Clay Morgan and the Art of Field Research

moving the podcast – interview from August 20, 2013

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I asked Clay to come talk to us about his writing process. Clay talks about the unique challenges of writing book number 2, fully experiencing the adventure of field research (while still taking notes), and how he turns it all into a book worth reading.

Scroll down a little further to see a couple of short videos from our talk last year!

“There are just stories upon stories that are hidden in these trips and these tales,
and it’s going to be very fun when I finally get to tell them all.”

0:00 ~ writing book #2: “Definitely no room to relax.”
8:50 ~ the unique challenges of doing field research
16:45 ~ turning the bits and pieces into a book
26:45 ~ creative momentum (and it’s never finished, just submitted)
29:20 ~ “When you write non-fiction, you’re the character”
33:30 ~ a few teasers (couldn’t you just smack him?)

Here are two Clay Bonuses:
I’ve previously posted the audio from my Undead interviews with Clay. Here is the last piece, where Clay breaks down the chapters from that book.

And here is a little fun bit we did, where I gave Clay a Pop Culture Quiz.

Connect with Clay
on his blog Storymen.us
on Twitter @ClayMorganPA
on Facebook
on YouTube usahistoryguy
on The StoryMen podcast

Buy his first book Undead!
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References
Donald Miller
Michael Hyatt
Tony Horwitz
Confederates in the Attic
Sarah Vowell
Assasination Vacation
Chuck Klosterman
Leanne Shirtliffe
Leanne’s interview on this podcast
A.J. Jacobs
Guinea Pig Diaries
The Year of Living Biblically

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