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Episode 493: Masha Hamilton Asks Is the Writing Worth Rearranging Your Calendar For?
550 Plays20 days ago
"This has to be meaningful to you. It has to be a story that won't leave you alone, a story that you're willing to rearrange your calendar for," says Masha Hamilton, whose Atavist Magazine story is titled "I've Gone to Look for America."
Today we have Masha Hamilton, a journalist, a novelist, a fan of the show, a fan of Pitch Club. You’ll want to visit mashahamilton.com to learn more about her wide-ranging career covering the world. She’s the author of five novels and trying to sell her sixth. She was at one point the director of communications and public diplomacy at the US embassy in Kabul.
Her story for the Atavist is about her driving the entire length of I-95 with her photographer son Cheney, and stopping at just about every rest stop to speak with strangers about how they feel about our country. “Conversations and revelations about an ailing nation along Interstate 95.” Man, those Atavist editors sure can write the hell out of a dek.
Guess who’s back!? Seyward Darby! Do your best Kermit the Frog dance. Very nice to hear her and this piece challenged Seyward in ways I didn’t see coming: Meaning, she didn’t share Masha’s optimism or hope. Seyward, for lack of a better word, disagreed with it, so there was an interesting tension she brought to the edit.
For Masha's part, we talk about:
- Novels as complimentary to her nonfiction
- Covering societies in change
- Healing through story
- How this was piece was a therapy session
- Accelerated intimacy
- Endings
- Middles
- Finding the meaning
- Writing you rearrange your calendar for
- And belonging as practice
Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm
Show notes: brendanomeara.com
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Transcript
Book Tour and Marathon in Idaho
00:00:01
Speaker
OECN Evers, the frontrunner strides into fall, into October. The best month of the year. i will be in Ketchum, Idaho. I am on the road right now to Idaho.
00:00:14
Speaker
going be signing and selling books with my own two hands at the Legends Never Die Ultra Marathon. Friday, October 3rd, I'll be at Sturdivant's from 5 to 6. Hawk and Books.
00:00:25
Speaker
And Saturday, October 4th, Hawk and Books for the race. Then, will be at Fleet Feet Meridian in Boise, Idaho on Monday, October 6th, where I'll be joined by Steve Prefontaine's high school distance coach, Phil Persian.
00:00:41
Speaker
And on Tuesday, October 7th, I'm at Oldspeak in Boise in conversation with my good pal, Kim H.
Promotions and Magazine Submissions
00:00:50
Speaker
Cross. We're taking Idaho by storm Stay plugged into my newsletters and brendanomero.com. Hey, secondarily on Instagram at creative nonfiction podcast or on blueski brendanomero.bsky.social.
00:01:06
Speaker
that it? Call for submissions. We got two. We got two more. The audio magazine is back. Codes is the theme. The Mandalorian in his kind lived by a simple code always punctuated by saying this is the way.
00:01:21
Speaker
What codes do you live by? What codes were you at one time or another told to live by? Has code led you down the wrong path or up the right one? I don't know. Essays should be no longer than 2,000 words, 15-minute read. Bear in mind that in the end, these are audio essays. Write accordingly.
00:01:39
Speaker
Email submissions with codes. And you got to say it like that in the subject line to creativenonfictionpodcast.gmail.com. Originally, previously unpublished work. please Deadline is October 31st, so you got like 28 days.
00:01:55
Speaker
Get cracking. There is cash on the line from the O'Meara grant, so send me your best. Fully formed pieces and consider becoming a patron to help put money in the coffers. That helps put money in the pockets of writers, because we need that burrito money.
00:02:11
Speaker
You know, people are not as one-dimensional as their yard signs.
Interview with Marsha Hamilton
00:02:23
Speaker
Oh, hey, CNFers. It's the creative nonfiction podcast. And it's the Atavistian time of the month. So consider heading to magazine.atavist.com to subscribe.
00:02:34
Speaker
I did. i don't get handouts or kickbacks. Yeah. As I said at top of the show, I'm en route to Idaho at this very moment. Got two things in Ketchum and two things in Boise.
00:02:46
Speaker
I have too many books. I'm so screwed. Okay, this is the show where I, if I just shut the fuck up, talk to tellers of true tales about the true tales they tell. Today we have Marsha Hamilton.
00:02:57
Speaker
She's a journalist, a novelist, a fan of the show, a fan of Pitch Club. You'll want to visit MarshaHamilton.com to learn more about her wide-ranging career covering the world.
00:03:09
Speaker
She's the author of five novels and trying to sell her sixth. She was, at one point, the Director of Communications and Public Diplomacy at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. Her story for the Atavis is about her driving the entire length of I-95 from Miami to Maine with her photographer son Chaney and stopping at just about every rest stop along the way to speak with strangers about how they feel about our country.
00:03:38
Speaker
It's a very travels with Charlie kind of thing. And the deck of the piece is conversations and revelations about an ailing nation along Interstate 95. And man, those atavist editors can write the hell out of a deck.
00:03:53
Speaker
Masha was really a joy to talk to. But now wait a second. Showing us to this episode and more on brendanamara.com. There you can peruse for hot blogs, tasteful nudes, and sign up for my two very important newsletters, the flagship Rage Against the Algorithm and Pitch Club.
00:04:09
Speaker
Issue 5 with Justin Heckert just went up. It's a bit of a curveball. Go check it out. I would love for Pitch Club to just keep catching fire, man. Share it with your friends. Share it with your enemies.
00:04:21
Speaker
Let's keep doing it. Make book pitches. There'll probably be agent pitches, radio pitches, doc film pitches. Pitches to sources lobbying your case that you should write about them. Maybe my Prefontaine book proposal. I'll do that. I'll do it up.
00:04:37
Speaker
Maybe my next book proposal, if and when it sells. Pitch Club will never cost a dime. I will never paywall something this rich. All I ask is for your permission, because platform is currency.
00:04:48
Speaker
Both are first of the month, no spam, as far as I can tell. You can't beat them. Also, if you care to support the podcast with a few dollar bills, visit patreon.com slash cnfpod. There are some rad perks, but most are happy to just throw a few bucks into my guitar case.
00:05:01
Speaker
Got two new patrons to shout out, and I'm going if I pronounce this wrong, I am sorry, but I'm going to do my best. Thank you very much for Suwan Law and Diane Castro.
00:05:15
Speaker
Awesome stuff. Really cool to see a couple come on board. I plan on doing a Zoom hangout, a happy half hour in the next couple of weeks after I'm back from Idaho ah for patrons.
00:05:29
Speaker
I tried doing the AMA thing, like I said. I think some you know, and it was just it was weird and awkward. um But I think if I did um ah virtual thing just for like a half an hour and we just hang out and maybe...
00:05:44
Speaker
I'll bring an icebreaker. Maybe I'll bring the hammer. Guess who's back? Sayward Darby. Do your best Kermit the Frog dance, because she's back, baby.
00:05:57
Speaker
Very nice to hear her. And this piece challenged Sayward in ways that I didn't really see coming, meaning she didn't share Masha's optimism.
00:06:10
Speaker
you know Sayward, for lack of better word, disagreed with it. So there was an interesting tension she brought to the edit. So we're going to hear from her right now. Cue up the montage. who People who do this for fame are foolish.
00:06:31
Speaker
That is, it's so true. I actually would not mind just growing people's flowers for them. go get a gelato and chill out. And I was like, I can't. This is going to have to interest somebody somewhere other than me.
00:06:53
Speaker
Tell me about what struck you about this piece, which is very, very personal narrative driven. You know, this was kind of an unusual one, as you say, i think thematically, but structurally as well. And it came in, she had more or less drafted it already.
00:07:09
Speaker
And felt very sort of raw and timely because she had just been on this road trip a few weeks prior. You know, this was all very fresh. And it's funny because I read the draft and I sent it to Jonah and I was like, am I crazy or is there something here?
00:07:26
Speaker
um Because it did, you know, I could, it was obviously not one of our deeply reported narratives, but I found it so compelling, this sort of the basic concept of it that you would drive the length of I-95. And I should,
00:07:41
Speaker
take a little detour here to say that you know i grew up in north carolina my mom's family was in south carolina my dad's family was in georgia and florida i spent a lot of time on i-95 in my childhood and then as an adult i lived in dc i lived in new york so again like i-95 just such a fixture of my existence and so i think there was also some element of just feeling like i know this place and i know the experience of going of these rest stops but i really liked the concept of driving the length of you know one of America's best known, most used highways, also the deadliest highway in the country, and talking to people about where we are in this political moment.
00:08:22
Speaker
And the fact that you know there were photographs that already went along with it because her son Cheney had been you know part of the trip. I don't know, it felt like it it has that arc that we look for, start to finish, literally south, southern terminus to northern terminus.
00:08:37
Speaker
And then one of the things Masha and I worked on in the editing process was kind of, instead of kind of giving away what the revelations and and sort of conclusions were at the beginning, ah sort of working up to them in the narrative, which is a more atavistic approach. i have I have lots of feelings about this piece, and which I'm happy happy to get into. um But it was a very, very like interesting editing process for me, like personally. but Yeah, well, it let's pull on that thread. Why was this such a personal ah editing process for you?
00:09:08
Speaker
ah Yeah, it's interesting. The best way I can put it, to summarize it, is that I found myself... just not agreeing with it. and And by that, I mean, she I mean, spoiler alert, you know, comes to find hope ah in the course they of this journey. And I am
Editorial Challenges and Insights
00:09:29
Speaker
so deeply pessimistic about the future of this country. and And so, you know, working on something that is making its case.
00:09:38
Speaker
And I think some people will, you know, very much buy the case and and, you know, agree. a But me personally, you know, here I was grumble, grumble, grumble as I'm reading it being like, we're doomed. We're headed for, you know, an irreparable fracture in this country. and And I actually really appreciated working on something like that, right?
00:10:00
Speaker
um Because, I mean, first of all, we don't really... work on um the artist doesn't run a lot of stories that have sort of, you know, more of a tape or an opinion built in, um at least not, not to this extent.
00:10:13
Speaker
And, and, you know, as an editor, i think it's important to ah occasionally work on something that you find, Again, disagree makes it seem like I'm in argument with it. That's not what it is. It's just I, like, emotionally, um you know, I'm not in the same place. But also I haven't driven the length of I-95 recently and talked to dozens, maybe hundreds of strangers. So really, what what the hell do I know at all?
00:10:35
Speaker
It sounds like it really challenged you in a way. Yeah, in a way, because i I wanted to – obviously, I didn't want to push – you know, her takeaways were her takeaways. She had gone on this trip. This is how, this was her experience. And I can't change that. um You know, certainly I posed questions about, you know, oh you know, does this feel Pollyanna-ish at times? Like, do you, you know, and and she always had answers to that because again, she'd had this experience and this was her experience.
00:11:06
Speaker
par take And I will also say that we assigned this before Charlie Kirk was killed. And I was actually editing, like in the process of editing the story when he was killed. And I think that, emma and Masha and have talked about this after the fact, like I think that that only sort of pulled me further.
00:11:24
Speaker
ah in the direction of feeling pessimistic because instantly, and this is just because of like my own experience covering the far right in the United States and whatnot, as soon as he was killed, was like, things are going to boun to get really, really, really bad, regardless of, you know, the reasons that this happened, who's responsible for it, doesn't matter, it's going to get so, so, so bad.
00:11:43
Speaker
And it has. And um there's actually a little bit of material right at the end of the piece that Masha and I added in the wake of his killing. and it's not over. Like, we don't mention Charlie Kirk. We don't mention, you know, his his death.
00:11:58
Speaker
But we talk about or she talks about, you know, how public life spills into private life. um and sometimes there's violence there. um And then she had this really lovely phrase that she actually just used in conversation. It wasn't something that she was you writing in And then I included it about, can we hopefully like our grief can be guardrails as opposed to, you know, something that takes away all our sort of inhibitions and, you know, ah desire to be a community. um Maybe that can actually help us build like the reinforcements that we need around ourselves.
00:12:33
Speaker
So yeah, this is all to say, like, I think Masha had really challenged me to come out of my pessimistic hole and engage with, you know, a more...
00:12:44
Speaker
I don't even want to say optimistic because I do think she ends on such a lovely note of, you know, how she talks about belonging is choice. You know, we don't, we don't belong by right. We don't belong, i mean, to a certain extent, I guess we belong by privilege, but also we really do belong by choice. You know, do we want to belong in a place? What does that look like?
00:13:03
Speaker
um And so, you know, she talks about making the choice to belong day after day. um And that's not a everything's fine. You know, what does she say? I think I you know belong here for now. um And so, ah you know, i think that there is definitely tension there um about what the future might hold. But um yeah, this is all to say, I just I really appreciated working on something that like, again, I keep, I keep thinking that I disagree with and that feels almost too strong.
00:13:32
Speaker
Um, but that I just, I don't know, I have not, I've not had her experience and, um, you know, i I don't know, maybe, maybe I will, maybe something will happen to, to give me more, more, more hope in the future for the future rather. Right.
00:13:47
Speaker
Well, and I, in talking with Masha, yeah she was saying there was um there was a reluctance on her part to include a lot of her and her son Chaney's story. And she's like, I just want to be the the pipe. and you And you push back. You're like, well, the pipe is part of the story.
00:14:03
Speaker
And so but talk a little bit about how you coached her and encouraged her to include, you know, her and her son's relationship as ah as a major thread to this and connective tissue for the piece.
00:14:16
Speaker
Right. Well, I think that, I mean, first of all, it's just interesting. Like, this is a mother and son who have collaborated creatively before um on ah you know, word and photograph project.
00:14:28
Speaker
um And in this case, you know, hey, mom, why don't, or I guess she said to Chaney, like, hey, Chaney, why don't we live in the back of your Subaru for almost three weeks, just the two of us, and go talk to, like, dozens of strangers? Like, that's...
00:14:44
Speaker
I can't, I love my mother. She might even be listening to this. I can't imagine. Right. um And so I think like the very, like from go, just, just like the, the sort of, reality of their relationship the texture of their relationship i was like that's going to be interesting to people and then on top of that the fact that this was the first time that they had really spent meaningful time together since she you know felt betrayed more or less by the secret that he had been keeping from her and I think that what I really liked was not I liked how the two threads reflected each other right like her relationship with her son
00:15:20
Speaker
and her relationship with her country. Like there's something there's something parallel going on there about something that you love and you cherish, but that challenges you, that you feel because of decisions made that you were you were not a part of or that you disagreed with, you know, kind of creating a rift and how do you how do you find your way back and I thought that there was without being very heavy-handed because it's not a heavy-handed piece at all like I think that those two things really sing together if you are reading closely so I encouraged her to you know we obviously didn't get into tremendous detail um but chocolate chainy like you cool putting you know a little bit more
00:16:06
Speaker
about you know what what happened um between the
Marsha's Journey and Creative Process
00:16:10
Speaker
two of them. um And he was cool with it. Yeah, i just I think it adds such an interesting layer that's sort of on its face interesting, right? you know Somebody keeps secret that they've been married all this time from their parent who they're otherwise so close to that they go sleep in the back of cars and do creative projects together. yeah ah you know sort of That is interesting in and of itself. But then what really made it work was the fact that there was an interplay with sort of what their project was on the road. So, so yeah, and she was game and he was game. And so it worked out.
00:16:47
Speaker
If there was something else you had to put your finger on structurally or, or what else, what, ah what were other ah challenges for you on your side of the table to bring this piece to light?
00:16:58
Speaker
Yeah, well, I was gonna say, this was a very smooth process other than, again, it was like the emotional engagement for me, but the actual logistical process working with Masha and Jay, like a total dream.
00:17:12
Speaker
I think that one of the other things that really stood out to me in the pitch and or the the draft was that along the way there are these little surprises well not even a little but just like surprises that she doesn't dwell on but that every time just add a new layer of depth so like by way of example um when she mentions that her husband died of early onset Alzheimer's she doesn't dwell on it, but it allows, you're just like, oh, wow, you've had this whole experience. um And, you know, that was a project that she, Chaney, I guess, did a project, they did a project together.
00:17:49
Speaker
he did one for the New York Times, and they did a project together um related to early onset Alzheimer's. um But just immediately, I was like, oh, this adds a layer to your character, if you will, that you know, kind of comes, I want to say like two thirds of the way through the piece or something and just immediately made her more, you know, sort of compelling to me. um The other examples are, you know, she's a ah journalist, clearly she's a novelist. And then, you know, there's this detour to Afghanistan because she worked at the U.S. Embassy there um and experienced like
00:18:20
Speaker
really terrible tragedy in some ways too like that was complexifying not only to her character but like to the point of view of the piece because this is the person who has worked on behalf of the United States government right and clearly has very conflicted feelings about its place in the you know the the work that it does in the world or fails to do in the world or the bad work that it does in the world. yeah and And so I think that was, there were just so many things. This was not just, hey, I decided to drive I-95 and talk to people, which is like interesting, great, I said, you know that's a really good premise.
00:18:55
Speaker
But it was who's doing it and how is she sort of along the way revealing things pieces of her experience that actually just by the end you're like oh wow this this is even richer than I kind of imagined it might be and so you know figuring out where to put those things in the piece and how you know from a sort of cadence standpoint and then whether to go into detail or not.
00:19:21
Speaker
And, you know, she when she brings up her husband, obviously, she does it in the context of meeting another woman whose husband had died of um Alzheimer's, but also uses it as a way to talk to sort of segue to talking about memory in a really beautiful way um that, you know, forms a good a good portion of the piece. So Yeah, I think they were just there were just so many things that, for for a piece that I think is relatively quiet by Atavist standards, um there are are some kind of, ah wow, moments that you just you know don't don't quite see coming. And I don't mean that from a plot standpoint so much as a character development standpoint.
00:20:01
Speaker
Yeah, in terms of the how quiet it is, it really speaks to how everyone is carrying so much. Yeah, and I think you know the willingness to share what they're carrying is is really beautiful.
00:20:15
Speaker
you know My mind in thinking about those moments of of intimacy and empathy, you know my mind always goes to, okay, but if we were suddenly... in like all-out war would that person protect you know like protect me right like despite our differences and and again you know almost want sort of in the process of editing this piece i had to be like that's not where this that's that's not the thought exercise actually like you this is doing something else and sort of asking you and she says this right she's like maybe
00:20:49
Speaker
you know, the real sort of like radical act is to just be present with each other to not, you know, venture into worst case scenario thinking or, you know, assumptions, certainly.
00:21:02
Speaker
But no, I think you're absolutely right. Like, and I think she did such a nice job I mean, I, I would have to go through and count like how many people does she describe or quote and or quote in this piece. But you really do feel like every single person you get just that enough detail to understand, you know, oh, yes, they're carrying something, um you know, whether that's something related to I'm also so sorry. I don't know if you can hear my child yelling in the background. But he's okay, great. Well, sorry to your listeners. If they hear a a shriek, he's excited about his um snack, whatever it is. Oh, wow. And who wouldn't be?
00:21:38
Speaker
Who wouldn't be? It's probably pasta. And I mean, who doesn't love pasta? um Anyway, ah like, I think it's a real, like, study in the economy of descriptive writing, right?
00:21:52
Speaker
i mean, does she describe anyone physically? I don't... I mean, if she does, it's not standing out to me, right? Like she she she described people through experience.
00:22:04
Speaker
um And I think that that's a really um like lovely way of doing things. And of course, Chinese photos obviously you know show people physically, but yeah, I don't know. there's There's just something deeply empathic about the story and about the approach to description and and sort of presentation.
00:22:23
Speaker
Oh, nice. Well, Savers, it's always a pleasure. I'm so glad we're in conversation again. It's been so long. And I'm glad you're glad you're back in the rotation to talk about your side of the table of these brilliant stories that you bring to publication. So just thanks for carving out time to do this. And we'll kick it over to Masha now.
00:22:40
Speaker
Sounds good. Thank you.
00:22:49
Speaker
Alright, now it's time for masha Hamilton. This piece really illustrates the things we carry. Title of the piece, let's see, let me pull it up on the internet.
00:23:00
Speaker
I've Gone to Look for America. And yes, like I said it really illustrates the the things that we're carrying, how everyone's carrying something. um That and politics isn't necessarily this monolith thing.
00:23:16
Speaker
It really gets into the empathy of talking one-on-one. And Masha and I, we talk a lot about novels as complementary to her nonfiction, covering societies and change, healing through story, how this was a therapy session of sorts, accelerated intimacy, endings, middles,
00:23:37
Speaker
Finding the meaning, writing you rearrange your calendar for, and belonging as practice. Going to have a parting shot on my time at the Florence Book Festival and weird writer side-eye.
00:23:51
Speaker
But for now, let's give it up for Masha Hamilton Riff.
00:24:02
Speaker
know you've You've written um you know a lot of novels and you you know and you're also a journalist. You're toys in different sandboxes. and In what way do they inform each other and you know help each other out and compliment each other?
00:24:18
Speaker
You know, I was a journalist for a long time before. I always wanted to write a novel, but was a journalist a long time before I wrote that first novel. And I felt that novel writing allowed me to go very interior and understand myself in certain ways. And also, i had covered conflict. I'd seen some difficult things and I had closed off a certain amount of my feelings.
00:24:41
Speaker
in order to deal with whatever I was seeing, because I strongly believe the person to whom this is happening to is the most important person. And if I get upset, that is really beside the point. So I kind of closed off my own emotions. And when I wrote that first novel, I really realized that, that I had to reopen up access to those emotions.
00:25:00
Speaker
I think that was important and useful for me. I understand why I did that as a young journalist in, you know, often in conflict zones, but I but i think it it's not helpful for the rest of your life because you,
00:25:10
Speaker
First of all, you can't say this is going to happen to me only between eight and five or between. Once you start closing that off and you start doing it, you find that you or at least I did that it was closed off a lot in other areas. And that's not what I wanted.
00:25:23
Speaker
Novel writing helped with that. It opened that up. And I do love writing novels. I have, as you said, five published and six is with my agent, fingers crossed. But i also really love nonfiction a lot.
00:25:36
Speaker
and And absolutely loved doing this piece and working with Sayward, which was amazing. So, yeah. Yeah. Do you find that that writing fiction helps bring a different kind of prism to your nonfiction, that your nonfiction has become almost more novelistic as a result of that experience with fiction?
00:25:56
Speaker
I think so. I'm also taking the freedom to do that. When I started as a journalist, I worked for the Associated Press and then for the Los Angeles Times. And the LA Times allowed a certain amount of that that leeway, but the AP was pretty much, there was not a lot of room for, even in feature writing, there were kind of rules that you had to follow. In novel writing, the only rule you have to follow is, can you make the reader care and believe on page one?
00:26:22
Speaker
And then can you do it again on page two? And then can you do it again on page three and so on? And that that's, you're trying to write to a truth in novel writing. And then you are writing to only the verifiable truth more strictly in nonfiction.
00:26:36
Speaker
So they use the same toolbox, but for me, they compliment each other. And I found out that I don't think I want to do just one or just the other. I like i like the way that they inform each other.
00:26:48
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really great way of framing it. ah Anytime that I've just noodled with fiction, it's kind of like um if your car is out of alignment and it's like, youll you let go of the wheel and it just like keeps pulling you to a different direction. You're like, now get back on the road here.
00:27:03
Speaker
I feel like when I, if I noodle with fiction, like the car wants to go back to the nonfiction, like maybe you can report this out and make it true, like make it verifiably true, which is more where my taste lies.
00:27:15
Speaker
But it's but I but I greatly enjoy and respect fiction as well. So it's like, you know, I almost have to keep the wheel pulled in that direction. Otherwise, I just drift back to journalism.
00:27:26
Speaker
Well, i I do think the one thing about about novel writing and fiction is there are many ways in which all of us feel alone because we're we're. There are things that we think and feel that we don't talk to other people about because why would we end it? What conversation would it possibly come up and what you?
00:27:43
Speaker
And sometimes when you're reading a piece of fiction, you see that moment reflected because the writer can get even closer than you can in movies. They can get all the way in and show you something.
00:27:55
Speaker
And you can think, oh, my gosh, that's. that's And I didn't know that anybody else had those moments when they felt that way or whatever. And so I feel like that's that's an amazing gift. And you can do that through nonfiction. You can do it through movies in a way.
00:28:09
Speaker
but But fiction writing allows you to get very, very close to the internals workings of your of your characters and to reflect hopefully something true back to the readers.
00:28:21
Speaker
Hmm. Yeah. And and given that you that you do both, what's the practice by which you approach your days when you're in the throes of a creative project, but maybe you've got irons and other fires too.
00:28:33
Speaker
Yeah, I do. I do have a couple of irons and it's it's it can be very tough. It's really a day by day kind of thing. And you sort of balance it out like, okay, this week I really need to finish this draft of the novel because my agent has asked for changes in the last four chapters and I really need to get them done and get it to her by this date. So I'm not really going to look at anything else. I know it's there, but I'm just not going to do it. and then And then the next time, do you kind of do it the same way? I mean, because you're doing a podcast and writing at the same time. I mean, how do you balance it?
00:29:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's i as long as I've done the podcast, I haven't had like a very strict workflow, though I'm trying to incorporate one where that way I don't get too overwhelmed by the glut of the edit and just all the reading and some of the just some of that cursory research. So I'm a bit familiar with the person sitting across from me.
00:29:26
Speaker
Yeah, so right now of late, I've been, like Monday will typically be an edit. Like I'll edit and get the transcript into Otter. And then Tuesday, I'll, I'll, I used to clean up the whole transcript. But nowadays, like in the edit, I just write down a few keywords of like my five favorite quotes. And I go into that transcript and then clean up just those quotes I really want to pull out for the show notes.
00:29:52
Speaker
And then Wednesday, I'll start drawing up the show notes and let's see, yeah and get it sort of up and scheduled. And then on Thursday, some of the social assets, get all the show notes really buttoned up. And then on Friday, it publishes and I send out stuff to social media and and the guests too, so they can share it as well. So breaking it up into those pieces really helps.
00:30:15
Speaker
And then so around that too, if I'm working, like right now, i'm working on another book proposal. So trying to thread that in, ah research for other guests. Yeah, it's um it's a bit haphazard, but the more order I can try to, you know, corral these things with, it's ah the more my mind can get my head around head around it, because then it just
Balancing Creative Projects
00:30:35
Speaker
starts anew the next week, and then trying to work through the backlog of interviews. Yeah, it's ah it's a bit all over the place.
00:30:41
Speaker
No, but you have a lot more order than I do. I'm not, I'm not even quite that order. As I say, I really just say like, oh my gosh, these next three days really have to be about this, whatever it is. And that's what I do. Yeah. Would you say that maybe a superpower you might have is like when you need to focus, like you can just, you can focus for that ah amount of time.
00:31:00
Speaker
I would say I'm pretty good at focusing when my three kids were were little, I used to work in a little teeny room right off the kitchen, and they kind of knew when I was working really hard on something because they would come in and say, hey, mom, can we like have donuts for dinner?
00:31:14
Speaker
And I would go like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And they go, oh, great, and we can stay up till 11, right? Mm-hmm. You know, so... I was very focused on on the work. and And I would also say to my husband sometimes when I would come out, when you see me outside of that little room, I'm still writing.
00:31:29
Speaker
i still don't want to talk. I still don't want to, you know, I'm still in the zone. You got to just, I don't want to discuss anything really. I'm just coming out to get a drink of water or put a load of clothes in the laundry and let my head kind of clear, but I'm still working.
00:31:41
Speaker
Oh, yeah. that's That's a really great point to underscore that oftentimes that ah even the writing is still going on, the machinery is still working, even when you're not actually pecking out words at the keyboard.
00:31:54
Speaker
100%. 100%. hundred percent hundred percent You know, the story that you have with the Atavist, it's so different from a lot from what the Atavist has run over the last few years that I've had this partnership with them.
00:32:05
Speaker
It's such um and an illuminating piece. And I wonder just how you arrived at this, you know, travels with Charlie kind of ah meditation up and down I-95.
00:32:16
Speaker
I feel that we're America's in an inflection point. And people are carrying extraordinary change in their pockets, change that's affecting them and that they're trying to deal with. And, you know, I've covered societies and change before, Moscow ah during the collapse of communism, the Middle East during the two intifadas in the West Bank and Gaza, and, you know, Afghanistan from 2003 or so on.
00:32:45
Speaker
And so I've seen this and I really began to feel wherever we're headed is going to look different. Even 10 years from now, we're, we're just changing so dramatically. And I want to capture that. And I actually was with three friends of mine when I said, I think I want to do something going down I-95 and talking, talking to people. And i reached out to my son, he was photographer. And we began to talk about, he said, let's do rest stops.
00:33:13
Speaker
And I said, that's perfect. Cause people are traveling. We're saying the country's in motion. And I want to find out what's out there. I want to find out if what I see on social media, what I read in the headlines really reflects what I'm going to find on the ground. And that was my driving question when we sat out on the trip.
00:33:35
Speaker
So how do you approach people at the at the rest areas? Yeah, that was the most exhausting part, as you can imagine, because I'm coming up to people as they're on their way to the bathroom, you know, or to get a cup of coffee.
00:33:48
Speaker
And I pretty much am saying the same thing over and over. Hi, my name is Masha. I'm traveling with my son, Cheney, from Miami to Maine. We're talking to travelers along the way at every rest stop that we but that we possibly can along I-95 about where they're going and where they think the country is. Would you be willing to talk for a minute or two?
00:34:05
Speaker
ah with me about this. And a lot of people said yes, but not everybody. Then I would say, you know, um I'm going to, I'm creating, I'm recording this. Some of it will be on a podcast. We may write something later on.
00:34:16
Speaker
um And then we would just sort of go from there. But, and I was surprised by how many people said yes. And although I wanted to find out where they believed America was going, I began to feel I really needed to follow the conversation where it took me.
00:34:31
Speaker
Which meant that you really had to pay sharp attention to where they seem to want to go and to try to establish some kind of trust with them. Hey, I'm not coming here with a viewpoint. I'm not going to tell you because you say this, you suck or you don't suck or whatever. I'm going to just.
00:34:45
Speaker
Really, I want to hear whatever you want to talk about. Prior road trips, your road trip that road trips you remember from being a child, your favorite road trip. Do you see a lot of car crashes when you're traveling on I-95? I ninety five what mean, just anywhere the conversation wanted to go, i wanted to be able to go with it. So it was exhausting. And there were absolutely days when i remember one day when Chaney was driving and said, you know, should we do one more stop? Like, no, like i am exhausted.
00:35:09
Speaker
Done. I am effing done. I can't. This is because it was just, you know, it's it's tiring. That was a very tiring part of it. But a lot of people were willing to talk, you know, for a little bit. And and that.
00:35:24
Speaker
That was something to see. As you're going up and down i i ninety five about about how many people are you talking to maybe on a on a daily basis? Well, ah in all, I think that I talk to about 250 people, which is a lot of people. Yeah. Immigrants, immigrants, retirees, you know truckers, tourists, ah military families, students, you know ah the people.
00:35:49
Speaker
unhoused ah people who live nearby and we're just taking a short jaunt across town, people on sidecars, people on motorcycles, all of it. ah Yes, it was a lot of people to talk to.
00:36:00
Speaker
I did record them and they went on a podcast called American Miles or some of them did. You know, I got some people I would just say, do you sing to yourself when you're driving? What do you sing? Can you sing it for me? Would would it be OK if I record you singing that, you know, and get them to sing for me, whatever they sing on the road or whatever. And it would just really depend.
00:36:19
Speaker
you know, on the situation. Of course, as I say, there were people who said no, but I was surprised how many people said yes. Yeah, isn't that... crazy I think a lot of journalists, especially those that might be a bit more shy and introverted, of which I classify myself, is that there's a lot of anxiety around cold calling and approaching people.
00:36:39
Speaker
The terror that we kick up in our heads is almost never manifest when we actually just make that call and talk to those persons. Very rarely do I leave the call and be like, oh, that was a nightmare.
00:36:51
Speaker
like Usually i'm like, oh, that was that was quite nice. yeah ah it was is Was that more or less your experience? More or less, yes. i really i mean i think some people thought, is this woman panhandling? which Who is this woman approaching me at a rest stop? you know But i i you know ah ah a while ago, a long time ago, i founded the Afghan Women's Writing Project. We put on a website the stories that women wrote, their first names only, because it was you know, the Taliban had, was a different period with the Taliban wasn't in power, but the Taliban was still your uncle or your cousin and you had to be somewhat careful.
00:37:29
Speaker
And I really began to feel from that, that people want to tell you their stories and that there can be almost a healing in somebody telling you their story out loud for themselves. I mean, they just sort of, they see their story themselves. They do what they want to do with these women, for example, you would never tell them what you think they would tell you about sometimes horrible things and you'd want to say, get out of that house, but you wouldn't because you were, you're not there in Afghanistan. What are you going to do? Say, come live in my spare room. No.
00:37:58
Speaker
So you, you don't, you don't say anything. And they, over time, they reached their own decisions about what was best for them and right to do. And I think that was through process of telling their own story. So I'm torn between, I'm going to bug somebody by walking up to them, you know,
00:38:12
Speaker
At a rest stop at I-95 when they're tired and they just really want to stretch. And the idea that, you know, telling your own story is is liberating in certain ways and healing potentially, you know.
00:38:26
Speaker
Yeah. Was it through your experience, did you, like the fact that people are often so willing to tell their stories, I think part of that starts to illustrate how greatly lonely a lot of people are and that, no you know, they just want someone to listen to them.
00:38:42
Speaker
And ah few people are willing to do that. Maybe that was your experience too, as you were just involved in it and immersed in it. For sure. And some of the stories were intimate. As I say, I remember one night when I met this guy named Mike,
00:38:56
Speaker
smoking, and it the sky was, it was gonna, it was gonna rain, there was lightning kind of going off in the distant sky. And his wife had died just three months earlier. And he began to tell me about that.
00:39:07
Speaker
And he said, you know, she got cancer five years ago. And we moved out of Michigan to Florida, because she said, I want to go somewhere warm. And I said, at whatever you want, And, you know, now she's died and my kids and grandkids all want me to come back, but I don't want to go back there.
00:39:23
Speaker
know. He just immediately started telling me. And I thought about, should I record him for the podcast? And somehow I did not want to turn that moment into a transactional one. You know what I mean?
00:39:33
Speaker
And so I just we just we just stayed there and chatted more about that. and i said, well, do you have friends? He said, no, I really don't. I mean, I just now that she's gone, I work and go home, but I don't care. I'm just going to tell him on this trip, I don't want to go back to Michigan.
00:39:45
Speaker
And, and it was something about him. Just, I just didn't want to turn it into a transaction. So we walked over together and looked at the map. He was trying to make it to Savannah that night. We looked at how far it was and Cheney came up and we, all of us talked and yeah.
00:39:59
Speaker
Yeah. Early in the piece you wrote that for me, this trip is a therapy session with my country. So in what way, how would you describe it as a, as a therapy session on on this trip?
00:40:10
Speaker
ah We're at a point where I often feel discouraged, demoralized, disturbed. You know, when I was a kid, I used to think about who in history you'd most want to bring back. And for me, for some reason, it was Anne Frank. And I really wanted to wish I could bring her back to have a conversation with her about what her life was like.
00:40:28
Speaker
And I often thought about why did more people leave when they could? And I'm not saying that we're on the point of that kind of thing, but you do think about leaving. Should I leave? Should I stay? What is this country?
00:40:41
Speaker
And, you know, I think that algorithms and social media can can color your your idea of what's out there. And I begin to think, gosh, am is it me and my three friends that we feel this way? You know, what what what's what what's out there? Are are people not going to be polite anymore? Are people and not going to be kind anymore to one another? what What am I going to find out there? You know, it sounds stupid, but I think if you're isolated in your own little bubble and then you see the world mainly through what you see online, i wanted to go out in person and and and see that.
00:41:19
Speaker
Yeah, unplugging from social media is ah the best medicine so many people can do because to your point, it silos you. You know, you start to see only what you want to see. And then these algorithms and AI interfaces are learning from you and just pump you full of that stuff.
00:41:38
Speaker
To the point where everything that's exclusive or excluded from that bubble is suddenly othered. And then you become more and more tribalized and more more ossified in that belief.
00:41:50
Speaker
And now it's starting to get more populated with AI and AI bots that are just there to further...
00:42:02
Speaker
solidify your own stance on something. And now you don't even know who you're talking with is real or not, which is all the more important to the reporting you did in this piece to like see people eye to eye and meet them and shake their hand and actually have an interaction. And suddenly that algorithmic bubble will kind burst a bit.
00:42:20
Speaker
Absolutely. yeah proximity Proximity doesn't fix the division, but it does lower the temperature enough to see that there's another person there that you can interact with. And and I felt much more optimistic after even now halfway through this trip, I was saying to Cheney, oh, gosh, I'm feeling better. you know a It shows me that finding the center is not really, it's not a position as much as it is a practice of showing up, maybe asking better questions, maybe doing more active listening to people that you wouldn't normally
00:42:54
Speaker
you know, necessarily interact with. And I sort of wanted to say to everybody, Hey, sometime in the next month, go out and talk to somebody who walk up to somebody who you don't even know and say, Hey, would you mind if ask you something about your life, whatever, you know, because I honestly, i think that I don't know, it might start to help. It helped me psychologically during that trip to realize that, you know, people are not as one dimensional as their yard signs. And,
00:43:23
Speaker
There's a lot more nuances and and and a lot of us are you know want many of the same things. We're just struggling to get there. And one ah sentence i I love was that I-95 is an artery of ambition, movement, and flight.
00:43:38
Speaker
And ah as someone who has spent thousands of miles on I-95, I can definitely ah you know relate to that. But you know in in what way, like how did that sentence come to you that it is this artery of, yes, ah ambition, movement, and flight?
00:43:55
Speaker
Well, ah movement and flight should be easy to understand. A lot of people were traveling for events, birth, death, illness, last time to see somebody, graduations at the time of year I was doing it.
00:44:10
Speaker
So there was that sense of going somewhere plus a sense of possibility. We were often driving into late at night. ah We spent many nights sleeping in the back of Cheney's car at some rest stop, sometimes right in front of a sign which says no sleeping here a allowed, just kind of to our own private smile. And, you know,
00:44:31
Speaker
You feel at night like there's ah I have a magical feeling driving at night. Like it's it's magic. Like you could you're in the dark and it's around you, but, you know, you could wake up and in the morning it's going to look entirely different. You're going to be somewhere new and incredible. And, you know, it's going to be exciting. So that that idea of flight for me, too.
00:44:51
Speaker
And ambition, you know, it wasn't a very ambitious project when it was first built. there were lots of hopes and dreams for what this could do, what this highway could do by connecting us, by uniting us, by making us one and making us easily accessible to one another all along the Eastern seaboard. And that's one reason I wanted that to be the the vein of the story.
00:45:15
Speaker
Well, and also a central thread of the story too is is you spending time with your son Chaney and you know having that that bond with him. so what how did that come come to pass and what was that experience like for you to you know spend all these hours in the car on this project with your son?
00:45:35
Speaker
Well, Chaney and I have done projects before. We did a project out of Star County, Texas that is a website tracingmemory.com and it's It involves, Starr County has an exceptionally high rate of Alzheimer's and we talked to to the caretakers and doctors and nurses and put together you know, his great photographs and my writing and interviews. And so I like to work.
00:46:00
Speaker
I like to work with him. um And then as I put in the piece, he and Sayward kind of Sayward looked at Sayward. The beginning of the piece is much the same as when I sent it to But when she called me, she said, I want more with you and Cheney.
00:46:12
Speaker
So I told her what was going on with Cheney and I, how this is the first trip that we had taken together since I found out that he had a secret 11 year marriage. and that he hadn't told me about. And she said, okay, we want this in the piece. And I said, all right, well, I have to ask Cheney. ah And so of course I did. And he said, yeah, if you can write anything you want as long as it's true, he said.
00:46:32
Speaker
And I said, well, I'll tell you what, I'm going to take that as an initial yes, but you'll look at the copy itself and make sure you feel okay about it. So we had already talked through the issues around him keeping that a secret and some of that's in the piece itself.
00:46:45
Speaker
But this was, you know how it is, you're you're with somebody basically ah all day, every day, going from rest stop to rest stop talking about who you've just spoken to together, kind of, you know, collaborating. What did you think of that?
00:46:59
Speaker
yeah and That question felt awkward, you know, whatever it might be, you know, eating together, working out and showering at planet fitness together, sleeping in the back of his car together, all of that, you know?
00:47:11
Speaker
and I mean, it was great. I mean, I think, i I think I'm a pretty good traveler and he is too, in terms of, you know, whatever happens, happens. is going to be fine. You know, even if it's not exactly what you planned, we're going to work it out. It'll be cool.
00:47:27
Speaker
Easygoing enough to make everything, everything work. Yeah. What would you, how would you characterize your relationship sort of like pre and post this, this project? I mean, we had, we had had a strong relationship pre this project too, but this was the first trip we took together since I found out about the secret marriage.
00:47:47
Speaker
And so in that sense, as I say in the piece, we don't we by this time, we'd already talked it through, use the words, but we hadn't spent this time together just hanging out. And I don't know what you think, Brendan, but there's something magical and close about not even using words, but just, you know, sharing, you know, campfire coffee with somebody or.
00:48:09
Speaker
you know, waking up in the morning together, rubbing your eyes out or ah just all of it that that nothing can replace for me in terms of of real closeness. Yeah. Well, there's something to be said about, you you think that you're in the car all these hours together that you would probably be talking all the time, but were you're probably silent more than you were talking in a lot of ways.
00:48:29
Speaker
because But even just being in and around each other, you can go two or three hours without talking, but still feel every bit as close to that person. Absolutely. And we probably were talking more than that because we were stopping at all those rest stops. Yeah. right yeah And he likes light. you know He's looking for morning light and evening light and you know, just after a rain fall light and that kind of thing. And sometimes the light was too bright for him and too wrong. So he would kick back and say, all right, go do your thing. go but then I would come back and say, out here, listen to this one. What do you think? And sometimes I would come back, but I still have to do a few more, but, but I want you to hear this one. And, you know, it was good to bounce it off somebody. And as I say, I was trying to find the right right way to ask somebody, where do you think our country's going, but not force that question into our conversation. Be really open to letting them lead because that was part of building trust that I'm here.
00:49:24
Speaker
I'm ready to listen to you. I'm receptive and I'm not just going after what I want out of this, which is, you know, are we as divided as they say we are really? What do you think? You know but more like, oh, a graduation. That's cool. Who is that? You know, and that kind of thing.
00:49:40
Speaker
Yeah. How do you achieve that? And this I believe, a term that Isabel Wilkerson uses, um an accelerated intimacy, you know, in these interactions. and And that's definitely what this was, accelerated intimacy. And sometimes it really worked.
00:49:56
Speaker
And I think, you know, you hit on the idea that and a lot has been talked about loneliness and people being alone and and Often it was people, travelers traveling alone, who had paused to sip a cup of coffee or smoke a cigarette or just were sitting there that I i ended up approaching and having ah the longest conversations with the deepest conversations.
00:50:18
Speaker
But I think that showing them that you're actively listening, that you're not judging and that you really are interested is the best is the best way. And all those things were absolutely true of me. I now truly was interested.
00:50:29
Speaker
And you're interested in wherever they want to lead and you're not going to force forced the conversation. So that for me was a little bit of a struggle. If I only have five minutes with you, Brandon, and I want to get to where do you think our country is going, how do you feel about that? But that's not where we're going in those five minutes. Then I have to be okay with that somehow. You know what I mean?
00:50:46
Speaker
And that's an interesting lesson for me too, to be working on it during that time. So in in interviewing 250 people, that that's so that's so much. And in that this piece is, you know, seven, eight thousand words.
00:51:01
Speaker
Naturally, you can't include everybody. So how do you audition the tape and the the interviewing you do and fit them into the piece and then, you let let other ones, ah you know, fall by the wayside and not you know weigh down the narrative and the story you're looking to tell?
00:51:18
Speaker
Well, we're to help with that. I will say that um there are some people i I didn't get in, even to the draft I gave her, that I'm sorry I didn't. I mean, there were just too many people.
00:51:28
Speaker
There some people who I think, okay, I cover that viewpoint through this person or that person. But there were some people that I talked to who stick with me right now because I didn't i didn't get them in. So,
00:51:42
Speaker
yeah I don't think I want to write a book on this, by the way, but but I mean, there's definitely enough people, you know, with enough stories to tell, you know, from the guy who was supervising 120 migrant workers picking blueberries as they headed ah to New Jersey and talked a lot about that whole blueberry farming. his own life when he was born in the Bronx and how he started his first job was 14 herding cattle for his uncle. Anyway, in in Puerto Rico, I mean, there was a ah mother traveling with her two daughters and now the two daughters are adults, so they're driving.
00:52:12
Speaker
but But they were counted when they were children and she was driving one time on the I-95 long trip and got so mad at them that she pulled over and just yelled at them. And she said, it's much better now that they're driving.
00:52:23
Speaker
I mean, you know, there was a man who 89 years old in Maine. I mean, so many people come to me right now as I think about it, who, who you could put into the story for sure.
00:52:35
Speaker
And you've brought up Saverda. What were those conversations like as you were drafting this piece and getting it and bringing it to fruition? I mean, I'm very grateful to her. She's a great editor and it was wonderful. And as I say, she was the first one who pushed me to put more of Chaney and me on the page.
00:52:53
Speaker
And this, you know, is not something I've often done as a journalist. I mean, my early training was that I'm the pipe. through which the story travels. I'm clear, I'm invisible. You're the story and I, your words are going to be projected out.
00:53:07
Speaker
And, ah you know, her idea was, yeah, okay, you're you're still the pipe, but the pipe is also part of the story. you know, it shapes the flow. And so it really, you know, and in all honesty, if we're going to get to a greater truth, you can't just be a neutral instrument. You know, here you are in the car together going rest stop to rest stop. I need more of that.
00:53:26
Speaker
So I felt in some ways that made the story more accountable and deeper. And as Cheney was willing, and it worked out. Yeah. the It's always great getting the challenges and maybe this part in pond, but like roadblocks along the way and drafting drafting a piece. So what what were some of those challenges that presented themselves to you as you were drafting this?
00:53:51
Speaker
I think the biggest one was I did have too many recordings of people. And at some point I felt, am I just, am I just, you know, like a, what do they call those rods when you try to find water? Am I just like. a divining rod. Yeah. Yeah. So am I just picking out a recording?
00:54:07
Speaker
mean, should I re-listen to all of these recordings that I have and go, oh, I just can't do it. No, I just, and so, you know, that was the biggest stumbling block I think is, am I getting um everybody and ah the ending was very difficult.
00:54:24
Speaker
Drawing conclusions about Cheney was not difficult, but drawing conclusions about the country, everything is so much in motion. And so the ending, we, I, I, I would be interested to know what Sayward said, but I think we, we spent a lot of time thinking about that ending, working on that ending and, and, you know, and, and that was a challenge, I would say.
00:54:45
Speaker
And close to the ending to the houseless community was, was moving for me to write about it. And I mean, I have more material there about them, but that was, that was interesting.
00:54:59
Speaker
How do you think about endings and when do they pop into your head and how do you like, to what extent are you really ruminating over, you know, bringing a piece to a satisfying conclusion and landing?
00:55:13
Speaker
Well, I mean, I think beginnings and endings are probably the two most important things, right? Do you think so? Yeah, well, certainly. But the middle can get lost in that and where the middle can sag. So like pacing is is important. But yeah, it's like you want that beginning to hook you to keep you going.
00:55:31
Speaker
And you want that ending to almost bring you back to the start because you want to read it again. Right. The middle can't suffer. Sometimes a lot of people put so it so ends up to me in this horseshoe, put so much attention on the and the beginning and the end and that middle sags.
00:55:44
Speaker
So, but yeah. But ah but to your point, they are they they are so crucial. Yeah. They need to rhyme sometimes. Yes, but you're absolutely right about the middle end. I mean, in the novels I've done, i find that that second third of the novel is the hardest in many ways. I don't know if you find this, but it's a slog.
00:56:00
Speaker
And i I often give myself little encouragements, like I'll write down, okay, you wrote 12 pages today. and I'll just keep a calendar so that I can look back on it and see that I actually accomplished something during that month.
00:56:11
Speaker
You do want to feel, you do want the reader to feel satisfied with the ending. And you do want to feel that you answered the questions you set out to answer in a way that maintains what you're hoping is a lyrical tone of the of the piece as a whole.
00:56:28
Speaker
And it's true and it's honest, but maybe not like with a great big period, because that's not really how life is. i don't know if that makes sense. Oh, for sure. And you're bringing up the the slog of the middle, the messy middles. That can be just so – it's so hard because you're, like, you're too far away from shore to turn back, but you're so far away from the end that it's it's overwhelming.
00:56:51
Speaker
In the face of that, you've, you know, approached the middles many, many times in your career. Like, you already mentioned one tactic of just, like, reminding yourself how far you've come. But, like, how do you just keep pushing and keep that momentum going through that through that really messy middle?
00:57:06
Speaker
Well, you know, and I've i've taught novel writing quite a bit and I really urge people, and I'm sure it's true on all nonfiction projects too, this has to be meaningful to you.
00:57:17
Speaker
It has to be a story that won't leave you alone, a story that you're willing to rearrange your calendar for, the that you you, the curiosity about the story is so compelling to you that you cannot imagine not pursuing it because...
00:57:32
Speaker
That deep commitment. And, you know, you have that quote of the guy who says, you know, some point somebody else has to care about this story. And I agree with that. And in every, you know, I've often said when a novel is about to be published, I remember saying to my husband at one point, you know, is anyone really going to care and give a shit about this story?
00:57:49
Speaker
And he said to me, you know, you say that every time. So I think that at some point we all probably wonder like, are we so are we so excited about this? And is anybody else going to be as excited as we are? But I do think that that internal drive, the way that story speaks to us, the the things that it's showing us about ourselves or our lives or that we're the ways it's deepening and broadening us are what keep us writing. And they are so important for that that you know second, third,
00:58:19
Speaker
Yeah, i i I loved hearing you say something to rearrange your calendar for. And that's what it that's what it takes, especially after that honeymoon period where every idea seems great.
00:58:30
Speaker
And then you hit you you start running out, you know, the the tank gets low and you're like, oh, man. And it's like the honeymoon's over. But how do you how do you persevere in the face of that? It's.
00:58:42
Speaker
It's the, it's the question we all, all reach. And I think once you hit that point and if you can push through it's like, okay, that's what, that's what delineates kind of maybe the wannabes from the people who can finish things. Cause how many unfinished things are just languishing on the vine. Right.
00:58:57
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I'm really, as I say, I think it has to be very important to you and it has to, that meaningfulness really has to just be deep in yourselves. And when I think about this,
00:59:08
Speaker
I mean, there's been times with my novel when, you know, one person has come up to me and said, oh, my God, you know, i I read this and this made me feel this way. I i didn't know anybody else. like but And for me, that's all right.
00:59:20
Speaker
So that's good. You know, that that's what I was hoping for. You know, one connection with one person in this kind of way is fabulous. Somebody else who, you know, who felt kind of like I did or like the character I was depicting did, you know.
00:59:36
Speaker
And so I do think we have to we have to be driven forward by that. And then we have to keep going deeper and deeper in our own work. I think it's especially true with books and novels. Probably not nonfiction books because you submit a proposal and you get that. But a novel, you're just out there writing. Nobody's bought the damn thing and you're going to spend three years trying to make it work.
00:59:55
Speaker
And if it gets published, and of course you want that, that's going to be the icing on the cupcake. But there's still going to be the cupcake there regardless Yeah. In your experience of ah coaching people along, teaching people how to write novels and fiction, what are some common concerns and worries that you that you stumble across from from aspiring writers?
01:00:19
Speaker
Well, when I'm teaching, my main goal is to try to understand what they want to do and what's compelling them. And so when they give me their manuscript, and I usually have a draft of it done because it's There are 40 million ways to write a novel, and I don't want to just suggest a different way to write a novel. I want to help them write it the way they want to write it. yeah and you know And so that's really that's that my goal.
01:00:43
Speaker
And I think that we're in the world that we're in now. You really do have to think, you know is the agent and the editor and then the reader, each of these, going to read beyond page one?
01:00:54
Speaker
Great, they are. You've got them involved. Okay, but now are they going to read beyond page two? And what about page three? And um unfortunately, you really have to, you can't. And when when pacing, you mentioned pacing, and I think that's such a great question.
01:01:07
Speaker
You know voice can be strong. You need to think about so many elements as a writer that you don't think about if you're just a reader. and I think in the same way. it Once you think that, I mean, when I'm editing a novel, you know, i pull it apart and I read just the sections that deal with this particular character to see how they're flowing.
01:01:27
Speaker
I pull out just those sections or I read just the beginnings and the endings of chapters, just the last paragraph and the first one or the next one. I try to pull it apart in different ways to look at it in different ways. And when I'm working with somebody, you know, it depends where the issues arise and what they're trying to do. But I think when they When they struggle most is when they have veered away from what their vision is.
01:01:50
Speaker
They kind of got pulled off that and I want to bring them back to whatever they really wanted to do. The thing that got them excited and enthused in the first place. Yeah, getting veered off that track, it's all the more, you probably see it all the more these days because it's so much easier to compare ourselves to others and other people's practice or processes and then other people's successes or perceived successes.
01:02:16
Speaker
And here we are struggling in the mud, flopping around trying to get anything accomplished. Yeah. And so i you know yeahd i'd extend that to you, Masha, just like, how do you you know persevere in the face of the the comparison traps and how what you're seeing online versus maybe how you feel while you're in the throes of a ah draft that's just not working for you in the moment?
01:02:39
Speaker
i One thing I tell myself and remind myself is I've never known ah single good writer who hasn't felt at times inadequate or insecure. So I think maybe that's something when we're really honest, I think it's maybe something we all we all share or maybe not one or two of us, but I mean, the vast majority of us, we all have moments when we think, you know, first of all, is anybody else going to care about this? And secondly,
01:03:03
Speaker
ugh, this draft looks just horrible. Even I don't want to read it. Ugh. And thirdly, like it's the pacing has fallen so flat here. and I'm so bored.
01:03:14
Speaker
What am I going to do? you know i mean I think this is just part of the process, and that's why I think you have to really care about what you're doing. It's ah it's it's and long work, and you know this, Brendan. Long work, it's it's a long-distance run. You have to be in it for the long haul.
01:03:32
Speaker
Oh, for sure. Well, and to your point, too, about, you know, being so bored with your own work. It's like, do you, is it poorly paced or have I just read it 20 times and I'm just bored by it?
01:03:44
Speaker
And it's like, you can't look at it with the fresh eyes anymore, so you can't really be a good judge. But... and to what So that brings in, all right, maybe you need fresh eyes. who Who are the trusted people that that ah that you go to so you'd be like, all right, is this boring or am I just bored with it because I've spent so much time with it?
01:04:03
Speaker
Yeah, I have different people for different projects because I think that maybe each work has its own you know ideal readers, people. But I do absolutely – I'm very grateful for those early readers because they're reading a book.
01:04:17
Speaker
You I so at least a part of it, you know, I mean, I'm not saying you don't have a great idea and you probably have a wonderful beginning since you've spent like, you know, ages working on those first 12 pages. But after that, you know, who knows? And so I definitely go to different workshop, different parts of this with different readers and return the favor for them.
01:04:33
Speaker
But as I say, I also on a long form piece, I try to break it up so I can look at it in different ways. Sometimes I just look at the dialogue, nothing else, just the dialogue. Then maybe I'll just look at it.
01:04:44
Speaker
And then maybe I'll plot how each character changes from the beginning of the end to not just that one individual character. So it's once you have a whole breaking it into pieces for me helps me see it ah new as well.
01:04:57
Speaker
But nothing can take the place of of good readers. And and I think you don't always I mean, I share it with a lot of I share my early work with a number of readers. say They'll take it and do the same for them because I feel that You know, if you come back to me, Brendan, and say, like, I did not believe this character at all.
01:05:16
Speaker
And I think you should make him a hairy gorilla. What I may may hear from that is I'm not going to make him a hairy gorilla, but you didn't he didn't work for you. So something's wrong there.
01:05:26
Speaker
So let me I if I'm not going to go with your solution, I at least see you're identifying a problem. And if the next reader says the same thing, like that guy, what the heck? Then I really know I've got a problem. And and it just it brings it to light for me, you know?
01:05:39
Speaker
You know, a moment ago, too, you brought up, you know, sometimes an element of a story that can can pull us along is maybe voice or style. And I'm reading Sacha Bonet's memoir, The Water Bearers, right now. It's coming out sooner. It might be out now.
01:05:53
Speaker
But very voice-driven and a very engaging voice. And i bring that up just to get your sense of voice and style and maybe some of your influences and of how you cultivated your voice, you know, through all the all the things that inspired you.
01:06:10
Speaker
I'm to to look at for Sasha Bonney's book. I hope it's out. i'll ah I'll take a look for that for sure. I read a lot. You probably do too. And I read widely. And when I'm writing a novel, I often read poetry.
01:06:22
Speaker
I think, I don't know what you feel about this. I don't think voice can necessarily be forced, you know? Right. Yeah, I think it's it's it's the to your point of reading widely, it's the the metabolism of those influences and then just putting a lot into practice.
01:06:40
Speaker
And then eventually, like a Polaroid picture, just kind of develops and you don't in the but you don't become just one kind of voice. It's always changing. And as you're taking in more voices, contemporary voices, old voices,
01:06:54
Speaker
experimenting just fucking around in your journal or with a draft seeing where it takes you and you're like oh that sounds pretty pretty cool like something maybe I haven't quite heard before just like a little spin on ah an influence and then it's like oh that feels like me now Absolutely. And also, I think the material itself dictates it to a degree as well. if you're writing about, you know, ah the front and runner, if you're writing about at a young athlete or if you're writing about, you know, an 89 year old woman or if you're writing about, you know, a young boy living in the Bronx. so
01:07:25
Speaker
I mean, you some of this is is by your characters, you know, either fictional or non fictional that you you want to reflect some of their reality.
01:07:36
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's a great point you bring up because it may be if you're someone who has a ah comedic sensibility, not every story will fit that tone. Like you need to be like, oh, what is this story asking of me?
01:07:50
Speaker
All right, I'm going to go try on, I'm gonna but i'm going to wear this costume for that for this particular thing. and yeah that ah that so that's a really good point. Like you can't just be like, here's my style and i don't care if I'm writing about this funeral. Here I come in my style.
01:08:06
Speaker
And it can work. I'm not saying that, but I do think, yeah, yeah I don't know that I have one voice much ah airs much as you know, ah probably, I mean, I, I don't know about you. I've written my whole life. I mean, as a kid, you know, wrote me lot yeah a lot of us are in that same boat. I mean, I, I did a family newspaper for my mom and dad and brother when I was like 10, you know online school paper. i don't know what the news was in our house, probably not much, but whatever, you know what mean? I've always, I i always knew that i would I needed to write. I always knew that that was just, I mean, that was it. And so,
01:08:43
Speaker
I mean, whatever voice has emerged through that, you're right, practice is part of it. Yeah, it is one of those things that's always evolving. And, you know, some and sometimes you're like, you're always afraid maybe to look back at stuff you've written in the past because you might be a little embarrassed. But sometimes there's like this real firecracker quality to that early stuff before you knew too much. You're like, wow, that actually sounds pretty good despite, you know, having decades more experience. You're like, wow, that, you know, that little baby writer there had had a little something to him or her.
01:09:16
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. But I have to tell you, I'm a relentless editor. I just I edit and edit. And when I've had to do readings out of my novels after they're published, I usually edit the page that I'm going to read. So the copy I'm reading from has my editings right on the printed copy. And that's not going to be in the book they buy. But I still for my reading, i I've changed this word. I don't like that anymore, whatever it is, you know. So that's not a great quality, but it's definitely my part of part of my style.
01:09:44
Speaker
And like towards the end of your Atavis piece, I love this this one sentence of like, because belonging is a practice, a choice remade again and again, even as trust phrase and the horizon blurs.
01:09:56
Speaker
And I just i just love the the sense there of belonging as a practice and like it's work to make these connections. And is is that just something that really emerged all the more true to you just with all these interactions, hundreds of interactions up and down I-95? 100%.
01:10:13
Speaker
hundred per cent I think, I think in in my experience of covering various stories, i began to feel that leaders like to create an us and a them because it makes it easier for them to control people's actions and perceptions. So there's us and we're all good. And then there's them, they're not, you know, and we're kind of evenly divided and, It's based on who knows what, you know, where you live, what your gender is, what your political party is, what your sexual preferences are. I have no idea what, but i I've come to feel that's really not true. That's way not nuanced nuanced enough. And really there's a whole bunch of us and then there's a few of them, but but but but they're not broken and down by that. And so we have to find a way to not be
01:11:02
Speaker
afraid of each other just based on superficial things that don't, that really don't mean that much. We, and, and so that was the whole idea. And I think the big, it's not a new lesson, but it's an ongoing lesson, even at a time like this, when algorithms and the media present present us as so divided and, you know, either you think this and and you're bad,
01:11:27
Speaker
And I think this and I'm good. you know, it's much more nuanced than that and much more complex. and And we can either sit in our house and say, I'm scared of everybody and and I don't know who they are anymore.
01:11:39
Speaker
Or we can step out of it and really try to listen to somebody else. And and that that idea of belonging, finding that we do belong, that we actually do belong. Oh, yeah yeah yeah, that's really wonderfully put. And when it comes to let's say the writing and advice that may be maybe you give or advice you've gleaned through experience or a cherished mentor, what what is some ah writing advice that you find you know very valuable that maybe you lean on, hard one, or maybe something you've taken on from a ah mentor of yours?
01:12:15
Speaker
The very first novel that I had published, my first editor, I said to him, what what do all first-time novelists like me get wrong? And he said, you don't trust your readers enough.
01:12:28
Speaker
I loved that. And that piece of advice I i do carry. So I really try not to over-explain. And I do try to trust my readers to get it and and to go along with me on a journey. So I think that that's the one that stayed with me.
01:12:42
Speaker
Well, Marcia, I love bringing these conversations down for a landing by asking the guests for a recommendation of some kind, just something fun that you're enjoying that you might want to share with the listeners. Oh, fun. i'm I'm researching the next project, so I'm kind of researching the first Red square Scare of 1917. I don't know if this is fun, but I've been watching old documentaries about the IWW, the Union.
01:13:07
Speaker
And their stories and, you know, what happened in Butte, Montana with, what was it, Freddie Little, an injury of one. That's not exactly fun in the sense of, you know, laughter or a comedy show, but it's been interesting and timely for now. And I guess other than that, I would just say Pilates.
01:13:26
Speaker
Go out and exercise, do something good. oh Fantastic. Well, Marcia, this was such a wonderful conversation about this and incredible piece you did for the Atavist. So I just thank you for the work and thanks for coming on the show to talk shop.
01:13:38
Speaker
Oh, thank you for having me. You do such a great job and I'm thrilled to have been one of your one of your people.
01:13:49
Speaker
Awesome. Thanks to Masha Sayward and you. Go to magazine.atavist.com to read Masha's story and be sure you're newslettered up with my Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter and Pitch Club. Welcome to pitchclub.substack.com.
01:14:06
Speaker
The Rager and Pitch Club went out a couple days ago, October first of the month. No spam. Can't beat them. Not a terribly long parting shot, but I figured I'd riff on the Florence Festival of Books.
01:14:23
Speaker
which was a fun time. was tabling the front runner. i was right there at the opening gate, me and Ruby, side by side, shooting the shit. I'd say most of the authors at this event were self-published.
01:14:36
Speaker
Not all, but a good
Publishing World Dynamics and Challenges
01:14:37
Speaker
chunk. So there was a little crackle in the air when a few authors approached me and asked me if I was self-published. And I said no, it was an imprint of HarperCollins, to which the side eye and the eyebrows raise and they kind of look at you in disbelief.
01:14:54
Speaker
And the tone they take, it really stinks of their years of frustration of trying to find an agent and not, of trying to land ah big five deal and not.
01:15:05
Speaker
And I understand deeply that frustration. I do. I was approached by a guy whose wife was tabling her self-pub titles around the corner, and he went down the line of questioning with me, for a one telling me what I should write next, which is always fun when people tell you what some really obscure esoteric topic that you should take up next.
01:15:30
Speaker
and I was like, do you have an agent? Did you self-publish? I was like, yes. And then no. um There's no, the yeah there was a kind of a lot of judgment in the air, kind of ah you know, pissing contest kind of thing happening. And I don't judge or begrudge the indie publishing scene. It's,
01:15:49
Speaker
it's It's pretty punk rock when you really boil it down. But to do it well takes significant personal investment. And I've seen any number of self-published things come my way. And there are typos all over the place. The bindings are cheap.
01:16:05
Speaker
Things feel unfinished. They feel hasty. ah imagine there were some great indie authors on site. I mean, they must have been.
01:16:16
Speaker
And some can lock into an audience and make a living, you know, and be fulfilled and not be beholden to gatekeepers. That's the appeals.
01:16:26
Speaker
So I was selling books for $15 piece. As many of you know, the Frontrunner retails for $32.99, and I bought them at $16.50. So I sold 12 books, so there was no way I was selling anything at full price.
01:16:40
Speaker
So I figured it was best to just take a loss than to sell zero copies. I forgot what it was like to sell books, the whole spiel. I did this a lot with Six Weeks in Saratoga, um but it it was odd doing it for the frontrunner. right I hadn't expected to do that, but it was it was fun. and you You get used to it. too And then Ruby and I, we had a fruitful discussion and we were the sort of the keynote conversation, the headlining conversation in Q&A. And we're just sitting on the edge of the stage or so.
01:17:14
Speaker
a few people stuck around. There's probably a dozen people. ah Ruby talked about radical incrementalism as it pertained to a literary career and geology.
01:17:27
Speaker
And I loved that notion of the small done repeatedly over geologic time leads to something seismic.
01:17:38
Speaker
There's a lot of wisdom there packed into radical incrementalism. I had fun. I'd do it again. You know, it's all about community. It's all about this, man.
01:17:49
Speaker
Anyway, stay wild, CNFers. And if you can't do, interview. See ya in Idaho. See ya.