Latest / Aggressively Human: For experts choosing expansion over extraction. / “How do I know what I sound like” with Samantha Pollack

Transcript

“How do I know what I sound like” with Samantha Pollack · Aggressively Human: For experts choosing expansion over extraction.

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Aggressively Human, where today we're covering a topic once more with feeling.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm Jessica Lackey and I'm Meg Casebolt.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: And we're excited to welcome back returning guest, Sam Pollack.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Sam, welcome back to the show.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hello.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm back, baby.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Once more.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to talk about with feeling.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: And all of us are Buffy the Vampire Slayer people.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: So if that didn't register for those of you who aren't Buffy, what is a Buffy lover?
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: A Buffy?
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: Are they the Slayers?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like what is the collective noun of Buffy?
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: That was before like claiming a fandom had a name.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: That was like back in the 97 isms.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: I kind of feel like fandom was a thing, but I don't know.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not big into fandom.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: Samantha.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: Hi.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: Hi.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: I invited you to come back because you were a member of my signal program and you
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: and I really geek out on brand voice and writing process and how do we differentiate
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: the ways that we speak from other people in our field and
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: from what is auto-generated by most people in our field.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so I wanted to bring you on to give a space to say, like,
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: how do we know what our brand voice is and How are we able to use that
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: to our benefit in our marketing and in our writing and how that comes together?
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: So I'd love for you to sort of reintroduce yourself for folks who missed
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: the last episode and
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: give us an overview of what you're doing now.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: And also because my bio keeps changing.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: Probably because I keep critiquing it and being like, no, include this now.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: Now this.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: I am a developmental editor and a writing coach.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I work with business owners, authors and academics.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Who all share a healthy side eye for anything artificial.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we're going with these days.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: Anything artificial, not specifically AI.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: Just anything.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: Anything fake.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: Not any one thing in particular.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: And how, how does that look having a developmental editor slash writing coach?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'll focus on business owners because I know that's who is listening mostly.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, and Developmental editing is something that if you are a writer of a book,
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: then you might know what it is.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: In the world of fiction and like the publishing industry,
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: a developmental editor takes your manuscript,
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: kind of gives it a really thorough read through and then offers you kind
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: of higher level thoughts and suggestions.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Around how to like tighten it up.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes that means like this chapter actually belongs earlier in the book.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Or like a writer usually will have kind of one area that's like really giving them a hard time.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: If it's fiction,
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: there's like some kind of plot hole or like some kind of major character situation
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: that is just like not working and the author just gets stuck on it.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: And they get myopic, you know, and they can't see it.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: So developmental editor kind of comes in and goes,
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: okay, here's how I think you can solve these problems.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: And this is some recommendations that I would actually do.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: When I do it for authors,
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: I also will do some like line level edits if I need to be like, this is what I mean.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not like a granular, you know, line by line edit.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: So that's what that is.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: As a fiction writer,
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: I would say that a developmental editor can be more like,
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: here's a letter that tells you what you need to improve versus going through line
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: by line of your manuscript,
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: which would be more of a copy editor and saying,
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: hey, you put the comma splice in the wrong place here.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: That's a different job.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's more copy editing than developmental editing.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: I guess the reason I didn't say that is because when I do a developmental edit,
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: I do a letter, a long,
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: long letter, very detailed, but I also leave comments all throughout the manuscript.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I will do some like line edits, but it's mostly just to kind of show rather than tell.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it's a letter.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it works for nonfiction writers, too.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's either or.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: So in the business world,
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: business people who write their own work,
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: whether it's copy for your website or your emails, your blog posts, etc.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Editing is not really a thing that Business owners like know about or realize
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: that they can take advantage of.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I noticed that when I am editing something like a sales page,
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm kind of doing a developmental edit.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I just started naming that that's what I do.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: And writing coaching is kind of folded into all of that too.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: So what it basically is,
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: is you could do like some business owners will have like an editor
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: where you just hand me a blog post and I edit it and give it back to you.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: And we don't even talk about it.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: That just exists the writing.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: But what I do is I'm also explaining and teaching and showing the writer, what did I change?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: Why did I change it?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: Why does this work better here?
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think about it?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm actually working with the writer to understand their process better
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: and understand the process of editing better so that
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: the final piece sounds even more like you And makes your point even more
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: than what you originally had, even though I'm not really rewriting it.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just sculpting it.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: So you say you make the final piece sound more like you, but how do you know what I sound like?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: I could talk about my process
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: and how I kind of internalize this,
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: but I think that it also matters for you to know how you sound.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: Back in my days as a copywriter,
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: I used to have this whole process where I would kind of like try
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: to Basically I ended up doing brand development because as a copywriter,
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: you come in and you're like, okay, tell me like about how you want this to sound.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it is very hard for people to answer those questions unless you give them a lot
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: to work with.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I used to have this whole creative process where I would like ask them kind
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: of like, who's your style icon?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what kind of art do you like to look at?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: What are you into right now?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I would pull together a mood board based on those things.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then I would come up with like descriptive words
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: that seemed like they were describing what I was seeing.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like reverse engineering what I thought of as a brand voice.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then building the writing out from there.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: But the other thing that I was doing was literally listening to you.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: So if you have videos,
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: if you have a YouTube channel,
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: if you have an Instagram channel,
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: like wherever you are out there,
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: I would devour like every piece of writing or speaking that I could find
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: from my client.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: And from that,
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: you can pick up like,
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: what kind of like,
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: just I don't know,
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: like how you talk,
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: like what kind of slang you're using,
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: what kind of jokes you're making, what your sense of humor is like.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: How often you bring up Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: More often than you think.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: I know you, so I think I have a pretty good estimate.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: But we still have never on this podcast talked about like Angel versus Spike.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: So listen, is there a choice?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a choice?
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like maybe season two Angel versus Steven seven Spike,
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: but like I'm team Spike all the way.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, good.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we're friends.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: I never understood the thing with Angel.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Never understood.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: I never watched Buffy.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: I thought I made that clear.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't understand why anyone was team Edward either in Twilight.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Jacob's like a real human.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Anyways, we'll get back to your voice.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was the sparkles.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'd rather talk about Lord of the Rings.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: She's Team Gimli.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: She's 100% Team Gimli.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Jessica is?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: No, you.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: I was just making a joke about Gimli being the sexy one.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: So back on topic.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I guess one of my questions is,
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of my clients I've discovered is because I read a lot of I read a lot
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: of copy like not because it's like, is this like good?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Could it be better or more?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just like,
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like,
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like,
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: is this bad in the sense of like,
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: you know, is this boring or bland or does it sound like everybody else?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm kind of like there's there's a there's as a business coach,
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: you're just kind of like, Is this sufficient to get you started and to work?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And everyone else is going to make it better.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to be like, how do I make this not the blocker?
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of my clients will ask me to read stuff.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, as a voracious reader, I'm like, this I can't read.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: I can't get through.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: So we got to start there.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: But I've noticed that I have clients that speak differently than they write
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: or write differently than they speak.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: They use different language and they just listen to vocabulary and things like that.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: How do you help when you're listening to what they say and how they say it and what they write?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: How do you know which is the real voice when they speak?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, I'm sage fried, I don't say things, and I don't have the...
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: When I speak,
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: you get the real me,
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: but sometimes the real me is not what I want to put out for mass consumption.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: Right, of course.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's not as precise.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I think too,
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: this like brings up an interesting thing that I've been obsessing over a little bit,
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: which is like,
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: we're talking so much lately about whether AI is like good or bad at writing.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I just am starting to feel like that's the wrong,
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: not that you said this, Jess, but like the wrong conversation.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I think it's more like AI, it's not that AI is incapable of good writing, objectively.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: It depends on what we mean by good.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't think that AI is capable of writing like you,
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Whoever you are, it's not capable of writing like me.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's not capable of writing like Jessica or Meg.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, it could be good, but it's gonna sound the same as everybody else.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I think what you guys are asking me is like, how do you know what you sound like?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason I'm like dancing around it is because the answer is that you have
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: to create writing.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: You have to write in order to know what you sound like.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to, it's a chicken or egg.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Type of conversation.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: I have a client.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: She's a writing coaching client and she is a business owner,
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: but what we're doing in our writing coaching is like for fun.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: It reminds me of like a couple of years ago,
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: I started taking voice lessons because I'm a terrible singer and I wanted
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: to get better.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then I just like really enjoyed taking voice lessons.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I just kept going.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: It was like therapy.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of how she's doing it.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: She's just like working on a cozy fantasy little book that she decided to start writing.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it's making her have more fun and feel more engaged in her work as
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: a marketing person, writing all her content for her clients.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: She's like more invigorated by that,
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: by this like random, you know, work that we're doing together.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, when we first started together, I would have no idea what her voice was like.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I know her and I could describe her as a person.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: She's she's really sweet.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: She's sort of slyly funny.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: She has a great sense of humor, but she doesn't have any like snarky edge to her humor.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I guess she would maybe say that differently.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: I just think that I am like at the one end of the spectrum of snark.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: So the highest end.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: So she's just she's Just feels like a very genuine, warm person.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: And she loves reading.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I read a lot, but this chick is reading like running circles around me.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: So she just started doing writing prompts.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I noticed in her very first writing prompt, I was like, you have a really...
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you have a really funny writing voice.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: You,
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: she was telling the story about how she lost her kid at the grocery store during,
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: and like,
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: and she was so frazzled that she stole her entire cart of groceries by accident.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's a really like funny story.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: The kid's fine.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but, um,
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: it wasn't until I saw her writing that I could describe what I was seeing
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: and what I was seeing was you have this lovely cadence, um,
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: You do this thing where you like make a little aside joke,
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: like a little under your breast kind of parenthetical that like adds a little humor.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Not every writer does that.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: So like recognizing the little quirks and kind of tendencies that she has
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: without any like teaching or prompting from me.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm pointing out like,
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: these are the things I think are your strengths and that I'm noticing about you
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: that make your writing a joy to read.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: They're also the things,
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: by the way,
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: that you might tend to overdo and might start to feel a little repetitive
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: or like lose their punch if there's too many of them.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: So when I'm editing, I'm looking for both those things in a balance.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm looking for like,
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: these are the things that like,
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: this is specifically something that is like Tori's kind of signature style.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: And we don't want to like hammer it home because then it's going to feel like
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: a gimmick and it's going to lose its impact.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: What do you notice about the writing you get for these kinds
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: of prompts versus what I call writing to format?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: So like writing to like a LinkedIn format,
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: the way you write to LinkedIn, there's a form to that.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: If you like,
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: there's a there's a form to how you do conversion copywriting,
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: there's a form to how you write a website,
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: there's a form to how you send out a newsletter, like they all have forms.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like there's writing as Craft and as expression.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's writing to spec almost like writing to format.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like if your only writing you do is on LinkedIn,
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: of course,
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: you're all your writing is going to sound like a LinkedIn template
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: because that's all you're writing.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a good question.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that's actually why I focus on craft,
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: because like writing to form is this is going to be a huge generalization,
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: but I feel like writing
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: to form is kind of how we got slop.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like I feel, and I,
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: this is like another kind of soapbox rant that I've been on lately is like,
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Slop isn't new.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's just, there's more of it and it's worse now.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what do you think AI was trained on Slop?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's how it knows what it is, how it knows how to create it.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I think,
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: and this is, I mean,
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: I would also say I'm noticing a lot of parallels between say like 2015,
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: 2016, 2017, copywriting, online marketing templates.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah,
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like the slop that that produced and what AI slop is now feels similar to me.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Just in like the way people are responding to it.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's not good to read that kind of writing.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't feel good to read it.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it's kind of that similar vibe happening.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: But I would say when you invite a writer to just pre-write to a prompt,
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: and when I say prompt, I'm not talking about AI prompt.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about like,
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: I set a timer for 20 minutes and I say,
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: Turn off all your distractions and look around your desk and pick an object
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: on your desk and tell me the story of that object.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's one of my favorite first prompts to give people.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: So if you are to do that, you cast around, your eyes land on something.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever your eyes land on, it has some kind of story behind it.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: And you start writing and you're like, okay,
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: I have on my desk this pencil case and it says book nerd and it has pride colors
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: because it was part of a Barnes and Noble pride promotion or whatever.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then I might go into this whole story about like why I was in Barnes and Noble
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: that day and why this thing caught my eye and what's in the pouch.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually all my like sensitive documents is in that pouch.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: I guess I shouldn't like broadcasting that,
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: but like,
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: Then I'm on this whole tangent and I'm like in this memory and I'm kind
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: of going all these weird places.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's never going to happen.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, maybe it will.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're just like sitting down to say,
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to write a LinkedIn post about the new Claude Watermark and what I think
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: about what the implications that this has on our businesses.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's so, I guess.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: Dry, I would say.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you might have a real heated opinion.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're really on one, you can just fire something like that off.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: But when you're so focused on form,
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: by nature, you're thinking more about the outcome than the process.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that,
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: is sometimes why people,
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: like you said,
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Jessica, people who write different than they speak, why there's so much of that.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because we don't really...
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Process our thoughts that way all the time.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: And, um, it can be, it can be stilting to the writing process to like impose this form on it.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like sometimes we reach for those things because writing is hard and we don't have ideas.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: So we're like, oh, I just need like a Mad Libs, like insert this here, insert this there.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, whatever gets you through the night, you know, use whatever helps.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, But for me,
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: I find what works better and I also find what is better to read
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: when you just kind of like let it fly and then later you can kind of put it into
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: the form that it needs to be in once you have words to work with.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I think there's a big difference here about how people think
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: about what their writing is supposed to be doing for them,
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: which is if you go into it and say,
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: I need to write a LinkedIn post,
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: then you just write a LinkedIn post on whatever comes into your mind
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: and you crank it out and you check it off your checklist and it's done.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: Versus I need to process my thoughts and think about what it is that I feel
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: about this and how I approach this.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: And that takes more time.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: But then once you have that kind of,
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to say raw document,
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: then you can slice it up and repurpose it in a variety
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: of different places once you have your own ideas and your own voice and your own way
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: of thinking.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: But if all that you're doing is output, output, output, output.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: Then you never take the time to create the raw document
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: and therefore you don't have anything that you can pull from and extract from
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: in order to turn it into the smaller puzzle pieces that you can then distribute.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: You're constantly pulling from something without putting anything back into it.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: I also think of it too as like writing to get something versus writing to give something.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: So this makes a big difference too when people are stuck is like,
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: if you're writing,
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: let's say you're writing a sales page or you're writing a sales email.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you're thinking,
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: I have this program that I would like people to join and give me their money and be
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: in this program and do this awesome work that I'm doing.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so when you're writing, you're thinking, how can I get them to click this button?
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: How can I get them to open this email?
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: How can I get them to buy something?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: And even not in a predatory way,
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: it's just kind of like,
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: we're here, we have this work, we want it to work, and we're like, we need a win.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like a nefarious thing,
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: but it's really hard to self-correct that while you're writing
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: because it's really easy to slip into like, what do I need them to know?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: What do I want you to know?
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: What do I want to say about this?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the writing can lose its grip sometimes when you're not thinking
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: about what does my reader need to hear right now?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: What do I want to give them right now?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: What can I do for them that's going to make them have a reading experience that feels good?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: And when you can make that shift,
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: and I mean, honestly, when I write, it's like a constant shift.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's like a constant, oop, the switch flipped again.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: I got to switch it back.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, And I can tell,
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: I have a lot of practice writing,
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: so I can tell when the switch flips,
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh shit, that's why it's feeling weird is because I'm talking at you now.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: And instead of inviting you into the warm embrace of a conversation.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a similar thing to what you're saying, Meg, is output versus input.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I think too, not for nothing, we used to be able to get away with more of this.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: And now it's like it doesn't sound like a fun process to like work harder
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: and think more about what you're writing.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: But like we kind of have to now.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: We just kind of have to.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: But I could see why this would stress people out.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I have some more philosophical questions about sort of like reading in school.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Can I go there?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: Hit me.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, like,
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious, like,
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: what you've seen is the trajectory of, like,
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: the writing people come in with when, one,
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: there's less reading and there's less reading for pleasure,
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: but there's also less reading of complicated texts.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, that keeps me going down.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I keep,
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a super reader of the Atlantic and they're talking about how,
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: we learn how to write those five paragraph essays that had a formula that was
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: the keyhole, right?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Not great for creative expression,
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: great for structure, but you know, it's one type of structure.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: But then also like kind of teaching test was like read these passages without
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: the context of how it fits into the whole narrative.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I think like if you only learn how to read blog posts and you only learn how
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: to read,
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: passages that have been extracted from text,
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: like how can you write anything but that?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: So the question is,
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: how can you learn how to write if you're only reading short form texts
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: without context?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: The answer is that you can't.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: The answer is you have to read more, really.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's all my writing coaches writing.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm the writing coach.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: All my writing coaching clients have recommended reading that I give them from day one.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not homework.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they might think of it as that, but I make it fun.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I actually, uh,
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: had a client who, um,
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: hired me because he has,
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: he went,
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: he was homeschooled and according to him,
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: he was homeschooled in the eighties and nineties when it wasn't really school.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: He was just like doing what he doing, whatever he wanted.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so he never really learned any formal writing,
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: like all the stuff that you guys were saying about what you learn in school.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: He never did any of that.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, But he's built successful businesses.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: He's super, super smart.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: And when I've received emails from him, I'm like, dude's a good writer.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: I've received way, way worse emails than this.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, miles worse.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: So that's another fascinating thing is how many people are writing all the time
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: and pretty good writers who will literally say, I'm not a writer.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not a good writer.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of life's mysteries to me.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: But we can talk about that later.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: But he wanted to come to me because he's going back to school
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: to get his bachelor's degree and he's been really stressed out about having
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: to write papers.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like he has this crisis of confidence of like,
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: how am I gonna,
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: be able to hack it when I've never done this I've never written
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: a five sentence paragraph before and I'm trying to tell him,
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: you're such a better writer for not having learned any of that stuff.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: This shit that we're learning now, that's the easy part.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: I can just tell you how to do it.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like,
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: half of getting,
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: sorry to universities,
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: but half of getting your degree is just like jumping through the hoops you have
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: to jump through.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're not going to need,
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: to know how to properly write an APA reference list,
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: like to run your business as a sports gambler or whatever,
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: you know, but you're like good, you know, good for you to get your degree.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, But anyway, I ended up making him, this is such a nerdy
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: thing that I mostly did for me.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: I made him a recommended reading list of all the required reading that I read in high school.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: Not all of it.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: I cherry picked for him.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I didn't ask him to read Pride and Prejudice.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: No, Pride and Prejudice is the one you should read.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's like the Scarlet Letter in Bartleby the Scrivener that I have issues with.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: He read...
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: And we absolutely loved it.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: Loved it.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then we both read Hamlet.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: I just recently read Hamlet for fun.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: I think you put that in your newsletter, yeah.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: Highly fucking recommend reading Hamlet.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry for dropping an F-bomb.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: Not sorry.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: I did it first.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like the Shakespeare play?
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, the Shakespeare play.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, just making, I'm like, I was going to use Hamlet or Hamnet.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: The Hamlet, Hamlet, written in the 16-whatever.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: And he read like Moneyball.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: I had him read some nonfiction.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: He read 1984 and was horrified.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: But all the while, you know, I'm asking him, like, what do you think?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what do you think about George Orwell's writing style?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: How would you describe it?
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that question honestly made him freak out.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: But he has an answer.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: The thing is, is like you're reading.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: And if you think about like, what do I think about this?
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then he was able to be like,
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: oh, his sentences are like this and his I'm not I'm not trying to be vague.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't remember what he said.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: But he was able to describe like kind of the way that it made him feel reading
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: that book and kind of like the mood that it put him in.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: Not just because 1984 is like kind of a horrifying book to read right now
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: if you never read it, but.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: More like the style and the voice and the way that George Orwell presents his narrative.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's a vibe, right?
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: And
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: versus like Hamlet, I mean, you guys, this guy read, we got the, I don't have it on my desk.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: We got the kind I had in school where it has like,
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: the text,
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: the original text on one side and then like notations and stuff on the other side
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: to help you make sense of the old English and references, footnotes and stuff.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: He read it twice.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: Once just straight through,
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: once going back through with the footnotes, he highlighted stuff he didn't know.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: He read it like three times.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, whoa, I only read it once.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: And we also both watched a stage adaptation on YouTube, which helped.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: And he learned something different from that too.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: He learned about how so many different stories and pieces of art
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: in our culture dating back to however long Actually have Hamlet as a point
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: of reference, including but not limited to his favorite show, The Sopranos.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: So like one of the things we were working on was having him write a compare
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: and contrast essay on the character of Tony Soprano and the character of Hamlet.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: And this sounds like a really random tangent,
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: but my point is, A, he had fun reading these things.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: I sold it to him as like, what dude in their 40s just randomly reads Hamlet?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, that's a flex.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then he was like, oh, okay, I'll do it.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: But reading is just so important.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like an 80s PSA,
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: but I don't see how you could learn how to write unless you're looking at writing.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then because in the business world,
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: we're so myopic and we're reading business books
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: and we're reading other people's blog posts and we're reading other copywriters
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: and we take copywriting courses like Reading other things is even more helpful.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: Reading fiction is a huge part of all of the homework that I give
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: because fiction writers are,
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, God, there's infinite number of things that writers are doing.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: There's like anything I want to teach someone how to do,
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: I can find an example in a book that someone did and be like,
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: go see how they did it, you know?
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that's also how you develop your voice because you're like,
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: I was into that or I noticed You know,
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: like I noticed when I read Lindy West,
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: I sort of start reading like writing like Lindy West.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: I start like sounding like her.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: And when that happens,
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: that's important because you're like, oh, that's she's my she's a relative.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: She's a writer relative.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: You need to know who those are.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, you hit the button.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: I went on a tangent.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we're for.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's so funny.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, but I think.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: The reason I talked about it is
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: because I recognize now I can't read certain things anymore
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: because I like I can't read this kind of website copy
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: because it just like it doesn't it does it has that like metallic feel to it.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: It has a metallic feel to it.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I've been like consciously like I'm having to pick back up my reading practice
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: and notice like I can't actually read.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: This book's like the amount of like people are like, oh, Sarah J. Maas.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I can't get through the world building.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: I can't.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: But I realized.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: Get through the run on sentences and the characters who don't do nothing.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: Well, there are issues with it.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: But I think that's.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm like looking for books that are outside of sort of like
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: the nonfiction business world to these are things that I remember.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: These are things.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is how long the sentences can be before I start to.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is how much signposting I need to stay focused and things like that.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm having to pick back up reading, not for fun, but for my work.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because otherwise,
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's like it's both reclaiming attention span,
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: but it's also learning, relearning what my voice sounds like.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because all I do is read LinkedIn because I read so many marketing emails
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: and I'm like, what bores me?
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: Where do I lose focus?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I can't.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: I have to intentionally read for my work now.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's for your brain, too.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's not even for your work.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's like for your brain to have a break to hear something or to feel something that isn't.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's both.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I actually recognize that like I am having trouble writing my next book
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: because all I'm doing like it's it's for my personal life.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: But it's also like I am degrading as a writer.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because I am not doing reading,
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm getting blocked, because I'm not reading books, like real books.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think it's hard.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think, oh, gosh,
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: you just said, I want to have you on my podcast, and I don't even have a podcast.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: I keep talking about this.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I think some of what you're saying speaks to taste a little bit,
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: you know, like lots of people love Sarah J Maas, and that's fine.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: And some of us don't.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that's taste.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's not my taste.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Some of it is I like a sort of another sort of side tangent
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: that I won't really go down is like reading stuff you don't like is actually really
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: helpful because like, what don't you like about it?
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's, that's learning.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then I also think that some of what you're speaking to is just like a,
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: to me, I experienced this like an input problem.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like I, this is kind of why I went off the socials.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: Cause I was just like,
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: and I'm like reconsidering that every day because of like reach and visibility,
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: blah, blah, blah.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, But like my brain was just like short circuiting.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: I was just too much input.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: There's podcasts, there's social media, there's the books I'm reading.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: There's like all the writing that I'm looking at every day from all of my clients.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: So much input just from the minute you open your eyes to the minute you close them at night.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're trying to write a book,
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: which is a massive undertaking, that is a lot of output required.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: And you need space and freedom to like,
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: Clear all the shit out so you can say what you have to say.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: But then the other piece of it is, yeah, like,
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: curating what your input is, I think, is another important thing for writers to do.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: Do you like audiobooks, Jessica?
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: There are ones that I love and ones that I can't stand.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: Fun fact.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: Action is everything.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: It is, and also how the book is structured.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like, the whole, like, Kind of British voice for fiction.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's all kind of monotone.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: I can't focus on.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Project Hail Mary was like the best audiobook I've ever heard.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: And hearing, like, I just listened to Jack, oh my God, I'm going to lose his name.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Jack Barnes is like Young Money.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: And like, because he's a podcaster, he...
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: Narrates his own audio book like he's doing a podcast and it has different beats
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: to it to like help me focus.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: But like sort of like the fiction ones where it and I've noticed
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: that I have like I personally this is not to go into my neuroses around this.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: I like I can tell when it's like like the first chapter,
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like,
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: I need this to hook me in just a little bit faster than maybe the author wants me
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: to.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm kind of antsy to get hooked in.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I've noticed that because of the amount of content I read and listen to.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: When your YouTube is designed to hook you in the first 30 seconds,
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: and it takes a chapter or two for the book to ramp up,
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: I noticed that, OK, well, how do I bridge the two things?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: How do I make the ramp up a little bit more fast?
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: I've discovered I can't be dropped into fantasy.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Meg and Samantha,
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: what do they call it when you're just dropped into the scenario and you're having
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: to figure out what language...
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: In media verse, is that it?
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I didn't know the answer to that question.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: They just drop you in and you're like...
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_02: In media res, in media res.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so you're right.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well,
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: they drop you in and you're having to figure out who the hell these people are,
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: what do they want,
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: what language are they using,
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: why are they talking about this,
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know their motivation,
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: and it takes like 30 pages to figure out what the hell is going on, and I'm like...
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot, I don't have the patience anymore.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: On the other hand, when you're in Lord of the Rings and you're spending 30 pages with like
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: the trees dancing around and you're like, just get out of the room.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't read those books either.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: I watched the movies.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: I like all the, all the music and I've like flipped through those.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: Endor trees walking around and I'm like, there's, there's orcs coming for you.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_02: Let's go guys.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: There you go.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: I brought it back to Lord of the Rings for you, Sam.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: That reminds me of my husband's least favorite trope,
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: which is like in a wartime battle scenario when two characters have like
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: a poignant
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: goodbye scene when one of them dies and he's like, dude.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's my entire issue with the movie Armageddon.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_02: I was like sixth or seventh grade and all my friends are like, oh my god.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, there's a fucking meteor coming.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_02: You can't.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: You're caught in a little close here, guy.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: Your daughter's on the planet.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't hurry up, she's dying too.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, let's go.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not a slow bird person.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I would call that to,
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: Jessica,
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: what you're talking about,
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: I refer to as like intentional confusion versus unintentional confusion.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: When I edit a manuscript,
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: like there's a balance and sometimes you want to keep things because you have
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: a twist coming or because like,
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: You don't need to spell everything out and you can trust your reader a little more.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a really fine balance to strike.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: But I also think too,
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: like this is kind of where,
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: this is,
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that there's like a solution for this per se,
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: but I do notice this because I was a copywriter for so long.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: And at the same time I was editing,
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: a hundred thousand word manuscripts,
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: and my work as a copywriter,
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: Makes me a sharper editor for fiction because I have a lot of experience
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: in being like, okay, let's get to the point.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: Or writing hooks.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: Hooks are really good.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: We know what I'm really good at is writing the last line of a chapter,
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: Cliffhanger, because I think it's because of so much time as a copywriter.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: I can bang those out over and over and over again.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: But I have a harder time as a copywriter.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: This is why I'm an editor and not a writer of fiction.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: I have...
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: I can...
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: I can set a scene.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: I can create a vibe.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: I can write a really amazing character description, but I don't have the chops for a story.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: What happens to them?
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I think identifying, that's my deal.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's my combination of skills.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: And at the same time,
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: having worked with so much literary work makes me A better teacher and coach
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: for business owners because I'm bringing this perspective on writing
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: that isn't just businessy.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, writing is writing.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: A LinkedIn post is writing.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: An email is writing.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: A manuscript is writing.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: An academic dissertation is writing.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: It all is the same, you know, basic art form.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then the different mediums and genres have different conventions
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: and different like,
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: craft elements or different purposes, different outcomes that you want, whatever.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: But understanding it as a craft,
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think helps a make it a more fun thing to do just in general,
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: especially if you're a business owner and have to do it all the time.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think you can also like,
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: like we've talked a lot about LinkedIn posts and sometimes I'm thinking,
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: well, LinkedIn posts isn't that deep.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: You can just like fire it off and keep it, you know, boring.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, craft wise, you don't have to do anything fancy.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you can,
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, because God knows LinkedIn could use a little, uh, pizzazz here and there.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think it's helpful.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: And this is kind of where it just comes down to like, yeah, there's no fast answer.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: Time, attention,
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: reading,
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: paying attention,
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: thinking about what you're reading,
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: paying attention to like,
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: the ways that your various levels of experience combine into the way
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: that you approach writing and then paying attention
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: to what you're noticing you're craving more of when you're reading
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: and what you're noticing makes you impatient or what you're noticing you're like,
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: So sucked in that you forgot that you are like making dinner right now.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking of listening to an audio book, being a book at the same time, I don't think.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why my kids pancakes were burned.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's also why I advocate reading lots of different stuff and lots
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: of different mediums.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm very fascinated by the adaptation product process.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I read all the Lord of the Rings books after I saw the movies and I like
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: the movies much better.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it's very interesting to think about how someone takes one piece
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: of one story that's in one medium and turns it into a different medium.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's like a pet little fantasy, like not fantasy, that's like a pet obsession of mine.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like I can't get enough of thinking about that.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: But that's why I use a lot of like film examples too in writing coaching
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: because that's also writing.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's just a different medium.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_02: So let's bring this back to where we sort of have been tiptoeing around, too,
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: which is the more that we read,
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_02: the more that we write,
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_02: the more that we recognize what our writing preferences are,
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_02: what our writing style is,
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_02: and then we can bring that into our businesses in a way that feels,
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_02: God, I'm going to say the word authentic.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_02: Which I think should be a banned word,
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_02: but it's the right word for the moment of like, no, this is how I really think.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_02: This is how I really talk.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_02: This isn't me,
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_02: following a template or responding with a hot take because that's the,
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: the thing that people are talking about and they feel like I have to hit the trend
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_02: or...
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: Putting an idea to AI and telling, what do I think about this?
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: What's hot right now?
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: What's the format that I should be following?
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: Should I put the link in the post or put it in the first comment?
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_02: How should I format this for maximum reach and all of that bullshit?
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_02: Because you know that we're all thinking it too.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_02: What is the best time to send this email for maximum,
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_02: for improved deliverability and open rates?
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_02: These are things that we all also know as marketers and it's hard to turn off.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_02: In the same way that it's hard to turn off the switch, I'm seeing both of you laughing at me.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: We're not laughing at you.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: I stretched and I hit my hand on one of my lights by me.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: I was Aggressively Human.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know what?
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: AI can't do that.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_02: You're laughing at Jessica.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_02: That's the way that it always should be.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: Here I am thinking that I'm making a point, and you're like, no, Jessica's just kind of clumsy.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_02: But the way that you were saying,
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_02: like, you turn on and off that, like, am I giving or am I receiving?
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's an empathy switch.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's a conversion versus,
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, thought leadership switch or maybe it's not thought leadership.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's just like writing for pleasure versus writing for commerce.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: But like,
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: how do we bring this like knowledge of what it is that we sound like into something
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: to make ourselves differentiated while also not going so far outside of
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_02: the conventions and outside the box that everything tanks?
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think that.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's like a two-part question that I feel like is two questions.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: One, I think writing, I just want to circle back to this.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's writing for your reader instead of writing for yourself.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's the distinction.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I called it an empathy switch.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's the main way I think about it.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's like if you're writing, then you're writing for your reader because that's who reads it.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: Unless you don't publish it and then you're just writing for yourself,
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: which is fine,
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: I guess, but not if we're in business and we need people to see our work.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think people hear conversations like this and then they're like, I got to write in my voice.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: And like, really, you have to just write what you have to say first and get that out.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then as far as like sculpting it to make sure it sounds like you,
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: I guess like if you write it yourself, it will sound like you.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: If you start by writing it yourself with your own brain, that's a great first step.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: And also if you take an editing pass first with your own brain,
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: but I think there are people who will be like,
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: I don't use AI to write, I just use it to edit.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that makes my little editor heart cry.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't understand how to edit writing,
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: Then you're not going to be able to discern whether or not AI did a good job.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: And in your mind, you'll be like, oh, this looks fine.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because objectively, it will look fine.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: It will be grammatically correct.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: It will have some kind of varied rhythm, you know, short sentences, long sentences.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: It will have a little, you know, whatever dumb slang that you told it to use was your voice.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: You like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and it'll put a Buffy reference in there.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's just going to feel flat and hollow because it isn't basing anything on a feeling.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: It isn't like a writing.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: When you read writing, it creates a feeling.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_02: Not like a, but like maybe, but
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: just some sort of vibe.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: You could check in and be like, how do I feel while I'm reading this?
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why AI writing sounds like AI writing because you don't feel anything
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: when you read it.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I think also, like,
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_02: I think sometimes people will say, oh,
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_02: I got it edited or I use AI for editing in the way that,
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_02: like, Grammarly edits, which is line editing, copy editing.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_02: Let me make sure that it's grammatically correct versus what you're talking about,
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: which is developmental editing, which is, is there something worth saying here?
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a better way to say it?
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: But I also think, I mean,
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: if you talk to authors or you talk to agents in the publishing world
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: and you ask them about voice,
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: they will say, Your voice takes years and years and decades to fully develop.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I recently took a publishing class with someone who's been in the business
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: for like 20 years, has lots of published work.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, I feel like I'm just now finally kind of figuring out what my voice is.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: It isn't like a thing.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_01: It isn't like discovering your Enneagram.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it's a it is evolving over time.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: It is cultivated.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's something you can work on and curate and cultivate.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: You can experiment with it.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like I said, when I first read Lindy West, I felt a kinship with her.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I write like this.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: But I wouldn't have known that if I didn't have a lot of writing that I've done
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: to be able to look back at and be like, this feels a little similar to me.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: We do some of the same things.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: But she does them more than me or she does them better than me.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: Or she does the thing that I would really like to be able to do.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: That is really, really hard.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_01: Specifically,
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_01: something that Lindy West does is that she mixes a personal story with
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: a cultural observation that is well-researched
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: and doesn't sound like she was making shit up.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: And she goes back and forth in ping pongs between these different threads
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: and ties them all together in one essay.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: That is so hard to do.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: And that's something that I feel like I'm always trying to do and constantly failing.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, like, That's a writer that I know that about myself.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: You're trying to,
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: you're not just saying,
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_02: well, that's not the convention and nobody's writing it like that except for her.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_02: So I'll just write just the personal story and then go and here's for ninety nine dollars.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_02: You can get the rest of it.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: Or like, you know, I'll have people do prompts where I'm like, right.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: I have this like free thing.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: I guess we can give it to your peeps, too.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: I have this free thing.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's called Anarchy on the Blank Page.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like four writing prompts that are just really, really stupid.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, take your offer and sell it to me as Maleficent would.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so you're practicing writing in someone else's voice.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_01: And everyone knows.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I hope everybody knows what Maleficent is.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: Do you guys know from Sleeping Beauty?
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: She is, but I don't necessarily know what her voice would sound like.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_01: You could pick any Disney villain.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: Ursula from The Little Mermaid.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: Or one of the other prompts is like, write, what's the other one?
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's like super girl boss, like sparkly, shiny, like, listen, babe.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_01: Voices that are sort of tropey and really recognizable.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: So like, like playing around, you know, and you can like try to do it.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then sometimes when you when you do stuff like that,
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: you're like,
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, actually, this comes really naturally to me, and I'm really good at it.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you can like lean into that a little bit.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: But even if you don't, it's funny.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then it kind of gets you out of the,
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: that's sort of a different thing.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like busting writer's block.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: But listen, people take this all way too seriously, I feel like, mostly is my message.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know,
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_02: if you also,
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_02: if you feel like, well,
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_02: I read something that AI wrote and it doesn't sound like me,
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_02: but I don't know what I sound like,
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_02: then maybe try to write something completely different.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_02: And then you can,
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_02: at least you have something that's like, you're reverse engineering
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: a negative.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_01: And going, well, I don't want to sound like that.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: And finding things that you do like how they sound.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because that is common.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't sound like me, but I don't know why.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's basically a really good reason to hire somebody like me.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: So speaking of,
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: if they want to get the anarchy on the blank page templates or they want
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: to hire you, how would they do that?
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for asking.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: My website is IndieCopyStudio.com.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_01: Please go there.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: I've been doing a lot of work on it lately.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: Exciting.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: You can read about my framework and my offers and See all my weird design shit that I did.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: Love it.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: So now it's time for Aggressively Human.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: And since you've been talking, Sam, we'll give it to Meg.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I know you've been excited to share your Aggressively Human, so I can't wait for that.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: She's just waiting for it.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_02: So my nine-year-old came to me this morning at like 6.45,
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_02: climbs to my bed, and
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_02: he's like, Mom, can I wish the Lion King?
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, And he's like, well, I saw The Lion King 2, but never The Lion King.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, I have failed you as
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_01: a parent.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know how this is possible.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_02: How did you see Lion King 2?
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_02: It was terrible.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_02: But he's watched so much during school snow days and things like that,
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_02: where they watch it in school, that he's seen all these movies that I don't know.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like I've kind of failed as a parent by never showing him The Lion King.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_02: But he has a communication disorder, so after he watches anything...
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_02: We're doing the reading comprehension.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_02: We're doing the what happened in the movie.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_02: Who were the characters?
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_02: What happened between them?
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_02: Who was the bad guy?
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_02: And he said Scar.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_02: He was evil.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like he immediately knew how bad Scar was.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_02: So if I'm doing any writing prompts around any of the villains, it's gotta be Scar.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's gotta be Scar.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_02: Because he's also like secretly charming in a way that Ursula,
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_02: she's not charming in the way that Scar is.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_02: He's a little manipulative.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_02: I like him a lot.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_02: I think the older I get, the more I appreciate the good villains.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to do my Aggressively Human next because it ties in.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_00: So Meg, you might feel like a bad parent for,
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: you know, not exposing your child to the Lion King.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I have a story.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was in like third grade,
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: I went to the YMCA camp for the summer and the day we were there, it was raining.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_00: They showed Terminator 2.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_00: YMCA camp, right?
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: To third graders.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_00: To third graders.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I was terrified.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: Then, you know, fast forward, you know, you know, 30 years.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: My husband and I were in, we were in Portland this summer for the road trip.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_00: And we went to some like random dive bar.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it apparently was a dive bar that showed old films.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: We happened to be there right when they were showing Terminator 1, which I'd also never seen.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_00: So we watched the first half of Terminator 1,
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_00: which was not as compelling as Commando,
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_00: which I've also seen with my husband in the theaters.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, that's not a currently Aggressively Human thing.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're like, oh, man,
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: like my son didn't see Lion King,
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like,
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_00: well, at least your son never saw Terminator 2 at a YMCA camp at the same age.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: Good point.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_02: I got a text message from somebody recently who was like,
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_02: I am in this bar in Northern California and
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_02: the women's bathroom is entirely Princess Bride themed.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought of you.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, that is the nicest text to be like, I saw this and I thought of you.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_02: Because I feel like Princess Bride is so universal.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm like, that's the nicest little love note.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_02: Sam, what's Aggressively Human in your world?
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: Although I do have a related story about Large Marge from Pee Wee Herman.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to save that for another day.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I have recently been divesting from streaming music services.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I currently own this digital audio player.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_01: Is this a Zune?
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: We used to call these MP3 players.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's a whole new thing, girl.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's called a Hibby R3 Pro, whatever, R32 Pro, something like that.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I have been...
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_01: Spending a lot of my time learning how to curate and organize
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_01: a digital music library that I completely own.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I listen to this, there's no algorithm.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_01: I just listen to things that I want to listen to like the olden days.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's taken over my life.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_01: It was an unbelievable learning curve, to be honest.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's weird as someone who owned cassette tapes and Many,
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: many CDs and then transitioned to MP3s and then transitioned to streaming.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_01: The MP3 moment was like a real blip.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like I don't have any muscle memory.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_01: And even if I did, the whole entire landscape and all the technology has totally changed.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_01: And all the Reddit threads are like real nerdy.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like I had to use AI assistance a lot to explain shit to me because I'm like,
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even understand the words these people are saying.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what does that even mean?
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm pretty tech savvy.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, I now am.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: The proud owner of 64 gigs of music.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_01: I have my album art on here.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds amazing.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, what is more Aggressively Human?
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_02: Because it is not fast.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_01: It is not convenient.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_01: It is very clunky.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_01: I had to go manually update all the tags in all the files so it'd be organized the right way.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_01: It was like a whole fucking thing, man.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like, it's very retro.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but like the tech's not retro.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's been this whole time there's been people who are like,
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want my music on my phone.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: Why would I want my music on my phone?
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: So like the technology has been evolving.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_01: The culture has been evolving.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like people have been on this tip for a long time.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_01: And most of these people on these threads are like young people.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: They're not like Gen Xers like us.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: But basically we just find that the 2008 to 2025 like era where we like stepped
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_00: into it and we're like, oh, actually we hate this.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go back to 20, 1990.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty much.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: I, I, I don't have regrets in my life,
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_01: but getting rid of my CD collection is something I deeply regret all the time.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: Not that I have anywhere to put it, but.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_02: We still have a couple like folders of CDs in the basement.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_02: We haven't gotten rid of.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_02: We still have DVDs too,
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_02: but like the basement flooded a while back and I was like,
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, these are top shelf, but they're not coming upstairs.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: But it's just like owning my shit.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like I don't want to pay every single month.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_01: For a platform that can just randomly decide to change the terms or
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_01: the price whenever they want and continually make me have to pay more for
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_01: the same product when I'm like, I just want my own music.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to own my own music.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're such a punk.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_00: Such a punk.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_00: We'll close it on a Buffy note.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_00: I still have all of my DVDs.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_00: I did get rid of the boxes,
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_00: which makes me kind of sad,
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_00: but they're all in like those big ass sleeves and they've just been moving
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_00: from place to place.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I have all seven seasons of Buffy Vampire Slayer,
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_00: all five seasons of Angel,
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_00: all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls, all seven seasons of the West Wing.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_00: The first couple seasons of Smallville,
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: I have a couple seasons of Dawson's Creek and Battlestar Galactia.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_00: So you will never take my WB away from me.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_02: What I'm hearing is when the zombie apocalypse comes and the internet,
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_02: Jessica is just going to be binging.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_02: Binging on her Blu-ray?
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_02: Well, with that in mind,
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_01: that was very Aggressively Human.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe aggressively zombie?
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_01: But We'll have a lot of music and a lot of
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_02: WV channel
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_01: shows to watch.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for being here with us again, Sam.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_02: And listen or tune in next week and we will have another conversation about how
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_02: to keep your business Aggressively Human.