[Sari Botton, Practical Matters]: The power of curiosity, offhand comments, and writing stuff you've already done on your to-do list

This seed of the idea for Finding the Throughline: Conversations about the Creative Process, was first dropped by Sari Botton in her Substack publication Oldster Magazine—specifically, it was her Oldster Magazine Questionnaire, in which she asks creatives of all ages to answer the same dozen or so questions about what it means to grow older.

I’m telling you, each time a new Oldster questionnaire lands in my inbox I drop everything and read it immediately. I love that even though I rarely know of the person who is answering the question (although sometimes I do—she’s interviewed Elizabeth Gilbert and Neko Case, for instance), I am moved, enlightened, provoked, and delighted by their answers.

Sari had to be my first interview, she just had to be. And thankfully, she responded with an enthusiastic yes within just a few minutes of my asking her to come on.

In this episode, Sari spills the beans on the practical parts of her process, including:

- The continuing ed class she took as a 20-something that lead to her personal writing career

- The thing her uncle told her when she was 10 that sparked a lifelong fascination with growing older

- Why she loves Substack—as both a writer and a reader

- The thing about trusting your instincts that Shalom Auslander first told her in 2010 that it took her 10+ years to believe

- The incredible power of writing annoying, non-work stuff down on your to-do list (even if you’re already done it)

- What she does to cheer herself up and clear her head

- Her morning routine (including what exactly goes in her mug)

If you want to hear these interviews in one, ad-free episode, become a paid subscriber at katehanley.substack.com (and get lots of other perks, too).

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