When The Mind Goes Quiet

SPEAKER_00 0:00

When you're out on a wild river or a forest or sailing open water with no clear plan or sitting alone in a cave, sitting with nothing but a headlamp. Something in that moment in your mind goes quiet in a way that it almost never does in ordinary life. The noise almost stops and the tourist disappears. And today we are talking about what adventure does to a mind that needs space to breathe and how one writer who has spent his life chasing those moments and then turning them into stories the rest of us get to live through on the page.

Meet Adventure Novelist Rick

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Welcome back to another episode of Healthy Mind Helly Life, the show where we have honest and practical conversations like these. My name is Cyan, as some of you would know, and my guest today is Rick Place. He's an adventure novelist, award-winning songwriter, Stanford Creative Writing Program aluminus, and Vanderblade graduate, whose books including the Purple River, Spanish Pieces of Eight, Ralph and Murray, and his latest Eight Pieces of Eight are rooted in the real rivers, oceans, and wild places that he's actually explored himself. So, Rick, welcome to the show. It's a pleasure to have you here with me. And I think, oof, that's a lot of creative stuff right there. So it's an honor to have you here with me.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Well, thank you. I'm I'm happy to be here. Just hearing you say it wears me out. You know, seems like a lot, but it's been all fun, all fun things.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Yeah, I I mean I I totally feel it. So uh Rick, before we start with this, a little uh disclaimer for all the listeners. Some statements may reflect personal belief and experiences, and I presented as individual views and not medical advice. Listeners should please consult qualified professionals or medical conditions. So, Rick, I I really want to start with something uh that sits on that human edge before we get into writing, which is you have kayaked wild rivers, okay, sail the Caribbean and uh even gone diving for centuries, old shipwrecks. Now, uh, that is something that I think most people really dream about, you know, doing all those wild stuff. And you actually did

Restlessness And The Pull Outside

SPEAKER_00 2:06

it. So what was it that first pulled you towards that kind of experience? Was it curiosity, uh something that you wouldn't actually lean off towards, or you know, was it restlessness on the other on the other side, or something else that you would like to share?

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Well, I think it it might be something like restlessness. I had a regular career which required me to be home and I had children and responsibilities, but when we go on a vacation, a lot of people would want to go to Hawaii or Florida or some beach and and just relax and sit there. And I certainly enjoy that. But my my trips, I just tended to want to do different kinds of things. And I like to be outdoors, and that seemed like the right thing to do. When I wrote a lot of these books, I was living in California, and of course, the weather out there they typically don't have winter, and so you can stay busy a lot of the time. But irregardless of that, I just like to be out, I like to have different adventures, and most importantly, I like to learn new things and to be involved in new things. The the fun thing about it was when I started doing those things, and and I decided to write books about it. I I was coming from a beginner. I was just learning to kayak. And so I could really felt like I could really lay it down in the book about how to get started and and and the excitement of it. And so it was an old hat to me. It was brand new and exciting, and it made for uh a fun book to write.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Beautiful.

Planning Enough To Stay Moving

SPEAKER_00 3:44

I love it. And something, Rick, that is shared in that, in there, and I just, you know, out of curiosity, want to ask you that, you know, from the way you narrated that, I'm sure you're more of a spontaneous kind of a person. So when you're really traveling uh somewhere, right? And this is a little off topic, but I would uh you know like to touch upon this, is that uh I I hear people, you know, plan out stuff, you know, like we're gonna go here and from there we're gonna go here, and you know, we're gonna get a hotel by the beach or whatever it is, right? And you know, plan out stuff. But out of curiosity, I just want to ask you, right? From whatever traveling that you have done, do you think traveling without a plan leads to more of a creative version of yourself? Or is it something that really is hidden in that spontaneity of what a person or individual discovers when it when you know he he he or she goes out on, let's say an unplanned trip or you know, an unexplored place? What would you like to share?

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Well, I I hear what you're saying about um uh planning versus spontaneity. And yeah, you know, really the spontaneity is is a lot of what this is about. However, I have to say that, you know, I I've lived a fairly good long life, and I know that if it's too much spontaneity, you're gonna be sitting in the corner reading, twiddling your thumbs or reading the paper. So there has to be a certain amount of structure in these adventures. And and I think that the idea that everything's totally spontaneous is not what it's about. What it's really about is having an adventure that has a has a plan and you know what you're doing, but the adventure itself is brand new. And the and of course, the people you're with are they either new people or they're people you already know that you know they have their own separate experience on these kind of wild or exciting trips, and and you see different parts of those people. And and that's an important thing because characters in my stories are really the crux of the stories. They take place on on a river or sailing in the ocean or in a deep dark cave. But that's the setting, but they're really about the people, and I enjoy seeing how people interact in those types of of different environments.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Yeah, that's well said, I think. And I think that's that's such an honest way to really put it. And I think that really speaks a lot to our listeners today who are listening to this right now.

Fear And Learning Wild Rivers

SPEAKER_00 6:23

And uh, you know, now I I want to talk about your experiences, and since you said that, you know, there should be some degree of structure, but you know, I I want to go back to your story when you were learning to, you know, kayak wild rivers, rivers that you had you had never run before. Uh I mean, there must have been moments of fear, uh like real fear, like real uncertainty, right? So how did you really handle that internally? And looking back, what did those moments you know teach you about yourself that you couldn't have learned anywhere else?

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Well, I think that I mean, I was kayaking down some of these rivers in Oregon and California and Idaho, and I didn't know a lot about it, but my my friend, who I you I had worked with in the past, we did a lot of activities, and he'd come up with these river trips, and I'd say, Well, I guess I'll go. And we'd take off down those those rivers, and everything would be new. But, you know, I can remember back though in those days, I was excited about the new. And if there was a rapid I hadn't run before, I said, Well, good, let's just hit it. And, you know, when we were we had guides and they would say, you know, come in on the left of this of this rapid, and then after the first curl, move to the right, and then eddy out on the side, and you do that stuff. And so you'd you you'd know what you're supposed to do, and but doing it because it didn't always work out. Sometimes when you paddle right, it'd a wave would hit you and you'd pop the other way, and and you could get into trouble. What was fun about it is that I could write about those adventures of getting into trouble. Well, funny story is when I after I wrote the Purple River, I sent copies to the guides. They lived in Oregon and they had a shop there, and they sold them there in their store. But I told them, I said, you know, when we went down the uh the salmon river in Idaho, the the met the middle fork joined the main fork at one point, and I made up this story about how the middle fork was over was overrun and it was a big wall of water and it was a flood and it was flooding everybody out. And I said, I know that didn't happen. And so I made it up, and they said, Oh yeah, it happened the year after you were there. It had it happened just like your book. So, you know, those are fun kind of things that you can kind of extrapolate, is what I say, you know. They they it didn't happen to me, but it could have happened, and I write it into the book for the with the characters, so that's kind of fun.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Yeah, I love that. And yeah, you're you're spot on with that. I think there's something uh, you know, about learning a brand new skill, you know, kayaking, for example, in in a demanding environment. And at any age, at any point of time, because I think you know that really matters beyond the activity itself. And you know, the idea, Rick, that I would say, you know, there's something really important that I mean, in the idea that novelty and challenge, even when uncomfortable, I mean, these are the things that are actually good for us, right? It's the opposite of what our anxious mind in our daily

Writing Turns Life Into Meaning

SPEAKER_00 9:45

lives tell us. So, which brings me to this creative side of all of this that you, like you said, didn't go on these adventures. You actually came back and wrote about those experiences, the Purple River, you know, Spanish pieces of eight, your upcoming uh Tennessee Cave novel, these I think all came directly out of your lived experience. So, for you personally, what does the act of writing do that experience alone doesn't? You know, is there something about putting it into a story that processes it differently or something that you would like to share?

SPEAKER_01 10:14

It's one of the biggest joys that I have. A lot of joys in life, and I've enjoyed a lot of things. But sitting down and writing a book, and let me give you the idea that if you're when you're writing a book, a novel like that, you are making up the world. Now you don't make up, you know, I didn't make up the river. It was there. And I didn't make up the fact that you have to paddle with a sweepstroke or a J stroke and to get down that river. I didn't make that part up. But what happens on that river and what happens with the people is my world and I make it up. And if I want to have a real pretty girl fall in love with the with the narrator, and then I can do that. Or if I want to have somebody fall off a cliff and and bust their head open, I can do that. Or I can I can do any of that. And so the creativity of it is is very fun.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Endless.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Yeah, and and the thing is, uh what's really fun I found out in the first few books I wrote was that I would say, okay, I know I'm gonna get from here to there in the story, and here, and I know these people are gonna do this, but I didn't know exactly how they would do it. But I thought they would, you know, I start writing, I think I I thought they would do this. But it turns out when when this character said this, this other character said something that I didn't think he was gonna say. But he had to because that's who he was. He's got his own, he he may he makes his own thing. Life. And so it turns out the book, the story goes a little different way than I was thinking because these characters say what they're gonna say. And and you and that you just get a smile on your face. You said, This is so fun. I I own this world and it's got a life of its own. So, you know, everybody might not identify with that, but a lot of people that read a lot of novels, they enjoy that kind of of spontaneity in the characters. And I think you feel it in the ki in my characters. I think they're real life people, and I respect each one of them for who they are. That may sound funny, but that's what I do.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Well, it I I think, yeah, what what you're describing here is uh really something that's universal, you know, that that creativity in whatever form it takes gives us somewhere to put things in perspective, you know, a place to really sit down and jot down the emotion that has nowhere else to go, right? And the form that it takes is often beautiful than not.

Finding Adventure Again Through Books

SPEAKER_00 12:49

So if someone uh listening to this, Rick, right now, has never done anything like you've described, you know, never uh kayaked a river, never sailed open water, never sat down to write anything longer than a work email, maybe. So I mean, but something in this conversation that uh probably stirs something in them. So where do they start? Was the smallest and most perhaps say accessible version of what you're talking about would be realistic to them? What would you like to invite them to?

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Well, you mean as far as being a reader goes? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Yeah. Of course. Adventure, I mean, you know, j not just the reading part of it, you know, the whole creative process and maybe a person where he finds comfort and how does he, you know, uh jot down his emotions and you know, relate to the stories that we are talking about today. So what would you really invite them to think about?

SPEAKER_01 13:42

Well, I think that that as a reader let me see if I got my train of thought here. Yeah, I don't have my train of thought.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Okay, uh let me let me rephrase this. So for someone who feels like you know they have lost their sense of adventure, maybe life got you know way too busy, caught heavy. What would you say to them about whether it's too late to find it again?

SPEAKER_01 14:11

I think it's not too late. I think if you if you read, for example, Spanish pieces of eight, a lot of reviewers have said that you know it's a it's a fun story about this family and greed and this treasure they're finding and sailing uh in the Virgin Islands and other places. But they said, but this book is really about the outdoors and it's about being in those places. And and if you haven't, one of them said, if you haven't been to the Virgin Islands, you'll want to go. And if you have been, you'll want to go back when you read Spanish pieces of eight. And so I think that somebody that would like to get going on some adventure, take a look at at uh Spanish pieces of eight, eight pieces of eight, and and get a feel for what these outdoors uh uh adventures are about, and and think about what where you might like to go. I can give you, I can tell you this that one person who edited Spanish Pieces of Ape, did one of the edits on it, she got together with her husband and they went to the Virgin Islands and he and went to every port and every marina that was in the book. And of course it bounces from one to from one to another to about 15 of them. They went to everyone in order, just like it was in the book, because they just they they just they were compelled because it sounded like a place they would like. And so I'd love to see more people doing that. I think they would get a big kick out of it.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

Yeah,

A Pandemic Story Told By Pets

SPEAKER_00 15:50

definitely. And on the other hand, you also wrote Ralph and the Murray during the pandemic, which is very different. It has this warm, funny story about two boys in a in a southern small town edited by a dog and a cat. So I think that's a very different gear from uh these kind of Caribbean treasure hands or from the Whitewater Rapids. So, what did that particular project give you during what was an incredibly difficult time for most people? And what was the mental health value of that story for you as the person writing it?

SPEAKER_01 16:18

It's a it was a real fun story. I it was a pandemic book. I had planned a different kind of memoir type thing and have to do with my moving to California. And I was gonna do it with interviews, and I'm sorry, this bird is I'm outside in the porch, this bird is real loud. Hope it's okay. But I was gonna do interviews in California, and so I lined up several interviews and I was gonna get started, and the pandemic hit, and nobody wanted to fly, nobody wanted to meet with an interview, you know. That makes sense. Yeah, it was really scary, and as you remember, and so I stayed home, and my wife said, Well, why don't you just write a that book with the dog and the cat telling the story? And of course I said, Well, you you can't write a dog and a cat telling the story. So the next morning I woke up and I thought, I'm gonna write that with the dog and the cat telling the story. So I did, and it's a it's a really fun book. I I laughed all the way through writing it because I I just couldn't believe how how these the dog and the cat were narrating this little story, you know. We marketed that as an adult book, but I think it's more of a middle grade kind of younger person's book because it's got two 10-year-old boys and a dog and a cat in it. I mean, you know, that's those are good characters. In fact, I'm writing the next Ralph and Murray book right now, and we're in the editing process, and it's gonna be a really fun book. But I enjoyed it. It it I did it's set in my hometown where I grew up, a small little town outside Nashville, and I enjoyed doing the research on it. I went back and and looked at life. It takes place in 1959, and you know, these are times when Elvis Presley was the big thing, and they had things like Chubby Checker and the Twist. These were big things, and so this was in 1959, and that those things are backdrops for the setting for Ralph and Murray. So it was a lot of fun. It's a small short book, but it got very big great reviews, and it was book of the month for um Kirkish reviews and so forth. So I think people like it reading it. They I don't think you can read it without laughing out loud.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

So, you know, completely a different take from uh the other two books that you mentioned. And I think I mean that is exactly the kind of reframe or answer that I was hoping for, because I think too often that we treat adventure or life as something that we I mean, adventure in itself as something that we have or you know, we don't. We often think that it's very late and you know, but it turns out that it's not, rather, right? And what you're describing right now sounds more like a choice, rather. It's something that you keep making on and again and again.

Where To Connect And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_00 19:20

So let's bring this home. I mean, Rick, for somebody who resonated with this part of the conversation or the whole perhaps. So where can they find your books and what's the best place for them to connect with you at?

SPEAKER_01 19:33

I'd be really excited if people like this interview and liked what they heard, and they visited my website at rickglaze.com. There's uh short descriptions of all the books, there's ways to look at them on Amazon. Uh, several of them are audiobooks and they're all Kindle books and paperback. So there's ways to enjoy these books. And if they go to rickglaze.com, they'll get introduced. Now I'll I'll tell you this too. If you go on the website, you can click for a free brochure that I wrote, a short five-page brochure about the Virgin Islands, and that will introduce you to my advanced writers or excuse me, readers group, and you could try that out if you if people would like to. Love to have uh people join me there.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Perfect. I think that would really help, Rick. So uh what I'll do is I'll include the details in the show notes so that people can easily reach out to your website and discover your books, which is the purpose river, Spanish pieces of eight, Ralph and Murray, eight pieces of eight, and also your upcoming novel as well. So uh folks, uh we come to the minute mark of this conversation, but uh really what I'm uh canning forth from this conversation, and I also want you to uh maybe sit down and think about is you know, something simple and a little uncomfortable is that the human mind doesn't really grow in comfort zones. It sometimes it needs that little push. And I think the story that you tell yourself about that experience really matters just as much the experience itself. So that's what I would like to share for today's episode, folks. And Rick, thanks to you. I think you you brought this very engaging conversation, you know, put so much life and colour into the conversation as well. So thank you so much for joining us today. To everyone listening, I hope today did remind you that taking care of your mind doesn't always look like sitting still. Sometimes it looks like getting on a wild journey, and sometimes it also looks like writing a story down. So, with that, folks, this has been Healthy Mind, Healthy Life. I'm your host, Cyan, and uh we'll see you in the next one.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Thank you.

unknown 21:48

Bye.