Become a Writer Today

How important is solitude for the creative process, and how can you balance finding solitude for your creative work with everything else that's going on in your busy life? 

In this week's episode, I catch up with Bryan Crosson. He's the author of the Lonesome Thread, and his book is all about creativity, solitude for creatives, and why it's so important.

In his book, Bryan draws on his experiences when he was serving in Afghanistan, and he relates that to creative work and writing. The book particularly resonated with me because I believe in having time and space for writing and creative work each day

These days, I have enough time to write full time, but when I first started Become a Writer Today and taking writing a bit more seriously, I used to get up early in the morning and write for an hour or more before the kids got up.

I particularly liked writing early in the morning because it was quiet, and I didn't have to check email or worry about work meetings or phone calls, or daily life, and that's a theme that Bryan, this week's interviewee, also talks about. In fact, his mantra is if you win the morning, you can win the day.

Now I try to write for an hour or two in the morning before moving on with the rest of the tasks related to the business.

I'm telling you this because even if you have a full-time job, you can still consider how you can find a little bit of time for writing in the morning or writing in the evening after work. And writers who work full time still have to balance writing with all of the other things they have to do to earn a living.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Bryan's role as an adviser in Afghanistan
• The evolution of his creative journey
• Writing a book in lockdown
• Bryan's creative process as a sporadic writer
• How to deal with boredom as a creative
• Meditation and his many other interests and hobbies

Resources:

Website: https://www.lonesomethread.com/

Support the show

If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollins

Thanks for listening!

How can you write creative non-fiction? And what makes it stand out?

I am fascinated by creative non-fiction. It is a type of writing where the writer or author injects something of themself from their personal life or a little bit of creativity into the work.

In other words, it's not simply researching a topic and turning it into another dry business book.

Writing creative non-fiction can be a challenge. In addition to selecting an intriguing idea, you need to find the best way to express that idea and tell compelling stories that will captivate the reader's attention.

This week's guest is a specialist in writing creative non-fiction. Her name is Susan Scott.

Susan has written three books over her career and is a New York Times best-selling author.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Her 22 years plus writing journey
• How to approach creative non-fiction
• How creative non-fiction and non-fiction differ
• Susans' research and writing process
• And her influences and inspiration

Resources:

Website: http://thefiercelovebook.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-scott-1b63388/

Facebook: Susan Scott

Twitter: fierce_inc

Support the show

If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollins

Thanks for listening!

How can you collaborate with other writers and authors? And what should you know before you decide to write an article, essay, or book with someone else?

This week's interview is all about collaborative writing, and I caught up with two authors from Nebraska, Becky Breed, and Lucy Adkins, to discuss the process. They are collaborative authors who have known each other for over 20 years.

Collaborative writing involves embarking on a creative project, whether big like a book or small like an essay, and writing everything from the first to final draft together. You will both work through the topic, ideas, and edits and decide what the final piece looks like.

This seems a challenging process to me, but many authors have great success with collaborative writing projects.

In this episode, we discuss:

• how they got started together
• the advantages of collaboration
• where to look to find a suitable collaborator

Support the show

If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollins

Thanks for listening!

In this episode, I caught up with Sharlene Anders, better known as Shallalla who is a creativity coach based in Germany.

Shallalla turns the tables during our conversation and asks me questions about my creative work and what I do when I feel like a project doesn’t have any meaning.

Like all authors, I enjoy the process of writing. But when I was writing my parenting book, I would turn on the news and be faced with grim stories about the virus, lockdowns, and other world issues.

It left me feeling depressed, isolated, and lonely because I couldn’t see anybody outside my immediate family circle due to the country being in lockdown. There were times when I wrote the book when I would say to myself, “What’s the point in writing this book about parenting when there’s so much more going on in the world? Am I just wasting my time? Shouldn’t I be doing something with more purpose or something that adds more value to everything I’m reading and listening about?”

Shallalla explained that it’s a pretty common experience that many creatives went through during the lockdown and the past few years. She offers several strategies that creatives can use when they feel like their work doesn’t have any meaning and they feel creatively blocked.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How to reframe loneliness
• Understanding how meaning comes and goes
• The benefits of journalling
• Techniques for getting into a flow state
• Dealing with money beliefs
• Building an audience

Resources

• The Van Gough Blues by Eric Maisel
• I am Shallalla
• Shallalla on YouTube

Support the show

If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollins

Thanks for listening!

If you're a regular listener to this podcast, you know I stick to a format where I interview an expert on a particular topic. I talk to them about their background and ask them about their writing process and journey.

I like the interview format, but there are other formats that you can use for podcasts like the one popularized by Serial, where you script out an episode in advance and tell a story within the episode. That takes a lot more work, but it's an excellent format for writers.

I wanted to get in touch with a podcaster who does just that, which led me to talk to Jack Rhysider. He's the host of Darknet Diaries, an award-winning podcast all about the world of hacking and security. Publications like The Guardian and The New York Times have featured the podcast.

Jack has been podcasting for over three years, and he says there is real value in consistency and turning up. He describes some of the growing pains he had at the start of his podcast when he found a competitor talking about the same topic.

Jack talks about how you should go where your community is, and he's built a fantastic community on Discord and Reddit. He finds his community often come to him with story ideas and feedback about the show, and word of mouth has helped him grow the podcast.

Jack also offers some advice about the storytelling process and recommends a book that has helped him.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How Jack finds someone willing to talk about being hacked
• Jack's research process
• Using Discord and Reddit to engage with the audience
• Using storying telling when scripting an episode
• Is it too late to start a podcast?
• Techniques for growing a podcast

Resources:

• Out on the Wire by Jessica Abel
• LimeLink
• Darknet Diaries
• Twitter

Support the show

If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollins

Thanks for listening!

Steve Krug is the author of the book Don’t Make Me Think. He’s rewritten the book three times, and so far, it’s sold over 600,000 copies.

During the interview, I got into why he decided to rewrite the book several times and how the book helped him build a business around writing technical non-fiction for his audience.

Steve also talks to me about what he’s up to these days and gives some valuable tips for overcoming problems in the creative process like procrastination and writer’s block.

Listening to Steve is reassuring as it shows that writers of all levels have issues with procrastination and motivation.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The best approach for setting up a new website today
• How Steve came to write his book
• What Steve is writing today
• Using the Getting Things Done methodology 
• How procrastination has been an ongoing problem for Steve
• The books that have significantly influenced him.

Resources:

• Don't Make Me Think
• Sensible
• Getting Things Done
• Steve on Twitter

Support the show

If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollins

Thanks for listening!

As a writer, you may be concerned that AI writing tools will replace you. The answer is no, at least not just yet. 

I've tested multiple tools, and while they're helpful and save time, they won't help if you are writing something complex or requiring creativity or in-depth research. 

What they can do is help overcome problems like writer's block. They can help you figure out topics you need to cover in your articles and content. They can also help you develop headlines, meta descriptions, and other elements that you should include to help your content rank. 
Now, I wanted to catch up with someone who is an expert on the topic, and so in this episode, I talked to James Scherer, the VP of Growth at Codeless. 

In the first half of the interview, we talk about James's SEO approach and recommendations for somebody who is starting a site from scratch and his approach to link building. 

In the second half of the interview, we get into AI, and James provides some practical tips which will help you get started using AI as part of your writing or content publishing workflow. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• Is it too late to start content marketing
• How to speed up results from content marketing
• How to start a content site from scratch
• When should you introduce AI tools into your content marketing
• Tips for trying AI software for the first time

Resources:

• becomeawritertoday.com/try-grammarly-today
• LinkedIn
• Codeless

Support the show

If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollins

Thanks for listening!

Jessica Artemisia Mathieu is a sci-fi, fantasy author and digital marketing agency owner. She's also the creator of The Sovereigntii, which uses NFTs on blockchain as a new form of storytelling, community, and income.

Jessica is one of the few writers I've talked to so far who's successfully using NFT as part of her writing career. I wanted to find out how she's doing it and how writers can get involved today.

My key takeaway from talking to Jessica is that we're still incredibly early, so if you find some of the language, terminology, and steps to buying NFTs confusing, don't worry, you're not alone.

But now's a good time to learn about the space because NFTs are here to stay for creatives. And it'll be interesting to see how writers and authors use NFTs in future years to connect with their fans and readers.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How to create an NFT based on a piece of writing
• How NFTs are opening the door for artists worldwide
• Are NFTs expensive and what are the alternatives?
• Why do NFT creators use pseudonyms?
• Keeping yourself safe in the NFT space

Resources

• HEN
•  jessartemisia.com

Support the show

If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollins

Thanks for listening!

Dr. Joan Smoller is a creative non-fiction writer, a writing coach, a former lecturer at NYU, and author of three books.

She’s also written for multiple high-profile publications in the United States, including the New York Times. In this interview, she talks about the power of non-fiction, how writers could use it to inspire social change and what non-fiction has done for her. 

Joan demonstrates that a writing career can be diverse. She has taught, instructed, edited, has prepared multimillion-dollar grant proposals, has written about topics like skin cancer, and has run a successful writing program. In other words, the genre or subject that you’re writing about today doesn’t necessarily have to be the genre or topic that you will pursue tomorrow.

Joan talks about advice she gives her students: the importance of writing every day and the value of freewriting. I was delighted when Joan mentioned free writing because I’ve used it on and off over the years. 

If you’re not familiar with freewriting, Joan describes how to apply it, and she also gives some tips which can help you get over a fear of self-judgment and what other people think.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How writing can be a lifesaver
• Choosing to write about specific genres 
• How writing has changed over the years
• Common mental hurdles that writers have to overcome
• The benefits of freewriting
• What to do in order to get your non-fiction to succeed
• Writing about difficult topics
• Overcoming the fear of self-judgement 

Resources

• Resume Doc
• [email protected]

Support the show

If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollins

Thanks for listening!

Jay Clouse is the host of the popular podcast, Creative Elements. A couple of months ago, I took one of Jay's podcasting courses, which changed how I think about podcasting and creative work.

In this episode, Jay and I discuss the value of consistency. He's interviewed several top performers, like Seth Godin, and turning up and doing consistent work is often the key to their success.

Jay also says that it's not too late to start a podcast, write a book, or whatever your creative goals are. Jay has talked to podcasters who started their shows as late as 2007, proving that if you're passionate about a topic and understand your niche, you can connect with an audience.

I also asked Jay how he's promoted and built his podcast over the years, and he offers some actionable tips.  We finish the interview talking about NFTs or non-fungible tokens. So if that's something you're interested in, stay tuned until the end of the podcast.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The techniques he's used for getting high profile guests on his podcast
• How long it takes Jay to edit a podcast episode
• How Jay balances all of his work projects
• Why it's not too late to start a podcast
• How to monetize your podcast
• Why all creatives should consider NFTs

Resources:

• Creative Elements 
• @jayclouse on Twitter

Support the show

If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollins

Thanks for listening!