E23 Guest Mary Carroll Moore
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Beth Buffington: Welcome to another episode of BDI Create Today. I am so very excited and honored to have this special guest with us. We have an author, an artist, and an entrepreneur, Mary Carol Moore, here with us today.
Mary, welcome. I am
Mary Carroll Moore: so glad you're here. Thank you, Beth. I'm delighted to be on a show about creativity. It's a wonderful topic.
Beth Buffington: So tell us a little bit about who you are, how you got started, and just touch a bit on your background. I really want to have everyone get a feel for just how vast your creative interests have been since you were a little girl up to today.
Mary Carroll Moore: I started a passion for art when I was a child, and I remember at 12, I won my first painting contest. My father's company had a contest for the cover of their Monthly magazine and my drawing one, and I was just over the moon. My parents were [00:01:00] incredibly supportive of my artistic leanings.
And so I really just followed art. That was my main thing throughout school. Went to an art focused Saturday session, for kids. And then when I graduated, I went to college. I studied art really intensely. As a fact, I My instructors really wanted me to major in it, but I majored in Russian instead because I felt like I had to have something practical, of course.
That's not very practical, but I ended up being a Russian interpreter. But anyway, I had this incredible leaning towards art, and I lived in France for a while. I went to CĂ´te de Beaux Arts, which is the big painting school in Paris, where I couldn't understand anything of what they were doing. And I studied privately with many different art teachers.
But my career went into the direction of writing, and I ended up becoming a professional writer, a food columnist for the L. A. Times Syndicate, and a journalist, and wrote for Food Wine and all these different magazines, and art got pushed aside, [00:02:00] because I really felt like, as a woman in today's world, I needed to be able to earn my own money and be independent.
And then I had an incredible life changing experience when I was in my late 40s, where I got diagnosed with breast cancer, it was very serious. And if anyone in your listener group here has had any kind of trauma like that, they know that, you're given the opportunity to look at your life and say, am I really doing what I want?
And the thing that I had put aside was painting. And A retreat happened with five other women. I was at the cabin for a week and one of the women was an artist and she pulled me aside and she showed me her box of soft pastels, which I had never heard of. They're like compressed oil paints. And I started painting.
And I haven't stopped yet. So I toggle between writing and painting. I have many books published, 15 actually, and I have my art in university and private collections around the [00:03:00] world actually. So I'm really lucky in that I got to pursue two creative avenues very intensely and get education in both and reach a level of success in both.
Beth Buffington: That is so amazing. I love how your curiosity about art, about cooking, just made you go in and check out different opportunities, because finding the opportunities to write about cooking and then making it. Have cookbooks and get those published. I know the background work to get all of that done is really intense.
I just don't think that all of those magically fell on your lap. You had to not only be interested in doing that, but then have a knack of finding out how you could pursue that to be a successful column, how to be a successful writer of cookbooks and get those published. So good on you for getting all that done.
That's amazing. Amazing. And the [00:04:00] fact that you were able to realize that painting was something that was missing in your life. Again, I think that a lot of us have those little voices in our head, and they sometimes are hard to listen to. And it sometimes takes a really big life change to make you realize that there's something that you need to add to your life.
So let me ask you this question. How did you decide or discover your passion for creativity. How did you, I guess this is almost two questions. One, how did you realize that you had a creative passion for cooking that then led to, Oh, I could write about this. I'm interested to see how those overlap.
Mary Carroll Moore: Yeah. I have to credit my family and the women in my family. My mom and my grandmother, her mom, because both of them were big risk takers and they did things that were not usual for women and in that [00:05:00] era, both of them are very creative. My mom painted and she's she was a pilot, which we can talk about later too, because she influenced one of my books.
My grandmother ran a summer camp for kids. For all of her life, from age, like 30 to 70 or 80. And it was like a a legacy that I grew up with that women are creative. That's natural. And that's something that you should do. And you need to express yourself in the world and you have some gift or some.
Message or talent or something. It has to be expressed. And I think. I did that for a long time, but the painting got put aside because in this world also women struggle to earn a living and I never wanted to depend on a husband. I wanted to have my own income. So I ended up putting aside the art in order to go into my writing career, and it did come from creativity, my love of food, my family with foodies, we ate everything, and I grew up that way, and [00:06:00] so it was natural for me to take my love for food into a profession, like being a food journalist.
But at the same time, it was safe. It was an accepted topic to write about, and deep down, I always wanted to write stories. I always wanted to write fiction. So it took that really life changing experience for me to recognize, by the way, I've only, I've not only abandoned my art, I've abandoned my desire to write fiction.
So I had to reinvent myself at age, I was like 50, I think, and go back to school, got my MFA. And I decided to go ahead and pursue the things that I love. Yes, I saved money to do it. I wasn't stupid, but I wanted to make sure that the earning a living, the, that, that drive that is so common to so many of us wasn't the thing that really directed my life because with cancer, you face, what have you done and what haven't you done yet?
So this was really what I wanted to do. And yes, it was creative, but it was also this kind of [00:07:00] instinct maybe born of my family legacy. That women do what they have to, what they came to do. And they do that and they have room for it in their lives. And I guess I was very lucky because I know a lot of artists that don't do that.
They don't take those risks and they they don't have the confidence built in that they can succeed in taking risks creatively.
Beth Buffington: Oh, yes. There's so many things you just said there that I think are so important for our listeners. One is that creativity and women and how that is a very difficult thing to have as a career to be just an artist.
I hate that I just used that word just in front of artist. Oh yeah. But it is. It's one of those like if it's a small voice in your head, but over here you have, but you can make a living over here that we quite often will go with where we can feel that financial security. And that is not wrong.
It is a survival instinct and a good thing to have. [00:08:00] To be able to listen and find balance between following a creative passion and staying, staying in the black that's a tricky thing. I love that you were able to hear that voice and pay attention to it and pivot so deeply at age 50. I think I have a lot of listeners who are looking at a new chapter in their life and this would be just, it's just going to be a great story for them to hear that you can pivot.
It's never too late to turn that page and start something new and that it can be. a success, if you put the work into it, that can happen.
Mary Carroll Moore: I think that a mentor of mine once said that I think this is really important for artists to hear. And many of you know it, I'm sure. But if you put all your financial hopes into your art, it might cramp it.
And you wouldn't feel necessarily free to explore new directions or take big [00:09:00] risks. What I ended up doing was I kept my food career going for a little while as I developed my painting again, so that the painting itself wouldn't have the pressure of earning a living. I already had the living earned.
And I made time, and it became a priority for me, and I began exhibiting again. I had a studio, and I started selling, and was in, won awards and stuff like that. So I got during that five year period between when I recovered from breast cancer and when I decided to go back to school for my MFA, I decided to just build my painting without any stress on it.
So that's something that I learned. I think I learned it from a writing teacher. Actually, don't try to make a living off of something that you need to keep free and explore with.
Beth Buffington: I think that's really good advice. Now, as someone who has a creative business I do find that if I lean too heavily on just what my clients are asking of me, [00:10:00] that I start to feel fatigue in how I'm creating and that I have to be able to leave room for me to have my own projects.
When you decide that a creative business is something that you're going to be able to do and do with income in mind, finding that balance inside so that you don't burn yourself out and that your art isn't just someone saying, now draw me one of these and make me one of those. Right?
I also love that you've had such a supportive family and that you've had women in your life that supported not only you intellectually going to school and getting degrees, but also supported your creative imagination and what you could do with that.
I've, I raised my two girls to be that way too. I think that's something that is important for women. having that creativity encouraged is such a blessing, what a gift.
Mary Carroll Moore: It is. And it, I, I still think about how lucky I was that I had parents [00:11:00] that were into it and celebrated each time I achieve something in my art life and didn't come at me saying it's not practical.
They didn't have that in their minds, it's just that creativity was really a fundamental. gift that humans had and they had to express it. So I think it's wonderful. And I'm sad when I meet, like in my writing classes, when I meet a writer who feels cramped. That they only can work with commercial topics, for instance they can't really explore what's in their heart and they have to make sure that they package things a certain way.
And I think yes, that's true, but there's going to be a point years down the road, maybe that you'll find yourself missing something. And you haven't put your heart into it. And your heart is the thing that's going to keep it going. That's going to keep your passion alive for the creativity.
Beth Buffington: What you just said there about writer friends that you've had that are cramped with commercial needs that they have to create. My first two jobs out of college were for me, they were very boring. One was for a large company that does, [00:12:00] that designed and manufactured large HVAC units for buildings and hospitals.
and then my second company, I was an assistant manager in the marketing department for the graphics area for a company that manufactured business forms. Again, very snoozy for a graphic designer, for an artist.
if you're feeling stifled you want to be able to get away from something that might be burning out your creative flame. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about talking about creative flames.
How do you work? Specifically. Like techniques or rituals that you have that help you figure out how you need to work, when you need to work, and help keep your imagination just stirred up. And I think this would work for both your writing and for your art.
Mary Carroll Moore: I toggle between the two and I toggle between projects.
In the writing arena and the art arena, like in my [00:13:00] studio, I have two easels, and I usually have one painting on each. And I learned this from one of my teachers, because you get stuck, you get to the point where you can't see the, how to solve the next creative problem in the painting. At that point, she would always encourage me we'll do another painting, do the same thing in a different, on a different view or something like that.
So I got into this habit, which was unusual at the time, of having two things going at once. I don't know that I call it multitasking because I didn't actually keep them both in mind at the same time. I would really let myself focus on the painting that I was into and then There were predictably be a place where I would reach my ceiling.
I would reach the maybe the limit of what I could see my eyes were tired or something was not working with the project. The thing I was painting the still life or whatever it was. And so then I would switch and I put up the new painting and work on that for a while and then I would get stuck again.
I come back to the first one and I find myself able to solve the problem. And [00:14:00] I had got me stuck because my I had been redirected, it was like watching a different movie and I got new story in my head and I could come back and that worked so well that I started to try it in my writing as well.
So right now what I do is I usually write in the morning cause that's when I'm freshest intellectually. It's not necessarily when my eye is freshest though. So I don't find painting in the morning works as well, but writing often does. And I'll work on if I'm working on say a novel or long form fiction, I'll toggle that with a short story because the short story has completely different rules and needs than and requirements than the long form.
So I'll work back and forth with those. And then there'll be a point where I'll have to pause and say, okay, I'm, my mind is done. I can't think of another word. So then I go into the visual brain and I work with the painting and the painting refreshes my, word cortex or my language side of my brain.
And then I can come back to the writing if I need to, but that's usually. [00:15:00] how I balance the two. I don't have any set times that I have to or set word count or that I have to finish a painting unless I'm under a commission deadline or I have to get something to my agent from my book. But otherwise I just allow myself to you said fatigue earlier, but if I go to the point right before fatigue and allow myself to just keep the, as long as the flow is strong, I'll keep going.
And luckily I have. The ability to do that when I set aside a creative time during the day, I can do that, and I don't have any restrictions. And then, of course, I've got my normal life that I have to come back to and all the responsibilities, but that's pretty much how I handle my creative time each day.
And I love it, some days it doesn't work, but a lot of times it does. It's really refreshing.
Beth Buffington: Oh, I love that. I love the idea of the toggle. I think that's a great word that we all just need to remember I was just thinking about how this relates to something I was working on yesterday.
had something I wanted to get doneand I got to the [00:16:00] point where I realized I was just spinning my wheels.And I put down what I was working on and I went in the other room to do something completely differentAnd when I came back.
all of a sudden, they're just in front of you with answers that are ready.
Mary Carroll Moore: I usually find myself repeating.
if I'm starting to repeat stuff, like repeat a shape or repeat a color, or, I pick a favorite color, I just use it everywhere. Or another thing would be in writing, I'm repeating scene structures I've already done. If I find that, then I know I'm close to fatigue. So the repetition means that my brain isn't coming up with new things.
I can't see new things. I can't visualize. beyond what I've done. And that's my clue. I don't know, some of your listeners might appreciate this, they've done it. So that repetition is my clue. Okay. I'm almost to fatigue. It's time to pause. And I also go out in the garden. I don't know if anybody's any listeners are gardeners, but I'm crazy about being outside.
And so that, Just being outside, it's [00:17:00] so refreshing and my brain just goes, oh, and then I can come back to the studio and say, okay, I can see this differently. Now I can come back. Like you said, the problem it just clicks along and it's solved. It's wonderful.
Beth Buffington: At times you feel like you're wasting time because you're getting up and you want to get this finished.
I love the idea of the toggle that you've got two projects that you can stop here and move over to the other one.
And you're right. I don't think that's multitasking because you're not doing it at the same time. They're just taking turns. It's really great. It doesn't
Mary Carroll Moore: fatigue my brain like multitasking. It allows me to actually be refreshed. So I can tell that's different than, running around the house and trying to do five things at once.
It's very different.
Beth Buffington: Yes. Yeah, that's wonderful. Really great suggestions for our creative audience So thank you so much for that. Now, can you share a story about how a creative approach led to a breakthrough or success in your work?
do you have a story to
Mary Carroll Moore: share?
I do. I think the [00:18:00] best example was my second novel, which is called A Woman's Guide to Search and Rescue. And it's about two female pilots, one of whom is they're sisters, they're estranged, and one of, one of them has been falsely accused of a crime, and is having to flee, and the only place she can flee to is to this estranged sister, who she's never met, and actually never wants to meet her.
I was inspired to write this by my mom, who was a pilot in World War II, and I, she always said she'd teach me to fly, moms with four kids and full time job didn't happen, and she passed away at age 98 in 2018, and I wrote the novel because I really wanted to understand what it was like to be a pilot.
So right before my 70th birthday, I decided to take flying lessons, which is I don't know if I'd recommend to everybody, but it was really an exciting experience to me. I, Finally felt up there in the pilot seat because the instructor put me in the pilot seat the first day of [00:19:00] lessons. And I said, am I really going to do this?
He said no, I have controls over here. It's going to be okay. But I thought, oh my God, what am I doing? This is stupid. I'm almost 70 here. I am in the pilot seat and what I got being up there in the air. I finally understood that freedom and sense of limitlessness that my mom.
experience as a pilot. She lived it every time she flew and I've been trying to capture it in the novel and I hadn't really gotten it yet. So that, that creative impulse in my, I guess I got this kind of nudge to do something really risky, which was taking the flying lessons. And it just turned into such a positive because I could finally get that feeling of freedom and limitlessness in the story.
And so far, so good. I've had pilots read it and they say it's really accurate and good and, very exciting. So I guess I captured it. I guess I got the flavor of what my mom went through. She was always a mystery to me. Amazing woman. Didn't talk about her flying [00:20:00] years very much. Was really focused on having kids and working.
And this was my way of honoring her and helping solve a little bit of the mystery of what it was like to live with a mom. Mom like that.
Beth Buffington: Wow. Oh my goodness. That's, that is such an awesome story. I, we just had a guest a few weeks ago
She's been a skydiver and she's volunteered at national parks and she does exactly what you just did, which is absorb the experience and then use that in her work and the difference that makes in what you could have produced without the experience and what you're able to produce because of the experience is like night and day.
Right? Yeah.
Mary Carroll Moore: Yeah, it felt so much more real. And like, um, I'll never I would never be able to be a full-time pilot. I could never do a lot of the things that the characters in my book do, like stunt flying or crash landings or anything like that. I can never do that, but I can at least get a [00:21:00] flavor for what it's like to be in a airplane.
That far above the ground with the controls in my hands. Somebody took a picture of me sitting in that seat and I have this kind of frozen look on my face like, Oh my God, I don't know if I can do this, but I did it. And I came down and we landed. I didn't do much of that, but he landed us and we I got out of the plane.
I went, Oh my God, I actually did this thing. And that. I took that home. I took that home with me. Like you're saying, it informed my work, my creative work. It made a huge difference.
Beth Buffington: The other thing I love about what you've just told in that story is that you didn't learn how to fly in your thirties.
It, you have not been afraid to say, I think it's time to do this thing. And you haven't taken a look at where you are in your season of life to say, Oh, but that those days are gone. That can't be done. I know that a lot of my listeners are moving to new phases, whether that is, I'm moving from college [00:22:00] to starting a job, or I'm moving from having a full time job to now being a mother, or I'm an empty nester now, or I am retiring.
Every time one of those major pages is turned, I think that we tend to look back about what we have or haven't done instead of looking forward to saying, what can I do now? What can I do next? And the opportunities really are there for you. The only limitations you have are the ones you put on yourself.
And so I, I love that you just said, you know what, right in this book, I want to learn how to fly. Let's. I know, it's crazy. That is so awesome. Oh, congratulations on that. That is wonderful.
Mary Carroll Moore: That's really amazing.
Beth Buffington: So tell me now let's take just another little facet on your creativity and let's look at how Creativity the fact that you are a creative and when I say that, I don't mean like, okay, you are a painter or you're an, you're [00:23:00] a writer.
You're just someone who has an unusual way to think and express. And that comes out in a lot of different ways for you. So knowing that you've got this creative base in you, how has the fact that you've been a creative How has that made success for you in your life? Does that make sense?
Mary Carroll Moore: Yeah, it does.
And I had so many examples but the one that I thought of Kind of right up front was when I recovered from breast cancer in 2000, I decided that I wanted to give back to that community that had supported me. The women's cancer community where I was living in Minneapolis at the time was just amazing.
A lot of free resources and wonderful support. And so I approached the local writing school, the Loft Literary Center, which is the oldest writing school in the country. It's a wonderful place. And I said, Could I run a fundraiser that would be open to any women who had a healing process in mind, either they're recovering [00:24:00] from illness or they've had a trauma or something.
I'm not a therapist. I can't do the therapy thing, but I know writing and art heal. And I know that's documented. That's there's studies done, medical studies about writing and healing. James Pennebaker from university of Texas did a enormous breakthrough study about, people with major illnesses can have documented medical changes because of their writing and their art, artistic expression.
So I thought, why don't I do this? So I hadn't ever taught a class like that. But I again approached them and they said sure and we decided we'd split the proceeds between the loft and a woman's cancer resource center in Minneapolis and the class sold out with a wait list and then I offered it again.
It sold out again and then the loft approached me and said since you're doing so well as a writing teacher, would you like to continue doing things as a writing teacher? Would you like to teach other kinds of writing? So that actually launched my career as a writing [00:25:00] teacher and. So from 2000 till about, I retired in 2022 for 22 years, I was teaching, that was my full time money earning job.
I, I quit the food writing and I went into teaching writing full time. And it was so wonderful, it was just such a beautiful way to give back to the community that had supported me. But then also it contributed so strongly to my success in my field as a writer, because now I was a legitimate.
writing teacher, and I suddenly had a community of fellow authors to tap into. I could find writing groups. I could find people to support my manuscript process, writing, and also submissions. It was just an amazing breakthrough for me, and it was because I wanted to give back that it, it was a creative effort to give back, and that paid off big time.
Beth Buffington: Oh my gosh, there is so much to unpack here. First of all, no one wants to be given the word that you have cancer. No. Oh my gosh. That is [00:26:00] a bitter pill that so many people have to manage. And the fact that you got past that and then you said, okay, I'm going, I'm ready to give back. I love that you thought.
That was a good idea. And I think that even if you haven't been someone that has been unfortunate enough to have to get past a major illness, that knowing that someplace where you are right now, that you have learned a skill that someone else is really hungry to know that if you can turn around and say, Hey, come on up, let me help you up to where I have been or where I am right now, that kind of gift is.
It's just, there's no price that you can put onto it. So the fact that you were thinking about that and then you, just even the way you decided to go about getting into offering it and the success that it had, that is amazing. What a blessing you were to so many women. I'm [00:27:00] sure that if you could go back in and find a lot of those women, you'd be amazed at where they are now because of what they did with you then, right?
I hope so.
Mary Carroll Moore: Yeah. And I think. Artists, artists are so isolated, right? We work alone, especially writers. Artists, painters too, but I just found that the community that became my home, my literary home, because of that class was such a gift to me. And I didn't even know that I needed a community, but I did.
And here suddenly I had one and it was, it was just something I didn't even know I needed, and I was so grateful. So I know arts are you're by yourself a lot of times. So you need, the community is something, however you can enter it and support it, and then you get supported back. So that's what I was trying to do.
Is give back to this community, the breast cancer community, and then in return, I got this writing community, which is, oh, God,
Beth Buffington: it was so great. Oh, my goodness. And that's the other thing I wanted to [00:28:00] point out is, you reached out to do this as a fundraiser, and you weren't looking to. What it could, what can it do for me?
If I do this thing, what will I get? What's in it for me? You just did this kind of thing and then opportunity just knocked on your door so hard and you got so many blessings back from it. It, you never know where those opportunities are going to come. And the other thing is you are right.
Artists, writers, we spend a lot of time in our little area where our world makes us very small. And sometimes it, we feel very lonely and it can be a place where you're just regenerating imagination off of what is in your room here, right? But if you can find a community of like minded people.
And you can get out and share ideas with That is just the best way to get What you're working [00:29:00] on to the next level. Did you find that to be the truth when you were doing that?
Mary Carroll Moore: Yeah, definitely. And I think writers, let's see, I've been in the writing community a long time. Writers know this because they have writers groups because it's very hard to not have feedback. You can't really make it very far without feedback. So writers cultivate other writers, their peer group that can work with them.
giving them feedback, read their manuscripts or whatever, and agents are there for that too. In the artistic world, yes, you still have that, the agent and the gallery owner and the contests and, your mentors, your teachers. But I remember when I was in Minneapolis and I started this painting again, I found a group of about, I think there was six or seven women.
They're all different mediums. And we got together every week. No, not every week, maybe every two weeks. And each week we would bring, or each meeting, we would bring a piece that we were working on. It didn't have to be finished. It was in process and the group would share their insights. They would [00:30:00] share what they loved about it and they would share what really startled them or what they were curious about.
And I thought, gosh, this is so cool. Cause then you'd go home and you'd have. Oh, wow, I want to try this idea and, you would break out, like you said, you break out of your little isolated And to, and bring new things into your work. And it wasn't like somebody was critiquing it.
It was just a support group. I love that. I've got to find one here in New Hampshire, but that was such a wonderful thing.
Beth Buffington: the couple of things that you've mentioned. One is find a community. That you can network with that you can share with that you can get encouragement and support from and then secondly just learning.
I think you have mentioned to me that you're a lifelong learner. And so that is another thing for. It's like never stop figuring out what you're going to learn next because it keeps your brain healthy. It keeps your creativity sparked and alive. And it's just a lot of [00:31:00] fun.
Mary Carroll Moore: Yeah, it is. I find myself in cycles.
I don't know if you do, Beth. Sometimes I feel like I, I have to go in and be alone and incubate an idea for a painting or for a novel or whatever. And then there's other times where I need to go out and be part of a community. And so I started to appreciate this back and forth flow that happens inside me and not try to push it like right now.
I'm coming off of a year of talking about my new books, the last bets and women's guide to search and rescue were published within six months of each other, which is insane. But I find myself a little bit on the needing to incubate stuff. I've been out in the world so much I've been sharing about my writing talking to so many people and the response has been so great.
But now I need to go in, and one way I do that was with painting so I might set up [00:32:00] four or five starts, just basic sketches. In pastel, you can just do color studies, right? Everybody knows this who's listening, I'm sure, but I'll just allow myself to do a color study every day and have this kind of immersion back into the incubation stage and not have to share it with anybody and allow myself to be without community for a while in order to heal a little bit or recover a little bit from the external.
The world has been in my back pocket for all these months, and now I go back in and I go, okay, it's time to be quiet a little bit, and that I think is important too. So there's the honoring, I was just saying that in case there's somebody in your listening audience who's feeling like they don't want to have a community right now.
They want to spend time, maybe they're overburdened with childcare or work or whatever, and they just need quiet time by themselves, and that's where I'm at right now, and it feels really right. To just shut the door in my studio, [00:33:00] let the dogs in of course, but shut the door in my studio and just be by myself with my art and that's like a an important stage of the process, back and forth, the community and then the internal.
So I'm sure your listeners really
Beth Buffington: get this. They already know it, but I just had to say it. No, I think being able to point out that both sides of that spectrum are important.
I really love to be by myself while I'm creating. And and when I need to get out, like I went to a conference and in March, it was Alt Summit out in Palm Springs and I signed up for it a year ago and on the road up to it, I was I started to feel myself doubt that I wanted to go
But when I got there and I started meeting all the other entrepreneurial women that were at the conference, it just lit my soul and I got so much from it.
But when I went home, I was so glad to be back and in my office all by myself. So I think you have to know that the ebb and flow, [00:34:00] that's a thing that's healthy and that's good. You got to find that balance for yourself. Yeah,
Mary Carroll Moore: right. It's really important. That's a good point.
Beth Buffington: Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about your creative confidence. It's something that we talk a lot about on the podcast creatives who are especially wanting to Do something with their work, have to be brave enough to let their work be seen and release it out into the world. So what do you do to on your getting ready for your book, when you let something loose like that, you feel so vulnerable until you start hearing feedback because there's always that point like, what if no one likes it?
what do you do to get yourself confident and then stay there?
Mary Carroll Moore: Yeah. It's such a good question. And it varies for me, from time to time, but say from my books I decided something I learned when I had cancer I created a This is going to sound funny, but a hat party [00:35:00] team.
So when you have chemo, you lose your hair. So I decided to have a hat party and I'd heard this from someone else. And we had a ritual where they shaved my head and then everybody gave me a hat. And I, the hat party group stayed with me through the entire chemo process. And they brought me cake during the chemo sessions, which I never was able to eat, but it was the spirit of it, so they were my support team and they coached me with love through the whole, they made me juices and they brought food and they brought flowers.
So I decided with my books, I needed a hat team. It wasn't the same kind of experience. So I went through my dress book and I. kind of selected out of my past students that I was really close to and my art friends and my family and close personal friends. And I sent an email out and I said, I'm going to do this really risky thing and I need a team to support me.
Would you be willing? And in return, I'll give you an [00:36:00] advanced copy of my book. And what you'll need to do is read it and give me feedback and post positive reviews. If you don't have a positive review, you don't have to post, And I'll tell you things that I'd like you to help me with.
And I had 66 people sign up. Of that, I got 40 reviews on Amazon for my first book and 30 some for the current book. So the confidence came from this community. Because they loved the work, they loved my books, and they loved me, so they wanted to support me. And it was like, one of them said, you've been giving, this is going to sound really unmodest, and I don't mean it to be, but she said you've been giving to other writers for so long as a teacher.
It's time for us to get back to you. And I said it puts me in this really vulnerable place. And it was like the vulnerability was about receiving not, I don't know how to say this better, but there's a part of me that wants to not have to receive, [00:37:00] cause it makes me so vulnerable. I just want to give things to people and support other writers, but to receive praise and to receive the goodwill of this team was everything to me.
It built my confidence in the book so that by the time I had to go. out into the world I didn't know and be there with this new baby. I had the confidence and I was able to say my creativity, my innate creativity was able to point me to the next steps because I had that core of confidence and that came from that team and I'll, it was such a risk for me to send that first email and ask people for help but Gosh, I'm so glad I did.
And I wrote about it in my Substack newsletter. And now it's funny, I've heard from like four writers who are debuting with their first novel this year, and they're all working with teams. And I thought, Oh, good, again, that great idea, because they'll get the support they need. It was amazing support.
So that's what confidence came from for me.
Beth Buffington: Oh my gosh, that is a great idea. I can just sitting here thinking [00:38:00] about how so many people could take that hat party idea and look at it and see how they could put that into play in what they're working with. Because You could take a look at it as I am throwing my baby out into the world and you think about that's millions of people, but it just took 66 people and, 40 some people that gave you reviews for you to go, no, I actually have this.
Let's go, I'm just ready to head out the door and
Mary Carroll Moore: get on with this. Cause you don't believe it. You don't believe it. You have something you love, but your mind gets in there and starts doubting that it's worthwhile. And you really need that kind of. Support, to build the confidence up to have enough confidence to go out in the world.
I think that was my goal.
Beth Buffington: Oh my gosh. Everyone needs to stop and think, who is my hat party? Make a list of your friends, give them a call, show them what you're working on. Now We all have those people that we know, it doesn't matter how beautiful something is, they won't have something nice to say. They will point out the [00:39:00] one thing, and when you're done, you think I feel horrible now. Don't put them on your hat party, guys. Just make sure that you're finding people who are going to lift up your spirits and support you and give you encouragement.
Because if you've, like with your book, you know your editor had gone all the way through that. It had been approved for publisher. It had some wings. So you just needed to have your hat party give you some hurrahs and support so that you felt your confidence in here, in your heart to get out and do what you needed to do to market,
so let's now move to a place where I think. We've already started talking about this, but with everything that you have done and the success you've had in the art world and in writing, can you give some advice to artists or writers who are thinking how can I get where you are now?
Beth Buffington: What do I need to do? Do you have any advice to share?
Mary Carroll Moore: I think there's a big myth about age and I believe so sincerely, it's [00:40:00] never too late. I'm 70. I just published my third novel and I have another one in the works. I've, I took flying lessons, I've done a lot of things that theoretically 70 year olds wouldn't.
So you, you can't let that stop you. You can't let the kind of age barriers of our society stop you. I would think also, I've seen lots of people from backgrounds that don't encourage creativity. To who really burst forth and were able to fulfill their creative dream. So don't let your background stop you either.
The things that you were taught and brought up with. That's one of the things that I have tried to pass on to my students over the years, that it's not the limitations, like you said very eloquently. The only limitations are in yourself. So you can do what you want. You can do what you have to do in this world creatively.
That's the thing. There's that doubting voice inside, the inner critic. [00:41:00] One of the techniques that I worked with was to consider the inner critic a gatekeeper. It's not really a critical person, it's somebody who's trying to keep you safe.
Beth Buffington: And
Mary Carroll Moore: one of my Exercises in the class that I used to teach was to write a letter to renegotiate the contract with this gatekeeper, basically saying, okay, I know you're there to keep me safe.
And I have this project I really want to do. It's deep in my heart. It's really important to me. Could we say that for the next month, you won't hold me back? And people have done this actually written a letter and done this and it's a huge relief for them because it opens the door and they can actually do what they need to do without that doubting voice constantly coming in and saying maybe you shouldn't do this or your mom won't like this or your sister in law won't like this you know whatever or it's too frivolous that's one one great phrase that we for ourselves so [00:42:00] to be able to say It's something inside myself that is trying to keep me safe and safety is not the thing I need right now.
So can I renegotiate that? So that would be a piece of advice that some people want to try. Maybe this little exercise. That is
Beth Buffington: gold right there. That is gold. I think a lot of us, it takes a while to realize that voice in your head that says, that's not a good idea, or that's not your best work, or you're not ready yet, is is a voice that you don't have to listen to.
And then when you do realize that it's there, it is often hard to know how to turn it off. By writing that letter it does give you pause and it gives you a chance to say, okay, I don't have to listen to that. And let's just set a time limit for it. I love that idea. That's great. It's actually.
Oh yeah.
Yes, thank you for that. So now tell us how I mean you are a busy person You are writing you're doing art. [00:43:00] You're traveling to talk about your book.
You're teaching You're flying planes. How are you keeping balance in your life? How do you make sure that you don't get too burdened in one area or another? Where is that tipping point and how do you keep yourself straight?
Mary Carroll Moore: It's a really good question. So in the writing world, we call this plotters or pancers.
Plotters are the ones that are really structured and organized and everything is scheduled and pancers are the ones that just flow. So I like
Beth Buffington: to fly
Mary Carroll Moore: by the seat of your pants. Yes, exactly. That's where it comes from. So I think this is good. Harkens back to an earlier comment I made about the balance Transcribed between toggling between the internal time and the external time.
So the same thing happens for my life between the structuring and the flowing times. So I keep when I begin a project, whether it's a writing, like a novel or painting, I let it be completely free flow. I don't structure it. I [00:44:00] try not to structure it because I know that's usually the thing, the kiss of death for me.
for the creativity. I need to have it open. All ideas are okay. I can play with it as much as I want. And I just go with my inspiration because that's where I usually get the juice, the energy to keep going. And oftentimes I'll get a spark within that time where I get a kind of an, it's not a vision, but it's a image of what's going to happen with this if I continue it.
And Maybe I'll, if I'm writing a novel, I'll see how the ending could work. Or maybe I'll see a plot twist that I didn't think of. Or a painting, I might have a different perspective that I want to try. So those come during that free flow time. That's the gift of that. But there's a point where I have to step back and I have to use structure to make shape of what I've created.
I have to back off and I say, Okay, this is a mess of paper, this is like 350 pages in my computer and it makes no sense. So I give myself a break usually because there are two different [00:45:00] types of the mind, two different sides of the mind, and I allow myself to back up. And with writing, I use something called storyboards.
And with painting, I use a series of steps that I learned from one of my teachers. So it's an analytical phase that I go through at that point where I say, okay, I've created this, Beautiful. mess. And where's the shape in it? What shape does it want to be? What form does it want? So that's all structuring, going back now into the plotting versus the pancing.
So again, I honor both sides of that process, and I get that feeling, like I said earlier, when I start repeating things, I know that I'm, I need to take a break. There's clues that come to me when I'm in the free flow of creating that I need to step back and structure. Usually it's I start to think, what's the point?
Like kind of you said earlier, what's the point of this? Or again, I'll repeat myself. I'll do things that I know rather than explore new things. So that's usually when I have to step back and say, okay, [00:46:00] what's the point? What structure or shape can I work with to make this stronger? It's because the structure is the thing that holds it, the free flow is beautiful, but without any container, it just oozes all over the place. But the structure is the thing that, that really holds it. So I know from my teachers and from all the story structure work I've done and from the techniques, the steps I follow with painting teachers that this is a way for me to come in and rescue what I've made and create it in a stronger way.
So it can have a container
Beth Buffington: That's such good advice
So it's a kind of a balance between. Just your flower power child that's wild and free forever. And then that accountant that has the glasses on pushing up saying, let's do our numbers now.
So having a balance between those two is, is that's a really good advice. Really good advice.
Mary Carroll Moore: And some people start with the structure, and I think that's fine, too. It just depends on how you're trained. Like I know several of my painting teachers always started [00:47:00] with black and white sketches, like value sketches, and they would work with color studies, and they'd select their palette of colors first, and they do all of that prep work, and I can't do it.
It's just not me, so I go into the free flow first, and then from there, I get to the mess point, and then I go back and go, okay. Time to collect it, do all the things that they were doing first. So it just depends on who you are and how you're wired, really. What makes sense to you. I don't think one's better than the other.
Beth Buffington: I think when you have someone like you, that will say, Here's some ideas and here's how maybe they break down into categories, then you as a creative can say, Ooh, I think that's me. I can see myself there. But I think having someone say the obvious, that's what teachers do is just teach the obvious because you don't know it until someone says it.
then you can come to that realization that, Oh, now I know why I can't get a project finished. That's because I need to get out of free flow and clean things [00:48:00] up or the opposite, but yeah, you've, you have to see where you need to maybe realign yourself or adjust a little bit.
So I think that's going to be very helpful for a lot of people. Yes. Very good. Thanks for sharing that. Tell us out there what you're doing right now. How can listeners find you? And we'll have a lot of this information on the show notes, but I just want to have you share that. Where are you right now and what are you doing so that we know how to find you?
Mary Carroll Moore: I have what I think is a wonderful website. I had the opportunity to redo it last year when my second novel came out and I spent a lot of time learning Squarespace and figuring out how I wanted to incorporate both my writing and my art on my website. My website is marycarolmoore. com and it's 2 2 O's.
MaryCarolMoore. com and on there are my excerpts from my novels, videos links to my website, my excuse me, my Substack newsletter, and [00:49:00] galleries, my galleries, so people can go and see my paintings and see what I've been doing. They can also email me from there and ask questions. And then my weekly newsletter, it's free.
It's on Substack it's called marycaramore. substack. com, and it's called your weekly writing exercise, but I've expanded that to be your weekly creative exercise, so a lot of times it's creative exercises that people can do to sustain a practice. My whole focus of that newsletter, I've been writing it since 2008, every Friday.
Is to keep people going with their practice, because I think practice is the, make or break of a creative life, really. And then I'm all, I'm on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and threads, so people can find me there by my name.
Beth Buffington: Great, great. And Your Substack newsletter is really wonderful.
That's where she has an entire article, everyone, about toggling. And I think you'll find a lot of good out of that. And [00:50:00] please visit Mary's website and see some of her beautiful art. I, when I meet people for the first time I'm always, Love when I get to see their art, when I get to meet their personality, cause then you really get to know a whole person that way.
So yeah, make sure everyone that you visit Mary's website so that you really get a full feel for who we are listening to today. So do check that out. Now, Mary, tell us a little bit about the two books that you have just released. Those two little babies that you've sent out into the world.
Mary Carroll Moore: My newest one, last bets is Right here.
The color is so beautiful, I had to show it. So that's the, that's this one. And it just came out April 21st, and it became an Amazon hot new release and number one bestseller. So I thought, woo! It's about two women painters of different generations, a 30 year old and a teenager who are trapped on an island in the Caribbean right before a [00:51:00] hurricane arrives.
And the whole premise is that they escape to paradise and they find trouble instead. So it's got a paranormal aspect. This is the first time I've done anything What we call speculative fiction which is out of the normal every day But one of the painters has the ability to see the future of her subjects as she's painting their portrait And she's gotten into terrible trouble for this because she's painted famous people And she's incorporated almost unconsciously these things she sees about them that they would rather hide from the world And so she's running from that scandal, lands on this island, and meets this young Australian girl, Rosie, who is also dying to be an artist.
She's the M. C. Escher style of sketcher, and she's trying to apply to art school, and they, burst their enemies and then they come together. And the artistic vision that each of them brings to the story, I think is the key to how it works. How is Ellie going to use this paranormal ability and what's going to [00:52:00] happen with her talent and how will she use it for her, for the greater good, in other words, instead of just herself.
So that's the essence of that story. And then a woman's guide to search and rescue, which is based on my mom, the pilot. And the inspiration for two women pilots who are estranged sisters who reunite under very dicey circumstances when one of them is being pursued by the law. So I hope that y'all check those out.
And I think they're really fun stories. They're uplifts. At the end, there's conflict, but there's
Beth Buffington: uplift. I love books about art and artists and you don't find a lot of those. So whenever I do, I always snatch them up. So I am in the middle of reading Last Bets Everyone, and it's very good. So go and find it and enjoy.
Yes. We'll, I'll put a link to the Amazon page, so it's really easy to go find it for you. Won't be hard to find it because it will be in the show notes, everyone. [00:53:00] So that, you're so busy. How do you even have time to brush your teeth? I don't know. I know. Oh, I know. Or snuggle my dogs. That's what they
Mary Carroll Moore: think.
Beth Buffington: Yeah. Mary has so Two ducks and puppies. She's training. So she's added that to her plate. My gosh.
Mary Carroll Moore: It's fun though. Makes me stop doing what I'm doing. He stopped focusing mom and pay attention to us. Puppies are needy and then you've
Beth Buffington: multiplied by two. I know. Mary, this has been just the best time I've enjoyed every single minute getting to know you and getting to know more about your art and your creativity.
I think that you've been just a blessing to so many people that are listening today. We've enjoyed learning about just how you've struggled through terrible things like breast cancer and came out on the other side to give back and just grow your creativity. Through lessons learned and the sharing that [00:54:00] you gave to others.
And I love too, how you have said new chapter, new me, what's next and turned to writing fiction and then got your painting back up and took flying lessons. And who knows what you're going to do next? I know you'll have to let me know, keep in touch, but I think that you've been just a. Just a bright ray of optimism in our world today for everyone that is wondering, how can I grow my creative business or how can I grow my creativity?
And is it time? Is it too late? What do I have to wait for? And the answer is. Just do it. Just get out there and do it. Yeah. So thank you so much, Mary. You've been such a great chat. I appreciate your time today. I loved it. Thanks, Beth. You're welcome. You're welcome. We'll have to have you back when your next book is ready because I think you just said there's going [00:55:00] to be one.
I hope so. So in the meantime, everyone, so much. Thank you for coming in and listening. I appreciate each and every one of you that comes back to learn a little bit about how creativity can help you in heart, mind, body, and soul. And until we meet again, stay creative, my friend.
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