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Episode 204: Peter Brown Hoffmeister on Self-Control, Internal Drive and Regret in Memoir
120 Plays5 years ago
Peter Brown Hoffmeister makes his return to the podcast.
He talks about role models, internal drive, self-control, regret in memoir, and he even reads a poem at the end.
Keep the conversation going on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, all @CNFPod.
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Transcript
Artistic Inspiration from Family
00:00:00
Speaker
kind of creating is cool. And so I get up every morning excited to write. And honestly, when I go to bed at night, I set up the coffee and I get kind of excited and I can't sleep at first because I'm pretty excited to make art in the morning. So I think that's just straight through from my mom into my personality.
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:25
Speaker
Hey.
00:00:26
Speaker
It's CNF, greatest podcast in the world, the creative nonfiction podcast, where I speak to badass people about the art and craft of telling true stories, how they became who they are, and what they're thinking about and working on. I'm your host, Brendan O'Mara. Hey, Peter Brown Hofmeister makes his return to the show. You can check him out on episode 68.
00:00:49
Speaker
long time ago, but he's back for number 204. Great talk. Can't wait for you to hear it. Hey, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you get your podcasts and to keep the conversation going on the social networks, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
00:01:06
Speaker
at CNF pod. Hmm.
Podcast Engagement and Revival Strategies
00:01:09
Speaker
Also head over to Brendan to Merit.com Hey for show notes and to sign up for the monthly newsletter where I give out reading recommendations and what you might have missed from the world of the podcast. That's fun.
00:01:23
Speaker
Hey, you've heard me say it before, but don't we all need editors? I know, I sure as hell do. If you want to get in better shape, you hire a personal trainer. Likewise, if you need your book or essay whipped into shape, or you need an accountability coach, reach out to yours truly, brendan at brendanamare.com. And we'll start a dialogue. Why not, right? I'd be honored to serve you in your work.
00:01:51
Speaker
I'm not sure how many of you noticed, but for shits and giggles, I started up the Casualty of Words podcast again, as a quote, podcast diary of a book project, end quote. As I rewrite and retype the baseball memoir turned novel, turned memoirvel, whatever the hell it is, certain things crop up and I riff on them for Casualty of Words, riff.
00:02:16
Speaker
It's a micro podcast and most of the episodes are less than two minutes long. So check it out, why not? What do you have to lose? Just, you'll get more of this. Is this what you
Listener Feedback and Podcast Style
00:02:29
Speaker
want? Are you not entertained? Wanna read a review, a new review I got over on Apple Podcasts. We're at 88. Let's get to 100, come on. Let's do it.
00:02:45
Speaker
If you had a podcast, I'd review it. If you leave a review, I might just read it on the air as a way of saying thanks. So this one from Big Too Hearted is titled Breakthrough.
00:02:58
Speaker
I listen every week and return to some of my favorites every now and then. Writing is a solitary act and this podcast makes it less so. We get inside the brain of some great writers and hear their frustrations, struggles, strategies, and successes in their process.
00:03:17
Speaker
lets me know I'm not alone when I'm struggling. Brendan does a great job of getting them to talk about their process. I love hearing
Peter's Creative Projects and Inspirations
00:03:25
Speaker
about different topics and subjects about which writers are writing. Stimulates my brain. One thing I really appreciate about Brendan's approach is that he has a handful of questions that he poses to writers over time. Then we get to hear a myriad of experiences regarding process about getting over and around tough times and hurdles in the process about inspirations.
00:03:47
Speaker
about who and what do you read and other unique responses to common themes around the craft of writing. Sometimes Brendan gets a bit long in posing questions or in commenting after the interviewee answers, but also makes the show more conversational in nature. This podcast is just part of my weekly routine. Well, thank you for that wonderful review and for the criticism.
00:04:14
Speaker
That said, all right, this podcast, speaking of me being long-winded, this podcast with Pete is more conversational than most, mainly because we had a few things we felt like we wanted to talk about. So you hear a little more of me than you're accustomed to and then maybe you'd like for that. Sorry, not sorry. He's not promoting a book or anything. It was just like, kind of felt like talking about some things. So we're like, let's fire up the mics.
00:04:42
Speaker
So, Pete is the author of the memoir, The End of Boys, and the novel's Too Shattered for Mending, and this is the part where you laugh among a couple other books. His
Creating Art with Authenticity and Purpose
00:04:51
Speaker
new podcast is called Boring is a Swear Word, and it's brilliant. You should totally listen to it. It's got little riffs and poems and essays from Pete's life. One voice, great stuff. He's the kind of guy who just makes you want to get out there and do stuff.
00:05:07
Speaker
So what do you say? Why don't we just get after it, CNFers? You ready to throw it down? You ready to spend a fun hour with one of the best writers in minds out there? He's a fellow Eugenian, someone who I consider a friend, though we've never met. This podcast made me want to get out and be better. Made me want to be a better worker. Made me want to work hard. And I hope you will too. Oh, yeah.
00:05:40
Speaker
It's so cool and quirky and just uniquely you. It's so voice-driven. As the podcast sphere keeps expanding and stuff, it's these things that are on the edges and on the margins that are going to be the ones that gain the most traction, I think. It's solely focused. It's a one-voice podcast. It's all these stories.
00:06:05
Speaker
little slideshows,
Personal Growth and Creative Drive
00:06:06
Speaker
if you will, from your life. And I just find it so engaging and really love listening to it. Oh, wow. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, it's been fun to do. I got approached by a few people about doing it. And then finally, someone I really respect was like, hey, you got to make a podcast. It's actually my
00:06:29
Speaker
My brother-in-law, Caleb, he runs Film Pack, a film company, and he does all the book trailers for my books, and he actually does book trailers for everyone. He's done it for John Grisham and Tom Hanks and Joe Nezbo, and really, really big people. He's really good at what he does. And he was like, I think this is the perfect medium for you. And I was like, I don't know anything about that, but I started talking to people, and it's actually pretty fun. Right, it's hard.
00:06:58
Speaker
because you want to bring joy and you want to entertain so that you're actually giving something. So it's like, oh, I'm a narcissist. I'm going to throw material out there because I'm important or I have an important voice or something like you or I hope that I'm entertaining people. You know, that that's kind of the thing that you're hoping you're doing.
00:07:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, of course. And that having a sort of empathic mindset is like you can – it's always trying to be in service of a reader and in this case, the listener. It's like, all right, so if people are going to be a fly on the wall to this conversation, it's like, well, what can we –
00:07:36
Speaker
What can we bring? And I think we're already hitting on some themes that might make an audience member think about, okay, like maybe, you know, I don't have to, there are different levels to contextualize competition, or there are different ways to just issue that all together, or just, you know, do something that isn't truly in service of an audience. And if you can connect with one person, like that's a start.
00:07:58
Speaker
And then you just kind of keep going from there and keep showing up. And as long as you're in the game, you're in the game. So you just keep finding ways to keep playing the game. Exactly. And kind of what you said, just like, don't make it a competition. Because if you make everything a competition, you're going to spend your life losing a lot. It's not going to help you, but then you're not really going to be able to help other people too. And I think helping other people is important.
00:08:22
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I was listening back to our first conversation, which is bananas. It was episode 68. And so it was almost like – it was probably a good solid year and a half ago was when that happened. And early on in that episode, I think we were talking about the –
00:08:40
Speaker
the hunger and how you stay hungry. And given that we're a couple of years away from that, I think you just put out your strength in what room, not strength, that's Tracy Kidder book, Two Shatter From Ending. Just come out and you're working on something else. And so where's the hunger? Where's the drive? What is driving you to this day? A year and a half after
Optimizing Creativity through Routines
00:09:03
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we first spoke on the show.
00:09:07
Speaker
Well, I mean, sometimes I think about like, what's my internal drive like? And I get to that in a minute, but I think you have to have role models in art, like in making art. And for me growing up and seeing my mom make art all the time and different art, like she was sculpting or she was painting with acrylics or she was painting with oils or she was drawing with charcoal or
00:09:33
Speaker
She was drawing with a pencil. I mean, she was, my mom was just making art and making art and making art and making art when I was growing up. And so that taught me, I mean, from the moment I was born, I wrote on her back to her BFA classes. And so I don't remember a time when she wasn't making art. And I think that taught me that like making art is really, really important. It's valuable. And now, I mean,
00:09:59
Speaker
I still believe that every single day that making art is really important. So that lesson that my mom taught me from the moment I was born on her back in her art classes, you know, that kind of pushed me forward. And then also, you know, the second part is like internal drive.
00:10:17
Speaker
I find joy in creating, whether it's telling stories on my podcast or writing poems. I've been writing a lot of poems or like working on fiction, working on a novel. Right now I'm writing a screenplay with another writer. I mean, just like any kind of creating is cool. And so I get up every morning excited to write. And honestly, like,
00:10:39
Speaker
When I go to bed at night, I set up the coffee and I get kind of excited and I can't sleep at first because I'm pretty excited to make art in the morning. So I think that's just like straight through from my mom into my personality. I love that. This idea of – it's something I've called in the past like setting up the bowling pins the night before because that way you set them up that night before and that way you're creating one, you're a little bit of anticipation but you're also reducing the friction.
00:11:08
Speaker
in the morning, because when you're a little groggy and you're like, I'd rather sleep in, it's cold out. But if you put your running shoes out right next to your bed, you just slip them on and go out. And it's very similar. It's like, what can you do to grease the gears? So all you have to do is sort of roll over to your workstation and get some work, then just get something down, get something shitty down and make it good later. Right. And like I was lucky because I took an advanced poetry workshop with Dorianne Locks in college.
00:11:38
Speaker
And I didn't even know how lucky I was at the time because I didn't know what an incredible poet Dorian Lux was. And, you know, later read all of her books. But she told me to just like on any scrap of paper at all times, write down ideas. And so I'm constantly writing on like junk mail, little scraps of paper and receipts and everything and throwing them on my writing desk.
00:12:01
Speaker
It's like, I have so many notes on things to do. Like, I could never finish all my projects that I aim to finish. And sometimes, three years later, I'll find a file and be like, Oh, I wrote half a book on that topic, man, I should finish that. But I just get so caught up, like, I'm going to finish this collection of poetry, I'm going to finish these podcast episodes, I'm going to finish this novel, and then there's just a million things out there and so many things I want to do, but
Integrating Diverse Inspirations into Work
00:12:28
Speaker
you know, eventually we'll die.
00:12:31
Speaker
That is, you strike a good point too. There's this great, it's awesome that you're curating this reservoir of which you can draw inspiration from. But in that too is,
00:12:47
Speaker
a lot of semi-works and semi-levels of production can also kind of siphon the energy away from finishing maybe one good thing. And sometimes as you're working halfway through this one thing, you're like, oh, look at this shiny idea. I'd love to just be more in the honeymoon period of this than actually finish this. So how do you navigate that and stay the course on, say, I don't know, project
00:13:14
Speaker
A, and then, you know, of course you've got some other things stewing, but you know, of course you've got to somehow lean into the one thing, finish. Ooh, that's a really good question. Well, with the shiny objects on the sideline, I use a program called self-control that just shuts down the internet, basically, and it's free, you can download it. And that really helps me if I'm, then I can just work on a Microsoft Word document on my
00:13:42
Speaker
newest novel or on a collection of poetry or nonfiction essays or whatever I'm doing. So using that program helps. And then I write, I know it's kind of cheesy, but I write New Year's resolutions where I list certain numbers of things I want to do, like, you know, writing 25 new chapters of my book this year, or if it's possible finishing
00:14:09
Speaker
a revised draft of my newest book or something like that like, and I just keep looking at that, it's in my kitchen and I keep looking at it every single day for the entire year so it's like, come back to this project come back to this project come back to this project and um, and then I try to
00:14:28
Speaker
prioritize things not for like a day or two at a time, but think like, I'm gonna focus on this one thing for six months straight until it's a lot. It's difficult. I think, you know, there's so many things to distract us. And I think that we're like in the distractibility age. And I'm kind of astounded by all the things that distract me. I feel like it's a wild time to try to create anything that takes two years of focus like a book or three years.
00:14:56
Speaker
Yeah, you make a great point about the distractibility, we're in a distractibility culture, and probably every generation would argue that too. Probably when radio came along, people were like, whoa, boy.
00:15:09
Speaker
back it up a second what's with radio this is gonna screw everything up but in this day and age of course it just the ratchet just keeps getting cranked so it's it's always about removing things like what can you sort of I'm always aiming for that like what can I do to just strip it down strip it down strip it down and that way
00:15:29
Speaker
Because I am distractible myself. So it's just like, what can I remove from from the table and kind of Marie Kondo my mind in a way to declutter declutter just seems to bring me clarity. Right. And I think people with artistic mindsets are naturally curious people. And to be an artist, you have to be curious. And the problem is, there's so many paths you can chase with your curiosity. Now, look, I'll go down.
00:15:57
Speaker
a 20-click rabbit hole where I'm suddenly reading about something that I've never even considered in my entire life. And that's cool because that might go into a story somewhere, might go into a poem, might go into a podcast episode, might go into a fiction chapter. But if that's all I do with my time, I don't create, I don't produce. So I
Teaching as a Creative Community
00:16:19
Speaker
kind of have to balance that, like,
00:16:22
Speaker
curiosity time, with productive time, with rest time, with outdoor time, it's tough.
00:16:31
Speaker
And is there a way that you – you know, you say you've kind of almost storyboard out a year in a sense. Is there a way you kind of storyboard your day so that you can feed the creativity but also, you know, be doing consistent work on the big thing? So you're writing that maybe a chapter a week or whatever that is, you know, however that manifests itself.
00:16:54
Speaker
Yes, yes, definitely. Storyboarding the day is a good idea. Like, for example, I get up earlier than everybody in my house. So I have two or three or four hours of quiet every morning, and that's also when my brain's freshest. So I try to prioritize my most important creative project first thing in the morning. So I'll get up, start the coffee.
00:17:17
Speaker
drink a little coffee and stare out the window for a minute or go outside and watch the sunrise for a few minutes, something like that, just to wake up my brain and then I'll go straight to my writing desk where I keep everything and then I'll work on my most important project first because if I don't do that first then I won't put my best brain power towards that project. And maybe sometimes, like right now, I have two projects that are most important.
00:17:46
Speaker
working on the screenplay with a friend, and I'm working on this book. And so those are the two most important things, and do those things first, and then start to get to the other things, the work things, the online teaching things, the answering emails, the answering messages on Twitter and Facebook, the things that don't take as much brain power. If I do those things first, I just sap my creative brain, and then by 10 or 11 in the morning, I'm not that creative.
00:18:16
Speaker
But I try to do creative things first, then work things for a few hours, then take a nap, then some more work things, maybe work around the house, hang out with people, go outside, rock climb, hike, walk. And then at night, I do my reading. So I don't need my top creative brain for reading, but I need reading so that I'm generating new ideas so I'm living a thousand lives, that kind of stuff. You have to take in so much art to have depth. And that's another thing I learned from my mom.
00:18:45
Speaker
Every time we traveled, it didn't matter if we were traveling in state or if we were traveling across the United States to New York or Washington
Ambition and Artistic Evolution
00:18:52
Speaker
DC or if we were going to Mexico or Europe. I mean, we just always went to museums and we were always looking at art. And then at home, I mean, she had art books all over and she had great novels everywhere and she loved poems. She had me memorized poems. So, I mean, there was like all of this material that was going into my brain.
00:19:15
Speaker
And without that, I don't think you have depth to your art. And that's the cool thing about the internet, to me, is the possibility of going on Google Images and looking up an entire artist's imagery of their work, just googling their name and hitting images. And you can look through whatever, 60 years of their paintings or something. That's pretty cool.
00:19:38
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. Doing that on Instagram, I love following illustrators specifically. Yeah, they have such a, of course, a very visual sense, but so much of their, like, I'm thinking of like, Liana Flick, who's a New Yorker cartoonist, and she's just so irreverent and raw.
00:19:58
Speaker
in her, in her drawing. And then the writing behind the drawing is, is so tight, efficient and witty. Oh my God, that's just so cool. Like what, and then I start thinking, I'm like, all right, what are those things? How can I apply what she's doing to what I do? Uh, even though we're working in different medium, it's like, there's still something that I can sort of cherry pick from what she's doing. And, uh, I love that sort of cross pollination of artistic media to inform the thing it is that we do.
00:20:27
Speaker
Right. And I guess like even I'm inspired by my students and the younger generation, just like visual artists. Like I have a student who named Sabine Michael Rear and she's now writing like graphic novel, text, drawings, images and words in Portland and making zines and little collections.
00:20:53
Speaker
And she's inspiring to me. And then, you know, even younger, I follow Maddie Francois on Twitter because like she'll post these images and words that make me think that's kind of cool just to be inspired by your students. Like I was inspired by my teachers. So that's, that's kind of a cool progression for me.
00:21:14
Speaker
Do you find, now that you're in a position of educating young people at South Eugene and probably elsewhere too, just internet speaking, that it's your way of being able to pay it forward in the artistic community? I hope so. I mean, I hope to pay it forward. I think I was so fortunate to have
00:21:40
Speaker
poetry professors in college that just poured into me like I had a poetry professor who would take me out to play pool every Friday night. And I, you know, I had Joe Millar and Dorian Locks who would have me over to their house all the time. And
00:21:59
Speaker
I don't know how they gave so much time to students. And so I try to think that that's maybe my responsibility, but also my possibility. I can inspire these students to write good things, to care about art, to value curiosity. And I hope I'm paying it forward with my students. I've gotten to teach lots of different places now.
00:22:25
Speaker
at one place south of June for a long, long time, and so I've had maybe 2,000 students now, so that's kind of crazy.
00:22:32
Speaker
Yeah, I'm thinking it's funny, one of the worst quotes of all time or the mantras is like, if you can't do, teach. And I also have the thing where if you can't do, interview, which is how I end every single podcast, which is just my own tongue in cheek way of just punching down on myself. But when I look at
00:22:56
Speaker
the look out there at so many of the writers I admire. You know, John McPhee is my hero. He spends most of his year teaching. Nick Flynn, who is just on the show here, he teaches at the University of Houston every semester. You know, Mary Carr, George Saunders, go write that, Andre De Bute III, all these brilliant writers.
00:23:17
Speaker
who are putting out, when we think of them, we think of the work they do. And we think that that's what ultimately sustains them, but really what they're doing, they're primarily teachers. And I think it's real important to...
00:23:31
Speaker
to foster that sense of community and to realize that it's, yeah, they have these, they're able to publish these things with great publishers and go on book tours, blah, blah, blah. But ultimately, they're fostering community and, and, you know, trying to, they're nourishing themselves by nourishing the community, I think. First of all, how cool is it that you could interact with people like Nick Flynn? I mean, that's pretty amazing. You built something cool. But, yeah, I think
00:24:00
Speaker
Interaction is so important even if you're just reading like I'm reading Mary Oliver's poems and essays right now and just Going through stacks of her work and she's brilliant and I'm you know I'm interacting with her even though she's passed on but also what you said about building community I think that's the most important thing Educators can do and I think the list of people that you just mentioned those incredible writers do build community and
00:24:29
Speaker
And that's kind of all we can hope for in creating art is creating community, building empathy, caring about the planet and not just humans, but everything about the planet, flora and fauna. And, you know, if we can recognize that we're part of this big, complicated system that's
00:24:52
Speaker
That's a pretty big gift just to realize it, but then maybe to hopefully be part of the positive spreading of that message. What's your relationship to ambition these days? Ambition? Wow. I mean, if we're talking about ambition as far as like making money and becoming famous, then I guess, you know, one
00:25:21
Speaker
I don't care very much about that. Otherwise, I wouldn't teach because teaching doesn't make you famous or make a lot of money and it takes a lot of time. But as far as ambition, like creating great work, I'd say I care a lot about ambition, like I am ambitious. I want to produce my best work. If that's what ambition means, then I'd say I'm fairly ambitious.
00:25:51
Speaker
I don't know. I also realize that our time here is finite and I'm not going to complete everything I hope to complete. I'm not going to be as great of an artist as I hope to be. So maybe I'm a little bit ambitious, a little bit fatalistic in recognizing my future demise. I
Balancing Life and Artistry
00:26:13
Speaker
don't know. How do you define ambition?
00:26:16
Speaker
you know, before, you know, back in the cauldron of when I started, say this show, it was the it was a stew of resentment and bitterness and loneliness. And so I had, you know, first, it was the I had this vision of myself being one of those like, those, you know, not select for those high profile freelancers and doing the feature writing that gets heavily
00:26:44
Speaker
Sort of in the machine of the big glossy magazines and then when that just wasn't happening I and then as I kind of work through all that shit because as a result of this podcast I realized that my the only person I
00:26:59
Speaker
If I can really boil it down, the only person I'm ambitious with or in competition with is an older version of myself. Like, am I a little bit better than I was a year or two ago? Am I asking better questions? Is there less verbal stuttering and filler?
00:27:18
Speaker
You know, am I, you know, can I, is my internal shot clock when it comes to asking a question a bit better? I think, you know, 10 to 20 seconds is what I afford myself in like in a pure interview. Like today's a little different. We're having more of a conversation over coffee, which I love.
00:27:37
Speaker
But yeah, so it's, I think my, my ambition has to, it's changed a little bit. It's a little more inward driven versus those outward metrics of trying to have like, you know, a, a Titanically downloaded podcast or, you know, a big publisher or, you know, that kind of thing, which kind of really in 10 years ago was important to me. And now I realize that's like, oh, just do good work in service of the people.
00:28:06
Speaker
you seek to change and seek to help and then the rest will kind of take care of itself. Right. Right. I get that completely. I understand being in competition with yourself and I also sense a little bit of like – I don't know if regret is the right word in what you're saying but maybe understanding that your old worldview wasn't as clear headed as maybe you're new.
00:28:35
Speaker
perspective I don't know I mean that's I think that's true at all cuz that's true because I don't think I had a night ahead of the idea like when I saw so-and-so published in outside magazine or something and I well I'm like ah man that's like that's the shit right there and but you don't realize that maybe that person is also doing some content marketing on the side or doing some ghostwriting that is the kind of their anchor gig and
00:29:04
Speaker
But they're only promoting this cover story or this inside feature and outside. But I didn't know that at the time. All I was seeing was what people were tweeting out. I'm like, God damn it. I wish I was doing that. And here I am alone doing these Bleacher Report slideshows of winners and losers from the Coca-Cola 600.
00:29:27
Speaker
I was doing a ton of NASCAR slideshows for 50 bucks a piece that took me six hours on a Sunday. And to do total, to watch the race, do the slideshow, I get paid 50 bucks for that. After taxes as an independent contractor, it's like I'm making $30, $35 for six hours of work. And I was just getting really angry that
00:29:49
Speaker
so-and-so is getting these various cover stories, and I'm like, wow, my other heroes, they weren't writing these damn slideshows, but maybe they were, and they're just not outwardly promoting that. So it was like, that was the, that's where my mindset was at the time, and I still get into that, because I think it's part of my DNA, but I know more to fight against it and push against it now than I did 10 years ago. Well, I will say, since you mentioned outside magazine,
00:30:18
Speaker
Rope for Outside Magazine was featured with them this summer because of my race with Hans Floring and that didn't really change anything. I still write blog posts that have like three readers and no likes so in the end like even if you publish in that big big place it doesn't mean you've you know made it forever or anything like that or at least that's what I've proven.
00:30:43
Speaker
Well, exactly. I follow Chase Jarvis, who's the founder of CreativeLive and world-class photographer and everything. He had a book come out recently, The Creative Calling, which is brilliant. He was on the show in September a few months ago. He didn't say this on the show when he was on with me, but I've heard him say it over and over again in his photography circles. Some people think when they land a campaign with Nike,
00:31:12
Speaker
They get their first one, they think their life is set like, all right, I'm, I'm, I'm set for life. You know, it's just going to be big campaigns for the rest of my life. But the fact is, you still need to parlay that momentum in some capacity. Or
Nature's Influence on Writing
00:31:25
Speaker
sometimes it just goes fallow. Like there's probably a lot of really, I know there's a lot of very talented writers, creatives that right now.
00:31:33
Speaker
shit dried up because of this pandemic. So so it's like, all right, well, what are you doing to sharpen your skills? And ultimately, and this comes up time and time again, it's like, that's an outward metric looks great on paper, but ultimately, it has to be about the work and doing
00:31:53
Speaker
just loving doing the work because that's where the true nourishment comes from and when the clients dry up and hopefully you still have some form of paying your bills but ultimately it's like if you're not in it for the work then everything else is empty. Absolutely. I love that. I think this is a really good time to sharpen our skills just like you said.
00:32:20
Speaker
I also think this is a really good time since we're so isolated. And at least for me, since I'm an extrovert, this is weird for me. It's a good time for introspection. You know, the last time I came on your show, I was talking about my memoir, The Indipoise. And while there's some things that I'm proud of, mostly just structurally in that book or writing wise, imagery wise, I, you know,
00:32:46
Speaker
I realize now looking back how arrogant I was writing that book, writing basically in that book through scenes, through vignettes, evaluating my parents' parenting of teenagers before I had teenagers myself. I had two daughters when I wrote that book and when I wrote draft after draft and all that, but they were young. And when that book published, neither one of my daughters were teenagers yet.
00:33:16
Speaker
I'm basically publicly outing the worst three years of my mother and my father's lives and then, you know, evaluating it and criticizing it pretty arrogantly if you think about it, considering I hadn't had the same experiences yet. And so now I would write a really different book or like, even if it's not talking about parents, like thinking about my relationship with my oldest sister, Hillary.
00:33:44
Speaker
You know, I outed a really tough time for her and a time when she was really trying to be her best person, but being a teenager, you know, is difficult. And I was the, you know, the bad kid, the black sheep in the family. And in a story, even though I'm not the hero of my memoir, my brother Coop is the hero of my memoir.
00:34:09
Speaker
it still vilified Hillary. And like, I've had so much time to think over the years, but also specifically like during this pandemic time period in isolation and to think like, well, what do I owe Hillary? And you know, when I was a little kid, Hillary was the adventurer. And I don't think I'd be the adventurer that I am nowadays without Hillary, without who she was as an adventurous, curious, wild, older sister. She would get me to,
00:34:38
Speaker
climb out on the roof at night and sit out on the steep upper roof with her and talk. She'd explore the desert. She'd lead me up crazy hikes. She'd take me out and look at something that was dangerous in the desert in Tucson. She was an awesome older sister when I was young, but my memoir just shows
00:35:01
Speaker
the Hillary of our three years struggle with each other, which is not really fair. And now that I've had a lot of time to think, I think like, wow, that was me being an asshole in a few ways with my family, even though Coop looked awesome because he is awesome and he was awesome. There were other people at different time periods that were incredible in my life and good influences in my life.
00:35:25
Speaker
Yeah, it goes to show about the selection in memoir and something what you leave out is every bit as telling as what you put in, right? Oh, absolutely. Like, with nonfiction, whether it's, you know, my podcast, boring as a swear word, or if, you know, I'm writing a memoir, I'm writing a collection of essays, like, omission is huge.
00:35:50
Speaker
Like what you leave out frames the narrative and with my memoir, you know, I left out so many positive things about Hillary and about my dad and about my mom that could have been in there, you know, and like, I just, I framed the narrative maybe in a way that created a powerful, short,
Consistency in Creativity and Podcast Closing
00:36:12
Speaker
punchy story, but wasn't the whole truth, you know, and I realize that now, like I, I definitely,
00:36:21
Speaker
balance my memoir more if I was to write that today. What was the stew that you were drawing from at that time which informed how you crafted the book? Right. I think just like you were talking about with starting this podcast that you've made into something really cool but you started it maybe from a place
00:36:45
Speaker
of opposition and a little bit of bitterness. I think that's where I started my memoir. I was still a little bit angry about how I was treated, about how I was vilified. And so I wrote that book from kind of that white heat anger place. And it allowed me to focus my imagery, and it allowed me to focus my scene choices. And I wasn't making stuff up. All those crazy things did happen, but I think
00:37:15
Speaker
the omission of the good, the omission of some of the balance was left out because of, like you say, that cauldron, that fire that was underneath me. And maybe what I had with me in the pot boiling around me just wasn't all the good things that I could have thought of that I could have considered. So I basically just don't think I was very wise at that point. I wasn't wise enough to be as empathetic as I should have been
00:37:44
Speaker
when writing a memoir. It's funny. I think in listening to our last conversation, I think the final draft you ultimately submitted was something like your 13th incarnation of the book. So it was like it had gone through a lot of changes, a lot of rewrites and everything.
00:38:05
Speaker
I think it's important too, going back to the way you started our conversation about finishing things and stuff, I think it becomes all the more important to really finish things as fast as possible because over the arc of all those rewrites, depending on how long that takes, you're a different writer at the start of that than sometimes you are at the end. So it's like you either need to sprint through and finish it so at least the voice is consistent and the tone is consistent. Otherwise, it's like if you take too long
00:38:33
Speaker
It's like you're a different person. The perspective that you have at the end might be so much different than you were at the beginning and then you start getting conflated messages throughout the whole book. Yeah, I think that's really true. I think it took me eight years to write and revise and write 13 drafts of that book and that's just too long to spend on a creative project and have the kind of outcome that you're hoping for. I think
00:39:01
Speaker
For me, at least, a two to three year per book process is a lot healthier and a lot more easily focused. And, you know, my first draft of that memoir was 500 pages and my published draft of that was about 200 pages.
00:39:17
Speaker
There was a lot of interesting, good stuff in the first 500. I just cut so much and I just was ruthless. On a sentence level, that made a better book, but maybe on an arc level, an impact level, and a relationship building level, it wasn't as good a book. I don't know.
00:39:38
Speaker
And talking about some of these regrets you experienced with that book, if you were rewriting it, what would the new book look like for you? Yeah, that's a good question. So I think the new memoir, I think the biggest things that I left out was
00:39:58
Speaker
how my parents developed and influenced my personality when I was a kid and how my older sister Hillary influenced my personality when I was a kid. Hillary being an incredibly adventurous older sister is something that I would definitely have in there because that helped turn me into the adventure I am today.
00:40:20
Speaker
I wouldn't be in rock climbing magazines without Hillary. And Hillary is not even a rock climber, but I recognize now that she was such a cool, wild, older sister, and she taught me to be wild and curious. And that's important. That matters. And my dad, I outed him on his worst three years of his life.
00:40:46
Speaker
political beliefs that he never believed before or after and all that kind of stuff, I think I would instead now develop more like childhood vignettes that showed like what an incredibly hard worker my dad was and going to his residency labs and learning from him and understanding him as a medical professional and how much effort he put into his career and I just didn't
00:41:14
Speaker
honor really the process of the parenting that my parents did because the three years were so bad and they were bad. It was really ugly. Like I said, I wasn't making stuff up, but I just was omitting so many good things. I think I would put a lot of the childhood vignettes and travel and influence and art and
00:41:38
Speaker
all that kind of stuff into a book now. And it wouldn't have to be 600 pages, but just layering with some more positive scenes would have made a more depthful, interesting book, I think. But I don't know. I'm not a reader. It's hard to get away from your own work. So how have you reconciled the fallout from the memoir in the 10 intervening years?
00:42:05
Speaker
It's difficult. My dad's amazing. He just supports his kids no matter what they do. He's always behind his kids.
00:42:20
Speaker
And he has reached out and I've reached out to him and we just like prioritized our relationship. So while it was really difficult during the publishing process between the two of us, we just keep hanging out, keep talking, keep calling on the phone, keep finding ways.
00:42:39
Speaker
to matter to each other. Like we decided to go to Omaha, Nebraska to watch the College World Series because it had been 50 years since he'd played in the College World Series as a center fielder for Stanford. And so we went there the summer before last and just spent a week there watching double header college baseball games. And it was like, it was awesome. So my dad has just
00:43:05
Speaker
decided that our relationship is the most important thing. So while I definitely have apologized for things that I put in the memoir to him, you know, he basically said like, you know, that's not as important to me as our long term relationship. So that's kind of amazing. And then my mom and I connect on art, she paints every single day in her studio in Tucson, and she actually writes a little bit in the morning and then paints for
00:43:32
Speaker
six to eight hours. So we have a lot to connect on because we both care about art so much. So as far as Fallout goes, you know, I just tried to reach out over and over and it's harder for my younger siblings because they weren't as involved in the memoir. They aren't really in the memoir very much. And a couple of them don't know that time period at all. And so that's maybe a little bit harder for them.
00:44:02
Speaker
to understand, and so I've just had to explain to them that I'm sorry that it was so negative, and all you can do is apologize that maybe you made that focus a little too tight and hurt their feelings, but on the other hand, they weren't alive then, or they weren't old enough to recognize a lot of the things that were going on. So that's maybe the more awkward family moment.
00:44:30
Speaker
Do you think that your relationship with your, let's just say your parents in particular is as strong now if not, is as strong as it is now as a result of kind of purging what you are able to purge out of the memoir? That's a good question and that's something that I've really wondered. Like what would our relationships be like if that book didn't exist?
00:44:57
Speaker
I don't know if I ever would have been able to be as honest as I was in that book, which is weird. Even as I'm saying, I omitted so many things, I was also really, really honest. And when you're that honest with people, you open up a different kind of relationship. So in that way, memoirs are very, very cool if people can reestablish quality relationships.
00:45:26
Speaker
And in a way, like with my mom, because my mom is a career artist and she inspired me so much, she really gets that I love to write and that I love to create and that I love to tell stories on the podcast or I love to write poems or I love to write stories. So in that way, that first book and it being published in me starting a writing career developed a different and deeper kind of relationship between me and my mom, even as I heard her so much.
00:45:55
Speaker
So that's just tough to know. I don't know. I think your question's just really good. I'd like to talk about the nature of sacrifice that comes into doing any kind of creative work. And a lot of people want to do this kind of thing. They want to maybe podcast or they want to write books like you've been able to write books and dive into all these different kind of creative things. But ultimately,
00:46:20
Speaker
to do that kind of work does require some degree of sacrifice. If you wanna get in better shape, if you wanna have a 405 deadlift, you gotta eat a certain way, you gotta train a certain way, and often you gotta eschew a lot of other creature comforts that might poison those kind of goals. So I wonder for you, like in terms of maybe with your art, and you can even extrapolate this to climbing or whatever kind of physical pursuits you might have, but what is your relationship to the sacrifice that goes into
00:46:49
Speaker
doing the work that you want to do? That's also a good question. My wife Jenny always says she knows exactly what I'm doing. She knows me. And part of that is that I just keep doing the same things over and over and over and over. I like to get up every single morning and write. That's what I like to do. That's what I love to do.
00:47:16
Speaker
I climb at the same place over and over and over. During this coronavirus isolation time, my daughter Raney and I have been climbing at the columns the same place I've been climbing now for 21 years. And I never get bored. I just want to climb the same things over and over and find little variations and perfect my craft on all the things I've climbed a thousand times. So I don't mind that repetitiveness.
00:47:45
Speaker
I think, you know, that also makes me an annoying person because I'm a little bit obsessive and I tend to let other things go. Like, I really don't care about having the perfect house or the perfect yard or the perfect car or whatever. I just, you know, for me, adventure and writing and relationships with people are more important than everything else. And that's cool if you're into
00:48:13
Speaker
relationships and climbing and writing, but if you're not, then I might not be your favorite friend, you know? It's difficult. You have to say no to so many things to create better art. And it's just constantly saying no to things. And even as I try to open up my mind and say yes to more things, I realize over and over that I have to go back to no, and I have to go back to saying no,
00:48:40
Speaker
Tomorrow morning I'm riding. No, tomorrow morning I'm riding. No, tomorrow morning I'm riding. And that's just a long-term commitment. And that's both good and bad.
00:48:52
Speaker
Yeah, that is so crucial. I think a lot of people, they don't realize how much you have to say no to if you want to pursue something or if you have that goal, you want to write that book, that essay, start that podcast. It all seems great when you see the things that you admire published, you're like, they just seem to appear, but you don't often realize the rigor and the tenacity that goes underneath that to get it out.
00:49:18
Speaker
every week or to get that book written for you like every two to three years they just see the thing show up but they don't see the grind and the things you had to say no to to get that thing done. Right and that's like that's the example of my dad my you know my dad became an incredible doctor by just pursuing residency after residency and becoming a specialist and then a sub-specialist and taking
00:49:47
Speaker
residencies in Arizona and in Switzerland and in Seattle and coming back to Eugene. I mean, he just worked so hard and he worked so hard every single day and I watched him do the work daily and I think that kind of daily grind but not even just grind like joy in the process like my dad loves working hard and
00:50:13
Speaker
And my hard work is very, very different. I'm not a doctor. And my hard work in rock climbing, getting to the level I've gotten to, or my hard work in writing, getting to the level I've gotten to, which is not that great, but is some level of professionalism. That's not possible without taking joy in that daily work and just working and working and working and working.
00:50:42
Speaker
In the poem you sent me, there was so many great lines in that. And I think one, there's a line that you wrote that the truth that even the new growth will not be the same as the old, that really stuck in my ear. I'm like, wow, that's gonna really apply to a lot of us. And I wonder, where does that, where did that come from? That discomfort, that that single line comes from that,
00:51:12
Speaker
the discomfort that the old thing is not going to be there and you're going to have to lean into the green as the other things sort of die off. I mean, what I thought was my original inspiration for that line was my car accident and my brain injury and understanding the new way that I think about the world. But I think also any line like that in your writing comes from all of the writers that you've read that were incredible.
00:51:43
Speaker
You know, like right now I'm reading so much Mary Oliver, but also those little lines that show that humans are always changing like Zadie Smith. She details that so well in her novels or Jumbo Lahiri in her fiction. And I think fiction sometimes speaks so much to truth. And so those authors are influencing you. Those authors are in your brain.
00:52:12
Speaker
And I think anytime you come across a line like that, you're like, okay, well, that's individually true for me, but that might be universally true. And with poems, I'm always thinking like, how can I tie my individual experience with a collective universal experience and then maybe allude to a third thing? I try to avoid false dilemmas or even two options, but always saying like, there's so many options out there.
00:52:41
Speaker
And so that's what I'm always trying to do in poetry, but also probably in storytelling, like there's a million options. We always have options. Do you think I could trouble you to read that poem? Yeah, yeah, I would love to read that poem. This poem is titled Fairy Tales for Terrified Children. The decomposing loam is a smell so strong after the rain. It's almost a taste in my mouth.
00:53:11
Speaker
mixes with the long-eared sage and juniper, not bearing but sticky with resin as the pine cones of the ponderosa fall through the lower trees like squirrels who've lost their branches. I've lost my branches as well, but I don't talk about it. Won't say, my brain is not what it used to be. I'm not capable of what I used to do and everything feels different.
00:53:39
Speaker
I walk out past the last volcanic boulder, where a small patch of trees were struck by lightning a few years ago, and burned. The hollow skeletons that remain are riddled by wind-smoothed holes. Under my feet, the cryptobiotics break in pans of dirt, spaces opening between the trees, bitter brush giving shade to the ground, where I discover a coyote kill.
00:54:07
Speaker
A mule deer pulled down, eaten and torn apart. The deer's antlers turned into the soil as if he tried to fight the earth. I do not know how it feels to be encircled by a pack. New enemy always snapping its jaws from behind. If you bend your neck to look, another ready to advance on your blind side. I do not know how it feels to be a mule deer.
00:54:32
Speaker
But I do know what it means to step away from my life, or have my life step away from me, to see the black-burned trees of my past, the truth that even the new growth will not be the same as the old. I know the difficulty of being an animal, of being a human, rain washing the bones coming up through the wildflowers, sun-bleached spine, a scapula like a wide, flat spoon, ribs that remind me of tines
00:55:02
Speaker
on pitchforks carried by villagers, humans coming through forests in search of monsters." Oh, that's awesome. Man, that's so cool and raw. What was it like, take us into the, it's perfect, I think a perfect way to segue. Question for it, take us into the bones of that. Where do you feel alive while writing that? Something that's outside of your comfort zone, I take it. So I don't know, take us into the bones of this poem.
00:55:34
Speaker
Well, for me, so much of my writing, so much of my podcasting, everything is centered around being in the natural world. I always try to ground everything in setting, in place. And so for me, this poem came out of going on an exploring walk on BLM land near the Sisters' Boulders, where I spent a lot of time camping with my daughters and my wife and my dogs.
00:56:04
Speaker
And I was walking out from the boulders and I came across this kill. And every time you find a large kill out in the wild, for me, that's a moment where I just kind of explore through the kill and look at how everything was taken apart. And I try to imagine the whole experience. I remember reading Pete Fromm's memoir, Indian Creek Chronicles, a book that I love, and he would always
00:56:33
Speaker
go through kills and kind of figure out how everything happened. You know, there's the famous moment in his memoir where the bobcat jumps on the deer's back and then the deer runs it off a cliff. And that scene was probably in the back of my mind as I was looking at this coyote kill of this mule deer. So for me, like grounding it in place and grounding it in a real event is important. And then I always try to think like,
00:57:03
Speaker
what's my personal emotional experience and how can I write that well and then how can I relate that to the universal collective experience so that the poem can build community with the reader so they feel like you know they're getting to look at the poem obviously they're getting to look at the kill in the poem but they're also getting to look through my eyes and my emotional experience and then I'm allowed to
00:57:32
Speaker
kind of expands that moment and talk about something bigger. And so by the end of the poem, with the villagers going to the forest with their pitchforks, I think in our culture, we're always looking for monsters, but maybe there are more good people. Maybe there are more good moments that we need to talk about. Maybe we need to love our experience here, even if we're going to end in death.
00:58:00
Speaker
What's the internal calculus that you were going through when you were like, I'm going to take this experience and write a poem versus a short personal essay? That's a good question. And I like that phrasing, the internal calculus.
00:58:19
Speaker
Because I feel like we're always working through such incredible equations in our lives, and we're always balancing things and always trying to figure out the math of our experiences. For me, it has a lot to do with what I'm reading and what I'm inspired by. So if I'm reading a lot of poems and really inspired by poems, I'm probably going to write some poems. And if I'm reading incredible fiction, I'm probably going to be more inspired to write fiction, although that's not always true.
00:58:50
Speaker
I don't always know why or how I'm inspired to write in certain genres. I just love all writing. I just love everything about the writing process in any way, shape, or form, whether it's writing for the podcast or writing a poem or writing a novel or writing a memoir. I just love the process no matter what. So I just go with whatever I'm most inspired and I guess
00:59:17
Speaker
That's advice I always give when I teach at writing workshops, like adult writing workshops, or if I teach a class at a college, or if I teach my high school students, I always tell them, don't allow for writer's block.
00:59:30
Speaker
You know, I always have a book of poems that I'm working on, a book of non-fiction essays that I'm working on, a novel or two that I'm working on right now, a screenplay, also the podcast. So it's not whether or not I'm going to write in the morning, it's what I'm choosing to work on. So, you know, writer's block isn't a thing. You're just choosing between options and you just write every single day no matter what.
01:00:03
Speaker
My goodness. That was fun. Big thanks to Pete. And to you, of course, the listener. Yeah, this is a new outro. Letting it riff. Why not? And I'm going to reward one lucky person who actually listens all the way to the end. You ready? If you ping the show on Twitter, at CNF Bod,
01:00:26
Speaker
and just say like, hey, Brendan, what? With the secret code, I'll give you a copy of Ben Cohen's The Hot Hand. You ready? Here's the code. Master of Puppets. That's it. This show is produced, hosted, and everything by me, Brendan O'Mara. Hey, hey. And remember, if you can do interview, see ya.