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Episode 236: Michael Leviton on Quantity Over Quality, Play and His New Book 'To Be Honest'
135 Plays4 years ago
"Writing a book could potentially be very tedious, but I'm writing to make myself laugh or cry. If I'm not crying or laughing, I'm like, so bored," says Michael Leviton (@michaelleviton).
He's the author of the memoir To Be Honest. It is published by Abrams Press.
Keep the conversation going on social media @CNFPod and consider being a member of the Patreon community, patreon.com/cnfpod.
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Guest
00:00:00
Speaker
If I'm not crying or laughing, I'm like so bored. How's it going, C&Fers? This is the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to badass people about the art and craft of telling true stories. Today's guest is Michael Leviton. He is the author of the memoir, To Be Honest.
00:00:25
Speaker
It is some kind of good. And it is published by Abrams Press. You can find Michael on Instagram at Michael Leviton. Hell of a follow. Takes wonderful photographs. Really beautiful. Beautiful black and whites. Very moody photographs.
00:00:40
Speaker
I love him. I dig it.
Exploring Memoir Writing and Emotions
00:00:43
Speaker
He's a bit of a Renaissance man. He's a musician, he's a photographer, and he's a damn good writer. We talk about the craft of writing memoir, keeping things playful, making the narrator on flattering characters, laughing and crying in the process. There's a lot of laughing, but
00:01:04
Speaker
So far as I can tell no crying in this episode, but he just means like if he's not laughing or crying It's not it's not working for him. So we talk about a whole then a lot more You can follow the show to keep the conversation going on social media at CNF pod across the big three Subscribe wherever you get your podcast and consider becoming a member of the CNF pod patreon community. I
00:01:27
Speaker
A buck an episode gets you transcripts and exclusive access to forthcoming audio magazines. A buck! Stay tuned for my parting shot about rewards and the practice, but first, why don't you settle in for my conversation with Michael Levitin.
Michael's Artistic Journey
00:02:00
Speaker
Well, I've been writing since I was a kid. So I went to school for writing, but I was around a lot of music growing up because my dad was a music critic. So, you know, he had a room full of records and I was constantly playing me things. So I eventually wanted to be a musician. So I started taking lessons when I was 17.
00:02:22
Speaker
And then I became obsessed and I started playing music, didn't think it would go anywhere. You know, I actually did become a musician because of moving to New York and meeting a bunch of other musicians. So I was a writer and a musician at the same time. And then I released an album and I released some stuff and I found different things depressing. So kind of to make myself happy again, I started taking photos, which had been like a long time dream of mine. And then that took over my life. So, you know, and then I was doing kind of all those things at the same time.
00:02:51
Speaker
But really, it's just a matter of when one got boring or depressing, I would just do another one. I'm like hedonistic. I'm always just trying to have fun. It's very easy for artistic stuff to get really depressing as soon as you're kind of involved in the world of it at all. Right. And do you find that you're an all or nothing kind of guy? Like when you get into something, you really need to sink your teeth into it? Well, you know, I guess it depends on what you mean. Like I am a very self-taught person.
00:03:20
Speaker
So I just experiment. And really, if you look at my photos, they're just the same. I figured out one way to do things. That's just my invention. And then I only do that. So it's not like I studied photography. If I were really an all or nothing person, I think I would try to be encyclopedic about it or something, you know, but people will, you know, other photographers will talk to me and be like,
00:03:42
Speaker
Oh, yeah, your work reminds me of and I'm just like, I've barely heard of any photographers. I know my influences are just photos of jazz musicians and movie photography. You know, I'm only just learning about photography now. So it's kind of a funny thing. I don't you know, I come from a family where you you were supposed to be encyclopedic about things if you were to ever claim that you knew about them. So I would never say like,
00:04:07
Speaker
I'm an all or nothing person about, like I know nothing about the history of photography. That would mean to me that I'm just like dabbling in it or messing around. But I do know a lot about certain things and those things I kind of consider myself an expert in. And I feel like I am all or nothing about that stuff.
The Creative Process: Play and Fear
00:04:23
Speaker
Like if I fall in love with Billy Wilder, I'll watch every Billy Wilder movie.
00:04:27
Speaker
What I love about it is you found something that piqued your interest and it's just like, okay, I'm going to go down here. I'm just going to lean into it, teach myself how to do it, and not really overthink it. Just follow your taste and get really skilled at a very narrow
00:04:44
Speaker
maybe to use a photography metaphor, sort of like a narrow aperture of what it is that you're interested in. I think that's really great. And I think a lot of people can take a lot away from that because if you find something interesting, like don't overthink it, actually just get some gear and just do the thing and teach yourself and share your work. And through that, you can develop a certain degree of mastery. Well, yeah, I mean, and also really just the whole thing is that I was raised without a fear of doing anything bad.
00:05:14
Speaker
Like, it didn't matter if it was bad. It was completely normal to make a ton of bad stuff. That was, you know, my dad was very open about saying, yeah, well, I was never good at anything. Like, I was never a good writer. I was never, you know, good musician. So, like, it's pretty weird to be good at the stuff, but you do it because it's fun. That got me off the hook, you know?
00:05:35
Speaker
I could just make bad stuff and it didn't matter. While other people I think are very afraid of making something bad or being judged, I never had that fear, which allowed me to just mess around and make things. And if I wasn't good at it, it just didn't matter.
00:05:47
Speaker
That's so important. In Seth Godin's latest book, The Practice, he talks about how, and he's talked about this for years, about how writer's block is a myth and it doesn't exist. And he says, you don't have writer's block. What you're afraid of is bad writing. And he's like, show me your bad writing. And the fact is,
00:06:10
Speaker
few people, the people who purport to have writers block, they don't even have the courage to put down bad writing. Because eventually, if you do enough bad writing, something good is going to creep in. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's the Ray Bradbury rants that I love where he goes like, Okay, you think you're a bad writer? Here's my challenge to you. Write a short story a week for a year. Write the worst stories you possibly can. Like I dare you to write 52 bad stories in a row. You just can't.
00:06:38
Speaker
Like, I bet you you can't. Some parts are going to be good. You're going to write a few good stories in there. So like, you know, quantity breeds quality. Just I dare you to write 52 bad stories in a row. I just don't think you can do it.
00:06:50
Speaker
Exactly. Yeah, you're exactly right. I often just, having grown up playing baseball and soccer, I often lean on just the work and the repetition of what it takes to be good at any sport, any discipline.
Arts vs. Sports: Measures and Motivation
00:07:05
Speaker
But I grew up playing sports, stepping up to a batting tee for
00:07:11
Speaker
You know, to hit ball, hit 200 balls or get in the cage and hit off the machine. Like it's just a matter of, you know, once you kind of get a certain degree of fun, solid fundamentals, it's just a matter of that repetition and just being okay. Some of these I'm going to foul off. Some of these I'm not going to strike hard, but over time, as you refine your skills, you get better and better and better. And like you said, like that quantity does breed quality.
00:07:35
Speaker
Yeah, well, also, I think growing up as an athlete is an advantage. I didn't have that. I first started working out really late into my adulthood, like recently. And one of the things I noticed about it was that if you show up and just do it over and over again, you actually will improve, which is not necessarily a feeling I have in the arts at all.
00:07:57
Speaker
We can work on a paragraph for hours and it doesn't mean the paragraph will actually get better. But if you are lifting weights for an hour, it will make you stronger. There's just no denying it. It makes discipline make sense in a way that it often didn't for me because I'd never experienced athletic certainty.
00:08:19
Speaker
Yeah, there's a certain degree of objective measures to athletics in a physicality. Like you said, if I'm benching this this week and I just kind of ramp up, next week I'm up 10 pounds, I got stronger.
00:08:36
Speaker
It's, you can write nice sentences all day long for weeks on end and you never quite know if it's good or bad or if that thing I wrote weeks ago is better than what I did now. But maybe to someone else's eyeball, the subjectivity of the art, it's so different, but there's definitely lessons you can tease out. Who can authoritatively tell you if it's good anyway? It's like no one actually has an authoritative answer, but there's definitely an answer in athletics.
00:09:04
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And that's kind of the beauty in some of that. And that's why I love drawing on the metaphor of sport to help sometimes bring clarity to the arts. Yeah, it's interesting because I always think of this interview with Jimi Hendrix that I related to a lot. There's this really funny interview. I can't remember who's doing it. He's on a talk show and somebody says, you know, a lot of people think you're the best guitar player in the world. Like how much do you practice? And Jimi Hendrix kind of laughs uncomfortably and goes, well, I've never really practiced.
00:09:34
Speaker
I play a lot. I try a lot of stuff, but I've never really practiced. And everyone's like, oh my god, the greatest guitar player in the world was never practiced. But I kind of relate to that as far as I always just felt like I was messing around. I did things a lot. I don't know. Practicing feels like athleticism. I wasn't really even practicing guitar. I was just playing a lot. So it's a kind of strange thing if you're that kind of learner.
00:10:02
Speaker
to understand discipline, because I think of myself as having no discipline at all. Like forcing myself to do anything tedious is I drag my feet like crazy. I basically have to be inspired and want to do it. It has to be fun. Otherwise I'll go nuts. But that's like, obviously it doesn't work for other people that they need discipline. So when I think of people going to law school or something, all the discipline, I can't imagine it. I couldn't even, going to school was like impossible for me. It was so, so unpleasant.
00:10:30
Speaker
I can't imagine doing that now. So anyway, I don't know. Discipline is very exciting to me, but not a part of my brain.
00:10:38
Speaker
Yeah, and then the fact that you bring that element of play to the work you do, it's it, it probably takes, you know, it makes it like you're saying it makes it it makes it fun. And this is something like you can't you get to do. And you get to write you get to sit down at your desk and like, and try to try to spin a good yarn and relive these things or, or conjure things depending on what you're
00:11:02
Speaker
what you're writing, but when you, like you said, when you bring that element of play, it does allow you to come to the page or go to the stage or, you know, sit behind your camera with an element of fun and almost like treating it like a game and you can just be unbridled.
00:11:21
Speaker
Oh yeah. And those were the games I grew up playing. I mean, I grew up playing game storytelling games with my mom and just like talking games. They were creative. Other than chess that I played with my dad, the games with my mom were like, you know, tell me a story, make up a story. You know, like the only fun part of it was making stuff up and playing around.
Storytelling Games and Honesty in Memoirs
00:11:42
Speaker
We didn't necessarily need to write down the story. We didn't need to try to sell it. We didn't need an audience for it.
00:11:48
Speaker
It was just making stuff up for fun. And so, you know, writing a book is, you know, could potentially be very tedious, but I like am writing to make myself laugh or cry. If I'm not crying or laughing, I'm like so bored. You know, when I'm talking ever when I'm telling a story, I'm laughing or crying. Most of the time, like that's what I'm doing it for. If I if I'm not thrilled by something, I can't do it.
00:12:32
Speaker
You still kept going back because you just wanted to keep getting better and better and he was just unrelenting. It reminded me a lot of when I was growing up and I'd have foot races with my father and he never let me win. He would always beat me by a step or two and it was just so frustrating but I kept going back for more. I could totally relate even though it was a completely different thing. It's that power dynamic between a father and a son.
00:12:39
Speaker
It becomes tedious and I quit.
00:12:59
Speaker
Yeah, well, that's an interesting thing. A lot of people talk to me about the chess playing stuff in the book. And I think one of the, like a lot of people have that question with their parents, and parents with their kids, whether to let their kids win, whether they were involved in a power battle with their parents, whether there was like ego in terms of their parents beating them over and over again. I guess it's like a really common experience. You know, I think that when I was playing chess with my dad, I'm not very competitive.
00:13:28
Speaker
I think I just wanted to be around my dad. It had a different angle to it. I've never really felt any emotional attachment to winning at a competitive thing. That was the closest I ever had. It seemed more like I just wanted the rules with my dad to be fair. I wanted to understand them.
00:13:49
Speaker
when they were unfair, it was really horrifying to me. But I just wanted to be around my dad. It was the only way I could play with my dad. Before I could talk to him, that was the main way to play with him. Yeah. Oh, and then when you finally do beat him and you're looking for a response and then the thing he says at the end is just like, well, I'm not very good at this anyway. It's just like, oh my God.
00:14:14
Speaker
You could throw Mike a bone here. This is an example. I can't tell if that's funny or upsetting. And I've told the story in public sometimes gotten laughs and sometimes gotten like a really depressed silence. And I just still have no idea. Is that funny or is that upsetting? Did you laugh? I have no sense. I have no distance.
00:14:36
Speaker
I laughed, but I was also like, oh my God, I could sense this thing. Michael, he won something, he got an upper hand, and then his father cut him off at the knees. It was funny to me, relatable, but also kind of sad at the same time. It struck both notes for me.
00:15:02
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I never know. I have no sense of what's funny or what's sad. It's for other people. That's one of the things that's most interesting about having this book exist in the world is just finding out whether people thought it funny or sad. Everyone kind of takes on it. I've had friends write me after reading it, be kind of concerned about me. Like, oh my God, your life has been so upsetting.
00:15:27
Speaker
And I'm like, Oh my God, is that what the book feels like? I don't know. And of course, my family has such a bizarre take on the book. Like my dad is so upset at himself about the chess thing. He beats himself up about it like crazy. He's so sad about it. That's the thing he focuses on as the most embarrassing. So, you know,
00:15:47
Speaker
I hear you, but that's, I think your skill writing this book, like you could have said something like, you know, this was a, that little story of that anecdote in less skilled hands, might've said like, Oh, this was a funny thing. And then made us say like, Oh, Michael thinks this is funny. So we think it's funny. You just lay it out there. And
00:16:12
Speaker
Some of us can think it's funny and others might think it's mortifying or sad, but that's your skill as a storyteller to let the reader be the judge.
00:16:21
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I mean, it's very hard to, to write about this subject without doing that. Like, anything I say to interpret it, first of all, I'm the least reliable interpreter of that stuff ever. I have no distance on my life. But also, like, I'm just wrong about what's right and wrong. My, my brain is completely unreliable determining what's right or wrong or how things should be. So I, I don't feel like if I if I tried to judge everything and say, Oh, here's what's right, or here's what's wrong, I feel like half the readers would be like, he's insane.
00:16:51
Speaker
everyone would just completely disagree with me and I would lose credibility. Even if I tried to comment on almost anything. I feel like every time I tried to be wise or something, everybody would be like, yeah, don't do that. You don't know what you're talking about.
00:17:09
Speaker
I was amazed too, the way you tell the stories of your childhood too, and the way you had such, the honesty that you had as a child, like say that one time where there was a time where you didn't want to play with some of the other boys in your class, they were playing a game you didn't like and you wanted to do something else, and then they said you were mean, and the teacher was saying you were mean, and you had the confidence and the assuredness
00:17:38
Speaker
As a young kid to even say to the teacher that if you didn't want to play my game, would you be mean? I was just amazed that you had the confidence to speak like that as a kid. I was always very shy and couldn't really speak my mind and just kind of put my head down. So when I read that, I'm like, oh wow, that's amazing that you had that in you to speak your mind at such a young age.
00:18:04
Speaker
Yeah, well, this is also one of the questions for me about the book is like,
00:18:09
Speaker
Um, you know, a lot of people reading it are very angry at my parents are talking about what bad parents they are. And the thing is, I like my parents. I understand there were a lot of problems, uh, with all of this, but I like my parents and I also like that I was like that as a kid, but that doesn't mean it was okay for those who had to
Reader Interpretation and Personal Experience
00:18:29
Speaker
deal with me. Like, sure. It was kind of, it was nice for me that I felt like I could follow my observations.
00:18:36
Speaker
and tell that I was right and like believe myself right. That was nice for me. But everyone else in my life was suffering. It wasn't exactly good for others. So it's a hard thing to figure out like, yeah, I had fun. But I mean, at what cost to other people. So it's a strange thing to figure out whether that was good that I was like that.
00:18:59
Speaker
Yeah, when I was reading it too, I didn't come across, and I think this is, again, your skill with this story. And when I read things that might be objectively unflattering to say parents or even the narrator, I don't look at your parents, or I don't judge them or look down on them. I'm just like, oh, this was their take, and this was Michael's story and how he laid it out. And it's just like, yeah, this is,
00:19:26
Speaker
unconventional in a lot of ways. But I'm like, Oh, no, this is a great, a great take. And this was, you know, his truth and his his story. And I don't judge or begrudge them for the approach they they took. It's just, you know, this is how it is. And, you know, I was just really, you know, deep and enveloped in the story of this family.
00:19:45
Speaker
Oh, that's, that's nice. Yeah, people, you know, when people write about memoir, they very casually judge the people in the, you know, usually the reviews are just of the author as a person, or of the parents of the author, you know. And so that's, I think it's the people who have said like, yeah, you know, there were some really good things about this, even though I see why it went wrong. Like, I always liked those, those reviews.
00:20:09
Speaker
You know or people who are just like non-judgmental who are like wow this is gives me a lot to think about But but there's definitely a lot of people who have been knee-jerk kind of like Reaction against my parents and against my upbringing. Yeah, I think the best When memoir is really cracking to me and and I read a lot of memoirs as a part of this podcast and it's what what happens is
00:20:36
Speaker
When you reach it, if you're telling your story, what happens is the Levitans, as I'm reading it, the Levitans dissolve away and then I'm just merely, I will overlay the Omera experience of growing up and finding those relatable moments of really concrete,
00:20:53
Speaker
truth that I didn't play chess with my dad, but I played wiffle ball and other games against him and it was a very similar ethos, even though it was a different playing field, so to speak. So even though objectively it might feel kind of unsavory to a reader, really what's going on is
00:21:13
Speaker
Oh, a good memoir. I'm going to overlay my experience over this and you dissolve away. And that's, I always reserve judgment for the people because I really just hang on to those great moments of truth that I can relate to, if that makes any sense. Oh yeah. Well, I love that. That's an amazing way of dealing with it. And I also love that anyone would relate to the book because one of my fears is that people will just be like, oh, this is about lunatics.
00:21:40
Speaker
Oh, I get it. You know, it's like Ira Glass interviewed me and said I was like an alien just dropped on the earth. And I was like, wow, OK. Yeah, I listened. I was waiting to listen to that until the day I was going to speak to you because I just want that more fresh in my head. And that's really like I think he's embodying what, you know, the reader or the outsider is going to think, because if we have that
00:22:06
Speaker
We have maybe what we want to say deep down, but we don't out of some sort of out of kindness or a lack of courage or whatever. And so the fact that your family was so brought up to just be like, if you're thinking it, you say it. And I can see what he means that it was like an alien dropping down into this world.
00:22:28
Speaker
Oh no, I definitely understood what he meant. But I guess that's what I'm used to is people saying like, I don't relate to you at all. I think he actually said that literally. I think he said, you know, Michael, I don't relate to you at all. I was like, I get it. It's okay.
00:22:46
Speaker
Yeah. It was really cool having read the book and that part comes at the end of the memoir where your story is introduced and pitched to Ira and then you go in and he interviews you for a few hours and he interviews everyone in your family. And the fact that that segment only gets boiled down to 19 minutes of the This American Life kind of blew my mind in terms of the rigor of the edit.
00:23:13
Speaker
Like through that whole experience, what did you make of that, that all that time that you spent with him came down to such a really nice, beautiful, fluid piece, but really just a tiny fraction of the time you spent with him? Well, I mean, I knew that was going to happen. I mean, I was surprised the whole thing happens at all, but I knew that he was going to do an edit that was going to be in his artistic sensibility.
00:23:37
Speaker
So I was I was prepared for that.
Narrative Style and Family Portrayal
00:23:40
Speaker
But it was my question the whole time was, how can he possibly make this into something that feels like this American life episode? Because my family is just so intense. You know, like, how how is he going to find things that make us likable at all? And I was amazed at the job he did, you know, because I knew that was important to him to to, you know, that he has a sensibility.
00:24:03
Speaker
And so I kind of knew that was going to happen, but I couldn't imagine him doing it. I mean, there was so much talking in my family. We all kind of had this thing of, oh, I'm sure we're going to look horrible in this.
00:24:14
Speaker
But I was going, I don't think Ira really does that. Like, so he has an idea that, you know, even though they're done with the story, your lives go on. So he's not going to be like, you know, he could categorically kind of ruin reputations or he's like, has, has some empathy going forward. Like, oh, the lives go on after this American life. But he's looking for the best in people, you know, it's actually a very positive thing that he does. We were just not, we were just amazed that he could do it. We didn't.
00:24:44
Speaker
you know, we don't have that way of looking at the world or people. So imagining him, we were all just like along for this ride of like, wow, what's I ever gonna do?
00:24:55
Speaker
Yeah, I love too how you kind of go into that experience, you know, thinking like, all right, how is he going to go about, you know, disarming me so I'm more vulnerable to tell the story or, you know, to open up more. And it was just interesting to see, to read how you surrendered to it while sitting down with him for the first time. Yeah, yeah. Now, I mean, also, just my fear that I was too long winded.
00:25:23
Speaker
you know, I just rant and rave all the time. I couldn't imagine how any of it could be boiled down into small enough pieces. I'm even thinking about that right now. I'm like, oh my god, I just go on and on. I have to talk for shorter amounts.
00:25:36
Speaker
This goes to the point you were saying earlier, how you just wanted to spend time with your dad. And I love this little passage that you wrote. You say, like, dad was my education. Through these games, I learned in specific terms why school was bullshit, the justice system was bullshit, success was bullshit, coolness was bullshit, gender norms were bullshit, authority was bullshit, white supremacy was bullshit, conventional romance and friendship were bullshit. Anything slippery or disingenuous stood out as if highlighted in red.
00:26:05
Speaker
And I just love that passage. Yeah, it seems to come up that those feelings come up a lot these days. And just like, in getting back to that, that when you were saying you're using like play as your play instead of practice, like reading a passage like that, I'm like, oh, I can, Michael's having fun on the page here.
00:26:31
Speaker
Well, you know, the original draft of the book was 500 pages long. My idea was that they would cut away like with my editor, we would cut away at things. And my section about my dad playing games with me, educating me had like dozens and dozens of examples. It was endless, because there are so many funny things my dad used to do with me. I mean, he used to act out police interrogations with me.
00:26:56
Speaker
to show me all the ways police trick people into confessing the things they didn't do, like illustrating how the plea bargain system worked. I mean, I was like a child doing police interrogation reenactments. The amount of crazy stuff that we did that was very fun. I mean, that's fun to do as a kid. But it was incredibly political and heavy. But like I wrote down dozens of examples. So even not just that summary, I could just go on about forever.
00:27:25
Speaker
And did you get a sense, even when you were growing up, that you were an experiment of sorts for your parents, but specifically your dad? Huh. You know, I don't think when I was a kid, I felt my parents experimenting. They seemed to know what to do. You know, now I look back at it, I see it as an experiment. At the time, they really responded to every question incredibly fast.
00:27:56
Speaker
you know, they would be very decisive. Both my parents are very decisive. So there wasn't even any hesitation that showed that they didn't. They hadn't already thought about what to do. So it was like, my dad seemed to be like, yes, these are the things we talk about. This is the way we play a game. It didn't seem like he was experimenting at all at the time. Now I look back at it like, I don't think they had any sense of what they were doing. They were acting so impulsively.
00:28:23
Speaker
Yeah, and that's what it does and what it did for you. It doesn't necessarily prepare you to have a certain set of social skills that'll make you likeable or when you move to New York, you're bringing this ethos that you had from family camp and your upbringing. And it's abrasive and you write about that very candidly.
00:28:51
Speaker
put you into when you're dating or in job interviews, it was maybe easy for you to be honest, but definitely hard for you to maybe engender the relationships you probably wanted. Oh, yeah. Well, adapting was impossible. It wasn't even something I aspire to. So you got to read the room. Like I just didn't even think of that as a thing.
00:29:12
Speaker
reading the room and acting accordingly was not in my mind at all. Exactly. Yeah, I think even with this American Life piece, it was like, you have to read people. And then it got me thinking, at some point, you must have thought like, oh, I can't just broadcast myself and spew whatever I'm thinking all over the conversation and just
00:29:36
Speaker
You know at what point does that start to hit you kind of hit you in the face that oh I I should probably pull on pull back on the reins here When I didn't happen all at once it was very gradual over the course of like five years You know from when I was about 30 to 35 Where I was I kept trying to change things about myself and make all these rules You know to follow and people would tell me very small things that would have a big effect
Communication and Audience Awareness
00:30:02
Speaker
on me
00:30:02
Speaker
So like I remember somebody saying something to me along along the lines of like, well, you should always know your audience. And I was like, wow, that's a crazy thought. You know, she's like, yeah, if your interactions are going bad, it's just because you didn't know your audience well enough. And I'm like, oh, wait, I'm supposed to think about what the audience wants. And then if if I don't give that to them, I have to blame myself. And she was like, what else would you do?
00:30:30
Speaker
And I was going, wow, that's a very different orientation. So I started thinking, well, if my conversations go wrong, I'll blame myself. Like I'll just have that be a rule. What if instead of blaming the other person or thinking we're just not compatible, I'll instead think it's my job to make interactions go smoothly. And that really changed things. Like I had to learn my behavior. I had to learn all kinds of new rules of behavior in order to, to make things go smoothly if that was suddenly a value for me.
00:30:59
Speaker
But those little things people said to me would really affect me, and I would make it a new rule. Now it's my job to make interactions go smoothly. If they go wrong, it is my fault, because I'm supposed to know my audience. This was radical to me, of course, like almost everybody else was like, this is a child. They just blamed themselves for everything that went wrong. It was me at like 32 going, OK, that's how it is now.
00:31:25
Speaker
Yeah. Well, you know, you took a very sort of tactical clinical approach to it. Like you wrote down the rules that you need to hear by. These are the things I can or can't talk about. And as you're sort of building us really kind of a new vocabulary, right? It's funny because now I've actually found that there are like kinds of therapy that are sort of like this, where you make rules for yourself and that kind of stuff. But I was just inventing it.
00:31:54
Speaker
I had no idea how I was going to fix my brain. And the only way I could think of it was just fixing my behavior first, just making rules of how to change my behavior, and then maybe my brain would follow. And it did. What would you identify as the biggest fix, the one that really sort of maybe set the table for subsequent maybe micro fixes that really helped you as you were in that window from 30 to 35?
00:32:24
Speaker
Hmm, I mean, maybe the most extreme one was just the idea that I could omit things because I think omission was like, it felt like conning people. And when I decided that I didn't have to say everything that was relevant, that I could just shut up. And I think that's still to this day, the rule that I'm allowed to not really answer a question or that I can shut up or that I can not tell somebody
00:32:54
Speaker
everything that's going on is probably the biggest difference. So it's not even necessarily like the dishonesty of saying something I don't really feel. Allowing myself to omit things was probably the most significant change.
Collaboration in the Artistic Community
00:33:09
Speaker
Right when we were starting our conversation, when you moved to New York and you started meeting musicians and you're playing, I love the sense of community, of just going out and meeting the people you admire and you want to play with and going to other people's shows, them coming to yours. And it's so important in artistic endeavors, whether it's virtual or in person. Hopefully in real life, we'll be able to have these things in person again.
00:33:38
Speaker
How important was it for you to foster community around the craft that you were looking to exercise out there? Well, it was like a fantasy of mine. It's funny because I've always been a very extroverted person, but I was so isolated for a lot of my life. It was like my dream to have friends that were artists that I admired. That was just my dream. As soon as I had a few, I was like, okay, we have to
00:34:06
Speaker
I'll put on a show with all my friends and then I'll be able to write to this other person who I don't know who I admire and see if I can get them to come to the show. I mean, it was my most basic instinct was this sort of greedy like, oh my God, if I have an in with any of these people, this is a miracle. I have to like keep trying to get more of them. And I feel like I'm still on that exact thing where I still just feel really lucky that I know any of these people and then asking them to collaborate is the funnest thing of my life.
00:34:36
Speaker
that I started my storytelling series to tell partially because I was like, wouldn't it be amazing if I could just write to anyone that I thought was interesting and say, you know, do you want to tell a story or play a song at my thing? That would be my fantasy. I was amazed at how often that was able to happen. You know, I still kind of
00:34:54
Speaker
It's endless because there's always people that you want to be able to meet or hang out with or collaborate with. So it's actually, if there's any artistic thing that I feel like will last my whole life, it's that. Me just trying to meet and collaborate with and talk to and hear a story from everyone I find interesting. I'm like greedy for that.
00:35:15
Speaker
Oh, that's great. That makes me think of, I know in artistic pursuits of any kind, there are innumerable toxic feelings that often creep in, like jealousy and resentment and comparison, which can really squander a good artistic fire, if you will.
00:35:37
Speaker
and the generosity of spirit that I'm hearing with you that you just like these people inspired you and you just want to collaborate with them. I feel like that's such a strong way to beat back those feelings of jealousy and be like, oh, this person's good.
00:35:54
Speaker
maybe they're better than me. Let's just work together and make something cool. I think that's really, I don't know, nourishing instead of those toxic feelings that can really eat at our creativity in that sense of community. I just like hearing you say that. Oh, it's incredibly useful to my psychological survival that I'm not competitive. That is essential. I can't imagine what life would be like if I was competitive.
00:36:24
Speaker
That's just, my friends all feel it and are all competing and comparing themselves to other people all the time and so upset about it. And I just don't really know that feeling. And I'm glad I don't, because it seems really upsetting and paralyzing.
00:36:39
Speaker
Yeah, because social media just foments it too, because we're just seeing those highlight reels of people that we admire, peers of ours that sometimes even younger than us that seem to be on some sort of a rocket ship trajectory. And so if you have those nasty feelings, and I used to have them bad, I still have them a little, I beat it back with this podcast to try to celebrate and be more of a cheerleader than anything. And it just sounds like what you're doing with the tell, and of course, you know, all the collaborations you've had.
00:37:08
Speaker
What a gift to be able to beat back that toxicity. And thankfully, your lack of competitive impulses probably really was a good seed for you to create this community. Oh, well, I know people, I know musicians who won't have an opener that's better than them and are really hung up on it. And also musicians who are penalized for being so good because they won't be brought
00:37:38
Speaker
on a tour because they're going to make the headliner look bad. I always thought about how weird it would be if I did a storytelling series where I insisted that my story would be the best. Like how much worse the series would be. Like I couldn't even do it. I mean the whole point is to have the other stories be better than mine. Like that would be so weird but I mean I understand other people
00:38:02
Speaker
are hung up on this. But I think it's very destructive. I don't know how to get it out of people's brains. The only reason I'm like this is because my parents were like this and raised me on non competitive stuff. I just was not. I was never taught competition. I didn't even understand why kids wanted to race and stuff when I was a child. I'd be like, right? Can we just run? Why does that have to be a race? Like competition just made everything not fun.
00:38:28
Speaker
Oh, man, I just love hearing you say that. It's like putting a big smile on my face and it kind of like rewiring my brain right now. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's also a good thing is I get sick of myself. Like, I don't want everything to be about me. It's so much more fun to have, like, if my Instagram was photos of myself all the time, if my storytelling series was just me telling stories, I mean, it wouldn't be nearly as fun for anyone, not for me.
00:38:56
Speaker
You know, I think I've always kind of wanted to be a sort of background person. I think even writing a memoir that's all stories about me is a little unusual. You know, that I think that I think I more naturally would play a kind of Nick Haraway character who's writing stories about much more exciting people. And I'm sort of the narrator of someone else's life. So it's it's funny to write something where I'm the main character, you know, because I think so many areas of my life I really like
00:39:26
Speaker
me being the background person, giving somebody else a spotlight, or pointing at someone else, or making my own interpretation of someone else, but that that would be my role. It's funny, though, that I'm like that. A lot of people have talked about me in that way, that I'm always kind of there but in the background, that I never was trying to get the most attention. Even though I do like attention,
00:39:52
Speaker
I feel like I do get sick of myself. Like, I don't know. The only reason I feel like I can just have fun talking and I just let myself have fun talking. And that was how I got through this. But as far as like thinking about if I was doing this every day, if like every day I was supposed to focus on myself as a star, that seems way too far.
00:40:14
Speaker
You know, like people I know who are musicians and love being the center of attention. And that's like a huge part of their selves. I mean, I think it's great if you love it, but it would be very hard for me. So as you were, of course, taking the main stage, so to speak with with the book, how how did you get get over that and realize that? Yeah, it's me front and center of the of this book for someone who likes to be more in the background. How did you get over that to write the book?
00:40:42
Speaker
I think I just let myself have fun telling all the old stories and didn't think too much about the self-centeredness of it. I kind of know that people will be like, oh yeah, Michael's so obsessed with himself, he'll write a book. That's an inevitable thing if you read a memoir that people are like, oh great, you think your life's so amazing or something. But I think I just was able to get into the fun part of just telling stories.
00:41:09
Speaker
Um, and just tried not to think about the idea that it was like me pointing at myself all the time, but, and just, and if you're writing a memoir, you just have to let go of that. You know, there's no other way to do it. You've just, but I think that's my way of doing it is thinking, Oh, what's fun. Well, telling somebody this funny story about this thing that happened, or telling somebody this sad story about this thing that happened, um, that I had to just get into that side of it rather than the.
00:41:35
Speaker
Promoting myself aspect which still doesn't really come to my mind very often Yeah, I think you I think you nailed what it's like to be kind of in a serious relationship when you the tumultuous 20s you know being with being with someone just the the red-hot emotion of what it's like to be in a long-term relationship when you're that young and
00:41:57
Speaker
And so we're talking about who's named Eve in the book. And so what was that like for you to relive those stories in that relationship, which is really, really formative for you in your mid to early 20s?
Nostalgia and Vulnerability in Memoirs
00:42:13
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Well, I, I still, you know, everyone in my family lives in the past always. We love to talk about the past all the time, much to the chagrin of many people in my life who are like, move on, you know, but I love talking about the past. And I'm very moved and nostalgic about that relationship. So, you know, I was crying the whole time writing it like laughing and crying the whole thing. I think about all those stories all the time.
00:42:39
Speaker
And one of the most moving parts of this experience was, you know, sending a draft of the book to Eve. It's not a real name, but sending a draft of the book to Eve and her responding to it, you know, was this wild experience and very moving. She had a very her response was hilarious. She was like, yeah, this is this is so amazing. You remembered everything. First of all, can you imagine receiving a depiction of your seven year relationship 10 years after you break up?
00:43:10
Speaker
And being like, wow, he really remembered it. That's bizarre. I was expecting her to argue with the reality of all these things, but I guess I remember it. And then I like to trust my memory, but it was funny that she was like, oh yeah, this is totally how it was. And then she said, yeah, of course I like it. It's about how I was right. It's about how I was right all along. I was like, okay, well, that's a take on it.
00:43:38
Speaker
That's hilarious. That's like, that's like so perfect. And like the embodiment of how the relationship like plays out in the book to just the way you got the way your, your chemistry and your, the volatility, it just that that's so perfect. I mean, you just capture, you capture it so well, man. Oh, I'm so glad. Yeah. I mean, I really cared about that. I really wanted it's so hard to write relationships, you know, especially between eccentrics.
00:44:07
Speaker
Because I think there's such a tendency for everyone to be like, Oh, great, these like, nutty cutesy couple, you know, like, it's an indie movie romance. Yeah, I was like, you know, really hoping that it would feel the way it felt when I was when I was experiencing it. But that was, that was easily the most challenging part. I definitely did not
00:44:30
Speaker
know what she would think about it or what my friends that knew us would think about it. And also even think about how weird it is, even just describing her, I was like, oh my god, she's going to read this description. Oh, this is embarrassing. Even the smallest parts of trying to write about a relationship that you care about. You know, I guess it'd be different if you were writing about someone you were like maligning or something.
00:44:55
Speaker
But me wanting her to like it and wanting her to relate to it was very challenging. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I don't know. I think it's also a testament just to the people in the book, the people that are portrayed in the book are all actually into honesty. So it's like they were in a unique position to have this nutty experience of having a memoir written about them.
00:45:24
Speaker
you know, like, which just a lot of people couldn't do. I mean, I don't know how other memoirists do it. How could I have written about my family if my family wasn't like this? You know, I don't know. You know, like, my family is very embarrassed about all kinds of stuff that's in the book. And they all had the same response. They were all like, Yeah, well, this, this makes me look horrible. And I really regret doing all this. But I mean, it's what happens. So what am I supposed to say?
00:45:49
Speaker
Did the fact that you grew up with such almost brutal honesty, did that make it easier to write this book? Well, I think so. I mean, I don't know what it would be like to have been raised differently. But it's always been very easy for me to say, oh, well, this is what happened, even if the other person might not like that. So that's the easiest thing in the world for me to do.
00:46:17
Speaker
In fact, it's an impulse that I have to curb all the time, you know, because people hate that. When you're writing a memoir about them, but just in real life when someone goes, Oh, yeah, what happened in that situation? And me wanting to be like, well, you said this and this and then like, remember the whole thing perfectly. They don't want that answer.
00:46:36
Speaker
There there's a moment in the book to where like you you have to confront your your father about you know About you know about this very very thing about this about about your upbringing and it was I imagine very you convey it very well Of how hard it must have been to approach him because he's still you know, he's your dad. He's older He's he's this figure and you gotta approach them in about
00:47:02
Speaker
What it was like, you know, why do you do this? Why did you raise me like this? You know, how was, you know, how difficult was that conversation for you to even bring up to your dad? Oh, it's the most intense thing that I've maybe ever done. And coming from a person who's so comfortable with confrontation, even having the experience of not feeling comfortable confronting someone was so foreign to me.
00:47:30
Speaker
It's kind of the only time I can think of where I'm like, oh, well, that's what other people must feel. Because most of the time I was able to confront people without my heart rate even going up. And I, you know, and I was obsessed with my father growing up. So it took like having a girlfriend who would, you know, repeatedly force me to confront this issue and tell me I, my life would be solved by figuring out my relationship with my dad.
00:47:58
Speaker
It took like years of her hammering this into me before I could confront him. And even then, it was the most extreme experience I'd ever had.
00:48:08
Speaker
Yeah, it comes across that way. And I was just like, I'm like, how is this going to land on his father? And then how is this going to play out? Because you are so self-assured in the whole book. And this is a moment where it's like, oh, here, his knees are really wobbly in this instance.
00:48:31
Speaker
And it must have been, you know, hard for me, just hard to do in the moment, of course, but also to kind of rehash and relive it and write it in a way where we're like, Oh, this is going to be hard to follow. Michael, the character that we're reading about. Well, it's actually one of the things that was slightly easy about that section was I wrote it all down right when it happened. So I didn't really even have to write it again.
00:48:56
Speaker
You know, I just took what I had written right when it happened and then kind of like edited a little bit, you know, but so that one actually was a little less emotional to relive because, you know, as opposed to the things I had to write for the first time, I think when writing memoir, one of the things that at least writing about myself, everybody wants to see me freak out. You know, everyone wants to see me become vulnerable.
00:49:22
Speaker
because I'm being so, you know, like, yeah, I know how it is, you know, everyone wants to see me fall apart. And I feel like when I finally did therapy at family camp, everyone was like, Oh, yeah, finally, we get to see Michael fall apart. But everyone wanted it so bad and not in a malicious way.
00:49:41
Speaker
But just like it's the natural impulse when you're watching someone be like, well, I know how things are. And, you know, I have my system and I'm and I'm, you know, not going to adapt it to anybody to just want to see their knees knocking. You've just got to get to that place in your memoir. If, you know, if the person just stays calm, it's it's so it's so boring.
00:50:02
Speaker
I was always really excited. My whole thing I wanted was just to build up to those parts where you're like, where you see me crack that that to me is the most exciting to see myself crack and remember how extreme it was. But like, look what it took, you know, some people
00:50:19
Speaker
They don't crack. Look at what it takes to make them crack, you know? Look at what it took to make me crack. I was, I went to family camp for like 11 years before I did that. How much therapy there was, how much, you know, how much extremely emotional lunacy I was dealing with before I finally was able to do anything that made my knees knock. So that, but I feel like you couldn't, unless you were willing to present that, you know, there's no book really.
00:50:46
Speaker
Exactly, exactly. There are those more like it can't just be, you know, like you said, kind of like this almost, you know, robotic, you know, hero that doesn't, doesn't shake doesn't even, you know, bend in the wind. And we need to see those moments of, you know, true vulnerability, so we can relate and be in sympathize and even just, you know, show those, those sort of nose picking details that
00:51:14
Speaker
I'll say like, okay, yeah, like I can relate to this person. He's not he doesn't think he's above the story. And that we need to like, worship him and everything. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah, that's like the worst thing that could happen. Oh, my God. I know. It'd be so upsetting. Yeah, I mean, and, you know, I really am a believer in kind of that storytelling concept that you're supposed to put your characters through hell. People won't transform unless they're traumatized. That's like the therapy version of it. But it's the same as as writing advice.
00:51:44
Speaker
You know that really the thing is my family is all acting very certain of themselves and there's something like I love writing about all of us going through hell and having the transform because of like the absolutely out of control things that we're going through because I don't have any faith that my dad my dad's transformed a lot.
00:52:05
Speaker
I think that a lot of his transformation had to do with me confronting him and writing about him all these things. I don't know. I think that's the trauma he needed, because he was such a strong, certain character. So it's interesting, just even seeing how life fits into those story things, where putting the characters through hell, if you want someone in your life to change, they often won't. But they're definitely not going to, unless they have some kind of traumatic experience where they're put through hell, whatever their version of hell is.
00:52:36
Speaker
What kind of pushback, if any, did you experience when you let your parents read this manuscript? You know, I had very little pushback. My family is very supportive of it.
00:52:50
Speaker
And one of the funniest things is that my dad especially has different parts of his brain that are about like, does he think the book is good? And what he thinks about his portrayal. He would often say things like, wow, I can't believe I said this to you. Oh my God, that's so horrible. But it's a really good scene. Yeah, the critic in him is like, okay, am I the father or am I the literary critic here?
00:53:16
Speaker
Yeah, no, and that's, I think, a part of his response. But he had some corrections. I mean, it's funny because the corrections, no one would ever have guessed what these corrections were like. You know, my mom, for instance, when I wrote the scene where she tells me that my grandmother is a hypocrite, I as a child, I asked my mom, is Grammy a hypocrite? I was like four or five. I just learned the word hypocrite. I asked, is Grammy a hypocrite? And my grandmother was very hypocritical.
00:53:45
Speaker
Um, cause that's why I was asking this already at four or five. And my mom was like, uh, uh, I thought she said, yes, Grammy's a hypocrite. My mom corrected that and she said, no, that's not what I would have said. I would have said, she certainly does a lot of hypocritical things, which was a distinction my mom would make.
00:54:06
Speaker
And I was like, oh my God, that's even funnier. So, and you know, a lot of these stories from my very early childhood, like I'm really partially remembering them, but maybe from the way they were told to me, because they all became family folklore, you know? So that's the thing is that those kinds of moments are so funny when my family was correcting them, because they're like, oh yeah, no, this is the basic thing that happened. But here's exactly what I said. Came up a few times, but it was never a change in meaning.
00:54:34
Speaker
For my mom, that was a big change in meaning, but for me, it wasn't. It was a funnier way of saying the same thing, but my mom was like, no, I would never definitively say she's an hypocrite. I was surprised at how supportive they were, even though my dad is beating himself up about it and reading reviews where people say he's a nightmare dad and getting upset.
Family Reactions and Storytelling Authenticity
00:54:55
Speaker
Oh, man. Yeah, he's got to stay away from that because there's going to-
00:54:58
Speaker
He's not staying away from it. But I've told him to. But the thing that's funny is that my parents are better at dealing with this than almost anybody. That my mom has referred to reading reviews and being like, oh yeah, those people are mad at me about blah, blah, blah. I mean, who cares? They just don't agree. And I'm like, all right. That's perfect. But I think my mom stands behind everything she did in the book, and my dad does not.
00:55:26
Speaker
which is a big difference, that my dad is embarrassed and regretful. And my mom is like, no, I like everything I did in the book. So, you know, and she thinks of herself as very separate from my dad in the way I was raised. So she'll be like, yeah, they're lumping us together, like Michael's parents are this. Doesn't they notice we're completely different?
00:55:47
Speaker
And I'm like, yeah, the casual random reader is just judging my parents as the same. Oh, it's almost like really, I don't know, kind of sad that your dad looked back and he's like, and he has those regrets. Does any part of you just kind of feel like, ah, I kind of feel bad for making him feel regretful? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I worry about him.
00:56:11
Speaker
about it all the time. I really recognize my family is so amazing that they're going through this insane experience for me. That's what it feels like. I feel like I'm just putting them through
00:56:27
Speaker
a crazy thing. And they're like super supportive, which, you know, I don't know how other memoirists deal with this. I just don't know. I read Mary Carr's Art of Memoir, and she talks about it a lot. But I still I would like to hear almost every story. You know, I'd like to hear every story of memoirists explaining how their families and how their exes dealt with being a written about because it's just such a fascinating, weird experience.
00:56:52
Speaker
people definitely are judging my parents a lot. So I don't really say spend half the book writing about how I'm an idiot. You know, and I think that that's, that's like fun for me to be like, Oh my God, look at how misunderstood, like, look at how I misunderstood this situation. You know, exactly. Oh my God, like, look at how, you know, how out of it I was about this. Um, or how mean I was about this, you know, um, that, that is fun for me.
00:57:20
Speaker
I can't imagine the pressure of if I wanted to feel like a hero all the time. I know, I know it's just kind of it's off-putting but but having that sort of wherewithal to make yourself the most unflattering person in the book it when you make other people look unflattering and be like listen if it looks like I'm hard on you by just illustrating the truth like I'm twice as hard on myself and that makes for a better read in the end.
00:57:45
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I definitely notice in other people's stories, I always like stories of people talking about their own foolishness. That's the main thing I think I love. A story of foolishness. Rather than like, look at how I triumphed over these other assholes, you know?
00:58:03
Speaker
Exactly. I'm never into that story. And I think it's one of the reasons why I have a hard time hanging out with a lot of men, because I think men are trained especially to tell stories about how awesome they are. Oh yeah, for sure. As soon as somebody's telling me how awesome they are, I'm like, yeah, I don't really care.
00:58:20
Speaker
Yeah, this is turned into some sort of a pissing contest to see who can puff up their chest the most in the room. It's just like, eh, let's go talk to the girls over there. They're more interesting. And part of it is, if you think about it, so many of the stories are about being rejected or being like, all these things that men just don't tell stories about. Or you find special men who will talk about those things.
00:58:48
Speaker
But like a bad date story, you know, I'm surprised at how few men will tell bad date stories. You know, women love telling bad date stories.
00:59:00
Speaker
Like I just, there's such a difference between people who write memoirs or tell stories about their families when they resent their families or hate their families and people who are telling rough stories about their families who like their families. That's why I love the memoir, The Glass Castle, which is very popular, but I'm like obsessed with because she likes her family. You can tell that she thinks they're sort of amazing. And that's why the book's so cool. You know, if you just hate your family and you're writing about how awful they are, I don't know.
00:59:30
Speaker
I think Rich, well I was talking to Andre Debuce III a long time ago about his memoir, Townie, and he was going to be writing about his family in true but unflattering terms. And he was talking to the writer Richard Russo, who also had written a memoir about his mother, and they were talking and Richard told Andre, he's just like, don't write a memoir if you have a bone to pick.
00:59:52
Speaker
And, and, and that was like really good advice. It's just like, you can, you can say unflattering things, write unflattering things, but do it from a storytelling standpoint, just to lay it out there. Not because you're looking to get revenge. Yeah. I mean, I wonder if there are any good memoirs written out of revenge. Like I wonder if mommy dearest is a good memoir. I like that movie. That's written out of revenge against her mother Joan Crawford, but I wonder.
01:00:21
Speaker
Yeah, certainly doesn't seem like it's good for a person to write a memoir out of revenge, but
01:00:27
Speaker
Yeah, I wonder. Yeah, me too. Well, yeah, I can definitely tell that your memoir comes from a place of love and respect for your family. And like I said, it's a masterful memoir. I loved it.
Where to Find More on Michael's Work
01:00:42
Speaker
I read it in just like two days. And I'm a pretty slow reader. So for me to read a book of this nature in two days speaks to how good it is. So I got to say, Michael, thank you so much for the work.
01:00:54
Speaker
Where can people get more familiar with you and your work and find the book and buy it? Well, you can do everything at michaellebiton.com, I guess is probably the easiest. But you can also just call a local independent bookstore and order the book or do it online. I think it's probably the most fun way to do it. But there's an audio book of it that I narrated. That's cool too.
01:01:19
Speaker
And then it's you know, it's available on Amazon all those places as well But but yeah, you can find the links to all this stuff and everything I do is is on on Michael Leviton calm It's probably the easiest or they could follow me on Instagram. I talk about everything on Instagram too. Nice Yeah, and you've got it. You've got a great Instagram account. So yeah, people should definitely go check that out Nice. Well, it was great talking you Michael. I really appreciate you coming on the show. Oh, thanks so much for having me. This is amazing. Oh
01:01:50
Speaker
I've gotten into the habit of saying that was a toe-tapping good time, but it really was. I mean, how did you like that? You dig that? I sure as hell did. Thanks for listening, CNFers. I mean that. I don't say that as perfunctorily as some prominent podcasters say. Thanks for listening. I mean it. Thanks for listening to this shit show I put together every week.
01:02:12
Speaker
And also thanks to Michael for the time coming to play ball sounded like he had a good time. I appreciate that. His memoir is one of those memoirs that made me want to throw my book in the trash. That's how good I think it is. And I wanted to pack up my bags and just leave.
01:02:32
Speaker
Just get on out of town and find a new home. That good of a book. Head over to BrendanOmero.com for show notes and to sign up for my monthly newsletter. Listen, you're gonna really wanna do this. I mean it's once a month so it's not like you're getting bombarded with spam. I just raffled off 8 books to newsletter subscribers.
01:02:53
Speaker
If you're on the list, you're in the raffle. That's it. You don't have to pay anything. Also, there's a CNF in Happy Hour every month, and this month is Elena Pasarello, the brilliant essayist. She's going to be a guest, and newsletter subscribers get to hang out with one of the best, most badass essay writers in the country.
01:03:19
Speaker
You know she wrote Animal Strike Curious Poses. She was on episode 123 of the show. She's going to be on another one very soon. She also wrote the essay collection Let Me Clear My Throat. She's brilliant and just wildly funny and charismatic and she's my best friend.
01:03:38
Speaker
And for a buck an episode, you get weekly transcripts, exclusive content, exclusive access to the audio magazine. And the call for submissions is out for the summer edition. And what do you know, the theme is summer guidelines are our Brenda no mera.com. Hey, you dig being a patron will help hopefully
01:03:58
Speaker
pay writers and also just offset a lot of the costs of production you download this episode in this podcast for free but let me tell you this shit ain't cheap so here's the whole parting shot I finally there I'm there at the parting shot that's why I put it at the end now I used to make you listen to this shit or I used to make you have to skip this shit to get to the interview now if you're here you know you're in it
01:04:29
Speaker
And that's on you now. I did my part. I moved it to the end. I did this out of courtesy. I am kind.
01:04:42
Speaker
pardon me. Okay, as I was walking Hank last night, Hank being the dog at hooray for Hank on Instagram, I was trying to get my goal of 15,000 steps for the day. And of course, a weekly goal is 100,000. And I was thinking of, you know, Seth Godin, about how he in his great book, The Practice, how the practice has to be its own reward.
01:05:07
Speaker
You know, we'll just use fitness as an example. So I've got, you know, like a lot of people, I've got like 15, 20 pounds of fat that needs to go. Health reasons. You know, of course there's always vanity tied to this, but let's be real. I'm 40 years old and carrying around extra, extra poundage just leads to a whole cascade of bullshit that I'm trying to avoid. But what happens when I get there, when I hit that, hit that nice goal?
01:05:34
Speaker
There's no fanfare. I'm still gonna be the same person with the same head and the same cravings. Life will very much carry on after I hit that benchmark. After I deadlift 500 pounds or squat 315, like really deep. You know, every walk, every lift, that is the reward.
01:05:57
Speaker
That's the practice. It's applicable to anything. You know, you write sentences. You write not to get a high profile agent or a high profile publisher. You write this very sentence and rewrite that book. And that is the reward.
01:06:13
Speaker
reassurance and validation, they don't matter. They're nice, but it can't be why you do the thing. It's beyond you. All that is left, as Seth would say, is the practice, the process, the routine, the rigor, the commitment, and the habits of devotion.
01:06:32
Speaker
It's the system that matters, and after that, you can't control anything. And even if you did land a big book deal, or just a book deal with a random house, to which, by the way, only writers give a shit about that, not readers. If your goal is to impress other writers, then your energies are sort of perversely misplaced. Your goal should be in the service of readers. Now, if your readers are writers, like Roy Peter Clarke, well, okay then. They're one and the same.
01:06:59
Speaker
Anyway, so this very episode, this podcast, I don't know, it could get 10,000 downloads. Great, you know, then what? Do I sit on my laurels? No, you do the work.
01:07:15
Speaker
I mean, fact is, this show gets way fewer downloads per episode than that. I'm talking way few. 10,000 downloads over being fully transparent is like 20% of the entire year of 2020. So that'll just give you, I'll let you do the math. You guys are math people. So, but we're working on getting more downloads, of course. We want to reach more people, serve more people, and celebrate, get people's work in front of more years. In front of years? Whatever.
01:07:43
Speaker
But that can't be the endgame. The endgame is the grind, in the edit, doing this thing right here. So this is it. This is the reward. This has been a production of Exit 3 Media and it was everything by me. Brendan O'Mara, hey, hey. I thought I made a breakthrough with my wife when I sat her down and made her listen to the podcast. And you know what she said? And I'm like so bored.
01:08:14
Speaker
Woof. So I will just, uh, I'll see you next week, won't I? Right here. For another CNF episode. Stay cool, CNFers. Stay cool forever. See ya!