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Episode 85—Jamie Zvirsdin on Sincerity, Permission, and Hard Work
125 Plays7 years ago
“To be sincere is to be powerful and creative nonfiction allows me to do that, to be sincere," says Jamie Zvirzdin. Hey CNFers, hope you’re having a CNFin’ good week. It’s The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to the world’s best artists about creating works of nonfiction: leaders in the world of personal essay, memoir, narrative journalism, documentary film, and radio and try to tease out origins, habits, and craft so you can experiment with any cool nuggets you hear. Today’s guest was the runner up in Creative Nonfiction’s “Science and Religion” contest from Issue 65. It’s Jamie Zvirzdin and her essay “Shuddering Before the Beautiful”: Trains of Thought Across the Mormon Cosmos details Jamie’s conflict with the Mormon church and her ultimate break from it, but doing it in a very empathetic way. There’s no vindictiveness in the story. She just lays it all out there. So we dig into that a bit. In this episode you’ll also learn: Her Fragment Heaven and Graveyard Hell How she’s really analog when it comes to scheduling Her addiction to learning And lots of influential books and writers I think Tom Petty said, “Don’t bore us, get to the chorus!” So here’s my conversation with the great Jamie Zvirzdin.
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Transcript
Introduction to Creative Nonfiction Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Hey there, CNFers. Hope you're having a CNF in good week. It's the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak with the world's best artists about creating works of nonfiction, leaders in the world of personal essay, memoir, narrative journalism,
00:00:21
Speaker
documentary film and radio and try to tease out origins habits and routines so that you can use some of their tools of mastery and apply it to your own work. I'm your host Brendan O'Mara and today's guest was the runner-up in creative non-fictions science and religion contest from issue 65.
Jamie's Essay and Scheduling Habits
00:00:45
Speaker
It's Jamie Zaverzdan and her essay shuttering before the beautiful
00:01:08
Speaker
You can also go back a couple episodes to hear Rachel Wilkinson, the winner of this contest, talk about her essay, Search History. But this is about Jamie, and in this episode you'll also learn her fragment heaven and graveyard hell. What is the bad? How she's really analog when it comes to scheduling, her addiction to learning, and lots of influential books and writers.
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Speaker
that's a lot of things to do with the war and that's a lot of things to do with the war and that's a lot of things to
00:01:33
Speaker
And you know what, I think it was Tom Petty, the late great Tom Petty, who said, don't bore us, get to the chorus. So here's my conversation with the great Jamie Zewurzden. Enjoy.
Teaching and Reading for Writing Improvement
00:01:54
Speaker
What am I reading these days? So I teach at Johns Hopkins. And so that requires a lot of reading. So right now we're doing the best American science and nature writing. So that's what I'm currently reading. If you ask me what I want to read, that's another story. There's just too much. I came a little late to the game and I have a lot to catch up on.
00:02:25
Speaker
Yeah. Reading the Best American Collections is so great for anybody for a number of reasons, especially, well, for one, to read great writing. But also, it lets people who are looking to pitch stories to various publications, even notable selections, you'll see the publication be like, oh, they're publishing this kind of work.
00:02:49
Speaker
You can walk away, A, from just learning about a hundred new people and then maybe as many as 50 other magazines and stuff that are publishing that kind of work that you would hopefully like to get published. So it's like such a valuable resource and it comes out every single year. It absolutely does. I've been really grateful for that.
Impact of International Moves on Writing
00:03:12
Speaker
Part of the reason I came late to the game is that I wasn't writing nonfiction. I wasn't writing at all. I started out as an editor and I did technical editing and newspaper editing for a company in Europe. And so I wasn't around to sort of know what was happening. We've lived, my husband works for
00:03:40
Speaker
the State Department. And so we've moved from country to country to country. And that has caused a kind of isolation that has actually been very fruitful for me because it's caused me to take a step back from American culture and my own culture that I grew up with in Utah. And it's sort of broken me in good ways.
00:04:09
Speaker
And some people who are editors have a particular editor brain. And they appreciate writing, but they like to be more of the coach to coach up writing. And you say you're late to the game as a writer. So what was it about the writing that kept pulling at you? And not that the editor brain ever leaves, but what made you want to be maybe on the other side of the craft?
Childhood Dreams and Writing Transition
00:04:39
Speaker
When I was a little girl, I wanted to be an astronaut and a writer. And I didn't give myself permission to do either of those things. But what I did do was I kept some pretty intense journals. So I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote. A lot of them were religious-based. Like I talk about in this essay,
00:05:05
Speaker
Um, I'm sort of like Newton and thinking that, you know, if I copied down verses from the Bible that, that something new would come out. So it was, it was that sort of writing. And then I had the editing, but then when we lived in the Marshall islands of, as one of our posts in the foreign service, I remember.
00:05:26
Speaker
hearing about the National Novel Writing Contest for the first time, and I gave myself permission to write. And that, it was like a dam broke. It was a pretty remarkable feeling. That's great. That's a great way of putting it too, that you had this congestion, if you will, and it really allowed you to pursue that. And what came out of that experience?
00:05:54
Speaker
a really crappy novel, first of all. But then I had started to question some things about my religion and I wanted to explore those things in writing. And so from that came an anthology, Fresh Courage Take New Directions by Mormon Women.
00:06:22
Speaker
And I asked a few other friends if they wanted to write about their experiences as women, Mormon women, and that blossomed into this beautiful book that was published in 2015. And I credit the Marshall Islands.
00:06:41
Speaker
with that, with being so isolated that I had to step back and see the world anew. And you used the word permission a couple minutes ago, and that's so important when doing any creative endeavor that so often
00:06:59
Speaker
people feel handcuffed that they're not allowed to do it and that they need or the people that do this kind of work or write these kind of things like they've been anointed in some way to do it and they just appear and they don't realize that there's a lot of work to it and that if you really really want to really want to do it you really only have to start somehow but it's sometimes it's really hard to start so
00:07:25
Speaker
What was that realization like when you finally did give yourself the permission and then you actually took up the pen from there and ran with it?
Blogging Success and MFA Journey
00:07:35
Speaker
So I had a blog where I'd write about our adventures in the Foreign Service and it became pretty popular to the extent that my husband would go to these conferences and people
00:07:52
Speaker
Branded people would come up to him and they'd say oh, I read your wife's blog. How's your son doing? And and that got a little unnerving for us. So we took a private especially because We had a lot of readers from China and Russia suddenly But I was like, you know And and the blog died as soon as I took a private but I was like, you know, I could do this I could write and then
00:08:22
Speaker
And then I started looking at programs, at writing programs, and I think that that was sort of the turning point for me of saying, you know what, I'm a great editor, but I would love to write. And so then I
00:08:40
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got my MFA from Bennington College and I did that while we were at our next post in Montreal. We were actually supposed to go to Tunisia, but just a couple months before we were slated to go, Arab Spring happened and
00:08:57
Speaker
Some people burned down the school that my son would have gone to They're in Tunis and so they rerouted us to Montreal and Bennington is in Vermont So it worked out better than I could have hoped Wow
Preference for Nonfiction and Influences
00:09:12
Speaker
And so what was it about telling true stories or writing essays that appealed to your taste maybe more than fiction? Not that maybe you've abandoned fiction, but at least what's kind of brought us together today is the fact that you've written some non-fiction and you have that essay anthology. So what was it about true stories that really appealed to your taste?
00:09:37
Speaker
Nicaragua has sort of their most celebrated poet. His name is Ruben Río. And I think my answer to that question could definitely be summed up in one of the things that Ruben Dario said. He said, por eso ser cinero es ser potente.
00:09:59
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which is to be sincere is to be powerful. And I think creative nonfiction allows me to do that is to be sincere. I love the feeling of sharing my adventures in ways that are meaningful to my reader who may not have had the chance to be in a native canoe
00:10:25
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on the ocean in the Marshall Islands or going to the market and buying an iguana to eat for here in Nicaragua. Those were pretty
00:10:38
Speaker
pretty wild true stories that happen and I think sharing those kinds of things opens up our world and that's the thing I love about non-fiction. Do you find that because there are some people who would take the other side and be like, all right, I've got these cool experiences and I can really sort of
00:11:01
Speaker
dress them up or take it into an imaginative direction that is pure fiction. Have you ever had the experience that if you've ever felt pulled by fiction that nonfiction tucks you right back and just be like, it's just so much more interesting to me if I just make it a verifiably true story versus trying to amp it up with made up stuff?
Transition from Fiction to Nonfiction
00:11:25
Speaker
Yeah, so I was in the fiction track at Bennington College and I did a crossover term to nonfiction with Sven Burkertz and I just loved it. I remember writing a story, a fiction story about my grandma. I had turned it into fiction and her cows had gotten sick.
00:11:53
Speaker
and started dying in the field and she, as a little girl, had to go and save them. And so I wrote it as fiction and then I was like, what? It's a true story. Why am I? So I do keep feeling pulled back to nonfiction because I've heard so many true stories
00:12:19
Speaker
that just don't quite translate in the same way into a fictional story. I know what you mean. It almost feels, it sounds so stupid on its surface, but it's the only way I can articulate it. I love reading fiction, I respect the people who do it, but when I do it, it just feels too fake. Does that make any sense to you?
00:12:46
Speaker
Yeah, it does. So I do not like to be manipulated. And we all do it to each other. I know we do. But I feel sometimes when I'm reading fiction, that my emotions are being manipulated too much. And I think true stories cut down on that ability to
00:13:10
Speaker
manipulate. It still happens, of course, depending on the tone that you take and the word choice and all of that. But I don't feel as whipped about emotionally while I'm reading nonfiction. The other thing that I like about nonfiction is the ability to incorporate true
00:13:34
Speaker
facts about the world. So my cup of tea, cup of coffee. Here in here in Nicaragua, the coffee is phenomenal. So my cup of coffee is science writing. So I love Andrea Barrett's work. And so she writes true science facts into her fiction. And I love that idea. But I also love just the straight up
00:14:02
Speaker
Here's the science. Here's what people are making of it. And I love to weave the story and the science together. And I feel like science is so much better remembered when it is not padded, but when it's interwoven with story in beautiful, meaningful ways.
00:14:25
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great point. That's where something like the immortal life of Henrietta Lacks and other things that have this grounding of really sometimes esoteric science, but that human element to it, it pulls you in so it can be expository in a way that doesn't dry your eyeballs out and put you to sleep, but it's got some heart to it that pulls you right along through the whole story.
00:14:55
Speaker
Absolutely. There's also, um, so some of my favorites have been Amy Ellis nuts, um, becoming Nicole about transgender issues. Um, and there's this very compelling, honest story, um, that's incorporated with, with or this interwoven with biology facts. And I learned so much. Uh, I feel like
00:15:20
Speaker
I try to be aware of issues, but boy, it's wonderful to keep learning like that. There's also Oliver Sacks hallucinations where you can't help but see the story behind someone who hears voices, but then suddenly they're not there. I could put myself
00:15:47
Speaker
in their shoes, but then also understand what is happening. And I feel like that is a really powerful way to learn the science. And you've mentioned a couple writers there, you know, Saks and Andrea Barrett and among others. Who are some of the ones that you that you find yourself going back to over and over again to kind of remind you of like, oh, yeah, that's how it's done. I'll be honest, I love
00:16:17
Speaker
these sorts of science nonfiction books that are funny. Because I think humor is another element that helps us remember the science and that can help with science communication. So Bill Bryson, his A Short History of Nearly Everything is so funny, so well done. And the way he uses metaphors and
00:16:45
Speaker
It's pacing, everything, everything. It's so good. Mary Roach is another one. She's got grunt and bonk and gulp and stiff. They're they're way easy to remember. I love it. But she I would never ever pick up a book to read about military science if it weren't for her humor. That's what grunt is about. And I
00:17:13
Speaker
I don't know that I have that same ability as Bryson and Roach, but I sure love to read them and I keep going back to them.
00:17:23
Speaker
You know, I bet there are elements of your writing. Granted, the only sample size I have is this creative non-fiction essay. But you know, you did have this great sentence that partway through it where you had begun to consider black holes in boys were not mutually exclusive topics of interest after all.
00:17:43
Speaker
And so I think there are moments there where you've got the humor chops that you can help pull you through something to use that as a device to get your message across.
Writing on Pseudoscience with Humor
00:17:56
Speaker
I love reading stuff like that. I'd love to write more of that. So for the final graduate lecture at Bennington,
00:18:06
Speaker
that we had to do. I did mine on science and literature and it ended up being a piece for the Kenyan Review who was doing an issue on the poetics of science. Amazing issue. I loved it. And so they took my modified lecture and had a bunch of people respond to it online, which was amazing, including
00:18:36
Speaker
I just, just a whole bunch of wonderful people. Um, but I, I think my favorite part of writing that was I talk about pseudoscience and how there's been this rebirth of pseudoscience, uh, in society and that good science communication is necessary to sort of stem off this trend.
00:19:04
Speaker
And there's so many different kinds of pseudoscience. I've got friends in Utah who have their crystals and their essential oils. And I mean, it's hard to hear about that because I'm like, guys, stop it. But I think my favorite kind of pseudoscience that I wrote about in the Kenyan review was something called rumpology. Have you heard of this? Not at all. Please tell me.
00:19:34
Speaker
Oh, my gosh. So it's like palm reading, but on the ass. And so for like 250 bucks, you send a picture of your butt to a rumpologist and they will let you know your past, present and future. There are people who do this. Yeah. And and so I want to dig into the psyche of people who
00:20:02
Speaker
believe these things, like who who place trust and faith and money in in these schemes. So that's a favorite topic of mine that I'd love to write more about. And there's ample. But like, even though there's ample opportunity for humor there, I don't ever want to shame people. And that's what I tried. That's what I tried to do in The Shattering Before the Beautiful.
00:20:30
Speaker
essay is I love my Mormon people, even though I no longer identify as Mormon. And I wanted the article to be fair to them. And so I had some Mormon friends read it, and I modified it so that it wouldn't come off as harsh, as unfair, but still true and still true to how I felt.
00:20:59
Speaker
And I think that is the key to what sort of ails us as a society right now, where we've broken off into tribes. No one will listen to me if they don't consider me a part of their tribe. And, you know, slinging insults and...
00:21:24
Speaker
That just takes you out of the tribe real fast. So I don't want to approach writing about pseudoscience in a way that's alienating. I think that's really important.
00:21:38
Speaker
Right, because people, it sounds ludicrous on its surface, but what if someone, maybe it's their Hail Mary, it's their last effort, and maybe there's some placebo effect that might actually
00:21:57
Speaker
help someone. They're in an act of desperation to find any sort of answer, whatever that might be, whatever the context is. And who would we be to discredit that if it somehow worked for them in their moment of desperation? So it's exactly like you're saying, try not to alienate that person and come at it with some empathy, even though on its surface it's ludicrous. But maybe for someone it's exactly what they need at that particular moment in their lives.
00:22:26
Speaker
I just had this conversation with some friends and the issue for me with the placebo effect is we should know more about it. That even though something may be a placebo, it's fine if people know that it's a placebo. Because what ends up happening is
00:22:55
Speaker
people invest a lot of money and that placebo effect doesn't work for everybody. It's the same with some religions. You may turn to a religion and they say, follow these steps and you will be happy. That doesn't work for everybody. And for people who invest so much in that remedy,
Deadlines and Writing Process
00:23:20
Speaker
that can be really hard for the people it doesn't work for. So I think we as a society can acknowledge the power of those placebo elements, but also be a little more skeptical too, so that we don't get ripped off.
00:23:40
Speaker
As you were, one of the things that you said that struck me when we were emailing to set up this conversation was to talk about your essay here, that you pretty much wrote this in a quick fit, pretty much, I don't know, was it about a week you wrote this?
00:23:57
Speaker
Yeah, it all came together in a week. Wow. And this is a pretty long essay, too. Take me through that process about how you came to this essay and then subsequently just
00:24:13
Speaker
really hammered it out so quickly because a lot of people can work on essays for years and get their stuff turned down by creative nonfiction. It's just great to hear that you hustled and put out such a beautiful piece of work and there's a runner up in the contest and you wrote it in a week. So yeah, let's kind of unpack that process a bit. Sure. I've been thinking about it myself because it
00:24:41
Speaker
So I did write it in a week, but at the same time, I didn't write it in a week. I'd written it in my head over a lifetime. And that damn just burst. I had two friends from graduate school who both emailed me separately and they said, you have to enter this contest. It's a science and religion contest. You better do it or else. And I'm really grateful for that writing community who, you know, they knew me well enough.
00:25:12
Speaker
to reach out and say, hey, I think this would be good for you. I had written some things for graduate school, just like pieces here and there about leaving Mormonism, dealing with it, dealing with the fallout, coming to a better place, that sort of thing. But not,
00:25:41
Speaker
into pieces, right? And I looked over my old Scrivener file, and there's a thread called brainstorming, and it just has little bits of some stuff that made it into the final essay and like the final final essay and some stuff that didn't. So these things that were sort of percolating for a long time,
00:26:08
Speaker
But then once I sort of had a goal and a deadline, deadlines are great. I get into these modes. I'm a very distracted person. I'm not a good reader, actually. I'm a great editor, but I'm not a good reader for fun. And so I have to get into the flow or whatever. And so I,
00:26:36
Speaker
You know, I come in and I sit myself down in my office. Um, I've got bars on the, I've been Managua and I've got bars on my window. I've got, um, barbed wire around the perimeter of my house. I have a 24 hour guard, so I feel really barricaded in, but then like you just pour out what's in your head onto the page and you don't care if it's a shitty first draft or not.
00:27:05
Speaker
You just pour it all down onto the page and then work through it with the editing. After holding it all in for so many years, it just feels so healthy. Pieces of it had been in my mind and I tried writing about it in different ways.
00:27:30
Speaker
This particular contest with creative nonfiction and in collaboration with issues in science and technology was about finding commonalities between science and religion. So that was an additional challenge for me since I had left Mormonism. And I knew that I had written something good, but I didn't know if they'd like it because
00:28:00
Speaker
You know, it was funded by a religious organization, the contest, and I didn't know if they would be okay with an ex-Mormon atheist publishing with them. And again, I feel it goes back to empathy. Like, even though you may not consider yourself part of someone's tribe anymore, you can still put yourself back in their shoes.
00:28:28
Speaker
And so I was able to write about the interplay of science and religion in positive ways, even though ultimately I left religion. And I think that's a – it needs to happen more often. Yeah. Well, you could speak their language too, which really helps them probably, right?
00:28:49
Speaker
Yes, that's true. So what was a pivotal moment for you in the narrative or the story of this piece when you began to start to question your role in
00:29:07
Speaker
in the church and started to push against that as you were starting as you were starting to explore. So, you know, the cosmos really. So what was that moment like when you in that sort of that tug of war you were probably dealing with? Well, so it happened in the Marshall Islands. That was that same period of time. And as soon as I gave myself permission to
00:29:36
Speaker
look outside of the sources I'd been told to look at only, that's when I was able to write. And I think the two are connected in that I allowed myself to learn things that I didn't allow myself to learn about before. There are significant issues in the church's history that do need to be addressed.
00:30:05
Speaker
And I had always struggled with the idea of polygamy and polyandry. I don't need to get into the specifics of all that, but it had always bothered me. And finally, I allowed myself to acknowledge that and to say, look, this really bothers me. It upsets me to think that there's a God who would do this to women.
00:30:36
Speaker
And none of my prior justifications held up any longer. So, permissions everything, man.
00:30:46
Speaker
What was the experience like writing this piece? You said it was like the dam broke and it just kind of poured out. And I suspect very cathartic. Writing can be very cathartic and therapeutic but also ultimately you do have to somehow distill it down for a reader. So how did you transform something that was cathartic and therapeutic and good for you to write?
00:31:15
Speaker
but then ultimately good for somebody to then consume on the other end. Part of it was the purpose of the essay. So I couldn't just be like, I had a horrible experience. That's why I left the end. And that's not true either because there were many parts of growing up as a Mormon that were very positive. And for example, in the essay,
00:31:43
Speaker
I talk about my experience as a missionary for the church. I went to Toronto for a year and a half and I was assigned as a Spanish speaking missionary. So I learned Spanish, which has been very helpful in my life. And there was this one particular experience that just sort of shook me to the core and we were knocking doors
00:32:13
Speaker
And, and we had started, you know, I mean, I was one of those missionaries with the name tags. Um, and started talking to some kids in a driveway and the mother came out just screaming at us and said, get
Missionary Experience and Cultural Connection
00:32:31
Speaker
off my property. I'm a proper Christian and it hurt. And, and I turned away in tears and a Muslim man who had seen this whole thing happen.
00:32:44
Speaker
He came over to us and he said, come and have dinner with me and my family, which we did. And they didn't want what we were offering. Um, but that was a kind of kindness that I will not forget. And so it's those moments of truth with the capital T that I feel are worth sharing, um, to any audience.
00:33:12
Speaker
So that transcends me and my personal experience with the Mormon Church. And I can give plenty of other great stories of positive things to help, I don't know, like the act of writing is not necessarily an act of persuasion, but an act of connecting that I find is very meaningful.
00:33:43
Speaker
And so yes, my first draft may be for me. And to a degree, it should always be for me. I think there's so many different kinds of audiences in this world and you're never going to reach them all. And so you do need to write for you to a certain extent. Last semester at Johns Hopkins, I taught the prize winners course. So it was sort of a literature overview of some great prize winning science writers.
00:34:13
Speaker
And I did sort of a survey of who liked what in my classes, and it was all across the board. Some loved John McPhee, some hated him. Some loved Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns, and some didn't. So there's
00:34:37
Speaker
there's always going to be someone who likes your writing and someone who doesn't. And I think that's okay to acknowledge, and it's okay to write specifically for that audience. And that audience includes yourself. I want to like my writing, too. Who would you identify as your ideal reader? Good question. Those who like to learn. And that includes me. I love to learn.
00:35:08
Speaker
I don't want to be content with what I know. There's so many wonderful things to learn out there. And that is the type of learning that I don't always get in fiction. And I've been able to find it in nonfiction. So. With so many things to learn, how do you keep from getting overwhelmed by it all?
00:35:35
Speaker
in writing or reading or life? Well, let's go with I guess like writing and of course as writers most of the things we learn we try to filter and actually end up writing about it anyway.
00:35:52
Speaker
So in most cases, it's kind of with me. If something really resonates with me or I get obsessed with something, it's usually with the idea. I'm usually not just content to learn it. I want to learn it and then write about it through my own sensibility. So I guess maybe life and writing for you.
Passion for Science and Storytelling
00:36:14
Speaker
Do you also, piggybacking on that, do you get really obsessed with one thing and then just dive in whole hog?
00:36:21
Speaker
Um, yes, the answer is yes to that. Um, there are, okay. So my particular love is astronomy and physics. So I've carved out a niche for myself in my writing that I primarily like to focus on it. That's not exclusive. I would say generally I like science and so, um,
00:36:50
Speaker
science and religion, science and literature, science and physics, science and sociology, that sort of combination is what I find fascinating. So I've narrowed down my focus in my writing. Last year was a pretty productive year for me writing-wise. Again, a lot of it comes back to permission for me because I didn't feel like I had that permission for so long. It's a really beautiful feeling.
00:37:19
Speaker
And so I'm just feeling, I'm just getting the fruits of my labors this year. So later this month, Consequence magazine is publishing an essay. I wrote, I tried writing for two years.
00:37:38
Speaker
And finally, I was able to write it in the last week before it was due. Right. It really does help me. But again, I'd been thinking about it for two years and then was able to sort of blast it all out. For that, I interviewed Dora Maria Teas. She is a former Sandinista commander who
00:38:01
Speaker
took the National Palace hostage in 1978. So I interviewed her and I interviewed one of her hostages. And I interviewed, there was a very sad instance last August where there was a woman whose husband decapitated her and buried her head. And I interviewed the family and it's just, it's a heartbreaking story.
00:38:31
Speaker
The essay is called On the Revolution of Revolutions, Nicaraguan Women After War. So that'll be out later this month.
Essays, Stories, and Creative Freedom
00:38:39
Speaker
And then next month, Creative Nonfiction is publishing Makeup of a Monster for their Dangerous Creations issue, which is about my feelings about makeup and beautification, but also
00:38:56
Speaker
the makeup of Boris Karloff in the Frankenstein movies. So it combines or it compares beautification makeup with monster makeup. It was a lot of fun. And and then I'm working on a piece for The Atlantic. What's that about? That is about my interaction with the man who stole the moon rocks from NASA back in 2002. He was a mentor to me.
00:39:26
Speaker
And so it's sort of about our overlapping timelines. But in all of these things that are coming out, a lot of it is build up. I mean, I've thought about these things for a long time. And then it's just letting myself pour it out onto the page and then turn the editing mind back on and editing it.
00:39:54
Speaker
Uh, and then giving myself permission to submit it. That that's another kind of permission I've had to give myself of, Hey, this is good enough. Get it out there. Um, so I definitely recommend trusting oneself enough as a writer to move forward. Um, that's been a really helpful thing for me in all, in all of this and some of these pieces.
00:40:20
Speaker
The Atlantic article, for instance, I wrote in one night and it just, it, maybe that's crazy, but even like, I'll just sit down and I won't stop. It's a little bit freaky. I don't even need coffee. Like it'll just, it just comes pouring out.
00:40:46
Speaker
And I know that that doesn't happen with everybody. Everybody has their own process and that's totally fine.
Organizing Ideas with 'Fragment Heaven'
00:40:55
Speaker
And whatever that process is, you can give yourself permission to have that process, right? Of course. How do you, with such a string of successes here, how are you parlaying that momentum forward so you don't rest on your laurels or don't fall into
00:41:19
Speaker
a slump or try to at least keep a slump at bay or box it out in some way because there are ebbs and flows to any writer and freelancing and so forth. But how are you trying to bottle that momentum so you can keep doing this kind of work and sustain yourself artistically, financially, and so forth? I love this question, Brendan. I think this is such a great question because there are ebbs and flows.
00:41:47
Speaker
I had such an ebb for so long that yes, there's sort of a tsunami going on right now of just finally being able to freely speak my mind about things. And I think patience with myself is a big thing. I'm a very impatient person and I have all these things that I want to do.
00:42:18
Speaker
And, and I think pacing myself with patience, um, through the projects that I want to do. One thing that I've done that has centered me is I take a Scrivener file and I call it fragment heaven. Um, and I also have a graveyard hell, but, uh, in that.
00:42:48
Speaker
file, I have a bajillion little threads. And every time I'm running on the treadmill and something comes to me, I write it down on an index card and then I later write it into this big file. I think technology is wonderful, but it has also made us be a little scattered.
00:43:17
Speaker
in our organization process. And so I like having one place where I can put all of my little fragments. And then those fragments, like with what happened before with Shattering Before the Beautiful, those fragments sort of build and I'm thinking about them. And then comes a deadline of something that I want to submit to.
00:43:46
Speaker
And then I can pull out that file, look through these bits that have been percolating and then bring it together. Of course, with a lot of good research and good sources and that sort of thing too.
00:44:05
Speaker
How did you, you know, you've spoken a lot about permission and really, in a sense, courage, piggybacking off of that. And I wonder where you learned how to trust yourself and to trust your abilities and to be less fearful when it comes to your work. I think editing and being sort of a grammar freak
00:44:31
Speaker
It is part of that confidence. I took Latin in college and was a tutor for a while, and that familiarity with the English language helps cut down on some of the fear, because I know which words I'm using. Maybe they're not always correct, but I have a general sense of what works and what doesn't.
00:45:02
Speaker
you know, what is grammatically correct or not. Yeah, like it feels like a good solid base. I was very fortunate to have some great teachers in the editing program at Brigham Young University. And I even had one professor force us to read the entire Chicago manual of style from cover to cover. And that breeds confidence.
00:45:31
Speaker
Cause I've read that thing doesn't mean that I remember everything, but I know where I can go if I need to look something up, you know? And that, and that's true for other, other parts of writing. Fear, like I've, I thought a lot about fear in general and a lot of fear is based for many writers in what other people will think about them.
00:45:59
Speaker
And sometimes it's a legitimate fear. I'm not going to discredit that. Um, I was really afraid what my parents and what my in-laws would think when shuttering before the beautiful came out. And I, I did want to be generous and thoughtful in the way that I told my truth. And I remember, uh,
00:46:27
Speaker
I had printed out the final draft of Shattering Before the Beautiful. I was getting a bone taken out and staying with my in-laws in New York in September. And my father-in-law sat down to read it and I was really nervous. He's a man of science and I love him dearly. And he also loves the church. And I didn't want my writing to be taken
00:46:57
Speaker
lightly or dismissed. But I, yeah, I didn't know what to expect. And so I was sort of nervously fluttering around and got distracted by something. And suddenly he came up and gave me the biggest hug. And he said, that was truly amazing. And I didn't realize you were a real writer. Which is funny. But
00:47:26
Speaker
It was meaningful for him and writing across those boundaries is what I'm interested in. And so I, I succeeded and he, he said he, he felt like he knew me better. So even in, even though we have different viewpoints now on religion, like there's still that fundamental respect for each other and, um,
00:47:56
Speaker
And love, I think the love overcomes the fear.
00:48:03
Speaker
That's what I'm saying. Yeah. And it appears you've developed for your own self a kind of a writing practice that works for
Routine and Productivity in Nicaragua
00:48:13
Speaker
you. And what does that look like? Whether it's something that you do a very consistent thing every single day or if you incorporate a certain morning routine.
00:48:28
Speaker
What is your practice look like to get you into the right headspace to do your reporting and your research and ultimately your writing and editing? I have an exercise app on my phone and its motto is, it never gets easier, you just get better. I love that sometimes because it's hard for me to focus
00:48:54
Speaker
Once I'm in the float, it's wonderful, but I have a hard time getting there. And there's a few things I need to do to get there. And one of them is to get out some excess energy and anxiety or whatever. And so exercising for me in the morning is really important. I love the ritual of grinding fresh coffee beans and making myself a cup of coffee. It just feels
00:49:24
Speaker
so writerly, but because I couldn't drink coffee for so long as a Mormon, it's even more endearing for some reason. To have a cup of coffee as I sit down to write, and I don't need it to write, but I really like that. It's the mug, I guess. It doesn't matter what's in the mug.
00:49:52
Speaker
I think taking care of myself physically is a big part of being able to focus. I get really distracted. Living in Nicaragua is not easy. There are things about living here that make it a little more difficult to write than if I lived in the States. I was coexisting peacefully with some ants in my office.
00:50:21
Speaker
And then they just decided to move in full force. And so I'd be riding and I'd have these ants crawling up my back. And it was the worst feeling. So then I'd have to stop and try to kill as many as possible. I did try to coexist. I did. But with insects, you guys, this is not possible. We also have
00:50:52
Speaker
a tarantula house. And so every year around the rainy season, Nicaragua has a dry season and a rainy season, we get these tarantula nests under our couches. So that needs to be taken care of. We had bats in our attic that were causing, they were scratching above my ceiling. And so I couldn't write. I had to take care of the bats.
00:51:21
Speaker
Um, and then we had an opossum die in our attic and it, oh, it was just the worst mess. It's like it decomposed and it started falling through the ceiling onto our heads. And so that had to be taken care of. There's all of these things that are, that are time consuming that, you know, just to sit down and write in my house, in my barricaded house. Um.
00:51:51
Speaker
So, and then I think scheduling is another big key for me. Um, I have a really great planner. It's, it's a physical planner. Um, I can't, I can't do the online planner. Um, what kind of planner is it? It's, it's actually called the passion planner. And it was a Kickstarter project, um, started by this young woman who didn't like any of the planners out there. And it has like a, um,
00:52:22
Speaker
a page for goals and a monthly page. And then each week is broken down into time slots. But it also has room for brainstorming. So sometimes my little fragments go in there. But I mean, between teaching for Johns Hopkins, and I teach piano in the afternoons too, because
00:52:48
Speaker
a writing is, you know, really lucrative. Um, and I'm going to start teaching astronomy at a local university here, um, next month. And so time, I mean, time is important to manage for me in order to be able to sit down and get into this writing mode. Um, and that's hard. That is definitely hard sometimes to have that balance.
00:53:17
Speaker
But like anything, I can get better at scheduling and I don't believe in the muse. That's one thing I do not believe in. I don't believe in ghosts and afterlife and I don't believe in the muse. And I'm sorry if that is really, I don't know, throws cold water over some people's writing experience.
00:53:44
Speaker
But I believe in hard work.
Social Interaction and Writing Enrichment
00:53:48
Speaker
You echoed exactly what I was going to say. I was hoping you were going to say the work. And that's what I believe in. It's just get there and grind. And Rachel Wilkinson, who was the gold medal to your silver medal in this contest, she says, if you can't learn to love the grind, then basically you're screwed. He's like, it's about the grind.
00:54:11
Speaker
It's got to be about the journey when it comes to this because the end goal satisfaction just isn't going to be there and the muse, whatever you want to call it, inspiration isn't going to strike. You got to just get down to work and get words down and then give yourself something to mold. That's what it's about. That's absolutely true. In addition to making sure we sit down in the chair,
00:54:39
Speaker
I'd also say to make sure we get outside and talking to people. There was a Scientific American article that just came out and we have a loneliness crisis. And part of the solution to that loneliness is social health and being able to get out, which allows you to also hear each other's stories and experience new things. Last night,
00:55:08
Speaker
I took a Mexican friend out for her birthday with some other girlfriends. And one was from Mexico. One was from Angola. Another was from the East Coast. Another was from the West Coast of the States. And one was from Nicaragua. And we all came from such different places. It was a really beautiful thing. And I wouldn't experience that if I were just hunched over my computer, you know?
00:55:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's a big reason why, think about why comedians are such great storytellers. It's because they're out having a life. And then it's like what Whitney Cummings said, the comedian, it's like, hopefully I don't butcher it. Art can't imitate life unless you have a life. That's awesome. Yeah. That's very, very
Metaphor of the Butterfly and Writing
00:56:00
Speaker
true. And I mean, I gain a lot of inspiration from the outside things
00:56:07
Speaker
the outside adventures that I do. There's a lot of volcanoes here in Nicaragua. And boy, I mean, looking down at active lava, if that doesn't inspire you, I don't know what does. That's amazing. Last week, I went to the zoo with my seven year old son. This is no ordinary zoo here in Nicaragua. It costs about a dollar to get in. And it is the quirkiest zoo.
00:56:37
Speaker
there's a lot of tigers because they've saved them from circuses. And unfortunately, the cages are not the greatest and they're not that safe either. You can reach six inches forward above this retaining wall and touch the tiger just through the thin bars. It's right there.
00:57:08
Speaker
But one part of the zoo that is really well maintained is the butterfly sanctuary. And I went in there with my son and I started talking to the woman who runs it. And I was watching a chrysalis open and the owl butterfly was really struggling to get out. And it looked like it was stuck. And I asked her what
00:57:36
Speaker
what was happening and she explained that sometimes their abdomens get stuck or the liquid that they need to open their wings drips out or as soon as they come out of the chrysalis they fall instead of being able to hang on so that their wings dry out and if that happens then they're done for and she said there's a lot of death
00:58:05
Speaker
in the butterfly sanctuary. And while she was talking, I mean, it occurs to me that a lot of my writing is like that, that I have these pieces that some of them make it and some of them don't, some of them die. But not a lot of people know that the majority of a butterfly's life is spent
00:58:35
Speaker
in, in the chrysalis. And this is, I mean, we can take this cliche metaphor and turn it into something a little deeper, right? That, that we don't, that not everything that we write will make it. Um, and sometimes it takes a long time for, for this creation process to happen.
00:59:03
Speaker
Um, the, the life of the actual butterfly, um, after it comes out is only a few weeks, but it might be in, in the, um, in the PIPA stage for months. And, you know, the, so I was thinking about this and, and how like the life of these butterflies, you know, as it, as it applies to my work is short, you know? Um, but then.
00:59:32
Speaker
As we were leaving the sanctuary, my son was like, you've got a butterfly on your butt. Send it to the rumpologist. What does that mean? And it had escaped with me. And it flew away before we could take it back. But I like to think that some of my work makes it out.
01:00:02
Speaker
and has has that full lifespan. A lot of the older butterflies have broken ridges along the edges of the wings so you could tell which ones were older. And I liked that, too. I often find myself going back to old, old fiction for inspiration for my creative nonfiction stuff. Do you have any examples? Yeah, the great Gatsby. Oh, I read it every year.
01:00:32
Speaker
It's so good. And as an editor, I really am interested in stuff at the sentence level. So like taking apart a sentence from The Great Gatsby is really fun for me to see what's happening at the sentence level and at the paragraph level. I just find that it's as much fun for me as my science research.
01:01:02
Speaker
Yeah, to me, it's like, it's like the perfect memoir, because it's, it's about, you know, Nick, but he's looking out and there's another character sort of at the center of this guy's memoir. So it's not like, even though it's a novel, you know, and not technically a memoir, it's like, to me, like, that's the form of like the perfect memoir that it can be a first person narrator telling the story of something that's a bit outside of him and how he's relating
Empathy in Writing and Thomas Hardy's Influence
01:01:31
Speaker
to that.
01:01:31
Speaker
And so it's, yeah, I just, I come to it over and over again. Another one that I keep coming back to is something I read as a senior in high school. I had a great AP English teacher, just the most remarkable teacher. And we read a test of the Derbervilles by Thomas Hardy. And that's, that is an interesting one because it is Thomas Hardy writing
01:02:01
Speaker
about women and this unjust situation for Tess since she gets raped and has this really tough life. But I find as I reread that, that there's a sense of empathy that Thomas Hardy was able to achieve, even though he was not a woman,
01:02:30
Speaker
that I find very endearing and that I want to replicate in my nonfiction with the people that I write about.
01:02:40
Speaker
Yeah, that is that that I love when you can find those models across genres that help strengthen your nonfiction and they can come from fiction. It can come from documentary film or even feature film and you're like, Oh, I see what they're doing. How can I put that through my own nonfiction II filter and elicit that kind of mood using the tools that I want to use? Can I add one more please?
01:03:09
Speaker
book, actually, um, I guess one more genre. Um, and this relates back to your question about fear and, and how I learned to overcome fear. I was really, you know, even though I had a really sheltered life growing up in Utah for, I was really fortunate to find books that had strong female protagonists. So The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley.
01:03:39
Speaker
Goose Girl by Shannon Hale. And then there was Quest for a Maid and Catherine called Birdie. All of them had really, really strong female protagonists. And I related so much with them. And you know, those are texts that I keep going back to and rereading, not necessarily because they inform me in the same way that the Great Gatsby or Tess of Derbervilles
01:04:10
Speaker
do, but, um, but it is a sense of like deep intrinsic power. And, oh, Nancy Drew too. Um, where, where like, there's always a chapter called trapped or kidnapped or something like that. But I love those books and they were about strong women who went on adventures. And I wanted to be one of those women.
01:04:39
Speaker
Um, and so I think that those books set the tone for, for me and for my eventual like cliche metaphor, metamorphosis, you know, in, in a really
Influence of Strong Female Protagonists
01:04:56
Speaker
beautiful way. So I, I, I love encouraging kids to read those kinds of books. Um, if any of your listeners.
01:05:07
Speaker
have daughters and sons. There is a site called Mighty Girl, and it has a wonderful list of great solid books that have the same sort of, I almost want to call it magic for all my talk of pseudoscience, but there is a kind of magic in books that I think is
01:05:37
Speaker
remarkable and well worth sitting down to read, even though you may be a distracted person like I am.
01:05:47
Speaker
Well, I'll tell you what, Jamie, there's so much I want to get into, but since you have another piece coming out soon, maybe we can have you back on for a part two in the following weeks or months, and we can dig into some other things. I want to be respectful of your time for this episode, but if you're open for a round two, I'd love to have you back on so we can dig into some other things.
01:06:12
Speaker
Absolutely. It's been really fun. I like Duck and Shop. Nice. I love it. I love it, too. It's a big reason why I did it. And you brought up a point earlier. We're living in kind of lonely times. And I had started this a few years ago to kind of combat my own loneliness as a freelance writer.
Podcast Wrap-Up and Engagement Encouragement
01:06:31
Speaker
just to have these conversations that I wasn't getting a chance to have in person because it's fairly isolating. So you hit on a really good point. And being able to talk and try to shed a little extra spotlight on other people's work is a whole lot of fun. And the essay you wrote is masterful. It's beautiful. And I can't wait to read. You're welcome. I can't wait to read your next work. And then we'll get you back on the show shortly. And we'll talk a little more. Thanks. I appreciate that. I'm glad you're doing this.
01:07:00
Speaker
Um, I mean, cause it, it's, um, it may be helping you, but boy, like what a great.
01:07:06
Speaker
resource for all of us. I love getting into the routine stuff and craft stuff because if somebody else out there listening can cherry pick a little thing that they heard from you or from Susan Orlean or from Andre Dubuis and be like, oh, that's a cool habit. I'm going to try that. And if it strengthens them or gives them, like you were saying, a little extra ounce of permission, then that's a victory. And if someone
01:07:35
Speaker
can't give themselves permission. I give you that permission. Start there. I give you permission. You have it. And then work to give yourself permission. I really love that. So thanks, Brendan. This was a lot of fun. Fantastic. A ton of fun for me, too. Thanks so much, Jamie. And we'll certainly be in touch. Cool. All right. See you. Take care.
01:08:01
Speaker
,
01:08:17
Speaker
All this does is it helps with the show's credibility and it validates the whole enterprise. Makes it a little more visible, too. So if you leave a review, I will kindly coach up and edit a piece of your own work of up to 2,000 words. Lots of people have been redeeming this, and it shows. There's a bunch of wonderful, honest reviews and ratings, and that has a lot to do with this little offer, and I'm happy, happy to do it.
01:08:44
Speaker
of the
01:09:01
Speaker
The show also has a Facebook page and a Twitter page. Go to Facebook and throw in Creative Nonfiction Podcast, and Twitter is at cnfpod. And you can always reach out to me on Twitter as well, at Brendan O'Meara. I also have this nifty monthly newsletter, maybe you've heard of it, where I send out my book recommendations and what you might have missed from the world of the Creative Nonfiction Podcast.
01:09:26
Speaker
I'm going to start adding some other non-fictiony things like doc film and essays I come across. So you have a little curated chunk of stuff to consider for the next month. Cherry pick what you like. Sign up at brendanomera.com once a month. No spam. Can't beat it.
01:09:48
Speaker
and you'd think after 85 episodes, I could force my wife into listening to the show, right? Permissions everything, man. I didn't think so either. Thanks again. That's it for me. Have a CNF and great week, friends. Bye.