Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 121—Susan Orlean on Pacing, Structure, and 'The Library Book'
173 Plays6 years ago
Oh, hey, welcome to the show, CNFers, and, my, my, my are you in for a treat. Susan Orlean, @susanorlean on Twitter, a New Yorker staff writer and the best selling author of The Orchid Thief, Rin Tin Tin, and now her latest book, The Library Book, is out now. And it’s everything you’d expect from her work. But before we get to that, maybe you’re new to the show. Let me tell you what me and the voices in my head are up to here. This is The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to great artists about the craft of telling true stories: Leaders in narrative journalism, memoir, documentary film, essay, radio, and podcasting stop by so we can talk about their creative path and how they go about the work so you can apply those tips, tricks, and routines to your own work. Susan Orlean, susanorlean.com, came back to the show. I recommend listening to both her shows. Episode 61 talks a lot about her origin story as a writer and running your show like a business. This time around for Episode 121, she dives into her methods of structure and what her latest book—a book she never thought she’d write—is all about. Thanks to our sponsors, Goucher College’s MFA in Nonfiction and Creative Nonfiction magazine for the support. Be sure to give me a fist bump over on Twitter @BrendanOMeara and @CNFPod. You can like the Facebook page too if that’s where you spend your time. And if you have questions, feel free to reach out. Also, if you dig the show, consider sharing it with a friend or even write a short review over on iTunes/Apple Podcasts. If you head over to brendanomeara.com, not only will you find show notes for the podcast, but you will also be able to sign up for my monthly newsletter where I send out reading recommendations and other CNFin’ goodies. You’d enjoy getting something tasty in your inbox from me on the first of the month, head over to the site. Once a month. No spam. Can’t beat it.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
The Creative Nonfiction Podcast is sponsored by Goucher College's Master of Fine Arts in Nonfiction. The Goucher MFA is a two year, low residency program. Online classes let you learn from anywhere, while on campus residencies allow you
00:00:16
Speaker
to hone your craft with accomplishmenters who have pulled surprises and best-selling books to their names. The program boasts a nationwide network of students, faculty, and alumni. Which has published 140 books and counting, you'll get opportunities to meet literary agents and learn the ins and outs of the publishing journey.
00:00:38
Speaker
visit goucher.edu forward slash nonfiction to start your journey now. Take your writing to the next level and go from hopeful to published in Goucher's MFA program for nonfiction.
Guest Introduction: Susan Orlean
00:01:00
Speaker
of a welcome to the show scene efforts and my my my view and for three Susan or lean at Susan or lean on Twitter
00:01:15
Speaker
of the work of these rent in an hour latest book the library book is out now and it's everything you you'd expect from her work to exceptional exceptional narrative journals and I'm super excited for you to get to hear her talk about it but before we get to that maybe you're new to the show may be saw that Susan was on the show nearly
00:01:43
Speaker
the
00:02:01
Speaker
Stop by so we can talk about their creative paths and how they go about the work so you can apply those tips, tricks, and routines to your own work. I'm your host, Brendan O'Mara, hey hey again.
Brendan's Writing Challenges
00:02:13
Speaker
Amidst my at times physically grueling temp job, I somehow managed to file a feature this past week and let me tell you.
00:02:21
Speaker
it was a
00:02:44
Speaker
It doesn't have to be good, it just has to be good enough and I don't even know if this one was good enough. Often I rely on my central figure to provide me with more people to talk to and I can go out from there. My central figure in this case was incredibly elusive and once I finally was able to speak to them I had quite literally no time to chase down other sources to make this profile really pop.
00:03:07
Speaker
It's basically a two source profile, and I don't need to tell you that that leads to garbage. I filed it and moved on. I suggest you do the same. Anyway, Susan Orlean. You can find more about her at her website, susanorlean.com, and of course, go follow her on Twitter. She's very active on Twitter and offers incredible advice and is just an entertaining follow.
00:03:32
Speaker
She came back to the show. I recommend listening to both her shows. Episode 61 was when she came and talked a lot about her origin story as a writer and running your operation like a business, like the business it is. This time around for episode 121, she dives into her methods of structure and what her latest book, a book she never thought she'd write, is all about. That sounds fun.
Promotion and Publicity: Susan's New Book
00:04:03
Speaker
One more sponsorship announcement. Today's podcast is also brought to you by Creative Nonfiction Magazine. For nearly 25 years, Creative Nonfiction has been fuel for nonfiction writers and storytellers, publishing a lively blend of exceptional long and short form nonfiction narratives and interviews.
00:04:22
Speaker
as well as columns that examine the craft, style, trends, and ethics of writing true stories. In short, creative non-fiction is true stories well told. Well, I believe in that. At long last, let's do the show episode 121 with the incomparable Susan Orly.
00:04:53
Speaker
Now it gets old when you get to this phase where it's been done, you've done the work, and now you get to talk it up and do the circuit and really celebrate it, so to speak. Yeah, it doesn't get old. I mean, it's thrilling. It's absolutely thrilling. And each time it's something new. It's a new experience. So I think it's a little like
00:05:21
Speaker
childbirth, you know, I think nobody, no matter how many children they have, they never say, yeah, it's kind of done it. It's poor. It's old. It just doesn't feel that way. It feels new each time and very exciting.
00:05:42
Speaker
Very nice.
Susan's Daily Rituals
00:05:43
Speaker
Well, I think a really good place to start, and this is a tweet you sent out a while ago. It had something to do with fasting, but you were still drinking coffee. And you made a really funny comment about it. You don't want to be seen or interacted with unless you've had your coffee. And I wonder what your coffee ritual is and how you approach that every day.
00:06:10
Speaker
Um, it's, it's the start of the morning, much as the sun rises, my coffee machine gets turned on and I've, I have a cappuccino in the morning, which is a pleasure.
00:06:27
Speaker
I have upped my intake slightly where I'll have two instead of just one, but I feel like I'm entitled. And I don't know why. I simply feel that I'm okay having two. And though I will say I don't drink coffee through the rest of the day. If it's around, if it's offered to me, I'll have it. But I very rarely make coffee
00:06:59
Speaker
Once the morning has begun, I very, very rarely make another pot of coffee.
00:07:08
Speaker
Yeah, what's appealing about it is the ritual around it as well, not just the caffeine bump. I favor, in the summer and even into the winter, I favor the cold brew process. I love getting that concentrate. It's really smooth and all that, but also just French press and just going through grinding the beans and boiling the water and letting it steep. That whole ritual around it, I feel, is just a nice warm way to warm up to the day.
00:07:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's something that engages you without requiring a lot of mental effort, which is a great combination. It's nicely distracting without really requiring you to be wide awake.
00:07:55
Speaker
Yeah, of course. Yeah, it's great. So yeah, I know I've got I've got my coffee going. I'm sure you've had your two cappuccinos by now. So I have. Yeah.
Inspiration from the Library Fire
00:08:05
Speaker
And there are so many there are so many great points. So many passages highlighted from the library book that I wanted to like,
00:08:13
Speaker
expand upon some of the the themes that you're talking about in the book and also just themes of of writing and how you approach the work too and I've been really like mulling over how I wanted to start this and I think maybe a good place to start is that you know there was a passage in the book where you said right before learning about the library fire of the Los Angeles Public Library you had decided you were done writing books and
00:08:41
Speaker
Of course, I think you brought your son to the library and suddenly you saw basically yourself telegraphed to your own childhood, your relationship to your parents and then your love of books and all of a sudden that was kind of the spark. So why did you feel you were done with books and then what was that moment like when you're like, no, this is the book I have to write now?
00:09:06
Speaker
I spend so much time when I'm writing my books, I end up maybe taking anywhere between three and five years on each book. It's a huge commitment.
00:09:23
Speaker
And it hangs over me while I'm working on it without any relief until I'm done. You know, it just is there and something that I'm thinking about constantly while I have it hanging over me, unfinished. So when I finished Rin Tin Tin, I thought, I just don't know if I can do this again. It's so exhausting. It's so demanding. And
00:09:51
Speaker
Will I ever find a subject that is as compelling? You know, I just felt like I don't need to do this. I've written a lot of books. I'm proud of them, but I'm done. And I really did believe that. And I mentioned this to a number of friends who said, okay. And I said, you know, don't let me write another book. I'm done. I don't want to do another book. It's just simply too
00:10:22
Speaker
exhausting. When this story presented itself to me, the fact is that I wasn't done being a writer. And writers look at the world a certain way, which is you hear about something and your impulses, I want to write about it, I want to learn about it. And so I was still in the world with that state of mind.
00:10:52
Speaker
Certainly. I mean, that, that had not changed. And I thought I'll write magazine pieces. I'm just not going to engage in something that's going to be a five year project. But the minute I heard about this and the minute I was having this experience of re reconnecting with libraries, it was almost as if I had no choice in the matter. It just was.
00:11:22
Speaker
the book I had to write. It felt like a book that had to be written. And I kept thinking I, you know, it just was such a great story that I couldn't not write it. And I remember one friend saying to me, I thought you weren't going to write any more books. And I thought, well, that's true. I did say that I did. You know, you're right. I did say it, but here I am. And
00:11:53
Speaker
I can't resist this, essentially. And she still sort of teases me about it, but it was very, it was, you know, my thought that I wasn't going to write another book was very sincere. I mean, it wasn't filled with bitterness or any sort of, not so much unhappiness as the feeling of, I just don't want to do this again. It's too exhausting.
00:12:23
Speaker
for me to dive back into something as consuming as a book.
00:12:31
Speaker
It's similar to people
Storytelling Approach and Structure
00:12:33
Speaker
who are serial entrepreneurs or even chefs. And it's like the ones who make it in whatever those disciplines are, it's almost like they just can't, they can't help it. So it's almost like this, you said, you know, you had written off books, but it was like, but you just couldn't, the story was too good and it just, it's been in your blood for over 30 years and it's,
00:13:01
Speaker
You just couldn't help it exactly and you know, it's I think the thing about being a writer is It's a state of mind. It's not it's a way of being in the world that you then turn into a vocation and
00:13:25
Speaker
I think most writers just look at the world a certain way and interact with the world in a certain way. And I became a writer because that is how I am in the world rather than I'm that way of being only because I'm a writer. I mean, it was definitely
00:13:51
Speaker
I think that my curiosity, my desire to answer questions about events and places and situations is why I became a writer rather than the other way around. I didn't become curious because I decided to be a writer. So it's really hard to
00:14:18
Speaker
to stop being that person because that's who I am. And when I'm curious about something, inevitably my thought is, oh, that's such a good story. You know, that's just kind of my, my response to, to interesting things is thinking, oh, that's a great story. And, oh, I want to learn about it and then tell other people about it. It's a, it's a,
00:14:47
Speaker
an impulse that feels very embedded in who I am. So this was a story where, first of all, I was moved emotionally by this reconnection with libraries and suddenly thinking, oh my gosh, I have such profound feelings about libraries. They're very, it's just so deep in my, in my memories and in my emotions, and I
00:15:17
Speaker
really hadn't realized it. And then learning about this amazing story of the fire in LA made it feel so compelling because then there was a narrative. It wasn't merely that I was enjoying the idea of, oh, I want to write about what it was like to go to the library with my mother, but here's this narrative that is fascinating.
00:15:46
Speaker
whether or not I had this emotional connection and the combination felt irresistible. The elements of surprise in this story were really cool. Just in the science of stoichiometric conditions for fire and water essentially being more damaging than fire. If you had to choose your disaster, they would actually choose fire.
00:16:16
Speaker
And last time we spoke, you were talking a lot about a story going in with certain expectations. And if those expectations don't change somewhat, then it's probably not that interesting a story. So I wonder what your expectations might have been going into this, and then what changed and surprised you and made it all the more interesting as you kept going through your reporting and research.
00:16:43
Speaker
Well, this was really fascinating and unfolding as I was working on it in almost every way. I mean, to begin with, learning the story of the fire at all was not what I was expecting. When I first thought, oh, I really want to write a book about libraries, I didn't think, oh, and this one almost burned to the ground.
00:17:12
Speaker
Um, a few things, uh, you know, and initially I assumed Harry peak was alive and that I would get to talk to him and find out what it was like for him to be accused of this crime. And even that just from the beginning to discover he had passed away through me. And initially I thought, well, now what do I do? He's.
00:17:40
Speaker
He's not alive. I hadn't anticipated that. The conclusiveness of the investigation or lack of conclusiveness was also really significant and unexpected. You know, I knew someone had been arrested. I didn't expect to learn that the
00:18:09
Speaker
that he was never indicted. And then the entire story of the follow-up in terms of the city suing him. And, you know, that was all completely unexpected. So I suddenly found myself in the middle of a story that had this very novel legal component that I hadn't expected. The story,
00:18:37
Speaker
I think more than almost any other story, I was new to Los Angeles. I knew nothing about the library. So everything I learned surprised me. And everything I learned kept changing my sense of what the book was about because I really entered this with
00:19:05
Speaker
I would say I start all of my books with very little knowledge, but in this case, it really felt like I was learning from ground zero, everything about the history of the city, about the history of the library, about libraries in general. It all felt like I had to remain really nimble and able to change
00:19:32
Speaker
I originally thought there was a big fire, it was an arson, they must have arrested someone and he must be in jail. Well, none of those turned out to be true and the reasons for it became even more interesting.
00:19:48
Speaker
There's a great passage you wrote that kind of just echoes – I made me think of Joan Didion the way she wrote about – or writes about California too, and it's – you write that California seemed like a promise, a flawless golden abundance in the space between the ocean and the mountains and the desert.
00:20:07
Speaker
And that was just such a lovely, lovely sentence. And it just, um, and what made me think of that in the, just in the context of what you're saying was when you kind of started this book, you were fairly new to California. So what was that?
Discovering Los Angeles
00:20:21
Speaker
What was that like as you started to get acquainted with a new city and a new city that with this hub of a library at its core?
00:20:31
Speaker
I highly recommend writing a book about the new city you've moved to as a way of getting to know it very quickly because, you know, you, you are forced to not only find your way around, which is kind of funny. I mean, in part, you're suddenly interviewing people all over the city and man, you know, you, you're kind of required to be get out there.
00:20:59
Speaker
But it also meant learning the history of Los Angeles and feeling my newness to the city. The fact that the famous names, the people who are iconic figures in the history of the city were all strangers to me.
00:21:26
Speaker
There's been great writing about California. That's intimidating, of course. I felt like I had to simply take a deep breath and I'm not, you know, Joan Didion grew up here. Her family has deep roots in California. She knows it as a native. So I felt that I had to be very,
00:21:55
Speaker
kind of honest and authentic about the fact that I'm not from here. I was learning the city and learning the history of the city as I was writing the book and that the book doesn't present itself as with that deep kind of pioneers knowledge of the place, but instead,
00:22:25
Speaker
the sort of wonder and surprise that a newcomer can bring to it. I mean, I find Los Angeles amazing and there is a certain advantage to being a newcomer when you're writing about a place because you don't take anything for granted. You're not jaded. You don't assume that people know X, Y, and Z because you yourself are learning X, Y, and Z.
00:22:55
Speaker
So I feel like there's an advantage to it. As intimidating as it is to write about a place that's been written about so much, the advantage was all of it was fresh to me, all of it was new.
00:23:16
Speaker
Yeah, there's probably a certain level of intimidation of approaching any subject that's been written about a lot. I often think about the countless biographies like Abraham Lincoln or something, yet there's always another angle, but there's always...
00:23:35
Speaker
It's, it's still filtered through the taste of that author. So like no matter what LA book that you were choosing to write, it was always going to be new and unique to the LA canon because it's still, it's coming through your prism. So no one else can write this type of LA book and library book like you can. It's well, thank you. And yeah, I think that when they're, you know, the,
00:24:06
Speaker
The books written about California are really extraordinary. And there is just volume after volume of really brilliant books written about the history and sociology of this place. And it's a subject that keeps being returned to over and over again because it's a fascinating place. It's also a huge place with a huge history.
00:24:34
Speaker
And I think as a writer, I'm always writing about subjects about which there are experts. And I'm not an expert. I don't pretend to be an expert. What I'm an expert at is exploring a new subject and talking to readers about what I've discovered. And
00:25:04
Speaker
That's my expertise, not on the topic itself. And I feel like I'm comfortable acknowledging the limits of what I've learned. There is always someone who knows more than I do about orchids, about German shepherds, about silent films, about libraries, and I'm okay with that. I'm not competing with the experts.
00:25:33
Speaker
So in the case of writing about California, there are historians, there are people who have made this their life's work to write about California. It was important for me to remind myself that I was not competing with them, that I was telling this story through my perspective and that
00:26:02
Speaker
That was legitimate. Yeah. And that's the kind of the beauty of what, what you do and what the, the trade of this kind of narrative journalism can can provide is that you can take that deep dive and go find the experts, talk to them, learn it, then wash your hands of it. And then maybe write a long article on like the number two pencil or something. Yeah, exactly. And I think that there's, um,
00:26:31
Speaker
there's a role to be played by somebody who is a storyteller, who goes, who translates the expertise into narrative. And that it's very important to remember, I mean, and I'm saying this as a pep talk to myself,
00:26:54
Speaker
that you often enter into those worlds and feel really daunted by the fact that there are people who know it so well. But that's not, my job is to know it in a holistic way and to craft a story that's compelling and engaging for a general reader. Not that it doesn't have to have the depth of
00:27:24
Speaker
expertise but that I am not suddenly I mean at this point I do know a lot about libraries and I do know a lot about the history of Los Angeles but it's my job is to be the storyteller and that's that's my expertise and knowing how to get the facts and organize them
00:27:49
Speaker
That segues perfectly into what I want to ask you next. And with respect to this book, what were you struggling with and how did you deal with that ugly grind, and this could apply to any book, but this one in particular, that sort of ugly grind in the middle of the draft when, as I like to say, you're too far away to turn back home and you're in the middle of the ocean, you can see the lighthouse out there, but it's really far away.
00:28:18
Speaker
How did you muscle through that and deal with that middle part of the drafting process? You're giving me PTSD because that's the worst part. I love writing leads, so I always, in the beginning, feel like, whoa, wow, this is fun. And when you've gotten through to the point where you can truly see the finish line,
00:28:49
Speaker
That's really energizing, but you're very correct in calling it the ugly grind because in that middle, and I think this is where a lot of books really fall apart.
00:29:04
Speaker
In the middle, you can feel like you're floundering. I mean, it's like being in the lake in the very middle of the lake. You're not near the shoreline and you're not near the raft that's floating 100 yards away. You're really in it. And that's where a lot of books get very boring and get just flabby. I had...
00:29:33
Speaker
One great advantage is that I structured this book so that I was moving among three timelines. So I never felt that I was sinking deep into that dark, mucky middle that felt, you know, and for a reader, you get into the middle of a book and sometimes you feel it as the reader.
00:29:58
Speaker
All right, this has been going on for a while and now what? And it's that sense of you need momentum in the middle that feels really fresh. Otherwise it does feel for the reader and the writer like, whoa, man, where, where have I been and where am I going? And I sure better get there in a hurry.
00:30:25
Speaker
I think that switching among these multiple timelines meant that it never sucked down into that muddy hole. I could switch up in particular because I had the timeline of the present day library that's very anecdotal and very scenic.
00:30:54
Speaker
and almost filmic. I went and spent time in every department in the library. And each of those sections is, you know, they're very lively. They're funny. They're, they feel very immediate. And so as I, you know, I'm sinking deeper and deeper into that middle of the book and I'm,
00:31:20
Speaker
you know, once in a while I'd think, geez, I'm just still in 1950. And I, you know, I've got to get all the way to 2018 in this timeline. And then I think, oh, well, maybe it's time now to switch back to another one of these small chapters set in the present day. And it helped both as a writing exercise, those chapters were
00:31:47
Speaker
much more fun to write because it was really like writing a screenplay almost. And they're very descriptive and they've got a lot of dialogue. And I felt that for a reader, it was a relief to emerge out of the deeper history into the present day.
00:32:09
Speaker
How did you map out your manuscript in a sense so you could look at the proportionality of your timelines and make sure one didn't get too heavy at a certain section and it did feel in proportion over the course of the whole book?
00:32:28
Speaker
And that was very important to me because, you know, I didn't want it to seem sort of randomly scattered. I wanted it to feel rhythmic that you would move in and out of these different timeframes. I used, you know, in a way, some of that is very mechanical. I have all of my notes on five by seven index cards.
00:32:56
Speaker
And I literally laid them out so I could see, oh, this section is, this has 30 cards and the section next to it only has five cards. Well, that's too much. I need to break up the 30 cards, um, so that it doesn't go on for too long in this.
00:33:21
Speaker
deep history and say the early 1900s, I need to break that chapter up and move into the present day instead. So I was really pacing it out with my index cards to see literally that there was a balance from one section to the other. That's really, really cool. Are they color coded in any way?
00:33:51
Speaker
Well, I tried to do color coding a little bit but then it gets confusing because I can't remember what the color stood for and the only thing that worked for me was that I used red for any
00:34:13
Speaker
cards that were specifically related to the story of the fire and that I could remember but none of the other colors had any real they I couldn't remember what they were for so I stopped using them and I simply I do use different colors of Sharpie just so that it doesn't just because I think if you have a
00:34:40
Speaker
500 cards that are all written with black pen. It's harder to remember, Oh, I'm looking for that card that had such and such a phrase on it. If you write in different colors, you have a little bit of a visual memory and you think, Oh yeah, it was green. It was written in green. And then you can kind of look through the cards more quickly. Um, and they're all numbered, but
00:35:11
Speaker
What I ended up doing is as they began making sense to me thematically, I would write on the top of the card what theme that card related to, whether it was the fire, whether it was present day, whether it was history of the LA library itself,
00:35:37
Speaker
whether it was, you know, what timeframe it referred to so that they did have titles that helped me keep them organized. And are you taping these to your wall or do you have a big cork board for them so you can see it all mapped out? Well, I worked in a couple of different places while I was writing. When I was working in my office at my house, I had a big giant cork board and I hung
00:36:07
Speaker
whatever section I was working on, I hung up, but I didn't have quite enough space to
00:36:17
Speaker
Well, no, that's not true. I first organized them all on the cork board. Then I took them down and rubber banded them in their different groups. And then I would pin up whichever chapter I was working on. I'd pin those cards up on the cork board and then take them down when I was ready to start the next section and pin that one up instead.
00:36:43
Speaker
When I spent a certain amount of time writing the book at my house in New York, and we have a gigantic dining room table, every writer's dream. It's just a huge, huge, huge table. And I was able to spread out a lot of my notes on the table.
00:37:03
Speaker
and have them all out at once, which was really a pleasure. Not all of them, because I simply had too many cards. But I was able to have a large number spread out in front of me, and I would have the ones I was working on close to me, and then the other ones more in the periphery. But it was kind of a dream to have such a big table to work on.
00:37:28
Speaker
That's really cool. I love digging into this kind of structure, how it maps out. When I was talking to Earl Swift a couple weeks ago about his latest book, he was just saying a lot of this is engineering. It's structure, it's process.
00:37:48
Speaker
the inspiration often can come as you're writing, but you really do have to be sort of systematic about laying these things out and seeing cards and being able to move them around. John McPhee uses index cards as it has for his whole career. And so you get a sense of that it is, it's manageable, and there is a blueprint behind it. And then you remove the scaffolding at the end and hopefully the reader doesn't see it, but it is there for you during the process. Absolutely. I think that
00:38:18
Speaker
It doesn't take away from the art to say that there's a lot of craft involved and a lot of mechanics involved. You don't just sit down and say, okay, I'm starting my book and start writing. And I think many people, I mean, to me structure is the biggest challenge, both in a piece of writing that's say magazine length,
00:38:47
Speaker
And definitely in the case of a book, structure is what you rise and fall on. It's very hard to, I can't imagine writing without developing a structure that helps you figure out where the information goes and when and how. So it, it's a comfort to me.
00:39:17
Speaker
to be grappling with the mechanical kind of moving cards around. And then once I have that structure, it feels that I can write, I can be eloquent more easily when I know that I've got this skeleton
00:39:42
Speaker
and the infrastructure of the book there for me. And it's almost liberating to think, well, I know where I'm going. Now I can just enjoy the luxurious part, which is the writing of beautiful sentences. And you know where those sentences go, which is, that's what makes the writing of it
00:40:11
Speaker
fun to do. You know where they go, you know what they're heading to and you can relax within it. It's almost like being on a road trip with a destination and you have a map and then you can look out and enjoy the scenery.
00:40:31
Speaker
If you're driving aimlessly and you're not exactly sure where you're going, I think it's very hard to look out the window and comment on the beauty of what you're passing because you're distracted trying to think, where am I going? Yeah. How long can you write in a given day without getting tired? I would say, well, when I was really on a roll, I was writing
00:41:02
Speaker
from morning, starting at 10 a.m. till 10 at night. But that's an unusual thing. I had nothing distracting me, nothing. And I was really energized and I felt like, wow, I know where I'm going. And I was able to really, truly do
00:41:26
Speaker
12 hours, but that's unusual. I think it's exhausting to write for more than, I think eight is kind of exhausting. This was a sort of unusual time where I felt really like I understood my structure and I could just write. I would say a typical day, six hours is quite a significant amount of time.
00:41:55
Speaker
I tend to look at word count more than hours. I'm always aiming to do a thousand words a day. And after six hours, I'm pretty beat.
00:42:09
Speaker
If you write in the book too that libraries are an easy place if you want to desire to be invisible, which I like, because anytime I go to the library it is kind of nice just to kind of disappear into your own little cocoon, which is great, but often sometimes as a writer, as you well know, that you spend a lot of time alone, and it can get lonely, and if you're by yourself often,
00:42:35
Speaker
The those voices will creep in your head those self-doubt voices and as someone who's done this for a long time How do you fight off loneliness and self-doubt when you're in the throes of this process when you're so often on your own? I Think it's really difficult You know and I rely on
00:42:59
Speaker
my family and friends just as a kind of antidote to that time alone. I'm not sure that you can fight it off. I think it's very lonely to be sitting and writing. It's not a collaborative process.
00:43:23
Speaker
while you can give work to people to read, nobody can write it for you and nobody can write it with you exactly. So, there's a sort of solitariness that is necessary and it can feel very, very lonely. I think what's really important is that when you're not in front of the computer that you
00:43:45
Speaker
You shake off that sense of solitude and make sure that you're around human beings because otherwise you can get really lost in your own head. I mean, one thing that I liked was I work at home and there are times when I really miss just being able to walk
00:44:12
Speaker
out and see other people and chat for five minutes. And for me, the equivalent of that would be to jump on social media and chat for a few minutes and then go back to my work. And I know that that seems absurd that social media could keep you from feeling lonely, but
00:44:34
Speaker
It is almost like being in an office and wandering out of your office just to sort of shoot the breeze for 10 minutes and then go back into your office and work again. So I certainly, many of my breaks would be to jump on Twitter or Facebook for 10 minutes and kind of interact with other people and then go back to my work.
00:45:04
Speaker
Yeah, that connection is so key and community to just having that network. And also, there's a part in the book where, of course, this was a book about the library in LA, but in so many ways, it was a connection of you solidifying a certain
00:45:29
Speaker
memory and almost a dedication to your mom in a sense and you were losing your mom in the process of this book and How how important was this book and how much was it motivated by your mother?
Personal Connections to Libraries
00:45:45
Speaker
You know, it was so wrapped up in my memories of her and and
00:45:57
Speaker
realizing how much those trips together had meant as a sort of staple of my childhood and as some of the happiest moments that I spent with her. And I think now that I look back, I certainly would never have imagined that she would pass away before the book came out. I mean, it was unexpected. I mean, she was old, but
00:46:27
Speaker
when she passed away, it turned out it was very fast. So it couldn't be separated from what, I mean, this book can't be separated from what I was going through in my personal life in terms of losing my mom.
00:46:55
Speaker
And it was also strangely related. Libraries are repositories of memories. I mean, stories, memories, knowledge. And as my mom really descended into dementia and was losing her memory, it was
00:47:17
Speaker
I think it really affected me and it made me think so much about memory and about preserving stories and preserving memory, which is really the role of libraries. I don't think I thought of it overtly, but when I sat down to write that idea of saving a memory for posterity struck me very deeply. And I know that's why.
00:47:47
Speaker
Yeah, you write also that the idea of being forgotten is terrifying. Not that I personally will be forgotten, but that we are all doomed to be forgotten. That the sum of life is ultimately nothing. That we experience joy and disappointment and aches and delights and loss.
00:48:03
Speaker
make our little mark on the world and then we vanish and the mark is erased and it is as if we never existed and if you gaze into that bleakness even for a moment the sum of life becomes null and void because if nothing lasts nothing matters
00:48:18
Speaker
And that's such a wonderful passage and it is on its surface kind of grim. And how did you, like when you write something like that, how do you pull yourself back out of it so you do see the light out of that darkness? Well, and that was probably the sum and total of that feeling of deep
00:48:47
Speaker
sadness that, you know, as I began feeling that, you know, when someone dies, this feeling of they're just gone, they're gone and all the memories they have are gone and all your experiences with them seem to amount to nothing. And of course that's not true. It does amount to something and it amounts to the character of who you are and
00:49:15
Speaker
I think that it made me begin to feel that we do change the world by being in it. And not everybody is a writer, of course, and not everybody has a story in a book that sits in the library that will be there forever. But it was realizing that, well, we all changed the world, that everybody
00:49:44
Speaker
inflex the way life proceeds. And even if you go back and watch something like It's a Wonderful Life, and there are these two realities, one in which George lives and one in which he doesn't, and the imagined world in which he jumps off the bridge, and all of the things that he
00:50:15
Speaker
affected in his life change. I mean, I think there's a truth to that, that it's important to remember. And that was really what made me feel that yes, all efforts, all gestures do matter, and it's not for nothing. And whether you write a book or whether it's simply that you
00:50:44
Speaker
turn a corner at some point in your life that makes a difference and you know it's the butterfly flapping its wings and Brazil that you know sets off a nuclear bomb in Russia or whatever that that great kind of meme is and you know it was a sad time for me I mean losing seeing my mother decline and then
00:51:13
Speaker
her death was made. Writing this book probably has a little more melancholy than it would have otherwise.
00:51:24
Speaker
Yeah. And what you were alluding to also that libraries are these, these archival places that do preserve memory. So in a sense, this was, this was, you know, your attempt at preserving something, if not for everybody else, at least for yourself as the one chained to, to the memories. And you are the library of your experiences with, you know, your family and your mother. Yeah.
00:51:54
Speaker
Well, it was, yes, yeah. I assume that part of the reason that I started writing the book was unconsciously motivated by feeling that I was recapturing, I was giving myself permission to think about all of those wonderful,
00:52:23
Speaker
trips that we took together to the library. So it was like giving myself permission to just sort of savor those memories. And for me, savoring a memory inevitably leads to writing something. And this strange, marvelous, unexpected story of the library fire made that feel even more
00:52:52
Speaker
necessary really to write this book. You wrote a great tweet not too long ago. I was favoriting a bunch because there were some really great talking points. It was like 90% of writing is having the confidence to believe in your own voice and in the fact that you have something to say.
00:53:18
Speaker
What do you think comes first or what's most important having something to say or having the voice to convey said said things? Well, I think that what comes first is the confidence this this sense that you think
00:53:38
Speaker
I mean, it sounds very corny to say, but that you kind of own this position of being a storyteller, of being able to say, everyone listen for a minute, I've got a great story to tell. And that requires a sense of confidence that doesn't come that easily. Once that confidence is there, once you feel that you've
00:54:04
Speaker
Acknowledge yourself as a teller of stories and and someone who is worth listening to the voice to me ultimately comes out of It's a very natural thing. It's not something that you construct. It's your voice. It's The the way I mean we all know how to talk everybody knows how to talk everyone knows and
00:54:34
Speaker
Everyone has a way of describing their life and telling stories. The confidence really then fills you with the capacity to just channel that really natural voice that you already have. I don't believe it's something that you construct.
00:55:03
Speaker
I think really it's simply unlocking your ability to talk in a natural way about things you've learned or care about or want to share with other people.
00:55:23
Speaker
And this being your seventh book, and you've also written countless long profiles and features. With this book in particular, what do you find that you're still learning and still improving with the craft of writing and reporting and putting together these true stories? Well, I feel like I'm definitely
00:55:51
Speaker
always learning about structure, always. And part of that is because every book is different. So every book, um, or even every article begins, you have to create structure from, from zero. It's like, you can't use the same blueprint over and over and over again. So I feel like I'm getting better at structure, but it's the thing that I'll never stop wanting to learn and to
00:56:22
Speaker
experiment with and feel like I'm more capable of doing well. I feel like I've also learned to be a little bit, I've learned how to slow down and I feel like I
00:56:47
Speaker
My natural instinct is to compress everything and to rush because I'm afraid I'll lose people's interests. And I've been working hard at slowing down, at getting the pacing, feeling a little more control over the pacing of the story and not rushing through and not feeling so compelled.
00:57:15
Speaker
to have everything move at a crazy rapid pace. So I'm, you know, I'm, but I feel like, wow, I have, I'm all, I have so much to still learn and every new project is a, there's a new, I mean, you can take the lessons you learn
00:57:43
Speaker
and apply them in each new story. But every new story, you have a new set of facts, you have a new set of circumstances, a new narrative, so you kind of have to learn all over again each time. I mean, that's part of what makes it very interesting.
00:58:05
Speaker
It really means that the lessons learned help, but each time you're starting a little bit from scratch, a little bit from, okay, I'm starting a new jigsaw puzzle. Here are all the parts. Uh, I've learned from doing other puzzles that it's good to start on the edges because that's easy and work inward and organize things by color.
00:58:32
Speaker
but it's a new puzzle and it, all the parts are different shapes from the puzzle I just did. So I'm going to have to use some real new fresh eyes on this to figure out how to make it work. And you, you wrote in the book that you were done writing books. Will you write another one?
00:58:56
Speaker
Oh, that's a tough question.
Future Writing Endeavors
00:58:59
Speaker
Well, I'm in that glow right now of thinking, oh, God, it's so wonderful to write books. I should do another one. But I'm a million miles from having any sense of what that might be and when it would be and how it would be. So for the moment, I'll just leave it as an open question.
00:59:24
Speaker
Well, your latest book, it's a treasure. It's everything we've come to expect from a Susan Orlean story. It expands everything that you thought you knew about something into something compelling and wonderful and engaging. So I just want to thank you for the work and thank you for coming back on the show to talk about it and your process. Thanks so much, Susan.
00:59:47
Speaker
Thank you and I'm really thrilled to be on the show and I'm so honored by your thoughts about the book. It really makes me feel great, so thank you.
01:00:04
Speaker
I'll tell you what, she needs, needs, needs to keep writing books, am I right? If nothing else, I need the excuse to keep speaking with Susan. Again, she's at Susan Orlean on Twitter, and you can find more about her and her work at susanorlean.com. Thanks again to our sponsors, Goucher Colleges, MFA, and Nonfiction, and Creative Nonfiction Magazine for the support. Big fist bumps to that.
01:00:33
Speaker
Be sure, speaking of fist bumps, give me one over on Twitter at Brendan O'Mara and at CNF pod. You can like the Facebook page, creative nonfiction podcast or at CNF pod host on Facebook too. If that's where you spend your time.
01:00:53
Speaker
and if you have questions, feel free to reach out. Maybe I can help. Also, if you dig the show, consider sharing it with a CNF and buddy. Or consider writing a short review over on iTunes or Apple Podcasts or whatever the hell they call themselves these days. If you head over to BrendanOmera.com, not only will you find show notes for the podcast,
01:01:17
Speaker
I'm sorry, just swallowed in the microphone, that's gross, I'll edit that out. But you will also be able to sign up for my monthly newsletter where I send out reading recommendations and other CNFing goodies. If you enjoy getting something tasty in your inbox from me on the first of the month,
01:01:35
Speaker
head over the site once a month, no spam, can't beat it. I'm Gasp friends, like rung out in Gasp. I'm coming off of a night shift work, bro. I worked 5 p.m. to 4 a.m., so I'm a bit loopy in Gasp. I hope you have a great week. Go, Socks! And remember, if you can't do Interview, see ya!