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Episode 83—Victoria Stopp on Battling Chronic Pain, Being Disorganized, and Writing in a Camper
130 Plays7 years ago
"Going toward solitude and away from excuses has really helped me," says Victoria Stopp. Hey there, CNFers, my CNF buddies, hope you’re having a CNFin’ great start to the new year. Jan 1 is just a day like any other, but we as a culture have assigned supreme import to that day. If you’re coming here for the first time because your resolution is to listen more podcasts or you want to kickstart projects in the genre of creative nonfiction, then let me tell you the deal: This is The Creative Nonfiction Podcast—hello—the show where I speak with the world’s best artists about creating works of nonfiction: leaders in the worlds of narrative journalism, documentary film, radio, essay, and memoir and try to tease out habits, routines, and origins so that you can use their tools of mastery in your own work. I’m Brendan O’Meara. For Episode 83 of the podcast, I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with Victoria Stopp. You can find her on Twitter @victoriastopp or at her website victoriastopp.com. Her book Hurting Like Hell, Living with Gusto: My Battle with Chronic Pain, published by McFarland, tells the story of how she became mired in chronic pain after a traumatic neck injury. The book goes into great detail about her journey and how low and powerless it made her feel. Spoiler alert: she’s here to talk about it. In this episode we also talk about being super disorganized, finding solitude, how writing keeps pulling Victoria back even after she tried giving it up. Dig the show? Share this with a friend and consider subscribing. I ask that you leave an honest rating or a review on iTunes. Ratings take five seconds; reviews about a minute. 2018 is all about growth and having ratings and reviews helps with visibility. Did you know that I have a monthly newsletter? It’s true. I send it out on the first of the month and it contains my book recommendations for the month as well as what you might have missed from the world of the podcast. Once a month. No Spam. Can’t beat it. Also consider leaving an honest review over on iTunes. You’re already doing a lot by listening, but if you can spare a minute or two I’d deeply appreciate it. You can follow me on Twitter @BrendanOMeara and the podcast now has its own Twitter account @CNFPod. It also has a Facebook page, so if you want the full immersive Creative Nonfiction Podcast experience, be sure to Like or Follow all the channels.
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Transcript
Introduction to CNF Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Hey there CNF-ers, my CNF buddies. Hope you're having a CNFing great start to the new year. January 1 is just like any other day, but we as a culture have assigned supreme import to that day.
00:00:19
Speaker
It's alright. If you're coming here for the first time because your resolution is to listen to more podcasts, or you want to kickstart projects in the genre of creative nonfiction, then let me tell you the deal. This is the Creative Nonfiction Podcast. Hello?
00:00:35
Speaker
The show where I speak with the world's best artist about creating works of non-fiction, leaders in the world of narrative journalism, documentary, film, radio, essay, and memoir. And I try to tease out habits, routines, and origins so that you can use their tools of mastery in your own work. I'm your host, Brendan O'Mara. How's it going?
Victoria Stop's Chronic Pain Journey
00:01:01
Speaker
For episode 83 of the podcast, I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with Victoria Stop. You can find her on Twitter, at Victoria Stop, that's StopWithTwoPs, or at her website, VictoriaStop.com. Her book, Hurting Like Hell, Living With Gusto.
00:01:23
Speaker
My Battle with Chronic Pain, published by McFarland, tells the story of how she became mired in chronic pain after a traumatic neck injury. The book goes into great detail about her journey and how low and powerless it made her feel. But ultimately, she came out of it. Spoiler alert, she's here to talk about it.
00:01:45
Speaker
in the
00:02:01
Speaker
So you dig the show? If you do, share with a friend and consider subscribing. I ask that you leave an honest rating or review on iTunes as well. Ratings take five seconds. Reviews, about a minute. Depends how much effort you want to put into it. 2018 is all about growth and having ratings and reviews help with visibility and...
00:02:23
Speaker
Validation of course and people come to it and see that and they want to check it out So we can kind of build this community a bit more But you know if you're tired of me being a blowhard right now, how about we just let's just do the show How's that sound hit it?
New Year, New Challenges
00:02:45
Speaker
Given that it's the new year, and I kind of started this last year at about this time, just asking this question of a few people through the first six weeks of the year, I'm always interested in how people are processing the new year. So they have, they can set their year up to, you know, to be, I don't know, better than the last one is the right word, but just something that, you know, you feel like you're coming at the year with renewed vigor. And I wonder how you're processing that as you go forward in 2018.
00:03:14
Speaker
Um, truthfully, I've had the flu since the last day of 2017. So, um, that has messed up everything. I had these grand plans and one of them was my first bookstore event in Alabama that was supposed to have happened, um, a couple of days ago. And I, at that point I couldn't even leave the house. So, um, that the illness has restructured everything. But, um, because of that, I was hoping I could use some of the sick time
00:03:43
Speaker
to be at my house and just like thinking things through and making these fabulous plans. But as it's turned out, I've been too sick to really even think. So my new year is kind of starting about yesterday, which is OK. I mean, I'm not dead. So, you know, it could be worse. But I really my plans for the new year are just to get as much attention and visibility in terms of my book as possible, because I know that
00:04:13
Speaker
We all are susceptible to becoming yesterday's news very quickly. Since my book was published at the end of the year, it just came out, but in a way, it could be already a bygone because it's a previous publication year. This is the year that I find out if I won any of the awards I applied for. This is the year that I really go on tour with it rather than just a couple of events I did last year.
00:04:41
Speaker
Right now, I've been spending a lot of time getting the calendar together and making sure that I can still do all the things I need to do that nothing's getting scheduled on the same day and also leaving enough flexibility so that if reporters call or something, which has happened, one found me through Twitter, which was shocking since I've only been on there for like a month and I'm not good with it.
00:05:06
Speaker
you know, trying to build in flexibility so that if something like that happens, I don't miss an opportunity because I'm over scheduled. And then also having to work in day job time. So that's just right now for me, 2018 looks like attempting to be a really high quality time manager. And that is not a strong point. So, you know, it's like coming out of the flu and going straight into something I'm uncomfortable with, but that's fine. Um, hopefully it'll keep my brain
00:05:36
Speaker
functioning as well as it can and all of that. But I have concrete plans. I certainly have wishes and desires for this year. But at this point, it's just to get going and really notice that it's a new year rather than just being in bed with the flu.
00:05:52
Speaker
And for people who want to write books or essay collections, memoirs, whatever it may be, and then it comes to fruition and they're wondering maybe what the process is like to start promoting the thing, getting together.
Victoria's Writing Career
00:06:10
Speaker
somewhat of a book launch, even for authors who are maybe low to mid tier or just starting, a lot of that work is on your shoulders. So what has that experience been like so far as you're looking to sort of fill up those dates on the calendar, but also maintain that flexibility you were talking about? It's been a tremendous learning experience. It has also been somewhat frustrating at times, but also really worked out well at different times.
00:06:39
Speaker
I have been a professional writer for years. So I have, you know, having worked at newspapers, magazines and that sort of thing, I've built a lot of contacts over the years. I'm generally not a bridge burner. So I can go back and, you know, contact people I worked with in Atlanta 10 years ago and they're actually like happy to hear from me. So, you know, it's, it's a good lesson in like, I'm not a natural bridge burner, but if I were, I think I'd be in a lot,
00:07:09
Speaker
worse shape right now. My publishing company does do they have a marketing department, they do their thing, but I've really just made myself a mission to do everything I can separately from that. So I have been the thing that I'm really behind in is a Twitter or Instagram presence. That's been Twitter almost put me in the grave. I think when I first got an account, I was so overwhelmed by everyone's thoughts.
00:07:39
Speaker
and just felt inadequate in every possible way. So I took Twitter off my phone, and I still look at it on a laptop, but only once or twice a day, and that's been helpful. But as far as marketing, it has been nonstop updating blogs, using contacts, taking any opportunity that comes my way, answering people promptly, and really just working it. I mean, there have been some great surprises. There have been some times where
00:08:08
Speaker
Not at all that I felt like someone should do something for me, but let's say you have someone from your past who you were really close with at one point and they are in a position to help you in some way and you go looking for that help and it's a wall of silence. I could let that upset me a lot more than I have, but instead I just try to focus on the things that have come through that were wonderful surprises.
00:08:36
Speaker
But as far as advice to someone who is having to do a lot of this on their own, I would say make sure you have an online presence if possible before your book is published. And also don't be afraid to ask for things because a lot of people really are open to some ways you may not even think of to helping you promote your book. But if you don't ask, they don't even know that you want their help.
00:09:04
Speaker
How do you think you were successfully able to get your book published given that you didn't have as big an internet footprint as maybe you had hoped or are advocating for? I don't know that there's any conventional story for getting a book contract, but my story with that is I was teaching at a junior college and I was working 11 hour days
00:09:29
Speaker
And I had decided for the millionth time in my life that I was forsaking writing and that it just wasn't worth it and whatever. And, um, I did have an anthology, uh, an essay published in an anthology and I didn't really think that was going to be my swan song, but I did feel like, all right, this is it, you know, at least for now, this is it. But that editor called me while I was teaching and it was lunch break and we talked for a while and she said,
00:09:58
Speaker
do you have any books you're working on? And I did sort of, you know, it was, I think every writer does, but I also knew at that moment that that was an opportunity to say yes to if that's what I wanted to do. And so I did say yes. And that turned into writing a book proposal and just full steam ahead really came on fast after that. And so I never, um,
00:10:25
Speaker
really pitched this book to a bunch of different places. In fact, I only pitched it to the place where I got a contract. So it was what was helpful to me is I have written for a lot of magazines and newspapers. I did have recent publication experience and I knew how to write a book proposal. So it looked good. Whether it was as tight and wonderful as it should have been, I don't know.
00:10:55
Speaker
I knew how to do it. So I think that those things, um, I don't want to say fake it till you make it, but I definitely did not let anything overwhelm me. And as things started happening, I responded quickly. I didn't really give myself the time to think about, well, I should have a Twitter account or I should have this. It was just like, here's an opportunity. I live in small town in the deep South. It's not like I run into.
00:11:24
Speaker
these types of opportunities, you know, on my daily coffee break or something. So I went for it. And I don't recommend anyone else go about things that way. But I don't really know a way they should go about things. I think it just happened. I worked for it. It happened. And I said yes to it when it happened.
00:11:42
Speaker
And so what did that pitch look like for the book you're touring with now?
Chronic Pain and Opioid Crisis
00:11:50
Speaker
And of course, that'll be in the introduction so everyone will know what we're talking about at this point. But how did that pitch look and how long was this book about your fight with chronic pain gestating before you wanted to actually put it into writing? Well, I started blogging about chronic pain stuff
00:12:12
Speaker
One night I was at the gym and I was so tired of hearing myself say things like my back hurts. And I was like, you know, if I'm tired of this, I'm sure my wife is tired of this. And it was somewhat in the interest of marriage preservation to start a blog because I thought, you know, if I can just put this out to the ether, then
00:12:33
Speaker
at least I'm not putting it in her face all the time because when you live with someone who has a health problem, it is in your face. So at least if I could talk about it less with her, I thought that might give her a nice break. And so I was at the gym and I just came up with the idea for a blog in part to stay married. And so I started that blog and, you know, after probably a year of doing that blog and actually making some money on it, which is,
00:13:02
Speaker
I can't say unheard of, but I don't know too many profitable bloggers nowadays. I think that was a booming business years ago and not so much anymore. But I realized there was a big audience for people who have chronic pain and who have tried various things that do and do not work and to share their thoughts and stuff. And so I think probably within a year of starting that blog, I thought this could be a book.
00:13:30
Speaker
But I didn't say it will be, and this is how I'm going to do it. I just said to myself, this could be. And so it really planted the seed itself, I guess. And then I was interviewed by Runner's World magazine's online version a couple of years ago. And that really watered that seed because there was a tremendous response to it that I did not expect. I didn't know what that would be like. I mean, it was just.
00:13:57
Speaker
It was another one of those opportunities where it comes your way and you say yes to it. And so I did. And I really didn't have an expectation. It happened very quickly. And when the interview went live on their website, it got a huge response on their Facebook page. And that's really when I was like, okay, there's an audience for this. People are interested. I may or may not be able to help someone by telling my story, but that'd be an extra added, wonderful thing.
00:14:26
Speaker
So it was cooking in the back of my head, but I cannot say I was truly working for it as a book. It was more like it was taking shape whether I wanted it to or not.
00:14:37
Speaker
with any memoir and especially something that is so laser focused as as this book is there's always that that challenge of well how can i make this a little bit bigger than me in my own story and then how do you sort of and then how do you carry that that ethos with you as your as you're writing the thing that is about ultimately about you but it's got to be bigger otherwise no one's going to pick it up buy and read it uh... you had the
00:15:05
Speaker
the fortune of having that interview and seeing like, oh, there's this audience that could potentially want this. So how did you go about crafting the book so it wasn't self-indulgent but actually did provide value to this audience that you discovered after that Runner's World interview? Well, I can definitely say that certainly bigger than me and my story has been
00:15:34
Speaker
what's hitting the news lately about the national opioid crisis. And I think that has really started a national conversation about pain pills. And I don't know that it's truly started a conversation about pain. It seems that most of the reading that I've done is geared toward these people are addicted, here's how it happened, and it's a huge problem. And there's not really a whole lot of digging into why are these people, of course not everyone necessarily started because of such,
00:16:02
Speaker
Why are these people in so much pain? How has our modern medicine failed them and gotten them to the point that they would be on opioids? It seems like the conversation is more like, what do we do now that they're on opioids? And so for me, having objected to the opioids I was prescribed for years and, you know, having gone that route to a certain extent and it didn't work out very well, that I realized is an exploding story in this country.
00:16:33
Speaker
And so even though it's my story of going through these things, I think there are a lot more people in our lives who've been hurt at work, who've had back injuries from working around the house or are just old injured athletes or have something degenerative. I think that we have a more sick and injured population than we realize. And that helps expand my audience because for the most part,
00:17:02
Speaker
Everyone I've spoken with, if they aren't affected by something chronic pain related, they know someone who does. Even if it's a little bit peripheral, like their second cousin has a fused back and can't work anymore or whatever. I think there is an unfortunate large audience for this stuff. And then as far as really trying to keep the writing from being self-indulgent, first of all, I hope I succeeded. Oh, yes. Yes, for sure. OK. That's good.
00:17:32
Speaker
Because, you know, you never know. I think we can self police all we want. But at the end of the day, what I think about what I wrote is probably not what someone else thinks. So thank you for that. Of course. But I think definitely for me, starting the book by describing how I got hurt and really trying to set the scene of being at work and how it happened, I was also, I think,
00:18:01
Speaker
setting the scene for myself to say, don't forget, this is not just a book where every sentence starts with, I feel XYZ. It was, you know, the world is happening around me. There are much bigger things than me. And I'm trying to exist within it with these health problems. And I think that perspective, honestly, I think working as an emergency medical technician changed my entire life in so many ways that at least for me, it was hard to be
00:18:30
Speaker
to navel gazing after that, because when you see things day in and day out that most people never experience, I just look at the whole world differently. And so I don't think I was capable of writing a book that was like, here's my story. I don't really care if it has anything to do with anything else. I just want to tell it. Having lived so many other people's stories on a daily basis through work, it was
00:18:57
Speaker
very hard to have that kind of self-importance. And you know, I guess that was just a life lesson that carried over into writing. And I'm glad that you think it worked.
00:19:09
Speaker
To set some context for the book and so people might have a better understanding of what it means to be hampered with chronic pain, how do you define it in a
00:19:29
Speaker
And also maybe kind of describe the kind of pain that you're constantly under, the way you do in the book extensively, but maybe in a little bit here, how do you define it and make people understand what it feels like? Well, you know, I try not to be that Debbie Downer Saturday Night Live person. So the best
00:19:56
Speaker
answer I've come up with to date is to say to someone, think of a time when you were injured, whether you were an athlete, or you were in a car accident, you know, even if it was something as straightforward as a sprained ankle, think about how much that one thing like ruined your life, at least temporarily, you know, whether it was you had to miss the big game in high school, or you couldn't
00:20:22
Speaker
enjoy whatever it was that you were used to doing because you were dragging a cast around on your leg or whatever, but just how one small sickness or one small injury can often be so life changing and a setback and that your way out of that is by saying, well, at least this is only for three weeks, six weeks, whatever. And instead, when you have something chronic, it's that same thing, except it's not just for three weeks, and it's not just for six weeks, it's every single day.
00:20:52
Speaker
How did you, over time, learn to overcome that feeling of, why is this happening to me and that unfairness? Because the victorious stopped before you got hurt.
00:21:06
Speaker
was, and you know, you still are, but you're dealing with the pain like this, you know, very strong athletic, you could do anything you wanted to, and then you were struck by something that was telling you otherwise for a long time. So, how did you overcome that feeling of unfairness? I had to for a survival coping mechanism, I guess. I found no use for it.
00:21:34
Speaker
I can still descend into that pit if I allow it. I can get really irritated when I see people eating fast food and feeling like a million bucks. And then I'm like, that's them. Good for them. If they want to go eat that and they still feel fantastic, that really has nothing to do with me. And I had to cut that bitterness out before it happened. And honestly, there was an element of bitterness at times. It would be like, you know, why does this person
00:22:04
Speaker
Why is this person able to run 20 miles? And if I run just one, sometimes, you know, a disaster ensues. And I just, there's, there's no way to live. Um, I just had to cut it out. It was conscious at first and I never thought I had it worse than everybody
Coping with Chronic Pain
00:22:22
Speaker
else. You know, I never thought that I was the one, the modern day job or something, but I did get tempted and beyond tempted at times to,
00:22:33
Speaker
you know, scream at the wall and say this isn't fair and that sort of thing. And I really had to examine what fair is and what my definition of supposed to be is. Because once I turned that corner from realizing that my ideal life or my ideas about what life should be are not necessarily what's supposed to happen just because I want it, that really helped. And
00:23:02
Speaker
I never, like I said, I never fell victim to thinking that I had it worse than everyone else. But I did often, it's not that I wanted other people to have problems, but I didn't understand why they did, did not have problems. And I did. And part of that too, is recognizing what you see is not always what you get. I mean, you can see someone running 20 miles or whatever, and they may have tremendous issues that I know nothing about. So I think
00:23:30
Speaker
just realizing it was no way for me to live. I did not want to be a bitter person. I did not want to be a person who was constantly thinking about what I did not have. That stuff, those thoughts really helped. But I don't know that there was truly a moment that I was hit over the head where I said, I need to change my line of thinking. I just kind of got sick of myself. I got sick of feeling sorry for myself. I got sick of thinking about what I couldn't do. And
00:24:00
Speaker
Honestly on some days that's still something I need to remind myself not to do but for the most part it's just a really unhappy existence to dwell on that sort of thing and so I just choose not to and I'm not perfect at it but it's it's a choice at least for me it's a choice.
00:24:21
Speaker
Would you say the worst days of it are behind you, or do you still have days that are every bit as bad as when you were still trying to find the right kinds of treatment for it? You know, sometimes I really panic about the future. And part of that comes, I think, from having worked in a nursing home and seeing how human life can
00:24:49
Speaker
progress or maybe regress. Definitely working in a nursing home affected my entire worldview of the future. But I don't know with some of this stuff, if things are degenerative, they definitely do not get better with time. But I do think that medical advances are happening and I'm currently on
00:25:14
Speaker
I can't even say it's a waiting list. I don't really know what the state is doing, but Florida has approved medical marijuana and I'm currently in the process of getting that. It's primarily a pay-to-play system and I've paid and I'm waiting. But I do have high hopes for that. I also think that relentless watching of online videos
00:25:41
Speaker
from different medical perspectives and being willing to try things has really helped me in terms of if something isn't getting better. I'll ask input from people here and then go home and watch hours and hours of videos and read hours and hours of articles about it to try to fix whatever problem is happening. So I don't know. I don't know if the worst is behind me but I do think I have a
00:26:10
Speaker
better attitude and definitely a more educated brain to deal with whatever comes. But I do definitely, I think I might fear the future anyway. I might have been one of those people anyway. But definitely when you start having health problems, I think there can be a tendency to, at least for me to think about, well, if I'm only this age now, what is going to happen 20 years from now? And often I have to stop and say,
00:26:39
Speaker
Well, who's to say that I'm not going to step outside and get hit by a bus and there won't be 20 years from now? So why am I thinking about what it's going to be like when I'm 50 years old if I may not be 50 years old one day? Talking about the videos or in articles that you could easily just be overwhelmed and just consumed by the content and also by the
00:27:08
Speaker
disease or condition that anyone has and in your case the chronic pain you could just be swirling in that whirlpool forever and ever so I wonder how do you keep yourself from being consumed by it and still live the life you want to live? I think that is also a conscious choice but also whether it's a blessing or a curse I don't know but I get bored easily so I have to go do things I can't
00:27:38
Speaker
I will stay up too late at night watching videos and things like that, but I really want to, I'm watching them because I want to be out doing things. I'm not watching them because I just want to know more. I'm watching them because I want to fix various problems and go out and play again. So the boredom, and I don't know if it's a true, a short attention span or just a desire to be moving around at all times, but I get bored and I want to go do stuff. And so.
00:28:06
Speaker
That is self-limiting in terms of how long I can do any task, and it's very helpful. And there's a point in the book where you write that sometimes seeing someone else's improvement could be demoralizing as hell for you. And I think there's that undercurrent there of comparison and jealousy that you can often
00:28:31
Speaker
that translates in what you were dealing with physically, but also something in the art world too, running your own race and looking over your shoulder. And some might always love asking people. And I guess the first part is, how did you cope with that demoralizing feeling of a person-to-person thing dealing with whatever pain they were dealing with versus yours, and then maybe as a creator of
00:28:59
Speaker
of art and writing. How have you coped with that degree of comparison and running your own race and that sense? I still work in health care. And so I deal with injured people a lot and sick people and everything and really recognizing and respecting that. Just because I may have in my head, oh, well, you only have a muscle strain.
00:29:28
Speaker
that's not even fair for me to say you only have whatever it is you only have to you. That's really important. That's your whole life. It's ruining your life and you want it fixed. And so reminding myself to respect people with what they're going through and to remind myself to, you know, I can use my own perspective, perhaps to be helpful to this person, but I have no right to use my own, the things that have befallen me to like,
00:29:56
Speaker
curse someone else's lack of fortitude with their strained muscle. That's just not, that's every bit as real to them as my health problems are to me. And so just remembering that every person has something happen to them that is always going to be very important to them because it's their body. That's been a good reminder. And as far as the art world and everything,
00:30:25
Speaker
I still, I think, I can't say most of us, but I think a lot of us will get these little flares of jealousy when we find out someone always has a bigger contract or someone always gets bigger press than us. It's the nature of life. I think we tend to covet things and to look at something and rather than say, I have these five wonderful things that happened.
00:30:50
Speaker
It's more like looking at this other person and saying, look what they have. And I don't like that. I don't like feeling that way. I've really not found anything productive from it. And I feel like a little kid pouting if I get that way. And I can't stand that. So I just try to stop. It's almost like a slap myself in the face sort of thing. If I start doing that, I say to myself, like, this is just purely obnoxious and just stop it.
00:31:18
Speaker
And that helps and also helping other people along the way whenever possible. Um, if I, you know, if I'm in a position to offer a connection to someone who maybe was, you know, stewing in jealousy over some press that I got, I have no idea, you know, whatever it is, um, that if I can help that person get closer to where they want to be.
00:31:44
Speaker
I feel better doing that than if I sit there and pout about what some other person got that I didn't get. But it is, I guess it's just like so many things. That too is a choice. If you catch yourself, for me, if I catch myself doing that, I just say stop. This is obnoxious.
00:32:04
Speaker
And you said something earlier in the conversation that I really want to circle back to. And that was, you know, there was a point where you had forsaken writing and it was something you, I think everyone who does this line of work, most of us come to that road and be like, you know what, this is it. I'm going to finish what's on my plate and then I'm done. And then it pulled you back in and it turned into the book.
00:32:29
Speaker
What was that moment before, like, as you were saying, you were forsaking writing, like what brought you to that moment? Well, I have visited that moment a few times. It's it's ugly every time it happens. I went to grad school pretty young. And when I was finishing grad school, I had an opportunity with a big name publisher and a really well established editor.
00:32:59
Speaker
who was interested in my graduate thesis. And at the time, I was not capable of being as adult-like as I should have been. And I was having various personal crises that, you know, when it's the sort of crisis when you get older, you look back and you say, my God, who cares about that? But at the time it was just, oh, doom and gloom. And so rather than pursuing this relationship and potential success,
00:33:29
Speaker
at that point in my life, I decided to change everything. And one of those things that I changed was to move back to Florida and go to school to be an emergency medical technician. So that was probably the first big time that I'd not only said I'm giving up writing, but I actually did it. And as far as giving you a good reason for why that happened, there isn't one. It was stupid and probably
00:33:59
Speaker
quite self-indulgent, you know, in terms of thinking that my personal life that at that time seemed so catastrophic to not be able to step out of that and say, this is temporary. And but this opportunity to have this book published that was my graduate thesis is not temporary. I just wasn't I wasn't sorting my cards properly at that point. So I have already been down that hideous road. And coming back from doing something like that
00:34:29
Speaker
is interesting. I was working in a nursing home and I just really kept thinking about writing and it always felt like what I was supposed to be doing and it didn't matter how hard I was working or successful or not I was in healthcare. I always had this nagging feeling that I was supposed to be writing and not just because I'd spent
00:34:56
Speaker
money and scholarships on degrees for it, but because that's what I had always wanted to do, but I wasn't doing it. And so I started a different blog that has since gone away, thankfully, but I started a different blog when I was working in a nursing home and that got me back to writing and having that feeling of being published, even though it was just on a blogging level, it was having work out there for people to see.
00:35:25
Speaker
Coming back to it, I don't know if it was harder than going into it the first time as a very young person, but coming back to it was harder for me. And one thing that was very sobering was realizing that I was making pretty good money in healthcare and coming back to writing, I was not making good money. And at one point I was working in a nursing home part time using a junior college degree for that job
00:35:55
Speaker
And I was making, I was also working part time at a college marketing department doing their writing as I was, that was my first real get back in the door with this. And at the nursing home, I was literally making almost three times the amount of money per hour that I was making as a writer. And so, you know, being older, especially owning a home, having real life responsibilities, that was a hard sell to myself to say,
00:36:23
Speaker
hey, let's take a massive pay cut and go pursue this thing. But I did. But the whole time I had it in my head too of like, I know what it's like to make better money, to have more stability, to have a more solid career. And so I think probably dwelling a little bit on that, especially with the cost of our health insurance every month,
Balancing Writing and Financial Stability
00:36:54
Speaker
It was finances, I think, played into it in terms of thinking, maybe I should quit writing again. Um, in part because we have a lot of bills due and I would, you know, I started freelancing again. I started picking up my magazine clients and stuff and I realized I was getting paid nowadays. The same thing I was getting paid in college. Um, and that was good money in college and it's really not now.
00:37:22
Speaker
So definitely, I guess adult responsibilities played into the idea that I should quit writing again, but I really just decided at the end of the day that I didn't want to have another round of looking back and saying, what could have happened if I had really tried for it to happen? So that's where I am now is actually trying.
00:37:50
Speaker
Yeah, how have you struck that balance between trying to do the writing that you want to do that's satisfactory, also tries to make a little money on itself, but also striking that balance between the day job, too? Because I think there's a tendency that people think if their sole income isn't coming from the writing that they feel like a loser, like they're kind of a failed writer, that they actually have to fill in the holes with something more steady. So I wonder, how have you struck that balance?
00:38:20
Speaker
I'm continuing to attempt to strike that balance. It is definitely, again, living in a small town in the Deep South, there really aren't a lot of writing opportunities for professionals just like around me on a daily basis. So I don't live in a city, for instance, like New York, where maybe you walk out the door and you see people with these writing jobs that you wish you had. There isn't one of those there. There's not even one. It's not like
00:38:50
Speaker
New York, where there might be 50 magazines where you wish you worked. There's not even one job here that I wish I had that I don't have. So I think that's a little bit helpful. But also, it's it's definitely it's it's a fight, I think, to justify sometimes what can seem, at least to me, like,
00:39:17
Speaker
I'm not pulling my weight in the household or something. You know, if I'm working fewer hours in health care and that means my paycheck is smaller. Well, our driveway is literally like crumbling and we back the camper into it and it bottoms out and we need a new driveway. And it's such a boring thing. But it's that's what homeownership is. And so, you know, I will think like I really want to go do this thing related to my book, but I'll get paid X amount of dollars versus
00:39:46
Speaker
going to work this whole week in health care where I will be paid a lot more. And meanwhile, you know, I feel like I'm going on Mr. Toad's wild ride when I pull into the driveway. And so it's definitely a push pull. But I did consciously decide that at least for now, I'm going to try to make my book as successful as it can be so that I don't ever have to look back and say I didn't try. Right.
00:40:13
Speaker
And just go from there. And that is one thing about health care also. I don't want to sound arrogant at all. It's not what I mean. However, those jobs are always available because health care is a huge business in our country. So I don't I don't have quite as much risk walking away from a job in health care as someone might walking away from something
00:40:40
Speaker
maybe at a bank or something. I don't know. I've never worked at a bank, but you know what I'm saying? It's like, when you, I know I can walk back into healthcare at any point that I want to, it will always be there. And it may not be the ideal job when I walk back into it, but there will be one available. And so it's a little bit of a safety net, which I do have to be careful doesn't keep me from trying to fly as high as I can, but it is a nice safety net too.
00:41:08
Speaker
So when you're deciding to take up writing true stories, who are some writers that you were looking to as you were trying to develop your own style and so forth that really inspired you to pick up the pen and try to accomplish what they were accomplishing? Well, I started out in high school on the literary magazine, and I really, really respected
00:41:36
Speaker
my high school teacher who did that magazine. And that was kind of one of those early lessons in just trying to learn from somebody who was way better than me. But I've never been a big reader of nonfiction. I know that's ridiculous. I'm more of a novel reader and I just like good writing. I don't really care too much about genre. If
00:42:06
Speaker
I'm like the person who goes to the bookstore and just turns over the covers and reads the back, regardless of what section I'm in. I did see the true way I really got into nonfiction was in undergrad and recognizing that the not easiest, but most accessible way to have a true paid career in writing was to be a journalist. And obviously, if you're a journalist, you're supposed to tell the truth.
00:42:33
Speaker
So that was how I really got into the nonfiction track was recognizing, hey, this is where the jobs are. Right. But, you know, and after that, it was just pretty much admiration of teachers that I came across who were just awesome people and had really done some cool things. But I was not a good journalist. I did not do well with hard news. I liked feature articles.
00:43:00
Speaker
And I think I'm probably better suited to writing fiction now that I've written my non-fiction book. I don't know if it's one and done non-fiction wise, but probably so, because when I do look at other work that I really admire, it's often fiction, and I don't really know exactly why, but it just is.
00:43:24
Speaker
And how do you vet out your stories or what does your taste gravitate towards to vet out those stories that then you want to pursue and put a lot of time into? At the moment, if I get an assignment from a magazine editor, I do what I'm told. But I'm interested in the outdoors. I'm interested in health care.
00:43:54
Speaker
those kinds of true stories of what's happening in the world, I'm always fascinated about what's going on with our planet and what's going on with our health. But as far as truly pursuing those stories, I'm just not a good journalist in terms of that. I will often find something and I'm like, my God, this is a fascinating story. I hope somebody really good writes about this because I don't want to. And that's, you know, kind of with with the
00:44:25
Speaker
career in the past when I was a full-time journalist, I don't think I was really that great at being a go-getter. I think I was pretty good at the editor tells me what story to write and I did it.
00:44:38
Speaker
Yeah, there's a certain bulldogginess that to be like a truly hard news reporter you need. Definitely something I lack. I'm terrible at hard news. Never liked it. It just didn't appeal to me. I just couldn't get into that.
00:44:57
Speaker
So I totally understand where you're coming from. Like my taste is more to just kind of simmer and take my time with things and parachute in and spend a lot of time not to swoop in and swoop out. So I totally get where you're coming from there. Okay, good. Because I was like, you know, I don't know that I'm that good of a nonfiction writer. And I think that's probably one reason that my nonfiction book is largely my own story because
Inspiration and Writing Routine
00:45:25
Speaker
That's the story that I'm forced to live is the one that I am living. And so it's not that it was easy to write, but I didn't really have to go pursuing that story. That story was already happening.
00:45:40
Speaker
And you've mentioned that reporterly stuff is something you kind of struggle with historically. From a craft perspective, what else do you feel like that you struggle with that you really have to work through and kind of grind through to get through to something that comes out the other end that is nice and palatable for a reader and for yourself?
00:46:06
Speaker
Organization, 100%. That is the most awful weakness I have. The house is covered in piles of papers. I am not a good roommate. We have a dog who is in the perpetual puppy stage and sometimes she'll grab a piece of paper and I just panic because I don't have important papers are not put away like they should be. Important notes are not where they should be. And if the dog gets a piece of paper, I don't think, oh, it's just the
00:46:35
Speaker
grocery receipt or something, I'm like, Oh, my God, it's like a month's of research that she's eating. So I don't know if there is a gene for that. I don't know if that is a skill I have just been completely bullheaded and unable to learn. But I extremely, extremely wish that I could be more organized. And I don't really have a problem with any other aspect of writing. But that is a huge aspect of writing. And
00:47:04
Speaker
I have made my own life much harder just looking for something or not remembering what I named a file on my computer and just being stupid about that. I would really like to improve that but I've read different methods and stuff and I still look around right now and there are piles of paper everywhere.
00:47:27
Speaker
really like to change that, but not sure how. To make you feel better, just looking at my shitstorm of a desk, I've got an important legal notice, a sort of a recall for something potentially defective on our car. Here's some, these are jury duty summons. A pile of, I don't know, 15 books, unopened markers, an entire, so yes.
00:47:56
Speaker
To give you an eye, I know where you're coming from. I think you and I have a similar gene when it comes to organization or disorganization as it were. Yeah, it's horrendous. And I always want to fix it. And I actually really got myself into trouble with myself writing this book, because at one point, it was not in order, really. It was almost like a series of essays. And I was like, no problem.
00:48:24
Speaker
And then I was like, oh, yeah, actually, this is a huge problem because I was having to go. It was like trying to go organize the task after the task was done. Oh, yeah. And my book was done and would have been done even sooner, like really done if I hadn't done it that way. But I wrote it the same way that I live, which is in piles. And it was just really stupid. And I will say that the next book that
00:48:53
Speaker
I write is not, I'm not going to allow that to happen. I say that now. I really hope I don't allow that to happen because that was a huge pain. Yeah, the one time I was rigorously fact checked for an article I wrote, it was pretty terrifying because, you know, the editor was like, okay, well, you know, she was very great about it. She's like, okay, where did you get this? Where did you get this?
00:49:18
Speaker
Man, I had to dig through tons of stuff. Fortunately, I did have things kind of in binders, so the stuff was in there. But I couldn't remember if I had gotten it from the interviews I had done or if I had pulled it from an article that I had read and curated into this binder. So it was just like hunting and digging around, where it should have been really easy to find if I had been more organized. But it was like, oh, man, I hope I can find the source for this, because I'd hate to loot.
00:49:48
Speaker
Exize that from from the text because it's good stuff and I know I didn't make it up But I need to show I need to prove that I didn't make it up Yeah, and were you like totally on the warpath that day because I like fly into a rage at myself when that happens And then that's super frustrating too because you know that you've like caused your own problem But yeah, I don't know how to fix it. If you come up with something, please tell me I
00:50:12
Speaker
Yeah, I was going around, Warpath was right, and it was just like this total self-flagellation, just like you are a moron, why can't you be better at this? No one else is like this, you are a total failure. And this total, it was awful. It was like a nervous dog chewing on his tail, and it was horrible. It was terrible. Yeah, and I don't know if we have any hope to fix that.
00:50:40
Speaker
You would think that these times where we end up punished for it, even if it's just self punishment, that that would be enough. But I mean, like I said, I'm looking around going in this room, I can tell that I haven't changed. Yeah.
00:50:52
Speaker
And I tell you, the thing, if I'm really stressed out or... Yeah, pretty much. I'm almost always stressed out for one reason or another. But what makes me feel great is if I'm able to just get rid of something. Like decluttering is like therapy to me. Just to be like, all right, I've got these books here. I've read them. I'm not going to reread them. Time to donate them to a used bookstore or the library. And I just feel like a weight lifts off if I'm able to get rid of shit.
00:51:20
Speaker
Yeah, I do and I don't. I think I might have a hoarding tendency because I also panic. I'm like, what if I need that one day? Right. And it's irrational. I mean, I'm not going to need whatever that is. It's like I don't need it. And if it's just sitting in a pile, obviously I don't need it. But I think there's like a certain comfort to stuff being around. But, you know, not living alone. I do have to keep it in check. And maybe that helps our personality types that we don't live alone because
00:51:49
Speaker
I'm not really sure what kind of squalor this place would look like if it were just me, but I think it'd probably be pretty bad. Yeah. Yeah. Our place would be just a total nightmare if it weren't for Melanie and I'm sure Ronda for you. Jeez. Well.
00:52:08
Speaker
You know, God love them for putting up with it. Yeah, no kidding. I was going to say, oh, yeah, you know, you mentioned that, you know, you gravitate towards it just from your reading tastes like to novels and fiction. Who are some of those writers that you turn to and look to? And you're like, oh, man, I, you know, if I work real hard and I could write a real cracking sentence, like fill in the blank. Who are some of those people that really sort of like turn on your writer sensibility and your reader taste?
00:52:38
Speaker
They're all over the map. I can tell you that the first time my mom took me to a Be Dalton bookstore, which I'm pretty sure is nationally out of business, it's certainly out of business here, but she took me to Be Dalton when I was 11, I think, and was finally like, okay, I'm tired of you reading through these kids books so fast, you can get something from the adult section. And it was wonderful. It was like,
00:53:06
Speaker
just so freeing to be able to go look at longer books that were to me at least more interesting. And the one that I chose was called Post Mortem. And it was Patricia Cornwell's first book in her, what became her extremely successful, Scarpetta series. And I took that book home and it was like the world just cracked open for me because it was so unlike anything I had ever read before.
00:53:35
Speaker
And it was so awesome and I just couldn't quit turning pages. And I remember at that point thinking, I want to be Patricia Cornwell. And she was starting to get successful then, but that was her first major novel. And so she wasn't the megastar that she is now, but I already was like, this woman is awesome. And, you know, I would beg my mom every time one of her books came out to take me back to be Dalton and buy me one. And, um,
00:54:04
Speaker
She was pretty agreeable to that, so that was good. And as I got older, I was pretty obsessed with the Dykes to Watch Out for series, which is comics. But the author, Alison Bechtel, put them together in books, and she eventually wrote a couple of graphic books also that were just incredible.
00:54:29
Speaker
I really love that cartoon strip. And I don't know if that speaks in part to my short attention span, but I felt like she could encapsulate these awesome relatable stories into just a few cartoon frames. And it was incredible or comic frames, I guess. And my favorite book as I guess middle school age was The Silence of the Lambs.
00:54:54
Speaker
And I wasn't allowed to see the movie. So it was purely the book that I was obsessed with. And then, of course, as we all often did, I think at that age, there was a friend who had HBO and, you know, it's like, oh, and so I did end up watching the movie, I think in seventh grade. And it was horribly violent and I was scared to death, even though I'd read the book. But I still have these books that I'm talking about, like Postmortem and The Silence of the Lambs.
00:55:24
Speaker
I still have those paperback copies from B Dalton, from when my mom bought them for me in middle school. They're in my room right now and they've been with me through at least 10 moves and different states and stuff. Wow. Yeah. So, and I have a long list. I'll spare you the rest of the list, but there've definitely been a lot of authors who I've just blown away by.
00:55:53
Speaker
I don't know that I could ever hope to write like them or have their success, but, you know, it'd be nice. All right. Well, this you said to spare me the whole list. Well, why don't you give me a couple, maybe three to three to five more off that list that really, you know, that you're just really drawn to and inspired by. Definitely the novella called Push by Sapphire. And that became a movie, too, and I didn't ever see that movie.
00:56:23
Speaker
But I read that in one day in a friend's apartment in New York City. And I was I found myself having to remember to breathe. I mean, I would literally go between sentences and be so blown away by that work that I was almost like not breathing. And that is something it's been years since I read that book. And I still think about it almost daily. It was just awesome. OK, I have a nonfiction one for you. Stephen King's on writing.
00:56:52
Speaker
Yeah, that's the only craft book, I guess I've really ever loved. And I think in part because his story was so fascinating and it was definitely part memoir, you know, part part how to part memoir. That one that one was just awesome. And then Homecoming, which was a young adult novel by Cynthia Voight. I think that's how you say your last name. It looks like Voight to me.
00:57:22
Speaker
But that was read, partially read, allowed to me in fifth grade by a substitute teacher who was awesome. And that story, I quickly after, you know, the sub went away after a couple of months or whatever and the regular teacher returned and she wasn't nearly as exciting and she didn't read to us.
00:57:43
Speaker
So, you know, there's like tug it on my mom's shirt again. Like, can I go to the bookstore? And I got that book homecoming. And that over the years, that story has been so incredible to me. And even though it was a novel and as many novels are, you could look at different things and say, well, this isn't truly plausible in real life if you thought about it. But it felt like it was to me. And I recently reread it.
00:58:09
Speaker
Just a couple of months ago after not having read it since fifth grade and it really blew me away in different ways than It had as a kid because of course I missed a lot of the emotional nuance stuff as a kid and was more into the adventure of it, but Those are some and I like I said, I could keep going forever if you wanted me to
00:58:32
Speaker
So when you were writing Hurting Like Hell, what was your routine for generating the work to get yourself into that frame of mind when you were waking up in the morning and how you started generating those pages? How did you set up your days so you were having a good day of work with it? Well, the first thing I did when I was negotiating through the contract process and all of that was going on
00:59:00
Speaker
and the deadline discussions came up, I chose a really tight deadline. And one reason that I did that was to make sure that I got it done efficiently. I didn't want a huge span of time. I didn't want to be able to say, oh, you know, I have something else I'd rather do today. I wanted to set myself up to have to work every single day. And that worked. But I was also
00:59:29
Speaker
teaching a lot. And at the community college, I was teaching health science classes. So it was totally unrelated to what I was doing. But that really helped me to have to budget the time that I did have to work on it, because the deadline was coming, you know, it was it was kind of like the train through the tunnel where there wasn't, if I was really going to meet the deadline,
00:59:54
Speaker
And I did, but if I was really going to do that, I was going to have to get it done. There was not an option to procrastinate. And I found that the local college library was about as quiet as a library gets. And I did a lot of work there, but I ended up, we have a little pop-up camper and I would take it to different parks and use it as an office because I can't stand noise.
01:00:23
Speaker
and distraction. And so I had this like two wheeled mobile office that I would drag behind my truck and set up somewhere and work in the camper and kind of barter with myself. Like if you get 500 words done, then you can go for a run. And so I would do that. And like I was staying at the national seashore in the camper and I would say, all right, you have to do 500 words before you go hiking.
01:00:51
Speaker
And then after I came back, I would say 500 more words and you can go to the beach. And that sort of bartering really seemed to help. And definitely working in the camper was awesome. That sounds awesome. Yeah, it was. It did flood once and that was not awesome at all. But we got that taken care of. But that was a fantastic decision that I will definitely
01:01:18
Speaker
repeat in the future of using that as the office. I've had several conversations with Bryn Jonathan Butler on the podcast. He's a brilliant writer and he's got a book coming out in chess later this year, but he's a boxing writer. He's just one of those guys. You could turn him loose on anything and he's just brilliant. He said that his worst ideas come at
01:01:44
Speaker
the keyboard so he has to go for long walks or play with his cat or anything of that nature. How important is it for you to be going on hikes or runs to help detach but also stay? This is going to sound weird, like detach from the work but in a weird way get more connected to it by stepping away from it. I don't think it sounds weird at all. That is so massively important and that's one thing that's very hard for me when I'm unable to run because of my back or neck.
01:02:15
Speaker
Because walking just doesn't do the same thing for me. I really need to be running for a long time and very hard. And that is, you know, it comes up in the book different times. But I cannot just I can't live as a sedentary person anyway. But as a writer, if I were forced into a completely sedentary life, I'd probably never write again, because it is just
01:02:40
Speaker
I don't like it to be a task for me. It is usually a creation that involves moving my body. And I don't know why it's, you know, an oxygen shortage or what, but I don't really have, I write it all in my head when I'm walking, running or hiking, but primarily running. And then I can keep it in my head for a couple of hours, but I do have to find a keyboard pretty quickly after I go for a run, but absolutely physical activity.
01:03:11
Speaker
is it's like one of the hugest, most important parts of any sort of writing process for me. And in the last few years or so, do you have like a belief or behavior or habit that has improved your work or your life to help you get the work done? Not really. Probably getting the camper. That's been wonderful. It really has been.
01:03:38
Speaker
because it's not a space of my own at all, because we still go camping and use it for what it's meant to be used for. But it can become a space of my own pretty quickly. And if I'm in the house and trying to work, I will find a million reasons to let the dogs in, let the dogs out, decide I need to eat again, even though I've already eaten, whatever it is, there's some sort of distraction. But definitely going
01:04:07
Speaker
towards solitude and away from excuses has really helped me. I went on a two week retreat last year that was completely funded. Otherwise, I never could have just, you know, gone away for two weeks. But it was so awesome. And I was in this cabin by myself for two weeks in Pisgah National Forest. And I mean, there were things that needed doing, you know, I had to cook and
01:04:35
Speaker
be a responsible human. But for the most part, it was like I just hiked and wrote and ran and wrote and hiked and wrote. And it was such an ideal existence. I did have a couple of moments of a shining like experience, but two weeks is a long time. But for the most part, like just being in the woods, being active and getting the work done, it makes it not even feel like work. I mean, I literally still wake up
01:05:05
Speaker
And I'm like amazed at what an awesome job it is to be a writer, how fantastic it is to be an author, to be getting paid to do this stuff instead of cleaning off a dead body and dragging it down to the morgue. And I've done that. I've made minimum wage to wash dead people and take them to the morgue. So to be doing better than minimum wage and not be dragging dead people to the morgue, it's incredible.
01:05:35
Speaker
This isn't hard to me, and I would totally become that person living out of a camper and writing if I didn't really like my friends and really love my wife. Yeah.
01:05:48
Speaker
When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused and I think anyone, maybe I'm overextending myself, I know that being unorganized makes me feel overwhelmed and you identifying as an unorganized person, maybe you're the perfect person to answer this question. So when you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do or how do you get back on track?
01:06:11
Speaker
Well, it's usually, as you probably know, it often involves putting a fire out because there is something lost that must be found or the whole world's going to stop. So, you know, I have to put whatever fire out that I've stupidly started. And once that happens, I always make the vow that I then break, which is to never be this disorganized again. But I will say that with marketing the book, I've been treating myself more like
01:06:38
Speaker
Um, it's the 1990s again, and I have this giant poster on our refrigerator that I have used Crayola markers from my childhood on to make columns and rows. And it's, it's like an accountability poster for marketing. And so if I have an idea, it goes in one column and then, you know, how it was pursued dates, it was pursued and outcomes.
01:07:06
Speaker
are in other columns. And as totally low tech as that is, it's wonderful. I mean, I just like I go to get something out of the refrigerator and there's this spreadsheet essentially of all these tasks that need working on or that have been completed. And that's been extremely helpful. So if I can maybe translate the 1990 style chart to the rest of my life, that would probably be great. But
01:07:37
Speaker
That chart, I cannot overstate how wonderfully helpful to me as a completely disastrously disorganized person. That chart has been like a lifeline. What kind of self-talk have you used or do you use to motivate yourself when you're down or when you're in a creative funk? What are those conversations like with yourself?
Creative Process and Productivity
01:07:59
Speaker
I don't really have problems with creative funks. I have more
01:08:04
Speaker
And maybe that is one gift of having a lot of health problems is my funks purely come from, I feel like shit. I can't move. I literally have to have help getting out of bed. Um, and so when I feel pretty good or really good or even mostly okay, I'm just so glad that, um, I really don't have, I guess anything similar to creative funk comes.
01:08:30
Speaker
for me when I have to wait. So if I have to wait for like right now I'm waiting on the results of a couple of awards that I entered my book in and they don't respond till March. That I hate that. I want to know right now. Like, you know, I want to ask you a question and be given the answer immediately. I don't like to wait. And that's probably as close to a funk I get is just sitting around feeling like
01:08:58
Speaker
Nothing's happening because in publishing a lot of things happen slowly. And really the way I get out of that these days is by just doing something to make myself feel like something has gotten done. So there isn't this dead space and there isn't this time of like, I don't use it as an excuse. Well, I just won't do anything for the next two months because I get all this stuff that happens in March. I just, I just won't. I make myself create something else to do.
01:09:28
Speaker
Mmm.
01:09:29
Speaker
And in terms of craft and habits, what can somebody do today to become a better crafter of these kinds of stories? And you might even be able to expound upon something you were once weak at that you're now a lot better at because you put in some practice. So what are some of those things that you think people listening who might want to try to elevate their game, how they can level up?
01:10:00
Speaker
I'm a big fan of documenting everything and I wish I were better at keeping journals. I've gone through phases with that and it's really, if you're writing nonfiction, especially if you're writing about your own life or your own experiences, to have things like that to reference rather than relying on pure memory is really awesome. I recommend starting a blog.
01:10:25
Speaker
Even if you don't expect a big audience and you don't know exactly what your focus is, that's from a business standpoint, that's disastrous. But from a writing standpoint, having things like blogs and journals to reference later, you just never know how that can end up being researched for a book that you didn't even know was possible. I also am a huge fan of taking pictures of things to the point that it's probably obnoxious, but
01:10:54
Speaker
You know, if I'm on my walk and I see, whether it's a flower or a snake or something that is, that catches my eye, I bought my phone with extra memory because I take so many pictures of what a lot of people would probably consider just everyday minutia. But that helps me remember things. And then I don't have a question of like, let's say I, for whatever reason, this red flower I saw becomes some integral thing later and I had no idea it would.
01:11:24
Speaker
Well, because I'm an obsessive picture taker, I can go back and look at the picture of that red flower and make sure that it really did have a yellow center. And it wasn't just a figment of my imagination that it had a yellow center and, you know, just kind of helps bring back memories that way too. Yeah. And what part of the process of writing or research or editing or rewriting do you feel most alive or most engaged in or most engaged with?
01:11:53
Speaker
Um, the initial writing that feeling of having gone for a run and coming home and I just can't wait to get my stinking shirt off so I can sit down and write whatever is in my head on the computer. Um, I love that initial, it's almost like a brain dump. It's, it's like a weird physical response of relief and release and
01:12:19
Speaker
just feeling really good about it. So the initial writing of anything, especially that was created while running, that's absolutely my favorite part. How long can you write in a day without getting fatigued? Well, I did test that when I was writing this book because I did have such a short deadline. It went under contract in late September
01:12:43
Speaker
of 2016. And my deadline was April Fool's Day of 2017. So I did expand my definition of a long workday as a writer. But as long as I have breaks, physical breaks, primarily, like get up, run, get up, hike, whatever, I can just go. I mean, I don't I'm
01:13:07
Speaker
Blessed with good vision. I don't have to wear glasses of any kind I don't I see other writers like rubbing their nose or whatnot because their glasses are heavy I don't have that problem And I can just as long as there's a run or a hike or something every couple of hours
01:13:26
Speaker
I'm just pretty much good to do it all the time. And you've mentioned novels. What are some other artistic media you turn to, whether it's documentary film or feature film or podcasts or radio, that you turn to for inspiration that might not be exactly what you're doing but helps feed the engine in some way? I love listening to music.
01:13:52
Speaker
A lot of times I feel like if I could write as well as if I could write a book that is as good as a lot of the songs I listen to, then I'd really be in business. I feel like a good songwriter can tell more in a short song than a lot of us can do in 300 pages. But I don't listen to music while I write because it has to be pretty silent. But definitely, you know, admiring songwriters is huge. I read a ton of Internet articles and magazine articles.
01:14:23
Speaker
just to have other people's thoughts in my head and kind of planting seeds for things I most want to do. But I think creatively, my everyday strongest influence definitely is music. And do you keep a notebook or a log of stories that you want to write about eventually? Yes.
01:14:45
Speaker
I do and that is one part where being disorganized is a disaster yet again. The dog could have it in her mouth. Yeah, she could and she would and she will ingest it. She doesn't just kind of tear at it. I have several notebooks where there are different ideas and things like that and I even bought myself one of those ridiculous notebooks that is pre-printed to tell you
01:15:10
Speaker
You know, here's your idea. Here's your date that you executed it and whatever. And that didn't help me at all because I lost it. It's in this house in a pile somewhere. Um, but I have, I have a computer file that's, you know, called something about, I don't know, I forgot, honestly, cause I'm disorganized, but I think it's something about like book ideas. But, um, I finally decided to run when I was on that writer's retreat last year, I did decide to run with two of the novel ideas that have been pestering me in my brain for years.
01:15:40
Speaker
And so they actually have their own files. They are being written. They've been printed. They have their own binders. You know, they're they're actually coming to fruition. But yes, all over this house, there is stuff that I mean, I really kind of thought one day, oh, my God, if if I die, poor Rhonda, my wife is going to have to clean all this out. I was thinking, like, I wonder if she'll read this stuff or it'll just go to the recycling bin or what, because it is
01:16:10
Speaker
It's all over the house. If something strikes me and it has to be written down. I mean, the other day I was cleaning out my truck, which was an industrial excavation and I found a pizza box. I don't even eat pizza. I eat ridiculously healthy, but I, so I don't know whose pizza box this is or why it's in my truck, but on the inside flap, like written over these grease spots was a story I had written outside of the gym.
01:16:35
Speaker
And the ink is like running in the oil and stuff. And so I had to take that nasty pizza box inside and type up that story that had I not looked in that pizza box, would have just been in our recycling bin. So yeah, I do keep track, but not very well.
01:16:55
Speaker
And what is so, you know, inevitably, you know, you've had these you've had these periods of when you forsaken writing and then, you know, you come back to it. And what is it about it that that keeps bringing you back? It's kind of I don't want to say a need because that's probably an overstatement. I mean, a need is, you know, like we learn, you know, food, water, shelter, that sort of thing. But it's almost like that.
01:17:24
Speaker
Whenever I have stopped writing, I've never stopped writing in my head. And it just feels like I will hit a capacity where it has to come out. And so whether it comes out in the form of handwriting on a pizza box, or it comes out in the form of a book that goes under contract, it just feels like, I don't know, this is so gross. It's all I can think of is almost like a pimple that really needs to pop. Where you just feel like
01:17:52
Speaker
there's this thing. And I don't know exactly what this thing is, but it's full, and it needs to be released. And so I think that feeling, you know, I can almost feel like I'm toxic or something if I don't get the writing out. And like I said, it doesn't I don't feel like it all has to be published or it all has to be shown to anyone. But
01:18:19
Speaker
It definitely, it does feel like some sort of almost primal need to get writing done. Very nice.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
01:18:28
Speaker
Well, Victoria, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I really appreciate you carving out the time and thanks for your work. Thanks for writing the book and I wish you the best of success with it. Where can people find you online?
01:18:44
Speaker
Um, see there, there we go. I do have a Twitter account, but, um, I wouldn't really bank on that one. I have, um, the author website is my name.com. So it's Victoria stop with two P's.com. Um, the blog that really started the book is called fibromyalgia athlete.com. And, um, I do have a Twitter account that is occasionally used if they would like to find me there. And then the book.
01:19:13
Speaker
is online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. And then if you Google me, I don't know what you'll find, but I know you'll find some of my articles and stuff too. Oh, fantastic. Well, thanks again, Victoria. This was a lot of fun, and I really appreciate you taking the time. Thanks so much. You're welcome, and thank you. You got it.
01:19:37
Speaker
that we've made it to the end once again thanks for listening friends and thanks to Victoria Stop best of luck with the book did you know that's got a monthly newsletter it's true I send it out on the first of the month and it contains my book recommendations for the month as well as what you might have missed from the world of the creative nonfiction podcast once a month no spam can't beat it, go over to BrendanOmera.com
01:20:06
Speaker
consider leaving an honest review on iTunes. You're already doing a lot by listening, but if you can spare a minute or two, I deeply appreciate it. You can follow me on Twitter, at Brendan O'Mara, and the podcast now has its own Twitter account, at cnfpod.
01:20:21
Speaker
It also has a Facebook page, so if you want the full immersive creative nonfiction podcast experience, be sure to like or follow all the channels. That's going to do it, folks. Until next week, thank you for listening.