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Episode 293: The 'Supremely Tiny Acts' of Sonya Huber
206 Plays3 years ago
Sonya Huber (@sonyahuber) is the author of the memoir Supremely Tiny Acts: A Memoir of a Day (Mad Creek Books).
Show notes: brendanomeara.com
Support: patreon.com/cnfpod
Social Media: @CNFPod
Sponsor: West Virginia Wesleyan College's MFA in Creative Writing
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Transcript
Dedication and Submission Updates
00:00:01
Speaker
Hey, this episode is dedicated to Emma Janssen. She's at Emma Janssen on Twitter. That's J-A-N-Z-E-N. She's a journalist, editor, and photographer. This episode is dedicated to her for a generous retweet of episode 289 with Annalise Jolly and Zahara Gomez. Thank you, Emma.
00:00:22
Speaker
And hey, before we dive into the interview, I want to remind you that the submission deadline for issue 3 of the audio magazine has been extended to December 31st, which means you got like a weak man. Themes, heroes. Essays must be no more than 2,000 words submitted as a written document. If it's accepted, we will worry about the recording process later. So bear in mind...
00:00:44
Speaker
Though it is a written submission that it is an audio essay, so pay attention to how the words tumble out of your mouth. Email your submission with heroes in the subject line to Creative Nonfiction Podcast at gmail.com. Oh, by the way, I pay writers, too. I mean, you're not going to be able to retire on it, but you'll be able to get yourself some sick ass burritos. Dig. Am I the weird owl of creative writing? No, I don't know. Well, that's OK if I am. That would be a compliment, right?
00:01:13
Speaker
That's now the teaser for this episode when it comes out.
Sonya Huber's Return and Achievements
00:01:35
Speaker
Sonya Huber, she returns. This time she's got a new memoir called Supremely Tiny Acts, a memoir of a day. It's published by Mad Creek Books. It's a remarkable book. And one of my favorite reading experiences of the year, pardon my stumbling, I read about close to 50 books. I would say by the end of this year, in the next week or so, I'll probably put away about 45.
00:02:03
Speaker
And it was definitely right up there with, you know, Punch Me Up to the Gods is probably my favorite. The part that burns by Janine Olette. It was fantastic. Supremely tiny axe. It's right up there, man. Right up there. Sonia Zayin, essayist, creative writing professor, an author of Pain Woman Takes Your Keys, Cover Me, a health insurance memoir, and Opa Nobody.
00:02:32
Speaker
You know when you look up into the sky and there's a ton of stars, but then you see a wicked bright one and you're like, fuck, that's a wicked bright star. That's Sonya Huber, but we'll get to her in a moment.
Podcast Sponsorship and Listener Engagement
00:02:46
Speaker
Support for the creative nonfiction podcast is brought to you by West Virginia Wesleyan College's low res MFA in creative writing.
00:02:54
Speaker
Now in its tenth year, this affordable program boasts a low student-to-faculty ratio and a strong sense of community. Recent CNF faculty include Brandon Billings-Noble, Jeremy Jones, and CNF pot alum Sarah Einstein. There's also fiction and poetry tracks. Recent faculty include Ashley Bryant-Feltson, Jacinda Townsend, as well as Diane Gilliam and Savannah Sipple. So no matter your discipline,
00:03:15
Speaker
If you're looking to up your craft or learn a new one, consider West Virginia Wesleyan right in the heart of Appalachia. Visit mfa.wvwc.edu for more information in Days of Enrollment.
00:03:29
Speaker
Oh, and if you head over to BrendanOmero.com, hey, you'll find your show notes to this episode and a billion others. And you can also sign up for my up to 11 monthly newsletter. It's this thing I've been doing for like 10 years. It's changed a bit over the years, but it's rock steady recommendations.
00:03:47
Speaker
raffles, exclusive happy hour, cool links to articles, some things I've done, mainly things that I've admired and curated over the course of a month that I want to share with you. First of the month, no spam. As far as I can tell, you can't beat it. And you can always keep the conversation going.
00:04:07
Speaker
on the socials at cnfpod on the twitters and at creative nonfiction podcast on instagram if you have a moment consider leaving a kind review on apple podcast we stalled out a little bit listen a podcast like mine it feeds off the kindness of reviews i have no name recognition you know this i mean my name is really cool and it looks great in print but people are still like who
00:04:34
Speaker
Who are you? But if they see a giant pile of nice written reviews, and there is a big pile considering the amount of reviews that are there, the wayward CNF'er will be like, well shit, I gotta give this a try. So, and if you do leave that review, I'll read it on the air. It's only fair. I'm not a monster.
Creative Projects and Community Involvement
00:04:52
Speaker
And Patreon, you know this, is how we subsidize the enterprise and keep the lights on here at CNF Pod HQ. It's how we pay writers that fat burrito money for the audio magazine. Also, members get to ask questions of guests and I give you credit for that. Like I said, I'm not a monster.
00:05:10
Speaker
There's transcripts, too. I'm sorry I'm a little behind, but yes, you get transcripts. There's coaching available and the knowledge that you're helping the community. And I'm also working on some other fun goodies, exclusive stuff, maybe video stuff, maybe crafty stuff. I don't know. That's the fun part. And when you're a part of the Patreon community, you get that little peek behind the curtain. All right, one more sponsor. The show is brought to you by The Word.
00:05:41
Speaker
Allurephile.
00:05:44
Speaker
a person who likes cats, a cat fancier, I'm sure you know it, one or two, uh, Allura files. It's a tricky word to spell, and it's even harder to pronounce for me. It's a funny word. Alright. You know, I riff at the end of the show, so for now, let's get to the main course.
Sonya's Approach to Writing and Promotion
00:06:06
Speaker
This is episode 293 with Sonya Huber.
00:06:22
Speaker
Yeah. How did you over the years learn to embrace the book promotion part of the book publication? Well, what I did this time, you know, instead of doing readings, I like was I've been offering free classes. And that's been so awesome and so different, because I just like I sort of am encouraging people to do this thing where they're writing what happened to them during the
00:06:52
Speaker
same day that we're doing the workshop. And so it's really nice. People talk about their lives and share. It doesn't feel like it's all about me, which is the part of Book Promotions that I really don't like. That's a really clever way to go about it. For me personally, I'm not a huge fan of author readings. Me neither. Me neither at all. I kind of hate them.
00:07:17
Speaker
Me too. I can't pay attention. I tend to not literally fall asleep, but sometimes fall asleep. I find them kind of boring, but I much prefer, and this happens infrequently, but I much prefer the author just kind of giving a
00:07:36
Speaker
a mini lecture or something about the book and about the process of the book and maybe something that's sort of, I don't know, sort of tangential to the book, but an actual reading from the thing is not going to get me to want to buy the book. I'd rather just kind of hear the author riff on cool
The Writing Process: Discoveries and Challenges
00:07:52
Speaker
things. Totally. Totally, yeah. And this is nice because it feels like
00:07:57
Speaker
I don't know, it's just like it's getting to be with other people even though it's on zoom and it's interactive. So yeah, but I also readings just feel the same like sort of artificial and stiff. And I'm not good at sitting still.
00:08:15
Speaker
Yeah and well to your point about a little bit of that that that writing about about it about your day or whatever these classes you're doing that was kind of like what you had had us do at your hippo camp talk a bit you know you had us inter inter mixed with you know you talking about what you were talking about you had us like kind of scribble in these little cute little notebooks that you handed out so right how did you arrive at that is as something that you wanted to do
00:08:41
Speaker
I just started thinking about, you know, the theme of the book, and then, you know, sort of about like, writing the mind at work as Philip Lopate advises us to do. And then, you know, I think a lot of my teaching these days is grounded in that. I think partially too, because it took me so long to sort of feel like I had the authority to just talk about the random shit in my head.
00:09:07
Speaker
So then that's the thing that I really want to give to other writers is just say what you're thinking about and all the crazy stuff in your head. I think that helps people get over this idea that everything that they write has to be precious and perfect. Totally. It's just like you got to let it rip. If you're not writing bad writing, you're never going to get anything good out. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I feel like I'm
00:09:32
Speaker
whatever, a couple words out of every paragraph, if I can keep some of them, that's great. But yeah, no, nothing comes out pretty. No, not at all. But there are those moments every now and again that you would have never gotten to had you not just sat there and written a bunch of shitty sentences and paragraphs. You're like, oh, that is OK. And then you build on that. Exactly. And then you also sort of, I don't know,
00:10:00
Speaker
Yeah, it's the uncovering process of sort of disagreeing with yourself, you know, and saying like, why think this? No, wait, do I really think this? You know, and kind of digging a little bit and then, yeah, then you learn stuff about yourself.
00:10:14
Speaker
Yeah, and it's a, you know, a lot of people talk about the whole, you know, your writing is just reveal, it's taking a piece of marble and then revealing what's inside it or whatever. But the thing is, you have to build up the marble first and then you can kind of refine it. So that's like the hard part is like just getting enough marble done so then you can start shaping it. Yeah, which is sort of what, like some sort of huge geologic process over eons, right? That's not easy. Exactly.
00:10:44
Speaker
That is so perfect. There has to be some volcano erupting that is terraforming the earth. Creatures have to die, all kinds of microscopic sea creatures or something. I don't know.
00:10:59
Speaker
Yeah, I love it.
Overcoming Writing Fears and Authority
00:11:03
Speaker
This morning I was reading an interview with Dave Eggers about his latest book and I think this one will appeal to you. He said, because he was talking about how bad it is that so much in social media is so performative and everyone's just over recording themselves and you can't be creative.
00:11:20
Speaker
you're just shining a camera on you the whole time. Totally. So this quote was, but to create, you have to tap into the anarchist part of yourself. There can't be rules and there can't be anyone looking over your shoulder. And when I read the anarchist part, I'm like, Sonya's gonna love this. And now you know, right? Oh my gosh, my crazy varied past. Yeah, and I totally, you have to like,
00:11:48
Speaker
Like just put aside the idea of an authority judging you, you know, and judging what's on the page, which I, which I, you know, tragically, I think like that's what we give children through K through 12 education.
00:12:03
Speaker
is like, I'm not doing it right. I'm not doing it right. And then I had a student this semester in creative nonfiction. He turned in this amazing essay called, I hate English. And it was just about like how he was basically told over and over again, you're not a good writer. You don't have a clear thesis. And I was like, guess what, dude, you're a good writer, but like people get so alienated from their own means of production.
00:12:31
Speaker
Yeah, well there's so much, in order to become a competent writer, so much of it comes down to unlearning everything that you've learned in the past, and that can even, you know, not to knock on MFA programs too, but I think there's a tendency, and I think that, I love the MFA program I attended, but I think I lost my voice in trying to do whatever it was I was doing, and then it took about two years for me to kind of get back to
00:13:00
Speaker
where I, to like the core of who I was as a writer. And maybe I had to go through that crucible. But I feel like there is a lot of unlearning, right? Yeah. And I think like it's, like, I think too, it's all it's about like, understanding that your instincts are good. And like, which instincts
00:13:19
Speaker
to follow,
Embracing Unique Writing Styles
00:13:21
Speaker
right? And like that balance between taking in feedback from other people, but also really getting a sense of what you do well, which I feel like is really hard. What would you identify as the things that you do particularly well that you know you can double down on? Oh my God, I wish, sorry, I just made this face. I almost hurt myself because I was rolling my eyes at myself like, oh my God, what? I mean, I really like, I'm not in touch with any of that right now. What do I, I don't know. I mean, I,
00:13:49
Speaker
I'm pretty profane. I have a low standards. I don't know. Okay, I will say this. I'm pretty good at a tangent. Yeah.
00:14:01
Speaker
Well, I think your new book is these tangents that come around and bend back on themselves and get us back through line and everything. It's a really remarkable piece of work when you say it's a memoir of a day, but it really just goes off into all these wonderful directions and still comes back to our
00:14:21
Speaker
to our, it's almost like that paddle ball thing with the balls on a string so it's going out, but it's always coming back. I love that. Oh my God, that's so great. Yes, I love that as an image. Totally. Yes. So when you were approaching the synthesis or the idea of this book, how did you arrive at this, that it would be a memoir of a day, but go off on these spurs? First, I was obsessed with this novel, Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine.
00:14:51
Speaker
And like it's a random novel. It's a real little thin book. It's about like nothing. Like this guy's at work and on his lunch break, he goes and buys shoelaces and milk. Like nothing happens in this book, but it was, it's so good because it's so, it's like the fingerprint of thinking, you know, the whole, the stream of consciousness. And I think the bar was really low in that, or it seemed to be low. I think there was probably a lot of
00:15:20
Speaker
Like, you know, it's a ton of drafting behind the scenes, but it seemed so approachable on the surface that I was like, oh, I want to do that in nonfiction. And then, yeah, it took like 10 years for me to think, like, how would I do that? I have no idea.
From Essay to Memoir: Sonya's Journey
00:15:33
Speaker
And then you know about the, do you know about the What Happened project, Andrew Monson's project?
00:15:38
Speaker
So what he did was he, and you know, I just saw something recently. I think his model might have been some French thing, which I have to look up. But so he invited hundreds of writers to all write essays about their day and the same day. And so he picked like sometimes some date in June in 2018. And then like hundreds of people wrote essays about like, whatever life handed them.
00:16:04
Speaker
it was so cool because it was it just felt like like this big arts and crafts project like we don't get to pick what we get like let's just all play with our materials and then um he did it again in 2019 but i i didn't do the second one but i did the first one and i was like oh i get it you know and it really i i really loved it but i didn't really think i was ever gonna actually do a book and then like it wasn't until like probably
00:16:35
Speaker
seven or eight hours into the day that I write about that I was like, could I write about this? And I thought it was an essay. And then it took me maybe a month afterwards of like, composing first a chronology of the day, and then thinking I had enough to expand it. You know, I was thinking first, it was going to be an essay, but then it just kept getting bigger and bigger.
00:16:58
Speaker
And then I saw that I needed flashbacks and, you know, of the action itself and then of the training. And then I decided to just go all the way out on all those tangents. And then I guess the only thing that, like, as far as the tangents coming back around, I didn't know at first that they would return, but I guess you're sort of guaranteed that they will, because I mean, most of us are sort of
00:17:24
Speaker
at one point in time, we're wrestling pretty obsessively with a few themes. It's just natural. I was surprised at the extent to which the themes kept coming up, but maybe I shouldn't if I had been paying attention to what it feels like to be alive. But it ended up being like, I thought about the structure as kind of like, you know how a Brussels sprout looks when it grows? Like there's this big thick stalk and there's all these little blurbs off the side. That's like what I, that's what, that was my visual while I was writing like,
00:17:53
Speaker
It's all gonna come back around. It's all part of the same plant.
00:17:58
Speaker
There's a point in the book, too, where one of the more rewarding things that you do for your students is give away little notebooks. And you write, there's something bracing and clean about the rush of writing and the sense of accomplishment afterward. Maybe you can take us to that sense of accomplishment that you see in other people, but also that you feel in yourself, whether you're writing something that's really pyrotechnic or something that is not as precious.
00:18:26
Speaker
Gosh, this happens all the time in writing workshops. It just happened yesterday with some students. I think for me, the real rush is showing students, look how well this is working, and then having them hear
00:18:43
Speaker
from their peers, no, this is really good. Like having it independently confirmed from multiple people. And I think like it's only through hearing that that then we get a sense of confidence of like, oh, this is my jam. This is the thing that I do. And then it's like the awareness of something you do well combined with like that making you a little braver and braver at doing your thing.
Uniqueness and Audience Connection
00:19:10
Speaker
That's what it has felt like to me in my own writing process. I realize at this point that I can be weird pretty well, and that feels very bracing and clean to me. Yeah. Well, when it comes to anything, whether it's a book or a podcast, the only way to really
00:19:31
Speaker
If you've found your audience, whoever that might be, it benefits everybody to go out on the limb, and the more weird you can be, the better. It doesn't mean being weird out, it just means being very... It could be. Although go weird out, right? Although go weird out. Exactly. Just eat it. Amish paradise.
00:20:02
Speaker
Am I the weird owl of creative writing? No, I don't know. That's okay if I am. That would be a compliment, right? That's now the teaser for this episode when it comes out.
00:20:17
Speaker
But it goes to show that the only way you're ever going to stand out is to try to appeal to a very small audience and be weird, be distinctive, because there's already someone fill in the blank. We need more of you out there. Well, and like, I mean, like, so I always think back to, you know, when I wrote the Pain Woman collection, that was the first time and it happened really clearly for me, like,
00:20:43
Speaker
being a certain number of years into my career and having tenure and being like, okay, they
Ethical Dilemmas in Memoir Writing
00:20:49
Speaker
can't fire me. Here it goes. And I just sort of like let it all rip. And then I just got a huge burst of energy from sort of seeing that even if I was writing really strange stuff, some of it seemed to resonate and it still managed to do all the things that an essay is supposed to do.
00:21:08
Speaker
Now I know, we established that a great strength of yours is profanity and tangents. I know for me a big weakness I have, it tends to be over writing, trying to be too clever, too funny. And then I have to dial that way back in the subsequent rewrites. So I wonder with you, what do you struggle with in that vein
00:21:33
Speaker
that you always find yourself, okay, reel it back in a bit and get back to really what is really making this thing. Yeah, totally. I'm an overwriter. I write really long. So I'll probably like...
00:21:49
Speaker
I'm just doing this now with another book project like I thought I had gone through and cut everything I could and then I print out another draft so I'm like oh my god there's still so much unnecessary stuff. I mean I feel like in some ways it's yeah it's the same lack of precision I have with speaking like it really takes me just throwing a bunch of words at something and then clearing half of them away to get a sense of what I want to say and to not waste too much of the reader's time. That's one thing and then the other thing for me is
00:22:19
Speaker
you know, just like vagueness and like, like approaching my opinions kind of side long, like, I think, or I might like just say it, but that never seems to go away. So I've always got to go back and like, steer in from that.
00:22:35
Speaker
To your point earlier about, you know, you had the tenure and you were able to let yourself kind of let it rip at some point. You know, there was a moment in the book, too, you say, you know, for me, there's a constant feeling, too, of faking at being a professor when I always feel like the person I am at my core won't pass in that role. And so I have to be extra aware and amped up to build the hologram of seeming professional or right.
00:22:59
Speaker
That just gets right at the core of most of us just feel like frauds all the time. I know. Do you think that's just writers or do you feel like it's everyone? I would like to know. I think it's everyone and I think we don't feel like it's everyone because social media has put out this airbrushed veneer of what it looks like to be just crushing and just crushing it all.
00:23:29
Speaker
I'm not crushing anything. I'm being crushed. I'm being crushed by the weight of the world has crushed my spirit.
00:23:44
Speaker
but yeah that's just it like it's something we just so wrestle with so much and I wonder you know how you how you know sort of process that you know of you're putting out the hologram even though inside you might be like am I even pulling this off
00:24:01
Speaker
yeah totally oh my god i was just talking about this today with my with my therapist because it's a big thing for me but i think i mean like for me in both and you know in when i think of writing and i also think of um teaching like i need people around me to tell me that i am
00:24:19
Speaker
Not fucking everything up, you know, so students faces and also student learning over time It's like okay I know what I'm doing and I'm clear about that because things seem to function you know and then similar with work like I'm all about like encouraging my colleagues and That's a healthy culture. I think at least like within the apartment that I work in It just takes me checking with other people because I on my own Like yeah, I I'm not crushing
00:24:49
Speaker
I don't know how, whether I'm being crushed or not. And like, I really need the committee to weigh in on that. So yeah, horribly needy as a person.
00:25:03
Speaker
Oh, I know. It's amazing we can create in the face of just this constant need of validation. Oh my god, isn't that why we write though? I feel like if I was more stable, I wouldn't need to do this.
00:25:22
Speaker
I remember when I one of the animating forces of what made me want to be a writer and a journalist was when I would look at the cover of a book I really admired and I was like okay this is by John McPhee or this is by Dave Eggers and I got that feeling of oh I know what kind of a ride I'm going for because I love those names I love those writers and I wanted to
00:25:43
Speaker
my own ego, I guess, I want to elicit that similar feeling if someone sees my byline on the cover of a book or an essay. And so it was kind of like a need for to be seen and validated versus, you know, just writing good stuff because it feels good to write. It's almost like I was doing it as I don't know, I'm performing to get some sort of buzz instead of
00:26:06
Speaker
I guess the instead of the work being its own validation was like, oh, cool. I want the prestige of being on the stage versus the pleasure of having done the work. Right. Well, I think it's always like this weird mix of those two. And for me, like it's also very much like.
00:26:24
Speaker
I don't know. I feel like anytime anyone says anything strange that I do is working, I'm so drawn to that affirmation that I'm like, really? Okay, more. I'm just always chasing approval, which has worked out okay for me so far.
00:26:44
Speaker
And I love in the book too, there are so many things that you riff on so well, whether it's the insecurities around privilege and motherhood. And there's a moment later in the book too about motherhood where you say like, you love your son so much that you went straight to inadequacy. I was like, wow, what a line. So like, where does that stem from? Where does that come from?
00:27:11
Speaker
I mean, I think it's just, I mean, my son's 18th birthday is tomorrow. Wow. Congratulations. I mean, you got him to adulthood. It's like, yeah, so far, like every day I'm like, okay, it's still working. It's crazy. I mean, like just raising a little scrap of a human into like somebody who's functional is ridiculous.
00:27:32
Speaker
So yeah, I just, I mean, yeah, I do think that anything that we want to do well is really daunting if you think about it. And then I think probably especially for parenting, I just am pretty well in touch with all the ways you can fuck it up. So I just, you know, like don't want to do any of those things. And I did have somebody else, someone who I was talking to about the book who was like, you're really hard on yourself.
00:28:00
Speaker
Like, why is that? And I'm like, oh, you know, you know, you can you can come to me next time. Come with me to therapy next time. But yeah, I mean, there is that sense too, I think, like, you know, for essayists, especially, like, I love our our tribe of nonfiction people. But we are sort of, I think, drawn to examine and reflect and like, that just gets you into some whirlpools, you know,
00:28:29
Speaker
Like some of the habits of mind that make good writing also make us more aware of how fraught things are.
00:28:37
Speaker
Well, yeah, and also to get to the heart of an essay or a book, and especially if there's a certain degree of that whirlpool of self-examination, like you really have to get to a place of discomfort. Yeah. And that often means you got to get ever more closer to the marrow, and that's just a hard place to go. Yeah, and you have to really like, I mean, that's where your material is, unfortunately, right? It's exactly at the, like,
00:29:05
Speaker
the growth plate, you know what I mean? The point where there's a sore or there's like a question or an instability, you know, that's our plot in nonfiction. So I think too, but on the flip side, I feel like, like some, I was just thinking about this today after having like, workshopped a really difficult student essay on Tuesday about a student of mine who was in an abusive relationship. I sort of, you know, on the flip side, I feel like
00:29:35
Speaker
Because of what we do as writers and also what we do as readers of nonfiction, I feel like it's given me some sort of comfort and resilience with thinking about all those hard issues because I'm always like pushing myself toward them. You know what I mean?
00:29:54
Speaker
And you're right, too, the fact that I have to open up my own heart, the live unknowing of nonfiction, which is our research. I tell them, meeting your students, the work of looking into our minds and being honest about what is there, the emotional work of feeling it, the resistance to it, then the swimming in another person's experience and wondering what other people's lives are like.
00:30:16
Speaker
You know, is that kind of where, you know, where the juice is for you and how you try to convey that message of what is so great about nonfiction is about, you know, as much as we write about ourselves, we're also, it's best to look outward sometimes. Totally. And I feel like in looking at like our points of discomfort or just things that are unsettled, like the more we get to that vulnerable moment, the more we're able to connect with other people, you know, into
00:30:46
Speaker
connect our struggles to other people's struggles or likewise the joys, you know. So yeah, I think, I hope at least that being able to write that stuff about what we're crushed by is making us also much more aware of just that other people are struggling too.
00:31:08
Speaker
And how do you navigate writing about yourself in a way that's not self-indulgent but is still ultimately in service of a reader? I never want to waste a reader's time. But a lot of this is just through having careful readers, like my friends, like a couple writing groups. They will.
00:31:32
Speaker
No problem. Tell me like Sonya, you have to cut out half of the Star Wars metaphors. This is not helping at all. That's where I go is Star Wars all the time. And so yeah, they'll just tell me, you know, I'll get will sit down and I'll get pages back with big X's through and that's great, you know, and so my friends
00:31:53
Speaker
who are my trusted readers also do that same job of pushing, pushing, ooh, this is the hard stuff. That same discomfort that we start having in our MFA experiences of like, here's the big question that you're circling around, but I can tell you're totally in denial about. And then someone tells you that in a workshop and you're like, fuck. And like your whole life falls apart for a second. You know what I mean? Oh yeah.
00:32:22
Speaker
in the the the ill-begotten baseball book I've been trying I've been shopping around forever when my editor was taught in subsequent rewrites of it he's like I can tell you're orbiting around certain things here but you're not quite getting there
00:32:40
Speaker
in order to and it's like in order to get there i would have to you know interview close family members who are just not gonna talk and like it is and so it so i've just it was probably i was writing around it because it was hard anyway but then also because i know even answering the asking the question of let's say my father of just certain things that try to get at that
00:33:05
Speaker
Crack that open a little bit. Oh, he'll just shut that shit down like nobody's business. So there's just no way in Yeah, it's like what do you do about that? I like it. Do you just cut out everything? I don't know. It's hard because Otherwise people are just gonna notice like I feel like there's something more here but you're just running laps around it instead of like diving into the pool and
00:33:27
Speaker
totally, I have one whole manuscript that is sort of just shelved because I don't know if I have the guts to publish it. But the same thing of like, I was just thinking about another book. Oh, I had an essay. I mean, yes, there's been a couple times in my life where book manuscripts have, or essays that are about to be published, have caused some major, major family conversations.
00:33:56
Speaker
Like in one case, I published an essay about my dad that I just went straight for a print journal and I was like, you know, first I was like, God, of course he'll never see this, thank God. And then I was like, son, you don't be such a dick. Like just go, just do it, be a person, send him an attachment and an email. And it was, it was like, it was brutal, just waiting for his feedback because it was about, you know, like,
00:34:25
Speaker
his drinking and you know, whatever. And then it turned out to be this massive conversation that changed our relationship. It was all via emails, but it was a series of things he told me that I assumed would be like, if I was lucky, would be like a deathbed conversation. So, but yeah, but it's terrifying, right? Like what other job? It's like, why don't you push at all the sore spots in your life?
00:34:52
Speaker
Yeah, when you're having those conversations with your parents, there's no way, there's almost no way to ask a question about your past without that question sounding judgmental. Right. And well, it's one thing if your parents are writers or whatever, but my parents are definitely not. And so I can't even imagine what it's like having a memoirist as a kid, you know? Oh, God. Well, because they don't even know that they were on the record.
00:35:21
Speaker
whole time right like I thought I was just feeding you and sheltering you oh my god oh yeah and again those those times that I was asking you to to get me a beer while we're driving driving around creation and you're like yeah just and there's a cooler a beer at my feet all the time and my dad would be like you know Ryan my middle name you know my family calls me Ryan
00:35:42
Speaker
They're like, uh, just, you know, just get me a beer. And I, at some point when I was little, I knew this was wrong, but at the same time, like, ah, this is just what he does. Right. And so I'm here, I'm his little bartender and just give him, give him his Bush light while we're just driving around. And, uh, it's just like, well, that's not normal. Right. And then you talk to your friends like in college and you're like, Oh, right. When you're like comparing. Oh gosh. So was your book, your baseball book was about like fatherhood or
00:36:12
Speaker
Manhood and, oh man. Yeah, it's a really, a child of divorce memoir decides as a baseball book, decides as a baseball book. So there's just, you know, it's a lot of that stuff and a very, very early rough iteration of the book too. Cause my dad was being kind of difficult when I was trying to ask him certain things. So I just wrote my thing. I printed the whole thing out and I mailed it to him. Which that's great. You did that. Oh my God. That's awesome.
00:36:42
Speaker
Yeah, and it was a draft that was post the vindictive draft. Yeah, which you have to get passed, right? Yeah. But it was still a long ways away from being anywhere resembling something publishable. But I remember having a long conversation with him because he wrote all his notes in the margins, just a whole slew of bullshits in the corners and every which way.
00:37:10
Speaker
yeah it was yeah pretty mean and yeah and it was um but it was just his way you know he's very defensive and on the back of it on his heels i'm like listen like i'm like dad ultimately if i've done my job well which in the end i hope i will it's like people aren't going to
00:37:29
Speaker
think about you or me, they're going to overlay their own experiences over us. And we're just kind of a vessel for other father-son, father-daughter relationships. So that was always the way, and that seemed to get him a little, his hackles went down a little bit after that.
00:37:52
Speaker
but it's been several years since they even showed him that draft. I've been shopping this around for so long that I'm not even so sure he'll be alive when the thing actually sees the light of day, but we'll see. Who the hell knows? I think the latest draft is very redentive in the end and everyone comes out okay in the end. It's just you have to show some of those warts.
00:38:13
Speaker
Oh, my God, seriously. And it's so hard. I mean, you know, like my family are not readers. My mom is. But like, without, you know, without having read a bunch of books, the whole thing feels like, you know, it just it feels like you're going to be splashed on the cover in The New York Times, I imagine, you know, if you're someone who's not in control of the situation at all. Yeah, yeah, it's very exposing. And I think it's not in a salacious way, but it's just I think he probably
00:38:44
Speaker
And I imagine a lot of other parents of memoir writers, too, feel this way. They're going to feel like their friends in the world is going to judge them. And the fact is, and maybe in a moment be like, oh, that's I wouldn't do that. I can't tell you how many memoirs I've read, Sonya, where it's just.
00:39:02
Speaker
the father or the mother does something terrible. But I'm not like, oh, you're the worst person in the world. I'm like, oh, that sucks in that moment. But I don't hold this, you're a terrible, terrible person judgment, unless they are evil. But that's rarely the case. Usually everyone is just trying their best somehow. And sometimes their best is awful, but at least they're trying.
00:39:28
Speaker
Right. And children are, it's really hard to raise a kid and never get upset or never do something that you later regret, you know, or it's, it's, it's impossible, I think. So yeah, that, I think that's, but it has to be interesting too, like, especially with the topic of like masculinity, right? To be like, okay, I'm going to expose you, right? Like that level of vulnerability also doesn't jive very well with like a certain class and a certain era of modern American manhood.
00:39:57
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And there's no better way that a man of a certain age, there's only one language he can typically speak. And it's usually through sports. And that was kind of our common tongue. And so there's a whole thing around that in the story. Well, now I want to read it. That sounds amazing. Oh, thank you. Hopefully it'll come out at some point or another.
00:40:27
Speaker
It's been a slog to get the right person interested
Challenges in Publishing and Proposals
00:40:32
Speaker
in it. Yeah, I know. What's that experience been like for you? Like when you've got this thing that you're just, it's hanging over your head, you desperately want it published, but it just, you're struggling like hell to get it in the right person or the right publisher's hands. Oh my God. I've been working on this book about inequality in Connecticut for, oh, I think eight or nine years now.
00:40:55
Speaker
And it's finally almost done. But I went through a big long dance with a big five publisher who was interested really early on. And I was with another Asian at the time. And it was, and you know, it's so weird because like crafting,
00:41:15
Speaker
a query letter or a book proposal is so different than writing. Do you know what I mean? It's almost like it's the opposite of writing in some ways. So usually I have to sort of plan for a low running level of depression while I'm writing query letters or proposals. I just feel so separate from whatever I really wanna be doing. And I just, yeah, that's just, I mean,
00:41:45
Speaker
So anyway, it's been a long process for me. I finally have another agent, but I've had to like, I don't know if I talked about this last time we talked, but I'm, oh yeah, I think I did. Like I'm, I often will just take a break from a project that's haunting me and write something else, which is actually how most of my books have resulted from breaks from bigger projects.
00:42:09
Speaker
The creative infidelities is what you said. So this day book is a little recess book from that big wrestling with inequality book. Yeah.
00:42:21
Speaker
I almost feel like, and who knows, maybe this is a business you and I should start, Sonya. I know with movies, they outsource the movie trailer to other companies and they cut the flashy thing that makes us want to go and drop 20 bucks on a movie ticket. I don't know, maybe we need to- Yeah, maybe they have the formula, right?
00:42:43
Speaker
Exactly. Find a really good query writer. See, here's the book. I need a query and an overview for a book proposal out of this. That movie trailer hook of this thing. Totally. You write it. Well, and I finally did. For the longest time, I was like, I don't need help. I'm a writer. I could figure this out. And then finally, I got a new agent. And she's awesome. But she was also like, this is just not working.
00:43:10
Speaker
And I was like, shit, I still don't know after all this time how to write a book proposal. So I ended up hiring someone, like a friend of a friend. That was the best 650 bucks I've ever spent. She ripped it to ribbons, but then out of it came clarity. And she's like, here's what you do.
00:43:28
Speaker
and it worked. I couldn't do it. I'm like just not linear enough to do that shit. Just not. What was not working and when she reassembled the ribbons, like what was it, what did it look like before and after? Like before, before it was, here's the thing, before it was all very essayistic. Like I was trying to write the book proposal as an essay.
00:43:55
Speaker
And that's not, you have to be a different person. Do you know what I mean? You have to like be the person, like the book has to be completely done and completely amazing in your head to write a good proposal. And I can just never get there. Exactly. Yeah. I have no level of confidence in anything that I write.
00:44:17
Speaker
while it's in process especially. So I think it's a huge confidence thing for me. And then also, I mean, because I write a lot of stuff that's like research woven with personal story, they kept wanting more personal story. And I'm really interested in the reporting about the causes and effects of inequality. So I was having a really hard time like stepping to center stage
00:44:45
Speaker
until this person, my editor, was like, look, here's where we need it. Here's where we need it. And she just said, you have to say something about yourself here. Yeah, it took a lot of really direct feedback. And then I felt like it wasn't just mine, and that was really nice. What would you say your relationship is at this point in your career to ambition? Oh my god, that's such a good question. Ooh.
00:45:19
Speaker
I know when I'm challenging myself, and I just want to keep writing books that are the hardest book for me to write at the current moment. Like, do you know when you're just like, okay, I'm in a war with this book? Yes. Yes, I do. Like when you've painted yourself into a corner.
00:45:44
Speaker
And then that's where you're supposed to be, God damn it. I just feel like for whatever reason, I got a sick personality that loves difficulty. Like I love that level of challenge. I find it. Maybe this is what people who like hunt or play video games a lot or like maybe I'm a version of that. Like I really need a big adrenaline rush. And that's how I get
Ambition and Writing Challenges
00:46:08
Speaker
it. Yeah, I'm like playing squid game with my book right now.
00:46:13
Speaker
Right? Isn't it funny sometimes you just like be waking up or going to sleep and be like, Oh, fuck you. Were you like that constant low level level? No, I should I hear like, fuck you book. Oh my God. That is like the perfect discoloration.
00:46:41
Speaker
Like you sit down in the morning and you're like, so we meet again. Oh my God, just a seething. That needs to be a writing movie, right? Not like some drunk guy in a bathroom, but like somebody who's actually like, like I've also wanted to just throw my computer into the yard, you know?
00:47:11
Speaker
I feel like Charlie Kaufman could pull that screenplay off. Totally. He kind of did it with adaptation a little bit. Oh my God, that was so good. I love that movie so much. Yes, exactly. So anyway, I feel like if something happens where a book of mine gets attention or an award at some point in the future that also happens to be
00:47:40
Speaker
the next hard book, like I'll be totally happy. But I sort of feel like I'm just locked into this, like, that there are books that I have to write. And they're my, they're my subjects. But then I feel like I only have a set of limited abilities. So if it does something great or not feels like not as much under my control. And I feel like I mean, my God, I'm a
00:48:07
Speaker
full professor of creative writing, this is way better than I ever thought I would do. So that's enough already. You know what I mean? When I see people winning rewards or getting notable selections for this, that, and the other of things that I would desperately want to be in, sometimes I, like if I had
00:48:24
Speaker
As much as I want that, of course, it would be great to be recognized in that way. Sometimes I think if I had gotten that recognition, I don't know, at 30, not that I've gotten anything like that yet, but if I got it when I was real young, like 28, 29, 30, I don't know how well I would have processed it and then grown from there. There's only one way to know, and there's no way of knowing at this point, of course. But I feel like maybe now it would be a little more equipped just being this far in
00:48:53
Speaker
I don't know. Is that how you feel too, just being out where you are in your career? Definitely. Like I sort of, I felt like I had a lot of time of.
00:49:02
Speaker
you know like just struggling to figure out my own writing and like you know getting publications like we all do but you know yeah definitely not getting discovered at age 25 or anything with a review in the new york times and i feel like that has made me a different kind of yeah maybe that's the kind of experience that makes you aim more for difficulty because that's what you associate with writing
Valuing Unique Writing Styles
00:49:30
Speaker
It's really difficult, I'm going to make it as hard as possible. Yeah, or that weirdness we were talking about earlier. You just get a little more comfortable in your weird, wrinkly skin. Exactly. Oh my God, I have this burrow of weirdness I've dug. Yeah, that's where I'm at. You come up, you just look like a squinty eyed mole. Exactly. Oh my God. Yeah, so there's that coming from the basement and my family is like, Jesus Christ, what is going on down there?
00:50:01
Speaker
You're like, I was just having a staring contest with that manuscript just going, fuck you. Exactly. I'll just randomly say to my husband, like, I hate my book. And he's like, I know. It's OK. The heat keeps me going.
00:50:21
Speaker
Oh, man. That's great. Well, I love it. See, this is what I like about... Sometimes I have people on the show and we get real granular about a particular magazine piece or an essay or even a book. And then there are some conversations that are more like this that are just kind of like... I don't know. We're in a weird elliptical orbit. Like what are we doing with ourselves? Yeah. We do it ourselves.
00:50:43
Speaker
I think conversations like this sell more books than actually talking about the books. I truly think so. Okay, so post COVID, I guess we're going on tour. Exactly. The Huber O'Meara comedy show.
00:51:00
Speaker
You got a problem? We'll solve it. Bring it to us, or else we'll tell you that you're okay. Oh, you know what? This will get you a little flat-footed. This is how I like to end shows, and I forgot to prime the pump with this. But I've been ending shows a lot lately by asking someone for a recommendation of any kind.
00:51:20
Speaker
And that can be a book, a movie or a new pair of socks. And I usually prime the pump with the writers, but I forgot to do that for you. But I'll just ask you now. So if there's anything out there that you might just recommend to the wayward listener, you know, what what might you suggest for them? Oh, awesome. So I've been telling everybody, first of all, I just finished last night. Beth. Oh, my God, I think I have to look up her last name. Novel, the pessimists that just came out.
00:51:50
Speaker
Oh my god, it's so good. Pessimist. Is it just called the pessimist? Yeah. And it's really, it's funny and tragic. And it's just really, yeah, Bethany Ball. And I don't know her, but like,
Episode Wrap-Up and Reflections
00:52:09
Speaker
Oh, she's actually that's an example of somebody like I met on Twitter, like just because we both seem to have some similar sensibility. And then I was like, Oh, I'll buy your book. Oh my god, it's amazing. So yeah, it's really like
00:52:24
Speaker
I don't know, it's interesting. And it's about like, the weirdness of Connecticut. So like, oh, cool. Yeah. And then also, so I did a, I did a piece for Lit Hub that was a bunch of different books that take place in a day. I did a whole bunch of reading for that. But the, the novel, I guess these are all novels I'm recommending. How weird. I go in phases where I don't often read fiction, but then I read a bunch of it. Like when I want to escape from reality.
00:52:53
Speaker
I think fiction is so important to writing nonfiction. Oh, it's so good, yeah. Yeah, it's such a relief too. But so there's this book by Kathleen Rooney called Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk.
00:53:10
Speaker
It's a novel, but it felt like instructions for how to live. It's like this 80 something woman is walking around New York, just sort of like processing her life and running into random people. It's so good. It's like so weirdly good. It's great. So yeah, two works of fiction I would recommend.
00:53:32
Speaker
Sweet. Well, Sonia, always a pleasure to talk shop and just get all weird on the microphones. Thank you so much, friends. Hey, now we come to the Acknowledgement section next to Sonia. And thanks to WVWC, MFA in Creative Writing, and the word
00:54:00
Speaker
Allurephile. I still can't pronounce that word. Allurephile. I believe that's how you pronounce it. A cat fancier. Mm-hmm. Hey, how great was Sonia? It's just a boatload of fun. A boatload. Like a yacht full of fun.
00:54:17
Speaker
I talked a little too much in that one, but you know, that happens from time to time, especially when I have repeat guests on the show, it becomes a little more conversational instead of the me asking questions and so forth. But you know, I hope you're okay with that. Sometimes you just have to deal and go along for the ride. Getting ready to wrap up this 2021.
00:54:38
Speaker
Remember way back when, when we bid farewell to 2017 and everyone was like, man, can't get any worse than that dumpster fire? Then it steadily got worse than that every single year. Now we just live in high anxiety all the time. It's like this is the new normal, living in constant dread. So we might as well throw up double fingers and say, so long, thanks for the fish.
00:55:08
Speaker
But if you're not feeling entirely bleak, I know I plan on trying to do something I've never been able to do in my entire life.
00:55:17
Speaker
Which is, stop complaining so much. Maybe stop complaining. I'm a complainer. I bitch and moan and I'm basically a walking, sad trombone. And who does that serve? I'm not even waiting for January 1st to start, friends.
Personal Goals and Social Media Challenges
00:55:32
Speaker
Anytime I catch myself wanting to drop a real negative comment or joke or complaint, or a sick tweet, I catch myself and breathe that bullshit away.
00:55:44
Speaker
I'm gonna mine my beeswax and when I feel that toxic twinge, which I feel on the rig, I'm gonna channel it into something, some good work, something creative, something maybe for me, maybe something for public consumption, I don't know. But it just needs an avenue, a pressure valve to go somewhere else and then just realize, we're all just animals, man.
00:56:09
Speaker
I came across a blog post by Cal Newport about Twitter Free January and I'm thinking of doing that just to reboot, kind of scrub, defrag the computer as it were and as you know my problem is getting the word out about
00:56:26
Speaker
this podcast. My other problem is what right do I have to ask you to share the podcast with your network and your newsletters and your social media and then abstain from the enterprise myself. It's like that time my buddy's very religious mother asked me to place bets for her at a horse race. I had a horse track on horse races.
00:56:49
Speaker
Somehow by asking me to do her dirty work, it absolves her of the guilt. So I don't know what to do. But here's what I do know. I feel crappier for having been on Twitter than not crappy.
00:57:04
Speaker
And that should be reason enough, right? There are people in my Twitterverse who kind of annoy me. Like they take to Twitter to rail on people or rail on an industry or rail on Twitter on Twitter. And it's like, what's the point?
00:57:20
Speaker
And so what if you maybe you win Twitter for an hour? Then what? Doesn't mean anything to dunk on people or an industry or Twitter. Like, if you hate it so much, why do you need to shout about it on the platform?
00:57:36
Speaker
I just don't get the rationale. I guess I do, because you like the attention, and you like seeing the little hearts light up in the little blue notification, meaning that someone saw you. And that's pretty much what it all boils down to. And they've hardwired these algorithms to pull those levers of us constantly needing to be validated and seen. This is no new insight, but it's just something you, once you have seen it, you can't unsee it. Or once someone tells you it can't be untold.
00:58:05
Speaker
And as you can tell, this has already polluted my brain and I'm not even on it right now. I'm here with you, Ruth-ing, about it. Yeah, Ruth. I don't even know if it works. Like, some days I'll schedule a dozen tweets and there'll be like 50 downloads.
00:58:25
Speaker
then I won't do anything at all. And there could be like 400 on that day. So I have no idea what happens. It's all a crapshoot. And I'd rather not waste my time and mental energy in these parting shots on crapshoots.
00:58:41
Speaker
that said, I might keep using Hootsuite, which is kind of like this firewall. To me, it's like a fortification between me and actual Twitterland. Like I can fire arrows over the wall without having to engage with the armies on the other side. So I think I can still celebrate the people on the show because I feel like I owe it to them to constantly
00:59:03
Speaker
you know put them out there that's why you come on the show it's part of the transaction without having to actually engage and mud wrestle and Twitter not that I'm like in it with trolls I just it's not how I operate on Twitter but it's still I get pulled into this vortex of bullshit that I don't like and I will
00:59:26
Speaker
I will certainly engage in more bite-sized morsels because mainly I want to give people those fist bumps and those props for helping out and for retweeting and for sharing and for trying to engage because we all just want to be seen and I don't want to be a total dick. All right, that's got to be it, right? Why don't you stay wild, CNFers? And if you can't do interviews, see ya.
01:00:15
Speaker
you