Look Around
I had the great fortune of being interviewed yesterday on Susan Wingate and Joshua Graham’s excellent podcast “Between The Lines.” If you did not have a chance to listen to it, you may do so at any time here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/dialogue Susan and Joshua were quite generous and allowed me to roam freely through many of the subjects that most interested me. This included my work editing the video interviews we post every month. I have never thought much about this part of my job. Video editing was something I simply had to learn to do in order to have an online magazine.
As Susan pointed out, her interview, as seen on Author, was but a fraction of the conversation we taped. In this way, editing is like rewriting a very wordy novel, diving into voluminous raw material to extract a coherent and focused narrative. If I have had any success as an editor it is due in large part to the instincts I honed writing fiction.
But isn’t this so with everything? Before I waited tables fulltime I acted, and the voice I trained on the stage I brought to the tables where I trained it further to be heard clearly in a more intimate surrounding, a voice I would then bring to this magazine to be used in interviews. What I write in this column I bring to the dinner table, and what I learn at the dinner table I bring to this column. I write better the more that I talk, and I talk better the more that I write.
And so on. Writing classes and conventions and magazines are great and helpful, but nothing can replace your constantly expanding web of interest. Look around at all the activities and friends and things you gathered to you, all these things you call your life. You think one is not connected to the other? Their separation is an optical illusion, a trick that allows getting about in the world easier. They are all connected to you, and you they, and the closer you look at all you do and think about and say, the harder it will be to tell one from the other.
If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual and group conferencing.
You can find Bill at: williamkenower.com
