Episodes

  • Are characters conglomerates of people we know?

    Are characters conglomerates of people we know?
    Feb 18 2026
    What does it mean when a writer creates a character?
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    7 mins
  • What if no one listens?

    What if no one listens?
    Dec 31 2025
    A poetic-essayistic exploration of the idea of what if no one listens, reads, sees the art? And its opposing notion: what if audiences truly listen?
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    11 mins
  • What do you write about when you have nothing to say?

    What do you write about when you have nothing to say?
    Dec 26 2025
    What do you write about when you have nothing to say?
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    7 mins
  • Can Christmas stories teach us about the creative process?

    Can Christmas stories teach us about the creative process?
    Dec 15 2025
    From Scrooge to George Bailey, to the modern comedic and heroic stories (including Elf, National Lampoon’s Christmas, and Die Hard), a consideration of the lessons that Christmas stories can teach us about the creative process.
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    9 mins
  • Is Generational Affinity Good for the Artist?

    Is Generational Affinity Good for the Artist?
    Dec 7 2025
    Is generational affinity good for the artist? Is it good for creative work to have some sense of an affinity towards one’s generation? The disparate cohort and a sense of connection to various creatives from various times. The milestone occurrences and crossovers of concentric aspects of life, these might be valid as commonalities. A sense of grouping together of periods, works, and individuals as from a time and a context.
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    21 mins
  • Getting a spaceship out of a swamp

    Getting a spaceship out of a swamp
    Nov 25 2025
    Notes on a dream, pulling a spaceship out of a swamp
    Powerful dream. How do we bring a creative work into existence? Sleep dream. Dream come true… You know the whole thing… You’re trying to catch it. Will the notes look like the thing? Explains an aspect of the creative process. We are walking in the woods and we see what looks like a half-sunk spaceship in a swamp. The strategies we use to get it out… Writing: improvisational or planning? Improvisers use pre-planned things. Outliners have to improvise while making the outline… is there an outline for an outline? Whatever process we use is the way we make sure the spaceship doesn’t sink… And the perception of complete control…. That’s even a way… that perception is a way, that’s the yarn, the magnet… compared to music theory and grammar: maybe grammar could be called language theory? What is style? Is it the culmination of the how and the what? Descriptive vs. Prescriptive grammar. Style is our own vocabulary developed as we get the spaceship out of the swamp.
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    16 mins
  • Why the self portrait?

    Why the self portrait?
    Nov 16 2025
    an exploration of the common grounds of three questions:
    Why the self portrait? Can we create art and not reveal who we are? Should we do commissioned work?
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    30 mins
  • How to write a love song and not really mean it

    How to write a love song and not really mean it
    Nov 9 2025
    Can you perform with just a notion of technique and without a sense of sincerity? Working with purity: either just passion or just technique… as a comparative structure to inquire into the question. Is it better to have feeling or a technical sense of the work? We can find examples of great performances of both. Sometimes as we learn more effective techniques in creation, we might get more of a reaction but we can feel more about the technique than the content. Authorial intent: can we know the intention? Do we need to? The audience’s reception: that’s the counterpart to intent of the author. And then the idea of expression. And communication.
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    31 mins