This week’s podcast has us on the road to Lone Pine, California, home to many movie settings, some of which you’ve seen. We use a visit to the Museum of Western Film History and the Alabama Hills as background for a chat about Settings. They can be a challenge to writers as we try toContinue reading “Settings Part One”
Category Archives: Writing
Road Not Taken
This week we chat about Robert Frost’s “Road Not Taken” (apologies to Mr. Frost for mangling the quote in the podcast). With CC and I being of a certain age, we have a better perspective of our interests and skills. What careers would we have picked had we the chance to do things over again?Continue reading “Road Not Taken”
Anxiety Attack
We gave ourselves an on-air (and mutual) anxiety attack in this week’s podcast as we talked out our plans for the rest of the year. We didn’t know how much we have going on until we turned on the microphone! The big part of the podcast was Content Editing. We got the draft back fromContinue reading “Anxiety Attack”
Interesting Times
“May you live in interesting times.” JT’s awesome aunt says this is an ancient Chinese curse. The world has been living through them here in the 21st Century, but what does that mean for the writer who engages in historical fiction? We discuss the challenges facing authors who use real-life events in their books, includingContinue reading “Interesting Times”
Imposter Syndrome
We always say we have a jampacked podcast and we’re usually right. Today’s fun started at Oh-dark-thirty when JT photographed a hot air balloon over Carson City, only to learn later that a friend and colleague was aboard. We ended up taking pictures of each other without knowing we were taking pictures of each other.Continue reading “Imposter Syndrome”
Marketing is Cruel
Episode 81 is all about making a plan to market our book and sticking to it. We say “Marketing is Cruel” because we are not the kind of people to rush out and beg people to read our books. We talk about the baby steps we’re taking to get over that hump and why we’reContinue reading “Marketing is Cruel”
Comedy is Hard
Welcome to the podcast where we misquote actor Edwin Guinn and others when we say, “Life is easy. Comedy is hard.” We discuss our mutual work in progress (WIP), and we agree that while we got the “Rom” part right, we misfired on the “Com” part. How did that happen? And what can we doContinue reading “Comedy is Hard”
Storytelling
Busy writers podcast this week, so let’s dive in: Book covers w @99designs Editing with @RAPublishing Lessons learned from writing together The status of our individual WIPs Pixar Storytelling rules via @lawnrocket Karma. Be Kind. Always. Here’s the source of the Pixar storytelling rules. Listen to the podcast! Love it? Hate it? Let us knowContinue reading “Storytelling”
Chapter One
What hooks a reader into buying and reading a book? Heck if we know, but we try to examine that “hook” that pulls readers into our books. I read the first chapter of my latest book as an example. (Adult content warning) We also talk about finishing the first draft of our latest book, andContinue reading “Chapter One”
Plot Prompts
Two weeks ago, CC gave me random prompts and had me make up a story on the fly, testing me as a pantser. CC took her turn as a plotter with these three prompts: Dropped into an alien worldHigh school romanceTeenage girl superhero (Giving credit, the prompts came from https://www.servicescape.com/writing-prompt-generator) We had an interesting conversationContinue reading “Plot Prompts”