← The Messy Parts
Loading summary
Transcript161 lines
- [00:00]
Interviewer
You never gave up. There was some part of you that just never gave up. And, you know, that's a characteristic or maybe a learned skill.
- [00:09]
Sarai Botten
Something I learned somewhere in my, like, late 20s is, no just means not right now. You know, there's a lot of rejection along the way, a lot of sending pitches and pieces to publications, not landing them, interviewing for jobs that I wanted, not getting them. And I had to find a way to persevere. So I learned to keep going, to celebrate others. Just because it's someone else's turn doesn't mean it won't eventually be mine.
- [00:54]
Interviewer
Today, on the messy parts we're going to have on Sari Button, she is probably best known to you as the substack creator of Ulster, which actually just had a breakout article in the New York Times. But she has been hustling and writing for a very long time. In fact, she says that she found success, really at 60. But what's interesting about her is that she thought it was going to be easier. She thought that somewhere along the way, free to be you and me was going to somehow just be a little bit easier, but it's not. And she's been able to persevere. And despite being a Gen X weirdo, which is her definition of herself, she's found her way now, and she's still not sure where she's going. Well, I'm so excited to have you on the. It's an infamous blue couch to me because it gets moved around the house in order to accommodate a podcast. Sarah, you just had a breakout article in the New York Times, which I'm sure has brought even more attention to what you're doing. Why don't you just tell us a little bit about the article, but then I'm going to make you go back and just tell us a little bit about the young you.
- [01:58]
Sarai Botten
So the New York Times style section had a feature on me by Kasha Pilat about a magazine I publish on substack called Oldster, which is about getting older at every phase of life and is an extension of my curiosity about everyone's experience of getting older. I. I have a wonderful community of. I call it a community because I think that's what's being created of really engaged readers who comment thoughtfully and kindly, who get to know each other in the comments. It's really. It's quite wonderful. It gives me a lot, you know, which makes the hard work worthwhile.
- [02:42]
Interviewer
And the community that you're describing is on substack.
- [02:45]
Sarai Botten
It's on substack, although I'M starting to expand beyond substack. I've been doing live events. I did one in Kingston in October. I did another at Joe's Pub early in March that sold out. And I'm also shopping a proposal for an oldster anthology like my New York anthologies. Yes, yes, I'm a best selling anthologist, which is an oxymoron. I'm hoping to start a podcast. So I'm trying to not limit oldster's audience to substack.
- [03:21]
Interviewer
Well, I mean, when you came in, we talked about how you have a lot of things going on. Two full time jobs, your own personal blog. Right. All kinds of things. And really, I would say in having read your memoir, you always had a million and one things going on.
- [03:36]
Sarai Botten
Yes, I'm a juggler, a hustler, a juggler, however you want to say it. Growing up, my dad had a job as a cantor in a synagogue while also being a full time teacher in my elementary school. My mother was an elementary school teacher who also taught in my Hebrew school and also ran a little clothing business out of our house. So I witnessed that as a. It was a model of how to make ends meet and do a lot of things. And then I put myself through college and there were times where I worked three part time jobs.
- [04:16]
Interviewer
You could have had a different reaction to the experience of home. You could have been like, you know what? I'm going to go be a banker. Because you know what? That is a better path to financial stability. That is not what you did.
- [04:26]
Sarai Botten
It is not what I did. It's just I could never be a banker. It's funny, why not? My parents wanted me to study business in college because they figured, you know, let's give her some useful skills. But I was a creative weirdo from the get go. As a toddler, I would serenade the neighborhood with my garden hose as the microphone. You know, I.
- [04:47]
Interviewer
You can clearly sing. I mean, I know you love karaoke and that you can really sing.
- [04:52]
Sarai Botten
I can sing. But yeah, I, I've always been a creative weirdo.
- [04:56]
Interviewer
What does that even mean? What is a creative weirdo to you?
- [04:58]
Sarai Botten
I've always just had these urges to make things, to express myself, that it's always like overridden. Any sense of like, oh, I guess I need to make a living. I mean, I'm making a living now, but it's always been a little dicey. And I've, I've often thought, gee, I wonder if I should have gotten some actual skills that, you know, that I could have applied to a day job and then do my creative stuff on the side.
- [05:28]
Interviewer
In fact, you did try your hand at some of those jobs.
- [05:31]
Sarai Botten
I mean, I've had jobs in advertising, but it was always copywriting. I did write a piece for Catapult a few years ago. About what? I wish I knew when I was coming up as a writer.
- [05:42]
Interviewer
Okay, well, wait a second. So what do you wish you knew?
- [05:44]
Sarai Botten
I wish I knew that I could have had a day job that had nothing to do with writing and publishing and still be a writer.
- [05:55]
Interviewer
Well, what job would you have had?
- [05:57]
Sarai Botten
Well, sometimes I fantasize about, like, becoming an MRI technician. You know, there's an alternate world version of me in scrubs and dance goes, you know, doing your MRI by day, and then I go home at night or on the weekends, and I make music and art. Really? That's a fallback. I don't really want to be an MRI tech. Be an MRI tech, but I sometimes worry about some of the creative things I'm doing no longer being viable in a world where AI is taking over everything.
- [06:28]
Interviewer
Let's go back to you as a kid, right. I read your memoir, which really breaks into three big subsections. Clearly, your parents. Divorce was a seminal thing that happened in your life at a time where, I guess divorce wasn't as understood or accepted as it is today. You know, I think so much of. I mean, if we believe in four, eight, so much of us are formed before we're even 12. Right? So who were you that got you to this place?
- [06:50]
Sarai Botten
I was this kid who was performing in my neighborhood, putting on shows. And, you know, I was in a children's theatrical workshop from a very young age. Singing, dancing, acting. I started writing plays when I was, like, 7 or 8. I was a dreamy, creative kid who couldn't find enough ways to express myself.
- [07:16]
Interviewer
You have a sibling. Was she creative like you?
- [07:17]
Sarai Botten
Yes. Yes. We were both performing kids. We were both in musical theater. We were both auditioning for commercials and musicals and movies and TV shows. It's interesting. My parents were ambivalent about that, and so they would let us go, like, on a first audition, but not a callback. And it was very confusing for us, but I'm very glad they didn't let us become child stars. That wasn't really who I was meant to be. I was meant to be who I am now, which is someone who is a writer, but also an editor and a publisher and a person who puts on variety shows.
- [07:54]
Interviewer
It's so interesting that you have such certainty about who you're supposed to be. Cause I probably am. I think I'm 57. I'm never sure. I still don't know who I'm supposed to be.
- [08:02]
Sarai Botten
I would say that since my mid to late 40s, I've been kind of establishing myself as who I really, really am and more and more all the time.
- [08:14]
Interviewer
There was a whole section in the memoir about mean girls. We all remember those moments where middle school could be trying. And you say I was a mean girl. I was the object of mean girls. And what was so interesting to me is you said you actually experienced that all the way into adulthood, like it never ended for you. And so I want to talk about that. And then also your need to define yourself versus a man because you got married young, you got out of that young. But I mean, I was so struck as I read your memoir, because there was a whole section, right, about you sort of on this journey to find somebody. It reminded me of Shel Silverstein and the O. Like you were looking for this missing piece of you in some way.
- [08:57]
Sarai Botten
Yeah, I had this sort of divided sense of myself. There was a Long island version of me and a Westchester version of me. The Long island version of me had a different set of clothes. The Westchester version of me was preppier and pronounced her Rs. Well, actually I. I got rid of my Long island accent very strategically when I was like 11, when I met my Westchester family and I heard them pronouncing their Rs, I said, oh, that's. I took notice.
- [09:29]
Interviewer
And we all want to fit in. I mean, that's where it comes from.
- [09:32]
Sarai Botten
So there was a little bit of a sense that, like, okay, this is who I am when I'm here, and this is who I am when I'm here. It was jarring. And it was at a time when I was establishing for myself who I was. Another part of it is just being a woman in this culture. I think it was really hard to just like independently decide who you were without looking to men. You know, the media that I consumed, the books I consumed, they all were about finding men. I really took that in. I didn't know anything else. It took me a really long time to examine that and change it. That said, I'm happily married to a man and it is the centerpiece of my life, my marriage.
- [10:23]
Interviewer
And it happened later in your life.
- [10:25]
Sarai Botten
Yeah, that's another funny thing for me now, as the 60 year old editor of Oldster, I published a piece by Joan Juliet Buck about marrying at 72. And Brian and I have been talking for so long about how we met later and married later. I was 39. Is that later? You know, it's beyond many women's reproductive capacity. A lot of women can't reproduce after 35, 36.
- [10:55]
Interviewer
Well, you were ambivalent, it sounded like, about having children.
- [10:59]
Sarai Botten
My secret that I was keeping from myself was that I didn't want them. And I put us through a lot of trouble to get to the place where I found out I couldn't have kids. And Brian and I were both relieved. But, oh, what we put ourselves through,
- [11:13]
Interviewer
unnecessary because we're told that you're supposed to have children and get married, and
- [11:18]
Sarai Botten
everyone's telling me, you'll know when you're ready. Like, some alarm would go off in my head, and it never did. And then we found out that I really. What I really needed was a hysterectomy. And it was the best thing. I mean, on so many levels. But it also.
- [11:33]
Interviewer
That is such a hysterical.
- [11:35]
Sarai Botten
I know it was my doctor's note that got me out of motherhood.
- [11:39]
Interviewer
Was that jarring at all?
- [11:41]
Sarai Botten
The first moment after being told that I needed a hysterectomy, I, like, I don't think I breathed. I was just like. That is startling information. And then I felt my shoulders descend. And then there was this feeling like, I probably shouldn't be so happy about this. And then I looked at Brian and he was like. And I said to him, like, after we left the doctor's office, I said, we don't have to do that. And he was like, yeah, we don't have to do that. And we were both like, yeah, it was crazy. And I was cautious about it because I was like, is this, like, blasphemy to say I don't want children? I feel relieved that I can't have them? Once I knew that I couldn't do it, I really knew that I didn't want to do it. And I'd been hiding that information for myself. And that's where the title of my memoir comes from. And you may find yourself. Well, I mean, it comes from, you know, a talking head song. But Brian and I were in this fertility clinic in Fishkill, and I'm sitting in the waiting room, and I start having this, like, out of body experience where I'm like, what are you doing here? Like, you don't really want to be here.
- [13:03]
Interviewer
So I'm going to go back to the mean girl thing for a second, because you may. You don't know this, but I was reading the book and you know, we've all experienced it. We've had children who've experienced it or friends who've experienced it. In fact, I think I experienced it yesterday at a cocktail party where I was like, what is wrong with this woman? Why is she being so mean and aggressive? So, to your point, it doesn't go away, but one of the things you said is that you've now gotten better at saying things directly to people. And I was like, oh, I'm going to say something. So you actually made me go, just be more direct. Oh, great.
- [13:36]
Sarai Botten
After having read that chapter, you're welcome.
- [13:40]
Interviewer
Exactly how do you feel about that? Because there's a whole world of business that talks about radical, you know, just being more straightforward and honest. But now looking back and reflecting, because I do think age also gives you the sense of just. You don't have as much to prove. Although I wouldn't have said that last night from this woman who was my age and clearly still had something to prove.
- [14:00]
Sarai Botten
I still struggle with being very direct. I think it's a good thing to do, but I think there are consequences. Not everyone is primed to hear it. I also think often about a post I read of Dear Polly by Heather Haverlesky. She's a wonderful advice columnist, and someone wrote in about wanting to be more frank with her friends about things that bothered her, and she was very frank. And she said most friendships can't survive direct, honest talk about hard things. And I think about that a lot because I think part of the mean girl shtick is that we can't be honest with each other, so everybody talks to their friends instead and takes little jabs. I think if we could find a way to be honest with each other, we could help each other more and
- [15:00]
Interviewer
also maybe be more honest with ourselves.
- [15:03]
Sarai Botten
Yeah, my closest friends, I try to be honest with them, but I have erred on the side of being too frank, too blunt, telling people what they weren't ready to hear, and it's always caused a rift.
- [15:20]
Interviewer
One of the other things I want to say is because, you know, there's people who are going to be listening, who are going on their professional journey, and maybe that means they want to be a writer or maybe they want to be a writer at night. You know, they're trying to figure it out. You said you were bullied at your job at mtv, but you somehow managed to find your way through. So if you were giving advice to somebody, sort of slogging it through the job where they're being bullied, like now, looking back what would you have told that person?
- [15:45]
Sarai Botten
Some of that is just jobs. You know, you work with people. Everybody has a personality. Sometimes those personalities clash. There's competition on the job. I always thrived by putting my head down and doing my best work, advocating for myself where I needed to.
- [16:03]
Interviewer
But you said that it was hard for you to get the approval or the attention of the gatekeeper. So you were in these jobs.
- [16:09]
Sarai Botten
Yes.
- [16:09]
Interviewer
Even when you get these jobs, there's millions of gatekeepers.
- [16:13]
Sarai Botten
Yes.
- [16:13]
Interviewer
It's not smooth sailing. Once you get that job, it is not smooth sailing.
- [16:16]
Sarai Botten
And you need to find a way to stand out. I think that is really important. I worked at trade magazines. It was a slog and I wanted to break out into the same. The same publisher had also consumer publications.
- [16:35]
Interviewer
This was Fairchild.
- [16:36]
Sarai Botten
Yeah, Fairchild. And as someone who was working at Home Furnishings News, writing about personal alarms, your dream home, Decorative Home Furnishings News, I wasn't gonna be a candidate for the job on the arts and gossip beat at Women's Wear Daily and W. Even though I had had a history in arts journalism and a lot of great clips. So I knew that the only way I was going to make that path was I had to do my full time job and then I had to freelance on the side, even for my own publisher.
- [17:11]
Interviewer
So a side hustle.
- [17:12]
Sarai Botten
Early on, I was side hustling as a way to break out. And you know, I was single. I was unhappy with the people I was dating. I might as well have just thrown myself into my work, which is what I did. And a nice thing about New York city in the 90s, you know, they were always publishing events to go to places, to network. I got to meet fun, interesting people who did interesting things. And I now and then would make a connection with someone who could offer me an opportunity outside of what I was doing.
- [17:49]
Interviewer
So you probably had, I don't know, do you think you had 60 jobs on that whole journey? Because I feel like I had 60 jobs.
- [17:55]
Sarai Botten
I've never counted.
- [17:56]
Interviewer
There was an off Broadway show called Blonde Sideways Through Life.
- [17:59]
Sarai Botten
Oh, I remember that.
- [18:00]
Interviewer
Do you remember that? And I think she had 60 jobs. And when we left, my friend said, that might be you.
- [18:04]
Sarai Botten
I don't know how many jobs I've had. I.
- [18:07]
Interviewer
Now you're gonna go back and count.
- [18:08]
Sarai Botten
I'm gonna have to count afterward. But.
- [18:10]
Interviewer
But because between the side hustles and the J jobs, and I even remember there was a period where you were like, we couldn't make ends meet. And so we rented our apartment at Border. I mean, you Were just doing it all.
- [18:21]
Sarai Botten
What's scary right now is one of the reasons we had to move out of our house was oil was four and a quarter.
- [18:27]
Interviewer
Do you remember what year that was?
- [18:28]
Sarai Botten
It was like, it started in 2011. We rented out our. We couldn't afford to heat our house. We were both working so hard and struggling. That was hard. And first we took in a border, and he lived with us for. Well, the first day. I knew it wasn't going to work.
- [18:46]
Interviewer
How?
- [18:47]
Sarai Botten
Um, he wasn't honoring the agreements we made. That was first of all.
- [18:54]
Interviewer
What does that mean? Well, I was like, don't use the kitchen.
- [18:57]
Sarai Botten
All right. No. We had given him one of the two bathrooms that was the lesser bathroom. And that very first night, I got up to use the bathroom at one in the morning, and I fell into the toilet because he left the seat up. So, like, right from the first day. No, but there was also. He took a shower downstairs in his bathroom, and he used some sort of super fragrant soap. It smelled like a Twizzlers factory. It was like strawberry shampoo or soap. I thought, like, oh, Brian's gonna think I'm being, like, really petty. And then Brian came home from work, and he was like, oh, no, no, no, no. And, like, the smell did not go away. But also, I overheard him saying something really derogatory about women. And I was like, okay, this is three strikes in one day.
- [19:47]
Interviewer
And then you had to move out to actually rent that house?
- [19:50]
Sarai Botten
Well, then we were like, do we turn the house into a two family? But in order to do that, we'd have to borrow money that we.
- [19:56]
Interviewer
Oh, yeah.
- [19:56]
Sarai Botten
You know. So then we said, all right, we're gonna rent out the house. That's the only solution.
- [20:01]
Interviewer
So here you are as an adult, right. Not 20, and you've picked a career where you're having to make these very difficult decisions.
- [20:09]
Sarai Botten
Yeah.
- [20:10]
Interviewer
How did that feel?
- [20:11]
Sarai Botten
Awful. Awful. And I was angry at myself for not having skills, more lucrative skills, practical skills that I could earn more money from. I mean, here I was ghostwriting. I was. At the time, I was a teacher at SUNY Albany. I was driving an hour each time.
- [20:28]
Interviewer
No hours that were left untouched for.
- [20:30]
Sarai Botten
I had no hours left untouched for myself. And I couldn't afford to live in my house. It was bad.
- [20:36]
Interviewer
How did you find your way out of that? I mean, how did you not just get totally depressed?
- [20:40]
Sarai Botten
Oh, we were both very, very depressed. So we moved to an apartment in Kingston that was less expensive. And we've been through a lot of hard Times. We've been through a lot of hard times financially. We've learned how to weather them to the best of our ability. We've learned that if we can't afford our life, we can rent out our dwelling. The house we live in now we bought as a foreclosure because we couldn't afford a house that wasn't on the foreclosure market.
- [21:09]
Interviewer
Did you ever in those moments say, like, I'm gonna just go do something different?
- [21:13]
Sarai Botten
You know? Believe me, I thought about it. I thought, and in the back of my mind through all of this was, should I get an MFA finally? You know, I'm a two time MFA dropout, but I definitely thought like, okay, what other skills can I get and how can I do that affordably? And where's the time I'm going to spend? Going to MRI school, you know, back
- [21:34]
Interviewer
to the MRI tech.
- [21:36]
Sarai Botten
Yeah, you know what, how am I going to do that? That costs money. It takes time. Which is why it's weird that now at 60, what I'm doing is self publishing. The most sustainable situation I've had. I mean, I don't know how sustainable it is long term, but right now it's sustaining me, it's supporting me.
- [21:58]
Interviewer
This path that you ended up on coming out of COVID you left your anthology. So all of a sudden, right, you're.
- [22:06]
Sarai Botten
I was an editor at Long Reads.
- [22:07]
Interviewer
At Long Reads, right. So you leave that job, Covid happens, you leave that job, you're like, oh my God, once again. And now you found yourself on a path that's actually a self publishing path. It's like not gatekept.
- [22:18]
Sarai Botten
Right?
- [22:18]
Interviewer
Isn't that kind of an interesting thing?
- [22:21]
Sarai Botten
It's so interesting and it's so satisfying and self directed and it comes from my curiosity, what I'm passionate about, which is how my New York books came about.
- [22:36]
Interviewer
What do you mean?
- [22:37]
Sarai Botten
My New York City anthologies. Goodbye to all that and never can say goodbye. Every editor and agent that I spoke to said, great idea, but you can't do it. You don't have enough of a platform. Anthologies don't sell, blah, blah, blah. And then when I was between agents, I went to a colleague who I knew published a lot of anthologies and she connected me to Brooke Warner, who was an editor at Seal Press at the time, who bought the book. The book was a huge success from the get go. It's a huge bestseller. I mean, I just found out Yesterday that about 60,000 copies of that book have sold.
- [23:17]
Interviewer
As I said, here it is on my bookshelf.
- [23:19]
Sarai Botten
So what I've learned is that when I really have a strong drive to do something, when I. When I'm really curious about something, it's going to resonate with other people and that I should just do it.
- [23:30]
Interviewer
How do you learn to trust that voice?
- [23:32]
Sarai Botten
You know, my books have been so successful. Oldster and Memoir Land are so successful. Memoir Land has 35,000 subscribers. Oldster has now 85,000 subscribers. They both just keep growing. I've proven to myself that I have really good instincts and I'm not gonna let anybody tell me otherwise anymore.
- [23:55]
Interviewer
You're still doing a million things even at a point of success, Right. It's not like it's not easy. Do you ever think you're doing too many things?
- [24:03]
Sarai Botten
Every now and then I imagine like a little downtime.
- [24:09]
Interviewer
Yeah. I can't imagine that myself, so.
- [24:11]
Sarai Botten
But I don't wanna give up anything I'm doing. And also, I'll tell you, it's helping me get through this difficult world. The world is really on fire right now and I'm very anxious about so much of it. Being busy with work, achieving is a great antidote to my anxiety.
- [24:35]
Interviewer
Gives you like, agency.
- [24:36]
Sarai Botten
It gives me agency. It also distracts me. It's a coping mechanism.
- [24:41]
Interviewer
Right now I. I recognize the coping
- [24:44]
Sarai Botten
mechanism, plus the sense that I can take care of myself. The more work I do, the more success I have, the more money I make in a time where maybe I'm not going to be able to afford to live in my house soon if the oil prices keep going up, you
- [25:00]
Interviewer
know, do you look at young people getting into this world where they want to write or get into the media business and think to yourself, like, don't do it because it's. I mean, we've picked contracting industries in some ways.
- [25:14]
Sarai Botten
Actually, what I've been telling younger people since I taught at SUNY Albany beginning in 2010, I was in the journalism department. My advice remains the same, which is don't pursue a full time job in the arts, in journalism, in media. Go and become an expert at something else that interests you.
- [25:40]
Interviewer
Like back to your MRI tech.
- [25:42]
Sarai Botten
No different. Become an expert in something you're passionate about and then write about that. I used to go to these journalism conferences and often they would have this author who's a physician, Dr. Perry Klass, prolific author and also a prolific, very busy doctor in demand. And I was like, that's interesting. And she would write about medicine, but also she would write personal stuff. I recommend get a day job in something that interests you enough to keep you happy. But also maybe it's something you're just going to be fascinated in and make a name in, and then you can be an author. On that subject, how do you feel
- [26:22]
Interviewer
about having sort of had this success later in life?
- [26:25]
Sarai Botten
I'm so happy to know that good things can happen to you later in life. You know, Starting at about 58, I'm 60 now. I started saying on oldster in posts that I was freaking out about turning 60. And again and again contributors would say, my life took off at 60, 65, 70, I got a new lease on life. I found the right partner, I found the right career path. I retired and found a second career means more to me. And it sounded good, but now I'm living it.
- [27:02]
Interviewer
So you're living proof of it.
- [27:04]
Sarai Botten
I'm living proof that there can be pleasant surprises when you get older. That is so good to find out.
- [27:11]
Interviewer
The thing that strikes me right as you describe, like, moving out of your house and taking a border or renting your house, is that you never gave up. There was some part of you that just never gave up. And, you know, that's a characteristic or maybe a learned skill.
- [27:27]
Sarai Botten
Something I learned somewhere in my, like, late 20s is no just means not right now. You know, there's a lot of rejection along the way. A lot of sending pitches and pieces to publications, not landing them, interviewing for jobs that I wanted, not getting them. And I had to find a way to persevere. So I learned to keep going, to celebrate others. Just because it's someone else's turn doesn't mean it won't eventually be mine. I had a mentor from, like, my late 20s to my mid-30s. She was a teacher. She would have her students. For every essay that you were submitting somewhere, you had to make an index card and write the word no 19 times. And the 20th word was yes. So that failure was built into the picture that it was a part of success. And so that you anticipated rejection and that it led to yes. Almost every personal essay I have pitched and had a rejection for, I have placed elsewhere. Sometimes it's just not the right editor. It's just not the right publication. It's not the right time. Sometimes you pitch something to somebody and they're not ready for you. I would go to these conferences, these journalism conferences, and I would hear people say things I would hear editors say. Sometimes I need to reject someone three times before I can work with them. I need.
- [29:07]
Interviewer
Why?
- [29:07]
Sarai Botten
Because I need to know that they have enough good ideas that there's someone I want in my stable of writers. I kept that in the back of my mind that sometimes it might take a few tries with an editor. You know, I've published two modern love essays and the first one came after Dan Jones rejected four.
- [29:28]
Interviewer
But you didn't take it personally. You just kept at it.
- [29:30]
Sarai Botten
I just kept at it. Writing is emotionally and mentally draining. It is daunting. Was really anxious about writing my memoir. And why? Well, I. I had had experiences where I had written about my life in ways that I blew up other people's lives. And because I was anxious about it, I really struggled to write. And then every night at 3 o' clock in the morning, I would say, you know, you don't have to do this. I would give myself permission to ditch it, you know, let myself off the hook. And by 7 in the morning, I was like, of course I'm gonna do this. I have a book deal. I finally got a book deal. I said, you know what I need to do? I need to write a draft of this that I know I'm not gonna show. And then that's going to be the clay I'm going to shape. I had to get it out of me onto paper, then put it away for two weeks and then come back to it. And then the other thing I did was the Pomodoro method. Which.
- [30:30]
Interviewer
What is that?
- [30:31]
Sarai Botten
The Pomodoro method is you set a kitchen timer and my husband bought me a tomato shaped kitchen timer. The official Pomodoro method is 25 minutes and you race the timer. And when you're racing the timer, the editor version of you can't be in there. The writer version of you is just very busy trying to get words down in 25 minutes. So when I'm racing a timer, there's no room for me to tinker. There's no room for me to have anxiety. I'm just trying to get out as much as I can. You know, the first draft just needs to exist. Exactly. And it can exist if you don't let it get out of you. And so sometimes you need to play tricks on your mind.
- [31:18]
Interviewer
It's so interesting because I'm picturing you as two different people, right? The person who's so busy you're like editing the magazine. All the things you have to do to make the substack work. It's not just about the writing.
- [31:28]
Sarai Botten
Oh, I know, I know.
- [31:30]
Interviewer
Doing a podcast, right? Like this part is an hour and maybe an hour and a half. There's a whole other thing before and after that Nobody sees. And then there's this part of you that actually requires you to be still in order to write. In some ways, it's like you're two different people in one.
- [31:45]
Sarai Botten
The interesting thing is the busier I am, the easier it is for me to write. There's no time for me to ruminate, but I carve out these few hours here and there to just sit down and, like, be with my thoughts.
- [31:59]
Interviewer
What does community mean to you?
- [32:01]
Sarai Botten
I love community. I seek community. I build community. I think it's really important to have people who are going through similar things to you. That's why I think of Oldster as a community. I've also been a literary citizen for a long time. I think that's a really important thing to be as an aspiring writer. You learn from other people, you share with other people, you cheer on other people, so then they cheer you you on.
- [32:32]
Interviewer
It's so interesting because your brand is also the weirdo Gen Xer who's on the outside. And I understand that, like, shape shifting or moving between various families and cities and things like that. Do you think you're weird?
- [32:46]
Sarai Botten
Yeah.
- [32:46]
Interviewer
Do you still think you're weird?
- [32:47]
Sarai Botten
Yeah, but I'm. I'm more like weird.
- [32:50]
Interviewer
Even mean.
- [32:50]
Sarai Botten
I'm. My community is weirdos. I commune with the other weirdos. I mean, I'm kind of a special unicorn. I'm like, you know, I. I have weird ideas that bear out because maybe. Maybe they're not weird. Maybe. But people like my ideas. I'm a think different person, you know, like, remember Those Apple ads?
- [33:13]
Interviewer
100%.
- [33:14]
Sarai Botten
Even my creative friends are more mainstream, regimented.
- [33:20]
Interviewer
It's like the. The book you mentioned, which is Free to be you.
- [33:23]
Sarai Botten
Like, free to be you and me. Yeah. I really thought that book and that record, they were telling me that adulthood was gonna be amazing.
- [33:32]
Interviewer
Was it?
- [33:33]
Sarai Botten
That I could just be anything I want, whenever I want it. I think I'm kind of living that in a way, but I thought it was gonna be easy. I thought it was gonna be easy.
- [33:43]
Interviewer
Easier.
- [33:43]
Sarai Botten
Yeah, easier. I mean, I think I'm living a messy, scrappy life. You do here.
- [33:49]
Interviewer
This is actually the moment of your, like, the thing you've been waiting for.
- [33:53]
Sarai Botten
But it's messy in ways. I don't have any business acumen, you know, I feel very fortunate that I found Substack. They have this winning formula of, like, the best aspects of blogging, crowdfunding, and social media virality that all work together to make it so that even an imbecile like me can succeed because I bump up against this again and again where the things that I come up with and I invent, I can only go so far with them without having either the business acumen that I lack or finding people to work with me. I reach a certain place where it's like, okay, now I really need to, like, learn.
- [34:38]
Interviewer
Do you feel like you're at that place now?
- [34:41]
Sarai Botten
I'm getting there. I'm getting there. Where I want to do certain things and I don't know if I can do them without either figuring learning something or bringing in somebody else.
- [34:56]
Interviewer
Well, we're putting that out there because I think that. That maybe that'll show up now.
- [34:59]
Sarai Botten
Yeah. Yeah.
- [35:00]
Interviewer
Okay. We have some rapid fire questions for you. Let's see how this goes. I can't see anymore. What do you think your messiest moment was from one to ten?
- [35:08]
Sarai Botten
Oh, my God. Messiest moment was probably when I had to rent out my house because I couldn't afford to live in it while I was working three jobs.
- [35:19]
Interviewer
Definitely messy. One thing everyone should do before they're
- [35:23]
Sarai Botten
35, start a retirement account.
- [35:27]
Interviewer
What are words for someone who's having a confidence crisis?
- [35:31]
Sarai Botten
Make something of your own that you really believe in. Even if it's just for you, it will give you confidence in yourself.
- [35:41]
Interviewer
My last one for you is what's your walk on song or the song that you just belt out? And clearly you have some.
- [35:46]
Sarai Botten
I have so many. Well, a song that I listened to again and again when I was trying to find the courage to write my memoir was unwritten. You know, no one's going to write your story except you. You know it's unwritten.
- [36:05]
Interviewer
I know you enjoyed this episode with Sarai Botten. She has endless energy, endless hustle, and really this incredible ability to pick herself back up despite many, many things that go sideways, which they do for all of us. So remember if you enjoyed this episode. Like it, share it, tell 10 friends. This is how we get to share more messy stories.