Michael and Ryan discuss their favorite kinds of autobiographical writing, the most recent thing they've read, the term Creative Nonfiction, process based on genre, and more.
Michael and Ryan discuss their favorite kinds of autobiographical writing, the most recent thing they've read, the term Creative Nonfiction, process based on genre, and more.
In this episode, we were still using the name, The Autofocus Literary Podcast.
Alright. Welcome to Autofocus the podcast, episode one “Starting Somewhere.” How was that Ryan? What do you think?
Perfect.
Alright. Should I say my name?
Yes, I think so.
I’m Michael Wheaton.
I’m Ryan Skaryd.
Well, we are a literary magazine at the moment. We’re also I supposed we are a podcast now. And we are dedicated to autobiographical writing, so I’m thinking maybe for this episode we’ll talk some.
I’m down.
Okay.
First things first, with the idea of nonfiction.
Mhm.
And autobiography. Y’know. Whatever. Hand-in-hand.
Sure.
What are you drawn to more than others in that category?
Of autobiographical nonfiction?
Yeah. Like, what do you gravitate more towards? Like, hybrid forms? Poetic? Lyric essay? What’s your mindset?
I tend to love anything done in a somewhat collage form. Not that I’m antinarrative really. I love narrative. We’ve published narrative.
Yeah.
But I tend to gravitate toward pieces that are a little bit more fragmentary. And then the parts as the piece progresses come to make some whole that maybe you didn’t expect entirely.
Mhm.
So I think of the work of David Shields for instance. Some of… a couple Maggie Nelson books do that.
Oh yeah.
Amy Fusselman. Her work is… There are different levels of fragmentary. Some do fragment levels on the paragraph, and some do it like little tiny mini essays. Yeah. I just tend to gravitate more toward stuff like that. At least, at the moment. What about you?
Yeah. Well and then you even see some lineated things thrown in there. If you wanted to just drop a poem like halfway through. Which I’m like, yes absolutely.
One of my favorite moves.
Yeah. Absolutely. Do it well and it’s great. Yeah, I totally get that.
What about you?
I would say same. I think because my background is a solid mix of poetry and nonfiction that that’s kind of a natural thing for me to look at. But, I’m just such a sucker for the image. Like, as simple as that sounds. If there’s a solid simile on the line, it’s game over.
You know, I know that about you because I’ve read some of your writing and yeah.
Yeah.
And as you know, with me sometimes, I sometimes delete similes when I see them in people’s work and in my own work. And that’s not because I don’t like similes. It’s just when there is one, it needs to do so much work. What do you think of that? Because we’re both editing this magazine so we do it together. But we do have, as much as… So overlapping sensibilities, we also have… I don’t know. Other sensibilities.
It reminds me, too, with my students. I’m just like, make it as unique and creative and interesting from your own perspective as possible. It can reveal so much more than just a comparison, too, in my mind. To the character. Whoever’s going through it. So I feel like the image is so strong and when it’s so subtle, microscopic. When you take something big and then narrow in the focus more and more and more, that’s when it really stands out.
Nice. I like it.
Well, what’s one thing you read recently that maybe does that? Or doesn’t do that? Or something.
Funny you should ask.
So, first of all, before I even tell you the title, the subtitle to this is an essay in poems.
Okay.
Which, is exactly what I described as up my alley. The Donkey Elegies. Nickole Brown. That’s N-I-C-K-O-L-E. She’s amazing. She’s one of my favorites.
I haven’t read that.
Here’s the cover. Bam. By the way, this will be on YouTube.
Yeah, if you’re listening to this on audio right now, Ryan’s holding the book. It’s a black book. It has a donkey.
Yeah, no. She… I remember I interviewed her in 2016 about her book Fanny Says, and one of the questions was about simile, specifically. And we geeked out about simile for like a while. Like, too long. Right? And the way that captures a solid image. I think the opening line, which I have to share is: Ears like sugar scoops. And I’m like, solid.
I’m trying like, wow.
And if someone came to me, and was like, hey I’m gonna write a book about donkeys.
Right.
I’d be like, great. Like, solid, right? But of course… and I think that’s something that stands out to me, too, with writing, when there’s such a clear concept. When it’s not about someone’s entire life, and it’s about a clear, focused thing.
Correct, yeah.
One incident. One thing. One person. One moment. That’s where it shines.
Would you say that the book is about donkeys? Is it really just about donkeys? Or is it really about something else?
Oh, there’s more.
Should I ask?
No. I’ll leave that little flavor. What about you?
I just finished… I also have it right here. I just finished it yesterday. It’s called Morning Noon and Night by Spalding Grey. Have you ever read this? Have you ever heard of him?
No.
I never read him before, but I’ve heard his name thrown around a bunch of times by some writers I like. He did stage monologues, but they were autobiographical. Basically memoir. Like short books. But he did it as stage memoir, and then obviously they put them into books as well. This one is the last one he did. It’s called Morning Noon and Night. Did I say that? It’s like… He accidentally becomes a father again like in his fifties.
Oh wow.
It’s kind of a day in the life book basically, where he like wakes up, does the stuff throughout the day, and it ends with him basically going to sleep. I really like the form of it. I don’t know how much I like him. Not even as a character. I don’t mean I don’t like the character. There’s something about him I don’t love, but it’s not like I don’t… I don’t know. It’s very hard to pin point. It’s almost like he’s got almost an attitude that very like a fifty year old guy in the 90s who’s snotty.
Okay.
Anyway. Some of his humor is snooty maybe. I don’t know. Maybe not. There’s a certain vibe in the tone and something about him I’m not with. But I really like the form of the book because it’s kind of, like, he wakes up and does yoga. And then things he’s looking at sets him off on these tangents. So the book is really more about the tangents than about things that are happening. So he might be on a bike ride and an image kind of sparks a train of thought. And then he essentially runs into white space. And then he’ll pick up what happened next.
Interesting. Kind of like a stream-of-conciousness?
Yeah. And it kind of wanders into a lot of different places, but ultimately wanders into talking and discussing death. And what it means or doesn’t mean to be a parent or a father. I don’t know. I feel like we keep stuttering around autobiographical nonfiction.
Oh here we go.
Some kind of term.
Let’s do this.
It’s so easy, yet so hard to label. I kind of think what this magazine is to just… well, one, to take autobiographical writing. That means a lot of things but it’s also not telling you that much. Because any kind of form or any kind of genre can be autobiographical. But, anyway, the blanket term that I keep trying to avoid saying is creative nonfiction.
Cringe.
You’re a hard cringer?
I get that though. Because technically, my MFA is creative nonfiction. But I dropped a few poems in my thesis. Considered it then hybrid. But then you look at writers when it’s such a blur. Like, such a line. I mean, even Ocean Vuong. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. It’s a novel, but so many things if you know the author resonate so closely to the point where, as I kind of joked about earlier, with the poem that’s kind of dropped in the middle, he talked about being autobiographical. So, then as a reader, I start to question well what is true, what is not. And, also, does that even matter?
Right.
I mean, when you’re being told a story, like, is that the point. Or no?
Yeah. I would wager to say it doesn’t matter. And the things I like, it’s hard to tell for the most part exactly what it is or isn’t. But my problem with the term creative nonfiction is one, it assumes a level of nonfiction which it really isn’t because there’s a fictionalization any time you write creative nonfiction. And, my other problem with it is that nonfiction means everything in the bookstore that isn’t fiction is absurdly general and vague as to what that is. Typically, when you’re writing a poem about a street sign, a poem is creative and a street sign is nonfiction so, yeah that can be creative nonfiction, but I think when people use that term they’re mostly talking about autobiographical kind of work. Or work that is in some way self-reflective. So my problem with the term is that it is the two most vague descriptors trying to describe something. When, it’s like, oh it’s creative. What is that? I mean any piece of nonfiction. What? Are you going to tell me that a cookbook is not creative?
Oh absolutely. I was just thinking cookbook.
Or whatever. Or even a work of philosophy. Or even a work of theology I guess.
But even a lot of science books now are even super creative in their approach to things.
We need a better term, but no term is really good. But I guess that’s kind of the game when you are categorizing selling shit.
Yeah, trying to label.
But anyway, I am wholly unsatisfied with the term. I’ll use it because it’s what people use and it’s kind of a shorthand to talk to people you don’t know that well about, like what you’re into. And if I submit somewhere, I might be like this is a work of brief CNF.
And also, like what you said before, cross-genre. Like so many things are rooted in that, like the idea of creative nonfiction. So like you… I know that we both have backgrounds in writing different things.
Yeah.
I’m thinking approach-wise. Like when I sit down to write a piece, sometimes I have this thematic idea. Something very large. Or I go to one specific scene, moment, image, thing from my past that I really delve into. And the process is very different. I’m thinking when you sit down to write a poem, short story, or essay, is there a big difference?
Yeah. I haven’t written fiction in so long so it’s kind of… It’s hard to say for that. As you know, that’s what my background is in until I took a hard turn from it. Maybe one day I’ll write it again but I just don’t think I have it in me. And creative nonfiction is a little more natural for me right now in my life. Anyway, when I was doing fiction, I think my process was more like, I don’t think I outlined like anything. I’m trying to think. Maybe, like later in a project sometimes I might start messing around with outlines. But I don’t really use them or stick to them. But with fiction, I usually start with something I think of as the beginning which usually doesn’t end up as the beginning. And then just write a little bit and find a stopping point where I know where I’m going to go next. This is a classic thing people talk about. And then the next day keep going in the story. And typically I think this might work linearly, unless I figured out a scene and then I would go back. But I typically did it like that. Poems, when I do them, are more like I have an idea and I’m just gonna draft a ton of… A first draft of a poem is like five to ten times longer as what it is going to end up as. I’m just trying to get a bunch of stuff out and a bunch of ideas, just get it on the page. And then I’ll look at it and then, each draft I’m just stripping and stripping and stripping and stripping until I figure out what is there. And then with nonfiction, it’s a little bit like that because I approach it so fragmentarily. Where I don’t work on it like fiction because typically the CNF that I do is not narrative based where it might do anecdotes or fragments of narrative, but I don’t… I move them around and figure out the locations of things. So, with that, I feel like with the nonfiction stuff I’m constantly taking notes and drafting and journaling throughout the day, and I don’t necessarily know entirely what I’m doing. And then I do that enough and I figure out… Like where from one piece I might figure out a few pieces. Or like I think I’m working on one piece, but I’m just doing all sorts of stuff and then after some time I kind of start to see. It’s almost a combination of the way I do fiction and poetry. I never realized that until maybe saying it now. But, it’s more chaotic and fragmentary and random, and I think that’s why I like it the most.
So, we’re totally opposite.
I do know that. I do know about us, that I’m an overdrafter and cut cut cut guy. And you write perfect poems or whatever.
Okay, so first of all no. Second of all, I think I’m so in my head that I think so much before anything even goes on the page. I think think think , and I think of a word choice. And I put it down, and then I look at it on the page. And then I determine, okay do I continue? I’m such a… I get stuck on sentences. Do you know what I mean? I write a sentence, and I immediately edit. As opposed to write an entire essay or story and then going back. I don’t know what that says. I don’t really want to know. But…
There’s a level of that, for me, previously, and it was mostly in fiction oddly enough. Where the poem stuff, I know I’m going to revise this a million times anyway, so maybe just.
Wow! I’m so opposite with that. With the poems, I’m like okay, I got this, I rearrange a few things to try it out. But with fiction, or even nonfiction, I’ll really go back. And even as I type it out, and I’m doing this currently. I’m working on a piece now where it’s kind of half fiction half nonfiction. It’s about this serial killer who was in my hometown back in the 70s and how I grew up hearing about these stories and what that means. And, so I’m serializing some older aspects of the story and I’m working on the nonfiction of my personal side to it. And that, I’ll type out, I’ll even hand write some drafts of it, and then I’ll retype it. So it’s almost three editing processes in one. And then get it out there.
See, that sounds insane to me.
Yeah. I don’t know.
But it only sounds insane to me because I’m like, I wish I was more like that.
Okay, but same with you.
I’m like, I don’t know. I’m like an efficiency junkie.
Yeah I get that.
But at the same time, that’s like a bullshit thing to say because I overdraft which is not efficient at all.
Yeah. I’ll never forget the days of you drafting, like, Okay I’m going to send this to you today. And then the next morning, at like seven AM, hey I got a new draft.
And then like ten drafts later, you know it’s really nice to have someone to just send drafts to and then that way it forces me to look back at it and know this isn’t ready. You gave me feedback without even looking at it. In my head, I’m gonna imagine what Ryan has to say about it and it’s probably nothing like what you’re gonna say about it. I’m trying to think about it as you would think about it.
Well, sometimes, I’m like send me the draft. I’m gonna give you 24 hours to get a text.
You really need to make… If I send you something, it needs to sit for a week.
Oh absolutely.
Cause then in seven days, I’ll get something completely different.
After I send it to you, like an hour later, I’m like he thinks it sucks.
Okay, this is a whole other conversation.
Meanwhile, you’re at work. I know you’re at work and I know you have no time to look at this.
I’m like, I’m grading.
You know it is, it’s this fourth paragraph. And then I’ll…
And I’m like, that’s not even noted on my edits. This is great. Great job.
I have a question for you.
Okay.
This is more writerly. You don’t know what it’s going to be. It’s kind of simple though. So, you could specify this to writers submitting work, but the general question is what is one thing that writers worry too much about and one thing writers don’t worry enough about?
Wow.
I’m curious with your take on this. Take your time.
Do you have an answer?
I don’t.
Do you want to see who comes up with one first?
I immediately go to submission, and I think about thinking too much about what magazines or publishers want. But that sounds so like cliché. Versus your own voice I feel like.
Okay. No I see what you’re saying.
Right? I feel like that’s a little much. But, I almost wonder if people wouldn’t be so tied down by form if they didn’t worry about that. Like, what would a form or genre or hybrid look like if you weren’t worried about publishers? Or a magazine specifically. You know what I mean? That’s what I come up with.
Interesting. Maybe along with that I would say they worry about getting published and not whether the piece is ready. And I say that as someone who is guilty of that at times. It’s so hard to know what a piece is ready though. Sometimes I don’t know when a piece is ready until I do what I do with you. I submit it, and then the next day I go, you know what? That wasn’t ready.
Delete. Is a piece ever ready? That’s another question.
Sometimes.
Too real.
I don’t know.
I just had that thought. I was just working on my little piece today and I was wondering what’s one thing I worry too much about versus not enough. And is there an answer?
You know, I don’t know. It kind of depends what you’re doing too.
Yeah.
Like now that I don’t really do work that is really image-based, I guess, I don’t really think about it as much anymore. I do think about my sentences quite a bit but not like I did when I was writing fiction in a way. Where it’s like I cares the same amount, but I was looking for different things when I was editing my sentences whether it was in creative nonfiction or fiction. And it’s not because I think in one it’s more or less important than the other. I just think what I happen to do in the more nonfictional form I think because it’s not really as image-based, I’m not… It could easily escape me sometimes. Sometimes I find where the image goes in the paragraph, because I do feel like each paragraph, at least of mine, I want something good there.
I was gonna say, don’t sell yourself short. I feel like there are solid images.
Oh, why thank you, Ryan. I was not fishing.
Maybe sometimes they’re somewhere in there. I don’t think about them anymore. Is that weird? Sometimes when I’m editing, I can easily miss a spot where like I can change the style of the sentence to be a little more imagistic.
That makes sense.
Whereas before I think I over obsessed about it and then I couldn’t finish the story. That’s all I got. I don’t know. What do you think?
I’m good.
You good?
I’m solid.
This is gonna be like one of those things where I end it and then I call you in five minutes, like…
Can we redo it?
There’s something I forgot to say.