All Things Writing

Welcome everyone to this next episode of All things writing. 

This year I was fortunate to be a vendor at ConGregate 2021. It was my first time back in the convention waters in a long time and it was really nice to know that we are getting back to the regular routine of things. When we go to Cons, authors do spend time talking with our colleagues about what is going on in the business. I lucked out to get a spot next to my next guest.

Welcome to the show, Mr. Patrick Dugan! Join us as we talk about all kinds of things including;

How did your early writing experiences shape you?

You read a lot as a child. What would you say was the biggest influence during that time and why? What did those early influences give you?

Tell us about “The Darkest Storm” series.

You also wrote “Fate and Flux”, which is steampunk. I am fascinated how connected SciFi and steampunk are connected in many ways. And, for that measure, paranormal thrillers can be added to that mix. Would you consider yourself to be multi-genre?

You mentioned Fallstaff Publishing and John Hartness. In the “about” section of your website. How did that relationship start?

For people looking into finding the right publisher, what would you say are the most important considerations?

I know that at the Con we were at, you gave a discussion on how to use tools for helping you in your writing career. I think we are sometimes awash in tools and a new one comes out every few minutes to solve all of our problems. What would you say are your favorites?

Want to know more? Check out Patrick on the links below!

His website: https://www.patrickdugan.net/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/patrick.dugan.3781
Twitter: https://twitter.com/P_Dugan
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/patrickduganauthor/

Thank you for listening. Consider supporting an indie author by signing up to Patreon today. After you sign up, I will send you the book of your choice.

There are some books you read which really tell you a ton about the author and how they have grown. Roadside Attractions is that book for friend of the show, Eric Lahti. Come with me as we talk about what I liked about the book!

I will give you a hint. I love good characters and amazing dialogue.

Want to know more? Check it out here!

-Bryan the Writer

Thank you for listening. Consider supporting an indie author by signing up to Patreon today. After you sign up, I will send you the book of your choice.

As I am sure you know by now, this is All Things Writing and I am your host Bryan the Writer. Thank you for joining me on this huge milestone of a show. We have done it, dear listener. We have broken through the barrier that is 1,500 downloads and are already well on our way to the next milestone.

I could not have done it without the support of the people listening and the people who have come on the show to be my guests since I started this. 

Alright let’s talk notes!

As you know this show is really about my journey and sharing some of my tips and tricks as I have stumbled and bumbled my way through my writing life. One of the things I have had a really hard time with over the hears is keeping track of, and taking good notes. 

Creativity lives in the back of the human brain, not in the front. If you tried to will yourself, right now, to come up with five great book ideas in ten minutes, I want to suggest that is really hard to do. The best idea for a short story, which ended up in a magazine, came from a nightmare I had. Again, it was that back part of my brain that was fully engaged. But, and here is the important bit,

I had to get up, run downstairs, and jot things down on a piece of paper. Then I let out a yawn and went back to bed. Early morning, and the middle of the night are the best times for the rear of the brain to do its best work.

But that is the thing, we have all done a similar thing. So, what do you do with all those bits of paper and scraps of napkin you collect when the back of your brain is living its best life? Listen to the show and find out.

Also, if you have not checked her out, head over to Ann Kroeker's site and check out her podcast. You will be glad you did. https://annkroeker.com/

Appearances coming up soon!

·         9-11th of July: CONGREGATE; Winston Salem, NC: http://con-gregate.com/

·         17 July: Book Signing at the Book Warehouse at 5625 Richmond Rd. in Williamsburg, VA.

·         30 July – 1 Aug: Scares That Care; at the Doubletree Hotel at 50 Kingsmill Rd., Williamsburg, VA

·         3 October: Fredericksburg Indie Book Festival; We will be located on Sofia Street this year (although maybe in the park next to it). Come one and come all. I have done this event a few times in the past, and it just keeps growing every year.

·         13 November: Hannover Book Festival; 8700 Bell Creek Rd, Mechanicsville, VA. For those of you unfamiliar, that is in the area of Richmond

Thank you for listening. Consider supporting an indie author by signing up to Patreon today. After you sign up, I will send you the book of your choice.

Welcome to the show! Today I have the distinct pleasure of talking with the amazing writing coach, Ann Kroeker. Join Ann and I while we talk about all kinds of things. Here are only a few topics we covered during this episode.

• What is it that a writing coach can do for a writer?
• What are reasonable goals, do you feel, for a new writer who is just starting out and trying to navigate these waters we call writing?
• Outside of hiring a writing coach, what advice would you give someone in terms of resources to explore? 
• Where do you see the writing world going and what is the best way to prepare for that?
• What media do you like in the future and do you think it is time for us to start looking away from Facebook and twitter to the next thing? What is that thing?
• When should we engage writing coaches?
• What are my options for right sizing a relationship with a writing coach? And maybe tell us a little bit about what we should look for in that relationship.

Are you interested in knowing more about what Ann can do for you? Check her out at https://annkroeker.com/

As I always remind people, if you like the show, hit that like button, as many already have. This way you can know when new shows come out. Also, if you would like to sponsor a show, please reach out to me at my e-mail. At [email protected].

Thank you for listening. Consider supporting an indie author by signing up to Patreon today. After you sign up, I will send you the book of your choice.

The Impromptu Show:
 
 I was on my way to Glenwood Springs, Colorado. What’s in Glenwood Springs, you might ask? That is the last place that the world’s most famous dentist lived and where he died. The world’s most famous dentist? Why on earth would we even want to talk about the world’s most famous dentist? I did leave out the part where I should have said he is not famous for being a dentist.

Of course, I’m referring to the legendary Dr. John Henry Holliday. Most people just knew him as Doc Holliday.

When I was a kid, and some of you older people will remember this, Time Life Books came out with a special edition dedicated to gunfighters. As a child these fascinated me. The idea of gunslingers calling out their enemies to the Main Street at high noon fascinated me.

While I was on the trail going up to the cemetery, I met a family. The man I met was an obvious stoner, his wife was desperate to get downhill, their kids were dressed in dirty pajamas, and tuckered out.

It would be easy to dismiss these people and ignore them. I had a nice chat with the father. For them it was an early morning walk outside. They were enjoying the day.

My author brain went into high gear and it was easy to paint these people into a story where this family was running for their lives from the unsettled spirits in the graveyard just up the hill where Doc Holliday and Kid Curry were battling for supremacy over their final resting places.

In my version of the story the family would have to take refuge behind headstones of deceased spirits implored them to take cover or end up joining them in the great beyond.

The day after my trip to Glenwood Springs I found a masseuse in Colorado Springs who could address my pulled muscle in my back. As I was driving to the appointment, I began thinking about what my trip to Glenwood Springs really meant. What did it truly leave me with?

I suppose, for me, it left me with a deeper appreciation of what life must’ve been like on the frontier in the 1800s. I now see Doc Holliday in a different light. While it would be easy to paint him as this steely eyed gunfighter, I saw another side of him. I saw the once infamous gunfighter, wracked with tuberculosis, laying there in the bed dying.

It’s a different side of him to be sure, that we normally see. And that is how you write characters who are three-dimensional. Don’t see them as what is simply portrayed at first glance. Walk around in their shoes a bit, or in my case their boots and try to see the world through their eyes. Not just at their best, but also their worst.

This is Bryan the Writer for All Things Writing, signing off.

Thank you for listening. Consider supporting an indie author by signing up to Patreon today. After you sign up, I will send you the book of your choice.

No, I am not talking about the Golden Globes or the People's Choice awards, I am talking about the literary awards which shine a light on your amazing work!

Like me, you probably once thought that the New York Times bestsellers list was compiled by how many books were sold in the US. As it turns out, that’s only mostly true in terms of sales numbers. 

According to a recent New York Times article dated 23 September 2020, come hell or high water the New York Times list is published every Wednesday at 7 PM Eastern standard Time.

So, who are the people actually make the selections? A tiny staff of three with a lot of help from computers.

Bookstores throughout the country send in their sales data to this team. Who are these stores? Literally they are stores big and small and in between. It took me two seconds to find the point of contact I would need to send in information if I was a small bookseller and wants to report my sales.

Okay, so if we accept the fact that it’s impossible to buy your way into the New York Times best-selling list, although there kind of is if you have a huge marketing campaign in your back pocket, then we have to consider some other options. You can either buy your way into a competition, which also could give you the side benefit of getting some reviews out of the deal, or you could participate in more genre specific competitions.

Undoubtedly, you have all heard of the Reader’s Favorite awards? It is, as I suggested, and award program where you pay to be listed as one of the competitors. They do promise to give you a fair review of book in exchange for the fee in addition to being considered for the award. And I have heard from other authors they do a really good job of writing a review.

I believe that winning the reader’s favorite award is a high honor and is worthy of praise.

However, you do have to be careful with these kinds of awards. There are a few out there which have come and gone which pretend to offer prestigious awards to authors for a fee.

Be careful and do your homework. Don’t just send money to any operation. This is where it comes in handy to be involved in the author writing groups. They can tell you if a particular award program is legitimate or not. There are plenty of people out there who will stop at nothing to try and steal those precious dollars from your wallet.

The other option for you to receive recognition is to participate in various groups. For example, I participate in the Horror Writers Association. Every year they give out the Bram Stoker awards. These awards are actually quite competitive. You submit your book to the team doing the evaluation who examine it for quality. If you pass that Mark, then the book is included in the competition that year.

Thanks for listening!

Thank you for listening. Consider supporting an indie author by signing up to Patreon today. After you sign up, I will send you the book of your choice.

Have you ever read a book where the world played as much of a role as the characters did? I don't mean strong writing in the sense of world building, I mean in the sense that the world itself was a living, breathing thing?

How about characters who were as much a part of the world building in the sense that their dialogue actually made the scene work?

Truth is that a lot of time we, as writers, intentionally blur the lines between setting and character. In Terry Brooks, "Magic Kingdom for Sale", the fictional land of Landover plays a magical role and it senses the illness or the health of the kingdom. It reflects the way the kingdom is being held hostage.

Want to read the article I talked about in Publisher's Weekly? Check it out here!

In the movie, Citizen Kane, the sled takes on an almost legendary role. It embodies the younger version of the main character.

Glad you could join us for this episode of All Things Writing. If you like the show, please hit the like button. Consider donating to the show to keep me going. Any little bit helps. Listen to the end of this episode for a chance at a prize!

-Bryan the Writer

Thank you for listening. Consider supporting an indie author by signing up to Patreon today. After you sign up, I will send you the book of your choice.

You’re ready to go. You have your swim trunks packed, enough T-shirts to ensure you only have to wear them two days in a row. You recounted your underwear twice. And you’ve made sure you have access to your best socks. You remember to throw in your toothbrush, and off you go. Ready for a wonderful vacation. Or so you thought.

Vacations don’t have to be a complete drain in your productivity. There are a few things you can do while you’re on vacation to ensure that you still are productive, while enjoying yourself. Let’s discuss three different types of productivity you can achieve on vacation.

1) Passive writing activities
2) Actually writing first drafts
3) The other little nitpicky things that we all have to do is writers which sometimes get pushed aside.

So what do I mean by passive writing activity? We don’t often think about it, but reading is a type of passive writing activity. Laying on the beach is something that everybody can do to enjoy themselves and unwind. And, it’s not uncommon that people doing such an activity have a look at their side. With a little bit of preparation, you can do the same thing. I like to bring our copy of a book with me when I’m doing something like hanging out at the beach. This will make sure you have something in hand that you can put down in an instant and not worry about it.

You can also do some actual writing work.

Work on something new. You don’t even have to bring you computer with you for this. For example, you can write *gasp* long hand on paper. I do this sometimes when I am stuck waiting for something or someone. As a matter of fact, a good portion of my first book was written long hand then transcribed after the fact. This is a great way to work on new short stories you had been interested in doing.

You can also work on things that you have been putting off for a while.

Sitting around the pool is a great time to work on some correspondence, search for new shows to attend, maybe check in with the fans a bit. You don’t even need to haul that big old laptop around. You can use your phone for a lot of things with the voice to text feature your phone likely already has.

Build it into your schedule where you are going to have some time to sit by yourself and write. Don’t just pass on this because you are on vacation. Bring something along with you to do, even if it is sitting down and sketching out a short story you have been thinking about for a while now. Don’t skimp on this!

With some creative planning, that vacation time away form the day job can be creative worktime for you! 

See you next time!

Thank you for listening. Consider supporting an indie author by signing up to Patreon today. After you sign up, I will send you the book of your choice.

Welcome to this next episode of All Things Writing. I am your host, Bryan Nowak.

Do you hate rejection? Naturally, you do, we all hate rejection. However, rejection is a part of life when you are a writer. Most of us avoid rejection like we would avoid the day-old package of gas station sushi. And yet, dear writer, I am going to let you in on a little secret about rejection.

You need it.

Rejection hurts, but not as much as flat-out failure. Each rejection you get is like Thomas Edison’s proverbial failed lightbulb experiment. When asked about having failed two thousand times, he responded that each failure was one way he now knew would not work.

As a writer you’re going to face rejection in many forms. Whether that rejection comes from a reader, an editor, or a publisher it still stings.

In this episode I’m going to talk about rejection, how to take it on board and learn from it. You want those rejections; you need those rejections. Print them off and tacked them up on the wall. And sometimes, you’re going to want to print them off and put them into your three-ring binder so you can reference them from time to time. Because, buried in that rejection there’s gold.

As always, thank you for listening to the show. If you like the show and want to make a donation, feel free to PayPal me at [email protected]. And if there are any burning topics you want me to talk about, feel free to email me at that same email address. I’ll be happy to discuss anything in the world of writing.

If you would like to read any of my novels, check me out here.

Until next time, this is Bryan the Writer, signing off.

Thank you for listening. Consider supporting an indie author by signing up to Patreon today. After you sign up, I will send you the book of your choice.

Today I am joined by my friend, fellow author, and podcaster Kenneth J McKay who is written the books, Your Story is Worth Telling, Level Up, 30 Days of Thankfulness, and a couple of companion books as well. He is also the host of the podcast show, author your dream, he was born here in the US, but lives in the United Kingdom.

In this show we are going to tackle:

Q1) What was it that brought you to writing?

Q2) So, how do we integrate our own faith journeys into our writing, be it a non-fiction or a fiction story?

Q3) How is being genuine to who we are critical to our ultimate success?

Q4) How do we, as authors, rise above that din and make ourselves more noticeable in a world that is inundated with books.

Q5) What keeps Ken going?

Q6) What made you want to pivot to podcasting?

Q7) What was your favorite podcast episode and why?

Q8) Have you ever been in the middle of a podcast and had an interviewee say something that just knocked your socks off? What did they say?

Q9) What is the target of “Author Your Dream”? 

Q10) Lastly, and most importantly, how can people get a hold of you, read your books, and listen to the aswesomesauce you are creating?

Check out Author Your Dream here!

Find Kenny on Amazon.

 Thank you very much for checking out All Things Writing! Remember to hit like and consider making a donation to the show so I can keep producing more episodes like this one.

Thank you for listening. Consider supporting an indie author by signing up to Patreon today. After you sign up, I will send you the book of your choice.