Tag: creative live

Episode 169: Chase Jarvis — Discover Your Creative Calling

Chase Jarvis, author of Creative Calling.
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By Brendan O’Meara

Can you believe it? Chase Jarvis (@chasejarvis) is here! He’s here to talk about his incredible new book Creative Calling: Establish a Daily Practice, Infuse Your World with Meaning, and Succeed in Life + Work.

I can’t recommend it enough. Do yourself and a friend a favor and buy this book. You might want to listen and subscribe to his great podcast too, Chase Jarvis Live Show. He’s been doing this for ten+ years. Amazing stuff.

He made his bones as a photographer and might be most known for (these days) for founding Creative Live, the great online learning platform. I’ve purchased several classes that have helped me immensely.

As always, keep the conversation going on Twitter @CNFPod, Instagram @cnfpod, and Facebook @CNFPodcast. Sign up for the monthly newsletters where I share reading recommendations and what you might have missed from the world of the podcast.

And if you’re feeling froggy, leave a kind review on Apple Podcast. We’re knocking on the door of 100. It’s a long knock, but we’re getting there. Let’s do this!

You’re going to love how Chase went about writing this book as we break open the pinata of what makes this book — and Chase — so special.

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Episode 130—Alexandra DiPalma and the Podcast Revolution

Alexandra DiPalma, seen here on the set of her amazing Creative Live course.

By Brendan O’Meara

“It’s natural to most people to be like this needs to be perfect before I put it out into the world, but I think when you take that element away, it allows such a new level of productivity and creativity.” —Alexandra DiPalma (@LSDiPalma)

This is the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to badass writers, filmmakers, and producers about the art and craft of telling trues stories. I unpack their origin story, their rocky roads, their habits and routines, so you can improve your own work. Today you will get to know Alexandra DiPalma. 

But first…

Be sure to subscribe on iTunes and wherever you get your podcasts. Visit brendanomeara.com to subscribe to my monthly newsletter. Once a month. No spam. Can’t beat that.

So…

Continue reading “Episode 130—Alexandra DiPalma and the Podcast Revolution”

Podcap—How Gimlet Media’s ‘Surprisingly Awesome’ Teaches You To Pitch Stories

Written by Brendan O’Meara

For my first podcap—a recap of podcasts I’m listening to—I’m taking a look at the latest from Gimlet Media.

Gimlet Media released a new podcast, Surprisingly Awesome, featuring Adam McKay and Adam Davidson. Google their names if you want vital bio information.

This podcast tries to take something seemingly boring things like mold (Episode 1), free throws (Episode 2) and concrete (Episode 3) and illustrate how, you guessed it, awesome they are.

So far, all three have been, you guessed it again, surprisingly awesome, but there’s something more, something deeper this show represents that’s important to all storytellers and freelancers. It’s this: So what? or Why do I care about ­­­­ ______?

The podcast is, in essence, an elaborate story pitch of why something apparently mundane is, in fact, interesting, and worthy of our time and worthy of a publisher’s dollars.

In all three instances one of the hosts is bored while the other is excited. Like a defense attorney pleading his case for his client, he tries to sway a biased jury. No change of venue. The other host is the permanent venue so get over it.

Also at the core is this central statement, one created by Gimlet co-founder Alex Blumberg: I’m doing a story about X, and it’s interesting because of Y. You can take AB’s Creative Live course and learn all about this.

For the latest episode on concrete, AD could say, “I’m doing a story about concrete, and it’s interesting because natural disasters, like the Haitian earthquake, aren’t really natural disasters, they are concrete disasters.”

The story suddenly gets green lit because that is interesting. You feel it in your bones. Cheap concrete shatters and in poor, developing countries. The cheap concrete breaks like brittle when the earth rumbles.

This podcast, aside from being entertaining, is a master class in getting writers to probe deep into a mundane topic and find what is ultimately sellable about the story.

I host #CNF and would love for you to listen and subscribe. Also, throw down your email so you can updates from this website when I post something. No posts, no emails, no spam, ever.