Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
Join an internationally bestselling children's book author and her down-home husband and their dogs as they try to live a happy, better life by being happier, better people . You can use those skills in writing and vice versa. But we’re not perfect, just like our podcast. We’re cool with that.
Someone was sleeping outside her tent right next to her and how to make good writing habits
A lot of writers that I work with have a problem. The problem is that they want to be a writer, but before they come to me? They don’t write.
Here’s the thing. For a lot of us, we have to make time to be a writer. That’s just how our brains and process work. There are some writers who manage to get 10 days of alone time and writer time and they power through a book in that time, but most of us aren’t that wealthy or that lucky.
That means to be a...
Strange Things in the Woods like poop and Squatch
We found a topic! It ended up mostly being about poop and creepiness and three-foot tall humanoids.
Links we mention:
https://www.ranker.com/list/creepy-forest-ranger-stories/amandasedlakhevener
Overcoming Negativity Bias & Toilet Rats
Being an author or an artist or almost anyone is about navigating. You have to walk a fine line with criticism and praise, discern what's real and what's not, what matters or not, what is noise and what is important.
And sometimes?
Well, sometimes we only hear and dwell on the one negative thing that someone has said to us or written about us even though they (or others) have also said 100 positive things.
You're an author. You get a glowing review but there's one line in there that says, "I didn't like...
Why it is okay to read books you've already read and sometimes there's an alligator in your kitchen
Here's our main premise this week: it's okay to read books you've already read.
Not only is it okay. It's helpful.
This is true for both writers and normal humans.
Rereading books gives you:
New ideas Reminds you of ideas you'd forgotten about Let's you notice new things because you aren't the same you who read that book the last time.DONALD LATUMAHINA writes for LifeOptimizer, "'"Research shows that in just 24 hours people would forget most of what they’ve read. You might get a lot of good ideas from a...
The Spiral of Ick and Quiet Winners: You Don't Have to Flaunt Yourself to Succeed
Recently, I read an interview with an author who talked about how much children loved her book and how they tell her this.
It annoyed me. It may have been good marketing, but it sure didn't feel like good human-ing, you know?
When you're interviewed by a reporter or when you do a school visit, as a children's book author, you have the ability to toot your own horn or you have the ability to toot someone else's.
This interview I read sort of sent me into a spiral of ick.
...
Shaun went off the rails, but this was supposed to be about how do you sustain a career as an author
This is obviously not the full transcript. You have to listen to hear the full weirdness, but . . . here's the core.
How Do You Sustain a Career as an Author?
It's a really good question, right? One, all of us authors are trying to figure out.
Rise With Drew writes,
"Creative careers are slippery. One-hit wonders abound, but fewer are enduring superstars,” Steven writes. “And this level of commitment requires not just originality but rather that ultimate expression of originality: the consistent reinvention of self. Again and again.
“Long-haul creativity isn’t a...
The Info Dump from Hell and How to Avoid Them
Talking about show vs tell at the scene level is a little bit harder than talking about it at the paragraph and scene levels.
But it’s also a tiny bit easier.
When you’re looking for telling at this level of the story, what you’re looking for is a couple of things:
A butt ton of backstory. A butt ton of info dumps A lot of flashback.You can have bits of these things in your stories. Where us authors get into trouble is when we have a lot of it and we...
Control Your Tells, Don't Give In To the Passive
Babe,
I know you don’t want to talk about showing vs telling any longer, our massive series, but it’s really really important. It’s sunk many a cool book idea, stopped others in its tracks. It is a chaos agent in the life of many a good writer. And there are so many damn facets to it. I could fill a year of podcasts talking about it.
Don’t worry, I won’t.
But I would be remiss—no, we would be remiss—if we didn’t give people a couple more hints about...
Author to Author. Carrie Jones and Chris Lynch Talk Walkin the Dog
Award-winning author of YA novels? Check.
Printz honor author, ALA Best Book winner, National Book Award finalist? Check.
Has a middle grade coming out March 11 that's about to rock the world? Definitely.
Was so cool that Carrie was afraid to talk to him back in 2005 or 2006 or something? You know it.
Chris Lynch, award winning human and ridiculously gracious interviewee, graced Dogs are Smarter Than People with an author-to-author interview with Carrie Jones this week. He ignored Carrie's frazzled face, vaguely sweaty hair, and minor emergency to be one of the...
LET’S SHOW YOU HOW SHOW VS TELL WORKS! Florida Man Poops on a Possum. We won't show you that
Hey! Welcome to our series of podcasts and posts all about showing vs. telling, which we are on fire about right now, right Shaun?
Growls.
You can check out the rest of the series on Carrie’s Substack Write Better Now or just the podcast episodes on her blog, https://carriejonesbooks.blog/
So, a lot of my writers have a brain like mine, which is sad for them. Just kidding! Just kidding! A lot of them do better when they see an explanation of show vs tell rather than just having their editor or...
