This solo episode of Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick is also a Scribtotum article, because it’s all about big things, big changes for the podcast, and big questions writers, authors, and all creators must ask themselves now and then.

Mainly: Are you doing what really matters in your creative life?

This episode was recorded on September 13, 2024. What follows is adapted and condensed from the transcript.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, assessing, researching and reading and thinking and researching some to get a good handle on the state of me… and that’s led me to some decisions.

For episode 106 of my podcast, Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick, I was toying the addressing the challenges of time and money for most authors, indie or traditional.

Usually, services are available where expertise and time are lacking… but those services, while (usually) fairly priced by service providers (like myself), are often outside of the budget of many authors.

I quickly remembered that’s a universal not restricted to the creative space: when it comes to things that make your life easier or bring you closer to your goals, you can either pay with time, or with money.

Thinking about it dovetailed with, and was soon overtaken by, how much thought I’d been giving to another aspect of time: how much we have left.

Consideration given to time is relative to where you are in your life.

When we’re young, there’s more time and less money, generally.

As we get older, ideally, there’s more money… but without question, rich or poor, there is less time.

Every time I turn around, someone I know, or a creator that I respect — and sometimes that’s the same person — has died.

I’m 57 years old this year. I have, based on actuarial data, maybe thirty years left on this planet if I’m lucky. There’s no telling how much of that time will be spent in good mental and physical health.

I have some clues. My maternal line, for which I have the most information, tends toward longevity (into their late seventies and early eighties) despite chronic illnesses.

Me? I have some arthritis in my hands. I have hypertension, which I’ve tried and failed to reverse with lifestyle changes; I’ll have to resort to medicine soon. I have never smoked. I’m a healthy weight. All told, I’m in pretty good health, so if my direct ancestors lived as long as they did under a mountain of medical issues, it’s not unreasonable to assume I’ll make it at least into my eighties.

Stil, that time goes quickly. Especially the end time, because the older you get, even in the best of circumstances, the less you can do.

The clock is ticking.

Financially, I’m in about as bad a state as I’ve been since my twenties, although the reasons aren’t the same as they were in the late eighties and into the nineties. Back then, it was to do with minimum wage jobs, poor choices, and living a “rock and roll” lifestyle (don’t get too excited; that pretty much just means sacrificing stability and wealth for attempts at art).

Thanks to some medical issues (everyone is on the mend) and client contraction, 2024 has been rough, and most of my attention, most of my energy, most of my effort, has been dedicated to treading water as I circle the drain, leaving very little time and energy for creative work.

Still, the drive to do creative work persists, but there’s a dearth of energy, both at the beginning of the day (no sleep!) and the end (worked too hard!), from which to draw.

You see, there’s one other thing that’s been going on this year. We’ve got an elderly cat who is relatively healthy except for some thyroid issues for which we have a pill… but Biggie is getting senile. He often wakes up scared, confused, and hungry in the middle of the night, yowling at the top of his lungs. A four AM feeding will calm him down, but he needs his food put right in front of his face and won’t eat unless a human sits there with him.

The result?  All year, I’ve been running a sleep deficit that’s more and more dangerous the longer it goes on.

That’s the situation, and while one way or another it’s not going to be permanent, it’s not going to end anytime soon.

Faced with that, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how I should dedicate my very limited time and, especially, energy.

The one thing I really want, and need, is to have the time and energy and opportunity for the deep focus intrinsic to creative work.

By which I mean: To be able to focus, uninterrupted, on long thoughts. For me, creating fiction requires that. Long stretches of time for what the author and professor Cal Newport calls “deep work.”

I read Newport’s Deep Work recently, leading me to quip on Threads that the experience was like being a fish flopping around in the desert watching a television with a picture of the ocean playing on it. So many things in that book described what I wanted; needed. Perfect situations; best possible circumstances… while knowing I’m in no position to reach them.

Similarly, I read Atomic Habits by James Clear, which is full of evidence and science and research-based information and practices on positive habit formation with the goal of focusing more and accomplishing more.

You could read those two books back-to-back; they complement each other well.

In both books, I saw a version of myself that I had been. A version of myself I have been aspiring to, and for various reasons of environment and circumstance I have not been able to reacquire.

This has been, for me, a terrible year for new fiction.

I did write and release the novelette “Reggie vs. Kaiju Storm Dragon Squidbat,” and it’s funny, sometimes I forget I accomplished that.

But I have not made much progress on Shadow of the Outsider, my next novel. That second book of the Outsider trilogy, which is part of the larger Shaper’s World storyworld… that’s my main thing right now, or it should be.

But fiction is hard. Fiction requires, for me, good long stretches of uninterrupted focus.

Focus requires energy.

Uninterrupted time to focus requires opportunity.

And opportunity has a literal cost.

The time I spend working on fiction is deducted from time, and energy from billable client hours I know will contribute to paying the bills.

Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick takes considerable time and energy, if comparably little money.

The interview episodes take especially long.

The raw recording takes an hour and a half speaking to the guest, plus another ten to twenty minutes on the rest of the recording. It takes another 16 hours, give or take, to edit and produce the episode, and then edit and refine the transcript, research and write the show notes, create the thumbnail and feature image, edit and render the video version, upload that video, create the YouTube version, upload the audio edition, and get it all out there in the world.

For solo episodes, it could be a lot less because I don’t have to edit two different people and balance their voices and make it all sound as good as possible.

Recently, I found the very idea of working on the podcast exhausts me just thinking about it… which makes me not want to do it… which of course delays it.

Even the most recent solo episode. I kept thinking about it, and then finally, late, I carved out the time to do it.

Carving the time has to coincide with opportunity, as well. I’m very rarely alone in the house, and when I’m not, it’s very difficult to get uninterrupted, undisturbed time to do something like stand in front of a microphone for 45 minutes or so.

I keep putting off doing the work required to publish a new episode of Sonitotum.

And here’s the other thing about allocating that time, finding that time, allocating that time, sacrificing other things for that time:

I like having the podcast as a venue through which to speak to you.

And!

I’ve realized it is not the best use of my time, or even very healthy for me.

Maintaining the commitment to put out an episode of Sonitotum every two weeks, especially considering every other episode is a highly labor-intensive interview episode, is literally more work than it’s worth.

Which is to write:

The show has less than four dozen subscribers. Closer to three dozen subscribers.

That’s a tiny, tiny audience.

I’m grateful for those rarefied few, especially the patron members of our Multiversalist community. I’m grateful for the people who are listening.

But, given all the things I want to do, all the things that have long-term and short-term value for me in terms of emotional gratification, creative gratification, and yes, financial gratification… the podcast does not register. It’s not a blip on that particular radar.

That’s just a fact.

It’s been a challenge to face the reality it’s not worth the commitment.

I love the thirty-odd subscribers and other listeners, but my sense of obligation is it is misaligned with the value of the show.

Editing, producing, and managing podcasts is one of services I offer. It’s hard for me to not think I should be drinking the Kool-Aid I make.

Finally, October 15th, 2024 is the 20th anniversary of my very first podcast episode. Shouldn’t I have a consistent podcast to celebrate when that date comes around?

I thought so.

Most of this year I’ve been brainstorming how I might observe that anniversary.

But as the months passed, and common sense and reality became more evident and spoke louder than my sense of obligation… I realized I really don’t care about the anniversary.

Sure, it’s a feather in my cap. It’s certainly given me cause to reflect.

Observing the anniversary as something that’s actually important or that matters now, beyond the creative and professional bragging rights?

It is not worth the time that it would take from other creative endeavors I feel much stronger about.

Things that are, at least for now, out of my control, are not going anywhere or changing any time soon. I’m in a maintain ground, not gain ground, state.

So, I need to make changes and adjustments to reflect what my life is like now, and to honor what I want to do with my life and what I want my life to mean over the next 30 years.

I don’t want the burden of misaligned obligation, or to feel guilty when I don’t meet that obligation, I currently associate with Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick.

That said, it doesn’t mean I’m no longer doing Sonitotum.

What it does mean is I can’t, and I won’t, commit to a particular schedule or promise anything having to do with Sonitotum.

This is a hard decision, but I am making it for the good of my own creative, and mental, and emotional, and physical health.

It’s been a few days since I recorded that decision, in episode 106. At the time, I felt my chest tighten and my stomach go sideways… a time-and-distance-separated version of codependence I have with my listeners and patron members.

That’s not real.

My obligations are to myself, and they include staying healthy and sane, which, in turn, includes making things that truly make me happy, which means taking the ideas and the stories inside of me and getting them out of me before I die.

That’s my responsibility, and not just to myself.

I believe every writer has a responsibility to get our stories out there so that they add value to the culture.

They don’t mean anything if they’re not available to experience. There’s no opportunity for them to change lives in some small way or some large way if they don’t get written and published.

I’m not writing and publishing often enough or fast enough.

All I want to do is communicate with you in the way that is the most fulfilling and the most appropriate at the time.

Maybe it’s a story, or an article. Maybe it’s a video, a podcast episode; maybe it’s a streaming experience.

Nothing is stopping me from doing any of those things.

The trouble comes when I feel as if I must do one of those things.

One thing that still troubles me is how my Multiversalist member patrons will take this decision.

Patron members pledge at $5.00 per month, or more, to support my creative endeavors and be part of the Multiversalists community of readers, creators, friends, and fans.

They pay that pledge, in part, to receive uncut, unedited editions of this podcast.

That’s not going to happen as often, so I accept that some of them might go away.

As for future patrons, there’s one less reason for new people to pledge.

I wonder if I’m shooting myself in the foot.

Then I remember so long as I make good use of the mental, physical, emotional, and creative energy, and time and opportunity, that would have gone into making an episode of Sonitotum every two weeks… so long as I’m dedicated to something creative that eventually gets released into the world… well, patron members are still helping to support the same mission.

There’s only so much time, and there’s only so much energy, and so long as we live in a capitalist society with no universal basic income and healthcare that is maybe less expensive than it once was for some of us, but still not free, and all of the obligations of the real world pull at us, we have to change the things we can in order to do the things we must.

One of the things I must do is make things.

I believe we’re doing ourselves, and others, a disservice if we put disproportional energy into creative efforts that will have less impact and effect than others.

I put way too much time into the Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick podcast relative to the value it has to the world and the value it has for me.

I recommend we all, periodically, rerun that personal life algorithm.

Make sure your output still matches what you truly want.

Make sure what you’re doing and where you’re putting your energy, serves who you want to be, not who you were, or who you think you’re supposed to be.

What are you doing because you think you’re supposed to, or out of some sense of obligation?

What are the things in your life that don’t serve you anymore, that aren’t serving anyone, relative to the effort you’re investing?

Now: weigh that against the things you’re not giving as much time, energy, and opportunity that would serve you more, whether emotionally or physically or mentally or financially or, ideally, all of the above.

Where are your priorities?

Are they appropriate for now?

These are the questions I’ve been asking myself.

I’d love to hear about your own process of assessment.

When was the last time you took a good, hard look at whether you’re doing things because you think you should and not because it’s good for you?

Maybe you’re going through that now.

What do you think about all this? Please scroll down and leave a comment, with my thanks.

If you’re subscribed to Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick, I recommend you stay. Or, if you’re not, I recommend you do. You can find the show anywhere you get your podcasts.

I can’t say when the next episode will be, but there will be another episode, and another one after that, and another one after that.

As always, the goal will be to share my experiences in my creative life with the aim of providing value to you, so that my experiences, my handwringing(!), might inform you, and educate you, and help you in your own creative endeavors.

That’s not going to change.

Thank you to Zoe Kohen-Ley, thank you to J.C. Hutchins, thank you to Jim Lewinson, thank you Amelia Bowen, thank you Ted Leonhardt, and thank you to Charles Eugene Anderson.

This episode has extra content only available for patron members of the Multiversalists community! If you're a patron member at the Bronze level or above, please log in! Click here to learn more about the benefits of membership.

Postscript: I was listening to episode 160 of the Write Now podcast, and it really kind of put me over the edge to committing to this decision. In it, host Sarah Werner describes how she was supposed to have a regular podcast schedule, and that she had done like one episode in all of 2024.

It caused her to assess why that is. A lot of it was so in sync with what I’ve been thinking about and dealing with, so I want to thank Sarah for being vulnerable and transparent about her decision. It certainly made me feel a little less alone and a little less insecure in the validity of my own decision.

Hey, look! It’s episode 105 of Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick, the podcast about making stuff (mostly writing), finding success as we each define it for ourselves, and staying healthy and sane in the process!

This is an interview episode, this time featuring the author Juliet Kemp.

From their website:

Juliet Kemp (they/them) is a queer, non-binary, writer. They live in London by the river, with their partners, kid, and dog.

The first book of their fantasy series, The Deep and Shining Dark, was on the Locus 2018 Recommended Reads list; the fourth and final book, The City Revealed, came out in 2023. They have written several novellas, and their short fiction has appeared in venues including Uncanny, Analog, and Cast of Wonders.

They were short-listed for the WSFA Small Press Award in 2020 and 2023 and had a story in the anthology Trans-Galactic Bike Ride, which was Lambda Award shortlisted in 2021.

When not writing or child-wrangling, Juliet knits, indulges their fountain pen habit, and tries to fit an ever-increasing number of plants into a microscopic back garden.

They can be found on Twitter as @julietk, on Mastodon as @[email protected], and on Bluesky as @julietk.bsky.social.

Listen to hear us muse on fiction writing as a balm for anxiety, the challenges of defining just what sort of fantasy one has written, the validity of “comfort reads,” reaching the right readers, the benefits of working with a small press, procrastination and uncertainty, and why it’s okay to claim your writing as a priority in your life… and just how to go about actually doing that, too…

This episode was recorded on August 19, 2024. The conversation with Juliet Kemp was recorded on February 5, 2024.

This episode has extra content only available for patron members of the Multiversalists community! If you're a patron member at the Bronze level or above, please log in! Click here to learn more about the benefits of membership.

A week late, but you don’t care! Here’s episode 104 of Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick, the podcast about making stuff (mostly writing), finding success as we each define it for ourselves, and staying healthy and sane in the process!

This is a solo episode in which I share how I’m using Obsidian, a knowledge management application, as a replacement for both Scrivener and story bible / worldbuilding software as I conceive and write my next novel, Shadow of the Outsider.

This episode was recorded on July 10, 2024.

This episode has extra content only available for patron members of the Multiversalists community! If you're a patron member at the Bronze level or above, please log in! Click here to learn more about the benefits of membership.

Episode 103 of Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick, the podcast about making stuff (mostly writing), finding success as we each define it for ourselves, and staying healthy and sane in the process… features a conversation with the horror and horrific fantasy author Thom Carnell.

“Thom Carnell is a writer whose fiction has been featured in Swank magazine (adult content), Carpe Noctem magazine, and in the horror anthology Bloody Carnival from Pill Hill Press. He is best known for his insightful interviews and profiles in Carpe Noctem, Fangoria magazine, and on Dread Central & Twitchfilm.com. His novels (No Flesh Shall Be Spared, No Flesh Shall Be Spared: Don’t Look Back, and the upcoming Monolith Records) and short story collections (Moonlight Serenades, A String of Pearls, Tuxedo Junction, Horror Book, Tales from the Lazaretto, and the upcoming Open Late) are available through Amazon.com and Crossroad Press. Carnell is a graduate of the San Francisco College of Mortuary Science and worked as a certified eye enucleist and a Registered Polysomnographic Technologist. He lives in Bellingham, WA.” — adapted from Thom’s website at https://www.thomcarnell.com.

Our extensive talk explores the connection between horror and humor, the lingering creative influence of early trauma and exposure to mortality, marketing cross-genre work, building a community of readers, the perspective and experience that comes with age, and lots, lots more.

Also, your host tries to run a giveaway, and makes an offer.

This episode was recorded on June 24, 2024. The interview portion was recorded on January 24, 2024.

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In episode 102, I take the opportunity to catch up with you regarding my latest fiction release, the novelette “Reggie vs Kaiju Storm Dragon Squidbat.”

Also, I talk about bringing my next project, the Shaper’s World novel SHADOW OF THE OUTSIDER, from the back burner to the front, and touch on the trepidation and fears I’m facing with regard to that work.

This episode was recorded on June 9, 2024.

This episode has extra content only available for patron members of the Multiversalists community! If you're a patron member at the Bronze level or above, please log in! Click here to learn more about the benefits of membership.

In this 101st episode of Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick, the podcast about making stuff (mostly writing), finding success as we each define it for ourselves, and staying healthy and sane in the process… it’s a conversation with science fiction author AJ Super!

AJ Super is the author of the Seven Stars Saga, a trilogy published by Aethon Books and Blackstone Audio. Writing full time, they devour fantasy and science fiction in every medium, and even experiment with writing and reading other speculative fiction now and again. They earned two Bachelors’ degrees from the University of Idaho in the Creative Writing and Theater programs, and they have been an author since they were old enough to write (and illustrate) a stapled-together ABC book, which is still packed away in a box of childhood memorabilia. 

AJ is inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin, Anne McCaffery, Octavia E. Butler, Mercedes Lackey, and other amazing female science fiction and fantasy authors. They are active in several different writing communities and an SFWA member. They currently live in Idaho with their fuzz-brained kitties, supportive spouse, and a ridiculous collection of slippers.

~ from AJ Super’s official site

Across this evergreen conversation we talk parental influence, everyone’s emo phase, writing for the ADHD reader, the negative consequences of a fast book release schedule, the ol’ planner / pantser dilemma, the meaning of art, emulating our literary heroes, maintaining a healthy creative (and life!) routine, and much, much more.

This episode was recorded on May 28, 2024. The conversation with AJ Super was recorded on January 22, 2024.

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Six years and one day to the day after the very first episode, it’s time for episode 100 of Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick, the podcast about making stuff (mostly writing), finding success as we each define it for ourselves, and staying healthy and sane in the process.

This is a solo episode (and a car cast) in which I take stock of my own state when it comes to making stuff, finding success, and staying healthy and sane… especially compared to how that was all going when the first episode of this podcast was released one hundred episodes and six years ago.

Long-time listeners will recognize this as a return to the highly transparent, vulnerable solo episodes that were once the mainstay of this show. If these kinds of episodes appeal to you, be sure to let me know by leaving a comment!

This episode was recorded on April 29, 2024. This episode took about seven hours to record, produce, and deliver to you.

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It’s time for the 99th Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick, the podcast about making stuff (mostly writing), finding success as we each define it for ourselves, and staying healthy and sane in the process. Settle in for an in-depth and evergreen conversation with historical and literary fiction author Maureen Morrissey!

Maureen Morrissey is a writer for online publications and a published novelist; retired educator; and wife/mother/grandmother/dog mommy. She is an amateur photographer; traveler who loves to wander and wonder; and most recently, half-marathon runner. In her spare time, she attends live theater events and rock concerts, and investigates the integrity of roof top bars in her hometown NYC.

Maureen has been a writer for as long as she remembers. She began writing her first novel, Woven: Six Stories, One Epic Journey in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, the day after retiring from teaching fourth grade. It was published in November of 2020. She published a second novel, Sonder: Janie’s Story in March 2022, and her third, Seeing is Believing in June 2023. She published a short story, “Win, Lose or Draw,” at the beginning of January 2024, and her most recent release is the children’s picture book Country Dog, City Dog.

Find Maureen Morrissey at maureenmorrissey.com.

The interview portion of this episode was recorded on January 18, 2024. The other bits were recorded on April 10, 2024. This episode took about eight hours fifteen minutes to record, produce, and delivery to you.

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The 98th episode of Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick, the podcast about making stuff (mostly writing), finding success as we each define it for ourselves, and staying healthy and sane in the process, features a conversation with post-cyberpunk science fiction thriller author Bryan Chaffin.

Bryan Chaffin is the author of science fiction thriller Accidental Intelligence. As of April 2024, he’s working on the follow up novel, Inside the Mirror, as well as multiple short stories set in this universe.

In a past life, Bryan wrote about Apple and technology for 23 years as the cofounder and editor-in-chief of The Mac Observer. He and his business partner sold TMO in 2022, and Bryan has been busy living out his fantasy of writing fiction since.

Today, Bryan lives with his dog Commander Ichabod Ezekiel Cromwell in Silicon Valley, where they both enjoy the fantabulous pastime of THROW THE DAMNED BALL!

Find Bryan Chaffin — and sign up for his newsletter — at geektells.com.

The interview portion of this episode was recorded on January 15, 2024. The other bits were recorded on April 01, 2024.

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It’s here! The premiere episode of the 2024 season of Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick, a podcast about making stuff (mostly writing!), finding success as we each define it for ourselves, and staying healthy and sane in the process!

Listen to learn about the fifteen guests I’ve recorded for the season, what to expect across the planned twenty episodes to come, the Very Special Year in which this season takes place, how to support the show, and more!

This episode was recorded on Tuesday, March 19, 2024.

This episode has extra content only available for patron members of the Multiversalists community! If you're a patron member at the Bronze level or above, please log in! Click here to learn more about the benefits of membership.