Writing in the Tiny House

"Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available as an audiobook and an ebook! Just follow these links:

Ebook:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09JBGSLDF?searchxofy=true&binding=kindle_edition&ref_=dbs_s_aps_series_rwt_tkin&qid=1636325653&sr=8-1

Audio book:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09L283KLX?notRedirectToSDP=1&ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_taud_tkin&storeType=ebooks&qid=1636325653&sr=8-1

To become a patron, visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse, and I provide an Advance Reader Copy of my short stories as a thank-you for my patrons.

Contact Copy Editor Krissy Barton at www.littlesyllables.com

The following is a transcript of this episode. The complete transcript can be found on the podcast website.

[00:00:00] Guys, I just got news at four o'clock this morning that "Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is also available as an audio book now on Audible and I think in two or three other locations. So as of this morning, not only am I an author, but I am also a narrator. But that's actually not what the episode's about.

[00:00:31] We're actually going to talk about NaNoWriMo today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello. Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the show. Welcome to Writing in the tiny house. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy living in a tiny house who is here to show you the ways to write that work of fiction that you have always wanted to write and show you that you can do it no matter how busy you are.

[00:01:15] It is entirely possible to squeeze in some of those writing projects so that you can get the work done. But today with some of this news, a brief reminder that "Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is for sale as an ebook on Amazon.com. But like I said in the introduction, it is also available as an audio book on Audible and I think in two other locations, I will figure that out. If you want to listen to "Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, you can download the audio book narrated by yours truly. So it's good. I would personally follow the link in the show notes so that you can purchase it through a web browser instead of through the Audible app, just because if you purchase it through the Audible app, you're going to spend a credit. And this is only one hour of audio. So, I mean, if you want to spend a credit, do that, if you want to get it for cheaper, purchase it through a web browser. This is a particularly interesting month because there is a nationwide and for some people internationally wide competition or a big push for people to draft.

[00:02:40] That is what NaNoWriMo is all about, to draft 50,000 words in one month from start to finish. And I'd like to say that up to this point, we are on track. At least I am on track. You can follow me on the NaNoWriMo website. My username is author_devin_davis. So author Devin Davis separated with two underscores in there and you can track my progress.

[00:03:14] It is so interesting that this competition takes place in November, just because of Thanksgiving. Now, I don't know about you, but I am the guy who loves to do like the 25 days of giving thanks countdown. I love to do it. I've done it every year for the last long while, of just taking a moment to reflect on what I am grateful for and sharing that on my social media, just because it is really awesome to bring lights and to bring a big focus onto what you are grateful for. Sometimes I get caught up a lot in complaining and in being unsatisfied and whatever else. It's easy to focus on the things that I don't have.

[00:04:03] And so sometimes in November, it is such a good moment in the year. It is such a good time in the year to reflect on the things that I do have, on the things that are going well and to sit in those feelings for a while and to express them. And to be honest with such a big project, like NaNoWriMo, that takes such a big chunk out of every single day and requires a lot of motivation and requires a lot of self-determination.

[00:04:36] It is such a good driving force for me to remember the things that I'm grateful for. So I don't know about you. I have already spoken about different ways to take care of yourself and take care of your body during this push for NaNoWriMo and really for any big project that you're doing. If you're in the middle of a big project at work, if you're in the middle of a

[00:05:01] a big thing, whatever hobbies you do, it is always good to schedule your time to take breaks, to have healthy snacks and healthy eating habits and to get plenty of rest and different things like that. It is good to take care of your physical self. At the same time. With writing and with any really big projects, but the whole thing can also be very mentally taxing.

[00:05:30] It can be hard to simply push through. And considering that writing is likely not a collaborative thing for you. I mean, I know a lot of people who co write things, or I know of people who do that, I don't actually know people who do that. But writing really, isn't a team sport. And for almost all people, it's not really a team hobby either.

[00:05:57] Especially the drafting part, the first draft and most books die on the first draft anyway. There is a lot of your energy. There is a lot that you put into this. Not only are you scheduling time out of your day. For me, it has been two hours every day.

[00:06:19] And my writing goal is on target right now and it's been okay. But two hours every day is a lot, including the weekends when I have my kids and other obligations. And so it it's worked out, but with this creative process, the story comes from you. For me, not only am I spending two hours a day drafting, but sometimes I need to bounce ideas off of people, or I need to take a break and kind of think about what I'm going to be writing about so that whatever I go through makes sense.

[00:06:56] It's just a lot. I'm grateful that I'm doing it though. I really like the feeling that comes with rallying together. Granted, all of this rallying for me has largely been online forums and on the website for NaNoWriMo, but it's really inspirational to me to be doing a similar thing with a group of people who have such a big goal. 50,000 words, if you're kind of unfamiliar with what word counts kind of resemble, 50,000 words is, is about 200 pages of texts.

[00:07:31] 200 pages of a standard manuscript. And that's a lot, that's a lot to do in a month. That's a lot for anybody to do in a month. I mean, there are people who write far faster than that, or crank out more words than that in a month, but I know far more people who don't. So just in the light of November and in the light of giving

[00:07:54] thanks, if you are finding yourself, Kind of in the depths of despair, if you are losing motivation, if you are mentally burned out. If you are not very excited to continue drafting your book, usually that means that you need to revisit your outline. If you're a pantser and you are coming up on writer's block, then you might want to take some notes from an outliner and just kind of outline the next part of your book, just because that is the perfect way to deal with writer's block.

[00:08:30] Anyway. In face of all of these really big, heavy feelings, it helps me to reflect on what I'm thankful for. I personally don't fully know what NaNoWriMo is going to look like over the Thanksgiving holiday, just because I'm going to be with family. I'm not going to be in the tiny house during that time.

[00:08:54] But everybody knows that I'm taking this goal seriously. And so hopefully I'll be able to sneak away and maintain my goals. So that is my invitation to you. Go ahead and spend time every day. I know that you are not writing 24 hours a day, and reflect on what you are thankful for before you gear up and start drafting.

[00:09:22] And let me know how it goes. Go ahead and send me your stories. My email address is [email protected], and I would love to hear inspirational stories from you, or you can send them to me on Instagram. My handle is@authordevindavis.. I'm excited to hear your news. I'm excited to see your progress and go ahead and log on to NaNoWriMo and follow me as one of your buddies.

[00:09:51] So all of that information is in the description of the show notes. This episode is a little bit shorter than what we are used to, but that is okay. Take time for you. Take care of. Take care of your body and take care of your mind. And especially this month, remember the things that you are thankful for, not just because it's a cheesy thing to do, but it can actually help with dealing with stress and dealing with motivation.

[00:10:24] So that is my tidbit for today.. Let's go ahead and hear all about a little syllables editing.

[00:10:33] Run by copy editor, Krissy Barton, Little Syllables editing is a reliable resource for anyone looking to improve their manuscript. Chrissy does line edits, copy edits, and the final proofread for experienced writers and newbies alike. Krissy offers incredible customer service by always being in contact with the customer.

[00:10:54] And she gives a fast turnaround time. She is always willing to give your work a sample edit for free. So you both can find out if you'll make a good team without any obligation upfront, go to little syllables.com and reach out to Chrissy today. A link is in the show notes.

[00:11:16] so that's it for today. Again, a brief reminder that Bridgette installment, one of tales from blade, or is available to purchase on amazon.com as an ebook. And as of this morning, it has been uploaded to audible and a couple other locations as an audio book. So go ahead and get your copy today. If you are a patron of writing in the tiny house, I provide an advanced reader copy of all of these short stories.

[00:11:44] As a way to say thank you for your pledge. So if you wish to become a patron of writing in the tiny house, go to patrion.com/writing in the tiny house today. a link for that is also in the show notes. Be sure to follow me on social media.

[00:11:59] My Instagram is at author Devin Davis and my Twitter is at author Devin, D I'm excited to hear about your news with NaNoWriMo and we will see you next time. Have fun writing.

Purchase your copy of "Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor today! Just follow this link:

https://www.amazon.com/Brigitte-Tales-Vlaydor-Devin-Davis-ebook/dp/B09JBLF6XD/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=tales+from+vlaydor&qid=1635567415&sr=8-1

Also, become a patron today and receive a free ebook of the Tales from Vlaydor installments as they are releases. Go to:

www.Patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Reach out to Krissy Barton for all your editing needs. www.littlesyllables.com

The following is a transcription of this episode. For the full transcription, please visit the show's webpage.

Devin Davis: [00:00:00] Are you hoping to grow your readership or your following on social media or on any platform really? Then maybe you need to learn about Targeted Daily Engagement today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello. Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis.

And today we are actually going to cover a little bit about marketing. Usually I'm the guy in the tiny house living in Northern Utah who takes time out of his day sometimes to tell you all about writing and about how you absolutely have all the time that you [00:01:00] need to write that work of fiction that you have wanted to do for so long.

Especially if you have a nine to five, like me.

Today we are going to talk about something a little bit different. We are going to be covering kind of a marketing strategy. We write our books, we publish our books and then we need to get people to buy our books.

So here's the deal, guys.

First of all before we get into the Targeted Daily Engagement, let's go ahead and remember that NaNoWriMo started November 1st and I hope that all of you have started this fun and exciting race or competition. I don't really know what type of competition we're supposed to consider this to be. I guess it's a race against yourself.

Just to, because if you manage to crank out 50,000 words during NaNoWriMo, which is this entire month of November, then you get the [00:02:00] prize of a certificate saying that you completed NaNoWriMo. It's really a fun way to come together with groups all across the nation. Some people in the world are also doing NaNoWriMo, who don't live in the U S.

And it's just a great way to make big progress on whatever works you have in progress. And so I am doing NaNoWriMo as of the date that this is airing. If you are not a patron, this is released to the public on November 3rd. And so I have been doing NaNoWriMo for two days already. And if you are interested in kind of following me or pairing up with me, I do have a writing group called Writing in the Tiny House.

And my profile name on NaNoWriMo is author_devin_davis. So author Devin Davis separated by underscores. I try to keep things pretty straight forward and easy to remember. But we [00:03:00] added underscores into this username this time. And so go ahead and follow me and, you know, become my buddy on NaNoWriMo.

And that way we can continue to make progress on our works in progress together. And that's awesome just because we all need more motivation in this world, and in times like these. So yeah, if you haven't started NaNoWriMo yet, we are only a couple of days into the competition. So get going. I hope that you have plenty of ideas.

The trick is simply to get started. That's how it is with mostly anything in life. The trick is to start. And so for me, in order to successfully do this, I have to write about two hours a day, which I think is going to be doable. And that's two hours, not every day. I will have my weekends off and I still need to make time to do this podcast and a couple other things like [00:04:00] that.

So, yay. I am working onTales from Vlaydor, Installment Two, which is entitled Otto.

I'm excited to get it done. I think that I'm going to get about two or three, maybe even four short stories done this month.

So if you're stressed out, that's great. Go ahead and be stressed. That means you're making progress and you're challenging yourself. Make sure that you're pacing yourself. We don't want you to fry or burnout or lose motivation or whatever. So with this first episode of Writing in the Tiny House, I'm going to be covering a marketing strategy. And to be perfectly honest, Targeted Daily Engagement, engaging on NaNoWriMo on the websites and in the competition is a way to do Targeted Daily Engagement.

I'll cover more on that in just a second. But while I was in Hawaii a few weeks ago, I was staying with my good [00:05:00] friend, Crystal Brown. She is a yoga instructor in Hawaii, and I got her to record a guided meditation. And so a little bit later with this NaNoWriMo competition when stakes are high and we are stressed out and we want nothing more than to just finish and cross that finish line. The final episode in November of Writing in the Tiny House is going to be a guided meditation so that we can all be a little more grounded and cross that finish line a little bit more gracefully. But until then, let's talk about Targeted Daily Engagement.

When we go to advertise the things that we've done, when we go to post on social media and we do all of these different things. We are self promoting. I hope that if you are a serious author that you already have a website started and going, I do. My website is authordevindavis.com. And [00:06:00] if you go there and you visit that website, you will see that it is pretty basic. Author websites don't need to be elaborate. They don't have to function in a really big elaborate way. What you absolutely need on an author website is who you are, what you've written and where those works can be found, if you are hoping to sell those works.

And for me, because I'm also getting into narrating audio books, I am going to be posting some of the stuff associated with that as well. So it doesn't have to be big. You do not need to reinvent amazon.com. You don't have to have a shop. You don't need to have like a store on your website where people can find your books and purchase them directly from your website.

Unless you want to figure out a way to do that. If you have your stuff on amazon.com or in Barnes and noble and on all of the different places, it is perfectly okay to provide links on your web page to [00:07:00] get there. So we have a link forBrigitte, which was released at the end of October, and a way to get to Amazon.com in order to purchase an e-copy of Brigitte.

And I have a link to Writing in the Tiny House. I have my picture. I have a brief bio. I have a link to a page with some of my audio book stuff. It's not uploaded yet. It's not posted yet, but I have a page made for it already so that people who are interested in hiring me to do their audio books can see my audition reels.

So you need to have a website. Secondly, if you are doing Targeted Daily Engagement, you need to be active on social media. And this is how you do that. The thing is, on social media, we get inundated every day with people who are self-promoting. We get inundated with ads. We get inundated with [00:08:00] people who say some dumb thing and then a link to go buy that dumb thing.

And to be honest, people are put out by it now. Targeted daily engagement is a very organic, but a very positive way to draw attention to what you are doing, to your website, to your works in progress, to everything that you're doing as an author or as a business owner. What you do is you get onto your social media platform and you modify your profile to reflect every thing about the one thing that you are willing to promote. So for me, the easiest thing to promote is this podcast. And so under my profile information, I have my author website, which has the podcast. I have all of the Writing and the Tiny House Pictures.

I have the same author photo as my profile picture, as my profile image, as I do [00:09:00] for my author section of my website. And it's the same picture that I include in the, about the author section of my book. If you purchased a copy of Brigitte, at the very end, there is an about the author section and it is that picture that I have on everything.

It is everything that you are hoping to promote. So all of the personal stuff, you get to kind of put that aside, or you get to make a separate profile for you to promote your business or your writing or whatever it is. You are hoping to sell your services. You're writing.

Whatever it is. Then you go to what some people call the watering holes. You go to the forums, you go to the groups. If you are focusing mostly on Instagram, you go to the hashtags, you go to the people who are actively involved in what you are doing. People who are interested in what you [00:10:00] are selling or in the activity that you are promoting.

Service that you want people to know that you do and you go there and you find the questions and you find the topics of conversation and you post every single day relevant, meaningful stuff that is not self promoting. That is not directing people or saying, go visit my website and spend money. Content good content.

And. It will help people find your website. It will help people find your product and it will bring people to whatever you are doing. So with me, with targeted daily engagement, I am promoting a podcast about writing. I'm also. Promoting my writing. And so I get onto the Facebook groups specifically for me, it is Facebook that I mostly focus on just because I [00:11:00] have been getting more attention there, but really I encourage you to find.

Anywhere to try a lot of different things because so many of them can work. I focus on Facebook. I focus on Reddit. I have tried to focus on Instagram that it has been harder to do on Instagram. And so, I mean, I still post to Instagram pretty often. Because it's easy to post on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter at the same time.

But the point is to find the discussions, the point is to find people searching for help and become the life of the party, bring value to those discussions. And then when people see that you are somewhat of an authority figure on this or that subject, they can find. Your profile and see what you actually represent, and that will direct them to your website or to whatever it is that you have [00:12:00] built into your profile.

And they did that without you doing the obnoxious self-promoting. And with that. Pushing people to click on this or that. And it is without spending money on Facebook ads or on amazon.com ads. If you want to do those things any way you can, but that is not a part of this targeted daily engagement thing that I'm talking about.

There are a lot of different facets to anybody's marketing strategy and targeted daily engagement can be a big part of anyone's marketing strategy. It is a very good one. To build a presence to build a following. If you're doing a podcast to build a listenership, if you are doing reading and writing and things like I'm doing to build a readership, it is a really good way to bring people into the circle and to get them to stay just because their introduction to you and to what you represent.

Started [00:13:00] off so positive to begin with and you weren't being a salesman in order for them to get there. There's nothing wrong with being a salesman. But like I said social media is inundated with self-promoters and some people have turned sour from that. So this is a way to do that without the self-promoting specifically.

So that means that when you're on. The Facebook groups or Instagram or whatever, most people are going to be asking for help or insight to a problem that they have. And so that means that you can go on and share facts. It also means that sometimes you go on and share opinions and. There is always the chance that somebody is not going to like what you have to say.

So I've run into this already a couple of different times where I get on and say something completely truthful, [00:14:00] but it would be kind of beyond the scope of somebody's experience in the group or whatever. And so they they choose to. Proved me wrong, which is fine. I mean, you can say whatever you want on social media apparently.

And we have found out that. Sometimes it's not about being right. It's about being loud. And so with all of that, you get to decide on if you get to engage in arguing, or if you get to be the people who are building an obnoxious thread filled with research on this and that in order to prove that you are right.

Or you can step back and you can take a breath and you can let that thread eventually kind of Peter out in die. The thing about social media is everybody can get on and everybody is very, very brave when they are allowed to be anonymous. There is also a lack of context and a lack of tone when all you are reading is text and sometimes memes.

And [00:15:00] so there is plenty of room to be. Misunderstood. There's plenty of room to be offended. And there is plenty of room to pick fights or to have fights picked with you. So what I recommend in cases like this, just because it is bound to happen. Especially if you are sharing opinion. And you are sharing opinions about something where there are a million different right ways to do it.

I recommend stepping back, calling a friend and kind of belly aching to that friend and letting the thread on the post die. I don't feel like there is any reason to die on a hill about this or that in regards to social media, especially if you are trying to build a following based on good impressions and based on establishing yourself as a professional and as a reliable.

Source in whatever field you are going to [00:16:00] be talking about. So I don't necessarily find value in dying on Hills, even though I have been so tempted to do so. I mean, yes, being a writer is great at the same time. I am a business person and Going into the business side of things is something that a lot of aspiring writers have not researched yet.

Sometimes there are differences and it's fine. We had some things happen just this morning and it's. So that's, that is what targeted daily engagement is. And if you do it every single day for 15 to 30 minutes, I am not going to stand here and predict for you what type of good things that it will do for your following and for your growth.

But there are plenty of podcasters who do this, who have seen a 25% increase in listeners per month. Through doing targeted daily engagement [00:17:00] and targeted daily engagement is free. It costs your spare time, but it is lights on the wallet. So that is what targeted daily engagement is all about.

Thank you so much for joining me today. Again, Brigitte the first installment of tales from Vlaydor is available to purchase on amazon.com unless you are a patron to Writing in the Tiny House, and then you will. a free copy of Brigitte very soon. If you are interested in becoming a patron and supporting this podcast, I will give you a copy of each installment of Tales from Vlaydor as they happen.

Devin Davis: Just go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and make an account and a pledge. Follow me on social media. My Instagram handle is at @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is @authordevind. And thank you so much for joining me today [00:18:00] and hopefully I will see you on NaNoWriMo.

Have fun writing guys.

Use this link to purchase your own copy of "Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor:

https://www.amazon.com/Brigitte-Tales-Vlaydor-Devin-Davis-ebook/dp/B09JBLF6XD/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=devin+davis+brigitte&qid=1634970266&sr=8-1

Become a patron today and get a copy of each of these short stories as they are released. Go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse today.

Also, Krissy Barton offers free consultations and sample edits. www.littlesyllables.com

The following is a transcript of this episode. The full transcript can be found on the show's website.

[00:00:00] Are you in the market for some light reading, then you need to read "Brigitte," Tales from Vlaydor Installment One. Today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello! Hello! Hello. This is Devin Davis and you are Writing in the Tiny House. I am the guy in a tiny house in Northern Utah, who is here to show you the different ways to write the things, to write the fiction that you have in your brain, that you are convinced you are too busy to do.

[00:00:51] It's interesting sometimes recording podcasts, just because we record on a different day than we release things. And so today is not October 27th in my world, but this podcast is going to be released to the public on October 27th. If you are a patron, you're going to get this a few days before that.

[00:01:12] But all of this means that today in this magical world, October 27th, we are one day after the release of "Brigitte," Tales from Vlaydor, Installment One. And that is good news, my friends. This is the episode where I get to gush all about my writing and about this fun, little journey of this novelette and what it has taught me and what I have learned and grown from and where, and most importantly, I guess, where you can buy it.

[00:01:48] So let's actually deal with that first. "Brigitte" Tales from Vlaydor, Installment One is available on amazon.com as an ebook download. It costs $2 and 99 cents. So go there, follow the link in the show notes and go to there and get it today. There were a lot of people who reserved their thing. I did a pre-release for this book and I'm so glad that I did.

[00:02:12] I can delve into reasons why in another episode, I don't want to talk about the things that went wrong. So instead follow the link in the show notes and go to amazon.com and you can search for Devin Davis. And you can search for Brigitte which is the French spelling spelled B R I G I T T E, Tales from Vlaydor, Installment One.

[00:02:38] Anyway, it is available. It is affordable and it is really good. It's a good short story, guys. I have had really good feedback from this from very trusted sources, and I am proud as proud to release this to you and to have it available for people to go to and find it and buy it. And so yeah, this is an example of, I guess, following your own advice. The things with with this podcast that I share, I do those things, and I had the goals starting in September to get this short story underway. And I gave myself an extra week, but I wanted a short story or a novelette cranked out in eight weeks. And because this was the first one in a long time and I needed to re-establish all of my systems for it and reach out to friends and family and people who would be interested in helping me out.

[00:03:38] Just because so many works of fiction, especially if you are writing to market, if you are writing to sell your stuff, you need to involve other people. You need to consistently get other people's points of view, just because they will see things that you might miss. And if you are hoping to make money on your writing, you need to get additional points of view and other opinions.

[00:04:04] So I knew from the beginning with this first installment of Tales from Vlaydor with Brigitte that I would need some extra grace time to get all of those systems in place again, just because it has been a minute since I have written something that would go along the different steps of editing so rapidly.

[00:04:25] And so, yeah, reaching out and contacting and phone calls and emails. All the social media contacts, all the things. So I gave myself some wiggle room and I was able to do it in eight weeks. I was actually able to do it sooner than that. And that's cool. That means that I can do this again.

[00:04:47] And so starting November 1st with NaNoWriMo, I will be working on installment two of Tales from Vlaydor entitled Otto. So it's a different story in a different city of the land, and it's going to be another fun ride, friends, another fun novelette or short story. I haven't started drafting it yet, so I don't know exactly how long it will be, but I think it'll be comparable to Brigitte, which tows the line between short story and novelette and falls in novelette. That is the next project. And I am stoked for it. I'm stoked for NaNoWriMo. I'm stoked and scared to have another thing to write, another thing to draft, but a good friend and I have already been brainstorming what the story of Otto can actually look like.

[00:05:43] And so it's something that I already have an amount of clarity on. And so getting started isn't going to be hard. It's not going to, I mean, it will definitely be work, but it's not going to be impossible to do. And it's something that I'm eager to do. So during this whole process there were people that I asked to read Bridgette, there were people who gave good feedback.

[00:06:07] There were people who showed me that they are willing to support my work, which is cool. All the people, when I announced on this podcast and on my social media, that Brigitte was available for pre-order, there were a lot of people who immediately pre-ordered and I am just going to publicly say, thank you.

[00:06:27] That is really a cool thing for me. And that is really reassuring to me. I absolutely love that. And so thank you for all of the pre-orders. However, I am not living under a rock. I'm living in a tiny house and I know that most people do not pre-order. And so thanks in advance to everybody who orders a digital copy of Brigitte and I'm excited to see what happens with this, guys.

[00:06:55] I'm really excited about this. I'm excited to do another thing that should be released around Christmas, and it's just going to be good times. So things that I have learned. I have found that I can crank out a pretty good story in one week. That's how long it took me to draft Brigitte.

[00:07:15] It took me about nine or 10 hours of drafting And I think about nine. And I have found that I have wonderful people in my circle who are more than willing to bounce ideas back and forth off of me. And they are excited to see what comes of it all. There are so many people who love fiction, who simply don't write it.

[00:07:37] And so to have them involved with this and to allow them the chance to give feedback and give ideas and do the back and forth, was a really cool thing. I could tell that they were edified by that as much as I was. To have that exchange and to have that back and forth was so good. That's a good thing.

[00:07:59] I think I said earlier in this episode that I actually completed Brigitte sooner than in the eight weeks that I was expecting. I actually completed it in about six maybe even five. There were some things that did not take nearly as long as I was expecting them to do. And the main thing was my editor, Krissy Barton from Little Syllables Editing is fast.

[00:08:27] She is always in contact with the people that she is working with. And she did a great job with the line and copy editing and the proofread of this book, of this novelette. And so. Little syllables editing. She is, I mean, that business is kind of the editor on board with this entire Tales from Vlaydor project.

[00:08:49] And so of course, I'm going to give her a shout out because she did a great job. So that was the thing that I was able to save some time on. There were a couple other steps too that simply didn't take as long as I was expecting, I had. Eight weeks in a spreadsheet. And I had planned out in two-hour blocks, what I would be doing just because I usually have about two hours to work on stuff.

[00:09:16] With this next installment with Otto, it's entirely possible that I will be thrown to the wolves with this next installment with Otto. And that here I am spouting all of these wonderful things about how efficient the process was. And maybe with Otto it's going to be kind of a car wreck or a garbage fire.

[00:09:37] One thing that I was able to try. And that I was able to do and that we are still deliberating back and forth on is I sat down and I have always had the desire to narrate my own books. And so I took my audio equipment and I managed to make the tiny house as quiet as I could make it just because there are certain technical requirements for audio books.

[00:10:04] If you wish to publish them to audible, which I do. And I sat down and I recorded Bridgette twice. And the thing is, guys, the audio for it. This is the first, you know, audio narration that I have ever done, but it was so fun to record all of this. I am still in the middle of editing. I think that once we nail this down and we decide that it's a good thing to do, I'll be able to release this to audible at about the same, I mean, closely after the ebook is released on Amazon. I was able to sit down. I was able to narrate, I was able to just do all of that, which is what I've wanted to do for such a long time. I have found out though, why audio books often take a while after the printed book is released. It is more expensive to produce an audio book. So with this, there were parts in the audio that had to be recorded several times. There were parts in the book that it was not just about making the text pretty, just because there is no text in the audio.

[00:11:22] It was about sound. It was about pronunciation. It was about tripping over my tongue. It was, it was about reading. It was about staying close enough or far enough away from the microphone. It was about all of those things. Also, it has been a really rainy October in Utah. And so I wasn't able to record on some of the days just because of rain and I didn't want to have to deal with rain in the background. And so turning the tiny house into a recording studio is not necessarily the most ideal thing, but I think it worked. I'm goingto see though, I'm going to have to see if it's okay.

[00:12:05] Like I said, there are technical requirements to audio files if you hope to publish to audible. And I think that I will be squeaking in pretty easily. If not, I can send it to an audio engineer to kind of clean up the noise floor of the files a little bit, a very little bit. I was surprised at how well the things turned out recording in the tiny house.

[00:12:30] So yay for all of that. Brigitte released October 26th. It is now available to purchase because today is October 27th. And look for the audio version of Tales from Vlaydor Installment One, Brigitte in audible coming up soon, I will keep you abreast with this podcast as far as how that is going.

[00:12:58] But guys, here is one of the big take homes that I want to include with this podcast. Now is a great time to become a patron of this show. I'm grateful for the patrons that I already have for their donations, just because they wanted to support the podcast.

[00:13:17] And they believed that the podcast is such a good resource and something that was worth supporting financially. And I have been so grateful for, I mean, I treat them, I see them as gifts. Those monthly installments are gifts to me, but now if you have been on the fence of becoming a patron to Writing in the Tiny House, now is a good time to join. If you go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and sign up, you will see that, with these installments that I'm writing, I am going to be providing electronic versions of these short stories to my patrons as they are published. And so if you want to be one of the first people to get a copy, or perhaps even a few days in advance, a copy of these installments of Tales from Vlaydor as they are released, I will likely also release the audio to my patrons.

[00:14:20] If you're interested in an audio book, I'll see how all of that works. Audio books are kind of are kind of ratty. I mean, it's a lot of different files that a program ties together. And so we'll see how that goes. I think I can make it work though. But absolutely yes, the eBooks of these small installments of Tales from Vlaydor I release those to my patrons.

[00:14:45] And then they are available to purchase on amazon.com. So if you sign up as a patron today, you will be receiving as a thank you, a copy of Brigitte. And in December, when I publish the next installment, Otto, you will receive an ebook of that too. So go onto patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and become a patron today.

[00:15:14] So that's it for today. Follow the link in the show notes and navigate to amazon.com today and purchase your copy of "Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor. And be sure to follow me on my social media. My Instagram handle is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is @authordevind.

[00:15:37] And that is it for today. Thank you for joining me and have fun writing.

Tales from Vlaydor, Installment One: "Brigitte" is available to pre-order on Amazon.com. Just follow this link and purchase your copy today!

https://www.amazon.com/Brigitte-Tales-Vlaydor-Devin-Davis-ebook/dp/B09JBLF6XD/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=devin+davis+brigitte&qid=1634360829&sr=8-1

If you wish to become a patron and receive an electronic copy of these shorter works when they are released, go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse today to sign up.

Also, visit www.littlesyllables.com to get ahold of Krissy Barton to get your current work in progress edited!

The following is a transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the podcast's website.

[00:00:00] Today, it's all about DIY books. And just like cooking, dIY can be the very best way to go, but sometimes you really need to know how to do it right, today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello. Hello. Hello, and welcome to Writing in the Tiny house. Welcome back to the show. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy living in a tiny house, giving you all the tips and tricks as to how it is to write a book and to show you that whatever you have bubbling around in your brain, that work of fiction, is completely possible to do no matter how busy you believe that you are. So today we are going to break down a little bit about DIY books, sometimes referred to as self-published just as a way to pay attention to some very technical things that will get your book judged unfairly right out of the gate.

[00:01:24] So just some quick announcements, you know, that my collection of short stories Tales from Vlaydor, the first installment has been completed. The first installment is called Brigitte, and it is currently available for pre-order. So, if you follow the link in the show notes, it will take you to the Amazon page where you can pre-order your own digital copy of Brigitte, which is installment one of Tales from Vlaydor.

[00:01:56] And that is super exciting because it has been a while since I released anything. And I know that you guys are interested in seeing how I write. With this podcast, it is easy for me to share all of the advice and give all of the tips and tricks, like I said, but sometimes it is really valuable to see a person practice what they preach.

[00:02:21] And so it's important to me to share this. So that is what we're doing. That is what Brigitte and this Tales from Vlaydor collection of short stories and novelettes is all about. It is about me showing you the things that I can do so that you can see that these steps and these different things that I suggest actually work.

[00:02:44] And that matters. So as you remember, this entire Tales from Vlaydor project is a big undertaking. It's something that I'm going to be releasing every two months, a new installment every two months. And I've actually been brainstorming with one of my dear friends to get the next installment underway already.

[00:03:06] And it's so fun. However, I cannot do any of this without an editor. The editor for my Tales from Vlaydor collection is Krissy Barton from Little Syllables editing and she's wonderful, friends. She is fast. She is always in communication with the authors of the things that she is editing.

[00:03:25] And she's great. She did the line edits and the copy edits, and then the final proofread of Brigitte, and she was so fast to get it back to me. So if you have a work in progress and you need to find your own editor, go ahead and reach out to Krissy Barton at Little Syllables editing. And I have her websites in the show notes as well.

[00:03:54] She does free consultations. She does a free sample edit. And then you can see if you guys will make a good fit. So let's dive right in to picking apart a DIY book. Just some technical things to pay attention to that are easy to see, easy to fix, some things that are easy to monitor if you choose to go the self-published route. It is 100% possible nowadays to crank out self published content that is as good as if not better than some traditionally published stuff.

[00:04:34] However, The thing about the traditionally published works is they have a publishing house backing them up. And a publishing house has been doing this for a very long time. It is how they have been making money. It's how they've been providing jobs. And so they know how to do it. They know how to do the marketing, they know how to follow trends and they know what is currently selling.

[00:04:58] That is why traditional publishing is still a big thing. And that's why it is going to stick around for such a long time. However, for those of us who want to self-publish, there are still some things that we can do so that we can have quality that is equivalent to that. Equivalent, if not better. All of the resources are available to us.

[00:05:23] We just need to know what they are and how to employ them. So with a self published book. And if you are hoping to write to make money, which means if you are writing things, hoping to sell those things in exchange for money. There are some guidelines and there are some expectations that you need to be aware of before you even get started.

[00:05:51] If you are a hobbyist writer writing just for yourself and you never expect anybody else to read what you're writing, or at least maybe not more than a group of friends or your close family, and you're not expecting to sell bunches and bunches of copies of some of the things that you're doing. Then what I'm about to say, doesn't really apply.

[00:06:14] However, if you are hoping to sell your stuff, you are writing to market, which means you always get to be towing the line between being creative and new. And fitting in with what is already working, and that is in every single aspect of your book. You need to find a way to be creative and new while at the same time, be understood for what you are.

[00:06:46] The first example that I have to illustrate this is your book cover. If your book cover. Looks really homemade. Let's say that you did a fantasy novel and the book cover is just a fun gradient with white text on it. That kind of looks like a technical book. That kind of looks like a manual for a computer. That kind of looks like those different types of books.

[00:07:15] And so if someone were to see your book, your fantasy book with this white text against a solid color background, they will not fit it in with what they perceive fantasy books to be. I ran into this problem. I already had a consultation with one of the books that I've been writing with The Paper Witch. I had a consultation with a designer already, and I had some really fun ideas.

[00:07:47] So the whole thing takes place in a Victorian era equivalent. I mean, it's a different world, but, it's that feeling. So it's bustled dresses. It's three-piece suits. It's those different things that we tie into what the Victorian era is. And I was thinking that maybe the cover could be one of those prints that you see in an old magazine, like one color, maybe one or two colors, one of those prints that would have been stamped or etched onto the paper during printing. Just because that would fit in perfectly with the time period. And my designer had a very good point that regardless of what we're doing, a potential reader needs to be able to see the cover and first be interested by the cover, but then associate it with the genre it belongs in. And so the ideas that I had didn't really work for that. They were fun, ideas, fun, original ideas.

[00:08:57] They're probably just going to be my ideas and they're not going to be what we're going to do for those books. And we're going to go a different direction once I have those books finished. That is the whole thing about all of this. If you are writing to sell, it means that you are going to be exchanging your work to someone for money.

[00:09:22] And that means that you get to be aware that they have certain ideas and expectations of what your work is, so that they will be satisfied with that exchange. With the content of your book. So we're not going to touch on content in this episode of Writing in the Tiny House, content will be another day.

[00:09:44] I've I have talked about content a lot already. We're just going to talk about technical things. So with the cover of your book, it needs to catch their attention. At the same time it needs to identify with the genre that it belongs in. All of that is subjective. And if you need additional opinions on if your book cover works, be sure to gather those opinions. Be sure to pay the money, to have a consultation with a designer so that they can give you good professional feedback on what is working and what is not working.

[00:10:25] Another thing is it needs to be readable. So if it's a thing where it's a part of a larger series and there's going to be a lot of text on that book cover, the text needs to make sense. And so if you have titles and subtitles and the title of the series that it belongs to and whatever else and your name and perhaps your character's names.

[00:10:52] And I don't know. I saw the cover of a self published book that had about four or five different titles on it. Or at least five different lines of texts that represented different things on the cover. And so it was the author's name. It was the author like who the author, I guess is, it was the title of the book.

[00:11:20] It was the title of the series. And then it was the grouping of the series or something. It was way too much text. Make sure that what you have there is readable. With my first book, As Magic Shifts, the artist who did the art, also wanted to do the book cover, and he did at first the entire title of the book As Magic Shifts in this super unique original art work. He changed the text into like magical smoke and it was beautiful to see, it was bright in colors. It was a fun idea. It had really good energy, but it was hard to read As Magic Shifts wasn't really readable as a title. And so while I was consulting with my book producer with that, we had him instead just keep the word magic as this stylized artwork.

[00:12:29] And then with a more traditional font did as and shifts. So it read a lot better. So pay attention to that with your book cover. Moving onto the body of your text. I will say it every single episode. You need to have an editor, but here's the thing. When we're writing a story, we start with really big ideas and refining those ideas is called the developmental edits. And then getting down to the more fine tooth comb stuff, we get down to line edits, which is the flow of the sentence. We get down to copy edits, which is word usage and such. And then when we are done with everything and the book is laid out, we do the final proofread, which is misspellings, commas, formatting errors, different stuff like that. So as an author, we start really big picture and we get down to the really small technical stuff at the end. With reading a book like this, oftentimes it starts with the really small, simple things that get in the way of the bigger things.

[00:13:41] It's like the smaller technical things unfold to reveal the bigger picture. And if the smaller technical things are not in place to begin with that unfolding doesn't happen as well. So that means, when we're reading. If we see a misspelled word, we can often forgive that. If we see a couple of misspelled words, we can probably get past it.

[00:14:06] If we see, you know, comma mistakes, or if there is a paragraph of a quotation and the quotation marks at the end are missing. Or some little things like that. And they only happen once. Most of the time we can get by. If there are repeated words, just the, just the little things or they forgot to italicize the title of a book.

[00:14:31] Or whatever. Your reader can forgive some of those things, if they happen only once that does not mean that you get to be lazy and think that, you know, oh, I saw the one misspelling. So this is okay. If you saw one misspelling odds are, there's like five more. With the little things, if there are so many mistakes, the reader cannot appreciate the words that you use. The reader cannot appreciate the flow of your sentences. Odds are the flow of your sentences will be hindered by those mistakes. And if the reader cannot appreciate the flow of your sentences, they can't appreciate the flow of the structure of the book itself.

[00:15:15] And then they can't come to appreciate the larger idea. And so the content will be missed if these smaller things don't happen. So as far as misspelled words go, there are plenty of resources in this world to deal with misspelled words. One of them that I used and I used with Brigitte and I will use again with the next installment of Tales from Vlaydor is Pro Writing Aid.

[00:15:42] It's a tool that does word correction. It does misspellings. It also does some grammar and some style stuff. It does not replace an editor. And at the end of it all, you need to have an editor. I have read some self published books that went through pro writing aid and nothing else. And it shows.

[00:16:02] Also you need a professional layout, which means that your book gets to resemble the quality of a professional book. You get to have indented paragraphs, you are not writing a blog. You get to have the chapter headings and the chapters and the different things be laid out to make sense if they aren't, your reader will pick up on it and they'll be bugged by it, even if they don't fully understand what makes them bugged.

[00:16:35] And with the self-published things sometimes to websites like amazon.com, it's possible to upload a book that is not an EPUB book. Sometimes you can upload a PDF. And the reason why I bring this up is because many of us read on e-readers now or on programs on our phones or on our computers that allow us to access EPUB books.

[00:17:05] And if you upload a PDF version of your book, these programs will be able to display your book. But they won't be as easy to read. The thing is an EPUB book fits better into an E reader into an E reader program than a PDF does. It allows you to adjust the text size and the font. If you upload a PDF, you can't do that.

[00:17:38] And so your e-reader or your e-reader program, won't be fun to use, and it might be a bother to read the manuscript. So just pay attention to those things. As far as a formatting program goes, it is possible to get a good ePUB format thing from various different programs, probably even from word. I recommend something that you know, how to do, and I always recommend flipping through what you just compiled into an EPUB to make sure that it all makes sense and to make sure that it worked just because sometimes the formatting isn't very intuitive and the program isn't very friendly.

[00:18:24] And it's possible to just make mistakes. And so it's best to go through and flip through what you've done. If you are laying out a novel, I recommend something more like Vellum, Which is better at laying out the larger projects. If you are writing short stories in Scrivener, and you want to use Scrivener to compile them into an E pub, then Scrivener can certainly handle it and can do a very good job. I wouldn't however, compile an entire novel of a hundred thousand words from Scrivener.

[00:19:05] I would import it into Velum first, or I would hire someone to do it for me. Just because readers see the mistakes. And if there are enough mistakes, even if the reader doesn't fully understand what they are getting hung up on, they're not going to purchase from you again. If what you have provided for them in exchange for money is hard to read,

[00:19:31] they won't understand the point of your writing. They won't fall in love with, with your imagination and with the vision that you have behind your fiction. And they likely won't read your future works again. However, if all of these tiles are in place, then the stuff you publish now will sell the stuff you publish tomorrow.

[00:20:00] That means that if somebody reads your stuff now and has a great experience, they will very likely read your next work and have a good experience there too. It also means that a reader down the road, for instance, if a reader stumbles upon my name next year, and I have six of these short stories released to amazon.com and they stumble upon the final installment of the short stories and they read it and they love it,

[00:20:31] it means that the new stuff will also sell the old stuff so long as you have all of those tiles in place technically. We're going to talk about content later. You don't just get to publish garbage.

[00:20:45] So that's it for today. Thank you so much for joining me. Just a brief reminder, the first installment of my Tales from Vlaydor collection, which is entitled Brigitte is now available for pre-order. Please follow the link in the show notes because it can be hard to find on Amazon if you don't follow the link that I will provide in the show notes. A big thank you to my patrons, without your generous donations this show may not be possible. And if you wish to become a patron, go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and at no additional cost to your generous donations, you will receive a free electronic copy of the short stories that I am providing in these upcoming months, including Installment one, Brigitte.

[00:21:38] So thank you so much for all of this. Be sure to tune in to my social media accounts, my instagram handle is@authordevindavis. And my Twitter handle is @authordevind. Thank you so much for your time, guys. Be sure to tune in next week and have fun writing.

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Also, for all of your editing needs, to go www.littlesyllables.com

Krissy Barton offers free sample critiques, and she is a wonderful professional to be involved with for all of your line editing, copy editing, and proofreading needs.

The following is a transcript of this episode. For a complete transcript, please visit the show's website.

[00:00:00] In all of your time writing the works that you're doing, did you ever think to try to crank out 50,000 words in a single month then perhaps you are gearing up for the national novel writing month that happens every year in November, also known as NaNoWriMo. And we are talking about preparing for that today on Writing in the Tiny House.

[00:00:34] Hello. Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I give you the tips and tricks to writing that work of fiction that you have in your brain that you think you are too busy to write, but I'm here to show you that it's completely possible.

[00:01:14] And here I am in Northern Utah living in my tiny house. We had a hiatus and we went to Hawaii not too long ago. And I have said in a few episodes that we are going to be hitting NaNoWriMo pretty strongly this year. I missed out on NaNoWriMo last year. I missed November and NaNoWriMo is a great time of the year. It is where we celebrate making progress in that work of fiction that you're doing or whatever it is you're writing.

[00:01:46] Today in order to make sure that NaNoWriMo is successful, we have what is called Preptober where we go through, we organize our notes. We figure out our schedule and we do all of the things as a way to make sure that NaNoWriMo is going to be successful. That is what we are going to be covering today. But first I need to say a couple things about my current work in progress. Many of you know that I have been working on a novelette the, it is Tales from Vlaydor, Installment One: Brigitte. And it has gone to the editor and the editor has kicked back the edits.

[00:02:30] And so I am doing the final cleanup before laying it out, sending it back to my editor for a final proofread and then releasing it on Amazon. Some of my writing is going to be available for all of you to read and destroy. If you want to, it can be really nerve wracking, releasing something like this.

[00:02:54] But I just need to give a shout out to Krissy Barton, my resident editor for this project with Tales from Vlaydor. She runs a business called Little Syllables editing, and she is great. She is fast. She is in constant communication with the author of whatever she. Editing and she has incredible customer service. She does line edits and copy edits, and then the final proofread.

[00:03:28] So if you want prices, she is affordable. Go ahead and go to little syllables.com and I will have the website in the show notes of this episode. Krissy Barton is amazing. Please send her all of your business.

[00:03:44] Let's talk about Preptober. Let's talk about making NaNoWriMo count. So the whole goal of NaNoWriMo is to do a 50,000 word manuscript in one month. It is to make 50,000 words of progress in whatever work you are doing in the month of November. And I have interviewed people on this podcast or at least one person specifically AJ Mac who did that.

[00:04:10] And he cranked out his first novel because of NaNoWriMo. He had the idea already, but he didn't have the push to get it finished. And so he did his Preptober correctly so that he could do his NaNoWriMo most effectively. So NaNoWriMo is technically a competition, but it is a self paced competition.

[00:04:33] Meaning you are not actually racing against anybody unless you join a Facebook group that is racing against something. And it is all about just accomplishing things. And so if you manage to write 50,000 words and NaNoWriMo, nobody is going to question your work, but they give you a thing to print out, to display like a certificate, and it can be a super fun way to bring like-minded people together who enjoy the craft of writing and storytelling.

[00:05:03] So let's talk about what Preptober gets to be in order to understand what NaNoWriMo can be, which will be in a future episode. First of all, to write 50,000 words in a month means that you need to crank out about, let me hurry and figure this out. Let's see, 50,000 words divided by 30. That means you need to crank out an average of 1,667 words every day. Now I'm going to be upfront with you. I'm going to be very serious about NaNoWriMo, but I don't think that I am going to make a 50,000 word progress on anything just because I am on this release schedule with these short stories and novelettes for Tales from Vlaydor.

[00:05:53] Which means there are automatically going to be some days that need to be dedicated in my case, that needs to be dedicated toward revision and toward editing. And so that is already built into the month. I don't have a way to really change that. And it's important to me to stay on this schedule because I want to release at least two of these short stories by the end of the year. if you have not written 1,667 words in a day before, but you want to do NaNoWriMo, I highly recommend that you find some time in Preptober to try it. Set some time aside, have some notes ready, have an outline ready for whatever it is t hat you're going to be writing. I recommend doing it in 25 minute bursts, and then you recover for five minutes and then you do 25 minute bursts again. Those are called writing sprints. It's something that a lot of people do in order to make good progress and to stay on task and to not be overwhelmed by your writing. But you need to measure that baseline for how fast you write and how much of it at a time you can tolerate. So for me, I personally prefer setting aside at least one hour, if not, two hours to write.

[00:07:14] And I know that in two hours time, I can crank out 2,500 words. If I set myself to a clock and do these writing sprints, and I don't get caught up in editing too much. If you have never written things before, or if you have not written things in a long while, or if the things that you have written have not been on a computer and they have been long hand in a journal, or in some other medium like that, you may want to set some time aside to see what your rate is and how much of it you can tolerate.

[00:07:51] So once you have that figured out, you can then look at your month of November and see what your schedule is for the entire month of November. Just because if 1,667 words is all that you can handle, which is perfectly fine. I know plenty of published authors who write half of that every day or in the times that they choose to write and they do just fine with what they're doing.

[00:08:23] They usually don't do a big push for NaNoWriMo also, but if 1,667 words is the limit, then that means that you need to do it every single day. If you're hoping to reach 50,000 words in November. And so that means that you get to look at your schedule and you get to set that time aside.

[00:08:42] If you live alone and you are completely reclusive and you don't have any obligations outside of your bubble, then it should be easier to set time aside to do this. If you want to. However, if you are like me and you are juggling a family and you are juggling a full-time job and other things, I still have this podcast to do during November and realistically, I don't think that I'm going to be recording four episodes ahead of time.

[00:09:11] So that I don't have to record anything in November. I just don't foresee that happening. Then it means that you need to set aside a time to do that. And. You can do more than 1,667 words every day. Then you can figure out when you need to take your days off, or if there are other obligations that come up that need to be considered so that you can reach that 50,000 word mark.

[00:09:38] By the end of the month, I told you with my podcast and with writing these short stories and being on the release schedule that I'm on, I'm not going to be able to honor a 50,000 word. By the end of November. However, I think that I can get close to half of that and considering all of these other things that I'm doing during that month, I think that's pretty.

[00:10:02] Okay. So we'll see, I will fill you in as it goes and it's going to be an awesome thing, guys. I'm excited to do NaNoWriMo. Excited to have you guys I'll do it with me. So know your schedule, know your limits, sit down and plan out what you're going to be doing with your schedule and your limits. And then guys, November is a time to bust out words.

[00:10:29] If busting out words aggressively. At a very reckless, rough pace that is going to require hella revisions at the end of November is not your style. Then don't participate in NaNoWriMo. However, if you want to go all out and make a ton of progress in your novels. The thing is I find most of my magic in revising what I've written anyway.

[00:10:58] And so it's okay if my first drafts are really rough, I like to crank out larger volumes at a time. And so this totally works for me, but in order to be prepared for that, I know that I need to have at least something outlined. I'm not much of an outliner. I don't like to have an outline. Like the outline that I prepared for my novels was like three pages long.

[00:11:23] And this was back when the two novels that I'm writing were in one manuscript. And so this was going to be at that time, a 200,000 word document, and I had like a three page outline. I prefer to revise, revise, revise. It all just depends on what you prefer. And there is no right or wrong answer. I love revising, but I also know that unless I understand what I am about to sit down and write, I will struggle with the writing sprints.

[00:11:59] So it is really, really valuable to me. To at least have some notes to have at least a skeleton outline of what I'm going to be doing so that I don't encounter writer's block or I don't encounter writer's block as much. There is always a chance that in the middle of all of this frantic fever, Writing a pounding on your keyboard and staring at your word processor.

[00:12:28] There is always a chance that you're going to need to take a second to step back and outline a little more. I do it regularly with my books. My outlines tend to be pretty dynamic and. It is important to understand that the more you have outlined the less you are going to encounter the possibility of writer's block.

[00:12:49] And that means that you can push through every single day until you reach that 50,000 word count at the end of NaNoWriMo. So with that, I intend to finish the rough draft of at least one short story and have well. I intend to finish the first and second drafts of at least one short story and have the rough draft of a second short story finished.

[00:13:18] I'm also going to be staying up to date with this podcast. I'm not going to be skipping episodes in November, and if I choose to get my crap together, I might, pre-record a few things so that in November, I have more time to focus. Writing and less on talking about writing. So we'll see what I managed to actually do. I am envisioning and I am purposefully creating time in November to revisit the novels that I was writing earlier this winter, this previous winter and spring, just because it has been a minute. And I feel that I am ready to make some more progress with that. And I'm excited to revisit some of that and to add some parts that have been bubbling around in my brain and.

[00:14:07] I'm eager to make more progress with that. So it's going to be a first and second draft of one of these short stories, a rough draft of another, and some more headway in the novels that I have not finished. And like I said, I will touch base with you every single Wednesday. If you are a patron, it will be on Saturdays.

[00:14:31] Just to share with you the progress. This episode is going to be released to the public October 15th. And so that gives us two solid weeks to fit in a good prep Tober so that we can be prepared. And have all of our notes together so that we don't encounter writer's block during NaNoWriMo. And that means that even if we are furiously writing and composing and drafting and all the other words that mean writing in November, it means that what we write will be more focused and it will be more clean and it will have a better plot.

[00:15:12] It will have a better structure, without doing all of that work beforehand, you risk having a plot that doesn't make sense. You risk having some very fundamental problems. So do your prep. Tobar guys. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I love every single one of you, people who subscribe to this show, even if I don't entirely know who you are, if you wish to become a Patron and support this show. It is because of the generous donations of my patrons that this show is possible. Please go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and sign up to become a patron today. Also follow me on my social media. My Instagram handle is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is @authordevind. Again, thank you so much for tuning in today and have fun writing.

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

The following is a transcript of this episode. I complete transcript can be found on the show's webpage.

[00:00:00] That's right guys. We are back in the tiny house with tiny house acoustics and you are listening to the podcast Writing in the Tiny House. Hello. Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the show. Welcome back to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy who lives in a tiny house who is here to show you did that work of fiction that you have bubbling around in your brain is completely possible to write, no matter how busy you feel that you are with your nine to five. I am safely back in Utah. Thank goodness. The journey home was pretty long. I traveling is so weird now. To fly back from Hawaii, it seems that the only way to do it is through a red eye flight.

[00:01:13] And I couldn't sleep on the red eye at all. And when I arrived in Phoenix, because flights, I had a 10 hour layover in Phoenix, it ended up being a 10 and a half hour layover in Phoenix because the red eye flight got in early. So anyway, I have spent more than enough time for the next long while in airports and airplanes and face masks, and all that stuff. During the 20 hours that I was either on a plane or in an airport, I was also in a face mask and I was tired of wearing one when I got home. So anyway, we are back, we are here. I have some fun things to share with you guys in later episodes likely for November that I got to do in Hawaii.

[00:02:07] And we're going to be sharing some of that during the episodes that we released for NaNoWriMo. So be sure to like, and subscribe, I don't know about liking, be sure to give us a five-star rating and subscribe to this podcast. So you don't miss out on the NaNoWriMo push that we do in November.

[00:02:28] Before we get into the topic of today's episode, let me go ahead and give a shout out to Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing, she is a wonderful editor. She is fast. She is comprehensive and she keeps in good communication with the author of the work that she is editing, which is rare. And so anyway, she is the resident editor for the Tales from Vlaydor collection of short stories and novelettes that I am putting together and working on now. And if you have anything that you wish to have a professional look over get ahold of her. I will include her website in the show notes of this episode. And she's great. It is worth it every single time to get an editor on board to whatever your work in progress is.

[00:03:18] So guys, Little Syllables editing with Krissy Barton is definitely the way to go. So today we know that I have been working on novelettes and short stories. It has been the main theme of the past few episodes. And today I have another thing to share in regards to that, in regards to the tips and tricks to get your novelette or short story off the ground, this is a way for developmental editing.

[00:03:47] And when I read it, I thought, nah, I don't think I would ever do this, but here's what the deal is. Here's what the tip is. The recommendation, the advice comes from the book, a swim in a pond in the rain. I have referenced this book before on previous episodes when I shared the thing about the cat. The metaphorical cat is what I called it. Describing one thing in a room so that your reader can accept the room without you having to go into too many detail about it, because in a short story or a novelette or frankly, a novel, there is not enough room.

[00:04:34] Every single paragraph, every single page, everything has to be. On point and there is no room for fluffer in these shorter works. And so, unless it is super important to describe the entire room, which I don't see many instances in which that would apply a trick is to describe one thing in the room.

[00:04:58] And then we can accept the rest of the room. The rest of the room can be filled in with our brains and we can carry on with whatever the story is. This trick that I'm about to share is it's more of an exercise, but it's very important when we do these shorter works, there is less content there. That does not mean that there is less meaning there.

[00:05:22] And it doesn't mean that it's less important. It just simply means there's not as much room. There's not as much text. And so delving into things like story arcs and subplots and whatever else, likely in a short story, there is not going to be a subplot. And if there is, there will only be one, if there's a subplot at all.

[00:05:46] And so. Sometimes with developmental editing, there is kind of less of a story to see and less of doing the sluthing to pick out what the plots and the subplots are in order to make sure that they all make sense. So this is another process that you can do. You can either do it with your short story.

[00:06:08] You can do it with your shorter works in progress, or you can do this with every chapter of your book. So every now and again, we have a thing and we print it. I personally don't own a printer, but it is possible to print a thing. And then. Mix up the pages so that when you read it, you can consider each page on its own.

[00:06:35] Go through and read each page completely out of context, read it and see if there are points in it. That makes sense. If there are important things that stand out. And if the idea by itself as a page is something that you want to continue on with. So we say that the reasons why people will continue to read any work of progress is due to suspense or it's due to fun imagery or it's due to humor.

[00:07:09] All of that can be true, but what it boils down to is people continue reading simply because they want to read the next line. However you have chosen to build that. So if we take each page out of context and we see what is there, unrelated to the page that comes before it and the page after it. And we're able to write in the margins or in a notebook or somewhere, what good points are in that page.

[00:07:43] It can be an easy way and a very good way to first find the pages that are awesome to find the pages that rock, to find the good points and the really exciting moments and the funny parts and whatever, and absolutely nail that down and know where it is. But, and equally as important, we can nail down the fluffer parts.

[00:08:13] Sometimes when we read a section or a page or even a short story, there are moments where the story drags by. And sometimes because we are so close to the story and we're so close to the flow of things, it can be hard for us to pin down where it started dragging and where it stopped dragging. Sometimes that can be hard to pay attention to, and just find. If we read pages out of context, we can think to ourselves, oh my goodness, this entire page is so boring.

[00:08:52] Or we can see that the first half has good stuff, but the second half sucks. Or whatever, or we can see that this one paragraph at the top is fluffer, but the rest of it's pretty good. It's an easy way for us to break down the story itself. And find the things that work and the things that don't work. So for something like the novelette Brigitte, it's 50 pages, this process would take a while to do, but you can understand the importance of it.

[00:09:28] So you take your random page. I mean, if you choose to keep it in your word processor, if you choose to print it out and do what I suggested, you know, a second ago, that's up to you and. You read the page, just what's on the page. Even if it doesn't start with a complete sentence, read it anyway, and then summarize the points that are there.

[00:09:54] It's a way to see if not only if it's good or bad stuff, but sometimes in a short story. It can be hard to actually put together a story. And so picking out the important parts and summarizing up to the very end, what is there can also be a way for you to pin down where the story is. There can be parts in the story.

[00:10:20] Not only that are fluffer, but that don't relate to the story at all that are simply there because it was fun to write them. And perhaps as the development of the story happened, you needed to write them in order to get the next parts out of your brain. But that doesn't mean that you should keep them. And so sometimes when we're so close to a story, we can't see the nonsense and we can't see. Some of this stuff that we've worked so hard and spent so much time on. Sometimes doesn't need to be there while I was in Mililani Hawaii. I cut out eight pages. Of my 50 page. Novelette I mean, that's like 20% of the words I wrote.

[00:11:05] No, I think it was seven pages and it was good. It felt great because I realized that those things didn't belong there in that way anymore. And the way that I was choosing to approach the conflict and choosing to reveal some of these fun secrets along the way, I was able to get a better understanding and a better vision of what this thing needed to be.

[00:11:29] It is absolutely okay to slash out big parts of your text so long as you know that you are doing it responsibly. And so long as you know, that it is part of the refining process for you to get to the end. If you are simply slashing your book apart because you are bored with it, or because you have fallen off.

[00:11:53] Hard self-esteem times and you don't feel good or confident about yourself or about this project. I encourage you to stop slashing your book, but if you have new found clarity and you understand. A better way for your characters to get along the storyline and to get there in a more meaningful way then?

[00:12:17] Yes. If there is fat to be trimmed out of your novel, then trim it. So sitting down and reading each page out of context. And summarizing the good or bad or whatever points of each page is a perfect way to see, first of all, what the story is. And secondly, what the story is not, and the story is not the filler.

[00:12:46] The story is not always a subplot. The story is not a fun little moment that isn't related to the rising action of your story. And this is an easy way to identify that on your own. Another good way is to find a friend. So that's it for today.

[00:13:05] Big shout out to my patrons without your contributions. This podcast could not be possible. If you wish to become a patron and donate to the writing and the tiny house podcast, please visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and sign up today. And every little bits and every contribution is definitely appreciated.

[00:13:29] Go ahead and find me on social media and follow me there. My Instagram handle is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Otherwise, thank you so much for joining me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time guys. Bye.

Be sure to become a patron! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse today!

Contact Krissy Barton today at Little Syllables editing:

littlesyllables.com

The Gift of Alpha Readers

If you wish to become a patron of Writing in the Tiny House podcast, please visit www.patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse today!

The following is a transcript of this episode. For the complete transcript, please visit the show's website.

[00:00:00] So you did it guys. You have written the next best thing and you are so eager to get this out into the world that you have revised it, you have combed through it, and you have all of these things ready, but nobody has read it yet. So what do you do next? Well, let's find out today on Writing and the Tiny House.

[00:00:26] Hello. Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy in the tiny house who is here to show you, you busy adults working a nine to five like me, that it is completely possible for you to write that work of fiction that you have always wanted to do.

[00:01:06] And you should. I just recorded 20 minutes of audio and didn't actually record any of it. So we're starting over and it's fine. Because now I get to say the things that I didn't save very well the first time, and it's okay to start over. We're still learning some of this new recording equipment and that's okay too.

[00:01:26] But many of you know, because I announced in last week's episode that I have been working on some smaller things as a way to get my writing more available, to get my writing into the hands of people who are eager to read it and to do it faster than I could do if I were to just write a book just because the time to produce a book is much longer and there are a million different ways to share your writing with other people.

[00:01:57] So I have been working on some smaller things and I am working on them in conjunction with Krissy Barton from Little Syllables Editing. She is going to be the editor on call or whatever, the editor in this whole project of writing a collection of short stories or novelettes. And so with this, I am writing these smaller works, and I'm going to be releasing them on a schedule, provided all of this works out okay. Right now we are on track with this first thing. And so I expect everything to be okay. And I think that this is something that we can reproduce right now. All of this is tentative stuff though. Like this is not gospel truth yet, but in doing these shorter things, I still need to go through the different steps of writing and revising and cleaning up these smaller works of fiction as I would have to do with a book.

[00:03:07] But because the thing is shorter, all of those steps don't take as long to do, which is kind of cool. It's fun to blaze through some of these different steps a little faster, and to get that progress done faster, to arrive there more quickly. And with this, I also hope to have myself on a regular releasing schedule, which means that there is kind of a stopwatch going for each of these projects.

[00:03:35] And for this first one, I am hoping more than anything. And I am taking a leap announcing this on the podcast that this will be ready for sale by the end of October. I'm going to post it on amazon.com and it will be available to purchase there. It'll be affordable. Don't worry about that. But I wanted so badly to share my writing and I think that I'm going to do it.

[00:04:00] So what I'm doing is this collection of short stories ties into the larger books that I am also in the middle of that I have set aside for the moment. So the world that all those things take place in these smaller short stories will tie into that same world. And this collection is called Tales from Vlaydor, and this is Installment One, which is entitled Brigitte.

[00:04:29] And so, yeah, so we did it. We've written a manuscript. We've gotten, you know, a few revisions under our belts, but if you are like me, perhaps you don't outline things very well. I surely don't, I don't like to outline. I like to write and then make huge revisions to what I've written because I don't like to outline, but for this first installment, I did not get any feedback to begin with on the story itself. I wanted to sit down, I wanted to write the story, revise a couple of things just because I wanted to present it in a good way to a small group of people. So I sat down. I wrote the thing. I revised it a couple times. I sent it through Pro Writing Aid, which by the way, Pro Writing Aid is amazing.

[00:05:19] Especially if you are using Scrivener as your word processor, because it integrates into Scrivener. It was the easiest thing to do. I recommend sending anything you are working on through Pro Writing aid before you let anybody read it, just because the edits were easy to do. And because Pro Writing Aid made it easier to read.

[00:05:42] Everybody seemed to have a better time. Pro Writing Aid does not replace a professional editor, but it is a very good tool to use along the way. So I wrote the thing, I sent it through Pro Writing Aid, and then I gathered in a way, a group of people that I would want to get feedback on this first draft, I guess we can call it a first draft. On this first revision, I guess.

[00:06:09] And this is what we do, this is how we approach this. So I needed to get feedback because first of all, I needed to know if this was a story that anybody wanted to read. I wanted to know also if this was a story that people would be willing to buy, and I needed to know if after reading this, they would be interested in reading more.

[00:06:35] And if the results were such that, no, this story idea is not a good idea. You need to switch to something else. I didn't want to spend so much time and energy on something that nobody would want. And so I would sooner scrap the whole idea and start a fresh with a new story idea rather than try to simply make something work.

[00:07:04] And so, because I'm writing to market because I want this to be sold. And so I want there to be a certain audience appeal. I wanted to make sure that I was on track and on base with the very foundation of this story. So that's what I did first. And I recommend you doing the same thing with your shorter works of fiction also, or with your novels.

[00:07:29] So here's the deal. I'm sure that you have heard the term beta readers a million different times if you are engaged in the writer, community. Beta readers are basically the people who are doing product testing for your book. They get your book and you need to know that the book is working for them as books need to work for readers. Does it keep their attention? Is it easy to read? Is it entertaining? Can they keep track of characters? Can they keep track of places? Do they have a good experience? Are they surprised during the surprising parts? Are they scared during the scary parts, all those things.

[00:08:10] That is what beta reading is for, but there's a big step before that. Some people call it alpha readers. Some people call it, I don't know other stuff, but. I had this concept and I needed to make sure that the concept was okay. So I selected a few of my close friends and another person that I'll get into in order to share ideas.

[00:08:36] So I wrote this novelette called Brigitte. It is about 9,000 words long, and I included just some questions at the end as a prompt, as a way to help people give feedback. And I recommend that you do the same. In a novel I recommend actually that you include things like that in sections of the book, rather than just a big, long list at the end of the book, just as a way to get the gears moving so that people can be inspired or understand how to give feedback, just because, especially in this most recent round of feedback, I have found that so many people read just to be entertained and they don't read critically. And that is fine. And so the little bit of help for that is really good for them. And it's good. It's good to hear all sorts of feedback. I've also found that for many people. So with this story, the vast majority of the feedback was positive.

[00:09:45] People liked the story. It was pretty middle of the road, which is okay. But people liked the story. They thought that it was easy to read. It was easy to get to the end. They weren't confused by people or names or places. And so I took that as a good affirmation or confirmation that I was on the right track with this, and I should move forward.

[00:10:14] And that is great. With many of the people though, the feedback was simply, Hey, this is great. I like it. I would want to read more of things like this. And that feedback is valuable for a specific reason. If that is all they're saying, this is great. I want to read more. While that feedback is not going to help you iron out the kinks and dings and dents in your manuscript. And it's not necessarily going to help you with your craft. It can show you that producing work like this. There are people who want to support your craft. And that is very valuable. So even though the tools aren't there, even though the feedback isn't there to help you get better as a writer, it is really cool to know that people are there to support you as a writer.

[00:11:12] And like I said, that is valuable too. However, with a lot of people, they responded to the questions. And I liked that and I took notes and I paid attention. With those questions though, I found that with many of them, I didn't require seven people to answer each of those questions just because the same answers for many of those questions ended up showing up like seven different times.

[00:11:41] That's okay. We live and we learn. However, there were a couple peers a couple people that read it, took notes, re-read it. And then had a really long conversation with me about how it went about, what was working and what wasn't working. And I'll come back to that in just a second, just because people who are willing to put that type of attention and energy into my work, those are people that I hold near and dear. I mean, everybody who is supporting my work is held near and dear, but those are the people that I will go to with the first ideas, with the baby ideas that I need to grow from, the really underdeveloped things that need to grow that are still vulnerable and still scary and still underdeveloped. And working together we're able to come up with some cooler things for the next revision of this story.

[00:12:47] With this, and I recommend this thing until the day I die. It is important to send your work, especially if you are writing to market, it is important to send your work to someone you don't know, or to many people that you don't know.

[00:13:02] When you are ready for that, you will know. I sent this first revision. I will likely try to find another person that I don't know to read this after this next round of revisions, but here's the reason why. The feedback that a stranger gives you is really hard to take, but it is super honest and it's usually really direct and it's really easy to understand, and that matters my friends.

[00:13:30] These people are not preserving a friendship. And so there is no holding back when it comes to what isn't working, what is confusing, what seems silly, but seems banale or stupid. I mean, what other words did this nice person include? But the points that this person brought to my attention were good points. It was clear that I had not conveyed so much of this story clearly.

[00:14:01] And like I said, because we weren't already friends, there was no reason to pretend like we were friends and try to sugarcoat anything. Most of the stuff that this person told me was really good and really valuable feedback. And so what I was able to do is take the key points from her feed back and talk about them with these other friends who were interested in helping me develop the story.

[00:14:29] So they didn't have to worry about stepping on eggshells. They didn't have to worry about offending. I got to say, oh, this other lady said this and this and this. And they're like, oh yeah, I guess that makes sense. And then we were able to discuss together ways to make it better. So with these conversations, some people tend to kind of freak out about it because they don't know how to have a critique conversation. So with these conversations, it is you and somebody else. And maybe a third person who are trying to improve a specific work. They're trying to make things better. If you or someone is coming to the table just in the attitude of saying this sucks. You need to leave it alone. You need to throw it away.

[00:15:16] Then you're not going to have this conversation with that person, but everybody has the common goal and the common understanding that this work is not finished and we are joining forces to make it better. The way that this conversation unfolds is much of the time the person will have notes. The person will have some ideas, but they don't really know how to get started about it just because Cohesion and hoping that everything links together and thoughts and different things like that.

[00:15:50] But this conversation is not going to be a dissertation. This conversation is not going to be like baring of souls. This conversation is largely brainstorming, which means a lot of the ideas and a lot of the topics don't have to mesh in the most beautiful way throughout the conversation. It's okay to jump from topic to topic.

[00:16:15] It's okay to say, oh, are we done with this? Because on the next page, this completely different problem is there. Let's talk about that now. And through those, I had two friends who were very interested in helping me improve this work of fiction. And that is exactly how the conversation went. They put aside an hour, we had a phone call and we talked about all the things that didn't work.

[00:16:42] And we talked about the things that this stranger critique partner brought to my attention, and we were able to iron out things and bring up some different ideas and some different approaches that I should try to incorporate into the next revision of this work. And that happened to me twice and it was beautiful and I felt enriched at the end and they were excited that they were included with this.

[00:17:11] And it was a really good thing. So I guess the takeaway here is when you are searching for feedback, it is important to help by supplying a list of questions. If it's a person who's already experienced with giving feedback, they likely won't pay much attention to those questions, but a lot of people don't read fiction critically.

[00:17:35] And so they they may need a little help with that. And that's great. Also, if you find those friends who are so engaged and so interested in helping you develop your craft, make sure to keep them near and dear. Take care of those friends. And lastly, If you have the people who say this is good, I want to read more, and then don't say much more than that. That means that you're on the right track and that what you have written is good. And while it may not improve your craft, it shows that there are people in the world who want to support your craft. So that's the quick take home for today.

[00:18:24] Thank you so much for tuning in and listening to this episode. If you wish to become a patron of this writing in the tiny house podcast, go topatreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse. And I will have links to that in the show notes of this episode. Go ahead and follow me on Instagram. My handle is @authordevindavis and on Twitter my handle is@authordevind. And have fun writing. We will see you next time guys. Bye.

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The following is a transcript for this episode. For the complete transcript, please navigate to the show's website.

[00:00:00] So I have a very important question for you, my dear friends, and this is how we're starting off this episode. Are you passionate enough about the things you like to do? And because this is this podcast, are you passionate enough about writing to be able to release something bad at first, knowing that you will get better later that going through those trials and going through the process of releasing something is part of the experience of getting better. Then you need to take a second and listen to today's guest, Nicholas J. Evans, who went from writing a collection of short stories in high school that he was convinced nobody would want to read to landing a three book deal today on Writing in the Tiny House.

[00:00:58] Hello. Hello. Hello, and welcome to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy living in a tiny house who is here to show you that you can write that work of fiction regardless of how busy you think you are. And the perfect example of that is today's guest Nicholas J. Evans. He is 30 years old. He works full time. And in his spare time, when he's not playing with his kids, he writes. And he has a beautiful message to share. And we will get to that message here in half a second.

[00:01:58] As far as announcements go with this podcast, I have teamed up with Editor Krissy Barton, from Little Syllables Editing. She was on the show back in March, and we had a wonderful show. I fully recommend that you go back and listen to the final show that happened in March. She was here with me in the tiny house, talking about the process of editing. Anyway, I have teamed up with her to roll out kind of a new program. And I say that as a way to kind of tease.

[00:02:35] I apologize right now, but I want to let you know that fun things are rolling out, provided things work out according to a specific schedule. Sometimes I get some hairball ideas and sometimes the execution is kind of hard to do, kind of impossible to do at other times. And so we are discovering different ways that I can share my writing with you, my listeners, and also with people who don't listen to this show.

[00:03:10] So basically I have started writing some smaller things. I have blabbed on and on and on about my book about my works in progress, and I still have those. And those have certainly not been like thrown in the garbage or something stupid like that. They have been put on the back burner for a second, just because I am eager to share my writing. On this podcast I blab all day long about the tips and tricks to do it. And so I actually want to show examples. Release something for people to read sooner than a book, sooner than a full blown novel, which can take up to two years or longer to write or produce or whatever, especially if you're not already published through a major publisher.

[00:04:03] And so I have started doing some shorter things. They all tie into the books that I'm writing. They are short stories set in the same world as the books that I am working on too. And these, I am going to put on a schedule. I will tell you more about what that whole schedule will look like in a later episode of Writing in the Tiny House, but be excited.

[00:04:30] This whole process is so fun. Writing something according to a schedule is hard and awesome. And it really gets me excited about writing and it gets me more eager to share it with you, my listeners, what I can do, what I have done, some of the ideas that are in my mind. And so it's not just about advice or guidelines anymore.

[00:04:59] Now we are going to actually have the real written word to share with you on a regular basis. So I will touch base on a later episode to give better explanation and better description as to what all of this is actually going to be. But I wanted to share with you today that things are in the works. And so that's super exciting.

[00:05:26] So without further ado, let's go ahead and meet our guest. Nicholas J. Evans.

[00:05:35] I'm originally from New York and I've moved a lot over the course of becoming an author, and I'm writing novels and writing short fiction, so I lived in Delaware for a brief period of time. And I currently live in Maine with my wife and our three very young children. We have three daughters, all under the age of five and I work full time.

[00:05:56] I travel for work which means I, am not home as much as I would like to, be, but I try and use that time to my advantage. And that's where I work on a majority of my stories. So I work on them when I'm in hotels. I work on them when the kids are asleep at nap times, pretty much whenever I get the opportunity. Even going as far back as to when I started writing short stories, I would work on them on my phone, just so I would have the time during brief periods of the day.

[00:06:22] As you can see, Nick is a busy man and the idea of fitting in writing where you can fit it in is not new to most writers. Most writers do not support themselves with their craft. And so to be working a job and to be cranking out novels in his spare time is something that a lot of us are doing, which is so cool and so admirable.

[00:06:44] And so I wanted to find out a little bit more about his published works and what he's working on now.

[00:06:52] I began writing Order of Dust, which was my debut novel all the way back in 2017. I actually was working on a different novel at the time and I had hit writer's block. It was a completely different genre too. And I was like, I need something to work on. What am I going to be working on, while I'm just sitting here staring at a screen not knowing what to put down?

[00:07:11] So I began writing something that I originally thought I was going to release as a graphic novel. Actually, I began writing it in a script format with the hopes of sending it out that way. and I found that might've not been the right medium. So I turned around and started drafting it into a novel. And then around 2018, I was finished up with the second draft of it. And then I had started sending it out to publishers directly because it was my first work. I didn't want to get anything agented. I didn't think I was there yet. And I was lucky enough to get picked up by the Parliament House for a trilogy for my series. So I was very excited about that and I mean, that led to where we are now with the novel release in 2020, which was a weird time for books to release. It was a little bit of a different experience because everything had to be pushed digitally. We couldn't do signings. We couldn't do cons. We couldn't do anything. so a lot of it had to be just reaching out to different digital agencies to take care of things for us and hope that things were going to go well. Luckily enough, they did go well, which led to me working on throughout 2020 after we were already edited and everything was finished up for Order of Dust. I ended up working on the second novel of the series. And I had just finished a different novel, that I'll go into in a little bit that is actually releasing this September for a different publisher. COVID was very, very unfortunate and working from home was very difficult, but at the same time I was able to try and use as much downtime as possible to really hammer this out and give what I feel like is even a better product than the first novel.

[00:08:48] So the name of the trilogy is For Humans, For Demons, which will make sense in the grand scheme of things? So it's For Humans For Demons. The second, book comes out January of 20 22, no release date on the third, but I am halfway through the first draft of it and very excited. And then, Like I said, I do have another novel coming out with a different publisher in September of this year.

[00:09:11] The For Humans For Demon series is essentially about what if modern religion collapsed Similar to what we've seen in history where different religions end up taking the forefront. And this is about what if it's turned on its head and what if in a modern society what everybody believed to be true ends up not being? And everybody finds out about that truth and the chaos that ensues.

[00:09:36] So bringing that as the larger universe, it focuses on the story of one character Jackson Crow who dies at the hands of the Unascended, which essentially to bring it to better terms a soul in this universe is called a Dust and sometimes they do not ascend for different reasons. So they end up remaining and taking on a host basically. They take over a body of a living person and they hide among people. Jackson was unfortunate for him and his fiance, were assassinated by one of the Unascended, which leaves him with a little bit of a grudge, and he gets the chance from the true higher beings to come back and basically work for them to take care of the issue, which is these Unascended who are hiding as normal people are committing heinous crimes that they are not actually being targeted for.

[00:10:28] So it's all about his story, about getting revenge. And then it slowly opens up to this bigger issue at hand, which is the world around him that is essentially collapsed because people do not have a belief structure anymore. And that goes for all of the different religions and how it affects the different groups of people, which really ends up coming out in the second and the third books

[00:10:52] So I have read Order of Dust and it is a wild ride. It is fast paced. It is exciting. It is filled with action and all of the things you could hope from a book like that. And so I wanted to figure out what was his inspiration to write a book like this.

[00:11:10] I wanted to write something That was, based on religion. I wanted to go that route. But originally when I was doing this, the only idea I had was what if somebody had to hunt people? What if somebody had this job where they had to hunt people cause they were different? And it just kept breaking down until I was like, well, what if he's also different? A lot of the influences for that book came right from graphic novels from monga, from old scifi, noire stories. So things like Philip K Dick or even things like Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman. A lot of inspiration from Yasuhiro Nightow who is best known for writing Trigun in the nineties and Gunn Grave. So a lot of that I want it to kind of mush together and I was like, this would just be something fun. And, and that's what I did.

[00:12:00] Book number two was Wing Clipper, that one releases in January of 2022. And that one is going to break into the larger world. The first book was very focused on Jackson, focused on introducing characters and introducing some antagonist, but the second book really opens up. It is longer. So it won't be as fast of a read. But that was the goal. I wanted to introduce people in a way, almost like what Stephen King did with Gunslinger, the dark tower series. The first book gunslinger is very short. It's a very quick read and then slowly gets longer.

[00:12:31] That was my goal here is I want to get people drawn in and then really open it up in the second and say like look how everybody else has been affected by this. And then the third book right now is called The Arm of the Savior. In the third book, we'll close everything out in a very large scale. I've been building up to something with these hoping that it ends in a larger way than it started, where it starts very narrow, very singular, and it ends more global. And that one does not have a release date as of yet just because the second book's not even out, but I would say that's probably going to be somewhere around, early to mid 2023.

[00:13:07] Now while his trilogy for humans for demons is with one publisher. Nick has done what many successful writers have done. And he is publishing another book under a different publisher. Another publishing house picked him up for this book for this idea. And so. Just depending on contracts and agreements, it is entirely possible for a person to put out work under various different publishing houses.

[00:13:39] And Nick has done that too with his upcoming novel that releases this month, even though in the dialogue here in the audio, it says it releases in September. We get to remember that it is now September and this interview wasn't recorded this month. So please don't get confused.

[00:13:57] The book releasing in September is with a different publisher, Black Rose. What ended up happening was I was working on another while I was doing the editing process for Order of Dust. I wanted to work on something else, but I didn't want to dive into the second book without first working with the different content editors, the line editors to kind of get their idea and feedback on that first book. But I wanted to work on something.

[00:14:19] I had been writing a lot of shortstories, and I wanted to break it up from the normal. And at the time I had just come up to Maine for work. So I was very far away. My wife and kids were down in Delaware. On the weekends I was driving down there 10 to 12 hours to see them and then driving back So it was a lot of alone time for Monday through Friday. And I just felt like I needed to do something with this time, so I wrote the book.

[00:14:43] It's called The Ones Who Could Do Anything. And it's an urban fantasy, but it's mainly just about dealing with struggles. I don't want to give too much away, but surviving after something terrible happens. And it follows just a group of young people who find each other because of their misfortunes and discover that they have some innate abilities that lend themselves to each other. So it's, again, it's something that at first, and this is, this is what I loved when I had brought up to the publisher at first, they were like, this sounds like, like the premise of it, like something that we've read a hundred times.

[00:15:21] And I was like, I know, you know, I'm not trying to give you something that everybody already knows just by looking at the cover of the book. But luckily they were like, you know, We read the first three chapters of it. Can you send us the rest of the manuscript? And when they did, they really like, they're like, this is different.

[00:15:37] As many writers bring out a certain work or certain ideas or bring these different things to life. Oftentimes there are specific goals that they have with these things. And I wanted to find out what was the reason behind four humans were demons and this new book, because they are so different, different publishing houses.

[00:16:06] Different ideas, different concepts. And so I wanted to figure out more about that.

[00:16:11] One thing I would love for everybody to know is everything that I write and put out. I want to be very different. And I think the people who enjoy For Humans For Demons and enjoy that series, maybe would read The Ones Who Could Do Anything and feel like, this is different. It's a little bit darker and more base of reality rather than something that's completely scifi.

[00:16:33] But I want everybody to be open minded to that. I think some of my favorite authors branching from every different medium, have always tried to dabble in that a lot of their books are not linear. Obviously there are authors out there who do release very similar books and they do very well. But when I think of my favorite Neil Gaymon I don't feel like his books are the same. I feel like I pick up any of his books and they're different and that's my overall goal. And I wanted to let people know that right from the start, because I want people to pick up different books and be like, this is different from that one. And I love them for what they are.

[00:17:06] And so came the big question. How did any of this get started? How far back does this go for him? When was the first time he put pen to paper in a creative way? And how did all that go?

[00:17:24] I appreciate this coming up because I don't get to share this a lot because I don't want them to intertwine, but I've been in bands my entire life. I was a musician for most of my life. I'm 30 now. I was in bands all through high school and everything.

[00:17:36] And then in 2011, I was in a band called Nora Stone, and we were a post hardcore group. I say we were, but they're still together. A hardcore group. And we ended up releasing a short EP and it got us on a label. We did a lot of traveling. We did a lot of touring. So were on the road, a good amount. We did Metal Mayhem Festival.

[00:17:56] We did Crowd Surf America with CHODOs and Blessed the Fall. This is all a bunch of Warp Tour bands. But we did a lot of that for a very long time. And after the birth of my first daughter, I realized I had to start dwindling it down. I had already started the career I'm in now.

[00:18:11] And I was like, what can I do? And back in high school, and when we're on the road, I would just write short stories. A lot of it, I'm going to be honest with you. If anybody remembers my yearbook shout outs to to New York, if anybody remembers my yearbook, it asks something about what do you want to do?

[00:18:26] And at the time I want it to be a graphic novel writer. And that is in my yearbook. So I would just create characters, write backstories for them. And that's what I would do on my phone to pass the time is what I thought was fun. So when I moved to Delaware and parted ways with the band, I needed something to occupy my time and I did not want to dive back into music.

[00:18:45] I had done it for too long. I didn't want to start over. I ended up just writing short stories again on my phone for fun. And my wife had actually read one of them and she was like, how come you never release anything? Like, how come you just sit here and write in the notes section of your phone and then delete it.

[00:18:59] And I was like, I don't know. I don't think I have anything people want to read. I worked on something and she read the first draft of it and was like, I really like this. Like, you should just try and get this published. And I was like, I don't think people are going to like it, but okay. And then it got published.

[00:19:13] And then all of a sudden I have my mother, my friends, my family, who were like, you know, I like this. I don't understand why you didn't do this sooner. And I'm like, I, I don't know. You probably wouldn't like what I wrote in high school.

[00:19:23] And so this is actually the take home, this upcoming little statement that Nick makes for me during this interview. And this is why I opened this episode with that question of, are you willing to release something bad or at least release something that requires some refinement and requires some work in order for you to get better?

[00:19:45] My biggest piece of advice, would first, I guess we'll start with one. Right. Even if it's bad, even if you just have a story in mind and you're like, I'm not going to put these words together properly, and people are not going to like this Cause that's where I was at. Write. And then just send it in. Have faith in yourself, send it in and trust me, trust me When I say the publishers are going to tell you when it's bad I've had a lot of publishers. I've had my own publishers tell me it's bad. And that's just part of the process is how you get better. And I've said this in the beginning, but I feel like every time I write something new, it gets better.

[00:20:24] And for new writers, that's going to be the case. The first thing you put out there might not even get published. And then you have to really look at the feedback you got and say.

[00:20:31] Okay. They didn't like it for these reasons. Is it the story? Is it me? Is it something I need to change? But at the same time, you want to maintain your own voice and you're not going to please everybody.

[00:20:42] And eventually you'll get good enough. And eventually the right publisher will come along, have faith in your project and really carry you through the way. And second piece of advice, listen to your publishers. If you're going that route, if you're going self published Listen to your beta readers and listen to the editors that you bring on.

[00:20:58] But if you're going a traditional or an indie publisher route, listen to them. Because most of the time, 99% of the time from my experience so far, they want what's best for your book without removing the parts of the book that make it yours. So definitely just write whatever you can send it in. They're going to tell you it sucks and then listen to them when they tell you it sucks.

[00:21:22] And that is the biggest lesson with developing any form of talent, just like learning to play the piano or learning to play a musical instrument or learning how to paint or draw or whatever. It may be different skills that you have at work. So wing. I don't know. All of these things are talents and talents require practice and paying attention to feedback.

[00:21:49] And so that means that sometimes you get to be brave and you get to write something that may not be great. And you get to give it to a few trusted people in order for them to find the holes in it that you don't see. And in order for them to pick apart some of the clunky things and to offer some guidance and some advice.

[00:22:10] So that, that bit of work can be even better than it was when it, when you began it. And so that is the take home from me to you. If you are looking to seriously get into writing, and it's not something that you do all the time, just start, write anything and then give it to somebody to critique.

[00:22:34] The feedback is the most important lessons. With writing so that you can get better hearing how your work can improve is a very vulnerable space to be in. But it, like I said, it is the biggest lesson on how to do it better and on how to make that specific piece better. So that is it for today. If you are interested in reading Order of Dust or The Ones Who Can Do Anything, go ahead and follow the link in the show notes and you will be able to check those out.

[00:23:09] Otherwise, thank you so much to my patrons who donate to this show every month without your generous donations, the show could not be possible. Go ahead and follow me on social media. My Instagram handle is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is @authordevind. Thank you so much for listening and have fun writing.

[00:23:33]

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The following is a transcript of this episode. The complete transcript can be found on the podcast's website.

[00:00:00] If your character were a puddle of water, could you splash around in that puddle and not even get your feet wet? If you think that your character is pretty shallow, then let's talk about this second installment of Character Development 101. Today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello, hello, hello! And welcome back to the show.

[00:00:46] Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy living in a tiny house who is here to show you that you can write that work of fiction regardless of how busy you claim to be. Last week, if you remember very well, last week we talked about the importance of names. We talked about the importance of if you're writing a work of fiction that takes place in current times, or if it takes place in other times, but in this world, it's important to do some research, to make sure that the name makes sense, to make sure that the name fits. I said points like if your character is 37 and make sure that you choose a name that came from the eighties, likely.

[00:01:38] Also, I invited you to explore the possibilities of what your character's parents might be like. You may not have to do a big character profile thing for them, for this character's parents. But knowing who the characters parents are and knowing a little bit about how they might make decisions can lead you in the right direction toward finding a good name for your character.

[00:02:13] If you're, if the character is parents are conservative, they would likely choose a common and popular name. If the parents are progressive, it might be a different name. If the parents are super religious, it could be a biblical name, different things like this.

[00:02:30] So this allows us to better understand the character because to have a believable name is important. I also said that if your character's name is completely original to you and completely original to your world, please make sure it's not impossible to pronounce. Just because if it's hard to pronounce, a lot of us are not even going to try and that can affect our relationship with your character.

[00:02:59] So it can clue us into the character themselves. It can clue us into family dynamics. It can also clue us into the culture that they were raised in and the world that they live in, if you put thought into what their names are and how you formulate names. And if you think about the names of the other people they live with or see on a daily basis, all of that is important.

[00:03:28] Today we are going to go beyond the name and we are going to talk about personality of your character. So what makes them interesting. What makes them deeper than a puddle of water, that if you step in it, you don't even get your feet wet? Because it is important to have a good, well thought out character who believe, who acts in a well thought out manner and does things in a consistent and believable way. Sometimes we can be surprised. Sometimes it's fun to be surprised by the way a character is behaving. It can sometimes be a part of the plot. If the character kind of goes AWOL and does things out of character, it can be interesting for us to read that and figure out why.

[00:04:28] However . we have established that the character is reserved and shy and suddenly she is taking off her shirt and dancing on the bar top for no reason at all, we can see inconsistencies there, and that can pull us out of the story and it can affect the relationship that we have with that character.

[00:04:51] So one of the things that comes to mind with figuring out who your character is. When we start to write a story, oftentimes we will have a sort of a profile or a document that will give us the important information on who this character is. It's called a character profile. It can include their name, it can include their hometown. It can include their vocation.

[00:05:25] It can include their interests and maybe their manner of behavior. It can include anything that the author claims is important. And usually the author will reference this sheet or at least come to memorize this sheet, especially if the character is in the book a lot. But another approach that we can do is we can take this.

[00:05:50] Person that we have created, and this is actually a very good idea, especially if you have a character that just came into your world, came into your book and you still need to figure out who they are. It is fun to take this character's personality, and to pretend to be them sort of, and take a personality test for them.

[00:06:18] That way you can learn about who they are by answering the various different personality questions on their behalf. You can think about the way that they would react to this or that situation. You can think about their preferences. You can think about what makes them excited. You can think about what makes them scared.

[00:06:40] You can think about all those things. And as you answer those questions, regardless if at the end of the personality test they end up being an INFJ, or whatever personality test you choose to do. I mean, even if it's like, what spirit animal are you, or if you were a color, what color would you be?

[00:07:02] Or one of those aura tests or whatever funny thing. What candy bar would you be? Just responding to those personality questions as if you were that character will make you understand that character better. And it's a fun exercise to do, especially if this character is new to you and you need to get to know them in a hurry, just sit back and take a personality exam for them.

[00:07:31] Having a good deep character is, if we were to look at this kind of many years ago, good character development was usually typical of specific genres and not very typical of other genres. There has since been really a lot of crossover and a lot of, you know, prove them wrong type stuff throughout all genres.

[00:08:00] But there are still some ways that this holds true. There are still some genres that focus more on character development. And there are still some genres that focus more on the plot. If you think about romance, most romance stories have a plot that's pretty basic.

[00:08:21] They have a plot that is not the point of the story. The point of the story is to build the relationship. And the point of the story is to discover who these two people are and how they work together. Usually the plot is simply an engine to get to that type of self discovery and the events themselves kind of don't matter a lot.

[00:08:47] Sometimes it's a war story. Sometimes it's enemies to lovers. Sometimes it's a lot of different things. There are plenty of romantic tropes that we could get into where they're focusing on people more than they're focusing on events, because that's the point of the genre. Another one that can kind of fit into this category of focusing more on characters rather than plot can be a coming of age story.

[00:09:17] You have a person who doesn't know who they are. You have a character who is uncomfortable in their own skin, perhaps they're quirky. Perhaps they have interests that they don't understand, or that makes them not fit in with their peers. And we go through this type of self-discovery process in order for them to come out a normal or an exciting, or an admirable human being at the end, in order for them to be comfortable with who they are.

[00:09:46] Self-accepting, self-love, all that stuff. The plot itself is just the engine to get to that feeling of self love or self-acceptance or finding that chosen family or whatever it might be. If you look at the other side of this coin, there are still genres that are far more focused on the world and on the plot. These tend to be adventure novels, and they fit very well into science fiction and fantasy.

[00:10:22] These also tend to be really biggish books. I mean, you can look at any genre and find huge books. I'm not saying that is different or weird or unique only to these genres, but if we are going through and placing such importance on the world and on events, oftentimes it can lead to the description or the creation of entire cultures or entire people, or the stories of several different people in several different families, because the plot is more complicated and has so much more nuance and so much more facets to it than these other examples that I shared before with romance and sometimes coming of age. So with this, the reader is usually looking for this out of this world experience. They are looking for something. I mean, all books should be immersive. I can completely get that, but the reader is not usually looking for some type of moral lesson or some type of like self-discovery oftentimes with science fiction the hero is already chosen and serves the plot. The hero ends up being the engine for this amazing, beautiful creative plot line to take place, the hero and their friends or the hero and the villain and their friends. And so with science fiction and fantasy, which is what comes to mind, it does not have to only be science fiction and fantasy.

[00:12:17] We focus more on the plot and sometimes the characters and the importance of the characters fall by the wayside. And so I invite you and I definitely do this throughout the drafting process. If you are writing science fiction or fantasy, and you are writing an adventure novel and your main character has one emotion, and that is stoic, which isn't an emotion, but you get what I mean.

[00:12:51] the big muscly guy who beats the crap out of everybody. And doesn't get excited. Doesn't feel sad. Doesn't show emotions because I don't know. That character shows up a lot. And I'm going to invite you to find ways to show that character or to show another side to that character.

[00:13:17] If you are writing a fantasy novel of the farm boy who was orphaned and discovers that he is the chosen one, I invite you to find creative ways to show multiple sides of that character. Sometimes it's like the character gets locked into the storyline and then the story happens to them. And they're just kind of on this roller coaster car with this seat belt that won't come undone and they go and the storyline starts and it goes, and it picks up and then it's over. And. They were kind of just along for the ride. So I invite you to all of the main characters in your book, go through and think about the big things that they are going to do, or that they are going to be involved in and ask yourself why.

[00:14:15] And if you did subject that character to a personality quiz, go ahead and try to integrate that into the way you are outlining your story. And you can do that with any genre. So, if you are focusing more on romance or coming of age, or these other things where character development is kind of the idea, or like literary fiction where you are teaching this really big life lesson or life theory through story, then you really need to nail the character development. That's the whole point of books like that. I just recently read a book that talks about the difference between surviving and living, the difference between simply staying alive and actually doing the living and enjoying life.

[00:15:13] And it was this huge elaborate, beautiful description of these older siblings who have grown up. And it concludes with this very moral related question that you ask yourself, am I simply surviving or am I living?

[00:15:33] If you are shooting for things like that, and you are hoping to demonstrate life lessons, you need to have believable characters do that if you want your readers to continue to read your stuff. However, with fantasy and with science fiction where things are more plot driven, and I'm not going to say that my books are not plot driven, cause that would be a big fat lie.

[00:15:56] I can tell you one thing though, if your plot ends up being weak or if your plot ends up being kind of predictable or if there ends up being some holes in your plot, oftentimes those things can be overlooked a little bit, or at least forgiven, and you can keep the reader interested in your book if the characters are awesome.

[00:16:26] If you have 100% believable characters, sometimes the weaker points of your book can be overlooked or at least forgiven so that you can secure a better readership or a more loyal readership. Right now I'm reading a book called the lies of Locke Lamorah. It's a heist story, which is so fun. It's pretty long-winded, but it has been so fun to be a part of the story.

[00:16:56] The story itself is interesting. But the thing that I love the very most about the book is actually not the exciting story. I mean, the heist is fun and to see the development of a thief and a thief's friends is also really fun and the community has been exciting to kind of be in. But the thing that I love the very most is the beautiful friendship that the main character has with his best friend. These are super morally bankrupt or morally gray people. They're all thieves. And like I said, the entire story is a heist, it's swindling people out of their money, but the beautiful friendship between the main character Locke and his best friend Jean is so lovely. It is delicious. And it is unique and it is special.

[00:17:52] And so even though parts of the story are kind of filled with hot air to an extent, and they're a bit long winded. I like to stick with it because the friendship there is so wonderful.

[00:18:09] So friends go out and with your current work in progress, find the main characters, find the people and the personalities that you are bringing to life in your prose and put them through a personality test and then find ways to subject them to many different emotions, many different emotional triggers and many different ways for us to see more than one side of them. It's okay for a character to trip themselves up. It's okay for a character to not choose the right choice. It's okay for the character to be a jerk sometimes. And to be short-sighted. It's also okay for a character to be wise. All these different things. And so I encourage you to take that and to apply it to your work in progress today.

[00:19:06] So that's it for today, a big thank you to my patrons without your generous donations, this podcast would not be possible. And if you. Would like to become a patron to writing in the tiny house, go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and sign up today. Also be sure to follow me on social media. My tag on Instagram is @authordevindavis and my tag on Twitter is@authordevind. Thank you so much for your time. Be sure to tune in next week and have fun writing.