Speaker 1: Hey friends, Eric here with some exciting news. I've been
Speaker 1: writing a book and it's about to be out in
Speaker 1: the world in April of twenty twenty six. The working
Speaker 1: title is How a Little Becomes a Lot, and it's
Speaker 1: all about how small, consistent actions, the kind that we
Speaker 1: talk about all the time on this show can lead
Speaker 1: to real meaningful change. Right now, the book is in
Speaker 1: the editing process and there's still some shaping to do,
Speaker 1: which is where you come in. I'd love your input
Speaker 1: on what to focus on, how to talk about the book,
Speaker 1: even what it should be called. If you've got a
Speaker 1: few minutes and a couple thoughts on what would make
Speaker 1: this book most helpful for you, I'd be really grateful
Speaker 1: to hear them. Just head to oneufeed dot net slash
Speaker 1: book survey. You'll also get early updates, fun giveaways, and
Speaker 1: to behind the scenes look at what it actually takes
Speaker 1: to make a book. Editing marathons, title debates, existential spirals,
Speaker 1: and me questioning all of my life choices at two
Speaker 1: am over one stubborn sentence. Again, that's one you feed
Speaker 1: dot net slash book survey. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: being part of this. Your feedback really means a lot
Speaker 1: to me. Truly.
Speaker 2: It's funny to me how many people think they're not
Speaker 2: creative because they don't make art, which I find sad.
Speaker 2: We're all creative, anyone who does a job doing anything.
Speaker 2: Anytime you brainstorm something, anytime you try to solve a problem, creative.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers
Speaker 3: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 3: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think,
Speaker 3: ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 3: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 3: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 3: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 3: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 3: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 3: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 3: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 3: how they feed their good wolf.
Speaker 1: A lot of people think creativity is something you do
Speaker 1: with a paintbrush or a poem or a perfectly arranged
Speaker 1: Instagram grid. But what if creativity isn't about what you
Speaker 1: make but how you live. In this episode, I talk
Speaker 1: with Maggie Smith, poet, author and champion of the messy,
Speaker 1: meaningful creative life. We dig into what it really means
Speaker 1: to be creative even when you're overwhelmed, unsure, and not
Speaker 1: feeling particularly inspired, and we ask a bigger question, how
Speaker 1: do we keep creating when the world is so loud
Speaker 1: and we're so tired. This is one of those conversations
Speaker 1: that doesn't just give you advice, it gives you permission.
Speaker 1: I'm Eric Zimmer, and this is the one you feed. Hi, Maggie,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: That's good to be back, it sure is.
Speaker 1: It's nice to see you again. We're here to discuss
Speaker 1: your latest book, which is called Dear Writer, Pep Talks
Speaker 1: and practical advice for the creative life. And we're going
Speaker 1: to get into all of that in a moment, but
Speaker 1: we will start in the way that we always do,
Speaker 1: which is with the parable. And in the Parable, there's
Speaker 1: a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild and they say,
Speaker 1: in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
Speaker 1: are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
Speaker 1: other's a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and
Speaker 1: hatred and fear, and the grandchild stops, thinks about it
Speaker 1: for a second, looks up at their grandparent and says,
Speaker 1: which one wins, and the grandparent says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you and your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do.
Speaker 2: I love that I've gotten to answer this question more
Speaker 2: than once, and I have to keep coming up with
Speaker 2: a different response for what it means to me. Eric,
Speaker 2: I've been thinking a lot lately about intuition, which is
Speaker 2: maybe like sort of a woo woo concept, but I've
Speaker 2: been thinking a lot more about it, and like the
Speaker 2: way that we can listen to that sort of voice
Speaker 2: inside ourselves that tells us what is true and good
Speaker 2: that we should be perhaps pursuing, and then there's probably
Speaker 2: another little voice inside of ourselves that says, yeah, but
Speaker 2: this might be more lucrative, or this might be an
Speaker 2: easier path, or this would be less of a hassle.
Speaker 2: And so I've been thinking about those two wolves in
Speaker 2: a kind of intuitive sense these days, which is, how
Speaker 2: do I tune into that inner voice inside me and
Speaker 2: ask it, like, what is true and good that I
Speaker 2: should be pursuing right now and what can I let
Speaker 2: fall away? Because as we get busier and as the
Speaker 2: news cycle gets more insane, yeah right, I mean, there
Speaker 2: are just so many little hooks in the world that
Speaker 2: are grabbing at us and competing for our time and attention,
Speaker 2: and so being able to kind of, I don't know,
Speaker 2: tune in to that kinder, clearer frequency and just know
Speaker 2: what to do with oneself on a daily basis seems
Speaker 2: essential right now. So that's what it kind of brings
Speaker 2: up in me at this particular time.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think about that question of intuition a lot,
Speaker 1: and about the inner voices and knowing which ones you
Speaker 1: want to listen to and trust and follow and which
Speaker 1: ones you want to let go. And I think that
Speaker 1: in many ways, this path of becoming more in touch
Speaker 1: with who we are and living a better and more
Speaker 1: meaningful life is just primarily about hearing those things and
Speaker 1: sorting them out. And for me, sort of say, the beginning,
Speaker 1: like when I got sober, as a beginning, right, I
Speaker 1: couldn't trust any of those in hear your voices, they
Speaker 1: were all bad wolves.
Speaker 4: Ye.
Speaker 1: Now, there's a lot of good wolves in there too,
Speaker 1: and I can trust it a whole lot more. But
Speaker 1: I do need to be a little bit more quiet.
Speaker 1: And I've been thinking about what you're talking about, like
Speaker 1: just the clamor like, I'm a big fan of substack.
Speaker 1: I know you're on substack. I love substack, and even
Speaker 1: substack feels so noisy to me. Now there's so many
Speaker 1: great writers. I'm feeling in a way i've never felt before,
Speaker 1: like a full retreat from online anything, because it just
Speaker 1: seems to be in some way ratcheting up something that
Speaker 1: I felt like I had some sort of grip on.
Speaker 1: I feel like now I'm back in the midst of
Speaker 1: the real struggle. Yeah, and I don't do any social
Speaker 1: media even well, then.
Speaker 2: Don't add that to your repertoire, because that's a whole
Speaker 2: other wolf.
Speaker 4: Yes, you're right, it's a whole pack. You're right.
Speaker 2: I think we could talk for a long time about
Speaker 2: all of the sort of negative stuff that's coming at
Speaker 2: us constantly that we're having to weed through because you
Speaker 2: have to pay attention to it and be informed in
Speaker 2: the world and not bury your head in the sand.
Speaker 2: But in order to sort of survive and thrive and
Speaker 2: make things and be useful to yourself and others. You
Speaker 2: can't be completely consumed by the news cycle. But it's
Speaker 2: not just that it's even good stuff is overwhelming, right,
Speaker 2: Like if you wake up in the morning and you
Speaker 2: have fifty substack notifications in your email of things that
Speaker 2: you really would like to read, yeah, and engage with,
Speaker 2: but you actually just don't even have the bandwidth for
Speaker 2: the incoming, good, worthwhile stuff. I've been thinking a lot
Speaker 2: about that lately, like how do we pair down because
Speaker 2: that seems really essential right now to just get to
Speaker 2: a place where, Okay, here are the things that really
Speaker 2: matter to me, and how do I kind of like
Speaker 2: weed through the rest of that static, even if it's
Speaker 2: good static.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I heard some writer I don't remember who
Speaker 1: it is who said, you know, it's not a problem
Speaker 1: of like trying to find the needle in the haystack anymore.
Speaker 1: It's basically a haystack full of needles at this point, right,
Speaker 1: And that is so true. Let's jump to the book
Speaker 1: for a second, because in the book you have I
Speaker 1: don't know, you could tell me how many what do
Speaker 1: you call them? Capacities? You've got attension wonder, what do
Speaker 1: you call it.
Speaker 4: Yes, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think I call them elements of creativity, or if
Speaker 2: I were coming up with a recipe for creativity. I
Speaker 2: think of them as like the ingredients in the secret Sauce.
Speaker 1: Great, Okay, So in the ingredients one of them, I
Speaker 1: believe the last one is hope. Yeah, And I thought
Speaker 1: we could go there because you just referenced the news cycle.
Speaker 1: You reference this idea of needing to be informed, And
Speaker 1: I'm struggling with this right now. I don't think I'm
Speaker 1: alone right because I'm having a desire to tune out
Speaker 1: in a way I never have because I feel so
Speaker 1: thoroughly overwhelmed, and that overwhelmingness leads to nothing, Whereas when
Speaker 1: I withdraw myself to a certain degree, then I can
Speaker 1: at least do what I feel like I can do
Speaker 1: in the world. And I've been questioning that statement of like,
Speaker 1: it's good to be informed, you need to know what's happening,
Speaker 1: And I've been wrestling with the idea of is that true?
Speaker 1: Is it moral to be informed? Is there actually virtue
Speaker 1: in that? Or is there only virtue in what you
Speaker 1: do as a result of being informed. I'm struggling with
Speaker 1: this question personally right now.
Speaker 2: That's a really interesting question, because what good is the
Speaker 2: information if it doesn't impact your behavior or the way
Speaker 2: you move through the world. I mean, knowing bad things
Speaker 2: are happening is one thing. But if you just know
Speaker 2: that the bad thing is happening, and then you just
Speaker 2: go make yourself a sandwich, how is that useful?
Speaker 1: Or you just read more and more and more and
Speaker 1: more bad things that are happening, right and you never
Speaker 1: get to good. I've been wanting to go back and
Speaker 1: read Candide because I don't really remember all of it.
Speaker 1: Do remember this core idea of like ten year garden. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I've been feeling a deeper need to like tend
Speaker 1: my garden. I guess anyway, you know what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to say, I do.
Speaker 2: But I also think part of that is that our
Speaker 2: garden is in our control, yeah, or at least is
Speaker 2: more in our control.
Speaker 4: It's not fully in our control, right.
Speaker 2: But when the world feels like it's complete chaos, which
Speaker 2: at least to me it does right now, the thing
Speaker 2: that I can do is take care of my family,
Speaker 2: make decisions for myself, donate my time and money to
Speaker 2: causes that matter to me, write my poems.
Speaker 4: Or essays or novels or whatever those things are.
Speaker 2: And so bringing it back to self is a way
Speaker 2: of feeling like you're in control in a world that
Speaker 2: feels like it's completely out of control.
Speaker 4: And yet I think it is a sort.
Speaker 2: Of moral imperative to be informed, because even voting comes
Speaker 2: from that, right, even protesting comes from that. If we
Speaker 2: all bury our heads in the sand because we're also
Speaker 2: over whelmed and we're not aware of the sort of imaginations,
Speaker 2: then they continue.
Speaker 4: But it's a balance.
Speaker 2: If I spend too much time in that world, I'll
Speaker 2: stop making things because my nervous system will be so
Speaker 2: overwhelmed I won't be able to write.
Speaker 1: Ye.
Speaker 4: So, like, what is that balance between.
Speaker 2: Tending my garden, which is important and necessary and that's
Speaker 2: my work, but also not tending my garden as a
Speaker 2: way to escape the world.
Speaker 1: Yep, Yeah, it's an ongoing balance. You say though in
Speaker 1: the book, if hope is imaginative, then pessimism is a
Speaker 1: failure of imagination. You still feel that, Talk to me
Speaker 1: about where you are with that today.
Speaker 2: I still feel that way, even with things happening now.
Speaker 2: And honestly, we could copy paste that sentence into any
Speaker 2: time in.
Speaker 1: History exactly or the future exactly right.
Speaker 4: I mean, like one of.
Speaker 2: The questions that people ask of poets forever is like,
Speaker 2: how is poetry important in these harrowing times?
Speaker 4: And I'm like, well, in.
Speaker 2: These harrowing times could also be copy pasted into any yes,
Speaker 2: time and history, Like if ten years ago wasn't harrowing
Speaker 2: for me, it's because of my like location or.
Speaker 1: Privilege, precisely because the world is always harrowing to some
Speaker 1: people somewhere.
Speaker 4: Always, one hundred percent of the time.
Speaker 1: There's this Buddhist story that I love about a woman
Speaker 1: who's chased by a tiger and she comes to an
Speaker 1: end of the cliff and she sees a sturdy vine
Speaker 1: and she climbs part way down, and it describes she says,
Speaker 1: there's tigers above, there's tigers below. Mice come out and starts,
Speaker 1: you know, gnawing at the and I'm like, that's life
Speaker 1: in perpetuity always.
Speaker 2: Yeah, tiger's above, tiger's below. Yeah, that's the shorthand for that.
Speaker 2: So it's no different now, really, I mean, does it
Speaker 2: feel a little different, sure, But we've always lived through
Speaker 2: difficult times. We are going to live through difficult times,
Speaker 2: and we keep making art, and if that's not a
Speaker 2: hopeful endeavor, I don't know what is. And yes, I
Speaker 2: can't make things, nor can I parent as a pessimist.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean it's actually like irresponsible. I think for me
Speaker 2: to be doing either of those things, like someone would
Speaker 2: have to take the keys from me if I say
Speaker 2: I'm driving the car like this, that's not okay. So
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean saying, don't worry, guys, Everything's going to
Speaker 2: be fine. I'm sure this is all going to like
Speaker 2: the pendulum's going to swing back and everything's going to
Speaker 2: be cool, and this is all going to be erase. No,
Speaker 2: like some of the things that are happening, particularly in
Speaker 2: the United States now, will be feeling the repercussions of
Speaker 2: this for centuries. Like none of this is small time stuff.
Speaker 2: But that doesn't mean we give up. Like what's the alternative, right,
Speaker 2: I don't get it.
Speaker 1: There was a book that was written I don't know
Speaker 1: how long ago now by a guy named Hans Roslin.
Speaker 1: It's called Factfulness, and basically what he's trying to do
Speaker 1: in the book is show that the world is getting
Speaker 1: better on a lot of measures. Right, we've all heard
Speaker 1: this by now, right, like childhood literacy rising, worldwide poverty following,
Speaker 1: you know, all these sort of things.
Speaker 4: But like expectancy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The thing that he says in that book, though, that
Speaker 1: I love is he's talking about optimism and pessimism, and
Speaker 1: he refuses to be considered either. He's like, people call
Speaker 1: me an optimist because I show them all this progress.
Speaker 1: He said, I'm not an optimist. I'm a possibilist. And
Speaker 1: I love that idea because that's what you're getting to
Speaker 1: with hope, being imaginative, being a possibilist. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a way that we can make things better. We don't
Speaker 1: know how much better. We don't know what the scope
Speaker 1: of that is, but we can't. We do have that ability.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And what is the point of the future if
Speaker 2: we think that it's already written?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: I mean, if we actually think we can do nothing
Speaker 2: to impact what happens in the next five minutes or
Speaker 2: in the next day or the next year.
Speaker 4: Yep, I mean we're just playing with blocks.
Speaker 2: I mean we have to believe that our action and
Speaker 2: even our thoughts have an impact in the world.
Speaker 4: That feels hopeful to.
Speaker 2: Me, and I like the idea of being a possiblist.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'll use that from now. I used to say I.
Speaker 4: Was a recovering pessimist.
Speaker 2: I don't say that anymore because I actually feel like
Speaker 2: I'm pretty optimistic, but from a like a realistic standpoint.
Speaker 1: So in the book, you have these different ingredients. We
Speaker 1: talked about them, one of them being hope. I want
Speaker 1: to talk for a minute about the role of creativity
Speaker 1: in the average person's life. Right this book is written,
Speaker 1: it's got a lot about how to be a better
Speaker 1: writer in it. I was saying to you before we started.
Speaker 1: My book is due to the publisher in ten days.
Speaker 1: I wish i'd read this book like three months ago
Speaker 1: because I would have been like, oh, I can do that,
Speaker 1: and I should try this, and you know, so now
Speaker 1: I've got all kinds of things because I've been a
Speaker 1: little bit like, well, the draft's done, I'm not quite
Speaker 1: sure how to make it better. So as a book
Speaker 1: about it's outstanding in that and I know that's a
Speaker 1: big thing to you teaching writing, teaching craft. Some of
Speaker 1: our listeners are going to be writers, and so they're
Speaker 1: hearing this, and I'm hoping they will go get the
Speaker 1: book because it's great in that way, but I want
Speaker 1: to broaden creativity out from just people who would be
Speaker 1: considering themselves a writer or artist. Talk to me about
Speaker 1: the role of creativity in just life.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's funny to me how many people think they're not
Speaker 2: creative because they don't make art, which I find sad.
Speaker 2: We're all creative. Anyone who does a job doing anything.
Speaker 2: Anytime you brainstorm something, ye, anytime you try to solve
Speaker 2: a problem creative. Anytime my son has soccer practice on
Speaker 2: one side of town and my daughter has work on
Speaker 2: the other side of town, it requires creativity.
Speaker 4: I'm not even being facetious like I think.
Speaker 2: In our daily lives, every relationship we start end, every
Speaker 2: time we change our minds about something, every conversation we
Speaker 2: have with someone that is unscripted like this one. I
Speaker 2: don't know what you're going to offer me, and you
Speaker 2: don't know what I'm going to offer you back.
Speaker 4: This is creative time that we're spending together.
Speaker 2: It's something that I feel kind of evangelical about, frankly,
Speaker 2: that we are all creative people and even if you
Speaker 2: think you're not, you're just wrong actually, and that it
Speaker 2: has something to offer all of us and the other
Speaker 2: thing I would say is that even if you're not
Speaker 2: making art, I hate this as a verb, but you're
Speaker 2: consuming it right, You're engaging with it. Is a perhaps warmer,
Speaker 2: less capitalistic way to say it. Even if you're not
Speaker 2: making art, you're engaging with art. You are listening to music,
Speaker 2: you are watching films or television. You have probably art
Speaker 2: in your home, and so what does it mean to
Speaker 2: you to be engaging with that piece of art on
Speaker 2: a daily basis? Perhaps for me, I feel like we
Speaker 2: can't engage with art, whether we're making it or looking
Speaker 2: at it listening to it, without being different on the
Speaker 2: other side of it.
Speaker 4: And so part of what we want as.
Speaker 2: Humans is to grow, which I think it is for
Speaker 2: me why I make art, and part of why I
Speaker 2: listen to music as often as I do, and why
Speaker 2: I want to go see bands as often as I do,
Speaker 2: and why I want to see the movies that people
Speaker 2: say are making them cry or scream or whatever, is
Speaker 2: because I know that on the other side of that
Speaker 2: record or concert experience or film, I will not be
Speaker 2: exactly the person I was before.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: And we can argue that that's true of anything, right,
Speaker 2: Like you go on a hike.
Speaker 4: You're not the same person after the hike.
Speaker 2: But I think there's something sort of built into like
Speaker 2: the DNA of art made by human beings, which I
Speaker 2: have to say because AI is making me crazy. But
Speaker 2: when a human being makes a piece of art and
Speaker 2: then we spend time with it, that's a kind of
Speaker 2: creative connection that we're making, and it transforms us and
Speaker 2: we exit that a little different on the other side.
Speaker 2: And I think we're all kind of craving that, whether
Speaker 2: we're consciously craving it or not.
Speaker 1: There was something you talk about in the book. It
Speaker 1: was under the element of vision that I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about because I found it kind of inspiring. And
Speaker 1: you talked about a way to get unstuck when it
Speaker 1: comes to a poem, and you say, when I pack
Speaker 1: my bag to go somewhere to do writing, I'm paraphrasing here.
Speaker 1: I always take a notebook with me and at least
Speaker 1: one book, and I begin my writing time by reading
Speaker 1: pen in hand, because I know what is likely to happen.
Speaker 1: A word, phrase, sentence, or idea will open a door
Speaker 1: for me. And then you talk about just like making
Speaker 1: a list of words that you pull out of the
Speaker 1: text how might you combine those words in unexpected ways.
Speaker 1: I just love this idea because it talks about how
Speaker 1: to actually go from reading something that feels inspiring in
Speaker 1: some way, but I don't know how to engage with
Speaker 1: it differently, how to give it my own thing. And
Speaker 1: I just love this idea of just like writing out
Speaker 1: words or a sentence and then trying to follow a sentence.
Speaker 1: You talk about making something. I'd never heard of this before.
Speaker 1: A cento. Tell me what a cento is.
Speaker 2: I joke that a cento is the laziest poem you
Speaker 2: can write. It's actually not. But a cento requires no writing.
Speaker 2: That's the secret of the cento. So it's an Italian form.
Speaker 2: It's a collage poem. So basically a cento is a
Speaker 2: poem in which each line has been pulled from another writer,
Speaker 2: and so your job is basically assembling these lines to
Speaker 2: make a new hole. So if you find a line
Speaker 2: in a poem you love and it ends with a preposition,
Speaker 2: then you find a line in some other person's poem
Speaker 2: that begins with a noun phrase and kind of makes
Speaker 2: a new, weird, interesting sentence, and you build that way.
Speaker 2: And so it really is like cutting images and making
Speaker 2: a collagh from someone else's art.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just think that's such an approachable thing to do.
Speaker 1: If I sit down to write a poem and I
Speaker 1: know I'm creative, I play guitar, I'm writing a book,
Speaker 1: even though it's sort of a certain type of nonfiction book.
Speaker 1: But when I sit down to try and create, you know,
Speaker 1: at the capitol C, I often just feel flow mixed.
Speaker 1: But the idea of this is a way in. Yeah, really,
Speaker 1: Like I was like, oh, that's easy. I've tried to
Speaker 1: find other ways in. Like my friend Chris and I
Speaker 1: we did it religiously for a while and now we
Speaker 1: don't do it so often, but we would do a
Speaker 1: daily Hiku together in the morning via text. I'd send
Speaker 1: the first line, he'd be responsible.
Speaker 4: For the next I remember that, you guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And then the next day he'd have to
Speaker 1: send the first line. And it was just like a
Speaker 1: way of creating that was easy in comparison to what
Speaker 1: it feels like for a lot of people when they
Speaker 1: stare at a blank page.
Speaker 2: Eric, that's what staring at a blank page feels like
Speaker 2: to me. If you told me go write a poem
Speaker 2: right now, I couldn't do it, and I'm a poet, Like,
Speaker 2: that's not how it works. I don't create on demand,
Speaker 2: Like it's not something you can just order up, like
Speaker 2: going through the drive through at a fast food restaurant.
Speaker 2: I have to give myself starters to get myself.
Speaker 4: Going, too.
Speaker 2: I Mean, the other thing I do is go back
Speaker 2: to something I've already written that isn't working, and I'll
Speaker 2: just kind of like noodle around in an old draft
Speaker 2: if I don't have an idea for something new, right, Like,
Speaker 2: that's always a good way to get started, because you
Speaker 2: might end up in some direction you never expected. But
Speaker 2: if I have time to write, I have to give
Speaker 2: myself a way in, and often it's with someone else's work, right,
Speaker 2: Like pulling a line from a poem and using it
Speaker 2: as the epigraph at the top, and then maybe mimicking
Speaker 2: the sentence structure, or pulling a sentence from a novel
Speaker 2: or an essay and rewriting that sentence exactly syntactically but
Speaker 2: using my own words, but using the container of their
Speaker 2: sentence structure. Or yeah, I have done word banks before,
Speaker 2: or I will read through particularly a collection of poems,
Speaker 2: but like a science article would be really interesting for
Speaker 2: something like this too, you know, pulling vocabular larry from
Speaker 2: something that you might not have in your repertoire and
Speaker 2: making a word bank list and then thinking, Okay, how
Speaker 2: can I combine these words in unique ways to make
Speaker 2: images or metaphors or a cento, Like going to my bookshelf,
Speaker 2: pulling off a bunch of poems and trying to cobble
Speaker 2: something together that way that I get to call mine,
Speaker 2: even though I'm using other people's words. I think one
Speaker 2: of the most pernicious myths about creating anything is that
Speaker 2: it just like the muse visits you and it just
Speaker 2: comes through you and comes out fully formed, and it's
Speaker 2: fast and easy.
Speaker 4: I hope we're like doing.
Speaker 2: A good enough job of dispelling that over time, but
Speaker 2: it's usually incremental. It's more of a trickle than a rush,
Speaker 2: and it takes a lot of work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that we do have these two sort
Speaker 1: of extreme ideas sometimes of art. One is, like you said,
Speaker 1: the muse just descends and something just come out. The
Speaker 1: other is this extraordinarily laborious you sit down at the
Speaker 1: same place at the same time and you just grind
Speaker 1: right like that is what's been used to counter that
Speaker 1: other myth, and I think what you're doing is you're
Speaker 1: striking sort of a middle ground between those. I love
Speaker 1: this line. You can't force a poem, but I think
Speaker 1: you can prepare for one. I think that's a great
Speaker 1: line for poems and just for a whole lot of
Speaker 1: life in general. Right, there's a lot of things in
Speaker 1: life you cannot force, but you can prepare, you can
Speaker 1: set the stage four, you can influence.
Speaker 4: Absolutely. Yeah. I do not consider my writing life a grind.
Speaker 2: But I also don't sit down at the same time
Speaker 2: every day and stare at a page until something happens.
Speaker 2: I try to live my life and move through the day,
Speaker 2: and as things come to me, I'm like a little
Speaker 2: magpie looking for the shiny bits. I collect them as
Speaker 2: I can, and then eventually they accrue into.
Speaker 4: Something if I'm lucky.
Speaker 2: But that's that kind of like setting the table, right,
Speaker 2: Like if I haven't set the table, there's a less
Speaker 2: likely chance that the thing's going to show up ready
Speaker 2: to go. And so preparing the table for me can
Speaker 2: look like a lot of different things, but it certainly
Speaker 2: doesn't look like it doesn't look like work.
Speaker 4: Ye in the way that we think.
Speaker 2: And it also doesn't look like being struck by lightning
Speaker 2: and having something come through me. It looks like getting
Speaker 2: an idea, writing it down, and then maybe coming back
Speaker 2: to it in a week when some other idea wants
Speaker 2: to belcrow itself to the side of that idea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're very realistic though in the book, because you
Speaker 1: mentioned like, as a working writer, sometimes you're on deadline.
Speaker 1: Right when you do, you sit down and you just
Speaker 1: kind of That's how I felt with this book, right.
Speaker 1: It's like I got the book deal and I had
Speaker 1: a year, and I was like, okay, you know, if
Speaker 1: I don't want to end up in a mad rush
Speaker 1: at the end, which apparently always happens no matter what
Speaker 1: you do. It just kind of made myself sort of
Speaker 1: write and follow a schedule, but in another creative endeavor
Speaker 1: for me, like guitar, it follows no like that, right,
Speaker 1: it's far more able to be what it is. But
Speaker 1: I also do give myself. I set the stage often
Speaker 1: enough by sitting down with the guitar.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, this is why I was saying.
Speaker 2: I like to go away and kind of give myself
Speaker 2: retreats when I really have to write, whether I'm on
Speaker 2: deadline or not. There's something for me about getting out
Speaker 2: of my home office, out of the place where my
Speaker 2: laundry and dishes need to be done, right out of
Speaker 2: the place where my kids are asking for a ride someplace.
Speaker 2: If I can get out of my daily life, sometimes
Speaker 2: that even just means going to a coffee shop for
Speaker 2: a few hours where I'm not reachable and I can't
Speaker 2: do chores, frankly, but if I can go to a
Speaker 2: cabin in the woods for four days, something happens and
Speaker 2: it almost feels like turning on a faucet and things
Speaker 2: just happen, and it's like, I think I've been doing
Speaker 2: that long enough that sort of intuitively my mind knows
Speaker 2: that when I get into that environment it's writing time.
Speaker 2: It's like if you have good sleep hygiene and you
Speaker 2: go to bed, if you're doing it right, your body
Speaker 2: is like, oh, this is it's sleep time, right, Like
Speaker 2: this is what we do before sleep, and now I'm
Speaker 2: prepared for it. I actually don't think that writing or
Speaker 2: making things is is that different. You can kind of
Speaker 2: give yourself cues, and for me, being among trees happens
Speaker 2: to be one of my mental cues for time to
Speaker 2: get some stuff done.
Speaker 1: We've talked about this before, I believe when you were
Speaker 1: on the show, but we talked about this idea of
Speaker 1: seeing the world as a poet, and I mentioned I
Speaker 1: love to read good poetry because I feel like it
Speaker 1: teaches me how to look differently than I normally look.
Speaker 1: You call it poets eyes and say that you know
Speaker 1: we all have them, particularly as children. But you also
Speaker 1: talk about how there's both a loss and a gift
Speaker 1: in being a writer. Share more about that because I
Speaker 1: resonate with that a lot.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think when you're mining your lived experience
Speaker 2: for art, and maybe it's not that different from a
Speaker 2: photographer who, whether they're walking through the world with a
Speaker 2: camera or not, is framing things with their eyes yep.
Speaker 1: Or a musician. When I go see a band play,
Speaker 1: I'm watching what they're doing with the chords and I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about like, there's a part of me that's processing
Speaker 1: it as a fan, as a lover of it, but
Speaker 1: there's a part of me that's processing it as a musician,
Speaker 1: and it causes a little bit of a split.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's true, and I think as a
Speaker 2: writer it's funny, like can I take a walk and
Speaker 2: have it just be a walk or is it a
Speaker 2: walk in which I'm also mining that walk for imagery,
Speaker 2: sensory detail, metaphor. And it's sort of I mean, I
Speaker 2: say in the book, it's sort of a loss and
Speaker 2: a gift. There's a part of me that is always
Speaker 2: standing a little bit outside of the present moment because
Speaker 2: I'm grasping for language, a framework, a container away in
Speaker 2: like I'm looking for the door into the piece of
Speaker 2: writing about the thing that I'm experiencing in the moment.
Speaker 2: So it's like when you hear people say, oh, I
Speaker 2: have like present tense nostalgia, you know, like I'm kind
Speaker 2: of like missing this moment as it's happening because it's
Speaker 2: so good.
Speaker 4: I'm already sad.
Speaker 2: About this beautiful experience because I know it's going to end.
Speaker 2: I feel like there's a kind of a bit of
Speaker 2: that where if i'm kind of meta processing as a writer,
Speaker 2: I'm not able to just fully surrender YEP to the
Speaker 2: lived experience in the moment.
Speaker 4: And sounds like you have that happen too.
Speaker 1: I do, certainly with music, but in general, I think
Speaker 1: I have to work on it within myself that I
Speaker 1: don't constantly think as you're saying that every moment is
Speaker 1: supposed to produce something out of it.
Speaker 4: That's so important.
Speaker 1: Because then all of a sudden, life becomes all about instrumentality,
Speaker 1: right like versus life. I just think, like you said,
Speaker 1: it's a loss and a gift, and so for me,
Speaker 1: anything that's that sort of double edged sword, and lots
Speaker 1: of things in life are I just have to kind
Speaker 1: of pay attention to how I'm holding the sword a
Speaker 1: lot in order to not, you know, slice myself into
Speaker 1: a thousand pieces.
Speaker 4: I think that's really smart. I love the way you
Speaker 4: put that.
Speaker 2: I remember my mom asking me once I told her
Speaker 2: about some great day I'd had with the kids, like
Speaker 2: just at Hawking Hills or at the zoo, or just
Speaker 2: you know, some just really joyful day I'm just spending
Speaker 2: the day together. And she said, oh, you should write
Speaker 2: about that, because she was thinking, all of your poems
Speaker 2: are so melancholy, right like, that's so uncomplicated and accessible.
Speaker 4: You should write about that.
Speaker 2: And I remember being on the phone with her and saying,
Speaker 2: I don't need to write about it.
Speaker 4: I just enjoyed living it. So I know, I know
Speaker 4: the difference. I can go to like.
Speaker 2: An amusement park with my kids, and I'm not, like,
Speaker 2: what's the rollercoaster a metaphor for like, I know I'm
Speaker 2: able to pull myself out of that. It's like a
Speaker 2: trap I can fall into, and I'm very susceptible, Like
Speaker 2: my kid says something interesting and I'm like ooh, and
Speaker 2: I think they can see it happening, like when I
Speaker 2: kind of leave the present moment and they can kind
Speaker 2: of see this like, oh, she's an art mode right now.
Speaker 2: Mom just left the chat and the writer has entered
Speaker 2: the chat.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They probably also really like it too, though, because
Speaker 1: they feel like they've helped create something or they've said
Speaker 1: something interesting. I hope, So yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I don't know. I guess we'll see.
Speaker 2: Like who knows what one's legacy will be with their children,
Speaker 2: but yeah, we'll see.
Speaker 1: One of the other things that happens when it comes
Speaker 1: to creativity for people on any level, is that you
Speaker 1: are able to see how you may not be quote
Speaker 1: unquote very good at it right And again I don't
Speaker 1: think this ever actually goes away for anyone now. But
Speaker 1: you talk about being an amateur and I did not
Speaker 1: know this until I read it, that the root of
Speaker 1: amateur in Latin means to love, and that is so beautiful.
Speaker 2: I'm a total word nerd, So my kids get really
Speaker 2: annoyed when they say something and like, do you know
Speaker 2: the Latin root of that is this?
Speaker 4: And it means this? They hate it.
Speaker 2: But I look up words and I want to know
Speaker 2: their origins all the time because it actually changes the
Speaker 2: way I think about the concept. So to know that
Speaker 2: the root of amateur is to love, I think we
Speaker 2: use that word as we either use it as a
Speaker 2: self deprecating term or we use it as a criticism
Speaker 2: of others. If we're being unkind, that's amateurish, right, yeah.
Speaker 2: But if we think of it, about it as like
Speaker 2: an amateur is not somebody who's not good at something,
Speaker 2: which is I think how we use it a lot,
Speaker 2: But an amateur is someone who's doing something out of
Speaker 2: the love for the thing, rather than trying to professionalize
Speaker 2: perhaps the thing.
Speaker 4: It actually speaks.
Speaker 2: To what we were just talking about, like experiencing versus
Speaker 2: mining everything is material. I would like to be more
Speaker 2: of an amateur in that way.
Speaker 4: I mean courage too.
Speaker 2: The root of courage is core, which if you think
Speaker 2: of Spanish core zone, it's heart.
Speaker 4: So it makes me think.
Speaker 2: Of bravery differently to think about courage. In that way,
Speaker 2: we should all be brave amateurs.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, right, just like.
Speaker 2: Boldly trying things, failing a lot of the time, picking
Speaker 2: ourselves back up because it's fun to try, not because
Speaker 2: we are expecting to get some guaranteed.
Speaker 4: Result from it.
Speaker 1: Before we dive back into the conversation, let me ask
Speaker 1: you something. What's one thing that has been holding you
Speaker 1: back lately? You know that it's there, You've tried to
Speaker 1: push past it, but somehow it keeps getting in the way.
Speaker 1: You're not alone in this, and I've identified six major
Speaker 1: saboteurs of self control, things like autopilot behavior, self doubt,
Speaker 1: emotional escapism that quietly derail our best intentions. But here's
Speaker 1: the good news. You can outsmart them. And I put
Speaker 1: together a free guide to help you spot these hidden
Speaker 1: obstacles and give you simple, actionable strategies that you can
Speaker 1: use to regain control. Download the free guide now at
Speaker 1: oneufeed dot net slash ebook and take the first step
Speaker 1: towards getting back on track. This is another one of
Speaker 1: those things that I have to wrestle with myself, which
Speaker 1: is not turning things I love into a job or
Speaker 1: or something that I have to get good at. Now
Speaker 1: I've gotten much better at this. I've aged, thankfully. I
Speaker 1: just need to watch for that tendency. But it's true
Speaker 1: at the same time that improving does feel good. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: Like there's something in it that feels good. So I'm
Speaker 1: trying to sort of do both those things. I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, I don't want to turn this into a chore,
Speaker 1: but yet I do know that I want to improve
Speaker 1: because that just feels good. And trying to hold all
Speaker 1: of that for me with the things that I do,
Speaker 1: Like with guitar, I firmly embrace amateur. I do because
Speaker 1: I love it. I don't do it for any reason
Speaker 1: anymore except that I enjoy doing it. I have no
Speaker 1: expectation of anything coming out of it at all, you know,
Speaker 1: not getting the girl, not getting in a band, not
Speaker 1: getting paid, none of it. Yeah, I feel like after
Speaker 1: years of that, I was given the instrument back in
Speaker 1: a way.
Speaker 4: I love that. Honestly. It's when people ask about my work,
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh.
Speaker 2: I'm a poet and i'd be doing it for free.
Speaker 2: I'm not anymore, but I would be, yes, because it's
Speaker 2: the thing I love. To do, and sometimes I'm like,
Speaker 2: don't tell anyone, I would be doing this for free.
Speaker 2: But this is the thing I love to do. And
Speaker 2: even if nobody else wanted to read anything I was writing,
Speaker 2: I would still be doing it for myself, and yes,
Speaker 2: improving and working on my craft. I feel like I'm
Speaker 2: competing against myself. That's all I'm doing. I'm competing against
Speaker 2: the writer I was yesterday, not other writers. It's just
Speaker 2: me be me, And for some reason, I find that
Speaker 2: really invigorating. And it makes me wonder if some of
Speaker 2: these people who were like, oh, I'm not creative and
Speaker 2: they sort of like shake that off. Maybe they feel
Speaker 2: that way because they're not professionals at something. Maybe it's
Speaker 2: this sort of like, well, I'm just an amate like oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I play guitar, but I'm not that good, or yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: like I can paint, but it's just for me and
Speaker 2: I don't really show it to anybody, Like it doesn't count.
Speaker 4: It absolutely counts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think a big part of it is
Speaker 1: just being like, it doesn't matter if I'm good or not.
Speaker 1: That's not the point of the thing, right, That's not
Speaker 1: the measure. But that's what most of us do, And
Speaker 1: it kind of goes back to what you were saying
Speaker 1: in the beginning. We've got these multiple voices inside of us,
Speaker 1: and one of those voices is just naturally, you should
Speaker 1: be good at this. If you're not good at it,
Speaker 1: don't do it. There's a lot of places that comes from.
Speaker 1: We don't need to deconstruct all the various places it
Speaker 1: comes from, but I think it's pretty deeply embedded in
Speaker 1: a lot of people. I agree, But that willingness to
Speaker 1: just say.
Speaker 4: Doesn't matter, No, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: I think part of what aging is helping me do
Speaker 2: is crave experience instead of perfection or even mastery. Like
Speaker 2: I'm just so excited at my age to get to
Speaker 2: do new things that it matters less what the output
Speaker 2: is or the outcome.
Speaker 4: It's just like, oh, I get to do that.
Speaker 2: Great Like I feel a lot more playful now than
Speaker 2: I did even about what I consider my work in
Speaker 2: air quotes twenty years ago. Because the stakes don't need
Speaker 2: to be that high. We can actually do things because
Speaker 2: we enjoy them, and that they don't need to be
Speaker 2: side hustles. They don't need to be things that we're
Speaker 2: doing for recognition. Maybe no one else even knows that
Speaker 2: we do them. I won't even mention it because I
Speaker 2: sworn myself to secrecy. But I started learning how to
Speaker 2: do something new this year, and like three people know
Speaker 2: about it, and I don't want.
Speaker 4: My kids don't even know.
Speaker 2: I'm learning in complete privacy and secrecy because it's just
Speaker 2: for me, and I want no one to ask me, Oh,
Speaker 2: what are you going to do with that?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 4: Are you going to do this with that? Or what's
Speaker 4: your goal.
Speaker 2: It's like when I started like running that people are like,
Speaker 2: are you going to do a half marathon? No, I'm
Speaker 2: not doing this for any reason, And the fact that
Speaker 2: you have expectations for this makes me want to not
Speaker 2: tell anybody. When I want to learn how to do
Speaker 2: something new, like it can just be because I crave
Speaker 2: a new experience.
Speaker 1: First off, Now I'm dying to know.
Speaker 4: But I'm not gonna tell. I'm not going to tell you.
Speaker 1: I get it. I'm just letting you know.
Speaker 4: I like that you're curious.
Speaker 1: You're trying to peak my curiosity. You did, okay, I
Speaker 1: like you have found myself really in the last five
Speaker 1: years craving new experience. And I'm going to use that
Speaker 1: to segue to one of the elements or ingredients that
Speaker 1: you have in the book. Most of them you look
Speaker 1: at and you're like, Okay, that makes sense, Yes, play,
Speaker 1: that's important, and I can see why. Vision and wonder
Speaker 1: and attention and tenacity. But one of them was restlessness.
Speaker 4: I knew that was the one you were going to say.
Speaker 1: Of course, it's so strange because that is a word
Speaker 1: I have a negative connotation too, yep. I think generally
Speaker 1: I had that, and then in twelve step Programs in
Speaker 1: the AA Big Book, there's a line that actually says,
Speaker 1: you know, the alcoholic who's not drinking but not in
Speaker 1: recovery will feel restless, irritable, and discontent. And I was like, well,
Speaker 1: that pretty much sums up me when I just let
Speaker 1: myself kind of go yeah. So I loved this idea
Speaker 1: of restlessness reframed in a positive way. Tell me about that.
Speaker 2: I think I had this long list of words, and
Speaker 2: then I was winnowing it down. I realized that of
Speaker 2: all of the ten ingredients, that was the one that
Speaker 2: was going to be the one that people would be like, wait,
Speaker 2: how is this, yep an element of creativity? Because that
Speaker 2: sounds incredibly problematic, Like why would anyone want that, But
Speaker 2: to me, it's the opposite of first thought. Best thought
Speaker 2: is restlessness. It's the feeling of when you've made something,
Speaker 2: you aren't immediately satisfied with it. You have this sort
Speaker 2: of needling, slightly uncomfortable feeling. And that's restlessness, right, like
Speaker 2: that little bit of a sort of like it's you
Speaker 2: can't scratch jittery feeling that you know there's something else,
Speaker 2: the potential of that thing that you've just drafted or
Speaker 2: made or built or thought up, you have not realized
Speaker 2: it yet. I think of when you're on the tube
Speaker 2: and they say, mind the gap. I think there's the
Speaker 2: version of the thing that you've made, and then there's
Speaker 2: the version of the thing you think it can eventually
Speaker 2: be in your mind, the shining example of where.
Speaker 4: You think that thing could go.
Speaker 2: And there's a gap between the thing you've built right
Speaker 2: the book you're working on, and the book you hope
Speaker 2: it will be when it's done and published, the painting
Speaker 2: you've been toiling over, and the painting you can see
Speaker 2: in your mind's eye. And you need to have a
Speaker 2: way to use your skills and techniques and imagination to
Speaker 2: narrow that gap as much as possible. I don't think
Speaker 2: it ever closes. At least in my experience, it never closes.
Speaker 2: I have never made anything that I was like, well,
Speaker 2: that's perfect, that's the shining example that I thought it
Speaker 2: would be.
Speaker 4: But I have.
Speaker 2: Worked really hard to narrow the gap to a livable
Speaker 2: kind of step over able. No one's going to fall
Speaker 2: into that crevice down and just be like lost forever
Speaker 2: space and restlessness, that kind of goading on of the
Speaker 2: self to do better, try harder, push yourself a little further,
Speaker 2: take a bigger risk, get weirder with something.
Speaker 4: That's what helps you narrow that gap.
Speaker 2: I think is not being complacent. It's the opposite of complacency.
Speaker 1: And how do you work with that in a way
Speaker 1: that doesn't turn into perfectionism or constantly believing that what
Speaker 1: you do isn't good. Again, we've been talking about double
Speaker 1: edged swords, right, I feel like this could be another one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it can be.
Speaker 2: I think there's less a risk of creating terrible things
Speaker 2: if you push yourself a little harder than if you
Speaker 2: think that your first draft is great.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think you know.
Speaker 2: I tell my students all the time time never made
Speaker 2: anything worse a lack of time definitely has. Like I
Speaker 2: have rushed and done things that I know if I
Speaker 2: had more time, it would have been a better fill
Speaker 2: in the blank whatever that thing was, you know, And
Speaker 2: I think, can you over do it? Can you over
Speaker 2: revise something? Yes, you absolutely can. Like it's a balance.
Speaker 2: I mean I say all the time, if I had
Speaker 2: known my poem good Bones would go viral, I never
Speaker 2: would have finished it because it wouldn't have ever in
Speaker 2: my mind been ready for millions of eyeballs. And so yes,
Speaker 2: part of this is, like it's a very delicate dance.
Speaker 2: We have to know our potential, push ourselves as much
Speaker 2: as we can, have fun with it, but stops being fun,
Speaker 2: stop doing it. I mean I believe that wholeheartedly. If
Speaker 2: I'm really pushing myself in a piece of writing and
Speaker 2: it stops being fun and interesting to me, I put
Speaker 2: it away.
Speaker 4: I don't abandon it. I put it away. I like,
Speaker 4: give it a time out and I'll come back to
Speaker 4: it later.
Speaker 2: But I think, you know, we have to be careful
Speaker 2: not to worry so much about making a thing perfect
Speaker 2: that we never actually get it out the door, because
Speaker 2: that's that's a problem, right, But also not just being
Speaker 2: so self satisfied with our first attempt that we end
Speaker 2: up sending a bunch of half baked stuff into the
Speaker 2: world and then can't figure out why it's not doing
Speaker 2: the work in the world that we thought it might do.
Speaker 2: And I think there's a lot of sort of.
Speaker 4: Growing in the art and maturing in the art.
Speaker 2: I don't know that I knew this when I was twenty, right,
Speaker 2: but I think we find the balance between doing our
Speaker 2: best and also understanding that we're just human beings, and
Speaker 2: that if I gave the same materials to a different writer,
Speaker 2: they would come up with a totally different poem than
Speaker 2: the one that I had written, and maybe one I
Speaker 2: would even enjoy more than the one I had written,
Speaker 2: or that readers might enjoy more than the one I
Speaker 2: had written.
Speaker 4: But that's not my poem.
Speaker 2: So it's like a little bit like, well, I got
Speaker 2: to stay in my lane, and again like tend my
Speaker 2: own garden.
Speaker 4: That's my territory.
Speaker 1: I am right in the thorns of this because I'm
Speaker 1: in revising the book now. When listeners hear this, I'll
Speaker 1: probably already have turned the book into the publisher, which
Speaker 1: again is not the end, but it's a big milestone.
Speaker 1: I'm ten days away from that, so I'm fully in
Speaker 1: revision restlessness. And I already made one part of the
Speaker 1: book worse by my insistence that I'm going to improve it.
Speaker 4: But how do you know that, I'm so curious?
Speaker 1: Well, because the two people that I let read it,
Speaker 1: I was trying to infuse a little more emotionality, and
Speaker 1: I think I infused a certain degree of melodrama instead
Speaker 1: got it, And so a couple people said, I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: And when I went back and looked at it, I
Speaker 1: was like, I think you're probably right. However, what I
Speaker 1: will say is that I shouldn't say I made it worse,
Speaker 1: because I actually made it better. It was better than
Speaker 1: where it started. Yeah, so I was here and then
Speaker 1: I shot way over here.
Speaker 2: Past the target, past the targets all the time, and
Speaker 2: then I.
Speaker 1: Cut a few of those things out, and then then
Speaker 1: I had a better target. So I guess that statement
Speaker 1: was inaccurate because I did improve it well.
Speaker 2: And you brought up something important too, which is having
Speaker 2: outside counsel. Ye, And I think you know the sort
Speaker 2: of myth of the artist who works alone is another thing, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, I still send my poems to the same
Speaker 2: person I've been sending my poems to since I was
Speaker 2: twenty two years old, and she sends her poems to me,
Speaker 2: and I don't take every bit of advice she gives.
Speaker 2: She doesn't take every bit of advice that I give.
Speaker 2: But I think it's another sort of important thing, is
Speaker 2: that we don't live in a vacuum, we don't create
Speaker 2: in a vacuum, and so inviting other people in as
Speaker 2: we're comfortable to our process, like those trusted people, we
Speaker 2: can just like, hey, would you take a look at
Speaker 2: this and tell me like, am I way off base?
Speaker 4: Or do you understand? Or do you have questions? Are
Speaker 4: you curious about things? Are there other things you would
Speaker 4: like to know? If you have people who you can
Speaker 4: do that with, I think that's what a gift.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I always read the acknowledgments in books, and the
Speaker 1: reason I read them is because it does shatter that
Speaker 1: myth of the individual artist you just read. I mean
Speaker 1: sometimes I end up being like, how do people have
Speaker 1: this many great people in their life? And then I
Speaker 1: end up feeling bad about myself Exactly. I couldn't get
Speaker 1: anybody to read this damn thing. But seriously, you just
Speaker 1: realize like even a book that at least parts of
Speaker 1: it are a solitary endeavor by yourself, writing is ultimately
Speaker 1: a collaborative process. And I think that's beautiful to see.
Speaker 1: And that's why I do it, because it reminds me
Speaker 1: of that, and it reminds me that what I sit
Speaker 1: down and come up with because I can look at
Speaker 1: it objectively and be like, this is not yet good.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's being hard on myself. I think
Speaker 1: that's just objective and I don't quite yet know how
Speaker 1: to make it better. But I can get other people
Speaker 1: involved who can help me with that. Of yours is
Speaker 1: about connection, and so this is one way of thinking
Speaker 1: about connection, the other people in our communities that can
Speaker 1: support us. But you talk about connecting in some other ways,
Speaker 1: some other aspects of connection. You want to talk about
Speaker 1: that for a second.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, speaking of a solitary artist, I don't
Speaker 2: think any of us create alone, do we. I mean
Speaker 2: everything that you have written in your book is because
Speaker 2: of experiences you have had, conversations you have had with
Speaker 2: other people, other books you've read, teachers and mentors who
Speaker 2: have guided you, and the same for me. It's like
Speaker 2: when I sit down to write. Even if I'm writing
Speaker 2: about my own experience literally by myself, I'm not yes,
Speaker 2: because I'm having a conversation with me five years ago.
Speaker 2: I'm having a conversation with me as a child. I'm
Speaker 2: having a conversation with the books that I read that
Speaker 2: kind of pave the way or gave me permission to
Speaker 2: structure my book in this way, or to tell this
Speaker 2: kind of vulnerable story. Worry, I have my mentors and
Speaker 2: my teachers sitting on my shoulders whispering like no, don't
Speaker 2: say it like that, say it like this in my ear,
Speaker 2: And if I'm lucky, I have other people to bounce
Speaker 2: things off of. So I think, whenever we're making things,
Speaker 2: even if those things aren't art, even if those things
Speaker 2: are relationships or opportunities or whatever it is in our lives,
Speaker 2: none of that is happening in a disconnected way. I
Speaker 2: know you enough to know you absolutely agree with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I think it's great to remember it though, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and consciously call it to mind, because even as you
Speaker 1: were just describing that, it made sitting down in front
Speaker 1: of the page and working on it feel less lonely. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's absolutely true. You know, none of us in anything
Speaker 1: we do are not infinitely woven into the fabric of
Speaker 1: everything that is right. That's just the way things are, ye,
Speaker 1: And it's comforting to remember that. I also love how
Speaker 1: you talk about it different type of connection, which is
Speaker 1: that in creation you are connecting things. Yeah, you're building bridges,
Speaker 1: you're creating metaphors. But it's a connective process.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially for people who are like, oh gosh, metaphor,
Speaker 2: Like I think, other than line breaks, that's the part
Speaker 2: of poetry that makes people uncomfortable. They're like, oh, how
Speaker 2: am I supposed to know how to build a metaphor?
Speaker 2: That seems like such an odd thing to do. First
Speaker 2: of all, it's so baked into our language. We're doing
Speaker 2: it all the time. If you're giving a talk in
Speaker 2: front of an office full of people and you think
Speaker 2: of a sea of faces, that's a metaphor.
Speaker 4: So we're doing it constantly.
Speaker 2: But I'm always telling students, like pretty much writing anything
Speaker 2: that has to do with building bridges or making connections,
Speaker 2: it's a two step process, and it's incredibly basic, and
Speaker 2: breaking it down like this I think takes some of
Speaker 2: the fear.
Speaker 4: Out of it.
Speaker 2: It's a sensory experience b comparison.
Speaker 4: That's all it is.
Speaker 2: Like if you could boil down like the magic of
Speaker 2: metaphor in a poem to that that's what it is.
Speaker 2: You go outside and you look at a sycamore and
Speaker 2: you notice that the bark of the side of a
Speaker 2: sycamore tree looks like little blobs of different colors. You know,
Speaker 2: it's kind of modeled a little green and a little
Speaker 2: white and a little gray. So you're making a visual connection.
Speaker 2: You describe it for yourself, and then you make the
Speaker 2: leap to a simple question, which is what does that
Speaker 2: remind me of? That's it, what does that remind me of?
Speaker 2: For me, it reminds me of a paint by number
Speaker 2: painting where every one is green and every two is gray,
Speaker 2: and every three is ivory and every four is yellow.
Speaker 2: And so I have a poem that describes sycamore bark
Speaker 2: is paint by number bark.
Speaker 4: It's not rocket science.
Speaker 2: It's looking at something, describing it, and then taking it
Speaker 2: the extra step to ask yourself.
Speaker 4: What does that remind me of?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 4: What does that look like? Sound like?
Speaker 2: Oh, that bird's making a weird noise, what does that
Speaker 2: remind me of? Oh, it sounds like someone striking the
Speaker 2: key of a manual typewriter.
Speaker 4: Oh, there's that.
Speaker 2: So it's not the muse coming down and a lightning strike.
Speaker 2: It's noticing things, which we all have the capacity to do,
Speaker 2: noticing things, having a sensory experience in the world, and
Speaker 2: then just asking yourself the question, how can I connect
Speaker 2: this to a prior experience or another image or another sound,
Speaker 2: and then just tying those little two things together and
Speaker 2: maybe that makes it seem a little less I don't know,
Speaker 2: tricky or academic.
Speaker 1: I want to explore that, but my brain just got
Speaker 1: stuck on something. So let's just clear it out. And
Speaker 1: this is a total only for me question. You and
Speaker 1: I both love sycamore trees. We've discussed this in the past,
Speaker 1: and you told me one time on a walk that
Speaker 1: it's not only sycamore trees I'm seeing, it's something else
Speaker 1: that is like a sycamore. And every time I see
Speaker 1: a sycamore, this question comes in my mind, like what
Speaker 1: was that other tree? So I have to know now,
Speaker 1: can just please solve my problem?
Speaker 4: It's called a London plane plane.
Speaker 1: I knew it had something to do with Europe.
Speaker 2: They're cousins, Okay, I think they have slightly different seed pods,
Speaker 2: but their bark looks the same. One is typically found
Speaker 2: in parks and forest one is typically found along city streets.
Speaker 2: If you call with a sycamore and as a London plane,
Speaker 2: probably no one's going to call you out.
Speaker 1: I get it. It's just been eating at me for
Speaker 1: like a year and a half.
Speaker 4: Now, I love that, but I've been rent free.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, exactly, all right. So we were talking about
Speaker 1: connection metaphor. You also another connection that you talk about
Speaker 1: making in the book, and I thought this was another
Speaker 1: beautiful one and you sort of said it, but you're
Speaker 1: having a conversation with your own mind. That's a type
Speaker 1: of connection too, right, a connection to ourselves. And that's
Speaker 1: one of the great things I think that art can
Speaker 1: help us do, both other people's art and our own,
Speaker 1: is make that internal connection to ourselves.
Speaker 4: Oh totally.
Speaker 2: I mean again, when I'm writing, I'm you ually technically alone,
Speaker 2: but I don't feel alone. I feel like I'm kind
Speaker 2: of catching up with an old friend, and that old
Speaker 2: friend is me, And if I haven't had quality time
Speaker 2: with myself in a while, I can find my way
Speaker 2: to that person by picking up a pen and sitting
Speaker 2: down with a piece of paper because I know she's
Speaker 2: there kind of waiting for me to have my hangout
Speaker 2: session with her. So yeah, I mean, I I don't
Speaker 2: feel alone when I'm writing. I feel like I'm having
Speaker 2: a conversation with my mind on paper. I feel like
Speaker 2: I'm having a conversation that is contextualized by all of
Speaker 2: the other art that I have engaged with.
Speaker 4: That is like kind of.
Speaker 2: Informing what I'm making I feel the other people who
Speaker 2: have informed the way that I do things with me.
Speaker 2: I mean, the way that I describe it is writing
Speaker 2: for me is like coming home to myself. That's the
Speaker 2: best way that I can describe it in like the
Speaker 2: quickest hand. If I'm feeling stressed, if I feel just
Speaker 2: like a little self estranged, it's like a weird way
Speaker 2: to say it, but.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, it's a beautiful turn of phrase.
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when I'm feeling a little self estranged, or maybe
Speaker 2: the circumstances of my life feel very busy and hectic
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of clamor and I can't kind
Speaker 2: of find that person I know is there. Writing brings
Speaker 2: me home to the sort of core me of me
Speaker 2: and even if I'm working really hard and I'm frustrated
Speaker 2: and it's not coming out the way that I want,
Speaker 2: It's still a really pleasurable experience for me because it
Speaker 2: is that kind of homecoming.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful, and a wise person might end on that
Speaker 1: really high note, but I am not. But I am not,
Speaker 1: because well, I think this is going to take it
Speaker 1: to a higher note. But I could be wrong, because
Speaker 1: you pressure, you share, not on you. You share a word.
Speaker 1: Apparently we both love sycamores and London planes and several
Speaker 1: musical acts, but we both also love the word shenanigans.
Speaker 1: Oh I've never met another shenanigan lover. Well, Chris is
Speaker 1: we both love that word? Why is that a great word?
Speaker 1: And what about shenanigans do you love?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 2: I love that you and Chris both love shenanigans, and
Speaker 2: knowing you both, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah,
Speaker 2: just frankly, that makes a lot of sense. I have
Speaker 2: no idea, like why I love that word so much
Speaker 2: is probably why I like the word bamboozled. Like there
Speaker 2: are some words that are just like they feel good
Speaker 2: in the mouth, They're texturally interesting, and there's a kind
Speaker 2: of playfulness to the word itself, like it's almost like
Speaker 2: autumn on apea, Like shenanigans sounds.
Speaker 4: Like what it is?
Speaker 2: Yes, doesn't it sound like a little mischievous trouble but
Speaker 2: like yeah, but fun mischievous trouble.
Speaker 4: Yes, Like it sounds like what.
Speaker 2: It is, like like buzz for a bee shenanigans.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's like growing up in a family that was,
Speaker 2: you know, mostly Irish and full of shenanigans. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I just love that word. But I mean, eric, I
Speaker 2: love words.
Speaker 1: So before we wrap up, I want you to think
Speaker 1: about this. Have you ever ended the day feeling like
Speaker 1: your choices didn't quite match the person you wanted to be?
Speaker 1: Maybe it was autopilot mode or self doubt that made
Speaker 1: it harder to stick to your goals. And that's exactly
Speaker 1: why I created The Six Saboteurs of Self Control. It's
Speaker 1: a free guide to help you recognize the hidden patterns
Speaker 1: that hold you back and give you simple, effective strategies
Speaker 1: to break through them. If you're ready to take back
Speaker 1: control and start making lasting changes, download your copy now
Speaker 1: at oneufeed dot net. Slash ebook Let's make those shifts
Speaker 1: happen starting today, net slash ebook. Yes, it's a great word,
Speaker 1: but talk to me about why this is important in
Speaker 1: what we've been discussing, both the creative life and life
Speaker 1: in general.
Speaker 2: Yeah, play right, I mean, just loosening your white knuckled
Speaker 2: grip on what you're doing. I know a lot of
Speaker 2: people who love to read, and I know a lot
Speaker 2: of people who love to write, and even some of.
Speaker 4: Those people are scared of poems.
Speaker 2: And I think it's because they seem like, oh, I
Speaker 2: don't know if I'm like, I don't understand what's going
Speaker 2: on in there.
Speaker 4: It feels like a riddle. It feels like something I
Speaker 4: have to solve.
Speaker 2: I don't know what the author quote unquote really means,
Speaker 2: Like there's like a trapdoor under the poem and the
Speaker 2: meaning is hidden, but I don't.
Speaker 4: Have the code.
Speaker 2: And I think approaching writing and particularly poetry with more
Speaker 2: of a sense of fun and play and sort of
Speaker 2: creative mischief, it helps make the act more fun. But
Speaker 2: I think from the outside, I think it helps readers
Speaker 2: and gain age with the work in a different way,
Speaker 2: Like if you come to a poem the way you
Speaker 2: come to a song, wouldn't that be better? Like when
Speaker 2: we're listening to the records we love or seeing a
Speaker 2: band that we love. You're not thinking, oh, what does
Speaker 2: that Deep Sea Diver song mean?
Speaker 4: What does that MJ. Linderman song mean?
Speaker 2: What you're thinking is like, oh my gosh, I love
Speaker 2: that or those I love the words, or I love
Speaker 2: the melody, or that reminds me of writing in the
Speaker 2: car with the windows down when I was sixteen and X,
Speaker 2: Y and Z.
Speaker 4: I mean we're.
Speaker 2: Able to kind of let it wash over us and
Speaker 2: we have an experience that is emotional and intuitive and
Speaker 2: like visceral, bodily and has nothing to do with being
Speaker 2: tested on what it means or having to explicate it right, Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: we can have all kinds of shenanigans with songs, but
Speaker 2: I would advocate that we should be engaging with particularly poetry,
Speaker 2: because I think that's the genre that has the image problem.
Speaker 2: I think we should be engaging with poetry at the
Speaker 2: same level that we're engaging with music, which is letting
Speaker 2: it wash over us, having a sensory experience, asking ourselves
Speaker 2: what it makes us, remember, think about want to do,
Speaker 2: who you might want to share it with, and know
Speaker 2: that you don't have to get it. Yep, you don't
Speaker 2: have to know what it means. I don't even know
Speaker 2: what some of my poems quote unquote mean. I wrote them.
Speaker 2: I know what they're grappling with. I know what their
Speaker 2: concerns are. No, I could not summarize them for you
Speaker 2: and cliff notes style, and nor is that required. So
Speaker 2: why can't we just, you know, have some shenanigans when
Speaker 2: it comes to poetry.
Speaker 1: That's my infomercial, Eric, it's a good infomercial. You talk
Speaker 1: about coming to the page, to the canvas, to the stage,
Speaker 1: to the studio. I would say, to life with trickster
Speaker 1: energy and a sense of daring, and again back to
Speaker 1: where I started. I wish I had read this book
Speaker 1: a while ago, because that is a great frame to
Speaker 1: come to something that I'm working on like this, right,
Speaker 1: It's a there's a mindset to it. It's why I
Speaker 1: love the word shenanigans, because it does give me just
Speaker 1: that sort of trickster energy and a sense of daring.
Speaker 2: You're wrestling with something alive, but it's not your adversary. Yep,
Speaker 2: that's not an adversarial relationship. You and the thing that
Speaker 2: you're making. You are co creating this thing with this
Speaker 2: idea and so it's like a beautiful wrestling with this
Speaker 2: other thing, and it should feel good. And if it
Speaker 2: doesn't feel good, something's wrong.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: I think that and hard work can feel good. I
Speaker 2: don't mean it should feel easy. That's not at all
Speaker 2: what I mean. Yes, it doesn't necessarily have to feel easy,
Speaker 2: but it should feel invigorating.
Speaker 1: Yep. Well, that is a beautiful place to wrap up.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Maggie. I love talking with you on the show,
Speaker 1: and I'm happy that you were able to come back
Speaker 1: in much success with the new book.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to the show. If
Speaker 1: you found this conversation helpful, inspiring, or thought provoking, I'd
Speaker 1: love for you to share it with a friend. Sharing
Speaker 1: from one person to another is the lifeblood of what
Speaker 1: we do. We don't have a big budget and I'm
Speaker 1: certainly not a celebrity, but we have something even better,
Speaker 1: and that's you. Just hit the share button on your
Speaker 1: podcast app or send a quick text with the episode
Speaker 1: link to someone who might enjoy it. Your support means
Speaker 1: the world, and together we can spread wisdom one episode
Speaker 1: at a time. Thank you for being part of the
Speaker 1: one You Feed community.