Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Elizabeth: Hello and welcome to the Intuitive Writing Podcast, a production of the Intuitive Writing Project, a writing-based empowerment program for girls and gender-expansive youth. We are dedicated to giving young writers a safe, encouraging, non-critical, unconditionally supportive space to write their story, speak their truth, and assert their voice, both as writers and as leaders.
For a bit of background, my name is Elizabeth and I created this program eleven years ago because it's what I wanted and needed when I was young, a supportive place to be truly seen and heard. That's why we use the Amherst Writing method, a radically nurturing and empowering writing methodology, I wish everyone learned in grade school. You can read more about the Amherst Method on their website and in Pat Schneider's groundbreaking book, Writing Alone and With Others. But the basic principles and the ones that guide all of our classes are number one: everyone is a writer with important stories to tell. Number two: everyone has their own unique voice, a voice that needs to be heard. And number three: our voice will grow stronger and clearer the more it is supported and positively affirmed.
In our classes, everyone writes together, everyone shares their writing, and then everyone takes turns giving each other grounded, positive feedback. By that I mean we repeat back and lift up the words, lines, phrases, or concepts that really resonated for us since we can't violate the sanctity of our classes by recording what goes on there. These 1:1 or 1:3 people conversations are designed to provide a little glimpse, a microcosm of what happens in the classroom. You can also read about our and read our students words as they were published on our blog, the Intuitive Voice, with the link below.
If you enjoy listening to one young reader, read their words and talk about it. Imagine how powerful it is when six young writers are reading their words and giving each other positive, affirming feedback. It's pretty life changing, and there is a lot more I could say about it, but I'll let these young writers speak for themselves.
On behalf of all the writers at the Intuitive Writing Project, I want to thank you for supporting their voices, for being present and really listening to the wisdom, insight, and brilliance of young people.
Today, I'm so honored and excited to be interviewing one of our original writers, our OG, Audrey Lambert, who is here with us today to talk about one of her more recent pieces of writing. Audrey, if you would, introduce yourself to our audience, tell us your current age, your age, pronouns, where you're currently going to school, what you're studying, and then, if you would, mention to our listeners when you started writing with the intuitive writing project.
[00:03:16] Audrey: Okay, I'm Audrey. I use she/her pronouns. I'm 20 years old, and I go to Reed College in Portland, where I am majoring in English with an emphasis in creative writing.
[00:03:34] Elizabeth: So awesome. And you started in 6th grade or fifth grade.
I know I said this before when we were interviewing with somebody else, but I want to say it again because this is going to make you the most famous writer of the intuitive writing project forever, for as long as we exist. You are our most famous writer because you were the only one from our very first class who continued to write with us all the way through until you graduated. And even now you are at college studying creative writing, and you got to write with us. We had a little alumni class this past summer, and you and several other people wrote there. So if I could give you some kind of Oscar for that, I'll figure it out someday. I'm going to give you an award for it, but I'm so grateful that you're here. You have so much to teach and illuminate because you have been writing for so long. Some of us start later. Actually, even though I wrote the whole time when I was younger, I didn't really start sharing my writing until much later in life. So I think your experience of having written from basically age ten, you have already, like, a history of knowledge about writing. So I thought I would ask if you would share a little anecdote about your first memory or one of your first early memories of writing before you came to our program when you were really little.
[00:05:05] Audrey: I remember, I think it was probably first or second grade. I think it was second grade. We had to write like a how to book, like how to something. And I wrote How To Get Dirty, which I didn't realize was kind of an innuendo because I was a little baby, but I wrote about playing in the dirt and going in my creek in my backyard and stuff. And my teacher was like, you have to publish this. It's so great.
Looking back on it, I'm like, why would she say that with a title like How To Get Dirty written by a seven year old? I don't know what she was thinking, but I thought that was pretty funny.
[00:05:53] Elizabeth: That's so cute. Well, I think when you know that you were seven, immediately I was thinking of mud puddles, too. And I'm sure she was, as well.
[00:06:15] Audrey: Yeah, I wanted to be not like the other kids in the class. I wanted to be different.
[00:06:21] Elizabeth: Yeah. And also it's kind of an early feminist piece because girls are so conditioned to be clean and tidy, like boys are, “allowed” to be dirty and girls “have to” be clean. So that's kind of radical.
[00:06:36] Audrey: Yeah. It might have a bit to do with growing up with an older brother, but I don't know, I was a weird kid, I guess.
[00:06:46] Elizabeth: You are a magical kid. I love it.
Okay, so a big departure from that first piece, actually, it's been such an incredible honor to watch the evolution of your writing. In middle school, you wrote the most fantastical fictional stories and continued to do so in high school. And it's been recently, I feel like you've been finding your voice as a poet as well, which is just so cool. And all of your pieces are really deep and profound. So I'm going to have you. Honestly, it was hard to choose which piece to have you read because I want everyone to read all of your writing. And hopefully we'll get one of your own personal anthologies published soon, so people can't. Meanwhile, you can go on our blog, intuitivevoice.org. You can actually look up several of Audrey's pieces. And the piece that I'm going to have you read today, the one that you wrote this summer, and I encourage listeners to click on the link under this podcast so you can follow along and see how it's written, see where the line breaks are, and there's a play on words towards the end which you will appreciate most if you are reading it. The title is Just Right. R-I-G-H-T.But just know in advance that we're playing with right and write and writing. W-R-I-T-E writing. So just know we're playing with right and write. So if you would go ahead and read just right.
[00:08:24] Audrey: Okay. Just right.
“you’re so shy” they say,
“you’re so quiet,”
but, don’t you know
how loud it is in my skull?
you can’t hear it,
thoughts like a spinning top.
sorry i don’t feel like
speaking to you,
nothing personal,
really, it’s just
i don’t think you
could navigate these
echoing canyons,
i can barely read the
map myself and
the white water’s
too dangerous for you.
trust me, you’ll prefer the quiet.
sometimes there’s too much
for me to say for me to say it.
other times, you ask me
a question and my
rapid river turns lazy,
the skull is a barren desert,
pin-drop silent,
so i scrape up whatever
tumbleweeds are left
at the bottom of the barrel
and choke out some
stuttered, half-coherent
something just to satiate you,
and as soon as i’ve said it
the dam in the drought-dry
canyon cracks and my
skull floods with everything
i should’ve said.
“you’re so quiet” they say,
and they look at me like
i’m a goddamn ghost town,
head in the clouds and
full of helium.
sorry, i’m better with
words when i don’t have
to really say them.
it’s all about timing,
really. I never have
the right thoughts
at the right time.
i say too little and
i think too late.
there must be something
wrong with my brain
to mouth correspondent
‘cause my brain to hand
to pen to paper junction
is so much smarter.
“you’re so quiet,” they say.
i’m not.
i’m not, i’m just
thinking
too fast or
too slow,
Goldielocks must’ve
stolen the just right.
maybe that’s it:
just right.
just write.
i’m not quiet,
i’m a writer.
i save my words for later.
[00:10:09] Elizabeth: I love that so much. It actually moved me to tears a little bit, I think, because it's so relatable. And I think so many people who are writers deeply understand the truth that is being expressed here. I can't describe in words how deeply I relate to that whole thing, especially the second to last stanza. “There must be something wrong with my brain to mouth correspondent because my brain to hand to pen to paper junction is so much smarter.”
I just writing about this the other day, that when I was young, when I was like grade school and middle school and high school, I really thought I had brain damage because I felt like I couldn't get the words that were in my head out of my mouth. I still feel like that, but it's evolved a little bit. Now the problem is even more complicated. But the way that the writer has described it, I feel like it absolutely would speak to the soul of virtually every writer on earth.
The pain of being misunderstood, I think that's what also moves me. The repetition of what the world quote says, “you're so shy, you're so quiet.” And then that's such a “OMG, that's like they’re not seeing the truth of the person at all.” And I love how the writer conveys the complexity, the depth.
I would call it the genius that's actually happening inside of them, that they can't just spit out. I like that line, “so I can choke out some stuttered, half-coherent something just to satiate you.” Like you have to say something, so you're going to say something, and then, of course, it's not anything like what you wish you could have said that. Damn. “And the dry canyon cracks and my skull floods with everything. I should have said.” That is the story of my life. Like, coming home afterwards and being like, why didn't I say that? Then I come home and I start journaling about it. And when I'm writing, then I figure out what I want to say. But I just think in addition to being so relevant and relatable to every writer, I think it's so beautifully and powerfully expressed. “Thoughts like a spinning top.” Oh, my gosh. And this idea that people think they want to know what you're thinking, but do they? “I don't think you could navigate these echoing canyons. I can barely read the map myself. And the white waters. Too dangerous for you? Trust me, you'll prefer the quiet. That's such a great line.” Thank you. My God.
I also love, “hey look at me like I'm a goddamn ghost town. Head in the clouds full of helium.” It also makes me think about ghosts. I love reading about ghosts. This is probably how ghosts feel that they can't communicate with us either. And they're probably really frustrated. They're like, I have complicated thoughts, too. I'm also reminded of that phrase, “still waters run deep,” which is something most people don't understand. If there's silence, they think there's nothing there. But this writer makes it so clear. There's so much more going on beneath the surface. And then, of course, your final stanza is just a total mic drop. “Goldilocks must have stolen the. Just right. Maybe that's it. Just right.” And then this is where people can click on the link and see the writing. It goes from just right to write, which the antidote. I love how the writer expresses the frustration of being a writer more than a speaker, which we can really all relate to, and then reclaims their power. I think that the last three lines are just such a reclamation. “I'm not quiet. I'm a writer. I'll save my words for later. “It's like, suck it: I've got so much more going on. And this is how I communicate. I communicate on paper, with written language. And you guys just have to wait for that. Wait till my next novel comes out! Then you'll know it's on my mind!”
It's so good. I want to share this with everyone. Actually, I am going to be sharing this next week with middle school class, and we're going to use this as a prompt. And I think they're going to be so honored. Yeah, they're going to be blown away. When you're in middle school, high school sounds awesome, but they're going to be really inspired that you're in college. And I think the most important part of this is that as the writer is expressing her frustration and claiming her power, she is simultaneously giving permission to all other writers to, first of all, know you're not alone and then to claim your own power as a writer. And that's the little misunderstood thing about claiming power, is that it actually gives other’s permission. The more we all own our power, the more everyone else is free to do the same thing. It is permission, 100% permission, we have given to all writers who struggle with this, which is including myself.
Okay, so now I want to ask you about your creative process.
This particular piece. I don't even remember what the prompt was that night, although I always usually say, just write whatever, but I want to ask you if you remember.
When you started out, did you have a clear idea of what this piece would be, or did it just happen and. Or what was surprising to you about the process?
[00:16:37] Audrey: I think if I remembering correctly, the prop was something about write about something that makes you angry or something, or something that you're misunderstood about something like that. And, I mean, my whole life, people have called me shy and quiet, and I hate that. It's absolute pet peeve of mine. And I know I'm not the most social person, but it feels like an insult, even if it isn't.
And I think I sort of just wanted to get that out there first. And then, I don't know, I think I was thinking a lot about how even academically, I'm not the most participatory in class, because I feel like I have an idea and I start talking, and then I forget what I'm saying, and I feel like I sound so stupid in my classes with very intelligent people.
But then I sit down and I write an essay, and I'm like, I am smart. I do have thoughts about this. I just am horrible at articulating them verbally.
And so I think that's something that I find pride in, that I'm able to write well academically and creatively. And I think, yeah, that kind of brought me to the just right area of the poem. And I don't know, I think it flowed very organically through me because it was a little bit of a rant in some ways, yes.
And then I think I just started the too fast or the too slow, and that just made me think of Goldilocks, and I was like, oh, there it is. There's the big ending.
[00:18:28] Elizabeth: Big. That's so interesting. And it's like the too fast, too slow sort of stumbled out of. You're. You intuitively did it without thinking, and then that led to the final.
[00:18:41] Audrey: Exactly. Yeah.
[00:18:42] Elizabeth: I want to make a quick plug because what you're talking about totally comes from this great book. Did you ever read the name of the book is just Quiet and then the subtitle is “The Power of Introverts In A World That Can't Stop Talking.” Have you heard of that book or did you read that?
[00:19:02] Audrey: I haven't, but that sounds great.
[00:19:04] Elizabeth: I'm going to give you that book because I think everyone I've talked to who is on the introvert side feels so validated. And when you were just saying about, you hate when people are like, “you're shy,” all that stuff, that is 100% a judgment, particularly in America. Different cultures have different values. Like Asian cultures generally value more quiet, reflective behaviors. But America is the biggest extrovert-obsessed country ever. And one of the things she talks about in this book is like, even if you're not extrovert, you feel like you have to act like one. And there's all this judgment about it. And it's actually a real problem. It's such a problem that she had to write a book about it. So I think you're going to really like that.
By the way, funnily enough, even though she describes the science and all these studies that she's done about it, I still feel like you've expressed the problem more eloquently and concisely in this poem than she did in her entire book. And you alter the solution, which is just claim your power. Talking is weird. We've talked about this before. I mean, I am technically an extrovert, but I do feel like there is some kind of weird disconnect between my brain and my mouth, and I have trouble speaking all the time. Anyway, one of the things that we've talked about before, that, if you think about it too much, makes it almost impossible to speak, is if you think about words that we're saying are just weird sounds we're making with our tongue and our breath, and they're just sounds and they're objectively meaningless sounds. But you know what I'm saying, and I know what you're saying, and how weird is that?
[00:20:53] Audrey: That's so weird. Anytime I think about the process of speaking, really, I'm like, how did we get here? What am I doing? How am I making these noises? And they all have me.
[00:21:08] Elizabeth: Right.
[00:21:09] Audrey: Blows my mind.
[00:21:11] Elizabeth: Well, and you know, because you've extensively studied Spanish, we were just talking about this the other day, that it's easier for you to read than to speak it. Those two different things. And there are sounds in Spanish like the double R. That is a movement of one's tongue that I cannot for the life of me replicate.
[00:21:32] Audrey: But, no, I'm bad at that, too, which is part of the Spanish speaking problem for me.
[00:21:37] Elizabeth: Right. But it's so crazy that as babies, we can so easily learn whatever the people are doing around us. But once we're older, it's like, what are words?
Some people are amazing and speak, like, eight languages. It's incredible. And I feel like English is hard enough. Oh, my God, I can barely do that one. But we are much more comfortable writing. So unfortunately, I have to keep Ashley to talk about writing.
So if you just could give advice to any writer of any age, but especially young writers, about what you figured out over the last. Oh, my God. If you remember writing your first piece when you were seven, is it seven when you wrote the house?
[00:22:26] Audrey: Yeah.
[00:22:27] Elizabeth: So that math, what was that? Seven minus, is that 14 years now?
[00:22:34] Audrey: Yeah. 13, 14 years.
[00:22:35] Elizabeth: Okay. You have been writing for over a decade. In your experience, what do you do to get ideas? And also, what do you do when you think you have an idea and you start writing and then you're like, got nothing else? How do you get out of being stuck?
[00:22:55] Audrey: I think in terms of ideas, I feel like a lot of times I'll just have one sentence or one line or something. I've been thinking about that sort of is a starting point, a jumping off point for me, and I'll just sort of free write from there and see if that comes, anything comes out of it.
And otherwise, for inspiration, sometimes I get stuff from songs or even just, like, I don't know, the Internet or the news. I don't know, I'll read something and I'll think a certain collection of words, and that will spark something, and I'll get fixated on that. And then I have a notes app full of sentences that came to my head or things that I read that I just thought were interesting. And sometimes if I don't have anything, I've not generated anything. I'll go back to that and pull something from there. And see what I can do with that. And then in terms of getting stuck once I start writing something, this actually happened to me for one of my creative writing classes recently in school.
I had a line that I really liked, and that's what I wanted my short story to be about. And I wrote the first sentence and I couldn't get away from it. So I moved that to the end and wrote to it. I made it my end goal instead of my beginning.
[00:24:24] Elizabeth: That's so sweet.
[00:24:25] Audrey: Yeah, it was super helpful. That's so interesting. I think, too, I'm still learning a lot of stuff. Like, we had a visiting writer, K-Ming Chang, who wrote a collection of short stories called Gods of Want. It was really, really incredible writer. And she came and talked to our class and bed for the whole English department, basically. And she had so many interesting things to say.
She was very anti the traditional writing route. She talked about how your title can be your inspiration point, and I've tried doing that because of her. And, yeah, just like, taking a metaphor and making it literal and having that become the magic of the story.
For example, her example in class was if you wanted to say, like, the sun looks like a yolk of an egg, you make the sun a yolk and have it be, like, dripping down. And you make a metaphor something literal and see where that takes you when you're writing.
[00:25:35] Elizabeth: I love that.
[00:25:36] Audrey: That has been really generative for me, too. She is incredible.
[00:25:41] Elizabeth: That's so inspiring. That's another prompt I'm going to share. Tell me her name again, because I want to.
[00:25:48] Audrey: K-Ming Chang.
[00:25:49] Elizabeth: We'll put this in the notes.
[00:25:51] Audrey: Yes.
[00:25:51] Elizabeth: Okay. That's amazing. I think it is, at the root, what you're describing is it's a process of, you have to leap when you find. It's like jumping rope. You have to find your moment and jump into the rope, and it may or may not pan out, but you just got to jump and get started. And then once you're in there, then you got trust that something else will kick it in the same way that you were inspired by that line or that idea, that phrase. You're trusting that once you follow that inspiration, there will be. It's like one word leads to another.
[00:26:27] Audrey: Sometimes if I'm writing and I have a goal that I'm writing towards, but there's something else that comes up as I'm writing that's more interesting to me, then I'll follow that. And just sometimes you have to ditch your original idea, too. You don't have to put yourself into a box. And you can let the writing process be creative and not just like, that.
[00:26:54] Elizabeth: Is so brilliant. And that explains so much about the quality of your writing through the years. So many times, there's a bunch of prompts and a couple of people are like, yeah, I'm not really inspired. I don't know what to write about. And we have to talk about it. You have never… lacked for an idea. And I think it's because of exactly what you just said. You really let the process be creative and you trust it. And it almost sounds like you surrender to it. You're like, I'm in the river. Where are you going to take me?
[00:27:31] Audrey: Yeah, I think once I have something, my brain, a lot of times when you give us prompts, I immediately I pick something out of it and I'm like, okay, I'm thinking about what I'm going to write and it's already up here.
[00:27:45] Elizabeth: Wow.
[00:27:45] Audrey: And then I start writing and it's like, getting away from me. And I'm like, okay, reel it in. What do you want from the stream of what's coming out of your head? What do you want to write? And then I pull from that. Yeah, I don't know where I learned that. I don't know how I do that.
[00:28:02] Elizabeth: But it's just your intuition. You are the icon of intuitive writing because you do follow your intuition. And intuition is like the wholeness of who you are. It's all parts of yourself integrated. And I think that kind of brings in when you were saying sometimes you think it's going to be about this, and then you realize that the piece is actually going to be about this and let it be about this other thing. To not try to control, micromanage it. Because it does feel to me that your stories, it shows up so clearly in your stories like they have a life of their own. Once you get them started, it's like the characters, and I've read about this, people say once you find the character, it's like they are telling you what they need to say and you're just transcribing.
[00:28:51] Audrey: No, I must look so crazy sometimes when I'm writing, because I'll be having this conversation, but I'm two people, or however many people I'm writing about, and I'm everywhere. And then I'm like, okay, wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. I need to write this down before I forget what the conversation I'm having.
[00:29:12] Elizabeth: I think that's amazing. I think that's true for you. You have a talent for fiction writing, which I don't have. It's amazing. And I don't know that there's a way that one can, if you think about every fictionalized story ever invented, I don't know that you can write it without having those conversations in your head. And I think everybody goes through that.
But I think the trick is trusting the process and not trying to be like, oh, “I thought Mrs. Smith was going to have a red hat, but I just wrote that she has a purple hat. Why did I write that she has a purple hat? And then you get all tangled up and you're just writing, no, it seems Mrs. Smith has a purple hat.”
[00:29:52] Audrey: I think, too, if you get things down when you have them, you can edit them out later… If it takes you a direction, and then you're like, maybe not, but if you follow it, it'll get you somewhere. And then if you decide that's not where you want to be, you can pull it back. You can take whatever was working from that, continue down that way.
[00:30:18] Elizabeth: Okay, that reminds me of one more question, and this will be our last question. And that's about editing. So what generally happens in our classes is we only have time for that first draft, and then you share the first draft, and we give feedback. And I know you edit stuff a little bit afterwards, but your first drafts are pretty amazing. But I'm sure in college you have to edit. There's this really great line that I always think of when I'm editing. It's a British man who said, “murder your darlings.” And that is when you're editing. Sometimes you have to get rid of the line that you thought was so great. It's not actually as important as the other stuff. How is your editing process changed now that you're in college?
[00:31:06] Audrey: I think I'm definitely still learning, and it can still be sort of resistant to me to edit. But at the same time, I'm so critical of myself that once I step away from a piece, I come back to it and I'm like, God, what was I talking about? What am I trying to say?
But I think it's different from poetry to fiction writing. I think with poetry, you can be a lot more almost mathematical about it. Like certain, I don't know, commas, spacing, whatever. But there's also my poetry classes. In the past, she would always have us take everything that we had written and combine it into one chunk of prose and then rework that format and see if that was better than the format we had before and just move things around, move stanzas from the end to the beginning, like all that kind of stuff, which I think was really helpful.
And I think in terms of fiction writing, I think for me, it's like trying to tie things together, because a lot of times I'll throw things onto the page and it's just not cohesive or there's not like a theme or something. And I'm writing and I'm not thinking about theme or meaning, and then I have to go sit down and be like, okay, what was I trying to say? How can I make it relevant? Not obvious, but they're like, there's something there.
[00:32:44] Elizabeth: Yes. Oh, my God. I do that so often. And I think that's really great advice because it's so easy to get tangled up in your words and go on these weird detours. And I always have to stop and be like, “wait, what am I trying to say here?” And I think it is, yeah, that's part of the editing process. You have to try things. You have to go down these weird paths, and then you're like, wait, what was my point? And then you come back because you never know. That's the thing about writing. And that's why I think it's so important to never edit your first draft, because sometimes you may feel like you're just saying drivel and it makes no sense. But later, when you look it over it or read it out loud, you're like, oh, that line was the best line. I didn't even realize what an amazing line that was at the moment. So you just have to take risks and try it, and then you can't edit a blank page. You can only edit it once you've written stuff.
So I love that you take risks. I love that you try different things. I love that you know how to bring yourself back in when you go on detours, which we all, it's, I think detours are important, though, because sometimes that's the only way to discover things you weren't expecting.
[00:33:58] Audrey: I really agree with. Yeah, yeah.
[00:34:01] Elizabeth: Audrey, you are such a brilliant writer. I can't wait to just watch the rest of your life. World take note of Audrey Lambert! You're going to be seeing her books out in the world someday. You're going to want to have them autographed. You're going to want to come see her. This is just the beginning of your long literary career. Actually, this was something that Thoreau, no, Emerson, I think it was, Ralph Waldo Emerson said when he first read the first poem he read from Walt Whitman, the 19th century poet. He said, “I greet you at the beginning of a glorious career.” I'm paraphrasing. Not maybe glorious, another adjective. But that's what I feel like. I feel like I'm greeting you at the beginning of a glorious career.
And thank you for sharing. And I hope everyone will read your words on the screen so they can see the structure of your poem, that you're so incredible. Thank you so much, Audrey.
[00:35:02] Audrey: Thank you for having me.
