In his podcast, Movers Mindset, Craig Constantine's talks with movement enthusiasts to learn who they are, what they do, and why they do it. This podcast is part of the Movers Mindset project, which he started so he could explore movement's underlying motivations, and movement's fundamental place in society. Interested?

He interviews me and we talk about podcasting, writing, Akimbo workshops, Seth Godin and generosity.

Transcript

Craig prompted me: I’m hearing in there a hint of like you’ve had a calling to do something before you began podcasting

00:00.00 Podcaster Community Hello I’m Craig Constantine. Hi Lovelace, thank you so much as I say to everybody for taking the time, I really appreciate you finding a spot in your schedule. reI have 1 question in 37 parts which is a movie reference.

00:01.27 Lovelace Cook Hi I’m Lovelace Cook.

00:19.61 Podcaster Community Um, when I asked you about podcasting you said a new lease on life and then so I’m wondering Why do you look at it that way. Did you get evicted or like what happened to the least that you had.

00:50.94 Podcaster Community Um, I do remember that.

02:02.34 Podcaster Community Was kind of I’m hearing in there a hint of like you’ve had a calling to do something before you began podcasting and I’m wondering if there was something particular about podcasting that you know sometimes you see something or or you haven’ an experience and all of a sudden you’re like oh. Know what I was stuck on like the thing that you’ve been like trying to untie the Gordian Knot then suddenly you find something that just makes it really clear how to slice through it and was podcasting somehow a key to solve some thing you were trying to figure out.

02:36.57 Lovelace Cook It’s a part of it. Yeah, the podcast was going to be part of building a brand for myself and where if we can imagine a wagon wheel where the the person me the writer which is. What I do is at the center of the wheel and the spokes are the podcast a website the blog just so that’s that’s kind of what that was the goal and I I was prompted to do that I was. Had been deployed to Mississippi for a disaster to work and I had a lot of driving to do and I listened to Joanna Penn’s podcasts and I had already been involved with StoryGrid publishing with the StoryGrid group where I was working on revising a novel but when I heard. I don’t know Joanna pin’s podcast just inspired me I thought oh and I wanted do a podcast and it was a presentation I wanted to take a presentation called a literary journey through India that I had given in 18 talking about books and people books I discovered people I met while traveling through India and just um I realized that a literary journey through India just wasn’t going to cut it. You know I’m like. Come from a communications and marketing background and I needed to come up with a you know, kind of a sexy name for my podcast and so that it became Bollywood and Books and people said Bollywood why are you talking about Bollywood. Well you know and then you may.

04:17.10 Podcaster Community Moving.

04:28.26 Lovelace Cook May or may not recall. This is rambling conversation but in 1 of our work. 1 of my many podcasting workshops that in which I was enrolled to get to from here there to here Shannon said you said Bollywood. But you’re not talking about movies thought oh. Right? Oh gosh. Yeah, okay, what do I know about Bollywood Cinema So that launched another a whole other, it jettisoned me into another world and I found that I love Bollywood movies I have been loving watching these hysterical some of them are just fantastic. I love the actors. The stories have so much heart. They’re really just the Hindi movies. The Bollywood movies are. They’re great storytellers but I’ll slip back to right now I am in the writing and community 3 workshop with another akimbo group because I’m revising the novel that has been the never ending. Revision. Ah.

05:46.36 Podcaster Community Um, I’ve heard that about novels I’m done Ha No, you’re not.

05:51.11 Lovelace Cook It it it is you know it started out as it started out as a real journey and notes in journals and photographs and thank heaven for scrivener which helped me organize a lot of disorganized material and then it. Went into a memoir and on a personal note ah kind of a breakup with my significant other who was who was a brit who had been my travel companion just I thought well you know what? this is my story I’m gonna make it fiction. And so I switched from I don’t mind talking about this, but I switched from Memoir to let’s just go ahead and jazz this story up and and make a novel out of it. So I have been rewriting that and in the writing in community WIC3.

06:36.74 Podcaster Community Make a novel out of it.

06:48.91 Lovelace Cook Um, a couple of times a week I’m in the right now sessions which I did this morning. That’s when I said I was busy for the from nine 30 to ten thirty I wrote in community and where we also shared with another couple or a couple of people what we were working on and then. Right? after that from 10 30 until 11 we had an out loud session in which I read for five minutes aloud the first time I was exhausted now I’m becoming much more comfortable reading aloud from my own material I was surprised. Because having a podcast I didn’t think it would be any big deal to read aloud from what I’m rewriting. So that’s and that’s kind of and then after this at 1 o’clock I have a story grid meeting about what’s going to happen with the story grid guild next year and then we’ve got Seth’s group Seth is doing a 3 o’clock session for the writing and community group. So it’s just a busy day. Plus I’m rewriting and by the way editing a new hallelujah a new episode from my podcast.

08:04.68 Podcaster Community Say you’re just sitting around doing nothing. What I think we have identified the problem here.

08:06.37 Lovelace Cook I just sitting around not doing a thing. this morning after I finished the hour and a half with my cohort and in WIC3 I felt so happy. It’s been it’s been a month a little over a month since I left the chaos of my job and detoxing from the dysfunction has been a challenge.

08:41.65 Podcaster Community Um, you mentioned the challenge or the difficulty the physical difficulty of reading converting written stuff into spoken and um that that’s interesting to me I’m.

08:43.95 Lovelace Cook I was tired emotionally physically.

09:00.90 Podcaster Community Wondering if you have any insight as to why and maybe is it because you wrote it like does that make it harder or is it just any written word.

09:05.30 Lovelace Cook No, no, no the first just it was just the first experience when I was the first time I read aloud when I was reading face to face with a couple of other people. It was just it was tiring I don’t know why. But. It’s not that way anymore. There’s a level of comfort that has I don’t really understand it because I don’t mind doing a podcast I don’t mind videoing and but this was a little different and at the same time I real in my writing as I revise. Very conscious of trying to make sure that the sentences are not cumbersome. I’m not a literary writer. I’m writing to entertain.I’m writing in hopes that I can encourage people to change or to open their minds. So I want to make my writing really accessible and have a goal in mind of recording it myself to do an audiobook.

10:12.76 Podcaster Community When you do podcast episodes are you are you doing mostly host on Mike or are you doing a mostly conversation or you like what’s the format that feels most comfortable for you.

10:24.29 Lovelace Cook Well, they both do it takes a lot more work to do host on mike because I have to write a script and you know make it a story but I just finished an interview with ah an Indian American author Veena Rao about her book PURPLE LOTUS. Which is garnered a lot of awards and and it was a great interview. She’s a wonderful person. Um I do enjoy the writing of of a podcast and what I’ve been doing with the podcast where I’ve done host on mic, I’ve taken some episodes from my novel and kind of expanded them and to maybe a ten minute recording I my podcast is evolving and it’s not what I started out to do.

11:18.82 Podcaster Community Well, that’s probably a good thing.

11:22.40 Lovelace Cook I think it’s just fine. Ah, it’s turning into a meeting and finding all these really fascinating Indian American authors who ah I’m fascinated with the cultural differences. The difference between coming from a patriarchal society where there are arranged marriages to the western culture which is far more permissive liberal and some of the topics of the books. It was not so in fact, someone asked me are you writing about this and I said. No, but some of the topics or the themes of the books have to do with domestic abuse in arranged marriages which is and how women overcome the difficulties or gain a sense of self-worth after being in abusive marriages. That was not intended. My goal was to really to talk with Indian American authors and discuss the differences in in culture and the difficulty in transitioning if they’ve come from if their homes in India or they’ve grown up with the culture. That is has been ingrained in this patriarchal society where people don’t question values family values to America and then go back and forth. How is it? What does it? How does it feel and how is it informing their writing so that’s. That’s been. There are a couple of authors I’m trying to get to talk with.

13:03.50 Podcaster Community I Know your sounds like you’re just beginning to dive into that but that begs the question. What are the differences like how does it work for them when they go back and forth between the culture like have you any have you found any insights into that question those questions at this point.

13:19.56 Lovelace Cook It’s early days. It’s I Really wish you know that’s I’m trying to kind of press for that without in being intrusive because some big.

13:22.90 Podcaster Community Rats. Ah.

13:30.55 Podcaster Community Yeah, yeah, try to be mindful.

13:34.78 Lovelace Cook Yeah I’m trying to be mindful. There are a couple of people I’ve talked with and you know just that I’m another Indian American author I’m going to interview but I can’t talk about her novel. So that’s that’s going. We’re going to talk around.

13:52.20 Podcaster Community The elephant in the room. That’s always a little hard but.

13:52.43 Lovelace Cook Around that it’ll be interesting but she’s an intriguing person.

14:00.39 Podcaster Community Yeah I think a lot of the really good work comes out of I mean maybe the hurdles or the problems aren’t necessarily. You know Oh let’s make this hard for ourselves. You know the challenges or can be real like there is an embargo on this thing we can’t talk about it but a lot of times when you’re forced. To create in a smaller box then well you get pretty creative like oh how can we get all this furniture in this tiny room like what? what if we put it on top of each. You know what? if we built a loft and put the bed above the desk and I think there’s an interesting you’re like. Being set up for success or you’re setting yourself up for success by you know, going straight at this challenging I’m going to talk to these types of people who have these types of books and. But I’m guessing by their very nature. They would tend to be a little like to play their cards a little closer to the vest and to to be a little more careful about what they want to say and who they want to say it to and you’re pointing a microphone at me. So I think um I think if you keep at it. Just. But what I know about you I think you’re going to wind up coming up with some really good lessons and some really interesting material.

15:04.23 Lovelace Cook Well I will say that in my most recent interview vina told me you know that that an immigrant American an immigrant who comes to this country expects to fail and they’re going to persist and that’s what she did. She actually started a newspaper. She the first Indian American woman or the first Indian woman to start a newspaper outside of India. So yes, I’m pressing to try to find that was. You know that was a difficult transition. She’s going back to india today I think and they’re going Back. People are going back and forth to deal with their you know deal with family issues life exactly that 1 life gets in the way.

15:50.61 Podcaster Community Life erect. Yeah yeah.

16:01.13 Podcaster Community Um, here’s a random sounding question for you. Um, if you could um, imagine you wake up tomorrow morning and a miracle has occurred I mean like like you don’t explain the miracle to me or even tell me what changed. But what I want to know is after the miracle that you’re imagining happens. What does the world look like from your point of view after the Miracle why god is I’m like I don’t think I’ve been to cornwall what I will.

16:22.17 Lovelace Cook It looks like I’m in Cornwall.

16:34.25 Lovelace Cook I think I’m somewhere around St Ives I don’t know just kind of an arty community and watching the water and thinking about Van Morrison and listening to some good music and writing.

16:34.78 Podcaster Community What what’s up with Cornwall.

16:53.68 Lovelace Cook A beautiful part of the world and I might be on my way to India.

16:57.80 Podcaster Community Nice I was just going to say I think it was Yuval Hari I might have the name wrong. We said something like sometimes I see birds in trees, and I wonder if they can fly anywhere in the world. Why do they stand 1 place and then I ask myself that same question. So I was just gonna say like whoa. Why don’t you go to Cornwall but you’re clearly already planning on on um, adventures in the real world you yeah I never want to Jinks it and I would say like oh all this good and then you know like oops I got I’m so I’m sequestered like I was around somebody who has subsequently been.

17:20.13 Lovelace Cook Well, it’s part of, we hope.

17:34.49 Podcaster Community Ah diagnosed I haven’t been diagnosed but I’ll also wait 2 weeks and then find out well I’m not too worried about it I’m vaccinated. It’s not a big deal but it’s like yeah you never know like 1 day it’s like fine the next day it’s like oh by the way you were around me on Saturday just you know, ah rats.

17:35.58 Lovelace Cook Sure hope you’re going to be okay.

17:51.58 Podcaster Community So we’re using it as an excuse to go through all the food in the house like no going outside. Oh anyway, well let’s see far ranging and eighteen minutes gone. Um. And think I’ll spring to mind for you in the last couple of Minutes.

18:08.70 Lovelace Cook You know I feel so grateful for the workshops for all of the Akimbo workshops but especially for the people the community. You know you’re my people now.

18:24.70 Podcaster Community Yeah, isn’t that funny a bunch of people from all over the world right.

18:28.82 Lovelace Cook Ah, all all over the world and same with in a way with Story grid. But but I think the Akimbo Community has a different mission and I’ve learned so much this the whole idea of generosity people. I have found that people are surprised when I offer something and then you know when I when I give without asking for anything in return and people are surprised.

18:54.94 Podcaster Community Yeah.

19:05.70 Lovelace Cook In some instances where I might ask someone for information who’s not a part of Akimbo or this group who holds things tightly close to their chest, you know who is afraid.

21:16.63 Lovelace Cook Thank you, Craig