this is an 150 minute podcast holeeeshitttt. another time…
Okay, I downloaded the whole thing to my mp3 player and listened to it over a couple of evenings.
Cliver Thompson is a pretty interesting guy by the sounds of things. He's another one of those Canadian 80s tech-nerd/journalist types, like Cory Doctorow but not as in it himself. He kept talking about wanting to study/do journalism about the cognitive effects of technology; how they shape how we communicate, interact and think. He likes to find communities/ideas the general public don't know about and to write about them.
He is a write of non-fiction and has a lot of experience. It sounds like he's really quite good at it. Talked about how the idea of 'write 1000 words every day' doesn't apply to non-fiction. 90% of the time of a piece will be spent on research and getting all the facts in your head and working out how it all goes together and then you can write all the words super quick.
He talked about how when he writes his first drafts, he does it with a certain set of rules -- no capital letters, sentences separated by // and so on. (as well as a thorough outline). this is to reduce inhibition and make writing flow more easily for him. it's what Lu was talking about recently: ok they seemed to have deleted the post ah well. Anyway.
His latest project has been cycling across the continental US and doing lots of energy/transport/decarbonisation journalism on the way. Personal cycling travelogue//nonfiction//journalism mix. Sounds really cool, i'd love to do long distance cycling like that. i hope it gets published soon and i remember to look it up!