The Why Test (video)
Over the past six months, I've been working on yet-another-final-draft of a novel. As I got to the end of this draft, I thought I wanted to tell you the story of how I got through it, how I got myself unstuck, how I went from "will I ever write again?" to "I love working on this book!"
But things fell apart while trying to work on the video. At the same time, a slightly different thing came out of the mess I made.
You'll have to watch it for yourself to see if you think an interesting thing came from the rubble, but I think the overall realization is that it's important to ask the question, "WHY am I doing this thing?" The reason may change over time depending on what’s going on in your life. I guess I’ve been thinking about the importance of scrutinizing what’s important.
tctpod-season1-03: Writing in the raw (with Kristen Forbes)
In this podcast episode, I get to talk to my good friend Kristen Forbes about writing well-crafted pieces that cover emotionally raw material. I really enjoyed speaking with her, and other than the number of times I stupidly say, “Wow!”, I’m pretty pleased with how this conversation turned out. Check out the first two links below to read the two main essays that we reference in the discussion…
vid001: Marinating with Joan Didion and Telaina Eriksen
In this video, I fixate on two cool topics that came up during my conversation with Telaina Eriksen: 1. Writing in the moment vs. letting things marinate; 2. Putting your thoughts within the context of a particular scene. I take an under-educated stance on why Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking worked so well. I also find a way to stick my kid’s precious stuffed animal (Shaggy the Jaguar) into the video...
tctpod-season1-01: The depressing episode (with Telaina Eriksen)
In this podcast episode, I get to talk to my friend Telaina Eriksen about how she is able to write about grief and death in her essays. I first met Telaina in 2008 when we both were in the Antioch University low-residency MFA program. I’ve been wanting to ask her about how she gets to these difficult places in her writing for a few years now, and this so-called podcast thingy gave me the chance. Join us for this delightful romp through grief and loss and death.