Writing in the Tiny House

I went on a binge of LGBTQ fiction after having never read a single book in the genre, and this episode is all about how I became fully converted!

The books I read that are covered in this episode:

Bath Haus, by P. J. Vernon

What if It's Us, by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera

Here's to Us, but the same two previous authors

And They Lived ..., by Steven Salvatore

Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun, by Jonny Garza Villa

All That's Left in the World, by Erik J. Brown

"Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

Join me as I take you behind the scenes as I make my first round of developmental edits on my manuscript Tiz.

"Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

Don't allow any aspect of your novel to get too complicated, otherwise you will lose interest from your readers!

"Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

When we're going through our manuscript, whether we are doing edits or full-on drafting, finishing each pass and taking notes keeps us organized and gives us a sense of progress.

"Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show's webpage.

[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the show Writing in the Tiny House. I am on a mission to abolish the idea of the tormented artist by sharing what I know about writing, publishing, and just life in general, so that you can have the tools to produce the content that you have been eager to write. If you have this steps in place, you can produce a short story in as few as three months or a novel in as few as 18 months.

And hopefully through the ideas in this podcast, you will have the wisdom to adjust that timeline if you need to. I am Devin Davis, the guy who lives and writes in a tiny house in Northern Utah. Thank you for tuning in and please enjoy today's episode of Writing in the Tiny House.

Hello, [00:01:00] and welcome to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am Devin Davis and here we are guys. We are over the hump of July. We have made it. We are more than halfway through the summer, I guess, or at least the summer break. And can you even believe that? So I have been diligently working on this pass of edits with the current work in progress, TIS that I have been working on for a while. And now that it has picked up and it has become kind of a bigger thing. It is definitely gaining momentum in my day to day. And that is exciting. It is so good to be excited for a work in progress again. And I think I have some idea as to why, or some idea as to how I got here to this point of being excited.

But first let's talk about TIS a little bit. Because of its length. So [00:02:00] TIS is a respectable novella. TIS is going to be between 25,000 and 30,000 words, which as a printed thing is about a hundred pages give or take ish, you know, and I believe, I believe that due to its length, I should be able to release it as a printed work in addition to an ebook. So with Brigitte being at 9,000 words, that is only about 50 pages of text, actually a little bit less than that. And because of that, it wasn't really plausible or really worth the time and effort or the energy to worry about finding a way to get it into a printed form. I mean, with a short story like that, Brigitte can always be part of a collection of short stories later on.

I'm certainly not going to rule that out and I'm not going to say that I'm never [00:03:00] going to write a short story again, it is certainly not this work in progress with ti and it is not my next work in progress. My next work in progress is going to be a full blown novel, but. Due to length. Sometimes there is not really a plausible or a logical reason, or really just a feasible reason to provide a printed version of that story.

But with TIS due to its length, I believe that I can release it as a paperback and a hardback. Which is kind of exciting. It's going to require some additional steps and some additional formatting on my end. And I'm going to have to get in contact with the guy who designed my cover art and have him expand it into a full wrap.

So an image that does the cover, the spine and the back, which is what you need for a printed book, but at a hundred pages as it being a [00:04:00] normal novella I don't see why not. And that's cool To have it available as an ebook and a printed book.

And of course, I'm going to turn it into an audio book. All of those things just makes it more accessible, which is cool because we all enjoy books in different ways. And so if all of the ways are covered, then that makes it more accessible to customers, which is cool. So that is already really good news, but I told you that this project has picked up some steam and it is becoming a bigger part of my day today. And I am eager to get this pass of edits done. And I believe that I have a secret as to why. So, this is a good rule of thumb when you are doing your developmental edits, which I call dev edits, or even if you're drafting.

And the little trick that I want to talk about today is don't interrupt [00:05:00] your pass. That means that if you are writing your first draft, make sure that you finish your first draft without going through and futzing over the things that don't need to be worried about right now. Or if you know that there is a big plot hole in your first draft, instead of worrying about going through and coming through that and figuring out where it is.

It is 100% okay. To simply take a note of it in your notebook or wherever you choose to keep notes and then proceed forward in your draft as if you already made that change. The thing is guys, it is so easy in these projects, just because everything here is self-motivated. Nobody has hired me to write this book.

I'm writing this book just because I'm awesome. Because I want to do it and I love to do it. That [00:06:00] can also mean. that because it's just me and nobody is standing there tapping their toe in order for a, in order to get a release date or in order to get pages of the manuscript to read or whatever, because I am on my own timeline and only have to respect my own calendar.

It is really easy to just not do it. And it's really easy to slow down and to lose some steam. So if you choose. To not interrupt your pass. So with your first draft or with your first pass of developmental edits or any subsequent pass after that, what it does is it gives you a sense of completion. It gives you a sense of progress.

And so. , if you have taken notes as to where those different corrections and those different holes need to be, then you can go back [00:07:00] when you are done with your pass. and make those changes later. Sometimes we can get so hung up on a word or finding the perfect word or trying to figure out how a scene needs to play out, even though, you know, what the very next scene is going to be, or as I'm doing with developmental edits right now, sometimes patting out stuff.

So I I just discovered. That there are some little things with the relationship between my main characters that needs to be more developed. It needs to be more mature and it just needs to be more right now, they are just kind of. They, they read as colleagues where in reality, they are lovers.

They share a house, they have a very deep relationship. And so I need to work in the more mature relationship stuff that I haven't done yet. And I can. Spazz out about it [00:08:00] and freak out and go through and interrupt what I'm doing now and comb through what I've already combed through to try to find all of those little places.

Or I can carry on with my pass and simply take note that I need to further develop and pat out their relationship. So that on my next pass, I can do that. The thing is guys, we forget sometimes that we are going to be reading. These works in progress like a hundred jillion times and , and sometimes we. Get impatient.

And we forget that this process takes a lot of layers. There's a lot of building with this. and so it's easy to lose focus and it's easy to become impatient. And so in doing that in interrupting what we are doing so that we can go back and do this spazzy little thing of filling in something or worrying about a word or better developing a relationship now.

It, it can create a lot of chaos and a lot of [00:09:00] disarray in the whole process itself, especially if you are really early in the process now it is important to go through and complete whole passes of your book. And to have a notebook or a place to keep notes so that you can keep track of where all of those changes need to be.

And you can write down where they are so that when you're done with your pass, you can relocate those locations and futz about them. Then also, when it comes to things like word choices or some of these other things where. We're hitting a wall and we can't figure out what's actually happening or how the perfect wording for how things need to happen to lead to the next scene.

Sometimes when we are already past the next scene, we have already finished our past. Sometimes we are in a far better head space to problem solve than we were when we were in the middle of our pass. and [00:10:00] so then we are better equipped to improve our manuscript in those little chunks. And once those chunks.

Our improved upon, we make another pass. That's how editing goes. That is how this whole process goes. You are going to be reading your work in progress a number of times. And so it is important to read it in whole passes. So that is the news for today. Be sure to tune in next week for another episode on developmental edits and whatever.

I've decided to do a little collection of episodes on developmental edits, because that's what I'm doing now. And I am going to be compiling another little clip show on how the developmental edit kind of looks like as I'm doing it. Like I did with completing. First draft with ti. So that will be coming later probably in August.

[00:11:00] And yeah. Thank you for tuning in and be sure to tune in to next week's episode as well. Have a good day guys.

Would you like a collection of meditations specific to the writing process to appear in upcoming podcast episodes? Let me know! Reach out on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

"Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

Join me as I take you through the thought process of completing a first draft. Everything was recorded in the moment!

"Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

Let's take a look at the Neflix adaptation of Heartstopper, a teen romance of two boys who meet, become friends, and fall in love. This series, and the graphic novels they are pulled from, subverts tropes and cliches left and right in order to give us a straightforward and powerful message about the beauty of self-discovery.

(Also, there are at least 2 different ways to say the name Tara, and I apparently use them interchangeably. *shrug)

"Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show's webpage.

[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the show Writing in the Tiny House. I am on a mission to abolish the idea of the tormented artist by sharing what I know about writing, publishing, and just life in general, so that you can have the tools to produce the content that you have been eager to write. If you have this steps in place, you can produce a short story in as few as three months or a novel in as few as 18 months.

And hopefully through the ideas in this podcast, you will have the wisdom to adjust that timeline if you need to. I am Devin Davis, the guy who lives and writes in a tiny house in Northern Utah. Thank you for tuning in and please enjoy today's episode of Writing in the Tiny House.

[00:01:00] Hello, and welcome to today's episode of Writing in the Tiny House. My goodness, friends. It is the final episode that I have for you in this very special month of June. I don't know about you, but this Pride month has been a huge roller coaster for me. There has been a lot to do. There has been a lot to celebrate. And I wanted to carry on with this for one final episode, but I promise it applies directly to creative writing, but we are going to delve in to a Netflix series and a comic coincidentally enough that has made its way into my heart and into the hearts of millions of people around the world. we are going to be talking about heart stopper, which is a Netflix series taken from the comic of the same name, which is created by a woman named Alice Oseman. Heart stopper came to Netflix just over two months ago [00:02:00] and it has been received with incredible positivity and a huge fandom already. I don't think that the people who created heart stopper could have ever imagined the success that it would get in just two months. And it has been astounding. Some of the things that I have seen on the internet, heart stopper has encouraged so many people to share in such safe spaces, their own stories of coming out, their own stories of struggling with this or that. And it has created wonderful communities of engagement for people to share these stories.

And I personally believe that one of the most important things that we can do to heal one another is to listen to each other's stories. So today on Writing in the Tiny House, we are going to pick apart Episode three of heart stopper. And yeah, this is going to have spoilers. And so if you want to go ahead and hop on the [00:03:00] bandwagon and join the fandom of heart stopper, please do that.

And if you don't want to hear these spoilers, then go ahead and pause this episode and take four hours out of your life to watch Season One of heart stopper on Netflix, and then come back and listen to what I have to say about it. This is not a critique of the show, and this is not a review of the show.

I'm not going to pretend that everything about the show is perfect. But what we are going to do is talk about subverted tropes and subverted cliches, and the power that comes with keeping a storyline simple. I mean, sometimes a complicated storyline is absolutely what you need. If you are writing thrillers, if you are reading thrillers, then that's kind of what comes along with the genre.

However, if you have a very simple message about a situation that is oftentimes misunderstood, sometimes keeping it simple is the [00:04:00] most powerful thing to do. As I go through episode three of heart stopper, I'm going to share with you what happens in the episode and then share with you the different cliches that come about in teen romances and in some of these other LGBTQ plus related movies and other series that heart stopper avoided.

And what consequences it would have had had they played into that. So hard stopper is a very basic storyline and I love that. I mean, in the tagline for heart stopper, Alice Oseman says, boy meets boy, boys become friends, boys fall in love. And it's as simple as that. our main characters are Charlie and Nick.

Charlie is an openly gay kid and Nick is a rugby player, a popular one too. And they attend the same. [00:05:00] All boys, school of Tru um, grammar school. And they are a grade apart and due to reassignments and stuff, they're in the same form and this is how they meet each other. Through this series, we see Charlie coming to grips with self-esteem and his role of how he gets to have some of the happiness that other people can give him.

He has a history of being bullied and his coming out was not taken. Perfectly his coming out story was not easily accepted in an all boys school. On the other side of the coin or on the other half of this relationship, we have Nick who has, it seems never had a moment to explore or think about his sexual preferences or his sexual identity until he meets Charlie.

And. This first [00:06:00] season of heart stopper covers his coming to terms with his bisexuality. He comes to realize that he likes both boys and girls, and this is him coming to feel that out and to embrace what that actually is. So in seat, let's see, in episode three, The main part that I wish to talk about is the birthday party.

So this is a privileged kid's birthday party. He comes from a rich background and they rented an entire venue for him to celebrate his birthday. So the really like the ballroom, the really high ceilings. And of course, if you follow the staircases, there are empty rooms. all around. This is a very big building and they rented the whole thing to celebrate this kid's 16th birthday. During this party, it seems that everybody showed up and there are two other characters that become very, very [00:07:00] important.

I feel at this point in time. So Nick is. Brought face to face with a girl that he kissed three years ago. Her name is Tara and. While they're talking to each other. they have a private moment for a second in kind of a quiet hallway or a corridor or whatever. Tara gets the courage to confide in Nick that she is dating a girl and that she is gay and yay.

And Nick appears to be really appreciative of this and through their little conversation. We realized that Tara is very new to this scene, but she and her girlfriend Darcy are deciding to be more brave and less conservative about how they are. Dealing with their relationship. So they have decided to become a little bit more brave and to be a little bit more public with how they are showing their affection to one another.

[00:08:00] And Nick seems to admire this a few moments later, everybody is on the dance floor and the camera zooms in on Tara and Darcy. and they're dancing. They're having a great time. There are the fluorescent lights everywhere. There's the really loud, really exciting dance music. And the two of them share a kiss and it is one of the funnest.

beautiful moments in a teen romance that I have witnessed in a long time. And not only is it just a beautiful moment, but everything that comes afterward. So they are in a crowded dance floor and they have the courage to kiss each other potentially in front of all of these peers. and then immediately after the kiss, they get to celebrate by dancing.

And so they're holding each other's hands. They're doing the spinning in circles thing because the age group of this crowd is about 15 and 16 years old. And so they're [00:09:00] celebrating as teenagers would, this was a big milestone for them. And it seems that even though it is a crowded room, Nobody really saw them do it except Nick and Nick stands there and it is obvious. With the way it is portrayed. And with the way it is filmed that Nick finds this to be a very special moment and a big gift for him to explore his own feelings and a few moments later, he and Charlie go to one of the empty rooms up upstairs.

Now they're not bedrooms. This is a venue. This is like a smaller ballroom upstairs, or a smaller meeting room upstairs. And they're alone in this other room and they find the moments to very adorably share with each other that they have feelings for each other. And they, Nick and Charlie share their first kiss [00:10:00] immediately after that, because Nick is Venturing into uncharted waters. He hears some of his friends call his name. So he runs out of this smaller room to go talk to them because he's just worried. He doesn't want them barging in to see him and Charlie kissing and Charlie who is dealing with some of his past trauma and some of his distrust and his own self-esteem issues.

Cause his dad. Completely heartbroken to come pick him up and he leaves the venue and goes home. And you expect this to be probably the worst thing in the whole world, as far as the way the series goes. However, at the end of episode, three, Nick shows up in the rain and you know, that they are going to make things right.

And that is how episode three ends. So. Let's go through this again and talk about all of the tropes and cliches that heart stopper [00:11:00] chose to avoid in this. And I'm not, I'm probably not going to be able to touch on all of them, but I am going to mention some really big ones that show up in teen romance.

And I'm going to say right now that some of the things that show up with the LGBTQ representation or the one or two LGBTQ characters, oftentimes those characters are there to be funny. it seems the male character is there to be snappy and witty and sassy and.

Oftentimes, that is just kind of the role that they play, the stereotype that they get to be in with heart stopper. The entire thing is based on same gender, or there is one relationship that is transgender. And so representation is all over the place. But in this series, everything is treated as completely normal and that is already a huge.

Step that is [00:12:00] already a very big point to be made here, but let's get to episode three again, to this birthday party, it's already kind of a trope that there is a rich kid who can rent out an entire venue for his 16th birthday. I was raised in very small town USA, and I don't remember really anybody celebrating their 16th that big.

I mean, perhaps we could have rented out like, the front room of the days in or something. I mean, there were nice places in the city I grew up in, but these really big 16th birthday things, weren't something that we saw much where I was raised. I do know however that they do happen immediately. we see the absence of things that come up in a lot of teen romance or teen drama And the first thing that we get to not see is the presence of a lot of heavy drinking. So in almost I, in so many American. Teen dramas or teen romance series [00:13:00] and movies. If there is a party, it is going to be unsupervised and there's going to be buckets of underage drinking.

I know that underage drinking is a thing, but it seems that it shows up everywhere in cinema. I also know that this does not take place in America and underage drinking as far younger over there. And so that's fine. But this is actually the important thing. Nobody was drunk at the party.

there might have been something that I missed. I mean, there was one character kind of acting silly, but there wasn't drinking there wasn't drugs. There wasn't even talk of any of those things. And the reason why that's important is because these super tender moments that happen while at the party in.

Their own private ways. That first conversation between Nick and Tara, if Nick or Tara had been drunk or on something that conversation couldn't have been so intimate and so full of trust immediately, [00:14:00] it was because everybody was level headed that Tara decided to open up to Nick and tell him that she was a lesbian and was dating Darcy also.

On the dance floor when Tara and Darcy share in their kiss in front of all of their peers, the energy of that would've been entirely different. Had anybody been impaired, if that had not been a completely level headed kiss filled with love and joy and excitement and a huge moment of celebration, it wouldn't have carried the same weight and it would've not affected Nick in the same way.

Did. then later with the first kiss that Nick and Charlie share, we have all seen the movie where that first kiss or that first. moment or that first vulnerable moment, one of the people in the relationship is drunk and does something by mistake. It would've completely ruined the storyline of this season, or it would've just created a [00:15:00] problem that would've had to be resolved later and probably wouldn't have been resolved very well.

When when Tara and Darcy were on the floor and they have their kiss, they get a moment to celebrate and a moment to be excited about it. And Nick was there to see, there is always in a team drama. It seems that there is somebody looking out to stab somebody in the back. If that kiss would've been immediately ruined.

It's possible that Nick would've not had the courage to share his affection for Charlie. If somebody would've stepped in and made fun of Tara, of Tara and Darcy for kissing on the dance floor, the entire tone of the party and the entire tone of the events that could have come later, would've changed.

And it would've been more about throwing a wrench in the plot of the story, rather than showing [00:16:00] us the beautiful innocence and the beautiful transformation of these fun relationships. It also could have discouraged Nick from being brave and exploring his feelings for Charlie one last cliche, and then we'll wrap it up.

in episode three, Nick and Charlie have their kiss. and then Nick hears his friends calling out his name and because he's scared for whatever personal reasons. It doesn't really say what perhaps he was worried of them. Worried that they would walk in and find this and he wasn't ready for that. He immediately stands up and runs out of the room to go talk with them.

And who knows how long they were actually talking So a cliche that was avoided in this situation was actually having somebody walk in or having somebody listen in or having somebody a fly on the wall.

[00:17:00] Invade the privacy and the tender moment of these two boys sharing their, a admitting their affection for one another. And then that person holding it over their head as a form of black male. We've all seen that before. We've seen people kissing people and somebody seeing that who shouldn't have seen it and then holds it over their heads as a way to get what they wanted or as a way to ruin a reputation or just ruin something a way to exact revenge or a way to. Pull negative attention away from themselves or whatever that didn't happen here.

And I believe that had it happened that way. It also would've ruined the plot of the story. That was not the point of this. That was not the PO like that stuff is not the point of heart stopper. It's not how heart stopper works. in many of the current teen romances that [00:18:00] involve gay characters. It seems that many of the gay characters are very sex forward. And so to admit your feelings for somebody automatically leads to sex in those stories, that didn't happen with heart stopper either. In fact, there's no sex in hot in heart stopper, at least not in season one.

and that's nice. So the reason why we are talking about subverting tropes and subverting cliches is because hard stopper is all about exploring and inviting the viewer or the reader. If you are reading the comics, because you remember this is a Netflix adaptation of the comics that share the same name.

It allows the viewer or the reader to witness this beautiful blooming, this beautiful blossoming of something new. when it does that, the, [00:19:00] the reader or the viewer gets to see this happen and it allows them to feel, and it allows them to experience. The honesty of these situations and the honesty of these emotions, the thing is subverting all of these tropes and all of these cliches allows the entire emotion of.

Heart stopper to be 100% honest feeling. I mean, it's a work of fiction. None of this is real, but it allows it to feel authentic and because it feels authentic, there's something to learn about it. We get to see in Charlie, a person struggling and overcoming the effects of bullying and The hard times and the hard job that it is to overcome all of that and still remain happy.

He still struggles with it throughout the thing. And he's not 100% arrived at being better. at the end of the first season, And spoiler alert. The effects of [00:20:00] bullying actually gave him an unhealthy relationship with food, which is set up throughout all of season one. All of this completely makes sense also with Nick with him just being a simple rugby player.

Popular doing his best, but not living life in a very deep way. And coming to this awakening that he is bisexual, that he likes both men and women. And right now he really likes Charlie. And so he's going to pursue a relationship with Charlie and coming to the realization. Oh my goodness.

I am different. and, oh my goodness. What does this actually mean? Keeping everything honest and authentic pulls the reader in. So a lot of times the little tricks that I mentioned that heart stopper avoided, we throw those things in as a way to build tension in the storyline so that people will continue reading.

But the thing is one of the [00:21:00] biggest things that I have learned about writing is. That people continue to read because there is a reason to continue reading. They continue reading because they want to. So regardless of if it is tension, if it is a thick plot twist, or if it is the threat of blackmail or if it is a big mistake, because someone was drunk, sometimes it is more of a simple.

Honest heartfelt thing that will keep a reader hooked and a watcher in this case, because this is a TV show too. It will keep someone hooked to continue witnessing what comes next. So with heart stopper, we are watching the gradual budding and blooming of this beautiful same sex relationship. Actually, a couple of them.

[00:22:00] Tara and Darcy's relationship was a little bit further along the path. It started out further along the path at the beginning of heart stopper, but everything ends in a more beautiful place. And we see the very beginnings of a relationship between a trans girl and a straight boy. because this is only season one and there is already a huge cannon of comics. It, it makes us immediately want to go read all the comics. We do that because we know That unless we read more, unless we see more, unless we continue with all of this, we are not going to see the roses that are inevitably going to be at the end.

So that's the thing, friends, these little tricks, the little trophy things, the little cliches. Sometimes they do succeed in building tension, but sometimes. like in the case of heart stopper, they can [00:23:00] really pull us away from a deeper, more beautiful and more simple form of storytelling.

And it can prevent that from conveying a very beautiful message. So one of the biggest takeaways That has formulated in my mind is that all of this, the same sex relationships love can look any way that it wants to. And here is a beautiful example of how, and to be gay, a person can understand that they are gay from the very get go.

there are still other people who don't know. If they're attracted to men, women, or whomever in between until they are given the chance to decide, just because in Nick's case, it's possible that he never considered it. He never considered what all of that looked like for him until.

he was met with a boy who [00:24:00] peaked his interest and they became friends first before they became boyfriends. So that is the take home for today. If you are a writer or a creator of some form of content, where you have a lesson about a topic that is largely misunderstood.

And it can be about anything Sometimes keeping the story simple. Is a way to keep it powerful so that's all I have for you today. I hope that you have had a wonderful pride month. This has. One of the biggest months, probably in my adult life that I will remember. And I love the reason we celebrate pride. I am going to be celebrating pride in a very big way from here on out. So thank you for being with me all throughout this.

Thing. It has been a huge journey and I appreciate the support of each and every single one of my listeners. And [00:25:00] so go out and have fun writing. We will see you next week. On another episode of writing in the tiny house.

And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.[00:26:00]

"Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show's webpage.

[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the show Writing in the Tiny House. I am on a mission to abolish the idea of the tormented artist by sharing what I know about writing, publishing, and just life in general, so that you can have the tools to produce the content that you have been eager to write. If you have the steps in place, you can produce a short story in as few as three months or a novel in as few as 18 months.

And hopefully through the ideas in this podcast, you will have the wisdom to adjust that timeline if you need to. I am Devin Davis, the guy who lives and writes in a tiny house in Northern Utah. Thank you for tuning in and please enjoy today's episode of Writing in the Tiny House.

[00:01:00] Hello, and welcome to today's episode of Writing in the Tiny House. My goodness friends. It is toward the end of June. Can you even believe it? This has been the most eventful June in the history of ever for me, at least, usually June is kind of that forgotten month in the summer before all of the vacations happen.

And before the weather gets really, really hot, and it seems like I tend to forget that June even exists. However, with pride and with different things like that, this June has been crazy busy and it has been super eventful. Please tune into all of the other episodes this month. There's like three, all of them.

And yeah, they've been super personal. They have been very inspirational at the same time. When it comes down to the nitty gritty of writing, that's kind of not what this month has really been all about. So today we are just going to do a bit of an [00:02:00] update as far as writing goes. And little bit of tips and tricks with some stuff that I have learned as I've been compiling some of these more special episodes.

So you get to know that as of today, I have finished the first draft of Tiz which I have found out because of its word count is a modest novella. So it's about I think, 23,000 words, which makes it a novella according to the measurement of some. And that is super exciting. It means that I can delve right into editing and I prefer editing to drafting anyway.

And so I have been itching to get this far. The next episode that we have with Writing in the Tiny House is going to be more of a clip episode that brings you along for the ride with Tiz, with doing this first draft. That is something that I have never done on this show before. It is nothing that I have heard of in a podcast episode anyway.[00:03:00]

And so it should be a pretty good experience. And I'm really eager to share that with you. Sometimes it's fun to talk about what the steps are, what they look like. Sometimes the mental tracks that we go down and the thought processes that we have along the way, and other times, it's fun to demonstrate what all of those things actually look like.

And so while I have been drafting Tiz I have been recording thoughts and just feelings and challenges that I have encountered along the way and this way, as I compile another clip episode, you can kind of get the idea in real time, sort of in real time in the moment like live in the moment, but you understand what I'm saying?

So Tiz the first draft is finished and I will keep you abreast as to what the other steps look like, just because it is going to require a lot of editing. They [00:04:00] all require a lot of editing, but this is the roughiest rough draft I have ever done in my life. And that is the whole point of today's episode. So I have learned the value of dictation.

I can dictate four times as many words that I can write and so this doesn't mean that I still have two hours to simply dictate because that is really overwhelming. And that's not what I can handle.

What it does mean though, is I can dictate the same amount of stuff that I could write in two hours in 30 minutes instead. And because I am a person who has no free time, and this is something that really stresses me out, being able to dictate what I would do in a day in 30 minutes, frees up a lot of the stress and gives me a lot more of my time back to me.

And this matters just because I tend to be a person to stress [00:05:00] and worry about a lot of things. I also don't really allow myself to rest very much and I am prone to burnout. So to know that drafting is only going to be 30 minutes. It doesn't take me as long to fall into the groove of drafting. When I am blabbing to myself as a voice note into my phone, as it does, if, if I were to sit down and write, it takes longer for me to get into the flow and.

Like I said, I can crash through this a lot faster. The draft is rough. I'm not going to lie about that. But to me, the magic of writing actually comes through editing more than it does through drafting. And so I'm eager to take this to the next place just because it requires a different part of my brain.

It requires different energy. And I have been eager to get into that energy with this novella with Tiz. TIS has turned out to be a very special project. I am [00:06:00] eager to get it ready and to get it released. I'm also eager to start the next project, which could be another novella. It may actually end up being a novel called Mateo.

It is the next installment of tales from Laar. So be sure to tune in for more updates with that. So we all noticed, I'm sure that the title of today's episode is eat your frog. Mark Twain once said when he was talking about being productive, he said this, if it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it's your job to eat two frogs. It's best to eat the biggest one first. I am a fan of these fun little sayings when it comes to being productive in whatever else. This is mark Twain's way [00:07:00] of saying whatever is the hardest for you to do prioritize it and get it done first.

So for me, the priority right now, Is actually taking care of myself and allowing me to rest. And so just a, a review of some of the things that I do in my day, I have a full-time job and I have found out that unless I come home and rest for about an hour and a half, I am really going to be grumpy and hate the things that I work on for the remainder of the evening.

So. The first thing that I need to do that is a priority above all of the rest is to allow myself some R and R. However, the next thing that I need to prioritize. So it is my job in a way in the evenings, the frogs that I get to eat , which is a really unpleasant way of saying writing and getting my drafts done.[00:08:00]

But the thing that makes me the very happiest is making progress in my first drafts and making progress in my projects. And so that is the next thing that I have to do first.

The idea is get the horrible thing done in the morning so that it doesn't ruin the rest of your day. And if you need to eat two frogs eat the biggest one first. So to me, writing is important. Writing makes me happy and all of these other things that I also do, like the podcast. I love this podcast. I love writing more though.

So, because I've discovered this trick of dictating. and because I can get as much done in less time, it is less of a commitment for me to write. And so it is easier for me to simply get that done to simply get 30 minutes of writing done before I do all of the rest, I had to record a lot of things with the podcast today.

You can hear that I revamped the [00:09:00] intro and at the end of this, you're going to hear that I revamped the outro and yeah, that was the smaller frog. So I got the writing done and now I did the podcast editing and now I am recording a podcast and soon I am going to be recording a, a second podcast that I do for work.

So that is the little tip and trick for today. If your job is to eat a frog, it is best to get it done in the morning. And if your job is to eat two frogs, it is best to start with the biggest one first.

And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my [00:10:00] writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.

Sentiments about Pride!

Also, Michael Allen shares with us the simple story of magic that came about in his life after he came out.

Michael's IG and Facebook page: @themichaelallen

What are the small things that are getting in the way of your creativity? How can you take charge of that?

"Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

Know how your people are getting around, and what they layout of the land looks like in order to make things like travel more believable.

"Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show's webpage.