[Intro music]
Hi everybody, and welcome to the Little Oracles podcast, an oracle for the everyday creative. I'm Allison Arth.
And so it goes: we come to the end of Season One of the Little Oracles podcast, if you can believe it, and I have just a short little minisode for you to close the season and maybe, hopefully, give you some things to turn over in your mind while you wait with bated breath for Season Two to drop [laughs] as I assume you are.
But before we get into that, I just wanted to say: thank you so much for listening; I hope this podcast has been as bright a spot for you as it’s been for me – I mean, it’s been a lot of work [laughs], I’m not gonna lie; I do all of this, like, all on my own – but it’s been such a joy to read the messages you’ve sent about what Little Oracles has meant for you, or to hear from folks who are reading along with the Book Club, or who are so thrilled by the Creative Chats – and, you know, speaking of which, huge, huge thank-yous to my guests Lindsay Stewart; Kristen O’Neal and Kaitlin Bruder of the Thin Places Radio podcast; John Harper; and Peter Gaucys for bringing their brilliance and kindness and warmth to this podcast, and if you haven’t listened to those episodes, I’ll link them in the show notes – they’re just wonderful conversations with truly wonderful and creative and inspiring people, and I look forward to having even more on the podcast in Season Two. So, overall, it’s been really so dreamy, and I’m really looking forward to next season, and I appreciate so much all of you who’ve been here through this one.
So as I was turning this final episode over in my mind, and trying to figure out what I wanted it to be, and what I wanted share with all of you, and how I might tie bow on this season themed Words, Words, Words, so I started thinking imagistically and philosophically – or maybe more like philo-poetically [chuckles] – about it, and that led me to thinking about ties and loops and circles and spirals, and I thought it would be just so lovely to bring this season of the podcast to a close at a point – maybe not *the* point, but *a* point – that’s nearby where it began: with the mystical mundane, and oracles of the everyday, and taking time to observe and nurture and savor all the little things: you know, those little moments and those little reflections and those little experiences that, when they’re all stacked up or smooshed together, they compose and comprise, like, you know, life. [laughs]
And so, you know, I was considering this, and trying to shape this episode in my mind, and draw connections between all the episodes of Season One, which are these, you know, aural artifacts, essentially; and I was just trying to wrap my arms around my thoughts – and I know I’m mixing the literal and the figurative here with a purpose, because, let me tell you, I– I struggled, mightily, with this episode. It felt really kinda Sisyphean, you know I mean? [chuckles] I just drafted so much, and I was being drawn down so many garden paths, if you will, and I just couldn’t put my fingers, literally and figuratively – yet again, because, you know, I do type my drafts out – I couldn’t put my fingers on how I wanted to close this season.
And then I thought back to a conversation I had with my friend Craig Shipman, who hosts the Tabletop Talk podcast – which, if you’re unfamiliar with that podcast, Craig sits down with game designers of all kinds and talks about their creative practice; it’s honestly one of my favorite pods, and Craig is one of my favorite interviewers, and I’ll link it in the show notes, too, so you can experience everything that podcast has to offer – and, full disclosure, I’m kind of paraphrasing – or, I’m about to paraphrase – a conversation that he and I had when I was guesting on Tabletop Talk, and that episode is going to drop sometime in the future, so, yeah, definitely subscribe to Tabletop Talk if you wanna hear our full conversation – but anyhow, Craig and I were chatting about drafting and building and, you know, working through solutions as part of our creative process, and he said something so incisive, and something that kept coming back to as I was trying to determine what this episode was gonna be about: he said that he and I were really similar in our processes, because we spend a ton of time drafting in our heads, and then everything kinda comes out all at once [laughs], and what comes out feels or looks like a finished version, maybe – or really close to a finished version – which kind of gives this impression that we don’t actually draft, or that we don’t need to draft, or that we don’t make messes or mess things up or really experiment in a meaningful and, you know, when it comes down to it, in a manifest way.
And that observation really resonated with me – Craig, thank you so much – and as I was wrestling, you know, this boulder of this final episode up that proverbial Tartarusian hill, I came back to what Craig had said, and to this idea of drafting, and how, even in its multiple meanings – you know, drafting as in versioning, like when you draft an essay, for example, o; and drafting as in modeling a structure, like when you draft plans for a building; and drafting as in following and pacing and, effectively, collaborating and boosting, like when you’re cycling – but, essentially, how drafting, kind of in any application, is all about finding, and repurposing, and, you know, using what’s come before or what’s surrounding you right now to make something.
And so I came back to what I’ve found through producing this, you know, freshman season of this little oracular podcast, and how it’s been such a huge arc of discovery and experimentation and learning and hitting and whiffing and playing and practicing, and, you know, making those messes, and finding things, and repurposing things, and using what’s come before and what I’ve learned to make that “something new.” Really, to draft, and to experience drafting in a very visceral and very real way. And how, in that drafting, and in the discreteness and in the conglomerate of the first season of this podcast, it’s been this really demonstrable, almost archetypal representation of itself. [laughts] It’s like the diegetic is the mimetic. [laughs]
Maybe that’s a little too intense [laughs] but I guess what I’m trying to say, here, is that this podcast that I’m making about creativity and creative practice, in its development, became emblematic of that creativity and creative practice. But for me, it’s been a massive crossroads of trying and finding and figuring and applying and remixing and reimagining; it’s, like, this beautiful alchemy of daydreaming and telemetry, you know what I mean?
And so as I was, kind of, recontextualizing my experience with making Season One, and, like, you know, compiling the clip-show in my head [chuckles], I had this sudden realization, bolt-from-the-blue style, that the Season One finale was less of a conclusion and more of a transition; it’s a bridge; it’s a crossing; it’s a connector; and not to get too poetic about it – oh who am I kidding, I always get poetic about these things, let’s be real [laughs] – but this final episode is, effectively, an aqueduct, and it carries the water of Season One – you know, everything I discovered; everything we discovered – into Season Two.
And, really, you know, to hark back to the very opening moments of this episode, where I said I wanted to return to the little moments and the little reflections and the little experiences – these little oracles of the everyday that, in the aggregate, give us the fodder or the loam or the tinder for our creativity – you know, whatever basic, elemental, foundational metaphor you want to use there – but for me, these little moments: they’re– they’re the stone, you know? They’re the rock; they’re like the literal aggregate [laughs], you know, carved and stacked and shaped by human hands and human ingenuity – and again, I’m mixing the literal and the figurative here, but all of these things kind of connect and support and draw across for me.
So are you still with me? [laughs] I mean, I guess, honestly, the tl;dr of all this is that this episode, it isn’t an ending, it’s an ancient stone waterway [laughs] and the medium is the message is the moment is the meaning and all of that. [laughs] ‘Cause that makes sense, right? [laughs] You know, honestly, I didn’t think I’d– I’d, uh, remix Marshall McLuhan on this show, but I guess– I guess, here we are. [chuckles]
So with all of that [laughs], all of those thoughts, kind of just brook-burbling inside my brain, I bring you the overarching oracular moment for Season One, and that is a teaser for Season Two, which is all about Play as Practice.
But before that trailer plays, once again: thank you so much for being here; I really can’t wait to see you next season. Don’t forget to follow (at) little oracles on Instagram and the blog at little oracles dot com for more big book energy and creativity content – including news about the Season Two drop, which is comin’ up soon! – and, until then, take care, keep creating, and stay divine.
[Outro music]
[Season Two trailer: dialog over music bed]
[Dialog over music bed]
[Excerpt from Creative Chat with Kate Welch]
Kate Welch: It may not be super-logical to think, like, “Oh, a collaborative brainstorm; there’re too many cooks in the kitchen.” But the right cooks in the right-size kitchen really will make the best dish.
Allison Arth: Welcome to the Little Oracles podcast, Season Two: Play as Practice.
[Excerpt from Creative Chat with Kate Welch]
AA: How do you know when you have the right cooks and the right-sized kitchen?
KW: Mm. You’ll know the creative collaborators are the right cooks because they are encouraging, but also, the room where you are far from the smartest, cleverest person: those’re the cooks you wanna be in the room with.
Allison Arth: This season, we’ll explore how discovery and experimentation, puzzling and solving, making messes and making magic keep us going as career and casual creatives.
[Excerpt from Creative Chat with Suzanne Wallace]
Suzanne Wallace: So I was preparing the press kit, and I kept thinking, “We really ought to have a visual asset.” So, one day, I literally made a trailer in secret.
AA: That creator story is, I think, both very common and also not very common because I think people feel kinda scared to do that kind of thing.
SW: I was scared! I made something in secret more than once. [laughs]
AA: [laughs]
SW: I’ve never really been much of a creator, but with video work, it just, like, tapped into this very magical, “creator” feeling that was, like, an instant high. It gave me a total rush.
Allison Arth: We’ll dig into creative expression, theory, and perspectives in Everyday Creative audio-essays; keep up that Big Book Energy with Asynchronous Book Club picks, Little Reviews of whatever I'm reading, and loads of other bookish content; and we'll talk with, learn from, and have more than a few laughs with incredible guest creators, makers, and thinkers in Creative Chats.
[Excerpt from Creative Chat with Andrew Gillis]
Andrew Gillis: I often struggled to, like, commit myself to a given craft for long enough; [chuckles] it was very much me needing to, like, sort myself out and develop that discipline – you know, which I was lucky to learn those skills later, and those were the things that really– that made art possible.
AA: Right. Well, what do you think it– it is about game design in that case that kinda pushed you over that hump, as it were, of, like, that craft and that sustained focus, I guess?
AG: Well, I kind of tricked myself into it because–
AA: [laughs]
AG: –I started doing this design work after having worked being, like, a cast member on various roleplaying game streams where I was a performer. So I was kind of immersing myself in the practice of play, and I was just so deep in it at that point that it didn’t feel like a stretch to start producing my own stuff. And I think one of the really interesting things about roleplaying design is that you can, kind of, learn through play, and through the practice of play, you can understand how these games are working, and– and see their moving parts, and that familiarity can then get you grounded and start to develop some skills even if you don’t even realize it.
[Excerpt from Creative Chat with Kate Welch]
KW: I would sneak out of bed in the middle of the night to, like, log on and roleplay in the Star Wars chat room. Got in trouble so many times.
AA: [frustrated teen voice] But Mom, I just need to go to Kashi Station– Tosche Station? I don’t know anything about this! [laughs]
KW: [laughs] “Tosche Station to pick up some power converters!” Yeah, so, it was my community; it was the only place I felt like I was– I was at home. And it felt like, such a, like, nerdy little secret. And, I don’t know; you know, everybody needs to escape into something, and this is just what Baby Kate needed, was to escape into this world.
AA: I can’t wait to share this season with all of you; Season Two, Episode One drops June 6th. Find Little Oracles wherever you get podcasts, follow along on Instagram (at) little oracles, check out the blog at littleoracles.com, and, as always, take care, keep creating, and stay divine!