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A mostly accurate transcript for Ep. 4721
“As soon as I heard people refer to writers as actual people, I thought, ‘oh, my god, is that an option? Because I choose that option.’ And I just latched onto it immediately.” — Melissa Febos, from Ep. 472
Personal News and/or Shoutouts for Pals
Hey CNFers, The Front Runner is officially out. I like to think I don’t ask for much, but now is the time buy a copy or three and, if you read it, you know the drill, need ratings and reviews. I won’t read them because I don’t want to be driven insane, but that’s the world we live in: ratings and reviews. Your call to action to support the book, me, and ye ol’ CNF Pod. If you’re still on the fence, and why would you be, there’s an excerpt of the book over at Lit Hub. Dig it.
I also started what’s proving to be a pretty popular venture called Pitch Club. It’s at welcometopitchclub.substack.com and I have a writer audio annotate a pitch. It’s tactical and it’s practical. It’s going to help you get where you want to go.
Melissa Febos (@melissafebos) is here, and she needs no introduction, so enjoy my conversation with Melissa Febos, author of the Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex (Knopf) …
Nah, nah, we’ll do the thing.
Melissa Febos is the author of five books, Whip Smart, Abandon Me, Girlhood, Body Work, and now The Dry Season. Melissa is particularly skilled at using the personal as a trampoline into other threads, and The Dry Season is one such example of that. I mean, there’s a meditation on Wile E. fucking Coyote in this book.
Melissa’s list of accolades and accmoplishments are too many to mention but let’s do a few, mmkay? Girlhood was a LAMDA Literary Award finalist and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism and named a notable book book of 2021 by NPR, Time, the WaPo and others. Body Work, her craft book, was also a national best seller. In 2022 she received a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Kenyon Review, The Believer, McSweeney’s, and lots more places.
Had a blast speaking with Melissa. We’re about the same age and grew up in Massachusetts, so that’s a nice connection. She really came to play ball, so I think you’l really dig this one.
We talk about:
- Writing in community
- Literary stardom
- Being a weirdo
- Wile E. Coyote
- The jealousy dragon
- The theory of bottoms
- And the liberation of quitting things
On focus …
“Once I start focusing on something, especially with writing or any kind of creative pursuit, the rest of the world just falls away.”
On being a lesser human …
“My best thinking happens in writing. When I write things out, it subjects my thoughts to a kind of linearity that, just like swirling around in my brain doesn’t really happen, and so I’m just like a lesser human when I’m not writing.”
On difficulty …
“When I was in college, I realized that writing is extravagantly hard. Even when you love it as I love it, it’s really difficult. It feels in the moment easier to do something else almost all of the time.”
On readers …
“When I started writing and with memoir, it’s the response from readers, I think is really different from other genres, because there is something inherently powerful about knowing that there is another living, breathing person walking this earth who has experienced the very things that you have and that maybe you felt alone in. And so I get these like emails from readers who are like, ‘We might be the only two people on Earth who have ever experienced this. We must know each other. We are soul mates.'”
On her job as a writer …
“My job on this earth is not to, like, be the BFF of everyone who reads my books, but it is to write books.”
On time …
“I’d always sort of thought that my problem with writing was one of time, and that if I had endless time, I could write endlessly. And I had this year, and I really protected that year, and I went to a bunch of residencies, and I kind of did write endlessly for about six months, and then I hit an absolute wall.”
On not forcing it …
“Oh, I can’t write endlessly, like there is a tank of creative energy, and I can spend it all, and then I just have to wait. I can’t force it. I’m not a machine. I am a human being with an imagination that needs to be fortified.”
On getting sober …
“The fun had not yet begun until I got sober, like very truly and literally.”
On finding weird shit in the research …
“That is the kind of shit in writing that pleases me so much. When I’m like, ‘How did I get here?’ But it feels so right.”
On fighting jealousy …
“I made a very, very conscious decision at like, 25 or whatever, that I was like, ‘Okay, I need to act as if. I need to act as if I live in a world where there’s enough to go around, where I am assured that I will get what I need and that my generosity will multiply a boomerang back to me.”
Melissa’s Rec
The WNBA
Parting Shot: A Different Kind of Dry Season
Some of the passages that Melissa writes about that deal with addiction really struck and I hesitate to say that I’m addicted to alcohol, beer in particular, but I do have a troubled relationship with it. So much so that I often will take prolonged periods away from drinking because I get so tired by what it does to me emotionally, physically, and financially.
I’m one of those people who has a hard time stopping once I start, but if I don’t start I’m good. Future Brendan NEVER regrets not drinking even one IPA, let alone four or five. It’s probably a red flag that you constantly find yourself reappraising your relationship to a substance, be it sugar or drugs or alcohol (I know this is a drug).
Sometime last week, I inexplicably had four IPAs and wasn’t even that drunk, which is another red flag of sorts. I fell asleep and woke up with the most agonizing neck pain from falling asleep in a terrible posture. I slept like shit anyway, which is a hallmark of the seasoned drinker. I have pretty high blood pressure and possibly sleep apnea, none of which are helped by drinking. Come Saturday or Sunday morning, if I elected not to have a few beers the night before, I’m always so happy. I wake up refreshed, no cotton mouth, no headache, and no shame.
I have a lot of shame around drinking, and I’m not sure where this came from. I’ve caused my friends a lot of grief over the years, dating back to high school. My all or nothing tendencies get the best of me with booze. I don’t have much by way of an off switch. I can go right down the roster of my closest friends and rattle off innumerable flagrant fouls. I don’t mean fist fights, but I tend to get loose lipped and say mean things. I, like many others, tend to think I’m way funnier than I actually am.
My wife and I attend all the Eugene Emeralds home games, and they serve delicious craft beers for $13.50 for 20 oz, it’s insane. After tip, it’s $30 a round. Again, insane. But I am struck by this feeling of FOMO. I love the taste of beer. Nonalcoholic beer like Athletic Brewing, is great, and I’m still an ambassador, but it’s not the same. That’s the point, but you don’t get the buzz. I kinda like when the edges get fuzzier. I tend to lighten up. I get more chipper. I smile more. I’m capable of having fun. Dead sober I’m a wet blanket. I don’t know how to have fun. I don’t know what fun is.
So I’m taking an indefinite break from it. Save me from shame and bankruptcy. When I went out to dinner at Pastini ahead of my sparsely attended Powell’s event, I didn’t get a beer, or wine, I bought a liter of Pelegrino sparkling water. It was delicious. I looked at the bill and was like $7! But then I thought, BO, you never flinch when you buy 2 beers for $15 and you’re gonna balk at that?
At the house I stayed at, my host offered me a glass of wine when I got back, and I said, I’m good, just ice water. No judgement, he got me a glass of ice water and I was RELIEVED. Like I set myself free from this invisible ball and chain to this substance that I’ve been conditioned to think is the key to unlock any and all “good times.” Honestly, it’s probably caused more pain than pleasure.
But my wife and I love breweries. We love that ice-cold beer after an 8-mile hike. Camping and beer is fun. We love drinking hard ciders and IPAs and dancing to 90s grunge music in our house. We’ve tried it sober and it’s not the same, like we’re forcing it, like, HAVE FUN WITHOUT THE BOOZE NOW! DO IT!
I do this probably twice a year. I drink too much. Then have to reset. Then I ease back in. I’m fine for a bit. Then I have one or two in public and invariably stop off at Fred Meyer for a six pack and have a couple more at home, sleep like shit, wake up with a neck ache, a head ache, start the shame cycle, and take my blood preasure and it’ll be like 154/101 and be like, yeah, this shit is killing me … until happy hour! Getting a kombucha at a brewery isn’t the same.
I don’t know…so I’m taking a break from it. I’d like to think I can have a good relationship to it they way I have a good relatinoship to Pepsi Zero Sugar. I love that soda and I drink like 2 a year and I’m good, because all those chemicals are objectively bad for you.
Future Brendan always needs to remind Present Brendan that Future Brendan never regrets not drinking the night before. Future Brendan is relieved. But Tacovore has the BEST margaritas! Shut up, BO. … don’t tempt yourself.
Melissa writes about addiction very well and I saw myself in it, even though I haven’t hit rock bottom. I’d like to avoid the bottom. I have too much left to do in this world to bottom out on booze. That’s so boring. So basic.
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- Should you elect to cite this transcript, please check it against the audio and credit me and the podcast. ↩︎
