Spill It: Whiskey and Writing with Scott Muska
Spill It is an interview series with outstanding creatives, activists, glamour queens and kings, movers and shakers, outside-the-box thinkers, subject matter experts, and agents of change.
Charlsie: Right now — tell me where you are creatively and emotionally and how they tie together.
Scott: I think to start here I have to tell you where I am physically, which is in Washington, DC, because I guess that’s supposed to have some kind of influence on creativity. I’ve been down here for about two years now. I made the move rather impulsively from NYC when I got a great job opportunity with an ad agency I’d always admired and aspired to work for and was looking to make a quick egress from New York City after six years there. As much as I love to tell people I’m from Brooklyn, I’d had some bad professional experiences there that were bleeding into my personal life and negatively affecting my mental health in crippling ways, so I decided it was time to shake things up and try something and somewhere new. I might have been running from things in a way, but it has worked out pretty well so far.
Emotionally, I’m kind of stable given everything going on in the world, which, you know since we’ve been friends for years now, is kind of atypical. But there’s still the agitated depression and anxiety that I’m almost always experiencing in one way or another, which influences how I behave, what I do and how I go about doing it.
Creatively, I’m in a stage where I’m pretty productive, which is nice. I’m lucky to work at a place for my day job that really fosters and encourages creativity, even when our timelines and client asks are pretty demanding.
But I’m not using all my creativity in the day job, which is good, I think. As far as my own stuff, I’m not writing as rapidly or publishing as much as I have in times past, but I think that’s a good thing. I’m still filling notebooks with ideas and little pieces of things that might become something bigger someday, but I’m more relaxed and less manic about pursuing that stuff now than I used to be. There was certainly a time early on during COVID that I thought I wasn’t writing enough and was pressuring myself on that front, but then I got to a place where I could tell myself to calm the fuck down and eat a Crunchwrap Supreme and have some Jameson and be easy on myself, which has helped me come up with more ideas and write more stuff.
To know Scott is to also know Spot. Amazing artwork from @alliewaygalaxy.
I use the word “stuff” a lot, but that’s just how I encapsulate anything creative I’m working on. Could be an essay or a short story or whatever but it could also be some weird “poem” I’m trying to write to post on Instagram.
As far as the two tying together, it’s kind of disparate to be honest, and I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. I’ll always write emotionally because that’s the way I am, but what I’m writing in a given moment doesn’t have a lot to do with where I’m actually at emotionally. This probably sounds douchey to say, but I’ll be in a great place and reflect on something that was emotionally tough, then write about it, and while I’m lucky enough to have people check on me to be like, “Dude, are you alright?” it almost always happens when I’m feeling pretty decent or even good. I tell them that when I stop writing or posting things is when they really need to worry, but that for the time being I’m doing okay.
Charlsie: Well, now you’ve made me want a Crunchwrap Supreme from Taco Bell….like now. But in all seriousness, I have always been in awe of your creativity being able to run over into your work life and then your personal life. You have a balance that I think so many people crave and strive for, but to me — you master it in a way that I have consistently been amazed by.
You and I both can relate with relocation. As you know, I don’t love Atlanta and even at one point — I fled to the Berkshires of Massachusetts thinking that I would leave all my problems and become a woman who wears Birkenstocks and only eats kale. But holy shit, the experience wasn’t what I thought it would be in any way and I ended up fleeing back to Atlanta. The lesson in all of this, which I think you know, is that wherever you go...all your shit — your internal shit — is still there with you and that’s when you have to stand in the mirror and truly take a look at yourself and analyze your role in your own life.
Looking at COVID, I feel like I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting about who I want to be and the type of person I want to become and I see a lot of that in you through your productivity and consistent honesty about how you feel and where you are emotionally. I just admire that so much.
Ok, so I know you wrote a novel. Tell me about it and what you want to do with it. Where are you in the process of it? Editing it? Shopping around for an agent? Have you signed a $5,000,000 three book deal? Tell me what that entire process has been like.
Scott: I kinda wish it was a novel because I’d probably be more comfortable putting something purely fictional out there in the world (or for my mom and several other people to read) but it’s more a collection of essays about things that have actually happened to me through the years, with some detritus that includes lists, really short diatribes, poems, etc. that all have to do with love, dating and relationships. But I have been working on it for years and continuously adding to it, and I’d like to ultimately do something with it.
“What I’m writing doesn’t always reflect where I am as a person and how I’m feeling.”
It’s a lot of shorter stuff, like the longest I think I have in there is a 3,000-word essay, so I guess I’m at the point now where I’m editing it and trying to arrange or order it the way I’d want to ship it out. I don’t really know what to do at this point, to be honest. I just know it’s been a lot of fun for me to write it all and know that I have something book-length, even if it never actually becomes a book.
As far as process goes, there’d need to be some heavy editing involved, since it’s something I’ve been working on and adding to on and off for almost five years now. A lot of what I’ve written has not aged well at all, to the point I cringe heavily when I look back on it, so I’d have to go back through and do a big pass on it before I let anyone see it.
Charlsie: I will be the first in line to buy your essay collection. The work you share with the world is so forthright and authentic, so I can only imagine what you have that you haven’t published yet. It gives me goosebumps to think about the words on those pages. Speaking of constantly writing, I feel like you're always cranking out pieces. Do you ever get writer's block or just some sort of general creative block where it feels like producing anything is too taxing? How do you get out of it?
Scott: It might sound corny but I really just love writing, and it’s how I like to spend a lot of my free time, often to the detriment of my social life. And a lot of the writing I do is admittedly self-indulgent and serves as a way for me to help make sense of what I’m going through or have gone through, and when you position it that way it becomes easier to spend more and more of your time doing it. Like, I’m having a great time answering your questions right now because I love talking about and writing about myself. I’m probably some kind of narcissist, but I’ve made peace with that. One of my favorite writers, Dave Eggers, wrote something like, “If you’re not self-obsessed, you’re probably boring,” and I’ve clung to that more than is probably healthy or reasonable. I certainly don’t think he’s 100 percent right with that insight (or that he was even being completely serious), but it is comforting.
When I’m experiencing writer’s block, I’ll just sit around and look at my computer screen until something happens, or I’ll go and do something else, like drink a lot of whiskey while watching JEOPARDY or masturbate (or both!) and then come back to it.
I started in journalism and then got into advertising, and in both professions there are deadlines and severe consequences if you don’t hit those deadlines, so I had the concept of writer’s block beaten out of me pretty early on. When you can’t have writer’s block, you find a way around it, even if that means not always perfecting your work or putting out something you’re extremely proud of. (Sometimes that just is what it is and it’s not going to be the end of the world.) And then you find a way to apply that same kind of urgency to personal projects, even if it’s not as intense.
Charlsie: Fuck, I love writing but I fucking hate writing because I swear...unless I have this deep inspiration just strike me out of nowhere, I feel so creatively blocked. I’ve worked in marketing, social media, and content for over 10 years now and I never, ever miss a deadline and those words often just pour out of me but when I set my own writing deadlines or say “Ok, I’m going to write about this random college experience,” I let myself down every time. Maybe I need to drink whiskey and masturbate more to get things moving? I’m about to try a new writing strategy, the one where you cover your wall with note cards filled with notes and one liners and then organize them until you can actually get them down into an essay. We’ll see if that jumpstarts me in a new way. I feel the words ready to pour out, I just have to sit down and commit.
Let’s pivot for a second. Despite the world feeling like it's on fire with questionable leadership in the White House, COVID-19 running rampant, and the economy tanking — what are you finding pleasure in as a means to escape?
Scott: I’m doing my best to find pleasure in the little things, and trying to accept the things I can’t influence or change and just kind of letting them go. I can’t control who wins the election or how that all unfolds, or how bad the pandemic is going to get, but I can control my Spotify playlists, my UberEats orders, what I stream on TV and the conversations I have with people I love (like you!).
Charlsie: Shout out to Uber Eats, they are essentially my pandemic boyfriend at this point. I’ve really leaned into what I can control too right now, it feels like the only way to get through the madness. Fuck the pandemic for now, but here is something else I want to know…
I may be wrong, but I think you and I are both kinda in the tortured soul bucket when it comes to creating. How much does your mood or life situation at the time impact what you do from a personal writing perspective? How does it impact your copywriting day job?
Scott: I think you’re far from wrong! We’re tortured souls for sure. I’m an inherently sad person, even if I don’t always have real reason to be. I do not know why, but them’s the breaks. I skew dark. When it comes to personal writing, I try not to be too dark, or to usually apply some dark humor to something if it is dark, even if skewing that way often leads to melodramatic writing. It’s not like I have people editing me to the point that they’re like, “You should dial this back because it’s too sad,” and I’m thankful for that. Because that’s when I get the best stuff out, I think. I don’t know what I’d do if I were in a stable, healthy relationship. I’d probably keep writing sad stuff, like Matt Berninger does, and then tell people it’s just writing, not real life. Which it is. What I’m writing doesn’t always reflect where I am as a person and how I’m feeling.
As far as my copywriting day job and how my mood influences it, I try not to let it—though I acknowledge that’s impossible. But for the most part, that part of my life is almost method acting. I can go into any mindzone for any target and write something to hit for the target (or at least I hope I can). If anything, that’s my biggest escape, my day job. I can forget about how my ex-girlfriend’s birthday is the next day and I can’t quit dreaming about her no matter how hard I try, and I can just lean into selling people some fucking candy bars or a smart TV or washing machine they don’t really even need. It’s for that reason that I don’t mind working long days sometimes, because I don’t want to go back out into the real world where I for some reason feel a need to be vulnerable.
Charlsie: I am the same way when writing for a specific target or brand. My entire life could be imploding around me and I can crank out copy, even long form blogs, in the brand voice as if I live in a magical universe. But the truth is — I do find some magic in melodramatic writing because that’s where the real meat exists and it feels good to get to the nitty gritty. I think you and I have always shared a lot about our experience as inherently sad people, but through our friendship — I’ve found so much respect for having someone who understands and can articulately express what that feels like and how it is like that to live in this weird world. Cheers to being kindred spirits.
Ok, so I have to dive into what you write a lot about — love. This is actually how I found you many, many years ago, you wrote a piece about an ideal girlfriend or love (if memory serves me right). Do you ever feel like you're too vulnerable and honest in sharing your experiences about relationships? So many people have a tendency to want to be vulnerable but they can't find it in themselves to go there. You always go there. Where does that come from?
Post from Scott’s Instagram where he clearly was producing the new Bon Iver album.
Scott: Wow! That was so long ago! The Thought Catalog days, right? Good times. I’m very lucky to have made several friends from back then just because I was fucking around and people were kind enough to talk to me about what I was writing.
I think a lot about being too vulnerable or too revealing when I write about relationships. The main thing for me is I really hate hurting other people’s feelings, and when I write about an experience I had, even if I change that person’s name, I’m probably still hurting their feelings if they read it and they don’t come off in a great light—because it’s coming specifically from my point of view on how things unfolded. There are two sides to every story, you know? And they could write about me and I’d probably have some objections to it, but I’d have to take it on the chin and couldn’t really complain too much, long as they were truthful. (And I would have to be honest with myself and really admit that they were being truthful. Just because I don’t like the way I’m being portrayed doesn’t mean that I didn’t deserve to be portrayed that way.)
It also bleeds into my current life. I was seeing someone not too long ago who said she was “wary of my online presence” and I felt bad about that. I don’t want someone to think I’d write about them in a negative way just because they were part of my life for a while and things didn’t work out. I also think a lot about how a stranger might perceive me if they read my writing. I’m really different in person, I think, for the most part.
So now I worry about that a lot—how the potential love of my life might read something revealing I wrote and then no longer want to give me a shot. But if that happens, it happens, I guess. As my Grandpap once told me: ”You fuck your own life.”
Also, as Hunter S. Thompson said: “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”
I don’t know if I’ve answered your question in my rambling. I just always go there because I’m not a secretive person and think a lot of stories, even if they are very personal, can be insightful or, if not that, at least funny and entertaining in some way. So why keep them to yourself?
Also, maybe I’m just not that creative and can’t make up enough entertaining shit on my own.
Charlsie: All. Of. This. All of it. Whenever I read nonfiction or personal essays, I always think to myself “There are two sides to every story” but I have always found so much power in someone saying “This is my truth. It may not be yours. It may not be how you remember it. But this is how it felt. This is how it was for me. This is my story to tell.” The power of that has always enamored me especially when novels, memoirs, or even songs are released and suddenly those stories can resonate and belong to other people too.
I also think it’s why I love singer songwriters like Phoebe Bridgers or Fiona Apple or Taylor Swift because when they write those lyrics that gut you — it’s their truth, it’s their story, it’s the specifics like Ryan Adams giving Phoebe Bridgers $1,500 to go see his psychotherapist in “Motion Sickness” or Taylor Swift singing in “All Too Well” about the scarf she left at Jake Gyllenhaal’s sister’s house. Those details, those stories deserve to be told. I think this is why I also love personal essays so much — the details of what happened, how it happened, and how it felt.
A few men I’ve dated have said to me, “You better not ever write about me” or they have made comments like, “I don’t give you permission to write about our relationship.” Yeah, no — I have every right to tell the story of my life through my eyes and I will never give up that power. I think of the song “Writer in the Dark” by Lorde when she sings: “Bet you rue the day you kissed a writer in the dark.”
However, with all that said, I do worry about hurting feelings or making someone feel a certain way because I shared a story or a personal detail in my work. But sometimes releasing that work can take on a whole new meaning — even for the person it's about — and it doesn’t always have to be this terribly negative thing.
I feel like we could about this all day, but here’s a question I ask everyone...If you had to sit fifteen year old Scott down today — what would you tell him to look forward to and what would you tell him to avoid?
Scott: I’d tell him to really enjoy the moment he’s in, because he’s good at sports and that will take him a long way as a student at a western Pennsylvania high school—that girls dig the three-ball and to keep shooting no matter what. I’d tell him to look forward to discovering what he’s actually good at that will help him make a lasting living. And I’d tell him to look forward to kissing someone, like, for real, with feeling and passion, and I’d tell him to look forward to falling in love and getting his heart broken and then rebounding and falling in love again several times over, and I’d tell him to look forward to figuring out and doing what he needs to do to address his mental health issues, and I’d tell him to keep trying. I’d tell him to start learning how to actually be intimate with people. I’d tell him that he’s not alone in anything, even if he’s trying to be. I’d tell him it gets better. I’d tell him it gets worse. Then I’d tell him they alternate, and that’s fine. I’d tell him he’ll be fine. I’d tell him to avoid gambling on the 2020 NBA Championship series or against LeBron James in general.
I’d tell him to not worry so much, and then tell him that I know that when someone tells you not to worry so much, it just makes you worry more.
“It might sound corny but I really just love writing, and it’s how I like to spend a lot of my free time, often to the detriment of my social life. And a lot of the writing I do is admittedly self-indulgent and serves as a way for me to help make sense of what I’m going through or have gone through, and when you position it that way it becomes easier to spend more and more of your time doing it.”
Charlsie: Scott, you always gamble for LeBron James and the Lakers. As a born and raised Southern California girl, it’s blasphemy to even think otherwise. I guess, I’ll let it slide though. I feel like fifteen year old Scott would be really proud of you right now though. Can we talk about something we both have in common? You, much like me, live for music. I know it drives me as an inspiration point. Talk to me about how music plays a role in your life — whether it's just listening to The National in an airport or walking down the street to Bright Eyes. Tell me where your love for music and lyrics come from and how it impacts your writing.
Scott: My big brother was always the musician in my family, and I just didn’t get it, how he took to it so well. I just wasn’t gifted in that way. So from a young age I gravitated more toward lyrics than anything else. And he introduced me to so many bands that I loved then and still love, like Bright Eyes and The National, as you mentioned.
The music I listen to impacts my writing a lot because I want to be able to write like those people, but they’re the cream of the crop. So it’s more inspiration than anything. One of the things a lot of the musicians I love do that I really want to achieve is they’ll have lyrics or tell a story that says something about how I’m thinking and feeling better than I could have articulated it myself. It’d be really cool to be able to do that through my own writing.
Charlsie: I think your writing probably does that for other people. I know I’ve read your pieces and I’m like “Every word he just wrote is how I feel and think, I’m not alone.” You’re doing it in your own way. I thoroughly love your love for lyrics. It is how I fell in love with music, too.
As we wrap up, I have to ask what is the dumbest critique anyone has ever given you and are you still laughing about it to this day? What was the best critique someone has ever given you and are you still thinking about it today?
Scott: One time a colleague said I was “too sensitive” and I do still laugh about it (though it also makes my stomach feel funny just thinking about it, since I am too sensitive), because my sensitivity has helped me get to where I am today.
Back in the day my brother told me I used big words when I didn’t need to in an attempt to seem more intelligent than other people, and I still think about that a lot and try to keep it in mind when I’m writing.
Charlsie: I’m currently reading a book titled The Highly Sensitive Person but as someone who has been told that I’m too sensitive, I’m also laughing with you because with sensitivity comes great empathy for others and unique perspectives people who lack sensitivity seem to have. It can be a gift. Sensitivity also, in my opinion, helps you read the room and that’s sometimes worth everything.
Here’s something a little lighter than what we’ve discussed so far….I always feel bogged down by not having enough money to accomplish the things I want in life. Pretend President Obama just gave you a check for $500,000, what would you do with it?
Scott: I’d probably just save it and try to retire early. I can’t wait to retire. But also I feel like if I was gifted $500K by Obama without doing anything to earn it I should probably find a way to do something good with it. Check back when I get the check, I guess. We’ll see how much character I really possess.
Charlsie: I’m sure the check is in the mall, Scott. It’s coming. If it’s not coming to you though, maybe it’s coming to me? I like asking that question because the weight of wanting to do good for President Obama is so heavy. I, too, would do something good with it and probably save the rest for a rainy day.
It’s absolutely clear to anyone who has read this far that you’re a writer through and through, but I feel like you have a special talent for telling stories of all kinds. Give a quick story for readers to enjoy. No pressure. No pressure at all.
Scott: So a few years back I had an opportunity to write for Cosmopolitan. The story was about measuring my penis so a startup company could fit me for bespoke condoms. And then I had to write about trying said condoms.
A little while after the story came out, the woman who worked at the PR agency that represented the condom brand and who had set the whole thing up asked me to get drinks and talk about future projects. After drinks that night she texted me and said she had fun, then asked me what I was doing over the weekend.
We ended up seeing each other a few times and she’s still a friend. So it’s just kind of a funny story to me that I ended up getting a date because I measured my dick and wrote about it.
Charlsie: I remember the bespoke condom article. I love that you’re still friends because you took out a ruler to get the real deal measurement. Most men wouldn’t have the guts to do that and then publicly write about it.
Scott: It was not a measurement to brag about.
Charlsie: Ok, last question my friend….you suddenly become the CEO of an advertising agency. What would be your motto as the CEO and how would you want your employees to feel every day rolling into the office (or remotely as they log onto their laptops)?
Scott: I’d steal the words from the mouth of Nick Cave’s mum: “Head high and fuck ‘em all.” Also, “Do more good than bad.”
You can find Scott all over the internet. Check out his website here and see the ever impressive list of publications he’s written for like Women’s Health, NBC News, Mashable, and Glamour. Read about him measuring his penis for a custom fit condom for Cosmo. Read his Instagram poems. Let him break your heart, make you laugh, and share his life with you through incredible essays. Seriously, get off my website and go stalk Scott — it will make your day, I promise.