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Episode 77—Blaire Briody says Good Reporting is Good Writing
132 Plays7 years ago
For episode 77, I welcome Blaire Briody, that’s @blairebriody on Twitter. She is a freelance journalist who has written for The New York Times, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Fast Company, Glamour, among others. Her first nonfiction book, The New Wild West: Black Gold, Fracking, and Life in a North Dakota Boomtown. The book was the 2016 finalist for the Lukas Work-in-Progress Award from Columbia Journalism School and Harvard University, and she received the Richard J. Margolis Award for social justice journalism in 2014. Blaire won Proximity Magazine’s second annual narrative journalism prize for her piece “It Takes a Boom,” which chronicles Cindy Marchello, the lone woman in the vast fracking sites in North Dakota. Ted Conover, author of several books and immersion journalist of the highest order, judged the contest, you can also hear him back on Ep. 50 of The Creative Nonfictoin Podcast, and here’s what he had to say about Blaire’s gold-medal piece: "This vivid portrait of a woman trying to work oil fields during the fracking boom rings totally true—we seldom meet people like Cindy Marchello in narrative journalism, but I don’t doubt for a second they’re here. I love the frankness and the matter-of-factness. Both Blaire Briody and her subject won my heart, and admiration." Nice… Speaking of being thankful, reviews and ratings have been flowing in and I want to extend a big, big thanks to those who are doing that and taking advantage of my editing offer as a result. What’s this? In exchange for an HONEST—it doesn’t have to be a good one, just an honest one—review on iTunes, I’m offering an hour of my time to work with you on a piece of writing. All you have to do is leave your review and when it posts, email me a screenshot of it. As long it’s postmarked any time between Nov. 2017 and the end of Dec. 2017, the offer stands. Reviews are the new currency and your help will go a long way toward building the community this podcast sets out to make, to empower others to pick up the pen or the camera or the microphone and do work that scratches that creative itch. Okay…now what? The first half of this interview had to be completely cut out. Why? There were some nasty internet gremlins wreaking all kinds of havoc with our connection. It sounded like an old, old Apple computer chugging in the background with some heavy thumps thrown in, maybe an aquarium’s aerator. I mean, it was weird, but more than that it was extremely distracting, so instead of putting you through that, fair listener, I’m going to sum up that first part of the interview in a few hundred words, then we’ll get to the second half that I recorded through a different connection and that sounds just fine.
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Transcript
Introduction and Thanksgiving Reflection
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Speaker
On this Thanksgiving week, I looked deep inside my soul and asked what am I most thankful for. And you know what it was? The rest.
00:00:13
Speaker
In all seriousness, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that this latest episode of the podcast shakes you out of your turkey-induced coma. This is the Creative Nonfiction Podcast. As you know, where I speak with the world's best artist about creating works of nonfiction, leaders from narrative journalism, memoir, essay, radio, and documentary film, and try to tease out the origins, habits, and routines that allow you to improve your own work.
00:00:43
Speaker
And for episode
Introducing Blair Briody: Accomplishments and New Book
00:00:44
Speaker
77, I welcome Blair Briody. That's at Blair Briody on Twitter. B-L-A-I-R-E B-R-I-O-D-Y
00:00:59
Speaker
Blair Briody is a freelance journalist who has written for the New York Times, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Fast Company, Glamour, among others. Her first non-fiction book, The New Wild West, Black Gold, Fracking and Life in a North Dakota Boomtown, just came out this fall.
00:01:22
Speaker
The book was the 2016 finalist for the Lucas Work in Progress Award from Columbia Journalism School and Harvard University, and she received the Richard J. Margolis Award for Social Justice Journalism in 2014.
00:01:38
Speaker
She graduated from UC Davis with a degree in international relations and lives in Northern California. Now also Blair won Proximity Magazine's second annual narrative journalism prize and that's kind of what gets her on the podcast this week. For her piece,
Engaging with Listeners: Writing Reviews for Podcast Feedback
00:01:55
Speaker
it takes a boom.
00:01:57
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which chronicles Cindy Marcello, the lone woman in the vast fracking sites in North Dakota. Ted Conover, author of several books and immersion journalist of the highest order, judged the contest
00:02:12
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You can hear him back on episode 50 of the Creative Nonfiction Podcast. And here's what he had to say about Blair's gold medal piece. Quote, this vivid portrait of a woman trying to work oil fields during the fracking boom rings totally true. We seldom meet people like Cindy Marcello in narrative journalism, but I don't doubt for a second they're here. I love the frankness and the matter of factness.
00:02:38
Speaker
Both Blair Briody and her subject won my heart an admiration." Nice. Speaking of being thankful, reviews and ratings have been flowing in and I want to extend a big, big thanks to those who are doing that and taking advantage of my editing offer as a result. So what is this exactly? In exchange for an honest, honest review, doesn't even have to be a good one, just an honest one,
00:03:05
Speaker
Review on iTunes, I'm offering an hour of my time to work with you on a piece of writing. All you have to do is leave your review and when it posts, email me a screenshot of it. As long as it's postmarked anytime between November 2017 and the end of December 2017, the offer stands.
00:03:24
Speaker
Reviews are the new currency and your help will go a long way toward building the community this podcast sets out to make. To empower others to pick up the pen or the camera or the microphone and do work that scratches that creative itch. Okay,
Interview Technical Challenges and Summary
00:03:39
Speaker
now what?
00:03:41
Speaker
The first half of this interview had to be completely cut out. Why? There were some nasty internet gremlins wreaking havoc with our connection. It sounded like an old Apple computer chugging in the background.
00:04:03
Speaker
mixed in with some heavy thumps, maybe an aquarium aerator. I mean, none of that actually happened, but that was kind of the sound going on. So I mean, it was weird, but more than that, it was extremely distracting. So instead of putting you through that fair listener, I'm gonna sum up the first part of the interview in a few hundred words. Then we'll get to the second half that I recorded through a different connection that sounds just fine.
Blair's Journey and Challenges in North Dakota
00:04:31
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Okay, so Blair was working out the fiscal time to New York City and heard about Williston, North Dakota for one unique attribute. It had one of the lowest unemployment rates in the entire country. Thanks to the hydrofracking boom, workers flocked to North Dakota for the long hours and the hopes of six-figure pay. She traveled to North Dakota more or less on a whim.
00:04:54
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Getting access took time and rigor, essentially knocking on doors and finding balance of being interested without being too eager. Blair found one man who struck her as a great character, but by her own account she was a bit stalkerish, wanting to follow him home and observe his wedding. A great scene no doubt, but he stopped returning her calls, so Blair moved on. Eventually she found Cindy Marcello, the main character of
00:05:20
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the main character in It Takes a Boom by reaching out to a CNN reporter who had done a story on Marcello. In Blair's reporting, she favors recorders for the interviews and notebooks for observations. She said, quote, I have to type up my notes at the end of the day because I can't decipher it myself, end quote.
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What drew Blair to journalism was being able to ask strangers questions that would normally seem rude in normal social context, plus writing the next great American novel felt too daunting, so non-viction relieved her of needing to rely too heavily on imagination alone. To quote Maddy Blaise, reality was compelling enough.
Success in Pitching to Major Publications
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Blair knew early that news writing wasn't her thing. She wanted to do magazine features, but pitching was a challenge. So she took a class, a media bistro class on pitching. You know what? It worked.
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She worked on a story for that class about a young woman who was a math genius in a more or less all-male world, not unlike what Cindy Marcello was up to in North Dakota. And that's where we pick up the conversation as we get into the weeds of how Blair crafts and sends out pitches. You'll also find out in this part of the interview what part of the process most engages Blair, how talent by and large is overrated.
00:06:43
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how the ordinary can become the extraordinary and how Blair uses document maps to organize her reporting a lot of good stuff so if you stick around and you've got to be sick of me by now so let's hear Blair Briody talk and thank you for listening I was asking about the
00:07:01
Speaker
how you go about querying and you were saying you like to go in with a little bit of some pre-reporting which is really really smart and so just kind of elaborate on that and what that process looks like and at what point do you feel comfortable then pitching a story and maybe even how do you how do you do that pre-reporting not knowing and
00:07:25
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Lining up a source and saying like I don't know where this is going to land yet But if you indulge me a little bit I'll be able to maybe successfully pitch it after we've done a little bit of sort of pre-reporting So like how does that manifest itself for you? And to me again, I think it comes down to
00:07:55
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finding who the main character is going to be. Because for me, I mean, even as a reader, that sells me on a story pretty quickly, if I'm engaged with who the person is. And then with the magazine, just arguing your case for why the story is important now and
00:08:23
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through the larger context, you know, and why it's timely and necessary to publish. What would you say is your most successful cold pitch? Well, I would probably say so after, you know, I took that class through Media Bistro and I, you know, worked on this feature story about the mathlete, the female mathlete, and
00:08:51
Speaker
And then after publishing that in this small magazine Geek Monthly, I pitched my next story to the New York Times and that was accepted. And that was a piece that I basically was in New York and I was riding the subway. And I just observed this scene in front of me where this guy approached this girl and was trying to convince her
00:09:19
Speaker
to be a model and he said he was a model scout. And she was first, you know, was a little standoffish, thought he was, you know, was maybe a little creepy, but then ultimately she like took his business card. And I just was just the observer, like walking, you know, I kind of followed them out of the way for a few blocks. And then I like, immediately when I got home, I just wrote up the scene that I had witnessed
00:09:49
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And then basically just put, you know, I think I did, I did one quick interview after that with the actual model scout. Um, and, you know, just did this, this pitch about, you know, who are these people? Like, is this an actual job path? Are they a legitimate, you know,
Selecting Unique Stories and Focusing on Gender Dynamics
00:10:11
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how can people tell? So, you know, I was like, I had this scene I had, you know, I showed, I did a little research by,
00:10:18
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I'm talking to a model scout, and I think I included a quote from him in the pitch, and then just basically just said, I want to look into this more. I want to, you know, I have these questions about this industry and want to pursue this. Awesome, awesome. And when you had that conversation with that scout, did you say, I have this idea I'm looking to pitch to the New York Times, or do you say that I have
00:10:49
Speaker
I think I just said, you know, I'm cute. I'm a writer. I'm curious about this industry. Can you tell me a little more about it? You know, I might pitch this somewhere. I mean, it was pretty vague about it. Sometimes I, with people when I'm doing that initial research, I say, you know, I've written for these places before I'm thinking about pitching it here or here. But yeah, back then I didn't really have a whole lot of clips. So I just said I was doing some research.
00:11:18
Speaker
Yeah, because in my experience, sometimes some people just don't want to talk to me at all because they don't know who I'd be writing it for. But it's like if you can bait them with a known media empire and be like, oh, OK, well, this behooves me to talk to this person. But if you end up wanting to just do some research, like, I don't know where this is going to go, it might just be an essay for a literary journal. They might be like, nah.
00:11:45
Speaker
So I wonder if you've had that in the whole story. Yeah, I know it can be more challenging when you don't have an assignment for some people to talk. But I think most people, if you just say that you're a freelance writer, you kind of explain what that means because not everyone understands that. But you're doing the initial legwork for this story.
00:12:13
Speaker
Um, that's usually how I try to frame it. Not totally sure where this is going yet, but you know, you can still help me and hopefully it'll.
00:12:24
Speaker
Yeah, I like how you frame that. I'm just thinking I'm a freelancer, I'm an independent writer, doing some initial framework. I'm hoping to land it maybe out of the A, B, and C, but I need to do a little, it would be nice to speak to somebody first to give me a little more sort of cues for it. That's great, yeah.
00:12:45
Speaker
So how do you vet out your stories? And what do you sink your teeth into? And what, as a result, kind of sinks its teeth into you as you pursue a story and doesn't let go? Yeah, I mean, I've written about quite a few different topics. So I would say topic-wise, I consider myself more of a generalist. But yeah, like what I said earlier, just those stories that
00:13:14
Speaker
can't seem to get away from that they keep you keep thinking about them. Those I try to always pursue those when that's the case. And that's usually, you know, comes from either a story, some, you know, someone telling you, and you're just shocked by it or fascinating, you can't stop thinking about it. Or, like I said, like the setting like in North Dakota, I was
00:13:43
Speaker
you know, just so curious about what was actually going on there and what that setting was like. And then, yeah, sometimes it's an industry like with the model scout. So yeah, I don't, you know, there isn't necessarily just one factor that causes me to pursue a story. But, but usually, yeah, usually just, I can't, you know, usually I can't find that much else about it that's been written.
00:14:12
Speaker
or at least I can't find much out about the angle that I'm thinking about. Yeah, and it seems like you're partly drawn to these women who are deeply immersed in very male-dominated industry, too, with the math lead and Cindy. Yeah, definitely. I think, yeah, interesting gender dynamics, I think, is always fascinating, whether that's, yeah.
00:14:39
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you know, being one of the few females or the only female or, you know, being in this environment where there's, you know, you're constantly, you can't really get away from it, you're constantly thinking about it.
00:14:53
Speaker
And so when you were doing all of your reporting, say, for the book and or even a longer feature, when you get all that information, how do you start to begin to organize it so then it's accessible to you to then shape it into a story?
Organizing Research and Creating Outlines
00:15:14
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think that's one of the most challenging parts about it is coming home with
00:15:21
Speaker
you know, reams of material and, you know, hours upon hours of interview tapes. That's like a very, I think that's one of the hardest parts of the whole process. Very daunting. In North Dakota, I ended up, I used just basically a Word document and doc, I don't know if you've ever used document math. No, no, tell me about it. I show a lot of people this feature that is on Microsoft Word where you
00:15:51
Speaker
you basically just create subheads through the document and you tag it so you can flip through easily, you know, just like a table content. And so, you know, I, the actual document, you know, in the end became like 300 pages, but, you know, I would just tag, you know, this is the interview, this is the date, this is, you know, the general topic of it. And then the actual transcription would be in a separate document.
00:16:19
Speaker
But then I could, you know, I had like story ideas in that document. I had people I wanted to call. I had, you know, some articles. I just kept everything in one document. That was a lot easier for me to be able to kind of see it all right there. And so then, yeah, I tried, you know, I've tried to type up all my notes at the end of the day. So that helped.
00:16:50
Speaker
And yeah, and then it's just a lot of sorting through the pile and trying to figure out. Yeah, that's the hard part. I think I still lost a lot of the time during that process. So say you've got all your notes together. What's your next step? Do you choose to outline? Do you use corkboard and index cards? What does that process look as you go forward?
00:17:19
Speaker
Yeah, I try to do like a very loose outline. I don't always stick to it. And I think for this book project, I don't know if it was the best process, but what I basically did was, you know, I had a summer of reporting. I worked on the book proposal. And then I needed to go back out and get more material. So I wrote, I would come home,
00:17:49
Speaker
from a trip out there, sort through all the material I gathered, I would write a chapter, you know, usually I was like, you know, if I was spending a lot of time with one or two of the people in the book, then I would focus, I'd be like, okay, I have more material for this section that I want to write about. So I'd work on that section. And then I would get to a point where I'd be like, well, now I need more material. And so I'd, you know, book another trip out to North Dakota and like,
00:18:17
Speaker
another couple of weeks out there and then come home and like do the same thing. I haven't heard of like a lot of other people that have done it that way. I think most people try to get all their material first and then start writing. But for me, I think because I didn't totally know which direction I was going for awhile, it, it helped me figure that out to do it that way. Hmm.
00:18:42
Speaker
And at what point did you feel comfortable to then tackle your book proposal, and what did that look like? You know, you had had the previous book proposal experience, and then you were able to have this one. So what did you learn from the first experience, and then how did you start shaping the new one? Yeah. I mean, I think one criticism that a lot of book editors will give magazine journalists and freelancers
00:19:12
Speaker
is that their book proposal feels like a magazine article, you know? And so that, that was some criticism I got in the first one where it was just, it was basically many magazine profiles on all these towns. Like that's what the idea was. And so I knew that with the North Dakota book, I wanted more of these through lines of, you know, I, I didn't want it to just be, okay, here's this one character.
00:19:39
Speaker
And here's like a standalone feature article and like a few chapters. And so, so yeah, I tried to have that come through in the book proposal, but you know, I wanted like the three lines were going to be this town. There was going to be me and my experience. And then I was going to have these various perspectives. I followed like five people.
00:20:08
Speaker
who were all in different situations out there. And they weren't just like a single chapter, they were throughout the whole book. I would kind of weave their narrative together. So yeah, but the book proposal basically was one chapter that I wrote about Donnie Nelson, who was a farmer at North Dakota, who has a lot of oil wells on his land. And I thought that was a good example for the book proposal
00:20:36
Speaker
I talked about, you know, the environmental aspects, about, I was able to talk about these changes that he's witnessed and what the state was like before. So I thought he was a good example to include in the proposal. And then, you know, just a detailed outline of how the rest of the chapters would be.
00:20:58
Speaker
And like book proposals and pitches, there's a degree of salesmanship involved there. What would you say are some best practices for people who might be struggling with landing pitches or even book proposal, which are far more like an intensive process book proposal, but they're similar in nature in terms that you're trying to ultimately sell someone on something.
Learning from Experience and Importance of Education
00:21:25
Speaker
So what have you found to be best practices involved in either or?
00:21:30
Speaker
Well, yeah, I mean, as far as the book, for me it was the learning process because I almost had to like unlearn the magazine pitching and writing process. It was like I kept getting that feedback that like, this isn't a magazine article, you have to think differently. And like, you know, this is a, you want this book to still be interesting and relevant like 10 years from now. And that was really hard for me to wrap my head around.
00:21:58
Speaker
you know, I've just been trained for so long to be thinking about, you know, how to make this timely right now. So I don't know. I mean, I'm trying to think of best practice for either one, but they're just they're so different. Yeah. Yeah, I guess I guess a lot of it comes down to more with magazine pitches versus book proposals is just
00:22:22
Speaker
repetition, just do a lot of them and get a lot of rejections, right? Right. And I actually, you know, I took a class too in New York about writing books. So I think, I mean, that's always been helpful for me to get, you know, get feedback that way. And classes are really great because, you know, you have, you know, an assignment due every week, you know, you have to like keep working at it.
00:22:52
Speaker
Yeah, would you say that maybe some people are a little gun shy about taking those kind of continuing ed classes and stuff? How valuable would you say those were to your continued success as a writer? Yeah, I mean, for me, they've been invaluable. But, you know, I also, the quality of class you get in New York was really great. I mean, like the teacher that
00:23:21
Speaker
taught the book proposal class. He was an agent at a major agency. And so to be able to get his expertise and his feedback was great. But there's a lot of that out there, like with conferences. I think if you're in a place outside of New York City where there's not classes like that available, you can go to a workshop and travel to go there.
00:23:48
Speaker
And so with going to a fairly remote area in North Dakota for doing a big bulk of your reporting for your book and the piece that won you the prize, I suspect that even though you were interacting with a lot of the
00:24:06
Speaker
people out there that you probably felt pretty lonely on some level too. If that's true at all, how did you fight off that sense of loneliness and isolation and doubt while you were out there? Yeah, no, that's always something I struggle with with this work. It does get pretty lonely. One thing I did in North Dakota though is I actually hired a photographer and a videographer to come out there just for
00:24:35
Speaker
you know, I think they each came up for like five days. Um, and that was really helpful cause then, you know, I could talk to them about this work. I could, uh, they, you know, stayed out in the trailer with me for a little bit. So, you know, they, I introduced them to a lot of the subjects that I was writing about. So yeah, I think just, you know, finding ways to collaborate whenever possible, I guess.
00:25:00
Speaker
During the process, where do you feel most alive? Is it the reporting stage, the writing phase, rewriting? Where do you feel most engaged? I love the reporting process. Even though it's a lot of hard work, just getting into great conversations with people. That's kind of what it comes down to.
00:25:25
Speaker
And knowing when you have, you know, just like coming home from an interview and just feeling really excited about the material and just knowing that, you know, you have interesting material basically is a great feeling. As far as the writing process, for me, the first draft is pretty awful. But I don't like that part at all. And yeah, perfect pulling teeth every single day to,
00:25:54
Speaker
to get stuff down, but then I like that part right after I have something, you know, I have a draft and, you know, almost like before you show it to anyone and you're like in that part of, okay, you have something down and now you have to clean it up and, you know, fiddle with it and tweak it and make it readable and ready to show someone else. I think I like that part because it's not,
00:26:22
Speaker
you know, before it becomes like a major revision, it's just, and you have something down, you know. And how do you define rigor and hard work in this line of work? You know, what are your metrics that when you look back at the end of the day, you know, you feel like, oh yeah, I accomplished a lot today. Yeah, I mean, I think that's kind of what it all comes down to is the hard work.
00:26:52
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know exactly what is considered a successful day. Sometimes, even though I was working all day, I don't feel like I really got anywhere, but that's part of the process. But yeah, I remember in college, I would read some of my peers and some of their writing, and they seemed so talented.
00:27:22
Speaker
you know, naturally just so talented at writing. And I remember thinking, you know, feeling jealous, not feeling like I have the same talent level. And so I remember thinking, okay, I just have to like outwork them. I have to work twice as hard as they do to be able to do this. And I think that that's really served me because I followed some of their careers a little bit after college and a lot of them ended up not pursuing writing
00:27:51
Speaker
So to me, I think that's what a lot of it comes down to during the work. Yeah. And there's a fine line between being like,
00:28:02
Speaker
using that, being competitive with other people and then letting that turn into toxicity. It looks like you looked at them and had those little pangs of jealousy or competitiveness, but you turned it into, okay, you know what, maybe they might be a little more gifted than I am, but they're never going to be able to outwork me. So where did that come from? How were you able to make that
00:28:28
Speaker
make that distinction in your mind and not let those black feelings get inside you and keep you from accomplishing great work. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think just... Yeah, that's a good question. I'm not sure exactly what caused me to have that attitude, but
00:28:56
Speaker
So yeah, I think I've just seen that talent is only a small part of the equation. And especially with journalism, because good reporting is good writing. And I think a lot of the people that I read, like Ted Conover and Joseph Mitchell, you can tell
00:29:24
Speaker
so much of the work was the reporting that they, you know, just immerse themselves in this really interesting situation or around interesting people. And that's such a big part of what causes their work to come alive is, you know, relying on the interesting material, which you have to be able to get that you have to do the work reporting. So I think probably being influenced by some of those other writers
00:29:55
Speaker
Yeah, when you figure out that a lot of times these great long-form pieces, they stem from having the liberty to spend a lot of time with a lot of people and they speak to dozens and
00:30:14
Speaker
their phone going on in the background yeah that's all right I just I had like some panic attack that we're having another weird connection issue
00:30:29
Speaker
Yes, my point being is that a lot of this stuff is echoing your point that these great profiles and features that they stem from such unbelievable feats of reporting and just talking to a lot of people. And you wonder, like, how did they get that material? Well, the fact is they talk to a lot of people. They ask this person, all right, who can I speak with now? And they give you five people.
00:30:55
Speaker
Geez, it spreads exponentially from there. Has that been your experience? The more interviews and the more reporting you do, you're like, oh, wow, this just keeps getting richer and richer. Oh, yeah, definitely. And just the time. Like what you said, spending the time with people. I think Susan Arlene was very influential in that case. The ordinary can always become extraordinary if you give someone enough time that everyone
00:31:25
Speaker
can be a fascinating character in person if you peel back enough layers. So I think having that in my head that like, you know, even if you, doesn't feel like you have a lot now, like you just, you know, spend some more time around someone, it's amazing what will come out of that.
00:31:43
Speaker
Yeah, and I guess the danger to that is sometimes you might hide yourself and more reporting and more research will lead to, yeah, eventually it's a way of procrastinating to, you know, eventually you have to get to the writing part. So when do you know, in your experience, when do you know that you're done reporting by and large? Yeah, I mean, especially with this book project,
00:32:12
Speaker
kind of captured reporting. I think that is a really hard part for me is like to stop and just feel like you have enough. And I think with my process of, you know, coming home and being like, well, let me just write what I have right now, even though it doesn't feel like enough. But then once you start writing, you're like, okay, actually, you know, I do have a decent amount.
00:32:36
Speaker
And then just seeing where the holes are, just being like, okay, well, I have this, and I have this, but it would be great to get more of this aspect of, you know. So for me, that was helpful in the process to just start writing, even though I didn't feel like I had enough, and I could have kept reporting.
00:32:57
Speaker
And what are maybe three to five books that you find yourself rereading, again, over and over as kind of a North Star, if you will? Yeah, I mean, I already mentioned some of the writers, but yeah, like Joseph Mitchell, like Up in the Old Hotel, and Susan Arlene, The Orchard Beef, and she's just incredible with character development in that book. And then for,
00:33:26
Speaker
This book, I read a lot of, like I read Rebecca Sclutes. Henry had a lot book a couple of times just to see her structure. She, she talks a lot about how she structured that book. And there were so many moving parts and like, I think it spans like a decade of work that she did. And, and so just, that was really helpful to kind of see this
00:33:56
Speaker
you know, this book with a lot of different information and a lot of different characters and how she organized it. So I studied a lot of books that had, um, you know, the structure that I was imagining, like having these narratives that you could weave together. Um, I also actually, I love the Game of Thrones books by George R. Martin. And I actually really liked the way he structures them.
00:34:24
Speaker
just with the different characters. He has so many different characters, but he's able to successfully weave them together that you're engaged with them the whole time. So I used a lot of those types of books to help me with this one. What other artistic media do you like to consume that helps inform the writing you do? Podcasts like this American Life and Radiolab
00:34:54
Speaker
I like those. Yeah, some documentary work. I mean, I think just even shows, just the way they build suspense and keep you wanting to see the next show is almost like a chapter that you want to keep. You wrap some stuff up, but you leave some information.
00:35:26
Speaker
Yeah, like stranger things are breaking bad at how they
00:35:31
Speaker
The big takeaway I took from Breaking Bad aside from the serialized nature of it and suspense and such was how Vince Gilligan ran or runs a writing room and how they go about putting the index cards up on the board. It comes across Artful, the final product, but it is incredibly structured.
00:35:54
Speaker
and very well thought out to the point where they put those building blocks and then the writer then takes that cork board and then writes the episode, wrote the episode. So it's, yeah, it's like in conversations I've had with a lot of people, it's like great art can, just because something is well structured and well thought out doesn't mean you can't make great art from it.
00:36:18
Speaker
It's like the boundaries are able to, working within constraints can sometimes free you up artistically. Exactly, exactly, yeah. And do you find that if you had to say start over at age 25, is there anything that you've learned up to this point where you're like, oh, I wish I knew that then and then that could have accelerated things for me a little more? Yeah,
Advice for Young Writers: Writing Daily and Gaining Experience
00:36:42
Speaker
I mean, what I was saying earlier was just with wanting to do magazine feature writing,
00:36:48
Speaker
not knowing exactly how to get there and thinking that, you know, working in a magazine would be, you know, I think it's hard when you're just starting out, if you immediately want to do this work and you don't, at least I didn't want to like take the time and the steps to really develop myself as a writer. I just wanted to be doing it immediately. So I think if I was to go back, I would, I might just
00:37:16
Speaker
work at a newspaper or somewhere where you're just writing every single day, regardless of if you actually like the writing. Um, I think that's really helpful to build those skills. Um, cause I think I started doing that a little later and I wish I'd just been doing that earlier to, to write something every single day, even if like tech writing or something that you're, you're not excited about, but you can,
00:37:44
Speaker
and still be developing a lot of skills that way.
00:37:47
Speaker
Yeah, and with your writing features and stuff, it takes a bit of time. Even if you're doing 1,000 or 1,500 word features, they still take several hours, even weeks. And I wonder how many features do you have going at a time, and how many pitches do you try to write per week? Just to maybe give people an idea of what it takes to sustain a freelance.
00:38:16
Speaker
career and features, yeah. I mean, it really varies, you know, depending on what I have going on. And especially with the book, I didn't write a lot of other features. And now, you know, I have, once you build, develop a connection, a relationship with an editor, it gets a lot easier. And, you know, I can just, like my other glamor, I send her a couple sentences about something I want to work on.
00:38:44
Speaker
Versus writing an entire pitch so I don't like now I don't send out a lot of those long pitches anymore. Mm-hmm but Yeah, I don't I think as you know and at the beginning I think I always have like other things going on to like either teaching or like in my 20s of doing dog sitting on top of writing so just having like some sort of stability really helps me like screaming and
00:39:13
Speaker
to pursue a story that I might not make anything off of, but I'm really interested in it and passionate about it. So I think that's always helped me, having some sort of income or stability to help me do that. Do you have something of that nature right now, or are you in a place where your writing is supporting you full time?
Freelancing Challenges and Ensuring Stable Income
00:39:36
Speaker
No, I teach right now. I teach like in my class and then do some substitute teaching as well. So yeah, I've always tried to have something
00:39:48
Speaker
I love hearing that, Blair, that to hear you say you have these other things kind of on the side that are just nice and steady in the event that you're in a trough of freelance woes. Right, because they always come out there.
00:40:08
Speaker
And they can be a long, yeah, it's a long time, and even when you do get a check, such a big chunk of it is taxes, and you don't get to keep that whole chunk. It's a whole lot of, you're paying a lot out of pocket, and it's nice. And I don't hear a whole lot of people talk about that, so it's like, I thank you for even being forthcoming to say that you do have this extra thing on the side that you're doing, just for that steadier income. Like I, for me, I work,
00:40:38
Speaker
pretty much full time at a bookstore as well. And so I do 40 hours there, but I'm also doing this and a lot of other, the narrative type writing and freelancing that I do. So it's like, yeah, you're doing that work that you're proud of, but sometimes on the side, you're doing this other thing to help subsidize it in a way. So it's cool. Well, thanks for sharing that.
00:41:02
Speaker
Yeah, for me, I also really like having work that I don't have to use my writing brain for, you know, like, I think like, yeah, working at bookstore would be nice that way, too. It's like, you can really focus all your energy and your creative, you know, energy onto that project that you want to do after work versus, you know, when I've had jobs where I've been writing a lot, I don't usually pursue my passion projects as easily. Yeah.
00:41:33
Speaker
As I wind down here and let you get out of here and so forth, I'd just like to ask you, what excites you and what brings you back to the reporter notebook and really just excites you to the point where you want to dive in to pursue something longer? What still gets you up out of bed in the morning when it comes to narrative journalism?
00:42:01
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's actually a really hard question to answer right now because I just finished this book and I've been doing the book tour and kind of completely immersed in that and it took a lot out of me to do this book. I mean, I feel pretty exhausted. So I know I'll get back there. You know, I like, I always keep a, you're on like a notebook with me and jot down ideas and, but I think I,
00:42:31
Speaker
I'm right now, I'm just like, I think I need a little break. You know, I'm not pursuing any big stories right now. So I think I'll, you know, do some shorter pieces. But yeah, I think it's going to take me a little while to like, get back into that in depth, the narrative journalism that I love, simply because I, I feel a little, you know, used up all that energy working on this book for
00:42:59
Speaker
for right now. I know I'll get there again, but that's a tough question right now. Oh, of course. What do you like to do to unplug your writer brain? What other activities do you like to do to get away from that, to help recharge the batteries? Anything outside really helps me. Reading, just like reading for fun.
00:43:28
Speaker
It's also great. Um, I think, you know, when I was working on the book, what really helped was doing some, uh, residencies, like where you go somewhere where there's very little internet connection. Um, and you, or there's like no cell phone reception. Um, and having that be a space that you can just kind of sit with your own docs a lot. Um, that's always really helped me.
00:43:58
Speaker
Nice. And where can people find you online, Blaire? I have a website, blairebriody.com or on Facebook or Twitter. Okay, so you're at, is it just at Blaire, Briody?
00:44:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Okay, fantastic. Well Blair, thank you so much for jumping on the podcast and hopefully we'll resolve some of those tech issues. I know this last half is going to come out pretty damn well perfect, but we'll address anything else in the future. But have a happy Thanksgiving and thank you so much for coming on the show. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. This was a lot of fun. You're welcome. Congratulations again. Happy Thanksgiving and we'll talk later.
00:44:49
Speaker
That's a wrap on episode 77 with journalist Blair Brody. Congrats to her on the new book and for winning the contest for Takes a Boom. As we have come to the end of the show, I ask if you dig the podcast, leave an honest review on iTunes. That offer from the top of the show still applies. And also head over to BrendanOmero.com for show notes as well as a chance to subscribe to my monthly newsletter.
00:45:18
Speaker
Yes, monthly. I give out my book recommendations for the month, as well as what you might have missed from the podcast. Once a month, no spam, you can't beat it. You know what, and I will be right here next week for another conversation about creating works of non-fiction. Have a CNF and good week.