Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: 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 women a safe, encouraging, non critical, unconditionally supportive space to write their story, speak their truth, and assert their voice, both as writers and and as leaders.
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 had 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 our classes are that number one, everyone is a writer with important stories to tell. Two, everyone has their own unique voice, a voice that needs to be heard. And three, our voice will grow stronger and clearer the more it is supported and positively affirmed. The way that we do this is to repeat back and lift up words, lines, phrases, or concepts that really resonated for us in our classes. Everyone writes together, everyone shares their writing, and then everyone gives each other grounded, positive feedback. Since we can't violate the sanctity of our classes by recording what goes on there, these one on one conversations are designed to provide a little glimpse, a microcosm, of what happens in the classroom. You can also read about our and read the girls words as they were published on our blog, the Intuitive Voice, with the links 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's a lot more I could say about it, but I'll let these writers speak for themselves. On behalf of all the writers at the Intuitive Writing project, I want to thank you in advance for supporting the stories of young women.
Making the time to be present and really listen to girls, listen to the wisdom, insight, and brilliance of each girl is how we change the world today. I am so excited and honored to be interviewing one of our longtime writers, Maya Petzoldt. They are going to be reading an incredible piece, non creative nonfiction piece, and I want to start by having Maya introduce themselves. If you would give your name, your pronouns, your age, and maybe share a little anecdote about your first memory of writing.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: Hi, my name is Maya. I use she her, and I'm 18 years old, and I would say my first memory of writing is I had recently learned about the wonderful thing known as tabs on Google Docs. And so I could make a grid for the first time ever. And I wrote a Marvel fanfiction story called Dimensional. Within the first two paragraphs, me and my friends are walking down a suburban speak. We get picked up by a portal, and then we are thrown into the Marvel dimension, and the entire story is me and my friends becoming the children of different Marvel characters while being thrown from dimension to dimension with absolutely no rest between. We're in the ventilation shafts of the helicarrier. Then we're on the guardians of the Galaxy ship, which I forget the name of, and all that jazz.
That is my first story.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: That's amazing. Did you finish it?
[00:03:56] Speaker B: God, no. I moved away. You know, what I mainly remember is that in one of. Cause I used the Google tabs to make grids for character sheets. And I specifically remembered that I gave myself knitted arm warmers as a character thing. That was. I wanted to be, like, jazzy. I wore, like, jeans and a t shirt and the knitted arm warmers. And I don't think I had a beanie, but I imagine I swept my hair in some direction in the story. I had a small. I. At the time, I had a sort of bowl cut, but not bowl cut because it was color sort of thing going on. So I thought I looked incredibly glitched.
[00:04:34] Speaker A: Do you still have it? Do you know if.
[00:04:36] Speaker B: No. It was on a different google account that was attached to my school.
I made my friend download a PDF of it, but I don't know where that is.
[00:04:44] Speaker A: Oh, maybe someday you can revisit it and update it. That's amazing.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: I never want to look on those words again.
They are in the history of my mind. Around the same time that I used to dance around the house in a neon prank printed jaguar shirt. That is where that memory sits, beside things I'm not touching with a 40 foot pole.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: Fair enough. Fair enough. Okay. Well, that is an amazing anecdote. You have been writing with the intuitive writing project.
How many years has it been now?
[00:05:15] Speaker B: I think about four years I've been doing since I came to California. My mom had just learned about my fan fiction because I shared an anecdote about it. And then she looked around for writing creative writing opportunities in the area, and she found it.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: Your mom is so smart. That was good job. Good job.
[00:05:33] Speaker B: I'm going to foster this because it'll keep her entertained.
[00:05:36] Speaker A: And has it ever, you have a prolific.
I mean, I feel like we could have several books published of just your writing. So it's hard to only pick one piece. But today we're going to control ourselves. I'm going to control myself and just talk about one of your pieces. I would love for you to read your piece. To give maturity words. And it's so beautiful. Take your time and read it slowly.
[00:06:04] Speaker B: Fun fact about that one. I didn't write the title. I gave that fully to my teacher. I said, I don't have a title for it. And she ran with that.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: That's awesome. All right. Well, whenever you're ready, go ahead.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: It has not been long since I have grown up. At the very least, it hasn't felt like it. I've only grown up. I've only.
I've only grown centimeters in height. But I've bounded miles of maturity. And it's not the maturity of hormones or responsibility. Or even emotionally. It's the maturity and self awareness. It's knowing that I have hormones. And analyzing them and dealing with the consequences. It's learning about my responsibilities. And addressing my failures to meet them. And feeling proud when I fulfill them. It's the maturity of picking apart my emotions and feelings little by little. One by one. Moment by moment and hour by hour. And giving them words. It's giving them a voice in my mind. To speak to their contentment.
[00:06:57] Speaker A: To feel.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: More often than not. This maturity I've recently grown into. As the last few years of having it. Has felt like a quick breeze that blew me over. But I barely felt in the moment. Has come with two the feelings of melancholy. And the feeling of utter belonging. The melancholy feels like the world is at a standstill. Like the wind has stopped moving. The clouds have cleared. And the animals move. Because they feel about as unsettled as the scene truly is. The lack of wind becomes the straw that breaks the camel's back. The sky all too bright as it reflects off pavements. And squirrels running across roofs. And bugs moving in bushes. Become sounds of pure torture. They grate on my ears and send shivers down my arms until I shake. The only thing left to do is to bury myself in some sort of silence. So that my constant stream of unsettling thoughts. Drown out the agony. That is the feeling of being miserable. The thoughts of morals, ethics, the future of humanity. My place behind a driving wheel. My place on a campus. And my place in my home. And I scream them in my head so I cannot hear the nothingness outside of it. Because waking up from those thoughts to an empty room filled with only me and my cherished reminders of loving memories is not a comfort. My weighted blanket doesn't become a comfort to the torrent of feelings, simply an object. My pile of laundry isn't a distraction, it's a permanent feature. My silence is not a voluntary moment to breathe. It's a cage. I don't know how to voice. Melancholy like this is solved only with the touch. Only with a touch. A mother's hug, a friend's cuddle, a father's secret handshake. Melancholy feels like a rock is on a string tied around my heart, pulling it down and weighing it into my stomach. The sense of utter belonging feels like rain, though. It feels like watching the water run down the window of a car from the passenger seat. It feels like the sound of constant drops beating on the asphalt roof. It feels like the smell of wet concrete, gravel, and grass. It feels like the taste of contentment after a cool glass of water. It's a sense of belonging and reassurance and affirmation that I long for constantly to give words to such a feeling is euphoria. It's the realization of a safe space, of a safe feeling I have in my life. It's the feeling of falling asleep with nothing burdening on the horizon, with nothing to do. The next day. It's falling asleep having hugged your parents good night. It's falling asleep with a friend next to you. It's falling asleep after a long and hot shower. It's waking up and it takes hours before you leave your bed. It's waking up to the room being bathed in a soft orange glow and watching as it fades to blue. It's waking up with a plan you know you can accomplish with exciting and fun things to do and with people you're excited to see and to greet and activities to do. Belonging feels like weightlessness has taken over my bones and it sinks me into wherever I may be at the moment. To give these feelings words is like breathing on a mountaintop overlooking the ocean. The faint scent of salt is barely there, barely a thing you take note of. But the wind beats your face and reminds you why you enjoy simply being. The wind whips your hair in every direction, and when you move your sunglasses away from your eyes, the bright tones of water, sun and green don't assault them, only welcome them. You feel a humble smile split your face, and it only feels right as you take a breath through your nose and mouth so you can feel the cold wind on your tongue and in your lungs. That is the feeling of maturity. It's not always going to be dark, sad, and depressing nights filled to the brim with insomnia. But it's not always going to be driving your own car to your own destination, buying your own groceries, or loving your own way. It's a mix of so many things, I couldn't list them all at once. But it will bring bliss and tears, and it will fill you until you overflow and let it all out over and over again. I think I have grown and become mature over the years, but I do love and hate it so much. It's a constant reminder of the inevitable and ominous future. It's a constant relief and clarity of thoughts that will follow you until your dying days. It has been my honor and my burden to be mature, but it is my favorite thing to do, to give it words. Language is the most mature and complex concept I know, and it is my pleasure to use it.
[00:10:44] Speaker A: That is absolutely magnificent. It's almost impossible to just pick out a few lines that I like the best, because every single line is incredible. But I'm going to try.
What was that?
[00:11:00] Speaker B: I'll give you my favorite, which is language. Actually, language is the most complex concept I know. I have often attested to that, and I think it is one of the reasons I enjoy writing, and it's why I enjoy reading and I enjoy doing. Because figuring out the complexities behind little idiosyncrasies is the most fascinating thing to do.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: You're so right. I agree with you. I feel like when you can take, and that's what this piece does so brilliantly, is the writer takes the enormity of all that is really life growing up. Maturity, consciousness, self awareness, and finds a way to articulate both the positive or both the joyful and the painful. So powerfully done. I love the line. It's a maturity in self awareness, which this whole piece is just like. You could also just call it self awareness, because it's absolutely that. And by the way, there are a lot of people who don't have self awareness who are much older than this writer. So it's an amazing capacity to be, to feel everything and to recognize it and know how to articulate it. It's incredible.
So many powerful lines. I love that there was throughout the piece, the writer shifted the repetition of different words to make different points, like the repetition of maturity and then the repetition of it's them it feels like, and the repetition of it's waking up. There just. There's a couple others as well. And it really. It's sort of like the words are a film camera. And you know how when you're watching a movie, you have to look at whatever the director has decided you have to look at. And that's what I felt like. This was almost cinematic. And the writer was moving the camera with their words and having us look at different things. I don't know how you would film this, but it felt like it was cinematic.
I love the description of what is actually the paradox of filling both. Melancholy, which is an incredible word. Melancholy is an incredible word and not used enough. So I love that the writer used a lot in the tour.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: It's got a torrential history. Torrid. I think that might be the word.
[00:13:07] Speaker A: Does it? What is its history?
[00:13:09] Speaker B: Melancholy. It comes from some of the old sort of ideas. It used to be considered a sickness. The feeling of melancholy, like a treatable disease of some sort. Did you know nostalgia was also considered a disease? Oh, my God.
[00:13:21] Speaker A: No, I didn't.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: So quite a few things that were really just feeling so intense that they physically. That they have physical reminders upon your body is sort of were categorized, understandably, as a disease. But melancholy, you could. You could associate it with, uh, miasma. And those things that were considered in the old days of, like, those four things of phlegm, which is a word.
[00:13:43] Speaker A: That's right.
That was, like, the four humors. Phlegm.
[00:13:49] Speaker B: The four humors.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: That's right. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Phlegm is such a weird word and very hard to spell.
[00:13:55] Speaker B: It's the main reason I hate it.
[00:13:59] Speaker A: Um, that's so interesting about melancholy. It's. I mean, you can't. It's just like. Like a whole story into itself, because it's such a long word. But the combination of melancholy and utter belonging. I feel like this captures the paradox of all life. That it's both joy and pain. The description of melancholy that feels like the world is at a standstill. Like wind has stopped moving and the clouds have cleared. And then all these specific things, like the sky all too bright as it reflects off pavements, and squirrels running across roofs and bugs moving in bushes become sounds of pure torture. The specificity of all these things and how they're, like, grinding against the ears is so interesting.
[00:14:45] Speaker B: It's sort of. I think one of the things that I think even my dad is attested to when I was saying this to this earlier in preparation for this, is that one of the things about writing that can sometimes make a good writing, it's just the ability to describe what you have around you. Because my dad, also, fun fact, tried to write fan fiction, Star Trek fan fiction, when he was much younger. And he has those pages printed out somewhere in my grandmother's house. I will find them, I promise. But something he talked about is that he would describe things in the most. You can almost say report like way. And that can be a style if you want it to be. But if you're trying to write certain, if you're just trying to start off the bat and your first idea is like, I want to describe what this scene feels like to someone. You want to describe enough that someone could be there in it, is to describe every little detail of what you hear as, like, an exercise. You're walking down a street, and it's like a wharf. It's like a dock or somewhere. You don't have to just describe it. Like, oh, there's the fishmongers building. Here's the pearl shop. Here's the thing. Maybe talk about the sort of, like, the conversation you can hear inside the pearl shop or, like, the sounds of fishes being gutted or something like that. So. And also just to take by what you would describe what you actually hear, because there are squirrels that run across my roof constantly. I swear, they are dive bombing and attacking acorns.
[00:16:06] Speaker A: That's amazing.
[00:16:08] Speaker B: And then they run across.
[00:16:10] Speaker A: No. And you really captured that. And you're so right. Sensory details are the best. I think that's why this feels cinematic to me, because there are these visual details that it's like, I can see it. The writer can see it because of the way you describe it. Even this list, which is such a relatable list, it's both personal and universally relatable. The thoughts of morals, ethics, the future of humanity, my place behind a driving wheel, my place on a campus, my place in my home. And I scream them in my head so I cannot hear the nothingness outside of it. Like, I love the, like, the macro cosmic thoughts, like, morals, ethics, and then, like, the, like, the everyday thoughts, kept.
[00:16:50] Speaker B: Me quite a few. Like, it helps. It somehow helped me go to sleep. I would text my friend at, like, 12:30 a.m. some form of existential crisis on the nature of humanity and whether or not we are doomed, or if the world is looking through the opposite of whatever rose colored glasses are and, like, continuing going. And then I'd fall asleep and I'd wake up and I'd be like, man, a weird night. Gotta get to work.
[00:17:13] Speaker A: Oh, weird night. Yeah. Yeah. I also love speaking of crises at nighttime. That line my weighted blanket doesn't become a comfort to the torrent of feeling simply an object. I've had that very exact. I thought for some reason, if I got a weighted blanket, I'd sleep better. And it does not override one's brain.
[00:17:34] Speaker B: Which one I think are more sort of. They are helpful when they become ubiquitous in that sense is sort of when they become the constant. Because I. It's mainly for a way, because I like the weight on me when I sleep of, like, quilts, but that gets way too hot. It's California. So a weighted blanket solves that by giving me the weight I want without the heat.
[00:17:54] Speaker A: Yes. Oh, that's a good pitch for weighted blankets.
[00:17:57] Speaker B: Actually, that's what this podcast is for, right? Ads.
[00:18:02] Speaker A: All right, that's going to be our first sponsor. Weighted blanket.
And then I love the line. Oh, I mean, I really relate to it this. And I feel like the writer captures how this feels, to feel melancholy in this line, melancholy feels like a rock is tied on a string around your heart, pulling it down and weighing it into my stomach. It's totally how it feels. Again, sensory details.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: The way I described the string is because sometimes I think it does feel so tight, as though there is a string and you're feeling it being wrapped and pulled on those points specifically. And whether it's. And wherever you lay, it seems to follow down your spine somewhere, and it just weighs you there. And I think there's ways to, like, dive into feeling that optionally, you can read very sad stories, and you can go through and read stories that will apply to your sadness. Watch that movie. And diving into those feelings can almost be pleasant in a sense. Feeling that weight and being reminded that you do feel sad and it's okay to feel sad, but doing it without the choice to turn it off, what is that? Time is the worst feeling in the world.
[00:19:09] Speaker A: No, that is true. That is true. I love. I think the reason I also love melancholy is just what you said. Sometimes it actually feels good to feel melancholy. It's just this heavy sadness that's weirdly calming. It's just like, you're, like, sinking down, down, down. I don't know.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: I love how you, my absolute icon, read from overly sarcastic productions, put this very well in their trope talk, which I suggest everybody watch if they want to be a writer.
It can help contextualize quite a lot of things you won't notice you do, and it makes you think about your writing, so it'll make you. And the more you think about your writing, the better you are. Become a writer, but they put it well in the doomed heroes story in their trip. Talk on doomed heroes is sort of that there's a catharsis in choosing to feel sad and choosing to become invested in a story and in choosing to go like, why do you think people like Romeo and Juliet that tell us in the very beginning, two star crossed lovers take their lives? You know, how horribly this is going to end, but it's that journey of going along with them. It's finding that story. That's the enjoyable part.
[00:20:14] Speaker A: And so that is brilliant. Okay, go back to that real quick. You said it's called trope talk.
Who is it by?
[00:20:22] Speaker B: Overly sarcastic productions and overly sarcastic productions. If anybody ever joins a class with either me or soul in the intuitive writer product, they will know we love overly sarcastic productions to hell and back. There were times where if we were inspired by specific myth video or history video, my friend sold the history and I took the myth ones. It's one of the reasons we became such good friends is we would talk after class about Marvel and OSP generally. I would highly suggest any of them, because the way they choose to contextualize things and choose to take in a whole picture and dive very dive deep down into the topics. Just being. Exposing yourself to that kind of thought and that sort of direction, a way of thinking influences your own, in a sense. You can learn in a sense, and it helps you go on forward and understand things with, I'd say a more open mind in some sense. Like, a good example is that me and soul went down thanks to also another group that I think if you like OSB, you'll less like these guys. But Sabaton, which our historical rock group, and they have a song about Fritz Haberden. And if you don't know who Fritz Haber is, he is the inventor of nitrogen infused soil, which has basically allowed our food production to boom, to fit, to feed this thing. He is also the inventor of chemical weapons.
There's a very good line in the song about mass or morality alone. It's like, what are you doing? And after reviewing sort of how OSP went at history and how we wanted to approach history in our own writing, we realized the story doesn't have to be he is this, but he also did this. It's that he did this and this. People are complex sort of beings.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: They're hard to get down on paper. They're hard to understand in hindsight, with only the minimal records they leave. Because I will tell you every, as every anthropologist will tell you, people always lose less of a footprint than you want them to.
And it's sort of understanding those concepts. I'm struggling for words at the end here that made me and soul better writers to attach the history.
[00:22:29] Speaker A: Oh my God. I mean, you have the intellect of somebody who's a thousand years old, honestly. Which is why I think you're so good with history.
I love what you just said, that people are complex beings, and that is what makes a great writer, to understand that. And this piece also coming back to the piece, this piece captures the complexity of life, that we can be both sad and grateful and angry and happy like we feel all things. And we also were neither good nor evil, or just a mix of all kinds of complicated, contradictory aspects.
[00:23:03] Speaker B: I would say this that I have learned from my anthropology and probably what I wanted to put out there. I realized earlier, when we had been prepping for this, I had said what I would want to put out there was Abraham Lincoln's quote that has helped me through many dark times and even good times, and even helped me save our good times, is that I think it's Abraham Lincoln. Brand's quote, this too shall pass some sense. This feeling shall someday pass. And maybe just having that little light on the end is what gave me the push to go through it. But more than that, I think it's what I've learned from anthropology and how that has helped me. Because if you don't know, I'm a college student and I'm taking anthropology classes. And what anthropology has taught me, and this is my own idea of it, is that the difference between a human and an animal is that an animal has behavior and a human has culture.
And there's a difference between learned behavior and a culture. A monkey may learn how to play Scrabble or anything else because you can teach it that, but it's a behavior it's developed because something the humans going to develop a culture around playing Scrabble every Friday night, specifically for no other reason other than to argue with their family members. So is what they're going into over which Webster's dictionary they're going to use.
And so I find that what has helped me understand that there can't always be a good and right and everything there's not always going to be that satisfying. They are bad, they were good.
Sort of answer is that humans are complicating that are relative to culture. Culture has changed and is relative to every individual person in that sense.
[00:24:37] Speaker A: Right. And culture, I always think about the fact the word culture has cult in it. So there's a cultist, cult ish aspect to how we're trained, depending on the time we're living.
[00:24:49] Speaker B: The cult, the word cult is. Has gotten some poor connotations over the area from the age of. I'm going to just call seventies.
It's a beauty disease. Not many learn about it, but either way, the seventies, that attached quite a sixties. Seventies, America attached quite a few cults that had some native reproductions, like some rape, some underage shit. A lot of. Some stuff went down there that wasn't torture. Things that weren't great, that went down those cults. And that's made cult sound like a bad thing.
It really just meant specialized worship, like, refer to like the cult of aphrodite. And no one was going to say, like, oh, yeah, of the people, and be like, all right, that's a cult. We can't worship aphrodite anymore.
[00:25:36] Speaker A: Right. That's true. The cult of. That's right. It was originally a positive word. You're right.
[00:25:42] Speaker B: It was just a neutral world. It just meant, like, it just meant this is a group of worship that's. It's a subsect in a larger religion almost.
[00:25:50] Speaker A: Oh, my God, you're so brilliant. I feel like I honestly could talk to you for 500 years and we'd never run out of things to talk about.
[00:26:03] Speaker B: I once had a fantasy where I was, if you remember this episode of West Wing, where a guy didn't want to build a pass because he wanted more funding for autism, for his autism grandson. And he talked for like 12 hours on stage. And as long as he kept talking, no matter what he talked about, he went to like, card rules. I was like, I could do that. Oh, my God, I've got shite that you.
[00:26:28] Speaker A: That would be one of your superpowers. You could totally do it. And it would be interesting.
[00:26:32] Speaker B: My dad is ear. My dad's villain name is earworm because he has like 15,000 songs he can put on and name them anything. And I was Chatterbox.
[00:26:43] Speaker A: That is an amazing. You'd be good for a filibuster also bring you out and just talk. And it would be super interesting. I just need to record you walking around and talking all the time. You're so interesting. Okay, so then going on, on this piece, I love the shift. It goes from. It's very gentle shift, like rain falling from the melancholy to the belonging. And it actually has that line, the sense of utter belonging feels like rain. Yeah. This is why it feels so visual. It feels like the smell of wet concrete, gravel and grass. The contentment after a cool glass of water. It's the realization of safe space, a safe feeling I have in my life. And I really love this line. This is the best feeling. Falling asleep with nothing burdening on the horizon, with nothing to do the next day.
Sorry, go ahead.
[00:27:36] Speaker B: It is just real life things that help me. I attach my because I've moved around a lot because of my dad's job, and so I attached myself to certain things. And what was always a constant until I got here, of all places, was rain. And so feeling that I could sort of attest to, brain used to like, lull me to sleep because I lived in like, Washington state for a while and stuff like that. And falling asleep, especially to rain, was like one of the most relaxing points of my day at any time.
I've learned from the many existential crises I've had before I fall asleep that imagine it's the weekend. It's a Friday. You've done any homework you might need, you might need before you go, before the weekend. So you have a free weekend ahead of you. It's like the middle semester. There's no big projects due. Midterms. Midterms are at least three weeks off. Nothing else is about to happen. And you fall asleep and you wake up the next day and you're like, I don't even have to get out of fucking bed.
There's nothing.
[00:28:38] Speaker A: It's the best feeling. Well, and then you. You wrote this. It's waking up and it takes hours before you leave your bed. I love the description of the room being bathed in a soft orange glow.
[00:28:51] Speaker B: Watching as it's made a joke about that. I remember I came downstairs once, it was 1158. And then, like, my mom's friend came over and he's like, wait, what time is it? What time is it? What time did you come downstairs? And I was like, eleven, like 58. Because I check. I checked my clock very regularly on my phone and he was like, damn it. And then he turned to my mom and she was like, ha. Because they apparently bet if I would come down before twelve or not. They had a bet.
[00:29:20] Speaker A: Your dad just made it with two minutes to spare. That's so funny.
[00:29:24] Speaker B: That's exactly what I do anytime I have a spare, I have a day with nothing on the end. I'm like, I can sleep forever. I wake up and I'm like, I don't have anything else to do. I don't even need to sleep. And then I roll over and I'm like, here. I come again.
[00:29:37] Speaker A: Here I come again.
This piece feels so alive with, like, this line about the wind beats your face and reminds you why you enjoy simply being. There's so many. It's not just, like, the observed sensory, visual details, but it's the feeling. The weightlessness is taken over your bones. Um, like breathing in a mountaintop. That's incredible.
[00:30:03] Speaker B: Those are describing two very, like, things that I felt here because I wanted to sort of tie it back, not just also to. Because this, in California, mainly thanks to my therapist, is where I realized what my maturity sort of meant. And it wasn't going to fix all my problems. It wasn't going to make me suddenly be able to handle insults to my face better. But you know what? It was there. But two things that I. To like memories that I have very strongly with my time here in California is one, crossing the golden bait bridge to Sausalito side, and you come out of that. That little drive point where it lets you look over the bridge and all that stuff. And standing there. And I remember I took off my sunglasses, and I was surprised because my eyes are usually somewhat sensitive to the light that I took it off. And I wasn't blinded. The water was still shining. It was still sunlight. The green, the breeze, everything was there. But it didn't, like, hurt me to look out and take in all the colors, because that's what I love sunglasses for, how they help my eyes. At the same time, it tones down some of the vibrancy that I miss when I have to go on drives. And then the other time is when we drove to the top of Mount Diablo, and we looked out over there, and it was like the same feeling, but it was that. It was that chillness and the wind from either sea air or the mountain or the high altitude. And it was just. It made me realize why I enjoy simply being, again, like, why I. Not that I've ever not wanted to live, but sometimes I had to be like, man, this is freaking work. Yeah.
And then. But just standing on top of Mount Diablo or being bridge and just letting it happen, I was like, this is why I'm here.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: That's so brilliant. And that is such a profound insight that. Yeah, a lot of the time, they don't tell you this in grade school, that a lot of your adult life is going to be work, just like, grinding through things. But then there are these moments, which is what you've captured so beautifully. And based on what you just said, I feel like the writer is really good at collecting feelings, which they summon back and reassemble.
[00:32:02] Speaker B: I wrote another piece like it where I was just trying to tread through what my earliest memories are, because I got very inspired by a distractible, another podcast, a distractable thing where they went over what was their first earliest memories. I was like, what is my first earliest memory? And as far as I know, I think my first earliest memory is the feeling of wet grass between my toes. It's not like actually like a memory memory or anything like that. I think it's just a feeling that I have, and I can find pictures of that day because I was like, I was very much remembered. It was like cold, dewy morning, and my mom has pictures of it of me, like walking around in my diaper out in the backyard and having blonde enough to blind the fucking son. Those are my earliest memories. My earliest memories often come from just one sense, like the sound of stuff working at my grandmother's milk farm, the sight of her garden, the feeling of hugs from different people and sort of thing like that. My earliest memories, they come the smell of malasadas. That is what I have because I grew up in Hawaii for a lot of my younger years, and there's, at the Punaho fair, there'll be malasadas, and there's like, there's always a long time. And I think one of my earliest memories is the smell of those.
[00:33:15] Speaker A: Oh, it sounds like you have vivid sensory memories, really exceptional.
[00:33:21] Speaker B: That's also like a tip if you wanted, like start trying writing, try writing down a memory. I think it's something that my bumpa or my grandfather on my mother's side casually did is that he would write down things. He wrote me once, like a poem about, for cakes for his, for my birthday.
But stuff like that, like it or might not have been for my birthday, I just have a poem from him about different cakes. I forgot, I forgot I have it. But at the same time, he, like, he has a slight autobiography that he wrote himself that is just writing down his memories and what he remembered. And I loved, like the tiny little antidotes in it of just like, I had a milkshake, it was great.
He's like, I was intolerant. I am having these the rest of my life.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: I love that. I love that. And that's the thing, is that every memory is a story, and if you don't write it down, people won't know what's in your memories. It's so beautiful to have it on paper.
Okay, so that brings us to the last part of the piece, which is the most moving. It's this very mature, very advanced. Again, many adults don't even have this level of self awareness that life is both joy and pain. It will bring tea, as should quote the writer. It will bring bliss and tears, and it will fill you until you overflow and let it all out over and over. And then I love how the writer says, I love and hate it so much because it is. It's all things. It's both. It's everything. And you captured that. And then, of course, the fear of the future, the inevitable and ominous future, which we all are haunted by because humans can think of the future unlike animals. But my favorite line, and I want you to read it again, it's just the last two lines, if you would read it, has been.
[00:35:11] Speaker B: It has been my honor and my burden to be mature, but it is my favorite thing to do, to give it words. Language is the most mature and complex concept I know, and it is my pleasure to use it. And I think something, again that OSP helped me with was just kind of tracking the different ways that language has come together over the years. And so I think, like, that maturity, it has a depth to it that is built upon your years and years of experience as you go forward.
It is quite literally the most complex thing, you know, like, it's like. It's like trying to watch Christianity branch apart into multiple things, but in reverse, to make English right of everything, of everything just branching together to make all those things. And that's kind of what makes it beautiful. Because I could trace back the origin of the word glamour to an icelandic saga. I could trace back the word nostalgia to the greek term for homecoming. I could. And there's so many other little idiosyncrasies with it. And you can trace back parts of what made you mature to bits in your life. Like, what did that change? I think I. What helped in my maturity is my journey to realizing that I was aromantic, asexual, to the death of my bumpa, and how. How that affected my family and me, in reversal, to talks with the different talks I've had with my dads and uncles about what their experience is in the military and how that's put things in perspective. I can trace my maturity back to those things. And I can also trace back to when I was really immature. I once stood between two vending machines and stared out because I had an argument with my friend at a party. And I just stared at people and laughed when they jerked back in fear because you don't have to look between vending machines, and then just see, like, cotton candy head in a freaking plaid shirt staring at you.
[00:37:02] Speaker A: Wait, you slipped between. You were standing between two vending machines?
[00:37:07] Speaker B: Yes, there was two vending. It was like the fall party in, like, middle school or something, and I had an argument with my friend, and I nearly convinced all my friends essentially dump her as a friend.
I undid that work when one of my other friends said, hey, dick move. And I was like, probably, and, like, went back. But either way, I. For the majority of that dance, I kind of sulked because it was. It was just a cafeteria. It wasn't like I could go anywhere to be silent until I found, like, the crack between the two vending machines. And so I sulked between them and slowly got joy because people, they kind of casually look between it just because usually they're like, damn, it's gonna be dirty. And there isn't. But then there's a kid staring at you.
[00:37:47] Speaker A: That is such a funny image and such a creative choice, even though a little diabolical, but very creative.
[00:37:55] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I remember the worst part was when someone had ordered something already and it was, like, falling down, and they looked over and they couldn't, like, just walk away for their stuff. And they were kind of, like, a couple times. Then one of them, they kind of walked away. They came back and were like, you good? I'm like, yeah.
One on one side of me started shaking, and I, like, looked at it, and then I got out, and they were, like, trying to push the two together. They didn't know I was in there. They were just like, these two could work together. We have the time to move them. It's like, hey, they're like.
They, like, jump back.
[00:38:25] Speaker A: They were like, oh, my God. What? To your point, I think we were trying to say is that everything that's. And this is true for everyone, everything that happens to us evolves us and matures us. Including your experience of getting between the two vending machines. That was part of your growth.
[00:38:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:43] Speaker A: You learned from that. It made you who you are today.
[00:38:47] Speaker B: That's what my new book cover is going to look like. It's about common sense. It's going to be me glowering in my, in my, I believe it was 7th grade outfit staring between two vending machines. Well, it's kind of because the lights were, like, put down low also as well, just staring out there. Glitter, hot and candy hair, warm tones. Kind of look like a lumberjack. Like, it's a whole thing.
[00:39:11] Speaker A: That's amazing. That's a total look, that you should keep that alive. Okay, so now I wanted to get your advice to other writers about what do you do when. I mean, you're so eloquent and prolific, I can't even imagine that you ever don't have something to write about. But I'm sure while you're writing, sometimes you get stuck. How do you get unstuck? And what advice would you give to other writers?
[00:39:37] Speaker B: For starters, never put yourself on a deadline. Don't, like, force yourself to have a timeline. That's because that's going to do the opposite. Your brain's going to be obstinate and basically say, fuck you, not today, and stuff like that. So I would definitely say, I also don't put yourself on deadline. I don't give you some advice my mom gave me, which is, if you have a scene in mind that you really want to write, but your head saying, I gotta write the intro to this verge, throw that voice out the window. Definition, like, you gotta just write that scene that you want to, whenever you want to. You can reshuffle later, you can go back later. None of this is. It's not like set in stone, the moments you type it. If I did, it would be.
If I did that with my writing, would be a weird mess of the red underlined words because I spell it with an extra b.
You can go back and you can change things, and you can write different parts of your stories at different times, and you can go back. You can do so much. It's flexible. It's like community college. It's up to you.
It's your journey in writing this, and I would definitely say as well, is find sort of a voice you want to write in. I would say, like, for a while, I did John Mulaney's voice for a while, just writing stuff like that, because I kind of felt I then for a couple other times, I would. My mother used to read to me quite a bit, and as well, and that was a very calming voice because she read like Little House on the prairie to me. And that's when I started moving to more like serious, sort of serious stories like that. And then my father would read to me Tintin comics, which are french comics about an English, or maybe it's a french attack, I don't know. I think he's English, but it's a french comic. It's a weird thing, but in comics, and he would do the different voices for that. And that allowed me to start doing my characters in voices, allowed me to do more characters in one story, like, find familiar voices that you enjoy listening to, that you enjoy hearing. Tell a story and write in that voice for a while, and eventually, you're gonna start making up your own voices, like, I, for some reason, do. I've made up my own version of, like, Wanda and Pietro Maximus from the MCU's accent. I made that my own. I made an. I combined it with Yelena Belova's accent in the films, and I, like, made my own accent for when I. What I want. I want to write, like, creepy shite. Okay.
[00:42:01] Speaker A: I love that. What is your. Okay, just briefly describe the beginning creative process from when you get an idea. How do you, like, do you get ideas before you start writing? When do you most get ideas? And then what is the process of starting to get it onto the page?
[00:42:19] Speaker B: I generally get inspired by random things throughout the day or random thoughts I have. So I'd say a good example is that it was just like, a Christmas present for me that someone had got me a book on norse, not mythology, but folklore, creatures like a huldra, which is. I've added a weird rolling r to that. Huldra.
I was like. I was like, huldra. I learned French. Give me the rolling r's. But a huldra or a hulder, if you wanted to go mail for it. And I was like, I can write a story about that.
Or, like, this. There's, like, this massive, like, whale sort of sea serpent creature that crawls out of the water and other things like that, or, like, this grim lady who hides in mind. And it was just supposed to be, like, a little folkloric thing because, like, I was really into mythology and stuff like that, but that book became my inspiration. And then I delved into this weird story where I made, like, a centuries old thing, and I included this russian guy that I learned about, like, random years ago, like, koshchei and other things like that. And then I took inspiration also something. Never be afraid to take inspiration from already living media.
[00:43:28] Speaker A: It doesn't.
[00:43:29] Speaker B: It's. Don't rip it off, but, like, don't be afraid to completely. Just take fewer inspiration. If you ever watch Catalya, I imagined Prussia, the country character Prussia, as, like, a ghost coming into the story and stuff like that. He'd, like, died in the battle, and I said the 1812, also taken from a Hetali episode. And I, like, molded this all together to make a story over time. And then when I had, like, a pretty cool, like, couple scenes in my head, I started blotting it down in, like, bullet points on it, on a thing. And occasionally I would go on, now what? The way I do my creative process is, I have an idea that's inspired for some random thing, like for common now history episode or something. Souls told me, my friend, I will then write down in bullet points, sort of the ideas for that story where it goes. And then I go under each bullet point. I don't, like, write it in. I go under the bullet point, whatever that bullet point has in longer form terms. And then I will paste it all together and then go through rereading it, resetting it, and maybe changing a couple things. And then I have soul make sure I did my grammar correctly.
They are impressed with my ability to switch tenses between sentences.
[00:44:35] Speaker A: That's amazing. So you do actually map your stories out in advance. You have kind of a general structure. I didn't always.
[00:44:42] Speaker B: It wasn't the first thing I did. I kind of. I used to just sort of run with it an idea, and I kept, like, the mapping out within my head. I had, like, maybe an idea of two steps ahead.
[00:44:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:51] Speaker B: But now, because I'm incredibly fond of the idea of foreshadowing and reiteration, I like to map it all out so I can revisit older things that I said earlier.
[00:45:01] Speaker A: Right. Then you can be the omniscient narrator. You know, things that we don't know. I love that.
[00:45:06] Speaker B: Yes. Instead of being surprised by my own story, I was like.
[00:45:11] Speaker A: Jesus.
Oh, my goodness. I feel like I just want to say, world, this is Maya. You're going to be hearing from her a lot more in the future. I feel like you're going to be very famous in the years to come, and I'm really excited that we managed to book you on our tiny little podcast.
[00:45:31] Speaker B: My goal is to say something on a show that's well known enough to become somewhat of a meme.
[00:45:35] Speaker A: Oh, please. Would you like to say something to start your own meme? You're welcome to it.
[00:45:41] Speaker B: No, I have a visual. Once I become famous enough and my face is actually out there, gosh, this. I sound. I know how I. You know how I said I, like, had a humble smile come over my face? I think I'm doing the opposite when I'm famous.
[00:45:52] Speaker A: Well, I set you. I set you up. I set you up. It's my fault.
[00:45:56] Speaker B: Yeah. But, um, I have very funny pictures because during the pandemic, I was in a foods class, so we had to, like, do cooking at home and stuff like that. And the way that we had to do that was take pictures of our food or recorded. And there's some screenshots of me where I slowly go more and more confused and concerned because of what was happening in the cooking thing. And I have those and I texted them in a funny bubble. And so there's, like, a meme format now that I will someday release to the Internet, where I just get slightly more concerned and confused, where I'm just like, oh, just overall. And it's funny. It's also what me and my dad called prison haircuts during the. During the pandemic, could go to a hairdresser. So we went outside on the patio on the lanai, and I had a buzz cut, like short ass. If any of you know Tintin comics, I looked like Tintin.
[00:46:48] Speaker A: It's grown out so fast, though. It's amazing how it's so long. Okay, so I do. Eve, whether or not becomes a meme, I feel like I want to give you a chance to give, like, one line of advice or wisdom to the world for now. I mean, you're going to continue to illuminate us with your wisdom. And I can't wait to read all of your many, many, many, many books that are going to come out. But one little bit of wisdom for us.
[00:47:17] Speaker B: The earlier one. This, too, shall pass. And that doesn't mean you don't have to do work to get out of something. It doesn't mean you don't have to work to get over a relationship or work to make the world a better place. But know that this, too, shall pass. It's not going to always be like this. Whether because you work to get out of it or because, literally, it cannot rain forever, there will be some break in it, and there's going to be some joy. And let yourself feel those in the moment. Savor. Because even joy won't last forever. Savor that bit and know that sadness isn't going to be forever.
[00:47:52] Speaker A: That's beautiful. Actually, it can not reign forever than.
[00:47:57] Speaker B: Everything I've just said.
[00:47:58] Speaker A: No. That was so lovely. You're amazing. You are so brilliant and so interesting. Maya, thank you for your time and your brilliance and for reading your words and sharing your thoughts. It has been truly an honor and a joy to have this conversation, and.
[00:48:18] Speaker B: I am super happy to be here. If I want to be on a podcast, this is like a dream come true. Please keep in as many tangents as you possibly can.
And don't forget, calling out the editor is a way of breaking the fourth wall, and it's its own sort of that's great.
[00:48:38] Speaker A: This is going to be a long podcast. It's great.
[00:48:40] Speaker B: Yeah. It's going to be a bit of an episode.
