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Time to Quit

By Brendan O’Mearahttp://twitter.com/brendanomeara

This is a tough one. This is a real tough one.

When do you quit a project? A book?

The greatest lesson I learned from my MFA program was when a mentor told me that my book was basically unpublishable and that it’s time to move on.

That stung.

So I did move on.

And published the next book.

It might be that once you’ve given it everything, that everything isn’t enough, so you must move along.

That book you keep failing to sell might be an anchor keeping you in harbor. Just because you pull up anchor doesn’t mean the anchor is gone. But until you pull up, you’ll never move.

Quitting isn’t forever, but only you can tell when you’ve exhausted your efforts. Quitting isn’t for losers. It’s for those who realize there’s far more to do.

Improve in Public

Bill Watterson’s brilliant and iconic comic, Calvin and Hobbes, is one of the most beautifully drawn and painted comics of all time.

But if you look to the very, very beginning of the comic Watterson’s drawings are raw, they’re minor league compared to where he ends up.

So by showing up, day after day after day, drawing that boy and that tiger and all the other characters that appear in comic over its entire run, they get sharper, cleaner, better.

You see this over and over again. The Far Side, Garfield, Doonesbury, Get Fuzzy. These artists are not fully formed, yet they still did the work and improved in real time in plain sight.

The work will never be perfect and you will never be ready and never be fully formed.

So work, work in plain sight and then notice how you improve. Don’t be stifled by perfection. Work and improve in public.

The To-Do List as Butterfly Net

By Brendan O’Meara

If you’re anything like me, you have a tendency to get easily overwhelmed.

Tasks pop into your head as fast as they leave. This is where the time-tested to-do list can act out another great function: a butterfly net.

Ideas can be like butterflies, all flittering around in aimless directions. You always say that you’ll remember that idea that popped into your head. Or you think you can keep it all straight.

Odds are you can’t.

So with your to-do list next to you at all times, use it like a butterfly net. When an idea or task pops into your head, immediately write it down on the list. This has a weirdly cathartic effect, like you actually captured the idea or task.

I find this relieves a lot of anxiety, especially since I work from home these days. My mind bounces from having to make new hummingbird water, to preparing for a podcast, to doing the dishes, to writing a column on deadline and so on.

Snatching ideas and tasks into my to-do list notebook secures them so I can act on them when I can.

The Aliveness of Silence

By Brendan O’Meara

After watching the brilliant documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor, I was especially struck by how silence is anything but quiet.

Silence is an ally.

As an interviewer, it helps coax more from people.

As a human, it makes you a better listener.

And a minute—60 seconds—is a long time. It is. And it can be a gift. I can recalibrate your mind. Temper anxiety.

I’m going to give you one minute of silence. You may use it however you want. You can breathe deeply for one minute, or maybe think about somebody special to you.

Here: Have a minute on me.

Drop Sets

By Brendan O’Meara

In weight lifting there are these sets called drop sets.

What they are is you start with heavier weight and do, say, eight reps, then drop weight, do eight more reps, and so on, for about four to five total sets in quick succession.

What happens is that first round is real heavy, but as soon as weight gets stripped away, it’s easier until you get tired. And so on.

Point is, the hardest reps are the ones at the start, but once you get moving, the weight gets lighter.

Same goes for your art. The heaviest words are always the first ones, but they get lighter and lighter as you get moving, but first you gotta lift that heavy weight so you can get the cascading effect of the drop set.

Episode 149: Anika Fajardo—Writing is About Communicating

Anika Fajardo, author of Magical Realism for Nonbelievers, stopped by CNF.

“Part of me thinks nobody should write a memoir.” —Anika Fajardo (@anikawriter on Twitter)

“Writing is about communicating, so that’s why we have to send things out. There needs to be a point where it goes out in the world and we communicate with a reader.” —Anika Fajardo (@anikawriter on IG)

By Brendan O’Meara

Here we are again friend. I’m in the midst of rebranding so you’re listening to CNF, the show where I talk to badass writers, filmmakers, producers, and podcasters about the art and craft of creative nonfiction.

Today’s guest is Anika Fajardo, the author of Magical Realism for Nonbelievers: A Memoir of Finding Family (University of Minnesota Press, 2019).

It’s in the same class as Jean Guerrero’s Crux, in my opinion. You can check out Jean’s episode here.

In any case, I hope decide to subscribe to CNF wherever you get your podcasts. And if you’d be so kind, I’d appreciate a rating or review over on Apple Podcasts. They help validate the show.

Also, keep the conversation going on Twitter by joining me @BrendanOMeara and @CNFPod. Tag the show and I’ll jump in the fire. It’s all good.

I think you’ll get a lot of tasty nuggets out of this episode. I hope you enjoy it and you share it widely with your CNFin’ friends!

Creative Inertia

By Brendan O’Meara

Lately I’ve been overwhelmed. Right now I’m overwhelmed. It’s taking everything out of me to write and record this little piece.

I almost didn’t do it.

But I made a deal with myself that I’d show up.

So I wrote one word and then the other words didn’t feel so heavy.

And suddenly the fly wheel is moving and it doesn’t want to stop.

And I don’t feel so overwhelmed anymore because movement is power. Movement creates inertia and creative inertia is intoxicating.

So pick the smallest possible thing and start.

On Aiming High and Coming Up ‘Short’

By Brendan O’Meara

You’ve heard the phrase shoot for the stars you just might land on the moon, right?

It’s a great sentiment, if you’re totally chill with landing on the moon.

Problem is if you’re the type of person delusional enough to shoot for the stars, maybe landing on the moon is a disappointment.

Here me out.

As a baseball player, I was just good enough that possibly playing in the pros wasn’t that much of a delusion. Throughout high school I busted and trained and hit and threw and fielded. I never made it to the pros, so by all accounts a disappointment.

But I was a damn good high school player and would’ve been a fine college player. My problem was that I couldn’t be satisfied with being a damn good high school player, one of the 100 best in New England. It meant nothing to me.

But…had I not pushed myself to that extreme of playing professionally, had I just been happy to be a decent high school player, I doubt I would’ve been a very good high school player at all. I shot for the stars and landed on the moon. My problem was I was grossly unsatisfied with the moon.

So we need to have Major League dreams and Major League work ethic, knowing all the while that reaching that mighty pinnacle is still unlikely, but that shouldn’t stop us, because pushing ourselves to that level will make us pretty damn good.

The trick—and the rub—is being happy with the moon.

And I think I have an answer for that, but I’ll save it for tomorrow.

The End of Job Shaming Part III

By Brendan O’Meara

Okay, so this’ll be my last (I think) post for a while on Job Shaming. [Parts I and II]

You know what Day Jobs also do? They put you out into the world and in contact with people, and if you’re a writer: people are where the stories are.

Gay Talese, say what you will about him in recent years, but his advice to young writers coming out of school is to get a job driving a cab. What better way to intersect with people, real people.

I owe my first book to a retail job. There I was a double major, an MFA holder, working at a shoe store.

I was fitting a woman for a pair of running shoes. She asked me what I did besides the retail gig. I told her I was a writer and I had this book, Six Weeks in Saratoga, that I had finished and was shopping around.

She said, “I know an editor at SUNY Press and I know they’re looking for a Saratoga book.”

She gave me the woman’s email. I sent her the manuscript and…fast forward a few months…they accepted and would later publish the book.

This was lucky, but I also had done the work and was in the position to capitalize.

And it was the menial Day Job, one that I felt tons of shame over, that ultimately led to my first book. And it’s a good, little book for a 29-year-old. I’m not gonna denigrate it.

Point is, every time you punch the clock at work, you might have the opportunity of running into someone and that is likely someone you would’ve never met had you not had your Day Job out in the world.

No shame in that.

The End of Job Shaming Part I

By Brendan O’Meara

You remember that photo, right? The one of the actor Geoffrey Owens, most famous for his role on The Cosby Show, working the register at Trader Joe’s? The photo taken by someone whose very intent was to shame a working actor for having what she perceived as a low-life job?

This angered me so much, but Owens graciously took the high road. He parlayed this job shaming into many appearances on morning talk shows. He lauded his employer for taking him in, for giving him a steady paycheck while he sought work as an actor. As a result, he ended up getting more acting work. He’s always been a working actor, and sometimes a working actor has to work at a job flexible enough to accommodate his craft. It’s not prestigious, but you wanna know what else isn’t prestigious: missing the rent.

If we’re not getting job shamed by our family or by someone at a party, then we almost certainly do it to ourselves. You think I spent all this money on education and it’s led me to working a crummy retail job because I can’t get enough writing gigs. You think Well, if I was any good at this craft, would I even need a day job? Or you start playing the Competition Olympics and think Well, my heroes, those artists I so deeply admire, they don’t have to stack produce at the supermarket while I fill-in-the-blank.

The fact is, in this day of social media highlights, YOU DON’T KNOW IF THEY’RE STACKING PRODUCE OR NOT. THEY MIGHT BE, BUT THEY’RE NOT BROADCASTING IT.

There are myriad things worth unpacking here and maybe this will be the first of several micropods about Day Jobs and Job Shaming.

I can speak to this because it’s something I have felt so deeply for many, many years.

I’ll leave you with this: Day Jobs are nothing to be ashamed of. Think of it as a way that subsidizes your art. Make what you can in the time you have and stop hating yourself for it.

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