Scribe

I am completely obsessed with this pen. It is. Listen to this.

It's got a good clip.

Oh, gosh. Hello and welcome to episode 186 of the Erasable Podcast. I'm Tim, here with Andy and Johnny, and we are thinking about creativity. How's it going, guys? Good.

Anti creativity. Boo.

Johnny, are you nursing a sunburn from your travels or so?

Got sunburned. Go karting. How long were you go karting?

Imagine you getting around the track and you get to the end and you pull up and the guy's like, time to get out, sir. And you hand him a 20 bill, and you're like, put me out there again.

The size of the sunburn. Yeah. Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah. When we were in Georgia, like, our family that lives in Georgia were like, yeah. This time of year, we just don't go outside between, like, this hour and this hour. Like, oh, that's funny. And like, no, they were. They just didn't. They did not go outside. They didn't go anywhere. They're just like, no, seriously, don't go outside. And then I made that mistake once, and then I was done. I don't even need to go outside to get sweaty.

Yeah. So cool. Well, it's good talking to you guys. And so school is either about to start for some of you, or it just started or it's starting. For most of our listeners, even those of us who Whose lives don't revolve around the academic calendar. Sometimes we feel a creative pull as summer winds down and we thought we'd take a deep dive into the books that we find inspiring or informational. Taking what we like might be a short tour through the creative self help books that we have enjoyed or benefited from. And the perfect place to start would be tools of the trade, the things we're using now, things that we're enjoying now. So Johnny, why don't you get us started?

Just. Just art of the deal. That's the only one that I've read from a family member. Your favorite uncle, Crazy Uncle Donnie.

not the kind of former erasable guest.

How about you, Tim, I've got a couple things actually. I think everything in my consuming I've talked about before, but I'll explain. I think I mentioned that I was reading this, but I just finished it today. Finally, the Tom Petty biography. It's called Petty the Biography by Warren Zanes. And it was. I think when I talked about it last, I was maybe halfway through and I just finished it and it was really great. I mean, I'm a sucker for rock and roll biographies, big time. And this one did not disappoint. And it just kind of made it even more overwhelming how prolific and awesome Tom Petty was. Like, he almost never put out a stinker. And just like reminded me reading this book and the person who wrote it had like a personal connection with him. Like, had opened for him. And then, you know those. If you ever read those 33 and a third books or have you seen these little really cool slim books and they're just. It's a. It's almost like novella length, but it's like a little slim book dedicated to an album. So they write. It's almost like a beefed up liner notes, but they get creative. Like sometimes, like authors will be like, hey, I'm gonna do a. I think there's one for. I want to say it's music at Big Pink by the band that was actually fiction. They wrote it as like a novel or something like that. But they so get creative with them and there's tons of them and they're great. But he had written one for Dusty in Memphis by Dusty Springfield. And I guess like 15 years after he had talked to Tom Petty and been around him, and he picked that book up and was like, wow, that was great. I need to talk to this guy. And then they reconnected and then he ended up writing his official biography, which is really. It was really good. So I highly recommend it. And I actually just queued up. I saw that he wrote the book, came out in 2015, and in 2018, after Tom Petty died, he wrote kind of not exactly like an extension, but like wrote about the death of Tom Petty for Rolling Stone. And I'm so. It's kind of like a. What do you call it, a denouement or something for the book. But I'm gonna read that tonight. And we just re. Watched a movie called the Way with Martin Sheen, which was. We were re watching it. So clearly we liked it, but it was even better than I remembered it. It is. It was written, produced and directed by his son, Emilio Estevez. And he's also in it. So it's about Martin Sheen is this ophthalmologist whose son, kind of his only son, it's like around 40 run, doesn't run off, but he just says like I'm giving up this kind of lifestyle that I've been working towards and I'm dropping out of my PhD and I'm just going to go travel. And then he ends up going on the Camino de Santiago in Spain and. And dies.

And so this is the story of Martin Sheen's character, like going to get his ashes and then he ends up like finishing the Camino Santiago with his son's ashes and like meeting all these characters along the way. It's a really great movie. So glad I rewatched it. And the other one, the last thing is I've talked about Mandolin Orange before and they changed their name to Watch House. And I talked about their album Watch House that came out and last week they have a new album by Watch House called Watch House.

Watch House Duo. So anyways, they re released their new album, like their new self, whatever we call it, like self titled album. But they did it just as the husband and wife duo, like all acoustic. It's like a really stripped down version. But they did it in a studio like super official. And it's fan. It's wonderful. Very relaxing. Good stuff. The album itself was good. But I think, I don't know if they did that just because they like doing that or if they did it because people were like, hey, we miss you and you two. Just because that's how they tour is just the two of them. But the album had, you know, a full band like pedal steel and drum set here and there and so. But it's cool. So. So it's called Watch House Duo by Watch House. By Watch House. Formerly known as Mandolin Orange, now known as Watch House. And I am writing with my new favorite pen. This is blasphemous, but I couldn't not talk about it tonight. I got a mahjong which used to be Moon Man. I guess they like rebranded or split branding or something.

Yeah, that's fair. It's true.

I'll tell you, who cares? It's just a name. But it's funny. But mine actually says Moon man on it, so suck it, Kaweco. Mine Says Moon man. And it is their clone of the pilot. Vanishing Point retractable fountain pen. It's in matte black and I've got G herbon Pearl Noir. I'll go with the American pronunciation of that one. Pearl Noir black in it. And it's an EF nib, which I don't usually like, but I am completely obsessed with this pen. It is. Listen to this.

Oh, gosh. But it is such a cool pen and it came, it worked great right out of the box, like didn't have to adjust it or anything. And I think there's something about like how these Vanishing Point style pens, like, they don't even need to be perfectly tuned because the nib and what do we call like the innards of the pen is kind of a separate deal than the barrel. So if it's scratchy, you don't even really feel it too much. I think if that makes sense because there's like a degree of separation but grading flow. It's an ef but I like it and it works great in like civilian notebooks. Works great in field notes and stuff. I just love it. Keep in my pocket. I've been using it exclusively for several days and it's kind of makes me feel like I found my like ultimate carry around fountain pen. I love it so much. And it's like, I mean it's. I know it's a copy, it's a clone and there's some like ethics there. But yeah, I mean it's like an eighth of the price or something. I don't know. Got it for about 25 bucks. I know I have used an actual Vanishing Point. Actually one of my co workers has one and it definitely feels better. I mean it's got a gold nib and it's super smooth and a little wetter. But this is serving my purposes just fine.

So I'm using that and I am writing in my Maruman spiral notebook.

this is so great.

The.

Great name.

Not Ian McEwen. Yeah, like the guy who Wrote Atonement and.

I went through like a big Ian McEwen phase, like four or five years ago and read like five of his books in a row and really enjoyed him.

It was one. I. You guys will probably remember this, like, when I got. Initially got super obsessed with novellas, and I was just, like, obsessed with it. And he. I ended up reading some great article that he wrote about the novella, and then that led me to his book On Chesil beach. And then I ended up reading Amsterdam and just kind of like Domino Effect through, like, several of them.

It has a really good, like, tactile feel to it.

I got that really good texture on the COVID And it's got the. They did. It does have the.

Yeah.

Which is great. Awesome. But I'm super excited about that. I. Yeah. Like you said, we'll have more to say about this later. And I haven't started reading it, but I was pleasantly surprised when that showed up. And it was. I don't mean this. I don't mean anything by this, but it's bigger than I thought.

I was expecting it to be kind of a spare kind of book, but, like, as I'm. I saw it, I was like, oh, wow, it's longer. And then I started flipping through it and kind of seeing how it was organized, and I was like, oh, interesting. Oh, interesting. The scope of it was so much bigger than I was expecting. So I'm looking forward to digging in. Yeah.

Sounds like you did it on purpose. Like, you're like, yeah, the COVID No,

Well, everything's fine.

Yes.

Cool.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or dull.

Mostly never dull. Erasable podcast. The rarely dull podcast.

even. Sounds like erasable.

Yeah, let's get into it. So I am. There's a songwriting podcast that I listen to called the Working Songwriter, which is done by Joe Pug, and he interviews these great songwriters from all these different genres and talk about their process. And in his intro to the episode, he always says, like he has some. This is this phrase that is basically so here I am. To give you what every writer is ultimately looking for. A reason not to sit down and write. And sometimes the books we're going to talk about today can serve that purpose. They certainly have done that to me over the years where it's like, before I start writing my next story, I better read again about how to do this. Like, as if I don't just need to figure it out. But there's a. I mean, there's a whole industry of what can only be described as self help books for creative types. And they cover productivity, an organization, how to get into a market, how to get a grant, how to get, you know, get into competitions, how to run a successful social media strategy. And anyone who does creative work these days has plenty of stuff to look at besides doing, you know, what they should actually be doing. And a lot of things that are telling you you should do it this way. This way. So being such creative types, we would like to start exploring and sharing what we like and consume in this genre. So we're planning to span this discussion over maybe a couple episodes. Tonight we're going to talk about what we look for in books about creativity and writing and creating and et cetera. And then next time we'll talk about some more titles, like specific titles that we found especially useful and inspirational or just awesome. And then maybe we'll do an After Dark one about ones that sucked.

So yes, I'm glad we're doing this topic. This is something that I have an embarrassing amount of knowledge about. Just because I've read so many of these and I have such a wide collection of them. I can blame it on my years in education and saying I was looking for ideas of what to do with my students. But no, I was looking for like the, you know, the book that I was going to open up and there was going to be this like carved out little hole in the middle of the book with this pill that I would just like pop and then suddenly I turned into Neil Gaiman or whatever and it just didn't happen.

Okay, cool. Yeah, just put it in with my next zine.

Who makes the pill? You're working on the book. Just, you just need the pill. Okay.

Okay, good to know. It's like really a really extra like Monday through Sunday, like medicine organizer. That's like inside of a book. You want to make one of those for me? Put a belly band on it and you open up the book and then there's like a square for each day of the week and you put your pills into it. I would.

Okay. Patent pending. Yeah.

So let's see how. So let's just again, so Johnny, you know, we've all, we've talked about these kind of books. You shared a couple with me and with us over the years. I know you have some favorites, but just in general, like what are you looking for? Well, actually here I'm going to kind of catch you guys off guard. So first of all, in what situation. Do you reach for these kinds of books? Like when do you find yourself wanting to or tending to reach for these kind of books?

Yeah, go for it.

Yeah. How do you do? I. So my I, mine is usually dictated by what genre my own writing is moving towards at a certain time. Because sometimes I go through a phase where I'm thinking a lot about poetry or I'm curious about the essay or I'm obsessed with short stories or whatever. And so usually that's. Reaching for these kinds of books is what I use to reconfigure my brain towards something else. For better or worse. I don't think it's like the right way to do it, but I think that's when I tend to reach for these, is when I'm at some sort of turning point or I'm at a. Or me. Or maybe it's a point where I've like, wow, this is really hard to write poetry. Maybe I'll try short stories now. And then I reach for a book about short stories. But that, yeah, that usually, that's usually it. And then there are a few, few handful of them that I could probably, you know, there's probably four or five that I could grab at any given moment just to kind of give myself a little creative boost, no matter what I'm. What I'm working on. Yeah. So that's. I wanted to get that out of the way first, like when, like these kind of books, I mean, I don't. I've got a lot of them and I know you guys have some too, but like, I don't think any of us are in the situation where we're reading them sort of all the time or we're consuming them a lot. But I think we, you know, go through phases, so. But Johnny, in these kinds of books, what are you looking for in a like zoomed out point of view?

And that voice. Oh yeah, that voice.

Not yet.

Not yet. I did. I just got the comics from. Oh yeah, the library, like to. Because I think like back in the day I'd read the first like three or something. First three, what do you call them? Not issues. But yeah, like part one, part two, part three, like those. The first three collections or whatever. But I wanted to get back into it.

Yeah, I think about length a lot with books like this. I want them to be like, to the point to not be too long winded. There are some that like just the way that I put it is like when they're too self important, where it's like I have so much to say on this topic, right. Like I get my BS meter kind of starts to ding a little bit. Like, like, all right, dude. Yeah, like just get on with it. Like just how do you make a character believe? But yeah, I'm. I think all three of us in our notes mentioned the word practical. You would definitely like want something practical or specific about it. But I, and I think for me it's that like I look for, I want to read something that is practical but not too self important. And I like it when they focus on the process in like a really mundane way. Like as in like, hey, you're not me and I'm not you. But this is what I do. Like, I really like that. I like when I can read something where it's like, this is what my process looks like. I'm going to show you behind the scenes. You can see here's what my day looks like. Here's my thought process is like modeling it for you.

Not at all. Yeah, exactly. And so I really like that because then what I feel like that gives me permission to do is be like, oh, interesting. Like I got a good feel of his or her personality. Like, this is what they're. Like, this is the way they process things. Just from them being honest and describing it in the way they did. I don't think that part of it's going to work for me, but I really like this. Like, this is really intriguing. I like to be able to cherry pick it like that. Yeah. And one that I'll talk about in much more detail when we get together for the next episode. That's like a perfect example of that kind of thing is Ron Carlson writes a story, which I think I've talked about years ago, but that is literally the short story writer Ron Carlson telling the story of writing one story. Like it was his short story, the Governor's Ball. And he's. And he just from start to finish, this little slim book, like 75 pages. And he walks through it for the process, like, here's the first idea, here's the second idea. Here's how I crammed them together. Here's what the first draft looks like. Here's what I needed to fix. Here's what I need to fix in the next draft. You know, it's like super streamlined.

And the whole time he's like, listen, I'm no expert. I'm just telling you how I do it. Which I appreciate. I don't like when they say, you know, do it like this. I like when they say this is how I do it. So. And I think the memoir element helps me a lot too. Like when I get a feel of their character and I get a feel of, like, the way they think as a reader and whatever.

Where I just feel like they're just giving us a little snapshot of them rather than saying there's some kind of like, deity. That's really important. So I like those a lot books like that short and to the point. And I've got like another part of my brain. So there's like the short and practical. Like, I want it to be short and directly to the point and very specific. And I'll just do with it what I can. And then the other side of my brain likes the like, wildly impractical ones, which the example that I thought of that again, I'll talk about later the next episode is the Writing Life by Annie Dillard, which is just a very, like loosey goosey, poetic kind of description of what the life of a writer is like. It's very non linear and she just walks through, like, how it feels Instead of talking about the actual act of it, you know, like, like it's like it's almost more about mindset than it is about process, which is super intriguing. And again, that book is short. It's like 80 pages long, but it's super rich. Just a very rich short book. And so those are kind of the two ends of the spectrum for me. And I like those both quite a bit. I just thought of this when we were, when you guys were talking. I'd be really curious and if anybody who's listening has suggestions, I'd love to hear them. For creativity and writing books that aren't. Or sorry, not writing books. Creativity books that aren't aimed solely at writers.

Yeah, it's not.

Yeah. Performance artist. Right. Yeah, yeah, you're right. She does say that. And there's other ones. Like Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. She talks about it that way too, which I'll. I love that book, but I'm talking like a book that was written for oil painters or a book that was written photographers. Like I'd be curious to read something like that, like about the creative process from the vantage point of a non written art form.

Yeah, that'd be super interesting.

What is it called?

This is making me realize that maybe the. What I'm asking for is also an explanation. Like, me wanting it is an explanation for why I love things like Chef's Table on Netflix. Because it's the same kind of, like, part of your brain, you know, like storytelling, and you're bringing people together. You're trying to, like, get an idea across, but it's in food. And I find that, like, super duper fascinating.

Did I like food books also?

And I think you have mentioned this. Wait.

Yeah.

I feel like the thing that all of these books, from all the way from meetings to French cuisine to, like, how to write a horror story, like, probably the thing that they have. This is just me kind of hypothesizing, but, like, the thing they have most in common that we can gain from is the idea of, like, iteration.

Or like, the idea of, like, process and repetition. Like, chefs like You. When you. On that chef's table show, they talk about how they will try out new things, like, on different nights where there's, like, chefs like, oh, tonight we're trying this out. We're trying this out. And some nights it does. Yeah. They just. People don't like it, and it's a flop, and then we take it off the menu. We do something else the next day.

Yeah, that kind of idea. Like. Like you mentioned. I think you're the one who said, like, something about not being too precious.

Right.

Yeah. Like a little bit of touch of improvisation.

That's interesting. Yeah, I know there was a. Like, two examples going through my head at the same time, but, you know, Rainier Maria Rilke or. Rilke. Yeah. So he was. I mean, he's a poet. Was always a poet, but, like, famously was the assistant to Rodin, the sculptor. Yeah. And so he was, like, as a. He was a poet, but he was super inspired by the sculptor Rodan, and, like, wrote his. The first Rodan biography was written by him, like after he died. And like, I always found that relationship really fascinating that his. Like, I have a book about it. Like the. You must. What's it called? Like, you must give up your life or something like that. But it's a book about their relationship. And it's like he. His primary influence. It was like the Bible and Rodan, but he was a poet, you know, which is really fascinating. And actually Annie Dillard, it's in one of her books. I think it was Pilgrim at Tinkle, Tinker Creek. Tinkle Creek, Tinkle Creek, Pilgrim at Tinkle Creek. The Pilgrim of Tinkle Creek, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

I think, like, the book starts with her talking about being like camping or being out in the. Out in nature and reading a biography of Cezanne or something like that. Like reading a biography of a poet or of a painter. And that's something else we could talk about on another night. But I do find a lot of inspiration in the creative realm from just reading about the lives of creative people. Kind of like the same thing I was saying at the beginning about just, this is how I do it. This is the way I think. Yeah, do with it what you will. It's like kind of getting that at like a blown up perspective, which sometimes it's too much. So I like those shorter books, but that's. That Tom Petty book I was talking about earlier was super inspiring because it just talks about him, you know, hammering out a song like wildflowers in 45 minutes and stuff. It's like, what, are you kidding me? Like, how does that. How is that even possible?

So wait, I am trying to break your heart. Like the Wilco one.

Whoa.

Yeah, very cool. I love that.

Right.

Yeah. Usable is an interesting word to bring up in the subject of this. Like Johnny, I was thinking that makes me think of the right to write that book that you sent me by Julia Cameron. How it's like written in like smaller chunks that you can hyper. Yeah, I guess technically just jump around wherever. Technically. I mean that book maybe is a little more linear than some but like basically like exercise books that can throw you off and make you go in a different direction. I don't know. So. Yeah, so I guess next episode we'll talk. We'll kind of each decide maybe on a few that we want to highlight and we'll talk about maybe how we found them, share some quotes and some insights from the book and then. Yeah, maybe we'll talk about a couple stuff stinkers too. You know, what to avoid.

But I'm looking forward to it. I like this topic and I'd love to hear what other people. What books listeners go to when they're looking for inspiration as well.

yeah. Send us a voice memo or something. You know, record a voice memo and email it to us. Maybe we'll use it. Use it on the show. Yeah, so. All right, that was fun, guys. So I'm looking forward to that conversation. Let's. We'll close things up for. For this episode and then we'll hit it. Hit the ground running next week and see if you guys can keep me from talking the whole time. All right, well, thank you everyone for listening. This has been episode 186 of the erasable podcast. If you don't already, you should join our Facebook group@facebook.com groups erasablepodcast. And you can like our page@facebook.com erasablepodcast we'd like to thank our Patreon producer level patrons. Melissa Miller, Digital Tent Tech Angie Aaron Bollinger, Matthew Shaven, Andrew Austin, Tara Whittle, Ida Umphers, David Johnson, Phil Munson, Donnie Pierce, Bill Black, Ed Swift, Tom Keakley, Andre Torres, Paul Moorhead, John Cappellouti, Jamelia Stephen FrancisCali, Aaron Willard, KP Millie Blackwell, Michael Diallosa, Jacqueline R. Myers, Tana Feliz and Sipe, Joe Crace, Michael Hagan, Chris Metzkus, Bill Clow, Jason Dill, Mary Collis, Alex Jonathan Brown, Kathleen Rogers, Bobby Lutzinger, Kelton Wiens, Hans Noodleman, Jane Newton, Chris Jones and John Wood. Sorry, Actually it was a. It was Andy. Your little on our sheet Andy thing was there. Your cursor was there. And I was afraid it was Johnny getting ready to add something in to try to get some revenge on me from that other time.

The show notes for tonight's episode can be found@erasable US186. So thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you in a couple weeks.