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Episode 411: The Heart Part and Big Dreams with Isa Adney
572 Plays5 months ago
Isa Adney (@isaadney) is a writer and documentary producer and the author of The Little Book of Big Dreams: True Stories About People Who Followed a Spark (She Writes Press).
Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm
Show notes: brendanomeara.com
Social: @creativenonfiction podcast on IG and Threads
Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod
Transcript
Brendan's Editing Services and Patreon Perks
00:00:00
Speaker
Alright, CNFers, you know I'm not one for advertisements on top of the show. Not usually. I don't actively court them. I only do them for all the cross-promotional purposes, but this is something of a house ad, if you will. This show takes a lot of time, and part of what keeps the lights on here at CNF Pod HQ is if you consider hiring me to help you, to help edit some work of yours.
00:00:24
Speaker
A generous editor helps you see what you can't see. My current book editor has opened my eyes to the matrix of what I can't see. And it's nice to be walking with someone in a project of this nature. And that's what I would hope to be able to offer you. So you can consider that. And if I can help you, email me and we'll start a dialogue.
00:00:48
Speaker
Also, there's patreon.com slash cnfpod, and you know what's super cool is that, and you get at a super good discount depending on your tier, is there's some one-on-one time, sometimes a lot of one-on-one time, face-to-face time to talk things out. I recently gave away my six-figure earning book proposal to every tier, just so you could see what that looks like. There's a lot of mystery around stuff like that, and I just wanted to share it. So I did. You might just get some free stuff.
The Evolution of the Creative Nonfiction Podcast
00:01:18
Speaker
Hey honey, what dreams you still got in there? Maybe there's something you thought you let go of that you didn't, and that's okay. Let's talk about that. To be clear, CNFersy so was not calling me honey. This is the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to primarily writers about telling true stories. I'm your host, Brendan O'Mara.
00:01:44
Speaker
You got a fucking dart in your neck. Isa Adny is here.
Issa Adney's Journey with the Podcast
00:01:49
Speaker
She is a force, dude. Okay, but listen, this show started in 2013, right? And it was kind of erratic through 2016. It was like, okay, I feel like recording a pod and putting one up and then months might go by and do another one, whatever.
00:02:08
Speaker
There's a fundamental reason the long-form podcast podcast got like 95% of the nonfiction interview market share Around that time, you know, they had just started a few months before me in 2012 and Yeah, I finally committed to making the show weekly in January of 2017 and in that span for instance in that in that year 2017 Susan Arlene made her first appearance and
00:02:36
Speaker
And that's when Issa caught wind of the show somehow. And she was one of the very first listeners to reach out and let me know that the show was helping her out. She's been a friend of the show ever since. And it's my great pleasure to have her on the show to celebrate her little book of big dreams. True stories about people who followed the spark. It is published by She Writes Press.
00:03:02
Speaker
Issa inscribed my copy by saying, quote, the CNF pod got me through some of my toughest valleys with this book. I'm so grateful for you and your creative work. How cool is that, right? Show notes to this episode more at brendanomare.com, where you can also sign up for the monthly
Issa's Background and Writing Process
00:03:21
Speaker
rage. You can see algorithm newsletter, a short riff of sorts, four book recommendations, seven links. It literally goes up to 11.
00:03:30
Speaker
Writing prompt is in there. Link to a happy hour. First in the month, no spam. As far as I can tell, can't beat it. You can also follow the show on Instagram and threads. At Creative Nonfiction Podcast, I don't hang out there much, but that's where I post links to the show. A little more about Issa. She's a telly and webby award-winning writer and documentary producer. She earned an MFA in writing from the Vermont College of Fine Art and blogs at creativeteacup.com.
00:03:59
Speaker
She does a lot of things, people. A lot of things. She's at Issa Adney on Instagram. I-S-A-A-D-N-E-Y, okay? Stay tuned for a parting shot of my own about dreams or the dream or not even realizing you've accomplished a dream or the dream feeling anticlimactic. Yeah, anyway, here's Issa. Riff.
00:04:35
Speaker
It was a nine year project, so having it come out last November has been honestly such a relief. I'm just so glad that it's out.
00:04:50
Speaker
and that it's over. And while I do want to write other books in the future, I'm in a really interesting space right now where I am trying to rest. Nine Years on One Project is a lot. That wasn't my initial intention, but it sort of came from this idea of the book kind of telling me it wanted to be something else and me allowing the space for it to be something different than what I thought it was going to be.
00:05:19
Speaker
and allowing the time to figure out what that was and figure out what I wanted the structure to be and it was a big mental lift and I'm really glad I took that time. I'm really proud of what it is because it wouldn't have been that book you know if I had done it a day earlier so I'm really really really happy with how it turned out.
00:05:43
Speaker
And now I'm kind of in this like place where I moved a couple days a couple days I graduated with my MFA after the book came out and then I moved literally three days after graduation So I'm looking at boxes right now.
The Evolution of Issa's Book
00:05:56
Speaker
So I haven't been like writing for a couple months I mean I write for my day job, but I haven't been writing outside of that and that's with intention I'm trying to kind of take a break because the book was a such a crazy lift, but I'm still
00:06:12
Speaker
enjoying that after effect when people send me a review or send me a comment on Instagram or having conversations like this has been such a joy because I honestly don't think I've taken the time yet to fully appreciate that it's out and that I did it because it happened and then so much else happened in my life right after. But yeah, it was a long journey.
00:06:35
Speaker
Maybe give us a sense of what your initial vision of the book was, and then over the course of those many years, what the book then started to tell you what it wanted to be.
00:06:48
Speaker
Yeah. So I, my first book was a nonfiction book, but it wasn't, I'd say like a book where I was focused on craft at all. It was more like a self health informational book for community college students. And I wrote that in my very early twenties back in 2012.
00:07:05
Speaker
And I was very familiar with that world of books. And so I think when I set out to write this book, I imagined it more of a self-help kind of book where I interviewed 120 people for the book about a dream come true. And I thought the book I was going to write was going to be more in the self-help genre, where it was kind of like, here are the patterns and the habits of people whose dreams have come true. And here's how you can kind of do that too. And their stories would maybe be weaved in as
00:07:35
Speaker
anecdotes, and it would have been more in that genre of book. And that was sort of where my head was at back then. As soon as I honestly, I'd say halfway through the interviews, I started to get in touch with who I was as an artist. And I think what happened was I interviewed a lot of artists for the book.
00:07:58
Speaker
And I connected with them in a different way than anyone else and they started, I think, seeing the artist in me and started recommending books to me. And we just started talking about art in a way that I never had with other people.
00:08:13
Speaker
And I think that evolution kind of began and I started to uncover the writer with a capital W inside of me that I had never fully acknowledged and the artist inside of me that I'd never fully acknowledged. And so I think that started to happen. And then when I finished all of the interviews,
00:08:32
Speaker
And I was sort of going through a lot of this evolution. I realized that I did not want to write a self-help book about dreams, that that sounded terrible. And I felt like I absolutely couldn't do that because it is not a step one, two, three process. It's so nuanced.
00:08:52
Speaker
When I realized that, I realized, okay, well, but now what? I wanted to do something more artful, more where the reader got to interpret the stories themselves more and where the stories also got to just be what they were and that people could see the beauty in them as I felt when I did the interviews.
00:09:13
Speaker
And I could very much easily explain how, how I did that now, but at the time it wasn't very clear how I was going to do that. And so I think in many ways that's, you know, a couple of years to do the interviews and then many years to sit with this process and this topic of dreams is so big, such a big topic. And I certainly wasn't going to write the seminal book on it. So it was also trying to get it smaller and smaller and smaller and understand what I had to say and how I should say it.
00:09:43
Speaker
What was the shape and the nature of the interviews you conducted? 120 of them, that's so many. So what was the kind of maybe the script you followed, but then also how you deviated from that script?
00:09:56
Speaker
Yes. So I started with a script. That's a good word. Type A right here. So I started with like 10 scripted questions and I, you know, said each of them exactly as is in my very first interview. And I remember that by the end it was like boiled down to four questions. And if I remember correctly, it was something like, you know,
00:10:19
Speaker
What, uh, certainly like, what was the dream come true? You know, how did you get there? Biggest obstacles, you know, dream come true moment, like nothing life shattering. But I think what I learned as I went was letting the conversation happen and just kind of digging more in when they said something that I found interesting and trying to learn more about that versus being so regimented. And so.
00:10:45
Speaker
That's pretty much how I followed it. A lot of them were 30 minute to an hour interviews. A lot of them over the phone. Some of them over Skype. If you want to know how long ago I did interviews, Zoom wasn't even a thing. And then I did some in person. There's a moment in the book too where you mentioned that you had stopped or stalled through the generation of this book. And that can be
00:11:11
Speaker
a hard position to then, that can be a position where it's easy to give up and pivot to something shinier and newer.
Creative Process and Inspiration
00:11:20
Speaker
So how did you kind of regroup and find the momentum again?
00:11:25
Speaker
Oh goodness, I wanted to give up so many times. And if this had been a book where I hadn't told 120 people I was writing a book and felt some, if I hadn't felt some sort of obligation to these people to tell their story, cause I said that I would, you know, I don't know if I would have kept going. I am so grateful in some ways for that because that was a huge part of it. Like every time I really wanted to stop,
00:11:52
Speaker
I just, I didn't feel right about that because I was so grateful to all of those people who gave me their time. And I was so moved by their stories. The moments that obviously in all of them are in the books, I couldn't put every story in the book, but
00:12:08
Speaker
So many moments from those interviews like I could still tell you where I was When someone said something and how it stuck with me and it would these things stick with me I think stories are sticky and I am in love with true stories like this and These these kinds of stories keep me going which is why I think I'm so motivated to tell them and
00:12:32
Speaker
So while the stories weren't written down yet, they were inside of me and they kept me going. Not only the sense of obligation of, oh, I told them I was going to do it, so I feel like I don't want to not do it. But also I think I was so moved by so many of the stories that I just thought, oh,
00:12:51
Speaker
Well, that part's still there. And so I think if I feel that, someone else might. And then I mentioned this in the intro of the book. It's framed in a box somewhere right now. I can't wait to get it out, but I saw it deep in a box. I just haven't got it out yet recently. But it's a framed letter or email that I wrote out from someone named Jenny who transcribed the interviews.
00:13:14
Speaker
And she emailed me out of the blue. I didn't even know her name because I was getting them transcribed through a company. This is, you know, pre-AI and real people were transcribing these interviews. And she found me and emailed me and said, listening to these interviews about people going through their dreams is inspiring me to keep going towards mine. And she told me a little bit about her story.
00:13:38
Speaker
And I wrote that out on a piece of paper and pink marker, I taped it to my wall. And that honestly was a huge, that played a huge role in helping me not give up in all of this time.
00:13:53
Speaker
remembering how it affected me and remembering okay the interviews alone affected this one person and so um let's keep going because it could affect a few more people even if it's just a handful and to me I think what's something that's always motivated me as a writer based on what happened with my first book is the way it brings people into your life for me that's always been a huge motivator uh my
00:14:19
Speaker
best friend, literally why I was one minute late to this call is because my best friend is about to have a baby today. And I wouldn't know her without my first book. My first book is how we connected. And when I was also struggling with this book, I thought, well, my first book brought me my best friend.
00:14:38
Speaker
So like, to me, a book doesn't have to be a New York Times bestseller or even sell a ton to like not be in this incredibly valuable thing in the world. Maybe it's to one person or maybe it's even to the writer or the kind of people it can bring into your life. So that kept me going.
00:14:55
Speaker
That's a good point to underscore. A lot of people might get into, you know, writing or filmmaking or whatever it is, some creative endeavor, and because they have this a highfalutin idea of what it means to, let's just say, be a writer, and that could be
00:15:12
Speaker
they're attaching too much of that process to those outside metrics like bestsellerdom and reviews and prestigious newspapers or magazines and ultimately that to the vast majority of people taking up the pen it's not just it's just not gonna happen for them so how have you kept you know your I don't know your North Star true so that you're like okay you know this book might not be a bestseller but I also made a best friend because of my first book
Redefining Success and Personal Growth
00:15:42
Speaker
Exactly. And that's something I thought about. I had to think about a lot because of course, I mean, maybe not of course, but I certainly I'm a type A big dreamer. When I wrote my first book, you know, I remember thinking my big dream is to be a New York Times bestselling author. Right. Because that is what I had seen.
00:16:00
Speaker
that had inspired me and I'm thankful for that. And I think, you know, it's great. I do think it's great to dream big and you know when it's not working for you. I think there's a point where everyone, you'll know yourself. I think it's a very dreamings, very personal. And for some people dreaming big works, for some people that is crippling and they need to dream small. And for some people it changes all the time. And I'm really grateful for the big dreams in the way that they've spurred me.
00:16:30
Speaker
And I'm really grateful that they exist because we need people to also break barriers and go for those things. And so that is not just the status quo. And, you know, I certainly that was something that motivated me when I first started. I was very young and and of course I would.
00:16:47
Speaker
love that now. That would be great. But of course, as you go along, you learn what's in your control and what's out of your control. And honestly, even the more that I learned what could be in my control to get me closer to that kind of, even getting the possibility of that kind of thing, some of those pathways weren't actually for me. I realized they weren't actually
00:17:09
Speaker
the route I wanted to go. And so I had a lot of moments where I had to really consider what is this really about for me? What do I really want? Do I really want that kind of author career to be a New York Times best-selling author, to have the reviews? There's no guarantee no matter what, but here's the things you could do if you want that to be likely. And I had a lot of times where I just realized,
00:17:38
Speaker
Huh, I don't think that's actually the most important thing to me. And if that's the only thing that comes out of it, I don't even think that's worth it when it comes to just all the things I was struggling with at the time. But when I would think back to, what did I love about my first book? And it was,
00:17:55
Speaker
You know, the one book signing where you talk to 30 people and they tell you their story. It was meeting my best friend. It was, you know, I just got an email a couple of weeks ago about someone who read my very first book over 10 years ago. And for me, I realized it is actually that impact and that connection. And that's the part I kind of can control in a sense. It's like, as long as you make it,
00:18:19
Speaker
and do something to get it out there. The likelihood of at least a couple people checking it out is you can make that happen, I think. And I think at the end of the day, the more I engage with art myself, especially from artists who maybe aren't super well known, right, but someone who makes something beautiful on Instagram, and maybe they have
00:18:40
Speaker
You know, 20 followers, but I see something and it really meant something to me. It reminds me that I think, I think sharing work matters. And I think if you feel compelled to do it, I'm just so grateful for all the people who do that and who don't let the external lack of external validation stop them. And so it kind of sometimes feels like my way to pay it forward as well.
00:19:03
Speaker
Yeah, external validation is tricky, especially when maybe you don't have a crystallized vision of what that looks like for you. And then you kind of get into the compare and despair trap. And how have you navigated those murky waters of trying to kind of stay on your path?
00:19:22
Speaker
Mm, yes, because you see it all the time on, you know, if you're on social media, which I am, it's like, oh, you know, I'm always aware. I've never been a jealous person. Sometimes I'd say I felt jealousy more as I've gotten older. It's like the first time I felt that emotion, but I've, I interview creatives and artists for a living. And so quite a few of them have mentioned this idea that like,
00:19:51
Speaker
this how you can use jealousy and sort of notice it and reframe it and think okay what is this telling you about you what dreams do you still have that maybe you're not pursuing or something so I usually use it as a guide if I feel any inkling of it and I
00:20:06
Speaker
often and very quick to like think about how happy I am for that person and try to reframe it and be like, wow, that's so cool. Like that. It's so great that that exists and that that's happening. And like, look, that means it's possible.
00:20:24
Speaker
So there's that mental shift. And then, and then if I ever do feel that comparison part, I usually do reframe it and just say, Hey, like, Hey honey, like what dreams you still got in there? Maybe there's something you thought you let go of that you didn't. And, and that's okay. Let's still, let's talk about that. Let's think about that. What, you know, and then I try to do some internal work and figure out, is there something that I pretending that I don't want that I really do? And okay, what should you do next to get closer?
00:20:50
Speaker
Or is it like, hey, do you really want this? Remember what this path would be? Do you want that? And then sometimes it's like, oh, no, you really actually don't. Sometimes we just want the results and we don't want the path there. And I'm pretty good at, I'm someone who's always very aware of the path and do I want the lifestyle? And is that worth the result? And so that's something I'm constantly thinking of. So that helps me a lot, that mentality for sure.
00:21:18
Speaker
And just trying to also just appreciate all of the great art and all of the success that people are having out there and remembering that, like, that's a good thing and that's something I want for other people. Right. Yeah. And have you watched the show Parks and Recreation? It went off the air a while ago. Okay.
00:21:37
Speaker
There's this moment in one of the, I forget if it's like season five or six, but Leslie is about to close on a house or sign a lease on a house. And she tells the realtor, I was like, I'm gonna sign the lease. And the realtor was like, okay. And she kinda just stands there. She's like, oh, I thought that would be a little more exciting, a little more pomp and circumstance. And so then,
00:22:04
Speaker
and plays some music and they start dancing like crazy. Point being, whatever our dreams or our goals are, if we accomplish something, send a full manuscript to an editor.
00:22:22
Speaker
it's quiet, it's very anticlimactic. And even though you accomplished something, you're still you. And how have you navigated that headspace of you feel like there should be fireworks going off, but instead it's just like, oh, I just made an attachment and sent it off, and well, that's it.
00:22:45
Speaker
Yes. Totally feel that. And I think something that's interesting about the fact that I've interviewed, I think almost 200 people at this point, most creatives and artists and almost everyone, you know, it's about they're accomplishing something in some way, because apparently that's something I am very interested in, in the journey of it. So I am
00:23:11
Speaker
super, super aware of that phenomenon. I think simply through the act of interviewing people. And so I was kind of prepared for it, at least with this book. Like I knew it wasn't going to be like, wow, you know, um, some dreams do have those insane moments. I got really into wrestling, for example, um, in 2020, uh, professional wrestling and they had this like documentary series.
00:23:35
Speaker
on their app at the time and I watched all of these documentaries about these wrestler journeys because they are dreamers that's for sure and in this case every all of their dream came true and they all a lot of them would have this like insane dream come true moment where they're like winning a belt at WrestleMania and like thousands of people are cheering for them and you know the Oscars just happened at the time we're like talking and yeah and
00:24:00
Speaker
Those are like those moments. So some people do have those like fireworks moments. Some dreams do come with that. And from what I've heard from people I've talked to, it's truly an incredible experience and incredible feeling. But not all dreams or accomplishments, you know, have that.
00:24:17
Speaker
But what I love about the Leslie Knope thing that you said is that they made one for themselves and her friend made one. And I just freaking love that. I have a bad memory so I don't remember that exact moment but I could picture it. I could picture them dancing and I think
00:24:35
Speaker
That's really beautiful. And so I tried to create it for myself and I did. So I'm an introvert, so I did not want to have a book lunch party. Um, and I, so I decided, well, like, how do I want to celebrate this nine year journey? Because I know if I do nothing, it's just going to be nothing. It's going to be a nothing day. The day the book comes out, it's just going to be an Instagram post, right? Like you said, and then I'm still me and that's it.
00:25:00
Speaker
So I decided to book a trip to Disneyland. I thought that would be kind of cheeky and fun. Like what do you know, book came out after nine years, what are you going to do? So I went to Disneyland and I brought my book to the Disneyland castle and took some pictures there. And I thought, okay, I'm going to celebrate there and make it a thing. And so that was really special. And what happened was I
00:25:23
Speaker
made my husband take pictures of me with my book in front of the Disneyland castle. And afterwards, this couple came up to me and they were like, Hey, you know, we saw you taking these pictures. Like, are you the author of that book? And I was like, Oh, yeah. And they were just like,
00:25:40
Speaker
Wow, that's amazing. And they were like, can we take a picture of the book so we can buy it? And they used the word author and they treated me like I was somebody, you know, and that to me was I remember I was like, all right, I'm good. That was my moment. I had it. And of course, I couldn't control it completely, but like I did something.
00:26:03
Speaker
And so I also think if it's something you want, you can create it. And I think we should. I think we should celebrate those things. I'm really bad at doing that. And so I was really proud of myself for making something of it because I think it also feels really good and feels really full circle and then sort of helps motivate me to
00:26:30
Speaker
keep going and do another thing, because otherwise it can start to feel like, okay, nothing I do matters, or maybe that's just me. And they said, so we can buy it. Like, oh, I'll try to borrow it from someone, or do you have any free copies, or I'll look at my library. That's all well and good, but we still need people to buy the damn thing. Yes, that helps a ton.
00:26:55
Speaker
I wanted to talk a little bit about this idea of like dreams versus like goals and achievement, you know, because sometimes we associate, you know, you dream to be to have a book, but is it more?
Navigating Dreams and Career Choices
00:27:11
Speaker
But that's kind of fleeting. But maybe the dream can be like, I want to be, you know, an author who routinely publishes books and then goes along the way or like making sure you hit those milestones to make that dream come true. So
00:27:24
Speaker
Maybe you can just expand on that a little bit about dreams versus goals and achievements.
00:27:32
Speaker
Yeah, I think in some ways it's so personal. I think one person could think of a dream, another one could think of the same thing as a goal. I think it certainly depends on every person and also what terminology just resonates with them, which I think is why I couldn't write the book I thought I was going to write. Because if I was going to write that first book, I would have had definitions, right? Here's a dream, and here's a goal, and here's an achievement, and here's the difference.
00:28:01
Speaker
And the deeper I got into it, the more I realized like I couldn't do that because I think this is so personal to every person. So I could only probably speak to me and like I think for me a dream is something that for me is very like heart centered.
00:28:22
Speaker
and it's something that I feel and often for me a dream is something that like won't just like go away because sometimes I want them to and I feel like those for me are the dreams of things that like keep showing up even when I'm like trying to say like go away that sounds scary or hard or no thank you um those to me anyway like that's how dreams feel to me
00:28:50
Speaker
Whereas, I think goals, some goals stem from them, perhaps, but I think for me, goals are more, feel more head centered and not in a bad way at all. But I guess that's how I would think of it. Dreams, heart, goals, head, and often they can be linked for sure.
00:29:11
Speaker
But then there's also like this whole, you mentioned the word achievement, which I think in the beginning of the book I talk about the Harvard doctoral rejection that was the kind of started the book in some ways, and I think
00:29:26
Speaker
In some ways, I called that like a big dream, but it was more of a big dream, capital B, capital D in like a societal sense. It was like, this feels like a big dream, but was it mine? Was it coming from my heart? Not really. And in hindsight, it was more achievement oriented.
00:29:45
Speaker
of, okay, this will give me external validation. This will help me in my career. And I don't think any of that is inherently bad. But when it didn't work out, the fact that I didn't go back to it.
00:30:00
Speaker
really showed me that it wasn't really a dream it wasn't really in my heart whereas I got knocked down so many times trying to do this book over nine years and I wanted to stop but I never did because I think for me it was a dream and it was more rooted in like a heart place to what extent did the people you spoke to and even you can probably speak to this through your own experience as well had to wrestle with this idea of of delusion to to see a project through to see a dream through
00:30:30
Speaker
And I think when I think about everyone I've interviewed and what they all have in common, I think it's honestly a little similar to what I just said. It's like, sometimes even you're like, yeah, this is crazy. Why? Let's stop. This is like, this isn't too much or this is crazy. And then you just kind of can't.
00:30:49
Speaker
Um, that's something I've certainly noticed is that I don't, I don't think it's this conscious like, okay, I'm going to just go into my own world and be a little crazy. I think it's sometimes you even see like, well, this is like kind of delusional, but you know what? Like.
00:31:04
Speaker
I can't stop. Like I just, I see it and or I just need to see it through. Um, and there's some sort of thing that's like driving you forward. And a lot of the times I think the ones that really work, they are coming from this place of, of heart and this place of like, I just, I really, really, I just can't not do it.
00:31:30
Speaker
I can't stop thinking about it. And so I think that powers a lot of people through who I've talked to at least where it's just they just can't let it go, even sometimes when they want to. And even when everyone else is telling them to.
00:31:47
Speaker
Sometimes it's, I know one of my favorite books by Seth Godin is The Dip and that book is about basically strategic quitting and maybe some people stick with things a bit too long. Have you had experience with having to abandon a project and the relief you found from it so you could jump to something else or certainly some of the people you spoke to that maybe quitting something was actually the best thing and then moving on?
00:32:15
Speaker
Yes, I love the dip. I can still see a copy of it in my office where I lived in San Diego and I was like in the middle of this book. So I loved the dip and often was like, okay, this is a thing I should quit. Yes, very tempting. But I definitely am a big believer in that book and I love the idea of
00:32:38
Speaker
Quitting it when it's right and I think you know when I mentioned the Harvard thing like I knew okay If this was really my dream if I really want to do this like apply again That's what everyone was telling me that you know people who had helped me apply the first time alumni one of the program directors was like, please apply again other people were telling me some people applied three times and they got it and I think for me that was certainly something that I was like I
00:33:02
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yes. If I really want this, this isn't closed off. It feels closed off to me in this moment where I got this rejection letter, but once I got some time past the emotion, it was like, the store isn't closed. Do you want to go? Do you want to do this? Go apply again. Go, you know, you could do this.
00:33:18
Speaker
I did explore that option. I did some volunteer work at a place that I knew would help me learn a bit more about what their specialty was at Harvard because I was more community college focused. They were more K-12 focused. So I kind of knew it was a long shot anyway. So I kind of did some K-12 work to see maybe I need to get more experience in this area if I want to be in this program.
00:33:41
Speaker
And I kind of realized not only did I not want to go to Harvard, but I realized I think I don't think I want a higher education career anymore. I think I want to be a writer. And so that was certainly a moment for me of a huge.
00:33:56
Speaker
quitting and a huge pivot like I had this whole business I'd invested you know quite a few years in this higher education path and I completely left it behind to do something else and I think there was a tremendous relief there was of course a lot of panic and fear but I felt like it was the right thing to do and I remember that feeling and I think every time I tried genuinely to quit this book I
00:34:25
Speaker
I didn't get that relief feeling. It was a different kind of, it was like a temporary, like, yeah, it would be great to not have to do it anymore. But then there was this other feeling of sadness that felt like grief. That wasn't the right kind of grief. Like it wasn't like a letting go grief. It was kind of like, oh no, you're not really, you're not really ready to quit this. Even though you kind of feel like you want to, it's more of a,
00:34:51
Speaker
survival mechanism fight or flight right versus like this yes it's time to move on when you made that conscious pivot to want to be a writer what take us to that moment and that you know what you what you did to start putting that in motion
00:35:09
Speaker
So I, after the Harvard rejection, I read The Alchemist. I was always a reader. I was always a writer. Like I was writing for a zine in high school. I would submit these nonfiction pieces to this magazine for teens and I got published. My mom probably still has them.
00:35:30
Speaker
So I, you know, English was my best subject. I, anywhere I went, I would write like my first, one of my first jobs as a teenager was at a gym and I would write these newsletters, email newsletters, and I would write these like nonfiction story metaphors in them. So it was always there. I majored in English. I thought I'd be an English teacher when I first started. And then I had a Brit lit class and I just hated it.
00:35:55
Speaker
hated British literature. No offense to the subject itself or the works, but whatever we read, it just wasn't, I didn't connect with it at all. I really disliked literary criticism. And I thought, looked ahead at the major and I thought, oh, this is what this is.
00:36:11
Speaker
It's not for me. And I did a communication studies major instead, which in hindsight was a lot of nonfiction. It was a lot of looking at culture and looking at people and metaphors there. And that's the kind of writer I am. I'm a nonfiction writer and I had no exposure to that when I was young.
00:36:27
Speaker
none at all. And so it started with reading The Alchemist because I was always a reader and I always went to books. And when I read that book, it was just to bring me some comfort after this Harvard rejection and trying to figure out like, what are my dreams? What am I going to do next? And after I read that book, I just got the idea to write a book. And through that process, I realized my first book was about community college because that was what I knew at the time.
00:36:54
Speaker
I kind of was like, oh, I don't think actually higher ed is the thing I want to lean into. I actually think it's the writing thing. And that just happened to be what I wrote about because that's what I knew at the time. And then the really big change, which is one of the
00:37:10
Speaker
reasons I found your incredible podcast was when I was stuck with the book, my husband recommended the movie Adaptation. He was like, there's this movie and it's about a guy being stuck on structure. He's like, so I think you'll like it. And he goes to a Robert McKee seminar, which I had been to a long time ago.
00:37:29
Speaker
So I thought, okay, let's watch that. And loved it. And I had never heard of Susan Orlean at that time. This was a long time ago, but she of course is this character in the movie, slightly fictionalized at the end, but also based a little bit on who she is in terms of being a writer.
00:37:48
Speaker
And I have an essay about this on my blog, Creative Tea Cup, but essentially in the movie, there's this scene where she's following the guy she's writing about in Florida, where I live, which is very, you know, um, made it hit different. I think she's in the mud following this guy that she's writing about. And her job was to write about this guy. And I always explain it as something inside of me, like standing up, because that's how it felt. And in my mind, I stood up, you know, I was sitting on the couch and then I stood up.
00:38:18
Speaker
I mean, I doubt that happened, but that's how it feels in my mind. It was just this absolute revelation. Wait, what? Someone follows someone around and writes about them? That's all I want to do that. And that coupled with I read a profile in Vogue, it was probably one of the first profiles I'd ever read.
00:38:37
Speaker
by Jada won and it was about Taylor Swift a long time ago and you really felt like you were in the room in a way that I had never read before. And so I think that's when I really started to discover who I wanted to be as a writer. I found the writers who I wanted to learn more about. I profiled Jada for my own creative teacup blog. I ended up interviewing Susan Orlean.
00:38:58
Speaker
last year. And so that they are definitely my inspiration. So it was finding getting just more exposure to the kind of writing that I love that I just hadn't had exposure to until a little bit later in life. And then just doing it myself and starting my own blog and writing as much as I could.
00:39:16
Speaker
I think that that underscores something pretty important is that you just took the agency yourself and reached out to the people that inspired you to shine a light on them and also glean some insights from them, too. You didn't wait for anyone to give you permission. You're just like, I'm going to take this. And then you're going to practice by interviewing them and doing the writing.
00:39:38
Speaker
You're doing the work and building a body of work on which that you can now You know a foundation that you can build future bodies of work on and that's just through your own through your own agency and rigor
00:39:51
Speaker
Yes, and that's what I got so much out of from the book. And I think that was one of the themes that at least I took away was how much people took things into their own hands. I mean, they all heard no so many times and how many times they just did it themselves in whatever way they could, whether it was starting their own thing or just doing it on the side. I think that was a huge takeaway that I got.
00:40:17
Speaker
When I realized this, I was still doing the interviews at the time and realized I really want to be a writer and I really want to do this kind of writing like Susan Orlean and Jada. And it was a direct inspiration from the book that I took away that I said, okay, well, I'm not going to sit around like hoping Vogue calls me one day to profile someone. I'm going to start doing it now. And I profiled a profiler because exactly why you said I wanted to learn from her.
00:40:41
Speaker
as well. So Jada was one of the first ones. I also profiled a music producer for Hamilton because that was incredibly inspiring to me at the time and of course still is. And I was blown away at the people who said yes and it was, I also put some of them in the book as well even though I profiled them for the blog because I had finished profiling for the book.
00:41:01
Speaker
But now I have a full time job where I profile people because I built this portfolio by just doing it on my own, not getting paid for it, but doing it because I truly loved it and didn't want to not do it just because no one was hiring someone to do that.
00:41:19
Speaker
Yeah, no one really cares where you went to school. All they want, like in a query letter or pitch, if you're looking to write a certain story or publish somewhere, they just want to know that you're capable of doing
Initiative in Writing and Personal Development
00:41:30
Speaker
the thing. So sometimes you just gotta, you rely on the generosity of someone who said yes to an interview and be like, even though it's just gonna go on your little blog or your little website,
00:41:41
Speaker
and it's not gonna necessarily grant them a ton of visibility, but you use that and it proves that you can deliver something. And I think that's really important. It's not like seeking out another degree. Those can have their own utility. It's mainly like if you wanna be somewhere and do the kind of work, just do that kind of work, even if it's on the weekends or at night. So you gotta carve out that turf for yourself.
00:42:10
Speaker
Exactly. And that's where I think the heart part comes from for me. It was just like, this is work that I want to do in my heart. And so yes, it would be nice if I was getting paid for it and if I could do it in this way that I would love to do. But I don't want to not do it if I can't. I don't want the societal economy to determine whether or not I can do this work that my heart wants to do.
00:42:38
Speaker
And so that was huge and it's really freeing because then you really feel like you can follow those little dreams as they come along as long as you're willing to sacrifice certain things or de-scope in certain ways. And then of course the bigger challenge though is
00:42:58
Speaker
As I get older, especially, I'd say I'm, I'm 36, I'll be 37 next year. And so I started the blog when I was in my twenties and I would wake up early in the morning before work and, you know, do it on the weekends, stay up late. And that's been harder as I've gotten older, just from a pure like energy.
00:43:15
Speaker
standpoint and mental energy my career gets more takes more mental energy as you like just advance and then I also am physically having less energy so that's been a balance as well and that's why I'm kind of also in a state of like rest right now and recuperation and then thinking about what is the next going to be the next evolution but it's nice to know that as I get new ideas and also want to explore other things with writing that I
00:43:42
Speaker
I know I can just do it and I don't have to wait. And I think that a lot of that for me came from the book and really empowered me to realize that you don't have to wait for permission. You may not get everything you want, but like there's also a lot you can take into your own hands.
00:43:58
Speaker
In interviewing so many people for the book and then only a fraction of them get into the book, what was the kind of the criteria in your head that made some, say, pass the audition to get between the two covers versus the ones that unfortunately didn't make the cut?
00:44:15
Speaker
Yeah so that was so hard for me because I've just appreciated everyone so much and I got something out of every single one so it wasn't that was the that was so hard it's part of what took so many years honestly because I wasn't sure in the beginning and so it was a lot of
00:44:33
Speaker
deep thinking. I mean really deep thinking, a lot of note cards, you know, putting all of them on note cards, putting down what themes I remember from each interview. So I really relied too on like, what stuck with me? Like what was this story about for me? What did I still remember? And so I would
00:44:50
Speaker
put those themes down and then sort of order them out. And I was also trying to figure out what were going to be the themes in the book. I wanted it to have a structure. I was very intentional. Like the reason one story comes not just in its section, but the reason why it comes before the story after it, like all of that has so much intention behind it. The whole book was made to tell a bigger story.
00:45:15
Speaker
the way I made it. I don't know if everyone will see that, but I see it and I was very proud of it and I did that with a lot of intention. So that started, so a lot of the choices that were made were which stories could help me tell that bigger story I was trying to tell, which ones best illustrated a concept that maybe I did see in a lot of interviews, but their story just really illustrated it the most.
00:45:42
Speaker
So a lot of it was that, a lot of it was the ones that also had more of a full story to tell because the way I did these interviews was thinking, there'll be a quote from each one or a mini anecdote from each one. I did an interview with the intention of, I'm going to tell this person's whole story.
00:46:05
Speaker
So that was a huge challenge because not every interview would have lent itself to being a short story in and of itself because that wasn't my thought when I did the interview. So I will never do this again. I've been joking a lot, but I really mean it. I'll never do 120 interviews again. I want to do books like this in the future, but I want them to be
00:46:28
Speaker
You know, eight to 15 long form profiles and like everyone will be in the book. That's my goal. But I'm really proud that I was able to still make it work. So a lot of it was that too of just some of the interviews were awesome. But like we didn't tell their story in this in the same way that I needed it to do for the structure that I decided to go with.
00:46:49
Speaker
One of my favorite profiles in the book was with Don Han, and especially one of his quotes where he was just saying, sometimes it takes a depressingly long time to realize something at some point.
00:47:08
Speaker
That one strikes with me. I'm a late bloomer and things come to me far later and on a less expeditious timeline than I feel like a lot of my peers. So that one really resonated with me.
00:47:23
Speaker
I'm so glad it did. It resonates with me now even hearing it at this phase. I remember it resonated to me then by hearing you say it and I'm like, depressingly long time. That's so validating because that's how I feel about the nine years of this book. It was a depressingly long time. I did not want it to take that long.
00:47:42
Speaker
But it's helpful, you know, why I wrote the book and why I wanted to get out there is I did find comfort in just hearing from other people and holding on to different quotes and different moments based on where I was in life at the time that I read it, because I reread this book over and over and away every time I wrote it, every time I edited it.
00:48:01
Speaker
I got something new out of it. I'm so glad you liked Don's. He had a huge impact on me and on helping me keep going on this book. He would keep encouraging me with it when I wanted to give up. And his encouragement that it does sometimes take a depressingly long time, I think helped me at least feel like I wasn't doing it wrong just because it was taking a long time.
00:48:28
Speaker
And that kind of gets back to what we were talking about, about delusion. And sometimes that's what keeps you going when it takes a long, long time. It's just like you gotta, you know, fake it to yourself that it's taking the time it needs. And it's not because you're bad or maybe you're not skilled enough yet, but you're working towards the thing. And it's just like, all right.
00:48:51
Speaker
It's the old Ira Glass quote of just having killer taste but not having the ability to get there. And sometimes it takes a long time to close that gap. Yes, it sure does. And I definitely, that was also part of what took the time, 100%, because the kind of book I thought I was going to write, I was ready to write at that time. But the kind of book I wanted to write, I needed to figure out how to do that. And along the way, I did do a lot of development. I remember I took a
00:49:20
Speaker
I'm just now remembering. I totally forgot. In the early days of the nine years, I took a Stanford creative writing class. It was the first creative writing class I'd ever taken, aside from like one mandatory one in high school. So I got so much from that. I did the Robert McKee story course. And then at the end of the book, the last two years, I got an MFA.
00:49:41
Speaker
And part of the reason was I wanted to develop the book with like other people. I really wanted to get extra eyes on it and really make sure I was getting the feedback that I wanted on it because I'd been alone with it for so long and I wanted more than just like an editor. I wanted to really work on it in a program and it was
Challenges in Writing a Hopeful Book
00:50:05
Speaker
absolutely the best decision I ever made. It was such an incredible experience and definitely helped close the gap for me at the end of the day and get the book to where I wanted it to be.
00:50:16
Speaker
There's a moment in the introduction where you write, I struggled with this book for eight years because I couldn't reconcile how to honor loss and hope at the same time, or how to celebrate dreams and dreamers in a cruel, unjust world where so much is out of our control. So what was that tension that you were wrestling with there that inspired that paragraph?
00:50:41
Speaker
or knowing the self-help world pretty well. I asked for the book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens for Christmas when I was 16 years old. I was very familiar with this genre of books where it's like, you can take control of your life and you can make your life better by doing A, B, and C. I don't think there's anything inherently
00:51:03
Speaker
Awful about that. I got a lot from those books and sometimes I still do. I think there's a time for like really practical stuff like that and it can be hugely life-changing for people and I think in many ways it was for me, but there was a time where it also probably based on me and where I was more than the content itself, but where it would start to feel harmful.
00:51:23
Speaker
and it would start to feel like I was never doing enough or that, hey, if your life's not doing well, you are the problem. Because look, you should be able to just make it better by following step ABC. It's right here in this table of contents. And so you're the problem. It's you all the time. And that would be my interpretation at certain times. And
00:51:45
Speaker
And so I then stepped away from that genre for a while very deliberately because it started to feel harmful to me where I was in life. And I think, you know, and we've heard a lot about like the phrase toxic positivity, right? So that is also a thing.
00:52:00
Speaker
that was being talked about and I was really struggling with, okay, how do I write a book? And of course, by the way, the idea for the book was in 2014. By the time I needed to write the book, it was 2020. Like I wrote this book in 2020.
00:52:18
Speaker
I don't know how that happened like it wasn't intentional it wasn't even like oh I have the time I'm gonna write it it just sort of how the structure came I think before the pandemic and so then it was like time to write it and I was ready to write it I just wanted to do it wanted to write the whole time I just didn't know the structure yet
00:52:35
Speaker
So that I think played a huge part because I was like, I don't want to write a book that just makes it I didn't want to write a book that made it seem like or could be interpreted like any sort of toxic positivity or any sort of idea that like
00:52:50
Speaker
Yeah, every dream can come true. Just try. And if it doesn't come true, I guess you didn't try hard enough. And that's not what the book is clearly. But I definitely think I had this fear of even in any way sharing that kind of idea.
00:53:08
Speaker
But I did want to share something that was hopeful at the same time, but without it being anything that was harmful or had any sense of blame, I wanted it to be a softer book. I didn't want it to be a book that made you feel like, hey, here's all the things you have to do, or here's all the things you're doing wrong, or here's the plan you need to set. Because that just felt too heavy for me at the time as well. And I was like, that's not really what I needed.
00:53:36
Speaker
when I was in the heart of things. I needed anyway and everyone needs different things at different times. But I needed to know I wasn't alone. I needed to know that the times it felt slow and hard. It wasn't a sign that I was doing it wrong and that I just needed to read one more piece of advice and then I'd fix it.
00:53:56
Speaker
that it was just sometimes you have to sit through the hard stuff and find the friends to to dance with or the friends that will encourage you and keep going you know if it if it's something you really do want and if you don't that's okay too so i think there was a lot of that and i honestly in addition to the pandemic i had gone through some trauma
00:54:16
Speaker
myself that I hadn't gone through when I'd started the book. And so I was just really wrestling with a lot of pain and, you know, health crises and just thinking about all of those things that truly are outside of our control. And, and I think that really, that was really hard for me to wrestle with. I was like, do I want to write a book about dreams when things are so difficult? And I don't want to spit in the face of that. I don't want anyone, I don't want to ever send a message, but like, if your dreams haven't come true,
00:54:45
Speaker
or a dream doesn't come true that it's because you didn't do steps A, B, and C and it's all on you. Because also a theme is that people get a lot of help and there's a sense of power and privilege in the world where some people have more help because of that, but also you can ask for help and that's exciting to me too and just also acknowledging that.
00:55:06
Speaker
acknowledging luck and acknowledging privilege and acknowledging help, but also acknowledging agency and what we can do and what hope there is. And I think the story in the intro about Megan and Cam and how she kept dreaming after she lost her daughter in a car accident. And that was, that will gave me the avenue to like, feel okay about writing this.
00:55:28
Speaker
I loved how at the start of our conversation you talked about the relief of the book being done. And I don't think that people talk about that enough that sometimes when you're done writing a book or a long article or something, the feeling might not be, oh, euphoria or this feeling of accomplishment. Oftentimes it is just like, oh, I'm so frigging glad this is done. Yeah.
00:55:55
Speaker
It's so true. I really, really am. It was so hard and I'm really proud of it. And I remember the last, I can't remember what kind of edit it's called, but like I had to do one last read through of just like making sure there wasn't anything missed visually. So it was like the first time I really read the book.
00:56:13
Speaker
don't know if I read it physically read the physical copy or the online copy but it was the last time I read it and I remember finishing it and That was the moment where I were I really I remember I told my husband I was like this book is a dream come true Like this is the book I wanted to write. This is the book That this is it did what I wanted it to do and I was just so proud and so like that was the moment where I was like I
00:56:36
Speaker
Oh, wow, like I did it and it's what I want it to be. And if nothing else happens, I'm so proud of that. And so that was a really nice moment that helped me release any expectation for anything that happened after, because that really did feel like enough. I was just so proud. And then everything after that on it, it was, it was just so relieved.
Completion and Reflection on a Long-term Project
00:56:56
Speaker
Because when you work for nine years on something, I actually realized more in hindsight is that while I wasn't writing this book 24 or seven, there was a huge base in my brain. It took up every day, every single day. And I didn't know that fully until it was gone and that space was freed. And it's just it is such a huge relief. And I am excited to see what will come, even conversations like this as well.
00:57:24
Speaker
help me remember too like that I did this and it's out there and I think those moments still come too afterwards.
00:57:34
Speaker
And what might you tell somebody who, let's say, has a dream, but for one reason or another, it doesn't come true. And that can be, we see it in sports a lot of the time. Athletes, maybe they blow out a knee or get a head injury and they're done. And that dream is over. And you gotta somehow dust yourself off and,
00:57:59
Speaker
Find the strength to re-dream and dream again. So what might you say to people whose dreams might be snuffed out to then try to find a greater degree of vision and motivation after they had the wind sucked out of them?
00:58:13
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. I think it's so important to remember and honor how far you came, however far that was, because most people never start at all, or a lot of people never start at all.
00:58:30
Speaker
So, and I don't say that with like, ugh, they never start. Oh my gosh. They're like, they're so weak or they're like, no, I get it. Like I don't, I think that's okay. Like I get it. Especially some people have so much going on in life or so much against them.
00:58:46
Speaker
But it is really hard to even begin to go for a dream. So I really think we don't do enough to honor however far you get. I was just having coffee with a friend and she was talking about how she has
00:59:01
Speaker
all of these ideas of like she wants to start a newsletter and she kind of did, but she hasn't written one yet. She also wants to like do a YouTube channel, but she hasn't like done a video yet because in her mind it's like, cause she's a marketer. So she understands content marketing. So she's like, if I do a thing, I need to like do it and do it right and do it consistently and do a YouTube video, right? Like twice a week, every week for like years and da da da. And so we were talking about all of that.
00:59:27
Speaker
And yes, if she wanted to be a professional YouTuber and make her living, there's a certain way of going about it, but that's not what she's talking about. She was just talking about having creative outlets, but feeling this pressure to take it to a certain level. And we just had this conversation where I just found myself saying it was not premeditated, but I was like, I think there'd be value if you just did one YouTube video and one only. I would like to watch it.
00:59:52
Speaker
And sort of thinking about that and it sort of made me realize in that moment how much pressure it can feel like to that if you do something that it has to be the New York Times bestseller for it to be worthwhile or for it to be valuable. And same with sports, like you have to go all the way to win the Super Bowl for it to feel like a dream come true or a good career.
01:00:16
Speaker
And again, I think it's fine and exciting to shoot for those things and very exciting for the people who make it all the way there. But I don't think that's the only form of value. And it's really, really hard to remember that. And I think surrounding yourself with people who really love you and actually hearing what they say and taking it in.
01:00:37
Speaker
I often, you know, couldn't, it'd be easy to say, just remember how far you've come. But if I'm thinking about myself, I'm not good at that. What actually helps me do that when I'm having to pivot or realizing that this dream is not going to come true, or at least not in the way I thought or in the timeline I thought.
01:00:55
Speaker
It's really listening to what my friends stay around me and like really actually taking it in and not just letting it pass by because if you've and hopefully you have people have those people in their life in some way, but I think it's
01:01:10
Speaker
Listening to that, remembering how far you've come, remembering what you've done and realizing that no one can take away, that you can apply that in another area. There's also something in the book, I think, about changing your dream or changing your timeline.
01:01:28
Speaker
Um, so I think in some ways when it feels like a dream has ended to kind of ask yourself, okay, is there a way to change this where it wouldn't have to end or is there a way to change the timeline? And you know, there are other ways to still make it happen, maybe just in a different way and like reshaping it and also honoring what you already did. Um, cause it's probably more amazing than you think if, especially if you're hard on yourself, as I actually think a lot of dreamers are, I know I am.
01:01:56
Speaker
Well, Ysa, I love the book and I'm so glad we got to touch base and talk a little shop over the microphones here. And as I'm sure you know, I love asking guests for a recommendation of some kind for listeners at the end of the show. So I'd just extend that to you as we bring our conversation down for a landing. What might you recommend for people out there?
01:02:17
Speaker
Well, um, to anyone who knows me, this is going to be no shock at all, but I have been obsessed with the last of us, um, this last year.
Recommendations and Financial Realities in Writing
01:02:25
Speaker
So it's a video game that was also a show on, um, HBO or max, uh, last year I came by it, came by the show first. Um, I had heard about the game from my brother and I watched the intro cause he said it was one of the best stories ever.
01:02:42
Speaker
So as a storyteller, I was very intrigued and I watched the beginning of this game and it was one of the most incredible stories, one of the most incredible pieces of art, to be honest, that I'd ever seen. And so I highly recommend the show. It is intense and you'll know in the beginning if it's for you or not. It's not for everyone. It's really intense. But I then got into playing video games.
01:03:05
Speaker
And that has taught me so much about story, especially playing The Last of Us and The Last of Us 2. The Last of Us 2 to me is when I played it because it was also the first game. When I played The Last of Us game, I knew what was going to happen because I'd seen the show. But when I played The Last of Us 2, I didn't know what was going to happen. And I remember saying, oh, I haven't had a story experience like this since the first time I saw Hamilton in 2016.
01:03:31
Speaker
Like it fundamentally had a huge impact on my taste and my sense of story and seeing what was possible and what someone could do with storytelling, with detail, with nuance, with character. I'm a nonfiction writer, but I get so much inspiration from fiction because the kind of nonfiction I write, it's always about structure. And so I'm always getting inspired by how fiction does structure.
01:03:54
Speaker
So my top of line recommendation is The Last of Us TV show at the very least. Secondary is if, you know, if you're a storyteller to look into video games, there's some incredible storytelling there. And I had to take notes to learn how to do the controllers and what did what for the first time I played. But it was a transformative, honestly, experience for me. So I think and then the third recommendation, if none of that content is for you,
01:04:21
Speaker
is I think just finding a new medium of story that inspires you and really diving into it. That's also been a great time for me post a big writing project to be able to invest in something that still feeds me creatively, but is also like really fun and has that sense of exploration again.
01:04:41
Speaker
Fantastic. That's wonderful. I like that. I get the same kind of charge out of playing Legend of Zelda games. And I just played Tears of the Kingdom this year. And it's just talk about story and world building and immersive gameplay. It's really cool to sink yourself into something like that. Yes. And the way you feel a part of it and like in it, it just absolutely blew my mind. And I think it's inspired me a lot as a writer.
01:05:10
Speaker
Awesome. Well, Esa, this was wonderful. So thank you so much for the work you've done and continue to do. And thanks for carving out some time to talk a little shop.
01:05:19
Speaker
Thank you. This podcast got me through a lot of those hard times when I, um, the, you know, traumas experiencing due to like family health crisis that I, your podcast was what I listened to every, every time I went to the gym, which I went to a lot during that time to relieve stress. And I, these interviews and the, the way you talked about writing and the writers you talk to, it brought me a lot of comfort.
01:05:43
Speaker
And it also made me feel connected to the writing, even when I wasn't writing. And it made me feel connected to my dream, even when I wasn't doing much because I was in survival mode. So thank you for that. I'm really, really grateful to get to be on the podcast now. Oh, gosh. Well, that means the world. Yeah, I'm tickled. I am speechless. I am without speech. Thank you, Brendan.
01:06:14
Speaker
Wasn't that cool? Lisa brought it. She brought the goods, man.
01:06:19
Speaker
Thank you, Isa. Thank you, fair listener. Yeah, it's funny. Sometimes there's a lull in an audience or a spike in audience. And right now seems to be one of those lulls. And it could be something of a pod fade. I've heard rumors of pod fade for years, but we just keep showing up and doing our thing. We're here to serve the CNF in audience. Should we pivot to video? Hard no.
01:06:48
Speaker
I don't need that extra editing drama. Also, I don't want to subject me or my guests to being on camera. That's a lot of pressure. Nobody needs to see me. I have enough body dysmorphia without having to edit video with me.
01:07:03
Speaker
guests are unilaterally relieved when I say it's just audio, like every time. In my confirmation notes, I say, well, all we're doing is audio, but sometimes I get an email and be like, this is just audio, right? And I'm like, yes. And every time they're like, thank you. That should tell you something.
01:07:23
Speaker
tells me everything I need to hear. By the time you get this, I will have had another conversation with my big book editor about some of the bigger problems with the prefontaine book, and boy, are there problems. I'm close to 200 pages into the rewrite, which is a little more than halfway.
01:07:40
Speaker
I've scrubbed out most of the quotes from my own words, making the narration seem more seamless. I think this is making it more of an authoritative read and that I'm not outsourcing the commentary to quotes. To slog though, especially converting footnotes and all those citations to endnotes, keyword search endnotes,
01:08:03
Speaker
Am I even doing those right? I think I am, but you never know. Interrogating every page, asking what work is this doing right now for the story. I've compressed 37 chapters into 14 so far, so I should tell you how
01:08:25
Speaker
choppy it was at first, and that was I think the result of cutting 50,000 words from the rough draft to the first draft. So it got a little choppy and not quite as seamless. Maybe a poorly stitched together quilt. So now, given that there's just 14 so far mapped out, down close to, I don't know,
01:08:53
Speaker
66%, but now there's like a third of as many chapters as there was or something. Does anyone have a calculator? Anyway, each chapter has a greater sense of purpose, I guess is what I'm saying. This is the grind, but what of the dream? If he asked me 10 years ago that I'd be writing a biography on a famous sports figure and I wouldn't...
01:09:14
Speaker
need a day job to subsidize it, and I'd have a $150,000 book advance, I would have told you you're crazy, and that, holy fuck, that's the dream, right? I'd like to think it's not a one-off, that I get to continue doing this kind of work, but you never know. That kind of language and trepidation and equivocation is often what drives my wife crazy. She's like, you're your own worst enemy. That kind of language is self-defeating. Okay, sidebar.
01:09:44
Speaker
$150,000. I got $60,000 at signing. Agent took $9,000, so $51,000 gross to me, about $13,000 in taxes. So from that initial nut,
01:09:57
Speaker
38,000 was my first payment. I haven't received second payment, which will be 45K gross, minus about 6,000 for agent, and then paying a hard estimated taxes this year of 1900 per quarter, so 7,600, and that'll leave me with 31K after taxes. Same installment upon publication in about a year.
01:10:26
Speaker
That's the skinny on a fairly big book advance. I'm lucky in a sense that it gets paid out over three installments. That's usually over four, which definitely makes things a bit more squirrely.
01:10:42
Speaker
such as my understanding. 150K is eye popping, but it's a bit more modest once you break it down into its parts. I'm grateful it was all get out, don't get me wrong, but I want to share the reality of $150,000 book advance. It sure is nice.
01:11:01
Speaker
But it does come at a – when you factor in how much the taxes are and then the agent commission, you're like, oh, that's not quite as much as it sounds, right? So now you know. Anyway, so yes, this is the dream, and I've had to stop and remind myself of that.
01:11:22
Speaker
It happened so gradually, really, and every step along the way was so incredibly anti-climactic. And I have next to no social circle. It's my own fault, I guess. So as this dream unfolded, only my wife and Bronwyn Dickey celebrated with me. Bronwyn called me the day of my deal and was like, your phone must be ringing off the hook. And I was like, nope, just you, BD.
01:11:48
Speaker
My wife was equally happy, I think, and it wouldn't be possible without her health insurance and steady salary that we are systematically bleeding by keeping three ungrateful dogs alive, two of which we love and like, one of which we love but don't like. Point being, I accomplished a dream and almost didn't notice it happening.
01:12:09
Speaker
because life, like social media, is an infinite scroll. Time very much keeps marching on, man. And you're left with your flabby reflection in the mirror and a subpar deadlift. Speaking of deadlifts, in May of 2020, I deadlifted 405. It's big for me. For a long time, I was so keen on the 405 deadlift, and that's four 45-pound plates on each side of a 45-pound barbell.
01:12:41
Speaker
I haven't come close to that since, but that's neither here nor there. I hadn't planned on pulling it that day, but I had pulled 365 in a kind of warmup and it felt like 300. And I was like, damn, I can easily do 40 more pounds on top of this. And I locked in and I moved it a very heavy for me 405. I got off the ground and locked out. I put the weight down and no fireworks went off. I was by myself.
01:13:09
Speaker
Nobody knew I did it. I was in the moment, self-satisfied. But there it was, goal or dream accomplished, and that's it. So how do we live, I don't know, or revel in that moment, celebrate it, feel special for doing anything in this life? I guess it's a need for validation. Like it's not enough to merely do it.
01:13:35
Speaker
You want everyone else to know you did it too? The very essence of social media. If you don't post it, did it ever happen?
01:13:42
Speaker
And what are we to do with our dreams? You know, we know what to do when they fail because the vast majority of them do. Speaking of that, like my sad baseball career, I rarely take stock on how far I actually made it in a sport that systematically drums it out of you and drums out players. It got pretty far, all things considered, but I never recognized that in the moment.
01:14:08
Speaker
Now, more importantly, what do you do when you actually accomplish a dream or a goal? You know, if I come up with a satisfactory answer to that question, I'll be sure to let you know. It's like that great line from Metallica's song, King Nothing. Careful what you wish, you may regret it. Careful what you wish, you just might get it. Brilliant.
01:14:31
Speaker
Because we think that accomplishing the thing will make us whole. It's best to figure out, you know, figure out that wholeness before the dream comes to pass. Because the infinite scroll, it doesn't stop, man. So the best we can do is stay wild. And if you can't do, interview. See ya.