Prologue to the Podcast

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Welcome to the Inside Creative Writing podcast, the weekly discussion of craft and technique for writers of fiction and creative nonfiction. And now here's your host, writer and educator Brad Reed. And here we go, Inside Creative Writing, the prologue, an introduction to the show, what we've got planned for you, and how you can get involved in the conversation.

Introduction to the Podcast

All right, and welcome to the show. My name is Brad Reed, and I'm thrilled that you're here with me today. I had a little bit of a debate on how I should approach this podcast, or at least the first episode of this podcast. And it's the same debate that I have when I'm approaching a new book, starting a new book. And that question is always, do I jump right into the action, so to speak? Do I jump right in in medias res and get right into the middle of things?

Or do I take a little bit of time with a prologue to set up the story, to set up some information that I think might be helpful to you? And that's really the same debate that I had as I approached this podcast. You know, do I just jump right into the first topic? Or do I take that first chapter, so to speak, that first section, and make it a prologue? And basically, I decided to do a little bit of both with this podcast. You'll notice that at the same time that I uploaded this prologue, I've also uploaded the first full episode called Fictionalizing Your Audience.

So basically, if you're one of those people that approaches a book, and you open it, and you see a prologue, and you just skip it, you've got that option here. You can go straight to the first full episode and skip this prologue. And then maybe later, if you're wondering a little bit about who this guy is behind the microphone, you can go back and take a listen.

But if you're a prologue reader like I am, that's what this first little episode, I guess you could call it, is going to be about, introducing myself just a little bit and what I've got planned for the podcast. We're going to keep it short. Any good prologue, I think, is short, and I'm going to try to abide by that as well.

Personal Background and Writing Journey

Okay, so if you're still with me, I'm going to assume that you're the kind of person that picks up a book and reads the prologue, because you're still with me for the prologue for this podcast. I'm one of you, by the way. It's very rare that I will skip a prologue. I want to go ahead and start with just a little bit of a history lesson, if you'll bear with me. I'll keep it short, I promise. I want to take you back to 1992, and it's a presidential race.

Ross Perot, a Texas billionaire, is running as an independent candidate. Boy, now that I think back on those years, it seems like a much simpler time. But Ross Perot was running for president, and his vice presidential candidate was Vice Admiral James Stockdale.

Now, Stockdale was a virtual unknown to the political world. He was kind of a surprise pick, and nobody really knew anything about him. And he was obviously aware of that as he was introducing himself to the country at the vice presidential debate. And this is how that went. Admiral Stockdale, your opening statement, please, sir. Who am I?

Why am I here? So it was a fairly inauspicious beginning for James Stockdale. It turns out that Ross Perot, shortly after this debate, had planned to replace him because he didn't get a great reception.

But Ross Perot, in fact, dropped out of the race before he ever got around to it. So Stockdale was dealing with a real issue here. He was an unknown. People didn't know who he was, what he stood for, what he was about. And the reason I think Stockdale came to mind for me is I've got kind of the same issue. I mean, here I am, a virtually unknown to most of you.

And yet I'm, by doing this podcast, I'm kind of asking for your faith in me, your trust in me that your 20 or 30 minutes per episode with me is going to be spent productively. And that you've probably got those same questions about me. You know, who is this guy? What is he about? Why is he here?

So I want to address that just a little bit in this prologue. Now, I'm not going to talk a lot about who I am. As fiction writers, hopefully we understand that the worst way to begin a work of art is by a whole bunch of detailed explanation about your characters.

So I'm not going to bore you with that about myself either. I'm going to trust that characters are more interesting as they are revealed a little bit at a time, over time. So that's the way you're going to get to know me a little bit if you follow this podcast.

But you do need to know a little bit about me. The first thing and the most important thing, I think, in regards to this podcast that you need to know about me is that I am just, I am in love with writing. Something about those 26 letters just amaze me. I mean, think about it. We've all got the same 26 little letters that we're working with. And yet we have these huge ideas in our heads.

We have these great thematic stories that we want to tell, these characters that we want to bring to life, these plots that consume us. And yet we have to force them all through these same 26 letters. And how, just in the way that we arrange those letters on the page, we can move people in such profound ways. It just amazes me. I've been writing for a little over two decades. I've been studying the act of writing for about that long as well.

Studying how other people have arranged those 26 little letters so effectively to tell their stories. I've been trying to tell my own stories with those 26 little letters for decades. I've been reading about writing. I've been taking classes about writing.

And so, really, this podcast is a chance to share what I've learned. The other aspect of me that's important, I think, for you to understand is that I kind of think like an educator. In fact, after all these years being out of school, for nearly two decades as well, I've returned to school. I'm back at a university. In fact, I'm podcasting here from Corvallis, Oregon, which is home of Oregon State University, where I've returned to get my teaching certificate so that I can teach high school English so that I can teach that next generation of writers. And this podcast really is part of that desire that I have, that way that I'm wired to share the things that I've learned with other people, to share those aha moments and to share those elements of craft and technique that I find effective.

Writing as an Art Form

So, that's the thing. You know, I'm not sitting here claiming that I'm an expert in anything other than the way that I write, the way that I approach the page. In fact, another thing that's important for you to know about me is I think a lot in analogies, and I'll probably end up sharing a lot of those throughout these podcasts. And I'm going to start with one right here in the prologue. You see, I look at writing as akin to painting in that if you were to sit down and watch a hundred different painters approach their canvas, each one is going to have some fundamentals in common that they bring to their art.

But what really makes them experts is that every one of them will have a little different technique. Everyone will approach the canvas with their hand at a little different angle. They'll touch their brush to the canvas maybe a little harder or a little softer than another and they'll drag it across that canvas in a little different nuanced way. And that's the way I think of writing as well. There's fundamentals that we all share, and yet we're all experts in our own craft. We're all experts in the way that we approach our blank page like a blank canvas and the way that we hold our hands in a little different angle as we touch pen to paper, so to speak.

Engaging with Guests and Listeners

So really, that's the way I consider myself an expert. And because I don't consider myself an expert in so many ways, especially in the way others approach their canvases, a big part of the show is going to be bringing on guests. I'm working on some great guests right now that have some really fascinating elements of craft that we'll be discussing. And I think we can all learn from each other in that way. That's also why another part of the show is going to be getting your voices on the show. And we're going to talk a little bit more about how that's done here in just a little bit.

But you're all experts too in the way that you approach the blank page. So a big focus is going to be hearing from you about your elements of craft, about your techniques, about your little pieces of advice that have meant something to you that you can share with the rest of us. So a couple of the other elements of the show that I just want to kind of introduce to you now. I've already talked a little bit about guests. I'm hoping that over time we'll have more and more guests on the show.

But we'll also close the show out with a couple of different things. The first one is going to be a wise words segment. And this is really your opportunity as listeners to the podcast to have your voice heard on the air sharing either a writing quote that you find very pithy, very powerful, or a piece of advice that you've received that you found really effective that you want to be able to share with people. And what I'm hoping you'll do with that is, I mean, emailing them to me would be great to include them.