Backstage: Keeping The Focus In Hard Times
You start writing about how to find a topic and suddenly realise that over night the world got a bit worse again. Does it make sense to write about nature in dark times? Yes, now more than ever! Because nothing brings inner distance better than seeing: Times may be getting tougher, but a hell of a lot of people are committed to doing good. And the best of the good is the nature that makes up our planet.
Sounds too easy? Therefore, for really bad days, I have plans and collections of topics. But let me first tell you why my podcast is English while I'm a German author living in France.
The Choice Of Language
My every-day languages are French and some Alsatian (Alsace is bilingual), rarely German. The decision not to write and talk in my mother tongue was hard: I know how long it took me to develop my individual style and skills in German. My English can never reach that level, I make a lot of mistakes and have an accent. You know, the combination of an impostor syndrom and knowing these facts could kill a project.
I am still grateful today to a language coach who presented me with a wonderful mixture of accent nuances from the UK, not to mention the differences between the UK and the USA, India or Australia. I learnt that I can train to speak better but also to embrace my accent: it's me. And it reminds me of a German editor who said that when she spoke to me on the phone, I had such a wonderful French accent in my German. Not that I speak my mother tongue as broken as in a cliché film. She thought she heard that I spoke more softly than other Germans. So if I had an accent in my native language, why not in others too?
The choice against German resulted from a market decision. Nature writing is an absolute niche market in Germany. It doesn't even sell to publishers - I had experience with that and didn't want to waste another few years. In English it was even a trend.
And why not French? The answer is simple. I speak French fluently, I have professionally translated books from French into German. But the other way round - my written French is a disaster. I would have to pay a proofreader for every little text. And when I told an enthusiastic French podcast listener about my plans, he immediately said: But not in French, please! We young people only listen to podcasts in English. Well, here I am!
How do I find my topic?
It's like with a book topic, only for a shorter time: As we say in French "je suis mordue" (= I'm hooked), in word-for-word translation: "I'm bitten". I imagine a kind green snake biting into my leg during a walk (I do love walks for finding ideas). Her venom is the sweet juice of passion, mixed with curiosity, and enthusiasm. I can work without that bite but with that inspiring snake I work much better and find enough discipline. If you have an idea or a project, the most difficult is to find that daily discipline not to give up, no matter how grey the day may be or how bad the world situation is.
I have huge collections of bookmarks for the best rabbit holes. I read everything that doesn't read me. Sometimes I read too much. But then it starts ringing in my head and I get the feeling that this could be an issue. This could be a story. Then I do research about it and read even more. Imagine Sherlock's mind palace, except that a messie lives in individual rooms. That's me when I go looking for material.
And then comes the magic point when I'm saturated with material. I switch everything off and stop reading. A few days of doing nothing in nature. Walks in the forest. I talk to bugs and goats. I concentrate on the beauty of a flower or the buzzing of a bee. It happens suddenly. I look at something or listen to a bird and there's the catch: I have my topic. I know how I want to build it and what I might need from all the messy reading stuff.
That sounds more magical than it is. As a journalist, you practise the technique. In everyday working life, you are often given a topic and then do some research. As a writer and podcaster, I can afford to choose my own topics from a wealth of material. Relaxing and doing nothing is a technique to avoid cluttering up your own creativity. I set myself the same deadlines for detailed research and writing as I would in an editorial office. Relaxing is an important part of it.
When looking for interview partners, I proceed in the same way as when working with humans: Who really has something to say? Whose personality is interesting and exciting enough? Can I find good questions? How can I approach them empathically? How can I elicit information from people that they don't want to talk about at first?
My people are animals, plants, even bacteria. You could accuse me of humanising them. Of course, my approach is not scientific. Even if I am secretly transporting science. (I read plenty of studies and knowledge texts before I speak). Above all, I look for a bit of humour to distance myself from anthropocentrism. Of course, as a homo sapiens, I can't really get away from it. But if I let a bacterium grumble or an ant criticise, then perhaps I can show a bit like in a cartoon that we humans are not the "crown of creation". In fact, we are often very stupid.
For me, it is presumptuous and conceited not to see all the other creatures in nature as people. I find it fascinating that in English in particular I can give them personality just by choosing pronouns. And when I then stand in front of a tree who is he-she at the same time, or see an animal who has not yet decided which gender they want to be, it becomes clear that nature is pure diversity. Much wilder than many people can imagine.
And so my comeback will be about moss. Even about moss-sex. But now I have to invite a tardigrade, drink some water with them and develop an interview.
Until next time - stay curious! And if don’t want to miss the most important blog posts, subscribe for my free newsletter:
