Maggie Smith is NY Times bestselling (her memoir “You Could Make This Place Beautiful”), numerous award-winning poet and author who has been considered one of the first viral poets after her 2016 poem "Good Bones" was read in the hit CBS show 'Madam President', as well as by Meryl Streep at the Academy of American Poets gala. As our first non-musical guest, we seize the opportunity to go deep with Maggie on the creative process in general - a very apt topic with her latest book "Dear Writer: Pep Talks and Practical Advice for the Creative Life" hitting shelves on April 1. We talk about keeping the purity of your creativity, being integrated as a human, trusting yourself to do what’s needed to keep this career going and being your own safety net, being open to completely revamping work, and a whole lot more.
Maggie Smith is NY Times bestselling (her memoir “You Could Make This Place Beautiful”), numerous award-winning poet and author who has been considered one of the first viral poets after her 2016 poem "Good Bones" was read in the hit CBS show 'Madam President', as well as by Meryl Streep at the Academy of American Poets gala. As our first non-musical guest, we seize the opportunity to go deep with Maggie on the creative process in general - a very apt topic with her latest book "Dear Writer: Pep Talks and Practical Advice for the Creative Life" hitting shelves on April 1. We talk about keeping the purity of your creativity, being integrated as a human, trusting yourself to do what’s needed to keep this career going and being your own safety net, being open to completely revamping work, and a whole lot more.
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All music written, performed, and produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
[00:00:00] Hey, and welcome to this week's episode of The Other 22 Hours Podcast. I'm your host, Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
Michaela: And I'm your host, Michaela Anne, and we are on episode 96. And this week, we're featuring our conversation with the New York Times bestselling author, Maggie Smith.
Aaron: Yeah, you keen listeners out there will notice that we said the word author and not songwriter or musician.
And that is because this is the first episode ever on this show where we are featuring somebody outside of the music industry. It has been a goal since the beginning, and this is the first step of a new thing that we'll be doing every month of featuring a creative that is not in the music industry, where we can focus more on our creativity and more on art and in general, and what that means in our lives and in our businesses.
Michaela: [00:01:00] And Maggie Smith was just an incredible Pick, on our part, if I do say so myself, and immense thank you to Maggie for being willing to come on but talk about a creative life. She is a New York Times best selling author of her memoir, You Can Make This Place Beautiful. an award winning The internet says she's considered the first poet to ever go online. Viral with her poem, Good Bones, that has been read by Meryl Streep. It was read on the TV show, Madam President. Really, really beautiful work. She has a children's book called My Thoughts Have Wings, and she has a brand new book about creativity called Dear Writer, Pep Talks, and Practical Advice for the Creative Life coming out imminently on April 1st.
Aaron: So, As Micaela said, Maggie was a great First outside guest for us, if you will, we talked a lot about trusting yourself and your creativity and trusting your creative output and in turn, tuning out the audience, bringing everything in [00:02:00] and being within yourself, talked about integrating yourself into your work, being raw and real and being specific rather than trying to fictionalize everything to kind of hide behind and impact that can have.
Both on your creativity and on the reception by the audience.
Michaela: Yeah. One of my favorite topics of understanding that your work. Your work is your life in, the creative sense. We also talked about the practicalities of self employment as an artist and recognizing the stability in that, although it's inherently unstable in a lot of ways and embracing that, lifestyle and the financial implications which is some of the nitty gritty that we love to get into.
Aaron: As always, some of the topics that we cover today came from suggestions from our Patreon community. It's because people there get advance notice of the guests, and they can submit their own questions for us to kind of touch on, directions to go.
There's a bunch of cool things happening over there, so if you're interested in supporting the show and getting some more access to what we do here, there's a link [00:03:00] below in the show notes.
Michaela: And if you are a visual person, this and all of our past conversations are available on YouTube as well.
Aaron: So without further ado, here's our conversation with Maggie Smith.
back when I used to look at Twitter, or X, or whatever you call it,
there was an account on there called,
Rate My Room, or something like that.
Maggie: got a pretty decent,
Aaron: Amazing.
Michaela: Nice.
Maggie: They liked the bookshelf.
Aaron: so success, then. You're kind of moonlighting as an interior decorator, I guess.
Maggie: You know,
It's what I thought I was going to do when I was a little kid
Michaela: Oh, really?
Maggie: I really did. I used to ride my bike to the Sherwin Williams and get paint samples and like make little pretend rooms.
Aaron: Amazing.
Maggie: And I don't do that for a living, obviously.
Aaron: Yeah.
Maggie: would never know from my house and how like, the mayhem in it that was something I was interested in.
Michaela: I would get a horrible rating on my, I do like a bunch of songwriting coaching on zoom and my office background looks terrible and I never even blur it out. I'm always
shamelessly like, sorry guys.
Maggie: in the mind, [00:04:00] that's good.
Michaela: So many books stacked everywhere and instruments.
Aaron: Yeah.
Maggie: see the rest,
Michaela: Okay.
Aaron: Yep.
Maggie: not good in here,
Michaela: It makes me feel better.
Aaron: That's what we work with here too off, on the uh, the wings over here
is, Yeah.
Michaela: Not really though. Cause this is our recording studio. That is Aaron's domain and he's very tidy and put together. So it's very put together. This is not my domain. There's a direct connection
Aaron: between clutter and my headspace and my ability to create for sure.
Michaela: Not mine.
Aaron: I'm kind of like a pack rat. Like I have isolation booths for singers to go into or, for quieter instruments when there's a full band in here. And that's a great spot to store things. So,
you know, the main space looks great. And then you open a door and you're like,
Oh, all the stuff comes out like a sitcom closet.
exactly.
Like, Oh, found it.
Maggie: feel like this is sort of a sitcom closet. Like it's, you know.
Michaela: Yeah, when we first, last story,
when we first moved in together, we were very young, like right out of college and we were, navigating those things when you live with someone for the first time and I'm very [00:05:00] clean, not tidy and he's the opposite.
And then when we were moving, we opened the closet and I was like, what are these trash bags full? Full of this
is your stuff.
Maggie: Yeah.
Michaela: So I was like, okay, I got some insight. You just hide it away. It's still there. I
Aaron: filed that in the take care of that later.
Michaela: Yeah.
Maggie: It's like in the margin notes. It's fine. We
Aaron: Yeah, exactly.
Michaela: Yeah. Anyways, we're so excited. You are our very first non-musician.
Uh, yeah. was like, did they know you're not a musician? And I was like, yeah I'm reading album as book and I'm reading tour as book tour. And I'm reading stage as stage. Cause it's sort of the
Yeah,
Maggie: like, yeah, it's not like crazy different,
Aaron: yeah, exactly that's the seed of our inspiration for having you on and having to branch out beyond the music industry. When it gets down to it, like creativity is creativity.
And what we talk about is how do we all stay inspired and [00:06:00] creative when all of a sudden our livelihood is based on that creativity and there's that pressure there and we're
not like able to just have
open range to, to just, you know, do whatever.
I
mean, Asterisk open range. But
to me, there's such a similarity between all art forms. When you land on that, we kind of all have to chase the same thing and deal with the same things, I think.
Maggie: Yeah, exactly.
Michaela: I know you and I have Followed each other on instagram.
So we're familiar with each other's stories But that time in my life of being a brand new mom and my mom was You know in a really bad situation recovering from a stroke and then It was the same time that I Became aware of your work. So I found so much solace in your beautiful work that felt so resonant with my life at the time.
So I'm not gonna cry but
Maggie: I have cried already like, five times this morning. honestly, feel like, maybe that's, part of what it means to make art, is you kind of, like, are a door that is, somewhere between ajar and fully standing open all the time.
Michaela: Yeah
Maggie: sucks.
But the only way to make things [00:07:00] is to not shut that door. And it means that you probably cry more than the average person.
Michaela: Oh, yeah, you can attest to this.
Yeah,
I cry a lot. I cried at our daughter's parent teacher conference, just fully broke down.
Maggie: it doesn't really matter. A song. Somebody says something nice to me in the grocery store. Yeah. I'm like, the door's open. Look, this is just the way I was made. I have to believe that was not a mistake. And here we go. That's why I'm not an interior decorator.
Aaron: Yeah.
Maggie: to have a chest that's gaping open all the time to choose paint colors and fabrics.
Michaela: Yeah, but that's also the beauty of creative work is it, connects you to people that you do not know and you think wow, they're communicating these things that I'm feeling and I'm alone in this room. consuming their work and I feel so comforted and less alone probably even more so sometimes than if I was like having a conversation with friend I've known for many years.
Maggie: A hundred percent.
Aaron: Yeah. The art that moves me the most, sticking with your [00:08:00] door analogy, which is so apt is no matter what the medium, the artists is on the other side of that door motioning, like come this
way. And it, you know,
and it gives me permission to be like, Oh,
okay.
I'll explore this. This is a little scary, but like, Oh, wow.
Maggie: Yeah.
Michaela: we have so many questions that we want to jump in with but one of the things just in this topic, with songwriting students and the songwriting coaching I do, I often have students ask For some reason, it's such a common question of like, well, nobody wants to hear about my personal life
or nobody wants to hear about my like wound from losing someone at this age or, is this too personal?
And I'm always like, why do we think this? you pull so much from your personal life as a mother, your relationships, I, that's what draws me to your work. So I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about, have you ever had that question in your mind? And what that has been like for you as you've navigated a 20 plus year career making public art?
Maggie: yeah, I [00:09:00] realize 2025 is the 20 year anniversary of my first book being published, which makes me feel ancient. I was 28 when that book was published, so
Aaron: Yeah.
Maggie: But I will say when I first started writing you know, my first three books were poetry. And when I first started writing I was writing about myself and my personal life, but it was often very veiled, and poems are good for that, probably in some of the ways that songs can be good for that, because if you tuck something inside a metaphor, or if you tuck something inside a myth or some sort of analogy it's like you aren't standing naked in a room with people knowing you're talking about yourself, even if you're using that I, right?
Even if you're claiming it in that persona. then when I started writing prose, I realized I lost that cover. It just felt
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Maggie: different to write about my life sentences that reached the right hand margin of a page, [00:10:00] instead of having the container of a poem that made me feel a little bit like I had some sort of artistic distance.
Michaela: Mm-hmm
Maggie: had my daughter, I remember thinking, okay, I, I don't know how to write anymore. As a poet. I took a year and didn't write anything. first year of her life, I wrote nothing. Because I didn't know how to translate my life. Which was like, babies and tiny socks that I couldn't find a match to and burp cloths and
Michaela: Mm-hmm
Maggie: naps.
And, a lot of tough stuff, really. And also stuff that didn't feel very, quote unquote poetic
Michaela: Mm-hmm
Maggie: And I did think
Michaela: Mm-hmm
Maggie: to read my mommy poems about
Michaela: What's like
Maggie: to kind of gut it out. With a very cranky newborn and have no idea what you're doing. And it always felt to me like life and my work were kind of arm wrestling.
Or one was trying to take the other over and the other one was trying to shove the other out of the [00:11:00] way. And what really changed for me is I just sat down one day and realized no, it's all the same stuff. the work is the life this like attempt I'm trying to do to sort of compartmentalize it
and keep my art free of all this like messy life stuff.
Is Mm-hmm the work, and it's also hurting the life. And so if I can just take down the dividing wall between these two things, it's terrifying. And I actually don't know what it's going to look like or sound like. It might not sound like me the way that
Aaron: Mm-hmm
Maggie: of my work.
But honestly, I think. I've enjoyed writing more on the other side of making that and like, be a little bit more integrated as a human being. And everything I've written since then, I think, has been And some of that is yeah, you get better as you get a little older and you don't fall into the same kind of patterns or cliches and you're [00:12:00] less scared.
And there's all kinds of reasons why the poems that you write in your forties are probably superior to the poems you write in your twenties. I hope that gives someone listening some hope. Like it actually gets better.
Aaron: hmm
Maggie: things get better. And you get more confident in what you're doing, but part of it too, is just getting more comfortable with yourself as a human being.
Aaron: absolutely we've heard that a lot from the songwriter side it's a removing More of like the mesh filter between like your creativity and your output. And so there's just more flow
Maggie: Yeah. you're not like, constantly second guessing yourself? Like, Oh, no one's going to want to know about that.
Michaela: Mm hmm.
Maggie: resonate with another human being? there's so often this impulse or belief that if you want to write something.
unquote universal, right? Whether it's a song or a poem or a script or whatever it is, a novel that you have to sort of address things in a really general way, because then it's like net to catch more people, right? Like, If you write just about love, capital L, [00:13:00] love, everybody has an experience of love.
So if you just write really generically about love or grief or wonder, whatever, you'll catch more people. it's absolutely a lie.
Michaela: Yeah.
Maggie: things that I've written that could have only happened to me, like it's a snippet of conversation from one of my children when they were three years old or something really, really specific to my life, those things are the things that have hooks.
Michaela: hmm. the Velcro for other people. And even if they haven't had that exact same situation, it somehow calls up something in them. That is equally specific and resonant and that little hook then stays in them and attaches them to you in a way that the big sort of generic would never achieve.
I tell students that all the time whenever I listen to, generalized lyrics or read lyrics or poetry about, an experience and there aren't identifying details, I'm like, nothing's playing in my head. soon as you start making [00:14:00] specifics. Even if I've never experienced that, Lucinda Williams my endless example of
this.
she writes so specifically about her life and her experiences. I did not grow up in the South. I did not spend time in Louisiana. Like, So many things that I, I have never experienced, but the specificity of her work plays a movie in my mind that then I automatically translate emotionally to my own feelings and experiences.
it is perplexing because I'm like, we all love movies and TV shows. Those are portraying very specific images and experiences, but there's this weird thing that we've decided if we think it's made up, then that's okay. I mean,
I could go on about this topic just forever because I also think there's a gender component.
Um, yeah, um. there's a, documentary about Joan Didion. She talks about this as well, and she talks about writing [00:15:00] about a time when she and her husband were facing like, they were contemplating getting a divorce, I think it was her nephew who made the documentary, and he asked her like, what did, yeah, what did, I can't remember Joan Didion's husband's name, but what did he think of you doing that?
writing about it. And I remember so Joan saying, Joan, my friend um, saying like, yeah,
he was a writer too. And he understood that the life is the work. And I remember sending it because we've been together 17 years. We've gone through all sorts of ups and downs and navigating our own identities as artists. do you remember me sending that to you? Yeah. And just being like, are we on the same page here?
Maggie: There it is. Here's the evidence. Yeah. So we're good? We're good
Aaron: Yeah.
It was at a time you also sent me bunch of stuff on Jane Goodall because her partner.
Would go out and photograph her and travel with her and help her with her work. And I was like, I get
it. I see. Yeah.
Maggie: what you're doing
Aaron: Yep.
I don't know if this in your world, but the great thing for me about being married to a [00:16:00] songwriter is I always know where I stand and how things are going. Cool. Got it. Yeah.
Maggie: Yeah. For me, it's my kids. I like, I joke all the time. I'm like well, if you're going to live rent free and expect the name brand cereal you need to be paying attention, giving me a metaphor every once in a while, like throwing me a good line of dialogue,
Michaela: Yeah.
Maggie: me something to kind of like bounce off of.
And they do. joke that's our bargain.
Michaela: I love you always post, of your kids that say it's a beauty emergency. I love that. I love that.
And our, our three year old, when she was started talking, she would notice like the moon or a
sunset out the window and she would always be like, Mama, Dada, look at the sky.
And I always would think of your
kids saying that.
Maggie: important. Like, We all just like run to the windows. Like, where are we going? They're like, go to the back! You know, It depends. Cause like, some of the windows face east, some face west. Depending on the time of day, we're just like, we all run to the right side of the house.
Aaron: Yeah,
Michaela: it's really [00:17:00] nice. I'm curious when you talk about that experience of having to intentionally integrate your life with your work and choosing to incorporate owning your more personal identity being in it. But what was your place with? Your audience like the career component.
Did you have an audience that you were aware of and Considering it all like what will my audience or my editors or like How will this impact my career to make this kind of shift?
Maggie: Blissfully no. I kind of made this decision. when I had my daughter, I had only published one book. And now I have eight. So I really didn't have an audience. I had a book. And when you're a poet, your audience is already small and discerning.
there are a lot of, reasons why I feel very lucky that I didn't have any success really until I was a little older and had already figured out some of these things for myself because I didn't have to [00:18:00] negotiate with anyone. there were no like well, is that really what people want?
Because they're expecting X from you. even later when my poem Good Bones went viral, I remember thinking, I don't really know how to write poems after that, because now people are watching. So that was the first time I actually felt like there were People watching her weren't just poetry people, you know, like the audience just suddenly overnight got like immensely exponentially larger.
I had this moment of thinking, okay, so now is this when I have to start thinking about audience like what people want. I've joked about this in the past. And this will make sense to you. Like it felt like a real blessing that was a poem and not a song. And that I was a poet with two small kids living in Columbus, Ohio, with no agent, no manager, no team, no publicist, no one in my ear about anything at all.
And so I was able to just mostly [00:19:00] shrug it off and then just keep just doing whatever I wanted to do. Because there was no person calling me saying, okay, now we have to strategize. How to keep this going like the next single has to sound like this or the next thing We need to get out fast because it has to be on the heels of this thing.
That's not how poetry works.
Michaela: me anxiety, just hearing you say that.
Maggie: mean it gave me anxiety because I remember thinking like All these people now think that if this is the only poem of mine they've read, This is somehow emblematic of what I do. And so how do I keep making things when, really, this isn't the favorite poem I've ever written, and I don't think I'm gonna do this again.
Like, There's not gonna be Good Bones 2. Right? Like, Better bones. Like, this is a one off. Everything I do is a complete one off. And like, what does it mean to be making a one off at a time with an audience? That I have learned in the past, 15 years. But that, I was [00:20:00] like, it doesn't matter.
No one's listening. No one's watching. Like, I was free.
Aaron: Yeah. I related to having like this other figure in your writing room or in your creativity space that is over your shoulder all the time, looking over. And it's like, I do a lot of writing and producing for music for TV.
which is this weird thing.
Talk about being yourself and using specifics. It's this weird frame of making art where it has to be broad enough that it can fit a lot of different scenes. But as soon as there's a visual component to it, it's, oh, this song was written specifically for this spot. But when things get picked up and placed in TV shows, it's like, oh well, I have to do this it just shuts the whole machine down very quickly.
Maggie: That's the risk, right? I honestly try, and this is something I tell my students, too. I don't know if it's great advice in any other medium, but I just say don't think about audience.
Michaela: Yeah. Yeah.
Maggie: there are a couple quick ways to kill something you're trying to make.
One of those ways is to think you know more about it than it does. [00:21:00] to let your ego get in the way and think that you understand exactly what you're building as you're building it. And the other way is to think about who might receive it when it's done and what their wishes or gripes or pet peeves or expectations
Michaela: hmm. Mm hmm. Mm
Maggie: I can do is make things for myself and then kick them out of the nest and Then just immediately start making something else rather than spending time paying too much attention to how that first thing was received,
Michaela: hmm.
Maggie: be kind of paralyzing.
Aaron: Absolutely.
Michaela: Yeah. I've, So I've thought about this and continue to think about it a lot because it's the challenge. I justify everything and I'm like how do you not think about it when you also are needing positive responses to make money, to survive financially, To continue your creative work.
If you believe that you [00:22:00] like, have that kind of like scarcity mindset of like, well, I have to be making money at this to be able to continue to create because if I have to get another job, all of that stuff in the music world, there's so many like little ways to try to evaluate what our audience is perceiving
of us, in
my experience You have the radio.
So you like get to know specific radio DJs and stations and journalists, and there's all these tentacles out there and you make something and you notice Oh, all these people like it and they're doing this and they're supporting me in this. And then the next time you do it. You're like well, I thought he really liked me.
Why he doesn't like my song now. And then the metrics of well, now I can check my backend on my Spotify number, like there's so much that can bombard you. I'm wondering in the writing world, what that is like, what are your metrics if you have any, and how do you steer clear of them?
Maggie: Yeah, I don't know that there really are metrics. I'm like, what would the back end be?
Michaela: Yeah. like, there's no streaming.
Mm hmm.
Maggie: you make something and you [00:23:00] get rid of it, like you send it out into the world and it's not on the radio, but I can see basically my agent can tell me how it's doing.
I usually don't want to know.
Michaela: hmm.
Maggie: say, do not give me any numbers. I don't even want to know good numbers. When my memoir made the New York Times Best Sellers list, I was the only person who was surprised because everybody else was watching.
Aaron: Uh, mm hmm.
Michaela: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Maggie: Send it to my agent. I don't care. I don't want to know, because honestly, it just gives me anxiety.
and so I suppose there are ways to know. I mean, You could also go on something like Goodreads or Amazon and see how many Reviews and what they look like if you wanted to I don't want to do that.
no, honestly, I think me, I'm self employed. I make a living as a writer. It's a constant source of stress and a constant source of joy. And I would have it no other way. [00:24:00] And I prefer to live with the lack of stability because it's worth it.
Michaela: hmm. Mm
Maggie: doing what I love, and if someday that changes, I'll cross that bridge
Michaela: hmm. Yep. hmm. Right. Yep.
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm
Maggie: to succeed because my health insurance premium is due. This has to succeed because I don't have a teaching gig next semester. This has to succeed because X, Y, Z, whatever.
Soccer is starting up and it's really expensive. Like, all the practical stuff, I think that's front of mind when you're making, it's like poisoning the well. And that probably sounds very woo woo, But I try to have as pure a relationship with the making as I can, so that when I'm done making it, I can just start making again.
yes, work means I have to go on the road and events and worry how many people are [00:25:00] going to show up and Yes, I do have to think about numbers at some point, because if I want to sell another book, the last one can't have tanked, So in order to have longevity in this business, it's weird to even call it a business, because I'd be doing it for free.
Don't tell anyone. I would do this for free, right? I did do it for free for many years before I started making money at it. I think to have longevity in this business, you have to be able to keep doing it over and over again at a pretty high level. And counterintuitively, the only way to do that is to not worry about doing it over and over again at a really high level.
Aaron: I like to, when I find myself hitting that point of anxiety and worrying about the level that it's at and all of that, I feel my energy being out there at the horizon. I have to be really present and conscious about pulling my energy back and just focusing on like, one step at a time.
Like I'm right here in this now. I need to. put a guitar on this song. I [00:26:00] need to make the choice of like what this chorus is going to feel like and what this needs just right here in the immediacy. everything that we do in life has microscopic steps and has very macro steps.
And so just try to get down to the smallest step possible and know that I intuitively know what those steps are.
And I uh, and I can hear that and to just follow that because those are, manageable. I can do those. As soon as I started thinking in months or years or seasons, even I get lost very quickly.
Maggie: Overwhelmed. I love the way you just described that though. It feels like calling yourself home. if you do start thinking too much about that big picture, scary, it's the more the sort of professionalization of the stuff and not the art. And so if you can stay grounded in the art making, and sort of call yourself back
Michaela: Mhm.
Maggie: I also just believe thing you'll make will run harder and farther and faster
Michaela: Mhm.
Maggie: you let it go than it would have if you [00:27:00] would kind of hobble it by saddling it with a bunch of other worries,
Aaron: to me what that lights up in my brain is what we were talking about earlier about being very specific with your experience and being true to your experience. It's this thing that for me, it's the intangible across art forms of integrity and purity in that and purity of intent that Maybe you can't describe, specifically on a piece of paper what that is, but I think most people, if not everybody, can feel that.
Maggie: listeners and readers.
Michaela: hmm. Mm Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Maggie: as smart as you, but smarter than you. Like, They don't want to be talked down to. they don't want to be spoon fed.
don't even probably know what they want, but they want what you're gonna make. I read somewhere that confidence is self trust. And I was like, I love that.
Michaela: Mm hmm. hmm. Mm hmm.
Aaron: hmm.
Maggie: that you don't even know what it is when you're doing it. And then you're supposed to just. Send it out into the [00:28:00] world and somebody else is going to understand this thing that you've made, and the amount of self trust that is required to keep doing that over and over and over again, and sometimes falling flat on your face
Michaela: Mm hmm. Mm
Maggie: mean that you stop. It just means like, well, that didn't resonate with people in the same way. So onward.
Michaela: one thing I remind myself and talk to others about all the time is we also don't know everybody that we're impacting,
everyone that our work is connecting with. Even if it looks like that was an epic failure and nobody bought my book or my record or streamed it or whatever. Likely there are people out there that you don't know about who were incredibly moved by reading your poem or your book or your essay. I've spent a long time feeling very anxious about. Feeling like, will I get to keep doing this,
making music? And I don't know why, every record I've made, I've been like, is this the last one?
why [00:29:00] do we think that
Maggie: my hand. Like,
Michaela: Yes.
Maggie: Hard same.
Michaela: Yeah. But it's like, wait, wait,
wait. Is this the last time that I might have, professional support or attention or something. Okay. Maybe. But is this the last time that I will put a pen to paper and feel moved to create something and then feel motivated to take it to the next step?
that's up to me. I don't know why there's this mindset of somebody, the world is going to not let me do this thing that I love.
Maggie: Yeah, we're not at the mercy of other people as much as we think we are. I think that's the sort of like career part of it, for the career we are at the mercy of other people. And that is a really vulnerable thing. you know, I think sometimes I talked to my therapist about this.
I was like, sometimes I feel really jealous of people who have nine to five jobs with health insurance and a place to go. And
Michaela: Mm hmm.
Maggie: that comes every two weeks or four weeks.
Michaela: Yep.
Maggie: that in so long. so long. [00:30:00] I
Aaron: Yeah.
Maggie: in an office when my daughter was two years old
Michaela: Mm hmm. Mm
Maggie: it's been a long time since I've had like a regular gig.
Michaela: Mm
Maggie: sometimes I'm also jealous of people who have spouses who have jobs and who like, if they,
Michaela: We are too. Yeah. Yeah. Mm hmm.
Maggie: when I'm just basically making things and hoping against hope that they succeed enough that I can keep doing it and supporting my family
Michaela: Mm hmm. Mm things, which the audacity that I'm doing this and she said something that I have thought about almost every day since she said well, you know, better than everybody, frankly, that of that is guaranteed.
hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. laid off you could become disabled, your spouse can lose their job, your spouse can become disabled, like, all of that is at the mercy of other people. And [00:31:00] she said, Your life is scary because it's at the mercy of you, but do you trust yourself?
Mm
Maggie: I don't have to trust a boss. I don't have to trust a company.
Michaela: hmm.
Maggie: a spouse. It's a little scary that the trust all has to be on me,
Michaela: hmm.
Mm
Maggie: it going and to make the right decisions for yourself
Michaela: hmm. Mm Make and how often you make it and what it looks like and how you send it out into the world?
Maggie: And I just thought Yeah. So if I can trust myself, and I can come at this from a more, more of an abundance mindset maybe it's just gonna keep being okay? Which seems like wild to say, because it's, a lot more natural for most of us to be like, I don't know.
Maybe this is gonna come to an end at any time.
But the opposite is equally, if not more true, which is, I don't know. I think probably I'll get to keep doing this.
Aaron: two things that play in my head along those same lines are Jim Carrey and he was talking at a graduation at, I think it was some school in [00:32:00] California and he was talking about his, yeah, yeah, where for people that haven't seen it, you know, he's talking about his dad who.
Worked a nine to five and a job that he didn't like but he felt that he Was obligated to do that, to get the steady paycheck and all of that And he was laid off like a few years before he got his pension or something along those lines, the way jim carrey says it is my dad failed at doing a job that he didn't want to do why don't I just follow the job that I want to do?
and the second thing on a personal level for me was like Realizing the paradox of, this fear of what's next when you're self employed and all that. But then also there is stability in the agility of being self employed.
I think it was 2022 or so. So it was post pandemic, but I remember the tech world was laying off a ton of people. here are all these jobs that Stereotypically have paid really well paid
really well had,
all these people were getting laid off and they couldn't find jobs anywhere and I'm like, Oh, I've lost gigs.
I've lost this and that. And then I just do something. I have the ability to create something else. I [00:33:00] have the ability to just like, turn the car and go this way
and
Michaela: We're also very adept at making a really beautiful life out of very little.
Aaron: yeah. Yeah.
Maggie: as they leave for school every day.
And just be like, so long suckers. Enjoy being in a spa. Scheduled environment with a bunch of people you don't like for the next eight hours because I'll be here with a dog just like Dreaming and looking out the window But it's my job. And like maybe I've ruined them actually for having a regular job because love it.
Michaela: Yeah. Mm
hmm.
Maggie: as it is not having much of a net I'm the net,
Michaela: Yeah.
Maggie: are your own net. And if
Aaron: hmm.
Maggie: yourself to be able to be nimble and pivot and think, Okay well, this isn't really working [00:34:00] out, so I can pick up a class here. I can do this thing online here. I can take on, mentees or whatever the
Michaela: Yeah.
you can look at it as oh shit, I need to figure something out because I don't have guaranteed money coming in, but then you could also look at it as, okay, this is an opportunity. There's so many creative ways that I can try and generate some new opportunities and that can also be really fun if you're not.
stressed about it and tying back what you were saying about your therapist and tying back to like our earlier conversation of sharing your personal life through your work. I've read your sub stack where you shared that. And I remember being like, Oh my gosh, she has a great therapist and she sounds like my therapist.
And I had a significant moment like last year where I told my therapist, I was at, you know, the beginning of the year I was like, If someone could just tell me that it was all going to work out and be okay, I would apply to grad school to go back to school. I would get out of my record deal and own my own masters and start self [00:35:00] releasing to have my own music back.
And I would have a second kid. I was like, I just want someone to tell me, yeah, you can do it. And she was like, but Michaela, if some psychic came along and told you, yep, those are the right decisions and it'll all work out. She was like, what would that take from you? And I was like, Oh, my own self trust.
She was like, exactly. And here we are, I'm eight months pregnant and I got into grad school but deferred for a year and I got my, out of my record deal. So,
Maggie: Love this, right? Because really what you needed was your own permission and your own blessing to do it. Because no one can really come along and anoint you
Michaela: what's to say that it's going to be okay? I've thought about that a lot in the experience of like my mom having a stroke. My dad used to tell me all the time like, it's going to be okay, it's going to be okay. And I was like, what does okay mean? Does that mean that mom will never walk again and that's going to be okay?
Like anything I guess is going to be okay because we will learn how to live with it. So in any [00:36:00] decision we make. Is it going to be okay? Well That's up to us. Are we gonna be able to adapt and find the joy in even the things that we didn't want? which I think creative work really helps us do to make meaning out of all these different experiences
mm-hmm And live with ambiguity. Somebody asked me once, how did you get so comfortable with ambiguity? And I'm like, don't be fooled. I'm not comfortable with it at all. But I live with it on a daily basis. we're kind of like, you know, strange friends you have to get used to it and it will be okay.
Maggie: It might not be like, it was before,
Having something be okay in the future doesn't mean it's going to be a carbon copy, like a copy paste of what you have right now
Michaela: Yeah. Mm-hmm
Maggie: improvement in the way that you dream about it being. But if you know that whatever happens you'll survive it,
Michaela: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm
Maggie: through it because you've done that in the past. it's like, Oh, I can [00:37:00] handle this. we can't be too risk averse. Cause that will kill what we do.
Aaron: Yeah for me in my experience It also kills my inspiration in
a lot of ways
as uncomfortable as times of adversity are In retrospect, I pretty much across the board find them very inspiring whether it's for my art or for the way that i'm living, They definitely suck in the
moment You're like I can't do this but looking back i'm like, oh wow. that was a big growth period I really learned this I learned that If I'm getting all green lights, I don't necessarily learn anything, it's very nice and it's, I, I enjoy that.
Maggie: Please tell me yes. All the time. Although I learn nothing from a yes. That's the thing. Like, critique, even, is more productive than praise.
Michaela: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,
Maggie: But I think it teaches you things that you couldn't have learned smooth sailing.
Right? it just makes you like a little bit more nimble and adaptable and flexible and so that the next [00:38:00] time when something happens that you're kind of like, Oh, no, you've like worked those muscles and you kind of know better how to spring into action and do what you need to do.
Aaron: absolutely. That's something I've learned to tell myself if it's a situation that I haven't experienced before. I've learned to tell myself like. It will never be like this again. Even if for some reason, this exact situation does happen again, it won't feel like this because I will have done it won't be the first time.
Right.
Maggie: even if the same terrible situation could happen every six months for the rest of our
Aaron: Oh, no. I was like, please don't.
Maggie: although I have to say it like post election, it does feel like the
Aaron: Oh yeah.
Maggie: and more determined and more resourceful and better able to collaborate through some of this stuff. So it's like that old definition of insanity, like doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results doesn't apply to art
Michaela: Yeah.
Maggie: not the same.
Even if you tried to do something the same over [00:39:00] and over again you, couldn't,
Michaela: Mm hmm.
Maggie: really repeat yourself.
Michaela: I'm a huge Tara Brock fan. Are you? I love her so much. For people who don't know who she is, I think she's been mentioned many times on this podcast, but she's a Western Buddhist mindfulness teacher, psychologist and she had two talks I've listened to recently and one, was about like how to have a heart that's open and ready for anything.
So not trying to avoid, but really being open to anything that life throws at you. throws at us, and then also about what comes from struggle and she quotes Thich Nhat Hanh and he has a phrase where he says, no mud, no Lotus. And that rings in my head all the time of like, okay, the
mud is
necessary.
Maggie: I am growing
Michaela: Yeah.
Maggie: I would really prefer to have this be a beautiful potted or vase kind
Michaela: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Maggie: yeah.
Michaela: Yeah. And a lot of your creative work is coming from your personal life, but also in my [00:40:00] interpretation, this relationship to others of trying to help, you know, like your children's book, my, my book. thoughts have wings keep moving your new book that's coming out Dear Writer and I know you teach as well and I'm curious what that, relationship of helping others and sharing your experience in some way, whether intentionally or not.
to provide some inspiration or knowledge or help to others and like how the experience of teaching and focusing on others work as well informs your own work.
Maggie: for me, writing is the way I feel most useful. In the world. And so in a way, writing is teaching because when I make something and I let other people have it,
Michaela: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Maggie: have their own relationship with it. That has nothing to do with me and I have no idea what that relationship might be, what it might bring up in them, what it might teach them about themselves or about writing or about [00:41:00] anything, honestly.
But, teaching, like actually getting to mentor other writers, it feels like this natural extension of that work,
Michaela: Mm
Maggie: can I be of use? And that's something I think about a lot, I don't really know why. it's like The sort of very Midwestern idea that like, you have to be useful, maybe I have a little bit of guilt about well, I just sit around and write poems, but I need to give back
Michaela: Mm
Maggie: more tangible, I do want to be of use it's that idea of, this life, as far as I know, is a complete one off I have no evidence to the contrary I have a very finite amount of hours
Aaron: hmm. Mm
Maggie: I will not meet everyone.
how do I make a positive impact? How do I leave it a little bit better than I found it? And for me writing and teaching. And frankly, parenting, I think
Michaela: Mm
Maggie: like just being in community with other [00:42:00] people whether it's just socially or through my work It just feels good.
It feels like what I'm supposed to be doing.
Michaela: hmm. Mm hmm.
Maggie: Oh, this is what I'm supposed to be
Michaela: Yep.
Maggie: And then that feeling you get when you're not doing that,
Michaela: Yep. Yeah.
Yeah.
Aaron: Yeah,
exactly. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Maggie: friend Said Jones always says like if it's not a hell, yes it's a hell no if you're asked to do something and I think about that a lot because I cobble my life together in a lot of different ways, like it's mostly writing books, but I also teach and I do editorial work and I have my sub stack and I travel for speaking engagement.
So it's trying to, even as a self employed person, kind of diversify as much as I can. So it's not all coming from one place. I think the pandemic really taught me I had to go on like gig, gig, gig. Unemployment during that
Michaela: Mm hmm. Yeah.
Maggie: like, I'm in a band. Like, I can't tour. So
They're going to pay me [00:43:00] gig money for this. it feels important to have different avenues for being able To be in community with other people around these things as much as possible.
Aaron: one thing I realized is in that diversification is, was really distilling down like, what is my mission statement, as a creative,
as a human on this planet, and then understanding that there's more than one road to get to that mission statement. so there are, you know, ways of teaching, of stepping into producing more of, Support that I can lend and, having community here in Nashville, just like you were saying, it's like it's all pointing to the same place it keeps me inspired. It keeps me feeling fresh because I notice if I show up here in my studio every day and I'm kind of working on the same project.
thing or shooting for the same thing. it's like eating Cheerios every day. Eventually you want to have oatmeal for breakfast.
Maggie: Yep.
Michaela: I think it's helpful for younger people to hear this kind of conversation because I think there's this stigma around like, if you're aspiring to do something that the attachment of [00:44:00] financial gain from the one thing that you want to do, that somehow it's a sign of failure.
If you have to Diversify and I think it's really helpful to hear like, taking care of yourself financially is really important to then create the healthy mindset to be able to create But also there's so many other factors in this world and the economy that make it necessary
and Also, it can be deeply fulfilling not take away from the thing that you think you're supposed to be most successful at I remember when I used to not really like advertise that I've been teaching music forever and I didn't really like I kept it separate and I remember seeing like a review in some music blog about me that was like, announcing that I got signed to a label and it was like, maybe she moonlights as a piano teacher and maybe she'll finally get to stop doing that.
And I was like, don't
want to though. So now I'm like, that's such a massive part of who I am. I will never stop teaching.
It's so important to me and it helps ground [00:45:00] me because I don't want to spend my days only thinking about myself. it's such a essential part of my relationship with my own ability to create.
Maggie: Yeah.
Michaela: I had to work through that outside idea of like, oh, if you're an artist in some endeavor, if you do other things, you're somehow not as successful.
Maggie: Well, Isn't there too like, a sort of misconception, and I think this for musicians and writers, where it's like, either you're top of the game, you're a hobbyist.
Michaela: hmm.
Yeah.
Maggie: there are so many people, like in the writing world, it's like you're either Stephen King or you're, doing it on a cocktail napkin while you work like 16 other jobs,
Michaela: Yeah. Mm hmm.
Maggie: famous and rich and you don't have to have any other gigs or you're barely eking by. And most of us are somewhere in the middle,
Michaela: Mm hmm.
Maggie: so many ways to make a living. And to make art and it doesn't look the same for everyone. And [00:46:00] think we don't do ourselves any favors if we have in our minds, particularly when we're young, that there is one way to quote unquote make it.
Michaela: Mm hmm. looks like a very specific path. And if you. Get signed and then get dropped, or if you have a book come out and it doesn't do well, or you have a book come out and it does well and then they drop you for whatever reason.
Mm hmm. you get completely derailed and second guess the whole thing when really answer is always keep going.
Maggie: That's just the answer.
stop worrying and make something else.
Michaela: that kind of mentality like, is that what's inspired you to make Dear Writer your next book?
Maggie: it's funny actually, I started writing Dear Writer In 2020 I wrote a first draft of Dear Writer before I wrote my memoir.
Michaela: Mm
hmm.
Maggie: book. I mean, I grew up, think someone gave me Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird when I graduated from high school
Michaela: Mm
Aaron: Mm hmm.
Maggie: and write [00:47:00] poems as a teenager.
Um, so I've always read craft books. I've always taught from them. I've learned a lot from them. And so it seemed like a natural step to sort of write my own book about writing and about creativity and process and kind of demystify it and make it feel a little bit more accessible to people. And then I hopped off of it to write my memoir.
And when I came back last year. And looked at the draft. I was like, Oh, I have a totally different idea of how I want to write this book.
Michaela: Oh, interesting.
Aaron: Wow.
Maggie: the entire
Aaron: Mm hmm.
Michaela: Wow.
Maggie: I completely reconceived it. And started from scratch. I like to tell that story because I think it's also like, sometimes we make something and it's not that it's bad.
It's just that time does something to us that makes us see it in a different way and we want to change it.
Michaela: Mm
hmm.
Maggie: we can we're not actually seeing it. It's stuck. Like we
Michaela: Yeah.
Maggie: to then look back and be like, Oh I have a different vision
Aaron: Mm
hmm.
Maggie: now. And [00:48:00] so then I spent past year or so completely revamping this book to the point where I'm super happy with it.
Aaron: I feel that working on a record that inertia of not being able to change it and be
like, this is what it is. I can only imagine that that pull is very strong when you're talking about something like a novel or a book and that breadth of work.
Michaela: it's also even more literal. you can go back and read your writing and be like, Oh, I don't believe that anymore. Where like with a record, you go back and be like well, maybe I would use a different tone there. Or like, I mean, with songwriting, of course the lyrics but again, there's so much more of a veil with songwriting that
you can be like,
that was just a moment in time.
But I think that does apply to everything we make.
Maggie: to it. I mean, Luckily they allowed me the time. I was like, I want to rewrite this book.
Michaela: Mhm.
Maggie: Is that cool?
Michaela: Yeah.
Maggie: I have a completely different idea for how I want this to go. And I think it's actually going to [00:49:00] work. And they were like, okay, if you say so,
Aaron: Yeah.
Michaela: Yeah.
Maggie: And like, I am so much happier with this version and I, the same thing with poems, to be honest, like I write poems and publish them in journals. And then when I later assemble them into a book, sometimes, it might be that six years has gone
Michaela: Mhm. Yeah.
Maggie: I don't like the last line anymore, or I wouldn't use that adjective, or actually the stanzas just don't feel right, or there needs to be more white space or whatever, and I'm like well, it's mine.
I'm in charge. I'm the Yeah.
I'm gonna
Aaron: Yeah. Mhm.
We just did that with a song of Mikayla's that she recorded ten years ago. a song that still resonates with her, that still resonates with her audience, and felt like it needed a, update, and so we kind of reimagined it and completely rerecorded it and approached it in a new light, and it feels great.
Maggie: Oh, I love
Michaela: this is where I do get really woo woo about the work that we make for ourselves. Sometimes we have no idea the meaning [00:50:00] that it's going to hold in our lives. And then 10 years, 20 years down the line, we revisit it. when I sing songs that I've written and like, I sing them over and over and over again.
I'm like, Oh my God, this has like way different meaning now. Especially a song like, what he's referencing, Is This What Mama Meant, that I wrote when I was like, 25, and didn't really know anything about. Anything compared to everything that has happened in my life in the last five, eight years I was taking like some sage advice my mom gave me of weathering hard times and I was like, yeah, I fight with my boyfriend sometimes.
Maggie: the idea, the hard times,
Michaela: Yeah. and scale of the hard times has changed a
Aaron: Yes,
Michaela: massively. So
that's The hard
Aaron: times that were present when you wrote that song, I don't even think would register on the radar. Oh my God. Now, yeah.
It'd just be Tuesday.
Maggie: You're like, oh, that's
Aaron: Yeah, that's Tuesday. We're
Michaela: good. yeah.
Aaron: One question that we really like to end with, I'm wondering if you could share a nugget of wisdom or something that somebody told you that like really [00:51:00] Opened up your creativity or open up your presence with yourself in your creativity something over the years.
They're like really just
has stuck with you
Maggie: yeah, actually this, I put this in Dear Raider and I won't be able to find the page, but a poet mentor of mine who's no longer with us years ago, Stan Plumlee I was having this sort of crisis of faith as I was working on my second book of poems. I think because I was like, these don't sound like my first book.
What am I doing? I was having this sort of like sophomore slump thing happening, where I just didn't quite know how to get my momentum. And he actually just said Stop thinking about the audience. Stop thinking about what people want. And he said, go deep inside yourself and stay alone there.
That is where the poems happen. And I think, that's something you said, Aaron, it's like sort of calling yourself home, getting back into your body, not going out to that far horizon where you're thinking about what's [00:52:00] next or next, next or next, next, next and getting into that weird sort of grasping anticipatory headspace and just trying to stay kind of centered in that.
Really comfortable, peaceful solitude where you're making a new thing and just trusting that what comes out of that state be something that someone else wants or needs, even if you don't have any idea why or who that person is or what might happen. I think that's the best writing advice I've ever gotten.
Go deep inside yourself and stay
Michaela: Stay alone there. I love that
Aaron: beautiful.
Michaela: Yeah, the imagery that comes with that is Another reason why words are so magical
the way we arrange them I medium. this is my business. How do I not have the right words? But that's the thing. Words are magic and they're also completely [00:53:00] inadequate. And frankly, that's what I love so much about music. I feel like I'm always working at a deficit because you have. available to you that move above language. And I don't have that. And it's probably why I listen to music more than I write. Because it's my medium of choice, even though I don't make it.
we didn't even get to talk about how you're such a deep music fan.
Maggie: the thing for
Aaron: yeah.
Maggie: honestly, it's not even cool. I feel like my editor would be like, you can't say that. But if someone said you can either listen to music for the rest of your life or write,
Aaron: Ooh.
Maggie: I don't have access to music without listening to someone else's because it's not something I can do myself.
Michaela: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Maggie: it's incredibly important.
Michaela: elements. I always tell students that too, who have like a challenge of like overriding in a song. I'm like, remember, this isn't your only avenue to communicate. You have melody and harmony and rhythm. All of [00:54:00] that stuff comes into play. You don't have to write a movie script in a three minute song, cut the words
because we have other things to evoke the feelings and the, images that we want to play in someone's head.
Maggie: You lucky ducks. Ha Ha
Aaron: we're lucky in many ways because you, took the time to sit with us and have this conversation and share all your insights and your experiences with us. So thank you. Yeah, this was
Michaela: such a wonderful conversation.
Maggie: my pleasure and
I'll see you guys in a few months.
Michaela: sounds great. Thank you. Take care. Bye.