Reigniting the Creative Spark

Finding "creative relief" with bestselling sci-fi author Paolo Bacigalupi

“If there was a door, I would open it. If there was a question, I would ask it.”—Paolo Bacigalupi, author of The Water Knife and The Windup Girl

Preview: Episode 116 with International Bestselling Author Paolo Bacigalupi

After achieving international bestselling author status, speculative fiction author Paolo Bacigalupi was feeling “burned out on writing” and wondered if he would ever write again. In this week’s episode, we speak with Paolo about how he not only found his way back into writing for himself, but also how he found his way back into writing for the public with his newest novel, NAVOLA releasing tomorrow (July 9, 2024). We talk, too, about discipline, how “pleasure is a good way to lever your way into someone’s head,” and how he meets the negative voices in his head.

Paolo Bacigalupi is an internationally bestselling author of speculative fiction. He has won the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, John W. Campbell and Locus Awards, as well as being a finalist for the National Book Award and a winner of the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature. Paolo’s work often focuses on questions of sustainability and the environment, most notably the impacts of climate change. He has written novels for adults, young adults, and children. He can be found online at windupstories.com.

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What We’re Reading and Listening to:

Rosemerry:

• I love when a poem reaches beyond its own moment to help us see with a wider lens. That’s the case with this poem, “Haunt,” published in The American Poetry Review, written by Danusha Laméris, who we featured in Episode 29 about “the understory.”

• This week I found a fabulous resource for those interested in the intersection of science and poetry—it’s the Poets for Science Global Gallery, where you can search poems by subject—astronomy, biology, botany, chemistry, and so on. Poets for Science was originally begun by poet Jane Hirshfield, one of my heart heroes, in honor of how both poetry and science help ground us in the world.

Christie:

• As soon as I think I should stop subscribing to the New Yorker (I never keep up), here comes the fiction issue, and I’m so glad I still subscribe. I can never resist a Haruki Murakami story, and “Kaho” is as Murakami as it gets. The issue also features stories by Annie Proulx and Sally Rooney, among others.

• I’ve long meant to read Willa Cather’s classic novel, My Ántonia, so when the audio version turned up in my Libby app I immediately downloaded it. It’s a rich portrait of life on the Nebraska plains.

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On a Day When I Am Determined to Get Things Done

There is not a shade of judgment in her voice
when my friend says to me, “You feel serious.”
Serious, I know, is a kind way to say,
There is joy all around you that you aren’t seeing.
Serious is her way of saying, Sweetheart,
I can tell you are locked into stress.
How strange and beautiful to have her name
the seriousness, and that’s all it takes
to feel my thoughts ease, to remember hands,
remember breath, remember lips.
There are, of course, good reasons today
to be serious. And there is also a tea party
with a seven-year-old girl. And yellow snapdragons
in ecstatic bloom. And a juvenile grosbeak
at the feeder. And daisies gracing the river bank.
There’s goat cheese and sauvignon blanc.
There’s waking to the purr of the cat.
Oh the gift of spaciousness. How it leaves me
astonished at life—so able to see there is more.
So simple, sometimes, when a friend
shows you a door in the day you never
could see on your own. So generous,
how she doesn’t try to offer you the key.
She just trusts you to walk up to that door,
perhaps push, perhaps see what happens next.

—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
 

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A Note About Paid Subscriptions:

First, we want to thank ALL our subscribers! We are so grateful you join us in this conversation about what it is to engage with yourself, the world and others in a creative way. And a BIG thank you to our paid subscribers. You make this podcast possible. Starting this month, only our paid subscribers will receive our bonus episodes as a thank you for their financial support.

This week, we talk with Paolo about how his ideas of success have changed, how anxiety about other things can be at the heart of writer’s block, why it’s essential to build build deep and human relationships with people doing the same kind of work you are doing. If you are not yet a paid subscriber, you can go now to our website, EmergingForm.substack.com, or by clicking the button below. Thank you!

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Two Questions:

(share your answers with us here on Substack or in our FB group)

1. What daily or weekly ritual or habit has helped you find your creative footing?

2. How do you handle the critical voices that come up in your head?

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