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Episode 197: Eva Holland — Coping by Going into Reporter Mode
130 Plays5 years ago
"I knew right away I would be writing about my mom's death. I knew that immediately," says Eva Holland, author of Nerve: Adventures in the Science of Fear (The Experiment, 2020).
Eva Holland is a freelancer features writer whose work has appeared Outside, Wired and Best American Science and Nature Writing, to name a few.
You can follow her @evaholland on Twitter.
In this episode we talk about:
- Next-level freelance advice
- Dealing with imposter syndrome
- Blending memoir and reportage
- And much more
Follow the show @CNFPod on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Head over to brendanomeara.com for show notes and to subscribe to my monthly newsletter.
Email the show creativenonfictionpodcast@gmail.com with questions. And, if you're feeling kind, consider leaving a kind review on Apple Podcasts.
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Transcript
Introduction and Motivation
00:00:00
Speaker
I knew right away that I would be writing about my mom's death. I knew that immediately.
00:00:10
Speaker
Alright, CNFers, you ready to rock and roll? Oh yeah, baby, we're feeling good over here. This is CNF, the creative non-fiction podcast where I speak to badass people about the art and craft of telling true stories, where they came from, how they became the writers they are, in some cases filmmakers, and what they're working on. Make sure you're subscribed wherever you get your podcasts and follow the show at CNFpod
00:00:39
Speaker
on all the social media platforms. Share the show if it means something to you CNFers. Even better, ping the show on social or email me.
Podcast Promotion and Engagement
00:00:49
Speaker
Let me know what resonated with you most. Let's keep the conversation going beyond the podcast.
00:00:57
Speaker
Also, be sure to subscribe to my monthly newsletter where I send out reading recommendations and other cool articles and news you might have missed from the world of the podcast. I also raffle off books to subscribers, free of cost if you are subscribed and currently receiving the newsletter and don't unsubscribe. Take it personally.
00:01:18
Speaker
You're in the raffle every month so as long as you're on the list you're in the raffle I just kind of go through I just picked somebody random like you want this book cuz I'm gonna mail it to you and they're like Hell yeah, and so that's what happens So that's it once
Interview with Eva Holland
00:01:33
Speaker
a month. No spam as far as I can tell can't beat it Eva Holland's a subscriber their newsletter and she is back on the show and
00:01:42
Speaker
Her second rodeo after nearly a oh what almost? 185 episode gap between between shows she was episode 15. She is now 197 She's got a book out nerve Adventures in the science of fear it is published by the experiment
00:02:06
Speaker
I'll tell you, I don't think I need to tell you, but I'll tell you anyway, Eva is a kick-ass freelance features writer. You can listen to her first rodeo on this podcast in episode 15, but let me tell you, it's painful going for the first bit. I mean, she was great. I was not. I'll leave those, you know, this is why I leave those old rough episodes up.
00:02:30
Speaker
You know, those early ones just to show you how shitty you can be and still pursue creative work and even make an effect. Some change in the world, or at least inspire people and build a little community around something. Doesn't always have to be super polished. In fact, early on, it'll be quite rough, but you keep going. You get to keep playing the game.
00:02:53
Speaker
You hear this well-oiled, picture-perfect, podcast-fundamental going down before you? Well, let's just say it wasn't always so smooth. But we'll get to Eva shortly.
00:03:09
Speaker
did you know cnfpod is publishing its first audio mag well we are and we want to start and we want your best work we don't know this could be once this could be quarterly who the heck knows the in the email inbox
00:03:24
Speaker
is slowly starting to fill up with some submissions. The theme is social distancing, essays from and on isolation, word limit is 2,000 words, which is about a 15 minute read, deadline is May 1st, and bear in mind, you're writing for the ear, pro tip right there. It's gotta be good, gotta be true, and I can't wait to read what you've got.
00:03:52
Speaker
So yeah, so let me take this time, I want to thank a loyal listener of the show, Heidi Parton, for her kind review on Apple Podcast. It looks like there's about 87 of them, which is pretty awesome. It'd be great to hit 100 and then keep going. These reviews, of course, help with the packaging of the show and validate the show for someone who might just be passing by in the night and they want to check out a cool new podcast. You guys know it's a cool show. I know you do.
00:04:23
Speaker
So I hope you'll consider leaving one. If so, I will read it just like this. Like I said, this is Heidi's Heidi Parton's review, delightfully delicious CNF conversations.
00:04:40
Speaker
I was raised with three older brothers, no sisters. I dig chatting it up with dudes. I still feel like I get gents more than ladies. I first met Brendan at a hippocampus magazine reading at AWP in 2019.
00:04:56
Speaker
We sat across the table chatting about all things CNF. Although I am, no doubt, older than Brendan, it was delightful, delightfully like talking with one of my older brothers about CNF. If such a thing were possible, which it isn't, CNF is their thing.
00:05:13
Speaker
isn't their thing. I want on to become a devoted listener of this podcast so that those delightfully delicious CNF Big Bro's conversations would continue. Thanks Brendan for adding such great perspective to the CNF community.
00:05:29
Speaker
That was awesome. Thank you, Heidi. And bear in mind, leave a review. I would be, I'd be honored and thrilled if you left one now. Of course, share it on the introduction here and give you those sort of virtual fist bumps. And one more bit of housekeeping.
00:05:48
Speaker
If you want to get in shape, you hire a personal trainer, right? So if you're writing a book or an essay, you need an editor who will whip that thing into shape and give it abs. You want your work to have abs and accountability. I'm here to help you reach your goals. Email me and we'll get to talking. I'd be honored to serve you in your work. And that's the truth.
00:06:13
Speaker
All right, so without further ado, we're going to get to Eva Holland for episode 197.
Freelancing Challenges and Evolution
00:06:19
Speaker
She is here to talk a little bit about freelancing and of course a whole lot about her new book and the imposter syndrome that she had to get over to accomplish the writing of this book, which deals with a lot of things that are a little bit outside her usual purview.
00:06:33
Speaker
And it's great to have her back. She's got brilliant insights. I think you're going to love this conversation. I know I had a blast recording it. So here she is. Eva Holland is back. Episode 197.
00:06:48
Speaker
You said that you've outgrown some of the advice you've seen on social media with respect to freelancing and freelance writing and I wonder what some of that advice you've outgrown is and maybe and In corollary to that what a device now four years later you find yourself seeking You know a lot of advice that floats around is more geared to beginner freelancers a lot of it is about you know how to pitch and
00:07:14
Speaker
how to connect with editors, what makes a story. And that's all stuff I really could have used when I was starting out and when that kind of advice was less readily available, I think, for free online back in 2007, 2008, 2009, around then. But at a certain point, you've got that stuff kind of dialed. And what you're trying to figure out is how to break into bigger outlets or how to tackle more ambitious story structure
00:07:44
Speaker
or how to increase your income significantly or the questions and the challenges change as you sort of advance through the industry and get more experience and more clips and that sort of thing. So it's, yeah, I don't always
00:08:03
Speaker
I don't always know what I need now other than just I often feel like I just what I need most right now to get better is more time and more support. And I'm starting to get that with some of the stories I tackle for bigger outlets, which is amazing, because you can really see you can really see the difference that that time and attention makes in your work, I think, you know, when you're
00:08:27
Speaker
When you're greener, you're scrambling all the time. At least certainly I was scrambling all the time, just hustling so hard, producing a ton of work. And it's never going to be your best work. It'll be the best you can do with the time and resources you have available to you. But that's not necessarily a reflection of what you can achieve with more time, more financial support, more editorial support.
00:08:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's as you sort of escalate through this, sort of the funnel gets a little narrower and narrower and the competition gets a little more fierce as you're kind of competing among people who are very skilled to get very sort of precious real estate where you get, you know, good exposure but also a better paycheck.
00:09:13
Speaker
You know, in a sense, it's like trying to break through a different kind of noise than you were at the beginning. So have you found anything that's been helpful to you to help you, you know, break through and outcompete people who are very, you know, very, very skilled at this game? I think patience has been helpful and understanding that it's, you know, I
00:09:40
Speaker
you know, maybe it was around the time that we talked last 2014, 2015, I sort of realized I was in a position now where editors at the big outlets I wanted to be writing for were answering my emails. They were, they were receptive to my pitches. Um, they obviously felt I was, um, at that point qualified to potentially receive an assignment. Uh, but I had this moment of realization of like, Oh, I could be stuck at this stage.
00:10:07
Speaker
for a long time, because it can take a long time to just get that, even with an editor who thinks you're great and wants you to write for their magazine, at that higher level with so few feature slots and so much competition, it can take a really long time to have the right idea hit and get accepted by the whole team and actually end up in the book. So it was helpful for me to realize that it was gonna be a while
00:10:35
Speaker
You know, an example of my, my first feature for Wired came out in, um, spring 2018. Gosh, two years ago now seems like yesterday. And, um, and that was an assignment I received in I think October, 2017. And I had sent my first pitch to Wired, um, in December, 2012. And I didn't, I didn't pitch them hard over those intervening years by any means. I'm, I'm not, um,
00:11:01
Speaker
someone who's filled with wired appropriate ideas. I'm a pretty analog person, but that's an example of how long it can take to find the right idea, even with willing editors and some effort on your part.
00:11:15
Speaker
Did you ever experience that, like you said, you weren't constantly pitching wired, but did you ever have a sense that as you were pitching and things weren't hitting and then pitching and not hitting, that you're like, I feel like maybe this isn't a good fit for me, or I feel like I'm annoying them, but in reality, they're probably like, oh, I didn't even realize this person. I didn't even realize Eva's been pitching me several times over the last few years.
00:11:43
Speaker
they get so much in their inboxes that it's like, oh, here she is again. Was that kind of a resistance you had to get over that was like, oh yeah, it's okay. Just keep throwing a good dart if it's a good fit. Yeah. I mean, it's, boy, it's easier when editors seem really keen. If they never give you any sense at all that you're annoying them, it's a lot easier to keep trying. And so, you know, I guess if
00:12:09
Speaker
If editors have the time and the bandwidth and haven't thought to do this, but if you have a sec to say...
00:12:15
Speaker
Like, hey, thanks for this pitch. We really want to get you in the magazine. But that just makes all the difference. Encouragement makes all the difference for me in continuing to try. And it's only when I feel less sort of welcome that I really get those doubts gnawing at me about continuing to try to pitch. When you feel wanted, it's very easy to keep trying. Even a place like Wired where I have some sort of built-in imposter syndrome because I'm not a techie person,
00:12:42
Speaker
they clearly think that that I, you know, if they make it clear that that's okay, and that I'm not disqualified by my lack of by the fact that I still have a five s or whatever, you know, then that really helps in continuing my struggle with wired specifically is really just to come up with ideas that are appropriate to them, because I'm not in that world.
00:13:05
Speaker
in the same way whereas outside I have no shortage of story ideas because I'm much more living in kind of outside's backyard. Yeah, and that leads to the next question I wanted to ask you was about just the generation of story ideas and maybe how many irons you have in the generative fire that you hope to land
Crafting Story Ideas
00:13:24
Speaker
in a place. So like how has that changed and how do ideas get sticky for you that you know you want to pursue them?
00:13:31
Speaker
Yeah, as I sort of try to write less and write better, I have fewer ideas that I pursue, of course, I've never had a problem with a shortage of ideas, but there's a shortage of great ideas always. So I've gotten choosier, I guess, about what I think really makes a magazine feature. And yeah, it's helpful to be
00:13:56
Speaker
to be thoughtful about what you pitch. Sometimes I wonder if I'm too careful about what I pitch. We all have those moments where we see something and we're like, oh, I never would have thought that would be a story. I knew about that and I just didn't think about pitching it. But for me, I, well, it's funny too, because I've been out of the pitching game for most of the last two years. So I'm sort of running on old memories now. But yeah, you look for, you know,
00:14:26
Speaker
a story that has the individual components of character and conflict and stakes, but that also ties into some larger issue, societal issue or question. And that's, you know, that's your basic kind of definition of a magazine feature, I guess. And it's so easy to come up with the issue and then scramble for the characters to match it or to have cool characters and you're sort of
00:14:56
Speaker
striving to connect their story to something larger. But when the pieces really come together perfectly, then that's when you know you've got a strong pitch.
00:15:07
Speaker
When I was talking to Ben Cohen, he's an NBA writer for Wall Street Journal and his book, The Hot Hand, just came out and we were talking about tension. Tension's really big for him. I wonder for you, do you seek out the conflict or the tension and then try to find characters that support it or do you want characters and then hope the tension finds those characters?
00:15:34
Speaker
Um, it really varies. I would say I not infrequently start with characters. Um, and I don't know if that's partly a function of where I live, you know, being kind of remote. I usually find the people first, but, uh, I don't, I don't know. Yeah.
00:15:53
Speaker
And how have you parlayed, and I can't remember if I asked you this before last time we spoke, but if we did, I did. And if it didn't, great. How have you been able to parlay your relative isolation up in like Northwestern Canada as a strength where a lot of people might feel like that isolation is going to hinder what they're capable of doing in feature writing?
00:16:20
Speaker
I have tended to view it as both a strength and a weakness, but I moved here specifically to freelance because I thought it would be good to be in a remote area with access to lots of stories that other people weren't necessarily seeking out. So I sort of used it deliberately to start with to try to launch myself and say, pitching a lot of regional stories and saying, here's an area where I have some expertise that other people don't. But for a long time, I worried that I would be able to use that to a point
00:16:50
Speaker
Um, to sort of advance and then, and then I would, and then it would become a hindrance at a certain threshold and where I wouldn't have enough access to big cities or to sort of bigger stories. Um, for a long time, I worried I would have to move in order to, to just have access to enough stories. Um, and that was a sort of complicated prospect for me because I really love it here. But what ultimately happened is that I was able to break through, um, to the next
00:17:20
Speaker
kind of level of magazine writing without leaving. And then I was writing for outlets that didn't mind that I was here and didn't mind putting me on a plane if they needed to.
00:17:32
Speaker
Was the neonatal piece you did for Wired, would you consider that maybe that first step, I know you've written for Outside a bunch, but with that neonatal piece, was that the one that kind of cracked you to another tier that has afforded you to be able to stay where you are and then get those plane tickets to do more ambitious stories around the country, around the world?
00:17:59
Speaker
Yes and no. I did my first print feature for outside in the fall of 2016. And that was the first time a big magazine had put me on a plane to somewhere further away, I think. I had done a little bit of reporting in BC and Alberta previously as well. So that was big. And then the Wired story was a big step as well of feeling like, OK, maybe I'm going to continue to get
00:18:29
Speaker
assignments from these outlets and maybe they're going to continue to put me on planes and I won't have to only write kind of local stories because at a certain point there's just not enough local stories that will attract national magazine interest.
00:18:42
Speaker
You said that you're trying to write less, but write better. As Seth Godin might say, as a freelancer, the way you level up is to find better clients.
00:19:00
Speaker
And in a sense that that's what you're doing. You're finding better places to write for. That'll pay you more per word, so to speak. So how have you been able to navigate that over the last few years? I mean, I guess the last two is a bit anomalous because you've been working on the book. But how have you been able to change your approach a little bit? I guess it's just really been a matter of discipline, of pursuing
00:19:25
Speaker
pitches to these bigger outlets, and when they're not biting, finding other ways, of course, to bring some money in, but not allowing myself to chase every possible assignment at every possible rate the way I used to, to really just try to keep the decks as clear as possible for these bigger stories, and trust that they will start to be assigned, and then over time, your average per word rate starts to creep up.
00:19:53
Speaker
Um, and then, you know, where I used to write again, the last two years have been weird, but where I used to write, you know, 80 to a hundred thousand of word in the 80, sorry, I can't speak 80 to a hundred thousand words a year. And maybe I averaged 50 cents a word and was making, you know, a barely a middle-class income ish. Um, now I'm writing half as many words.
00:20:22
Speaker
but maybe averaging a dollar a word. And then you start to kind of go from there to a more stable existence. Yeah, exactly. But then it ends up freeing a little bit more time so you can report a bit deeper and spend a little more time getting into the weeds of a thing instead of having to just be in a churn mill, I take it. Absolutely. Yeah, no. Having more time is just so, it's such a gift.
00:20:53
Speaker
Given that freelancing can be a real slog and a grind a lot of the time, I wonder how you have remained optimistic in light of that to keep your head down and focus on you and focus on your work and not get too pulled down just by outside powers. Things are outside of your control and still focus on what it is you do. Yeah, it's hard. I remember
00:21:22
Speaker
a period before I got the book deal, just feeling like I needed a break so badly. Like I just need something to go right. I just need some kind of external validation or some kind of windfall or something. And I was feeling really, really burnt out and really like I had kind of hit a plateau and in terms of who was accepting my stories, but also in terms of what I seem to be capable of doing with them. And I wondered like, is this,
00:21:51
Speaker
Is this as good as I get? And now what happens? And the book was really actually a solution to that. I took some time off from magazine writing to write it. And I felt like I got a break from that grind, but I also got better while I was working on the book, I felt like. And I had ideas for stories again, and I was excited to go back to pitching.
00:22:20
Speaker
and felt like I could execute better once I was back to pitching. I felt like I broke through whatever plateau I had been at and was really excited to get back out there. I still haven't entirely gotten
00:22:33
Speaker
back out there, but I'm, I remain excited to do so. Of course, now the world is chaos. But yeah, it's, it's, it's tough, you know, I don't know what, you know, people, writers, I say this all the time, I may have said this last time we spoke, but writers so often talk about our, you know, sort of paralyzing self doubt and, and, and sort of negative thoughts about our own work. But I, and I
00:23:02
Speaker
I understand that to an extent, but I also think to freelance, you have to have a kind of unshakable belief in your own abilities. And we don't talk about that side of things. We talk about like, Oh, I'm terrible. Everything is terrible. But on some level, you have to believe that you're awesome. Or at least that you're really good in order to keep doing this. I think I don't that's what that's my feeling. I wouldn't have been able to keep
00:23:28
Speaker
Knocking on these doors and getting rejection after rejection for years if I didn't fundamentally believe that they were wrong And I was right you know I don't I don't know what gave me that certainty years ago when I was like Pretty inexperienced writer and just sort of decided that my goal was to write features for big magazines It was like yeah, I'm gonna do that sure why not why not me? Yeah, there's a fine line between being like delusional and then confident in your abilities especially when you're trying to get that traction and
00:23:57
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And I don't know why I was so sure that this was the path for me against all expectations. And it's kind of amazing to me still that it's worked out. I can remember telling my friends that I dreamed of writing features for Outside someday. And it was very much a dream then. I didn't know anyone at the magazine then. I didn't have any relevant clips.
00:24:26
Speaker
know anything except that I had read, you know, a lot of the sort of stuff from the glory years of crack hour and, and, uh, and the others. And, and, uh, I just decided this is what I wanted to do. And I don't know why I was so sure I would get to do it, but, um, but I think you have to have that certainty on some level, um, or else you just get beaten down by, by the frustrations of the business.
00:24:51
Speaker
And it sounds like at a point too, maybe right before you started really digging into the book when you said like you needed something to go right that at that point, maybe, maybe I'm reading into this wrong, but it seems at that point, maybe, maybe your confidence was a bit, a bit shaken. So what was the process by which maybe the book helped pull you out of that? How did, how did that manifest itself? Yeah. Um, yeah, I had had a series in late 2016 and,
00:25:20
Speaker
The first part of 2017, I guess, I had a series of stories, um, killed at, at big magazines. Um, and I just thought, I was like, is this, is this how it ends? Is this, you know, I spend the better part of a decade striving to get to this point and then it turns out I'm not good enough and all my stories get killed. Um, uh, that's sort of a horrifying prospect. Yeah.
00:25:46
Speaker
It's like, I don't know, like making it to the big leagues and then washing out or something, you know? At your first at bat. So I was really discouraged and I will say the Wired story helped with that discouragement. That was a story where the pieces all really came together. The reporting went well, the writing went well, the editorial process was smooth. I felt like it had that big picture
00:26:17
Speaker
and individual level working for it. And so I was like, okay, maybe I can do this. And that story came out the same month, I think, that I got the book deal. So that felt like a turning of the corner. I got this book deal in April 2018. And at the same time, the Wired story, I think, was in the middle of coming out and being really well received, which was amazing to experience. And I
00:26:47
Speaker
I got that Berkeley food and farming journalism fellowship as well the same week I got the book deals. So it was kind of like classic freelancing, right? You feel like you're beaten down and going to quit for a year and a half and then, and then everything goes right in the same month. Um, so it actually almost seemed like bad timing at the time. I was like, no, I've just turned this corner with magazines and now I have to do this book. Um, but, uh, but I think it was really good for me to step away from the, from the sort of,
00:27:16
Speaker
pitch, report, write, rinse, repeat, churn, and dig into something. For the better part of that year that I spent working on my first draft from April 2018 to April 2019, I only really worked on one other significant story, which was my Berkeley reporting project, the story about the porcupine caribou herd and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska that I did for long reads. And so other than that, I was really digging into my book project and it was
00:27:47
Speaker
kind of a relief not to have to constantly be coming up with pitches and sort of angling and following up on invoices, all this stuff. Like I always enjoy the reporting and writing, but to clear away all that kind of like hard freelance stuff for the better part of a year was pretty wonderful.
00:28:07
Speaker
And given that you've carved out a name for yourself as primarily so far like nature, outdoors, adventure, writing, how did you sell this idea on Nerve, a book that's memoir and part in neuroscience in a lot of ways?
Personal Journey and Book Concept
00:28:27
Speaker
Yeah, I was a bit worried about that. It did feel, the science side did feel like a bit of a reach for me, a good reach, but still a reach. I definitely had imposter syndrome about the science side of the project. But nobody else seemed to be as concerned as I was. I think probably having the Wired story come out helped because that was, you know,
00:28:56
Speaker
involved, you know, looking through neonatology papers and things like that. So that was, for me as well, a sense that, okay, I can do this, I can write like a serious science story. Because my previous, you're right, my previous science stuff had been more focused on, you know, the environment and the natural world. Again, I don't know to what extent this influenced publishers or editors, but
00:29:23
Speaker
Another thing that happened right as as all of this was going on is that a feature I had done for Pacific Standard about the Northwest Passage and sort of the changing Arctic here in Canada got a notable selection for best American science and nature writing. And so that was kind of a
00:29:43
Speaker
a boost to my sense that I wasn't a complete imposter in this world, even though that was very much a, you know, outdoors environment story. Still, it was just sort of like, well, if my name is associated with science writing, I feel like I can do this maybe. But yeah, I know the neuroscience in particular, the psychology less so, but the neuroscience in particular was very intimidating to me for the book project.
00:30:06
Speaker
In a lot of ways, the kernel or the seed of this book stemmed from the sudden death of your mother in 2015, right? Is that when she passed? Yeah, July 2015. July 2015. So in a sense, your fear of losing your mother was kind of the ground zero of what this book project ended up being. Did you know at that time that there was going to be something that would stem from that traumatic experience?
00:30:36
Speaker
I knew right away that I would be writing about my mom's death. I knew that immediately. There's a detail in the book. So for those who haven't read it, the book more or less begins with my mom had a pretty catastrophic stroke while I was on a backcountry canoe trip in Northwestern BC, kind of near the Yukon and Alaska borders. And I had to be
00:31:02
Speaker
evacuated on a fishing boat out to the nearest airport to get to the hospital. And so there's a detail in the book where I say that I rode out to the coast on sitting on top of 7,000 pounds of Chinook salmon. And I have that detail because I started taking notes immediately. I was like, this is happening and this is going to be the biggest thing that's ever happened to me. So
00:31:29
Speaker
It's that I was actually kind of a weirdo at the hospital. She was on life support for a few days before we just continued life support. So we were hanging out in the ICU. And I was like, I remember the social worker asked me if I kind of needed anything. And I said, can I talk to the paramedics that brought her in?
00:31:48
Speaker
Because I wanted to ask questions. And I sort of coped by going into reporter mode. And they didn't, in fact, let me talk to the paramedics. I thought it was a pretty weird request. But I knew I would write something. I thought it would be a personal essay at that time. But I knew I would be writing about it. And I started sort of collecting bits of pieces of information right away. I didn't connect it to a book project, let alone a book project about the science of fear.
00:32:19
Speaker
until about eight months later, April 2016, is when I conceived of the book project. There's one early in the book I love that you write. I began to realize that no one can hurt us more deeply than the people we love. And that's part of why love and fear are so tightly bound up together. I love that passage. And how did you come to that? And what do you make of that?
00:32:50
Speaker
Yeah, I guess I was trying to think about... To me, the connection between my fears and my mom's death are really obvious. The connection is really clear to me, but I knew it wouldn't necessarily be clear to other people, and I didn't want it to feel artificial, I guess, or sort of tenuous or forced.
00:33:17
Speaker
So the hard thing that I had to do was to explain why I'd always been afraid of my mom dying in this really kind of powerful way. Because obviously no kid wants their parents to die, generally, other than maybe the occasional tantrum, you say something you don't really mean. I was really kind of viscerally afraid of her dying for a long time. And it was because I knew so much about the impact that her parents' deaths had had on her.
00:33:45
Speaker
both her parents died when she was young. And so I needed to explain that dynamic in a way that people could understand. And I was thinking back to this horrible, horrible fight we had when I was maybe seven years old, where I threatened to smash this photo of her mom, this framed photo. And she was just completely undone by this. And I had this
00:34:13
Speaker
really powerful sort of insight, you know, when you're a kid and you suddenly have these, these kind of moments of like, Oh, I understand what's happening with the adults around me right now. And I just sort of, it was this sudden understanding of my own power to, to really harm her if I wanted to, if I wanted to be a little shit, you know? Um, so, uh, I guess that was where that came from was trying to
00:34:36
Speaker
trying to explain the power and the power that we give the people that we love over us and the fear that comes with that. I don't know if that makes sense, but I was trying to sort of trace back the roots of this fear for me, I guess. And it's inseparable from that sense of power for me.
00:34:59
Speaker
Right. And you were alluding to earlier, April 2016, when you have that moment. I believe that's when you were, were you ice climbing at usual? Was that the moment? Yeah, the ice climbing trip was in February, and that was when I really decided to try to figure out what was going on for myself with my fear.
00:35:25
Speaker
But I didn't decide to try to turn it into a book until two months later. I actually had the book idea while I was on the highway trying to drive home. I was just thinking about these different threads of fear in my life. You know, my mom's, my fear of my mom's death, my fear of heights, which I had on the ice climbing trip decided to really try to understand.
00:35:53
Speaker
and hopefully improve on. And then I had had this car accident in January. I had rolled my car off the highway.
00:36:01
Speaker
And so I was thinking about, and I knew that I was sort of a nervous driver now. And so I was thinking about that thread as I drove this new car home to Whitehorse. And so I actually had the book idea a few hours before the final car accident in the book. So I, I was literally driving on the highway thinking, maybe I'll do a book about, about these various threads of fear and the science of them. And then a few hours later, I rolled this new car as well, my second rollover in three months. And I decided to do the book that night in the hospital.
00:36:29
Speaker
When I was reading the wrecked section, I was just like, I couldn't believe what was happening to you with respect to the driving and these horrible accidents that you endured and walked away relatively in one piece. I mean, a bit shattered of confidence and certainly scary, but it's like, I was just like, holy shit, how is this happening again to her?
00:36:56
Speaker
Right Yeah, I know it was I mean I was incredibly lucky not to have more significant injuries But it still it was just like really this is this is fucking happening again like you know What what have I done to deserve this universe Yeah, I mean how many was it you know four or five? I I mean I I'd say this kind of tongue-in-cheek, but I kind of lost count like how many accidents did you did you want and did you endure and
00:37:26
Speaker
four major accidents, one in high school, long time ago, and then one in the summer of 2014 where a U-Haul hit me, and then the two rollovers in January and April 2016.
00:37:41
Speaker
Yeah. And one of them was, uh, your stepfather giving you your mother's old car. And, you know, and when that Subaru rolls over, you're like, you write that like she, you're being, your mother was gone and I was still letting her down. And, uh, I was just like, that was just such a painful thing to read. Yeah, that was a dark, that was a dark night that, uh, that night in this rural hospital in Northern BC after I killed my mom's car, um, was, uh,
00:38:11
Speaker
probably one of the darker nights of my life. Maybe, yeah, I don't know if I'd say it's the darkest night of my life, but it would be up there for sure. I was a real mess. But I remember, you know, a friend texted me while I was still in the hospital and her dad had died a few years ago and she said, you know, I'm so sorry, I remember the first time I broke something, my dad left me. And so it was just nice that somebody else got it, you know,
00:38:40
Speaker
you feel kind of insane, you know, to be like, it's not rational to be like, Oh, no, I've harmed my dead mother somehow by rolling her Subaru into the ditch. But it's, but it's understandable. Right.
00:38:58
Speaker
Yeah, and you're right, too, that you have a specific fear of heights, speed, and falling. And so you go skydiving. So take us to that moment where you're like, you know what? Maybe I can combine all three of these, and I'm going to force feed myself through this fear, and I will somehow become transformed at the end of this. So let's go to that moment. Sure. So I'll be honest.
00:39:27
Speaker
You know, it's a, it's a fine line with immersion reporting, uh, what you do sort of earnestly and what you do for the story. And the book, I do not think of the book as contrived. A lot of that, you know, I really needed to go to therapy. I really needed various things, you know, um, but probably the most contrived part of the book is the skydive. I knew it was probably not going to cure my fear of heights to go skydiving. Um, but.
00:39:56
Speaker
I needed a sample chapter for my proposal. And it seemed like the most economical way to create some really dramatic material. And then when I found these amazing studies using skydivers to research the science of fear, I was like, yes, this will work. This will be a great chapter. And it's one of my favorite parts of the book. But I guess I,
00:40:27
Speaker
I was trying to think of, I was trying not to, I had had a previous book proposal that didn't work out that I had put a lot of time and money into, kind of about the changing Arctic type stuff. And so with this proposal, I really was trying not to invest too much money in particular, but time as well.
Confronting Fear through Experience
00:40:49
Speaker
And so the idea of doing a one day
00:40:53
Speaker
skydive 45 minutes from my house for 400 bucks was a pretty economical way to get what I thought could be a pretty exciting sample chapter. So that is how that, I did hope that maybe I would get up there and enjoy it more than I expected. I didn't really expect it to fix everything, but I hoped it might,
00:41:18
Speaker
do something reveal something but it it didn't it was just horrible yeah yeah my my hands were sweating like reading reading your recounting of it and i was just like yeah this is something i don't i don't care to do this is not a bucket list thing i will stay on the ground and i will read underneath a tree i am not going to go up there i support i support that choice brendan
00:41:43
Speaker
And I think you conclude that chapter that you write, I needed to be smarter, more systematic, more scientific with respect to trying to conquer your fears. And so I think that was kind of a great little sort of segue and a pivot into some of the more granular stuff you get into.
00:42:03
Speaker
What was it like diving into the scientific literature of trying to deal with phobias and the science of the brain and also the psychology of the brain? Yeah, it was challenging. Here I am a few days out from pub date and I remain terrified that some neuroscientist will surface when my book comes out and be like, she got everything wrong.
00:42:34
Speaker
Uh, so I did it in phases. I started, uh, because I did end up doing a story for Esquire in an effort to help sort of launch the book project, uh, that was specifically focused on the fear of heights and phobias. So what, what is now chapter five in the book was originally an Esquire story, uh, about trying to learn to rock after. So after the skydive, I say, okay, I need to do be smarter about this. And my next thing that I do is that I try to learn to rock climb as a form of
00:43:03
Speaker
exposure therapy for my fear of heights. So I was working on that story for Esquire, I guess, in the summer and fall of 2016. It was going to also be a sample chapter maybe, but we ended up only sending the skydiving chapter ultimately when we put out the proposal a year and a half later. But I was working on that story. And so that was when I dove into the journals
00:43:30
Speaker
specifically looking at what we knew about causation of fear of heights and different cures for phobias. So I was able to get a starting point there. And then when it came time to do the book, I pulled back initially and really focused on the big picture to start with. So I started out reading sort of big picture books about the science of emotions more broadly. I read literally a textbook about brain anatomy.
00:43:58
Speaker
that wasn't specific to my project at all. I just wanted to understand brain structures and how they work and what we know about neurons. So I started out with kind of a really big picture sweep of mostly book length stuff and more accessible sort of general interest or at least sort of first or second year college level kind of stuff. And then once I got into the more specific chapters is when I started to dig into
00:44:27
Speaker
the literature more, the journals in a more focused way. I went, I, of course, I live in the Yukon and I don't have great access to, you know, an amazing medical library or anything like that. So what I ended up doing is I was going to be out East in Ontario anyway, visiting family and my, I did my undergrad at a university in Halifax, Nova Scotia. So what I ended up doing is
00:44:53
Speaker
going to Halifax for a week hopping on a plane and getting an Airbnb there. And I spent a week at the old
00:45:01
Speaker
the old library where I did my undergrad, because I had alumni privileges at their library, I was able to go in for free and I spent a week just downloading like 150 journal articles onto a USB drive, kind of by theme. I did a really broad sweep and then I brought them home and started looking more specifically through them to see what ended up, maybe which studies ended up making sense to focus on.
00:45:24
Speaker
And then from there I looked for specific academics to speak to and I didn't I Did a lot of the research for this book on on paper, you know in books sending articles and I was pretty targeted with my interviews Partly because I was on a tight timeline and partly because the book is half memoir. So I didn't I Didn't feel like it was I
00:45:49
Speaker
reporting to be a comprehensive piece of reporting. So I only spoke to, I think, ultimately four or five researchers directly. And if I did speak to them, it was because their work was being featured in a significant way in one of the chapters. There were a couple of people I tried to speak to who I didn't get through to. But
00:46:10
Speaker
So that was sort of how I approached the science side as kind of like big picture and then narrowing into the journals and then narrowing further to speak specifically with individuals who, once I knew I was gonna feature their work in the book.
Writing Process and Insights
00:46:21
Speaker
What was the challenge for you in navigating the technical science part of your research versus the more memoiristic, quote, for lack of a better term, sort of human thread that goes through the book? So you had this nice balance in this book. What was the challenge there?
00:46:41
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I kind of knew from the beginning that making those two halves feel like they fit together would be the central challenge of the whole project. So I'm glad that you thought it worked. Oh, yeah. I did something I've certainly never done for a story. I wrote them really separately. So what I what I mostly did, with a few exceptions, is I wrote the memoir portions first, even in chapters that sort of veer
00:47:10
Speaker
between memoir and science and memoir and science, I wrote the memoir pieces sometimes months ahead of the science sections. So what I was doing is while I was researching the science, I was writing the memoir sections as well as kind of standalones. And then I went back once I had a handle on the science and added the science portions. And then I spent some time
00:47:36
Speaker
trying to sort of go through and sort of comb them together more effectively. I spent a lot of time thinking and kind of like weaving and sewing analogies of sort of trying to like hold these two halves together, but that was sort of a third phase. So to give an example, chapter six, the chapter about the car accidents, I wrote
00:48:00
Speaker
the scenes of the car accidents first, because I had clear memories of all of them. And then I wrote the scenes of the therapy, once the therapy was done, of going to see this EMDR therapist to try this sort of weird semi-experimental therapy to cure my trauma from the accidents. And then I wrote the sections about what we know about the science of trauma and the science of EMDR, which is very little as it turns out, last. So
00:48:31
Speaker
And normally when I write a story, I tend to write mostly from top to bottom. So that was a different way of going about things for me, but it worked with the time constraints that I had. There was no way I could sort of finish the reporting and then start writing the book.
00:48:46
Speaker
Yeah, the EMDR is pretty trippy. I've heard things about that just kind of anecdotally, probably just from listening to WTF with Mark Maron. I've done that before for just his own therapy. I wonder, what was your experience with it? Yeah, it was so bizarre. I didn't expect it to work as well as it did. So you think about the placebo effect, but you have to believe in something for the placebo effect to work, right?
00:49:17
Speaker
It was, I love that quote. It might be one of my favorite quotes in the book. I found a quote from a woman who survived the Oklahoma city bombing and underwent EMDR to try to resolve her trauma from the bombing. And she said EMDR was the strangest thing she had ever experienced with the exception of the bomb. You know, so like the weirdest thing she's ever experienced is getting blown up. And the second weirdest is doing EMDR. And I, I get it. Like it's a weird, I hope it comes through in my,
00:49:46
Speaker
In my description, it's a very weird experience. It's weirdly physical. Things are sort of happening in your body. It all seems kind of woo woo and you're like, I don't know what the deal is with this, but then you're, you know, at least in my case, I suddenly wasn't, you know, having flashbacks and crying while I drove anymore. So it's, it's pretty remarkable. I know it doesn't work for everybody, but, um, I found, I found it to be a totally fascinating experience. Uh, that was a, that was a pretty cool.
00:50:16
Speaker
pretty cool guinea pig experience for me. And you're in a unique position right now, given that no one could have predicted what would happen with the world and this coronavirus and everything. And I kind of feel bad in a way for everyone. There's a lot of people who have books coming out right now. April seems to be like this huge book release month. I don't know why, but it just is. And yours is one of them. How have you pivoted
00:50:43
Speaker
your capacity to promote the book. I suspect you are going to go on some sort of a book tour, doing bookstores and probably doing some talks in other places. I don't think you're probably not able to do that right now. So how have you re-strategized how you're going to handle the marketing and promotion of your book? Yeah, it's definitely a strange time to be launching a book. My launch party was canceled, of course, and my tour was canceled. All the festivals are canceled.
00:51:12
Speaker
And as, you know, that seemed like a bigger deal to me two weeks ago. But as we advance, you know, deeper into this crisis, it seems like less and less of a big deal in the grand scheme of things. So, yeah, I guess I'm lucky in that the subject matter of my book is suddenly
00:51:35
Speaker
even more pertinent than it was before, of course, you know, fear is is relevant in all our lives most of the time, but more acutely now, I suppose. So it's it's funny, you know, you want to express that. And I do I do earnestly believe that that the book could potentially, you know, it's not a self-help book, but I hope that it could help some people with how they think about their fear and anxiety and trauma in this in this horrific moment that we're in.
00:52:05
Speaker
But it sure feels gross to show a book right now. And particularly to show a book by connecting it to this crisis is is sort of a conflicting thing to do or even contemplate doing. So yeah, it's a it's a funny thing. And I guess, you know, I hope that that we sell some ebooks and audio books that people are able to download at home while they're
00:52:33
Speaker
isolated. I hope that some bookstores will still be doing curbside pickup or delivery in a couple weeks. It's so hard to know. Everything is changing day by day and hour by hour. It's a funny thing, not to throw myself a pity party here, but I had a lot of anxiety about the book this winter and spring before all of this happened. I was really
00:52:57
Speaker
periodically really freaked out about what would happen. Is anybody gonna read it? Is anyone gonna buy it? Are people gonna hate it? Am I gonna get terrible, mean reviews? I was pretty deep in my own head and the thing that I told myself was, okay, whatever happens with sales, whatever happens with reviews, you can't control those things, but the day that it comes out, you're gonna have this wonderful party with the people that love you.
00:53:24
Speaker
and nobody can take that away from you. So I need a new a new mantra clearly. But because that could turns out that that can in fact be taken away from you. But um, but no, it's a it's a tough time for everybody right now. And and I guess I'll just keep
00:53:48
Speaker
uh, letting people know and I've, you know, I've got some media lined up. I've got, I've got Skype, I've got a cell phone. Um, I'll be, I'll be talking to people about the book and about fear, you know, because one of my big takeaways from this book is I started out from the position of, uh, I want to cure my fears, right? I want to conquer them. And, and I guess one of the things I've been saying in interviews so far is that,
00:54:16
Speaker
is that fear is not, you know, to invert the all we have to fear is fear itself thing. Fear is not necessarily something to be feared. And it's and it's okay to be afraid. So that's one thing I've been, you know, maybe I am, you know, much healthier relationship to my fear, I think now after working on this book. And so maybe that's something that I can
00:54:43
Speaker
can tell people now without being too self-conscious or feeling too much of a horrible chill is that it might help them get to a healthier relationship with fear too, because we are certainly going to be living with our fear for the next while.
00:54:58
Speaker
And that kind of leads to one of the final things I wanted to ask you too, and this is a phrase that's late in the book where you say, my life is less a pursuit of happiness and more an ongoing endless duel with fear. And I wanted to ask you, how has your relationship evolved with fear? How do you dance with it now? And what your relationship is to it?
00:55:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's really changed. I guess that is one thing that nobody can take away from me. There we go. That one cannot be taken from you. That one cannot be taken. I'm in better shape having worked on this book. My quality of life is higher and I mean that earnestly. I don't cry when I'm driving anymore. That's a big deal.
00:55:48
Speaker
And what I learned about grief through working through the book as well has been a real comfort to me in the last couple of weeks thinking about the losses that are coming and that are already happening. I feel equipped to grieve. Yeah, I don't think of my life as a duel with fear anymore. I feel like
00:56:15
Speaker
I understand it much better now and I know why it's there. I guess there's more respect for it and a sense that I can better understand when to listen to it and when to try to ignore it. Whereas before I really didn't trust it. I distrusted it and I had good reason to distrust my fear because it was irrational and overblown a lot of the time.
00:56:42
Speaker
improve on that, I guess, allows me to then trust myself when I do feel afraid, which is a nice place to be in.
00:56:52
Speaker
well nice well this is this is great even uh... and get to talk to you again after after four long years you know i've been reading your magazine work for years obviously so it's great to see you make that leap into the into the book world and uh... i suspect a lot of people are gonna bet get a lot of good out of this uh... there's a lot of tactical things just in the story in your experience that i think people can really uh... drawn and uh... in this time that's really difficult for a lot of people no doubt
00:57:19
Speaker
So, I just want to thank you for the work and of course thank you for coming back on the podcast. This is a long time coming and it was so great to speak with you again. Thanks so much, Brendan. Thanks for having me and thanks for reading. Of course.
00:57:33
Speaker
We did it. We made it CNF-ers. Thank you so much for listening. Be sure you're subscribing to the show. Of course, this crazy show is produced by me, Brendan O'Mara. I make the show for you. I hope it made something worth sharing. And if you really dig the show, leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Show notes are at BrendanO'Mara.com.
00:57:53
Speaker
Follow the show on the various social media channels at cnfpodacrossamall. Get that newsletter at my website. Win books, win zines, hang out with your buddy BO. Once a month, no spam, can't beat it. Are we done here? We must. Because if you can't do interviews, see ya!