Ryan opens with a philosophical gauntlet: if a podcast intro is just a throat-clearing, why does it somehow set the weather for everything that follows? Consider this episode a field test in micro-moods and momentum—the kind where vibes double as both a bit and a manifesto. From there, the conversation becomes a collage of modern creative survival: the strange dignity of being the “control group” in a gym commercial; the emotional origami of querying gatekeepers who want both your voice and your compliance; and the quietly radioactive question of whether the world owes artists anything besides indifference and, occasionally, a polite clap.

Creativity here is a set of rituals that smuggle you back to yourself: five-minute sprints, a piano you only half-remember how to love, a kitchen dance that resets your nervous system, a mantra that lets your brain slip past security. Regret shows up, as it always does, wearing the cologne of “what if,” and gets gently escorted to the door by the older, kinder realization that showing up late is still showing up. We even run a cultural Turing test—romance novel or death metal band?—and discover that genre is just marketing in a studded leather jacket.

There’s also a quiet benediction tucked inside the jokes: creativity keeps working in the back room even when you can’t get to the front. Life surges, rooms empty, kids drive themselves, and the noise floor drops. So you learn to build your own weather. Print your own book if you must. Bless your past self, absolve the cringe, and keep making weird things for the weirdos who will find them. That’s the show: not a lesson plan... a permission slip.

• (00:00) - This is a Craft and Chaos Intro

If you’ve ever thought “My life would be so much easier if I just changed my name to Wanda Milkshake,” then you already understand the energy of this episode. Kyle has an existential crisis about his last name, which, as it turns out, is basically a bureaucratic cover-up from Ellis Island. Misty makes an airtight case for Lucille Ball not just as a comedy legend, but as the secret godmother of Star Trek. Pete reveals that Steve Jobs personally ruined his ability to touch a Windows machine without crying, and Ryan teaches us why Spider-Man should never give a TED Talk while being punched in the face.

Along the way, we invent an entire pulp noir character—Brooksie Skittles—because apparently none of us can be trusted with free time. We also discover that your true adult-entertainment name is your grandmother’s first name plus the last dessert you ate, which is both hilarious and a devastating reminder that you’ve been eating Pop-Tarts for dinner.

But beneath the jokes, there’s a point here: inspiration is weird, inconsistent, and often arrives from places that make no sense at all. Whether it’s bittersweet sitcoms, Brené Brown’s radical vulnerability, or Prince literally existing as a one-man thunderstorm, these are the figures chiseling away at our creative DNA. And if that means our Mount Rushmore ends up looking less like granite and more like a fever dream carved out of pudding, well, at least it’s honest.

Mentioned in the Episode

• Scrubs (TV series)
• Mission Impossible 3 (film)
• The Gone Away World by Nick Harkaway
• Spider-Man comics (assorted runs)
• John & Hank Green (Vlogbrothers, authors)
• Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)
• Prince (musician, icon)
• Steve Jobs (Apple)
• Frances Marion (screenwriter)
• Lucille Ball (I Love Lucy)
• Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag, Killing Eve)
• Brené Brown (Daring Greatly, shame research)
• Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing)
• Dirk Maggs (audio drama producer)
• Peter David (comic/Star Trek novelist)
• Jane Espenson (Buffy, Battlestar Galactica)
• Dying for Sex (Hulu series & podcast)
• Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros
• Adults (Hulu/Disney+)
• The Residence (Netflix)

• (00:00) - Welcome to Craft and Chaos!

Let’s be honest: most creative podcasts want to sell you the idea that if you just buy the right thing, you’ll magically become a creative genius. Which, to be clear, is absolute nonsense—because if that were true, this entire episode would have been recorded by a $700 Remarkable tablet and a foam ball named Chaotica, not four humans with questionable impulse control and deeply specific opinions about keyboards. But instead, it’s us: Misty, Kyle, Ryan, and Pete—offering an unfiltered digital show-and-tell of the actual tools we use to write novels and plays, make podcasts, and summon demons via cursed potatoes. Some of us love long walks, others rely on mechanical keyboards, and one of us edits audio like a gremlin in the night using software that no longer legally exists.

We kick things off with Kyle’s philosophical rant about the tyranny of software subscriptions and his never-ending quest for open-source purity. Misty shares her evolution from USB mic amateur to Rodecaster Pro sorceress, while Ryan maps out how a good chair, a great playlist, and noise-canceling headphones can turn a coffee shop into a cathedral of inspiration (as long as there’s no beer involved). Pete, naturally, has turned his studio into a voice-activated spaceship, powered by Hue lights, Obsidian, and a potato that literally shocks people. Also, somewhere in here, someone gets electrocuted and someone else quotes Clarissa Pinkola Estés, which pretty much sums us up.

We wrap with our “Worst Then Best Advice” roundtable, where each of us confesses the terrible guidance we’ve received (hello, “rewrite your script from memory”) and the wisdom we’ve clung to when the work gets hard. The truth is, no matter what tools you use—expensive or scrappy, analog or pixelated—the most powerful tool is you. Which, yes, sounds like a motivational poster from a dentist’s office, but in this context, it’s also deeply true.

Some of the Tools, Services & Shiny Things Mentioned:

Hardware:

• Rodecaster Pro II
• Shure SM7B Microphone
• Keychron Q1 Pro Mechanical Keyboard
• Insta360 Link Camera
• Hue Smart Lights
• Command Strips
• DJI Osmo Mobile Gimbal

Software & Services:

• Obsidian
• Plottr
• Pages
• Reaper Audio Editor
• Auphonic
• Audacity
• DaVinci Resolve
• Coda
• Trelby Screenwriting Software
• Fade In
• Scrivener (not recommended by most of us)

Honorable Mentions:

• Kaotica Eyeball (no, seriously)
• Remarkable Tablet
• Kindle Scribe
• Highland 2 (formerly loved, now subscription)
• Celtx (ditto)

• (00:00) - Welcome to Craft and Chaos

This week on Craft and Chaos, we asked a simple question: how do you keep making things when the world feels like it’s melting into a fine mist of hopelessness, bad headlines, and that one guy in your group chat who just did that one thing with that one person and now won’t shut up about it? Misty takes the hosting reins and invites Pete, Kyle, and Ryan to explore what it means to create during a time when existential dread has gone from a background hum to a full-blown dubstep remix.

We begin with a trip to Phoenix Fan Fusion, where Ryan’s book sold out, Kyle got to unleash his inner Marvel nerd, and apparently Hayden Christensen is still drawing a crowd. Then we dive straight into the emotional lava pit: Pete confesses to skipping the premiere of the short film that got him his first job (because self-doubt is a sneaky bastard), Misty reads poetry that is wonderful surely didn’t come from the pen of someone who claims not to be a poet, and Kyle shares a fan fiction stage script that accidentally found a moment of grace in the middle of a ridiculous showdown involving electric pencil sharpeners. Yes, that sentence was real. Finally, Ryan brings a punk rock script for public reading and it goes about as punk rock as you can imagine it would with... you know... us.

Also: haunted British girls endorse self-help podcasts. There’s a tangent about dressage that spirals out of control. And we all admit that five-star reviews are less about algorithmic reach and more about soothing our delicate, trembling egos.

So if you’re out there wondering whether any of this creative nonsense actually matters—whether your fanfic, your sketchbook, your unfinished novel or weird little voice memo has value—the answer is yes. Because it matters to you. And maybe, just maybe, it will matter to someone else too. Even if it takes them ten years and a random internet stumble to find it.

Go ahead. Make something weird. And for the love of God, review the podcast.

• (00:00) - Welcome to Craft and Chaos

Rejection. It’s what’s for dinner. And breakfast. And sometimes, if you’re lucky, brunch. In this episode, Ryan, Misty, Kyle, and Pete dive headfirst into the creative gauntlet of being told, in increasingly poetic ways, that their babies are ugly. Kyle kicks things off with a rejection letter so well-crafted it deserves its own rejection from the Pushcart Prize. Misty breaks down the unglamorous labor of being a gatekeeper at Lionsgate, Ryan shares a deeply relatable five-minute sadness rule, and Pete reveals he processes pain through footwear and paper products. As one does.

From there, we launch into the writer’s block TED Talk no one asked for but everyone needs. Ryan makes a compelling case that writer’s block isn’t a real thing—it’s just fear in a trench coat—and the gang explores the odd rituals, inner critics, and coffee shop migrations that accompany the daily quest to get words on a page. There’s talk of NaNoWriMo (RIP), vomit drafts, and why sometimes you just need to write the worst possible version so Future You can come in with a cape and fix it.

Then, like any respectable artistic salon, the episode devolves gloriously into chaotic Mad Libs. First, Misty guides the group through a make-your-own creative process confession. Then Pete unleashes a faux-pretentious artist statement so disturbingly accurate it may have been plagiarized from a Brooklyn gallery wall. It includes polyester, Marco Polo, Aunt Pat’s canning club, and the philosophical meaning of “baby squirrel and rollerblades.”

Plus, you’ll hear two new “Sponsors”—one from the return of The Other Orange and another featuring Gandalf’s Discount Used Automobiles, because of course. If you leave this episode feeling totally normal, congratulations: you’re doing it wrong.

• (00:00) - Welcome to Craft and Chaos

In this episode of Craft and Chaos, the team barrels past the sophomore slump and directly into a full-on identity crisis, complete with pseudonyms, fake sponsors, and a trivia contest where the prize is fractional horse ownership. Kyle Olson hosts Misty Stinnett, Ryan Dalton, and Pete Wright in a wildly meandering conversation about creative resilience, the dangers of scorpions, and why “bookmark” might be the most emotionally accurate verb of 2025. They debate the ethics of banana bread espionage, perform a cold read of a sewage-plant noir mystery written under the influence of neurotoxins, and invent a sponsor who promises not just goods and services, but also existential dread. Somewhere in there, Misty becomes a certified coach, Pete learns about Jeff Bridges’ jazz career, and Ryan achieves his dream of invoking TV’s Patrick Duffy for absolutely no reason at all.

It’s absurd. It’s sincere. It’s exactly what happens when creative people try to talk about their work and end up inventing a shadow organization called The Other Orange. Pancakes are eternal. Footnotes are emotional. And yes, creative survival is still possible—even if your leg is on fire.

Subscribe wherever chaos is allowed. Support the show at https://trustory.fm/join, and we’ll send you the rest of the horse.*

*We will not.

• (00:00) - Welcome to Craft and Chaos

Welcome to Craft and Chaos, the podcast that dares to ask: what if a bunch of creative overachievers decided to work through their deep-seated psychological baggage… into a microphone? In this first episode, Misty, Kyle, Pete, and Ryan gather around the digital campfire and do the unthinkable—start something new, on purpose. What follows is a freewheeling, earnest, and often hilarious journey into imposter syndrome, perfectionism, and the strangely comforting fact that Julia Child didn’t publish her first cookbook until she was 49. You know. For the rest of us.

Pete confesses his creative process is fueled by dread and French teachers long dead. Kyle relives his artistic awakening via a Shakespearean pep talk from Lawrence Fishburne. Ryan, the most emotionally stable of the bunch (suspicious), calmly denies imposter syndrome exists while quietly dominating the author game under two names. And Misty—a princess by day, TV writer by night—drops the mic on late bloomers, Cinderella in a parking garage, and what it means to create when there’s no safety net, just drive, deadlines, and cheap wigs.

Along the way, you’ll hear ads from mysterious sponsors (we think?), deeply human moments wrapped in neurotic punchlines, and a shared promise: this show might not make us rich, but it will be real. And occasionally, it’ll be about ducks à l’orange.

So pull up a chair, bring your weirdest ideas, and enjoy the slightly lumpy, gloriously flavorful start to a podcast that honors the chaos of creation—and the creators still figuring it out in public.

• (00:00) - Welcome to Craft and Chaos

How do you make art when the world feels like it’s on fire?

Welcome to Craft and Chaos, the podcast for creative minds trying to thrive in the madness. Whether you write, paint, build, perform, or daydream ideas that keep you up at night, this show is your companion through the wild ride of making something out of nothing.

Join Misty, Pete, Kyle, and Ryan — a ragtag team of creative types — as they dive into the joy, frustration, and beautiful mess of the artistic process. From the spark of inspiration to the reality of “I actually made this,” they’ll share honest stories, epic wins, total flops, and the weird, wonderful chaos that comes with being possessed by a new idea.

This isn’t just about craft. It’s about surviving the noise, embracing your weird, and making cool stuff anyway.

Wherever the strangest podcasts are found.