Podcasts

NaNoWriMo 2020: Day Fifteen

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Wow, halfway through the month already. I’ve had a chill out day today, which I need to stop doing. I need to get up on a day off, have breakfast, get dressed, get writing. Simple as that. No thinking I’ll watch an episode of this or that (today it was The Queen’s Gambit, which was lethal as I’ve all but watched it now). I still got 2317 today, but I could have got 3000 words done, if not 3500. I know I have the ability to do that when I’ve got a day off and I should be doing it. For the speed I can write at and the time I have, it is easily doable.

I was on a Facebook live event tonight with the Mando Method Podcast folks. It was a lot of fun and in the hour before it I managed to crack out about a 1300 words to add to the 1000 or so I’d already written throughout the course of the day. We talked about NaNoWriMo at the halfway point and how we were all progressing. We touched a few other topics as well. It was a lot of fun, its been a while since I laughed that hard. It was really good to talk to these folks in real time as well. Armand Rosamilia and Chuck Buda have been very supportive to myself and many other writers. Please give it a watch 😊

Grumpy cat stare!

I’ve got one more days leave before getting back to my normal working week, so writing time will be cut down. But I can still get all the words done I need to, and more. I’m going to set myself a target of an hour at my desk a day. That’s head down and writing/editing. I’m not going to set word count goals at the moment, I want to get in the habit of spending that hour a day at the desk. My biggest enemy is myself and in particular my lack of discipline. That is something I need to overcome.

Under The Weather is the third book I’ve been published in. With my story, The Snow, I knew roughly what I wanted to do with it but it took a few little twists and turns along the way, but it was never a difficult write. One major element did change in the story which changed the entire theme of the tale. I still think it works, and it’s one that I’m really happy with.

Well folks, that’s me wrapping it for the night. I’m gonna watch a bit of tv and then read a little before bed. I’m aiming for an early start tomorrow.

Good Morning, Friday the 18th of September 2020

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Hey folks, how are we all doing today?

I am up and getting ready for a productive day. I’m off to see a dear friend this morning and then this afternoon I’m going to do a little writing and tidying.

I’m working on getting he various elements of my life balanced properly. I’m making adjustments to suit on because I was beginning to falter in it, hopefully I’ve figured out how to do that and I just need to put it into practice.

Yesterday I wrote 1200 words in about ninety minutes. Needless to say I’m super happy about that, and I’d love to get that sort of word count this morning before visiting my friend, but I’m not going to stress if I don’t. I’m still aiming for about 500/half an hours work per day. Writer and Podcaster Paul E. Cooley said on an episode of The Dead Robots Society that he set a target of, I think it was 250 a day, because that was easily doable. And more often than not he’d surpass that quickly. If I remember right he said it was because that by the time he hit 250 he’d got into his rhythm. Since then that’s something I’ve found can work for me as well.

Today’s random image is of Raven, being Raven!

That’s it for this morning, folks. I’m going to have some breakfast and a shower and then get a few words done before shooting out.

Have a good one folks.

And remember, it costs nothing to be kind.

January 26th 2020

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Good afternoon, folks!

I’m on about 7000 words for the month, which isn’t as high as I’d like but much better than having zero words for the month.

Today I wrote zilch! But I did edit two stories. One was an out loud read through which was then sent to my beta readers. The second one was me looking over notes from my beta readers. This was about three work at a guess. I was planning to squeeze in a quick Mando Method between the two but I was pushed for time and wasn’t able to. This sucks a little, but it’s not much good writing every day if I’m not finishing and submitting work.

The End Of All Things

Outside of writing I finished listening to John Scalzi’s The Human Division and listened to the final book in the Old Mans War series, The End Of All Things. Although not as good as The Human Division it’s still a damn fine book which wraps things up well.

Time to wrap this post up. Keep cracking on with those goals and ambitions, folks!

18th of January 2020

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Good afternoon folks! I’ve just done my final edit pass of a short story and sent it off to beta readers. I’m hoping to have it submitted within a week of them returning it to me.

I’ve got another one tomorrow that I’m going to try and get done as well. Then next week it’s back to the day job.

I’m sure you’ve noticed I’ve shared a few posts linking to podcasts today, and in the past. These are all podcasts from The Project Entertainment Network. I listen to the ones I share and am a big believer in the network. They’re creating good content and when I’m enjoying something I’ll do my best to spread the word. The same goes for the other post I’ve Re-blogged today from my friends CL Raven. They are two of the finest human beings on the planet. I’m so glad I met them and they’ve become friends and it makes me happy seeing them doing well.

I’m going to leave it there. It did feel good getting some work done this afternoon. Next week I’ll be getting back into the story I’ve been working on. It’s meant to be a short story but I’m not sure how long it’s going to stay in that category.

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Here’s the cover of the third anthology I was published in, Under The Weather. You can buy it in paperback, kindle and audio. There’s some great names in this anthology and its well worth checking out!

25th November 2019

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Today I’ve written 700 words. All of which were done during my lunch break. I’ve passed 12k now and am not even going to hit 20k. I’m not happy about this, but I can live with it.

The last few months have been super busy but for all the right reasons. The biggest, and only, downside is that I haven’t been able to keep up with writing. I’ve had a couple of big failures (okay, not that big but they suck) where I’ve felt pretty desolate. One thing in particular recently dented me pretty hard as I realised I’m not capable, or maybe ready, to be a person in my writing community where I can be somewhat of a leader. After I had that revelation I came the closes to quitting writing that I’ve ever been. Even to the point where I had two major writing related commitments that I was going to complete and then quit.

I’m past that feeling of desolation though. I’m feeling energised and I’m having ideas again. I need to find a better way to make the most of my time though. That’s something I’ll be working on in the near future.

I often find listening to podcasts quite inspiring. Especially when they’re talking to someone who is working their arse off to get to their goals. An episode of The Horror Show with Brian Keene featured writer and musician Matt Hayward and each time I hear this episode I can’t help but be inspired. Please clicky the link and see what I mean.

10th of January 2018

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Good evening all. I’ve written 565 words toady on a zombie story during my lunch break and this evening I got another chapter edited for PE3.

On Monday I edited about 8000 words, out of just shy of 60k. So me being me thought, well! Ill be done by Monday! I won’t. But I’ve got a good start on it and would really like to shave about 10k off the total word count.

I listen to a few podcasts but one of my favourites is The Mando Method Podcast. This is a writing podcast hosted by Armand Rosamilia and Chuck Buda. The most recent post is really good, and I’m not just saying that because Armand and Chuck say some lovely things about me. I’ve been sharing this podcasts episodes for a long time now and recommending it to writers I know. It is by far one of the best writing podcasts out there and I’d recommend any writers at least check it out.

That’s me done for the night. I’m going to watch a movie and then bed.

The Hellboy Reboot

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If you haven’t heard, we’ve got a Hellboy reboot in the works and it sounds like it’s quite advanced. Let’s roll back a little though, I loved Guillermo del Toro’s two Hellboy films. I think Ron Perlman rocked it as Hellboy and I’m still quite pissed off that we never got that third and final film. It’s been clear for some time though that it’s just not going to happen.

The reboot. When I first heard about this I wasn’t overly interested. I hadn’t really checked out the articles, but I do that at times. I can leave something a few days before looking into it. Sometimes I just need to see something at the right time for me to check it out and last night I think it was the right time. I was on Facebook and I saw that it had a title, Rise of the Blood Queen. Now for whatever reason that triggered some attention in my brain and I clicked the link to MoviePilot and did the reading. This is where it got my attention. Now, some of these details might change, it is something to do with Hollywood after all. But the article says that Mike Mignola, who created Hellboy, is writing it, along with Andrew Crosby and Christopher Golden. I’m not familiar with Crosby but I listen to the Three Guys with Beards podcast thats on the Project Entertainment Network, and Golden is one of the beards along with Jonathan Mayberry and James A. Moore, and I like the man. He seems to know his shit and talks passionately about what interests him.

Directing duties is down to Neil Marshall, who I like as a director. Dog Soldiers and The Descent are two films which I really like, and Doomsday is a movie that still resonates with me quite strongly.

The man playing Hellboy is David Harbour. I’m not hugely familiar with him, I’ve only watched the first episode of Stranger Things so far but with him being named as Hellboy I’m going to get back into it once I’ve finished Sense8 season two. If they’ve cast him though I’m assuming he’s impressed with what he’s done behind the scenes.

Both Marshall and Harbour have got a tough job on their hands, but I admire both of them for taking this on. That gives me confidence in this.

I’ve got a feeling this is going to stick closer to the comic book Hellboy. I’m sure everyone is looking at Marvel and seeing how it’s working out for them and thinking that’s a good way to go. By doing that the fans are getting respected, then it’s just figuring out the balance to make it appeal to the non-comic book fans.

It’s going to be R-Rated as well, so I’m interest to see how that’ll affect the tone of the movie. I really need to get some Hellboy comics and check them out

I’ll be keeping a closer eye on this now, it’s got my attention and I hope they get it right because I’d like more Hellboy please.

Podcast Overload

Peter Germany Audiobooks, Podcasts

I am hugely behind on the podcasts that I listen to. I fell behind when I blitzed through a few audiobooks (mainly the final four books of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series) and I’ve found myself in a position where I am massively behind on a few, like over a year behind. some of the podcasts are about twenty minutes, others get up to the two hours time bracket. I figure I’ve got about two hundred episodes that I’ve got sitting on my iPhone, and if I’m honest I’m sure I’m never going to get caught up.

So I’m going to have to cull them. Most of them are fiction podcasts, so I’m going to go through and pick out the one’s whose title catches me, or it’s written by a writer I’m a fan of and keep those ones.

I hate doing this, but I’m never going to get caught up on these episodes and it’s putting me off from listening to these podcasts as there are so many to get caught up on.

So I’m kind of starting from scratch a little.

My Podcast Library

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I was recently talking with a few of the members of the writing group that I’m in and someone asked what podcasts we all listen too and I listed a couple before I realised that I don’t think I can list all of the ones I listed to in a Facebook comment. So I thought I’d put together a list as a blog post, so here it is in no particular order:

I Should Be Writing and Ditch Diggers:   I Should Be Writing is Mur Lafferty’s podcast that she has been doing for many years and deals with some of the everyday writer problems and some of the emotional elements to the writing process. Ditch Diggers is Mur Lafferty’s Podcast with Matt Wallace. Here they discuss more the business side of writing. Both of these podcasts also have frequent interviews with other writers.

The Dead Robots Society: This podcast is a roundtable discussion show that deals with pretty much every aspect of the writing process. From outlining and world building to sales numbers. Justin R. Macumber created this podcast and Terry Mixon, Paul E. Cooley and Scott Roche make up the regular team. I came into the show when it was approaching its hundredth episode mark and I went back and listened to all of the previous episodes.

The Roundtable Podcast: This podcast by Dave Robison (who has an amazing voice) is generally a roundtable discussion where Robison and guest hosts brainstorm a story idea by a (brave) writer. There are also episodes where they spend (a loose) twenty minutes with a writer to get to know them. This is a fantastic podcast that I’ve found can really get the creative juices going.

The Newbie Writers Podcast: This podcast by Damien Boath and Catherine Bramkamp. This is an interview show where Boath and Bramkamp interview writers. This show is a lot of fun, and very engaging.

Authorcast: This is primarily a discussion between David Wood and Alan Baxter. They discuss pretty much everything to do with writing. Wood also runs a small press, which gives another insight to the writing and publishing process.

Shipping & Handling Podcast: This podcast is a little different as its two literary agents, Bridget Smith and Jennifer Udden, discussing the publishing world. This is quickly becoming one of my must listen to podcasts. It’s informative and very entertaining. I’m finding it very easy to listen to.

The Creative Penn Podcast: This is quite a new podcast for me and I’m enjoying it and learning from it. It’s general publishing talk and interviews with writers.

Armcast: This podcast by Armand Rosamilia is a writing podcast but one that focusses on the people Rosamilia has met through writing horror. So some episodes with have interviews with writers while others will have interviews with film producers. Rosamilia has just started a new podcast with Mark Tufo but I haven’t listened to that one yet. If it’s anything like Armcast it’ll be a lot of fun.

SF Squeecast: This one is kind of a ringer to a certain degree as it’s not primarily a writing podcast in my opinion. It’s more of a group of friends sitting round talking about what they like who also happen to be writers. This is a pretty good podcast, the content is fantastic and fun and all of the hosts; Elizabeth Bear, Paul Cornell, Seanan McGuire, Lynne M. Thomas, Michael Damian Thomas and Catherynne M. Valente all seem to have a lot of fun doing this podcast.

All of these podcasts can be found on iTunes, that’s where I get them from, and I hope people check them out.