The 21st Century Writer

Diane had some vacation time last week and is finding it hard to get back into the groove. She talks to Hannah about the mindset of writers who feel like they need to write all the time, how to get back into it, and what you can do to put yourself in a writerly frame of mind even when putting words to paper isn’t in the cards.

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Alan Petersen, author of excellent espionage thrillers, joins us for a discussion of “How do you keep going when you feel kind of stuck?”

The big takeaway: Continue writing and Be kind to yourself.

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Please leave us a review on iTunes! Thank you.

Diane and Hannah discuss genre and the importance of knowing which genre you’re writing in.

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Simon Whistler joins us to talk about masterminds. Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich) defined masterminds as “A friendly alliance with one or more persons who will encourage one to follow through with both plan and purpose.” How are masterminds different from writers’ boards? How can you use them to increase your velocity in the world of self-publishing?

Simon Whistler’s podcast is called Rocking Self-Publishing. Simon interviews authors on what they did to achieve success in the world of self-publishing.

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(PODCAST FILE FIXED. I’M REALLY SORRY ABOUT THE ERROR — Diane)

Diane and Hannah discuss some of the changes that Amazon just announced to Kindle Unlimited. The short version: the goalposts are just going to keep moving, folks.

(Diane would like to apologize for the sound her mic starts to make about 45 minutes in — she did not hear this AT ALL on her end. No idea what happened there.)

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So you’ve decided to publish your work. You’re going to get reviews and feedback, and you need to decide how you’re going to deal with it. Hannah and Diane discuss how they deal with reviews and feedback, with edits and beta readers.

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Please leave us a review (and some feedback) on iTunes! We really do appreciate every review we get…and think about how valuable you’ve found reviews when researching a product! Thanks.

What is about writing and publishing that makes “the poverty mindset” so attractive to writers? What do they get out of it? Is there any link between monetary success and artistic success? (Spoiler alert: no.) Join Diane and Hannah as they talk about some of the weird associations writers have with money and why you really have to stop doing that already.

Bonus! There’s an EFT tapping round at the end if you want to work on your mindset about being a writer and making money at it.

Hannah and Diane discuss John Scalzi’s new publishing deal with Tor Books.

They also manage to discuss what life for self-publishers is like, wring their hands over what the other bookstores (particularly Google Play and Barnes and Noble) are doing, the new German bookstore Tolino, the Amazon All Star program, and why writing in a series is extremely important for indie authors. But mostly they gossip about Scalzi.

At the end of the show, I ask for listeners who enjoy the show to leave us a rating or review at iTunes — even if you don’t listen via iTunes. The iTunes podcast store is the main place where people go to find information about podcasts they want to know more about. Reviews are the lifeblood of both podcasting AND publishing, so if there’s a podcast or author you like, please help them out by leaving them a review.

By the way: apologies for the weird noise that starts about two-thirds of the way through. We have NO idea what that was all about, since neither of us heard it at our end.

Next week’s episode: The starving artist mindset: being poor doesn’t mean you’re a good writer, and being good doesn’t mean you don’t make money.

What do Diane and Hannah mean by “mindset”? Diane gives the definition as “the set of beliefs that define how we see ourselves and how we approach the outside world.”

Hannah mentioned a meditation process she uses to start every day that she got from Jeanna Gebellini. It takes her about 10 minutes to write out.

Aligning with Abundance (one to five entries…not even full sentences)

Appreciation (everything and everyone): this is similar to the Gratitude journal. Hannah writes a dozen things on here every day.

Feeling for the Day: one sentence for how she wants to feel

Action Steps (up to five): steps to take today to move forward on projects

Delegation to the Universe: a list of things Hannah would like the universe to take care of.

The Wild Hair Intention (go wild with your dreams): a few lines…or maybe a story over three or four paragraphs

Sign it.

Why is writing this out important? The very act of writing something imprints it on your mind more thoroughly than just thinking it. Put it down on paper, commit to it. Have a general map of the path you want to travel on.

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Diane and Hannah are joined by a special guest: Libbie Hawker! Libbie has written a fabulous new book on how to outline your novel entitled Take Off Your Pants!: Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing. Both Diane and Hannah love this book and highly recommend you pick up a copy. If you’ve always been a pantser, the book describes how to become a plotter and outline your novel from the point of view of developing your main character’s arc: understand your characters, understand what they’re trying to do, and understand what’s getting in their way…all before committing to tens of thousands of words.

Also, all that stuff in the middle of Act 2? Libbie gives you a really great way of figuring out what goes in there…and why.

During the podcast, we refer to some slides that Hannah puts on screen, all of which we have included on this page.

We got so into this interview that we forgot to decide on the topic for next week’s podcast ahead of time. So, check back here!

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