Chrysalis

I haven't written here lately. I feel like creatively I'm in a sort of chrysalis. I have a couple of project ideas, and I'm ready to get started. I've written some storytelling pieces, and I'm keeping my eyes open for opportunities to perform them. I'm working on a short fiction piece I may be able to expand into something longer. But I've also been stuck in neutral in some ways, with an injury and a couple of health issues that have made it hard for me to keep moving physically, and that physical stagnation is bleeding over into my intellectual and creative life.

It's cyclical. I'll move on soon.

One of the projects I'm starting to work on is interviewing. I think this one is going to be a joint project with my beautiful girlfriend Flora. I'll tell you more as it develops. I had a practice interview of her. Conducting it, recording it, listening to it, and transcribing it was educational on multiple levels. We did it while hiking Big Bend, which didn't help the audio quality and didn't help either of us in focusing on what we wanted to get out of it, but it was still a fun part of a stellar trip. I had a tendency to interrupt her, and I suspect that's not a great interview technique. I've since read most of The Art of the Interview: Lessons from a Master of the Craft by Lawrence Grobel before finally wearying of the pompous name-dropping and self-congratulatory aspect of it. Celebrity interviews are not what I want to do, but it was helpful in beginning to think of interviewing as something with a deliberate process to it and what the steps of the process may be for me. I've also listened to many interviews from interviewers with many different styles. It's intriguing to listen to a story and think about the techniques that helped to draw the story out, to puzzle out what the interviewer did and why, especially when the voice of the interviewer is entirely edited out.

It seems like a lot to learn, not just good interviewing skills, but also how to record audio, what's involved in good editing, sound design. There will be ethical aspects to figure out, and legal aspects. And we'll be doing it all on zero budget with no help but each other. It's thrilling to approach something new. I'm nervous about the mistakes I'll make as I develop the experience that will take me from inept to... ept? Why isn't ept a word? It should be. But I'm embracing the nerves, the fear, because as I've said, if I'm afraid of it, it's a pretty good sign I should be doing it. So what the hell. Let's jump in, shall we?

Would you like to tell me a story? Probably because of my own divorce story and the ripple effects it had across all aspects of my life, I'm drawn to stories of transformation, how people make it through difficulties and how the process changes them.

How have you transformed? How have you helped make transformation possible for someone else? Come on! Come tell me a story!