In which we get the snake vibe with special guest – our first from overseas, and the recent past – the unparallelable John Langan. In this week’s show, Aaron compares his writing process to a movie about Sarah Palin, Kaaron focuses on the details, while Joseph imagines everyone naked – with disastrous results for his powers of public speaking. John tries his damnedest not to overuse ‘that’ and gets cloned from a mosquito in amber. We learn about finding your voice, the value of play, the importance of rewarding your imagination, and a treasury of meaningful remedies for burnout. We learn about con men and the faked life, John’s metaphor for consciousness, and the profound morality of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Everyone makes a binding pact to never again eat sausages at Kaaron’s.

 

Some bits and bobs mentioned in this week’s show:

• Kate Wilhelm’s Storyteller
• Emmanuel Carrère’s The Adversary: A True Story of Monstrous Deception
• Chuck Wendig on the Talking Scared Podcast
• The idea of the Golden Thread comes from the introduction to William Stafford’s The Darkness Around Us Is Deep: Selected Poems, edited by Robert Bly. (But there’s also a great video extract of Stafford and Bly discussing the idea.)

Check out the episode page for pics and bits.