The Silent Why: finding hope in grief and loss
Claire Sandys is on a mission to see if it's possible to find hope in 101 different types of loss and grief (often joined by husband Chris). New ad-free episodes every other Tuesday. With childless (not by choice) hosts, this podcast is packed with deep, honest experiences of grief and hope from inspiring guests. You also get: tips on how to navigate and prepare for loss, blogs, experts, exploring how loss is handled on TV, and plenty of Hermans. For more visit: www.thesilentwhy.com.
The Silent Why: finding hope in grief and loss
Let's Chat... Writing and running through grief (with Justin Creps)
#124. Let's Chat... about how writing and running can help us through grief.
Welcome to another Let’s Chat episode, where instead of continuing our 101 Types of Loss list, I sit down with guests who have personal insight into different aspects of loss.
In this episode, I (Claire) have the pleasure of talking with fellow podcaster and writer, Justin Creps. Justin is a teacher based in Ohio and co-hosts the podcast Writing in Progress, which is how I first discovered him.
Justin and I share a deep love for podcasting and writing - though he’s also an avid runner, which is where our similarities take a sharp turn! But when I learned how both writing and running helped him process grief, I was keen to chat about it.
Justin had shared a powerful blog post with me, one he wrote in 2022 about navigating the grief of his wife’s miscarriage. His story is a moving reminder that we all process loss in our own ways, and it sparked an important conversation about the role of creativity in grief.
In this episode, we explore writing as a tool for processing grief (fiction or nonfiction), how life’s hardest moments shape us as writers, the unexpected ways helping others can also help us heal, and how running plays an important role in Justin’s journey.
This is an honest, heartfelt conversation about grief, resilience, and the power of storytelling. I can’t wait for you to hear it.
Find out more:
Justin and his writing: https://www.justincreps.com
'Hey Logan' blog post: https://jmcmarathon.blogspot.com/2022/02/hey-logan.html?view=flipcard
'"Why did it matter?" - My final thoughts to the class of '22' blog post: https://jmcmarathon.blogspot.com/2022/06/why-did-it-matter-my-final-thoughts-to.html?view=flipcard
'The Red Line' blog post: https://jmcmarathon.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-red-line.html?view=flipcard
Writing in Progress podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1124339 https://www.instagram.c
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Thank you for listening.
Hello there and thanks for joining me for another episode of Let's Chat. I'm Claire Sandys, host of The Silent Why podcast and blog writer for www. thesilentwhy. com, a podcast that explores how and where we can find hope in loss and grief. In these Let's Chat episodes, I talk to a guest who has experience or expertise in a particular area of loss, and I'm really excited about this episode's guest because it's fellow podcaster and writer, Justin Creps. Justin is also a teacher and lives in Ohio, where he co-hosts the podcast Writing in Progress with Jon Woolley, and that's how I first came across him. Justin and I share a love for two things podcasting and writing. He's also a fantastic runner, which is where our shared interests come to a screeching halt, but that didn't stop me wanting to also explore how that's helped him through grief as well.
Claire Sandys:A while back, justin shared a deeply personal blog post with me, one he wrote in 2022 about how both running and writing had helped him navigate the grief of his wife's miscarriage. His story was such a powerful reminder of how we all process loss in our own ways, and I knew I had to invite him on the podcast to talk about it. In this conversation, we dive into writing as a tool for healing, whether through fiction or non-fiction, the creative processes we both enjoy and how life's hardest moments can shape us as writers. We also explore the surprising ways that helping others can, in turn, help us through our own struggles. It's a very honest, vulnerable conversation and I can't wait for you to hear it.
Claire Sandys:And with each of these types of episode, I aim to capture a little bit of wisdom from every conversation, kind of like the Hermans in our usual episodes you need to pop to thehermancompanycom for more on that one. So to do that, I'm building a metaphorical toolshed filled with resources to help us navigate grief and loss, and at the end of each episode I ask my guest what kind of tool their insight represents and I add it to the shed. And so far I've gathered a really valuable collection, which I will get a list of onto the website as soon as I get around to it. So grab a cup of tea, a coffee or maybe a sports drink of some kind and relax with me and Justin as we chat, writing and running through grief with me and Justin as we chat writing and running through grief.
Justin Creps:I'm Justin Creps, aspiring author. My main job is I'm a teacher, but I do very much enjoy writing on the side. I live in Ohio. Yeah, I grew up in a town called Toledo, it's up in Northwest Ohio and now I'm about two or three hours south of there in Columbus, just kind of from the heartland in the United States, and I started a podcast a few years ago with my fellow teacher, john Woolley, and that's how Claire and I kind of connected. So we record an episode maybe once or twice a month and put it out there. And I wrote a blog a few years ago about a life experience I had and it lined up with a lot of what Claire does here on the Silent why. So we'd kind of become podcast friends. So I shared it with her and she invited me out.
Claire Sandys:And you're the guest today. How does it feel to be the guest rather than the host?
Justin Creps:It's funny. I feel a little nervous because my guests always talk about being nervous and when you're the host I'm never really that nervous because I guess I know the questions and stuff ahead of time. But yeah, I'm interested to see where this goes. It's kind of fun not knowing.
Claire Sandys:And you don't get the editing afterwards. That's my job, so you can relax.
Justin Creps:I'm very excited about that. Sometimes on my end the editing can be a pain. There's a lot of behind the scenes stuff when it comes to like syncing audio, and sometimes it goes smoothly and it's no problem. But every once in a while you get a kind of tricky piece of audio that can turn into a lot of work rather quickly.
Claire Sandys:Definitely. When I first started I thought editing an hour interview would be like roughly an hour and a bit, because you're listening to an hour, right, you're just doing a little bit as you go. I did not think it was going to be maybe three, four times the length of the episode to get it right. So, yeah, there's a lot of work goes in, so hats off to you for doing that.
Justin Creps:Oh, and to you.
Claire Sandys:Thank you. You do a podcast called Writing in Progress with John Woolley. We have to give a shout out to John.
Justin Creps:Oh yeah, John's great.
Claire Sandys:Co-hosting in your writing mission. There was something I picked out from the blog that you did that I'll talk about in a bit. A little bit about the second, and that's how we connected. How did?
Justin Creps:writing and running. What sort of age did they come into your life? How far back did these two go? Quite a ways, actually. So running started way back, gosh.
Justin Creps:I was probably in about sixth grade, so I think that would make me like maybe 12 years old, and I was really into soccer or football where you guys are from right. And I was really into soccer or football where you guys are from right and I was never the most skilled. I had decent skill. I'm a very competitive person. I want to be good at the things I do and I knew to be good at soccer I just had to be really fast and fit and I would just basically outwork people. So what was kind of the natural extension of that was I'm going to start running. So I would run outside of practice so that when I got on the soccer field I knew I could just outrun whoever I was matched up against. And then along the way I kind of became pretty good at running.
Justin Creps:My second sport was track and field and I started doing that in seventh grade and, yeah, I was pretty good at the 800 meter, which is about half a mile, a little under a K for you guys. That kind of took me into the world of running and as I got into college I found that I liked having something to train for, a goal to strive for, and kind of just the way my personality is. It was like, okay, I guess the marathon's the next thing to do. So I went from the 800 meter up to the marathon, which was quite a jump, and there was a lot of learning that went along with that.
Justin Creps:But yeah, it started when I was pretty young and writing was actually funny enough. Right around the same time In sixth grade I had a teacher named Mrs Carroll and she assigned us a short story. I don't know assignment and I remember a lot of kids in my class wrote a page or two. We had the weekend to write it and I came back on Monday with like 12 pages which for a sixth grader, you know and I just kind of realized at that moment like I have a pretty active imagination and it's fun to kind of let it turn into a story.
Claire Sandys:I love it when there's a teacher early on that just sparks that creative passion in somebody. I hope they find out sometimes that they did that because it must be such a big thing for them. And what sort of writing do you enjoy most? Because we sort of connected roundabout around a short story competition called Writing Battle, which I heard about I think I heard about it on your podcast. I must have heard about your podcast before the competition, so I entered in a couple of those with a really short, like 250 word, 500 word, but you guys have been doing that for a lot longer than I'd even known about it. What sort of length is your favorite kind of type of writing?
Justin Creps:It kind of depends. Honestly. Again, I like competition and stuff, so that seems to bring out the best in me. So it's kind of whatever I get prompted that weekend, it's got to be my favorite. But yeah, I think I've found after the fact, after it's done, I do like having a longer piece. So I guess in the moment I kind of approach them all the same.
Justin Creps:So, like writer's playground, which is another one we do, is a longer one it's 3000 words and I do find myself kind of liking those stories more when I'm done with them because I had more time to kind of dive in and go places with it. When I do write unprompted which these days isn't all that often, just because it's hard to find time to do it uh, it seems like a lot of my stories end up in kind of that three to five thousand kind of word area. A lot of my blogs tend I don't blog that often anymore either, but uh, I think they kind of end up in and around that area as well. So the longer stuff obviously it's more work in the moment, but when you're done with it you kind of have a bigger thing to be proud of, maybe yeah, and it's.
Claire Sandys:I think it's a lot of work because I'm the I'm probably the exact opposite of you. I like having, I like having a go at the 250. That feels like a challenge. Or I want like 90,000. I don't really the bit in between feels like a lot of work. Um, I mean 3,500. That is difficult, I think, to fit in the full structure of a story and to do it well. To me feels like so few words. That's what I found really interesting about this.
Claire Sandys:I just discovered this short story well, which I'd never really come across before right to hear how all the different people, especially on your podcast, like all the different lengths of story and I'm learning that there's such a different skill to doing a short story than there is to doing a novel. They're not the same set of skills. When I try and put my hand of what I know about novel writing to a 250 or a 500 or a 1,000, it doesn't work. It's just there's not enough words to do the same kind of thing. So, yeah, I've got a lot of admiration for people who do all the different lengths, because that is very difficult and for most people listening probably won't know that a lot of these competitions it's not just a case of writing a story.
Claire Sandys:You're given a genre to write to or you're given a prompt which might be a character or a setting or an object or something. So you're writing to very specific things and the art of it is to be creative, I guess, within that genre and around those prompts, which again was new for me and I found really challenging. I love the idea of it but in practice, in the first five minutes of getting them, you're like, oh, this is exciting. And then, like an hour later, I'm like this is really hard. So yeah, is it something that comes easily to you?
Justin Creps:I guess it kind of does. I think I tend to be a little bit of a rambler, which you might realize when you're editing this episode.
Justin Creps:So I think kind of having that constraint and forcing myself actively to budget my words for lack of a better phrase kind of forces me to stay on topic, stay focused and I'm less likely to veer off into something that's very, very long. And I know, even from the few times I've kind of revisited over the years, there's a lot of stuff that leaked in there that's just like me personally venting through my characters. And now that I'm looking at it with new eyes and maybe some better trained eyes from doing all of these competitions and writing, I'm like, okay, yeah, that's not that relevant. That was me writing for myself rather than writing for the story, which is still good and sometimes needed. But I think there's there's something to be said for learning to kind of tell the difference between you know what's something I wrote because I wanted to write about it that day and what's a scene that was actually moving the story forward.
Claire Sandys:Yeah, definitely. I think I've learned that over the years I've had a novel that I've been working on. I'm getting there. I think I've learned that over the years I've had a novel that I've been working on.
Claire Sandys:I'm getting there, but, yeah, I've definitely had to rewrite bits that have been me processing life really. But when I reread it it needs a different voice, it needs a different take on it and, like you said, it's a great place to start, but it's not the finishing thing if you want to sort of take it any further. And I think that's a real interesting part of my writing journey has been learning the difference between just writing something to get something out of you and then actually making it into something that other people will want to read or that has a good structure to it. But yeah, I love I don't get to talk about writing very often on the podcast, so I don't want to get too waylaid with that side of it. But, um, that is, that is the important bit, and I think it really comes together. And what we're going to talk about with you, I think, brings together in such a lovely way grief, loss, running, how writing can help with processing these things, and it all started with a blog that you shared with me.
Claire Sandys:That was just like. I don't want to sound too excited about it, because it is a sad subject, isn't it? You're processing something very deep, but for me it was very exciting because I was just like this is so well written because you are an incredibly good writer, thank you. You're not just on here because you write. You write very good stories and you can tell that through the blog. There's a few bits I'll pull out that. I just thought that's how you can see your writing skill. It's really well written. I mean, there's a lot about running in it which I don't know, so I learned a lot about that, but I loved at the time in 2021. So do you want to just, in your words, just tell us a bit about what that blog was and how that came about?
Justin Creps:Sure. So the blog and I'm actually not super familiar with blog terminology there's the big blog with all the articles and that is a running blog. That's my running blog. I used to write in it quite a bit. I've actually kind of not written in it as much the last few years. But then you have the specific articles and it's actually funny, looking back at the blog, the last three articles are actually all me like processing difficult things. So it's kind of turned into that. It went from like a running blog to a running slash Justin's dealing with emotions blog. But the one I sent you was a pretty heavy one, inarguably probably the greatest loss that I've experienced. So my wife and I had our first child in 2020. His name's Mac. He's now four years old. He's great.
Justin Creps:Afterwards, we went on a vacation one summer. It was our first time away as parents without our kid, which, when you become a parent, you start to value those trips a little more. And yeah, we had a bit of a surprise. We found out we were pregnant and it was scary in the moment because we were not planning to have a second child that quickly, and so we kind of allowed ourselves. There's something you're kind of told when you become a parent of like, especially that first trimester, like don't get too excited, almost, you know, because things happen Doesn't always go the way you want it to go. So you kind of temper that expectation. But this time, because we were already feeling nervous and stuff, we almost leaned the other way intentionally of let's get excited about this. So we just really started kind of talking ourselves into this is a good thing, it wasn't the plan, but that's OK. This is great.
Justin Creps:And also, growing up and even as a young man, I was nervous to become a father, just to be honest. And so I think, in some ways, when Melissa, my wife, was pregnant with Mac, I had some feelings of what's this going to be like? Am I going to be a good dad? I was very nervous about it and that was all going on during 2020, which had plenty of other things to worry and be anxious about as well. But then we had Mac and I found out I loved it and I am a good dad and it is just this great blessing.
Justin Creps:So, this second child when we were expecting it, I was fully excited. I was all in. In a way, I wasn't even with my first child and because it was 2020 with Mac, I wasn't allowed to go to the ultrasounds or any of those doctors meeting because they were very strict on how many people could be in the doctor's office and all that stuff during COVID. So the second time around I was allowed to go and it was the first time I got to hear my child's heartbeat and I never got to do that with Mac. But very quickly it was actually that first appointment I got to hear the heartbeat. It was great. But then, like right away, the doctor was like something's not right, they're not measuring the right size and there was definitely a period of denial and then, pretty quickly after that, we realized we were going to lose the baby.
Justin Creps:And that was hard, obviously, and I think because I had let myself get so excited and I had gotten in the mindset of let yourself get excited, take off all the reins, you know, feel all the things. It hit very hard and I'm not always great at processing those emotions, but through running and through writing, that's kind of when I was able to do it and writing, I think, makes sense. Right, you're vulnerable as a writer. Your emotions go into what you write. That's kind of how we do it, at least how I do it. I think that's probably how most people do it, so that one kind of makes sense.
Justin Creps:Running might be harder to explain and I'm not sure if I can completely articulate it. I think part of it's just being alone. You know you're out on your own, there's no one there that you have to put up a front or pretend like things are OK and I don't know. For me, running has always been an emotional thing. It's part of what makes me a good runner is I let myself get all fired up and when you're in the 25th mile of a marathon it's emotional, emotional. It's an emotional experience Like the. The physical part of your body isn't really working anymore. You have to rely on, on, you know, your heart making, making it that last mile or so. So I think, for whatever reason that I'm, I'm in an emotional state when I'm running often. So, yeah, there were some workouts where I was literally like running and crying and that little part of my day, each day, was where I let myself feel all the things and and it was an important part of the grieving process for me.
Claire Sandys:I remember you mentioned one place in particular I can't remember the name of it where you had that. You had that moment of just like running and crying and you're in the dark. Do you think that that? Do you think you would have processed it in the same way if you hadn't have had something like that for that outlet?
Justin Creps:It's kind of hard to say. I think it's kind of like plugging a hole with water rushing. It's going to come out somewhere. You know, I don't think you can bottle that up forever. So who knows, it might have come out in a negative way, you know. Could it have turned into, you know, resentment at home, you know. You know, could it have come out in my workplace if I'm irritable and I think having that outlet of a place to feel the things and let the grief go, you know, running was really important for that. Because I don't know, I can't say how it would have come out. I like to think I would have found a healthy way to deal with it. But I do think I would say with certainty it would have come out.
Justin Creps:I like to think I would have found a healthy way to deal with it, but I do think I would say with certainty it would have come out in some form of fashion somewhere. So you know, using it to get emotional and run extra fast and you know, run a little further and work a little harder is probably a pretty positive way to use those emotions. So I think that's a good way of doing it for me.
Claire Sandys:It's interesting, especially when you said running's emotional for you. When you allow yourself to get emotional about anything in any way, I think that does allow other emotions to come through. Maybe that's a really key, important thing, especially for men, I think, because men don't talk about these things as much as women do with each other. They're often afraid of showing some form of weakness. In inverted commas and also around babies, miscarriages, ivf heard a lot of people say. Quite often even the medical profession will look to the female to support the female, to support what they're going through, and it can be very easy for the male to be ignored and then therefore the grief doesn't come out or they're supporting the wife going through something physical. So they sort of shut down what they're feeling a little bit to try and be strong.
Claire Sandys:But interesting that you've already got an outlet there for emotions. I wonder if that helps it out. I don't know. I mean, I think most women will understand, like if you're feeling in a particularly fragile place and you start laughing a lot, sometimes it will just make you cry. It's very confusing. But sometimes there's, like you know, you let out one emotion and another one like hijacks it and was like oh quick, we're being emotional. Actually, we're sad about something. So, yeah, that's really interesting. It's making me really think about the different ways of processing stuff like that. Um, and in your blog you talk very specifically about the training leading up to this one marathon, was it?
Claire Sandys:columbus, columbus, yeah, that's it yeah yeah, and you, you've named your daughter logan in the blog. It's actually just let's ask you about. Do you think it helped naming her and then making her into something that was with you on that run?
Justin Creps:so you can walk through. But the town we stayed in was called Logan, ohio. So we were, like I said, normally and I don't know what's normal, it's different for everyone, I suppose but I remember even with Mac, we waited till we were done with the first trimester before we even started talking about names, because you don't want to get too attached, right, because things can go wrong. But that's actually a perfect example of in this case. We were like, let's pick a name, like, like, let's get excited. You know, it was this scary thing we weren't planning on, so let's find things to get excited about. And so we were talking about names and we hadn't completely decided on one prior to this but one of the names we talked about was Logan, after the place where the baby was conceived. We also, frankly, didn't know for sure if it was going to be a boy or a girl. Yet we were hoping for a girl, because our first kid was a boy. But kind of pretty quickly after the fact, once we knew we had lost Logan, we knew we were going to hope for another child, which we have had another child since but we knew we were never going to use the name Logan again. So to me. You know that was a name, that it I guess giving it an A made it feel real, which allowed me to process the loss more. And I don't know I'm not an expert in loss and grief if that was a healthy way to deal with it or not, but to me it seemed to help. So I think that's all we can do in those moments is do what is best for us. I'm sure it's different for everyone and my wife swears, you know, she's very convinced it was going to be a girl, which I'm not going to question, that yes, to us it's a little girl.
Justin Creps:Main blog and yeah, I don't know Processing it. I talk about it in the blog. There were days where I pretended I was running with her, you know, and maybe that's weird, maybe people listen to this and like man, this dude's crazy, but to me it allowed me to exist alongside that grief process. It be with it. I think that's an important part of dealing with it is letting yourself feel it and feel all the things. And maybe I think in loss, with something like this, there's an element of what, if of not knowing. You know, that kind of unknown part of it is one of the biggest things that's hard to deal with of it is is one of the biggest things that's that's hard to deal with. So so by giving her a name felt like I knew her, kind of took out that unknown bit a little bit, even if it was just for me personally yeah which helped.
Justin Creps:It helped me.
Claire Sandys:I think that makes a lot of sense. I actually think that, um, because my audience are mostly people going through, been through grief and loss. They take anything that anybody does to get through it, because that's, that's all you can do isn it.
Claire Sandys:And actually I think that's really healthy. And I've heard, even in the more childless world which is obviously where I'm based, that actually it's really difficult grieving something there's no substance to at all because it was never there. So if you're in a situation like us, where you never even had a pregnancy test that was positive, you've got nothing specific to grieve, and I didn't think about that for a long time. But I've since heard people who have literally made up their children and named them so that they have something to grieve like oh, let's say, we had two little girls and they were called this and this and that's who we're grieving and that can actually make you confront your grief a bit and really help get through it. So what you said I think makes a lot of sense, puts substance and it puts a person to what you've lost, which can be very difficult otherwise. And it was her name.
Claire Sandys:One of the bits in your blog that showed me the writer in you was like the structure bit that kept coming back, and I wrote them down because you were like hey, logan, this is what it feels like to be alive. Hey, logan, this is what it feels like to be loved. Hey, logan, this is what it feels like to go fast. Hey, logan, I'm really glad we did this together. Hey, logan, we did it and I was like that's just brilliant. That's a story right there for me. There's a structure of you going through it and then connecting with her along the way and her being with you and I think that's what makes the blog so special is that you take us along on that journey with you and with her, which I think is just what I mean, what a lovely tribute to her. When you hit publish on that blog, how were you feeling? Is that a really scary vulnerable place for you, or was this like? Actually, this feels quite cathartic. This is good to put out there.
Justin Creps:I think mostly the second thing. So it took me a long time to write it. That's another thing I think it's important. You know, I ran the race in October um, this isn't like I wrote this and published in November, like it was like the following spring, but I think I mostly felt good about it. For me personally, I think it was a step like I'm I'm comfortable talking about this now. I'm comfortable sharing. So one one thing I think worth mentioning for sure is I definitely like followed my wife's lead, because there is a female male when it comes to something like this. Like if my wife wasn't comfortable with me talking about this, I would not have talked about it. So for a long time we didn't talk too much about it, much about it.
Justin Creps:Pretty early in the process, once we had officially lost Logan, my wife did post something just to kind of let people know, and that's when I took it, as it was okay for me to talk about it as well. So I remember not long after we lost her, I had a cross-country meet. So I coach and people were going to be at that meet seeing me who had seen my wife's post. So like they knew that we had just lost a child and we were feeling some sort of some really heavy emotions and I think it would have been perfectly valid for me to say, oh, I'm not going to be at this meet, I have my assistant coach cover for me or whatever. But I I wanted to keep kind of going, you know, keep life normal, take my mind off of it for a little while. But what I didn't want was like people that I know at the meet coming up to me in that moment oh, I'm so sorry, we heard. I didn't want to deal with all that. So I just put out a message to the. I'm very close with the families that I coach and, you know, just was honest with them and told them what had happened but also said I don't want to talk about this today. I'm here to coach the athletes and have a good meet and I appreciate all the good feelings and stuff and anyways, even from that, it spread around fairly quickly. When you're a teacher and a coach in a community like ours, people talk about you. But what was cool was they respected us. On.
Justin Creps:That day went fine, but in the ensuing weeks I started to get more and more messages of, hey, I went through this and I just wanted to reach out and people were very gracious and courteous and respectful, and courteous and respectful. But it was eye-opening how many people had also been through it and how much I learned from people who reached out to me. So there was one mom her daughter runs for me and she reached out, shared that they had lost a child through a miscarriage and one of the healthiest thoughts she had afterwards they ended up having another child who they would have never had if the miscar up, having another child who they would have never had if the miscarriage didn't happen because they would have been done. So the only reason they have this, this new person that they love, is because that miscarriage happened.
Justin Creps:And and I guess now I'm in a very similar situation of we have our second son, parker, who I love, that kid I wouldn't change a thing about him. He wouldn't be here if Logan was, we would have been done. So I guess you know I don't know if I would have found that thought on my own or if I would have found it as quickly. So I think, having benefited from other people sharing their experiences with me, it made me very excited to hey, if someone reads this and takes any positive out of it, then I've kind of paid it forward you know and that's how I teach and that's how I coach.
Justin Creps:I am very much like an experience driven coach. This kid's struggling with something I'm going to talk about. A time I struggled with something similarly and hopefully they can learn through my experience. Like that's just kind of how I am. So I'm pretty open about sharing things and you know if, if someone else can benefit from my experiences, then that's a huge win.
Justin Creps:So, yeah, I think, having gone through it and felt the love from other people, it made me feel mostly positive and excited about. Excited it's probably the wrong word, but it definitely made me feel mostly positive about sharing my experiences and in the hopes that someone else would read it and benefit. And I guess the other thing I would add is I know my blog is not like a big blog that, like, thousands of people are going to read, like it's probably just going to be people who know me. Maybe some people from your podcast might read it now and that's totally great. But there's a measure of comfort. It wasn't like it was going out on the Internet for people on Reddit to rip apart or, you know, call me weak or something.
Claire Sandys:Anyone who would go to that link is someone who cares about me. Yeah, so it was going to be positive. Yeah, that's nice. In my experience, sharing anything that you've been through that's hard has a positive response from other people. Because I think it's just one of those things. Think it's just one of those things people identify with hard stuff, with suffering, with bad things, more than they do with the. You know the celebrations and the things that people achieve. I'm pretty sure you know you. Sharing that with somebody it makes a lot of people feel more comfortable than you're saying.
Claire Sandys:I've run this many marathons where people are like, oh, I can't even run like two, like it's like there's something good about identifying with the bad stuff that people really, really connect with and I can't. I mean, I just can't get away from grief. Every time I've done a short story in any of these competitions I've thought I'll try and do a funny one. I've never done funny. Let me try funny. By the time I finished it it's back about grief again. I don't know what it is, but big emotions, they're fun. I find them enjoyable.
Justin Creps:It's funny, I judged one of yours in writing battle once, once and I yeah, I didn't realize it at the time. Um, and it actually was my favorite. I'm not even pulling your leg. It was my favorite of the stories. I judged that season. I remember it was someone speaking at a conference oh, that was the really short.
Justin Creps:That was a 250 yeah, yeah, and I really enjoyed it and I didn't put. I haven't read enough of your stuff to put it together, but when I saw on the debrief it was you, it's like oh yeah someone's speaking about grief. I probably should have.
Claire Sandys:Should have connected that I've got all mine on my profile and they are all about something bad happening. I just can't get away from it. I love. I find it really hard to write happy emotions. Actually, if I need to do a scene in my book that's upbeat happy the redemption bit I find that really difficult. I don't know if that's just me or everyone else. Do you find the happier bits easy?
Justin Creps:uh, I wouldn't say I find them easy. It does seem, just from having gone through a lot of debriefs and judged a lot of cases, stuff uh does seem to be. People naturally seem to gravitate towards. You're always trying to get, you know, the biggest gut punch you can, the biggest bang for your buck. You want someone to feel emotional and I I think it's. I think it's easier to make the connection when it's something negative, right, it's easier to kind of get in that headspace. You know that when someone reads about something like child death or or the the puppy died, right, then they're going to get emotional about it. It's kind of harder, especially in short word counts. I think the key to happy emotions is you have to build to it, right. You have to. You have to earn that happiness, right. I think sadness can happen much more suddenly, where happiness is something that takes time to grow into, and if you're in 250 words, that's really hard to do.
Justin Creps:So I think that's probably part of the challenge from what I've seen. But I do think both can be done well and I do think especially it's funny, you know, writing battle has been around now for a few years and you're starting to have these veterans that have been doing it for a few years and I think what we value has changed. I think I've seen that even in the competition in the community of we kind of respect more, like because we've seen so many of the sad stories, when you get one that comes out that's like, oh man, this nailed that happy emotion. I think we value that more because we've kind of seen how rare those can be yeah, yeah, definitely no.
Claire Sandys:That's true. Someone who can do that really well would definitely stand out. I do struggle with the.
Claire Sandys:I'm someone who likes rules so I struggle with the like, uh, like this is the genre you need to write. Let's say you need to write romance, something which I don't think either me or you particularly want to pull out of a hat then when it's not in those strict genres because when you're writing a novel you're in a strict genre you know you can't just have an alien drop down in the middle of a romance novel. No one's going to publish that. So you have these strict boundaries to to an extent and if you're gonna, you know, break them, you need to be pretty good or like well known, right. But in the short stories, when you're, when you're judging and you're peer judging, they move around a lot within the genre. So a story can be like oh, this is like a winner and you're like, well, that doesn't seem to. Really I struggle with that, with all the discussion and debate. I'm like, yeah, I have to not get too involved. Find that quite yeah, it's.
Justin Creps:It's always a recurring thing on the forums and the thing is you don't know who's judging in writing battle. You could have one round. You could have someone that's like a super strict rule follower and that's like what they're really concerned about, and then the next round you might have a judge that's like I don't care about the rules at all, I just want a good story you know so you kind of have to write what you enjoy and hope you get lucky a little bit yeah, yeah, I have not got lucky, by the way, if anyone's wondering, how does she do not?
Claire Sandys:well, and short stories are not, but I have fun, but uh, yeah, it's definitely not my, not my bag long term. I just it's amazing, exactly.
Justin Creps:Have fun and it's fun hopefully you can take a story out of it that you can either be proud of or try to sell somewhere else or or build on or whatever, and there's actually quite a few people who have taken their writing battle stories and have expanded them into longer pieces and stuff.
Claire Sandys:Yeah, that's a nice idea.
Justin Creps:Yeah, if you're in it to win the competition, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. It's hard to win, but you never know, so there's a couple that got close. I've never made it like top two or anything like that. I won my house before, which I was proud of.
Claire Sandys:Yeah, it's hard to be competitive in something like that, which I was proud of. Yeah, it's hard to be competitive in something like that. I heard someone say once they enjoy writing. It doesn't matter if anything happens to it or goes anywhere, they just enjoy doing it.
Claire Sandys:That is not me Like. If I write this novel and it doesn't go anywhere, I'm not happy about it. I don't write just for fun. I write because I want to see it published. I want to see it somewhere, I want some fruit from my book. So I do enjoy writing, but not to the extent that I can sit and write stuff and then put it in a drawer and I'm happy with that. I know some people have a different love of writing in that way.
Claire Sandys:I admire them for that massively yeah, but I guess it's like for people like you just run and don't record what they're running for, what they're doing. It's just a different way of doing it.
Justin Creps:I'm somewhere in between. I have lots in the drawer, but I still have like the hope that it comes out of the drawer at some point, like I never put something in the drawer and I'm like I'm good with it just being in the drawer. I'm okay with it being in the drawer for now, but at some point it needs to come out of the drawer.
Claire Sandys:Yeah, yeah, you need to see some reward from it. It's a lot of work.
Justin Creps:Yeah, it is.
Claire Sandys:Yeah, yeah.
Justin Creps:So you wrote about this loss with Logan. Have you had any other losses where you've used writing to help you through it? So yeah, there's actually it's two other articles in the blog. I think one is actually more recent than the Logan article and I think one is possibly written right before the Logan article. So there's three right in a row. The most recent one is it's a loss but it's a happy loss.
Justin Creps:I wrote a letter to an outgoing senior class. So I coach these kids starting in seventh grade and I'm their coach for six years and then they graduate and go on with life and it's a happy thing, it's the way it's supposed to be. But you know, sometimes you know you have a kid that you really connect with and you see him every day for six years and then it's kind of happy trails, good luck. And so, yeah, I wrote. There was a class of a few kids that I was really close with that I valued a lot and I value all my classes, but, for whatever reason, with this one I just felt inspired to kind of write them a kind of going away letter and I put in my blog and so I think that in a way, was me processing the loss, another one that I wrote about. This was actually I'm trying to think if it was 2020 or 2021. It was definitely Christmas time. So, yeah, this was hard.
Justin Creps:One of the kids I had coached she had been graduated for a year passed away in a car accident on Christmas Eve. She was 19 years old, her name was Jessie, and so that was obviously tragic. And at the same time, my dad, who I'm very close with, had gotten COVID and ended up in the ICU for about a week, like he was in very bad shape and he, my dad, can be stubborn and it was hard because it was like convincing him to go to the hospital. And it's probably one of the most like tension filled times I've ever had with my dad. He wasn't clear thinking with what he was going through. We had to have some hard conversations and but I remember going to the funeral of a girl I had coached for four years who had tragically died at 19 years old. So I'm heartbroken over that. I'm trying to be there for the kids that were her teammates, that I'd, you know, kind of been an adult in their life and watching them.
Justin Creps:You can't process that grief. It's, it's, you know, especially at 18 years old you just lost a friend and trying to kind of grapple with those feelings and at the same time, like I'm at that funeral, like feeling guilty because I'm checking my phone to see if my dad's OK, it was a lot to process at once and I think at that time there was so much going on, it almost like fried your sensors, it's almost like you can't even. There's so much you can't feel any of it because it's just too much coming at you at once and I just remember kind of existing through that and not really processing any of it. And at the same time I wasn't running much, probably just because I was emotionally fried and didn't have any energy to go out and run. But I wrote an article on there about when I came back to coaching and actually I think it lined up where I think this was a big part of it.
Justin Creps:Now that I'm I haven't thought about this in a while Not a happy time to think about.
Justin Creps:I think we had just had Mac, so I think it was 2020.
Justin Creps:I actually hadn't seen a lot of those kids for a couple of months because I had taken time off to be with my wife and our newborn son.
Justin Creps:So this all happened on Christmas Eve and I remember coming to practice on like January 3rd or something like that, and it was the first time I had like addressed the team in several months and it was like coming back to that and trying to like how do I deal with this? Do I pretend like everything's normal? That doesn't seem right. You know what do you say? Say so, yeah, I wrote about that whole experience and that obviously is a pretty emotional blog, but I think, once again, writing about it kind of allowed me to parse through it, feel the things I needed to feel, say what I need to say just kind of a step in in feeling what I need to feel, but also like thinking about how do I feel like. Well, sometimes when you have to put it into words, it forces you to like dissect it a little bit more, and sometimes you gain some understanding just by forcing yourself to go through that process.
Claire Sandys:Yeah, definitely I've had that. I started to write something down thinking I should probably write about this and it's amazing what can come out just with pen and paper that wouldn't come out necessarily verbally when you're talking. Do you think your writing is better now because of what you've been through and maybe because of writing about it?
Justin Creps:Definitely. It's a hard thing to articulate, but I think we all have an emotional well. We kind of draw from right. You know the capacity for what you can put into your characters. You have to have that capacity within yourself somewhere. So I do think when we go through the hard times it does kind of stretch you can put into your characters. You have to have that capacity within yourself somewhere. So I do think when we go through the hard times it does kind of stretch you. You feel things you've never felt before and now you know how that feels. And so I think, definitely I think if you lived maybe I shouldn't say it but like I think if you lived a perfectly like happy, boring life and never had anything bad happen to you?
Claire Sandys:my guess is it would be. You'd be a pretty bad writer.
Justin Creps:I agree, unless you've got just an insane amount of empathy and you're just able to, like, put yourself in a position you've never been in and there's definitely some of that you have to do as a writer like especially writing fiction.
Justin Creps:You have to be able to imagine what it's like to, you know, in a situation you haven't been in. But I think if you haven't had at least some situations that are adjacent to that, you know it's it would become very hard to sound genuine and authentic as you write about it. So I think, um, you know, I wouldn't wish hardship on anyone necessarily, but as a writer, I think in in a way, we are grateful for the tough times we go through, obviously, way after the fact, because, yeah, there's things you learn about human nature and, let's be real, when you write fiction, your characters are going to go through hardship. Like that's part of just story structure, right? So if you've never had to deal with that, if you've never had to gone through that, to feel what it feels to come on the other side of that, you know that's kind of the happy emotion too. You know it's easier to write it when you've experienced something like it before.
Claire Sandys:Definitely you can tell sometimes in books, when I read something I think that author hasn't fully experienced that. It's just little things. But I mean, even on the podcast, we're all stories about finding hope in grief and loss. I think I'm quite empathetic. I can put myself in people's situations quite quickly. That's why I like doing the podcast, because I can ask questions about their situation, because I feel like I can put myself there. It's hard to do that if you can't, but listening to them has made me a more authentic writer when it comes to grief, because I've heard all these stories of how people have reacted with grief. So even some of them might seem a bit off the wall or a bit different or like would someone do that? But they are authentic and they are things that people do and I think people connect with that.
Claire Sandys:And I really think if you're not good at it or if you haven't experienced much listening to other people's stories, I mean if somebody wanted to write a scene about grief and they hadn't been through it, you know, I would say, listen to any of my podcast episodes on that topic and you will get a very authentic idea of what it looks like and it'll probably be different from what you would have imagined it would be, and I think that's why I just end up writing about it all the time, because it's so fresh in my mind. But also, like you said, we look at hope and it's very hard to imagine if you haven't been through a situation. How on earth do you find hope in that kind of grief? Again, you've got to listen to someone who's been there and like this is how I did it, this is how I found it, and that again gives me kind of not fodder.
Claire Sandys:I'm not using any of your stories, by the way listeners, for my book, but it gives me ideas as to how the human can come from one situation into another when you find it hard to imagine that yourself. It reminds me, actually, another line I really like that you wrote in your blog. I've got to find it because I wrote it. I've always found one of the best ways to beat your demons on the inside is to focus your attention on caring for others on the outside. It's not directly linked to what I'm saying, but it just reminded me that sometimes you know, focusing on others really helps you do stuff yourself. Just tell me about that. Is that something that's had a profound impact on your life, because that's quite a strong statement.
Justin Creps:I think when you focus on caring for other people, you're never going to feel worse, you know you're never going to feel like I just did something nice for someone. I'm going to feel bad, you know. So I think that's kind of and sometimes you know, when you're really in the thick of it maybe it's not possible for you in that moment to be giving of yourself to someone else. But when you get to the point where you're hurting but you just need to focus somewhere else for a while, Really good place to focus is on like what, what's a positive thing I can do to help someone and in general, it's a pretty good way to live your life, probably.
Justin Creps:But yeah, I found I struggle with anxiety sometimes when I'm running. Um, I've kind of suffered like almost panic attacks while running before I think in the blog I was kind of going through something like that the my foot went numb on like the eighth mile of that race. It's this race that I've trained for and I've put so much into and I've I've made it such an emotional thing for me because I'm in my head I'm running with Logan and you know getting to that finish line was very important. So like when there was something that put that in jeopardy, like, oh man, that that was a hard moment. So what you find when you're running a marathon is you got a lot of time with your own thoughts, and sometimes you can control that those thoughts more than other times. And in that moment of that race I was not able to control what was going on inside my own head very much. So I needed to just get out of my own head and luckily at that moment someone I knew happened to be kind of running by me and so, rather than, like you know, just keeping my head down and and wallowing in my thoughts, I just hey, for half a mile I'm going to kind of tag on with this person and I'm just going to be there like hype man, I'm going to be positive.
Justin Creps:And it's crazy how, like when you start being positive for someone else, it's just kind of easier to be positive for yourself. And, sure enough, after a couple of miles I had kind of gotten into a better headspace. But yeah, I do think that's a powerful life lesson. You know, if we all go through ruts, we all go through difficult patches, and if you let yourself just kind of internalize everything and wallow and isolate. It's probably not a recipe for getting out of it too easily, but if you find a way to make that hard choice of, even though I'm not feeling my best, I'm going to do something positive for someone else or for the world, or I'm going to go volunteer at this place, my guess is when you come out of that, you're going to be feeling better. Not always easy to do, not always possible to do, but if you can it's a good thing to try.
Claire Sandys:And sharing that blog afterwards. You know that was helping others. That was another way of you kind of looking outward. From that you had a personal best. That race went really well. What is your personal best now?
Justin Creps:245, so I I beat it. Let's see, I think I think I've beaten that one twice now, maybe once, I can't remember but now I'm 245. So I just uh PR'd in October again it was at Columbus again so I I've improved. I think I think that one was a 249, so I, so I've since gone 2.47 and 2.45. So just kind of continuously trying to get a little bit better.
Claire Sandys:So that's two hours 45 minutes. What would the average person run? Because people won't know how good that is.
Justin Creps:I think out of the 5,000 or 6,000 people that ran Columbus this year, the average time on the course was like four hours 30 minutes, so it's quite a difference, difference yeah, yeah, um, in america we talk about mile splits a lot, so I'm basically averaging six minutes 15 seconds per mile, which I don't think in k's all that often, but I think it's about four minutes a k. So, yeah, yeah, it's, it's moving. Um, I'm not like an elite runner, like I'm not a professional by any means, but for a 35 year old dad who kind of does it on the side, it's a pretty respectable time. I'm proud of it.
Claire Sandys:It is. You've got a lot going on. I mean I'm surprised you can even fit running and writing together as a joint. Like man. If I took all the time I spent running and put that into writing.
Justin Creps:I'd probably have a couple of books by now, but I don't know. They both make me happy in different ways. I kind of stumbled into something during 2020 when there was a lot of time to do some soul searching at home. At home, I've identified I call them the six pillars of my life, and if I neglect any of those six I don't feel whole. And running and writing are two of the six. So I can go through seasons where maybe I don't run as much or I don't write as much, but if I feel like I'm completely neglecting either of those, I'm just not me. So it's kind of who I am. I'm a runner and I'm a writer, so I gotta find a way to squeeze them both in that feels very healthy yeah, it helps me.
Justin Creps:It kind of keep even how I like organize my life. Like when I make my weekly calendar I have my six categories and if one of my categories is completely empty, I'm like maybe I need to rethink if I'm neglecting that part of my identity right now so where does podcast fit in with your six that's? Not, that is a sub category of writing. The podcast was definitely. It was in 2020. 2020 was a wild time.
Justin Creps:You had a lot going on. Well, here's the thing Like I find a way to keep myself busy at all times. I'm not one to just like sit and not do something Like I'm just always there's to be something I'm working on, and in 2020 we couldn't go to work or go outside or do much. We were, we were stuck at home. So I had time to do some things that I had never done before, and one of those things I'd kind of ventured into podcasting once before, but it was a very let's not talk about that but.
Justin Creps:But this was my first and and it was funny because because John Woolley and I had worked together for a long time and we had kind of recently discovered that we both had aspirations to become writers, but neither of us had any sort of platform at all. And we decided why don't we both like talking we're both teachers, we're kind of good at educating, I guess why don't we just try this podcast thing? I had a friend who had done a podcast very different genre of podcast. He's a great photographer and he made a photography podcast and it had really taken off. And he had told me like you need to. If you want to grow a platform, this is a great way to do it. You'd be good at it. So I talked to John. I was like you want to do this? We're both sitting at home with nothing to do.
Justin Creps:And actually at the time as teachers we had to teach ourselves a lot about like communicating virtually because all of a sudden classes were online. So like it's kind of a natural transition, like we're teaching online, let's just keep it going with a podcast. And it very much started as like just kind of a fun thing we did and it still is but like we would get like I don't know, 25 downloads. I think our good episodes were were maybe close to 100, like it was.
Justin Creps:It was not something a lot of people were listening to and it's still not like a massive podcast, like it's definitely still kind of, uh, just a fun little thing. But it has been fun to watch it grow and, um, we have kind of gotten our own little community kind of tied to the competitions. We do a lot of those writers are just obsessed with those competitions, like they. They when they get into one they want to eat, sleep and breathe it. You know, you look at the forums while it's all going on, you know, and so it. When we kind of made that connection, all of a sudden it's like wait, there's a podcast that talks about this thing I'm obsessed with and and it's been kind of fun to connect with some people that way.
Claire Sandys:It's a good niche for that. You've kind of found a nice little groove there. If, for people who are listening, who you know are going through stuff and they haven't ever thought about writing not necessarily writing, you know fiction and stuff but just writing in any way, shape or form why should people consider it? Why should people think about writing? What's the benefits?
Justin Creps:So I think one thing I would say right off the bat is we all write way more than we realize anyways, especially in the age of social media. You know a lot of us are writing captions or comments and you write more than you realize, even if it's work emails, you're constantly having to put your thoughts into words. So I guess some advice is like especially if you're going through something like, just put your thoughts into words, even if it's just in a notebook on your nightstand, and maybe you tried a few times and you don't like it and that's perfectly fine. But I do think there's power in just taking a moment to feel what you're feeling and then thinking about it enough to put it on a page. There's naturally going to be some processing that happens there and in my opinion that's usually pretty healthy processing. It be some processing that happens there and in my opinion that's usually pretty healthy processing. It does give you some measure of allowing you to feel your feelings in a safe space. If you don't want to share it, you never have to share it. You know it can just be your own little thing.
Justin Creps:But I think an important step with dealing with loss or grief or pain or whatever is allowing yourself to feel it and allowing yourself to think and process it when you're ready to and I think writing is just a very natural way of doing that it takes time, so you're having to spend time feeling that, getting in that headspace, and then you have to attach words to it, so you have to think enough about it to articulate it, to understand it. I think that's why it's good Whatever's comfortable for you. You know it's different for everyone, I'm sure, if it's writing a letter to yourself, if it's writing a blog, if it's writing a diary, if it's telling fictional stories, but the stories deal with something adjacent to that you went through. You know, I think there's just anytime you allow yourself to be in that space, feel it, think about it. I think that's a healthy step.
Claire Sandys:Definitely, and there's so many different ways to do it, like you said. You know it could be any of those, or like, could be poetry, and there's all sorts of these short story communities that I didn't know anything about. You know, if you want to feel like you're in it with other people, then writing in these ways and joining the forums and seeing people talk about it can really help you not only kind of hone your craft, but also just you're less alone in it. So I think, yeah, there's a whole world out there for people who are interested in it, and some people might just want to write and put it in a drawer, which is absolutely fine. Yeah, loads of ways.
Claire Sandys:So writing is a useful tool for dealing with loss and grief and for people going through it, but also, maybe, people preparing for it. You know some people can write about these things, put themselves there, imagine it. That can actually help you when you go through it, maybe. So, with my last question and my metaphorical tool shed, if I was to go in and pick out a tool that represented writing and how that can help us in these situations, what kind of tool do you think it would be?
Justin Creps:So I hope this counts as a tool. I'm not much of a gardener. I'm going to go with some gloves, though, some good heavy duty gardening gloves, because first of all, it can fit to whatever you need. All right, it's one size fits all a little bit, but then it allows you to get in the weeds, right. It allows you to get into that hard thing, right, feel what you need to feel, exist with it, but it protects you. There's a buffer, right, you know. You can talk about it in a way that feels safe. If you want to, you can attach it to a character that's not you.
Justin Creps:If you want to write fiction, you can. You know, let's use my example with Logan. If I wanted to, I could have written a story about a father whose wife just had a miscarriage, and I could have made it all fictional and it's not me. But obviously, if I wrote that story, I'd be forced to feel a lot of what I had to feel, right, but it's not happening to me, it's happening to Bob, you know. So I think writing allows you to exist with and approach those feelings that you need to feel, but it just gives you a little layer of protection where it's maybe not quite as fresh, not quite as sharp. So that's the gloves. You know you're still pulling the weeds, but your fingers aren't going to get all caught up or cut up and scratched up because you've got that layer of protection there as you're doing the work that needs to be done, and it's hard work. So you got to put your gloves on there as you're doing the work that needs to be done, and it's hard work, so you gotta put your gloves on Gloves.
Claire Sandys:Every gardener knows you need a good few pairs of those in the shed, and for the toughest jobs you need the heavy duty ones. I had a feeling Justin, as a creative, would come up with a great analogy, and he didn't disappoint. He's absolutely right. Writing is like a protective layer. It gives you a safe space to process your experiences, shields you from sharing before you're ready and allows you to explore your emotions in a way that might truly surprise you. If you haven't tried it before, I urge you to give it a go.
Claire Sandys:If you want to find out more about Justin and his writing, you can check out www. justincreps. com and I'll put links in the show notes to the blog posts that he mentioned and his podcast and social media. Thank you so much for this conversation, Justin. It was so good to chat about two subjects that are so close to my heart, and I'm hopeful this will encourage a lot more people to process what they're going through through writing, even if you do just put it in a drawer afterwards. And thanks for listening to The Silent Why podcast. If you've got a subject you'd like me to chat to an expert on, please get in touch via social media or the website, or drop me an email at thesilentwh y@ gmail. com and let's chat.
