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Episode 166: Kate Hopper—Slap the Bass
131 Plays5 years ago
Kate Hopper, author of the essay "Stumbling into Joy," stopped by the show to talk about this essay and how she approaches the work.
Keep the conversation going on Twitter @CNFPod and Instagram @cnfpod. I hope you find what I made for you is worth sharing.
Thanks to Goucher's MFA in Nonfiction, Bay Path University's MFA in Creative Nonfiction, and River Teeth for the support.
Head over to brendanomeara.com for show notes and to sign up for the newsletter!
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Transcript
Introduction to MFA Programs
00:00:00
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CNF, Creative Nonfiction Podcast, greatest podcast in the world, sponsored by Goucher College's Master of Fine Arts in Nonfiction. The Goucher MFA is a two-year, low-residency program. Online classes let you learn from anywhere, while on-campus residencies allow you to hone your craft with accomplished mentors who have pulse or prizes, and best-selling books to their names. The program boasts a nation-wide network of students, faculty, and alumni.
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which has published 140 books and counting. You'll get opportunities to meet literary agents and learn the ins and outs of the publishing journey. Visit Goucher.edu slash non-fiction to start your journey now.
Writing Advice and Accents
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Stat, stat, what the hell kind of accent is that? Take your writing to the next level and go from Hopeful to Published in Goucher's NFA Program for Creative.
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nonfiction. Creative Nonfiction podcast is also sponsored by Bay Path University. Discover your story. Bay Path is the first and only university offering no residency, fully accredited MFA, focusing exclusively on creative nonfiction, attend full or part time from anywhere in the world. In the Bay Path MFA you'll find small online classes
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and a dynamic and supportive community. You'll master techniques of good writing from acclaimed authors and editors, learn about publishing and teaching through professional internships, and complete a master's thesis that will form the foundation of your memoir. Memoir.
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or a collection of personal essay. Special elective courses include contemporary women's stories, travel and food writing, family histories, spiritual writing, and an optional week-long summer residency in Ireland. With guest writers including Andre de Vise III and Hood, Mia Gallagher's... Mia Gallagher's? No, there's one. There's a single Mia Gallagher. And then there's others, of course. It wouldn't be a Bay Path ad read if I didn't butcher it at some point or another. They should just pat me on the back, right?
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Start dates in late August, January, and May. Find out more at baypath.edu slash MFA. Don't leave, Bay Path. Stay, stay with us here. So, I am not one to offer empty advice, but I will say this. If at first you don't succeed, riff.
Creative Nonfiction Podcast Overview
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Oh ho, I'm Brendan O'Mara, hey hey, and this is my podcast, CNF, the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, where I talk to badass writers, filmmakers, and audio producers about the art and craft of telling true stories so that you can get a little bit better at your own.
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work. Be sure to subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. And consider leaving a kind review on Apple Podcasts. Why not? We're knocking on the door of 100. Let's get there. I hope I've made something worth sharing here. You, my CNFers, are the social network rage against the algorithm.
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and share this with your friends. This grows and we grow as a community hand-to-hand. Keep the conversation going on Twitter at cnfpod, Instagram's also at cnfpod, and visit BrendanOmero.com for show notes and to sign up for the monthly newsletter.
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where I give out my monthly reading recommendations and what you might have missed from the world of the podcast. Once a month, no spam. As far as I can tell, you can't beat it. So this week, I'd like to welcome Kate Hopper to the show, to CNF Pod HQ. Her true story essay, a spur of creative nonfiction,
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Stumbling into joy was a veritable Twitter sensation in our corner of
Kate Hopper's Viral Essay
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the internet. So I turned to my booker me and told him me that you'd better book around the show. And I was like, okay.
00:03:52
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We talk a lot about that particular essay, so you've been warned. So I'm writing this meth-like high from Hippocamp, which took place this past weekend. I can't speak highly enough about it. What a great experience.
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It's the best conference I've ever attended. Donna Talarico of episode 65 and 164 fame has built something truly special there. If you attend one conference in 2020, make it Hippocamp. Just do it. I know I'll never miss another as long as she's running it. This isn't a sponsor read or anything. This is me telling you from the bounty of my cold, cold heart what an amazing conference it was.
00:04:38
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CNF-ers everywhere. I met so many people, many of y'all who listened to this hot mess of a podcast. It was great. I just can't speak. Like I said, I'm stumbling. You might say I'm stumbling into joy.
00:04:54
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callback Kate Hopper. My podcast talk went well too. I mean it was okay. I'm typically hard on myself. I'm definitely not the perfectionist type to let that stuff kind of get in the way of doing good to mediocre work with the excuse of it's not perfect enough. But I give myself a solid B. Mainly because you know people seem very entertained and
00:05:20
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Into it and engaged and you can't really ask for more than that. I mean the content of the talk I think was nice I think that hit all the beats that I wanted but the presentation itself and the slides or whatever it kind of lacked a certain polish I was hoping for But next year I'll dial that in
00:05:37
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I plan on reading the talk I did as an episode of the podcast so that might be a little smoother and that way those of you who couldn't attend couldn't attend the physical conference or if you were there and you wanted to and you wanted to go somewhere else but you were thinking can't make it to that one you can hear what I did.
00:05:56
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And, uh, like I said, what an experience. I'm still buzzing on it. I think the dates for the 2020 Hippocamper, uh, it's mid August. I believe it's August 12th to the 14th. Should probably have done my research on that before I put it on the intro of the show, but I pretty confident that that's it. So start squirreling away a little dough. So do at this point right now, and then when the registration opens, you'll have some dough. And that's what I'm doing, bro.
00:06:27
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So I'm totally ripping off something the podcast, the argument does at the end of this show. It's called their recommendation section. If you listen to it, they recommend anything, not even germane to anything they're talking about, and certainly not germane to CNFing. I'm going to offer a recommendation just for me at the end of this show in the outro.
00:06:48
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But going forward, I'm going to ask my guest to offer a recommendation to close out every
Podcast Format and Guest Recommendations
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show. I think it could be a lot of fun and be pretty diverse things. I might give it a little extra insight into what they do with their time, what they find important, and what they might do to unplug from this morass that we've all gotten ourselves into.
00:07:11
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But you're gonna have to listen to the whole show, sucka. Oh, and another thing, the next phase of the podcast, I'm aiming to be a bit tighter. It's phase four, album four, if you will, and you know who else had a fourth album that was a bit tight, a bit louder, about cleaner, but so far as I can tell, still just as powerful. This next album, this next phase is my black album. Tighter, leaner episodes that still have the power of the super long interviews,
00:07:40
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but sound better and are more concentrated. Are you gonna look at me and say sad but true isn't heavy? I mean, come at me if you think sad but true is not heavy. Or holier than that. I think it'll give you what you've come to expect from the show, but with a greater respect for your time and so forth.
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as I record a record-long introduction. So, whatevs. Hey, anyway, big ups to River Teeth Literary Journal for some promotional support. Go check them out. Submit your work. Do the thing. Well, anyway, I had so much to say. What can I say? I had a lot to say. I had a lot on my mind. But let's do this anyway. Here's Kate Hopper.
Interview with Kate Hopper: Writing Process
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Ooh!
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Happy to do it. As I was, of course, awaiting my copy of True Story, there was just a lot of buzz on Twitter about it, so I was really excited to get my hands on it. It seems like a lot of people have been enjoying it, and rightfully so. It's an awesome, awesome essay.
00:08:48
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Oh, thank you so much. And I mean, it took me a long time to write it. And but it's just, you know, and I haven't published anything for a while. And so to have something out in the world again, and be like, Oh, I worked really hard on this, it just feels so exciting.
00:09:03
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That's such a, that's a great thing to talk about too, is just how it's, sometimes it can feel like forever, like forever, you haven't published anything for a long time, and you work on one thing for forever and ever and ever, and then, and it feels like nothing's ever gonna happen, and nothing good is ever gonna happen again, and then something publishes like this, and it's like, whoa, this is great, this is why I do it.
00:09:27
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this is why I do it again just to have like oh I you know I I mean it took me so long to kind of thread together these three different kind of narratives and
00:09:36
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to say, okay, it is worth it to take the time to really figure out how to best tell whatever story it is that you have to tell at that point. And so yeah, it feels and I and I wrote it with true story in mind. And that's a good reminder to, to me as well that I do best with if I'm thinking of a specific publication sometimes where I'm like, okay, this I think is gonna be a long thing. You know, I know true story really well. I love this publication and
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I want it to be there, you know, and really just hold out and wait for them to respond. So I'm really excited.
00:10:10
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yeah that's something i i wanted to dig into first about this uh... about stumbling into joy uh... that like the the main threads that you weave together that three distinct threads and how you came to shoot like two of them are very obvious and then there's the another one of that's kind of your sort of adolescent uh... you know college thread and i suspect that you maybe you could have
00:10:36
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chosen any any number of maybe life chapter if you will to put in that spot and I suspect that was a deliberate choice that you made to make that one particular thread work with the other two so how did you arrive at the three threads of this story
00:10:52
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Yeah, that is a great question. And it took me a long time. Initially, so the year that I learned to play that bass, that first year, I didn't write at all because all of my creative energy had to go to learning this new language and instrument. And there was actually no space in my mind for writing. And it didn't even matter in that moment, which is so funny because I'm a writer.
00:11:19
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But I was taking notes, so along the way I would write down things that my teacher said, write how I was feeling, how he's improving, all of those things.
00:11:29
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because I knew I would write about it when I could write again. And so when I did after that first year and I was like, okay, I have to get back to writing, I knew I wanted to write something about learning bass in my mid-40s and I was kind of more focused on like what a role model that is for my daughters and kind of thinking about that. And then as I was doing research and kind of reading about all of these different all-female bands,
00:11:57
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I've read about the runaways and the horrible story of Jackie Fox being raped by Kim Fowley. I came across some darker side of women in music, especially these younger women musicians.
00:12:13
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And then I learned about Fanny and I was like, oh, this is this band. And just June and Jean Millington were so vocal and June is so active still in kind of the musical arts for girls. And that's really her mission. Then I was like, no, this is the direction I want to go. And then so I was doing research and kind of compiling all this stuff about Fanny and kind of piecing together some of the writing that I had started to do my notes on that year of learning the bass. And then I was actually at one of my retreats.
00:12:43
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three retreats a year for women writers and I really push them like I create exercises and all of my writing exercises and my teaching are designed to like help my students go deep and kind of go directly to that heart of what it is they need to tell rather than stay on the surface and so I at one of my retreats I was like kind of
00:13:03
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doing a little bit of writing early one morning kind of based on one of my own exercises and that's when this connection to kind of freshman and sophomore year like realizing that that was when I really fell in love with the bass guitar and that was part of this story and maybe the biggest the most important part of it
00:13:22
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And so I was like, oh, and I was disappointed. I was like, I don't want to write about this depression. Like I'd already written about it early and, you know, kind of when I started writing, I was writing a lot about that and I thought I had put that to rest and, and then to realize like, Oh my God, this is a story. So I went downstairs to get some coffee and told one of my, my students joy. This, I was like, I think this is, this essay is really, this is going to be a big part of it. It's about this depression. And,
00:13:50
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you know, coming of age and I really don't want to write it. She was like, oh, isn't that funny? She just kind of laughed at me. She's like, that's what you make us do all the time. And I was like, I know, I know, I have to go there. So I started writing that thread. And for a while as I was writing, I was trying to go back and forth between them, all the threads, and then realized I kind of just had to write a little bigger pieces of
00:14:14
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you know, each section and be like, okay, I know that the Fianny section has this component. I know that the learning the bass in my 40s has this. I know that this kind of freshman, sophomore year, the depression has these things. And then I would kind of start to weave them together and keep going. But it did, it took me forever to write because it was very clunky at first.
00:14:36
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And so I had to kind of streamline and take a whole bunch of stuff out that I had written and really keep asking that question like what's the story here and what is serving this piece and what is not so that it didn't feel as chaotic as it did on the page early on. Was it a very modular approach to writing the essay and that did you take one thread and write that essentially A to Z and then move to the next one and then try to see how they fit together in the end?
00:15:05
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I would say it was modular in that I would just kind of, I'm very much, and I know Jill Crispin uses that term a lot in her writing and that's how she writes almost everything. Her great true story, Spinning, when I had talked to her about that and she was like, she wrote it in that modular way. And so I kind of had that in my head when I started this, but it was even more stuff. It was like, oh, this little snippet from NPR or this research about brain and music and
00:15:32
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Like, that was all in here. And so it was like the three strands, but then all of this other stuff as well. So it was just, it was a mess. And part of me wanted to write it back and forth, back and forth, because I think there is a certain kind of energy that even in the writing process, even if it's messy, you can generate between, you know, toggling back and forth between these different strands.
00:15:56
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But then, you know, my chronology and stuff was getting a little messed up. So then I did kind of just write out big things and then paste them in where I thought they would go and then revise and kind of work with them a little bit. So it was kind of a combination of both. Like I wrote some of the strands separately. I went back and forth between them. And it was in that like in that way that just feels like you're mucking around in the mud when you're in the middle of something like this and it's not working. It doesn't
00:16:25
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Nothing is good about it. And you just have to sit with that and be like, okay, I know this, if I just keep sitting with it and keep moving around and keep writing, I will find my way to the right kind of structure. So that's what I did. But it was, it was painful in parts of that process.
00:16:42
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Well, having those different threads, like say you get to a point where you're, where you get stuck, it's kind of nice to be able, all right, I'm done hitting on the tee, I'm going to go field some ground balls now. And it's kind of like just, let's move to a different thing and make that create its own energy and momentum, I imagine.
00:17:01
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Yeah, and actually that was really helpful in working on this thread about my depression in college because I just didn't want to go back there. Then I would have this break and be like, oh, but look at this great thing I get to do now. I have a gig and I'm going to learn these songs or I'm going to talk about Fanny. It created a nice breathing room for me as a writer in the process, but I hope that it also does that for readers because that story in and of itself is
00:17:31
Speaker
It's just like so heavy. And my mom, actually I gave her a copy and I said, you know, what do you think? She said, well, I read until it got to get until I, you know, got to that part where it starts to get really hard. And then I stopped and I'll go back to it. I will finish it, but I just didn't want to read that, you know? So I do like that it creates that kind of breathing room to have the different threads.
00:17:55
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's nice because you bring in the three elements, which, I don't know, were you at AWP this year in Portland? Yes, I was, yeah. And did you, by any chance, attend Hattie's talk? I did, yes. Okay, I was in the room, too. That's great. Oh, that's so fun. Yeah, and I drew this, while they were talking, I drew this little Venn diagram-type thing where she talked about
00:18:20
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the narrative slash tension personal slash writerly connection and then the research slash significant informational component and then like in the middle of that is where true story lies and I was like this is the kind of the formula and it was like when I was reading your piece I'm like this it's like it hits the hits all the beats and so as you had your piece been accepted by that time
00:18:44
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No, I had submitted it and actually went there and it was kind of stalking her a little bit in hopefully not creepy way. But I just wanted to go and say I love this publication. That's the best.
00:18:59
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And I really did try to kind of incorporate that so that I was really happy when she said all of that because I was like, I did this. I did this in my piece, you know, but then actually based on some of that, it did have a slightly different beginning. I think at that point it began with Fanny.
00:19:15
Speaker
and not with this kind of taking stock moment that came second. And then I was like, okay, I think I need to up my narrative urgency. So a friend of mine who had read it said, what if you start with this kind of walk along the highway? And so I actually put that at the beginning then just a tiny little piece.
00:19:34
Speaker
And then when Hattie accepted it and we began to work together, she was like, actually this comes later, otherwise you're actually reducing the narrative urgency. So I was like, she was just really so insightful as an editor. And that whole team at Creative Nonfiction, I can't say enough good things about how thorough the fact checking and the copy editing and everything like that.
00:19:58
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So I had not, but I was like kind of trying to stalk her a little bit. So I was like, hi, I'm Kate, you know, and I have this and she's like, oh, we're way behind. And then I, so then I changed it up a little bit, resubmitted it. And then she got back to me fairly quickly after that.
00:20:13
Speaker
Oh, that's awesome. So I think it would be fair to back up a little bit and try to get a sense of your connection to the bass guitar. It's, of course, I think it's an instrument of passion because it's not at the forefront of the band, of maybe most music fans. You know, they see the lead guitars or rhythm guitars and even a virtuos, virtuistic drummer.
00:20:37
Speaker
I feel like maybe the bass guitar is probably most appreciated by musicians the same way a quarterback most appreciates maybe his offensive line, which doesn't necessarily get all the headlines but is the most deeply appreciated position on the field. So how would you explain your relationship to the bass guitar or how that started?
00:21:00
Speaker
You know, I mean, it is one of these things in my line in the essay that my stepbrother told me, you know, he's a drummer and he said, you know, an instrument chooses you, not the other way around. And that is truly how it felt with the bass. And when I first started like listening to this music in college, that was like so much edgier and fugazi and just like that.
00:21:21
Speaker
and i was like oh it just felt like it connected with something in me that sense i mean it really is a sense of safety almost just the way that it kind of drives the drives the narrative and kind of as i've been thinking this this year of just playing the bass really did help me think about writing in a different way too and i think part of what i learned is that
00:21:42
Speaker
that there are other reasons that I love the bass that I couldn't have articulated at the time. And so I gave this talk on chronology and structure. Last summer at Ashland, I teach in the low-residency MFA program at Ashland University in Ohio. And I have so many students who push back against chronology. They feel like it's really not cool.
00:22:05
Speaker
to write something chronologically. And I get that. And I was like, okay, I think the different, you know, part of this is a confusion with what's episodic and what's chronological and so kind of parsing that out. But realizing that for me, a baseline serves the purpose that chronology serves in writing.
00:22:26
Speaker
and that it keeps that kind of steady thread going so that, you know, the guitar and the voices can careen wherever they need to go. And if you have a thread that is chronological in your memoir or your essay or whatever it is, then you can go forward and back in time and you can do all of these interesting things so long as you have that baseline in there.
00:22:51
Speaker
And so I think there's something that made me feel really safe about that and interesting in a very not safe time of my life too. Then I was like, oh, maybe this is part of why I love the bass. And then the more I played and now playing, like I love that kind of driving bassline still.
00:23:10
Speaker
but I also love these bass lines that have their own narrative. They seem to have their own story to them. And I'm thinking of kind of David Bowie, you know, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, like these songs that I didn't like listen to and be like, oh my gosh, I love this song so much. But as soon as I started learning the bass line, I was like, oh my, this is blowing my mind. You know, I mean, there's a whole storyline and some Led Zeppelin too, like they have this whole narrative in the bass line and
00:23:39
Speaker
And then it will come and it will repeat and it will be like this thematic threads in an essay or memoir, which I just love. So there's that level. So the bass, I knew I loved it and I knew I was drawn to it over the years, even though I never learned to play. I fell in love with it at 18-19 and I learned to play it at 44, basically, 43-44.
00:24:02
Speaker
that but the more that I play it just has deepened my understanding of like oh this is why I love this thing you know and it ties very much into writing to me now so I love the way that having time off from writing to do this other thing has you know reinforced
00:24:20
Speaker
why I love to write and also maybe think so differently about structure and playing music like to really understand what a bridge is and what a bridge can do in a song and what we can do you know what a bridge can do then in say an essay or what are those breaks that we can put in so I don't know if that totally answered your question but I just get I get so excited about it
00:24:42
Speaker
That's great. It strikes me. What came to mind as you were talking about it was that the bass in a sense is like one of the more literary instruments in a band because it's providing muscle to the skeleton around it. And like you said, it provides a bit of heft. And I think like any good piece of writing, it kind of rewards you upon rereading.
00:25:04
Speaker
And I suspect a lot of people, if you're not familiar with bass, sometimes it's hard to pick up, but it rewards re-listening, right? Yeah, absolutely. And without it, songs can kind of fall apart. Just because it's so closely tied with the drums and the rhythm section,
00:25:23
Speaker
but then does this great echoing of different things that are happening in the guitars and all of that as well. So, I mean, without a bass guitar, things don't sound the same. It isn't full in that same way. And so it helps hold it together and translate kind of between drums and guitar in a way. That's sort of how I'm thinking about it sometimes.
00:25:45
Speaker
And I love that, whether you meant to or not, the fact that you took this time off to play the bass, to learn it, to get to a point of proficiency where you could get up on stage in lieu of actually generating a lot of pros, which is kind of like your stock and trade and your vocation, that this probably, in effect, recharged your battery in a way that it was like a writing sabbatical but still creative. How important was that?
00:26:14
Speaker
year for you of stepping away, say, from writing. Maybe not entirely, but stepping away enough where you were learning this instrument, but it clearly fed into your creative writing work.
Importance of Taking Breaks in Writing
00:26:25
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think it's hugely important. And I think writers, I mean, I do have these moments where I'm like, oh my gosh, you know, just as I said, I haven't published. I'm like, I'm going to be obsolete. Nobody's going to know me, you know, as if I'm a famous writer anyway, which I'm so, of course not. But I think that we're so worried about that. Like, oh, I have to keep producing that sometimes we forget that, especially as nonfiction writers. But I think this is true for fiction writers and poets, any writer, that you do need to step away and just live.
00:26:55
Speaker
your life whatever it is and then take those breaks and be okay with that and be okay with I'm still a writer even though I'm not writing right now and I realized after I started and I was practicing like an hour a day at least and so I really just didn't have time with work and family and everything else to do writing on top of the bass guitar in those early you know months but then I realized I have I just have to do this right now and if I don't
00:27:24
Speaker
I will not have kept that promise to myself. And especially that my husband surprised me with this guitar, with his bass. I was like, I have to do this now. And I think sometimes, actually, he's like, he would never say this. And he insists it's not true. But sometimes I'm like, oh, you wish you had never given this to me. Don't you? Because I spend so much time practicing and rehearsing.
00:27:50
Speaker
It's so fun. And so also to do whatever that thing is, is that is fun. Because sometimes writing isn't fun after you've been at it for a long time. And when it starts to feel like a grind, then it's almost like, why are we doing this? So to bring that kind of fun back in and do something else may be totally different. And then write about that fun thing. I mean, I think it's a great, it's a great reminder that there's a lot more than putting words on the page, even though that's what we
00:28:19
Speaker
do, and I can't imagine not doing that forever, but it's okay to take those breaks.
00:28:26
Speaker
well that's the trap of so often especially these days of people turning hobbies into vocations it's you know you lose that playful connection i think all of us who write we used to have so much fun with it and then as you try to make money with it and try to have prestige with it a lot of that fun in that edge kind of erodes away and then you kind of forget what that what brought you to it in the first place so to have
00:28:53
Speaker
the bass which to you is is where you play and that's where it appears to stay it does allow you to come at you know your vocation with a sense of renewal. Yeah absolutely and and just the sense as I started to to play the bass to realize this is the only thing I think I've ever done in my whole life that was just
00:29:14
Speaker
Holy for me like I didn't I didn't ever have any especially at the beginning I didn't even think I was gonna get on a stage with anybody and play with people I was just like so excited to do this thing that was learning something new and
00:29:30
Speaker
I wasn't going to make money from it. It wasn't going to further my career in any way. It wasn't me taking care of other people. So that was powerful. And then both my daughters were playing piano at the time that I started playing bass.
00:29:48
Speaker
My older daughter started practicing piano way more. I said, wow, you've been really practicing a ton. You're getting really good. And she said, well, I just saw how hard you work and how good you're getting at this thing that you didn't even know how to do. And that made me want to practice. And I was like, oh my god, this has so much power. I mean, what we'd choose to model for the people in our lives too, especially if you are a parent and have kids. And you're like, oh yeah, I want them to know that
00:30:14
Speaker
you can be it doesn't matter how old you are you can always learn something new and you can always put yourself in a place where you feel uncomfortable so that you can take a risk and certainly that's how I felt when I was learning the bass like it was very uncomfortable to be really not very good at something and you gotta keep going back and paying money to take lessons and every week feel kind of like an idiot you know
00:30:38
Speaker
Yeah, and that underscores such an important point of the show that I love talking to all kinds of artists about is that nature of hard work and rigor and tenacity in this line of work. And it can be very hard to measure, but I think music and athletics
00:30:56
Speaker
because there's an element of soreness to it that that like spending spending that hour like you're you know maybe you're hunched over a little bit and your upper back is a bit achy and your fingers are getting blistered and chapped and it's like you when you're done practicing you know you put in the rest and then you can and as you write and as you sound better you know that your effort is translating into something it's something that's hard to measure with writing
00:31:20
Speaker
So how have you grown to, what's your metric of what it means to work hard in your writing and in your teaching so you know you're making similar progress like you are with the bass guitar?
00:31:33
Speaker
That's a really good question. I mean, part of it is it was very hard. So my first book was a writing guide for mothers kind of based on this class that I taught called Motherhood and Words, which I still teach online. But really, that was the second book I wrote. The first book that I wrote, but was second to be published, was this memoir, Ready for Air, about my older daughter's premature birth. And that book was extremely difficult to publish because it was a little dark. It was about motherhood.
00:32:03
Speaker
and that kind of the reaction of people.
00:32:06
Speaker
which is like, it's not like something worthy of real literature. That's how I felt from the very beginning, working on that book. And so I had to really say, okay, so that led me to teach classes and retreats and all this other stuff for women who wanted to explore motherhood and the writing. But that book taught me how to be persistent and never give up. So I felt like that book deserved a place in the world. And so I just kept going, I kept revising, I wrote it again.
00:32:34
Speaker
You know, it was shopped around, rejected, because it was not snarky enough. It was not Anne Lamott enough. It was, you know, all of these reasons. So I, you know, took some time away from that and was like, okay, realized what it was really about with that time. I was like, oh, this is just about learning to live with uncertainty. And it's about how stories connect us to one another. And it's about this marriage and
00:32:56
Speaker
You know, all of these things that kind of clarified for me in the time away from that manuscript. And so I just printed it out and wrote it again, like typed it, opened up a new Word document. I had the manuscript there and I was like, I'm going to make this the best thing that I can write if it's going to be this hard to get published. It better be good.
00:33:15
Speaker
So I wrote it again and still was rejected all of the same things but I was like not gonna give up on it and so I feel like that was like such a great lesson in perseverance and persistence and knowing that you can always make your writing better.
00:33:31
Speaker
by working hard, you know, I am a believer in like practicing and really thinking deeply about craft and reading widely and figuring out, okay, what's the story, you know, what is the story? Do I have the structure that serves it? Never be afraid of cutting. So like kind of just like that practice helps me with that. And then sticking with it when it's hard. So when this essay, when I was like, oh my gosh, I've been working on this for like a year and it's,
00:33:57
Speaker
just not coming together knowing that that kind of getting to be like okay this is the place i recognize and no matter what i write it why is it always so hard i don't know but to kind of acknowledge that like every piece of writing is going to be hard in some way and you just have to know that and sit with it and keep going forward and you will have a breakthrough at some point if you don't give up
00:34:21
Speaker
And so that's what I just tell myself. That's what I tell my students. You have to just keep going. If you believe in your work and you believe that it can help somebody out in the world or you believe that it has a place out there, then you have to just keep going and you don't ever
00:34:37
Speaker
popping in a drawer. But it doesn't always feel good to do that. Yeah, of course. It can be really challenging, the messy middle or the ugly middle of a draft because you're far away from the honeymoon period where you felt like this was a stone cold slam dunk.
00:34:57
Speaker
And then you're in the middle where it's like, this is garbage. Who's going to ever want this? And you just have to forge ahead. When you're in that part, what are you telling yourself to get through the middle so you can push through and see the lighthouse at the end of the way out at the end of the bay so you can get it across the finish line, so to speak?
00:35:19
Speaker
You know, I do try to set like little deadlines for myself. Like, okay, I have to move forward. I have to get at least a few more pages by the next week. I have a writer friend and we meet, you know, every month or two, you know. And just, I was like, I need to have some new pages for Rob. So that's really helpful for me to have some sort of accountability that's outside of my own self.
00:35:41
Speaker
I'm supposed to meet him on Friday, this coming Friday, and right now I'm working on another writing guide that's like very kind of generative, lots of writing exercises. And I was like, oh, I have to write at least a draft of a chapter. But also to know that it doesn't have to be perfect, you know, and it's not going to be perfect. And just say, okay, whatever crap comes out, I just have to keep getting it down there. And so I've gotten so much better at
00:36:06
Speaker
me not being a perfectionist about early drafts and just putting it down and once I have stuff on the page then I can often see okay yeah this might not belong here or it might not belong at all but at least I had to get it down that that every stuff every you know paragraph or whatever that I have on the page is somehow helping me figure out what the real story is and how do I craft that.
00:36:32
Speaker
And there's a moment in your latest true story, too, partway through, about halfway through, I think it's in one of the threads where you're practicing the bass. And while you write, I could feel a shift taking place. I was listening more carefully. It reminded me of the months after I began to write seriously. And what was the writing part that when you decided that this was something you wanted to go pro at and take it more seriously, what was that moment like for you?
00:37:02
Speaker
You know, I think, gosh, and it was a long, well actually I didn't even feel like a true writer halfway through my MFA program, so I was a little slow on that one, but what that came out of is I was an anthropology undergrad and I went down to Costa Rica. I did some study abroad stuff in Costa Rica in this little village.
00:37:25
Speaker
And then I returned with a grant after college and was recording the life stories of the three generations of women.
00:37:35
Speaker
As I was working on that and kind of having this background in anthropology, I was like, I don't want to write academic writing that people aren't. I want to write something that is going to be read by people that they don't have to be in a PhD program in anthropology to read it or be interested in it. And that was the first shift for me to understand that everybody has stories to tell. And how do you make those accessible?
00:38:04
Speaker
How do you get those out in the world? And so that's when I sort of first started to think about being a writer. And then I was taking some classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and took one graduate class at the University of Minnesota in their MFA program before I applied. And it was that moment of thinking, OK, I want to write in a way that is going to be accessible.
00:38:31
Speaker
and make a difference in people and how do I reach an audience. But then when I was in the program and I was writing so much more than I'd ever written because I had to turn things in and I had all these deadlines that I began to think
00:38:47
Speaker
just really think carefully about, oh, concrete details and structure and reflection and all of these things that are the building blocks that I had kind of, you know, understood in some sort of very fuzzy way, but to start to think, and that's that moment in my true story where I'm like, yeah, I was eating, I remember, I mean, I was eating a strawberry and I was thinking,
00:39:11
Speaker
I'm a writer. I have to describe what everything, everything that I experienced, I have to be able to describe what that would feel like or sound like or taste like on the page. And that was like this light bulb moment for me. And the same thing happened with, you know, with the bass, like really beginning to listen differently. I mean, I can't listen to any song now and not like zone right in on that bass line.
00:39:38
Speaker
I mean that's what's so interesting to me and I'm like and I go there I was like oh so that so that's what made me feel like okay now I'm a bass player too like even if I'm just learning and I'm not very good I mean it took me a couple years to call myself a bass player too but
00:39:53
Speaker
But I think that shift, anytime we're paying close attention to whatever it is that we're doing, there is that shift that happens. You're like, oh, I'm a doctor, or I'm an educator, or I'm a musician, or I'm a writer. That level of attention to what it is you're doing, and the level of care that we have with it, that you're serious enough about it that you are going to work really hard at getting better.
00:40:20
Speaker
pay attention to Kraft and all of those things. I remember Bernard Cooper, his collection of essays, Truth Serum, I really like his writing. It was one of the early ones I read that I was like, oh, his details are extraordinary and I love, oh my gosh, could I do this? You know, that moment and then see what I can do on my own.
00:40:43
Speaker
When you were, you know, going down the road of this, like, who were you maybe emulating or looking at, like, oh, if I deconstruct, like, I want to go to where fill in the blank is, so to speak. And like, if you were started to kind of open up the blueprint, if you will, who are some of those people that you are emulating and deconstructing to hopefully get to that point with your writing?
00:41:10
Speaker
I like specifically with this essay or just with any I guess with anything you can tie into this essay or just your early ambitions too I love the people you were admiring and be like you know what if I'm humming on all you know if the bass is in tune that's what I'm gonna say oh yeah yeah well definitely with this essay you know I do love the
00:41:31
Speaker
I mean, I think some of the true stories, like the very first swim, Fruitland. I just spoke to him before I spoke to you about that. No, oh well. So I had been collecting him because I subscribed right away, but I was just stacking them up on my desk for a little while. I was like, I don't have time to get to this. It was like a busy time. And then Jill Crispin, who's a friend of mine, her spinning, came out. And I just love that piece. I think she does a great job of
00:42:01
Speaker
making like bringing together a bunch of threads and also making something feel non chronological that really is chronology.
00:42:10
Speaker
And that piece, so when I got hers and read it, I was like, what have I been waiting for? And then I sat down, I spent the weekend, I read all of the other true stories that had like, you know, stacked up on my desk over the year. And Fruitland was the other one that just, and partly because it was about music, so then I started listening to the, you know, the band that was, you know, he was talking about in that essay.
00:42:32
Speaker
so researched and the way that he was in it as a researcher and went to that community. So that was another one that I was thinking about with this and with the Fanny piece thread of this essay like I want to talk to Fanny, like I want to send my kids to this you know summer camp and you know where they are and all this stuff. So those were were big important true stories for me but just in general
00:42:57
Speaker
I read a ton of essays. I read novels and memoirs and all of that as well, but some of the essays that I just love, Joy and Beards for State of Matter, that's one of my all-time favorites. And the thing that she does with that piece, too, that is she's so carefully threading through these different things thematically and never drops them off.
00:43:19
Speaker
So that's the other thing that I think a lot about with my students and my editing clients, but also in my own writing, like, what are these narrative threads? Like, how do we keep those going without dropping them? So I hate to read a book of anything that was like, you just dropped this thread or this image, like this could have echoed later in the narrative, and instead you just stopped with it.
00:43:44
Speaker
And maybe that, I mean, that ties right back to the bass, right? That this thing goes on and we don't ever drop that bass line. And if you do, it sounds, it just, the song falls apart. So those are some of like, Joan Beard and, you know, Bernard Cooper, his stuff, The Constant Gardener, which I love that essay, which is a great example of being able to ground us in a scene and then weave in backstory back and forth.
00:44:12
Speaker
but having the stage of the piece be very, very tight. So that's one that I love as well. But I do, I have so many tabs open on my computer because that's what I do. I like, I'm always looking for things to teach and use in my retreats and create writing exercises from. So I just read your wonderful essay about driving down to Florida with your dad as well, which I love. Oh, thank you. Thank you.
00:44:38
Speaker
Yeah, I'm hoping that'll be part of this memoir I'm working on that's in late stages of edit. So hopefully that factors into that whole story. Oh, good. And it's nice that you're in the late stages, right? I mean, you're past that mucking through stage, I assume.
00:44:56
Speaker
Yeah, somewhat. I've got still a series. I would say if I had to on the progress bar of this piece, I would say it's a 10-year memoir. It's going on 11 years. And let's see.
00:45:11
Speaker
I would say, if I'm being real honest, probably 65% through. I've got some significant edits to go through, and still going back and forth with my editor on it. Trying to hone down, trying to get the parents to crack open a little more, because there are things in there that just need to be addressed. It's the thin, the baseline drops. Yeah, yeah. Go back to our metaphor. It's a bit thin, where it should be a whole lot heftier.
00:45:37
Speaker
Uh-huh. Well, I'm excited for you, though. It sounds like it will happen. You're getting there. Exactly. And that's the point. It's kind of muscling and pushing through. And then it's also a whole lot of lobbying, too. It's just like sensitive material for some of these people. And it's like, no one's really going to judge you. If this book is doing what it's supposed to do,
00:46:01
Speaker
No one's going to judge you. They're actually going to overlay their own experience on the story. And it's going to feel true. And they're going to remember their relationship with their mother and father and their relationship to sport. They're not going to look poorly on you. They're just going to start thinking about their own dad. Exactly. And that's what so many people just don't think about it in that way, you know?
00:46:23
Speaker
I wonder too what are some some books you find yourself rereading or sometimes I like to say like books as mentors so you just pull off the shelf like oh that's how it's done like I can't I can't necessarily call up Rebecca Solnit but I'll pull down her book and she's gonna teach me a lesson
00:46:38
Speaker
Yeah, you know, some of the ones that I mentioned, like the essays that I like, I love Joanne Beard, Bernard Cooper, James Baldwin. You know, I mean, I think that like that he's somebody that I could like, you know, I've read so much of his stuff, but I could sit and study it for the sentence structure and for the way he does paragraphs and reflection. You know, I mean, there's so many things that he's just blows out of the water that I'm
00:47:05
Speaker
could go back to that again and again. And of course, I've been thinking about Toni Morrison a lot this week with her death and just thinking about, oh, like I need to sit with those, you know, I mean, especially when I'm reading novels, like I read them more quickly, often than I'm reading an essay or something, because I'm not thinking about how can I use this to teach.
00:47:28
Speaker
So going back to some Toni Morrison, I'd really like to do that and just think about her language and her characters and, ugh, she was such a star. Something you said earlier really made me think about her. I was listening to a part of an interview she did with Charlie Rose and she didn't call herself a writer until her third book was published. She just couldn't admit that to
00:47:54
Speaker
herself even though Bluest Eye came out and you know she's just like it seemed like you know just a Virtuistic just brilliant genius right off the bat Which discredits how much hard work she put into it? But the point being is like even Toni Morrison couldn't admit to herself that she was a full-fledged writer early on in her career. That is amazing to me.
00:48:20
Speaker
Yeah. You know, I don't know if it's different for men or women. I mean, I primarily work with...
00:48:26
Speaker
uh... women writers just as my students and and i know that that is a big struggle for a lot of women to kind of claim that space uh... and also claim the importance of their stories in a way that just because we've been socialized still even now you know not to take up that space and to be heard which of course is a big theme in in this essay of mine is you know how
00:48:51
Speaker
What do you have to do to make enough noise that people will take you seriously? And I think that I know certainly for a lot of my students, it's really hard. It takes a lot of practice to claim the space and to say, my stories deserve to be out there in the world.
00:49:09
Speaker
When you're working on essays of this nature, long essays that take you a long time or even book projects, how have you developed a way to fight off those feelings of loneliness and self-doubt that creep in when you're often by yourself working on this kind of stuff?
00:49:27
Speaker
You know, well part I just actually joined like this co-working space I teach a women's memoir class there as well, but and I wasn't planning to join it I was just gonna teach there and it's just co-working for women and That has been hugely helpful for me because I'm not alone as much I mean, I'm one of those writers who's actually an extrovert and so my husband would get home from his day at work and he's an introvert and he just doesn't want to talk to anybody at that point and
00:49:57
Speaker
I haven't talked to anybody all day except for my kids after school. As soon as I joined this co-working space, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm getting a fix of people, a number of writers there too.
00:50:12
Speaker
I can still do my work." And he was like, you're like a different person just because I felt like settled in that way. And that has been helpful for me to have a space where I'm working. I mean, I often would work at coffee shops and other places with people, but it's different if you don't have that level of like, oh, hi, how are you doing? How is your project going? Even that kind of interaction for me is
00:50:34
Speaker
is really helpful and it would be embarrassing. Sometimes I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm still. So I have a novel as well that I'm just paused on. It's a third of the way through and it's easy for me to put it to the side. And if I go somewhere and I'm like, I have to say I'm working on this novel still, I better sit down and get my work done. I better not procrastinate anywhere on this project.
00:50:58
Speaker
So that is helpful. And then knowing that there's going to be someone there. So for me, like a writing group or writing friend who's expecting something from me.
00:51:06
Speaker
is really helpful because it is easy to put it aside and who's going to know if you're working on it or not, you know, if you don't tell somebody and say. And so I know a lot of people that just says do check-ins with people. They're across the country and they, hey, we're going to check in every Friday. I want to know how many pages you did or what your writing week was like. And I think that kind of accountability can be really helpful for any writer.
00:51:30
Speaker
And it sounds like you're like a lot of women spinning a million plates too. One's wobbling, you gotta get that steak. You gotta keep a lot of things in the air. Yet you're still getting creative work done and making sure you have the time to do what's important to you.
00:51:49
Speaker
So how have you managed to build that into your day? Because I suspect a lot of people listening to this might be wondering where they can find that 20 minutes to an hour to do something that actually nourishes them instead of pleasing other people.
00:52:03
Speaker
Yeah and you know I've gone back and forth on this like over the years I definitely tell my students like I'm not a writer who believes you need to write every day to be a writer I mean and clearly if I took a year off to play the bass I don't think that but but for me it's a reminder like I know I will get my paid work done so I'm gonna get my editing done and my teaching prep done and just because I have to so
00:52:26
Speaker
If I am working on something and really seriously want to get this thing done, if I just take the first hour of every day and do my own writing first, I'm like a different person because I've like carved up that space. And then if I have to get up at four the next day because I have to finish an editing project, I can do that. But it's amazing what that does. Ideally, I would like to do like when I was really working on this, getting towards the end of this essay and finally felt like I had some momentum and I
00:52:54
Speaker
it was falling into place I would take like a couple days and then I'd be in trouble like maybe with editing or I was like trying to you know create a little more space and say okay take this on next week but not you know not this week but I have a lot of students who do like 20 minutes a day or 15 minutes a day they're like it's amazing if you get into the habit of doing that and it just doesn't sound like much and I know that I've been guilty of that as well like I don't have very much time so I'm not gonna
00:53:20
Speaker
I'm not going to do that. And the times that I've been really good at that when I, when both my daughters were younger and it was just like chaos, I would sometimes just sit down and be like, okay, I'm getting dinner ready. I just put something on the stove. I have 15 minutes. My younger daughter's watching Dora, you know, whatever it is. Like I have no shame about that. And I would, I would start to just get something down and just getting that, that act of putting those words on the page.
00:53:46
Speaker
can almost be 10, 15 minutes a day. But when I'm working on something like this, I do need bigger chunks of time. So even if it's like, okay, two hours on a Friday, I'm marking this off, I'm not going out to lunch with anybody, or even when I go to my co-working space, people are like, do you want to eat for lunch? And I was like, I'm sorry.
00:54:06
Speaker
I'm eating my lunch right here as I'm at my computer because I have a short day. My kids are home. I got to drive people to practice and dance classes and all of the stuff that they're doing. It's tricky, but I think that you can do it and then you just got to find what works and stick with it.
00:54:24
Speaker
and not then you know say oh yeah because it is a habit thing too. So for a while I was so good about only I work on my novel for an hour every morning and then I'd start working on other things and so maybe that meant I get a page done a day or less but it was something and it adds up over time.
00:54:42
Speaker
Well it's kind of like the irony of of being selfish is actually more selfless. I think about when I think about how you when you were picking up the bass and playing your daughter started practicing the piano more. You know you carved out time for yourself and that example you set made your daughter want to work harder.
00:55:04
Speaker
Yeah, you know, and it's so interesting because a few years ago I was at AWP, I don't remember which, if it was Seattle or maybe it was even Minneapolis, but it was like a parent panel of parent writers and like over and over they kept saying it was selfish.
00:55:21
Speaker
to be, I was blown away and I couldn't stay for the questionnaires. I had to run off and meet somebody. But I was like, this is not selfish work. And I think, I said, because being writers, writing makes us better people. Like it makes us more empathetic. It makes us more, we're thinking more deeply about our own lives, especially nonfiction writers. I mean, we're turning that critical eye on our lives. We're questioning, we're interrogating our past.
00:55:47
Speaker
I mean, that is there has never been a time that this sort of like introspection and kind of thinking deeply about who we are in the world has been. I mean, this is so important and it's so important right now that I don't find it selfish work.
00:56:02
Speaker
at all. I think it's just, but I think that is sort of an assumption that people make, like, oh, she's just writing about her life or, you know, it seems frivolous to people. And I think some of those messages like, well, I'm not doing, it's not paid, you know, for the most part, like, unless you publish it and, you know, have an advance on something. And that's a really hard struggle is for people to take seriously non, you know, non paid work.
00:56:30
Speaker
I mean, you know, women know that for generations and generations and generations that that work inside the home if it's, you know, caretaking in children and all of these laundry and it's not taking it all seriously. But I think it's hard, too, if you're not getting paid for your writing yet, to give yourself that time and also respect that you're doing the work so that you can, you know, get to that point where you might get paid for it someday. Yes, perhaps, but it's still important work.
00:56:58
Speaker
And given that you're a working writer, editor, and teacher, what are some things today that people can do to become a better crafter of these stories? Given your experience working with students trying to get a toehold and master this stuff or have a certain degree of mastery, what are things that you notice that people can be doing, little things that they can be doing better to really maybe level up their craft?
00:57:22
Speaker
Yeah, well I mean I think looking really like really reading like a writer. I mean it's amazing to me sometimes when I pick up some student work and it's you know early early on and even the dialogue is not formatted properly and all of these stuff that is like you look at just open a piece of writing that you love.
00:57:41
Speaker
And maybe even copy it down, you know, just to get a sense of the rhythm of the language and all of that. But then I think exercises help a ton, you know, thinking about character. I think it really helps people to kind of break out. So that's how I often teach. I'm like, okay, this work we're diving deep into character. We're going to look at some of the way these masters do character.
00:58:01
Speaker
this week we're gonna look at reflection and you see how they move back and forth between reflection and scene or you see how they ground the reflection and scene. So kind of really focusing on that but I do think that definitely classes can help with that a lot but there's so many good writing guides out there as well to get people to think about.
00:58:20
Speaker
Okay, this aspect of craft that aspect of craft and then try it in their own and do the exercises Because I think that you know, even even in writers who have been writing for a long time Sometimes I'm like, okay, I'm not getting a sense of these characters Can you just pause on the narrative itself the manuscript and can you do some character exercises? I want a sketch of every major character in here because I want to be able to differentiate between the
00:58:45
Speaker
these two sisters or I want to look at this couple and say that he is this and she is that and and then weave it back in. So if we know our characters and especially in nonfiction I think people don't think about that because you know they're real people and it's hard to describe the real people in your lives because we're so used to them. So I remember with
00:59:09
Speaker
ready for air. I would be sitting at the coffee shop working on this memoir and then get to my husband Donnie and be like, how does he hold his head? What does he do when he's angry? And so I would just go home and study him in this way. And he's like, what are you looking at? I was like, nothing. I just love you. Is that so wrong?
00:59:30
Speaker
Like, but really I was taking notes in my head and then I'd write down. I was like, okay, this is what he does. So I mean, I think it goes back to that, that thing that I said, like being observant and really like looking at the world around you and then translating that onto the page is in as much detail as you can. I think that not taking that for granted. I mean, there's so many, so much summary, I think in with emerging writers too, and to really sit and say, okay, what belong, what deserves to be a scene here and think about that and really
01:00:00
Speaker
practice writing scenes. I mean it's it is a lot of work but I've seen writers move from like not very strong writers to become really wonderful writers just by practicing and practicing their craft. So I think that is so exciting to see that kind of change in students but also so exciting for emerging writers to know you know you can get really good at this if you just keep going paying attention and practicing.
01:00:29
Speaker
What would you say in the last five years or so, with respect to your editing and your writing, that you're better at today than you were five or so years ago?
01:00:39
Speaker
Well, I'm definitely better. Structure is one of the things that interests me. I just love to think about structure. And I think that, especially being able to help students ask that question, figure out what is the real story here? Distill from me in a few lines, what do you think the heart of this essay or memoir really is? And then get them to think about, OK, this is the structure that you have now. Does that serve your story?
01:01:09
Speaker
And partly just because it's so exciting to think about that for me, that I definitely have gotten better at helping others really push to that place. What's the story? What is the structure that's going to serve this? And just asking questions. So that's what I do a lot in my teaching. OK, well, talk to me more about this. What is really going on here? What do you think they were thinking about in this moment? Can you push this a little further? And just kind of that gentle,
01:01:38
Speaker
nudging along because I mean as I've experienced in my own writing like if we don't want to go somewhere to the heart of the matter because it hurts or because we've looked bad or we've done like hurtful things to other people and you don't want to go back I mean there's so many reasons that people don't want to revisit you know situations in their lives or
01:01:59
Speaker
you know, their past and, but so often it's necessary for whatever story they've come to tell because there's gaps in it and they don't want to go there. So kind of helping people kind of gently nudge them along into that space. It's been, I've gotten much better about that over the years for sure.
01:02:20
Speaker
And how would you say you've cultivated a sense of patience in your work, in your career, so you don't necessarily always find yourself looking over your shoulder at the next burning bright flame, somebody who's like 15 years younger than you are, and they're like on this rocket ship to fame, you're like, what the hell, what did I do wrong? Yeah, you know, I think
01:02:49
Speaker
it's been helpful for me because I did have those moments, you know, kind of early on especially, like I feel like kind of shifting my focus and just because so much of my work is about building community, building community among women writers, building community among mothers, mother writers, and how do I kind of bring people together, that that has helped me kind of not focus so much on the,
01:03:16
Speaker
should publish this you need to do that but I do definitely have I wish I could get rid of it completely though I guess it's probably good to light a fire here and there about thinking book like oh I need to work on a new the book proposal kind of keep pushing pushing that on but I think that shifting that it's not just about the writing and my writing it's about community and how can I help other people write how can they support each other in their writing
01:03:42
Speaker
And I can step back from that work and know that I've made a big difference in a lot of women's lives, and that is very gratifying to me. And so to kind of separate it out, that my writing and the actual putting words on the page for me is only one piece of this larger kind of umbrella of work.
01:04:02
Speaker
to remember that when I am writing, to come back to that community feeling, is whatever I'm gonna put out into the world, is this gonna help connect people to each other or to connect somebody to something else outside of themselves or whether it's music or help them address something in their own lives. But that has been really helpful for me in kind of shifting that focus from
01:04:29
Speaker
I'm on a rat race with these other writers to get things done and and I'm just not a person who's probably gonna ever make money from my actual writing, you know, I make a little bit but like, you know, I got a royalty check for my writing guide use your words and it was like $40 and
01:04:45
Speaker
And I was like, oh my God, I called my dad. And I was like, I just got the biggest royalty check I've gotten so far, you know? And so I know that that is not gonna come from, you know, my writing isn't gonna do that for me probably. Like, I mean, you never know, but I'm just, I've also kind of have pretty realistic expectations about like, I know what the publishing industry is like right now.
01:05:06
Speaker
I know what kind of work that I do and it might not be this huge commercial success and that's okay so long as people are reading it and are touched by it in some way, I've done my job, you know?
01:05:18
Speaker
Maybe take us that moment when you got on stage for the first time with the bass, just what was going through your head and how you got up there and what that moment was like to be up there with your instrument, a part of a band, and just what that whole experience was like. Just kind of take us there.
01:05:40
Speaker
I was so nervous the whole day leading up to it because I had practiced, I felt like I knew the songs, but I'd never been up on stage. I'd done piano recitals as a kid and I used to get so nervous I would forget my songs when I was up there.
01:05:59
Speaker
But you know all the public speaking and teaching and everything over the years certainly has helped with like not feeling so nervous in front of people but. Being up there with this instrument that I never thought I was going to play with a different stories and the lights for me it was like finally getting up there and the lights were so bright that my base look totally different like the lights coming down this there were shadows on the.
01:06:22
Speaker
frets and I honestly like panicked I was like what if I don't what if I can't play this and so I had to count up my frets and be like Okay, here's an a this is where I'm starting and oh I made so many mistakes I'm sure but most people couldn't tell and I was so happy so I was looking out at in the audience and I had a bunch of friends there and my husband Donnie was there and
01:06:47
Speaker
that was awesome because i was like i can't believe that i so it's sort of like just like dumb thought i was like i can't believe i'm up here doing this thing that i've wanted to do or that i didn't even know i wanted to do i didn't know i wanted to be on stage with people i just wanted to play this instrument so that kind of it was just adrenaline that like led me through and it was and it went so fast so i don't even remember much of like past that like
01:07:09
Speaker
first initial moment and knowing that I made some mistakes and then feeling like oh my gosh this is happening and now it's and now it's done all of a sudden and then I could go to bed until like four in the morning so it was just like I was coming I was like okay somebody give me some wine and you know or three glasses of wine and then I was like up until four because I was like
01:07:29
Speaker
I did this thing and then I woke up at like seven, like in the morning, the next morning be like, I can't believe I did that. And what happened? How did it go? I wasn't sure. But then the more I've done it too. So the summer that, I mean, I always do these twin town, I do a class in the fall and I do a class in the spring usually. And the vocalist from the last two classes I've done. And that's like six weeks of rehearsals and then we get on stage. So it's all people who are kind of learning at different stages of their own instrument.
01:07:56
Speaker
but the vocalist has a band that she plays with through her work and they have a gig in September and it's like all these different bands from her IT company.
01:08:09
Speaker
where she works. And so she was like, Hey, we need a bass player, you know, we don't have a bass player. Do you want to be the bass player for us practice the summer? And that was a moment too, where I was like, Oh my God, I just got asked to be a bass player in like a real band, you know, and they're not I mean, they're, you know, experienced drummer experienced guitarist. And so
01:08:30
Speaker
Once again, I'm out of my league. The guitarist was like, Kate, this is just 12 hours blues. Why do you keep messing it up? And I was like, oh, I know. I know. OK. So in this way that I'm pushing myself again to what's going to be scary, like this is. This is going to be scary, but it's going to be so good for me. And I'm going to learn even more about playing music on the fly rather than
01:08:56
Speaker
practicing, practicing, practicing, and then getting up with a band. So I don't know what's next with it, but it's one of these things like writing and experimenting with writing too that it, you know, structure and form and what's gonna excite me next about writing. And that's how I feel about the bass too. Like I'm just getting better every week and where can I push myself and what's gonna be fun to learn how to do. So that's my bass playing right now.
01:09:24
Speaker
That's awesome. And Kate, where can people find you online and get more familiar with your work? My website is katehopper.com and I'm on Twitter at mnkatehopper and Instagram mnkatehopper as well. And Brendan, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate you taking the time to both read and think about my essay so carefully. That's such a
01:09:50
Speaker
honor for me and I look forward to reading more of your work as well. Awesome. Well, yeah, it was a pleasure to read your work and of course get to speak to you on a nice afternoon here. So yeah, keep up the great work and we'll certainly be in touch. Okay. Thanks so much, Brandon. Bye-bye.
01:10:11
Speaker
We did it. We made it. How was that? Great, right? Thanks, Kate. And thanks to our sponsors, Gouchers, MFA in Nonfiction, Bay Path University, MFA in Creative Nonfiction, and Riverteeth Literary Journal. Thank you for the support.
01:10:27
Speaker
Also, thanks to Laura Tillman for editing the interview portion of the show. Shows, of course, produced by me, your host, Britton DiMera, and Laura Tillman. Let's get into my recommendation, like I said, for the week. Drum roll, please. The Stanley vacuum bottle or thermos.
01:10:48
Speaker
I put my hot French press coffee in this thing at 8am in the morning and it stayed hot. Not warm. Hot. Until 4pm when I poured my last drop. I use a French press or a cold brew system so I don't create excess waste. I needed this thermos so I'd never be tempted to ever use K-cups in the break room. Up to 20 of those suckers end up in our trash every work day.
01:11:16
Speaker
I mean, think about that. Over the course of five days, imagine like 100 of these single use K cups. That's a gross amount of waste. So there you have it. Bring a day's worth of hot coffee with the Stanley thermos.
01:11:30
Speaker
no kickbacks just my friendly recommendation to you guys think about it anyway I'm hoping for episodes going forward the guests will be able to offer recommendation and you wouldn't have to necessarily hear me recommend something like this
01:11:47
Speaker
Anyway, alright, keep the conversation going on Twitter, CNFers, also Instagram, at CNFpod, share this with a friend, subscribe if you haven't already, and keep your chin up and out of the mud. We're in this together and we're only a tweet away. It'll happen, man, it'll happen. What's it, Brendan? I don't know, man, but it'll happen. Trust in yourself, it's all happening at the pace it's supposed to happen. So remember, if you can do interview, see ya.