84. Bennett Madison's Permission to Let Go
Shedding "being a writer" while holding on to writing.
What do you do when you've established a writing career and then it's not giving you what you came for? What does it look like to be a person who writes but whose entire identity isn’t wrapped up in Being a Writer? Is there life on the other side, if you can just let go?
For the next in the Pivots, Comebacks, and Reinventions series, Bennett Madison joins me 9 years after his first appearance on TCL to talk about the work of de-professionalizing his writing life to pivot to joy in creative work--and a steady paycheck doing something else.
Find it wherever you get podcasts, or listen directly right here.
This conversation captures so much of what I’ve been thinking about for the past few years as far as writing as an identity and lifestyle and professional career vs writing as a practice and way of being in the world. It can be understood as the external vs. the internal, perhaps, or product vs. passion. I’m often wondering if and how those things can meet in the middle, in the real world.
However you think of it, it’s the quintessential kind of conversation that I made This Creative Life for—all about negotiating the intersection of art and commerce and deciding how close to it you want to live.
I hope this finds those of you who need it the most! Pass it on.
Bennett’s NYT piece on the Real World reunion
Bennett outs himself as an advice column fabulist in Gawker
We forgot to talk about this, but look for Bennett in the upcoming HBO doc about Miss Cleo! It premieres on 12/15.
Related recommendations:
This profile of Patti Smith in Harper’s Bazaar.
This energy—which Lerner describes as “kinetic” and as possessing an “aesthetic pulse”—is important to understanding Smith’s singular contribution to art and culture. There’s an electric current that flows from her to her work and into other people. It’s a powerfully generous and affirming current that seems to say to its receivers, “Yes. You’re free. You can pick up a guitar. You can write what you want to write. You can talk to the people who inspire you. You can make your life revolve around art and exploration. You can love. You can have a family. You are free to do what you want.”
This profile of Sarah Polley from the New Yorker:
“You try to do good projects, and you collaborate with interesting people, and you never embark upon trying to sell yourself, or pitch yourself, or get somewhere,” she told me, in 2011. She has not changed her tune. “I am not overly ambitious as a filmmaker, generally,” she told the audience at this year’s Toronto Film Festival. “If I don’t make another film again, I’m O.K. with that. I don’t want to make a film unless it has something to say.”
This Creative Life is a book, a newsletter, and a podcast from me, Sara Zarr, about reading between the lines of a writing life. The newsletter and podcast are free; buying the book (and leaving a great review!) helps support them and me. Sharing the newsletter is a big help, too! Look for holiday pricing on all formats through 12/21/22.
