by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
Creative Status is a podcast about using creativity as a vehicle for improving your life by deconstructing ego, integrating the shadow self, and designing and manifesting a real life.
Every episode explores how the creative process can help you GROW REAL by moving towards wholeness in yourself by making the unconscious conscious.
Embark on a journey of transformation with Creative Status as we delve into the power of narratives with the inspiring Cami Ostman, founder of The Narrative Project and Chief Story Warrior.
Meet Cami Ostman: Join us for an enlightening episode where Cami shares her profound insights into the transformative potential of storytelling and the creation of authentic identities through words.
The Power of Words: Tune in as Cami explores the profound impact of words on our identities and truths. Learn how storytelling can shape our perceptions of ourselves and the world around us, and discover how writing can become a vehicle for self-discovery and empowerment.
Creating Authentic Lives: Delve into Cami’s approach to helping individuals authentically author their own lives. From her memoir, Second Wind, to her work with writers at The Narrative Project, Cami guides individuals in uncovering their truths and bringing their best work into the world.
Inspiring Honest Writing: Join me (Oli Anderson) and Cami Ostman for a conversation that celebrates the power of honest writing and storytelling. Explore how narratives of REALNESS can inspire and empower individuals to embrace their authenticity and live their most fulfilling lives.
Creative Status: Where Stories Shape Lives
This episode is your invitation to explore the profound connection between storytelling and personal growth, and discover how writing can empower you to rewrite your narrative and live authentically.
Tune in and let Cami’s wisdom and insight guide you on your journey of self-discovery and empowerment.
Stay real out there,
Oli Anderson
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Episode Links:
The Narrative Project: https://www.thenarrativeproject.net/
Cami on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/camiostman/
Creative Status Links:
The Creative Performance Transformation Lab: olianderson.co.uk/creativeperformance
Follow me on Instagram: instagram.com/olijanderson
My YouTube channel: youtube.com/olianderson
Get my books on Amazon: amazon.com/author/oli
7-Day Personality Transplant System Shock for Realness and Life Purpose: olianderson.co.uk/systemshock
Free one hour creative workshop to take your creative brand or project to the next level: olianderson.co.uk/creativeworkshop
Free 90-Day Journal Challenge: olianderson.co.uk/journal
The Law of Attraction for Realness (mini-course): olianderson.co.uk/lawofattraction
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Creative Catharisis, REALNESS, & Shadows (Show Transcript)
Intro
Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there. Oli Anderson here. You’re listening to Creative Status. If you’re new to the podcast, welcome. This is where we talk about the creative process as a vehicle growing more real.
That means that we are, we’re more connected to ourselves, we’re more connected to other people, we’re more connected to life itself. And creativity is ultimately a way of making the unconscious conscious, which means that we’re bringing up some of the parts of ourselves that we may have been hiding from – releasing some of the emotional stuff, breaking through some of the limiting beliefs and all that kind of stuff.
Today’s interview is with Cami Osterman from the narrative projects. Cami is an author. She used to be a family therapist. Now she helps people to write their books.
This is a really interesting episode, which of course, I would say, but I genuinely, truly mean that. There’s loads of good stuff in this conversation about figuring out what it is that you want to say to the world, diving inside yourself, moving with speed to get it out there, excavating things from your unconscious mind, and then refining it so you can make it mean something, first of all, to yourself, but then the people that you want to share your message and your work with. so, yeah, this was an awesome one.
Cami, thank you so much for your time and your energy and all your insight – everybody else, thank you for listening. Here we go. Thanks a bunch. Boom.
Interview
Oli: Oh, hi there, Cami. Thank you so much for joining me on today’s episode of Creative Status. We’re going to be talking, I assume, about a topic that I’m always talking about without realizing that I’m talking about it, which is catharsis.
Before we get into it, do you feel like introducing yourself, telling people what you do, what you’re all about, and what you want to get out of this conversation?
Cami Ostman: Yeah, sure. I do feel like doing that. Well, yes. So I’m Cami Ostman, and I’m the founder and the director of, an organization called the Narrative Project. And our primary, focus is to help writers get their books done. Business that grew out of my long time, support of writers and my passion, for the written word, and also, just my own kind of capacity to get through things, to get things done. That’s the thing I do. I run this organization, and we shepherd writers through the writing and publishing process.
Oli: That’s awesome. So what I’d like to do in this conversation, I think, is to try and explore some of the lessons that you’ve learned as a writer that can be applied to life itself. I kind of understand what you mean when you say it’s about getting things done. I always use writing as an example of just how in life we can kind of navigate cause and effect and get results by looking at it in the same way we do a writing project.
So people think like a book, for example, is a massive deal and it is kind of a big deal, but ultimately it’s just one word at a time. And if you can understand that, then it actually makes it much easier to kind of go from not having a book to having a book. And I think we can see life in the same way.
Obviously, along that pathway of not having a book to getting a book. We’re going to go through all kinds of little challenges and things like that. And I think that’s where the catharsis things come in. But just off the top of your head to open this up, what are some of the main lessons, do you think, from writing that we can use to be more human and to be more real and all that kind of thing?
Cami: Yeah. Well, I think one thing just for context to know about me is that, in my early life I had a career as an English teacher, and then I went back, got my master’s degree and became a family therapist. So I spent 20 years as a therapist before starting this business.
So I’ve been in the business of supporting people in their transformations for many years and in many different, capacities. And it’s been my observation the last eight years, supporting writers and completing their books that the relationship that people have with their thoughts and their subconscious on the page is really, a profound relationship where somebody goes to the page and they have this idea of what they’re going to write and they do it. But then as they do, so if they do it fast enough, this kind of gets to the catharsis.
If they do it fast enough, then, they’ll start to say things they didn’t know they meant to say on the page. And I think this is like a lovely container for all that happens under the surface. So if we can bring to consciousness that which is in the subconscious, I think we can learn to do that in our daily lives as well.
Oli: It makes total sense, actually. This is something I’m always kind of banging on about. The creative process is ultimately the process of making the unconscious conscious. And, the way that I see creativity now, whether it’s literally writing a book or painting a picture or even doing yoga or something, depending on your attitude that you’ve got towards it, it’s always the same thing, which is that it’s like a testing ground for making the unconscious conscious, facing what’s going on inside yourself and holding it out in front of you for observation. And I found that myself with writing.
Like, initially, you set off thinking that you’re going to be writing whatever it is, but then ultimately you end up in a similar place to how you imagined, but different at the same time as you make some of these things become more clear.
So with the catharsis thing, maybe we need to start with a, definition or something like that, because I think your definition of catharsis might be a little bit different to what most people who are listening may be used to. Is that fair to say?
Cami: Sure, yeah, sort of. The dictionary definition is, it’s the process of releasing. It’s like, providing relief, expressing repressed emotions, that kind of thing. And, I think that’s related to how I think of it. But, I actually think of catharsis as excavating the clay from the ground that you’re going to use to craft or to create a sculpture. In this case, the sculptor is the book.
Oli: Can you, elaborate a little bit more? Because I think I know what you mean. The typical definition of catharsis, it’s like you go through this cathartic process, and then that’s the end of the line, die thing, the way that you often talk about it. Well, in our previous conversation, anyway, you use the cathartic process to kind of bring everything up to surface. But then that’s not the end of the line. You kind of polish or refine it after that. Something like that.
Cami: Yeah, that’s right. So, in my work with writers, I talk about seven stages. And the first stage, of turning yourself from a writer into an author, really is contemplation, where you’re just thinking, what is it that I want to create? And then you do some strategizing, you go to classes and you sketch out an outline, and you sort of think about, oh, maybe I’ll block off some time in my life. And then we have what we call the catharsis draft. And rather than thinking of it just as an expression of something that then goes out into the ether and like, whoo, I got that off my chest. That’s amazing. which is lovely.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m totally in support of that. I feel that when I run sometimes, like, go out for a hard run and you’re like, okay, good. Got to leave everything out there. But what I talk about with my writers is we’re expressing on the page this narrative arc. We’re working toward meaning making, which is the next stage. and so, first of all, we have to just kind of, like, dig out everything that’s in there, everything that’s been waiting, been holding, like, a weight on your chest, and it’s on the table, which is a metaphor for on the page.
There it is. And now what we’re going to do after we get it all out on the table is we’re going to circle it, we’re going to walk around it. This is what I call a no red pen read through, where I ask my readers to put everything, my writers, to put everything together in one document, paginate it, print it out, and read it through as fast as possible without touching it. It’s so hard for writers but in that, like, you’re looking at what you’ve ‘catharted’.
You’re looking at what you have said, what the subconscious has, added to the conscious, and you’re just going to circle it and see what’s really here. And what we’re doing is we’re actually wanting to, From a psychological perspective is we want to reintegrate or metabolize what’s meaningful and what we’ve put on the table. So it’s not just like, expressing it and putting it out in the world and being like, okay, good, that’s out of me. But it’s actually reintegrating the insights, from a psychological perspective and from a writerly perspective, it’s then shaping that narrative so that it serves, the question that’s being asked in the book.
Oli: Yeah, there is a kind of element here where a lot of the time when people talk about catharsis, they only look at it at the level of the individual, which makes total sense, because obviously, going through this process of purification or, catharsis or whatever is a very personal thing.
But ultimately, I think the next level is what you’re talking about, where you have to kind of look at the material, the raw material that you’ve kind of been able to dredge up, but then decide, how are you going to share this with the world?
Like, what questions are you going to answer? What have you learned through that process of bringing it up that’s allowed you to transform? That’s maybe going to invite other people to go through some kind of transformational journey as well?
And so maybe I’m overanalysing it but there is an element where it’s almost, we transform ourselves through this creative process which allows us to have a deeper relationship with life, life itself. But then that’s not the end of the line. And I think sometimes I fall into that trap myself when I’m thinking about this stuff. I think, right, we’re just going to go through this process of spiritual, purification, whatever language I usually use, and then that’s it. We’re just going to be more whole.
We’re going to be more connected to life and everything. But actually, the only way you can be more whole and more connected to life is if you’re more connected to others as well. And so there’s something there, I’m assuming, about the way you get writers to look at the raw material, but then they say to, themselves and to you, how am I going to make this more meaningful to the collective? Almost?
Cami: Yeah, there’s so many things you said there that would just be. We could talk for hours. But the thing is that what I always say to writers when they come into the program is that your desire to write a book is your calling to write the book. Because, look, it’s a long journey, and, it’s not for the faint of heart.
And it’s ultimately a very generous thing that you do to cull through, draft, and especially if you’re writing memoir, to cull through your own life and to bring meaning to it that you might offer to other people. Because we’re in this together. We are socially constructing our, reality. This isn’t something like you’re over there in your corner, on your island, having your reality, and I’m over on mine. No, we’re negotiating what all this means all the time. And that’s why the collective one person gets more conscious when it comes to that initial calling for what it is that we’re going to write, where do you think that comes from?
Oli: So maybe this is where it’s going to open this up even more. And, ah, we’ll be talking for another 10,000 hours or something. But right now, for example, I’m currently working on a new book about trust. And, I never really thought I was going to write another kind of self acceptance, self help book, whatever genre you want to call it. I actually wanted to revert to writing bad fiction. I think that’s where my heart really is.
I wrote a bad novel years ago, and ever since, I wanted to write another one. But I keep getting these callings to just write about this stuff I’m talking about on the podcast, the trust thing. It was something that kind of the seed of it was planted a few years ago when I was having a coaching conversation with someone.
This theme of trust just emerged, and ever since then, it’s just kind of been bubbling away inside me, and it keeps coming up in these podcast conversations. But then eventually, I just started typing one morning, and now I’m like 200 pages deep into this manuscript. And I think, it is awesome, but it’s something that kind of just carried itself forward by me acting on that impulse.
And when I think about it now, I think I’ve said this to you before, when we spoke last time, but it’s not that I chose that topic. That topic chose me because there’s something in me that needs to understand the trust thing more. And obviously, I’ve got my theories about why that is. But what do you think causes that kind of thing based on what you’ve seen?
Cami: Yeah, I look forward to hearing, your thoughts on that. My observation with writers is that, there’s usually something kind of niggling at them. And, so the source of that niggling comes from different, like, for self help and how to writers. I feel like, there’s a theoretical, or there’s a question that’s bugging them, and in some ways, they feel like they are, qualified to ponder it or grapple with it on the page.
Whereas memoir writers, I tend to notice that there’s something that has happened to them or that they’ve lived through. They’ve experienced a transformation, and they believe that their wisdom, a lot of memoir writers don’t want their wisdom to go to waste because it was hard earned, the hard stuff that they’ve been through.
And then fiction writers, fiction is interesting because to me, it’s like fiction writers are often like a channel for a story that wants to be told, and the story comes to them through something, happens on the bus or whatever, and all of a sudden, there are characters that are like, you’ve got to write me.
So I think that the skills are very similar for each genre, but that the source of the drive is a little bit different. So I think it has something to do with our longing to make an impact on others, when we feel like we have something insightful to say, but I mean, to kind of distil it. But what do you think?
Oli: Well, first of all, I love what you just said about that longing to make an impact. I think in all of those examples that you just shared. So the self help thing and the fiction and etc. Even though there’s different genres, I think the underlying desire for impact is normally because they’ve noticed some universal thing about the human experience that they need to express to help them understand their own humanity more and themselves more, but also to help others be more human.
And I could be romanticizing that a little bit, but let’s say you see someone on the bus, for example, and you create this whole narrative around who this character is and what it means to be them, and so on and so forth. Ultimately, that’s a reflection of what the writer feels about humanity as a whole. And I think there’s definitely something there. But when I think about these unconscious nigglings, I think it’s some shadow thing, like some shadow self thing.
I think the shadow is always calling to us so that we can make the unconscious conscious, as we keep saying, and move towards wholeness. And the way that I always talk about it. I don’t want to be a broken record too much for people that listen to podcasts, but it always goes at some stage in childhood, as you, are very aware, because of in your background, something happens that causes a kind of split within us, or a sense of fragmentation. Shame, guilt and trauma are the main ones.
Trauma makes the dissociation more extreme. But when that happens, we create this false version of ourselves, and then we disown all kinds of natural impulses and natural instincts and parts of ourselves that are very real, and they’re never going to go anywhere. And then we get into adult life, and we’re kind of locking all of those parts away in the vault as we filter everything through the ego. I think a lot of these creative impulses are just things from the shadow calling for our attention.
Because for whatever reason, we’ve experienced life in such a way that we’re finally ready for them to re-emerge. And we could take it maybe a bit deeper. It depends how many more hours you’ve got to talk about it. But I think some things, like trust, in the case of, this book I’m writing, I think some things like that are part of our nature, but we become kind, of detached from them and disillusioned about them because of the way society is structured and social conditioning and the experiences they have, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so a lot of these nigglings that we get is a calling back to our real self. That’s ultimately how I see it. but does that fit your experience?
Cami: Well, yeah. I practice, as a therapist, internal family systems therapy. the way that I would frame that is that there are parts that are exiled. Right? And those exiled parts are, unexpressed and they’re locked away and they’re kept safe by the manager parts. The parts which you might call ego aspects, which are out in the world and sometimes managing things well, but oftentimes managing things by beating us up as the inner critic or pushing people away or whatever.
And what we’re wanting to do is to achieve leadership of the core self from the, internal family systems perspective, that the core self is in leadership and is pulling in the manager and the exiled parts and saying, come on, come on, everybody. Come on in here. We’re going to take care of you now. We’re going to calm you down, we’re going to heal you, we’re going to integrate you. And, ultimately, you don’t all have to work so hard in there. And so I would say that really resonates. And I think in terms of what happens on the page is that even when you’re writing memoir, but especially when you’re writing fiction, you have to say that all of the characters are aspects of the self.
Oli: Yes, 100%. I think that’s right. Yeah. just to bring you back to the catharsis thing, ultimately, what we’re kind of saying is that the creative journey of literally creating things or just living life is the journey of returning back to that integration and the release of all of the things that, are holding us back from aligning with that natural drive that we all have.
Cami: I think that’s fair to say. And I think, in the writing process, we talked about, like, the catharsis is the excavating all the clay from the ground and putting it on the table, but then you’re in the meaning making phase where you’re really trying to bring this into order. And I think that is a, fast track to integration, because, what I always say to my writers is that life does not happen in a narrative arc, but a book needs to have an arc, right?
And so we have to impose or apply or discover. I mean, people approach it from different perspectives. Meaning to all that stuff that we just ‘catharted’.
Oli: I love what you just said there about, like, life doesn’t have a narrative arc. Like, it doesn’t happen in a narrative arc. Do you think, a lot of the time we’re trying to make it seem like that is the case, and sometimes it can cause problems.
The Hero’s Journey, I think it is a real thing and it aligns with the human experience, and ultimately, that’s what we’re talking about. We go from this place of fragmentation because of the inner fragmentation we pick up in childhood and all that stuff, to wholeness. That’s ultimately an abridged version of the hero’s journey. But if you look at life itself, I’m going to get a bit morbid, maybe. In fact, I definitely am.
Obviously, life ends, as we all know, when we die. It’s not like it’s a movie or something. And there’s this great catharsis and, we’ve tied up all the threads and everything. When we die, we’re all going to leave a lot of loose threads behind us.
Cami: Right.
Oli: Because that narrative arc doesn’t exist. So is there something there? Like, part of catharsis is accepting that, if that makes sense, like, when we’re applying it to life, not just the writing process.
Cami: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I would even say that in the catharsis phase of the writing process, I talk a lot with my writers about their relationship to imperfection and their relationship and tolerance for messy, because I actually think that, to be a healthy psyche, we have to have a healthy relationship, with not knowing, with mess, with confusion.
I was talking with a friend the other day, and there was something we didn’t know, and we were like, well, let’s google it. And then finally he said, let’s not google it. Let’s go to our graves not knowing this, just to practice that. I do think that, that is a healthy psyche, is the relationship that we have to things like grief, complicated grief, or our trauma. I mean, we’re always seeking to be in relationship with these messy things and messy processes.
Oli: Yeah. Because life itself, when it’s real, is messy. Yes. I think that’s maybe the next level of what we’re talking about. And I think if we can excavate all this stuff, like we’re saying, as we go through the creative process and we realise what’s really going on inside of us and we face our unconscious mind, but then the next level is going to be a kind of humility or something that comes from that. I think at the start of this journey that I keep talking about of going from fragmentation to wholeness, we’re going to be more attached to needing order and to avoid messiness, because it’s going to trigger all of that underlying shame and stuff like that. When we get to the end of the journey, because we’ve been through the cathartic process that you’re talking about, we’re going to realize, oh, okay, actually, there is no order.
There’s a lot of chaos inside me, as I’ve just witnessed by going through, by catharting myself. And, ultimately, I have to now operate in life in accordance with those rules that I’ve just learned about life, that it’s not perfect and it is messy, and so on and so on. And I, guess in relation to what we’re talking about and your process, this is where it comes down to the meaning making. So if I’m not making this too complicated, if I am, tell me, because I totally will be offended. How do we get to that point where we go through a process of catharsis?
We realize, okay, all of the order and stuff that I was clinging to was ultimately an illusion because of my past conditioning. How do I make meaning knowing that? If that makes sense.
Cami: Yeah. Well, I think if I understand what you’re, sort of tapping on here, it’s like, what is that meaning making process? as you were talking, I was thinking about how I know you do yoga and I’m a long distance runner. and these processes are like, you really learn that there’s no end product. Even though you do cross a finish line in a marathon, ultimately that moment is not the thing. The thing is the journey.
I think when we take on a creative project, I think it’s really important, first of all, to have that mentality and that attitude that the process of creating is the thing. And one of the things that we’re going to do in that process is we’re going to collaborate with other people in the meaning making. in this case, a story. But it’s like when you go into a museum and you look at a painting and, one of my favourite, paintings is, the Madonna by Edward Monk.
And when I look at that, I have a whole story about that painting that bears no resemblance to probably why he painted it. So we’re in relationship, that painter and I, and in the writing process, first of all, you get into critique and people are giving you feedback. Here’s what I’m hearing in your story. Here’s what’s touching me. Here’s what’s, annoying me about what you’re writing.
So in that critique process, you’re engaging in that social construction of meaning and then when you’re done with the book, the last stage of my seven stages is surrender. You finish that book and you put it out in the world, and I pick it up and read it. It’s really none of your business what I get from it. So I guess what I would say is that that is a collaboration, that meaning making process. Is that touching on what you’re getting at?
Oli: Yeah, like, in a way, I was overcomplicating things because I was thinking about how, if ultimately he gets this point where everything is really, we understand the messy, chaotic nature of reality itself, and when we let go of all the order, how do we make meaning for the future? I suppose when we know that ultimately there is no meaning, but that’s a whole other kind of worms.
And actually, what you just said about the surrender to just giving the meaning of your creation away to life itself kind of is interconnected anyway, because ultimately, whether we’re talking about a piece of art or literally ourselves as beings that have been created by our experience and all that stuff, there is that element of surrender and trust that comes into it. So I’d kind of like to pick your brain on that a little bit more.
But, before we get into that, what do you think about this kind of debate that you just alluded to, where once someone’s created something and it is out there, it’s almost like they have to let go of their authorship as well? I think it was the deconstructionist or something like that. They basically said, once something’s out there, it can mean whatever it means to other people. But then there’s a whole other school of thought where it’s like, the author has the authority because he’s the author, and therefore it means what it means. I know you’ve kind of just answered this a little bit, but what do you actually think about that specifically?
Because a lot of creatives I talk to do have that kind of issue. They’re like, right, I’ve created this work, and now people are telling me it means something else, and I might be offended.
Cami: Yeah, I can understand that. When my first book went out into the world, the first marathon that I chronicle in it, I missed the starting line, the starting time, because I had my time off, and it was in Prague. and so I ended up, starting the marathon like, ten or 15 minutes after everyone else did. And the course was, deconstructed along the way, so I didn’t even know where I was going, and I jumped in and skipped a mile or two.
I just had to, because I didn’t know where the course was. And there was someone who read the book, and he launched, I mean, really lit into me, in a review about that, which is, from my perspective, was to miss the whole point of the chapter, which is that life is not perfect and we do the best we can, and it’s still long and it still hurts your leg. But I had to say that it still is a negotiation. I mean, he. He was reading into my story what his meaning of the marathon is and was. And he’s allowed to do that, and he’s allowed to be mad about that. And then ultimately, that debate, as other people engage in it, informs us all. We all come out of it changed, even if the way that we change is that we’ve doubled down into our own perspective.
Oli: Yeah. Do you think the process of catharsis ever ends? Because in a way, once we excavate things and we try and mould them so that they’re presentable to be put out into the world, then we just end up getting dragged back into the process where there’s the negotiation that you talked about on the surrender, but in a way, that’s just going to take us into a deeper catharsis, because when people give us bad reviews or they disagree with the points that we’re making, or they put their own interpretation on it or whatever it is, that’s going to cause us to ask more questions of the unconscious, and we just go deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. And is that the surrender part? Maybe.
Cami: Oh, I don’t think the catharsis, ever ends. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I have journals that I wrote in the fifth grade, and every once in a while, I’ll go back and grab an old journal and read through it, and I have one of two thoughts, like, I am so glad I’m not there anymore. And, oh, my God, I’m still asking the same question. What a bummer. But with a new twist. I, don’t think it ever ends, and I don’t think it should. I think we’re always taking in the world and metabolizing it and then putting it back out in some way. Whether it’s our attitude toward others or, a choice we make. No. yes, it ends, I suppose, when we die. Or maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know. I don’t know what happens then.
Oli: But also, we can just keep going deeper and deeper and deeper and there’s always more layers to peel away and things to kind of pick up. When you talk about the surrender stage, what is surrender in your terms? I guess? And how does it relate to all this stuff we’re talking about?
Cami: Right. Well, So let me answer that by way of the other stages. So after catharsis, you have the meaning making where you’re going in and you’re drafting for your sculpting, you’re really trying to figure out what’s here, and, how do I need to manipulate it, or what does it want to be? This little combination of both. And then the next stage is what I call story making. And this is where you actually consciously turn your attention to the potential audience.
Up until now, I really don’t want people thinking about what other people are going to think, because if you’re worried about what your mom is going to think when she reads the book, you’re not going to cathart on the page, you’re going to hold back. so in that story making stage, you’re really dotting your I’s, crossing your t’s, making your commas in the right place. You’re really making it pretty because you know that it’s going out into the world. And then the next stage is advocacy, where you determine how you want to engage other people with your content.
Are you going to have an art show? Are you going to, publish this? How are you going to publish it? And then once it is there for other people to consume, then it’s incumbent upon the creator to step back and allow it to be a collective piece, even if you’re standing next to it saying, no. But here’s what I really meant, which really with a book, you should be doing that in the book. I mean, it’s maybe a little bit different with visual art where somebody’s like, why is it blue? And you could stand next to it and say, well, it’s blue because, But in a book, you have words already.
Oli: Yeah. Use your words.
Cami: I feel like it’s an emotional process to say, I did what I could do. I was as authentic and as full of integrity as I could be in creating this for how evolved I am right now. I mean, if I were to write my first book right now, it would be a completely different book. And that’s okay. I mean, it is a representation of, a catharsis process, and then the meaning making and story making that was happening at that time with the skills I had then.
Oli: Yeah. That’s amazing. One word that you’ve used quite a lot as you’ve, been sharing. Your kind of process for writers is fast. Like, you want people to move fast in those initial stages. Can you tell us a bit more about that? Because I can see the value in it and I think it’s really interesting.
Cami: Yeah, well, what I’ve noticed, when I first started the business, is that, I had a lot of people come in and they had a book they wanted to write. And they had written the first three chapters over and over and over. They had revised them, they had wordsmithed, them, and they couldn’t get any further. And I knew instinctively, and this is now borne out over the years of working with hundreds of writers, that the reason is because you don’t know what needs to happen in chapter one until you know what happens in chapter 17.
So we have to get you all the way through the arc, we have to get all the clay on the table. And then, yes, indeed, you will revise chapter one over and over again. But if you’re trying to make it perfect so that, it’s a perfect pillar on which to build the foundation of the book. No, we need the plans drawn before we know what we’re going to do here. And so, that’s probably a terrible metaphor. I don’t really know how houses are made, but I think you get the idea.
Oli: Yeah.
Cami: So I want people moving quickly, and so I put a word count. Like, I want you to write a certain number of words, per week. And like Anne Lamont’s shitty first draft, I don’t want them to be good. I want volume. Because only by creating volume and moving you through that storyline are we even going to need to know what is the job that chapter one needs to do. Right? Because we don’t know what it’s a foundation for until we have the plan. Strong.
Oli: Yeah. I love that approach, and it just resonates with my experience writing things. It just makes so much sense as well, in relation to what we’ve been saying about the ego and all that kind of stuff. If you move fast, then you can basically circumvent the ego and just get things on the page, do the excavation work, and then see what you’re actually working with. I think this is the key thing and it’s why your process is so valuable.
Like, when people set off on a journey of writing a book or creating whatever it is they’re creating, they don’t actually know until they’ve got deep into the process what it is. And, I found, like, a bit of a breakthrough for me when I was, writing my bad novel all those years ago, was that, you can write backwards, and it’s exactly what you said.
Maybe you get into chapter 17, but then you think, okay, if only I had this in chapter one, then I could now put this in this chapter. And you can go back and edit and all these kind of things. And you don’t actually write in a linear sequence, do you? If you think about it like that, you write by looking at the whole, this is going to sound very pretentious. It’s like you zoom out from time and space and causality, and you can just see the whole thing kind of laid out in front of you.
And then you go back like you’re kind of rearranging the notes, sort of symphony or something. But you can only do that if you move fast initially, so you’ve got it all down there, but then also so you can let go of your inner critic and all that stuff that’s going to cause you to hold back and hesitate. It’s like this Stephen King said, the first draft of anything is shit. I think it was Stephen King. And as long as you give yourself permission to be shit, you can get to that point that we’re talking about.
Oli: Yeah, that’s awesome. Does the surrender thing come back into that, like, getting to that place and moving with speed and all that kind of thing?
Cami: Yeah, I mean, I think you have to surrender into, not knowing, and just trust. And this is, I think, why people get stopped is that they. And why in my program, it’s like I’ve created a process and a structure. So in some ways, people don’t have to trust themselves. If they trust, the design of the structure that we’ve created, then they can just keep moving. And I think that it is truly very hard for us to trust ourselves in the creative process, don’t you think?
Oli: Yeah. Why do you think that is, if that’s not too broad of a question?
Cami: Well, to put on the spot, to say, I would have think more about this, and might come up with more answers, but I think that we all are bumbling through this life, generally speaking, and we’ve all sort of been given this idea that we are, supposed to know what we’re doing, and yet nobody really does. And so I’m looking at you going like, well, he seems to know what he’s doing. How come I don’t? I better not tell anybody that. I don’t yeah.
Oli: It goes back to what we were saying about the narrative structure of life not really existing. We think everything is just going to be clean and there’s going to be a beginning, a middle and an end, but there’s just, life is just lifeing along and we go with it, or, we don’t.
If we do go with it and we can surrender to it and trust the process, then there’s a lot less friction and stress, I find. And if we don’t, that’s when we meet all these roadblocks that don’t necessarily need to exist and things like that. And I think the creative process is difficult to trust ourselves with because a lot of the time we don’t know ourselves as much as we potentially could. And it’s going to reveal all these things that, we’re saying are hiding in the shadow territory and all that kind of thing. And the oracle of Delphi said, ah, know thyself.
Ultimately, that was supposed to be the pinnacle of wisdom. Know thyself. But for some reason we fear that because of our conditioning and things like that. So that’s my little ramble about that. I don’t know if that makes sense to you.
Cami: No, I think that’s true. I think we’re really afraid of our shadow. I think we’re afraid that if we really get to know ourselves, what we’re going to find there is that we’re bad. We’re not. I’m just going to say, the people listening, you’re not. You’re going to find out that you’re complicated, you’re going to find out that there’s a little bad, there’s a little good, there’s a little neutral, there’s a little of everything. It’s okay. It’s okay to look in there.
Oli: But when you get to that point, it’s not good or bad, it’s just real. And you can get that unconditional kind of acceptance. But I think there’s something around how when we do bring up the shadow and we go through the creative process to do so, it disrupts our lives. That’s another reason people don’t trust them.
It’s not that they don’t trust the process of creativity. Let’s say it’s almost like they’re scared of the consequences. Because if you do bring up all this stuff and you’ve built your life on a foundation of something that’s less real in relation to it, then you’re going to have to make a lot of changes. And probably that’s quite disconcerting and discombobulating.
Cami: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. I mean, I think the more you know yourself, once you know something, once you’ve gone in and you’ve really looked at the shadow and you integrate it, you heal, you do the things that you need to do, you have to respond now in your life, right? You have to do something different. Whatever it is, you’ve got to make a change in your work or your habits or stop drinking or whatever. and those things are, Some of them take an act of will. Some of them take being really vulnerable and reaching out for help. It’s just scary.
Oli: Yeah, ultimately. But if we go through it, it makes us more real, I guess. But that is the surrender. So, I don’t know where we’ve ended up in this conversation. I feel like what we’ve basically said is that life kind of sucks sometimes, but if you trust it, then you’ll feel better and then you’re going to die anyway. And there’s going to be all these loose threads and maybe something happens after that and just, keep writing. In the meantime, that’s my final take on all this.
How would you sum this up if you could? Like, have you got any final words of wisdom? and can you let people know where they can find you and learn about your program and all that stuff? Because it sounds amazing.
Cami: Sure. That was a great summary. I loved it. but I think I would add, but be afraid, but go in there and examine your story. Like, story is the essence of how we experience reality. So start where you are. Be messy and, yes, be scared, but know that ultimately it’s okay. It really is.
And I would say if, people want to reach me, they can find me on my website, which is the narrativeproject.net. And, you can see our offerings and our philosophy, and we have everything from, inner critic support to full year long programs to write a book. And, we’re a really supportive, positive community with a lot of accountability and, solid skills building.
So we really welcome and feel, it’s an honour to support people who have a calling to complete a story and get it out in the world.
Oli: Yeah, honestly, it’s an awesome project and I just love your whole structure that you’ve built around it to support people, to get results. So that’s awesome. And thank you for sharing all your insight on this podcast today and all your energy and so on and so forth. It’s been awesome. So I’m going to go do some writing.
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