NaBloPoMo 2010 ... #5: Podcast Endorsement

Even during these times that I haven't been writing over the last couple of years, a particular podcast has helped me keep my head at least partially in the game. It's the Pen On Fire podcasts from Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, out at UC Irvine.

There are probably numerous podcasts on writing out there — I know I've listened to at least one other series, though it was pretty unhelpful. I'm not sure that podcasting is the medium to learn writing. But what the Pen On Fire podcasts help me understand is not writing so much as the writing life. DeMarco-Barrett and her co-host Marrie Stone interview fiction writers, nonfiction writers, agents, editors, and publishers about the industry, the economics of writing, the importance of "platform," and just the everyday experience of being a writer.

The podcast can be extremely annoying at times: I can't shake the fact that both DeMarco-Barrett's and Stone's voices and on-air demeanor take most of their inspiration from the old SNL skit of the two new-agey female NPR on-air personalities who breathily talk their way to nothingness in the guise of profundity. But more often than not, the writer who is being interviewed — even if it's a writer in a genre that I know nothing about or have little interest in — has some important things to say about the everyday experience of being a writer.

The podcasts are also available on iTunes, if that's the boat you prefer to float.

NaBloPoMo 2: Inspiration and Cocktail Parties

I was in the car yesterday, headed to Whole Foods to buy the ingredients for an appetizer I needed to prepare for a cocktail party last night ... I know, I know. Me and a cocktail party. That's just weird. But I have to face up to the fact that I do live on Chicagoland's North Shore, and the cocktail party is one of the major ways that grown-ups socialize. In this case, the group was the parents of Zuzu's pre-kindergarten class.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Anyway, I was in the car and, per usual, listening to one of the many podcasts on my iPod. In this case, it was an episode of NPR's Fresh Air, and Terry Gross was talking to Rev. Forrest Church, a Unitarian minister with a new book out called Love and Death. It's an account of how he has come to terms with his diagnosis of terminal esophogeal cancer. One would think that such a book (and interview) would be pretty sad, but this guy was incredibly uplifting as he talked about how he has worked through these heavy issues. I especially liked the fact that he admitted that, while he's not scared now, he figures that when he's lying on his probable death bed and the end is close, he will most likely be pretty freaked out about the whole thing.

But that's not what I'm really here to tell you about. What I wanted to say was that I had to pull my ass over and fish out my ever-present tiny spiral notebook where all my random/spontaneous thoughts go. Because I had just had an important breakthrough with the main character in Son of a Saint. I realized that his coming to terms with his return to the family concern will be very much like coming to terms with death: he'll be embracing something he has feared for most of his adult life, and he will be effectively "killing" the life he had built for himself for the last number of years.

And this, of course, allows me to start to explore a whole new vein of research: coping with an impending death. (This goes along with another area I've already explored from a particularly tragic part of the story: coping with a sudden, unexpected death of a close, loved one.)

This has been what a lot of the last year has been like for me. The first draft of this novel has been largely the structural bones, with a little meat here and there, in sections where I knew (or discovered as I wrote) some deeper details about characters, what makes them tick, their circumstances and emotional environments and what happens to them. But since the end of NaNoWriMo 2007, I've found that I'm discovering the nitty-gritty of the overarching themes. And I've been making tons of notes about what Walt does or thinks about situation X, or how Sherry reacts after Situation Y, or how devastating Situation Z is on Audrey's psyche and how this will change the way she views certain characters or the world.

If I was able to devote my life full-time to writing, all of this would happen much faster, I'm sure. But these moments are s p r e a d way out, sometimes by weeks. It bugs me sometimes that progress is so slow on the story, but everyone around me assures me that it will all get done in time, that I just need to be patient. I have a hard time knowing if they're saying this to be nice to me or if they truly believe this.

One of the big sources of inspiration for my novel is, of course, the everyday moments of my life, particularly around my family (since one of my characters is a five-year-old, and I'm living with an almost-4- and an almost-7-year-old; oh, and one of my characters is a mother, and I guess I'm living with one of those too *grin*). But the other sources of inspiration that brings a lot of new life into this are the people I encounter in these podcasts, and their stories. In addition to Fresh Air, the podcasts for This American Life have been very helpful, though I have to be careful there, because the stories are so good and often unbelievable that they are practically their own novels. I have to dig down to the level of the basic themes (love, loss, etc.) to get to the heart of what might be going on with my own characters.

My other helpful podcast source is The Kathy and Judy Show on WGN-AM Radio. It's just your typical morning talk show, with the hosts bringing up everyday topics and callers from around Chicagoland (and beyond) calling in to share their own experiences or give their two cents. A lot of it is claptrap, but every once in awhile something hits that just blows me away, and I hear one of my novel's characters talking right there through my iPod earbuds.

All these sources keep the flame alive, even when I don't have a lot of time to pour out tons of words. And they bring in new lives and fresh perspectives far out the (currently very limited) span of my family-and-work-life. It keeps the brain churning a little harder, and it lifts me momentarily out of the soggy worries of the daily existence of a suburban father with a 9-to-5 who fancies himself a novelist.

Oh, and by the way: cocktail parties help with inspiration too. The father last night who went on a ridiculous long soliloquy about the pros and cons of (seemingly) dozens of different tequilas ... It came across as such a non-sequitir conversation in my life that it just cried out to be used somewhere. It'll find its place. I've got the notes to make sure of it.

(It felt weird to be at a cocktail party on November 1st and not be doing that thing that the rest of you were probably doing at your cocktail parties last night: dropping not-so-subtle hints about the masterpiece you're returning to once you are talked out, alcoholically lubricated, and ready to turn back to your keyboards later that evening. But I know more about agave than I ever thought I would, so I guess it evens out in the end.)

A metaphor for our times?

Essentially, the problem is: Through intent and capability, we have a Superbowl-quality NFL football team: 300-pound guys, run the 40 in 4.3, they bench-press 550 pounds. We've got a lot of them, and they're good. And the door opens in the gym, and they go outside ... and the problem is, it's water polo. And they're going against the guys — I mean little guys — 130, 140 pounds, wearing goofy hats, swim like fish, and they're throwing a ball, and that's how they keep score.

That's Cofer Black (my emphasis added, but from his vocal inflections), a former director of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center. He was speaking at a fascinating multi-day conference held at Tufts University back in March, called "The War On Terrorism: How Are We Doing?" (a title that created its own controversy within the conference, by the way).

If you're interested, podcasts of the main sessions are available for free via iTunes, on the University Channel Podcast page. It's a lot of listening — over ten hours — but I haven't gotten a clearer picture of the situation from any other source.