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Episode 420: Rebecca Renner Makes the Pig
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Rebecca Renner (@rebeccarennerfl) is freelance journalist and the author of Gator Country: Deception, Danger, And Alligators in the Everglades (Flatiron Books).
"The reader is the one who creates the scenes. I just give them the ingredients."
Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm
Show notes: brendanomeara.com
Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod
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Transcript
Brendan's Editing Services and Community Building
00:00:00
Speaker
Oh hey CNFers, you know this shit takes a lot of time. And part of what makes the lights remain on above, or a box fan below because it's so damn hot, not on now, but you get it, is if you consider hiring me to ah take a look at your work, a generous editor helps you see what you can't see. There are so many things I can't see in my own work, which is why I hire out my editing when I can, when I can afford it. This could be a pitch, a proposal, an essay, or hell, even a book. If you need help cracking the code, man, you can email me at creativenonfictionpodcastatgmail.com and we'll start a dialogue. Oh, and this episode's also brought to you by the word lacuna. Plural is lacunae. I reached out to the people at lacuna and they were stoked. Lacuna, a blank space or a missing part.
00:00:55
Speaker
or a small cavity, pit, or discontinuity in an anatomical structure, lacuna. The reader is the one that creates the scenes. I just give them the ingredients for it.
Meet Rebecca Renner and Her New Book
00:01:14
Speaker
Oh hey, it's your CNF and spin instructor, Brendan O'Mara, and this is the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, a show where I speak to groovy dudes about telling true stories. Today, for episode 420, we have Rebecca Renner. She is a journalist, a former English teacher, writes a lot for National Geographic, has an MFA in fiction writing, and is the author of Gator Country, Deception, Danger, and Alligators in the Everglades. It's published by Flatiron Books. This book
00:01:47
Speaker
as a masterful three-threaded braid friendship bracelet about poachers, alligators, the environment, storytelling. I really dug this book. It's been a little while since I read it, and we recorded this episode something like four months ago, so I'm finally getting to it. Yay! Since it's summer. kind of felt like a good time to go to the sweltering humidity and heat of the Sunshine State, home of the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, home of hockey, show notes, and the parting shot. This episode will be at brendanamare.com, hey where you can also sign up for the companion rage against the algorithm newsletter. Each podcast gets a cute little newsletter since I'm not on social media these days.
00:02:35
Speaker
There's a Too Long Didn't Listen mini transcript. ah Some behind the scenes bullshit about my rotten head and my even more rotten writing. And then there's the the first of the month, Rager, with cool links and book recommendations, stuff like that. That that literally goes up to 11. And also, there's patreon dot.com slash cnfpod. And I want to welcome a new patron, Adina, to the crew. Ah, Adina. What a beautiful soul. Adina and I go back 20 years to our Diaries, Memoirs, and Journals class we took together with our friend and mentor, Madeline Blaze.
00:03:11
Speaker
And for whatever reason, she liked the drivel I was writing, and I don't know, we just kind of had a good connection
Personal Connections and Writing Reflections
00:03:19
Speaker
in class. i I loved her work, and for some reason she saw something in mind that maybe I didn't even see at the time. She's got the snap, as I like to say. Every couple of years, she pops up in my inbox, and it makes me feel all warm inside. I don't know how else to explain it. She's one of the good ones, CNFers. Thanks, Adina. I'm moving the text of the parting shot to the show notes to debloat the companion rager. I've been bleeding subscribers, so I need to make some sort of pivot.
00:03:49
Speaker
You know, with a book coming out next year, it's disconcerting seeing so many people get into lifeboats and paddle for sure. Now, listen, I've been told it's in bad taste to talk about unsubscribers, unsubscribes, and I only bring it up because it's on my mind and I don't know why it's happening to the newsletter and even the show. I'm gonna riff a little more about this in the parting shot, so stay tuned, dude.
00:04:13
Speaker
All right, Rebecca, she's undeniably confident. Like, what must that be like to believe in yourself? I truly, truly need therapy to purge that from my system. You know, my inability to believe in myself. I think I know the root cause, but I need to work it out, man.
Rebecca's Writing Process: Fiction vs Nonfiction
00:04:29
Speaker
All right, in this episode, Rebecca talks about revision, opening herself up to possibilities, that world building. I love world building and nonfiction. Trickster stories, annotating her reading, and making the pig. cause It's some real good stuff, man. Really good stuff in here. I think you're gonna love it. I know I did, so let's riff.
00:05:02
Speaker
And you said a moment ago that you're looking to like get back into the the writing swing of things. So what's the what's the nature of that? Just a little bit of everything. I've been working mostly on fiction, but I need to be doing nonfiction too. and i'm I'm working on submitting an anthology, which is going to be fun, um but I haven't gotten that together yet. Gosh, what else? um'm I'm working on like three novels and and like at least one non-fiction book and trying to write short stories because I had ah like a big magazine request one from me and I went, oh my gosh, I don't have any short stories because I don't really write short stories. And I had to, I've been sort of like psychoanalyzing myself to try to figure out why I i can write essays of that length.
00:05:55
Speaker
um Like first person or or even like I why I can write Nonfiction of that length, but I can't seem to write fiction of that length even though I write very narrative fish So that's my thing I'm doing today is attempting to write a short story and I'm doing it by making it Mostly nonfiction from the first person except for created incidents e I know anytime that I have dabbled in in fiction it always ends up coming back to nonfiction because the the imaginative stuff it just doesn't feel ah It just it feels too made up and it always just comes back to nonfiction. Anyway, it's weird. I there's a There's just a divide that I have a hard time crossing
00:06:44
Speaker
I sort of have the opposite problem where like I'll write something that is real and and nobody will believe me, so I have to write non-fiction because I don't understand the rules people have made up for reality to guide fiction because reality doesn't actually abide by those rules. And so I have this major dissonance where I'm like, i don't like what are these rules you all have made up and not communicated to me or or the real world? like What's going on? Is it because like ah yeah that not adhering to to those kind of rules or not being privy to whatever those rules are? Did you come from writing sort of in ah you know in a backdoor way just through ah through just a love of of stories that have just been passed down to you?
00:07:31
Speaker
Um, I don't, I don't really know what the back door way, I don't know what the the front doorway is. So I'm not sure I've used, um, I, I, I did grow up in a big storytelling culture and, and people were, uh, like both sides of my family would, would tell stories like orally passing down histories and things like that. Um, and so I was very steeped in a culture of oral storytelling.
Literary Inspirations and Influences
00:07:59
Speaker
uh, before I decided I wanted to write a book. There are several books that inspired me, some books that were very popular in the nineties that I didn't think were good. And I thought I could do better than that as like a nine year old or whatever. Um, but there are also books that it inspired me because ah for, for positive reason. And I, I luckily got to speak to this author recently and and give him my book, Carl Hyerson wrote who, when I was
00:08:28
Speaker
about twelve and he was one of the first people i ever told that i wanted to be a writer when i grew up because he he came to my middle school when he was touring for hoot and i i had really loved hoot because it was the first book that I read that I saw my own experience in. And I'm not sure if other people see their experiences more in other books, but that was the first time that I felt like, so I was recently at the Key West Literary Seminar when I, i that was when i I met him for the second time in my life. And one of the one of the themes that ended up coming out in everyone's talks was um that
00:09:11
Speaker
Florida isn't the place that you think it is and the literature can happen here. And that was the thing that hit me that I i couldn't put into words then as a 12-year-old, the place that I live is important and literature can happen there. And so I i started trying to write around then and I i wrote my first novel when I was 15 and it wasn't very good, but it was very good for a 15-year-old. Oh, that's great. Yeah. And I it's a gator country. I kind of came up with a with a name that I like to go like Swamp Noir. know I feel like that's a thing. There's a lot of um South Florida noir in fiction, at least. Is there really the John D. McDonald's of the world? Oh, yeah. There's like a a big thriller culture down here.
00:10:05
Speaker
And I i think that that Gator Country does sort of nod to some of that.
Techniques in Storytelling
00:10:11
Speaker
um It's maybe not quite as hard-boiled as a lot of that is because i don't know there's no murder necessarily in the the main part of the book. What struck me about the the book too was you're this incredible capacity for you to recreate events where you feel like a witness but you clearly weren't. Like with with Jeff, I thought that was really masterfully done masterfully done because that's ah that's really hard to do to make it feel like you're there when you know when when you're not there and you got to do it through interviewing.
00:10:47
Speaker
Well, I had a lot of other information as well. I had recordings and and all sorts of photos and game cam pictures. And I had a lot to go through. And I recently talked to a class at the University of Florida for environmental reporting. They essentially asked ah about the same things. How did I do that? And what I told them was that the reader is the one that creates the scenes. I just give them the ingredients for it. So I had to figure out, and I i think the the person, the writer that I know, I don't know him personally, but I wish I did, um who who does this the best is David Gran.
00:11:29
Speaker
takes all of these very evocative details and puts them and together in such a way that the reader can build a scene off of them. And I've but i've been wanting to go back and ah reread The Wager and really look at, really study how he did that because he does, he's the master at that, I think. Yeah, I've been lucky enough to speak to him a couple times on the show and And if you feel so inclined, you can listen to David Grant on this very podcast, ah going back to episode 99, where we talk about the Killers of the Flower Moon and why every story is a struggle, and episode 366, which delves into The Wager, his latest book, Blockbuster.
00:12:13
Speaker
He is an industrial complex unto himself. The Gran Effect. Also, he seems like one of the guys, one of the one of the like famous writers that you're you want to meet. He's such a cool, grounded, just good dude and never disappoints in talking to him. Great guy. Great writer. Amazing writer. What's really always struck me about his work, too, is how he was always able to build suspense, even though we kind of know the outcome of certain things, not all the time. But ah and I asked him about that and he was just like, yeah, we have to remember, even though that we know how certain things might turn out, you know, the characters central to that story don't. So you have to like put yourself kind of in their headspace and let things play out in that sort of that
00:13:06
Speaker
that that narrative way that they would that they're experiencing it. And then as a result, you know, we're pulled along there too through that degree of subjectivity. Yeah, I i definitely did that too. um And where I lucked out where David Grant did not is that my main character is alive and somebody who I could call up out of the blue and ask him, you know how did you feel when such and such happened? you know what what color was like What color were your shoes in that scene or or whatever detail I needed? um So that helped.
00:13:42
Speaker
a lot with that. It also helped that he, Jeff, my main character, is a ah very forthcoming person and also a big reader, so he
Accuracy and Compassion in Nonfiction
00:13:53
Speaker
understood most of the time why I was asking the in-depth and sometimes ridiculous questions that I was asking. what how How were you able to convince Jeff to become the central figure of a book of this nature?
00:14:12
Speaker
It was difficult at first because he he had gone undercover and essentially disappeared from every public place that he he had been previously, ah like off of social media and everything like that. um but he The biggest thing that i I think really helped is that we are very similar, he and I, and we were gradually realizing that. But as I was analyzing him and trying to get a feel for him and who he was, he was doing the same to me. And so we were essentially reaching the same conclusions at the same times, realizing that, i I think, too, that we we somehow we have some of the same standards for
00:14:58
Speaker
um feeling like we can trust someone like if the way someone talks about their dogs e um is indicative to both of us um the way they they talk about animals because I think that people who love animals and talk about them like not like possessions but like you small beings that they share their lives with that those people tend to be people you can trust. At least he and I feel like that. um And so it it was sort of a gradual progression of getting to know each other. I think we both realized that we could trust each other and that he was willing to give me all the information that I needed and and be open to whatever questions I need to ask.
00:15:45
Speaker
And now we're doing an event with each other and in Tampa. Yeah, I saw that. that's ah Yeah, it's pretty it's pretty wild that you get to you get to share that that that stage with him. it's ah It reminds me of, I remember watching Tracy Kidder give a ah talk ah several years ago. and he had run into um one of the main characters of his books like in public. And he like came across me. He's like, whoa, what are you doing out here? like Get back in my book. that's like That's where you belong. Get back to my end my book. And ah it's just so it's just kind of that it made me think of that with you. like You're going to have this event with him. And it's just like he's not in your book. you know He's very much you know going on with his life as you are.
00:16:28
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like I felt like that at first when ah Jeff would call me out of the blue is because I would be so like within the narrative that I would be in his head and writing him as if he were a fictionalized person that whenever he would call me, it would be such a ah ah strange whiplash to remember that, you know, this is a real person. And I think that was very important, though, because one of my One of the things that I i really hold dear to me ah in writing nonfiction, especially journalism, is that I have a duty to the people in the story um to portray them accurately and compassionately and remembering that they have lives that will have to go on after the story comes out.
00:17:19
Speaker
And I think that, especially in writing about Florida, people sometimes forget that and end up portraying whoever's in the story as just a wild character um who only exists in the story. And they forget that the life their life has to go on and that there can be repercussions for whatever you write about them. It's like there has to be a Hippocratic oath of some kind, like to you know for certain people, especially for everyday people, like do do no harm. you know It's ah it' the whole thing of, like ah I don't know, it's just like ah you know powerful people, they different standards, but like for everyday people like you and me, it's like you gotta to be you know very sensitive to that because you don't want to just totally throw a hand grenade in their lap for the that they have to wrestle with for decades, if not the rest of their life.
00:18:10
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. um And I've been very happy to have all of the characters, um most of the characters come to me and and say how thrilled they are about the book, especially the the people down in the Everglades, and the like the in the Peg Brown half of the book, they I, I think this might be the Everglades favorite book. which is, it kind of feels wild to me, but um the the place down in Chuck Lusky, the ah small wood store, which is like tiny part bookstore and and mostly sort of exhibit museum kind of thing. They've sold so many books just already. um the The owner ordered 12 and they sold out immediately. And so she's ordering like a hundred more.
00:19:03
Speaker
And i'm I'm now really worried for the event that I'm going to have there, that it's just going to be a madhouse. Yeah, it's kind of ah one of those deals where it's a good problem to have in the in the event that that's ah a madhouse.
Engaging with Readers and Evolving Perspectives
00:19:15
Speaker
As someone who's done book signings before and you go but before like three people and two of them are like, well, which way to the bathroom, which is kind of a common experience among a lot of writers. ah yeah Luckily, none of mine have been like that. But i've I've put in a lot of work trying to get people to come there. um I think my my worst one was ah it would have been kind of quiet, except for my my friend from middle school brought his entire ah high school Florida history class.
00:19:50
Speaker
so That was also packed, and I don't know how many people would have been there without them, but I can do it pretty well so far. Yeah, well that's good to have people like that in they in your corner where they can be like, if you don't show up at this, if you show up here, you'll get an A on your paper. But if you don't, if you don't and you better ask Rebecca questions. But that that was the the the quote unquote worst. And I've been having more of a, ah oh gosh, we need to have more chairs kind of issue coming up at the rest of them, which is good.
00:20:26
Speaker
When you brought up Peg Brown a moment ago, and you know that's one of the breeds of the braids of of this story. And I wonder, just for you, how did you arrive at various ah you know structural elements of this book, being like Jeff's thread, the the Peg Brown poacher thread, and of which you kind of ah you know hover around the fringes of the Peg Brown thread? um Well, I always knew that Jeff's story was going to be the the central story, but this side story had never been that cohesive. Like, that's not how I pitched the book. It had been sort of like a bunch of different other side stories. And as I was writing it, I... For some reason I had felt like I hadn't gotten enough information and I hadn't actually found the poachers I was supposed to be finding and I had all of these doubts and then I had this realization that, and this realization ended up being sort of the the crux of that half of the book that I had imagined
00:21:29
Speaker
poachers to be the kind of people who I would have been afraid of and that being around them would have been extremely harrowing and then I realized that the people I had been looking for I had already found them and I had enjoyed the time I spent with them and they felt like estranged family members that i I had to completely reassess the angle that I was coming to the story with. um And I think that that made it a better book because I had fallen into the trap of having preconceived notions when i I went out reporting and luckily I was able to see past them and see that I had done all the reporting that I needed to do instead of trying to find the story that I thought I was supposed to find.
00:22:22
Speaker
Yeah, that to to that point, you realize that you know poachers maybe in Peg Brown's day are were far more occluding to or more respectful of the land. And it wasn't until the you know areas became or swamps are drained and developers came in and more well-heeled people were off put by the wilderness around them and thus marginalized the people who were, you know, just poaching for sustenance and then suddenly they became more demonized and that kind of created this this extra i know demonization of the of those people who it was part of their say their culture or their background and I think you you navigated that really well.
00:23:07
Speaker
Well, thank you. um i I think that it is difficult to be able to write about that, and I'm not sure I've convinced everyone because I've had some people say, oh, you you want us to forgive all poachers and you don't think poaching is bad. I'm like, that's not what I said. I do think poaching is bad, but I also think that It plays a convenient scapegoat um for conservation when um we focus so much on very obvious acts by humans that we sort of let ourselves slide on the things that we ourselves are contributing to.
00:23:46
Speaker
like ah habitat loss. And that's, at least in the Everglades, one of the the biggest problems, ah one of the biggest problems that the Everglades faces is habitat loss.
Narrative Techniques in 'Gator Country'
00:23:57
Speaker
And to the point that when we accuse poachers of wholly perpetrating the downturn of a species, it seems nonsensical because it's not possible for the species to have such a downturn without that habitat loss. Did you have to resist the urge to like go on like a giant set piece on like alligators and and so forth? Or was that something in that you took out or did you're like, you know, I'm i'm just not gonna I'm not gonna touch the you know, a John McPheezy and kind of deep dive on a on the like on the alligator as a species. Um, I don't know, I feel like I i i peppered it in there. I just
00:24:43
Speaker
I feel like maybe some people might think that ah it the book is just an about alligators book and I've never really I've never really been that kind of writer or nonfiction writer like I'm there for the story and everything else is the setting and alligators are important and I think they're interesting but I don't know, I can't interview them. Yeah, yeah I think Verlyn Clinkenborg, several years ago, he wrote like some sort of an essay from the point of view of a turtle. And ah and it was just like, can't really can you do that? can you can you Can you actually achieve that? I don't know. I don't i don't think so.
00:25:27
Speaker
Yeah, it sounds like fiction. Yeah, it does. it's ah It really does. ah and And I like, ah you know, how did you arrive at and knowing that you were going to be an integral part of the story as well and and just weaving in, you know, certain elements of of yourself into the story? Well, I did not think that I was going to be an integral part of the story. And so it's weird to me when some people think it's a memoir. I'm just a narrator. yeah And i I did that so I could be a little more descriptive in
00:26:04
Speaker
essentially like all the book and in Jeff's part and in in the sort of other third of the book and and being able to make a clear line um with where i'm i'm I'm pulling back out of that perspective and and being a a very present narrator because sometimes I would have to say things that Jeff did not know or that couldn't he couldn't have known then or that like I needed to be a stronger guide in the story or else I think it it would have gotten claustrophobic.
00:26:38
Speaker
Yeah, and it's balanced really well. And you know, sometimes you might be able as the writing of the thing you might, it might end up feeling too, let's say front loaded with Jeff stuff, and then you're like, Oh, wait, I got to pull it back to me, or vice versa. So when you were writing the book, did it just kind of come out natural? Or do you have to kind of go and massage kind of things to create a certain balance throughout it? I was writing this during the pandemic, during like the the deep heart of the pandemic. And i I don't think any of it came easily because I was, you know, we were all going through turmoil and I just could not write. And both my editor and my agent were like, just put words on the paper. And they just kept harping on me to do that. And I i kept saying like, once once I start, I'm not going to be able to stop because I am
00:27:30
Speaker
i I overwrite and I'm very verbose. And so I was correct in that like I couldn't stop and I ended up with a ah lot of junk that i did not belong in the story. and But I also ended up with a lot of surprising elements that I don't think I would have encountered if I hadn't just sort of let my brain open up and get and into that flow state where I finally stopped. criticizing myself to the point of paralysis. And i'm I'm very lucky that I had an editor who helped me find those a diamonds in the rough, um because I don't think it would have been as good of a book without her. Yeah, maybe ah expand a little bit about about that relationship between you and your editor and how that dynamic helped shape Gator Country.
00:28:24
Speaker
i So in my acknowledgments, I wrote something like that writing a book is always an adventure um or a process of discovery and that editing a book is that too. Gosh, I feel like i should I should look it up or something. um Do I have a second to find that in the back of the book? Yeah, sure. Yeah. And there was one, ah while you're looking for that, there was one passage that I had just highlighted where, um, I don't know if it was the acknowledgments or just in the book it itself. I think it was in the narrative, but you, you write that writing a ah book is itself an adventure. No matter how much you plan, you must be open to the unexpected, the outlandish, because that is where the story lives and kind of goes on a little bit from there. The thing that I said about my editor, um, sort of goes with that.
00:29:15
Speaker
So i'm I'm glad you brought that up. I'll just read the... So I sang her praises and this is in the acknowledgments on the like the very last page. um This book isn't exactly what I pitched her. It is so much better. Like I did while investigating the story, she put aside her expectations and let herself see the astonishing even when I didn't. That takes a lot of talent and a lot of hard work and I thanked her. um But i i I do think that... some editors might have been very rigid and really Deadset on the exact book that they had been pitched and unable to see that the reality of the story was not the same um and of course like i I had done all my due diligence in researching before I I i pitched the story and it the the
00:30:09
Speaker
the proposal is is pretty long and and ah my editor said it's one of the best proposals that she's ever gotten and so it it really takes some both introspection and I almost want to say ah ah like a ah made up word like outrospection like being able to to remove the like the this the sunglasses you're wearing and and see the world as it really is, to be able to ah come come upon the story in a way that is not exactly how you pitched it, even though you'd done all that work.
00:30:47
Speaker
i I really do think that that the editing stage is where a lot of the art comes in. and i i i There's an essay that I've gone back to several times, and I used to teach it when I was a teacher, it's called revisioning the great Gatsby. um and the The writer looks at the various stages of editing that that famous book, but this one of the things that I go back to is how the writer describes revision as a process of seeing the manuscript, the story in a new way.
The Art of Editing
00:31:24
Speaker
And so I i think we really did that. We had to figure out not what the story was, but what it was supposed to be and and get it to be that that best version of itself.
00:31:39
Speaker
um And i I really think that that's what my editor did and she, I've worked with so many editors from being a journalist that i I like to say that I really know what good editing looks like. And I think the best editors will make this very small change, like ah putting a sentence in a different place and it'll change everything. And it's just that like gentle, subtle, I don't even know what to call it, like gentle, it's gentle and subtle, but it's also like illuminating when you're working with an editor of that caliber. So i it's very surprising to me how much of the book is ah exactly as the draft, i exactly like it's the draft that I turned in, just whole pages. And then there'll be like little tiny shifts um that that made it come alive.
00:32:30
Speaker
um And then of course there are parts where she was like, this doesn't make any sense and needs punctuation or um like, can you rewrite this part, you know, like to have it sound like all the rest of it or whatever. um So it wasn't all perfect, but I think it was definitely a ah ah collaborative effort and i I really like working with editors like that. ah Yeah, and kind of to what you were saying a while ago when they were you were just urged to to write, you know, just get stuff down on the page. And that that's something like it's really important to do that because you're kind of that early draft, that rough draft, or maybe the zero draft as Roy Peter Clark might call it. It's kind of like,
00:33:17
Speaker
terraforming the world or making the map. And there are always going to be gaps in that cartography. And you got to, you know, feel like, okay, here's a dark spot in the map. Like, how do how do we fill this in? But sometimes you just don't know that gap is there until you start. And so as you're just to kind of going through that process and that it reveals what else you need to do. But unless you have sort of the ah lack of a better term, the the courage to start in right before you're ready. That stuff just has a tendency to always be in the shadows, and you you need to write your way through it. Well, i I've actually been reading the – God, what is it called? the I think it's the the creative act um the Creative Act by Rick Rubin.
00:34:02
Speaker
um and I feel like some people think that book is a little woo woo, and I did when I first started reading it, but I really like how he talks about ah yeah being open to the possibilities of the the creative act and the potential there and being able to get into the flow state and stopping yourself from self-criticism and over-analyzing and just getting yourself to open up. I already said this, but getting yourself to open up to the possibilities and I think that that has been
00:34:36
Speaker
one of the most important things to do in my creative process because I have to remind myself that I i have all the things that I need, like it's all there and then I i don't have to keep going out and getting more details or over report things which I have a ah ah problem doing or even in fiction that i I just have to believe that I have the story and that I have to get it down and that i I'll see the lacunae Oh, what whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Lacunae? What the? I have never heard this word used.
00:35:14
Speaker
ever let alone verbally and let let's dive into this it is it is a blank space or a missing part lacunae nice a small cavity pit or discontinuity in an anatomical structure and you know what a book is kind of a structure and it's kind of a body and if you ask me it's most certainly alive so I think both of those definitions apply lacunae That might be the the sponsor of this podcast today. Huh. As I'm rereading it or as I'm i'm writing it, like i'll I'll be able to navigate the world that I've built better when it's actually starting to be mapped out rather than just being in my head.
00:36:00
Speaker
Yeah, when you were submitting, let's say, you know, an early draft to to your editor, like describe what that feeling is like when you are now putting this thing that you've worked for months and months and months into someone else's hand and just the the headspace of that uncertainty of like, is this any good or is it going to come back? Just so totally butchered. i Well, I submitted it to her in chunks because I was having so much time like getting things on the the page. But i I think I have a very different relationship with this kind of thing than I think the average writer who has not been a journalist has. Because as a journalist, um you you write the thing, you turn it in, and then you move on. And so I i immediately go, ah.
00:36:48
Speaker
yeah Not thinking about that anymore. and And so it's like my, I think you're getting at the said the normal person would be angsting about it, but my reign was like, I'm on vacation.
00:37:04
Speaker
It's a great feeling to me. and i so i I think I actually expected the the pages to come back much more critically edited and I wasn't ready for her to be so gentle. and because Especially i'm I'm very hard on myself and i I also say that I'm not a very good editor either because I don't know how to be gentle like that. i don't know like I'm not magnificent enough to move one sentence and and cause a like a and you know
00:37:36
Speaker
Paul on the side of
Creating Believable Worlds in Nonfiction
00:37:37
Speaker
the road, illumination, like an epiphany in the author. i just Whenever I've tried to edit somebody, I'm like, please don't cry.
00:37:49
Speaker
And ah when we were just kind of bantering a little bit back and forth on on threads, I was just I had posited how and what I love about certain books and nonfiction in particular is this element of world building. And I think that that kind of that interested you and you were like kind of like, oh, yes, I really want to talk about that. So ah just take us to the the world belt building element of this book, but also just how you how you kind of lock into that. Well, I i really liked the concept of world building. My writing background actually started, or in my reading background started in fantasy. um There are elements of this book that follow a fantasy mold, like the the map in the beginning of the book. I emailed the my editor and asking for a math like in a fantasy novel. um And I also follow the structure of the hero's journey.
00:38:46
Speaker
for Jeff's journey into the the wilderness. And that allowed me, that structure allowed me to gradually go into the the depths of the Everglades as a place. And I i think that the, um I might have difficulty describing this because it isn't a difficult thing to, put on paper a place that you recognize and understand and don't see as fantastical um in a way that is illuminating to someone who has never been there before, but also people who know it well. And I've been saying that Writing for National Geographic has really helped with that because I think that the thing that I would also or almost call ah
00:39:39
Speaker
Gosh, I don't want to say a cliche, but something that if I was writing a pretend National Geographic article and like sort of making fun of it, it would be every little thing that the reader doesn't know, you define it um in a sentence or in a clause. And so I i learned to to take that with me, to be able to ah define the world where I needed to. and step back where I don't. And that I think part of that is where editing comes in because there are places where I i had written something and I had i just genuinely had not realized that somebody would not understand what it was, um like a fan boat or an airboat.
00:40:22
Speaker
both my editor and my agent said, you need to define what this is because most people are not going to be able to call a picture into their heads with just that word. And I i thought that was really funny because it's just such a ah ah regular part of my world that I hadn't even thought of it. But it's it's things like that. I think i I really sort of started with the the texture, the and the like the the specific words. I had to learn to name the world and I had to talk to people like Jeff and and other people who lived down in the Everglades and really i ask them what what everything is and what all the plants are. And I had several expeditions basically where I'm like, I point to something and ask what it is. And that really helps a lot with world building, I think. I also think that in nonfiction, what makes it different is that
00:41:22
Speaker
I can ask people to define their worlds and I can let them tell the stories that they think are indicative of their world. And so a big part of world building for me wasn't just all the sort of the the setting, the window dressing, the, you know, it's not a tree, it's a Cyprus kind of thing. It's the, the shape and the cadence of speech and the stories that people tell and trying to figure out why these stories are important and what they show about this place. Gosh, there there was somebody shared a how-to journalism story the other day that I didn't even bother to read because it was all about leading the person that you're interviewing into answering your questions. And I was just like, that is the complete opposite of what I think
00:42:17
Speaker
a good interview is, I really think that the best interviews are are conversations. and If you're forcing them to answer your questions, you're probably not getting to the meat of the real story and unless they're ah you know some paid talking head who is there to hawk a product to you or whatever. If they're a regular person, they know what's important and they know their their world better than you do. So the biggest part to me is to
00:42:48
Speaker
to be able to listen and and figure out the things that are important to the storytellers within the story, and that created the world. I think another element of the world building too that you accomplished so well is kind of the the duality of Jeff's interiority as he's assuming a different identity while trying to maintain his own and that is in and of itself is extremely challenging and and deft on your part so there's like ah there is of course that physical world but there is ah an interior world too that you are able to accomplish.
00:43:23
Speaker
i I was really worried about that um because it I was afraid that people would say ah it's too literary and that I was just making stuff up because I can't, and that I don't know what he's thinking, but the way that Jeff tells stories it made that possible um because when when he would be talking, he would be telling me the story and then he would pause like a narrator of ah of a written story and tell me what he was thinking then. And he didn't always do that, so sometimes I would have to ask him or I would go back and ask him um when I was writing um if I needed some interiority, but that started because that's the way he told the story. And I was i was still worried about it after I wrote it, so I was very happy to um
00:44:13
Speaker
Well, I wasn't immediately happy to get a call from him because a couple days after I had sent him the book, um his ah name came up on my caller ID and I panicked. I really thought he was going to rip me a new one, even though he's never been like that. I think he was irritated with me on the phone once and it was sort of it more like you've Disappointed a like a ah ah beloved teacher that you just feel like and It like all all the negativeness is like in your heart because you've disappointed this person not because of what they're saying um So he got me on the phone and like as he's talking I just have this like sense of dread a and because he's saying I I I got your book and I started reading it um and I was like, oh shit
00:45:08
Speaker
um And then he said, and I couldn't put it down. And I stayed up until 3 a.m. reading this whole book, even though I know what happened, because it happened to me. And I have three words for you. And I was like, oh, no.
00:45:26
Speaker
Because he's this storyteller that he knows how to pause to really have you on the edge of your seat, even if he starts ringing you like this. So he said, I had three words for you. Wow, wow, wow. And I like fell out of my chair and and like had to be resuscitated. That's incredible. He really liked it and he really felt that i had I had captured him and I was extremely relieved because I had let myself, I had to stick to what was true, but I had let myself be creative um and and weave the story as if it was fiction. And I,
00:46:07
Speaker
I don't know. I was expecting him to not like it or think that I... know I don't know. like ah The journalists all have the, maybe we don't all have the these these doubts, but I had all the the doubts that i I had not done a good job representing him or whatever. And he really assuaged those. And I think a big part of that is that he is a a lover of stories, not just telling them, but also reading them. And so he understood that I,
00:46:45
Speaker
Like I couldn't portray him as perfect if I wanted the reader to like him. And so he he really got that. And he I think he he really thinks that i I captured him well. And he shared the book a lot. And his whole big extended family has bought copies. And um apparently there's a ah book club at the FWC, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, where he worked. and they're reading it, which is ah a big deal to me because the book is sort of all about being a compassionate conservationist and having empathy with the people who are breaking the law. And I think that if the people who are in going to be the ones enforcing the laws are reading that and taking that in, like that's
00:47:38
Speaker
that could have a ah big impact on people's lives. So i'm i'm I'm thrilled at how far the book has gotten and and how many people have connected with Jeff's story. Yeah, there's a when when you're talking about you know the vernacular of, ah of say, like you know southern Florida, and um and you talk about that for for you as well, that you kind of lost your accent, you're ah your ah regional accent you know over
Identity, Accents, and Storytelling
00:48:10
Speaker
the years. And I grew up in Massachusetts and I used to have the classic
00:48:14
Speaker
pretty heavy Boston accent, comes out every now and again, but I kind of ironed it out when I was in college. And any time I try to reclaim it it, it comes across as performative or like I'm doing an imitation of my former self. And then so that was something that kind of struck me. There was just one passage where you talk about that, where you kind of ah long or kind of miss you know your your Southern accent at that point. I think some of it's come back. um Every time i'm I'm down in the Everglades, like I come back ah talking like my my grandmother who had a very thick Florida to accent, and it's not quite the same as the Southern accent. It's sort of, it's like a cousin of the New Orleans accent, which is, if if you know anything about that accent, it's almost like if you married a New York accent,
00:49:06
Speaker
like New York City accent with a southern accent. And it's it's a very specific thing. And it's not necessarily true for every person with a Florida accent. Mine's not quite as New Yorky as that. But it's because there's been so much um movement and travel, ah especially of people who have money to these ah big southern cities that you end up with these accents that are wholly their own. But there are other characters in this book who have um very deep, rich Florida accents, like the the character, the the guy Wayne, who was one of the the people caught in
00:49:51
Speaker
Operation Alligator Thief. He has a ah very, what I think is a ah wonderful accent and he sounds like ah people I'm related to. um And he can really weave a yarn of a story with that accent. So he's a he's a great storyteller that I i i think i I tried to capture a little bit of it, but um it's hard without having the audio. I'm working on an essay right now, just sketching out a little points about um the accent of where you grew up. You know, me being kind of in the southeastern Massachusetts, Boston adjacent, and How, not necessarily necessarily nostalgia, but there's almost ah an audio landscape that feels more like home than the physical landscape. Because the audio stuff doesn't change. The physical stuff changes all the time. That accent's gonna endure ah probably until the sun blows up.
00:50:52
Speaker
And so I listen or or I watch sometimes on TV ah old episodes of This Old House and those are New England contractors and hearing their authentic true New England Boston accents It's not put on. It's not performative. It's just how they talk. It's how everyone I grew up with talks. And it puts me there. And I've never felt a longing for my Massachusetts roots in a way.
00:51:26
Speaker
that that show and just hearing them talk elicits. It's pretty crazy. And so anyway, I'm very sensitive to how the Boston accent is portrayed. It's very easy to butcher. But when you listen, and when you go watch this old house or something like that, it that is it. And that it it definitely makes me want to. I don't know. Go there again, at least on the ear. It's kind of weird, but yeah you follow me, right?
00:52:00
Speaker
Yeah, and it can it's one of those deals where if you try to write it phonetically, it just it won't come across. and'll come across um It could come across as ah like ah making fun or something. And so it's it's almost best that you just have to like imagine it, ah you know just thing you know you speaking in that particular draw or accent. it's ah Yeah, it's kind of it's kind of tricky to navigate that, you know, written on the written page. Yeah, i I never do that um writing it phonetically, um especially because so many of these accents sound normal to me, so I would just be writing it regularly. Yeah. um And i've i've read so I've read so many people trying to write, like, my accent and it not...
00:52:50
Speaker
not sounding to me like me. um But I think the the sort of place that's in in between these is um It's funny because Zora Neale Hurston is from Central Florida and um I read Their Eyes Were Watching God in high school and I went to my teacher and I said, I am having such trouble with this book. I can't understand a word they're saying and I don't know what's going on. And my teacher looked me dead in the eyes and said, Rebecca, read it out loud.
00:53:23
Speaker
and This is back when I still had more of a thick accent and I i read it out loud and I went, oh. um Because it's a very good rendition of the like deep backwoods Central Florida accent. and i I felt sort of embarrassed because it was a phonetic portrayal of my own accent and I couldn't understand. and I think that's a great book now, but i I really had trouble with it at first until I i i realized how to decode it.
00:53:58
Speaker
and it just ah as you're you know You've got this book under your belt and it's ah it's but it's been great to see you know it being you know yeah know featured in prominent places and it seems to it just seems to be really glomming on, especially in Florida. And I just wonder for you, just as you're looking to parlay this into other things, maybe like you know what you're your ambitions are and what you're your goals are, and maybe your relationship to ambition as yeah as you go forth with you know whatever whatever is coming down the road.
Balancing Passions: Nonfiction vs Fiction
00:54:30
Speaker
I don't know. i I always wanted to be a writer full time when I was younger, and I'm i'm still trying to do that. and i I don't have a day job currently, and I'm very determined to not have to have one ever again. so I guess that's my ambition, um to remain unemployable. um i I don't know, I think i I need to be doing more reporting still and and keeping my name out there, but I'm also hoping to have the sort of the full brunt of my ah creative energy be going toward books. So I'm i'm working on a couple non-fiction books. At least one of them is ah sort of in this vein with um like ah
00:55:18
Speaker
animal true crime. um But I'm also working on a lot of fiction, too, because that was my my first passion. But i'm I'm discovering that there are big similarities and big differences with them. And I think I've come so far as a nonfiction writer that i'm I'm realizing that I need to figure out a way to parlay that learning into fiction writing and not act as if they are two very different things. because I think that's been my stumbling block in the past is acting like fiction and nonfiction are are so wholly different that I could be successful in nonfiction and then not get it for fiction. And I think that that i I'm conquering that that brain block, basically. So I'm trying to do both, even though I think my agent might want me to do at least a little bit of a pen name for the fiction.
00:56:14
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Yeah. You got to be thinking of branding. Yeah. Well, I don't know. i I feel like I harp on all the same subjects on everything. I'm writing fantasy and I love things that... um like i I love a good trickster story and ah Gator Country is a story of tricksters. And so I i have all of these... ah tropes and myth themes that I love that I don't think I'm going to ever part from and anything that I write so I think everything goes together but Who knows I think my my quote-unquote pin name is just going to be RA Renner So it's just my initials in my last name sort of like VE Schwab has done
00:57:00
Speaker
Nice, I always figured, my full name is Brendan Ryan O'Mara, and I always figured if I ever had like a picture fiction wing, my like my name would be B. Ryan O'Mara, and that would be that would be my fiction pen name, and then you know Brendan O'Mara is my normal one. Well, that's cool. Yeah, my middle name is just Anne, so it's not all that interesting.
00:57:25
Speaker
And I like digging into certain insecurities that that we all harbor as creative people and writers in general. And ah for you, what are some hang-ups that you have that you feel like ah you know you have trouble getting over, if anything? Gosh, I think when I was writing this, i I thought I wasn't a very good journalist and I i thought I wasn't um doing enough and I've gradually realized that I
00:57:56
Speaker
i I do a lot more reporting than than most people would in the same situations. and i like that i'm I am a ah good journalist and that i do i like i'm I'm very meticulous um with all of that. so i I think that's just a sort of internal self-editor that i've I'm learning to turn off. Gosh, I don't know. You can take on a lot of different like there are certain reporters that are like really good at tracking down, you know, documents or FOIA requests and stuff of that nature. And then there are other kind of reporters that is a really good interviewer. So there's like so many different spurs. And I don't know, kind of like wing spokes to the wheel of but of being a decent ah being a very good reporter. And some people have more strengths than others. And so it's, ah yeah, it's it's so multidisciplinary to be a really good reporter.
00:58:49
Speaker
Yeah, I i think my my strength is definitely interviewing people. To the point where even when I'm not being a reporter, I'll accidentally get people to tell me things that I don't want to know. like yeah A couple years ago, you know that there was like that huge blizzard that hit the entire East Coast. I ended up stuck in JFK Airport, and um I accidentally got somebody like pretty like mid to high level at the airport telling me that that like several planes were frozen shut with people on them. And I was just like, whoa, too much information. You don't need to be telling me that.
00:59:28
Speaker
um And i only feel okay about saying it now because i don't even remember what year that was but that like that was the kind of thing that i was like i i could write this for like the new york times like in an hour if i wanted to and But I'm not going to um because that that woman would have like lost her job right before Christmas. Gosh, I i don't think I've ever been the kind of person to ah not think highly of my prose. cause I think that prose is one of my strong suits.
01:00:03
Speaker
But i I also think that I think about it differently than than a lot of other people do because i I know, especially some short story writers who say they have to get each sentence right before they can move on to the next. And I'm i'm just like, I need to um get all the sentences out before I start trying to put lipstick on that pig. e Yeah. you need You're like, i'm um I can make the pig. Yeah. You got to make the pig first before you put lipstick on it. yeah But yeah, I think that um the reporting thing might be my insecurity and maybe also just not understanding like what people want in fiction.
01:00:48
Speaker
and but that's Possibly just it all in my head Because if I am good at figuring out what people want in nonfiction, which I'm not sure I can do either Then maybe I can do it for fiction Well going back to your you citing Rick Rubin like he is someone who's very much like I don't think of the fans like don't think of the fans like make something that is tuned into your taste and Make the fans like it because it's important to you basically, you know paraphrasing and
01:01:20
Speaker
I think you have to find a balance with that though, because sometimes I'll... So the the novel that I'm working on right now, an earlier rendition of it, I was just like, who is this for? like It doesn't have any comp titles. like i And so I wouldn't have been able to sell it. So but like that's that's one of those things where that's all well and good for somebody who is extremely established to say because they could sell anything. Yeah. um But if you're not, you do sort of have to find the the happy medium between ah doing like youre the height of creativity and and finding a niche where like people actually want it or else you won't be able to sell it. so
01:02:07
Speaker
yeah I don't know. that's That's just how I feel about
Creativity vs Commercial Viability
01:02:09
Speaker
it. Yeah. It's like you have to earn that creative leash where like you know Tom Petty doing wildflowers with Rick Rubin as sort of his ah his wingman throughout that. It's like Tom Petty has established credibility to do whatever he wants. But and until until you reach that point, ah then you do have to have, like you said, some some balance between, you know, who is this for versus is this for me and only me? Yeah. Very nice. Well, Rebecca, I want to be mindful of your time. And it it's always kind of fun talking, talking shop and being able to, you know, celebrate the work at hand and everything. And as I bring these conversations down for a landing, I always like asking the guests for a recommendation of some kind. There's just anything you're excited about for the listener out there. So what might you recommend for them? Oh, gosh. Um, I don't know.
01:03:01
Speaker
I've been been reading a lot of things lately. i I think my favorite book last year was The Wager, but like I feel like everybody's read that. I don't know. That book is so tight. It is like he did so much research and it's it's a pretty slim book, but it's really, it's it's heavy and dense, but it reads grippingly and it's lean. It's it's just, a yeah, it's masterfully done. I hope it wins something because he he did a really good job with that. What else? What else have I been reading? I don't know. I i have this weird habit of starting books and and just sort of ah bouncing around between books. So like i I'm three chapters into like 20 books right now. So I don't know. I don't know what to recommend to you.
01:03:53
Speaker
And it doesn't have to be a book. I mean, you you could be like, ah there's they's just brands of socks that I'm just like totally tickled over. And they like, that counts. Gosh, I don't know. um But that's all right. If if if nothing comes to mind, ah no big deal. Bringing up the wager, by the way, because a moment like a ah earlier in our conversation you were talking about, you know, you kind of wanted to revisit it, to study it. When you dive back into a book or a a particularly inspiring magazine piece, what does that study look like for you when you're starting to like really dig into its bones?
01:04:29
Speaker
Well, I think it's different with everything, but um I used to be an English teacher. And so I really love annotating things. And I think that but when I do that kind of thing, I figure out the basically the the the big shining thing about that book that I want to understand how that writer was able to tackle. And so what I would want to do with ah the wager specifically is go back and look at his scenes and the way he uses details to
01:05:04
Speaker
a help the reader craft scenes in their head because, like we've said, he wasn't there um to be able to report on all of this. So I think the the way he chose the most evocative details is the thing that accomplished that. So I'd want to look for that and see if, you know, is it the details that are making these scenes? um Is it something else? ah So that's that's pretty much what I would do. But I i don't know. I also might just go back and annotate the whole thing. And when you're when you're annotating, are you like writing things in the like in the margins or you know, how does that manifest? Yeah, well, I i would probably
01:05:53
Speaker
either do pins and highlighters or just pins. I have a bunch of colored pens and tabs and ah sort of make a key of like what each color means and then underline or highlight and make notes where I think it's appropriate. It all depends on on what I'm doing and what I'm trying to pull out of the story. But yeah, it's basically like labeling it. Yeah. Yeah, I have, um I'm reading, ah Louisa Thomas is one of my favorite profile writers for the New Yorker and she wrote a, she's a sports writer primarily and ah she wrote a really good profile on a, on a Nikola Jokic, who's a yeah center for the,
01:06:39
Speaker
Denver Nuggets. But anyway, I'm like, I have a highlighter out and like i really breaking down scenes versus exposition and everything. So I'm kind of just highlighting things like in her lead lead was probably about 1000 words, maybe more. But yeah, it's just like kind of coloring it and be like, and then you can kind of take a helicopter view, especially if you highlight it and be like, okay, there you can see all the scenes laying out. And you're like, okay, that that's why that story felt so charged, because it's really animated by that kind of action. Yeah. Gosh, i'm I'm jealous of somebody getting a thousand words for a lead.
01:07:13
Speaker
Oh yeah, I mean, i lived this profile is probably 8,000 words. So I imagine the the lead, yeah, I tend to, in a long feature like that, I think, to me at least, I define the lead until ah usually that first page break. Yeah, and this one's probably at least a good thousand words, not more, but yeah. I always feel happy when I sneak like a good paragraph lead in. Yeah. Never get any space. Yeah, well, ah you're you're probably yeah if ah if ah you the success of Gator or Country is any indication, and you might be able to get some more real estate for yourself. So I i see that coming for you, Rebecca.
01:07:56
Speaker
Well, thank you. I hope so. I need to actually start pitching again. Well, very nice. that This was so great for you to carve out some time to do this, talk gator country and talk ah writing and journalism and all that, all the fun stuff. So like just thanks so much for hopping on the program, Rebecca. I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you for having me.
01:08:17
Speaker
You ever find that you're a just bad at talking like I get short of breath? Is there a way to breathe while you're talking? i Hey, anyway, thanks to Rebecca. Awesome. Yes. ah We recorded this, like I said, four months ago. So thanks for your patience, Rebecca. Not sure if you're going to see this or listen to this, but, you know, thanks for the time anyway. Be sure you're subscribing to this podcast wherever you get your pods. You can find it anywhere. This thing right here. This. All of this. This kingdom. This is my social network. As is the newsletter. And if you have some spare change in your couch cushions, I know you do. There's some quarters in there.
01:09:01
Speaker
There are, don't use them for parking, visit patreon dot.com slash cnfbot, shop around, there's some stuff there that you get beyond the satisfaction of helping, ah help put some dolores into the CNF in coffers. Alright, so I teased at the top of the show about audience leakage and what to do about it. yeah I'm not a huge analytics guy. I don't delve into every nook and cranny. I just look at the big things, and it's hard to ignore that. You know, three to five people ah you know are unsubscribed every time I put out a newsletter these days, and I'm not getting any new sign-ups. I know why I'm not getting any new ones. it's ah i'm not
01:09:49
Speaker
out there publishing work and linking back, so it's I'm hard to find unless you actively seek it out. you know I'm not on social media, so I'm not like, sign up for my newsletter and hoping that like one person clicks on it. I'm just not doing that shit. um And I've also been watching the podcast numbers in the last couple months just like crater like 50% overnight crazy I don't say this to complain, but it's a it's a reality that we is like creative people have looking to build an audience online and you know people you hope to entertain and serve on some level and yeah, that's you got to confront that at times and
01:10:27
Speaker
when you see the numbers tank yeah you need to i don't know it's you need to make halftime adjustments if you will change on some level or maybe this is just part of the leveling up game, and this is what the real crux I want to get at. Lots of bands, you know, listeners of the show. No, I'm a Metallica apologist. I'm going to see them twice in the next month or so. um You know, a band will change their sound, their direction, and they they'll know on some level that they're going to lose some of the audience that got them to that point.
01:11:05
Speaker
They have the courage to lose a percentage of the old base in order to chart new territory. you know maybe find higher ground. yeah Seth Godin just the other day wrote in a blog post that ah trust is what's in short supply, not attention. you know We've been thinking, oh oh my God, there's there's so attention is so short and there's only so much of it and how do we peel off some attention from from some people? But you get the attention when you earn it. Attention is bombarded constantly, but my hope is to lean into the ones who are still here.
01:11:39
Speaker
you know trying to bring a level of value to your life that deepens the trust in the relationship, that spending an hour with the show every week, maybe perusing the newsletter, ah that that combined will give you the juice for you to see things through. Maybe maybe feel a little less alone. you know If people unsubscribe or stop listening, as hard as that is, because the show and that newsletter are so deeply personal that it feels like an attack. you know I have or we have to have the strength to realize that it's okay. It's no longer for them, it's okay. But we'll keep showing up and be there for them if they want to come back. We'll leave the light on for you.
01:12:21
Speaker
and I've outgrown a ah number of podcasts myself over the years. Be that growing as a person or just, and primarily it's my skill as an interviewer means I can't unhear the way certain very prominent people conduct interviews, and even less prominent people, but I ah can't bear to listen to people who I don't consider astute to interviewers. You know how they conduct interviews is like nails on a chalkboard the way certain people handle Handle it and so I too have moved on but often some of these shows have millions of listeners So they don't notice when little old me leaves and unsubscribes
01:13:04
Speaker
But man, when the same thing happens to me, I feel it. I feel it like a failure that I couldn't win you over and it hurts. I've been doing this podcast for nearly nearly a dozen years and I've been a professional writer for 20 and it still stings. It never won't, I guess. But when you frame your mind around this idea of enough, You don't get so obsessed with grow, go grow, grow, though you still want to, but your obsession doesn't hinge on it. You get more obsessed with building trust and delivering for the people who still get the joke. And if you're listening this far, I suspect you do. So stay wild, see you in efforts. And if you can't do, interview safe.
01:14:04
Speaker
you