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Episode 321: Ruby McConnell
219 Plays2 years ago
Ruby McConnell (@rubygonewild) is the author of Ground Truth and A Woman's Guide to the Wild.
Sponsor: Athletic Greens
Social: @CNFPod
Support: patreon.com/cnfpod
Show notes/newsletter: brendanomeara.com
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Transcript
Debating the Fate of Issue Three
00:00:01
Speaker
AC and efforts guidelines for issue four of the audio magazine on the theme codes are at brendan amara dot com pay go check it out and consider submitting your essay i'm working on issue three well i haven't really been working on it but i'm gonna start really working on it i've been debating whether or not to kill it because they had a few withdrawals and left uh... finish remainder like just not that much and it's gonna be really short
00:00:29
Speaker
But I was like, should I just kill it or proceed? And I was like, you know what? Fuck it. I think I'm just going to plow through and make do with issue three on heroes. I like what I have. It's just it's just not as robust as it was. And that's that's OK. I think it's still going to hold up just fine. So stay tuned. OK. Good. You know, slouching towards middle age. Are you kidding me?
00:00:54
Speaker
I like catwalked into middle age. I slid into middle age like a Cheshire cat tail first.
Introduction to the Podcast and Ruby McConnell
00:01:09
Speaker
Oh hey, seeing effort, this is the... the... what is it? Oh yeah, it's the Creative Nonfiction podcast, a show where I speak to badass people about the art and craft of telling two stories. I'm Brendan O'Meara, how's it going? Boy, you know something?
00:01:24
Speaker
I hope you have a friend in your life, like Ruby McConnell, who makes her third trip to ye olde CNF Pod. I hope you have a friend like her out there. She's the kind of person where you talk about the thing you're working on and suddenly the clouds break and out shines possibility. Right there, just a beam of sunlight, a beam of possibility. She's the author of Ground Truth, great essay collection.
00:01:51
Speaker
A Woman's Guide to the Wild. She's a wonderful writer. And someone I'm proud to call a pal. We're both working on books in the same time period, so we like to say that we're hanging out in the same era.
00:02:04
Speaker
She had one of the most incredibly amazing codas to one of our podcasts together. Turns out it was the second time she was on the show. And you know, instead of me telling you about it, I dug through all that tape. Oh, boy, did I dig. And I found it. And I'm going to play it for you right now.
Ruby McConnell on Writing Philosophy
00:02:26
Speaker
So you get up and you keep writing, even if you're not making money, even if you launch your book into the void of the pandemic, even if your agent has to bail, even if you have to revise a million times, even if you're going to miss a deadline, even if
00:02:47
Speaker
It's hard or you don't want to or you're not getting recognition or you get cut down by your peers because you are getting recognition. You keep doing it because somewhere out there is someone who needs to hear what you have to say. And if you are authentic and true to yourself and what you do, your work will find that person.
00:03:15
Speaker
Yeah, she's at Ruby Gone Wild on Twitter and Instagram. You can learn more about her and her work at rubymcconnell.com. But before we get to Ruby's tremendous insights into writing and leading a patient writer's life, I'd encourage you to keep the conversation going at CNF Pod on Twitter and at Creative Nonfiction Podcast on Instagram.
Support the Podcast
00:03:37
Speaker
Consider heading over to our Patreon page to help support this enterprise and the audio magazine. It's a big ask, I know that.
00:03:45
Speaker
I'm already asking you for an hour of your week, if you just listen to one of these a week, you're spending an hour of your valuable time with this show, and I have the audacity to ask for $2 or $4 a month. I mean, it's, yeah, it is audacious.
00:04:02
Speaker
But those dollars, man, oh boy, they mean a lot. The show is free, but it sure as hell ain't cheap. And you can always, of course, go to BrendanOmero.com, sign up for the up to 11 rage against the algorithm newsletter for book recommendations and raffles and just some cool stuff that I think will put some fuel in your tank on the first of the month. No spam. As far as I can tell, you can't beat it.
00:04:26
Speaker
And what also means a lot are those nice reviews on Apple Podcasts. If you leave one, I will read it right here in this spot. I think in this era, it's all the more important, especially for us as writers, mid-list writers especially.
00:04:43
Speaker
to leave reviews for the books we read and the podcasts we listen to. We're in that review economy. I know how many times have you benefited from that validation you get from seeing something new, and you're like, oh, that's a lot of reviews. That means something. It validates the whole enterprise, and it might just persuade another seeing effort to join our little brigade here in our corner of the internet.
Writing Processes and Creative Insights
00:05:07
Speaker
All right, I put out the bat signal this week to Ruby because I hadn't fired up the mics with her in a while And I I also just desperately needed an interview this week I was about to just call a call it a week off because I just things didn't line up But she stepped up to the plate man. She had a bomb to center field over their head You know into the batter's eye Unbelievable. So let's give a big CNF and welcome to the incredible Ruby McConnell
00:05:48
Speaker
So these days, how are you juggling those at this point in the process of all those projects you've got? I think I'm a cautionary tale.
00:06:02
Speaker
I mean, I'm doing fine. Publishing is in a really interesting place right now.
00:06:09
Speaker
I think moving perhaps even more slowly than it typically does on all fronts. And there's been lots of delays and pushbacks from things unrelated to me. And I've benefited from that a little bit by being given a little bit more wiggle room. So I've been able to, I guess what I'm doing right now, because I do have so many sort of projects going, is kind of leapfrogging my work.
00:06:36
Speaker
where I get a chunk of time to bust out a large chunk of something or enough to hand it on to someone else. Get a few chapters into this editor and that gives me a little chunk of time to
00:06:53
Speaker
make some edits and send it to the agent. And then a piece of freelance will come in and I'll sort of scuttle and get that done. And then while things are occupied, I'll try to move the ball forward on things. And then we start it all over again as people resurface. That's how I've been doing that.
00:07:10
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I think similarly in a similar position just with I feel like attention is very splintered and fractured and it's as a result it's been very hard for me to really stay focused and to even stay weirdly enough even though I have a lot of things going on that I should be very motivated for. I'm like having a real hard time staying motivated.
00:07:35
Speaker
I feel like I'm in a real slump and creatively unmotivated. And I don't know what to attribute that to, but I wonder if maybe that's something that you wrestle with.
00:07:47
Speaker
Um, yeah, I think so. I think, you know, it's interesting because I'm hyperactive. So I'm hyperactive and very detail oriented. So when I feel demotivated, it doesn't necessarily result in not still doing.
Motivation and Deadlines
00:08:06
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
00:08:08
Speaker
You know like it like taps into I don't know maybe my Catholic school upbringing where I just kind of feel really guilty about my work for an unidentifiable reason Like I should have more enthusiasm for it. Yeah Yeah, it's interesting because like and I think because of like the geologic time in which publishing
00:08:32
Speaker
functions. It can feel like you have forever to get a project done, when really, because there's so much involved in long form writing in particular, like you're never going to have enough time. And you know this, but I think it's like, you get into like a fun house on the time space continuum, where it becomes harder and harder to identify what is pressing. And that's how it manifests for me. Like this, this very morning, I was, I was like,
00:09:02
Speaker
You know, my husband casually asks like, so what are you doing? What's your day look like? I'm like, ah. Because I was having a hard time sort of finding the thing that was most depressing because right now I have nothing with a short deadline. I have many things with long deadlines. And so, yeah, like it was stalling me out because it would have been easy to just go for a hike. Right. Yeah.
00:09:32
Speaker
And so like that process of like, it was pretty painful to kind of choose what it was. And ultimately I hummed and hawed for a very long time and landed on exactly what, you know, I had said my plan of action was at the beginning of the week. I was like, Oh, I'll just do the thing I planned on doing. How about that? Yeah.
00:09:51
Speaker
I was like, Oh, simple. So, I mean, part of that is that I do have a structured, like I'm a freelancer and an independent writer, but I try really hard to structure my time so that I don't have to wake up every morning and choose.
00:10:06
Speaker
I always go back to this. Several years ago, a person my wife worked with at a consulting firm, he just, this guy, he had a very, very simple set of likes and priorities in his life. He had his job, he loved playing slow pitch softball, was obsessive about it, even wore a uniform and everything.
00:10:30
Speaker
So be so into it and he would just lived for like kind of working on his house and going on like maybe One to two cruises a year and like that was essentially it like there was no nothing else in his Distracting in his life. No other ambitions that I could it seemed very
00:10:51
Speaker
Simple in the best possible way and I always go back to that and admire that because I have all these like weird Creative ambitions that ultimately leave me like kind of bitter and resentful. I'm like man. I Wish I could just be like him. He just seemed to have it figured out He's like I love my softball. I clock in my I do my nine to five I play my game I go on a couple cruises a year and maybe renovate my bathroom. I'm like, that's it Yes, he's yeah, he's because he's really mastered the art of content. Yeah
00:11:21
Speaker
And I think you've totally put your finger on it, that ambition can be motivating and demotivating. If your ambitions don't fit your current moment, that it becomes hard to ground yourself into things that start to look mundane.
00:11:48
Speaker
instead of things that make you content in the stuff of your day-to-day life.
Brendan's Struggles with Motivation
00:11:53
Speaker
Yeah, and running, writing these days too and even just trying to generate anything, I liken it to, it feels like walking through a swamp and it's just, you know, hip deep and mud and sludge and it's just like a real slog to go. And I understand like what a tremendous privilege it is to write and sometimes write for money and to do some creative things.
00:12:15
Speaker
But it's like this thing that for a long time was so energizing. And right now it feels like the greatest slog of my life. And that in and of itself is like this thing that used to bring me so much energy and joy. It's like not doing that right now. And that's in and of itself is just extremely dispiriting.
00:12:36
Speaker
No, see, when I feel like that, I stop writing and I go, that's what research is for, which I consider writing as well. So is it all of it, or is it the putting of the words onto the page?
00:12:48
Speaker
I think these days it's the putting the words on the page because even what I put on the page, it just looks like, I don't know, if anything maybe like a competent freshman in high school is doing. And it's just like, it just feels like true labor and there's no snap, crackle and pop.
00:13:12
Speaker
And I don't know if that's just a lack of, here's a little of insecurity and that stuff coming through is just like, well, do I just not have the ability to make the shit pop? Or am I just a little burnt out? Or like you said, maybe I just need to do a shit ton more researching and interviewing. And then it's like, okay, sometimes you can't have gold unless you're going to the mine a lot to find it.
00:13:42
Speaker
Right. And I just really enjoy research. It just makes me happy. And I feel like it's never wasted time. Yeah, and it's filling up your bucket. Yeah, that's interesting. But it's interesting too. So I think maybe we've talked about this before, but when I write first, the first thing that goes down on the page is like,
00:14:08
Speaker
I wouldn't even classify it as high school level. I would say the crazy rantings of a completely insane, incoherent human who also has no grasp of grammar. And I don't fight that at all.
00:14:30
Speaker
Right, right, right. I mean, I lean right into that, like, and I wouldn't even call it stream of consciousness, because people who do like that's, that's like a structured improvisation almost, and this is far less sophisticated than that, you know, I mean, it's just like, blah, onto the page. And, and so like, I find that very satisfying. Do you some, I hear that many authors and many writers don't go through that process. Do you have a crazy
00:15:00
Speaker
phase that you go through or do you try to craft actual coherence up front? I'm kind of like you and I'm lucky in that I have no problem writing bad stuff early on. I can just, as part of newspaper training, I can just kind of get it out and that's fine. I'm comfortable with that. I don't have any resistance around that.
00:15:22
Speaker
I think there are some – sometimes where the struggle is, all right, should I just tell it really, really straight, very plainly, because sometimes when I try – when I've tried to be too funny or over-stylized,
00:15:37
Speaker
things, things fall off the rails where I get dinged by editor, you know, just people looking at that. So often I like, OK, I need to put a restrictor plate on this. And then sometimes it's a little too boring. And so I just I can almost I have a very hard time finding the right balance between just telling it really straight and simple or trying to elevate the writing to something a little more artful.
00:16:00
Speaker
I think that's where the struggle is right now. It's just like, okay, I'm having a hard time balancing just telling it straight or is this a time where I can let it rip and be a little more colorful with the language? Right. Yeah. It's finding the voice for the project that you're in. Yeah. We all have our own writing voice and that's important, but there are variations of that.
00:16:30
Speaker
Um, and what, you know, how much of us comes through and yeah, again, I mean, like I've never, I never tried to write humor. Um, although many editors will tell you that I write humor, which I, I'm super surprised to find out when they're like, Oh, this is so funny. You made this so funny. That's so great. I love it when you're funny. I'm like, Oh, I was taking myself super seriously when I wrote that, but I'm glad that it's entertaining. Right.
00:17:01
Speaker
So I would never try knowing that it would go too far. If I accidentally am funny, then I can't imagine what would happen. If I tried to be funny, it would probably be awful. I feel like I'm able to kind of disconnect in some respects and just sort of throw it down and see what the dominant voice is that emerges. But I understand that sense of getting like super hung up. And I think that the stagnation is not, I think that it is
00:17:29
Speaker
part of the zeitgeist, zeitgeist of the time, the essentialness of this time. I don't know that it's necessarily inherent to you just because I'm hearing it from so many people, which is interesting. Especially because I feel like we're gonna play a time of a lot of movement and everybody's opened up and back to things. And it seems like there's a lot going on, but it's like maybe our psyches haven't caught up
00:17:56
Speaker
with our restaurant going habits. Like emerged yet from that. I don't know, it's interesting, but usually, yeah, usually if I have any struggles, I just completely walk away and go back to research because it's kind of like my happy place. And it usually knocks me out of that.
00:18:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's wise advice. In a recent conversation I had with a reporter, Greg Donahue, for his out of his piece, I think he said something to the effect of when he's stuck or something, he just realizes that it's not a writing problem, it's a reporting problem. He needs to do more interviewing and do more research.
00:18:42
Speaker
And there, the material starts coming alive. He can't write his way through it. He's got to report his way through it. And as a result, he has these beautifully written, amazing pieces. But it's just like he's got to do a bit more legwork. So it's like it's not a writing issue. It's a research issue.
00:19:01
Speaker
Right. And I think that that's like, oh, like a really beautiful and elegant thing about nonfiction, you know, is that there's a well to go back to that is outside of yourself. Yeah. Like when I, if I, anytime I find myself reaching the limits of my, you know, sort of imagination, I have to kind of go back to the essentialism of like, right, because this is not actually a product of your imagination. Yeah. And go back to like the essentialism of, you know,
00:19:29
Speaker
What else is there for me to glean from this? But I'm also, I also come again, you know, like my background is in geology, which is an observational science. So like, you know, my training, it's just interesting because people who have writing training are trained to put things on the page.
00:19:52
Speaker
right, and to generate. And that's not my approach to writing
Ruby's Writing Process
00:19:55
Speaker
at all. I sort of absorb first and then, you know, what comes out is very much related to that process of observation and less related to like a process of like trying, like it doesn't feel like I'm making something. It feels like I'm representing things that are already there.
00:20:15
Speaker
And so I think my relationship to the production part of writing is just a little different than what I hear a lot of writers talk about that have formal writing training, you know.
00:20:29
Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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00:22:03
Speaker
Yeah, that kind of reminds me of what you had told me a while ago where you were learning Spanish and it wasn't like you weren't it was like you weren't saying anything and then all of a sudden you were like boom like fluent it just like came out that kind of I'm hearing that echo right now. Right, I think I have my mom calls it my mom says that I have a very long percolation time.
00:22:29
Speaker
She's like, you know, she's like, and sometimes it results in me like going complete, like in conversation, I'll just go completely silent and people will think that I'm ignoring them. But it's because they've, I've reached a point where I have to kind of like let things distill and shake out. Um, and I get kind of stalled out and I do it in a long form too, where if I'm trying to learn something that involves synthesis, especially related to language, it's like, I just, and I can't tell you what's going on in my brain, but it needs some period of incubation time.
00:23:00
Speaker
before I can kind of, before I've kind of synthesized enough to have even anything to say about it. And I think it's peculiar to my brain. I think my dad does it a little bit. But yeah, it works out for me because often, you know, I go from zero to having quite a lot to say, and there's not kind of an intermediate. Yeah.
00:23:23
Speaker
And I do it, you know, like often in my, you know, essay collections, like there was one essay in Ground Truth that I was trying to write last and trying to write last. It was the last essay in the book. I wanted it to kind of, you know, be the rug that tied the room together. And my editor was like, don't write it yet. Like make, you know, I want to get through all the developmental edits so that you have all the information.
00:23:48
Speaker
But I'd been thinking about it, and I'd been thinking about it, and I'd been thinking about it. And then I went and did the field work up at Mount St. Helens for that essay and had a long road trip home and came home and like wrote the essay. Just wrote it. Like I had, you know, like...
00:24:04
Speaker
Very quickly, I think in one day and maybe two sittings and sent it to my editor and I was like, I know you don't want this and I'm not supposed to write it, but I wrote it and it's done. And he was like, yeah, you've totally nailed this. And that was just, it was like, I had just kind of collected the right amount of information that it came out kind of fully formed. It was really interesting.
00:24:28
Speaker
in your research or if you're reading comp titles for something you're working on, is there ever a part of you that you'll get the book out of the library or buy the book and you're almost scared to read it because you worry that they're going to tread on ground that you really want to write about but you don't
00:24:51
Speaker
You don't want to write a thing that's merely regurgitating, something that's already been said. So you're like procrastinating reading the thing because, well, if I don't read it, I'm not going to know that so-and-so has written about so-and-so in such great detail. But if I read it, then I'm like, ah, fuck, they already said all these amazing things. And then, god damn it, I don't want to just regurgitate this. I'm going through that right now. And so I'm wondering if you've experienced that. Right. Right. Well, OK.
00:25:21
Speaker
Yeah, yes, I understand what you're talking about. And no, and maybe I don't really fear that. And maybe it's, maybe it's cavalier. Maybe, maybe it's self focus. And I just, you know, don't care what other people have written. But I do know that there's, there's an essay that I wrote very early on.
00:25:47
Speaker
in my writing career. It was the second thing I ever wrote to be a writer outside of academia and things like that and scientific papers.
00:26:00
Speaker
It came in third place at the Oregon Quarterly's Northwest Perspectives Essay Contest that they used to have. And the woman who, Ellen Watterson, who was the judge, she was like, man, she's like, you know, this essay came in and this woman, she was writing about the salmon for a Pacific Northwest Essay's contest. And when I saw it, I was like, ugh.
00:26:26
Speaker
This woman really sent in an essay about this salmon. From the start, I wanted to dismiss this essay because it was so obvious of a choice and because everything has been written 10 times about the salmon. There is nothing new to say about the salmon.
00:26:48
Speaker
And then she was like, and then it turned out that there was something new to say about the salmon. And one of the things that I dealt with in the essay was sort of the fact, the ubiquitous nature of the salmon and how there isn't anything to say about it. And so I had that
00:27:06
Speaker
So it was interesting. So I got third place, in spite of writing about the thing that was like the lowest hanging fruit, apparently. And it was a good lesson early on in my career to trust in my, you know, to quote myself that like my experiences are unique and valid, and that my perspective is unique and valid, just as everyone else's is and that and that I do in fact, have something that is uniquely mine to contribute to,
Trusting Unique Perspectives in Writing
00:27:36
Speaker
um, whatever it is that I've decided to take on to write, um, and trust that that's just going to come through. And so, um, especially when I, and so when I, when I do research, it's kind of the other way where I go, awesome. Someone else has written about that. I am going to, um, consume that and integrate it with everything else that I know and use that to elevate my own work.
00:28:05
Speaker
That's a great way of putting it, yeah. You know, you can only learn from it. I mean, that's, you know, it's like, so this is like the classic dancer conundrum of do you dance at the front of the room so that the teacher can see you and so that you can see yourself in the mirror? Or do you dance at the back of the room so that you have more of your own space to work with and so that you can learn from all of the dancers in front of you?
00:28:28
Speaker
who, what's going to produce the better dancer, the person that's looking at themselves in the mirror and trying to be seen by the teacher through class or the person that's choosing to learn from like the 20 other people and who's taking their own space to have like their dance in their way. Interesting conundrum. Have you written an essay about writing and dancing?
00:28:54
Speaker
I've written nothing about dancing. You should. You definitely should. Or if nothing else, a craft essay on writing and dancing. Or writing about dancing in general. I think that would be a really rich well for you to draw from. Yeah, it's interesting because I do. It kind of underlies all of my philosophy about how I work as a writer.
00:29:23
Speaker
I feel like that's like a niche audience, man. For somebody that I already write in a niche audience, I don't know how much more niche I can get before I'm just talking to myself and you, you know? I got it. Dance and environmental writing and the Pacific Northwest, like gee. Dancing and geology. I know. I get a lot of feedback. My thing these days is I get a lot of feedback that like,
00:29:50
Speaker
both that I fill blank, you know, my eye in my writing fills blank spots on the bookshelf, which is great, but also that it means that people don't know where to put me on the bookshelf. And that's a challenge.
00:30:05
Speaker
Regarding style, something we were talking about earlier, and as you know, not to belabor the topic and to give away the main dude I'm writing about, but he's a very stylized guy. And it makes you wonder, should the writing match the persona, or should the writing be tamped down to...
00:30:32
Speaker
in service of the persona, but not trying to match the persona blow for blow. Is that something you've approached in your writing where you're like, oh, I'm writing about something that's really bombastic, so I need to write up to that? Or do you turn the volume down? Yes, to both of those. I've had to do both. I'm sure you have, too. If you're writing for an outlet and you have to match the outlet voice, that's always
00:31:01
Speaker
an extra challenge, you know, you got to like, come into that normative voice for whatever the publication is. That's, I think, very similar to that. But also, yeah, there's a there's in in one of the books that I'm working on now.
00:31:21
Speaker
I, there's like a Wild West chapter, Wild West chapter, where I'm sort of telling stories about like the Wild West towns associated with the railroads. And at some point, my editor was like, so you sort of go full Deadwood here. He's like,
00:31:46
Speaker
He's like, you have one voice that you've been using, and then you come out swinging. You're writing in a voice similar to the people that you're describing. And we had to talk about whether or not that was how I was, if I was getting away with it, and whether I was going to get away with it, and if I was going to do that, if I could get away with it for just that chapter.
00:32:10
Speaker
And then go on my merry way. Um, and if the reader would stay with me and sort of recognize what was happening or if I needed to come into alignment with myself, but it was, it was interesting because I had drifted into it without recognizing it probably because I was just excited about the content. Um, so yeah, I mean, I think, I think that the thing to do always is.
00:32:39
Speaker
to try as closely as possible to write in exactly the voice that you would use to tell your best friend or your favorite relative that it's easy to be comfortable around what the
00:32:59
Speaker
what the content is about. Whatever voice one uses when you're very excited and in very comfortable, safe company, I think is the voice to use as close as possible on the page because that's when you're sort of most comfortable with the material and most comfortable with
00:33:20
Speaker
your grasp of the material and your presentation of it and your audience, and you're not pandering to anybody, that sort of best friend in the backyard, when they're like, what are you working on? And you give them the deed, that's always, however I sound in that conversation, is always what I'm trying to sound like when I write, is just authentically,
Writing with Authenticity
00:33:46
Speaker
because you're always giving people the best nuggets in those conversations.
00:33:50
Speaker
But you're not pitching, you're not selling anything, you're just kind of talking about it in the way that it excites or stimulates or fascinates you.
00:34:03
Speaker
Does that make sense? Oh, for sure. Yeah, it's kind of like the I've heard people say like sometimes to strike a good tone for whatever you're writing. It might be like if you're writing an email to a friend or something, you wouldn't be it wouldn't be stilted. It might be it might
00:34:21
Speaker
It might go a little towards a little too close to vernacular, but if you pull that back just a little bit, you'll have kind of a more whimsical voice that is kind of fun to read. I remember several years ago, I mean, this is sophomoric, but it is what it is. We used to play a whole lot of beard eyes, this drinking game where you try to throw a dice into a cup across the table and you got to catch it sometimes, blah, blah, blah.
00:34:47
Speaker
But it was I won't bore you with the rules. But any time we played this game every week, I would put up a newsletter that would just kind of like make fun of everybody who is playing and and and exalt myself because I was the best player. And right. And but my buddy Pete, who is always someone who is kind of like my ideal reader for so many things, he's like he's like B.O. with my initials, my nickname is like
00:35:15
Speaker
He's like, I don't mean to insult you anything about the more serious writing you do, but the writing you do in that newsletter is the best stuff you ever do. And it really struck a chord with me. Here I was with some of the other things I was doing trying to be kind of literary and artful in that way, whereas maybe my strength was striking something of a similar tone with the irreverent, comical,
00:35:43
Speaker
a voice of those newsletters because it's really engaging and kind of funny. And maybe that is the voice. So it's like, those are the games that we can play with ourselves in a sense to maybe try to find the right voice for a given project. Right. And to make sure that it's not binary. For me, it's easy to be like, oh, literary or scientific. And really, the question is,
00:36:12
Speaker
who you still exist in this book, even if you're writing about a third party, even if you're writing about events that don't, you know, that aren't, you know, not memoir, not things about yourself, if you're not actually in it, you're still in the story. And so it's interesting, you know, where you get into questions of who am I in this story? Am I a beat reporter giving just the facts? Am I a professor giving in-depth academic information? Am I representing
00:36:42
Speaker
the subject, which is what you were getting at, or am I a fan? Am I an insider? Am I a fly on the wall? One of my projects, I'm writing it from this perspective of being a local insider and being a fly on the wall and being able to see and comment on things that people who
00:37:06
Speaker
were involved in things at the time aren't able to see because they don't have the benefit of history and looking back. And I've allowed myself to sort of take that sometimes conspiratorial or
00:37:20
Speaker
not judgmental, but there's someone with an opinion that's joined us in the room. And you can tell that there's an opinion and a perspective there. And that changes the tone and changes the voice. So yeah, I think it's interesting to sort of investigate who else is in the room along with the information in which who should take the mic and tell the story.
00:37:48
Speaker
And as we kind of slouch towards middle age here in our lives and in our careers as writers of narrative nonfiction, what is about this chapter in your life that you're entering or in, what excites you about what's coming next for you? In middle age?
00:38:16
Speaker
you could in middle age and also with your writing how important it is to you at this point versus maybe how important it was 10 years ago or if it's more important or less important or you know it thinks shift the tectonic plates are always shifting to use a term from your your your stock and trade
00:38:36
Speaker
Right. Well, and I feel like, well, so, you know, 10 years ago, I really wasn't a writer. I was a baby writer. I was a blogger, you know, so for me, I feel like
00:38:47
Speaker
I feel like there's a maturity and that's nice. I feel like it's nice to be a working writer, a somewhat self-sustaining writer. I think it's nice to feel like I have a body of work behind me and that I don't sort of, you know, to come out of that like emerging writers category.
00:39:08
Speaker
I think kind of does a disservice to emerging writers. I know it's meant to be protective, but I also think that it's kind of distancing and discrediting of what people might be able to bring to the table early on in their careers. But I feel like I understand the industry and I understand what I write about and the breadth of that.
00:39:37
Speaker
far better than I did at the beginning of my career. I feel like I know who I am in my life and what my highest values are far better than I knew 10 years ago. I'm certainly far more aware of what it is I want in life
00:40:04
Speaker
and what I'm willing to do to get it, and the clarity of vision that you need to sort of stick to those things, you know, than I was when I was younger. And I also feel like I'm in a place where I'm not ego-driven in the way that I was, you know, late 20s and early 30s, and able to kind of put that down and really look at my work as,
00:40:35
Speaker
practice and that feels very freeing and Like a path to contentment, you know if we can if we can bring it back to contentment, I mean I feel like I don't really feel like I have a lot to prove I feel like I've been lucky in my career so far and and I think that kind of moving to a higher level in terms of compensation and
00:41:01
Speaker
speed of projects and, you know, some kind of bigger publishers, like those are all sort of things that you look at. But those are sort of practicalities, you know, like really, it's to be able to continue to write about the things that I want to write about that I think are important.
00:41:17
Speaker
And having work that finds its audience regardless of compensation is really where I'm at. And I feel really lucky to have been able to do that as much as I have so far. I think I have a much better sense of how to do that far more effectively.
00:41:32
Speaker
moving forward. So we'll just, yeah, I feel like, you know, slouching towards middle age. Are you kidding me? I like catwalked into middle age, I slid into middle age, like a Cheshire cat tail first, you know, in spotted glory. I feel like middle age is like really comfy and wonderful and kind of secure and
00:41:58
Speaker
vanity free and allows me a lot of room to focus on other things that, you know, youth has pressing issues around ego and vanity and challenges and growth and accomplishment that middle age kind of frees you from. I think it's very nice.
00:42:15
Speaker
slouching towards nothing I Like it I like it that makes me feel a lot better Well early on to like it 20s and even 30s if there's so much like you you hit it on the head with ego and there's also so much and I can attest to this is desperation of
00:42:35
Speaker
just wanting to get some sort of a toe hold, wanting some recognition, which feeds back to the ego. And so I can attest at this point, it's like I'm still desperate for some degree of visibility, but the ego's not there. I'm more patient. I'm like, if it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. It's more practice driven, as you were saying. And it's just like, all right, well, if it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. I'm in it for the late bloom, baby.
00:43:03
Speaker
Well, and I think, too, you know, like you have to be realistic, too, in terms of time scale, you know, I mean, it's not like we're pop stars, right? You know, or like, like,
00:43:19
Speaker
that you have to be famous by the age of 20 in order to even get a toehold in the industry. And so there's lots and lots of careers and pathways to success that involve waiting and maturity.
Patience in Creative Nonfiction
00:43:38
Speaker
And I think that especially creative nonfiction, that it's often required just because the
00:43:48
Speaker
the weight of the material itself can require someone with expertise and access and a level of maturity to deal with the material itself that goes beyond what you might be able to do earlier in a career. That doesn't mean that everyone can't do it or that people shouldn't try. Of course they should, and of course they can. But I think that it's like,
00:44:13
Speaker
There's people need to grow into their expertise often, particularly. And sometimes, you know, sometimes you need 10 years to do the research because it's the nature of creative nonfiction, right? Sometimes you have to wait for things to unfold.
00:44:32
Speaker
and for documents to emerge, or for history to be uncovered, or for the appropriate time for a story to be reevaluated. For people to die sometimes. Sometimes you've got to wait for people to die. Sometimes you have to wait for them to get out of prison. Sometimes you have to wait for your Freedom of Information request to come in.
00:44:57
Speaker
you know, you got to wait five years for somebody to grant you an interview, then you got to wait, you know, five years to find the agent that sees the value in it. And sometimes it takes two years for that agent, you know, to place it with an editor and you need to find the editor, you know, that's brave and sees where you go on the bookshelf. So there's a lot of pieces to it. And I don't think that I think hardly any of them reflect on, you know, the worthiness of the author.
00:45:28
Speaker
And so much of it has to just do with, you know, each book has its time. And that, that may have nothing to do with you as an author. You may just be the vessel to, for that story to come to light and you got to let it unfold in its own, its own time. You know? Oh yeah.
Reflecting on the Conversation
00:45:48
Speaker
Well, I love it. Well, this is a mission accomplished with this podcast, having you back on the mics to just kind of work through some of these things that I think a lot of writers out there wrestle with and might not be able to put a finger on the pulse of what might be bugging them or maybe they're frustrated. And I think you've articulated it so well and definitely helped me work through some of my frustrations here in 40 minutes.
00:46:16
Speaker
So it's I'm glad I can be glad I can be of service. Yeah, I think yeah people shouldn't feel down I think you know, it's a long game for sure you know and Remembering that I think is golden for writers Was my nice
00:46:40
Speaker
I leave conversations with Ruby always feeling a little bit better about myself and my place in the world. It'll probably fade and I'll have to talk to her again, but pick up her amazing book, Ground Truth, or A Woman's Guide to the Wild. You will not regret it.
00:46:56
Speaker
I wasn't sure what I'd riff about here in the parting shot. Some of the material I was able to unpack a bit with Ruby, like the feeling of writing is just a slog. It feels like gruel, no levels of flavor. You know, that's kind of what I was thinking I'd write about when I already spoke about it with her, and she just was great. You know, just that writing that's not elevated in any way, and I'm thinking that maybe that's just gotta come with more drafting and more drafting and more drafting.
00:47:24
Speaker
Certainly more research than interviewing. I think what it comes down to right now is I'm writing without a certain measure of trust in myself. Sometimes I have this little birdie on my shoulder that's always telling me, like, nah, don't do that, man. Just turn that dial way down.
00:47:40
Speaker
Do not go up to 11. You're not an up-to-11 writer. You might have an up-to-11 newsletter at printedamara.com, but you are not an up-to-11 writer. You leave that to the good ones. You, you, you stay right there where you are in your lane, you fuck. So I'm writing tentatively. I'm trying so hard to dissolve into the background that what's coming out has little to no pause.
00:48:07
Speaker
Like when you bite into a cobbler and you get that little pop of a blueberry and you're like, whoa, that was nice. And maybe that's what good writing can be. Everything is in balance. And every few bites, you get that little punch. And maybe that comes early in the drafting for some people or maybe it comes late or maybe it doesn't come at all.
00:48:28
Speaker
But what we must always maintain is a confidence in our abilities that it might happen. And that sure as hell can be tough, you know that. I've been taking a beating of late with some of the work I've submitted and the jobs I haven't gotten and the third coat of paint I'm putting on the book proposal. And it's hard not to start to question yourself.
00:48:56
Speaker
Like, you've been doing this for how long? Maybe you're as good as you're ever gonna be. Maybe this is it. Maybe you've hit your limit. You've reached the limit of your talent. And yeah, you can be okay, but you're never going to step up to triple A from single A. You might just be stuck. And that's just your groove, man. You are who you are. There's no more changing.
00:49:24
Speaker
So all that does is extinguish your flame. But you know what? It's the glowing ember, man, that burns longest. Not the whiplash of fire in the pit. So stay wild, CNFers. And if you can't do, interview C.
00:50:10
Speaker
you