563 - Find Your Inner Writer, What You Want to Say and See Your Ideas with Halsey Berryman

0:00This is not an ad. It's a gift. I'm going to be at the Icon Illustration Conference this year in July doing a handful of different things. And I asked them if they could give me a discount for the listeners of the show because I would love to see you there and hang out at the after parties and whatnot. And they let me have a$100 discount to share with you, which is just so generous and so awesome. If you're an illustrator, I highly recommend going to Icon. It's been a magical experience. The times that I've gone, even the first time in 2014 that I went, it was a very scary leap. but so worth it.

0:31Go to icon.creativepeptalk.com to learn more. The discount is automatically applied to that link. icon.creativepeptalk.com. Hope to see you there. You've probably heard that having a unique point of view is essential to being a creative person and having successful creative work. But the problem is your point of view is kind of like water to a fish. It's just what you've always swam in. You didn't even realize it was a thing. You just thought it was being. It's really difficult to figure out like what is unique about how I see things or even to notice how you see things at all. Like notice what you notice.

1:12That's a difficult thing and it's the work of being an artist. Today on the show, I have Halsey Berryman. She created this book called Pests and Other Friends, Discover the True Nature of the most maligned animals and the reason i wanted to have her on the show is because she did an excellent job of making this leap from illustration and aesthetics into authorship and i think this leap is a key step in building a thriving creative practice that matters even if you are someone who is deeply in the aesthetic side like a visual artist like an illustrator but even musicians A lot of musicians are very into the instrumental.

1:52And then when it comes to having something to say, they're a little bit less sure. And that key jump, the key to that is figuring out what your point of view is. What do you have to share with the world that is not how everybody else sees it? And so we're going to get into that in just a second. Stick to the end for our creative call to adventure. It's called What They Can't See. And it's a little exercise that you can do right now to start figuring out what is that difference that I've got that I could share, that I could say something in my work, that I could author something. I could start writing a post that I illustrate, or I could start adding lettering to my work.

2:33How do I find what my topic and my point of view should be? And so we're going to get into that at the end. But for now, enjoy us diving deep into this topic with Halsey Berryman. On the creative journey, it's easy to get lost, but don't worry, you'll lift up. Sometimes you just need a creative pep talk.

3:06You know that feeling when you're creating a mood board for styling your house or your studio, but there's this pesky feeling in the back of your head that's saying, you're wasting your time. You're never going to be able to afford any of this. That happened to me when I started putting together my podcast studio room. There was this one piece that I knew would bring it all together. It was like a dark green bubble looking couch. And I went online looking for some kind of compromise that would be somewhat kind of like what I wanted, but then boom, Wayfair had exactly what I was looking for at a price that I did not expect.

3:39The green Key Hila Modern Boucle Love Seat is one of my favorite pieces of furniture that I have ever owned. If you have a space that doesn't match your taste, I highly recommend checking out Wayfair. There is a huge selection, great price, and with Wayfair verified, you can shortcut to the good stuff. Their team of product specialists vets everything by hand using a 10-point inspection, testing things like quality of materials, functionality, and features, and even how long it takes to build. Ready to upgrade your home for less? Head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home and get your space ready for less.

4:14That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. I freaking love having Squarespace as a sponsor because it's easy to sell it when you love something this much. I'm a big fan. Squarespace is an all-in-one website platform designed to help you succeed online. Here's what I love about Squarespace. They're intuitive and super versatile drag-and-drop tools. I mean, you can make a custom website without knowledge of code that makes people say, whoa, who made that for you? Looks like you built that from scratch. People have really said stuff like that to me about my site, and I built it myself quite easily with Squarespace.

4:54You can check it out at AndyJPizza.com if you want to check that out, what I did with it. It doesn't look templaty and it screams my creative brand. I also love that I have all of my domains through Squarespace now, which makes it seamless and easy to manage. I know the first thing us creative folks do when we get an idea is to grab that URL. Now you can keep track of all your websites and your domains in one place that's super intuitive and easy to manage. Head to Squarespace.com slash peptalk for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use promo code PEPTALK, all one word, to save 10 % off your first purchase of a website or domain.

5:31I talk about art a lot more than I talk about writing because this is – my bread and butter is illustration and the writing kind of came second. I remember being a good writer in like high school and college, but I went to art school. So that was – I was mostly writing about art as well. So this was kind of like a new foray for me for this book. That makes sense. So you do think of yourself more as an illustrator or artist than you do think of yourself as a writer or author. Absolutely. Yeah, I think the pictures always come first. I think especially in this book, the writing was kind of secondary to convincing people to love animals.

6:13I think the pictures or the drawings, I think anything that's made with human hands can convince people more. And I love writing, too, and I love reading. But I think the visual, especially in this case, could be important because people have so many opinions already about what pests are. And I think adding that little visual input could help change the minds of people, which is the goal. Yeah, and it's a gorgeous book. And it's a gorgeous book. Thank you. to animals that we don't think of as gorgeous, which is just a really good move in that direction anyway. Well, I love what you said about the pictures coming first.

6:52I like to think of illustration as my favorite definition is writing with pictures. And so even just like thinking, noticing what you want to draw is kind of a note on authorship of like, I want to explore this space. That's what I want to talk to you about is like, how do artists bridge that gap between getting into this for the aesthetics or being drawn by the visual, but then needing to say something and having kind of an authorship to what they do can feel like a really intimidating leap. And you've done this really, really well. Uh, did, thank you. Yeah. Did, um, how did you recognize this was a book idea?

7:32First of all? Well, I never really did. I, um, so I always tell people the the reason why i wrote this book is because i saw a dead pigeon on the side of the road um that's a book that's what you saw yeah it did it it slowly but surely became a book um i saw this dead pigeon on the side of the road i was walking my dog it was march of 2021 that kind of pandemic vibe where i wasn't seeing any other people i was just me and my dog and the sidewalk and now this pigeon and somebody had taken it upon themselves to stick a cigarette butt in its mouth And that just broke my heart open completely, especially during that time.

8:11So that image has stuck with me for years. So that's 2021. I started making a huge body of work dedicated almost exclusively to underdog animals. I drew a lot of pigeons and rats and crows and raccoons simply because I think it was I think pests, although people find them the least relatable of all the animals, I think they're the most because they spend the most time around humans. and have to live in human centric environments. So I made a calendar that was also called Pests and Other Friends where I picked 12 different pests. And that's how the book came to be. I think I just wanted it to be bigger.

8:52And now the book has six over 60 species of pests and they're all from North America. So it all started with the dead pigeon. Yeah, that's a heartbreaking image. Like, yeah, nice. But it's interesting on the creative side of noticing. Were you already like familiar with when my heart breaks? I need to make something. Absolutely. I mean, I think all of us bleeding hearts who like go to art school or draw for a living or for not have something that we need to express that doesn't come naturally in words already. so that's my first instinct anytime I feel almost anything so yeah it's easy to forget when you start making it a commercial practice and you start thinking about what's going to get views what's going to get traction what should I make what would be smart to make it's for me there are times where I really get disconnected from oh I'm feeling something that's the starting block of some art.

9:53Right. I mean, it's hard to say. I think I try and ban the word should from my studio practice altogether because I mean, not to date myself, but I went to college between like 2010 and 2014. And so, and so that was like the very early stages of like documenting and posting all of your work to be seen on the internet. And I remember like all my professors kind of like scoffing at that idea and I I get it but we also kind of are in this world where we have to do those things so I try to live in that like liminal space of okay I'm pretending like I'm existing outside of this like I do in other parts of my life like I'm just going to pretend like I'm in the 90s I don't need to pay attention to every text message every notification that comes on my phone like people are not required to be tethered to some object that like brings them in contact with the world at all times.

10:50And I think, especially as an artist, you can't, you need to limit that because there's too much feedback coming in at all times with people who probably wouldn't be interacting with your work in a more like, I don't know if it's a true setting, but kind of an intentional setting. So I, yeah, that's a long answer to like, I try to really avoid that word should and just make what feels inspiring to me. because I find that when I don't and I'm answering the call of like, what's going to do well on Instagram, it doesn't do well anyway. So, right. I think it was almost never fruitful. And your answer reminded me of this quote from this mathematician who really hated email.

11:35And he said, email's great if your job is to stay on top of things, but my job is to get to the bottom of things. And I think artists have to relate to that. And that's why I think it's, yeah, Just being mindful of like, just because I'm getting these inbound requests doesn't mean that they own my time or that I owe them anything necessarily. I like to try to connect with people that dig the work that I make, but you have to keep that within reason, I think. So you were talking about pests. That's what the whole book is about. I think there is, when I was starting out, I had this knee jerk negative reaction to niching down in any way.

12:16And that's part of what like having a point of view is about. Like it's about saying, I'm saying this thing, not all of the other things. And for some people, like they think animal illustration is too constrictive of a niche. You went a lot further than that with pests. I'm curious if you found it really constraining or was it inspiring and opened up other things? I mean, I I'm just drawn to them any naturally, but, um, I've heard the niching down conversation a lot as like, I've progressed through my career. And at times, like I started out as kind of a lettering artist, almost exclusively. Like I worked for trader Joe's as a sign artist in college.

12:59And then I like parlayed that into the beginnings of my freelance career. And that was kind of me answering the call of like, okay, how am I going to get make money how am I going to do well and I think that felt restrictive because I felt like having something to say had to be constrained into literally having something to say with words even though the type was the expressive part of the medium so I think subject matter isn't necessarily a tough niche to stay in because what I'm talking about with pests is not really animals at all. I'm talking about humanity. So I think there's a lot of different ways to talk about humanity.

13:43I think almost all art talks about humanity, no matter the subject. So I find like animals are really relatable sort of subject that people can, of all ages can identify with. Everybody has experiences with animals and pests are just elicit such an emotional response from people. So I think that even like engaging with humanity on sort of multiple levels, like you're getting an emotional response just from seeing like a pigeon, like my aunt calls them rats with wings still. And she's like, very worried about this book and what it's going to do. It's going to create a whole movement of, you know, feeding pigeons and breeding pigeons.

14:25They're going to take over everything. They're going to be everywhere. It's going to be a Hitchcockian nightmare because of me apparently. So yeah, that, that adds up. I love the point you made about when, when people start thinking about niching down, niching down, I'll say it both ways. I just, I just go all over the place. I'm just choosing my free will here. I think it's easy to kind of have a preconception of what that means. So when, when I hear it, I don't jump to, oh, it's lettering or logos or editorial, whatever, that, that is part of it, or it can be a way to choose a focus. And it's not like just because you did this book on pests, you can't do a different book that's in a totally different arena.

15:06But when I think about niching down, I think more like, are there ways that within the market or within the sphere of artists that you find yourself in, find yourself in, how do you just give them something to latch onto some way of entering it? some point of view, which gets to the authorship piece. And I also very much relate to what you said about like these, when you're writing about pests, you're really writing about humans and you're writing about life and your perspective. And you can do that on any topic and especially one that you just have a special interest in. For me, doing this podcast for 10 years about creativity, some people are like, man, how do you still have stuff to say about this?

15:49Like, Like, well, most of the time we're just talking. I'm talking about life. I'm talking about the things I'm thinking about through this lens. And so it doesn't have to be as intimidating and as constrictive as it may sound.

16:12Man, I can't tell you how badly I wish I had been able to find a great therapist that accepted my insurance back in my mid-20s. I was figuring out I was ADHD, I was struggling in my career and struggling to support a new family and finding a good therapist that I could afford would have been a total game changer. I'm almost 40 now and I've been in therapy in some capacity for the past few years and it has made such a massive impact on my mental health. I truly wish that everybody could do it and that is why I'm thrilled to tell you about Rula. Rula is an online healthcare company that allows you to quickly and easily find therapists that accept your insurance.

16:49Literally, the first thing you do on their site is put your zip code in and your insurance into the search bar and Rula asks you a few simple questions about the care that you're looking for and boom, delivers lots of options of therapists that take your insurance. Rula patients typically pay$15 per session when they use their insurance and I love how this is making therapy accessible to more people. Thousands of people are already using Rula to get affordable, high-quality therapy that's actually covered by insurance. Visit Rula.com slash Pep Talk to get started. That's R-U-L-A.com slash Pep Talk.

17:25You deserve mental health care that works with you, not against your budget.

17:35With the podcast, kids' books, and talks, writing has become as much a part of my job as illustration, and it can feel really hard sometimes. But I recently heard this thing from Goosebumps writer R.L. Stine that really shifted things in my mind. He said, writing is fun. Like, go sit down and have some fun. Like, that's what it's about. Don't listen to all those writers that say that it's torture. He went on to share three easy places to find ideas. He calls this the idea store. And it means mining your daily experience, your memories from the past, and your imagination. This made the prospect of returning to the page so much less intimidating.

18:14All of this was from R.L. Stine's class on masterclass, on writing for young audiences, something that I know a lot of you are working on. There are 200 more classes like this and for every other area of your work and life, chock full of little moments you didn't know you needed. Three and four members feel inspired every time they watch. 83 % have applied something they've learned to their real lives and there's no risk. every new membership comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Masterclass keeps adding new classes, so there's never been a better time to get in. Right now, as a listener to this show, you get 15 % off any annual membership at masterclass.com slash peptalk.

18:51That's 15 % off at masterclass.com slash peptalk. Head to masterclass.com slash peptalk to see the latest offer.

19:02Do you have any tips for artists that want to write? Like one of the things that I recommend to a lot of artists is like write the articles that you want to illustrate, but the feedback that you get is, yeah, but I'm not a writer. I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to say this. And then the same goes for if you're an actor, you know, write your own scripts, but there's just huge, there's like, there's the intuitive side of art and creativity. And then there's the more like maybe logical or formal side of creativity. And I have found like finding a way to marry those things, even if it's uncomfortable, it's so powerful.

19:41But were you intimidated? Like as you're making a book, did you have a crisis, like imposter syndrome of like, who, why would I be able to do this? I mean, I'll let you know when that crisis is over. You're right in the thick of it right now. I'm right in it. My book comes out a week from today. This is my first book. I never thought, I mean, I've been a freelance illustrator for eight years this year, full time at least. And thank you. I never, I thought like, I think in the arts, everybody is kind of just the brass ring is to just do, be doing art full time. Yeah, right. So I've always just kind of set that as my bar.

20:23And then writing a book was a completely unexpected thing that happened. But was I intimidated? Yeah, I'm still intimidated. I'm intimidated, waiting for what people are going to think about it. Like, I think that people don't talk about that enough. Like, I've been done with this book for over six months, like completely. and revisiting something that already feels old work like old work to me um is a strange experience but the writing of it I just started to see it as the same thing as drawing where you're looking at either a blank google doc or a blank canvas or a blank procreate document like no matter what and you have to just start and the way that I mean as a like a draftsman primarily primarily I you don't start drawing like the fine rendering of it when you're first attacking your subject you you just draw contours or gestures and it's the same thing in writing that I found especially and it's a little bit easier with non-fiction I think at least because I've never kind of done any creative fiction writing but this is like okay writing an outline is the same thing as doing a gesture drawing like what do I want to have said what do I want people to take away from this section on pigeons and it's kind of like the understanding by design approach that I they teach you that when you're learning about education and it's like what do you want the end result to be and then work backwards from there so there's a lot of stuff that got cut from the book because it's only 25 % writing and 75 % illustration, but I could have probably gone on and on and on.

22:06So it became more of a matter of curating what I'm going to say more than like being afraid to attack the blank page. Yeah. That makes tons of sense. I love what you said about, you kind of described coming at it from both angles. I think about this a lot. Like there's the plotting and the pantsing. The plotting is starting with the end and working backwards, having an idea of like, this is what I'm after, which, you know, with your drawing, you have an idea of like, this is the thing I'm trying to capture. This is the thing I want people to take from it. You do the same with writing, but then you can also start from the other side, which is just start, just get words down and somehow meet in the middle and they have the finished thing.

22:43Yeah. It's like those hydraulic presses on Instagram. Like it's, you've got to attack it from both sides. And then eventually like you'll end up with this sliver. That's very approachable. I love that. One other question, when you're thinking about entering some kind of space of authorship, saying something, making a statement, having subject matter even like I found when I, it's still a challenge at times, but like when I was first starting out, even just choosing what to draw, if it's my personal work feels like a type of authorship that can be intimidating, Right. Like and you can waste your whole creative session thinking, should I draw a possum?

23:25Should I draw a crow? Should I, you know, all that kind of stuff like. But you have learned from making a book like this and maybe from other areas, the power of like research and note taking and in building your art from that space. Do you have any tips about doing that effectively? Yeah, I think the most this series, this book was really born to like design wise from a series that I've been working on since early 2024. And then actually Inktober really kicked me into this sort of like style or method of working. I really enjoy taking notes because I'm trying to suss out what is the most important thing about this animal or this subject that I want to make sure ends up in the final product.

24:14So a lot of times I'll just go down Wikipedia rabbit holes about a weird bird and read about like the particular fish that they like to eat. And I would want to put that in the drawing. kind of making creating like a modular system of working always helps too because it breaks things down into smaller pieces um so the note-taking aspect too is just find out if you find pick a subject that you or notice what you notice is what all art school professors say um and grab on to any of that you're not running out of time do whatever feels the most authentic in that moment and take on if it's the pigeon today and the possum tomorrow, that's fine.

24:57But then learn as much as you can about that one subject and something will jump out at you that might inspire another future piece too. So I just think research as nerdy as it sounds, I think is like a sister of the arts because there's so much information out there and you don't know what you don't know. I love that. And I think, you know, you're describing it kind of like researching and your heart and your mind and your curiosity are like a metal detector and you have to tune into when did it go off and part of that is going back to what you said earlier where it's like get rid of the should element because it reminds me of something I heard uh illustrator Lisa Hannah Walt say in an interview once she was talking about how she would get an editorial job and she'd instantly be like okay what would an editorial artist do what should they do if you're an editorial artist and it gets you into this headspace where you you're not listening to your own curiosity you're not in touch with what moved you most of the time what moved you is something novel in particular to you it's very easy i feel like almost all the other education outside of creativity tells you to ignore all of that distraction and that and creativity is about like tuning into the little weird thing that caught your attention that's where not like just content from for content creation sake, but like substance content for me, that's where the heart of it is.

26:21Like that's when I know I have an episode or a picture book or something where it's like, oh, it's just a little weird thing that it lit me up. Totally. Like I was reading about woodpeckers for the book and I've been going over my slides for my presentation that's coming soon. So this is top of mind for me right now, but I was looking at my notes. I take two different sets of notes. Like one is for the illustration only. And then I duplicate that document and then add on to it for the writing portion. When woodpeckers are banging on stuff to like to for the sole purpose of making noise, it's called drumming.

26:53So I illustrated. I didn't even know they did that. Yeah, they do it on stop signs and road signs and stuff to like claim territory and stuff like that. So, yeah. And it's called drumming. So I put, I illustrated a, a drum on the page because it's one, that's what stuck out to me too. It makes it relatable. And then three, like you have to think about what to, what, like the viewer is going to be surprised by a lot of the decisions you make. It might seem natural to you and second nature to you, but the viewer might see that and be like, that might open their mind because it's already in your head, but you don't know what other people are thinking.