How to Nurture Creativity in a Noisy World with Maggie Smith

Hey friends, Eric here with some exciting news. I've been writing a book and it's about to be out in the world in April of twenty twenty six. The working title is How a Little Becomes a Lot, and it's all about how small, consistent actions, the kind that we talk about all the time on this show can lead to real meaningful change. Right now, the book is in the editing process and there's still some shaping to do,

It's funny to me how many people think they're not creative because they don't make art, which I find sad. We're all creative, anyone who does a job doing anything. Anytime you brainstorm something, anytime you try to solve a problem, creative.

Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.

A lot of people think creativity is something you do with a paintbrush or a poem or a perfectly arranged Instagram grid. But what if creativity isn't about what you make but how you live. In this episode, I talk with Maggie Smith, poet, author and champion of the messy,

That's good to be back, it sure is.

It's nice to see you again. We're here to discuss your latest book, which is called Dear Writer, Pep Talks and practical advice for the creative life. And we're going to get into all of that in a moment, but we will start in the way that we always do, which is with the parable. And in the Parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that

I love that I've gotten to answer this question more than once, and I have to keep coming up with

Yeah. I think about that question of intuition a lot, and about the inner voices and knowing which ones you want to listen to and trust and follow and which ones you want to let go. And I think that in many ways, this path of becoming more in touch with who we are and living a better and more meaningful life is just primarily about hearing those things and

Ye.

Now, there's a lot of good wolves in there too, and I can trust it a whole lot more. But I do need to be a little bit more quiet. And I've been thinking about what you're talking about, like just the clamor like, I'm a big fan of substack. I know you're on substack. I love substack, and even substack feels so noisy to me. Now there's so many

Don't add that to your repertoire, because that's a whole other wolf.

Yes, you're right, it's a whole pack. You're right.

I think we could talk for a long time about all of the sort of negative stuff that's coming at us constantly that we're having to weed through because you have to pay attention to it and be informed in the world and not bury your head in the sand. But in order to sort of survive and thrive and make things and be useful to yourself and others. You

Yeah, yeah, I heard some writer I don't remember who it is who said, you know, it's not a problem of like trying to find the needle in the haystack anymore. It's basically a haystack full of needles at this point, right, And that is so true. Let's jump to the book for a second, because in the book you have I don't know, you could tell me how many what do you call them? Capacities? You've got attension wonder, what do you call it.

Yes, I don't know.

I think I call them elements of creativity, or if I were coming up with a recipe for creativity. I think of them as like the ingredients in the secret Sauce.

Great, Okay, So in the ingredients one of them, I believe the last one is hope. Yeah, And I thought we could go there because you just referenced the news cycle. You reference this idea of needing to be informed, And

That's a really interesting question, because what good is the information if it doesn't impact your behavior or the way you move through the world. I mean, knowing bad things are happening is one thing. But if you just know that the bad thing is happening, and then you just go make yourself a sandwich, how is that useful?

Or you just read more and more and more and more bad things that are happening, right and you never get to good. I've been wanting to go back and read Candide because I don't really remember all of it. Do remember this core idea of like ten year garden. Yeah, and I've been feeling a deeper need to like tend my garden. I guess anyway, you know what I'm trying to say, I do.

But I also think part of that is that our garden is in our control, yeah, or at least is more in our control.

It's not fully in our control, right.

But when the world feels like it's complete chaos, which at least to me it does right now, the thing that I can do is take care of my family, make decisions for myself, donate my time and money to causes that matter to me, write my poems.

Or essays or novels or whatever those things are.

And so bringing it back to self is a way of feeling like you're in control in a world that feels like it's completely out of control.

And yet I think it is a sort.

Of moral imperative to be informed, because even voting comes from that, right, even protesting comes from that. If we all bury our heads in the sand because we're also over whelmed and we're not aware of the sort of imaginations, then they continue.

But it's a balance.

If I spend too much time in that world, I'll stop making things because my nervous system will be so overwhelmed I won't be able to write.

Ye.

So, like, what is that balance between.

Tending my garden, which is important and necessary and that's my work, but also not tending my garden as a way to escape the world.

Yep, Yeah, it's an ongoing balance. You say though in the book, if hope is imaginative, then pessimism is a failure of imagination. You still feel that, Talk to me about where you are with that today.

I still feel that way, even with things happening now. And honestly, we could copy paste that sentence into any time in.

History exactly or the future exactly right.

I mean, like one of.

The questions that people ask of poets forever is like, how is poetry important in these harrowing times?

And I'm like, well, in.

These harrowing times could also be copy pasted into any yes, time and history, Like if ten years ago wasn't harrowing for me, it's because of my like location or.

Privilege, precisely because the world is always harrowing to some people somewhere.

Always, one hundred percent of the time.

There's this Buddhist story that I love about a woman who's chased by a tiger and she comes to an end of the cliff and she sees a sturdy vine and she climbs part way down, and it describes she says, there's tigers above, there's tigers below. Mice come out and starts, you know, gnawing at the and I'm like, that's life in perpetuity always.

Yeah, tiger's above, tiger's below. Yeah, that's the shorthand for that. So it's no different now, really, I mean, does it feel a little different, sure, But we've always lived through difficult times. We are going to live through difficult times, and we keep making art, and if that's not a hopeful endeavor, I don't know what is. And yes, I can't make things, nor can I parent as a pessimist.

I don't know.

I mean it's actually like irresponsible. I think for me to be doing either of those things, like someone would have to take the keys from me if I say I'm driving the car like this, that's not okay. So that doesn't mean saying, don't worry, guys, Everything's going to be fine. I'm sure this is all going to like the pendulum's going to swing back and everything's going to

There was a book that was written I don't know how long ago now by a guy named Hans Roslin. It's called Factfulness, and basically what he's trying to do in the book is show that the world is getting better on a lot of measures. Right, we've all heard this by now, right, like childhood literacy rising, worldwide poverty following, you know, all these sort of things.

But like expectancy. Yeah.

The thing that he says in that book, though, that I love is he's talking about optimism and pessimism, and he refuses to be considered either. He's like, people call me an optimist because I show them all this progress. He said, I'm not an optimist. I'm a possibilist. And I love that idea because that's what you're getting to with hope, being imaginative, being a possibilist. You know, there's a way that we can make things better. We don't know how much better. We don't know what the scope

Yeah, And what is the point of the future if we think that it's already written?

Right?

I mean, if we actually think we can do nothing to impact what happens in the next five minutes or in the next day or the next year.

Yep, I mean we're just playing with blocks.

I mean we have to believe that our action and even our thoughts have an impact in the world.

That feels hopeful to.

Me, and I like the idea of being a possiblist. Maybe I'll use that from now. I used to say I.

Was a recovering pessimist.

I don't say that anymore because I actually feel like I'm pretty optimistic, but from a like a realistic standpoint.

So in the book, you have these different ingredients. We talked about them, one of them being hope. I want to talk for a minute about the role of creativity in the average person's life. Right this book is written, it's got a lot about how to be a better writer in it. I was saying to you before we started. My book is due to the publisher in ten days.

Yeah.

It's funny to me how many people think they're not creative because they don't make art, which I find sad. We're all creative. Anyone who does a job doing anything. Anytime you brainstorm something, ye, anytime you try to solve a problem creative. Anytime my son has soccer practice on one side of town and my daughter has work on the other side of town, it requires creativity.

I'm not even being facetious like I think.

In our daily lives, every relationship we start end, every time we change our minds about something, every conversation we have with someone that is unscripted like this one. I don't know what you're going to offer me, and you don't know what I'm going to offer you back.

This is creative time that we're spending together.

It's something that I feel kind of evangelical about, frankly, that we are all creative people and even if you think you're not, you're just wrong actually, and that it has something to offer all of us and the other thing I would say is that even if you're not making art, I hate this as a verb, but you're consuming it right, You're engaging with it. Is a perhaps warmer, less capitalistic way to say it. Even if you're not making art, you're engaging with art. You are listening to music,

And so part of what we want as.

Humans is to grow, which I think it is for me why I make art, and part of why I listen to music as often as I do, and why I want to go see bands as often as I do, and why I want to see the movies that people say are making them cry or scream or whatever, is because I know that on the other side of that record or concert experience or film, I will not be exactly the person I was before.

Yep.

And we can argue that that's true of anything, right, Like you go on a hike.

You're not the same person after the hike.

But I think there's something sort of built into like the DNA of art made by human beings, which I have to say because AI is making me crazy. But when a human being makes a piece of art and then we spend time with it, that's a kind of creative connection that we're making, and it transforms us and we exit that a little different on the other side. And I think we're all kind of craving that, whether we're consciously craving it or not.

There was something you talk about in the book. It was under the element of vision that I wanted to talk about because I found it kind of inspiring. And you talked about a way to get unstuck when it comes to a poem, and you say, when I pack my bag to go somewhere to do writing, I'm paraphrasing here. I always take a notebook with me and at least one book, and I begin my writing time by reading pen in hand, because I know what is likely to happen.

I joke that a cento is the laziest poem you can write. It's actually not. But a cento requires no writing. That's the secret of the cento. So it's an Italian form. It's a collage poem. So basically a cento is a poem in which each line has been pulled from another writer, and so your job is basically assembling these lines to

Yeah, I just think that's such an approachable thing to do. If I sit down to write a poem and I know I'm creative, I play guitar, I'm writing a book, even though it's sort of a certain type of nonfiction book. But when I sit down to try and create, you know, at the capitol C, I often just feel flow mixed. But the idea of this is a way in. Yeah, really, Like I was like, oh, that's easy. I've tried to

For the next I remember that, you guys.

Yeah yeah, And then the next day he'd have to send the first line. And it was just like a way of creating that was easy in comparison to what it feels like for a lot of people when they stare at a blank page.

Eric, that's what staring at a blank page feels like to me. If you told me go write a poem right now, I couldn't do it, and I'm a poet, Like, that's not how it works. I don't create on demand, Like it's not something you can just order up, like going through the drive through at a fast food restaurant. I have to give myself starters to get myself.

Going, too.

I Mean, the other thing I do is go back to something I've already written that isn't working, and I'll just kind of like noodle around in an old draft if I don't have an idea for something new, right, Like, that's always a good way to get started, because you

I hope we're like doing.

A good enough job of dispelling that over time, but it's usually incremental. It's more of a trickle than a rush, and it takes a lot of work.

Yeah, I think that we do have these two sort of extreme ideas sometimes of art. One is, like you said, the muse just descends and something just come out. The other is this extraordinarily laborious you sit down at the same place at the same time and you just grind right like that is what's been used to counter that other myth, and I think what you're doing is you're striking sort of a middle ground between those. I love this line. You can't force a poem, but I think

Absolutely. Yeah. I do not consider my writing life a grind.

But I also don't sit down at the same time every day and stare at a page until something happens. I try to live my life and move through the day, and as things come to me, I'm like a little magpie looking for the shiny bits. I collect them as I can, and then eventually they accrue into.

Something if I'm lucky.

But that's that kind of like setting the table, right, Like if I haven't set the table, there's a less likely chance that the thing's going to show up ready to go. And so preparing the table for me can look like a lot of different things, but it certainly doesn't look like it doesn't look like work.

Ye in the way that we think.

And it also doesn't look like being struck by lightning and having something come through me. It looks like getting an idea, writing it down, and then maybe coming back to it in a week when some other idea wants to belcrow itself to the side of that idea.

Yeah, you're very realistic though in the book, because you mentioned like, as a working writer, sometimes you're on deadline. Right when you do, you sit down and you just kind of That's how I felt with this book, right. It's like I got the book deal and I had a year, and I was like, okay, you know, if I don't want to end up in a mad rush at the end, which apparently always happens no matter what

Yeah. Well, this is why I was saying.

I like to go away and kind of give myself retreats when I really have to write, whether I'm on deadline or not. There's something for me about getting out of my home office, out of the place where my laundry and dishes need to be done, right out of the place where my kids are asking for a ride someplace.

We've talked about this before, I believe when you were on the show, but we talked about this idea of seeing the world as a poet, and I mentioned I love to read good poetry because I feel like it teaches me how to look differently than I normally look. You call it poets eyes and say that you know we all have them, particularly as children. But you also talk about how there's both a loss and a gift in being a writer. Share more about that because I resonate with that a lot.

Yeah.

I mean, I think when you're mining your lived experience for art, and maybe it's not that different from a photographer who, whether they're walking through the world with a camera or not, is framing things with their eyes yep.

Or a musician. When I go see a band play, I'm watching what they're doing with the chords and I'm thinking about like, there's a part of me that's processing it as a fan, as a lover of it, but there's a part of me that's processing it as a musician, and it causes a little bit of a split.

Yeah, I think that's true, and I think as a writer it's funny, like can I take a walk and have it just be a walk or is it a walk in which I'm also mining that walk for imagery, sensory detail, metaphor. And it's sort of I mean, I say in the book, it's sort of a loss and

I'm already sad.

About this beautiful experience because I know it's going to end. I feel like there's a kind of a bit of that where if i'm kind of meta processing as a writer, I'm not able to just fully surrender YEP to the lived experience in the moment.

And sounds like you have that happen too.

I do, certainly with music, but in general, I think I have to work on it within myself that I don't constantly think as you're saying that every moment is supposed to produce something out of it.

That's so important.

Because then all of a sudden, life becomes all about instrumentality, right like versus life. I just think, like you said, it's a loss and a gift, and so for me, anything that's that sort of double edged sword, and lots of things in life are I just have to kind of pay attention to how I'm holding the sword a lot in order to not, you know, slice myself into a thousand pieces.

I think that's really smart. I love the way you put that.

I remember my mom asking me once I told her about some great day I'd had with the kids, like just at Hawking Hills or at the zoo, or just you know, some just really joyful day I'm just spending the day together. And she said, oh, you should write about that, because she was thinking, all of your poems are so melancholy, right like, that's so uncomplicated and accessible.

You should write about that.

And I remember being on the phone with her and saying, I don't need to write about it.

I just enjoyed living it. So I know, I know the difference. I can go to like.

An amusement park with my kids, and I'm not, like, what's the rollercoaster a metaphor for like, I know I'm able to pull myself out of that. It's like a trap I can fall into, and I'm very susceptible, Like my kid says something interesting and I'm like ooh, and I think they can see it happening, like when I kind of leave the present moment and they can kind of see this like, oh, she's an art mode right now. Mom just left the chat and the writer has entered the chat.

Yeah. They probably also really like it too, though, because they feel like they've helped create something or they've said something interesting. I hope, So yeah.

Yeah, I mean I don't know. I guess we'll see.

Like who knows what one's legacy will be with their children, but yeah, we'll see.

One of the other things that happens when it comes to creativity for people on any level, is that you are able to see how you may not be quote unquote very good at it right And again I don't think this ever actually goes away for anyone now. But you talk about being an amateur and I did not know this until I read it, that the root of amateur in Latin means to love, and that is so beautiful.

I'm a total word nerd, So my kids get really annoyed when they say something and like, do you know the Latin root of that is this?

And it means this? They hate it.

But I look up words and I want to know their origins all the time because it actually changes the way I think about the concept. So to know that the root of amateur is to love, I think we use that word as we either use it as a self deprecating term or we use it as a criticism of others. If we're being unkind, that's amateurish, right, yeah.

It actually speaks.

To what we were just talking about, like experiencing versus mining everything is material. I would like to be more of an amateur in that way.

I mean courage too.

The root of courage is core, which if you think of Spanish core zone, it's heart.

So it makes me think.

Of bravery differently to think about courage. In that way, we should all be brave amateurs.

Yes, yes, right, just like.

Boldly trying things, failing a lot of the time, picking ourselves back up because it's fun to try, not because we are expecting to get some guaranteed.

Result from it.

Before we dive back into the conversation, let me ask you something. What's one thing that has been holding you back lately? You know that it's there, You've tried to push past it, but somehow it keeps getting in the way. You're not alone in this, and I've identified six major saboteurs of self control, things like autopilot behavior, self doubt, emotional escapism that quietly derail our best intentions. But here's

I love that. Honestly. It's when people ask about my work, I'm like, oh.

I'm a poet and i'd be doing it for free. I'm not anymore, but I would be, yes, because it's the thing I love. To do, and sometimes I'm like, don't tell anyone, I would be doing this for free. But this is the thing I love to do. And even if nobody else wanted to read anything I was writing, I would still be doing it for myself, and yes, improving and working on my craft. I feel like I'm competing against myself. That's all I'm doing. I'm competing against

It absolutely counts.

Yeah, And I think a big part of it is just being like, it doesn't matter if I'm good or not. That's not the point of the thing, right, That's not the measure. But that's what most of us do, And it kind of goes back to what you were saying in the beginning. We've got these multiple voices inside of us, and one of those voices is just naturally, you should be good at this. If you're not good at it, don't do it. There's a lot of places that comes from.

Doesn't matter, No, it doesn't matter.

I think part of what aging is helping me do is crave experience instead of perfection or even mastery. Like I'm just so excited at my age to get to do new things that it matters less what the output is or the outcome.

It's just like, oh, I get to do that.

Great Like I feel a lot more playful now than I did even about what I consider my work in air quotes twenty years ago. Because the stakes don't need to be that high. We can actually do things because we enjoy them, and that they don't need to be side hustles. They don't need to be things that we're doing for recognition. Maybe no one else even knows that we do them. I won't even mention it because I

My kids don't even know.

I'm learning in complete privacy and secrecy because it's just for me, and I want no one to ask me, Oh, what are you going to do with that?

Oh?

Are you going to do this with that? Or what's your goal.

It's like when I started like running that people are like, are you going to do a half marathon? No, I'm not doing this for any reason, And the fact that you have expectations for this makes me want to not tell anybody. When I want to learn how to do something new, like it can just be because I crave a new experience.

First off, Now I'm dying to know.

But I'm not gonna tell. I'm not going to tell you.

I get it. I'm just letting you know.

I like that you're curious.

You're trying to peak my curiosity. You did, okay, I like you have found myself really in the last five years craving new experience. And I'm going to use that to segue to one of the elements or ingredients that you have in the book. Most of them you look at and you're like, Okay, that makes sense, Yes, play, that's important, and I can see why. Vision and wonder and attention and tenacity. But one of them was restlessness.

I knew that was the one you were going to say.

Of course, it's so strange because that is a word I have a negative connotation too, yep. I think generally I had that, and then in twelve step Programs in the AA Big Book, there's a line that actually says, you know, the alcoholic who's not drinking but not in recovery will feel restless, irritable, and discontent. And I was like, well, that pretty much sums up me when I just let myself kind of go yeah. So I loved this idea of restlessness reframed in a positive way. Tell me about that.

I think I had this long list of words, and then I was winnowing it down. I realized that of all of the ten ingredients, that was the one that was going to be the one that people would be like, wait, how is this, yep an element of creativity? Because that sounds incredibly problematic, Like why would anyone want that, But to me, it's the opposite of first thought. Best thought is restlessness. It's the feeling of when you've made something,

You think that thing could go.

And there's a gap between the thing you've built right the book you're working on, and the book you hope it will be when it's done and published, the painting you've been toiling over, and the painting you can see in your mind's eye. And you need to have a way to use your skills and techniques and imagination to narrow that gap as much as possible. I don't think it ever closes. At least in my experience, it never closes.

But I have.

Worked really hard to narrow the gap to a livable kind of step over able. No one's going to fall into that crevice down and just be like lost forever space and restlessness, that kind of goading on of the self to do better, try harder, push yourself a little further, take a bigger risk, get weirder with something.

That's what helps you narrow that gap.

I think is not being complacent. It's the opposite of complacency.

And how do you work with that in a way that doesn't turn into perfectionism or constantly believing that what you do isn't good. Again, we've been talking about double edged swords, right, I feel like this could be another one.

Yeah, it can be.

I think there's less a risk of creating terrible things if you push yourself a little harder than if you think that your first draft is great.

I mean, I think you know.

I tell my students all the time time never made anything worse a lack of time definitely has. Like I have rushed and done things that I know if I had more time, it would have been a better fill in the blank whatever that thing was, you know, And I think, can you over do it? Can you over revise something? Yes, you absolutely can. Like it's a balance. I mean I say all the time, if I had known my poem good Bones would go viral, I never would have finished it because it wouldn't have ever in

I don't abandon it. I put it away. I like, give it a time out and I'll come back to it later.

But I think, you know, we have to be careful not to worry so much about making a thing perfect that we never actually get it out the door, because that's that's a problem, right, But also not just being so self satisfied with our first attempt that we end up sending a bunch of half baked stuff into the world and then can't figure out why it's not doing the work in the world that we thought it might do. And I think there's a lot of sort of.

Growing in the art and maturing in the art.

I don't know that I knew this when I was twenty, right, but I think we find the balance between doing our best and also understanding that we're just human beings, and that if I gave the same materials to a different writer, they would come up with a totally different poem than the one that I had written, and maybe one I would even enjoy more than the one I had written, or that readers might enjoy more than the one I had written.

But that's not my poem.

So it's like a little bit like, well, I got to stay in my lane, and again like tend my own garden.

That's my territory.

I am right in the thorns of this because I'm in revising the book now. When listeners hear this, I'll probably already have turned the book into the publisher, which again is not the end, but it's a big milestone. I'm ten days away from that, so I'm fully in revision restlessness. And I already made one part of the book worse by my insistence that I'm going to improve it.

But how do you know that, I'm so curious?

Well, because the two people that I let read it, I was trying to infuse a little more emotionality, and I think I infused a certain degree of melodrama instead got it, And so a couple people said, I'm not sure, And when I went back and looked at it, I was like, I think you're probably right. However, what I will say is that I shouldn't say I made it worse, because I actually made it better. It was better than where it started. Yeah, so I was here and then I shot way over here.

Past the target, past the targets all the time, and then I.

Cut a few of those things out, and then then I had a better target. So I guess that statement was inaccurate because I did improve it well.

And you brought up something important too, which is having outside counsel. Ye, And I think you know the sort of myth of the artist who works alone is another thing, right. I mean, I still send my poems to the same person I've been sending my poems to since I was twenty two years old, and she sends her poems to me, and I don't take every bit of advice she gives. She doesn't take every bit of advice that I give.

Or do you understand? Or do you have questions? Are you curious about things? Are there other things you would like to know? If you have people who you can do that with, I think that's what a gift.

Yeah. I always read the acknowledgments in books, and the reason I read them is because it does shatter that myth of the individual artist you just read. I mean sometimes I end up being like, how do people have this many great people in their life? And then I end up feeling bad about myself Exactly. I couldn't get anybody to read this damn thing. But seriously, you just realize like even a book that at least parts of it are a solitary endeavor by yourself, writing is ultimately

Yeah.

I don't think that's being hard on myself. I think that's just objective and I don't quite yet know how to make it better. But I can get other people involved who can help me with that. Of yours is about connection, and so this is one way of thinking about connection, the other people in our communities that can support us. But you talk about connecting in some other ways, some other aspects of connection. You want to talk about that for a second.

Well, I mean, speaking of a solitary artist, I don't think any of us create alone, do we. I mean everything that you have written in your book is because of experiences you have had, conversations you have had with other people, other books you've read, teachers and mentors who have guided you, and the same for me. It's like when I sit down to write. Even if I'm writing about my own experience literally by myself, I'm not yes, because I'm having a conversation with me five years ago.

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's great to remember it though, Yeah, and consciously call it to mind, because even as you were just describing that, it made sitting down in front of the page and working on it feel less lonely. Yes, it's absolutely true. You know, none of us in anything we do are not infinitely woven into the fabric of everything that is right. That's just the way things are, ye, And it's comforting to remember that. I also love how you talk about it different type of connection, which is

Yeah, especially for people who are like, oh gosh, metaphor, Like I think, other than line breaks, that's the part of poetry that makes people uncomfortable. They're like, oh, how am I supposed to know how to build a metaphor? That seems like such an odd thing to do. First of all, it's so baked into our language. We're doing it all the time. If you're giving a talk in front of an office full of people and you think of a sea of faces, that's a metaphor.

So we're doing it constantly.

But I'm always telling students, like pretty much writing anything that has to do with building bridges or making connections, it's a two step process, and it's incredibly basic, and breaking it down like this I think takes some of the fear.

Out of it.

It's a sensory experience b comparison.

That's all it is.

Like if you could boil down like the magic of metaphor in a poem to that that's what it is. You go outside and you look at a sycamore and you notice that the bark of the side of a sycamore tree looks like little blobs of different colors. You know, it's kind of modeled a little green and a little white and a little gray. So you're making a visual connection. You describe it for yourself, and then you make the leap to a simple question, which is what does that

It's not rocket science.

It's looking at something, describing it, and then taking it the extra step to ask yourself.

What does that remind me of?

Like?

What does that look like? Sound like?

Oh, that bird's making a weird noise, what does that remind me of? Oh, it sounds like someone striking the key of a manual typewriter.

Oh, there's that.

So it's not the muse coming down and a lightning strike. It's noticing things, which we all have the capacity to do, noticing things, having a sensory experience in the world, and then just asking yourself the question, how can I connect this to a prior experience or another image or another sound, and then just tying those little two things together and maybe that makes it seem a little less I don't know, tricky or academic.

I want to explore that, but my brain just got stuck on something. So let's just clear it out. And this is a total only for me question. You and I both love sycamore trees. We've discussed this in the past, and you told me one time on a walk that it's not only sycamore trees I'm seeing, it's something else that is like a sycamore. And every time I see a sycamore, this question comes in my mind, like what was that other tree? So I have to know now, can just please solve my problem?

It's called a London plane plane.

I knew it had something to do with Europe.

They're cousins, Okay, I think they have slightly different seed pods, but their bark looks the same. One is typically found in parks and forest one is typically found along city streets. If you call with a sycamore and as a London plane, probably no one's going to call you out.

I get it. It's just been eating at me for like a year and a half.

Now, I love that, but I've been rent free.

Yeah, exactly, exactly, all right. So we were talking about connection metaphor. You also another connection that you talk about making in the book, and I thought this was another beautiful one and you sort of said it, but you're having a conversation with your own mind. That's a type of connection too, right, a connection to ourselves. And that's one of the great things I think that art can help us do, both other people's art and our own, is make that internal connection to ourselves.

Oh totally.

I mean again, when I'm writing, I'm you ually technically alone, but I don't feel alone. I feel like I'm kind of catching up with an old friend, and that old friend is me, And if I haven't had quality time with myself in a while, I can find my way to that person by picking up a pen and sitting down with a piece of paper because I know she's there kind of waiting for me to have my hangout session with her. So yeah, I mean, I I don't feel alone when I'm writing. I feel like I'm having

That is like kind of.

Informing what I'm making I feel the other people who have informed the way that I do things with me. I mean, the way that I describe it is writing for me is like coming home to myself. That's the best way that I can describe it in like the quickest hand. If I'm feeling stressed, if I feel just like a little self estranged, it's like a weird way to say it, but.

You know what I mean, it's a beautiful turn of phrase. I get it.

Yeah, when I'm feeling a little self estranged, or maybe the circumstances of my life feel very busy and hectic and there's a lot of clamor and I can't kind of find that person I know is there. Writing brings me home to the sort of core me of me and even if I'm working really hard and I'm frustrated and it's not coming out the way that I want, It's still a really pleasurable experience for me because it is that kind of homecoming.

That's beautiful, and a wise person might end on that really high note, but I am not. But I am not, because well, I think this is going to take it to a higher note. But I could be wrong, because you pressure, you share, not on you. You share a word. Apparently we both love sycamores and London planes and several musical acts, but we both also love the word shenanigans. Oh I've never met another shenanigan lover. Well, Chris is we both love that word? Why is that a great word?

Okay?

I love that you and Chris both love shenanigans, and knowing you both, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, just frankly, that makes a lot of sense. I have no idea, like why I love that word so much is probably why I like the word bamboozled. Like there are some words that are just like they feel good in the mouth, They're texturally interesting, and there's a kind of playfulness to the word itself, like it's almost like autumn on apea, Like shenanigans sounds.

Like what it is?

Yes, doesn't it sound like a little mischievous trouble but like yeah, but fun mischievous trouble.

Yes, Like it sounds like what.

It is, like like buzz for a bee shenanigans.

I don't know.

Maybe it's like growing up in a family that was, you know, mostly Irish and full of shenanigans. But yeah, I just love that word. But I mean, eric, I love words.

So before we wrap up, I want you to think about this. Have you ever ended the day feeling like your choices didn't quite match the person you wanted to be? Maybe it was autopilot mode or self doubt that made it harder to stick to your goals. And that's exactly why I created The Six Saboteurs of Self Control. It's a free guide to help you recognize the hidden patterns that hold you back and give you simple, effective strategies

Yeah, play right, I mean, just loosening your white knuckled grip on what you're doing. I know a lot of people who love to read, and I know a lot of people who love to write, and even some of.

Those people are scared of poems.

And I think it's because they seem like, oh, I don't know if I'm like, I don't understand what's going on in there.

It feels like a riddle. It feels like something I have to solve.

I don't know what the author quote unquote really means, Like there's like a trapdoor under the poem and the meaning is hidden, but I don't.

Have the code.

And I think approaching writing and particularly poetry with more of a sense of fun and play and sort of creative mischief, it helps make the act more fun. But I think from the outside, I think it helps readers and gain age with the work in a different way, Like if you come to a poem the way you come to a song, wouldn't that be better? Like when we're listening to the records we love or seeing a band that we love. You're not thinking, oh, what does that Deep Sea Diver song mean?

What does that MJ. Linderman song mean?

What you're thinking is like, oh my gosh, I love that or those I love the words, or I love the melody, or that reminds me of writing in the car with the windows down when I was sixteen and X, Y and Z.

I mean we're.

Able to kind of let it wash over us and we have an experience that is emotional and intuitive and like visceral, bodily and has nothing to do with being tested on what it means or having to explicate it right, Like, yeah, we can have all kinds of shenanigans with songs, but I would advocate that we should be engaging with particularly poetry, because I think that's the genre that has the image problem.

That's my infomercial, Eric, it's a good infomercial. You talk about coming to the page, to the canvas, to the stage, to the studio. I would say, to life with trickster energy and a sense of daring, and again back to where I started. I wish I had read this book a while ago, because that is a great frame to come to something that I'm working on like this, right,

You're wrestling with something alive, but it's not your adversary. Yep, that's not an adversarial relationship. You and the thing that you're making. You are co creating this thing with this idea and so it's like a beautiful wrestling with this other thing, and it should feel good. And if it doesn't feel good, something's wrong.

Yep.

I think that and hard work can feel good. I don't mean it should feel easy. That's not at all what I mean. Yes, it doesn't necessarily have to feel easy, but it should feel invigorating.

Yep. Well, that is a beautiful place to wrap up. Thank you, Maggie. I love talking with you on the show, and I'm happy that you were able to come back in much success with the new book.

Thank you so much.

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