In 1989, Sir Terry Pratchett released Guards! Guards!, the eighth entry in his Discworld series. In 2024, I read that book for the first time while sitting on my back porch. In today's episode, we look at one of the reasons the book is so great — it's character introductions.

In today's episode, I share my thoughts and key takeaways from Tiago Forte's book Building a Second Brain, which focuses on digital notetaking and the ways it can contribute to your creative output. 

Resources:

• Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte
• Digital Notetaking Resource Guide
• Pablo Picasso's Le Taureau

“Have ye seen the white whale?” It's a great question, but it's not the one we’ll be investigating in this week's episode. Instead, we’ll attempt to answer the question that has been plaguing literature lovers since the dawn of time — is Moby-Dick the best novel ever written or is it a 206,000-word abomination that would best serve as the anchor to a whaling ship?

Well also explore other important questions such as: 

• What are Moby-Dick’s best non-narrative chapters? 
• What is skrimshandering? 
• And whatever happened to good old-fashioned monologues? 

Resources:

• Why Read Moby-Dick? by Nathaniel Philbrick

The Body of Work series continues! Join Tim from the Earbuddies podcast and I as we blast off into the stratosphere and share our thoughts on Coldplay’s discography. We rank their nine full-length albums, unpack the universal nature of their music, and poke fun at Chris Martin’s… uhh…lyricism? 

My favorite (so far) episodes of Earbuddies: 

• Episode 10: Dumb Rock
• Episode 101: Clean White Noise - Loopable with No Fade
• Episode 110: Justin Timberlake's Approval Rating

Adam Orfale, aka Feverkin, is a music producer and composer based in Portland, OR. Drawing inspiration from trip hop, future garage, lo-fi, jazz, and classical music, he strikes a unique balance between melody and beat, resulting in instrumentally-driven downtempo music that is both organic, glitchy, and emotionally impactful. In our conversation we talk about his early days of making music under the Feverkin moniker and how Burial's album Untrue completely changed the way he thought about music. We also discuss his creative process and his most recent projects including his collaborative EP with Laura Wolf and the soundtrack for Pwnisher's 3D challenge, Eternal Ascent.

Website: https://www.feverkin.com

Bandcamp: https://feverkin.bandcamp.com

Calendar Project: Calendar Project: January

Feeling creatively stuck? In this short episode, I share one simple perspective that can help you breathe new life into the thing you're working on. 

Books referenced in the episode:

Basketball (And Other Things) by Shea Serrano

God Was In This Place & I, I Did Not Know by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner

Grant Eadie, aka Manatee Commune, is a musician based in the Pacific Northwest. His music combines field recordings, textures from nature, surfy guitar licks, arpeggiated sine waves, and classically influenced viola. In our conversation, Grant and I talk about his early musical memories and the episode of MTV Cribs that started his fascination with electronic music. Then, we dive into his songwriting craft — including the way he utilizes field recordings and how he approaches working with vocalists.

Website: https://www.manatee-commune.com

Bandcamp: https://manateecommune.bandcamp.com

Instagram: @manatee.commune

I finally read Susanna Clarke's Piranesi, and (no surprise) it blew my mind. Rather than a straightforward book review, I spend this episode ruminating on the different things that made it so immersive. Buckle up because we cover a lot of ground - from chapter lengths to serif fonts to Chronicles of Narnia references!

Join Bookborn (@bookborn.reviews) and I as we explore Brandon Sanderson's bibliography, including his characters, writing style, main themes, and creative evolution. 

Follow Bookborn at:

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Bookborn/videos
• Instagram: @bookborn.reviews

My favorite Bookborn videos (so far):

• Do SFF authors think we are stupid now
• 6 fantasy books you can read in one day

This episode was recorded on March 7, 2024.

Artists of every kind — writers, musicians, painters, sculptures — spend their lives creating pieces of art that become their legacy, their body of work. This episode, and the Body of Work series as a whole, explores the concept of the Body of Work, follows the careers of specific creators, and immerses us in their complete works. We'll discover their natural talents already present in their first works as well as the ways they developed over time.

The quotes in this episode came from this article by Kelsey McKinney:

https://kelseymckinney.substack.com/p/a-challenge-read-an-entire-oeuvre