505 - How Demystifying Your Craft can Enhance the Magic with Maggie Smith

Summary

Creative Pep Talk: Episode 505 - How Demystifying Your Craft can Enhance the Magic with Maggie Smith

Release Date: May 14, 2025

Host: Andy J. Pizza
Guest: Maggie Smith, Poet and Author of Dear Writer: Pep Talks and Practical Advice for the Creative Life

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Introduction

In Episode 505 of Creative Pep Talk, host Andy J. Pizza welcomes poet Maggie Smith to discuss her insightful book, Dear Writer: Pep Talks and Practical Advice for the Creative Life. This episode delves into the balance between creativity and discipline, demystifying the often misconstrued notion of creativity as an inherently magical process.

Demystifying Creativity: Magic vs. Craft

Andy initiates the conversation by addressing the common cultural perception of creativity as playful and effortless, likening it to the energy seen in shows like Barney and Friends. However, he juxtaposes this with the reality that creativity can be intimidating and fraught with self-doubt due to the overwhelming presence of exceptional work in the creative landscape.

Maggie concurs, emphasizing the delicate balance between the magical moments of inspiration and the disciplined craft required to harness those moments:

Maggie Smith [07:22]: "Sometimes that kind of alchemy feels like magic. But it's also work. There's craft to it."

This perspective challenges the myth of creativity as solely a divine or mystical gift, highlighting the essential role of hard work and learned techniques.

Maggie Smith's Book: Dear Writer

Maggie Smith's book serves as a cornerstone for the episode's discussion. Originally drafted in 2020, the book underwent significant revisions to better encapsulate Maggie's evolved views on creativity. The book is structured around ten principles that Maggie believes are fundamental to fostering a thriving creative practice:

1. Attention
2. Wonder
3. Vision
4. Surprise
5. Play
6. Vulnerability
7. Restlessness
8. Connection
9. Tenacity
10. Hope

The 10 Principles

Each principle serves as both a conceptual framework and a practical tool, offering readers actionable advice alongside motivational support. Maggie explains how these principles are interconnected, allowing creators to expand upon each one and apply them flexibly within their own practices.

Maggie Smith [21:28]: "These were the 10 terms that I felt like, in some ways, were kind of like expandable suitcases where each word also suggests other words."

Writing Process: First Draft and Rewrite

Andy shares insights into Maggie's writing process, highlighting her commitment to incubation—the practice of setting aside work to gain new perspectives. Maggie recounts rewriting her book from scratch after realizing that her initial draft no longer reflected her current understanding.

Maggie Smith [19:18]: "I rewrote the book, completely from scratch."

This approach underscores the importance of allowing creative work to evolve over time, ensuring that it remains authentic and aligned with the creator's growth.

The Role of Epigraphs, Ekphrastic Works, and Odes

A significant portion of the episode explores advanced literary and artistic concepts that Maggie introduces in her book to enhance creative practice.

Epigraphs

An epigraph is a literary device where a phrase or sentence is borrowed from another work to set the tone or theme for a new piece.

Maggie Smith [40:11]: "An epigraph... is borrowing a line from someone else to kind of set the scene or the tone before they enter your piece of work."

Maggie emphasizes the ethical importance of giving credit to original sources, fostering a culture of respect and acknowledgment within the creative community.

Ekphrastic Works

Ekphrasis involves creating a piece of art inspired by another work, often visual art.

Maggie Smith [34:55]: "An ekphrastic poem is a poem that is inspired by a piece of art."

She shares a personal example involving the artist Catherine Fahey, illustrating how art can inspire art in a continuous, collaborative loop.

Odes and Invectives

Odes are poems of praise or celebration, while invectives are expressions of strong disapproval or criticism.

Maggie Smith [46:46]: "An ode is just a poem of praise or celebration... You can also write an anti-ode, which is kind of like an invective, like a hate poem."

These forms provide structured ways for creators to channel their emotions, whether positive or negative, into their work.

The Importance of Discipline and Slow Productivity

The conversation touches on the necessity of discipline in creative endeavors. Maggie advocates for "slow productivity," a concept that encourages taking deliberate, thoughtful steps in the creative process rather than succumbing to the pressures of rapid output.

Maggie Smith [33:30]: "Time never makes anything worse. And... you just have to let things breathe."

This philosophy aligns with the need for incubation, allowing ideas to mature naturally without forcing them.

Cross-Pollination in Art and Creative Community

Andy and Maggie discuss the symbiotic relationships between different art forms and creators. Maggie's collaborative experiences, such as her interactions with visual artists, exemplify how cross-pollination can lead to richer, more nuanced creative outputs.

Maggie Smith [38:20]: "Art begets art begets art. This idea of cross-pollination."

This interconnectedness fosters a vibrant creative ecosystem where inspiration flows seamlessly between different mediums and disciplines.

Practical Advice: Action Steps from the Book

To conclude the discussion, Andy introduces practical challenges inspired by Maggie's book, encouraging listeners to engage actively with their creativity through structured exercises:

1. Ode: Create a piece of work that celebrates something you deeply love.
2. Epigraph: Use a line from another work as a foundation for your own creation.
3. Ekphrastic: Develop a piece inspired by another medium, such as translating music into visual art.

These exercises are designed to break the myth of creating from nothing, emphasizing that all creative work builds upon existing influences and experiences.

Conclusion

Episode 505 of Creative Pep Talk offers a profound exploration of creativity, blending motivational insights with practical strategies. Maggie Smith's Dear Writer serves as a guidebook for creatives seeking to balance inspiration with discipline, demystifying the creative process and making it accessible to all.

Notable Quotes:

• Andy J. Pizza [07:08]: "So it kind of feels like lots of creative people are interacting with art like it's actual magic."
• Maggie Smith [40:37]: "It gives a little framework... as an epigraph... like it whispers at the top of the poem."
• Andy J. Pizza [34:09]: "Cal Newport... coined the term 'slow productivity,' which really works well with creative stuff."

Action Call:

Inspired by Maggie's insights, listeners are encouraged to "make something out of something" by engaging with odes, epigraphs, and ekphrastic works, thereby enriching their creative practices through intentional and disciplined effort.

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Learn More:

• Creative Pep Talk
• Andy J. Pizza
• Maggie Smith's Dear Writer (Link to purchase or learn more)

Transcript

[Andy J. Pizza]

On the creative journey, it's easy to get lost. But don't worry, you'll lift off. Sometimes you just need a creative pep talk. You're probably listening to this show because you consider yourself creative or you want to be creative. And when you consider think about creativity, I don't know about you, but for me I think of the way the culture kind of talks about creativity. It's very like Barney and Friends, you know that don't hug me, I'm scared. Let's get creative. You know, if you're not familiar with that, it's like just having fun with finger paints and like bouncing around and you know that, that kind of energy. But in reality, creativity, being creative, getting creative can be really intimidating. It can be really scary and it can be really easy to feel blocked because there is just so much great work out there. More than ever before. The blank page is precious. And the pressure to show up there and put yourself, pour yourself onto the canvas is just a lot. And there is this pressure to be seen, singular, to be original. But what if those pressures weren't based in reality? What if they were based in mythology around creative work? And what if your art doesn't have to be this singular thing, but it can be seen as in conversation with other artworks and movements and scenes that you love and want to participate in. In today's episode, I have a chat with poet Maggie Smith about her new book, Dear Writer, pep talks and practical advice for the creative life. I frickin love this book. I love this chat. Maggie is just a great hang and I'm super pumped to have her back on the show for the second time.

[Maggie Smith]

In.

[Andy J. Pizza]

In this book, Dear Writer, she both demystifies creative practice while somehow also making it seem more magical and achievable at the same time. And one aspect of this book that I really love that does this so well, that we dive into today is these ways that she introduces formal methods to be influenced by an honor and credit the influences from your life and from culture and other artworks that you love and are inspired by. And so some of these ways I was aware of, many of them I wasn't aware of, but really inspired me. And I'm excited to pick them apart and, and dive into them today in this episode with you. And later in the episode I get a little bit choked up because I start talking about, in this book I had an encounter with poetry in a deeper way than I ever have before. Like it made more sense to me and it really moved me. And so I'm excited for you to get to that as well. If you don't know Maggie, you probably do know her work. You've probably come in contact with her poem Good Bones, which has been on TV shows and in commencement speeches and just all over the Internet. And by the way, it's a great poem. Highly recommend you go check it out. It is Bones, it I feel like it's the poem of our times. It captures the devastation of living in this era while also the the hope and love for life that many of us feel and want to cultivate. So I would go check that out last if if you like this episode and you want to hear more of this kind of thing, go check out episode 407 after this, which was the first time Maggie was on the show and we were talking about her memoir, which is called you could make this Place Beautiful, which is a line from that poem Good Bones. All right, I can't wait for you here, so I'm going to shut up. But I will be back at the end for acta, a call to Creative Venture to put some of these ideas to practice. It's called make something out of something and I'll explain what that means when I get back. Quick warning. There are grown up words in this episode. You've been warned. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. I love Squarespace. I'm a longtime user. One of the things I love about Squarespace is I will use it's so easy to use that I will use it to create pitches. If I'm pitching a book or I'm pitching something to a client, I will use a Squarespace page in my website and I'll build the whole thing there. Then you don't have these clunky like document PDFs clogging up people's inboxes and it looks super slick. If you want to see one of those that I use all the time. I did one for my series right side out andyjpizza.com RSO and you can see how I create a little pitch summary of that project. Go to squarespace.com pep talk get building for free and trying it out and testing it. And then when you're ready to launch, use promo code pep talk all one word for 10% off your first purchase. Thanks Squarespace. This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. Not everyone is careful with your personal information, which might explain why there's a victim of identity theft every five seconds in the US. Fortunately, there's LifeLock. LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for Threats to your identity. If your identity is stolen, a US based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year by visiting lifelock.com podcast terms apply. The main thing I wanted to, like, kick off with was like, I'm imagining your kids listening to you talk about this or read this, and I'm kind of like, I feel like when I was younger, I wasn't interested in how the sausage gets made, so to speak.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

And actually I feel like lots of creative people, even people that want to be creative, don't want to know to their own detriment. And the book, to me, I felt like it's very aligned with kind of how I think about creativity, which is. I don't think that it's completely absent of some kind of transcendent thing. I don't think that. But I do think that if you. If you think of creativity purely as some kind of spiritual endeavor.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

You are going to get stuck really early. So it kind of feels like lots of creative people are interacting with art like it's actual magic. And then practicing artists are like illusionists.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Like, who know? Does this make sense?

[Maggie Smith]

Yes, it's. And it's so dangerous. Right. I mean, in some ways it is sort of magic. It feels like magic to me. When it's happening. At least the idea coming to me feels like magic.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

And sometimes things clicking together for me, or if I have two different ideas that I think are two different things, and then I learn that actually they want to live together. Sometimes that kind of alchemy feels like magic.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Definitely.

[Maggie Smith]

Right. But it's also work.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

And there's craft to it. And I think one of the dangers of treating it like magic or thinking like, well, the muse just delivers this stuff to you and then the lightning moves through you in your hands and it comes out fully formed. Is. Doesn't that also then suggest that some people get to do this and other people don't?

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

And that's what I think is dangerous is this idea that, like, you're an artist because you. You get to channel these things.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

Or you're not because you have not been chosen. And really the. The work part of it, the craft kind of p. You know, pulling the curtain back, showing how the sausage is made. That. I love that. It's so gross. I'm like, I'm a vegetarian. That's. I'm just picturing like a casing tube just being filled with ideas.

[Andy J. Pizza]

That's art.

[Maggie Smith]

Super gross.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Terrible.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah. It's A Morningstar Farm sausage link. It's in the making of the sausage.

[Andy J. Pizza]

That's good.

[Maggie Smith]

I think what I wanted to do in this book is say yes. Some of it, to me, still feels like magic.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I agree 100%.

[Maggie Smith]

Some of the secret sauce remains secret to us and mysterious to us even as we make it. And that sense of discovery and surprise, our ability to surprise ourselves when we make things and not know where something's going, I think is what keeps us doing it. Definitely curious and interested. But the other side of it is there are skills and techniques and tools and strategies that you can learn, whether you're writing your first poem or drawing something for the first time, or playing a song on guitar for the first time, or whether you've been doing this for 50 years. And the tools that are available to the novice are the same tools that the very experienced person uses on a daily basis. And they're shaped the same, and they're the same size. And no amount of experience or success exempts you from needing those tools. Having to relearn how to use those tools in new ways. I think it just makes it a little bit more Democratic.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, democratic. And just like, you know, there's a growth, mindset thing of, like, learnable. Like, you can. You can. And. And I get. And I just completely affirm the best. The reason I keep making stuff is exactly what you just said, which is you do have these encounters that feel otherworldly.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

And that is the best part of it. But the thing that concerns me with people that, you know, creatives that are trying to get their practice going, that are too sold out on this idea that it's channeling, is that most of those moments happen. It's that idea of, like, inspiration finds you working. It's like when you're like, most of the time, something interesting happens. Yes. An idea will come out of nowhere sometimes. Yeah, that happens to me. But a lot of the most interesting things happen while I'm going through the process of what I know about creating a metaphor or what I know about. And I'm, like, working through it, and then, yeah, happy accidents, interesting synchronicities happen.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

But I. One of the things that's, like, kind of frustrating to me is that I grew up like you in the Midwest around a lot of church culture, and if you heard somebody say an incredible story or had I. I wouldn't. I didn't have many great music experiences in church, but if something like that happened, it was always attributed to God there. And I love even Though I'm not part of that community. I love a good sermon for its storytelling, for its metaphor.

[Maggie Smith]

Sure.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Like, if you're a master at that, it's a craft.

[Maggie Smith]

Yep.

[Andy J. Pizza]

And the thing that would drive me crazy is this idea of like, well, just God moved. And I'm like, yeah, but you're good at this.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah. You're using anaphora.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

You're using repetition, you're patterning, you're using imagery. Like you, you used your human brain. Like, maybe, maybe an idea does kind of feel like it comes out of nowhere, but the idea doesn't build itself and refine itself and polish itself out of nowhere.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

Like you may. You may be lucky enough to be. To stumble upon some raw material at some point, but you still have to work with it. Like, great, you find clay. Well then what?

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. Yes.

[Maggie Smith]

Like, it's your hands, your mind, your heart, your experience. Like, everything that you. Everything about who you are, you bring to bear on whatever you're making. Which is also a way of saying the person sitting to your left and the person sitting to your right, if you were all handed the same materials and even given the same exact instructions and the same education, could not make the same thing.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

Because you're bringing yourself to it, not a spirit.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Right.

[Maggie Smith]

You're bringing you to it. And so again, I feel like for people who get stuck and think like, well, I'm just waiting for. I'm waiting for the right idea or I don't really want to write about this or make art about this because I feel like it's been done before. Like, everybody's making art about this or writing about this, but they're not you. So they will necessarily not be able to do it exactly the way you do it. Like, there is a U shaped hole even in that part of art making that you have the ability to fill with your skills and experiences that nobody else can. Can sort of plug into.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, yeah, I completely agree with that. And I think that when I started the show 10 years ago, I.

[Maggie Smith]

10 years ago?

[Andy J. Pizza]

10 years ago. Yeah. That's a long. That's a lot of talking. It's kind of embarrassing.

[Maggie Smith]

No, no, it's great.

[Andy J. Pizza]

There's lots of things you could do for 10 years. Be very impressive having a podcast for 10 years.

[Maggie Smith]

This is impressive. It's a lot of great conversations over a decade. Right.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I'll take it. When I started, even though I would say I have a little. I am wired for a bit of spirituality, for sure.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

But at the start of the show, Even I maybe unconsciously made the decision of not letting any of that into it because that same. I always thought, like, well, that's the baggage, religious art. But then everywhere I go in secular art, it's the same thing. Like so many artists, they don't want to force it. They don't want to learn any of the rules because they don't want to be formulaic. That all of those things.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

And I think you're falling into the exact same trap of thinking that this isn't under your control to a degree. Does that make sense?

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah. And I think it also in some ways speaks to this idea of that we have to somehow remain pure blank slates so that ideas can come through us without being touched by the world.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, that's weird. Which is very religious.

[Maggie Smith]

It's in. It is. And it's impossible. Like, I know. I know people who were like, well, if you're writing a novel, you're probably not reading many novels because you don't want to infect your brain with other people's novels. And I'm thinking, what discipline, right? Like, if you are a photographer, you're not supposed to look at photographs. If you are. I don't understand. I don't understand that sort of idea of thinking that your perspective is so fragile and so porous that you couldn't possibly come up with an original idea unless you lived in a cave. It's just not. That's not how the world works. Please read widely. Look at lots of art, watch tv, go to the movies, listen to music, be in the world. All of these things will enrich what you do and also make your life happier. You don't need to sort of be monastic in order to make things.

[Andy J. Pizza]

That feels very, to me, by the way, this is going exactly to the main thing I want to talk to you about, which. Which is what I feel like is.

[Maggie Smith]

All my part of my plan, the.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Theme of the book for me. But that attitude, it feels capitalism, driven of ownership, IP copyright. At this point in my creativity, the reason I would encourage people to reach for originality is because of the satisfaction that comes from that. When you really feel like I'm saying something that I need to say. From my experience, there's nothing better than figuring out how to do that in your art. It takes. It took me a long time to figure out how to get into that zone. Sure, I'm very pro that. But the thing that the. The theme that I felt like went throughout the whole book was busting the myth of art coming from Nothing like making something out of nothing. And I get what's attractive about that. I get the part of that that's true. I do understand what that is getting at. But the thing that kept coming up throughout that, I was like, man, this is so good. And it's so cool that from your background, you don't just have, like, ideas around this. You have, like, specific words, because there's a history in writing and poetry of how to riff on things, and it's kind of amazing. Were you aware of that theme running through it?

[Maggie Smith]

I feel like I should say yes. I think one of the, like, one of the great pleasures of making anything and then sharing it with other people is then seeing it through their lens. And so, you know, with. With this book, it's incredibly cool for me to hear what you sort of, like, plucked out of it. Like, you're saying that, and I'm like, oh, of course. Yeah, I agree with that. That's true. But you sometimes don't realize how much of something you've. You've put into a thing that you've made sure. So, no, now I'm like, oh, it makes me want to kind of look back through it to kind of, like, pluck that thread, if that makes sense.

[Andy J. Pizza]

There's a lot. I mean, there's so much like. It's kind of like a million different angles of how to keep going. Start with this, start with that. Like, all these different things. So what I thought we could do is maybe you could just give a little brief intro to what it. To the book. And then I could. I want to go through four different words, topics that you lay out in the book that are kind of like this. What to start from when you're feeling empty or you feel like you don't know what to make. There's. You have a bunch of prompts throughout the book, but I want to talk through, like, four of them.

[Maggie Smith]

I love this, so it's hilarious. I actually need to look at the table of contents to remember the words.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Okay, I have them, too. I'll prompt you on some of them.

[Maggie Smith]

I've got them. But, yeah. So, I mean. And maybe from a creative practice standpoint, it is interesting for people to know that I wrote a full draft of this book in 2020 before I wrote my memoir.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Oh, really?

[Maggie Smith]

And then when I decided to write the memoir, we pressed pause on Dear Writer, and the draft just sat with my editor, and I hopped over and started writing. You could make this place beautiful. Finished that book, toured on that book, did the paperback for that book. And then came back. Yeah, because this was already. This was going to be slotted next. Looked at the draft and said, no.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. And I rewrote the book, which is just a blast.

[Maggie Smith]

Completely from scratch.

[Andy J. Pizza]

That's just crazy.

[Maggie Smith]

Which is insane. Right. Because I also had other things in the pipeline. So this was supposed to be finished. And I'm sure there are people listening who were like, oh, I've been there. Like, I had, you know, slotted something in. I thought it was done. A little time went by, which means my perspective has changed. Like, my body of work has now changed. And I've looked back on. On this, like, past version of me who wrote this book, and I think, oh, no, no. Actually, current me has a completely different view of how this should be organized. So the first draft of this book was not organized around 10 principles of creativity. And when I came back to it, I thought, I want to structure this in a completely different way. And I've been fielding questions on the road about other books that all seem to funnel into, like, how do you do what you do?

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, right. Which is like, how do you do that?

[Maggie Smith]

This podcast? Right. Like, how do you do what you do? And how do. How do you keep going when it goes wrong? And how do you bounce back when you fail? And how do you get unstuck when you're stuck? Like, what are. What's the secret sauce? How do you make this stuff? And I thought, you know, if I had to make a recipe for creativity, what would the ingredients be? And so I came up with this enormous. I mean, I'm a word person.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

I came up with an enormous list on a legal pad of words that. That, like, when I think about making things, meant something to me. And then over time, I narrowed it down to 20, and then I narrowed it to 13, which is my favorite number.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

And then I thought, that seems a little weird. So, you know, what is sort of bite sized and doable in a book like this? So I narrowed it to 10. And so would someone else's recipe for creativity involve other items? Totally. This is not definitive in any way, shape, or form. You know?

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

Caveat. But for me, These were the 10 terms that I felt like, in some ways were kind of like expandable suitcases where each word also suggests other words. Like, there's a lot that fits inside each one.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

And so it's attention, wonder, vision, surprise, play, vulnerability, restlessness, connection, tenacity, and hope. And then, for the very first time in my writing life ever, I outlined a book before writing it.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

Which I don't do. I do everything by the seat of my pants. I've never planned anything in advance. It's not my forte. But with a book like this, it made sense to divide it up and then think, okay, what do I want to talk about in the chapters on tenacity? What kind of craft elements make more sense under play? And then kind of shifting things around because some necessarily could fit in more than one spot? And then what writing activities do I want to offer? What further reading do I want to offer? And so it's kind of part practical guide, because I think people want tools they can actually use. And then part pep talk, part encouragement, because I don't think tools are enough. I think.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

The other thing we really need is a human being talking to us who has been stuck, who has failed, who has had the same questions that you have and has, you know, found a way to kind of keep going through it.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. It's a great book.

[Maggie Smith]

Oh, I love writing.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I read little. I read it over time and just kind of little chunks every day, and I loved it. And also, I thought it was incredibly egoless. Oh, really? You're. You riff on things you've written. There's that element of it. But it's. I feel like so many things that are trying to help somebody have. That's almost like a guise for puffing themselves up, or they're not thinking about what would actually help.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

They're thinking, how do I want to look? Or whatever. Whatever other side goal they have. And it's just. Yes, it's inspirational, but it's very practical, too. Like, it's full of practical stuff. I think it's great. It's a great book.

[Maggie Smith]

I so appreciate that. I mean, I. I think the sort of, like, core of this book maybe is I'm not special.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Right, sure. Yeah. Which is the ego.

[Maggie Smith]

That's what it is. You know, and so, you know, it's.

[Andy J. Pizza]

A very generous thing to be like, here's. Here's all the ways that I do this.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah. Like, here's, like, the notebook pages that this poem started out as. Look at this total disastrous mess. Your notebook pages may look like this, too. And this is how I got from A to B. It's, you know, doing a kind of postmortem on some of my published work and showing the first drafts or explaining the choices that I made is not at all a way of being like, see these genius decisions I made that made this great piece of work? It's really to Say we're all starting out with crap. Yeah, we are all in the weeds. None of us have as much time or as much talent as we wish we had. And so how do we make things happen anyway? And, you know, I tell a story in the, in the book about teaching poetry at an elementary school. And I think they were second graders. And the textbook that the, that the, the language arts textbook that the school system used said that poets and artists have special eyes that helps them to see the world in a poetic way. And they encourage teachers to put these like, you know, clown glasses on and decorate them with like, you know, feathers and flowers and beads. And so when they were doing a poetry lesson, they could put on their poet's eyes and then explain how the poets see the world differently. And the first thing I did when I went and sat down, you know, on the rug in the tiny chair with these kids is to say, okay, guys, I know what you've been told, but heads up, there's no such thing as poet's eyes. You have poet's eyes. You were born with them. We are all born with the same ability to see the world, pay attention, be curious, be discerning, have discipline, fuck around. Like, I mean, I didn't say that to second graders, but it was the, it was the vibe, you know, like we're all.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I just imagined you doing that.

[Maggie Smith]

I'm like, guys, just go around.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Guys, come on.

[Maggie Smith]

Definitely say that in my own home, but not, not at school.

[Andy J. Pizza]

And like, I love this. You show up, you're like, look, those glasses your teachers gave you, throw them in the trash. That's not what we're doing here.

[Maggie Smith]

Listen, Mo fo. Yeah. I mean, really, the whole thing is to say I'm not special.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

We aren't like, again, we are not receiving divine messages that are not accessible to you. I am not, I'm not operating on some other poets frequency in the universe where I get to dial past the static that you're forced to listen to and I get to listen to choirs of angels that give me ideas and thank goodness I can hear that we're all listening to the same stuff. We're all seeing the same stuff. But I do think there are things we can do to train ourselves to see better, to write better, to make better, to make different, more interesting choices. But that's accessible to everyone.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

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[Andy J. Pizza]

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[Maggie Smith]

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[Maggie Smith]

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[Andy J. Pizza]

I hope you're ready for the most dippable chicken in McDonald's history.

[Maggie Smith]

Dip it in all the sauces. Dip it in that hot sauce in your bag. Dip it in your McFlurry. Your dip is your business.

[Andy J. Pizza]

McCrispy strips at McDonald's. Okay, there's a couple threads. I'm going to just bullet point them out loud. One is about timeless nature of creativity, which is something I want to circle back on. And then the other one is this notion that all of these tools are available to anybody. The immediate pushback that could come is that. Yeah, but there are these prodigies, there are these kind of savants. That's true.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah, sure.

[Andy J. Pizza]

That's totally true.

[Maggie Smith]

However, I'm not one of them.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I'm not either. I'm definitely not. But I think that the next thing that comes to mind is, for me, the ground of, like, making stuff is your own personal taste and sensitivity. Like, I think about that a lot. And I think about how being a normal. I'm not normal, but normal in terms of capabilities person actually gives me the taste of a lot of other people. And I can tap into stuff that's accessible to other people. And I thought about the prodigies and the savants that come to mind. A lot of those people aren't accessible. The stuff they make might be, you know, virtuoso, might be impressive.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

But it's not always stuff that people relate to or connect with. And so that's another. A different challenge for. For them. The other thing I wanted to circle back on was this. So when you did the outline. Yeah, that's after you already had written a version. Right. So you did you pants that version.

[Maggie Smith]

The first version, I. Yeah, I totally pants the first version.

[Andy J. Pizza]

So this is interesting. Like, that's an interesting process of. Okay, you did your thing, which is your. Your nature.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

And then after. And I like this idea. I've heard, like, creative researchers talk a lot about incubation as a core part, but I love that this was an old thing that, you know, you did reinvent. But it. It started. I just feel. It feels really encouraging because I Think again. Because of the economic forces and just the state of the world, artists. I feel like artists forgot that one of the aspects of great creative work is that it could have a quality of timelessness.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Because we live in this timely trend focus, these short form video, all of that kind of thing. And that mixed with just not having a lot of time means that we don't let things incubate. I've heard Taika Waititi talk about his favorite way to make a script is to write it and then forget it for a year. And he's like, I can't always afford to do that, but that is. And I'm like, there's so, like. It's just really encouraging to me because there's this feeling of, oh, a book I wanted to write five years ago. Well, that moment's past. No, you know what I mean?

[Maggie Smith]

Unless it's. I mean, really, there are so few things that are sort of time dependent. Right, right. Like that, that book you maybe wanted to write about, like the first months of lockdown, that that moment may have passed.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Sure.

[Maggie Smith]

But maybe not actually.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Right.

[Maggie Smith]

We're going to reflect on that time forever. That's history. I mean, there are some things that. Yeah, you have to strike while the iron is hot because if you're going to kind of ride that wave, you have to just do it in the moment. But that's not really how book publishing, period.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I was going to say, I wish publishing just forgot about that completely because that nobody talks about trends more than people in publishing that I meet. And I'm always like, you guys are in the wrong business.

[Maggie Smith]

Well, 100%, because it's not even fast. No, it's like you write a book and then it takes, oh, this is a year of production. And then it comes out like. I mean, yes, some books are crashed. Right. Like you write it and basically they publish it the same year. Like I have an anthology coming out in the fall that we are moving like hell to get through because it's absolutely about the current political moment.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I'm crashing a book right now too.

[Maggie Smith]

Right. So, like, it does happen.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Even so.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah. But those I think are rare moments. I think for the most part, I love that idea of putting something away. And I do that with drafts of anything, even just a poem. Like a time never made anything worse, Right?

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yes.

[Maggie Smith]

The lack of time has made lots of things shitty.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

But time never makes anything worse. And. And the second thing I would say about that is future, you will know better what to do with something sometimes than current you are past, you knew what to do with it. And future, you could be two weeks from now or two years from now. But so often, if I've got something and if I just let it steep.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

You know, and just let it breathe. Just decant that sucker. Just let it breathe. And then I will come back to that poem, essay, book, draft, whatever it is, and look at it in two weeks or two years. And it's never fails. I may not know exactly what to do with all of it, but things will start to strike me like, oh, that's, that's a false note. Oh, I don't need that. Oh, that's preamble. Oh, no, the reader is savvy enough. They don't need me to tell them X, Y, and Z. And even though how much have I aged in that period of time? Maybe only a month. But something in my experience or my mental processing has made it possible for me to be a better steward of that piece of work with a little bit more time. And so jamming things through instead of ramming them through the pipeline. I mean, even the word productivity.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

That has the word product in it. Makes me super uncomfortable.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

Right. It's like the word content makes me uncomfortable. Like, I just, I. I understand that this is my job and this is how I pay my bills. And so I can't be precious about it and just be like, I'll just make things whenever I want to make them. No, I actually do have deadlines and I need to keep producing things that are pretty regular clip because my kids aren't staying in the same size shoe for more than about a month at a time.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I.

[Maggie Smith]

So I can't be super precious. Like, I do have to keep making things to make a living, but I don't want to get lazy or complacent about it. And rushing can lead you, I think, to both of those things.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Absolutely. I. I love the term. You know, Cal Newport, the. He's great at coining terms, and one of the ones that he's coined is slow productivity. I just really love that approach, and I think it works really well with creative stuff.

[Maggie Smith]

Slow core.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Slow core. Yeah, I love. Um. Okay, okay. I could keep going on a bunch of different directions there, but I wanted to ask you about a few of these phrases that you talk about in the book, because there are things that I have experienced in my own creative work, but I didn't have a framework or a lens to. To catch them and do it more intentionally. The first one is I could be saying this Wrong. I did look up pronunciation okay. But that's no guarantee because the two that I looked up said it differently. But ekprastic.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah. Ekfrastic.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. Can you talk about that?

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah. So like an ekphrastic poem is a poem that is inspired by a piece of art. It's typically visual art, but it could be music or something else. But yeah. So if you have a class full of students and you show them a painting and then everyone has to write something based on that painting, that would be ekphrastic.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Do you remember the example that you've given the book from your work?

[Maggie Smith]

No.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Okay. All right. I don't have it offhand, but I know that you were talking about this picture that led to poems and I just.

[Maggie Smith]

Oh, I wonder, I wonder if it was when I was talking about Kathy Fahey's Cranky like the puppet.

[Andy J. Pizza]

It was that.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah, the shadow puppets. And the really cool thing about this is she's doing my Baltimore book tour event and she's going to do the Cranky.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Can you talk about what that is?

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah. So Catherine Fahey is a book Baltimore based paper artist. She mostly works with cut paper. She has done like music videos for Wyoke. She does all kinds of really cool stuff. And a cranky is. It's like an old fashioned device where it's like a box that has little turning like a crank and these scrolls and she basically puts like a tyvek scroll through it and then cuts, hand cuts these paper scenes and onto the. And you know, affixes them to the Tyvek and then makes these hinged also like shadow puppets that move with you know, brads and sticks.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

And so she will like sing and talk and storytell and crank these scenes through the cranky device. And it's backlit and there's all this beautiful color and every like every snowflake is hand cut. All the mountain ranges are hand cut. And then she'll have assistants who will work the. If there's a scene that needs movement, like you know, a cow will walk through or a woman will be chopping wood or, or whatever it is. And in 2011 I went and did an artist residency at the Virginia center for the Creative Arts. And that's where I met her. She had a studio not far from mine. I was working on poems for I think my second book. At the time I had a 2 year old who's now learning how to drive and. And she was there and I went studio visit and she did this, performed this Cranky and I Went back to my studio that night and wrote a poem inspired by that Cranky. An efrastic poem. And then read another one and another one and another one, all based on this piece of art that she made. And those poems are in my book Good Bones. And they're kind of like a through line through that book. And then I sent them to Kathy and she made more paper cuts based on some of my poems. And so it's this whole idea of like, art begets art begets art. And this idea of cross pollination. Right. That like, I can listen to a song that gives me an idea for a poem and then I write the poem and then an artist might make a piece of visual art based on my poem that somebody might make a song. And it just sort of never ends, that chain of making things.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. This, like, passing back and forth between you and her feels very. Like the snake eating itself.

[Maggie Smith]

Yes. Yeah, The Ouroboros. It's so cool. So the fact that she gets to come to this event in her town, perform it, and then I'm gonna read some of the poems that were inspired by it, so we can talk a little bit about that kind of connectivity.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I love this. And it's a great example of this takeaway that I got from the book, which is this. You're never bringing nothing to the table.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

You're. Oh. There's always things to be in conversation with and participate in. And there's a real. For me personally, I didn't have that word, which I love. I love that word because it just makes it so solid in your brain and you can reach for it. And I. But I. When I first started doing some of the work that became the books that I'm doing now, it started with trying to make illustrations that sounded like this playlist that I made and that. And I would listen to the playlist and I would go in my studio and be drawing and trying to capture what that felt like.

[Maggie Smith]

It's like synesthesia.

[Andy J. Pizza]

It is. It's this weird leap and. Yeah. But I never heard that phrase. And I thought that's a really powerful kind of prompt. The second one was. And again, this has appeared in my work without fully realizing it. I knew the word epigraph. Okay. Yeah, I knew it.

[Maggie Smith]

It's cool.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I've heard of it, but I don't think.

[Maggie Smith]

Not the same as an epigram, but it's an epigraph.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I just, you know, I'd heard it.

[Maggie Smith]

Epitaph. Not the same thing.

[Andy J. Pizza]

You're teaching me so much Here I knew of the word. I think maybe I could have come up with a definition, but I had never heard it explained this way. I didn't really know that. How it related to poetry.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Can you talk a little bit about that?

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah. So an epigraph. And lots of books have them. Lots of individual poems have them. If you look at a poem and under the title, there's like a little line in italics, usually by another writer or sometimes. Yep.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. Or have one on the poster you can't see.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah. Or sometimes at the beginning of a novel or a memoir, there'll be, you know, a quote by another writer that sort of introduces the whole book.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

And gives a kind of, like a little bit of a framework for what? The space you're about to enter. That's an epigraph. It's borrowing a line from someone else to kind of set the scene or the tone before they enter your piece of work.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. And in poems, it actually appears in the poem, right, Like.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah. Like above it, basically. Yeah. Yeah. Usually with poetry, it's like you get the title and then you get the epigraph, and that kind of white space, and then the poem begins underneath.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yes. And that. We didn't actually print it in the book Invisible Things, but for me, it was this quote that I have behind me, which is from the Little Prince. And it's only with the heart one can see. Rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye. And that is kind of been the through line for the whole project. But I didn't think of it as an epigraph.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Now, I think the one. The poem that you share for that is the Ohio, Ohio, Ohio.

[Maggie Smith]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about that poem and then maybe I can link to it or something?

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah. That poem has an epigraph from the poet William Matthews. And the epigraph is Ohio, Ohio, Ohio. What is it? Sometimes I sing to myself all day.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

And, Yeah. I mean that sometimes I will get an idea for a poem because of someone else's line. Right. And that is that case. So that poem uses the repetition of Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, from the William Matthews line. So if I were to. If I were to use that in my own poem and, like, delete the epigraph, it would be sort of like acting like I came up with that repetition on my own. And so having the epigraph, there was a way of acknowledging the sort of wellspring of the idea.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

And kind of nodding to where that came from.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

And giving credit where Credit is due. And a lot of my poems have. Have epigraphs because so often I get an idea. Again, back to what we were just saying. I get an idea for a poem of my own from reading someone else's.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

And that's not a dirty, impure way to get to your own work.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yes.

[Maggie Smith]

But if you do get to your own original work via a line or phrase or image of someone else's, the ethical thing to do is to claim it.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

And to cite it in one way, shape or form. And so an epigraph is a kind of. I think it's. It's not a. It's not very obtrusive. Right. It, like, lives at the top of the poem, but it's in italic, so it's got to kind of like. It's like it whispers at the top of the poem, and it acts almost like a little umbrella under which the rest of the work falls.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

But it gives a little framework.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I love that. And I kind of wish that there was more of a standard in different forms for that. I've thought about in the past, like, how music has. We have so many bands that came from COVID bands, and there's this history and tradition of doing that and. And thinking about this idea that you spend the first part of your career really obsessing over your favorite artists and trying to learn from them, be like them. And I've thought for a long time, I wish in different mediums we had standards like that or have ways of doing this. But I think that, like I said with the Little Prince, we've tried to plaster that everywhere we could. Again, it's not really. It's not. The language isn't directly in the text or anything, but that is the inspiration, and it's a celebration because it's so important to me.

[Maggie Smith]

And it's not essential. Like, it's not essential to understanding or. Or gleaning everything you need to glean from invisible things.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Sure.

[Maggie Smith]

But it does for me, now that I know that that is part of it. It makes it richer for me.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yes.

[Maggie Smith]

It gives it a. Like, a broader context and. And as a. Like a literature person.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

It feels richer to me knowing that that is where the phrase sort of was pulled from.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

Like, I love knowing that. I mean, if you think about it. And I won't be able to think of any off the top of my head, but sometimes films use epigraphs. Like, think about a movie and there's a quote at the beginning, and then you get the Film.

[Andy J. Pizza]

So I think, I feel a bit, I feel especially in this time where we're like in this weird moment with AI and creativity and this, all this stuff because, because that kind of breaks this feeling of, I, I'm not an economist. I don't know any of the answers about economy. Okay. I know some of the things we're doing now or it's not the way.

[Maggie Smith]

To do it seems bad, but I don't know how to fix it.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. Okay. So I always, I'm real careful to talk about it because I don't really know. I'm not properly educated. I've tried to learn some, but. But I love that there's a community aspect and a participation aspect to this way of thinking about creativity and that for a long time I thought, well, the way that we organize ourselves economically really hurts that because we have to have so many clear boundaries around this thing that is a spectrum. It's not super clear how this stuff gets made. But then now as we're so for a long time that's where I stood. Now that robots are getting into it, you're like, okay, now we have to really get the boundaries out. But it's, it's super complex.

[Maggie Smith]

Now that robots are getting into it, they're loving it. I'm imagining like the door busting open right now and a robot just like muscles in here and like, and like a cool baseball cap and it's like.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Hey, let me in there.

[Maggie Smith]

Am I in here now?

[Andy J. Pizza]

Guys, like get an extra mic. No, we don't want you here.

[Maggie Smith]

Sorry. Get out, robot.

[Andy J. Pizza]

But yeah, I love that idea of being, just participating, communicating the communal aspect of like making stuff. Another one that you talk about is odes.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Which I love. I love this idea. Can you talk a little bit about that?

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah. I mean an ode is just a poem of praise or celebration. Right. And so we probably think about them in a sort of old fashioned way, like an ode. Everyone's going to be like, oh, Keats. No, no, no. Actually, no, not everyone is thinking Keats right now. That, that is so cute. Everyone's like, who? Yeah, it's not necessarily like a contemporary mode, but there are contemporary odes.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. You list some that are funny.

[Maggie Smith]

There are some really cool ones. And you can also write an anti ode, which is kind of like, you might call it an invective, like a hate poem. And that's a fun.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Is that what that means? Yeah, that word. Okay, yeah, that's another word.

[Maggie Smith]

An invective, like a poem that's like an Anti. Ode. A poem about things you hate.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Love it.

[Maggie Smith]

And there are plenty of invectives to be written from our current.

[Andy J. Pizza]

There's so much material.

[Maggie Smith]

So much material.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yes.

[Maggie Smith]

We're not running out, like, the robot who busts in here in a jean jacket and black denim trying to look like us right now. Yeah, sorry, dude. No, not gonna happen. So. Yeah, but I think even. Even in sort of, like, a broader way of thinking about, like, what an ode is. Right. Like, yes, it's a kind of poem. Right. Like, it's a. It's a form of poem.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Right.

[Maggie Smith]

But. But, like, what does that look like if we translate it into how we make art and how we see the world? Like, if we're. If we're making art that celebrates things. If we're making art from a place of wonder and curiosity. Anytime you've ever tried to capture the moon on your iPhone.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

It's like. It's like an O. Right. Like, anytime you see something and you're like, oh, look at that. And you want to scream and, like, you want everyone to look. Anytime you're trying to record the sound of a bird, anytime you stop in the middle of traffic to pay attention to something and people are honking at you. Like, I would love my life to be filled with more moments that feel like odes.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

Fewer invectives, if possible. Yeah, yeah. But as a mode.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yes.

[Maggie Smith]

Right. As a mode of art making, praise and celebration, you can't really go wrong.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, I. I love that. I also love. I think a lot about how I read this thing from Austin Kleon a long time ago where he talked about this punk band that couldn't agree on influences, so they agreed on what they hated and weren't going to be.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

And I just think that taps into it. It's such a, like, reverse move on our negativity bias of, like, I'll start with what I hate. So start with the invective. Invective. And then flip it and then be like, okay, well, if you hate that.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

What is the ode? What's the reverse? Like, what. What would be the opposite of that? And then create something that's what you love. Right.

[Maggie Smith]

Like, what's the opposite? It actually reminds me of that scene and say anything where.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I don't think I've seen that.

[Maggie Smith]

Oh, my gosh. It's a great John Cusack movie from the 80s.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Oh, okay. This is what, the speaker?

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah, yeah, the speaker that. He's holding the boombox up, but he gets.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I feel like I've seen, like, cuts of it on TBS stuff.

[Maggie Smith]

I'm gonna send you. I'm gonna send you a clip on YouTube or something that some robot is aggregated that. And it's him sitting at the dinner table, and the father of the woman he's in love with asks him what he wants to do with his life. And he basically is like, I don't know. I just know. I don't want to buy anything. I don't want to sell anything. I don't want to process anything. I don't want to buy anything. Sold, bought, or processed. Process anything. Sold, bought, or processed. I just want to hang with your daughter. That's totally what that reminds me of. Sometimes it is enough to get started to know what you don't want to make.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Well, it's easier to grab because we. Our brains are so negative. It's so easy.

[Maggie Smith]

It's right there.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, I definitely hate that. But then use that to kind of go somewhere. And I also love the ode. It reminds me of this advice I heard Mike Mills say on a podcast.

[Maggie Smith]

Where he was the filmmaker or the musician.

[Andy J. Pizza]

The filmmaker.

[Maggie Smith]

Okay.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I didn't know there was a musician. Oh, Mike Mills.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Oh, I didn't know that. He's also a graphic designer, though he used to be the filmmaker. But he said, I think it's on the best advice show. Just for the. For the record.

[Maggie Smith]

Wait, did he make. Come on. Come on.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yes.

[Maggie Smith]

God, that movie.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I haven't seen that.

[Maggie Smith]

Oh, maybe watch that movie and if you don't sob like a baby. We're not. We're not the same.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Is that his. I think that might be his latest movie. I haven't seen.

[Maggie Smith]

I don't think I've seen it from a couple years ago, black and white. Joaquin Phoenix taking care of his nephew. It's, I do think, heartbreaking, Beautiful film. Yeah, I think it is.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I love his.

[Maggie Smith]

If not, we'll just cut this part out.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, sure. I love. Yeah. We need, like, I don't have the budget to have a person. Like, we just need the robot in the corner to be the person he can.

[Maggie Smith]

I'm like, you were black, denim and fact check.

[Andy J. Pizza]

But the. Yeah, he said that. He just talked about. When you get stuck creatively, start with just thinking about something that you desperately love and you really. And that just put that. He was just saying that that space is so productive creatively. Like, it's coming from the same place. And that's basically what an ode is.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

So I love all these things because they're all. They're all busting the myth of making something from nothing. They're all things that you can go do. I thought the. The thing we could end on, I always end with like a action that people can take. You talk about. I took inspiration from you saying, sometimes before you write, you're just gonna go read stuff that you love.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. Can you talk about that a little bit?

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah. I mean, honestly, my favorite thing to do, writing wise, is either go to my back patio or go to a coffee shop. I don't know why I like to be in public.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

And I'm listening to music. I'm not chit chatting. But there's something about having just like stimulus around me that helps me kind of hyper focus.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I get it. Totally.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah. Okay. So, Right. Like, you know, our brains are. They just do funny things sometimes. But the thing that I almost always pack in my bag when I go to write, other than my notebook and my pen or my laptop and my headphones, are one or two books by other people, usually poetry books, because I can dip in and dip out. Right. Like, I don't need to get a chapter in. And the language is so rich and the imagery is so rich, and the syntax, like the actual sentence structure can be so interesting. And so if I don't have an idea or a draft that I'm working on, I will get a cup of coffee, sit down and read a poem or two by someone else. And it never fails that someone's sentence or image or phrase or even misreading something.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Oh, I've done that a lot.

[Maggie Smith]

Right.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Like misreading something or if you would see a thumbnail of. Of an image thinking, oh, I know what that is.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

And then blow it up. And I go, it's not that at all. But that's kind of cool. Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

Right. And it kind of leads you off in your own direction. So again, sometimes I'll do that. And the poem that I'm reading, I. The line that gave me the idea becomes the epigraph for that poem. Because I want to give credit for the source.

[Andy J. Pizza]

That's so cool.

[Maggie Smith]

And sometimes a line or a sentence or a title or something might get me off and running. And the poem goes so far in its own direction that that epigraph or that inspiration becomes kind of like a vestigial tale and it can just be removed.

[Andy J. Pizza]

You have so many good words.

[Maggie Smith]

Well, it is my business.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I know it is. I know.

[Maggie Smith]

Thank you.

[Andy J. Pizza]

But you've given me so many good words.

[Maggie Smith]

Words in this, you know, like the thing that you evolve out of that you don't really need anymore. It's almost like the. Sometimes the inspiration is like the scaffolding outside of a building. Right. So you see all of that framework go up and that might be the inspiration source work. But when you get the building built, that is your real building, the scaffolding comes down and oftentimes the reader, the viewer, the listener doesn't need to know that that scaffolding ever exists. Existed. They don't know how you got there. Except if you, you know, read Dear Writer and then I will have shown you all of my scaffolding. Because I think seeing, seeing the structures that help get to the finished building is really useful.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Definitely.

[Maggie Smith]

But oftentimes, oftentimes when we're, when we're reading books and watching films and looking at art, we don't know all of the behind the scenes bits. Yeah, yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

You've got the images and the words you got. I love it. And the, the other piece of that I heard. So when I'm making this book, that's one of the things I did. The book I'm working on now, I would go look at books I love and just like Pinterest and all the things I've saved and really almost none of it is inspiring in a way of like an epigraph. Yeah, more like getting into the state of romanticizing art and books and. And I. And I heard, yeah, just. It's just remembering, oh, this is the thing I love. I love this whole. I love being a part. I get to be a part of that today instead of, I gotta make this page today. It's really powerful. I heard designer Jessica Hish say she would do that too. Like she would. If she would go to the studio and not feel it, she'd just look at design books and again, not real. If you know, something might inspire you, but really more about just the feeling of why do you do this? And what are you a part of?

[Maggie Smith]

Transitioning into that headspace. Yes. Yeah, I think that's the thing. And, and maybe that's what, for me, listening to music and being in either Fresh air or public space helps me transition into that sort of making headspace where I feel particularly receptive.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, I was gonna say open. Like going out in open places.

[Maggie Smith]

Like literally.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yes. Yeah, kind of. I like that idea too, of like externalizing. You know, I. Again, Austin Kleon talks about having this like an analog desk and, And a digital desk. And I think of that, like externalizing your brain.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Like, oh, I'm, I'm exiting that. I'm entering this and I think, yeah, being, being an open space is going to open you up. You have this weird link between the.

[Maggie Smith]

Internal why I write so well on airplanes.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Right.

[Maggie Smith]

You're up there because you're in a literal liminal space.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yes.

[Maggie Smith]

Well, I mean also no one can like email you and you don't care if the laundry is like sitting in the dryer and needs to be folded. But I think, I think sometimes we discount the power of being in like I write really well in the car.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

It's better if I'm not driving. Right. But sometimes you have to pull over or make. Give a voice note or something because the landscape is scrolling by like a film, you know, like a film strip. And it gives you an idea.

[Andy J. Pizza]

So I love that. And I told you this when I was about halfway through your book that the other thing it did was, you know, we met through you doing the memoir and then doing this show. And I love memoirs. I'm a really big fan of your book. But also memoirs in general. But I told you then I was kind of embarrassed to say, like I never had a strong relationship with poetry and this book also tricked me into liking poetry. And I think I didn't like there were elements of poetry. If you read a good poem that I would be like, oh, I get this. But generally entering in how to, how to read a poem. I felt like I didn't know until I read this book.

[Maggie Smith]

I'm so happy about that. I mean, honestly, that's part of my like secret maniacal plan. Like I'm over here with a people into poetry. I'm over here with like a V shaped unibrow rubbing my hands maniacally together. Like, yes, my plan was poetry propaganda. That's the. This is all a guise. But I mean one of my goals. I realize that not everyone who picks up deals writer is a writer.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

And I don't think it's just for writers, but I do think for people who want to enjoy maybe art forms more that they feel like they're on the outside of.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

And if poetry is one of them. And I know for a lot of people it is like a lot of people who read a lot like of novels and nonfiction, maybe they even enjoy poetry. But they're like, I don't know why I like this. I don't know how to talk about it. I don't really understand the choices that made into building the thing. I don't quite get it. My hope is that this book would, for those folks, kind of demystify the process a little bit and make it easier to think about writing a poem if you want to, but also just make it easier to read poems and feel like you are inside of them instead of sort of. Like they're inside some sort of locked gate that you can't enter. I think think poetry has done itself a big disservice in that regard and the way that it's been taught and talked about for centuries.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

And that making it a little bit more accessible would be a good thing. So I'm so glad that you feel like you're. Like, you're maybe a poetry person now.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. You're getting. You're getting me into it for real. And I. I'd had encounters with. With poems. Some. Some of your poems that have. That are poignant and clever. And I really appreciate. Like, I could be moved by that, or I am. I really like. I really like comedy. I like the word economy. I love some, like, little pithy or like, I love that. That. So that's already. I'm into that. But I feel like I encountered one of your poems in the book in the way that I have heard people encounter a poem, but I've never experienced. And it was the Ohio one, and it really made me feel like a kid.

[Maggie Smith]

Oh, my gosh.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Sorry. It's like I got, like, moved by it because it did and I didn't. I think it was, like, just learning how to read it.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Like. And I was feeling the, you know, the evening sun and just. And I was like, whoa. I just, like, really.

[Maggie Smith]

I remember encountered a bike around a cul de sac. Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

It was that. Yeah.

[Maggie Smith]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

So thanks for that.

[Maggie Smith]

Oh, my gosh. No, thank you for that.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Everybody should check out the book, I think, especially if you're a writer. But if you're a non writer, it's almost more powerful to come at your. Come at it from an outside perspective and you'll start seeing all these things in your own practice that you're maybe too close to to see. See. But, yeah. Thanks for this book. I. I really love it.

[Maggie Smith]

Thank you.

[Andy J. Pizza]

All right, I'm back with the creative call to Adventure today. It is called make something out of something. You've heard this idea of make something out of nothing. You know, a lot of creative work isn't that. And a lot of times you're picking up pieces and being influenced by things in life and work and art. And I want to give you three options to make a piece of work that is inspired by something else directly. They all come from the book, an ode, an epigraph, or an ekphrastic piece of work. An ode is take something that you're deeply inspired by and make a piece of work from it. My wife Sophie is a. Sophie Miller is a fiber artist and a lot of her work falls into this category a lot. You know, she has work that's like, this is an ode to a mushroom, or this is an ode to my childhood home. And it's just making work that's a celebration of something that you love. So it can be just like that, that. The second one we talked about was an epigraph. So an epigraph is take a line from a movie, take a line from a poem, take a line from a book, and then make something inspired by that. And you can actually share that, you can put put that into the comments, the caption of the Instagram post, or you can actually letter it at the bottom like I did with one of my Invisible things posters. One of the, what I think is kind of the spiritual epigraph of all invisible things, my picture book. And the work that I do under that umbrella is this line from the book the Little Prince, which is one of my all time favorite books, that says it is only with the heart that one can see rightly what is essential as invisible to the eye. And so that is a kind of the true north of the project and the spiritual epigraph of all of that work. The third one is an Ekfrastic piece of work. So an Ekfrastic piece of work is taking something that you're inspired by from a different medium. Like Maggie talks about writing poems based on this paper cut art that she loved from this other artist, and then that artist then making art about her poems. And it's like this Ekfrastic snake eating itself or flywheel. And for me, this looks like before I go make a picture book, I make a playlist and I want the picture book to feel and sound like this group of music. And so an ekfastic piece is just being inspired by a different medium and trying to translate it into something else I like. I think about dance as kind of purely Ekfrastic as they're trying to interpret with the body a piece of music. And so there's, you know, a rich history of doing that. So that's your challenge. Do whichever ones of these sounds interesting and inspiring to you. Roll with it. Massive thanks to Maggie Smith for taking the time to come visit me in my studio and have a chat we're not gonna have this one on YouTube because I haven't figured out how to record live podcast interviews yet, though we might get there someday, so it's not on YouTube. Go. Go get the freaking book, man. Dear Writer, It's a great read. I was so inspired and it came. You know what was really great is that she's coming at it from a writer and a poet and but she's applying it to creativity in general. So it's really coming from a a practice that I don't know a ton about and so a lot of it was fresh, but it all applied to all the stuff that I do and so I highly recommend it. Massive thanks to Sophie Miller for editing, being the editor and producer on this episode. Massive thanks to Connor Jones for audio editing, video editing and sound design. Thanks to Yoni Wolf of the band Y for our theme music and soundtrack. And thanks to all of you for listening till we speak again. Stay pepped up. Okay, the podcast is over, so I don't know why you're still listening, but I am glad that you enjoyed it enough to stick to the end. I have one more thing for you. If you're in a place where you're feeling a lack of clarity and you want to figure out your industry market and niche and find the perfect strategic side project to do next, go sign up to our [e-mail] and you will get a confirmation email that will give you the download of our Creative Career Path Handbooklet. And the whole process is in there. And you might also get a few bonuses in there depending on when you sign up. But again, thanks for listening. Glad you enjoyed the episode and stay pepped up, y' all. Shirley I'm Shirley Leung, columnist at the Boston Globe and host of say More, where we go beyond the headlines with bold, intimate conversations about the biggest issues shaping our world. In a new special series, we're going to confront the C Word. That's right, cancer. It's a disease that touches us all, but it's hard to talk about. In a new five part series, I open up for the first time about my own battle with breast cancer cancer and explore the science, history and deeply personal stories behind this disease. There is life beyond cancer. Join me for the C Word Stories of Cancer. Follow say More from the Boston Globe Wherever you get your podcasts.