It’s that Atavistian time of the month and we’ve got a two-for-one, BOGO!, with Lucy Sexton, a documentary filmmaker, and Joe Sexton, a lifelong newspaperman and father to Lucy.
Lucy was working on a doc about the Iran hostage crisis when her father was taken hostage while reporting in Libya. What came out of it was “Held Together,” edited by Seyward Darby.
What’s all the more compelling is the dual authorship, not in the traditional co-bylined affairs that are uniform in nature with two names atop the story. This is two distinctly tuned instruments playing together in harmony.
Usually after you have a discussion with your book editor, you have a clearer sense of what you’re doing. Energy. Gusto. I spoke with my editor on June 28. As you can tell, I haven’t written a word since. In fact, I’ve been sad. Like, I-can’t-face-the-day sad.
POV. POV. POV. POV. POV.
What’s my point of view in this biography? My whole concept — my instinct —was to just tell a good story with newer details from a longer lens. That’s not enough. Biographers must imbue the story with something that makes it wholly unique, looking askance at the central figure, even casting judgement. “As the biographer, you have your finger on the scale,” my very astute and downright brilliant editor told me.
I never knew creative block until this moment. I cannot crack this code of how to frame the book in a way that feels fresh and relevant. My interviews are falling flat because I’m running out of things to talk about. I don’t know how to bring fresh juice to these conversations. I thought building up certain “tent pole” moments would be exciting and great but … I don’t think so anymore.
I had a set of instincts going into this project and they’ve been cut off at the knees. And, at this writing, I have 8.5 to complete the reporting, the research, and the writing. As I wrote that sentence, my stomach dropped into my shoes.
Why am I writing this? What value-add is this for you? I can’t say there is any except a great lyric from Metallica’s “King Nothing”:
Careful what you wish, You might regret it Careful what you wish, You just might get it
I have a pal who has told me just to explain it now and write it later. My interpretation is to merely get things down on paper and worry about the sheen later, worry about the connective tissue later. Don’t worry so much about meaning but write the islands. Write out of chronological order.
Ultimately, this the Pressfieldian “Resistance” surfacing from the subterranean bowels of the lizard brain.
A mantra of sorts has helped me: Slow and steady. Deliberate focus.
I think of my office as my big batter’s eye. In my peripheral vision, when I’m sitting at my desk, from left to right and all the way in front of me, I like blank walls. And then I’ll put all of my research behind me. It’s kind of a crazy thing. I have stacks and stacks of research that I can’t see unless I turn around and grab it. That fools me into the fact that I there’s like tabula rasa, there’s a blank slate in front of me and all my research is behind me. And that’s when I can really do my writing.
She had the piece coming out. She wanted to talk about it. I was like, sure, sounds good. Here we are.
In this episode we chat about her lack of a 3 a.m. (or 3 p.m.) voice, the valorization of over-reporting, efficient interviewing, and suspiciously golden turmeric.
Another thing that I do, which is procrastination, but it’s also part of the process, is I’ll go for a run. And, of course, anybody who’s a runner who’s listening knows this, that’s when I often get some of my best ideas.
Alison Mariella Desir, Ep. 379
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A couple months ago I recommended Running While Black not only as a great read, but an important read. It gets into uncomfortable territory, but that’s what we need, it’s what we want, if we’re serious about inclusion, equity, diversity.
We start our conversation talking about procrastination and how running is part of Alison’s writing practice.
I feel like I don’t understand an essay until I’ve ready it a few times.
Steve Moore, Ep. 378
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Look who came back! It’s Steven Moore! He’s the author of The Distance from Slaughter County: Lessons from Flyover Country (UNC Press). Growing up in Iowa and spending the last several years on the west coast — many in Oregon — Steven toggles between when it meant to grow up in the midwest and the view from afar.
His essays range from riffs on the sitcom “Home Improvement,” Blockbuster Video, Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, and political coverage of a state that had voted for Obama, then flipped, you know, the other way.
Always nice to reach that Atavistian time of the month and this month has a great piece that combines the personal and the journalistic, “The Romance Scammer on My Sofa.”
These scammers, Yahoo Boys, as they’re called, spam people — the lonelier the better — in an effort to steal money. They’re based largely out of Lagos, Nigeria and there’s a great chance one of these Yahoo Boys has knocked on your door in one way or another.
They prey on the vulnerable, the lonely, and, for a short time, victimized Carlos’ mother, which led him on something of a manhunt to find the scammer, but what he found was a greater understanding of his mom.
Carlos is a journalist and student at the Columbia School of Journalism. You can find him on Twitter @CarolosBarraganT, and I hope you’ll head to magazine.atavist.com to read his piece and potentially subscribe. And, no, I don’t get any kickbacks, CNFer.
An interview, well done, elevates everybody. The interviewer gets what they want, they get this material and this deep detail, but the older I get, the more I realize that pretty much 90% of what human beings want out of life is to be seen and heard.
John Vaillant is here, CNFErs, to talk about Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World (Knopf). It’s an incredible feat of writing, reporting, and research and takes us to the devastating 2016 wildfire that tore through Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada.
You can find him on Twitter @johnvaillant and in this conversation he notes how Twitter actually helped him (what?!), and we also dig into interviewing for scene, not treating interviewing as an extraction industry, but more renewable, and fire, lots of fire.
You don’t have a lot of room to fart around and throw in stuff that doesn’t matter, you have to focus on what you’re doing and get it done, and then get out.
They are formerly of Creative Nonfiction Magazine until a failure in leadership forced Hattie, Stephen, and a handful of others to leave the magazine. What came of that experience is Short Reads.
So in this episode we talk about email marketing, building an email list, writing short nonfiction vs. long nonfiction. It’s a concentrated dose of goodness.
Stephen also is an accomplished collage artists, so be sure to check out his website to get a sense of what his work is about. Collage is the bomb.
That imposter syndrome is a big piece of it because I always question am I the right person to write this story? Am I the best person to write this story? Why am I writing this story? Why will someone talk to me about this? That’s always a hard piece of it for me.
This is a great conversation about what the athletic science community has gotten wrong — or just straight-up lazy — when it comes to the science behind women’s athletics. The book deals largely with the male-female binary and doesn’t really delve into the experiences of trans athletes. That’s for another book, one presumes.
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