Month: April 2019

Share the Road

By Brendan O’Meara

While driving along Highway 101 I saw a sign with a bicycle on it that said “Share the Road.”

I thought this a nice sentiment because we can all be cars on the road and muscle our way past, even brush by the handlebars of the vulnerable cyclist, or we can share the road.

No matter your craft, social media has turned into, in many ways, a self-promotion machine. You know who those people are who seem to only spout out about themselves, link to their own work, complain about this and that without paying attention to the ecosystem they’re in.

They’re not sharing the road and would do us all a lot of good if we didn’t bully our way into people’s attention, but engage and celebrate those in our circle.

MONTHLY NEWSLETTER!: Once a Month. No Spam. Can’t Beat It.

View previous campaigns.

Episode 147—Meredith May on What Cracked Open Her Memoir, Nature as Parent, and Bees, Lots of Bees

Meredith May, author of The Honey bus (Photo Matthew May)

“The pleasure of reading a book is that it’s reciprocal.” —Meredith May (@meredithmaysf)

By Brendan O’Meara

How are you, CNFers? I’m Brendan O’Meara and this is The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to badass writers, filmmakers, producers, and podcasters about the art and craft of telling true stories, chart their journey through this crazy world and offer a few tips along the way to help you get the work done.

Be sure to subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and follow me and the show on Twitter @BrendanOMeara and @cnfpod. You can follow the show on Instagram too where I post some great quote cards and audiograms from the show’s deep bench.

If you’re feeling friendly, please leave a review or a rating on iTunes. I’d love to see it reach 100, but it’ll take you. It’ll take you going that extra mile for you buddy BO. You know I love you for it.

This week I have Meredith May (@meredithmaysf across all the socials). She is the author The Honey Bus: A Memoir of Loss, Courage, and a Girl Saved by Bees. She also wrote I, Who Did Not Die: A Sweeping Story of Loss, Redemption, and Fate.

Okay, so Meredith May is here to talk about her career and her new book. She was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize for a long feature she wrote back around the time of the second Iraq War for the San Francisco Chronicle. We talk about the toxic nature of the competition Olympics, and how writing about someone else in another book cracked open her memoir for her.

MONTHLY NEWSLETTER!: Once a Month. No Spam. Can’t Beat It.

View previous campaigns.


Event Horizon

By Brendan O’Meara

The first ever image of a black hole was recently published. It was a cool school portrait. Smile!

It is more than 50 million light years away. It has the mass of 6.5 billion suns.

A few years ago a little chirp picked up by LIGO moved a laser the diameter of a proton that proved the existence of gravitational waves.

If it makes you feel small, it should.

But it should also make you feel lucky. Look at what we’re given. Look at you’ve been able to accomplish.

We’re so small in the cosmic scheme of this universe that we have no excuse to run from our most ambitious visions. Sure, fear is real, but when you realize how tiny we are, why be afraid? Why not start and finish a terrible book? Why not take 1,000 horrible photographs? Why not start a dozen terrible businesses? What do you have to lose?

Let the titanic size of the cosmos set you free. Let it liberate your inhibitions because this is all we’ve got. Nothing matters and everything matters all at the same time.

Please, jump, and create your own event horizon where nobody can escape the great pull of your gravity.

MONTHLY NEWSLETTER!: Once a Month. No Spam. Can’t Beat It.

View previous campaigns.

Watch Your Words

By Brendan O’Meara

I’ve kept a journal for over 20 years. I can’t envision a time without one. I recommend it if you don’t.

But something happens if you’re being honest. Oftentimes, you write down nasty stuff. Nasty self commentary. The kind that reeks and stinks. You don’t want to lie to your journal! If you can’t be honest with your journal, than where can you?

But what if you start believing the bile you’ve habitually spilled into your journals? What you if instead of bloodletting, you imprint a negative story that effectively weighs you down with iron boots?

James Victore in his wonderful book Feck Perfuction writes:

Stop deprecating all over yourself.

We pre-crap on ourselves so others won’t. We joke about how fat we are while trying on new clothes, or pooh-pooh our talents before sharing our talent. … Self-deprecation is healthy when it means being humble or witty, but continually calling yourself a loser becomes self-sabotage. … Words have power. The problem with repeating negative mantras to yourself is that you start to believe them. Then others believe them. Watch your words.

Negative self-talk has ruined the past 20 years of my life and I’m working on that. I’ve noticed that changing my language in my journals has helped. But instead of lamenting over something and dwelling and wallowing, I reframe it as a gift. Nobody listens to my podcast? Great, I can make it better. Got another rejection? That’s an opportunity to improve. Drank too many beers and ate too much cake? Today’s a new day to eat clean and drink water and get back on the path..

Point is every obstacle is an opportunity. And the way we frame it in private will manifest in public.

MONTHLY NEWSLETTER!: Once a Month. No Spam. Can’t Beat It.

View previous campaigns.

Garbage

By Brendan O’Meara

Every successful artist makes garbage. Every single one. No exception.

Every struggling artist, every artist trying to gain traction or has no traction at all makes no garbage.

Wait, what? The best make garbage and the worst make nothing? How does that work? That’s right. Seth Godin asks middling or anonymous writers to “show me your bad writing.” Professionals make garbage because it’s only through working through garbage that you might make something good.

Kevin Hart, the arena-packing comedian, told Joe Rogan on the Joe Rogan Experience:

People don’t understand how hard it is to develop an hour of stand-up material. People act like you just turn on a new hour. It’s an hour. To get to an hour, you’re going through four to five hours of bullshit you thought was funny.

Four to five hours of material to get to one hour of greatness.

So the minute you think you’re not making enough good work, maybe the problem is you’re not making enough garbage.

MONTHLY NEWSLETTER!: Once a Month. No Spam. Can’t Beat It.

View previous campaigns.

Paper Habits

By Brendan O’Meara

A great way to step up your re-writing or editing game is to print things out.

Why?

Well, when you print things out you have something in hand, plus when you take out your colored pen and make an edit, it doesn’t disappear. You see the old way beside your note for the new.

In a sense you’re archiving the old draft while tinkering. The best way to learn is by seeing your old work and when you delete or make changes on the computer, it’s gone and all you’re left with is the edit.

Plus, by looking at cold, hard ink over pixels, you give your eyes a rest. The paper doesn’t ping with a Twitter notification or an email.

And an edit without proper context doesn’t teach you anything and it doesn’t show the great progress you’ve made over time.

MONTHLY NEWSLETTER!: Once a Month. No Spam. Can’t Beat It.

View previous campaigns.

When You Don’t Feel Like It

By Brendan O’Meara

It’s raining today.

So you know what I did? I laced up my running shoes and went for a jog.

Lots of people shy away from doing the hard thing when the conditions aren’t optimal.

Make yourself uncomfortable.

Don’t feel like painting? Go paint. Don’t feel like writing? Write a page. Don’t feel like lifting the weight? Get under the bar.

What you do when you don’t feel like it will feed into the times you do feel like it.

Get tough, because while other people don’t feel like getting the work done, you showed grit, bore down, and now you’re stronger.

When you don’t feel like it, do it anyway.

MONTHLY NEWSLETTER!: Once a Month. No Spam. Can’t Beat It.

View previous campaigns.

Delayed Onset Manuscript Soreness

By Brendan O’Meara

I’m sure you’ve heard of this: DOMS. It stands for Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness.

You work out hard on Monday and you’re a little sore Tuesday, but you’re really sore Wednesday. You went so hard Monday that the next two days are a waste and you lose all that momentum.

Better to take smaller chunks to sustain it over the long haul.

This notion piggybacks off of the post I did about doing creative work for 20 minutes a day. By doing a little work, you keep from burning out, or getting sore.

We’ve all had days where we hammer, maybe write 5,000 words, but I know I’m worthless for a few days after that. For my money, I’d rather do that little bit and come back the next day in the gym and keep progressing toward my goal.

This way I come back energized and unbruised, day after day.

MONTHLY NEWSLETTER!: Once a Month. No Spam. Can’t Beat It.

View previous campaigns.

Seeds

Kevin Wilson, the great and wise hitting instructor, has a great daily email. It’s an inspiring quote, sometimes from him, sometimes from somebody else. The one that stuck out to me recently was this:

Never judge a day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you sow. – Buzz Williams

Now, I’m a freelancer, and the basis of freelancing is sending out the dreaded query letter. These are seeds.

A giant maple tree doesn’t make one helicopter seed in the hopes it takes root. It makes thousands and thousands and maybe a fraction germinate.

Sending out seeds, or queries, it’s all a numbers game. You need more plate appearances to get hits. Pick your metaphor, but if you’re in a rut, be honest: how many seeds are you sending out into the air? Can you send out 10% more per week?

I guarantee the work will start. More swings, more seeds, more hits, more trees.

MONTHLY NEWSLETTER!: Once a Month. No Spam. Can’t Beat It.

View previous campaigns.