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Episode 390: How Did the Pitcher Pedro Martinez Help Will Harrison's Writing?
1.1k Plays1 year ago
Will Harrison is an instructor at the School for Visual Arts in New York City as well the author of several essays including "My Unlikely Writing Teacher: Pedro Martinez" for the New York Times Magazine.
Will talks about:
- How slow of a writer he is
- How voice just emerges over time
- And how "pitch selection" is akin to how you vary your sentences
Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod
Show notes: brendanomeara.com
Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm
Sponsor: Liquid IV, promo code cnf
Social: @creativenonfictionpodcast on IG and Threads
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
if I can get a good paragraph or two that I don't hate the next day, I feel pretty decent about my work.
00:00:11
Speaker
How is it going, CNFers? It's the CNF Pod. The creative non-fiction podcast, a show where I speak to badass people about telling true stories. I'm Brendan O'Mara. It's right there on the logo. We've got Will Harrison today. He wrote an incredible essay for the New York Times Magazine titled, My Unlikely Writing Teacher Pedro Martinez
00:00:37
Speaker
And that might sound like, okay, he had a writing teacher named Pedro Martinez. What's so unlikely about that? But here is why it's so unlikely.
Pedro Martinez as an Unlikely Writing Teacher
00:00:46
Speaker
For those of you who don't know, Pedro Martinez is the Hall of Fame pitcher for several teams, but his best years were with the Boston Red Sox. Right handed pitcher. Electric stuff.
00:01:01
Speaker
When Pedro was on the mound, it was an event. You dropped everything to watch Pedro. Or if you were in class or in a place where it was inaccessible by television, you found a radio station and you tuned the dial and you listened.
00:01:20
Speaker
It was like the World Cup. Flags were flying all over the place in the bleachers. Every time he took the ball, he could strike out. 15, 16, 17 batters. He could also walk a bunch and get shelled. That happened from time to time. He drove my dad nuts. It doesn't take much to drive my dad nuts.
00:01:40
Speaker
If there was ever a runner on base, he'd be like, he takes forever to get rid of the ball. So anyway, he had a 99 mile an hour fastball sometimes blasting out of this five foot eight hundred sixty pound body. And how do I know that? I mean, I guess I could go to Wikipedia and find out his biological dimensions, but I was beside him.
00:02:00
Speaker
in spring training, 1998, and I stood beside him, and I'm 5'9", and I was getting his autograph, or I was almost getting his autograph, and then you might have thought I was too old, or like big, or whatever, but I was at least an inch, if not like maybe two inches taller than Pedro, and I was about a buck 90 at the time, maybe 180, you know, and Pedro definitely looked like he was 40 pounds lighter than I was,
00:02:29
Speaker
So anyway, point being, that fastball and that curveball and that changeup came out of that little body.
00:02:41
Speaker
Will talks about how the pitch selection of Pedro is akin to writing the changing of speed and pace and location, so we dig into all that stuff.
Sponsorships and Promotions
00:02:51
Speaker
Hey, this episode is affiliately sponsored by Liquid IV, and I gotta say, it's a pretty damn delicious way to rehydrate and fuel those endurance activities, or if you just wanna zhuzh up your boring tap water. Non-GMO and free from gluten's dairy, zhuzh dairy, dairy, and soy.
00:03:09
Speaker
I got all excited talking about Pedro. Also, there's a sugar-free version. Try the white peach. It's awesome. Get 20% off when you go to liquidiv.com and use the promo code CNF at checkout. That's 20% off anything you order when you shop better hydration today using the promo code CNF at liquidiv.com. And no, I don't get paid unless you buy stuff.
00:03:33
Speaker
Get out those wallets. If you head over to brendanamare.com, hey, you can read show notes and sign up for my up to 11 Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter. A curated list, I know that's kind of basic. An essay by your resident crank. Books. Stuff to make you happy. Goes up to 11. Literally, the list is 11 items long. And the more I think about it, the more the newsletter really needs to offer insights into getting you where you want to go. I mean, for most of you,
00:04:02
Speaker
Yes, getting published or if you're you know, a lot of you are published authors, but maybe you're with smaller presses and you don't get the the the outreach or
00:04:13
Speaker
that degree of visibility that you loud, that you're like, oh man, isn't that awesome? Wow, look at Michael Lewis, who isn't writing or speaking to Michael Lewis. So anyway, it also deals with building a platform that doesn't make you want to blow your brains out, hence the raging against the algorithm. I'm workshops on some ideas. I think I'm going to have some cool things that I think will help you, help you out.
00:04:41
Speaker
First of the month, no spam. As far as I can tell, you can't beat it. Also, consider heading to patreon.com slash cnfpod. Sure, I'm asking for some money, but what you get is more than the satisfaction of helping keep this podcast afloat. You get access to the community of other CNF and writers. I've been doing this thing where I start threads with a little video. As uncomfortable as that makes me, because I don't like my face.
00:05:04
Speaker
So talk amongst yourself. Don't lurk. Jump in and contribute to the conversation. Maybe exchange contact info. Make a friend. Patreon.com slash CNF Pod. Started a new thread recently about books on writing. Hey, also big shout out to Judy Bowman Reed, our latest patron. Thank you so much, Judy. We're clapping. We're clapping here at CNF Pod HQ. Free ways to support the show or leaving reviews on Apple Podcast or ratings on Spotify. And a final thing.
00:05:35
Speaker
Here's my requisite shout out to Athletic Brewing, my favorite N.A. beer out there. Now I don't always drink N.A. beers, but when I do, it's athletic. Not a paid plug, but I'm a brand ambassador and I love celebrating this amazing product. Go to athleticbrewing.com and use the promo code BRENDANO20 at checkout and get a nice little discount on your first order.
Writing Techniques and Inspirations
00:05:54
Speaker
All right, Will freaking Harrison. This episode gets into voice sentence flow. Virginia Woolf, yep. And working very, very slowly. Settling CNF-ers. Parting shot at the end of this one too, so stay tuned. But in the meantime, let's just hear from Will, all right?
00:06:28
Speaker
It's always pretty neat when you can draw a parallel from someone else's discipline and someone else's craft to help improve your own. And for you to draw a kind of writing level, sentence level lesson from Pedro Martinez and his approach to pitching, I thought was just really, really cool to read. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it was kind of a thrill to write. It's weirdly.
00:06:57
Speaker
something i feel like i was kicking around in the back of my mind for a while but yeah so it was like uh i was a lot of it was in sort of conveying this idea in my pitch you know it's a sort of tricky comparison perhaps so you know getting landing that sort of analogy within the pitch i feel like was kind of like
00:07:22
Speaker
enough of a challenge that it made, like writing the actual piece itself. If not easy, sort of sped that process up, which is rare. I'm usually a pretty slow worker. Was there a particular moment where you were able to kind of crack the code and then suddenly it was kind of more of a downhill right from there?
00:07:43
Speaker
Well the piece came about in an interesting way. I felt like to write about Pedro Martinez for me is both this like thing that makes a lot of sense but then also was a bit tricky in that I feel like my peak years of fandom or you know like coming into actual human full consciousness
00:08:05
Speaker
did not directly overlap with his peak years. It's like almost like my knowledge of baseball was more peaking around like, you know, 2001, two, three, four. So, part of writing this essay was interesting because I feel like a lot of my work is fueled by both like,
00:08:33
Speaker
half by research and then half by kind of, whether you want to call it ignorance or imagination, you can take your pick. But I feel like it's sort of like I was young enough in his peak seasons, 1999 and 2000, that I do remember them, but I almost remember the sort of atmosphere of people talking about this player and sort of watching this player almost from that sort of like communal regional level then
00:09:03
Speaker
then I'd actually literally remember those games from those two sort of historically significant seasons of his. So I feel like this piece almost came out of finding, I sort of found this trove of YouTube videos that I think it was probably like a BC student had taped in like 1998, 99, 2000.
00:09:29
Speaker
2001 and uploaded to YouTube and I kind of stumbled upon those and just became pretty obsessed with sort of like rewatching all these games because yeah I sort of craved access to you know rewatching these
00:09:46
Speaker
performances of his, but hadn't found, you know, such sort of untrammeled access until that happened. So it was sort of like this weird, I mean, you know, just sort of like doing that, I guess I would call it research, but it was sort of just a hobby, a fun hobby to just sort of like, you know, watch half of a game every night for like a couple of weeks. And I was like, you know, okay, I think, and that really did sort of
00:10:15
Speaker
It's not like it was easy from there, but that sort of like unbridled enthusiasm I had for just rewatching these performances. And, you know, like he uploaded, this guy uploaded, you know, some games that were really, you know, peak performances and some that were a little bit more so, so, but that also was kind of a beautiful, you know, thing to engage with and sort of.
00:10:40
Speaker
You know, that sort of like the iceberg like beneath this piece is like that sort of like subjecting myself to all that video research in a way.
00:10:48
Speaker
Oh, yeah. You know, there are some I remember some in like just incredibly electric performances from him. And then he would throw in a dud every now and again. And that's very much like the roller coaster of being a writer. Like some days you get into the flow and you're like, holy cow, this is awesome. Thousand words just came in like 20 minutes and they're OK. They're legible.
00:11:11
Speaker
And yeah, and then other days you're like, holy shit, I'm getting my, I'm getting shelled and I'm throwing two thirds of an inning. Let's go to the bullpen and try again in five days. No, for sure. That's really is what it is kind of like. So I felt like once I sort of settled into this piece, it felt more like
00:11:36
Speaker
you know, felt more like Pete Pedro Martinez energy than I probably felt ever. I mean, I feel like I usually am more just sort of like a, if I can get a good paragraph or two that I don't hate the next day, I feel pretty decent about my work. So, and this, you know, this felt, I mean, it's always a little like that, but you know, this felt a lot more like I was sort of, you know, I feel like my process involves sort of doing
00:12:06
Speaker
research but then sort of responding to the material of the of the piece so in a way it's like the former process comes to mimic the content of the piece so in that way I do feel like this piece had that sort of like rare electricity of you know the game that I was talking about specifically or just you know sort of his peak performances.
00:12:26
Speaker
which
Writing Style and Literary Influences
00:12:27
Speaker
was sort of the thrill. And then there comes this sort of like hangover effect, which I'm actually, I sort of have that right now for a different piece. I just filed where you're sort of like, wow, what, what do I do with myself now? You know, that's part of the ride as you're saying. Yeah. You got to go ice up your shoulder and be like, all right, get the long tossing tomorrow. And then you'd be like, all right, in a few days time. All right. It's about time to get back on the mound. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
00:12:52
Speaker
Um, for sure. So for me, it's like the part of the part of my process that became most like how I felt like he was working and you know, this specific game against the Yankees or just sort of some other classic Pedro Martinez performances. For me, it's sort of like, there's like the flash of like, it's like, I find that phrases will come to me, images will come to me.
00:13:18
Speaker
things of that nature. There's sort of like this flash of an idea and I'll just sort of jot it down, you know, strike quickly, like when I'm capable. And then when I'm not feeling that way, it's almost like you're editing, pruning, like, and that's almost like pitching too. It's like there, there are games that I watched where it's like, you know, he doesn't have, he had, you know, he basically had three Hall of Fame pitches with his fastball, curveball and changeup. And there are games where he has all three, but then,
00:13:48
Speaker
there's games where he's really leaning on one of those pitches and sort of nibbling with the rest. And it's like, that's very much what like writing can feel like, you know, like, as you're saying, it's some days you show up and you have, you know, all your faculties clicking and you don't even, I mean, personally, I don't even ever really know why it's not necessarily like, Oh, I didn't sleep well last night. I can't write today. It's like, sometimes that's when I write best. So,
00:14:12
Speaker
No I think it's all making a lot of sense and I love how you bring up the you know the craftiness of the pitches too and how he you know he had like three you know legit elite pitches and sometimes I think the the fastball especially early in a pitcher's career kind of symbolizes or is a metaphor for like the brazen naivete
00:14:31
Speaker
of a writer is just like, I'm just going to overpower you with all this style. I'm going to hit you in the face with it. But it isn't until you're able to nibble at the edges of the plate that you really start to become a master of your craft. And Greg Maddox learned this. So many pitchers learned this over the course of their careers. And I think there's just a lot that there's a lot baked into that of learning how to pitch versus how to throw. Totally. Yeah. I mean, and as a writer, I don't even I feel like I'm closer to the
00:15:02
Speaker
to the fast part, you know, the trying to be explosive phase, you know, I'm hoping to work into the more precision location based pitching of writing phase. But, you know, you're gonna buy, I totally agree. It's sort of, and I feel like this, this specific game I zeroed in on is like at that exact point where he's sort of still has
00:15:27
Speaker
a pretty electric fastball, but then is obviously like smart enough and, you know, savvy enough with the other off-speed pitches to sort of, you know, mix it up and yeah, keep people on their toes kind of, which yeah, is definitely, you know, a lot of this piece was really also as much about, I struggle more with almost, I feel like I became obsessed with form as a writer because I kind of struggle with
00:15:56
Speaker
I almost work on it. I work slowly enough. It's like a sentence to sentence basis. So the analogy was just as much like getting through an inning as anything where it's like the variation of tone and sound and, you know, long sentence, short sentence, medium sentence type logic that I was noticing in his, you know, in his process that I could relate to mine.
00:16:21
Speaker
Yeah, and there's something to be said, too, about pitching and writing as like voice and style, too. And Pedro certainly brought flair to the park and the flags flying. I mean, it was like the World Cup when he would pitch.
00:16:38
Speaker
And so like, yeah, so so for you in terms of voice and style, like maybe this kind of a two parter, like, who are some of your influences and how have you tried to incorporate those influences to try to make you as unique as you can, your own style and voice on the page? I studied, you know, capital E English literature in college, and that was cool in that it gave me this grounding in, you know, people like Virginia Woolf, who I'm relating
00:17:06
Speaker
Pedro to here in this piece. But and sort of, you know, I was into, you know, sort of classic like modernism stuff like Joyce and Wolf and Faulkner, which I still read. But I feel like as I as I got a little older out of college sort of reading on my own terms, I also became pretty invested in sort of like pretty voicey writing that feels a little bit more
00:17:36
Speaker
I don't know, almost like a la, like Dostoyevsky's Underground Man or something, but, you know, more recent stuff. I feel like I like, you know, like Thomas Bernhardt for the sort of like very like anxious, angry, monologue-y thing. And I've been reading, you know, reading a lot of this French writer, Aravé Guibert, who died in I think 1991, who sort of
00:18:03
Speaker
I feel like some people, myself included, see as sort of like the forebearer of what you would call contemporary auto fiction. And his work is very thinking on the page in real time. It feels like he's just writing it in front of you. And his book that I sort of am most obsessed with is called To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life.
00:18:27
Speaker
about his sort of race against time after receiving an AIDS diagnosis and sort of trying to find a vaccine and a cure and the intimacy of that voice. But then also, you know, he's French, so he doesn't have that sort of like American straitjacketedness. He's not shy about being kind of edgy or raw or, you know, offending anyone.
00:18:55
Speaker
That book was a huge scandal in a way because it exposed Foucault as dying from AIDS. So I don't know, he's someone who I'm sort of obsessed with lately. But then I also feel like I gravitate towards people who just sort of do like blend research and sort of, you know, the gap between research and the self. So I really like Kate Zambrano. She's a contemporary writer who does that very well, I think.
00:19:24
Speaker
Yeah, that sort of thing. Almost things that are in like this weirdly like Roland Bart, like sort of descendant French, you know, border of like poetry theory and nonfiction, I guess. Yeah, reported essays are really cool and fun because they blend research, something that is outward looking and inward looking. And so it's not just memoiristic. It actually has like a component of
00:19:51
Speaker
Yeah, that research component where you're pulling in other people and it's really informing a worldview and informing a little world that you're building within an essay, which I really come to like. It can be a great field on which to get voicey, but also be educational and entertaining. It's really a fun thing to play with.
00:20:16
Speaker
Definitely. Yeah. I feel like as a reader, at least I get pretty bored by straight memoir, straight journalism. And then in writing for magazines, you sort of sort of run the risk of getting grief for not being journalistic enough I've found, but I don't know. I mean, I feel like the sort of, the sort of slippery, like, is it real? Is it not real? Essay is something that, you know, there at least used to be more outlets for. So that's sort of like,
00:20:47
Speaker
I'm not trying to like be reductive and copy that era, but I definitely feel like I'm trying to like implicitly point out that you can still make that work that is sort of like very grounded by research. So it's not just like you're pulling it out of your ass, but like there is some selfhood in there. Cause I feel like I get kind of bored. It feels kind of dry if there's not, if the writer isn't putting themself in the work.
00:21:14
Speaker
That's a good point. That's what kind of also animates the, you know, your, your Pedro essay. It's a, you know, you're, you're in there as not only a fan of Pedro and the Red Sox, but also as a fan of, uh, of writing and being a writer. So you get like this very textured essay and what it, what amounts to a pretty short essay too, which is kind of, which is kind of cool today. You had, you were very, yeah, it's a very lean essay and you get a lot in there.
00:21:43
Speaker
Yeah, no, I mean, it was a funny, I mean, that's a funny process of, again, writing for a magazine as opposed to sort of for a book length project or for yourself or like a sub stack when you can kind of do what you want with length. I feel like a lot of times when I'm working with a magazine, it's like, I feel like I weirdly gravitate towards this maximalist approach as I'm amassing
00:22:08
Speaker
sort of notes and research and you know maybe phrases or sentences I want to incorporate and then it's like you either have to be content with it getting cut or you can kind of try to like compress as much as you can into this little space which is honestly a good it's a good exercise it sort of forces you to not waste any any space but yeah this piece definitely had stuff
00:22:34
Speaker
it's almost like things that got cut from it are hopefully hovering inside it, even if they're unseen.
Pedro Martinez's Legacy and Personal Reflections
00:22:41
Speaker
As I mentioned before, I feel like one thing I had mentioned in maybe like the first paragraph that got cut was like the fact that like every time in that era, you know, that whatever around the eternal millennium, it's like whenever Pedro pitched, it was such an event. But then it wasn't like now where you can sort of
00:23:03
Speaker
I mean, now it's tough because MLB with copyright is pretty strict, but you know, there's just no, there was not really much of an ability to go back. It's like that game was, was over. Um, you couldn't really rewatch it or anything. So it's like you watched it or you missed it. And like my family, you know, like we didn't have. Nessen I remember at that point. So I was watching like all the games on Fox 25.
00:23:27
Speaker
And so it's like, I don't know how many even starts of his would be on there, probably like half, but it was very, you know, it was very much a special occasion. So like that, I wanted to bring that sort of like feeling to the piece, that sort of excitement that it was like, it was very much, as you said before, it was very much an event when he took me on, which is also just so true of like a unique to like a starting pitcher versus like, you know, it's obviously just, just as fun, a different way to watch like a really good hitter
00:23:58
Speaker
know, position player do their thing, but an ace pitcher, it's like every five, every five games only. So it really feels like, you know, all eyes on this person. Also implicit in this piece, it's like, I feel like he was this once, kind of once in a lifetime pitcher, but also just like
00:24:21
Speaker
Not very, not especially tall for a picture. Tiny. Tiny, yeah. And so it's just like this, like he was very much human and he seemed, you know, I remember like he's into like gardening. What wasn't in the piece, because there was no space, but there was this brief period of time where
00:24:46
Speaker
my grandparents were going, were renting a place in Florida, sort of near Fort Myers. And so I was on March break down there or whatever with my parents. We flew back and we accidentally were on Pedro Martinez's flight. And he was, I was probably like nine years old. I had just done a drawing of him. I was really into drawing at the time. And like, he was with his mother and he signed my drawing. Oh, cool. He was just a very, you know, just a very normal guy, which I feel like is not,
00:25:16
Speaker
I don't know, it just seems like kind of a rare thing. So I feel like that sort of relatability or whatever adds to that feeling. And I feel like as a kid too, just sort of like having no frame of reference in terms of how unique that moment was maybe, and just like engaging with it through sort of the pretty sorted AM radio media where it's like every start he had that was a little bit off was like,
00:25:46
Speaker
people having an aneurysm about, you know, it's kind of a tangent, but yeah, I don't know. I have a very weird relationship with, with Boston. I feel like, and honestly, that almost is part of it. I feel like that sort of like, nothing is good enough attitude when it was like, we were watching like a really historic thing happen. I feel like, and, but yeah, I feel like that was like the beauty of like,
00:26:12
Speaker
You know, this isn't like this piece is about him. It's not really about the Red Sox. You know, like it's like he transcended all that to me. I feel like in like a way that really, uh, you know, yeah, I was hoping, I was hoping to get across cause a lot of people were like, that's deeply ironic that you're writing this for the New York times, you know, about Red Sox. So I'm like, it's really not about the Red Sox. It was about Pedro Martinez, but yeah.
00:26:34
Speaker
Yeah, my dad and I, when I was in high school, for three February breaks, we used to, it's crazy that we used to do this, we would drive down to Florida for spring training, for when pictures and catches reported. That's crazy, yeah. Yeah, so it would take us the better part of two plus days to get down there, and we'd be down there for like another two days. We had some family in St. Pete, so that was kind of our launching point.
00:27:00
Speaker
and then we'd go to a bunch of spring training camps usually the Cardinals sometimes the the Pirates and then we go up to Fort Myers to see the Sox and I stood next to trying to get his autograph Pedro at the time in like I'm 5'9 and he was shorter than me and that's funny yeah and at the time I was
00:27:21
Speaker
I mean I was probably you know 190 pounds or something and so like he was maybe 150 pounds I mean he's just tiny very slight yeah and all that power coming out of it coming out of that arm it's like holy shit it's really insane yeah I mean it's like his mechanics were just perfect I feel and then like his I mean they always say like he had like
00:27:43
Speaker
very long fingers. So it's like the movement. Yeah, I feel like I mean, that's what I really like as I've gotten. That's what brought me back to it. In a way, it's like as much like the literal success of this player, it was like the the way his pitches physically move is pretty incredible and moving unto itself. It's like it's I don't know if there's any
00:28:10
Speaker
anything I've quite seen like that. I mean, I really, I mean, I remember someone comparing it to someone, I mean, like the writing analogy stands, obviously, I tried to make it stand, but like, you know, you could easily compare it to a painter in a way. It's like the brushstroke of a painter or something.
00:28:26
Speaker
in terms of, you know, fastball and turn in, and, and style and those kind of pyrotechnics. Who are some of the writers that, in your opinion, just have that have that fastball that, that you aspire to, or maybe ones you're like, you know what, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna steer away from that one. What writer Oh, wow, interesting. Um, I mean, I try to read
00:28:52
Speaker
everything in a way because there's so much you can draw on. But I mean, I really like, I feel like my whole life I've been sort of like deemed socially deemed an easy going person. And so over the, you know, in my 20s and beyond, I've sort of made an effort to develop more of an edge, be more of an asshole. So I feel like I really
00:29:17
Speaker
I admire, like Thomas Bernhardt is a good example because he's just so fucking mean and angry, but in a sort of like relatable way. I mean, not that anger is necessarily a fastball. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I am drawn to people who have that sort of, as you said, like pyrotechnic ability, sort of like a range of style and form. I mean,
00:29:45
Speaker
I feel like I talk about Ulysses and that's such a fucking cliche, but like that is a book that sort of like exploded my brain in a maybe good and bad way because it sort of made it very hard for me to write something in a sort of typical straight through fashion. I feel like I brought up Wolf because she's not, excuse me, she's not really like throwing
00:30:12
Speaker
throwing fastballs, it more seemed like her sentences were mimicking this sort of sinuous, arching, curving sensation that I was seeing. And really all of his pitches, even his fastballs have that movement. So it was like an interesting, I don't know. I mean, she's probably just like in terms of if someone held a gun to my head, that's my favorite writer.
00:30:35
Speaker
With her, it's like the imagery of waves and water. It's like a, you know, natural element in a way, the beauty of watching the physical movement of his pitches. Not to keep zeroing in on that, but... Yeah.
00:30:48
Speaker
I go to you know I think like a lot of lot of dudes they kind of go through their David Foster Wallace phase and I love I love his tennis essays like so he's someone who to me has that that fastball and I've tried to write in that style and it's
00:31:05
Speaker
You know, it just comes across as forced. And so I know to stay away from that, but I can draw inspiration from it. So he's like a guy who's got that fastball. He balances the funny with the personal with stuff that's really tactile because he was a pretty good tennis player, you know, just at a low level in the same way that I was a pretty good baseball player kind of on that level. And so it's like I've been able to draw inspiration from him that way. But I also have to remember like he's him now.
00:31:32
Speaker
Don't try to be him, to be you, to be inspired. Yeah. Maybe that's why I brought up sort of like the like diligently reading the canon in undergrad and then sort of like, it sort of happens while you're not watching with, you know, your voice.
00:31:49
Speaker
finding you but I was never like an especially good athlete I'm coordinated enough but baseball especially I was pretty shit at so it's like this and like you know it's like it's the classic trope of the of not to like lean into stereotypes but it's like the sort of American Jew who is like better at like watching
00:32:10
Speaker
baseball them than playing it. So like, I feel like I finally like a lot of me finding my voice is sort of like, for me, like, I mean, it's not really in this piece, but like humor or like chattiness. And sort of, I really like one of my favorite novels is Bologov's Master Margarita. And it's like, that feeling of like, almost being sort of like a quirky host, like figure in a way.
00:32:39
Speaker
is sort of central to my work because I feel like I've tried to ground the reader in a sense that they might not notice how sort of atypical the piece actually is or, you know, guide someone into something that they might otherwise find.
00:32:59
Speaker
daunting or that dreaded word, pretentious. So, yeah.
Developing a Writing Voice
00:33:05
Speaker
In terms of trying to develop your own voice, something you said a moment ago just made me think of how it kind of just emerges over time and develops over time.
00:33:19
Speaker
you're wearing, I don't know, like a weight vest, a 30-pound weight vest, and you're walking along, and then you shed it, and all of a sudden it's like, oh, that's what 30 pounds lighter feels like. It's such an incremental thing of day-to-day work, day-to-day reading, and then you just kind of become it. It's so slow, and I think that can be really kind of demoralizing to some people who just want to come onto the scene, but it is such a...
00:33:47
Speaker
like a product of very deliberate practice over a long period of time. 100%. No, it's very dull. Or, you know, it's like you have to, I love, I love books, I love literature, I love language, but you know, it's like this feeling that those aren't going anywhere and that your engagement with them is both a very literal thing through reading and practicing writing, but then
00:34:14
Speaker
you know, like even in this sort of like less obvious way, I feel like the internet has like completely ruined my brain and also like fueled it where it's like, I often just am like thinking in like images and even, or just kicking around like phrases that are from memes or just tweets and stuff like that. And so it's like, a lot of it is like me trying to convey
00:34:43
Speaker
images onto the page and right. It's like, it's like bridging the gap between like the diligent reading and like everything else. Um, yeah, I don't know. It's like you're filtering it through something and that's maybe where the voice starts coming from. Right.
00:35:02
Speaker
Yeah, and you're referencing how the internet kind of breaks you and it can also build you up. In this day and age, especially with social media being what it is and the arts being what it is, it can be
00:35:18
Speaker
It can be sometimes hard not to be envious or jealous of people and looking over your shoulder. And I haven't asked people this in a while. I used to ask all the time. But there's always an element of sometimes you're looking over your shoulder and you're like, ah, why does so-and-so get so-and-so and get published in this place? I feel like I want that and I can't get there in that comparison trap.
00:35:42
Speaker
And for you, is that something that you wrestle with? And if you do, how do you metabolize it? I can hear all my friends laughing at that question. I feel like I'd fall into that trap for sure, but then I also... A lot of it is very specific for me, I think, in terms of living in New York. And then I feel like I... It's weird. I feel like my day-to-day life here
00:36:13
Speaker
It's more like getting caught up in like a self comparison with people or, you know, I, I kind of intentionally. I'm friends with a lot of people who are creative, but not writers. Um, I don't know if that was like half intentional or half accidental, but, uh, I feel like I get caught up in it. And so much as it's unavoidable here, but then I think like,
00:36:39
Speaker
I keep coming back to the making of writing or like the making of my own work because it is sort of like blessedly like mine and nobody can like take that from me. But that I also feel like in a positive sense, like being online, being in community with people
00:36:59
Speaker
And being in community with people who are very bright, but not necessarily writers, or you know, like readers more than writers, has led me to make work that hopefully translates better to like an audience that isn't like necessarily hermetic, but without sort of pandering or without dumbing things down. And I've sort of found that that's become sort of my like weird niche of late, which I,
00:37:28
Speaker
kind of enjoy. So it's like I weirdly like, I get caught up in, in the sort of social, social crap. But like, I also feel like when I'm there at my desk, like, I'm just thinking about some new thing that I'm either newly obsessed with, or, you know, getting back into like, you know, with this piece, it was like, okay, wow, like, the New York Times is letting me go like nine year old boy mode, like, that's kind of crazy. So
00:37:58
Speaker
Yeah. Um, how aware are you of the reader when you're in the writing process? Sometimes a little too much, but then ideally not much at all. I'm aware of the reader in the sense that I want my work to feel like almost like, almost like I'm like a monologue or like talking AKA not to be too
00:38:28
Speaker
you know, not to overuse unnecessary words, unnecessarily big or fancy words. So it's like I'm aware of the reader and so much as I know that like the work needs to be grounded and communicating to a potential reader. But you know, as I'm making it, the only reader there is me. So it's sort of like this weird,
00:38:55
Speaker
So I feel like I've gotten to a point where I can think about that and even obsess over that without having that obsession be painfully self-conscious or beholden to others. I feel like it's related to an athlete hitting their peak form where they're seeing the floor, seeing the field in full without really thinking that hard about it, perhaps.
00:39:24
Speaker
Part of the Pedro essay, too, when you talk about the pitch variation, speed, location, and so forth, and you relate that back to sentence length and pacing and stuff like that. From a craft perspective, just how aware of you are, because you're kind of a plotter when it comes to your writing, kind of very slow. So in what way are you so mindful of that pacing of sentences and the changing of pitches?
Balancing Writing with Other Aspects of Life
00:39:54
Speaker
I'm so aware of it. I mean, I don't, yeah, it's kind of sucks, but it's fine. I feel like, but that's not, yeah, again, that's not like about like it being shared or with people so much as just being very obsessed with and probably OCD about, about sound and like musicality. I mean, like Wallace Stevens comes to mind with that. I really, I read.
00:40:21
Speaker
I try to read a lot of poetry because I feel like it just really communicates that, you know, sonic word choice importance of all that. Yeah, I'm so aware of it. And it's just like, I'll read through each sentence. Or, you know, sometimes I will almost know the shape of the sentence and how I want it to sound before I even really come to like,
00:40:46
Speaker
what I'm fully saying in it, as crazy as that sounds, it's almost like sound is dictating where I go as much as, as anything, you know, it's like, obviously like the research and the content are in there, but it's like, if it doesn't sound good to read, it's just not worth reading. For me as a, it comes from me as a reader liking stuff that feels
00:41:11
Speaker
You know, I don't want it to feel overly worked on, like that's the irony. It's like spending all this time to make it feel kind of casual, but it needs to flow. I mean, I feel like that was something I realized that a lot of people, you know, in a workshop setting or in like, whatever, like when you're, when you're younger in school, it's like,
00:41:34
Speaker
I don't know if you can always teach that. And so I maybe realized that that was something that was a strength of mine and something I could sort of lean on, but then yeah, it definitely veers into like this obsession with small things and you know, leads to potentially working pretty slowly, but you never know. I mean, it's like, I feel like lately and maybe with this piece, it was this feeling of like, oh, like,
00:42:00
Speaker
It's all in there in the back of my brain or almost underneath your tongue, the sonic underpinnings of something. And I think a lot of people who listen to this show, they're writers, but they also have day jobs. And you're an instructor with a school of visual arts as well as doing your own writing.
00:42:24
Speaker
And it can be a challenge to silo each off, to carve out that time to craft whatever you want to do. So how do you put everything into its little box so you're not neglecting one or the other in the course of a day or even a week or a month? Totally. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely a tough balance. And I don't know. I mean, for me, it's just sort of like,
00:42:52
Speaker
I mean, I think that's why I work sort of, it's paradoxically why I work pretty slowly when I'm in it, when I'm in a sort of state of focus or a flow state or whatever they call it. I feel like a process of accretion or something, I would call it where it's just like that paragraph doesn't, you know, isn't horrible. I can keep it. And then the next day come back and make another paragraph. And then, you know, eventually you do have an essay.
00:43:23
Speaker
So, I mean, it's sort of that sort of awareness that you're split in all these different ways and thinking about all these different things definitely like is part of the way I work on my, you know, writing projects for sure.
00:43:43
Speaker
since you teach, teach writing, you're also a writer, it's, it's important to sometimes get away from it. Uh, so in what ways do you unplug from it? So you're just not totally inundated with, with it. So you can come to your work fresh. Yeah, totally. I mean, I was going to actually say that I feel like weirdly, like I get away from the work a lot.
00:44:09
Speaker
And then that, but that informs the work. So it's like this weird like creation of boundaries, but then also like dissolution of them. I feel like for me, a lot of it is immersing myself in other visual art or music. I wrote like a review in maybe May for the Cleveland Review of Books, which was a review of Mackenzie Work's book about raving and like,
00:44:36
Speaker
that's sort of like almost like the community or scene that I'm most embedded in in New York. I don't, I don't like DJ or anything, but I just sort of have weirdly like come into friendships with a lot of, a lot of DJs that I go to out dancing a lot. And I feel like that is a very like sensorially immersive experience, but then also something that paradoxically allows me to sort of just like,
00:45:04
Speaker
turn my brain off a little bit and calm down. And then just like, I mean, a lot of my work, like this piece included, I wouldn't, obviously Pedro Martinez isn't thought of as a visual artist, but I mean, that was really like the way I was writing about him was informed by like, art critic or failed visual artist. I feel like I'm like really like, my work is very much informed by like,
00:45:29
Speaker
you know, a visual sensibility, whether that's sort of like photography or like cinematic cuts or techniques or montages. And so it's like all that stuff is just definitely like a break from the writing, but then also like feeding it in this way that is kind of exciting and like
00:45:49
Speaker
you know, not visible until it suddenly is. So, yeah. In what way would you identify as a failed visual artist? I mean, I was really into photography, like darkroom photography and like my high school had like a darkroom, which was pretty crazy. And then in like college I was doing that a little, but it's an expensive habit. It's also just like,
00:46:15
Speaker
I feel like everybody became a photographer, you know, with the advent of the smartphone camera. And so it just, you know, in a sort of depressing capitalist sense, it just became clear to me that it would be nearly impossible for me to distinguish myself as a photographer, but it would also set me aside as a writer if that sort of,
00:46:40
Speaker
I informed a lot of the work I was making. And yeah, you know, I don't know. I used to like, I used to draw a lot as a kid. I would just like draw my favorite athletes. So yeah, like I said, like I had done this drawing of Pedro Martinez. I happened to meet him in the Fort Myers airport. You know, it's like that probably, you know, in that way to art very much informed this piece.
00:47:07
Speaker
I think anything that sets you aside and like can either be this like creative release that maybe doesn't really enter the writing itself but just sort of like in that sort of way clears you up to to to do it better or just stuff that is sort of like literally cropping up imbued in the work. You know, I feel like like I really am someone who's obsessed with like
00:47:37
Speaker
as I said like sound of the work but then like light motifs patterns you know like almost like quick cuts like in a film or something and it's not even like I'm like sitting there at my desk like oh I need to like make this into a collage but you know it's like oh okay like I noticed that this essay I just filed like has a lot of lists in it and it's like this way of like
00:48:06
Speaker
giving the reader a ton of visuals in a row and bringing up themes that way without having to drag it out. And it's a very quick way of putting a lot of context, implicit context in. And so I just find I'll notice things like that happening. I don't even move to the phase of analyzing it like this until it's done. But it's exciting to be like, OK, cool. That just came out of the work almost.
00:48:36
Speaker
Nice. And, Will, I like to bring these conversations down for a landing by asking the guests for a recommendation of some kind. And that can just be anything you're excited about that you want to share with the listeners. And it doesn't have to be a book, but it could be a cool new water bottle that you're... It can be anything. So I'd extend that to you, Will. Not to be dorky and make it a book, but I feel like the other...
00:49:01
Speaker
The other day I was sort of trying to give my students something to read that would just sort of communicate just very like successful descriptive or visual writing. And for me that what came to mind was I have like the collective poem collected or sorry, complete poems I'm looking at right now of Elizabeth Bishop.
00:49:26
Speaker
And I feel like she's a writer who also worked very slowly, was not afraid to sort of redo her drafts.
00:49:36
Speaker
redo her poems until they felt ready. But then I feel like she's doing this, she's really a master of like drawing a scene or like a landscape in front of you and then sort of like subtly imbuing theme or symbol or meaning, but not in any sort of heavy-handed way into that sort of like landscape drawing approach that she's doing. And I don't know, that's just someone who I sort of
00:50:04
Speaker
always find myself gravitating back towards.
Reflections on Writing the Essay and Podcast Conclusion
00:50:08
Speaker
Fantastic. Well, I'm so glad we were able to have this conversation in your Pedro essay. It was really fun and great and whimsical and it brought out all the feels for me too, just being a growing up a Sox fan and stuff. I'm glad, yeah. Thank you, Brandon. I appreciate it.
00:50:27
Speaker
I see an effort. Thanks to Will and thank you for listening to this latest episode of the podcast. You can subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you prefer. You can follow along on social at Creative Nonfiction podcast on threads and Instagram. The only social media footprint for the show.
00:50:47
Speaker
So I haven't done much of a book update in a while. So as of this writing of this, as of the writing of the script and the recording of this parting shot, I crossed the 40,000 word mark, which is something or it's not nothing nearly halfway to the low end of my word count range for the contractually obligated word counts, which is, as I understand it, a bit more fluid.
00:51:17
Speaker
Neither here nor there. I have about five and a half months to go to my deadline, which is pretty terrifying. This month though, I like had to just, something of a, not a vision, but a kind of a goal. Be like, okay, you are where you are with your research. How about we just scale back a little bit.
00:51:37
Speaker
on the research and hit a new level of altitude in terms of the writing, in terms of word counts. So I pruned some of the research, which is always ongoing, and then write maybe upwards of a thousand words a day for the month and try to push into the 60,000 word range. Get real close to it, if not across it. And then power back down
00:52:02
Speaker
and do more interviews, always more interviews, and get deeper into the meaning of the guy. You know, I'm inspired by the structure of the documentary, The Last Dance, the Michael Jordan docu-series and the 98 Bulls. And I'm real excited to play with that. I figured out, Prefontaine's quote, Last Dance,
00:52:22
Speaker
It's not what you think. It's not like a final race. It's something else entirely and like what that means and how the series of events became this apotheosis of the vision he was manifesting for years. And so I'm going to toggle between that quote, last dance in the main narrative. If it doesn't work, that quote, last dance stuff will still be a chapter into itself. So it won't be wasted. And another thing,
00:52:49
Speaker
I haven't been writing chapters at all, which is kind of weird. I've just been writing pretty much linearly or sometimes not linearly. Like when I, if there's one island I want to write, sometimes I just go there and leave it in the document and be like, all right, we'll stitch this together at some point or another or not. At a few places, I just kind of write like end potential chapter. Like sometimes it just feels like the end of a chapter.
00:53:18
Speaker
But otherwise I'm not like this, like this chapter is about this. Okay, and move on. It's more on feel. Like I'm really writing this book on feel. I'm guided by the riverbed of the newspaper archives and my interviews with nearly 100 people and counting, you know, fill out the river and I'm just letting it guide me, man. You know, my pal Bronwyn Dickey told me to explain it now and write it later.
00:53:47
Speaker
And without asking her to expand on that, I'm finally understanding what that means, at least for me. It's just like, just get shit down. Don't worry about elevating the pros or adding a witty turn of phrases. That can all come in the revising, the rewriting. I haven't even read a single word of what I've written either. So that's going to be enlightening.
00:54:09
Speaker
and terrifying. I'm trying to enjoy the process, the journey, while also not getting too down in the dumps about not being able to talk to 400 people like a Jeff Perlman or Jane Leavy would. I waver between wanting to finish this book, so I never have to do it again.
00:54:29
Speaker
I also fear how much I'm going to miss spending every single day and night with Steve Brevantein. I don't want to squander the time I have with him because when this is done, it's over. I don't get to hang out with him anymore. And depending on how the book does, I might get the scarlet letter. No one might want to publish me again.
00:54:49
Speaker
So I need to really just settle in. I don't want to squander the time I have with them because when it's done, dude, it's over. I don't get to hang out with them anymore. And it's been fun hanging out with the guy. Yeah, that's how I see it. But there are moments in the writing and the reporting of this where I can see myself being like 100% done with book writing and writing in general. Like maybe I'll go back to school and become an electrician for the remainder of my days or go to culinary school. I've always loved the idea of
00:55:18
Speaker
creating with food and celebrating food. If I pivoted out of this jam then I wouldn't be able to engage with it again because knowing me I'd be bitter and that I couldn't sustain it. That I couldn't be a successful writer.
00:55:39
Speaker
or at least a writer who can support himself. I wouldn't be able to listen to podcasts. I wouldn't be able to conduct this podcast any longer with writers, listening to writers, talking to writers, or really even read many books anymore because I'd realized that I wasn't strong enough to keep going and I'd always be comparing myself to them. I'd get all bitter and filled with regret and I could see myself on my deathbed wishing I had just stuck with it.
00:56:03
Speaker
because there wasn't anything better than immersing yourself in the life of another person or no noble or pursuit in celebrating good sentences and charming artists. Ugh, I mean, it's a mess. It's a, it's a damn mess. I'm gonna go play some Zelda on the Nintendo Switch. My wife bought me for my birthday in July.
00:56:30
Speaker
I finally set it up this week because a perverse part of me was like, you don't deserve to play video games when you have so much work to do, blah, blah, blah. So instead, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. I play a little bit on Friday night and Saturday nights now, that's the plan. Maybe with a beer in hand. And it's really hard to figure out the controls because there's like 45 fucking buttons.
00:56:58
Speaker
You know, if I have a decent week of book work, then yes, I get to play my Nintendo and go to Hyrule because it's a trip, man. Yeah. Link, Zelda, you know. All right. Stay wild, seeing efforts. If you can't do, interview. See ya.