Latest / Show, don't Tell Writing with Suzy Vadori / 77. Where Research Meets Memoir, an Interview with Treena Orchard

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77. Where Research Meets Memoir, an Interview with Treena Orchard · Show, don't Tell Writing with Suzy Vadori

• 0:05
  Welcome to the Show, don't Tell Writing Podcast with me, Suzy Vadori, where I peel back the layers of how to wow your readers with your fiction, your nonfiction.
• 0:13
  Anybody can bang out a first draft, but it takes a little more work to make your book as amazing as it can be.
• 0:20
  Join me as I share the step by step writing techniques you could apply to your writing right away.
• 0:25
  As I host successful writers who share a behind the scenes look at their own writing lives, and as I live coach writers on their pages giving practical writing examples that will make your own writing stronger.
• 0:38
  Nobody is born knowing how to write an engaging book.
• 0:42
  There are real and important skills that you need to learn on this show.
• 0:46
  I cut through the noise and get you all the info you need.
• 0:49
  I can't wait to see how this information is going to transform your writing.
• 0:56
  All right, listeners.
• 0:57
  I know I always see an extension about having a guest on, but I'm truly over the moon to be talking with my new friend, Trina Orchard.
• 1:05
  She is the memoirist who wrote sticky, sexy, sad Swipe Culture and the darker side of dating apps.
• 1:13
  When I met Trina a couple of months ago, we were both presenters at Sudbury Word Stock Conference, and we were flying in from myself, from Calgary, and she was coming in from London, Ontario, and we were both on the same flight from Toronto to Sudbury, which is a short flight.
• 1:30
  And the organizers had sent me notes saying, Hey Trina, Trina Orchards on your flight and you're gonna be picked up together when you get to the airport in Sudbury.
• 1:37
  So find her and say hi.
• 1:39
  So I did, because I'm always up for meeting new writers.
• 1:42
  So they had some time to kill her at the airport.
• 1:43
  And I was a little bit earlier'cause I had a connecting flight.
• 1:46
  And so I found her on social media.
• 1:49
  I dmd her.
• 1:50
  I had not looked up her book yet or didn't know much about her.
• 1:54
  And so I sent her a quick pic of me sitting in the airport lounge saying, Hey, I'm here.
• 1:59
  This is me.
• 1:59
  Come say hi.
• 2:00
  And it was really hilarious because I didn't know that she had written this.
• 2:07
  Book about dating apps.
• 2:09
  Until then, I was waiting and I was like, oh my gosh.
• 2:11
  I just sent her think like we're meeting on a blind date or something.
• 2:14
  So it was a little bit meta there and then she sat down and we started talking and we had a lot to talk about.
• 2:20
  We ended up spending, we had a great flight to to Sri.
• 2:25
  As soon as she told me about her book, I bought it on the spot.
• 2:28
  I listened to the audio book while I was traveling and on my way home.
• 2:32
  I knew that I had made a new friend, so when I finished reading the book, I immediately messaged her and said, you are coming on the podcast because we need to talk about this book and everybody needs to hear about it because I really wanted to know.
• 2:46
  What did her all come about?
• 2:47
  I was absolutely fascinated.
• 2:49
  Dr. Trina Orchard is anthropologist and author and activist whose work on sexuality, gender, and health, sheds new and illuminating light on human behavior in the 21st century.
• 3:00
  Her vital insights into digital culture and online relationships are reshaping how we think about the ways that tech reshapes our lives.
• 3:08
  Trina's pioneering contributions to arts-based research are used worldwide in classrooms, clinics, and community spaces.
• 3:15
  Adds both a scholar.
• 3:17
  And creative storyteller.
• 3:18
  Trina has a rare ability to translate complex social issues into engaging narratives that are relatable to a wide audience.
• 3:26
  Currently based in London, Ontario, Trina balances her research on writing with life in a historic home filled with books, gardens, and two very spoiled cats.
• 3:37
  Join me in listening to this candid conversation with Trina about how this book came about.
• 3:42
  I gotta tell you, I have never been on a dating app, and so if you've never been on a dating app, you can still learn from what her experience was and how she took this real life experience and put it together into a memoir.
• 3:54
  I hope you enjoy.
• 3:57
  Welcome to the show, Trina Orchard, my friend.
• 4:00
  I am so excited to talk with you about your book.
• 4:04
  It's great to be here, Suzy.
• 4:06
  Yeah, I mean, it's such a hot topic and.
• 4:10
  When I read the book and I just wanted to like geek out with you full things, I'm like, yeah, you're coming on the podcast because I mean, you know, and our listeners are really interested, most of most of the listeners here are starting to write books or try to figure out how they wanna write books.
• 4:26
  And so, and I was just fascinated by how you structured it and how it came about everything.
• 4:31
  And I was like, let's, or ask about this.
• 4:33
  Let's do it on the podcast.
• 4:34
  So you ready?
• 4:36
  I'm ready.
• 4:36
  And it's nice to be asked about craft'cause it's not something that I get asked about very much and it's something I really enjoy talking about.
• 4:44
  Yeah, exactly.
• 4:45
  It's like, I know, I've seen it like this.
• 4:48
  Like I said, it's such a hot topic.
• 4:49
  People ask you because they wanna talk about what's in the book.
• 4:52
  Oh.
• 4:52
  Talk a little bit about that to you listeners, don't you worry.
• 4:55
  But today we're gonna dive into the nuts and bolts of it.
• 4:58
  So.
• 5:00
  First of all, what do you want to write this particular book at this particular point in your life?
• 5:05
  'cause I'm sure you had a lot of ideas.
• 5:07
  What, how did it all come about?
• 5:09
  Oh, well, I should start with a basic point that I had no intentions of writing a book, a memoir, anything.
• 5:15
  When I began swiping, that was not my reason for beginning to use dating apps.
• 5:20
  But as I began swiping and sort of falling deeper and deeper into the depths of like confusion and despair, as well as fascination.
• 5:29
  I just felt like I needed to write in sort of a therapeutic sense to externalize a lot of the chaos I was experiencing.
• 5:36
  And when I began doing that, you know, noticing different patterns, I'm a sexuality scholar and I wanted to just kind of like write my experiences in kind of a way that felt private and just for me.
• 5:49
  And when I began writing, it's like a different voice emerged and it was less formal than the academic stuff I'm used to.
• 5:57
  It was funny, it was candid, it was curious.
• 6:01
  It just really kind of emerged in an organic way and I just said, well, I'm gonna follow this.
• 6:06
  And this is definitely a book that is more public facing as opposed to an academic study for me.
• 6:13
  Done.
• 6:14
  I wanna get into that in a second.
• 6:15
  'cause it it does, it lays it all out there.
• 6:17
  Right.
• 6:18
  And you are a researcher.
• 6:20
  It's the title right?
• 6:21
  On your website.
• 6:22
  When did this pro, like when did dating become a research project for you?
• 6:27
  I mean, it was about a book too, but it also about the research.
• 6:30
  When, how did that transition sort of happen as you were curious on trying to figure this thing out?
• 6:38
  I think almost everything is in some way research or an ethnographic project.
• 6:42
  For me, because I live my life as an ethnographer, as an anthropologist, I'm never not, which could be irritating for some of my friends and colleagues and potentially lovers, family members.
• 6:54
  I'm not being observed right now.
• 6:56
  The answer is yes, so I couldn't really turn that part off of me, but I didn't expect it.
• 7:03
  To really go as in depth as it did.
• 7:06
  And I tried not to do a lot of reading about dating apps in terms of other research.
• 7:12
  'cause I really wanted this to be my experience.
• 7:15
  How am I making sense of it in my own lens, in my own life?
• 7:20
  And so that was a kind of a fun new challenge for me.
• 7:23
  And so I was excited about that and I just can't help but reflect on.
• 7:29
  The significance of what someone says to me, or you know, why am I getting so easily addicted to these things?
• 7:35
  What does this say about technology?
• 7:37
  What does this say about me?
• 7:39
  Why am I trying so hard?
• 7:41
  Why is it so hard?
• 7:42
  All of these questions just found themselves sort of channeling to a space that was more research and sort of academic in terms of some of my questions.
• 7:53
  I love that.
• 7:53
  And, and you were saying, you know, some people in your life might find that irritating.
• 7:57
  Honestly, it's why I think we are friends.
• 7:59
  So because, and, and I think at some level all writers have that curiosity about life.
• 8:07
  And so, you know, if you're listening out there, you maybe the early stages of that and you're like, why am I feeling called to write this book?
• 8:13
  It's probably sucking in that spectrum of what Trina is talking about.
• 8:18
  So for those of us who are from outside the field of anthropology, which is most of our listeners, can you just explain a little bit about that?
• 8:28
  What does that mean?
• 8:29
  Yeah, because like anything, a lot of people are gonna identify with that and maybe you'll inspire.
• 8:33
  So I'm Glading anthropologists.
• 8:35
  Yes.
• 8:36
  So anthropology in general, people are like, oh, is that Indiana Jones kind of uhhuh.
• 8:41
  You know, so there's linguistics, so people who study language, there's the archeologists who's kind of like the Indiana Jones.
• 8:49
  They go to the.
• 8:50
  Digs in the summer in different parts of the world and they, and they unearth material remains from previous peoples.
• 8:57
  Then there's the folks who look at sort of biology and how we have evolved in terms of the species, and then there's sort of the space where I tend to spend a lot of time, and that's sociocultural anthropology.
• 9:08
  It's basically the study of human beings and culture is really at the heart of people's curiosity.
• 9:15
  No matter if you're looking at language or.
• 9:17
  Material remains, and it's like how do we organize ourselves culturally?
• 9:22
  How do cultures differ across societies and what can that tell us about the experience of being human?
• 9:30
  Yeah.
• 9:31
  I think that's amazing because a lot of writers that are listening here that are bringing, whether they realize it or not, writing is always personal and we are, we can only see things through our own lens.
• 9:42
  We could try.
• 9:43
  Even if you're doing the opposite view, it's like it's still colored by what you know.
• 9:48
  And so I love that you get to do that for a job.
• 9:51
  'cause many of us are writing because we want to do that.
• 9:54
  Okay.
• 9:55
  And so, um, yeah, so let me know if you are a listener.
• 9:58
  Comment in the, uh, in the comments.
• 10:01
  Let us know if that resonates with you because, and then it does.
• 10:04
  And if it doesn't yet it should.
• 10:06
  Because as you're writing about your own life or as you're writing about your fictional characters or as you're writing about anything else.
• 10:12
  All of this comes up and you may not realize that you're doing it, but you are.
• 10:17
  And so I love that you are overtly looking at that.
• 10:20
  Okay.
• 10:21
  Did you think, when you were looking at this research project, did you think it was a memoir?
• 10:26
  Did you think it was a research paper?
• 10:28
  Did you, did you ever consider making it into something else?
• 10:32
  How did that all, like how did you decide?
• 10:34
  Yeah.
• 10:34
  From the very beginning, I knew I did not want it to be a research driven book.
• 10:38
  I've done that.
• 10:39
  I wanted a creative challenge, and so it was always going to be a memoir.
• 10:44
  It was never gonna be an academic study.
• 10:46
  I certainly bring in my skills and observations and expertise as a researcher, but it's not just a study of the people that I encountered.
• 10:56
  It's a reflection of how I was changed dramatically by this experience of surrender to this new technology and also surrendering to.
• 11:08
  Navigating in a creative way.
• 11:12
  Some of the challenges and things that I haven't really written about as a woman who brings a lot of trauma and a life that is pretty big and colorful to the page in a way that I was ready to do.
• 11:24
  So it was always gonna be a memoir, but intertwined with the memoir piece, our poetic reflections, and then scholarly analysis, bringing in references and things like that.
• 11:36
  Absolutely.
• 11:37
  I love that.
• 11:37
  And big and colorful.
• 11:38
  Yes.
• 11:39
  Trina, that is you.
• 11:40
  That is a great reflection.
• 11:42
  Okay.
• 11:42
  Did you ever consider making it fictional?
• 11:45
  Were there moments where you're like, whoa, this would be a great fiction book?
• 11:48
  I mean, I know you were gonna write a memoir, but you had to have been tempted.
• 11:51
  Never.
• 11:52
  No, never, never, never, never.
• 11:54
  I mean, there was, I knew that writing a book like this.
• 11:59
  A lot of people have reflected, especially women, and they've used pseudonyms or they have made it fictional, and there's a whole field of auto fiction out there.
• 12:06
  But I never once wanted to do that because to me, I wanted to own my life and there was a political and a therapeutic reason for doing the book the way I did with my name.
• 12:19
  I'm also.
• 12:21
  Writing from a place of privilege.
• 12:22
  I had tenure, so I knew that even if people were snickering about me behind my back or really Flo up or you know, had some sort of critique from my colleagues or academic community, that I've already got a very strong standing and so I can weather it.
• 12:37
  And that, that's amazing too because that is a reason why a lot of people writing memoir either fall back or maybe don't end up publishing.
• 12:45
  So you knew then going in.
• 12:46
  What has the reaction been, both personally, professionally, and and from your readers?
• 12:51
  Yeah, so in terms of personally, like part of me still can't really believe that I've written it and that it's out there, you know, a year and a half later.
• 13:01
  I see it in the stores.
• 13:02
  I take a picture, I have the copies on my dad desk.
• 13:06
  I talk about it all the time.
• 13:08
  It's a big deal for me because books are magic.
• 13:10
  Books have changed my life.
• 13:12
  They've saved my life.
• 13:14
  I have found solace with strangers across the world in the pages of a book, and so that will also, I think, always kind of be a little bit magical.
• 13:22
  Um, but professionally I have received nothing but positive comments from the colleagues who at least tell me that they read it or that they think it's so cool that I'm doing this.
• 13:32
  They're like, this is such a great example.
• 13:34
  Not just for students, but for us and other people and like, God love you.
• 13:39
  And then in terms of from readers, it's been just pure joy.
• 13:45
  People take the time to tell me that they've read it and that they enjoyed it.
• 13:49
  And then, you know, whenever you're talking about love or relationships, it's like a portal for people to begin and open up and share their lives with you.
• 13:58
  And you know, I've had a lot of amazing emails and letters from men as well, which was kind of surprising.
• 14:05
  And so it's just been extraordinary.
• 14:08
  Yeah.
• 14:09
  And I wanna talk about what that's evolving into as well.
• 14:11
  But we'll get there in a second.
• 14:13
  Structure.
• 14:14
  So just back to how you put the whole book together.
• 14:17
  You started out, you said in the opening here, you started out writing notes and taking notes and wanting to reflect.
• 14:23
  How did you take that and cobble it into a book or craft it into a book?
• 14:28
  How did that end up happening?
• 14:30
  The structure evolved a lot over time.
• 14:32
  At the beginning, there were four huge chapters.
• 14:36
  Which was a bit more in line with an academic book.
• 14:38
  Then it's like, you know what, this is too academic.
• 14:40
  I don't wanna do this.
• 14:41
  And then I shifted to month by month focusing mainly on my experiences using Bumble, which took place over the course of five months.
• 14:50
  And then I sent that to an editor and she's like, what's gonna distinguish January from March?
• 14:55
  There's probably gonna be a lot of repetition.
• 14:57
  That's not the way to go.
• 14:58
  Plus you used a lot of other apps much longer than than Bumbles.
• 15:02
  So expanded and her task for me.
• 15:05
  Was to think of five or six thematic chapters that have less than five words in the title.
• 15:12
  And she, 'cause she said, academics are notorious for very long, flowery titles.
• 15:16
  And I was like, what do you, but you know what?
• 15:19
  We said goodbye on that call and literally five minutes later I had all the chapters and all the heading.
• 15:25
  So it was always in me.
• 15:27
  I just needed to be asked the right questions.
• 15:29
  So that's how the tension came to be.
• 15:31
  Structure is so important in nonfiction.
• 15:35
  When people come to you, because there are, there are a hundred ways that you can tructure the information.
• 15:40
  Yeah.
• 15:40
  And the only thing that changes is the vibe or the, the reader's experience with that information.
• 15:47
  And so it does, it takes a minute, like you said, the structure's in you.
• 15:52
  You have to think about your reader's journey as well and how they're coming into this.
• 15:56
  And so you chose, or when I'm reading it, it looks like you chose to really lean into the storytelling, so it kicks off with some vignettes, which I think was really smart.
• 16:07
  Because people are, especially if we're coming to it, having never used a dating app, which is my situation, then you know, we kind of need to be lent a little bit and that these are the stories, this is what actually happened before it kind of peaks my interest.
• 16:22
  Was that intentional?
• 16:23
  Yeah.
• 16:24
  You know, initially I didn't.
• 16:25
  So each chapter begins, as you say, with kind of a poetic page and a half kind of reflexive kind of entryway into the subjects that are gonna be focused on.
• 16:35
  I didn't have those initially, and then they sort of began emerging as I was writing.
• 16:40
  And the writing got better, but I also just reflected on felt like something is missing or it's not as special as I want it to be.
• 16:51
  And then the editor I was working with, she was on board with, uh, why don't you try adding those, those vignettes, you know, at the beginning of each chapter, including the introduction.
• 17:01
  And again, that was sort of all I needed.
• 17:03
  Sometimes I just need to be told what to do or just kind of reaffirm what I'm already thinking inside.
• 17:07
  And so that's how that part of the book emerged.
• 17:11
  Absolutely.
• 17:11
  And, and we all are, I mean, writers are typically avid readers.
• 17:16
  If somebody comes to me and says, I wanna write a book, but I don't read, I know we're gonna have an niche because we, they're not going to understand.
• 17:23
  One of the things I find really fascinating is we're almost like, like the term nose blind, but to books and their structure.
• 17:30
  Like we don't notice it when we're reading and until you become a writer and you try to break it down, you're not really sure how that is, right?
• 17:38
  And so one of the things that I like to do with nonfiction writers especially is look at books that they like than vibe A lot care about the topic.
• 17:46
  Did they like the book?
• 17:48
  Then we could look at it and see what did they do, and then they can make choices for their own books.
• 17:52
  I'm so happy that you've had somebody there to reflect back and make those suggestions, and then it's like this aha moment because you see it more clearly.
• 18:00
  Right?
• 18:01
  And just like your job.
• 18:03
  Is to sort of reflect on cultural and social experiences.
• 18:07
  My job is to actually look at those books and figure out what are they technically doing.
• 18:11
  It's a work and so I love to gee out about that.
• 18:15
  Okay.
• 18:15
  You talked a little bit about one of your ideas along the way was just to study Bumble, and I'm not sure I know in the book we talk about it being a feminist app and, and you also have written this book from a sex positive and feminist lens.
• 18:29
  Right.
• 18:29
  What does that mean for our readers out there?
• 18:32
  What does that mean?
• 18:32
  Because we all have our own sort of lenses that we want to put into our book, and how do you incorporate that without getting on a soapbox and telling us all about, you could do that here, but in the book, we don't mean that.
• 18:45
  Right?
• 18:45
  But what?
• 18:46
  What did you want to put in there about feminism that was really important?
• 18:51
  Yeah.
• 18:51
  I think one of the important things in terms of my approach is that I'm not here to tell anyone what to do.
• 18:57
  Nor am I here to say that the way I did it was the best way because it certainly wasn't in a lot of ways, but it's honest, and that's, that's important.
• 19:06
  And so in my mind, feminism is as integral to my life as kind of like the blood flowing through my veins.
• 19:15
  It really is about caring about the experiences and equity and freedom and joy and suffering.
• 19:23
  That a lot of us experience on this planet and trying to think of ways to better understand it, to make it go away, to impact it in a positive way, especially for women, but not exclusively for women because, and female identifying populations.
• 19:37
  'cause we don't live in a bubble, so feminists can be anyone.
• 19:40
  I have a lot of male friends who are feminists.
• 19:43
  Feminists can come in any shape and size, but it's fundamentally about a caring approach to understanding the human experience and responding to it.
• 19:52
  Kindness and love and dedication to service as well is part of my kind of way of doing feminism because I wanna use my privilege in ways that can help in a lot of different spaces that I live and I work in, and I volunteer and I do activism.
• 20:08
  If we don't help each other, what's the point of being here?
• 20:11
  Fundamentally, life is short.
• 20:12
  Let's make it as nice as we can for all of us.
• 20:16
  Yeah, I mean, listeners, this is why Trina's my friend because, no, but, but you're right.
• 20:22
  Like we all have convictions and a lot of times people put them through their pages and they maybe send me 10 pages of their convictions, but we are on the show them tell podcast.
• 20:33
  And I think you did it really smartly where you showed us through your actions in the book what that meant and didn't really delve into, you know, the academic side of all of that, which was really.
• 20:46
  Really good for, for the reader's experience.
• 20:49
  Yeah.
• 20:49
  I, I do provide a few different versions of feminism, you know, what is feminism and I, so I do provide, you know, some basic building blocks in terms of different ways of thinking about it.
• 20:58
  And again, that's sort of up for the reader to think about, oh, I align with this one or not, not with that one, but maybe this one, or maybe I'll just continue to think about it.
• 21:06
  Yeah.
• 21:06
  And that's totally fine.
• 21:07
  Absolutely.
• 21:08
  Absolutely.
• 21:09
  Okay.
• 21:10
  So sticky, sexy, sad.
• 21:12
  Very cool.
• 21:13
  Title, subtitle, swipe Culture, and the Darker Side of Dating Apps.
• 21:18
  Why did you get to that?
• 21:19
  Nonfiction titles are hard and people come to me all the time for advice on them, and it's like just this moment where you're like, yeah, that's it.
• 21:28
  But I don't know that it there's any magic for Can you come up with a title?
• 21:33
  It's a by the way, so thank you.
• 21:36
  I come up with titles all the time for my nonfiction work.
• 21:39
  In terms of my research, and I love coming up with titles.
• 21:42
  I've got a bit of a flare for it, but you know what?
• 21:45
  This title came to me when I was on the bus, on the way to work across from the McDonald's in the Starbucks.
• 21:51
  It just literally landed in my lap, sticky, sexy, sadd.
• 21:55
  The part that came after it initially was much longer.
• 21:58
  It was like an anthropologist account of lust, longing, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 22:03
  And then the editor was like.
• 22:05
  That's a bit long.
• 22:06
  And you mentioned this really cool term called swipe culture.
• 22:10
  We would like that to be in the title.
• 22:11
  And I was like, amen.
• 22:14
  Yeah.
• 22:15
  Yeah.
• 22:15
  It's like sometimes collaborative is amazing.
• 22:18
  The sticky sety sod, I don't know what it is.
• 22:21
  I just wanna say it number one.
• 22:22
  'cause it's in alliteration and I wanna say it out loud.
• 22:25
  And then it's also like irksome because I wanna say sticky, sexy, sweet.
• 22:32
  And I have to think about it and, and it's.
• 22:35
  Metaphor for the book because you want people to think, you don't wanna just be like, here it is.
• 22:40
  It's, it's like, I wanna take a pause and be like, Hey, is this what I think it is?
• 22:45
  Or maybe it's something else.
• 22:46
  Like it just, it does so much work.
• 22:48
  Good.
• 22:48
  I'm glad.
• 22:49
  I also want people to feel right.
• 22:51
  That's one of the reasons I wrote the book, is that we swipe like crazy and we don't take account of how devastating and sometimes fun it can be.
• 22:59
  And also just to remind people to trust their intuitive.
• 23:03
  Knowledge and check in with how they're feeling when they're swiping or doing anything else.
• 23:08
  'cause that's often our truest sort of emotional compass.
• 23:12
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 23:13
  And it's amazing how the brain works.
• 23:16
  Since I read your book a couple of months ago now.
• 23:19
  Wow.
• 23:20
  Has it been that long A couple of months ago now.
• 23:22
  And then just spearing about SW culture in the media, or even just seeing it.
• 23:29
  Fiction or otherwise where people are like, I gotta stay off the apps.
• 23:32
  And I didn't have any understanding of that before and I had this whole other understanding of what that means.
• 23:38
  Right.
• 23:38
  And it's so loaded.
• 23:40
  So good job.
• 23:41
  Okay, so we talked about the slack that, you know, you were wondering how this would be received and you were like, well, whatever it is, it is that you knew, but it's actually been very positive, is what you expected.
• 23:56
  Is launching a book, what you expected?
• 24:00
  It's stupid Bank of heart.
• 24:02
  I've been following authors, following literary agents, getting a sense of what it's gonna be like.
• 24:07
  You know, I had ideas for the launch, I had ideas That Pub Day comes and 24 hours later, there's a different day on the calendar.
• 24:16
  Not that much will probably change except everything will change, and that is how it, it felt.
• 24:23
  Phenomenal.
• 24:24
  It felt lonely.
• 24:25
  It felt like I was so worried that I didn't know how the book was doing.
• 24:30
  I was quite obsessed with tracking it and then being very disappointed that the sales weren't more brisk all the while doing loads of media, loads of podcasts, you know, really enjoying that part, but really inside feeling like quite a failure.
• 24:46
  And I didn't really know what to do with myself for a little while because.
• 24:52
  It's in people's hands, you know?
• 24:56
  Yeah, and it's so hard because the traditional publishing, and you're traditionally published through the University of Toronto Press and it, it's so hard for those of us from other places in the universe, and I mean, at least you've worked in academia before.
• 25:11
  The pace of publishing sometimes is very slow, and so what treat is talking about, I'm sure there's lots of things, but one of the things is you don't have access to real time data, so you don't know.
• 25:21
  Necessarily whether it is doing well or it isn't doing well.
• 25:25
  I mean, you could track and you could see where you're at on Amazon or where you're, you know, you could kind of see a little bit, but it can be very frustrating because it's, it's such a lagging indication by the time you get paid for those sales.
• 25:38
  It's been a year later, right?
• 25:41
  Yeah.
• 25:41
  Uh, was that shocking?
• 25:42
  Because it, it can be.
• 25:44
  Yeah.
• 25:44
  I, it was in a way because intellectually I knew what it was probably gonna happen.
• 25:51
  Then experientially, it was very hard emotionally and psychologically, and every author I speak to says the exact same thing, and I don't know how you could ever not care or pull yourself away and just be like, do, do you know?
• 26:09
  Maybe there are people like that the next time around, I will certainly probably experience it in a bit more of a gentle way because.
• 26:19
  I learned so much in the last couple of years, let alone the past five or six years about publishing in a trade sort of context, which is very different than the academic world.
• 26:29
  Absolutely, and I think, thank you for being candid first of all, because this podcast, what I'd really like to do is show people behind the scenes, and certainly not to discourage, but to be real about these things because it is, it's like this surprise and it's hard to know how you're going to feel about it.
• 26:46
  What would you have done if you'd known, I mean, this is, this is an impossible question, but is there anything that you think you could've done to prepare for that or anything that you would've done differently so that you didn't have that sort of shock Look, you're describing shock, right?
• 27:02
  Yeah.
• 27:02
  And we're not naming emotions here.
• 27:04
  We're showing them.
• 27:04
  So Trina's kind of describing this, this shock of it.
• 27:09
  I thought it was gonna be one thing, and then it, it wasn't.
• 27:12
  What would you do differently if you could?
• 27:14
  I spoke with other authors I prepared.
• 27:19
  I don't think I could have done anything differently and because it was my first book, I think it's would always feel that way, especially because it was the first one.
• 27:32
  I think I might have tempered my ideas about sales.
• 27:35
  Try to be a little bit less focused on the impulse to track and to quantify and then to link that quantification to success.
• 27:46
  So I think that is something that is hard for readers to maybe think about or, you know, potential writers to kind of tone that down because we're thinking, we're sort of socialized to think that.
• 27:58
  Numbers is how we gauge success.
• 28:01
  Yeah.
• 28:02
  I go on a podcast and I'm going to immediately sell 100 books as a direct result of the podcast.
• 28:07
  It's not how, you know, it's the conversation between sales and marketing and time.
• 28:12
  Have to give it and time.
• 28:14
  Yeah.
• 28:15
  I mean, it's a year and a half through the launch and we're still talking about it, so you're not going anywhere.
• 28:21
  Um, this, this is, you know, still relevant, still everything.
• 28:24
  And we met at a conference where you were asked to be a guest.
• 28:29
  Flown to this conference.
• 28:30
  That's how we met on the plane.
• 28:31
  Right.
• 28:32
  And we were going to the same conference.
• 28:33
  So, yeah, I, I like to say that writing a book will open doors that you haven't thought of yet, and it's not, you know, it's really hard to predict where that journey will lead.
• 28:46
  And part of it is timing and part of it is response.
• 28:49
  And, I mean, there's so much to it.
• 28:50
  I can't even, but people are never sorry that they wrote it because it leads them in a different direction.
• 28:59
  This conversation that you've started with the universe and with people and with your readers has actually led to a whole new project that you're starting.
• 29:09
  Do you wanna talk a little bit about that?
• 29:10
  Yes.
• 29:10
  And I'm sure that that wasn't on your radar.
• 29:13
  Who knew?
• 29:14
  No.
• 29:15
  No.
• 29:15
  So the, the new project I've done, done almost 25 interviews.
• 29:19
  I've got about 55 surveys done, and this is directly flowing from sticky, sexy, sad.
• 29:26
  It's a book that is looking at vulnerability and masculinity, and I learned a lot about men from dating them, from talking to them, from interacting with them, and of course, from asking them questions about their behavior towards me, about their experiences on the app, about what it's like to be a guy.
• 29:46
  And I needed to ask those questions when I was trying to date them in order to try and understand their behavior because it was so hard to figure out.
• 29:54
  But then those inquiries opened up a whole world that I didn't really know much about and I was so interested in, and that is what it's like to be a guy, what it's like to be a man in our culture.
• 30:08
  And so it just felt like a natural kind of direction for the next book.
• 30:13
  Also, I'd received a lot of letters and beautiful emails, very vulnerable emails.
• 30:19
  From men saying, thank you for this book.
• 30:21
  You're telling us how women use the apps.
• 30:23
  You're also telling us that some of the things we've been told as a culture that we should do as men to be sexy and attractive and strong is actually a turnoff.
• 30:33
  Thank you for that.
• 30:34
  And so it just, that was an honor that they're sharing these things and so that sort of led me to focus on them sort of full time for this next book.
• 30:44
  It.
• 30:44
  It's such a cool transition and such a different conversation.
• 30:48
  I love that.
• 30:49
  And and you could already tell, I mean, we haven't talked about this, but I can see it in your socials.
• 30:53
  You're already being asked to speak about this topic and you're already being invited.
• 30:57
  Like we know it's hot, right?
• 30:59
  Yeah.
• 30:59
  And timely and all the things because nobody's having this conversation.
• 31:03
  It's kind of like the, what is it?
• 31:05
  Men are from Venus, or women are from Venus and men are from from bars or something.
• 31:09
  It's like these.
• 31:10
  Posing forces where you're opening up this dialogue that apparently is very needed in the market.
• 31:16
  So thank you for doing it.
• 31:19
  Thank you for seeing it.
• 31:20
  Thank you for doing it.
• 31:22
  I'm excited to see where this all lead.
• 31:25
  I, I think you're go.
• 31:27
  It's gonna lead to more and more conversations, and as long as you're enjoying it, uh, we're all for it.
• 31:32
  Okay.
• 31:33
  So we're at the quick fire portion of the, of the podcast where I'm gonna ask you a couple of quick questions and I ask virtually every author, unless we, we go in a completely different direction, is we wanna know the behind the scenes.
• 31:48
  Are you ready?
• 31:49
  Yeah.
• 31:49
  Okay.
• 31:50
  So how long did it take you to write your first book?
• 31:54
  Which is not sticky, sexy side, by the way.
• 31:56
  Right?
• 31:56
  You've got some academic books out there.
• 31:58
  The first book that was co-authored probably took about six months to write my portions of the chapter.
• 32:04
  My first single authored academic book took just under a year.
• 32:09
  Okay.
• 32:09
  And Sticky, sexy sound.
• 32:10
  How long did it take you to write from the moment you realized that your notes and reflections were gonna be a book to publication?
• 32:20
  Four years.
• 32:21
  Yeah, maybe.
• 32:23
  It changed a lot and I also put it on hold for a while when it was just too much.
• 32:28
  I was so drained by the apps experience and it was hard to, putting a book proposal takes a long time.
• 32:34
  That's all part of the writing though.
• 32:37
  It's all part of it.
• 32:38
  And I think, you know, when we talk about it, especially for first books, it's hard to do it faster because all of that time, even the putting on full time, which you're saying apologetically is important because it's a reflection.
• 32:52
  Um, and then you come back at it with fresh eyes and it's.
• 32:56
  It's really difficult to write such an important book, um, and one that meld all of your ideas and all of your experiences that you wanna jam in there and have them make sense.
• 33:07
  Um, yeah, that time is important and that's a very, four years is a very, very common answer.
• 33:14
  Yeah.
• 33:14
  Oh, interesting.
• 33:15
  Yeah.
• 33:15
  Yeah.
• 33:16
  Very common.
• 33:16
  Okay.
• 33:17
  What was your first big break on this book where you were like, alright, this one's actually happening.
• 33:24
  That is like in 2019 when I wrote my first article for the conversation and it went viral and I got 60 comments, 85% of which were from men trolls a note, trolls read things online, they don't read books.
• 33:37
  I haven't gotten any evil things about the book really, but that was the first big break.
• 33:41
  Okay, awesome.
• 33:42
  And what's your best advice for writers thinking about writing a nonfiction or a self-help or versus memoir?
• 33:51
  What's your best advice for those?
• 33:53
  Listeners that were out there thinking about writing a memoir or something with nonfiction in it.
• 33:59
  I think one of the most important things is to be open to the multiple stories that are gonna be told.
• 34:04
  We start writing a book about a dating app, and then you really are unearthing stuff about maybe trauma, you know, joy, you know, aging and there.
• 34:12
  So there are always multiple levels of stories going on and at the same time.
• 34:17
  Kind of being open and attentive and don't try and sort of categorize things too much, especially at the beginning, but kind of let the things bubble to the surface and give it time to take shape.
• 34:31
  Yeah, give it time.
• 34:32
  Figure out how to incorporate.
• 34:35
  All of those things.
• 34:37
  And maybe also questions about, that's a thread.
• 34:39
  Yeah.
• 34:40
  And you know, writing is so much about making decisions about what to keep and what not to keep for this particular project.
• 34:45
  You know, even if you take something out for this book, it doesn't mean you have to throw it away.
• 34:50
  'cause chances only return to it.
• 34:52
  It's great advice because we want to include everything.
• 34:56
  And sometimes you're saying let all the things bubble up, but that doesn't mean include everything that's off topic.
• 35:02
  Yeah.
• 35:02
  We have to archive them in a way that.
• 35:04
  Is sort of a thread through that the reader can manage.
• 35:07
  And if it doesn't think, um, absolutely.
• 35:10
  Yeah.
• 35:10
  Maybe those will be in the next book.
• 35:12
  Do you have a file of things that maybe belong in your next book or, because I, I often take things out and I make this file and I never use those things again because by the time I write my next book, I've got new things that I'm gonna need to trim.
• 35:24
  Right.
• 35:25
  But but did you find that you're using some of that as you plan this next book?
• 35:29
  Yes, I, there was some like pandemic writing when I did like sort of a big tabulation of like men that's 30 pages who think ation like from past presents.
• 35:43
  You know, I used a little bit of that in Sticky, sexy, sad.
• 35:46
  But I think I'm gonna find a way to use some of those observations in the next book, which is not gonna be a memoir, but it will have some personal things for sure.
• 35:55
  I wish I had a better filing system 'cause I have things a little bit all over the place.
• 35:59
  I'm very organized, but sometimes it's hard to know where to put this bit in which file.
• 36:04
  So I do, but it's a bit scattered.
• 36:08
  Yeah.
• 36:08
  Okay.
• 36:09
  Fair enough.
• 36:10
  And where can we find you and your books?
• 36:13
  You can find me in London, Ontario, usually with my cats.
• 36:16
  Uh, or at, at work?
• 36:18
  At at Western University.
• 36:19
  I'm most active on Instagram and it's just my name, Trina Orchard.
• 36:24
  I've also got a website, which is just trina orchard.com.
• 36:28
  Spend a fair bit of time on LinkedIn.
• 36:30
  The books are available at major bookstores.
• 36:33
  You can also order them if you wanna order them from an indie bookstore seller.
• 36:37
  That's also totally possible.
• 36:39
  And there's an audible version, which is through.
• 36:42
  Audible and I read it.
• 36:44
  It's seven hours and seven minutes, and I believe, Susie, you may have listened to that Hersha.
• 36:48
  Yes, that's what I did.
• 36:50
  I met Trina in a conference.
• 36:51
  I bought the book on the spot.
• 36:53
  She watched me do it.
• 36:54
  I was like, I'm getting that audiobook.
• 36:55
  And then all the way home from that conference, I got to have Trina in my.
• 37:01
  In my ear, I think, I don't think, I didn't quite finish it because I think the flight was five hours.
• 37:06
  Mm-hmm.
• 37:06
  Um, so I didn't quite finish it, but yeah, then I finished it when I got home and I immediately reached out and said, I wanna talk about this.
• 37:13
  Let's stop.
• 37:15
  So I hope that you've all enjoyed Treat Out Orchard on the podcast and this conversation.
• 37:20
  Check out the links in the show notes so that you can go and find her.
• 37:31
  Thanks for tuning into the Show, don't Tell Writing podcast with me, Susie Vadori.
• 37:35
  It is my absolute honor to bring you the straight goods for that book you're writing or the book that you're planning to write.
• 37:42
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• 37:46
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• 37:53
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• 37:55
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• 37:58
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• 38:09
  I'm writing courses that happen in my community.
• 38:11
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• 38:13
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• 38:18
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• 38:29
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• 38:30
  Remember that book you're writing is gonna open doors that you haven't even thought of yet, and I can't wait to help you make that it the absolute best it can be.
• 38:41
  See you again right here next week.