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Episode 254: Elena Passarello on Weird Freelance Work, Podcasting, and Oatmeal Brain
145 Plays4 years ago
Elena Passarello is the author of Animals Strike Curious Poses, Let Me Clear My Throat, and the co-host of I'll Find Myself When I'm Dead.
Keep the conversation going on social media @CNFPod and consider being a member in the Patreon group, patreon.com/cnfpod.
Stay cool, CNFers, stay cool forever!
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
ACNFers, you are in for a treat. Elena Pasarello returns to talk about... shoot, I don't know. You know, this stupid rat thing that's tearing the ass out of me right now.
00:00:20
Speaker
Well, oh, alright, well that's a work in progress. In any case, this is the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I talk to badass people about the art and craft of telling true stories. I'm Brendan O'Mara, welcome to it. You can follow the show at cnfpod on Twitter and Instagram, and if you head over to BrendanO'Mara.com, hey, hey, you can find show notes to this and a billion other episodes.
00:00:45
Speaker
You may also sign up for the monthly newsletter where I give out reading recommendations, links to articles, podcasts, news and exclusive CNF and happy hour of which Elena has been a special guest and you would know that if you were a member of the newsletter list. And I forgot to put it in the April one. My bad. It will be in the May one.
00:01:11
Speaker
In any case, all things writing, art, first of the month, no spam, can't beat it.
Support and Community Engagement
00:01:18
Speaker
So Elena Pasarello is here, my good friend, and it's nice when her kind comes slumming with a dude like me. She was in the thick of a deadline for a piece for Audubon, and oh, I don't know, what's the word? My brain is oatmeal.
00:01:36
Speaker
She's somewhat of a weirdo animal writer on account of her wildly popular and successful, what does success even mean? Her book, a successful book, Animal Strike, Curious, Poses. It's an incredible book. She also wrote the collection Let Me Clear My Throat.
00:01:53
Speaker
She recently had a piece about the oldest bird in the world, a lason, if I'm pronouncing that right, albatross. So she's in it, man. She's in the freelance assignment. She's a professor at Oregon State University. She's on every single panel you can imagine. She's a super star, man, superstar. I mean, she wouldn't say that, but I'll say it.
00:02:20
Speaker
Speaking of being in it, Summer Audio Magazine is on schedule and if you want in on this exciting issue, you're going to have to head over to patreon.com slash cnfpod and become a CNFN member. Every tier gets you access to the magazine.
00:02:36
Speaker
So for as little as two dollars a month you get the magazine and also a chance to ask questions of guests I put that out to the patreon community. I got a little thing back That's he heeded the call and I asked one of her questions late in the show with Elena Pretty cool, right?
Productivity and Writing Strategies
00:02:55
Speaker
For a little more than the $2 a month tier, you can shop around Window Shop, get transcripts, coaching, and the knowledge that you're helping out this community, helping writers, and helping it thrive. Speaking of community, here's a nice review on Apple Podcast from Jomami. Great Apple handle, Jomami.
00:03:18
Speaker
Pro tips, this podcast is very informative while also being entertaining for a budding writer. I especially enjoyed hearing about Mott, a memoir that's by Sarah Einstein.
00:03:28
Speaker
And now I can't wait to read it. As many of us memoir writers are also trying to make a point, I guess I'm a little typo, but subtly, it was great to learn from the author what her point was and some tidbits that give you an idea of how she went about it. I also appreciated hearing writers of other genres and learning tips that can be applied to my own work. Thank you, Brendan, for putting this out in the world.
00:03:56
Speaker
and you're welcome. You're welcome for the show and thank you for listening. You've heard me say it before, you know how to work out and eat.
00:04:12
Speaker
Right. You know what I mean? Like, you know how you know the fundamentals, but sometimes you don't. So you hire a personal trainer to get you into shape, draw meal plans and hold you accountable. Something changes when you throw down some money on that thing, right? Same thing with a writing coach. If you and your work needs a tune up, reach out to me and I'd love to help you level up. It's about getting you where you need to go on your terms.
00:04:38
Speaker
Working with me will stretch you. It will challenge you. And you will be better writer for it. You'll be a better editor for it. And you'll start to see things that you couldn't see before. So if you have a book or an essay and you need some help, give me a call. I'd be honored to get you where you want to go. Got it? All right. Hey, Elena is back, man. And it was a fun one. So buckle up for the one and the only Elena Passarello.
Freelance Challenges and Insights
00:05:17
Speaker
So what's shaking, man? I have a freelance assignment that was supposed to be due on, I believe, April 15. And we are speaking five days after that. And I had to push it back because it has turned into kind of a mess in a good way, though. It's just more than I bargained for in terms of the nature of the story. And it's due now, but I had just had a new wrinkle show up in terms of source acquisition. So now I'm going to try to push it to like first thing Thursday morning.
00:05:44
Speaker
Wow. It is like millions of sources, tons of science, and then all of my subjects English is not their first language. So like it's just like the transcripts are harder, the reading the like all of the like supplemental material that I find like YouTube clips and things are in Spanish. So I'm just like,
00:06:06
Speaker
Everything takes like twice as long. And then I started reporting it out. It takes place in Mexico. I started reporting it out thinking that I could do most of the work the first week of April. But that's not a very active week in terms of business in Mexico because it's Holy Week. Oh, right. It's just been like, oh.
00:06:26
Speaker
So my brain is, I'm like Michael Keaton and Mr. Mom right now. My brain is oatmeal. So I figured I'd call you. I love it. I love oatmeal podcasts. This is great. How are you? What's going on with you?
00:06:43
Speaker
You know, it's similarly, in a way, it's like I feel like I've got oatmeal brain also, but it's more from just a frenetic case of like go, go, go, but just feeling like not getting anywhere. You know that feeling? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I do. My pedometer does, too. I never go anywhere. Yeah. You've like forced that today.
00:07:06
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. It's just like trying to, you know, there's just so many sort of like balls in the air to juggle. And, you know, you feel like you're just doing a lot of a lot of work that's just not getting making any progress or like moving the ball. I just feel like it's like first and 10, then second and 10, then third and 10. And then God damn it, I got a punt. Just
00:07:27
Speaker
It feels like that all the time. In an effort to really harness attention, I've really dumbed down, let's just say, my phone. I've got no social media email on my phone. All it is is text, phone, Spotify, Headspace, and I think that's it, and my podcast app. So I truly made it like a 2007 iPhone. And is that helping?
00:07:51
Speaker
In that regard, yeah, because it's not a crutch. I sense myself reaching for it like out of those weird, those sort of down moments between, I don't know, you're reading this or you're waiting on something. You're like, oh, I'll reach for my phone. And I catch myself in that habit. I'm like, oh, wow, well, there's nothing on this worth checking anymore. So you start to realize like how often you're grabbing that thing out of habit. Oh, yeah.
00:08:18
Speaker
Yeah, so that's been helpful. I've been really, really blocking out time in a way where it'll be like, you know, from seven to eight in the morning, I'm just working on podcast admin and promo. And that's it. And so I just look at the clock and I just get into the kind of zone. And then I look up and I'm like, okay, I've got 15 more minutes. Okay, keep going on this because then you're done at eight and then you move on to the next thing. And that kind of blocking has been really helping
00:08:48
Speaker
helping me kind of keep a laser focus, if you will. Yeah. The deep work, or I guess that's not deep work. That's more like that Pomodoro method where you're like, you work as hard as you can on a single task for a shorter period of time than all day. Yeah. Like, and then it's like, when that time is up, you move on to another task.
00:09:07
Speaker
And it is that deep work, that Cal Newportian deep work ethic. And that's where I've kind of got the time blocking idea from. And yeah, so just kind of do that, trying to get land work at more high profile places so then I don't even need social media at all. It's just a matter of just putting out good enough work where people will kick to the website and hang out there instead of me having to like,
00:09:32
Speaker
be in an algorithmic shark infested waters. I'm like, I'd rather not be here. Shackled to the algorithm. Right. Exactly. Exactly. So yeah, that's kind of where the heads at. I'm taking this freelancers workshop to through Seth Godin's akimbo workshops. Oh, yeah.
00:09:54
Speaker
So that's kind of cool. That just got rocking and rolling. So that's hopefully open up possibilities. And then I extricate myself from things that aren't as fulfilling and try to do better work for the people I'd want to serve, if you will.
00:10:12
Speaker
That's the thing, isn't it? It's like sometimes when you finally get a job that you want, it's hard to make space for it because you're too busy working on other jobs that it's not that they don't want them, but they don't have the same like you've been working at these other jobs so that you eventually you can get like a big job that you want or a big assignment that you want.
00:10:32
Speaker
And then this is my experience, you know, it's like I've got all these other little nitpicky things that I have to do when I finally get to like hunker down and write like a real feature. And it makes me frustrated, I guess.
00:10:48
Speaker
I was going to say, it makes me mad. I'm not mad. I just am sad. I guess I'm sad that I feel like I could do a better job if I had just a slightly cleaner professional trajectory right now. I mean, I have a full-time job and two part-time jobs as well, which isn't helping my freelance career very much. Yes, I am totally under. Yeah, I get you, man. Yeah.
00:11:11
Speaker
I'm not a freelancer either. You sound like you really know what you're doing. I kind of just fall into these weird projects. And then I say things like I'm freelancing, but really it's just a fluke. It's just a flukeity fluke fluke. But it's like you want to dive in head first.
00:11:29
Speaker
and everything, but then your attention is so fractured and you're pulled in so many different directions in this thing that you want to invest 100% of yourself. It's not like what you want. You want to put it all on the table. Instead, you're pulled everywhere. I mean, I would be fine with like 40%. That would be amazing.
00:11:54
Speaker
But yeah, it's all good because it's good to work, but it's just not how I imagined it. I guess that's kind of what being an adult is like, is revising your expectations from the way that you imagined it when you weren't grown yet. How did you imagine
Creative Writing and Projects
00:12:13
Speaker
it?
00:12:14
Speaker
I guess I just thought that it would be like I would pitch something and you know I'd have like a long relationship with a magazine and I would have a beat and I would kind of know the world that I was working in and so every single time it was like there was it was like if the freelance feature writing world was a merry-go-round
00:12:36
Speaker
that I would jump on and jump off of. But I was very aware of the merry-go-round because it was in my backyard. But now, I feel like every freelance gig is a different merry-go-round across the state. And I have to learn about the admission fee. There's just this whole world that you have to, with every job, that you have to pick up. And it's really unpredictable. And I'm finding, at least, it's not possible to set the timelines that you wanted. And it's also not possible to feel as confident as I thought I was going to feel.
00:13:05
Speaker
Um, which is cool. I mean, that's fine. Everything gets done. I mean, I really like, I don't know, like what kind of freelancing are you doing? I guess I'm speaking kind of in the abstract and we should sort of nail down like, like what kinds of freelancing we're talking about here, but like what, what kind of freelance stuff is, uh, are you up to nowadays?
00:13:22
Speaker
So I'm working on an ambitious piece on wildfire and climate change right now. I'm in the in the discovery phase of the reporting where I'm where I'm interviewing a lot of fire experts. And I probably have enough tape to write a really nice pitch. So that's a big feature I'm working on. And then I pitched the
00:13:47
Speaker
a column on spec to the New York Times book review. And so I've done that. And then I'm also trying to do some freelance podcast producing and some branded writing, too. So that's kind of off my sort of journalistic beat. But, you know, that that kind of thing, too. So I'm trying to cobble together.
00:14:08
Speaker
that. And then, and then, you know, pitching sponsors for the podcast too. So I have kind of like a tripod of thing where it's like podcast production, journalism and other branded things, editing. So that's kind of... What's branded writing? Is that like writing as yourself from your professional position? Is that what that is? It would be like if, you know, like REI has a magazine. So you would like, you know, write a feature that basically, you know, or like Subaru has a magazine, you'd find someone who like drives a cross track and you like,
00:14:37
Speaker
write something basically for them that really kind of touts their brand and company. Like an in-flight magazine almost. Exactly. It's kind of like faux journalism. Trades. A little bit like magazine trades, I guess.
00:14:52
Speaker
Exactly. And the idea is like they pay really well too. You know, they can be up, you know, if you're able to land a feature for, you know, a Subaru magazine, you know, it can be like, you know, a dollar a word for a long feature or something, which is like unheard of in journalism circles. Do you know what I heard? By the way, this is completely
00:15:14
Speaker
Hemingway, I didn't watch the Ken Burns documentary, but I read a bunch of tweets about it. So now I feel like I watched it, but the Ken Burns Hemingway documentary, he was making a dollar a word in like 1940. So that's the equivalent now of 19 K for a thousand word piece.
00:15:35
Speaker
Unbelievable. A dollar a word is still good. You know what I mean? Yeah. A hundred years later, a dollar a word is like, all right, I'll take it. Good Lord. That's incredible.
00:15:47
Speaker
Yeah. Oh man. Yeah. So that's a kind of, you know, I'm pitching a lot of, you know, vineyards and breweries to write, you know, their blog content and that kind of thing. And the idea being like, you know, if you want to pay me a thousand dollars a month to write four blog posts for you, I will try to hammer those blog posts out in a great way, but really fast. And that way, you know, the hourly rate is pretty high and then you kind of can
00:16:14
Speaker
kind of snowball, things like that. So that's kind of, that's the hustle. And then on top of that, it's like I'm wrestling with this question of not trying to, especially with a podcast, like not be obsessed with growth. Like what if what if what I have right now is enough? And then just trying to like, double and triple down and like,
00:16:37
Speaker
serve the people who are already in on the joke instead of trying to fill up the arena. Like, you know what? No, I've got Carnegie Hall. I don't need to go Madison Square Garden. Yeah. So I'm kind of wrestling with that idea and reading Paul Jarvis' Company of One and just thinking in terms of what if you already have enough and then just, like I said, triple down on the people who are already there for you.
00:17:05
Speaker
And be there for them. Sometimes I wonder if being a narcissist helps with this. Because if I, when I was an actor, if five people came to the show, I'd be like, wow, what a crowd. Because I'm such a narcissist. I can't imagine it ever being better than my own experience. So I have a podcast. And I think, I don't know, we get six followers. And I'm like, six followers. That's three times as many people that make the podcast.
Podcasting and Social Interaction
00:17:35
Speaker
Just get so excited. Yeah. It's one of those things too where people, if they complain about how small their audience is, let's just use a hundred as a number. If you put a hundred people in a lecture hall, that's a lot of people. Yeah. And so if you think of it like that, it's like, oh my God, there's a hundred people out there listening to this thing. And if you were in front of a hundred people, you'd be like, there's a shitload of people here.
00:18:00
Speaker
Yeah. Imagine if you had a hundred people at your funeral, you'd be like, that was a good life. God damn, that's a good life. Evil. I'm sorry. That's so evil. I'm a little punchy today. Right. Right. So how did you, so this is, uh, another bird story you're working on, right?
00:18:21
Speaker
Yes, I am not in the freelance life in that I don't pitch. I should, but I don't. When I have a book coming out, usually somebody that I'm working with from the press encourages me to pitch certain things in that window of time, but usually I'm just kind of like, whatever.
00:18:43
Speaker
But this editor from Audubon magazine in December got in touch with me and I think my niche is like now like animal writing when you already have a lot of great animal writing and you want to hire like a wild card.
00:19:00
Speaker
like a slightly irresponsible, you know, kind of looser kind of canon, because I think science writing often is full of very reverent people. And so she was like, you know, we just want something different. Do you want to try writing about this really old albatross? I said, Yeah, if you if I can write it, like, Gay Talisa's Frank Sinatra has a cold. And she was like, Sure.
00:19:22
Speaker
And so I did. And I was convinced that they weren't going to like it, but they did. And then shortly thereafter, they asked me if I wanted to do another one. And this one is about this island off the coast of Baja California Sur, so like kind of like south of like Tijuana and Ensenada and all that stuff.
00:19:42
Speaker
In Mexico, there's a little bitty island that 95% of this one species of bird is born on this island. These birds really want to live on this island. This is where they want to do their business. And that means that people have to be very careful about changing the climate, the bio climate.
00:20:06
Speaker
And, but of course there's a fishing village there that's run by a fishery and where there are people and industry there's usually rats and a rat will just like decimate a seabird population. So they discovered one rat, like in
00:20:22
Speaker
2019 and the like MacGyvery, catch me if you can, Wylie Coyote shit that they did to catch this rat. It's just an amazing story. And so it's just this like weird, you know, it's barely about birds, you know, so she asked me if I would write this for the magazine. So old birds and rats are kind of where.
00:20:45
Speaker
Oh, I love it. I it's so much it. It's like when you read occasionally like when Karen Russell like wrote a story about a bullfighter a few years ago or when George Saunders writes nonfiction and fiction. Yeah, it's I love it when, you know, novelists will take on things like we'll take on journalism and their stuff reads like fiction and they're like,
00:21:10
Speaker
oh wow this is what it's like to have like a really great you know that sort of powerful sort of voice driven fiction only applied over to non-fiction and journalism was like oh wow this is electric to read this stuff so the fact these when you said like oh they want this kind of wild card in like that's what I'm picturing it's like oh yeah we can have someone who's got a really amazing
00:21:34
Speaker
voice on the page and let's turn her loose on here. And I love that they do that. I can't wait to read these things. Well, I mean, it won't be George Saunders or Karen Russell, but you know what I love about it that I didn't know is, you know, like when you write like a magazine feature, there are people there that help you with it.
00:21:54
Speaker
You know, like when I read an essay by myself, like I'm all alone in the library, terrified to call people, but like, not like, and especially because Audubon is a really trusted magazine, like, they they're like, call these people about this bird. And then all I had to say is that I was writing for Audubon magazine and they
00:22:12
Speaker
answered the phone and they were so excited to talk to me and then there's an art person and the art person is finding out all this interesting stuff and passing information along and then there's an editor who and a fact checker who help you sort of like smooth out the material and then there's a copy editor and it just feels like you're not like alone in the void like you have to do the work like you have to build the story but like I love this like and then also I didn't have to pick the topic
00:22:40
Speaker
which is so hard for me. I'm always like, it's like such like a dumb like, oh, is this the one, you know, like some kind of like bachelorette, you know, like, are you the one topic? Are you the one? But no, no, I'm on deadline. I have to write about this. These are the people that I have to talk to. This is the tone and and timbre of the magazine that I have to somewhat appropriate, although, you know, I'm not great at it, which I think is what they want. And it's just in that respect, I really enjoy it. And then the other thing is this particular beat, the people that I'm talking to,
00:23:10
Speaker
are amazing like they're just they're saving the planet and they're like the most positive people about climate change that I've talked to these like maverick seabird rescue organizations and they know their shit so it just feels good to talk to someone
00:23:27
Speaker
Who
Writing Process and Collaboration
00:23:28
Speaker
is just crushing it and then you know in my very limited experience. I think they also understand that like But they don't feel bad being asked questions because these questions are all to celebrate them once they figure that out That I'm not like some kind of hard-hitting bird journalist like I just want to I just want like the goofy story It's what it's delight. It's delightful to watch them reflect on this amazing stuff that they did so in
00:23:54
Speaker
I mean, in those respects, I'm really glad to get freelance gigs because it just feels like a really different muscle and it feels a lot less lonesome. It also feels a lot less mine. I can't argue over the length of a paragraph with these people. They have a standard, but I think that's kind of freeing too. Maybe if I was only doing this, I'd feel kind of
00:24:19
Speaker
And right now I am only doing this, but maybe I would be kind of like, I need more freedom, but I'm really enjoying the restraints that it's putting on my writing. And they're still asking me to be creative inside those restraints, which is kind of my sweet spot. That's awesome. And have you experienced any kind of journalistic imposter syndrome as you go about the reporting for these pieces?
00:24:46
Speaker
Well, I mean, I don't think it's imposter syndrome. I think I am an imposter. Like in this particular situation with lining up the sources for this, you know, I am very in over my head. Because there's this extra step of working with people with different, you know, I don't speak Spanish. They asked me if I spoke Spanish, and then also it's a remote location, so connectivity is an issue. So just those few little hiccups
00:25:16
Speaker
And then my planning of how to put this together is tanking me in some ways. I mean, I'm getting through it. I'll be all right. But I'm sure that someone who was not an imposter would probably have a much more streamlined way of going through it. And I'm like such a shitty transcriber. Oh my God, it's the worst. It's so bad. I hate it so much. The thing that I've been doing is recording the interviews on Zoom and then opening up a Word doc.
00:25:43
Speaker
And then playing the video and then the word doc opening a word doc and then hitting that microphone button the dictate button that microsoft word has now. And then playing the video so that it just like records but it doesn't work when someone is speaking heavy heavily accented english.
00:26:01
Speaker
I mean, it barely works when people are speaking like the American standard Walter Cronkite English. I've been using Otter as a transcribing service and it's not perfect. It's pretty darn good. And you can listen to it play back at various speeds too. So like to me, like the nitty gritty of transcribing a recording now is just going through and cleaning up.
00:26:29
Speaker
the transcript and I've found that that's been okay. I actually don't speed it up when I have a journalistic recording because I do want to hear it again and make sure I get everything really stone cold, right? If I'm transcribing podcast ones, I usually do it at two times the speed and just like, okay, this is cool. If it's not 100%, I'm fine with that. Is it odd or like the animal? Yeah.
00:26:55
Speaker
And what are you doing for podcasts that you need? Do you just provide a transcript of every episode? Is that what you're doing? I do for Tier 2 and up Patreon members. I give them transcripts. And I also want the transcripts too, because in this rigmarole of a podcast, there's a book here.
00:27:15
Speaker
with, you know, talking to hundreds of people about the craft of nonfiction. So I'm drawing that up like a Hitchhiker's Guide to CNF. So it's... Oh my god, so good. Oh, yeah, because you talk to everybody, like everybody. So, unfortunately me twice, but like also real people.
00:27:41
Speaker
Your episode 123 was your first rodeo on the show. People loved it. You're one of the names, man. You're one of the headliners, as I call it. Didn't we talk for like three hours?
00:27:56
Speaker
We did, I think we talked for a solid two hours in studio. It was great. I loved it. I think I've only had maybe three in studio podcasts just because of the nature of it. But yeah, you were here and we were rocking and rolling talking about Metallica and baseball and it was awesome.
00:28:23
Speaker
Okay. So Elena's internet just crapped out. And so there was a gap and all kind of a weird gap. So in any case, I'm here just riffing, filling in that gap, like spackle over a wall. You punch the wall and now I'm spackling it over, cleaning up your mess.
00:28:44
Speaker
I'm sorry. It's a weird metaphor, but in any case, we're going to pick this right back up with her podcasting with Justin St. Germain and talking about his amazing new little book that I have to get my hands on after hearing Elena talk about it. Advertising. That's what you could say. Lumber liquidators or whatever. Yeah, exactly. Brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace.
00:29:14
Speaker
Yeah, you were just saying like, I think it was faking my way through that I knew what a podcast was. True. Yeah. And now I'm like, like, constantly. Yeah, I'm sorry. I mean, I don't, I think I learned more listening than I do making one, making one just feels like what I make it with another person, right? This guy, Justin St. Germain, who has been on your show. Yeah.
00:29:37
Speaker
He has not yet. I have Son of a Gun on my Kindle. I have yet to re- I know it's a few years old at this point, but when I can get Justin lined up, I plan on reading his memoir.
00:29:53
Speaker
Let me tell you about his new book. Is that a new one coming out? Yeah, it's out now. It just came out. Just came out this month. And so Son of a Gun is this memoir of the murder of his mother and also kind of like masculinity in the American West.
00:30:09
Speaker
And then this new book is part of the series that I really like called Bookmarked, where an author writes about a book or a short story or something that's really meaningful to them. So like Aaron Birch wrote about The Body, which is that Stephen King short story that became Stand By Me. Oh, wow.
00:30:27
Speaker
And Justin did it on In Cold Blood, the Truman Capote quote unquote nonfiction novel that I'm sure everybody knows about. And so it's his reckoning with what it means to write a murder story, having written a murder story himself, and then he just dissects the Capote book. And it is so well researched. It's very quick. It's like the kind of book that can fit in your back pocket, maybe 40,000 words.
00:30:52
Speaker
And it is really, I mean, just really, really good. And it's about writing. It's about what it means to write the truth, what it means to write about crime, what it means to represent people who are no longer around. So it's, I mean, just like right down the alley of this podcast and probably your readership. You don't have to read Son of a Gun or In Cold Blood to read this book about it, but it's also, I think, a really good supplement to both.
00:31:22
Speaker
I had no idea it's from a Capone made up half the shit that was in cold blood. I didn't either until I would say I was probably the 2010 ish around that 20 2008 2010 around there when there was the movie infamous was the other take on it. Yeah. And I think I forget who was in who starred in that. Well, Daniel Craig was actually Perry in that version.
00:31:52
Speaker
That's right. And Toby, is it Toby Jones?
Reading Influences and Cultural Criticism
00:31:54
Speaker
I think so. He's Truman and he actually looks like Truman Capote unlike Philip Seymour Hoffman. Yeah. For Philip Seymour Hoffman, I think had to like really like lay off like I think he had to change his body type in order to.
00:32:08
Speaker
He was like eight inches too tall and like a completely different frame. Yeah. And like starved himself or something, something terrible like that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it was something like, yeah, Capote never even took notes. And he claimed that he had a photographic memory or something and just totally made things up to make the story better. And the writing is great, but you can't call it journalism.
00:32:33
Speaker
No, this book was a real eye-opener because I think I was told all these stories about him. But apparently it was debunked in some ways right away, like in the 60s when it was released. But people were so into the way that the story was, the novel part of the non-fiction novel. It just was so compelling and vivid that
00:32:57
Speaker
People don't want to hear it which is just so true crime for me. You don't want the truth that's a true crime. You want the feeling of a true crime narrative. That's what I think is kind of the problem with a lot of true crime podcasts and books.
00:33:14
Speaker
And Justin argues in his book that Truman Capote is kind of the 20th century arbiter of that, ushering in that kind of thinking. So get that book, man. It's really good. Nice. And what's been the experience like of, you're no stranger to being on mic, but what has it been like having the podcast with Justin?
00:33:37
Speaker
I really liked it, but I think, I mean, I haven't learned anything about tech or anything like that. I just show up, drink a cocktail, and scream at him into the microphone. But I think sometimes I have to remind myself that it doesn't count as a social activity. I'll be like, oh, I went out this week. But no, I just recorded a conversational podcast with Justin. I'm going to have a hard time with our conversation not being like, oh, good. I'm not slowly becoming a hermit. I know.
00:34:07
Speaker
I socialized, but I did it. This isn't a real conversation. And sometimes I'll be talking to David, my partner, and I'll be like, I'm talking like my podcast self. So hopefully post-pandemic, I'll have real conversations with people. We'll shake a little bit loose.
00:34:26
Speaker
I very much like thinking about nonfiction in a conversation with him, and I feel more obligated to, I'm sure you feel this way, to participate as a reader in the world of contemporary nonfiction. Not that I was ever not doing it, but now I really feel like I need to be responsible about that, which I think is pretty good for the work as well.
00:34:50
Speaker
Yeah, and in these days too, given that you've written these pieces for Audubon, so it's a little different than your essayistic purview. So what have you been reading to fill the tank and to maybe model some of the writing you're doing that's freelance driven off of things that you've
00:35:12
Speaker
read before you said the first one was kind of like an albatross being a Frank Sinatra as a cold, in a way. What have you been reading to kind of model that work? I've been trying to pay more attention to the way people write about the natural world, like real people, like legit people, and also people who are kind of irreverent in that way. So Michelle Niehaus has a book out called Beloved Beasts that is this really interesting history of conservation. She started as a field biologist.
00:35:41
Speaker
and sort of found her way to kind of, I think she was the editor of High Country News for a long time, she might still be. But she's a great researcher and a great field reporter. So I read that, it was really helpful. But then on the other end of the spectrum, I read Matthew Gavin Frank's new pigeon book.
00:36:00
Speaker
which is about diamond smuggling pigeons in South Africa. And it's written like a fever dream, but it's also really intensely researched. And I think he even had a legal read and it's fully sourced, but it's about the diamond industry in South Africa and this sort of pigeon smuggling ring.
00:36:23
Speaker
That's part of it. But it's like, you know, very kind of speculative and kind of internalized and has a lot of velocity to it. So I read that to kind of keep me on my toes.
00:36:39
Speaker
But yeah, like I like I'm really interested nowadays in those kinds of things. And then, you know, I'm, I'm still such a sucker for performance reading and like how you keep yourself honest when you're talking about things that have nothing to do with you directly. And, you know, Hanif Abdur-Aqib is just
00:36:57
Speaker
crushing that on multiple platforms right now. His new book, A Little Devil in America, which is kind of writing about black performance, both musical performance and theatrical performance. And he writes about Whitney Houston and Aretha Franklin and, you know, a female magician from the 1950s and Josephine Baker. The quote, the title is a quote from Josephine Baker.
00:37:21
Speaker
But then he's also doing all this great stuff with radio and podcasting and almost like blogging thinking about writing about culture. So I am turning to his work pretty much on the daily. I think he's kind of a new kind of critic or a new kind of writer about culture and that like
00:37:41
Speaker
This is just zero snark. It's not that all cultural writing is snarky, but I think it's kind of wry. Frank Sinatra has a cold, it's kind of wry. But Hanif is writing from this place of deep love or deep sorrow or deep courage of understanding. It's just a font for me.
00:38:03
Speaker
I can't stop. And he's got all these different things, not just his books. You know, he's got a radio series with KCRW. He's got another one called like, it's either Objects of Sound or Sound Objects. And then he's got this huge project, online project where he's making these extensive playlists and essays for every year of music from 1968 to 2005, which is kind of an arbitrary. Yeah, it's kind of an odd time range, but it's got to be something to it, right?
00:38:33
Speaker
you
00:38:33
Speaker
It's something like, you know, he's, you know, he was like a critic for, uh, definitely, uh, I can't remember what, like one of that, like Pitchfork. And I think he wrote a lot for Rolling Stone, but he was like a music critic forever. He's just got, he's just saturated in lots of different kinds of musical cultures. And he wanted to trace his fandom. Um, he also was, was born like 15 years after 1968 or maybe even 20, but, um, he wanted to trace his fandom from Van Morrison's Astral Weeks to
00:39:03
Speaker
I found 2005. And he does it by making these Spotify playlists, writing about them himself, making these websites that are these kinds of like pages of of magazine clippings and YouTube clips that all correspond to that year. And then asking other people to write about albums that meant something to them from those years. So he's just making this like weird multimedia universe of fandom.
00:39:30
Speaker
I know, it's so special. It is, it's like a 21st century mixtape, absolutely.
Performance and Personal Growth
00:39:39
Speaker
It's really generous and also, I think, totally pandemic driven. I think it is the kind of thing you do when you're snowed in your house for all of the spring of 2020.
00:39:52
Speaker
Yeah, so those and yeah, I would say that that's kind of the triangle right now is like people who really know their shit as nature writers, people who push the envelope as nature writers and honey, if I'm joking. Yeah. Yeah. He's a great testament to a lot of people think, you know, my old life was voice stuff like acting and voiceovers and stuff. And a lot of people think when you read your creative work, you have to be super dynamic.
00:40:18
Speaker
But I think he proves that if you stay kind of true and in your voice and practice, I think he practices a lot. Like you don't need the bells and whistles. George Saunders is the same way. Like you can read your work aloud and be kind of a little low key about it and still really drive people forward. You know what I mean? Like you don't have to be like a muppet. Like I read like a muppet.
00:40:44
Speaker
Speaking of that, you were on a different panel, same AWP. Sidebar, you say you're a nobody. You're on every single panel that there is, so you can stop it there. I think you were talking about the sex jokes gorilla.
00:41:08
Speaker
And the way you were performing this piece was hilarious. I remember the person who had the read after you was like, how the hell am I supposed to follow that? Yeah, I told them. They asked me what I was going to read. They said, you need to read something short because it's about short pieces. And they said, this is the shortest piece I have. But don't put me first because it's just an awful piece.
00:41:30
Speaker
like ridiculous it's like the daffy duck you know like it's i'm just gonna set the whole room on fire and then run away like don't do it and uh yeah i think they thought that i wanted to be last because i wanted to like be like and you know like the the final act or whatever but no it's just like i'm gonna throw a sting bomb yeah who's this what you think she is axle rose
00:41:50
Speaker
Yeah, no seriously, or like the Tammy show when the Rolling Stones said they had to follow, they had to come after James Brown and then James Brown was like, oh, okay. And then he did the whole thing with the cape and please, please, please. And people just lost their minds. And then the Rolling Stones took the stage and everybody was too exhausted to clap for them. Like that's what they thought I was saying. But really what I was saying was this is the stupidest piece and I'm going to ruin your event.
00:42:15
Speaker
So put me last because out of respect for the more famous people that are on this panel that actually wrote things of substance. I'm working with a Dutch translator for the Dutch translation of the animals book right now. And she was like, what is this? And I was like, I don't know, maybe the Dutch don't need to read it.
00:42:38
Speaker
They don't have the aristocrats. They don't have any of the puns. They don't have the broken sign language lexicon of an American gorilla. I was like, yeah, maybe this doesn't need to be in the German version.
00:42:51
Speaker
That is hilarious. You know, I was thinking when you were talking about the reporting you were doing for for this piece and that you were talking about, you know, just talking to really cool people. And it reminded me a lot of Allie Ward and her podcast, Ologies.
00:43:08
Speaker
Like have you heard of this show no she talks to just a you know i don't know for men ologists who are like a guy who studies lightning i should you know she talks to you know a dendrologist which is just a you know tree scientist.
00:43:23
Speaker
And so she's just an urologist I believe is the latest one, a person who studies bears. And so like she's just a person who's just deeply curious and she's a really good interviewer and just is very excited and engaged and the show is produced in a kind of fun way too.
00:43:42
Speaker
But just the your your approach reminds me it's just like oh I like you guys are really experts at what you're doing I just want to hear some here's some cool shit about what you're talking about I'm gonna take notes and I'm gonna record this but just tell me everything you know and it's just yeah kind of energy I think you really jive with that show
00:43:59
Speaker
I am totally adding it to my right now. I've got too many news podcasts. So I need I need something This will be nice because she's pretty she's pretty funny to like she just kind of energy acts it like she'll have the interview part then she kind of like will you know just interject, you know in post about something sometimes a stupid pun or a
00:44:19
Speaker
She comes in there to just kind of further sort of do a little exposition and maybe tighten up something that took the person 10 minutes to say and she'll say it in 20 seconds. So like she'll just kind of sum things up and then it goes back to the conversation and say it's really well done. I dig it. I think you'll dig it too.
00:44:36
Speaker
Oh, I can't wait. That's so exciting. Yay. Oh, I love having a new thing, you know. Once I get this rat story finished, I get to enjoy podcasts again. Cool. And I put out a feeler on the Patreon page asking for people who are there if they want to ask a question.
00:44:57
Speaker
And this is a question I've probably asked you in the past, but I do tend to ask about like envy and jealousy and resentment and that kind of thing. Because me, I'm just like the picture of avarice, right?
00:45:14
Speaker
And Betsy, who's a patron, she was actually at the CNF in Happy Hour that you were so gracious to join. And Betsy, woo hoo. Yeah, and she wrote in that, she says, I struggle with envy, jealousy, and sometimes resentment of other writers. And I'm curious if this happens to others or has happened and what makes them feel better about themselves.
00:45:37
Speaker
Well, I definitely experience it. I think it's okay to experience it. I think you can, in some respects, if you want, you can rename it. I think it's your ambition.
Creative Fulfillment and Reflections
00:45:50
Speaker
I think it's your drive, your interest, your fervor that makes you feel that way because
00:45:56
Speaker
these opportunities are all opportunities in the field that you have fallen in love with or at least fallen in like with. So I don't think you have, maybe if you rename it, you won't feel as bad about being jealous. But the other thing is like, it's hard for me to stay envious and jealous when I know that the things that they're doing I could never do.
00:46:23
Speaker
Everybody's writing projects are so uniquely their own. Even though we're both writers, and that's the thing that we could be jealous of is, oh, you got this grant, or you got this opportunity. I want that opportunity. There is no way that I could have done what that person did to get it, because it's just the only thing that I can do is the thing that I do. So then I just have to keep putting the energy into the thing that I do.
00:46:51
Speaker
because you can't compare the thing that I do to the thing that other people do. So I kind of do it that way, right? I go, it's okay to feel this way. It's okay to be ambitious. It's okay to want things, but also like remember what they're doing and what you're doing are not as similar as you think. They may both be called writing, but like you're on your own trip, so stay on your trip and come correct and then just keep moving forward.
00:47:19
Speaker
The other thing is I have had a modicum of success and it doesn't change the fact that those feelings exist. You know what I mean? You'll see some New York Times bestselling author complaining about some kind of thing that they think is piddling that you would give your eye teeth to have.
00:47:39
Speaker
You know, and it's like, well, and I, I remember thinking that, oh, when I get my first book out, I won't feel this way anymore. Or if I, if I ever got like a, a ward that was nationally publicized that I, or if I ever, if I got reviewed in the New York times, um, and it went okay. And you know, some of those things have happened to me and I still feel this way. So it's just like, it's not real. It doesn't mean anything about where you're at to feel this way. That's just platform after platform after platform of.
00:48:11
Speaker
of places where you might. And so then you can just go and do your thing. Just do your thing. Everybody, Betsy, everybody, just do your thing. Like. Yeah. Cause it's like what you said, Brendan, like.
00:48:22
Speaker
That woman who's hosting Ologies, the podcast, the thing that you love about her is that she's like following the nose of her own enthusiasms, right? Like that's the thing, one of the things that makes you want to keep listening and what makes people want to answer questions. And it's true, like that's the only thing that I love in the world really other than my cats. Like I love people's, I love chapping into what people do when they're left to their own devices. For me, that is just the best.
00:48:52
Speaker
leaving yourself to your own devices. For me, that's the highest art you can practice. I guess another thing is that jealousy and envy is really time consuming. And I don't have time. I'm spending too much time beating myself up for my own imperfections. I don't have time to be envious of other people's achievements. I got work to do.
00:49:18
Speaker
And you know, so maybe that's another thing that's kind of like helps me focus is like, there's, there's just too much that I want to get done to spend too much time. It's okay to feel that way and let yourself sort of have a couple of feelings, but then you got to keep moving on because tick tick, you know, tick tock.
00:49:34
Speaker
For sure. Daniel Kaluuya, I think that's how you pronounce his name, the actor. Yeah. He was on WTF a couple, maybe last week or two weeks ago. And he just said something that just was so perfect. And I think just cuts through the jealousy and the bullshit that's all that people deal with. And it's just like, I'm just paraphrasing, but he was just like, I just give myself 100% to the role. You know, I just I'm all in.
00:50:01
Speaker
And that's it. That's the reward. And there's no looking over his shoulder. He's just so invested in a role and in the work that he doesn't care about anything else. I was just like, yeah, when you give yourself over, what freedom that is, because you just left it all out there. And I did my best, and damn it, that's the reward.
00:50:23
Speaker
And I love that. Yeah. I have like a daily or a weekly calendar. It's just like a single page. And then I write all the things that I have to do every day. And lately I've been writing at the top of the page, not because of jealousy, but just because of like anxiety and fatigue and overwhelm. I've just wrote. I write work alone is your privilege. Never the fruits thereof. And I have no idea who fucking said it. But let's just say it was George Bernard Shaw, even though it wasn't or the Bible. I don't know. Or like, I don't know. Maybe it was like Missy Elliott or something.
00:50:53
Speaker
But, like, it's true that, like, it's true that, like, the thing that I am, you know, I'm going on, like, 20 years in this game, and I think the thing that I feel the most about when I look back on it is the fact that I got to do the work. The fact that I got to, like he said, throw myself into, you know, this stupid rat thing that's tearing the ass out of me right now.
00:51:17
Speaker
It's still like, I'm so glad that I talked to you. No shit, like I hit save, logged onto this thing with you and now I'm gonna log off and I've got to finish this. I have like 12 hours to finish this, but I'm so glad that we talked because it's true. Like I had to remind myself through rambling into this microphone at you that like, what a privilege to be able to let your body and your brain work. Like, what?
00:51:44
Speaker
It's just such a, I mean, maybe this is like the consumerist like weird economy that like has just driven me to be some kind of like pawn of capitalist labor or whatever. I still think it's a beautiful thing to be able to work. Fantastic. Well, Elena, thank you so much for doing this and best of luck with the rap piece. A sentence every writer hopes will be uttered.
00:52:12
Speaker
Thank you, and good luck with whatever non-rat-oriented professional material you're going to be working on this week, my good man. You got it. As always, what a pleasure. And let's do this again in a not too distant future. Yeah, I'll see you on the other side of the deadline.
Podcast Growth and Management
00:52:37
Speaker
Isn't she the best? She's overwhelmed. She's stressed out. She's got oatmeal brain. She's past deadline. And yet, she hopped on the phone to do a podcast with her friend just a little, a little ways down the five. And she's got that Shure SB7 microphone. She sounds even better than I do.
00:53:01
Speaker
the one
00:53:20
Speaker
chew on that one these days are overwhelming too much on my plate and I wonder why I can't seem to accomplish anything I don't even know how this podcast comes together week after week I swear there's a podcast gremlin that crawls out from the depths of my studio and puts it together right now I don't even know where I am I blacked out probably months ago and yet here we are
00:53:48
Speaker
I've got a few pitches out. I've got a one piece on spec that's out there to celebrate the 14th anniversary of the publishing of a four hour work week and it's titled How the Four Hour Work Week Ruined My Life. I've got my day job. I'm trying to sell the baseball book. I'm working on this ambitious wildfire piece. I'm in Seth Godin's Freelancers Workshop. I'm trying to sell my baseball book. Did I already say that?
00:54:16
Speaker
See, I'm trying to grow my client base a little bit. Yeah, I read for the podcast, read some shit for pleasure, whatever that means anymore. You know, work out, keep the house clean, walk the dog, don't get COVID. My mother's memory is like, really going. I mean, everything's a mess, man.
00:54:37
Speaker
At least I deleted all social media and email from my phone. So now it only plays podcasts, headspace, Spotify, texts and calls, and takes pictures of questionable quality. I recommend it. I only access social media and email from my desktop. Anyway.
00:54:56
Speaker
moving on. I'm reading Paul Jarvis' Company of One. I'll fill that one in the newsletter as a recommendation, but I figured I'll just talk about it here momentarily. This really speaks to me since I started Exit 3 Media, which puts together this podcast. To be frank, Exit 3 Media is just me. But anyway, it's probably a media company of one. And the main idea is that to stay nimble, small, resilient,
00:55:24
Speaker
Ask yourself often like what if you have enough and you set upper limits and you don't just try to you know laterally grow for growth sake you know what if you have enough.
00:55:37
Speaker
And isn't that a great question? I've been consumed with podcast growth, audience growth for years. I'd love to get to that sweet spot of like 20,000 downloads per episode. Depending on the guest, it's closer to 800 to 1,000 per month, well per episode, and then 6,000 roughly a month.
00:55:55
Speaker
For some podcaster, that's nice. I suspect for most, that's embarrassingly small and they're like, Brendan, you really shouldn't say that. It's pretty. You shouldn't be talking about that. It's not really that good. Maybe right now you're embarrassed for me and I'm sorry. I'm just being forthright. But what if that's enough? What if
00:56:21
Speaker
All we do is make this show better and better for the people who are already showing up. That's great. I can overlook how amazing that is that people even download this thing and listen to it and engage with it and share it and let me know and leave reviews and all that stuff. It's incredible. It is incredible.
00:56:40
Speaker
You know, what if I just did everything I could just to retain you, to keep your attention, to keep you from unsubscribing, to keep you in the loop, make something that excites you so that it's appointment listening and that come Friday, CNF Friday, if for some reason the show didn't publish, you'd be like,
00:56:58
Speaker
Where's my CNF? Where's BO? Where'd he go? Is he okay? Did he die? Did he get t-boned by a truck while he was on his bicycle? It could happen. It's almost happened. So that's a big reason why I put out feelers on Patreon for questions. So, you know, questions that you'd like me to ask.
00:57:19
Speaker
You know, I follow my own taste and I try to ask questions that are in service of the listener too that also challenge the guest. But it's primarily my own taste. And mostly that aligns with you guys because I'm in the mud too.
00:57:35
Speaker
But giving you some of that agency and credit for those, it's what this show's about. So you feel less alone, more empowered to go about the work and run your own CNF and race. And as Bronwyn Dickey would say, to plow your own acre. So please consider the Patreon community for all kinds of goodies. But just know that I'll make this show with the assumption that I've got enough.
00:57:58
Speaker
And then maybe the great irony there is, is that it will grow. But I'm not gonna worry about that. All I'm gonna worry about is making the best possible show for you, looking right at you. Yeah, yeah, you, you can, you can put your hand up, you can nod. I'm looking you right in the eye right now. Not making this weird or anything, but yes, you, I'm talking to you.
00:58:20
Speaker
So in any case, I'm grateful you're here and I'm gonna keep busting my ass for you. Be good? Well, that's good. Stay cool, CNFers. Stay cool forever. See ya.
00:58:47
Speaker
you