx: I'm an executive producer. Don't fully know what that means because it's my first rodeo. But I do know it's a big deal. And I do know, we already had our first meeting and they are so receptive to my ideas, which is so amazing and why I wanted to work with them so badly.

So I am just really excited to dig in and learn a lot. It's my first time and I love. I don't mind being the dumbest person in the room. Like I, I wanna learn, like this is an incredible opportunity for me to, learn a lot on a project that I'm obviously super invested in. And hopefully it's the first of many.

Zibby: What do you think, like the, you who was writing down the gossip girl outfits would think of the you sitting here today? 

Tinx: I just, she wouldn't believe it. I really. I was thinking that this morning or last night too, because I was, interviewing Chelsea Handler for her new book, and I just don't think that she would've believed it.

Like I wanted this life so badly. Like I wanted to write about fashion. I wanted to go to cool parties, I wanted to create ideas. I wanted to inspire women and I just never saw the path. I was just like, I don't know how I'm gonna do that. And I just think she would be very thrilled and happy. So I feel lucky every single day.

I really do. 

Zibby: Oh, It's been so wonderful to watch all of your success and the book was so great and so immersive. I said this on Instagram, but my kids were around, I just kept having to close it 'cause they can, you're like, don't look at over here. Don't look at that word. I'm pretty sure you know what that means, but let's not talk about it.

Tinx: Oh my gosh. Thank you for reading and for this. This was so wonderful and this was such nice start to the press that I'm doing for the book. It was great to talk to someone who loves to reach as much as I thank you.

Zibby: Loved it and I'm looking forward to now shopping in your shop.

Tinx: Thank you. 

Zibby: Alright. Nice to meet you. 

Tinx: Nice to meet you. Thanks so much. 

Zibby: Okay, bye-bye.