I've discovered I prefer podcasts to music because with music my mind can wander and think Thinks, and frankly there's no topic I want to think Thinks about right now. Except for writing, hence the writing poddles.
(If I were really good at meditating I'd practice being bored but that's like... graduate level mindfulness.)
I've listened to the backlog of: The First Million Words. It's relatively new--two unpublished SFF writers, interviewing published SFF writers to learn about craft. The idea behind the title is that your first million words are practice (these days attributed to Stephen King, but has been attributed to every author and their cat.)
They do one month (about 4 episodes) with one author, on different subjects. I enjoy the interviews themselves, but mostly I like the hosts. It's like Bob and Doug Mackenzie with a writing podcast. If you want to sample it, try their interview with Rachel Aaron who shares how she increased her word count from 2000/day to 8000-10 000. If only to hear her schtick, cause it's not a gimmick.
Right now I'm going through Writing Excuses, which is from 3 published authors and a comics artist. Their tag line is: "Fifteen minutes long. Cause you're in a hurry and we're not that smart." They're fun and entertaining to listen to, have lots of smart things to say, and have good interviews.
I prefer interviews that are on a given subject matter, as theirs' are. Otherwise every writer interview on the planet starts off with How They Got Started and How They Got Published. The former has to be truly different to be interesting, unless you're already a fan; and the latter just makes me sad and jealous (especially when so many are "It was my first book and I sent it in and it got published. I know you all, like, hate me now!"
If you want to sample Writing Excuses, you could start with "The Hollywood Formula." The formula is very short, and presented by Lou Anders (an award winning SFF editor) who applies the formula to Casablanca and The Dark Knight to interesting effect.
I've sampled a couple other writing podcasts--I'll report back when I've listened more.
3 comments:
I've only listened to a few of the Sunday StoryWonk podcasts, so I'm not really up on the whole podcast world yet. These are interesting suggestions, especially as I am now at revision stage for my novel. Any help is useful help, even if in the negative ("I'd never do that to my novel!"). :)
Thank you for sharing all these links.
When I first read the title of this post, I thought it meant that you were going to try and write/record a podcast ...I wondered what you would sound like, would you have an accent?
Apparently mine sounds like an amalgamation of Canadian, Australian and British.
I stopped hearing Canadian accents about 2 years ago ... at least Canadian accents from this side of the Rockies.
so ... back to podcasts. Aren't they a wonderful way to get the housework done? :)
@Skye I've been listening to Writing Excuses all this week while painting and drywalling in my mother's house. They're really inspiring, full of great ideas! For learning structure, Storywonk is great. One of the WRiting Excuses guys has a seminar posted on how to structure, which you can do in the revision stage.
http://www.fearfulsymmetry.net/?p=405
@widders - My brother and I are thinking of trying our hand at a podcast. Just for fun!
Post a Comment