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Episode 473: Finding the Frame with Hampton Sides
0 Playsin 12 hours
"I would say my books are about three quarters research and sort of mining my research, and then one quarter writing," says Hampton Sides, author of several New York Times bestselling works of narrative history, including his latest, now in paperback, The Wide Wide Sea. It's published by Doubleday.
So Hampton was great. There was a moment halfway through where my dogs got to barking, then howling, which made me give them a stern talkin’ to. I think I edited that out. I should have. Hope I did. I can tolerate a little barking in the background, but the howling is obnoxious. Hampton got a laugh out of all of it … He’s the author of eight books including In the Kingdom of Ice, Hellhound on his Trail, and Ghost Soldiers.
Here we talk about:
- How he found his lane of book writing
- Of transitioning from a journalist to a popular historian
- Finding the frame
- Writing in coffee shops
- Running to the computer in the middle of the night
- And an April Fool’s Day joke gone horribly wrong
Learn more about Hampton at hamptonsides.com and follow him on the gram @hamptonsidesauthor.
Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm
Show notes: brendanomeara.com
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Transcript
Promoting Brendan's Work
00:00:02
Speaker
Yep, it's time we do it again. It's time we do this again. ACNFers, the frontrunner's officially out. I know, I know, okay?
00:00:13
Speaker
ah I'd like to think I don't ask for much, but now's the time to buy a copy or three or five. And if you read it, you know the drill. You need ratings, you need reviews. I won't read them because I don't want to be driven insane.
00:00:24
Speaker
i think you understand. But that's the world we live in, ratings and reviews. I'm going to have a new blog post up soon called that For Love of Writing Amazon Reviews. And I'm going back through a lot of the books that I read for the podcast and going on Amazon and just giving everybody a short little positive five-star review.
00:00:43
Speaker
I don't care if you're famous. I don't care if it's your first book. Anyway, your call to action to support the book, me and ye old CNF pod. And if you're still on the fence, and why would you be about the front runner? There's an excerpt of the book of the main set piece of the book at Lit Hub.
00:00:59
Speaker
Dig it. You know, it's the ignorance that I have for a certain period or a certain place or certain cast of characters that drives me to do these books.
History and Evolution of CNF Podcast
00:01:15
Speaker
Hey, CNF, it's Nonfiction Podcast, show where I speak to badass people about the art and craft of telling true stories. I'm Brendan O'Meara. Are we doing it? We're doing it again, aren't we?
00:01:25
Speaker
Honestly, I don't think I could stop. Okay, so many of you know I started this podcast back in 2013, but I didn't get really serious about it until the end of 2016 and at the start of 2017. And I made a list of some titans.
00:01:42
Speaker
I wanted to have on the show and I scribbled in a little pad, some names. Some I'm like, at this point, I'm like, i don't really give a shit about that person. And that one kind of annoys me and doesn't need any more attention.
00:01:53
Speaker
But on the list, on this list, there is a guy named Hampton Sides. Someone who came up in the heyday of Outside Magazine, among other amazing outlets like the New York Times, Nat Geo, the New York Times.
00:02:08
Speaker
Not bad for a Yalie, says the guy who only got into his safety school. Go UMass.
Hampton Sides on "The Wide, Wide Sea"
00:02:14
Speaker
So Hampton Sides. is here to talk about his latest book, The Wide, Wide Sea, Imperial Ambition, First Contact, and the fateful final voyage of Captain James Cook.
00:02:26
Speaker
Fucking thing was featured on Barack Obama's, or as we'd say in my native Massachusetts, Obama, Summer reading list in 2024 when it was in hardback, and now it's in paperback.
00:02:39
Speaker
It should be on your beach read list, which is fitting. As you can imagine, Cook's ships, his fleet, the two, Discovery and a Resolution, coming into shape on the blue horizon.
00:02:52
Speaker
It's published by Doubleday. Show notes of this episode and more. All right, brendanomero.com. Hey, hey. Since sunsetting the pod stack, I moved all of that goodness over to the show notes. I'm porting over all of the pod stack stuff to the recent show notes. They last, oh, I don't know. There's like 15 or so that need need the zhuzh, need the buff.
00:03:12
Speaker
So anyway, that's happening. ah But when you're there at brendanomero.com, hey, hey. can sign up for the Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter, the flagship enterprise. Been doing it forever.
00:03:24
Speaker
People who dig it really dig it. Just like this podcast. First of the month, no spam. As far as I can tell, you can't beat it. And you can also consider going to Patreon if you think all this effort is worth a few bucks.
00:03:36
Speaker
Patreon.com slash cnfpod. Oh boy.
Introducing Pitch Club and Humorous Interruption
00:03:40
Speaker
And I also started what's proving to be a pretty popular venture called Pitch Club. It's at welcome to pitchclub.substack.com.
00:03:47
Speaker
And I have a writer, audio annotate, ideally a cold pitch. I think this has a chance to be pretty special. It's not going to take over the world, but I've gotten the most subscriptions, this kind of thing, like right off the bat.
00:04:00
Speaker
and i was thinking like well why well it's tactical and it's practical and i've gotten some great emails from people who are like this idea is genius and i'm not patting my own back but like some people have reached out and they're like this is really really good again it's tactical and practical it's going to help a narrative journalist i think get where you want to go whether you're emerging or even mid-career nick davidson was the first one to be featured for issue one And the National Magazine Award winning Run on a Tour.
00:04:28
Speaker
Just record that one in the can today and it's a banger. Got a couple more coming with Kim Cross, Cassidy Randall for now. Also just the first of the month, forever free. Because not going to gatekeep a resource like this.
00:04:43
Speaker
But buying my book and subscribing to the newsletter and the podcast are a form of currency that I can leverage to actual money. The dogs have vet bills. My sugar mama needs massages, man.
00:04:55
Speaker
So Hampton was great. Not that I expected anything less. There was a moment halfway through where my dogs got to barking and then howling, which made me give them a stern talking to.
00:05:09
Speaker
i think I edited that out. I mean, you're going to hear Kevin barking a little bit in the background. I mean, she's just a beast. And then she gets Lachlan going and then Lachlan gets Hank going and then Hank will start howling sometimes and then Lachlan will howl and then it's just batshit crazy.
00:05:26
Speaker
I think I edited it out, like i said. well at least I should have. I hope I did. I can tolerate a little barking in the background, call it CNF pod seasoning. Shake a little of that in on a podcast and it's cute, but too much and it's annoying and just dries the palate.
00:05:40
Speaker
But howling gets obnoxious. Hampton got a laugh out of it all, I think.
Transition from Journalist to Historian
00:05:44
Speaker
um He's the author of eight books, including In the Kingdom of Ice, Hellhound on His Trail, and Ghost Soldiers.
00:05:51
Speaker
On this episode, we talk about how he found his lane in book writing, of transitioning from a journalist to a popular historian, finding the frame, writing in coffee shops, running to the computer in the middle of the night, too and an April Fool's Day joke gone horribly wrong.
00:06:10
Speaker
Learn more about Hampton at Hamptonsides.com and follow him on the gram at HamptonsidesAuthor. Great stuff. Had a real fun time. I think Hampton could be the younger brother of Tracy Kidder.
00:06:22
Speaker
Look at them side by side. I'm telling you, it's a thing. They got a similar look. Hampton was recently an instructor at the Archer City, writing workshops with Glenn Stout and Kim Cross about reconstructing a historical narrative.
00:06:36
Speaker
So that's where this conversation jumps off from. Parting shot about the compendium and laziness and foot dragging, but for now, cue the montage. Huh.
00:06:53
Speaker
The writing part is where the magic is for me. My students, the kids these days. You know, there's a difference between losing and being a loser. I either work on it or I allow it to torture me for a really long time. This is going to have to interest somebody somewhere other than me.
00:07:18
Speaker
tough man writing books is hard and uh you know we I don't know that we had any magical solutions unfortunately for these people but we tried to to help however we could with uh concerns or things that maybe they were looking to unlock uh did you recognize some things that they were struggling with that you have struggled with at times sure sure sure I mean uh I You know, I struggled for a long time before I got to this point where I'm writing these books.
00:07:51
Speaker
ah I struggled financially. i struggled structurally with the pieces I was working on. ah I struggled to find a voice, to find a, you know, what is my subject matter? What is my techniques? What, you know?
00:08:06
Speaker
You know, yeah it's like trying on clothes and when you're an early yeah yeah when you're a young writer and early in your career, you're constantly trying to figure out who you are. And ah some of these, a good number of these people in the workshop were younger people who are still kind of struggling with those questions.
00:08:22
Speaker
So, i you know, maybe I helped in some small way to as they move along their path. But I tell you, well you know, growing up, ah you know, the pathway for a writer was much clearer.
00:08:35
Speaker
back then than it is today, both, both in terms of format and in terms of finances, you know, it was like how you make a living as a writer was a much more straightforward thing. The digital ah age has sort of changed everything for, for writers in so many ways. And I don't really know what to recommend. Sometimes ah the world has changed dramatically. Magazines, and newspapers, I don't need to tell you that, but yeah it's a different, um it's a different world than the one I grew up in.
00:09:05
Speaker
Yeah, it's gotta even some people ask me as limited experience as I have, but it's just like, I don't know what advice to offer other than just trying to find a way to stay in the game and just learn the the timeless skills.
00:09:22
Speaker
The platforms will change, but if you can ground yourself in good research, good reporting skills, writing skills and interview skills, and you know you give yourself the best chance, I think. Yeah, definitely.
Finding a Niche in Historical Writing
00:09:33
Speaker
You know, i love something you said, too, about you know certain things that you were struggling with, be it ah you know financially or certainly structurally or finding your lane as a writer. like yeah How did you ah how did you arrive at that, at your particular, you know, that your particular interest that you were able to kind of leverage into a ah wonderful book career?
00:09:52
Speaker
Well, i um i I spent about 25 years working in magazines, ah writing and editing at various magazines like Outside Magazine, ah but also writing for National Geographic, writing for newspapers like the Washington Post.
00:10:09
Speaker
um And, you know, I i guess, you know, i I never really thought I would be a historian, um I really thought I'd be kind of a journalist. i I spent a decade in Washington, D.C.
00:10:21
Speaker
Your education as a journalist is is very is a very good one for becoming a book writer and becoming a historian because you're dealing with deadlines, you're dealing with editors,
00:10:33
Speaker
you you deal you know you You have to turn in pieces um not only on time, but um you know with a budget, a certain budget in mind. And you're constantly looking for conflict and controversy and things that that they're they're going to give a piece um interest among readers.
00:10:51
Speaker
ah You're also attuned to feedback from from from the readers of of your or whatever magazine or newspaper you're working for. I mean, it's it's an excellent education for...
00:11:02
Speaker
for becoming a historian, and I think it's interesting to me how many popular historians today who are getting read and winning prizes and getting on the bestseller list started as journalists, you know as rather than as academic PhD historians.
Inspiration and Transition to Narrative Historian
00:11:19
Speaker
One day i you know got I learned about a thing that was happening down in the White Sands Missile Range of New Mexico, which was called the Baton Memorial Death March. And it was a military marathon and in the White Sands Missile Range that was to commemorate the the real Bataan Death March in World War II in the Philippines.
00:11:40
Speaker
More people from New Mexico than from any other state were killed in the Bataan Death March ah because they took the entire National Guard of New Mexico and sent them over to the Philippines just before the war.
00:11:53
Speaker
so the word baton is all over New Mexico. You see it on buildings and libraries and all kinds of events that are that are held. And so I decided to write a magazine piece about this baton memorial death march ah for Sports Illustrated.
00:12:11
Speaker
but i Because I had found that there was a real survivor of the of the death march, who was 89 years old, who was gonna walk all 26 miles in the desert.
00:12:22
Speaker
um And he invited me to come walk it with him and hear his war stories. And so I did, and I walked, the you know, 26 miles is 26 miles. Man, it's hard, whether you're running or walking it.
00:12:35
Speaker
This guy was in incredible shape for his age. And by the time we crossed the finish line, I was so moved and inspired ah by his stories and by his account of the war that i had in my mind a book already.
00:12:51
Speaker
ah It was like I had the beginning, middle, and the end. And I immediately set about working on a book proposal, which became my first book, Ghost Soldiers, which is a book about about the the prison war camps in the Philippines, the Death March, and then a ah little known incident late in the war where the US Army Rangers were brought in 30 miles behind enemy lines to rescue the last survivors of the Death March.
00:13:18
Speaker
So that book came out in 2001, my first success. And, you know, suddenly I'm a historian. ah You know, I didn't think of it as history because it was based on interviews, primarily with living participants. But but ever since then, I've really not looked back. I am um I'm not doing the journalism so much anymore. i i I consider myself, you know, a popular historian or narrative historian, and I'm going to stick with it. This is this is a second dream job.
00:13:50
Speaker
Yeah, to to be able to like kind of like chain smoke book to book to book is like that. That to me is the dream. And I'm in the effort. i I'm in the stages of trying to do that myself. But, ah you know, for someone, you know, if you're able to to do that, what what becomes the flywheel to to sustain that kind of momentum? How have you been able to sustain that momentum?
Choosing and Balancing Book Topics
00:14:14
Speaker
Well, part of it is I don't do the same era or geographical part of the country or, you know, i I don't get into much too deep of a groove. i'm I move on to something radically different.
00:14:27
Speaker
And that is fresh to me, keeps me curious, keeps me interested. And, you know, perhaps it would be easier if I just kept doing World War II stories or or whatever.
00:14:37
Speaker
But um it's the not knowing thing. you know It's the ignorance that I have for a certain period or a certain place or certain cast of characters that drives me to do these books and and keeps it interesting, keeps it keeps it new.
00:14:52
Speaker
So that's that's certainly part of it. um is is ah Although I guess, you know, it's it's all for for in its own way, it's American history, but it's all over the map.
00:15:03
Speaker
um I'm now working on a ah Western. but I wrote years ago a book called Blood and Thunder, which was about the life and times of a kid Carson. But now, um after many years now, and don't know, it's been about 15 years, I'm returning to the West and writing a book about the Colorado Territory during the Civil War.
00:15:24
Speaker
Picking your subject matter is one way to keep things, fresh and, uh, you know, not getting, getting, getting in a rut, not getting, uh, not repeating yourself. Um, that's really important to me.
00:15:35
Speaker
For sure. And how do you go about cultivating ideas ah for books?
00:15:43
Speaker
Well, I have a list of books. just you know i can't you know Books are, to me, ah almost like jokes or or like a nice bottle of wine that you say you're going to remember it, but you always forget it unless you write it down. You've got to write it down.
00:15:57
Speaker
ah I have this sort of master list that I'm constantly revising and You know, everywhere I go, I'm asking a lot of questions. um Often there'll be a little story embedded in something I'm researching that I'll set aside and say, you know, that that could be a book there. That could be something bigger.
00:16:15
Speaker
In my earlier days when I was doing a fair amount of magazine journalism, often those trips, research trips would lead to an idea. It's like getting out there and asking a lot of questions and and keeping this notebook with a lot of, with long lists of of possible story ideas is important.
00:16:32
Speaker
ah But, you know, when you get a little closer to the the point where you want to decide to do a book, It becomes a little more intense, sort of the way you kick in the tires and the way you're um trying to decide, do I want to spend the next five years of my life working on this thing?
00:16:51
Speaker
um and so And I always say, for me, there's kind of like two... sides to this thing, two ledgers, two sets of criteria. um The first one is completely rational and the other one is completely irrational.
00:17:06
Speaker
And the rational one is just like little boxes you want, you have to check off. Like, are there good characters? Is there a good story arc? Is there plenty, is there good primary material?
00:17:19
Speaker
Is it something that's of general interest to a large number of people, but also something that hasn't been written about too much? Um, Like, oh no, not another book on Lincoln. Like, you know, you gotta got to find that sweet spot of of ah of a big consequential subject that hasn't been written about too much.
00:17:38
Speaker
So that's kind of the rational side. And then the irrational side is is just basically the feeling, the gut feeling, the visceral feeling that you get when you first hear about a story. And, you know, it's like falling in love. You just, you know, the hair on the back of your neck stands up and you just, it's like, holy crap, I did not know that. Or I just, I...
00:17:58
Speaker
I want to write that. And and know that's, that's to me, the irrational part is equally important as the long laundry list of rational boxes that you want to check off.
00:18:11
Speaker
You got to have both. Yeah. it's your point of that falling in love, that honeymoon period. ah It's like you get that idea and you can't stop thinking about it. And it's like putting a smile on your face. i can't wait to get back to this material. It's just like, it's too good.
00:18:25
Speaker
Yeah, and you have to have that the beginning. If you don't, it's going to be really tough sailing two years, three years into your project yeah when when the honeymoon is over. And you were you know yeah you have good days and bad days. you Sometimes you're still fascinated by the subject, but it's hard, hard work at that point. And you you you better have had that touchy-feely experience.
00:18:48
Speaker
kind of early moment to get you through this long ordeal of writing a book because it's never easy. These books are so hard mentally, physically, spiritually, you know, to get to the finish line.
00:19:01
Speaker
You got to have a lot of irons in the fire and a lot of motivations and a lot ah lot a lot of inspiration to get to get to that other side. Yeah. And once you're beyond that honeymoon period, and this so rich to talk about this with ah people who have written a few books or several in your case, is like, what do those and good days look like? And what do the bad days feel like?
00:19:27
Speaker
Well, of course, you know, there's so much research involved in these books that I go a number of years without writing a word. You know, I mean, I'm traveling, I'm reading, um thinking, maybe ah maybe starting to draw up an outline or ah a timeline, ah chronology of events, chronology.
00:19:48
Speaker
organizing my notes, burrowing into it. And then finally, you know, i mean, I guess I would probably have a tendency to research a project forever ah if because I enjoy the research.
00:19:59
Speaker
If my editor didn't at some point weigh in and say, you know, it's it's time to start writing. Hello, there's a contract. um So then you start writing. ah I would say my books are about three quarters research.
00:20:14
Speaker
and sort of mining my research. And then one quarter writing. um I do tend to write pretty fast. I think that's maybe partly product of magazine journalism and and working with deadlines and um and in being at this point pretty comfortable with my own sort of style, my voice.
00:20:35
Speaker
So I do write pretty fast. and And, you know, good day would be like a thousand words, 1500 words, ah a reasonably polished draft.
00:20:46
Speaker
um A bad day might might be 200 words and and perhaps not very good words that you're not too happy with. The important thing is that you're they're getting words down on the page every day. There's a discipline, there's structure to your week. um And I think just as importantly, that you are thinking about it at night when you go to sleep.
00:21:08
Speaker
um For me, you're processing so many things I find at night in your dreams. ah So when you wake up, Often the problem is solved, whatever the thing you're wrestling with. You can wake up in the morning and get your computer and, you know, your mind is working even even when when you think it's not.
00:21:30
Speaker
So, um yeah, um I don't necessarily have writer's block. I don't know that I've ever exactly experienced that. but you know But yeah, but you have good days and bad days, some days where it just seems like it's flowing and everything's everything's clicking. and And those are magical when it when when it happens.
00:21:49
Speaker
When you're thinking about it before bed and letting your subconscious take over and then you wake up in the middle of the night. Do you like to keep a notebook beside your bed to make sure you're like, oh, that was a good idea. Let's ah let's capture that.
00:22:02
Speaker
I should do that. That would be a good idea, but I don't, I can't say that I do that. I tell you sometimes though, in the middle of the night, I will race to my computer just to to get an idea down. of got not not so and I'm not sort so much about my dreams or whatever, but you know ah perhaps I will sometimes just have a really good idea for something I need to add to a story or something I forgot to add in a draft and an early version of it.
00:22:30
Speaker
It's that idea of if you don't get it down, you're going to forget it. You you know you think, oh, i'll oh i I'll remember that. But you don't. You just don't. or It just goes right through me if I don't take the time to write it down.
00:22:44
Speaker
So over the course ah of a yeah eight books, it's just such a a wonderful body of work of which I've read about half of them. And it's um what what would you say you've lessons you've learned from early on your book writing to where you are now and what's still challenging to you after all, you know, several, several books?
00:23:06
Speaker
Well, I think one thing that's happened over the course of those years is that my style has evolved a little bit. um I think when I was younger, i tended to show off more, ah you know, all the big words that I'd learned and groovy sentence structures that I was probably cribbing from various writers that I was reading at the time. um You know, you're youre you're turning somersaults and, you know, look, look what I can do with the English language and more verbal gymnastics and things like that.
00:23:42
Speaker
And I think this is normal and typical for younger writers. ah You're, you know, you in the course of that, you're also just trying to find what is your true voice. um Over time, I've become, I guess, a little less impressed by, um by language, by my, but by my language, by,
00:24:02
Speaker
$64 words, ah you know, I've become more streamlined, I think, and more, more direct, more to the point, maybe less Faulknerian and more Hemingway-esque or something like that, you know, shorter sentences.
00:24:15
Speaker
um And I've noticed that because when I've, you know, I don't do this very often, but if I go back and look at my earlier books, there's a lot more, there's some, some beautiful passages that only a younger person can I think can write um because you're first discovering your voice and you're discovering, ah you know, using certain language for the first time in your in your life. And you're, you know, it's impressive. But it's.
00:24:43
Speaker
often you know i also ah at the same time i often wince at it i'm like god i would never write that now that is so purple it's over it's overdone it's it's overcooked uh and it's ah unnecessary you know unnecessary words bother me more and more like every word needs to have a function needs to advance the sentence and advance the momentum and the pace of the of the of the chapters in the book.
00:25:08
Speaker
Um, so I think that's one thing that's happened is my style has evolved to become a lot more, um you know, more, more spare and, and, and more, uh, and more, um, uh, efficient, I guess you'd say.
00:25:23
Speaker
Yeah, it's like to become a better writer, you need to almost underwrite and surrender to the story and just be a conveyor of the material that you, that the three quarters, 75% research you do is just like, it's there. i just need to, you know, convey it and do my best to surrender to it.
00:25:43
Speaker
and sort of step aside, get out of the way and let the story tell itself in a way. um is you know I feel like more and more that's my my role in this thing. But but that you know that there are moments in a story still for me that where I need to write, write hard and write beautifully or or evocatively because there's a poetic moment in the story that calls for that kind of language or there's something beautiful happening in the, in the plot that, you know, the writer does have to step in and and enrich it you know, with, with, with, with the right kind of language, but um not as much as i used to in my young, in my young days.
00:26:28
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great way of phrasing it, like enriching it. And be like, yeah, here's a part where we can put a bit more seasoning on this dish that does elevate it and puts your stamp on it instead of like, oh, this could have been written by AI. Like, no, this is Hampton Sides' is point of view and and style.
00:26:47
Speaker
I was going to say something about
Innovative Writing Methods and AI Prank
00:26:48
Speaker
AI. um So my last, my most recent book, the wide, wide sea about captain cook's third and final voyage around the world. um i was turning in the book. I turned in everything but the epilogue and my editor was not happy with me. This was now two years ago.
00:27:02
Speaker
ah And, uh, I noticed that it was coming up on April Fool's Day and decided to pull a prank on my editor, which was ChatGPT was fairly new thing, at least to me. And I asked ChatGPT to write my epilogue.
00:27:19
Speaker
for me Ask it a series of very simple questions. Was Captain Cook a good man or was he a bad man? You know, what do the native Hawaiian people think of Captain Cook? And, i you know, ask it to write this thing. It spat out this term paper that was accurate, you know, factually. The dates were right.
00:27:40
Speaker
The spelling was right. The grammar and syntax correct. technically correct, but it was robotic, very robotic. robot robotic I'm sure it'd be a lot better now if I asked ChatGPT right now to do this, it would actually be, you know, light years better than what I found. But um so i I turned it into my editor ah on April Fool's Day as a prank.
00:28:05
Speaker
And He took it seriously. It was just crickets for day after day after day after day. It turned out he was calling my agent. They were thinking about calling my wife.
00:28:17
Speaker
ah they they They thought I'd had a nervous breakdown. um They thought there was something really deeply wrong with me ah because it was it was English. read kind of like something you might write, but you know it was There was something deeply wrong with it at the same time. It wasn't human.
00:28:35
Speaker
And um finally my editor called and said, we have to we have to have a chat about this. and not a chat GPT, but a chat. And he, yeah you know, and I finally broke it to him, you know, like this, this was a prank. Did you notice the time signature?
00:28:53
Speaker
it said April 1st. um But, but, you know, it did, but it was kind of interesting, um you know, Now I've heard now that students all over America, you know, have have written all their papers with chat GBT so much that, you know, you have to write your paper in a classroom longhand so that the teacher can see that you actually wrote it.
00:29:16
Speaker
um um yeah I'm terrified by what AI is going to do the writing profession and is already starting to do. And I was just trying to have a little fun with it. ah but But it's not it's not is actually not a laughing matter. It's actually kind of terrifying, I think, um how far it's progressed and how fast and where it seems to all be leading.
00:29:36
Speaker
Oh, for sure. And ah yeah, speaking of kind of like analog tools, like below me, just got a little reporter notebook. And of course, we're recording here. um I always love getting a sense of how people gather their information when they're interviewing, whether they're strict analog, John McFeesian kind of no patent, patent paper, a pen and paper, or, you know, relying on recorders and everything. I wonder, you know, what, what balance do you strike on that ah interview continuum, information gathering continuum?
00:30:08
Speaker
Well, I try to do both. I mean, i when i if I'm able to tape record somebody talking, then I can um let my notes sort of do the color commentary. Like tape recorder is getting the words. i'm I'm writing down what color shirt he's wearing and what's what's happening in the background. And ah was he he's fidgeting with his shoes there. And ah there's a bird that just flew overhead or, you know, what just likes a pot of...
00:30:35
Speaker
chili cooking on the stove behind them, you know, you all that kind of stuff. I, recorder kind of frees me up so that I can let my imagination and my observations wander.
00:30:48
Speaker
um So I'm doing both if if possible, both are are good. And I, you know, i'd like everyone else these days, I certainly use my phone a lot just to take a lot of pictures. You know, it's easy now to do that because, know,
00:31:01
Speaker
and You can just fire off 20 shots and then, you know, really recreate that room where that interview took place or, you know, the the the landscape that you're trying to describe.
00:31:13
Speaker
So, yeah, I use my phone a lot, maybe too much. I don't know. So I guess I'm both analog and digital ah in my outlook and I use I use both. Nice. And, ah you know, earlier in our conversation, you were talking about, you know, when you're curating a subject to to write about, you know, you're like, oh, one of the questions you're asking is like, oh, is there anything new there?
Captain Cook's Third Voyage
00:31:34
Speaker
You know, how can you maybe put a fresh spin on it?
00:31:36
Speaker
So that, you of course, brings us to Captain Cook, who has been biographized and and written about you know for for decades and decades. But you know here you are, you were able to lock into this final voyage. So when did you know you had something so something new to bring to the the cook canon?
00:31:58
Speaker
Right. Well, you know, um yeah this is kind of a constant tension that I think um historians and biographers have, ah which is, you know, like,
00:32:10
Speaker
Yeah, you could probably find some incredibly obscure person who's never been written about, and you could write a biography of that person, and no one's going to buy it because that person is so fringe, so esoteric, so quirky or ah you know off the radar that...
00:32:29
Speaker
no one no No publisher is going to want to publish it. no no No large group of readers is going to want to read it and buy it. um On the other hand, you don't, you know, there subjects like Lincoln and um Churchill and, ah ah you know,
00:32:46
Speaker
the Kennedys or, you know, or, or Captain Cook, uh, who have been written a lot about. And the task becomes finding a framing device, finding some way into that story that that's never been done before that allows you to see that figure, that piece of history in a fundamentally different way.
00:33:07
Speaker
So yeah, that's what I did with Captain Cook. I, I, I decided I was interested in him i I knew very quickly I did not want to write a biography of him, like Cradle to Grave.
00:33:21
Speaker
um um I don't do biographies, actually. i was I needed a story that had a beginning, middle, end. And um he had an incredible life even before he started his around-the-world voyages.
00:33:35
Speaker
And then he had three around-the-world voyages. And I you know i thought, like that's in narrative terms, that's not very satisfying. Like, okay, they go out, then they come back. and then they go back out again, and they come back, and then they go back out a third time, and then at least the ships return home.
00:33:56
Speaker
Now, it's like that's a shaggy dog story. you know It's just just's too many trips. um And so it became pretty obvious that if I needed to pick one voyage, and ah it it was obvious to me very quickly that it would be the third because it's the most dramatic of his voyages, and it's the most...
00:34:14
Speaker
It's the longest of his voyages, and it's the most American of his voyages. As an American writer, um i needed the even though it's a book about a British captain, a lot of the action happens in present-day United States, particularly Hawaii and Alaska.
00:34:29
Speaker
And it happens during the American Revolution in a very interesting sort flashpoint in our relations with with Great Britain. So then I was like, has anyone ever written a book just about the third voyage? That was my next question.
00:34:46
Speaker
And there have been some in England, some pretty stodgy ah maritime historian books that are really more about sailing than anything, nautical tales, but they weren't what I was aiming for. So then I felt a little more relief, sense of relief that I was like, I'm doing something that hasn't been done.
00:35:05
Speaker
It's, it's looking at, you know, there, you know, this one voyage, almost like it's the main character. It's a, it's a story about a voyage really. It's not, it's not really about just about Captain Cook. It's, it's about a trip that i guess we all know when we go on trips, like some trips have a, they take on a life of their own and the ebb and flow, the highs and lows, the twists and turns of of the voyage really becomes the main, the main character.
00:35:36
Speaker
And so that that's how i that's how I did. it But I did. You know, yes, I was a little bit intimidated by the the extent of the literature that's out there, um you know, and I realized pretty early early on, there's just no way I can read it all.
00:35:51
Speaker
i kind of got, you know, pulled away all the intervening books and just burrowed down into the primary sources, the the the diaries and journals of the original participants and ignored most of the more recent books that have been written about Captain Cook.
00:36:09
Speaker
And he, look, I mean, my book wasn't the first and it ain't going to be the last book on Captain Cook. His voyages were so significant, so ambitious, so consequential in so many ways that there will be many more cookbooks,
00:36:23
Speaker
okay books about Cook to come. And what did this mission reveal to you about Captain Cook? um This particular, mean the third his his third expedition, what what did it reveal? Yeah, his third voyage, yeah.
00:36:40
Speaker
All kinds of things. You see everything about Cook, the good, the bad, and the ugly, um in terms of his good qualities, his persistence, his amazing ah abilities as a as a captain, as ah his leadership of men, his concern about diet and hygiene that led to... um len Not a single man died of scurvy on this expedition, for example.
00:37:06
Speaker
You see this sort of scientific... quality that Captain Cook brings to just about everything. you know Principally what Captain Cook is, is a scientist, you know a map maker, cartographer, astronomer, and um mathematician.
00:37:24
Speaker
um That's how he rose within the the Royal Navy. Those were his real his real skills. And, uh, you see all that on this voyage, you know, it's, um, he's kind of a geek. He's kind of a nerd in a way.
00:37:41
Speaker
Um, but, um, there's something else happening with Captain Cook on the third voyage. He is using the lash more often against his own men.
00:37:51
Speaker
He's having more disciplinary problems. He's, he's got a violent temper that you didn't really see on the first and second voyage. Um, And he's also beginning to use violence against the indigenous people that he encounters along the way.
00:38:05
Speaker
So um why? What is happening with him? lot of theories have been put forward over the years. um The leading theory, and I think the most plausible one, is that he had a terrible, some sort of parasite and that was, you know, he ate bizarre foods all over the world on his voyages, and he probably did have parasites, and they can prevent the absorption of of essential vitamins and minerals and can cause brain damage.
00:38:35
Speaker
um And that is a very likely, very plausible scenario. according to a bunch of doctors that I interviewed, um his symptoms are indicative of that kind of parasite. So I think that could be what's happening.
00:38:51
Speaker
he he you know he His behavior had radically changed. um Some people, early biographers, have you know almost compared him to Colonel Kurtz and in Conrad's um you know, heart of darkness that he had, it was descending in some sort of madness.
00:39:09
Speaker
Um, but that's not quite what's going on here. It's, it's episodic. You know, he has good days and bad days. He has days when he's, he seems like the old captain cook, but then something snaps and, uh, this behavior, um,
00:39:25
Speaker
We see it accelerating, though, near the end of the voyage, and and it leads directly to his demise on the Big Island of Hawaii, which is the dramatic kind of end of the book. Most people probably, if they know anything about Captain Cook, they know that he he has a bad ending there on the Big Island.
00:39:43
Speaker
Kind of saying earlier, you know, you wrote early on that, you you know, I neither lionize, demonize, nor defend him. I've simply tried to describe what happened during his consequential, ambitious and ultimately tragic final voyage. So, you know, that that seems like a good and and and fair rubric where you're just like, you know, here's the story, here are the beats, you know, up but I'm i'm not going to lay judgment.
00:40:05
Speaker
And so i kind of like that approach. And I imagine that was very strategic early on for you.
00:40:11
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, I was writing this book while and researching this book while Captain Cook's statues were coming down all over the place. um He was in the news again. And I thought at first, um well, I wondered, is this good or bad for my project here?
00:40:30
Speaker
you know, my my. It's not a biography, but you know he is the protagonist of the story. And um now he's extremely controversial and being canceled from a lot of these ah cultures and you know being removed from history in a way. his his yeah exhibitions, ah exhibits are being ah reassessed and sometimes pulled from galleries and and museums.
00:40:58
Speaker
And ah certainly he's being reassessed as part of this larger critique of of colonialism and the excesses of of of of the imperial game that was played and and during the 1700s and 1800s.
00:41:13
Speaker
So yeah, i I decided to kind of um try to understand, you know, where where where that critique is coming from and um incorporate it wherever I could into the story if it sort of organically worked into the narrative.
00:41:29
Speaker
I certainly also tried my damnedest to bring in the indigenous perspective on on these encounters. you know They were mutual discoveries. We we in the past have only only focused on the European side of the question, but um The Polynesians, for example, they were discovering Europeans.
00:41:48
Speaker
They were learning about metal and money and alcohol and and ah and ah these huge wooden ships that were full of nails and rivets. um You know, it's a mutual mutual discovery going on, and I tried to make it that way.
00:42:04
Speaker
that, you know, try to cover both sides of of the question as best I could. It's hard when you're dealing with an oral society, you know, oral history, an oral tradition.
00:42:15
Speaker
ah There's not as much written material, but wherever I could find it, um I used it. And I think it was it's just an infinitely better story because of it. You know, i I think we need to, it's not an either or proposition, right?
00:42:30
Speaker
It's both. We need, we need all the perspectives that were relevant at the time to be incorporated in the narrative. Yeah. And, and one particular character takes, uh, a lot of, a lot of real estate in the story. And I i don't know if his name's pronounced may or my, my, my, my, he w he was a fascinating, a fascinating man. don't know. Just tell us a little more about him and, and his arc in this story.
00:43:00
Speaker
Yeah, so Mai is a really important character in the book. He's probably the second most important character. ah he's He's a Polynesian man. He's from ah Tahiti, and he becomes the first Polynesian to set foot on English soil as part of Cook's second voyage around the world.
00:43:19
Speaker
ah you He becomes a hit in England. They roll out the red carpet for him. um they vacc them they They have him vaccinated for smallpox. He meets King George III. He meets ah all the writers and thinkers and scientists who study him. and admire him, but also sort of patronizingly ah analyze him to see if he's a good example of the noble savage, as they call it.
00:43:44
Speaker
um he He learns to hunt at the estates of the aristocracy. He yeah but is a mean backgammon player, a mean chess player.
00:43:55
Speaker
ah he for the most part, has a ball in England and has has a you know great experience. But after two and a half years or so, he becomes ah quite homesick. and wants to go back to Tahiti.
00:44:07
Speaker
King George III says, we'll get you home. And Captain Cook well well will be your chauffeur. And um he, you know, not only of Mai, but now all these belongings that Mai has accumulated over over over two and a half years, all kinds of weird things like a full suit of armor, right?
00:44:30
Speaker
and you know guns and ammunition and swords and um all kinds of trinkets and baubles and little cool little things like a jack in the box. And horses, a lot of animals.
00:44:44
Speaker
King George wanted the Tahitians to have a British farm, like an English farm. So ah Captain Cook has to transport horses, goats sheep, peacocks, ah you know, all all kinds of animals. So the holds of the ship are just unbelievably stinky and loud and chaotic with all these animals. It's like Noah's Ark.
00:45:08
Speaker
But yeah, that my is, um you know, for me, it was really interesting because, you know, it allowed me to have ah as um a main character, a Polynesian, you know, an indigenous person who is,
00:45:22
Speaker
you know, usually the these stories are about the English people going to observe let's say, you know, people of color or whatever. In this case, you have the the person of color going to England and um being an observer ah in the heart of whiteness, you know, for like meeting all these blindingly white people in their wigs and, you know, their tricorn hats and their full regalia. And ah so we get Maya's point of view um on English society.
00:45:53
Speaker
and And I think it kind of enhances this study of cultural clash that is really what the book's about. You know, it's it's really about, you know, the the wide, wide gulf and between these between these cultures, perhaps unbridgeable gulf, um and how it plays out in in the in the life of this one man, Mai.
00:46:18
Speaker
I love that you bring up the capital A word about, and yeah that's always so central to kind of summing up succinctly what a story is. It gives it an engine.
00:46:30
Speaker
um you know When did you arrive at you know that you know that capital A about when you were writing and researching this book? Well, you know, i started...
00:46:42
Speaker
working on this and i I found that I was not writing a whole lot about ah the sailing, you know, the the the trip it's you know at sea, storms the all the things about um a ship or ship architecture of that of those times. I mean, i what I found that I was more interested in ah was what happens when a ship approaches an island in that first that moment of first contact, that magical moment when anything could happen.
00:47:13
Speaker
Are they going to get along with each other? Are they going to go to war? um Are they going to trade? are they goingnna what are What are these experiences going to be like? and And in both directions, there's this kind of exciting moment, and and and in it's a moment that Captain Cook had many, many times.
00:47:32
Speaker
Most of these captains of this time, you know you know they might have had one or two of these first contact experiences, but Cook had like 30 or 40. maybe 50 of them.
00:47:44
Speaker
That's what I decided I was more interested in is like, this is this not a nautical story so much as it is a story about once, once the ships land, the the, these two cultures face each other on the shore and, um, what's going to happen, you know, uh, usually it worked out for cook.
00:48:06
Speaker
It's amazing how often and how well it it worked out for cook until one day it didn't. It didn't work out. So that's really the the theme of the book more than anything. i mean, of course, I describe what it's like to be on board these ships and and all that. But I don't get deep into the, you know, I leave that to Patrick O'Brien and some of these other writers who really and know how to write about every inch of a ship and what's going on and what the spritz and the spars and all the different sails and, uh, what to do in a storm and, you know, you know, all that kind of stuff.
00:48:43
Speaker
I'm more interested in what happens on shore than what happens on, on board the ship.
00:48:49
Speaker
Well, it's the way you write it, too, and hearing you speak about it, just how wild and you know terrifying it must be to see these giant ships coming in if they hadn't been introduced to such a thing before.
00:49:04
Speaker
But even um and that but even some these mega canoes that get paddled out with you know with with very, i would you know, surveying these ships, it must it is so charged with tension And just to kind of put yourself there and to visualize it, it's just like, wow, it's what a, what a sight to behold, really.
00:49:24
Speaker
Yeah, it was a, it was a spectacle and, and, um, Cook was very, um, intrigued by the Polynesians because he recognized in them us a very sophisticated nautical society. you know they These people knew how to ah build ships, very different kinds of ships, without any metal, without any nails.
00:49:47
Speaker
But you know he was impressed by their ship architecture. And the elegance of these canoes and how how versatile they were in war and in ah and in and you know as fishing fishing vessels. And, you know, ah he talks a lot about that.
00:50:03
Speaker
but it But it works in both directions because the Polynesians are amazed by these. the the cook ships, there're they're huge and they're full of iron and then the end full of just these giant sails. And at first there's all kinds of oral history that the the Polynesians thought they were from outer space or that they emerged from the bottom of the sea or that there were some kind of other worldly creatures because they just never seen ships like this.
00:50:31
Speaker
And they they never seen, for example, um clothes that had pockets in them And there's this oral history, they they say, yeah look, they they reach into their bodies and they pull out treasures.
00:50:46
Speaker
you know like they They were just amazed at kind of just the cult ah stark, cold cultural differences between the ah cultures and what they wore. And they they, like, Cook's men were constantly smoking pipes and cigarettes and they didn't understand that.
00:51:02
Speaker
And they call them the volcano people because they're always seething from their mouths like like a volcano. So, yeah, I mean, there's the the cultural divide was vast at first and interesting. And it was kind of weird, actually. And but then, of course, over time, the two cultures understand that they're just mere mortals. And they're ah they're all, you know, they're all human.
00:51:25
Speaker
and And for the most part, they get along. They get along. um They're. yeah until as I say near the end everything unravels for Cook um on Hawaii Yeah, because he had, by that point, they had yeah essentially overstayed their welcome.
00:51:45
Speaker
And even though, yeah ah you know, Cook was basically treated like a god, and they had the lono, lono, lono, the chanting of the the the Hawaiian god. And yeah, they overstay their welcome, and then they leave, but then they come back.
00:52:02
Speaker
Yeah, right. Well, they they Cook finally understands, and generally speaking, he was pretty good about detecting when he had overstayed his welcome. you know he He moved on, but unfortunately two days later they they encountered a gale and the foremast of his ship, the Resolution, snapped in half and it was a catastrophic problem that had to be solved. And he didn't know what else to do but to turn around and go right back to that same bay, Kealakika Bay on the Kona coast of the Big Island and have his ship repaired because he knew there was there were good trees there and he his carpenters were going to go out and cut down a tree and fix fix the mast.
00:52:49
Speaker
But by the time they get back to that bay, the Hawaiians are like, wait a minute, what are you doing here? You're a god out of season. you're you know, the the big festival, the religious festival called the Makihiki, is it's over now. And the you're supposed to be gone if you are Lono.
00:53:10
Speaker
and um I'm not convinced that all the Hawaiians thought he was Lono, but I think perhaps the priests were pushing that narrative as like, this was the God returned. And, you know, but now he's come back.
00:53:23
Speaker
at the wrong time, at the wrong place. And furthermore, like clearly you're not a God if your ship broke, you know, you, you, you got, yeah and you, so you're going to come back, you're men bringing your men back, you know, and you're just like, they've been consuming their pigs and,
00:53:41
Speaker
Having, you know, fornicating with their women and drinking their water, their fresh water. And, now you know, it's just like, no, <unk>re we're done with you. So cook, cook as men are treated very differently from then on.
00:53:57
Speaker
and things escalate in a hurry. rowboat is stolen, Cook storms ashore to try to get it returned, and decides to try to kidnap the king of Hawaii and and bringing bring him ashore and hold him for ransom.
00:54:12
Speaker
ah And his bodyguards, the king's bodyguards and warriors surround him and prevent that from happening, and then things escalate from there. i I don't want to go into all the details of what happened, but it is an incredibly violent, an incredibly graphic death that Cook's own men, for the most part, are witnessing from the ships just too far away to to to to help him or to defend him.
00:54:40
Speaker
And um it's like they're watching a... a terrible, ah tragic scene from a like a Greek play against the amphitheater of this is huge, steep cliffs.
00:54:53
Speaker
And they they can't, they can't prevent it from happening. And so, you and it's, it's pretty shocking when you go down to the, to the site of the of all this, which is not, it's not easy to get to.
00:55:07
Speaker
um But it's, ah it's, there's some bad juju there, is there's still some kind of unfinished business, you get this feeling that it's, ah it's yeah it's a place that's considered sacred to to the ancient Hawaiians, to the native Hawaiians.
00:55:22
Speaker
ah But it's also where this terrible event happened, where not only Cook was killed, but numerous of his Royal Marines and Over 20 Hawaiian warriors were killed that day ah at right there on the lava flats.
00:55:37
Speaker
And it's, um I don't know, it's a pretty epic place in a lot of ways.
Hampton's Writing Process and Advice
00:55:45
Speaker
I dan just got a couple more things for you. And um ah when you've got your all your materials and you're, you know, sitting down to write, you know, what is ah you know, what do you like to have in place as you look to access these materials and, you know, get in ah maybe a ah good cracking thousand fifteen hundred words if ah if the day's going good?
00:56:04
Speaker
Yeah. Well, one thing I've i found that really helps me, especially with this book, um was to have a kind of a condensed document, ah which is like all the quotes that I want to use ah from all the different sources.
00:56:25
Speaker
all in one place. It's almost like an artist you know has to have a palette with all his paints right there on the palette so that you can dip in and you can dip in and and use those quotes.
00:56:37
Speaker
And they're all I don't have to hunt for them all over the place among 15, 16, 17 different sources. um It's all there. It's all condensed. And so I spent a lot of time developing that condensed document. I mean, it takes me probably more time to get all that stuff compressed down to to to a few pages than it takes me to actually write the chapter.
00:57:00
Speaker
um but but But it allows me to, once I start writing the chapter, it goes a lot faster and a lot easier, more smoothly. um That's one thing. um i I tend to do ah chronologies or, you know, like a timeline.
00:57:15
Speaker
um I like to have that kind of running over here as as kind of a separate document of like this happens, this happens, this happens, this happens, because, you know, you often forget.
00:57:26
Speaker
the order of things, the sequence and the the exact times and dates and things like that. so it's nice to have that as a sort of a cheat sheet or whatever. I tend to write in coffee shops.
00:57:37
Speaker
I need noise. I need stimulation. need caffeine. And, and although I do have a perfectly good office and I do write my office, I, I often have to just leave the house or I go stir crazy.
00:57:51
Speaker
And I have a series of coffee shops that I go to. I put on headphones. I give people the evil eye if they want to look like they're going to come over and talk to me because I don't want that.
00:58:02
Speaker
don't want to be rude, but um I'm in my office, dude. you know I'm working here. um And I'm and ah ah Once I get in the flow of things, the yeah the writing comes pretty fast, usually.
00:58:18
Speaker
yeah I would say typically it's about 750 words. That's like a solid thing to shoot for, but consistently. yeah Yeah, that seems like a manageable amount where you're not totally bleeding the well, but you can you can come back to that every day and you don't have the the muscle soreness that you might from ah an anaerobic bout of writing.
00:58:40
Speaker
but Yeah. Yeah, I don't do all-nighters anymore. I'm used to. and When I was younger, ah would, you know, have a big deadline and really push it to the end and then stay up all night or something. and you pay for it the next day or the next few days.
00:58:55
Speaker
I think consistency is is, you know, what you're really shooting for. you know, if you can, you know, the pages add up pretty quick. If you can get 750 words every day for a couple of weeks, you're doing good.
00:59:09
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, fantastic. Well, well Hampton, i I always love bringing these conversations down for ah for a landing by ah asking the guests for just ah a recommendation of some kind for the listeners. And that can just be anything you're happy about that you're like, oh, this is a cool thing I've been trying out or a TV show or whatever.
00:59:24
Speaker
ah So I would just extend that to you as we bring our conversation down for a landing.
00:59:30
Speaker
Well, maybe the but the best piece of advice i i ever got was from um from this guy, um the first writer I ever met growing up in Memphis, Tennessee, who ah was a great narrative historian. His name was Shelby Foote.
00:59:45
Speaker
He wrote this amazing trilogy of the Civil War, and you know he was like the star of Ken Burns' documentary on the Civil War. He this amazing beard and pipe and Delta accent, and you know he was just this...
00:59:56
Speaker
exotic creature. And I was a kid growing up in Memphis and his son was a good friend of mine. And we'd go over there and hang out and we were in a rock band together and we were sort of doing everything we could to prevent Shelby Foote from finishing his ah amazing trilogy of the Civil War. But um I interviewed Shelby later for a magazine and did a series of interviews with him. And he talked ah about how important it is for a writer to write the story and not to talk about it.
01:00:30
Speaker
ah And he said, it's like, um you know, he knows ah bunch of writers, he said, people who wanted to have written ah book.
01:00:42
Speaker
But instead, what they ended up doing is going to cocktail parties and dinner parties, talking about this project that they're going to be writing. And they're going to, you know, basically talking it out. You know, almost he said it was like ah pressure cooker that's cooking green beans.
01:00:58
Speaker
You know, you got to let the pressure build up. inside or the beans will never get cooked. And and the analogy was that there they're letting the pressure off bit by bit by bit by bit by talking about it.
01:01:12
Speaker
And then they just talk it to death and the the thing never gets written. And I do know a lot of people who i don't know. They're aspiring writers. They, what they, and they talk a lot about their projects in public and, uh, somehow it often doesn't get written. Uh, I think you got to build up pressure of the, to cook the green beans. And, uh, and, um, for me, it involves not talking very much about my current project, whatever it is.
01:01:41
Speaker
I feel like, i'll if i'll never write it if i keep yakking about it you know to other people i'm i'm also a little bit superstitious i'm always worried that you know maybe somebody else would get the idea or you know it's it'll be out there in the ether and uh someone will find out about it and beat me to it so i you know even after all these years i'm a little superstitious about talking about my my current project um And I think that was a good piece of advice, though.
01:02:09
Speaker
You know, it's like writers should write and not talk ah and not talk. It's about getting words down on the page. Well, love that sentiment. And yeah, and and it's just ah so great to talk writing and talk about your latest book, Hampton.
Commitment to Writing and Podcast Reflection
01:02:24
Speaker
a I've been a fan of your work for years and and ah it's such a great such a great time to talk a little shop and get in get into your head a bit about how you go about this kind of work. So just thanks for all the work you do. And thanks for carving out some time.
01:02:38
Speaker
Well, thanks for your interest. ah You know, so it's a fun way to make a living. I'll tell you that. I love what I do. I feel extremely lucky. And I guess I'm just going to keep doing it until I croak.
01:02:50
Speaker
ah nice I don't know what else to do. I'm honestly not good at anything else. But I'm going to keep doing this until and tells someone tells me I can't.
01:03:03
Speaker
Yes. Manic energy in the studio today. Manic energy. Great talk. I hate having to cut off these conversations at an hour because I feel like I have and enough threads to pull on for another two hours. That's what it felt like with Hampton. Like he was saying certain things. I'm like, God damn it. That'd be a good thing to maybe another time.
01:03:27
Speaker
But that's That's how we roll. That's how we do it. Another time, man. I love between book pods. That's a really rich time to be talking about writing.
01:03:39
Speaker
Find out more about this historically great badass at hamptonsides.com. Clear my throat. Okay, so I'm filling out the compendium for the next biography.
01:03:54
Speaker
And there are some dry days. I've been going a few days in between without doing anything, so I don't really have much to add to the thing. I don't write it in every day, especially of late since I've been tied up with Front Runner promo and the usual self-loathing and inertia to do nothing but wash dishes and tend to my ever-growing list of house chores. Let me get my compendium out here.
01:04:17
Speaker
Big book. It's a big book. Like, literally big. It's just big. But the compendium was always way to catalog what I'm doing, and just as importantly, what I'm not doing.
01:04:29
Speaker
I probably have about five hours of tape strung across four key sources. I have the numbers for close to a dozen sources. I have yet to dive into the transcripts of what I have and and draw up a baby proposal, which thankfully is all my agent feels she needs.
01:04:44
Speaker
The subject is big enough, and having stuck the landing on the front runner, a solid overview and proof of sourcing and possibly some tasteful nudes will seal the deal. Here's a sampling from the compendium.
01:04:58
Speaker
That's from the last few days. I'm not going read everything, but here are some things. Like, ah from Sunday, May 25th. Merely checking in. The only thing I did since Tuesday was acquire an email from this guy.
01:05:11
Speaker
He's a summer coach. He's undergoing treatment for cancer. We will talk this week after Memorial Day, trying to show some grace for myself, given that the front runner has launched, soft launch, like a soft restaurant opening. Still feeling out the best way to organize this compendium.
01:05:32
Speaker
I love the idea. I just feel it could be in better shape. okay Wednesday, May 28th, checking in again. We'll talk to so-and-so tomorrow at noon. Been hard finding focus with book stuff going on.
01:05:48
Speaker
Next two days will be pretty crazy. So expect this one and and there one conversation to be the only one done that week. on Thursday, did of May 29th, did a few things.
01:06:03
Speaker
Called, spoke to a source, intro call, we'll have a quote better one in about 10 days. I made a good impression on him. If I give myself credit for anything, I guess it's that. Tuesday, June 3rd, emailed that guy.
01:06:16
Speaker
Wednesday, June 10th, spoke for 90 minutes. And he shared photos and stats. Great talk, great photos. Getting close to having enough for a baby proposal. Been dragging my feet, and I can't afford to do that.
01:06:30
Speaker
I can't shake the feeling that I'm just being lazy. You my out-of-the-box software isn't the most rigorous. I go back to my days playing ball. It always comes back to baseball, doesn't it?
01:06:40
Speaker
Sigh. Like when I was really killing it, I worked exceptionally hard, you know, for a high schooler. Then I got onto a competitive college roster and combined with being red shirted and burnt out, I failed to level up when I, when I needed to level up again.
01:06:58
Speaker
Now everyone is good or great and you have to work even harder. You know, I failed to even, know, I failed to work harder because yeah, I was a walk-on. They didn't let the walk-ons practice.
01:07:13
Speaker
But when there was a fall ball, you know, if you outperform the recruits, like I was at one point, ah the coach isn't necessarily impressed. He's actually embarrassed and it wounds his ego.
01:07:25
Speaker
Like he gave full boats to these other guys that this chump, me, is outperforming and he can't possibly cut the recruits. But the guy who walked on without a scholarship, no ego tied to that guy.
01:07:38
Speaker
Yeah, we can cut his ass.
01:07:41
Speaker
I needed to work triple hard to stay on par with the others who might not have been doing as well, which I suspect is how women and minorities feel in the workforce when going toe-to-toe with white dudes.
01:07:52
Speaker
But yeah, meritocracy is what we favor. Yeah, right. Point being, my hard work, hard, you yeah heard Point being, my hard work, well, pivoting to the writing thing, hard work and luck got me six weeks in Saratoga.
01:08:11
Speaker
you know we'll say We'll call that 2011. But I had a long grind. Had to grind longer, work harder, get luckier for the frontrunner. And now there's no coasting.
01:08:24
Speaker
you know I have to work even harder for this next one to stay in the game. i have to level up again. The sourcing for this book will likely number close to 1,000 if I do it right.
01:08:35
Speaker
Pre was closer to 200, just in terms of talking to people. Nobody wants to read a doorstop, so the book will likely be under 400 pages, but the sourcing could fill 1,000. That's...
01:08:47
Speaker
yeah that's Addition by subtraction. That's leaving book's worth of material on the floor. That's being ruthless. That's the hard work. In any case, the compendium is me holding my feet to the fire.
01:09:01
Speaker
Oh, you only made 10 calls today? You need to make twice that. You need to average about two interviews a day to get the material you need to make this a compelling narrative biography. Listen, you're at an age where you can assume the mantle as a preeminent sports biographer. Why not go for it?
01:09:18
Speaker
Be in and of that class. Shoot for that shit. Don't sandback yourself because you feel like a fraud.
01:09:28
Speaker
Do it for the others if you can't get out of your own fucking way. If I can further elevate my standing, I'm pulling the podcast with me and the podcast pulls the others. I hope I can open doors and bust the fucking deadbolts because I never want doors slamming behind me.
01:09:46
Speaker
Like and subscribe. Stay wild, CNN-Effers. And if you can't interview. ya.