Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever!
“It’s like trying on clothes when you’re a young writer, early in your career, you’re constantly trying to figure out who you are.” — Hampton Sides, Ep. 473
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.
OK, so many of you know I started this podcast back in 2013, but I didn’t get really serious about it until the end of 2016 and into 2017. And I made a list of some titans I wanted on the show. And I scribbled on my little pad some names, some I’m like, I don’t really give a shit about that person, that one kind of annoys me and doesn’t need any more attention, but on that list was a guy named Hampton Sides (@hamptonsidesauthor), someone who came up in the hey day of Outside Magazine, among other amazing outlets like The New Yorker, Nat Geo, and the New York Times. Not bad for a Yaley … says the guy who only got into his safety school, go U-MASS!
So Hampton Sides is here to talk about his latest book The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact, and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook. Fuckin’ thing was featured on Barack Obama’s — or as we’d say in my native Massachusetts, Obahmer — summer reading list in 2024 and the paperback is out now and should be on your beach read, which is fitting as you can imagine the ships Discovery and Resolution coming into shape on the blue horizon. It’s published by Doubleday.
The dogs have vet bills. My sugar mama needs massages, man.
So Hampton was great. There was a moment halfway through where my dogs got to barking, then howling, which made me give them a stern talkin’ to. I think I edited that out. I should have. Hope I did. I can tolerate a little barking in the background, but the howling is obnoxious. Hampton got a laugh out of all of it … He’s the author of eight books including In the Kingdom of Ice, Hellhound on his Trail, and Ghost Soldiers.
Here we talk about:
- How he found his lane of book writing
- Of transitioning from a journalist to a popular historian
- Finding the frame
- Writing in coffee shops
- Running to the computer in the middle of the night
- And an April Fool’s Day joke gone horribly wrong
Learn more about Hampton at hamptonsides.com and follow him on the gram @hamptonsidesauthor
Great stuff, had a real fun time. I think Hampton could be the younger brother of Tracy Kidder. They got a similar look. . Parting shot about the compendium, and laziness, and foot dragging… for now, queue the montage, huh…
On finding your voice …
“It’s like trying on clothes when you’re a young writer, early in your career, you’re constantly trying to figure out who you are.”
On finding ideas …
“I don’t do the same era or geographical part of the country. I don’t get into too deep of a groove. I move on to something radically different, and that is fresh to me, keeps me curious, keeps me interested. It’s the ignorance that I have for a certain period or a certain place or certain cast of characters that drives me to do these books, and keeps it interesting, keeps it keeps it new.”
On needing the rational and irrational mind …
“There’s two sides to this thing, the first one is completely rational and the other one is completely irrational, and the rational one is just like little boxes you want you have to check off. Are there good characters? Is there a good story arc? Is there good primary material? Is it something that’s of general interest to a large number of people, but also something that hasn’t been written about too much? Like, ‘Oh no, not another book on Lincoln?’ You gotta find that sweet spot of a big, consequential subject that hasn’t been written about too much. And then the irrational side is basically the feeling, the gut feeling, the visceral feeling that you get when you first hear about a story. It’s like falling in love. The hair on the back of your neck stands up, and it’s like, ‘Holy crap. I did not know that.’ Or I want to write that. To me, the irrational part is equally important as the long laundry list of rational boxes that you want to check off. You gotta have both.”
That honeymoon feeling …
“You have to have that at the beginning. If you don’t, it’s going to be really tough sailing two years, three years into your project, when the honeymoon is over. You have good days and bad days. Sometimes you’re still fascinated by the subject, but it’s hard, hard work at that point, and you better have had that touchy-feely early moment to get you through this long ordeal of writing a book, because it’s never easy. These books are so hard, mentally, physically, spiritually. To get to the finish line, you got to have a lot of irons in the fire and a lot of motivations and a lot of inspiration to get to get to that other side.”
On the research and writing …
“I would say my books are about three quarters research and sort of mining my research, and then one quarter writing.”
On recorders …
“If I’m able to tape record somebody talking, then I can let my notes do the color commentary. The tape recorder is getting the words and I’m writing down what color shirt he’s wearing and what, what’s happening in the background, and was he fidgeting with his shoes there, and there’s a bird that just flew overhead, or there’s a pot of chili cooking on the stove behind him. All that kind of stuff. The recorder frees me up so that I can let my imagination and my observations wander.”
On organizing the research …
“Well, one thing I’ve found that helps me, especially with this book, was to have a condensed document, which is like all the quotes that I want to use from all the different sources all in one place. It’s almost like an artist has to have a palette with all his paints right there on the palette, so they can dip in, and you can dip in and use those quotes.”
Hamptons Rec
Don’t talk about the book you’re writing … write the book.
Parting Shot: On Foot Dragging
OK, so I’m filling out the compendium for the next biography … and there are some dry days … I don’t write in it every day, especially of late since I’ve been tied up with Front Runner promo and the usual self-loathing and inertia to do nothing but wash dishes and tend to the ever-growing list of house chores.
But the compendium was always a way to catalog what I’m doing and just as importantly what I’m not doing. I probably have about five hours of tape strung across four key sources. I have yet to dive into the transcripts to try and draw up a baby proposal, which thankfully is all my agent feels she needs. The subject is big enough, and having stuck the landing on The Front Runner, a solid overview and proof of sourcing and possibly some tasteful nudes should seal the deal.
I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being lazy. My out of the box software isn’t the most rigorous. I go back to my days playing ball. Like, when I was really killing it, I worked exceptionally hard … for a high schooler … Then I got onto a competitive college roster, and combined with being red-shirted and burnt out, I failed to level up. Now everyone is good or great and you have to work even harder.
I failed to work even harder because I was a walk-on. Like, if you outperform the recruits, like I was at one point, a coach isn’t impressed, he’s actually embarrassed and it wounds his ego. Like, he gave full boats to these guys that this chump is out-performing and he can’t possibly cut the recruits. But the guy who walked on, no scholarship, no ego tied to that guy, yeah, cut that ass …
I needed to work triple hard to stay on par with the others, which I suspect is how women and minorities feel in the workforce when going toe-to-toe with white dudes. But yeah, meritocracy is what we favor. Yeah, right.
Point being … my hard work and luck got me Six Weeks and Saratoga. But I had to grind longer, work harder, get luckier for The Front Runner. And now, there’s no coasting. I have to work even harder for this next one to stay in the game. I have to level up again. The sourcing for this book will likely number close to 1,000 if I do it right. Pre was closer to 200. Nobody wants to read a doorstop, so the book will likely be under 400 pages, but the sourcing could fill 1,000. That’s addition by subtraction. That’s leaving a book on the floor. That’s being ruthless. That’s the hard work.
In any case, the compendium is me holding my feet to the fire. Oh, you only made ten calls today? You need to be making twice that. You need to average about two interviews a day to get the material you need to make this a compelling narrative biography. Listen, you’re at an age where you can assume the mantle as a preeminent sports biographer. Why not go for it? Be in and of that class. Shoot for that shit. Don’t sandbag yourself because you feel like a fraud.
Do it for the others. If I can further elevate my standing, I’m pulling the podcast with me and the podcast pulls the others. I hope I can open doors and bust the deadbolts because I never want doors slamming behind me.
Like and subscribe …
Many Moons Ago
400 Episodes Ago
Patsy Sims on Book Research as Mini-education, Not Giving Up, and “The Stories We Tell
300 Episodes Ago
Sonja Livingston — Expeditions in Devotion, Trust, and The Virgin of Prince Street
200 Episodes Ago
100 Episodes Ago
