[MUSIC] Hey, you're listening to Creative PEP Talk, a weekly podcast companion for your creative journey. I'm your host, Andy J. Pizza. I'm a New York Times best-selling author and illustrator, and this show is just everything I'm learning about building and maintaining a thriving creative practice. Let's get into it. [MUSIC] Miro is a collaborative virtual workspace that syncs in real time for you and your team so that you can innovate an idea into an outcome seamlessly. We talk a lot on this show about the idea of how creative research shows that playing with the problem is essential to innovation. Now when I think of play, I don't think of documents and email. So if your team is often working remote, you need something more dynamic and collaborative. I think that Miro's mind maps and flow charts where team members can edit and play in real time has a lot more capacity for innovation in playing with the problem than traditional ways of collaborating over the Internet. Whether you work in innovation, product design, engineering, UX, agile, or IT, bring your teams to Miro's revolutionary innovation workspace and be faster from idea to outcome. Go to Miro.com to find out how that's M-I-R-O.com. Hey, in case you don't know, we have a monthly live virtual meetup every last Monday of the month with supporters of the show from Patreon and Substack. We have so much fun on these calls and they are the warmest, most encouraging creatives that I have ever met. And we also talk real creative practice stuff. We have authors, illustrators, lettering artists, picture bookmakers, fine artists, musicians, and folks that work in video and film as well. And we have people that are just starting out, people super established in their creative careers and everything in between. For the rest of this year, we're going to chat through our new Journey of the True Fan series, exploring questions and ways to apply these ideas to your own creative practice so that you can leave 2024 stronger than you came in with more visibility, connection with your audience and sales. Sign up to whichever suits you best at either patreon.com/creativepeptalk or AndyJPizza.substack.com. And I hope to see you at this month's meetup. Michael Dante Demartino is on the show today. Michael has a new book out that he wrote, a novel, a YA coming of age, kind of mash up with a mystery page turnery thing going on. It's a really great YA book, but also, and I enjoyed it as an adult. It touched me, made me think and it was just really satisfying. It's called both here and gone. Go check that out. You might know Michael from some of his other work. He was the co-creator of the smash hit legendary TV show on Nickelodeon Avatar, the last airbender and the legend of Korra. Those are just legendary shows in the house of pizza. My children are obsessed. They've memorized almost every line, they tell the jokes, they've made games based on these shows. And so I was just super pumped to sit down with Michael and talk about the journey of going from being interested in fine art and high school and illustration, and then moving into animation and doing TV. And then now all the way from that to be writing his own books and writing novels. It's just a really interesting journey. We go through that and shop talk and talk about the craft and the things that he has picked up along the way, story stuff, collaboration, stuff like how to enter a story when you're more of an intuitive type that's just drawn to images and how to extrapolate writing from that. And then vice versa. A little bit more mechanical, a little bit more literal, how you can go from that into the more imagery based stuff and everything in between. We also touch on more collaboration stuff as well as this fits well within our little impromptu series we're doing on the independent spirit, indie spirit, DIY, because even all of this stuff that Michael's done, he has chose to self publish this book. And I think that is just phenomenal and just speaks to just doing your thing. I feel like there's a wave of that in the creative space and I am all for it. Stay to the end and I will bring back to you a call to adventure a way to put some of these ideas to practice in your creative practice today. I'll be back with what we're calling outsource your inner source. And it's a little bit about how to recognize the good stuff that you've got going on even when you might lack the full confidence to go for it. I'll be back with that, but for now, let's go to my conversation with Michael Dante Demartina. There's a ton of stuff I want to get to. So I probably should just get into it. First of all, I have to say, I really, really enjoyed your book and you definitely made a grown man cry several times. You're not the first grown man who has told me that. So I'm pleased to hear that in a strange way, I guess. Yeah, I did it. I mean, in my opinion, like that's kind of the point of writing stories. I kind of feel like stories are the opposite of jokes, like jokes. The point is to get laughs stories, hopefully it hits you emotionally enough to make you well up or feel something, you know? Oh, absolutely. I mean, that's what I love about novel writing, I think, even compared to like writing for television and stuff. I mean, we're always infusing tons of emotion into the shows we do, but yeah, the novel, especially this novel for me was something different. It's not fantasy based, which most of my other work is, and I really want to dig into the characters' emotions and emotional life and deal with some somewhat heavy stuff. Yeah. I mean, job well done, because you definitely, you hit me with it and it's really well constructed and it feels really timeless. It's really hard to like pin down, like I know it's set in a time, but it's kind of a timeless story. The first thing I thought you could just tell people a little bit about the books to give them some context, and then I'd like to kind of go back before we go deep into the creativity of that. But could you just tell people about the book if they haven't heard of it? Yeah, it's a book, it's called a YA novel, it's called "Both Here and Gone." It's a coming-of-age story set in the '80s, which is when I grew up. And it's about a 14-year-old kid named Jack, and he's going through multiple losses. His dad left to walk the Appalachian Trail, his mom's now selling their house, his best friend had this horrible accident, and that left her in a coma. So when we pick up with the story, his friend has woken up from this coma, but she doesn't remember the accident. So she has retrograde amnesia. So she remembers Jack, she remembers her family, she remembers like who she is, but she doesn't remember the past couple months and what happened. And so she turns to Jack to try to piece together, people aren't really talking about what exactly happened. So there's a mystery element to the novel, which I was really excited to dig into, and I think that's what draws you through the story, is like, what really happened that day, what does Jack know, or what he doesn't know, how honest is he being? Kind of plays a little bit like a true crime podcast in that way. That kind of has that mystery, like keep picking up the next chapter, the next chapter, because you want to know like, what exactly is missing from this? Well, it's hard to even put your finger on, you know? I listen to a lot of true crime podcast and read a lot of mysteries and stuff. And so I definitely want to bring that genre element to this story, which is, you know, in a way it's, it's all about grief and loss and, you know, sort of somewhat heavy stuff. But you know, people love a good mystery. That's why you read books and like, keep turning the pages. A lot of people have said like, which I've been surprised, it's like, you know, coming at age stories. So you don't expect it to be like a page here, but a lot of people have told me that, you know, once they start, start in, they just keep going and they can't put it down. Yeah, I love that it has a fusing of genres where you do get the like pathos of a coming in a of age story, you get a lot of the heaviness of a drama, but you mix that so well with the, the thriller element of a mystery that kind of keeps you plotting through it. Because sometimes when things are heavy or when they're, yeah, there's a lot of ideas and heart and philosophy in a story. It can kind of plot along in a way where you're like, okay, I'm soaking this in, but I don't have any reason to keep like going and going and going. And I think you did that really masterfully. Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, it's so great to hear the, the, the feedback from people who have, who have connected with it. And it's, yeah, it's, even though I wrote it for like a teenage audience, tons of adults and older adults have read it and really connected with it. So I mean, that's what I try to do with my work is like it's, it's primarily focused to kids or young adults, but it's usually my goal is that it appeals to a wide range of readers or audience. Yeah, it has that. It has that. I think, you know, great stories have that appeal across all the boundaries. And I think, you know, I wanted to, I want to go deeper into maybe some of the personal creative stuff going on that led you to tell that story. But first, if we could just reverse back, I'd love to figure out a little bit of how you got here because I relate in minor ways from, I started as an illustrator and then I became more and more obsessed with storytelling. And so now a lot of the stuff I do is only adjacent to drawing pictures. And even when I'm drawing pictures, it's always through the lens of telling a story. And so I've kind of managed to become an author through all that. And so I'm really fascinated how that happened because you went to school originally for visual art and then animation, right? Yeah, correct. Yeah. I went to Rhode Island School Design and yeah, much like you like growing up, I was drawing all the time. And then I always wanted to go to art school. I thought I would be a painter or illustrator and then got into animation, which I loved because I think that was a great hybrid of art and storytelling. And then through that, yeah, after I graduated, I moved to Los Angeles and started working in an animation and more on the art side of things. And then when my friend and I, Brian, created Avatar the Last Airbender, that's when I started more like he was more on the focusing on like art direction, character design stuff. And I was started spending more time in the writing room and learning more about writing for television and stuff. So I think it just, it's just sort of naturally evolved over the years. And I've always had the interest in fiction writing as well, kind of on the side. That was always a little side hobby. Yeah. Well, I have to also tell you that, you know, I've been racking up cool dad points for weeks saying that I was going to talk to you because my kids are, it's an understatement to say that they're massive fans. They have, they've, now they're recently working on this big project, trying to create a version of Settlers of Catan, but through an Avatar world and so they've like remade all the different pieces and just totally geeking out about it. So, and I mean, obviously the show is fantastic and transcends age and, you know, a lot of the reason they're into it because my brother was so into it. Now he's an adult. He still loves it, passed it on to them. I'm sure you hear this all the time, but you made something so epic and important to so many people. It's just my kids laugh all the time, constantly saying the lines and also definitely sincerely moved and it's big part of their childhood. So first of all, just thanks for that. Oh, it's amazing. I mean, when we do hear that, it never gets old, so it's okay, but it's, it's remarkable that it has lasted this long, that people are still connecting with it, new generations are connecting it with it, especially now, like the parents who saw it when they were younger, now have kids, which is wild. So it's, it's, it's amazing. And I hope people keep watching it. Yeah, I think that I think they definitely well, I, so this transition for from, because I know I'm sure you still have a relationship with visual art, but it definitely seemed that over time, story and the writing side kind of won you over, what do you see these two mediums as really different things, or do you see them as, is there really strong connective tissue for you? What brought you over to the side of writing, like what, what kind of won you over at least at this time in your life? Yeah, I don't, I mean, part of it, especially with the novel writing side of it is, it is much more of a, I'm definitely an introvert introspective. I like being alone in my room, you know, I still love just drawing alone. Yeah. Yeah. So I think both artists can relate to that. And so for me, you know, like animation process is super collaborative. You're working with tons of different people. It's super inspiring because you get to work with amazing artists and other creative people all the time. But a big part of that job became, and is now, I'm more of a producer and a kind of manager of the creative and overseeing the artists and creative people and producers and stuff. So I've, I've, there's less hands-on work for me to do now, I guess, so, but I still have that creative itch of like, I still want to create, I still want to do, do my own stuff. So the novel writing for me is, is, it is that more introspective. You may work with editors or, or people along the way to help you get the book out. But it's very much a solo enterprise, you know, which, which can be good or bad. Like, I, I like having those, because I have my day job, so to speak, of where I am working with other people, I like having, you know, those chunks of time where I can just work on my own. And, and especially in the case of this book, like when I started writing it, it was really just a, it was an experiment sort of. It wasn't for anybody in particular. There were no deadlines. Like, it was like the first time since I was probably in college where I was just like making something for myself, so to speak. You know, I had, I had idea of like, I have this become something I can, I can put it out down the road, but I didn't have to, you know, I didn't have a editor calling me up like, where's that draft, you know, so, so there's some freedom in that as well, which is nice. You know, writing at its best for me, if I can access that space where I'm making something for myself, it is the kind of intrinsic reward of discovery and problem solving. And then you're kind of just like, it keeps you going because you're discovering stuff and you're trying to create those little hooks and those loops and, you know, all of that kind of thing, but it took me a long time to even discover that I was able to do anything like that. So I have two questions about that. One is, how did you, how did you get back into that space? Was it difficult to find that space of making for yourself again after you've been doing all of these larger projects through your adulthood or did you always have that space? I've always had it to a certain degree. It is hard to jump back and forth between the two head spaces. So whether that's your writing at night or on the weekends, I also have kids. So once they came along, it's even harder to find that extra time and focus, you know, if I, if I could manage to get up early in the morning, that might happen sometimes or on a lunch break or something. But yeah, it's, you definitely, there is that, that cost of like switching attention to different projects or, or whatnot. But you know, once you get into it, get into the flow a little bit, it usually goes okay for me. Yeah. And I, you know, I wondered like, um, so I came from the illustration world and I kind of like in illustrators are kind of a less glamorous version of acting in my mind because acting and illustration, they're both usually like illuminating a text, bringing it to life, giving it a face. And there's a lot about it that is pretty like visceral and intuitive. And you're not always using your literal clever thinking brain. You're kind of just going with impulse. And so I see all these connections and for me, my path didn't really pick up until I was able to generate some of my own content, whether in early days, it wasn't maybe considered writing, but it was still that direction, that part of the brain. And in the same way that where an actor that's not getting roles might need to consider trying to write their own roles, even if they never aspire to be a full actor, I encourage illustrators and visual artists to try to access that side of their brain that is maybe not just intuitive, but problem-solving and planning and plotting and all that kind of stuff. But I know for me when I was starting, that just seemed so overwhelming. And so I don't even know if I can do that. And when I was kind of digging into some research of you, I noticed that early in your creative journey, you talked about how the writing that you were doing probably was more like that intuitive stuff because it was the stream of consciousness, it was short stories, it was little bursts. And I just wonder how did you get from that to then writing for TV? Because I personally, as just a story guy, I love episodic TV that has satisfying loops to me. That's like the best for me. So what is the gap between those two things? Because I think there's a lot of artists that really are like, I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I can sit in a chair and create a loop that isn't just energy of plotting versus pancing. I don't know how to access both sides, similar to what you're talking about switching. Does that make sense? Yeah. I wondered if there was a gap there that was kind of hard to figure out or not. No, it's interesting. You're bringing up like, yeah, when I was probably, it was like college days and early, you know, early living in LA days, I had a journal and I was super into the beat poets and stuff back then. Just experimenting with poetry and, yeah, like you said, stream of consciousness sort of like stuff. But it didn't, like when I'll dig it up every once in a while, and there are some cool gems in there that I'm like, I can't believe I wrote that, but it does not make any sense. So yeah, there was like the fun, just like experimental years of like trying stuff out without any specific goal of like, this was going to become a book or anything. And then yeah, I took some short story classes at UCLA once and, you know, like I've always studied like the craft of writing kind of on the side and then, but having, creating the show and then working on the show as a writer, I was working with other more experienced writers who had been in these big teaching rooms and stuff. So I learned a ton about breaking down a story, outlining a story, you know, working with other writers, riffing off each other for ideas to come up with the best idea. So I think through, through that more methodical process of, you know, you got to turn in a premise and an outline and a script to the network and, you know, it's much more regimented. So I definitely learned a ton through just experience and doing it every day for several years. Yeah. There's no, you know, there's no substitute for that kind of learning, I think. But then yeah, at the same time I was, I had learned as an artist to like show up at my job at nine or 10 or whatever and sit in the chair all day and you have your work for the day. And it kind of doesn't matter how inspired you are. It's like, you got to get this done, you know, you got to draw the storyboard and it's due in a couple of weeks. And so I think that kind of, I've always been sort of self-motivated, but I also think like that kind of taking your creativity and putting it into the context of a show or a, yeah, I mean, even if you have, you know, you're hired to, you know, for a client or something like that, like, you're going to have deadlines, you're going to have revisions, you're going to have someone that is like, eh, I don't get it. Doesn't, I don't, I want it different. You're like, well, yeah, I worked really hard on this though, I worked. So you know, that's just part of like becoming a professional artist, I think is like dealing with those ups and downs and, and, and, but yeah, I think it is that consistency. So even when I'm working on my own stuff, I try to implement that. I mean, you have to be self-disciplined and stuff, but it's like, all right, I'm going to work from, you know, I'm going to write for an hour, you know, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, whatever it is, like, if you have sort of a set schedule, that, that'll sometimes work for me. And then, but yeah, going back to this new book, like I, it's funny because like I took all those, all my learnings over the years of how to tell like a, you know, compelling narrative with a, you know, with a plot and act breaks and all that stuff. But then I think I had burned out sort of on like the outlining thing and the planning thing. And so I did want to try, I was like, you know, I wanted to have an idea of the story that I wanted to tell going into this. So in 2019 was, I did nano RIMO for the first time, which is the national novel writing month thing. So it was just like a good, that was a good little like external motivator to like show up every day and write like, you know, whatever it was, like almost 2000 words a day. And I had a rough idea of this, the scenario and this kid and what might have happened. But I was like, you know, I'm just gonna write and see what I have at the end of the month. So it was, it was in a way, it was actually in reverse because I did more of the pantsing thing first, I think. And then I had all this material to work with and went back and then applied like structure to it. And like, what am I actually trying to say with this, this stuff and yeah, how can I best lay out this mystery? So it's kind of like always balancing back and forth between like the creative side and then like kind of editor brain to like, because that's what I do a lot in my day job too. It's like, it's kind of more editing in a way. It's like, like looking at scripts or, or outlines and pinpointing like this works. This is confusing, you know, this could be better that sort of stuff. Yeah. And I wonder, yeah, that makes tons of sense. Like, I think the book has great structure. It's clear like there's a, there's a great arc here that works in a practical way. And then there's also what's great about the form of a book is that you can branch off into these little explorations and that makes it enjoyable. So you feel that give and take of the pancing and plotting in the book. And I, and I, and I thought that was interesting because it felt like you said, it was a break from kind of the rigid TV writing. And it felt like a synthesis of what I heard you talking about in your early days where it was just all pancing versus what I assume the kind of rigor of making a show is like and, and what the expectations are, especially for a kid show, how tight it kind of needs to be. And I thought, yeah, this definitely feels like a synthesis of that. And I wondered if, mainly because I'm just a nerd for story stuff, what, what do you think in terms of, because it sounds like early on, you had that creative impulse that a lot of creative people have where they just want to go flow, they want to go throw down stuff. It doesn't have to mean anything that they don't have to consciously understand it, whatever. And then you went through this kind of hero's journey into a place away from that where you're going in this very much more structured thing. And then you took something from that and made this book later. I wondered if you had any ideas around breaking a story or what you learned from those people, those TV writers you were working with, even just like the basic stuff that probably to you is like really old hat, not interesting anymore, but most people that have never been in those scenarios are really familiar with. Sure. Does anything come to mind? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, so it's funny, like I kind of learned a lot of that TV writing by osmosis. It wasn't like we were having deep discussions about structure or stuff, it was just like everyone's experience comes to the room and you just sort of learn by watching and learn by doing. But then when I wrote my first novel, which was a middle grade fantasy a few years back, it was the first time it was after Legend of Korra, which was the sequel show, had to end in it. My kids love that too. Cool. My son actually likes that one more than Avatar, so I don't think my daughter's converted that far. I'll take it. I'll take it. Yeah. You love it. So yeah, I was getting into publishing that like I got my first traditional publishing deal to write this middle grade fantasy series, which was more kind of Avatar like. And that was the first time where I was like on my own inner room going, okay, I'm trying to use all the things I know from TV to do this. And it's still not, what do I do when I get to this point? So like definitely novel writing is a different beast than TV. I think there's a lot you could take from it, but it's definitely not one to one. And so I was like, there's so many books about how to do screenwriting out there. And I was like looking for like, what's the equivalent for like novel writing? I mean, there's like Stephen King's on writing. There's like writing advice books, but they're very, they're, it's not that they're bad. Like they're, they're very entertaining to read and it's fun to learn about another writer's process. Like I always like reading about that stuff. But I think a lot of writers also don't know how they do what they do, especially someone like Stephen King who's like, yeah, he's just awesome. So like he doesn't need to sit down and analyze what he does. But anyway, the long story short is like, I came across a book in a methodology called The Story Grid, which I is kind of the thing I would recommend to anyone, really any storyteller. Like it is taking a more objective approach to storytelling. What are the elements of a story? What is genre? What does that actually mean? If you're telling an action story, it should have life and death stakes and all these parts of the story. Like it's, it's a very, it's a little technical for sure, but it's been the most helpful thing for me as far as like novel writing goes because it does tell you, you know, kind of big macro things, but then gets into the details of like, okay, well, how do you actually write? You know, a lot of people have an idea of like, I want to write a novel, but like they've never actually written a scene of something and like, the cool thing about storytelling I've learned over the years is like, it's very fractal. So like what you can learn to write a, even a short scene, you know, 500 words or something thousand words, you could apply that to your global story. So if you can't like, so if you want to just practice like, don't get over, you know, it's very overwhelming to tackle a novel, but you can do it, you know, you could write a seed in a couple hours, you know. So if you want to, you know, if someone's out there like wanting to practice or something, it's like, like start smaller and start with scenes and stuff. And that book breaks down like, what are the, what are the things you need in a scene and stuff? And I know some people might find that like too prescriptive, but it's very, it's much more of a, I guess I would say it's less about the rules and it's more of like a methodology of how to go about telling a story so that I've always found like having some sort of guardrails in place or goals to shoot for is very helpful in the creative process rather than like limiting because it like, just because you need an inciting incident in your story, that literally could be anything like there's, depending on your characters and your plot and everything else and your sensibilities, like it's not prescribing like, it has to be this kind of, this exact thing has to happen or something like that. So it's a, there's a book, there's a podcast that was on for years. So it's a, it's a great resource as people are looking, people don't know about it. That's great. And actually most people that listen to this show are not going to be allergic to getting mechanical with things because I constantly, that's what we're talking about all the time. I, you know, honestly, I feel like when I was starting out, I think if you do have that natural creative impulse and you are, you know, you have this generative impulse to make stuff that you probably do feel allergic initially to anything that's trying to give structure to that or anything that could be seen as a rule. But for me at least, it was really important to make that journey away from my home of just making it up as I went along into a world where, okay, these are the boundaries, these are the structures and then also leave it and go, go back and, and try to do it intuitively with some of that stuff working subconsciously. So, and I've read, you know, probably at least 10 books on storytelling and I haven't read that one. So I'm definitely going to pick that up and read it. 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If you get 15% off your next gift, go to UncommonGoods.com/peptalk. That's UncommonGoods.com/peptalk for 15% off. Don't miss out on this limited time offer, UncommonGoods, we're all out of the ordinary. As you are working through any of this stuff, I know you said like TV and novels are really different and they definitely are, but did you notice any, any things that you may have been doing intuitively with the TV writing, did it like give you names and tools that maybe you realize like, oh, I was doing these things but I didn't really realize it. Yeah, I think structural things like an inciting incident, the thing that kicks out the story of like, oh, and then somewhere at the midpoint something's going to shift and so like I didn't yeah, I didn't necessarily have words for it but I do think the, and I think we all, we've all consumed stories for so long. I think we all have an intuitive sense of like, beginning middle end and stuff but like, when you actually dive into your own work, it's like one thing to read a novel and it's completely different experience to try to write this thing and wrangle it and make it make sense and, you know, I think going from like the first novel I wrote, which was I think when I look at it now is kind of a prose version of a screenplay almost, you know, like I think it was a little more, it doesn't feel quite as novelistic as I had hoped and I feel like this new book feels more like this is a novel, this is meant to be a novel, you know, I'm not like looking to adapt it into a movie or anything like that, just like I want it, I want to create the experience for a reader, like it's a very unique kind of experience where you're reading on your own and, you know, experiencing a narrative through another person's eyes in a different way than you do when you're like watching a movie or something. Yeah, I definitely think that's true and I love what you said about the fractal piece because that's something that I didn't realize for a long time until just reading about stories that like, yeah, we know the beginning, middle and end thing, the three act kind of idea of a movie or a book or whatever, but you often don't realize like, oh, and the chapter works that way and the scene works that way and each one, they're just a series of three acts. It's really interesting. So I want to talk about a bit about the book. You know, it feels like, you know, if you've been on this planet for 20 years, let's say at least, you've had these seasons of your life where things just seem to pile on or just like, boom, boom, boom. And then by the time like the last few happen in that sequence, you're like, is this real? Like, how is this happening? How could that? Why does that have to happen now? The book kind of feels like it's exploring those themes and stories like when you find yourself in a really low place and you're acting, not like yourself, because you're so pushed beyond what you feel capable to handle. I wondered if like, what made you want to tell a story like that? So the funny thing I like to talk about is that this all began with Pac-Man, which is not what you would think for a book about loss and grief and all this stuff. So yeah, it was a funny journey to get to this thing. So yeah, when I was like coming up with like, what am I going to write for this month? I had this old like, sketch of an idea, like a kid in the 80s playing like playing competitive video games like that movie, King of Kong, that documentary from years back. Yeah. And I love that documentary, I grew up in the 80s and arcades and I was like, oh, that's a cool world and kind of fun. And so I was like playing with that for a while and it was fun, but I was like, eh, there's that I don't know what this is about, it's like other kids playing video games. And then, but then I was just thinking about like the video game aspect of it, like the loss of life, you have three lives, you have these extra lives sometimes. And like, oh, this is this kid, like escaping his problems through video games. And like wondering about like what happens at the end of Pac-Man or when Pac-Man dies, what could, what happens? So it was a weird way to get to what became, but that Pac-Man element is still in the book. There's another character who is a video game connoisseur and is like trying to get the highest score in Pac-Man. So that made it into the novel, but then I kind of refocused everything on this idea of death and loss and grief. And that led to the idea of like coming back from the dead, like people who have had near death experiences, which is, I don't know anyone who's having, but it's fascinating to me that you can like have it cut down. I can't get enough of it. I mean, I'm just that, I'm just, I've become that guy. Like if I scroll across one, I'm like, okay, I got to consume this thing because it's just so fascinating. Yeah. So there was that there, you know, and I think as I got into the writing of it, then it kind of hit me like, my dad passed away in 2008 as from kidney cancer, but he was only in the 60s. Thanks. You know, so I think I was still, even though this was years later, I was still that kind of grief never really goes away. This wasn't happening when I started writing the book, but in the middle of writing the book, COVID hit and every, we were all locked down. And like that kind of loss of everything. I mean, not just the loss of life, but like freedoms and kids, you know, losing their schools and, you know, all the stuff that everyone went to, went through on, you know, different ways. But I was like, in the middle of writing this book, I was like, oh man, this book is like totally about all this lost stuff that were collectively going through. And then the, you know, the individual examples of those. So those were like kind of the two big things that like we're in the back of my mind as I was like redrafting and writing this thing. And then I was doing some research about grief, and that led me to this pretty interesting work by this woman named Pauline Boss, who wrote this book called ambiguous loss. And so it's an interesting concept that I'd never really thought about, but it definitely influenced the book where it's like, it's not just about someone has died and you have a funeral and you, you know, say goodbye to them and it's, and that kind of grief and loss. There's like this ambiguous loss where like maybe someone disappeared and you don't know what happened to them, but they're gone, or even someone who's, you know, has Alzheimer's or something, it's like they're with you, they're physically here, but mentally they are not here anymore. And like those kind of like, those are like really tricky losses, like it's, it's just a different kind of grief almost because you can't just say, put, put a closure closure on it and say like, oh, it's done with. So I think that reading that book, like really kind of coalesce some ideas around like living with grief, like it's not all about like there's characters in the book who are, you know, espousing the like, just put it behind you and move on with your life. And you know, you hear those kinds of devices sometimes, but I definitely feel like the point of the book is say like, you don't just put this stuff behind you, you have to learn how to like move through it, and then live with it and find some sort of peace in your life and continue living despite all this sadness and grief and stuff like that. Yeah. So. That's really powerful and really interesting in the way that it relates to the pandemic because I feel like the ambiguous loss thing is I don't know anybody that isn't dealing with the grief of just the enormous change that is so ambiguous. There's so many ways that lots of people, not everybody, not everybody made it through. And lots of people's lives were dramatically changed in all sorts of ways. But then there's a whole other portion of people that quote unquote got their life back, but there is something missing and there's something gone and it's something's changed. And I think that, yeah, it's interesting also to write about that from what is essentially fantasy, when you go far back in time to the 80s, this is a whole other world that has that distance that allows you to kind of see it from a different universal place, but also kind of specific place. The other thing I was really intrigued by was, you know, I think entering creative stuff, you were talking about this earlier, this is a big theme that we talk about on the show, like writing versus editing. One way of thinking about it that's overly simplistic is the kind of right brain versus left brain. But to me, I think a lot of people that enter creativity, often enter it from one side and then have to learn how to journey out of that and back and journey out of it and back. And the way that you described, I think this is a really interesting tool. If you are a visual person, you know, sometimes the meat or the language of an idea is kind of intimidating. And that's very it can be a little bit left brain editor heavy to be like, this is the idea that I'm working on this novel from versus starting with the visual like something that like Pac-Man, like something that's image that you're drawn to and just let just polling at it. I always I'm always like trying to remember to trust myself if I have that kind of poll. In fact, there's something there and it just was really I love the way that you talk about just like you're pulling at this thread and you're like, Oh, it's not really that. It's not about that. And then eventually like, Oh, I get it. It's about my dad. That's what that's and then collective grease and grief and so yeah, I love that because I think it takes time to learn how to trust that impulse because like, yeah, a lot of people here that think, why am I going to write about Pac-Man? I didn't know why I was. But you trusted it long enough to make something. Yeah, it's just like keeping with it and like digging a little deeper too. Sometimes you just like, there's something there, you don't know what it is, but if you're willing to sort of reflect on it and go a little deeper, you know, there's answers there. And then yeah, through the writing process, there were surprises too that wouldn't have happened if I just had outlined it. Like the character, there's a character named Rennie in the book who's kind of like the mentor figure to Jack. Yeah. It's kind of gruff survivalist guy, philosophy, yeah, yeah, yeah, but he's funny and he's gruff and he's but he's the like, you know, in these coming of age stories you need that mentor figure. So he plays that role. And I think like he wasn't a character I had like gone into the book thinking of it was just like one day I was doing my pages and like Jack was doing something and then this dude drove up in a truck and I was like, wait, where'd that guy come from? What's he doing in this book? But I was like, all right, this is kind of interesting. I wasn't expecting it was like one of it's hard to find moments or remember moments where like I genuinely like surprised myself where I was like, I didn't that wasn't planned. It was it's more like improv or something. But I think that's what the book needed. It needed this mentor figure for Jack and even though I didn't consciously decide that ahead of time, you know, I think the process brought that out and then and then I could then I could recognize, oh, that's why he's in this book and I like, oh, what does a mentor figure do in a coming of age story? Like learn more about that and yeah, you know, kind of tweak his his like role and where he shows up and stuff with great to his very three dimensional, like even as you're talking about him, I have he's so clear in my mind and and really a personable, lovable, but gruff. I love it. And the other thing I thought was, okay, so you this time round, you knew you at least trusted the Pac Man thing long enough to wrestle with it. And I will and then I thought, okay, well, why did it take me so long to start to trust that thing and why do so many creative people have these impulses or attractions of things and then not really pull out it long enough to see something else in there. And I thought, well, you know, it takes you have to learn that that's a worthwhile process, even if it's just for the enjoyment of doing it. And I wondered if, oh, well, maybe part of that confidence comes from or trust comes from these other projects that you've done. And then I thought, well, how did you have how did you and your co founder of Avatar? How did you have the strength and confidence to bet on those early impulses? Like what made you think, yeah, we'll do this. We'll like, we'll go start something. We were young and naive. That's okay. So you have that back then, I think we were in our 20s. I think you're in your 20s, you're just like, yeah, man, we're going to make a show and it'll be great, like, you don't have the years of like, you know, ups and downs and realities of production to like be like, you sure you want to do this? Because yeah, there's a lot of great stuff to it, but there's also it's very difficult to in a lot of stress and stuff, but I think yeah, we had both worked in animation for a while at that point. So we had we had an idea of how the industry worked, how the shit, how you make a show. We hadn't made our own, but we were between the two of us, we had had a bunch of different jobs within different productions. So yeah, I think it was a mix of like, we did have experience like we weren't like two dudes coming off the street, like no idea what to do, but so we had some confidence. But I think yeah, I think there's a little bit of when you're in your twenties, you're just like ready to get out there. I mean, I, when we meet kids in college now, it's funny, like so many of them, they're not, I mean, I think they all are thinking about getting jobs, but the number one question we got to get asked is like, how do you pitch a show? How do you pitch a show? And we're always like pitching a show isn't really a job. It's like something you do on the side while you do your job in the hopes that maybe something will click and you'll get to the show. But yeah, and then that was a case too, where we knew the head of development at Nickelodeon at the time and they gave us an assignment more or less, which was like, this is the kind of show they wanted and actually venture legends and lore kind of show. So you know, we, between Brian and I had had a bunch of ideas, but none of them had exactly fit that genre, but then we were like, okay, cool, we'll take that as like our, our assignment and brainstorm for a few weeks and came up with, you know, what eventually became avatar. Yeah, so it wasn't, it wasn't something that we'd been like stewing over for years and years to. So that is always a unique thing about this show, you know, in a way because so many shows I go that it's been in development for years and years and then someone finally gave the green light got to make it and in retrospect, we had a very, I won't say easy, but it was like a simple process from like pitching the show to getting it made, which I, you know, I know we were kind of like lucky in that respect, but we also, like I said, like we were prepared, like we were ready, we didn't know everything and we'd learned a ton, you know, being thrown into the fire, so to speak, but you know, we had enough experience to kind of know what we were getting ourselves into. One of the things that's really interesting about that is I think, you know, I was thinking about this today, like if you love an album or you love a band, you probably feel like, or at least I feel like there's tons of stuff I like about the songs and the albums, whatever, but some of the songs feel like magic, they feel like there's like kismet, there's something other going on here that kind of transcends and I would say like from, you know, the fandom of Avatar, I would say it's pretty clear that people feel that way about this show. It feels like something that has some real magic to it and I just find it encouraging to create of people to say that, yes, okay, let's say that's true, but also this came from a prompt and in a way, there started with one. And so I just think that there's something interesting there because for me, when someone gives me a boundary, like we had to make some books once and the publisher kind of gave us the parameters of like, this is the kind of thing we're looking for. And at first, it can feel kind of like, well, that's not how good stuff happens. Like, you know, I'll tell you what this wants to be, you know, that kind of thing. And so it's just really, I feel like it's really just encouraging and powerful to just be like, yeah, great things can happen in all kinds of different ways, some of which like that, the start of that is not the classic romantic lightning strikes thing, but it kind of became that. Yeah, well, I think this probably applies more to TV than film or a book, but like, because it's episodic, like, yeah, like you're saying about the album, like, there are some episodes that are magical, that are amazing that, and there's some episodes I'm like, yeah, it turned out okay, like we did our best, you know, as it didn't quite reach what we thought it was going to. But I think as, I think why it endures is like, as a whole, it works and the character arcs work and those story as a whole is compelling and satisfying. Along the way, there's some ups and downs and, you know, fans like to debate about, like, why did that episode even exist that like, sometimes it's just, we had to figure out an episode to turn in that week and you know, for the next upcoming deadline and like, and we were trying something different back then, which was more of a continuous story, which is common now, but wasn't when we were doing the first Avatar, and they were long seasons, they were 20 episodes each season. So there were, you know, people complained about like filler episodes or whatever, but for us, that was like, A, it was just a necessity of production and B, they were often episodes that we could explore different genres or different styles and things like that, like so, so even within like the confines of this, the story, we had some freedom to like explore different things and stuff, which was fun. Yeah. Yeah. And that, and I also think that just speaks to my experience of illustrator Christoph Neiman talks about like being a professional is being able to make good stuff consistently. And then in that process, out of your control, some of them are great stuff. Some of them's great. Those are great things. Yeah. And that's kind of what you just, you learn how to do the good stuff that's passable. That'll, that'll do. And then if you just keep doing that, that's where that magic stuff kind of shows up. I wondered if for the, the last thing, if you had a prompt that is kind of comparable. I wondered if the, some people will be familiar with the nano RIMO thing and kind of know something about that others won't. But I wondered if you had any, anything that you could share that could help someone get started on or recognize a Pac-Man, a thing that's kind of drawn to men and letting them write on it without maybe knowing what it's all about. I don't know if you have any tools for finding those things or yeah, anything that you think might be helpful. Yeah. I mean, usually when I have, when I don't know what this thing is supposed to be at later, I've got a document with like, you know, notes from years and years of like, maybe this is a story like it every once in a while, I go back and oh, that actually is kind of interesting. Yeah. I mean, for me, it's, it's about before you're like writing a book or a story or whatever, it's really like, I guess you could call it journaling, you could call it taking whatever you want to call it is just like exploring that idea, like, or making or however your mind works. Maybe you're doing like charts or something like mind maps or something where it's just like, okay, here's the idea of what is the, what are the, what are other ideas that are similar to this, what are, what are books or movies that are similar, that like remind me of this idea. So I think, you know, one thing I've, I think I used to resist, but I'm more open to now is like, finding books or movies that like, like how did so and so, how did this book handle grief? So like I read a bunch of books, like during, I always like to do research, like I just enjoy reading anyway. So like, yeah, with this book, like I mentioned, like, it was more after I wrote the initial draft, I was like, okay, it's about grief, it's about these things. I want to read more, I want to read other novels that like, dealt with this stuff. So like, reading ketchup in the rye, reading, ordinary people, which was like a, they made a, I think, academy award-winning movie back in the day. A man called UVA, which was about, you know, a older man who lost his wife and like, so like reading books that kind of are talking about some other thing will start to give you also ideas of like, a, kind of what, what is expected in those kind of books, but also like, oh, they already kind of did this thing in that book, I'm not going to do that or, so so hopefully it's like an inspiring thing where you're kind of comparing, and for me, it gave me like tons of ideas of like, oh, how to actually approach this topic and, and stuff. So, and that could be nonfiction or fiction, I mean, I read both, but yes. So, yeah, I guess I think that's great research part of the creative process is always helpful. I think that I'm really glad you said that because I think that that is a, a super crucial part of the creative process. And it's one that gets downplayed so much, or we just don't even realize how essential it is. To me, it feels like a scientist that shows up on the job first day, and is like, you know what, I'm going to reinvent the wheel. I'm going to go back. I don't want to see anybody else's research and like, wait, we don't need that. We need you to go on the cutting edge like, be aware of like, what's all the discoveries that what we already know, and then start there. And I think it's such a, I think the best creative stuff does both. I, one example I think about all the time is, people, oh, one of the things that drives me crazy, how people will talk about movies like everything everywhere all at once and be like, nothing has ever been made like that. And I'm like, okay, yes, in some ways, yes. But also it's kind of like family man with Nicholas Cage, like that it's kind of that, but with a bunch of weird stuff. And, and there's critiques in it, like you said, I love the idea that, you know, creativity is one part inspiration, and then another part critique of like, okay, I love all of this, but that I wouldn't have gone that way with it. I would have done this or I want to inject that that feels missing from my experience. I think that that is, I'm always, I always appreciate when someone with your level of experience encourages people to get inspired because there's a lot of other people in your shoes that are constantly covering their tracks in terms of like, yeah, I guess this I'm just special and these amazing things just came down on me because I am who I am versus being like, no, go out there and get fricking excited about stories, learn from them. And then, you know, add your own thing and critique them and, and all that. So I love that. Yeah, I think this craft is learnable, like there is this like, mystique about writing and stuff like that, but it is there are like with sciences or whatever, like there are methodologies to these things if you want to learn about them. And look, it's creativity. So there's always those little magical moments and sparks and you don't know exactly where that happened. But I think if, yeah, if you have that foundation, the creative part will, it'll, it'll come a little bit easier, I think, or your, I think it's maybe a Steven Pressfield or something is like, you're, the muse isn't going to come to you unless you're like sitting at your desk, like, like, yeah, pencils down, like, ready to go, like, just like sprinkling fairy dust around anyone walking down the street. Yeah, like, I know that as a creator, it's not always easy to internalize this kind of stuff, but genuinely, you have had a positive impact on my life and my kid's life. And I know on the listeners today, how can people go find your book? What's the best place to look? So I self published this book, so you'll find it on Amazon primarily. But I do have a website, Michael Dontay, dmartino.com. You can buy the paperback off that website if you want. But I also have people want to sign up for my email list. I have a novella short story that I'm just giving away for free that is, it's tangentially linked to the book. But it does stand on its own. It's a story about Jack's dad and him, his kind of coming of age story on the Appalachian trail, so to speak. So, yeah, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate all the questions. All right, huge thanks to Mike. Go check him out. Mike underscore Dante underscore D on Instagram. You can check out his book there. You can stay current with all of the different projects that he's doing that way as well. Had a blast talking to this guy. He has had such a creative impact on me and my family. And it was just a real treat to get to chop it up with someone with that kind of experience. I told you I'd be back with a little call to adventure, a little way of putting some of this stuff to practice right now in your own creative practice. We're calling it outsource your inner source. And after this conversation, I got thinking about the nature of collaboration. We talked about how Avatar kind of came to be through this collaborative thing. And then through all of that, he found the ability to go out and do his own thing with writing these different books that he's done. And I just thought about how when you're looking for that confidence that allows you to see a project through or dig deeper into a symbol that is attracting you that sometimes at the start, the only way to do that is to have the validation of a collaborator. And you don't even have to actually directly work with that person in the way that Mike did on avatar. But I wondered if maybe that was something that helped give him the energy necessary to generate something like a pitch for a show is that he didn't do it alone. And I think the creative journey is a series of doing stuff as a team, doing stuff alone, back and forth, back and forth, you learn so much going through that process. But even if you're not going to actually create something with another person, this conversation reminded me of another conversation. It was one that I was just listening to on a podcast with Mike Berbeglia. And he was talking about how one of the most essential things to being a comedian is having comedian friends. Because the things that are the most you and the most funny are often so close to your lived experience that you don't even notice them. You don't even know that you've got an amazing bit there because to you, it's just second nature. That stuff that's just second nature. That's the most juicy stuff because it's the most authentic and it's the easiest to miss. And so he talked about surrounding yourself with comedians that can call out like that, that's really funny. That's a bit. You need to explore that. And most of the time it's stuff that we're just going to ignore. And it got me thinking like starting a show together, you might value this other person experience, but they are going to value yours. And that's going to help you value yours. And so even if you don't go collaborate, let's talk about how you can outsource the recognition, the ability to see the inner source that you have. Do you have those people in your life that are able to be like, that's a great bit. That's a novel. That's a kid's book. That's an Instagram post, whatever it is. And if you don't, my challenge to you in the prompt of this episode is to go outsource that inner source. Go find a place where people seem to like to talk about the kind of things that you like to talk about, people that do similar things to you, so that you can start building that confidence to dig into the stuff that you find really juicy and really natural. Each episode of creative pep talk is designed to help you maintain a consistent creative practice. If you're trying to transform your creativity from an infrequent hobby into a real discipline, sign up to our newsletter at AndyJPizza.substack.com so that you never miss an episode. Creative pep talk is part of the pod glomerate network. You can learn more at pod glomerate.com. Massive thanks to my team, Sophie Miller for content editing and co-writing, to Connor Jones of Pending Beautiful for editing and sound design. And thanks to all of you for listening. Until next time, stay papped up. Hey all, one more quick thing. Earlier this year, I rebuilt my website using Squarespace's new fluid engine, and I was so pumped about how it turned out that I have been really thrilled to find as many ways to partner with them and tell you about what they can do and bring you discounts as possible. With social media going haywire, I think having a site that feels as unique as your creative work is essential to building trust with your target audience or your clients. I have had several clients point out how cohesive and fresh my site looks lately. And if you want to check that out, and what I was able to do without any code, check out AndyJPizza.com. If you want to test it out, go to squarespace.com/peptalk to test it out yourself. And when you're ready to launch, use promo code PEPTALK for 10% off your first purchase. Thanks Squarespace for supporting the show and for supporting creative people. What if you could poke, prod, and explore the mysteries of nature from wherever you are? I'm Nate Hedgy, host of Outside In, an award-winning podcast from New Hampshire Public Radio. We cover all kinds of topics related to our environment, with a healthy dose of goofing off, of course. Outside In isn't just a chauffeur through hikers and conservationists. It's a podcast for anyone who's ready to embrace their curiosity about the natural world and and have some fun doing it. Listen every Thursday wherever you get your podcasts.
When working on a project, do you carefully plot or fly by the seat of your pants?
How do you switch gears between different projects or even different mediums?
This episode is a conversation with Michael Dante DiMartino, the writer, producer and co-creator of the animated series 'Avatar: The Last Airbender' and 'Legend of Korra'. We discuss flipping genres, working on a variety of projects at a once, and finding the balance between dreaming big and getting the job done.
SHOW NOTES:
Co-Writing / Editing: Sophie Miller sophiemiller.co
Audio Editing / Sound Design: Conner Jones pendingbeautiful.co
Soundtrack / Theme Song: Yoni Wolf / WHY? whywithaquestionmark.com
WEB: https://www.michaeldantedimartino.com/
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/mike_dante_d
His New Novel 'Both Here and Gone' https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CW1JRPY7
Mentioned:
NaNo WriMo: https://nanowrimo.org/
'On Writing' https://stephenking.com/works/nonfiction/on-writing-a-memoir-of-the-craft.html
Ambiguous Loss: https://www.ambiguousloss.com/
Storygrid https://storygrid.com/
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