This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Sarah Marshall: When you're in a place that is just offering everything freely, but you're not accepting anything, it becomes really clear really fast that you're holding yourself back.

[0:19] Alan Seales: The skies just opened up with what is probably another storm. We have trees down everywhere, all over our neighborhood. My daughters are supposed to be walking to lunch together right now. So hopefully the storm doesn't mess this up. I heard you guys were having some weather over there.

[0:37] Sarah Marshall: Yeah, I'm in Chicago. It's crazy. We had my daughter, I was driving yesterday. My daughter was home alone. And she was like, "Oh my gosh, Mama, the tree two houses down fell all the way across the street." And like it's, it's crazy. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and our weather, well, unless it's fall and winter, we definitely get some winds, but it's usually just cool. It's generally cool. You can't be mad at that.

[1:04] Alan Seales: We just got back, Sarah, you know, my daughter Tessa and I just got back from Italy, our big trip that we've been planning forever. I swear to God, I have never been that hot. I don't even believe in God. I swear to the goddesses, I have never been that hot. It was the hottest in a temperature on paper was not hotter than it gets here in Chicago, but it felt 50 degrees hotter. Last time I was in that part of the world, it was also unbearably hot. I was in Greece, where there's no trees. It could be the same similar thing. They say that Rome in particular is so hot because the city is built on ancient Rome. So instead of like our sidewalks touch earth, their sidewalks touch dead Romans and maybe dead Romans, concrete, marble, that kind of thing.

[2:03] Sarah Marshall: You stepped on Caesar.

[2:11] Alan Seales: I might have. Did you go to Caesar's grave?

[2:11] Sarah Marshall: No.

[2:11] Alan Seales: Good. You know, it's just a grave. It's cool. This is great. We did go to Juliet's tomb, though, which I think is fake, but also she got a kick out of that. We went to Verona and we did Juliet's balcony in the house that was, of course, not the family of the Capulets, but my daughter is really into theater and she loved it. We had a great time and then we walked over to Juliet's. Oh, we walked over to Juliet's tomb, which is now this beautiful little museum area where they do weddings, and we sat in a little cafe watching, trying to figure out. We thought it was two brides. We saw two brides come in in big wedding dresses. It was all very fun. About 20 minutes later, we hear cheering and applause and out come two straight couples. So it must have been a devil wedding. I don't think I would do that.

[3:04] Sarah Marshall: It was so random. And then right after that happened, we got attacked. I got attacked at our table by pigeons. They wanted my snacks. There was one came and then five came and they were flying everywhere and I couldn't get rid of them and champagne glasses were flying. It was like a scene out of The Birds. It was terrifying.

[3:29] Alan Seales: Like legit, sort of, what the, I don't know, a scene from The Birds?

[3:29] Sarah Marshall: Yes, it was like a scene from The Birds. And I posted a picture on TikTok after they cleared the table, but they left a water gun because this happens all the time. They're like, "Oh, if the birds come back, shoot them with the water gun." Okay, thanks. Why didn't I have the water gun to begin with? Why wasn't it in the movie?

[3:51] Alan Seales: I mean, that can make...

[3:51] Sarah Marshall: Exactly. Yeah. Weird. Weird, indeed. Very weird. Well, should we start the episode?

[3:58] Alan Seales: I guess we could do that. We haven't done the intro yet.

[4:02] Sarah Marshall: Oh, we haven't. Hey, everyone. Welcome to Was It Chance, the podcast about embracing opportunity and taking intentional risk for your creative life. I'm Heather Vickery.

[4:06] Alan Seales: And I'm a very hot and sweaty Alan Seales. Is your air conditioning out?

[4:12] Sarah Marshall: It is, but I just came back. But before that, we started off as two perfect strangers that met by chance and embraced opportunity. And you get to listen in as we talk about other people, about the risk they put themselves on the path to creative success.

[4:23] Alan Seales: But I'm hot and sweaty. And if this is your first time listening, you can catch that better intro in any other episode. I actually think that was the best intro I've ever done.

[4:30] Sarah Marshall: You think it was it?

[4:30] Alan Seales: Yeah, that was it. That was my Oscar-winning performance.

[4:35] Sarah Marshall: I do. So my younger one graduated fourth grade this morning.

[4:40] Alan Seales: Oh, funny. Yeah. And so we did the whole parade. So where they go to school, fifth grade starts middle school. And it's two different buildings. And so now in fourth grade, they do a parade. And they parade out of after arch day is what they call it. They walk through this arch and they graduate into the next grade. But so they graduated fourth grade. They're officially fifth graders. And then they parade the entire three classes in the grade over four blocks north to the upper school where they just had a big, they're having still a big like escape room pizza party sort of thing. And I walked there and back. And that was the greatest choice for exercise and the worst choice for sweat.

[5:20] Sarah Marshall: Fair enough. And your air conditioning's out or no?

[5:26] Alan Seales: No, no, no, no, no. My air conditioning's fine now that I'm inside. Thank goodness.

[5:31] Sarah Marshall: Thank goodness. Yeah. Well, yeah. At least you get to see Juliet's tomb and Caesar's. But no, you went to the Coliseum too, right? You sent me pictures.

[5:43] Alan Seales: We did. Yeah, we did. We went to the Coliseum. It was wild.

[5:43] Sarah Marshall: Right. But do you know the history of all of that? Like all of those buildings just to be covered in white marble?

[5:49] Alan Seales: Yes. And the Christians pillaged that to build their own churches, which none of that should surprise me. Yeah. Sorry to our guests. It's offensive to you in any way. But I was like, oh, of course that tracks. The Christians came and dismantled what they didn't like and built what they wanted instead. Can you imagine how grand and amazing Rome looked plastered in white marble?

[6:07] Sarah Marshall: Marble. I know. I know. I love the architecture out there. It's phenomenal.

[6:15] Alan Seales: I do, too. It was cool. But we did. We left our heart in Florence.

[6:20] Sarah Marshall: Mm hmm. Florence is like the only city where the Renaissance is still happening.

[6:25] Alan Seales: Oh my God. It's gorgeous. It's so gorgeous. Like the whole city is just like a big outdoor art museum.

[6:29] Sarah Marshall: Yes. Yes. There's still art. There's still like creativity. There's still like, let us come and let us be free.

[6:34] Alan Seales: That's like French. That sounds French.

[6:39] Sarah Marshall: Yeah, that's very French. So all the Frenchmen come over and do their thing in Florence. That's what I'm getting at.

[6:44] Alan Seales: He's lying. I don't know. He's making that up. Prove me wrong.

[6:51] Sarah Marshall: Okay, fine. Where did the French go?

[6:51] Alan Seales: I guess the French stay in Paris.

[6:56] Sarah Marshall: They stayed in Paris, where it's also amazing. I do have to say I loved Italy and I particularly loved Florence, although I enjoyed Rome very much. But none of it beat Paris for me. Paris is my fave.

[7:01] Alan Seales: Yeah. You still have left your heart in Paris.

[7:06] Sarah Marshall: I might. Yeah. Paris movie. Or should it be? Probably. I did get a tattoo in Rome.

[7:14] Alan Seales: What did it say?

[7:14] Sarah Marshall: Wait, just now you got one.

[7:20] Alan Seales: Yeah. What?

[7:20] Sarah Marshall: Well, not today. I wasn't in Rome today. But last Saturday, like last week. Yeah. Friday. Yeah. I'll send I'll put I'll give you a picture that you can put up on if you can see it. I can't. It says make sure there's dancing.

[7:31] Alan Seales: Why did you get that?

[7:31] Sarah Marshall: So at the risk of sounding like a 51-year-old lunatic, it's a line from one of Harry Styles' new songs on his new album. But you told me you were going to do this.

[7:45] Alan Seales: I did tell you I was going to do it.

[7:50] Sarah Marshall: But the song is called Are You Listening Yet? And it's all about, like, wake up, like, where are your own thoughts? Why are you just letting all of this crazy stuff happen? And there's the whole line is if you must join a movement, make sure there's dancing, which is, in fact, the core of all of the work I do. Make sure there's joy. Whatever you're doing, make sure that there's something that's bringing you joy inside of it. And so I love that line. Make sure there's dancing. And I got a tattoo.

[8:19] Alan Seales: I like it. I'm overdue for another tattoo anyway. It's a great philosophy.

[8:25] Sarah Marshall: Wait, who was that? Thank you. Who just was that? Was that maybe was that perhaps the one and only Sarah Marshall?

[8:30] Alan Seales: It is. Yes. All right. Let's get this party started. You guys. Sarah Marshall is a novelist, a veteran, an engineer, a longtime Burning Man participant and seeker of transformation. I love that word as a transformation coach. After serving in the U.S. I'm sorry, I can't read today. It says United States, but it is also the U.S. Navy and spending decades as a technology leader. She turned to fiction writing. It's just I have not gotten over jet lag. I need to be honest about that. Like I saw vertigo from being on this flight to four days ago and I'm leaving tomorrow for Seattle for my daughter's graduation. Introduce Sarah Marshall. Keep going. Keep going. Sarah turned to fiction writing, drawing on a lifetime of experiences that span military service, spirituality, world travel, martial arts and community building.

Having attended Burning Man more than 20 times as a contributor and camp leader, Sarah brings deep firsthand knowledge of temporary communities, belonging, identity and personal reinvention. Her work explores the spaces between worlds and the people who find themselves transformed within them. Clearly, you are my kind of person. Welcome to Was It Chance? And thanks for being patient, Sarah Marshall.

[9:45] Sarah Marshall: Thanks for having me here. I was enjoying the party going by.

[9:53] Alan Seales: We are our own parade.

[9:55] Sarah Marshall: We are our own party. Alan, I just need to be together for it to be a party.

[10:00] Alan Seales: That's pretty much it. Is that a special pride mug, Heather, that you were sipping out of? It's very rainbow-y.

[10:04] Sarah Marshall: How is that rainbow-y? It's just green and silver.

[10:11] Alan Seales: Up on the top, the hologram.

[10:14] Sarah Marshall: On camera, yeah.

[10:15] Alan Seales: My dress is pride. There you go.

[10:15] Sarah Marshall: Maybe that's what you're saying.

[10:18] Alan Seales: There you go. Well, happy pride. I haven't seen, I haven't really talked to you in June.

[10:22] Sarah Marshall: I know, and this episode will definitely come out after June, but we're recording it during Pride Month. Yay, Pride!

[10:25] Alan Seales: Happy Pride to everyone who celebrates and identifies and listens.

[10:29] Sarah Marshall: And everybody else, because Pride is about everybody taking up equal space and having equal rights.

[10:36] Alan Seales: Okay, Sarah. You served in the Navy, you built a career in engineering and technology leadership, and then you became a novelist.

[10:42] Sarah Marshall: Yeah, isn't that what everybody does?

[10:52] Alan Seales: Isn't that what everybody does? I mean, duh. So, yeah, okay. I guess my next step is a novelist.

[11:02] Sarah Marshall: Wait, did you go to the military yet? My brother and my dad?

[11:07] Alan Seales: I don't advise. I was like, don't do it.

[11:11] Sarah Marshall: So then back up then, what started you in the military? I assume that was when you were younger, and then getting into technology and then novice. Walk us through the sliding door movements that got you through that time.

[11:22] Sarah Marshall: I think all of my experiences are wrapped in my early identity or my hidden identity, because everything I did was trying to make up for the fact that I was trans and not coming out as trans. So I sublimated my energy in the military, didn't work. I sublimated my energy in martial arts, didn't work. I tried all these things. I tried religion. I tried it all, but the only thing that was real is that I had to transition. Unfortunately, it took me nearly half my life to figure that out.

[11:59] Alan Seales: So you were 20, yeah, right?

[12:05] Sarah Marshall: So, well, I came out in the mid-90s, and so I was out, but I was also in this very well-wrapped world, because by that time, I was director of operations of a biotech company, et cetera. So I had this very tight confine, and that just kept me in this. So I had finally come out. I finally come to terms with myself, but I still had this really rigid track that I was running down, and I had a real fear of coming out from behind the mask and the rigidity.

[12:55] Sarah Marshall: I came out at the age of 38 and I'm 51 now. But when I was younger, I don't even know that I knew trans folks existed. Clearly, they did. You know, but there was no literature when I was growing up. Exactly. I thought I was by myself. And there was no internet and there was no way to just easily discover like, you know, like, it's hard to find people like you in general, but especially for marginalized folks as well. Yes. Yeah, it was an interesting time. It was frightening.

[13:28] Heather Vickery: So, we're here to talk about all of your creative endeavors. So, you can always feel free to like, tell me to or Alan and I to close the lid on it. But I am curious, other than I can identify with like, I can't live like this anymore. Like this, this has to change. But what was there a particular moment where you're like, it's got to be, it's got to be right now. Like, I can't, this is not sustainable anymore.

[13:54] Sarah Marshall: Well, there was a moment that happened that I didn't realize was that moment until reflection. Ah, it was a chance. What happened was, as usual, I was doing stupid, crazy things. I was climbing Mount Shasta with a friend of mine. We were on a ridge. I was leading. He said he was worried about the path. And I said, I'll just keep in the book, footprints will be fine. I took two steps forward and the entire ridge sheared off that I was on. And I was like, holy shit. And it was about a thousand foot drop. Whoa. I threw up my ice axe and I looked down and the dust cleared and I was still 1000 feet up. And I looked up and my friend had somehow anchored in, reached out and caught me by the wrist. Whoa.

[14:40] Heather Vickery: Oh my gosh.

[14:42] Sarah Marshall: He pulled me up. He was completely wrecked. And I was like, and we went back down the hill. So a couple of months later, I was having that conversation with another mountaineer and he said, that's bullshit. You didn't do that. That's, that's bravado. You couldn't have possibly done that. And I started thinking about my life and I realized that I was writing checks that my body would eventually not cash. And I was sitting with that for the rest of the year. And on December 31st, I did what I always do, which was look at what I completed in the year. I pulled out my little binder and I was going through my goals and I got to the last one and I hadn't completed it. And I went to the year before and I hadn't completed it.

And I went to the year before and I hadn't completed it. And that was be intimate with my spouse. And I had zero capacity for intimacy. So I went home. I said, I'm going to start therapy. And my spouse at the time, my wife at the time said, that's great.

[15:44] Heather Vickery: She did not know what was coming, did she?

[15:46] Sarah Marshall: She was worried about it because she knew I had gender issues.

[15:50] Heather Vickery: Okay. Okay.

[15:51] Sarah Marshall: Within three weeks of starting therapy, I knew I needed to transition and the rest was just planning out how that was going to happen and going through the paces at work with my friends, et cetera, et cetera. And it just, it just, I had to get past living dead. I was just walking around dead, waiting for my life to end. And, and here I am now.

[16:15] Heather Vickery: Wow. Thank you for sharing that. Cause I could hear the way you were telling the story, when your buddy grabbed your wrist and pulled you up and you were like, eh, as if no big loss if I'd fallen.

[16:28] Sarah Marshall: That's exactly where I was at at the time. It was. Yeah.

[16:32] Heather Vickery: Yeah. Wow. What a profound, what a profound moment. So, so you start the transitioning though, is, is this when you started just reevaluating everything like the career and-

[16:45] Sarah Marshall: That's a good question.

[16:46] Sarah Marshall: And everything else or like, or were they completely separated? You know that there was no reevaluation of career. It was purely about, I had been obsessing my entire life or hiding or not thinking about being trans. And the only thing that I could get to was I needed to deal with that. So I, my therapist at the time had said, so how do you envision your life afterwards? And I was like, well, like this, except I'm a woman. And, and she was like, oh, okay. Cause I had no version of life looking different. And it didn't take, I mean, the reason I wrote the novel I wrote is because the next big experience I had was my first time at Burning Man, which completely blew my brains out.

[17:31] Heather Vickery: Yeah. Okay. Well, so that's such a core part of who you are and you can talk about how that fits into the novels and the books. Share why that, I mean, I've seen videos. I've never been to Burning Man. I probably will never go. I admire those of you who is not necessarily my scene, but what about it? A made you want to be there. And then B led to this, we've already talked about your gender transformation, but the other massive transformations in your life.

[18:00] Sarah Marshall: Yeah. So I actually had heard of Burning Man, but it was like on my list, kind of low on my list, not something that I really was like I needed to go to, but something weird happened the year before my first time at Burning Man. And it was, I had two groups of friends, both said, Hey, you need to go to Burning Man. You you're, you're ripe for it. You're the, you're the kind of person that should be there. And I didn't, it didn't click for me. It was just this big thing in the desert. I'd seen the spectacle pictures, et cetera. So it wasn't for me, it wasn't a thing like I needed to do. It was just kind of an interesting thing that was out there, but I felt like there was some kismet happening with these two groups of people insisting that I needed to go.

So I eventually said, yes. And I went out with one of the groups. And in fact, I, I picked the group that I was least associated with because I wanted to, I wanted to be able to run away if I didn't like it. So I didn't want to do it anymore.

[19:02] Heather Vickery: Fair enough. That is something I would do.

[19:08] Sarah Marshall: What is it called? The Jewish goodbye? No, that's when you stay and have to say goodbye to everybody. What is it when the, the Irish goodbye? What is it when you just leave?

[19:13] Heather Vickery: The Irish goodbye is you just leave. Yeah. That's the Irish goodbye. Yeah. You're right. The Jewish one is like, there's the guilt of making sure you shake everybody's hand and kiss them on their cheek.

[19:21] Sarah Marshall: Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

[19:23] Heather Vickery: Yeah. I'm definitely the Irish goodbye kind of person. I'll just disappear and make notes later.

[19:29] Sarah Marshall: We're going to take a quick break. Stay tuned for more of the episode.

[19:33] Heather Vickery: And now we're back. So what was it about Burning Man though that was like, holy shit, I'm, this is making me like explode.

[19:40] Sarah Marshall: Life changing.

[19:41] Heather Vickery: Yeah. Like, I've been wanting to go for, for a decade and I've just never put forth the effort because it's a lot of planning and leaving my, you know, my kids behind for a week and, and my wife too. Leaving my family.

[19:56] Sarah Marshall: Like your whole family.

[19:56] Heather Vickery: My whole family. Yeah.

[19:57] Sarah Marshall: Crystal.

[19:58] Heather Vickery: Like they wouldn't want to go. Crystal, Crystal wouldn't have any, any joy in that at all. I would pay to see it though. Is that terrible?

[20:06] Sarah Marshall: I would suffer it myself. I would go just so I could see it.

[20:10] Heather Vickery: To see me suffering because she's there. Yes.

[20:14] Sarah Marshall: Sorry, Crystal if you're listening. Um, yeah. Anyway, what's the, what, what is it? Tell me, convince me to go because I want to go.

[20:22] Sarah Marshall: Oh, by the end of this conversation, you'll want to go.

[20:25] Heather Vickery: Okay. Okay.

[20:26] Sarah Marshall: But let's get there first. So for me it was kind of easy because these two groups of people were kind of making, we'll take care of everything. Just bring your stuff and come on out and we'll enjoy it. And I'm like, okay, I'll come out, but I'll bring my car. So if I want to leave, I can leave right away. And, um, and here's the thing I was dealing with. I was, I had transitioned a few years before I was wrestling. I had now navigated away from the job I had and I would move to another company in a new position where nobody knew me as anybody, but who I was then. So my life had changed. Um, I was in the process of, I was separated and getting an amicable divorce. So literally every part of my life was changing and I was wrestling with who I was.

You know, who am I in this? Where, where do I fit? What is my life look beyond where this careful confines of my life had been established? And, um, and I was in, I didn't know that that was, you know, the loud noise that was happening for people around me, but it was clear that I was kind of like trying to figure it out. I also thought that I had being trans in the background now. And I was the leader of XYZ that happened to be trans, or I was a mom that happened to be trans, et cetera, et cetera. I didn't at that point, see that it was right in front of me until I hit the playa at Burning Man and it came up hard.

[21:57] Heather Vickery: Dive into that. What do you mean?

[21:58] Sarah Marshall: My identity is trans in the world at that point was there was this cushion between me and the rest of the world. There was this boundary that I was dealing with and it was something that I, that was intangible, but it was there that I was separate from everybody else because I was different than anybody else. And it wasn't like I transitioned and jumped into trans community and live just around trans people. It was, I was living my life as a trans person. I saw other trans people, but not, they weren't part of my main life. So I had this like barrier around me that I thought the world had put around me. I got out to Burning Man and it's a place of inclusivity. It is an invitation to join community. There is this, there is this extended hand to be part of community. And I had zero capacity to accept that invitation. It was me that had put that barrier there.

[22:55] Heather Vickery: You were keeping yourself safe though.

[22:58] Sarah Marshall: And, and being out in that environment for a week made me have to deal with that front and center that I was putting this barrier in front of myself. And here's this community that's saying, we don't really care. You're, you're being trans isn't even that interesting. What else you got? And I was like, but, but that's the thing.

[23:21] Heather Vickery: So, so I spent a week being miserable dealing with that in this place where I radically could be included and was refusing to do it. Was it as simple as, as people were just like, Hey stranger, come be part of our camp. And you were like, no, no, no. I got to keep distance because you may not find out that I am who I am.

[23:40] Sarah Marshall: That was exactly, that was part of it, but even more so every incrementally every day. So they're Burning Man is based on 10 principles, but one of them, the one that hit me the hardest, the one that shifted me the most is what's called the gift economy. And what that means is there's no buying, selling, trading. There is only giving things away. That means you're coming out there completely prepared to take care of yourself and you're bringing something extra and it's whatever you want it to be. It could be a service. It could be a trinket. It can be a massive village on the playa that does really cool things. It's whatever you want to contribute. So if you're walking down the street in Brooklyn, or you're walking down the street in Chicago and somebody offers you something for free, you're going to say, what's the string? What's going on?

[24:28] Heather Vickery: Yeah, what do you want from me?

[24:28] Sarah Marshall: At Burning Man, it is a norm to walk down the street and have people offer you something with no strings attached. No, no, that makes me so uncomfortable. That makes me so, because I'm like, are you tracking me? Does it have germs? What's going on? Like the Brooklyn in me is like, uh-uh. And when you're confronted with people just offering you whatever, including themselves, they're just a conversation where you're just deeply engaged in getting to know each other. When you're in a place that is just offering everything freely, but you're not accepting anything, it becomes really clear really fast that you're holding yourself back. Wow. Whoa. It's a big line. It becomes really clear really fast that you're holding yourself back. And again, this is like the work I do. This is a very interesting way into the subconscious psyche, which I do through NLP work, but maybe you guys just need to go to Burning Man.

[25:31] Heather Vickery: Well, it's one way. It's an intense environment, so there's plenty to deal with. A lot of ways to solve a problem, right? Yeah. So through this experience, and you've done this many, many times, after that first one, when did you start to think about, because correct me if I have this wrong, but Playa Dust in My Soul is your first novel?

[25:49] Sarah Marshall: It is. It is. So when did that start to...

[25:51] Sarah Marshall: So my first year planted a seed because I literally I remember I was driving off the playa. I was taking one of the guys that I had camped with with me, and as I was driving out, I was like, I think I'm finally ready to be here. It took me all week to put the guard down and finally figure it out. The first seed that I planted is that I did want to be accepted as being part of a community. Eventually, I led the village that I was in and then handed it off and took it back and handed it off and took it back. But being part of something was the first thing. Going back to Burning Man to actually have an experience where I was there instead of not present most of the week was also important. About a couple of years later, I started to think of this story.

I wanted first to be able to invite other people and make it easy for them to invite themselves into a community. Then I started thinking about what a great story it would be because I had met so many interesting people out there and had so many interesting experiences that I wanted to share. The other thing that really hit me by the mid-2000s was that people outside of Burning Man, who had never been, hear about the spectacle, but they don't know what it's like to be on the ground out there, living day to day. That's what I really wanted to explore: if you're a person that is broken in terms of belonging and you suddenly come into this liminal space where you're completely accepted as you are, without any strings, and you can just be yourself, how do they deal with that?

What does it look like from different perspectives? What do people go through in trying to grapple with that and come to terms with it? So that's what the seed was that had me jump into writing. I was not a writer. I was a technical writer, yes, a business writer, yes, but in terms of fiction, I had no idea what I was doing.

[28:02] Alan Seales: Did you get any training then to write the novel? I ask this because I am in this space. I actually have a creative writing degree, so I do have some training, but I've written non-fiction and I want to write fiction, but I'm very intimidated. So for you to say you don't have any skill in this, were you like, "Fuck it, let's just go write this," or how did you approach that?

[28:17] Sarah Marshall: I had this thing burning that I had to get out. I had to get something out, so it was like a burning man; it was a burning woman. I'm also around all these incredibly creative people, and people would say, "What's your creativity? What do you do when you were out there?" I'm like, "I stage manage all the creative people." But I had this thing that I wanted to do that was creative, and it was to write this thing. So I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote. I wrote backstories, I wrote flashbacks, I wrote blah blah blah. The book is long already; what I wrote originally was like five times as much. Then I had somebody look at it and give me the bad news, and I went into despair, put it down for a while, but I couldn't let it go. I just kept coming back, and I would write some more. I listened to podcasts about great creative writing and how to approach characters, and then I would write it again. I would get some more feedback, and I did that for 20 plus years.

[29:31] Alan Seales: Wow.

[29:32] Sarah Marshall: Finally, at the end of last year, I got it into a condition that I thought was a story and then got a publisher. The publisher helped me refine it, and then finally published it.

[29:47] Alan Seales: I think that's so fascinating because it took you 20 years. We interview a lot of different types of creatives, and we've got indie published authors and trad published authors. For you to just be like, "So, like, throwaway comment: got a publisher, got it published," what? That's hard to do.

[30:07] Sarah Marshall: It's very hard to do. Well, there's an interesting thing about Burning Man: it's about non-commodification; that's one of the principles as well. So making a big noise and publishing it in a way to make a lot of money would be antithetical to Burning Man. Rather than do that, I found an independent publisher that could help me refine it and get it into a condition where I could share it with Burning Man audiences without making it a big commodification deal. That was fine with me because, for me, much like going out to Burning Man, it's a gift economy. For me, this book is a gift to people that are interested, and it's written both for people that have been to Burning Man and go, "Oh, I know that Easter egg. I've seen that thing. I've done that. I know that person." It's also written for people that haven't gone and will never go, to have a real lived experience on the playa, experiencing what it's really like to be out there.

[31:55] Alan Seales: Well, so give us a little bit of a summary, right? Because I'm always just so curious about what the day-to-day is. You just see everybody shows up, they wear crazy costumes, post weird pictures, and then burn a giant man at the end.

[32:07] Sarah Marshall: Yeah, so that's all true. And give things away for free. That's a version. It's so big, and there are so many different things going on out there that you could have a very different experience as well. You could go out and just spend your time out in the art for the entire time you're there. You could camp in the back of the city in the walk-in camping area and have a very quiet, solitary experience. It's really designed for a lot of different kinds of experiences. I wanted people to have all those experiences. What is it like if you go out there and you're part of the Burning Man crew? You work for the organization. What's it like if you're an artist and you go out there and you build a big installation?

What's it like if you have a great art car and you just want to drive around and have people enjoy it? I've created seven different characters, which very much operate as archetypes of people that I have met out there. I'll give you an example: the first character you meet, because I do it chronologically, is a guy who is part of what's called the DPW, the Department of Public Works for Burning Man. He's hired as part of the crew to come in early and build the early structures. This is a real role, so this is somebody that I actually met. I made up the story around him, but this is a guy I met who was let out of federal prison. He had been in for four years on a 12-year sentence and then was exonerated. He came out of prison, had nothing to do, nowhere to go, and was picked up by the DPW crew. Three weeks later, he was out on the playa building in the most chaotic place in the world.

[33:17] Alan Seales: Huh, wow.

[33:18] Sarah Marshall: So that's my first character. That's the first person you meet: this guy who just got out of prison. He's now in this world of chaos; he's also sober, and he's dealing with being sober in this environment that's very permissive.

[33:30] Alan Seales: So what then led you? I mean, you're saying you led your villages or whatever. Were there different boroughs all around the playa?

[33:40] Sarah Marshall: It's a really interesting thing about Burning Man. They create a city grid of streets that looks like a donut with a quarter of it cut out. It looks like this big city of concentric streets, and it's just kind of this grid map. There are some structures that they build, but basically, it's an open space. If you're in a village or camp, you can get an assigned space in that grid to do whatever the thing is that you've proposed to do. You get camped into a particular part of the grid, you build whatever you're offering, and then you're open for business when the city opens. Everything that's out there is a construct from imaginative people that say, "I want to do this. I want to build a cabaret out there and do a cabaret in the desert.

I want a bar inside a Moroccan tent with air conditioning. I want a big sound stage at the end of the camp." We're going to put that together and take it out there and build it. That's what the city is. It's literally the magic of the people that come out there, and you never know year to year what you're going to get because it's an experiment every year.

[34:58] Alan Seales: That's crazy. How many people show up now?

[35:04] Sarah Marshall: My first year was 18,000.

[35:09] Alan Seales: Whoa, that's a small number. I think that's a really small number for what I expected.

[35:15] Sarah Marshall: Oh yeah, it's now 80,000.

[35:16] Alan Seales: Yeah, that sounds right. Largest city in Nevada for a week.

[35:23] Sarah Marshall: Yeah, I love all of that, except I don't camp, and I don't really like large crowds. But I really think that this—what was that RV? You know, RV?

[35:32] Alan Seales: Yeah, yeah.

[35:33] Sarah Marshall: You can glamp out there.

[35:34] Alan Seales: Maybe we should take the podcast on the road, Alan, and do interviews for the artists.

[35:38] Sarah Marshall: Dude, if we do a special, I need glamping. I just am not even going to try and pretend.

[35:46] Alan Seales: Let's rent an RV. We'll go out with Sarah. Sarah could show us all the coolest people.

[35:52] Sarah Marshall: I do not camp.

[35:53] Alan Seales: I just imagine us rolling up like with a big Winnebago, like Chevy Chase, you know?

[36:00] Sarah Marshall: Oh my goodness.

[36:01] Alan Seales: But I do love the idea of all of these different communities and where you get to express that creative outlet. I dream of creating this, right? Like I will go build it. I think that's really neat.

[36:22] Sarah Marshall: We're going to take a quick break. Stay tuned for more of the episode.

[36:29] Alan Seales: And now we're back. You wrote this book; it's a gift. It's a love letter to folks who either have been or might never get to go. One of the things that is a focal point for you is community building and choosing it. You found some of that in Burning Man. How else is that showing up for you in your life and as an author?

[36:48] Sarah Marshall: Yeah, so I am now the least community-oriented person in the world turned into the most community-oriented. I'm part of women's groups. I have several professional networks I'm part of, and I'm very active when I'm in those networks. I have a group of friends that we do a lot of things together. For years, my camp on the playa, I would go on vacations with 12 to 16 people, and we'd go to Hawaii or Mexico or whatever and hang out together and just enjoy being a community wherever we work. I'm also very much part of the queer community as well. I have a large group of trans friends and colleagues that I stay in touch with, and in general, the LGBTQ community as well. That's easy to do out here in the Bay Area or everywhere. So I've very much changed my whole relationship to community.

[37:51] Alan Seales: I feel like that happens. I mean, you're crediting Burning Man, and I hear you on that, but I think that can happen when you come out too, when you seek queer communities. That's why queer bars are still so important. It's why culture is important. It's why understanding what the folks who came before had to experience and why we don't fully want to assimilate, because you lose this community that's so, so precious.

[38:23] Sarah Marshall: Yes, and because I've treaded both sides of the world, and I have a daughter that I raised. By the way, her first time at Burning Man, she was five years old. Now she's 27; she has a whole lived experience of many times at Burning Man.

[39:15] Sarah Marshall: I need to read this and I need to go to Burning Man.

[39:18] Alan Seales: Do an audiobook. I like an audiobook.

[39:20] Sarah Marshall: I love a good audiobook.

[39:21] Alan Seales: Is that something that your publisher set up for you or did you do it yourself?

[39:25] Sarah Marshall: He gave me some direction on how to get it done. I found somebody to do the narration and stuff. I didn't think I would be a good narrator voice. So, I found somebody to do the narration and she's in the process of doing it now.

[39:41] Alan Seales: So, you found out a lot about yourself going out to Burning Man, being in that environment, then it's planted the seed and they say nothing grows in the desert. You've planted so many seeds. You planted the seed for the book. The book grew into what it is now. Did you learn anything about yourself beyond the experience in Burning Man during the actual book writing process? I mean, because you said that took, what, two decades too, right?

[40:07] Sarah Marshall: You know, it's so interesting that you're asking that. I didn't realize until after the fact that what I'd done is basically put my entire psychology out on the table in that book. I do have a trans character that had a very similar early experience, much more dramatic, much more broken. But I have a character that kind of roughly maps my first year experience. But every one of the characters has something of me in them. And I'll give you an example of Reuben, this one that I mentioned before that just got out of prison. I didn't realize until a previous interview, I started thinking about it, that his release from prison very much was my release from the prison I put myself in. And every one of the characters, I mean, they're all very different. They span all demographics and all interesting backgrounds. But every one of them has a piece of me.

[41:03] Alan Seales: That is very, very cool. And it must have been so cathartic just to put this out there. And I mean, was it like kind of nerve wracking, nervous? If you're saying all of these are me, you combine all of these characters in the book and they are you, that has to be like a source of anxiety or was it just a source of relief?

[41:25] Sarah Marshall: So it's interesting. I had so many shitty versions of this book before I got to this final version that so many people had read that by the time I put out something that I thought was worth reading, I was like, thank you all for all the work you did wading through that crap. Here's something that you'll actually enjoy.

[41:43] Alan Seales: That's good. Yeah. You can't be precious about your babies, right?

[41:48] Sarah Marshall: Right. And I also had part of the community process. My daughter very much became part of the writing of this book. And what I mean by that is, as I was going through iterations of the characters, she would read the next version and say, that character would never do that. Think about their backgrounds.

[42:08] Alan Seales: That's awesome.

[42:09] Sarah Marshall: She would just kick my ass about making those characters both authentic and earn their story arc. So it was great to have somebody on my side, just pushing me to make it better. And the other thing she did is all the art in the book, the picture on the front, the graphics inside, those are all her. She did all those. She's that graphic artist.

[42:32] Alan Seales: I was going to ask what her industry was because to be able, it sounds like she could maybe be an editor, right? She can see that and know how to pull. I think that's awesome. Do you intend to keep writing? What's the next step for you?

[42:49] Sarah Marshall: Yeah. So now that I've done it and I really like it, it's definitely something, it's a joy for me to write. Now I'm in the process of just finishing within the next six to eight weeks, I will be publishing a workbook. So I've been focused on that for the last couple of months. But as soon as that gets out the door, I'm moving back to the fiction side and I'll be writing something. My son-in-law said, have you thought about writing short stories? Because he likes all my historic stories. He goes, have you thought about writing short stories? And I thought, well, what a great idea. I can compile a bunch of stories based on-

[43:26] Alan Seales: Make a little anthology.

[43:28] Sarah Marshall: Literally just tell the history of the stuff you've done.

[43:31] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[43:32] Sarah Marshall: I actually think that would be so cool. It reminds me a little bit of the way John Green's nonfiction work is. That's the way he sets that up. I think that would be awesome. I am kind of curious, all of this, it's so personal to you and community is so personal. Do you think community is something that we find or that we build?

[43:48] Sarah Marshall: I would say it's something we choose and it can go either way. You choose community and it either finds you or you find it. And I've found myself doing both since then. Certainly everything that I've done to help build the village that we have out at Burning Man has built community around me. I've literally camped with thousands of people because we've had anywhere from 60 to 300 people in our village over the years. And there's always some folks that exit stage right and then a whole group of people that enter stage left. So it's always a new group of people that I'm camping with, with a core of people that I've known for 20 years.

[44:57] Alan Seales: What is your relationship with failure?

[45:03] Sarah Marshall: That's an awesome question because I've seen that in my career. I've seen that certainly in writing this book. I failed over and over again until it turned into something. For me, failure is a teacher. I do not avoid failure. I push myself to my edges. I certainly do that in my work. I'm consulting now and I'm writing this book about a different way of looking at how to put companies together. And I've had to go through iteration after iteration of failure, but every failure takes me to a new place and a new understanding and a new capacity to do something new. In my mind, I'll never get old because I'm always looking for the next thing and willing to push myself to failure and then build myself back up from it.

[45:40] Alan Seales: I love that.

[45:42] Sarah Marshall: I do too. In my mind, I'll never get old because I'm always looking for the next thing. You didn't say fun thing, but it feels like fun. It doesn't sound to me like over-perfectionist, over-achiever looking for the next thing where I have a client who is like, if I've decided I'm going to run for 30 minutes, I make myself run for 33 because I want to do better than my goal. And I'm like, that's dumb. Just run for 30 minutes. Just meet your goal, you damn overachiever. It's okay to just meet your goal. But what you're saying is there's more to do. There's more to experience. There's more to learn. And that keeps me alive.

[46:24] Sarah Marshall: If you don't overachieve, you can accomplish more goals.

[46:28] Alan Seales: You're precisely right. I would say before I transitioned and really dealt with myself, I felt like I was plugged in and I had no choice and I always had to drive, drive, drive, drive. As I've gotten comfortable with myself, I realized I have that innate desire to keep moving, but it's no longer an obligation. It's more of a discovery.

[46:46] Alan Seales: That's beautiful.

[46:48] Sarah Marshall: I love it. Where can people connect with you? And I assume we get the books everywhere. Books are sold. Yeah, tell us all the goods.

[46:55] Sarah Marshall: It's on Amazon, but you can go to my website, PlayaDustInMySoul.com, all one word, dot com. And you'll find contact information for me and all the ways to buy the book.

[47:08] Alan Seales: Yeah. So you guys can go listen to the audiobook. That's exciting.

[47:11] Sarah Marshall: I love it. Sarah, I think you are such an inspiration and so much fun. And I'm so glad you decided to come and spend a little time with us in our silly little corner of the world.

[47:22] Sarah Marshall: This was quite literally a pleasure. I enjoyed meeting you and having this conversation.

[47:29] Alan Seales: We did, too. Thanks so much, Sarah.

[47:31] Sarah Marshall: Thank you.

[47:34] Alan Seales: I want to go to Burning Man so bad.

[47:37] Sarah Marshall: You should go. You now have an invitation from Sarah. You've got a built-in community.

[47:42] Alan Seales: I know. I know. I know. I've been invited by a couple of people over the years and I've just, I never had, I guess, the means to just take off a week or whatever until I had kids, like career-wise, and then I couldn't go because of kids and blah, blah, blah, right?

[48:01] Sarah Marshall: Yeah.

[48:02] Alan Seales: So maybe like now that they're older and can take care of themselves.

[48:04] Sarah Marshall: You can plan around it. And maybe you don't have to go for the whole week. Maybe you just go for like four days.

[48:09] Alan Seales: If you're going to go, go.

[48:10] Sarah Marshall: If you're going to go, you go. Fair enough.

[48:11] Alan Seales: If I'm going to not shower, I want to not shower.

[48:14] Sarah Marshall: Ew. I don't camp. Nope.

[48:17] Alan Seales: That's why we glamp. Let's look at the Winnebago rentals.

[48:22] Sarah Marshall: That's not glamping, baby doll.

[48:24] Alan Seales: Well, that's better than sleeping like outside, which I would still do anyway.

[48:30] Sarah Marshall: Anyway, Sarah, such a cool lady.

[48:32] Alan Seales: Such a cool lady. Yeah. And I love, I mean, I just, I'm going to think so much about that moment on the cliff where her life was in the balance and when she realized how little she cared about losing her life, she's like, oh, okay, it's because I haven't been living my life. And so then she claimed herself and transitioned and opened up the rest of the world. And I think it's really neat to be so moved by an experience like Burning Man and like transitioning. I mean, all of these things combined and feel compelled to share this journey for others and with others.

[49:15] Sarah Marshall: Yeah.

[49:16] Alan Seales: No, I thought it was, it is an incredible story and watching people or yeah, just hearing about people who are like going through their own struggles and have found this moment that they can all of a sudden just like use to give them clarity across so many things that have been weighing them down their entire lives. It's just a really cool chance experience.

[49:42] Sarah Marshall: Kind of sucks that she almost had to die to get there.

[49:45] Alan Seales: Sure, sure.

[49:47] Sarah Marshall: Really sucks. But you know, was it chance that she almost died falling off a cliff? Yeah, but look where it got her.

[49:52] Alan Seales: And the chances that she would survive that are so small.

[49:57] Sarah Marshall: Literally like a...

[49:58] Alan Seales: Clearly the universe, the goddesses, whatever you believe in, if you believe in anything was like, and this is your moment.

[50:06] Sarah Marshall: Literally like an action movie, saving your life, grabbed on by the wrist, like what?

[50:13] Alan Seales: Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, absolutely. It was very cool. Well, we are this, the episode is coming out in conjunction with the audiobook. So Playa Dust in My Soul. If you want to listen, you can read it, you can listen to all of that. Let us know what you think. Follow Sarah, she's doing some really cool things. Alan, what if they want to talk to us? What should they do?

[50:37] Alan Seales: They should use the interwebs.

[50:39] Sarah Marshall: And on the interwebs, they can reach us at wasitchancepodcast@gmail.com, wasitchance on Instagram, wasitchance on TikTok, Heather Vickery on Substack.

[50:48] Alan Seales: Wasitchance on LinkedIn.

[50:49] Sarah Marshall: Wasitchance on LinkedIn.

[50:53] Alan Seales: Email.

[50:54] Sarah Marshall: Email. That's the first thing I said, Gmail, gmail.com.

[50:56] Alan Seales: I was not listening to you.

[50:58] Sarah Marshall: You have your book well.

[50:59] Alan Seales: Yeah, they're reading well.

[51:01] Sarah Marshall: Look at the show notes. It's all there.

[51:03] Alan Seales: It's all there, but it's all right there.

[51:05] Sarah Marshall: You know what's not in the show notes? Leave a rating and a review. We need those ratings.

[51:08] Alan Seales: We need those reviews.

[51:09] Sarah Marshall: We do. We need them and we love them. It fills our little hearts with joy. If you've listened this long, we appreciate you. You've been listening to Was It Chance, the podcast about embracing opportunity and taking intentional risk for your creative life. I'm Heather Vickery.

[51:22] Alan Seales: And I'm Alan Seales.

[51:24] Sarah Marshall: Talk to you next time, y'all.

[51:25] Alan Seales: Bye.