Writer's Block Workshop - Starting a New Writing Project

This episode is about determining what to write, setting expectations and goals, plus finding time to write.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Good morning. How is it today we are talking
about starting a new writing project and got a bunch of notes
to go over. Got Ricky back in here Co
hosting and obviously good morning Heidi, how how are you
doing? You had coffee?
Are you up? You awake?

(00:20):
I'm, I'm most sort of, yeah, my house is is a house full of
night people. And which makes you a night
person for today, right? Starting a new writing project.
As we always do on the workshops, let's give an update
on progress. You know that is part of the

(00:43):
usual scheme for the day. So obviously got bloody
Sepulchre out in audiobook. Have been promoting it's
availability on a number of different channels.
Also getting the ebook and audiobook pairing for next month

(01:06):
ready. Have already done the read and
finish the first round of edits.It will have a narration only
version as well as an audio drama production.
It is Anunnaki origin of Sumeria.
I know I've talked a little bit about that in the past being one

(01:26):
of the ebooks, but interesting thing that I'll do because I, I
think I'll have everything I I think I have everything loaded
up already, but I've just been kind of like dotting the IS and
crossing the T's for KDP to get the pre-order ready for it.

(01:46):
And I didn't want that to overlap with the promotion for
bloody stuff will occur as much as it might potentially.
So probably later this week I'llannounce that pre-order nice
feature for the ebooks and then trying to wrap up production on
that this week. It shouldn't take too much
because there's music and sound effects already kind of sitting

(02:10):
on the sidelines from the short film, the AI video that it's
based on. So yeah, that's, that's the
majority of what I've been working on.
You know, up above you'll also find a new article for the
writers on my sub stack. If you're not subscribed over

(02:33):
there, take a look. It is about beta readers and
beta listeners this month. So, you know, a good article.
I feel like for most people here, hanging out, working on
finished work and getting it outthere.
Also, the workshop from last month is up on podcasting
platforms. You'll find that above as well.

(02:54):
And I've been putting out a daily historical fact video that
uses, you know, generative AI and historical images and all
kinds of stuff once a day. If you haven't seen any of that,
you know, learn a little something.
It'll take maybe 10 to 15 seconds of your day to watch a
video on you. You get to tell your friends

(03:16):
about something new you learned.You know, what about you guys?
Heidi, Ricky, what are you working on?
What are you making progress with?
You know, we always kind of do that.
So let's let's start there. Well, I, I got really obsessive
yesterday and was in, in I'm on version 19 of the house that

(03:39):
Jack built. So I'm feeling pretty good about
it at this point. I think it's pretty close to
where I wanted to be and I need to go through it, kind of try
and finalize it, but I'm feelingpretty good about it.
I think I, I seeded it the way I, you know, it's closer to how

(03:59):
I want it to be. I know there was some issues
with connecting everybody. There was some issues with some
of the characters feeling flat. It really sort of started out as
a character study about Jack. So he was the main focus.
So everybody else was just kind of there to support him one way

(04:20):
or another. But I kind of feel like it's
really developing in a nice little piece at this point.
So yes, I have written a story on what it means to be a man.
Feel free to, you know, but I, Ifeel that's OK.
I mean, it's not what we do. And women tell men what they're
supposed to do and who they're supposed to be.

(04:42):
And men tell women the same thing.
I mean, isn't that what we do? So I feel good about it.
So, you know, that's was what I'm really focused on.
I got to get back in with the audio book.
Thank you for your input. Yeah, just finished.
But I just, I just, oh, you finished it this morning.
So now you you have have read all of song lists, shall we say?

(05:05):
Yeah, well, you know. Yeah, you have.
Volume to I haven't seen volume 2 yet, you know.
Volume 2 is a work in progress, and I need to finish these two
things before I jump onto that onto if I jump onto that dragon,
shall we say, because again, that's another.

(05:25):
That's a big piece. Jack's house, as I officially
refer to it, is just under 24,000 words.
The, the, the, the first full draft of the Fort is closer to
120,000 words. So as you can see, that will
take me more time, especially since, you know, I'm sure

(05:49):
there's stuff in there that I, I, you know, it makes me nuts.
Does anyone else do this where you think, OK, I've done it,
It's written. And then like you show it to a
beta reader, you show it to someone and they're like, but,
but, but, and you're like, so you've got to go back and, and
deal with, with things that you just didn't catch in the first

(06:11):
round. So I'm, I'm going to, I'm trying
to just get these things done. So the two projects that are
really rounding near the end, they're, they're complete for
the most part. I'm trying to get them out and
then on that. So, you know, it's really just
about time, how much time I can spend on it.

(06:33):
I got, I got rolling yesterday. But you know, life is balanced.
Life is balanced. What do you do?
So I don't know. There you have it.
What do you think? What do you think of Silas
overall? Yeah, good.
Solid for an initial novel, you know, Hey, it's it's all there.

(06:54):
The story's there. You know, I don't think
anything's missing. It helped to.
So I read The House that Jack Built 1st and there's like some
contextual things that you spellout in the desert that I didn't

(07:15):
have full clarity of when I was reading The House that Jack
Built. So it builds out that world and
you also get to really spend a lot of time in that world.
I like the fantasy elements. I like the Western elements.
There's I think a, because I didthe audio book version, you
know, intent, it's coming soon, coming down the pipe.

(07:40):
There's the intimacy of the readfrom the author who performed it
as well. So as I've told you before, you
know, it's a, it's a romantic read.
And it is, I would say, a, a love story, even if it's not a
romance novel. Your read is romantic.
So yeah, you know, people shouldbe looking forward to that

(08:02):
coming out pretty soon, too. I don't know what you'll finish
first, but something's going to something's going to happen and
come out. Ricky, what about you?
How is your progress? What are you working on?
What do you got going? Well I got a bunch of irons in
the fire, but specifically I've been swinging down on Dragon 2.

(08:27):
I just hit 70K on that which is chapter 35.
It says 0 drafts totally unedited but I'm having a blast
riding it. I've been trying to write this
one part for like 20 years. It's the obscurity war and it's
like 10K of slaughter with all these monsters.

(08:50):
I'm having a blast, man. It's, it's really great.
You know, I was working on workshop stuff.
I'm still sort of tooling on that, but just having a blast
with it. Chapters are great.
Wrote a real tasty one yesterdayand I only got 30 K left until

(09:12):
book 2 is included. So I'm I'm doing jumping jacks
over here. Nice.
Do you have any release dates onthe calendar pending yet for
anything you know? Just curious.
No, I dig it. It's so long in the tooth
already. I talked to my cover artist last

(09:33):
week. I'm a big fan of his.
He's a he's a sickly fellow. He's he's got a lot of problems,
but his results are tasty and hesays he's going to have the
dragon cover for me real soon. Once I have the dragon cover
that I'll mean I have that I have Wargate.
So I'm going to start dropping those on Royal Rd.

(09:54):
Take time to figure that out. And I'm hoping within the month.
I mean, I said that within the last couple months.
So if everybody called me a liar, liar, pants on fire, I
wouldn't. I wouldn't begrudge them.
Yeah, very cool. So before we get into the other

(10:16):
folks hanging out, you know, we're going to at least start
the conversation. And then, you know, we want to
hear how your progress is going as well.
Obviously, today we are talking about starting a new writing
project. We're exploring strategies for
making incremental progress on these new projects.
We'll address some common challenges.

(10:37):
You know, we'll talk about setting realistic goals and how
you might find time to write in the midst of House of Night
people perhaps, or whatever the roadblocks might be.
You know, we all have them. That's OK.
But for me, the biggest thing when I'm starting is to as

(11:02):
quickly as possible, get off of the blank page.
I don't want to see a white piece of paper.
I don't want to see a screen with nothing on there.
Even if I just type the name of the, the, the working name of
the project, you know, get that on to the page or kind of create
some structural order for my notes just to have anything on

(11:26):
there so that then that, you know, this is the writer's
block. And I feel like trying to start
a project is a blockage in and of itself when you're looking at
something that has nothing. And that's unfortunate, you
know, So Heidi, Ricky, thoughts on, you know, starting a new

(11:54):
project, determining what you'regoing to write or what you're
going to write next. You know, when you, you, you
wrap up what you're doing out for me.
I got a schedule this year. I know what I'm what is next on
the the dais, I suppose. But hey, well.

(12:16):
Thomas threw his hand up. Did you want us to hop in?
Thomas let go. No.
Yeah, sorry. I was just like, I didn't want
to interrupt. I was just.
No, it's all good. You got to give us a progress
report first. Yeah, basically this is really

(12:38):
good timing for me because last week I finished my second novel.
I'm going to be working on the audio box for soon, which means
that I've started a few things on the side, but I'm kind of
like, I'm at this start of the process again.
So this will be quite beneficial.

(13:00):
So yeah, my, my progress report really is I finished my second
novel. I'm planning on releasing it
October the 10th. And basically I'm going to be,
I've almost finished the audio book for my first book, and I'm
going to be starting the audio book for my second book very
soon. So hopefully from this today,

(13:24):
maybe I'll be able to decide where I'm going to go on the
crossroads, whether I'm going tocomplete my anthology novel or
if I'm going to carry on with mythird novel basically, which is
a bit of a genre change. So yeah, good timing.
That's all I wanted to say really.

(13:44):
Yeah, excellent. Yeah, love it.
Also, very happy to hear you're doing not only the printed
works, but audiobooks. And what a what a way to expand
your catalog, really, you know? Yeah, as you've said before,
there's a lot of people rely on audiobooks now and more, I think

(14:06):
more people, especially your newauthors, they're probably more
willing to give you a chance if they can just listen to your
book rather than read it. But in reading it physically is
a lot more of a commitment than listening to it.
So yeah, I, I think you agree with me a lot on those points,
Michael, from the previous conversations that you've had on
you. Yeah.

(14:28):
So it's it's, it's looking good.It's it's quite nerve wracking
actually moving on to a new project.
But you know, the second book isn't over until it's released
really. And then, you know, you're still
working on bits and pieces. But you know, my mind, that's
the kind of start leaving our world now, which is always the

(14:49):
tricky part, but it'll get out there.
And you know, This is why this this conversation today is all
about hopefully. Anyone else?
Robin Joggy? You guys got progress reports?
You got thoughts on determining what you're going to write next?
Hi. Yes, Michael and everybody else,

(15:11):
nice to be here. I'm very excited about this
topic of what to write next. So just to give you a little,
can you hear me OK, by the way? Yeah.
OK. Just to give you a little
update. I also feel, I think it was like
Heidi who said, I keep saying it's going to be done and it's

(15:31):
not done yet. You know, I keep, I feel like I
keep saying the same thing, oh, it's going to be done in a
month. But this is my slow project.
And I've been back and forth with my editor who I love and
we've been talking about. So a certain aspect of the book
that needs a little bit of rework.

(15:52):
So I'm doing 30 pages a day. I should be done with my that
it's draft 5.2. I should be done with it in two
weeks. I have to go back one more time
because I have a formatting issue.
I did some kind of experimental formatting, which he and I
realized doesn't really work. So I have to do a little bit of

(16:16):
reformatting. OK, that's a long way of saying
I'll be done. I really will be done in a
month. I really will.
I'll be done in a month. And you know, I think I've said
before, this is the slow slog. This is the one that it's my
baby. I really want to get it get
agented or I want to get, I wantto get, you know, published in a

(16:42):
small press and whatever. But because of our discussions
that we've been talking about, especially Michael, you know,
talking about getting stuff out there, I already have a plan.
You know, I'm a planner. So I've outlined and planned
everything. So I have a plan for a second
book. I have two different topics in

(17:04):
mind and I it's going to be a shorter, it's probably going to
be a novella. And I want to, I mean, I can't
really put a time limit on it, but I want it to be done, you
know, six months to a year. And then, you know, including
I'm going to have beta readers, but it's not going to be the
full thing I went through with my editor this time.
It's going to be good and it might not be perfect.

(17:27):
Thank you, Michael. It might not be perfect, but I
want to get it out there and I want to do something like you
all are doing. I want to be able to get it out
there and maybe get an audio version.
So I'm excited about that. My question the, the sort of
the, the thing that is a little overwhelming is I'm really in
the groove with what I'm doing now and it's written and it's

(17:50):
fixing and like you said, I don't want to start with a blank
page, but it's more than that. It's the starting over, you know
what I mean? And that's sort of, I wanted to
hear people's opinion, you know,people's how like mentally you
go from like a three-year project and it's done and then

(18:11):
it's like the starting over. That's when I'm a little like,
Oh my God, I'm so damn tired right now.
Are you, are you doing a new world, shall we say?
Is it an entirely separate sub topic world?
World, I guess is the best way. Well, I have.
I have two, yeah, I have two ideas.

(18:32):
One is sort of the same world, which is an offshoot of what I'm
doing right now, which is the power goes out in 25 years and
people don't have power for, youknow, like there's no Internet
for a year or two. And it's not going to be
dystopian. It's really about what it would
like to be, be like to go back to an analog world after we've

(18:53):
had digital. But you know what?
I, I, I'm thinking I have another idea, which is almost, I
don't really write fantasy, see like, like you do, Heidi, kind
of that fantastical world. But I'm thinking I want to do a
fantastical world where there's a, a, a young adult girl who

(19:14):
because of fortune or misfortunebecomes the first female, like
executioner. And it's going to be, and I have
an idea that it's based on then that nursery rhyme Solomon
Grande, born on a Monday, christened on a Tuesday.
This would be Sal Grande with 7 chapters.

(19:34):
Yeah, I'm into it. I say start both of them and see
which one kind of starts to build the fastest.
And I would kind of keep both ofthem in the hopper and work on
them progressively in tandem, atleast for the beginning.
Work on two things at once. Yeah, it's fine.

(19:55):
Do it. Heidi.
Ricky, what do you guys think you know?
Well, oh, I and I still need more coffee.
That's the first thing I'm thinking.
Perhaps second thing I'm thinking is, you know, I mean, I
just, we, we had this discussion, right?

(20:15):
I kind of go where the ghosts, the ghosts kind of tell me what
they want to do. But yeah, if you, if you've got
that idea, you know, that's kindof a wild idea.
I like it. And so I would, I would just go
for it and see what happens. I mean, it'll die if it's not
going to work. That's been my experience.
It'll just sort of fade away. I always find the ideas that

(20:40):
sort of, I mean, Ricky refers toit as the muse.
I, I, I mean, I think of it morelike like being haunted.
And I'm not necessarily in a negative way.
I mean, I, I, I'm not, I don't have a big issue with ghosts.
Like they're scary to me. It's more like, you know, they
have something to tell you. They're they're hanging around

(21:02):
because they got something goingon.
And besides, right, CS Lewis hadthe best slide about that where
he said, you know, we have more to fear from the living than we
do the dead. But my, my feeling is it's like
it'll, it'll just, it's, it's like a nagging sensation and
judge AC I'm going to, I'm goingto shut up so you can talk.

(21:22):
But it's like this nagging sensation.
It's like the idea will stay with you.
And I have a couple of those in that I, you know, there are just
sort of taunting me, but it's like I can only do so much.
So I just sort of when I can't help myself, I write down notes
and the idea just keeps percolating in the back of my

(21:43):
head. So for me, it doesn't feel like
a blank page so much because I all of all the ideas I have are
just ideas that continue to populate my songless world.
They just keep sort of wanting to be in there.
And so I just, it's kind of likeit's a blank page, but it's a a

(22:08):
page in which the world exists. It's just getting bigger.
So that's kind of so it's I don't know.
I mean, I usually, because I'm, I take forever to get everything
done. Evidently all the ideas are sort
of percolating and I have notes.So it's never like a blank page.

(22:30):
It's like I have a bunch of scattered notes and ideas that,
you know, that are just out of order that needs to be, you
know, the chaos needs to be tamed.
So that's more what I'm dealing with when I'm starting something
new. So I don't know, that probably
doesn't help at all. But I like that idea that you
had. And that sounds like that thing

(22:50):
where it's like, you know, the muse or the ghost or the the
haunting, where it's like this is this idea and I can't shake
it. And so it just kind of
percolates and just it needs to come and be.
It needs to exist, that kind of thing.
So Joji, how are you, my friend?Haven't talked to you.
I hope you're feeling better. I'm really embarrassed.

(23:13):
Say I've been in bed for two weeks.
I haven't been able to do anything.
It's so frustrating, but I should be up again very soon.
It wasn't even the same problem.It was two different problems.
I just wanted to address your well, I'll say something about
the topic, but first I wanted toaddress when you said earlier
about when you finish something and you feel it's done and then

(23:36):
it's not. Oh my gosh, that happens to be
on every project. I get to the end and I'm like,
yes, I'm done. And then I send it out to beta
reader or I even just myself, like, you know, take a walk and
look at it the next day and it'snever done.
I don't know why I can't finish things the first time.
The worst time of all was I finished book 5 in my current

(23:59):
Series A few years ago and I sent it off to a couple of beta
readers. And then I drove to Dragon Con,
which is a 10 hour drive. And halfway there I get the
emails back from my my typesetter who loves my book so
much that he's read the first one seven times in the, you
know, and from a friend of mine who's an author.

(24:19):
And they're both like they, theywere polite.
But this sucks. I was so thrown because I was so
sure, you know, but I just decided, OK, I'm driving down to
this convention. It may have been the year that
my husband and I were both up for Dragon Awards against each
other in the same category. And I wanted to be in a good

(24:43):
mood when I got to the convention.
So I was like, I'm just going totake this as good.
I'm going to. I'm just going to not let my ego
get in the way. Like normally you feel bad.
And I just prayed and thought about what they said seriously
for the rest of the drive. And by the time I got there, I
had this whole plan for how to fix it.

(25:04):
I mean, they were entirely right, you know, And I can tell
you, basically, it was too dull.I had left.
It just wasn't enough action. So I, you know, after the
convention, I went home and I wrote two or three more action
scenes. And I remember my types I just
said are saying, oh, yeah, this is good.
He says I wouldn't have ever right reread the other one, but

(25:24):
the new version he liked. So you know, it's just it's
it's, it's painful for us, but you'd think I would learn.
I get to the end. Maybe I shouldn't assume I'm
done, but I haven't learned yet.Well.
You know, yeah, that's that's myexperience too.
And it's like, I've done this and I'm one of those writers who

(25:46):
only needs to do one draft. And, you know, I'm not.
But I mean, you know, what's funny is I was talking it with I
think anyway, maybe it was in here, but I'm and I about
pancers and plotters. And I think Michael, was it you
who said what you do is your first draft is actually your

(26:08):
outline and you have to fill it in and I.
That came from Donald Moss. I think I was the one who said
that. Donald Moss said that he the for
the pancers, that he called themorganic writers.
Their first draft is their outline, and I think he's right.
OK, OK, it was you then. I, I, I don't know, maybe you
both said it. I, you know, I'm, I'm willing to

(26:29):
give credit to anyone and everyone.
The point is that struck me as true because.
And I, I mean, even if I put together an outline, it's like I
have in my head this story that,that I need to get out.
It's kind of like a, it'll be kind of like the house that Jack

(26:51):
built. So which is sort of a ancillary
story to the main song list story saga or whatever you want
to call it. But in my mind, I see it as
like, you know, a simple romance.
But I, I highly doubt that's howit'll play because I don't know

(27:12):
that I'm capable of keeping things particularly simple.
I mean, I'm getting better at it, but still, you know, and so
I feel that. I mean, and I, I mean, it just,
it evolves. And that's, that's why I think
that's why I'm like I jokingly said, you know, I mean,

(27:34):
obviously I'm, I haven't writtenthe thing Jack's house 19 times,
but I've, I've, I've made significant changes where I'm
kind of trying to sort of keep track of where I'm at as I'm
going along. And so it, pardon me, it's it's
like the story hasn't changed per SE, but what has changed is

(28:00):
the depth of explanation, I guess is the best way to put it
right where you're, you're filling it out.
Like when I, I mentioned in the beginning, it's like I had a lot
of flat characters, especially, you know, Robin read a beta
draft, a very early draft. She sort of noted that the
females were really underdeveloped and it was it was

(28:20):
true because and and they're they're going to remain a bit in
the background for this because it's really not about them.
It's like song list. The desert is very female
oriented. This is about Jack, but at the
same time, they were just too flat.
So I mean, these are these are things where it's like you you

(28:42):
sort of pull them out and you sort of pull things out of them
and you're like find out little bits and snippets that that
develop the story. So I mean it's in what process,
right? I'm going to jump in here real
quick on you guys. So I like what you're talking

(29:03):
about. Jaji, I know you've been down
for a couple of weeks, but maybeyou have made progress since our
last workshop session, maybe youhaven't, maybe you have.
Tell us some about that and thenlet's jump off into our
expectations and the goals we have for making progress on the

(29:28):
work that we're doing, whether that is like through the
drafting phase or, you know, theearly kind of start of a new
project. I did want to say on the new
project that there's a saying here at the right household
where we're All authors. Writing is the is courage in the

(29:49):
face of blank paper. But that's what the art of
writing is. It's, it's looking down at the
blank page and not being intimidated.
I really find we were talking, you know, if you're talking
about what they're starting out,I really find getting that first
line down can be the hardest part for starting something new.

(30:09):
And I never seem to want to continue until I have a first.
It's often not the final first line, but if I don't have
something that's kind of summingup where I want to go, I can
find it really hard to get anything done.
So I just wanted to to throw that out there on on the subject
of starting new things. That's my starting new things
experience. Other than that, my only major

(30:32):
breakthrough while I've been laying around is I have 5
villains who were very caused a great deal of trouble and damage
before my book starts. They, they were something that
happened like 25 years earlier and four of them had been

(30:54):
developed. And I don't know where I got
this project now for 10 years. I had someone else started it
and I, I took his ideas and completely put it in a new
background and, and flushed it out.
But I had never had like every attempt I had to make up
something about this villain failed.
But I, I just sitting around doing nothing.

(31:14):
I was listening to my, my slow project of trying to listen to
the Bible. It's been a year, 2 1/2 years I
think, and I've got I finally got to Axe and the character
actually appears in Axe my my Villain and it hadn't occurred
to me until like yesterday to think I could actually use him

(31:34):
in his original form rather thanchanging him so suddenly last
night. A really good idea for what to
do with this villain and how to handle him slowly snapped into
place, which I was really grateful for because while it's
not super significant, he's he'sdead by the time the OR at least
missing by the time the the bookopens.

(31:54):
He's going to have to be developed because the the
history works back into the story.
So I'm very grateful for the ideas and very much hoping that
when I get back to work in a dayor two, that all this sitting
around will pay off and I will suddenly have a lot of really
wonderful ideas. And I'm like 4/5 of the way
through the book I'm writing, I'm really hoping to get to the

(32:15):
end. So that's me.
Thank you very much. Yeah, dig it.
Goals realistically reaching them.
I will do two things right to the ending.
First, if it's fiction and for non fiction, I kind of think of

(32:38):
the beginning as the end, you know, recapping some things or
maybe tossing some things in that didn't find a home
elsewhere. Now, aside from that, I will
target a time, you know, if it'sproject that is a year out, I

(33:00):
don't set a particular date for releasing it, but I'll say like
all right, springtime next year.So that could be anywhere
between March and May, you know?And it's like, OK, I know I want
to put something out in that three month window.
So I'm going to start working backwards from there.

(33:21):
And I'll say, well, where do I need to be from, you know,
having all the design ready to beta readers.
And I'll say, OK, well, when do I need maybe my readable draft
ready by And it might be like end of this year, you know, by
the by the final day of the year, I need a beta readable

(33:45):
draft. And that means that I can then
say, OK, I need this word count.And this is very much kind of
like adjacent to how Ricky schedules out word budgets and
stuff. But it is I'll say that I need

(34:08):
this many words a month. I need this many words a week
and look at it in that way to beable to build up the text so
that I hit all those other deadlines.
And again, like what Jaji was talking about, you know, getting
something down on the page so that I'm not looking at nothing,
even if it's just research and notes and whatever else, you
know, I'll add that stuff in to basically have something there

(34:36):
and to be able to work off of it.
Thoughts on that? What do you guys do?
George, you came up, you got progress report since the last
workshop. I have no progress.
I'm a bad writer. I appreciated what Judgey was
saying. One of the things I always enjoy

(34:58):
is writers I tend almost always find like have their own
definition of writing. Whether it's like Hemingway
talking with bleeding on the page.
And I think her definition is a good one.
Courage in the face of the blankpage.
I'm going to remember that my own definition that I use
because I think everyone writes so, so it's not just the act of

(35:22):
like putting things to paper. I say that writing is the act of
admitting that you're finished and sending it to your
publisher. And everything else I do is just
scribbling and and writing is the only hard part.
And that's what separates, you know, people who are writers
from people who, as I, I'm, I'm a perfectionist.

(35:44):
My definition is designed to overcome my perfectionism where
I just continue on to work forever and have it in my drawer
after five years, like I do withmy current spy novel.
But that's what I'm working with.
So I appreciate which I was sharing.
No other thoughts from anyone ongoals for their writing?

(36:08):
How about well Ricky? Yeah, where are you at?
Well, look man, my method is such where it comes with its own
goals. When I have a muse slash, you
know, generally speaking, there's a world, there's a
character, there's something that has to be expressed.

(36:32):
Normally it's addressing anxietythat I have, something that I'm
upset about or traumatized by. My writing has always been a
source of therapy, and the goal is to create a channel to
express something that is twisted or warped or upsetting

(36:53):
me, and there's several methods I have for taking it beyond
there. Most of my projects arise from
the muse slash like a world or aa main character.
And then I have other methods for going.
But it's as far as goals and stuff.
When you do the three act continuum with word budget, you

(37:17):
know, you basically build in your own goal structure because
the point is you're setting up chapters of the uniform lengths.
Just to recap briefly for peoplewho aren't familiar, if I'm
writing a project, I go, I look at the muse, I do the research,

(37:38):
I get all my my notes in order based on a 123 act of priority
for whatever it is that I'm canvassing.
Normally on YouTube. I'm trying to get data.
Yeah, I had three, three videos,3 documentaries, 3 books,
whatever it is, like, however deep it's got to go.

(37:59):
And then I have a thing where I,I list all that data in a
beginning, middle and end chart.And then I figure based on
looking at that, I figure how long this thing's going to be,
you know, is it, is it a short story?
Is it a flash at 1000? Is it a 4K story, 10K story?

(38:21):
If it's anything more than a 10Kstory, it's is it a novella
3040K or is it a big 100,000 word novel?
And I have a different templatesto capture that stuff.
It goes up to 1,000,000 words because I'm designing more
Wargate at 1,000,000 words. So I drew 10 planets on graph

(38:43):
paper and the first two are heavily outlined.
I mean, the first one's done, second one is, is at the halfway
point. And I haven't started the
outline of the third one. But what I do is I take those
10K and I, I label each 10,000 word block what has to get done

(39:05):
in that 10,000 word block. So that correlates to my map.
They're traveling to the continent of whatever bunker
land, whatever it's called. And how long are they going to
stay there? Is it going to be for the full
10K? Are they going to travel in and
out in 10K? And that establishes a sort of

(39:26):
pay structure for me of my, my word budget, what has to get
done and what amount of words, which is also controlled, you
know, by, by genre. You know, if it's an action
thing, you know, you got to havea lot more world if it's, it's,
you know, a lot more characters,a lot more world.
If it's, if it's not action-packed, if they're

(39:48):
sitting around playing cards andeating beans, it's like they
got, they have to have a lot more to do.
There has to be a lot more goingon.
And that's sort of like regulates that stuff.
But I can I can write 2000 wordsin a day.
If if it's a good day, if it's not a busy day.

(40:11):
Yesterday I wrote a grand. I finished chapter 35, which put
me at 7070 K and my deadlines, my my master goals are like
seasons. Like I want to have this novel
I'm working on. Maybe by midway summer, like I
want to have it done. I don't do like car deadlines

(40:34):
for anything. I just write every chance I get
and I understand People look at the page and they find it
intimidating. I don't find it intimidating.
What I find intimidating is the world breathing, existing,
paying taxes, dealing with humans.
I'd rather look at that blank page on my screen and have to

(40:59):
deal with this being human stuff.
I'm not a big fan of that, so I guess I don't I'm not saying I
haven't heard this before. Like I was born yesterday, like
more calling Orson come in Orson.
Like I I understand that writershave this dilemma.
I just happen to not have it. My outlines are the are

(41:21):
templates. If I'm writing 1000 word story,
there's 1000 words worth of wordbudget.
That's 100 words. 10 times. Each chapter is 200 plot points.
It's 202 hundred word plot points, 10 times.
That makes 2K chapter. There's five of those chapters

(41:43):
in a 10K. There's ten of those 10 KS in a
knob. All that stuff is already
blueprinted out for me so that Idon't have to think about it and
there's plenty of room to designpace to make things different.
Most, most pancers recoil and hara when I talk about these

(42:04):
things. They can't, they don't
understand. They can't understand whatever
it happens to be. This is, with all due respect,
it's a uniform response. Most people are like, oh, I
don't know how I could ever do that.
It's like, well, I'm telling youright now, I could never just
sit down and without any preparation whatsoever like like
Tom Tiernan does and just dealt out hundreds of thousands of

(42:27):
words. I don't understand that that's,
that's, that's an alien concept to me.
I need all those outlines and stuff to quickly sit back.
Like you're getting in the cockpit, you're closing the
Hatch, you're powering up the turbines, you know, all that
stuff. If it's on, if it's there
waiting for me, it's easier for me to just engage, especially on

(42:50):
a, on a busier day. But if I write a little bit like
500 to 1000, if I do a whole chapter, that's great.
Sometimes I'll write a chapter and then I'll go ahead in the
outline and I'll tweak it based on things that happened in the
chapter. And it's just, it's, it's bliss,
man. I follow my bliss.

(43:12):
I don't have problems with maintaining goals because I
don't have goals. I just have a word budget.
Can I write it or can I not? The dream fuels all.
The dream is everything. Get the novel done, get the
series done, get it in France. That's what I'm looking for.

(43:32):
All this other stuff is incidentals, you know?
Anyway, I hope I haven't been rambling.
I hope there's something there. Abuse.
That's good. Yeah, there's, that is why I
wanted you to go into the word budgeting thing because I feel
like it's, it's an inversion of the way that I functioned with

(43:55):
deadlines. You know, they're akin to each
other, though maybe not precisely the same.
That's my thought on it at least.
Yeah, if I had deadlines that would stress me out.
And stress is the enemy of creativity.
So I'm not saying, I mean for some people, look, when I speak,

(44:18):
I speak in my own creative orthodoxy.
So forgive me because I don't know if people know, but I'm
writing a book about writing books.
So I'm getting all the terminology and the philosophy,
the angles and stuff. So when I speak, I'm not
speaking like I invented writing.
I'm not bloody CS Lewis or Tolkien, you know, I'm, I'm

(44:41):
speaking in the sense of this ishow I Orient myself.
So bear that in mind, you know. Where do we want to go next?
We want to consider finding timeto write.
How do you, you know Ricky, you got a a busy schedule and yet

(45:01):
you are prolific, I would, I would say.
Yeah, well, I one thing about methat's a little bit of a cheat
is I'm a bachelor. I don't have like, I, I live
with family and we, you know, weplay board games and have supper
and watch, you know, programmingand we go places, you know,

(45:22):
it's, it's not like I, I'm walled up somewhere in a crawl
space, although that would be fine too, honestly.
Yeah. But look, when it, when it comes
to when it comes to this sort ofthing, finding time is called

(45:42):
every chance I get. Like every single moment that I
could be working on it. When I, when I open my eyes in
the morning, I'm like, oh, maybewe can go get some writing done.
Like it's not. And I work everyone.
I work, I have a job, I am a CADtech.
He sends me AutoCAD jobs, I drawthem and then I send them back

(46:06):
through the e-mail. That's how I make my bread and
butter. But I write every chance I get.
Like last night we were watchingand or whatever it was.
Nice. What did you think?
Did you finish it? No, we're two episodes with two
episodes left, but on Season 2, yeah.
Yeah. Out of all that, out of all that
stuff I like and or pretty much the best.

(46:28):
I like the tales of shows. I'm not really big on this
Disney Star Wars thing though, Igot to be honest.
With you. Yeah, but last night, as soon as
we were done, I was like, well, I got 1000 words to write.
So I went out, banged it out, and then I went out on the front
porch and I, I listened to it. I converted to PDF, but the PDF

(46:49):
and the PDF reader and the PDF reader, I'll listen to a chapter
ahead or two chapters ahead justto see the continuity.
How it all flows, if it's going downhill or if there's something
choppy and I modify off of that so it's every chance I get.
That's my that's my take. All right, we've got a couple of

(47:09):
hands that flew up for finding time to write.
I don't know who raised their hand first.
So, you know, Duke it out. I was actually going to make one
more comment about opening, so maybe I'll go first a previous
topic and then Robin can come inwith the next topic.
I, I just thought that maybe I should mention, I think I've

(47:30):
mentioned on here before, but there's a gentleman named Alan
Wuld, his science fiction writer.
And for many years he would do opening workshops at conventions
and you would come in and sit down and write an opening and he
would ask published writers to appear on the panel.
So I, I volunteered a number of times to be on the panel of

(47:52):
judges and they weren't judges like rating you, but more like,
you know, giving advice and stuff.
When I wrote my writing book, I got him, I wrote up from my
opening chapter his exercise andI got him to proofread it for
me. He was very nice about it.
But basically his exercise was very simple and it went write

(48:17):
100 words in it. You need to mention a person, a
character. It doesn't have to be a human
being, but a character, a location and a hook.
And it's a really useful exercise because by the time you
get 100 words and you've gone tothe trouble of putting in a

(48:40):
particular, you know, character,a location of some kind, so you
have an idea of where it is and some kind of hook.
You actually have something thathas makes it so people want to
keep reading. And people would sometimes take
this this workshop and they would later finish the story.

(49:02):
And I think I may have told the story before my he had a rule
that if you were a published writer and you were sitting in
and you weren't on the panel, you had to do the workshop.
He didn't want to intimidate thenew writers.
So my husband came in one time and they made him do it too.
And yeah. I love the three points you had

(49:23):
and I want you to put that into the comments for us, if you
would. Sure.
In fact, I could probably put a link to my thing.
I'll see if I can figure out howto put them in the three things.
Anyway, really quick, he wrote aopening that started with the
line. It wasn't being dead that I
minded. It was the hours.

(49:44):
And the murdered guy does not like getting up at night and
people are calling him up at night.
Anyway, he finished that story and it went on to get a lot of a
lot of people really liked it. It's called Pale Realms of
Shade. But anyway, that his his his
opening exercise is a great one to do if you're stuck.

(50:06):
OK, let me see. I will see if I can figure out
how to put something in the comments.
And while Robin, go ahead. So you can do it two ways.
You can either go to my timelineand then comment on the tweet
that has the space in it, or youcan click on the bubble on the
bottom right if you are. I don't know if you're on mobile
or if you're on desktop. Either way, it's the little

(50:28):
bubble with the you know the looks like the word bubble
button on the bottom right, Robin.
Oh yeah, I was, I'm was listening to what Ricky was
saying about his process. And, you know, it's, it's just
interesting that everybody writes differently.

(50:50):
Everybody has their own process,you know, whereas Ricky and I
both do outlines very, you know,do a lot of pre work.
Where I differ is I can't have aword deadline because I'm a slow
writer and it would be the pressure would be too much for
me. So the way that I budget words

(51:11):
and time is time I give myself. Usually it's a 3 hour block 3/3
and 1/2 and I write probably I either say well within this
three hours, I I'm going to try to do 30 pages or what, you
know, whatever. But the time works better for

(51:34):
me, you know, as opposed to the word count.
Because again, you know, everybody's different.
And I write probably, I mean maximum 1000 if it's, if it's
like new copy and I'm not editing, I'm usually editing my
own stuff. But for new copy, it's anywhere
from 300 to 1000 words Max within three hours.

(51:58):
So, you know, so it's just interesting how people are
different. You're ripping.
Honestly, you guys, I'm incredibly slow by all of your
standards. You know, maybe I will.
I'll be able to write a novel bythe end of my life.

(52:20):
We'll see how it goes. Other thoughts on finding the
time to write from Heidi? Maybe, maybe you, maybe, maybe
Thomas has thoughts. You know, wherever, wherever.
We have thinkers. Jaji, your hands back up.

(52:42):
You got more thing. Just really quick on the finding
time. When our children were young and
we had very busy lives and we had less time to write, my
husband and I used to do a quotasystem where we and you know,
you can set your quota really low if your life is busy.
But during one period of our life, we set a quota system and

(53:05):
we said if we don't meet the quota, we're not going out on
the weekend. This didn't work because you
make plans with friends and and you family and you can't really
let them down. So we switched to if we don't
make our quota, we can't go out on the next free weekend.
And that actually worked pretty well because we did want to go
do things. We had plans and group

(53:25):
activities, you know, so we would, we would try to hold to
it that, you know, if we have toget X number of words written
that week and if we don't, whatever the next free weekend
going to have to stay home and write it.
It worked, you know, and, but I think a real key is you have to

(53:48):
be both idealistic and realistic.
You want to be idealistic that you want to get this done and
realistic that your life is as busy as it is.
So you need to set the quota reason.
In other words, if you're, if you have time, set your quota
for, you know, 2000 words. If you don't set it for 250
words, you know, but just the fact that you keep plotting

(54:10):
away, I think is the most important thing because sooner
or later you'll find you have that free evening and you get
more done. Or you find out that you can
work things out so that the the someone else will make your kids
on Monday night and that's your one night to write or whatever
it is that you find the time. But putting in the determination

(54:30):
that you want to find it, I think is the number one thing.
And I would say the other side is also, if you run into
something like last summer whereI had to go to China, help my
daughter get married, I just hadto be brave and put writing
aside. It was really hard because it's
one of my main things I do now for years.
But I just was clear that the family needed a bunch of

(54:54):
attention. And, you know, I was very
grateful to jump back into it when that period was over.
But I think it's a it's, it's a balancing act.
You want to commit yourself, youwant to make the effort, you
want your goal to be realistic. And you just need to yourself
when the time comes that it lifehappens sometimes and you have

(55:16):
to skip for a bit. So that's my my personal
recommendation. Yeah, I'm with it.
I feel like it'd be tough to have to put something down for
any major length of time. If you're in the middle of
something now, you know, a wedding, traveling overseas.

(55:39):
It is what it is. Maybe you work on a plane or you
work in the spare minutes just getting ideas out because you
can't really stop ideas, you know what I mean?
They're going to emerge wheneverthey choose.
They're not really on our schedule.
Yeah, I mean, 1 still writes notes. e-mail myself.
Notes are seen as you know. Yeah, no fair, fair approach.

(56:03):
I I, I try to go for a walk every day and I'll listen to an
audio book or I'll be on a spaceor, you know, in conversation or
whatever. But no matter what, whatever I'm
doing if, and I find that time to be very conducive to

(56:25):
thinking. Even if I'm listening to a book
and I'm trying to be immersed init, ideas about other stuff I've
got going on come up and they have to be documented right at
that exact point. You cannot lose that stuff.
And that is, I suppose, in a sense, finding time to write.
Now, over the last, let's say, aweek and a half, I've actually

(56:49):
been kind of nose to the grindstone on writing editorial,
right? Yeah, I'm writing all the time.
But really, I've got like 4 projects that were in different
states that I needed to make progress with, and one I did a

(57:10):
massive overhaul on all my notesand what's already written.
And, you know, it's like, I don't know, 5-6 printed pages
right now, which obviously not alot, but it's going to be kind
of an, an essay thing. Hopefully get it out in
September. And the other was the article,

(57:32):
the writers workshop article that came out today.
You know, had to get that out. I wanted to get it out for the
workshop today. You know, to recap stuff we've
talked about in the past, it's relevant, you know, these things
are are born out of the space. So want to make sure that that's

(57:52):
ready every month when we do this space.
The other two are fiction stuff,you know, and actually one is
fiction stuff and the other one is for the paperback.
I'll put out non fiction this fall.

(58:12):
So, you know, finding the time II had to say like, look, you
know, the audiobook thing, obviously that's that's a must.
That's like top top tier kind ofthing.
Got to make sure I do that stuff, but refocusing on to
editorials so that I can continue with the progress.

(58:34):
You know, that's critical. I don't have a motivation
problem. I have AI don't know a
obligations schedule sort of scenario where it's like if I
don't keep busy with this stuff,then other things that I know
are pending present themselves, you know, in the schedule just

(58:58):
by the nature of like daily life, work requirements, weekly
scheduled releases of media or whatever it is.
Thomas, you got your hand raised.
Yeah, I I wanted to add something to this conversation,

(59:20):
but I was driving, so I pulled over.
So basically, yeah, that's so much I wanted to give enough
Hideous. Safety first.
Yeah, Safety first. No, all I wanted to say about
this was basically we all get. We all get a.

(59:43):
Period of time where we're absolutely enthralled with our
rights and then I'll loving it. And then you come across a
massive milestone in your story and it can completely roughly
fit. Like I just wanted to use an
example with the book that I just finished.
Literally I didn't touch it for a year because I got so

(01:00:04):
frustrated trying to like work out how this game of checkers
would work. How, you know, I was trying to
plan out every move because I didn't want to be scrutinized by
finicky readers basically. And it what I realized was I

(01:00:24):
just wasn't having fun with thatchapter.
And I kind of was a bit like, well, if, if people really want
to read that much into it, then I'm a, you know, it's really a
concern of mine. And I realized it really wasn't
after a while. Just write it the way I want to
write it. Just make it fun for people to
read. And that's how I picked it up in

(01:00:47):
the end. So to me, I think it's more that
you can maintain it as a fun thing that you enjoy doing and
not think of it as a chore because that that's the problem
that I get into half the time. Just the same with reading for
me as well, it's like I have to persuade myself every now and

(01:01:08):
then reading is for fun, you know?
And once I do that, I can just start reading loads instead of
wasting my time doing other stuff.
You know, it's, it's pain for rewarding us, you know, And
there are times where it's really enjoyable and there's
times where you struggle. But yeah, I think basically we

(01:01:32):
just need to try and make sure that we keep it enjoyable for
ourselves and, you know, work out as many ways as possible to
maintain that spirit, really. Yeah, I'm, I'm with, I'm with
Thomas on that. If it's not fun, if we're not
following our bliss. I mean, I know some people write

(01:01:54):
for money and you know, I tried,I had, I did a crack at that
myself and wrote some articles and whatever.
And you could still have fun doing that.
It's just the more it becomes more it becomes deadline and
stuff like that, the more it turns into a job.
And I already have a job. So I try not to.

(01:02:20):
I think he's right. I think Thomas is right.
If it loses, if it loses fun, ifyou're not having fun, then you
start to get anxieties about looking like, in other words, it
like, I'm not looking forward tothis.
I'm dreading it because of XY and Z.
It's the same thing. If you don't get to write your

(01:02:41):
word yield for the day. There's a word budget and
there's a word yield. How many?
You try to align them, synchronize them to make your
yield, your budget. You know, that's how I designed.
So theoretically I could get a huge chat, like a bit like a
decent sized chapter and therefore a good increment done.

(01:03:02):
But you can't look at it like, oh, I didn't write today.
Oh, woe was me. Oh, what am I to do?
You know, it's more like, don't worry about it, you know,
because worrying about it is doubting and doubt is the enemy
of creativity. And your muse is not going to
show a Pretty Little face if youdo, if you, you do it that way.

(01:03:25):
If that's how you, you oriented,you want to, you want her to be
a friend. You want her to, you want to be
friendly with her. You want her to come out
voluntarily. You don't want to have this big
stress party. As soon as she arrives, it's
like she's not going to want to come out.
She's not going to want to contribute.
And I say muse, and I mean muse.Like, I don't know why there's

(01:03:47):
not another version of me and myunconsciousness, a dream.
Like, you know, I'll get a little philosophical.
I'll go off in the weeds here. When you dream and you're in a
body in a dream, like whose bodyis that?
You know, you assume it's yours,but how do you know?
You don't always see yourself ina mirror.

(01:04:09):
You have no idea what's actuallygoing on.
Dream dreams are unconsciousness.
That's where the muse, that's where creativity comes from.
It comes from unconsciousness. The less stress you have, the
more of a conduit you have to that state because you never get
to sleep. If you're stressed out, it's the
same thing. You don't have a Daydream.

(01:04:29):
I mean, sometimes there's a Daydream because you're just
like, I can't stand division of motor vehicle.
I wish to God I didn't have to be here or, or whatever,
wherever else we're going. So sometimes your Daydream is
the desperation. It's like you're breathing,
you're breathing inspiration because you're, you're
suffocating in non inspiration. You know, sometimes it's like

(01:04:52):
that, but I don't know. I hope this makes sense.
I'm with it. I'm keeping up.
Heidi, are you back? Do we have you back?
I saw you typing for a second onDiscord.
I saw you were active. Yeah.
You been? Yeah, I'm here all.
Right, sorry. Are you finding the time to

(01:05:15):
talk? Well, we're talking about
finding the time to write. Maybe you got some ideas?
In regards to what? Finding the time to write.
How do you do? Sure.
How do I find the time to write?Well, I just do that and don't
do other things. I mean, you know, I mean that
it's, it's really just a choice.I mean, you, you, you just

(01:05:37):
decide what you're going to do that day.
I mean, and and you know, some days you're inspired to write.
Some days you have other stuff you have to do.
It depends on part of the process you're in.
If I'm full on writing, if I'm starting, you know, with my
quote UN quote outline slash first draft, then maybe I said a
quota and I usually cap it around 1000 words a day because

(01:06:00):
I find that if I start writing more than that, I'm all sort of
dried up for the next day. You got to leave something in
the tank so you can get going the following day.
So it just depends on which partof the process I'm in.
And, you know, if I'm in the rewrite, sometimes I don't need
to write that day. I need to let things sort of
percolate, figure out what's going to happen.

(01:06:24):
Sometimes it helps to sit and write, sometimes it doesn't.
It really just depends on what'sgoing on.
So I mean, you know, and I mean,everyone's talking about him.
It has to be fun. Yeah, it has to be fun.
But, you know, there's a point at which this actually is work
and you have to work. I mean, that's just what it is,
whether you, I mean, and you know, it's not the most pleasant
part of it, but to, to complete it, it, it has to on some level

(01:06:48):
be work. And I think that should be
considered. It's not all, I mean, you're
not, it is a job. It is something you've, it is a
job you've assigned yourself forone reason or another, because
of a passion, a desire, a need to express yourself in as to be

(01:07:10):
work for it to be of any real quality.
And I'm not saying that you can enjoy that work and you can't
enjoy the final product and all that stuff.
But there are parts where it's just tread.
It can be kind of dread, a little drudgery.
I don't know. I don't, I mean, I, I want it to
be fun all the time and it is fun 90% of the time or, but you

(01:07:32):
know, it's, it's like Edison, right?
It's 90. It's 1% inspiration and 99%
perspiration was his line. And I, I kind of feel that about
it. I'm with it.
Nobody wants to dried up Muse, you know.
Yeah, or a or a street Walker, right?

(01:07:53):
Same thing. Maybe Artisan.
You've come up to the stage. I recall you hanging out in
Ricky's space. I don't remember your name, but
we're talking about starting a new writing project now.
I think you just put out a book.So maybe give us progress on

(01:08:17):
what you're working on. You know, this can go anywhere
that we've talked about. I know you've been hanging out
for a little while, so you're, Iwould assume, generally
familiar. You know, maybe what are you
dialing in on next? You know, what are you
determining to write next? What are your expectations and

(01:08:39):
goals for progress? How do you find time to write
any of those? That is a really, really good
question. I I have to consider that, you
know, my husband and I have beenwriting the books together, Co

(01:09:00):
authoring and the book that we've just published, it's
majority of it is my voice like I'm in the driver's seat.
This next one, it's already in the works.
Everything we've got everything,you know, it's like it's there.

(01:09:21):
And so my husband is the voice, the driver in this seat for this
coming book. And it allows me the time to be
dedicated for bringing this, this book forward.
OK, the marketing, the whole 9 yards.

(01:09:43):
And so I think that working together because he's been
diligently writing. I mean, he's, he's got quite a
bit done. And then once he gets to that
first draft up and then we're going to go through and we'll
critique and do everything we got to do because my voice will

(01:10:06):
also be in there. But I do think, you know, quite
a few people had some really good points because whether you
know the muse, whether you're looking at having fun or whether
you're looking at this as, you know, work, I think it really

(01:10:28):
comes down to dedication in one form or another.
Without beating yourself up likeI would, I could sit down and I
could write straight for like two or three-week period of time
and just bang it out. And then I stop.

(01:10:49):
My process was I would stop, I would walk away for a little bit
and I'd let that percolate. And So what we get to the point
where I would kind of forget what I wrote in there and then
I'd go back and read it for to make sure that the content for
what we were bringing forward was as accurate as could be.

(01:11:11):
Our more information would come through because we're not
writing fancy. We're writing it is a creative,
narrative nonfiction with energy.
And so that was our process. And it's going to be the same
process before him. But I really think that it comes

(01:11:31):
down to that internal dedication, whether you the
dedication is to find joy or thededication is to be every single
day, do so many words or so manypages or whatever that process
is. But I'll be perfectly honest
with you, I am not one that thoroughly enjoys writing.

(01:11:55):
I I never have. If you know, as a kid in some,
you know, said you're going to be, you know, an author, you're
going to author three books or whatever, which I was told I'm
like, oh, site. No, I'm in the wrong line here.
You got the wrong person. It's not going to be me, but I
have a message to say. And so there's, umm, there's

(01:12:18):
that difference of where I find it, that enjoyment or when that
muse comes forward and just kindof like, you know, puts it on
the page. And so I go with the flow.
And I think that when anyone is,is, is writing and is in that
creative mode, whether it be fiction or fantasy or horror or

(01:12:42):
whatever, it's still that part that comes down that when you
sit on at that keyboard or however, whatever your process
is that you just literally take that moment in time and then do
it. So if you only get 5 minutes and

(01:13:04):
you just have to get that idea out, then do so.
And then the next day or two days later, you know, I'm just
saying everybody has their own process and to honor it, you
know. And so like right now, my
husband, I leave him alone. He's he's in the zone and I'll

(01:13:26):
bring him coffee and I just leave him alone.
I field all phone calls, everything.
And right now I'm in that mode of, you know, making those
connections or doing a podcast or, you know, sending out emails

(01:13:47):
for signing books at Barnes and Nobles, doing all of that
footwork. And that is this is dedication.
This is the love, the love of it.
This is the part that I kind of enjoy.
So again, you take what you've got and you build on it.

(01:14:10):
And I think if you just give each of us as writers and
creators recognize and honor your own process truly.
Because no matter how that writing comes forward or how
many edits you have to do, or reformatting something, it's

(01:14:37):
just honor the process. And when you do that, you stop
resisting and then you step intothat flow and things start
moving along. So I hope that makes sense.
Seems rational to me. Everyone should honor their
process for sure. Yeah, I mean, I dig all that

(01:15:01):
with work. I mean, you can call it a
chocolate sundae if you want to.The minute I start calling it
were it's not it's worth. And no, I don't want that.
I don't like to work. I'd lie bald face if I said I
was a discipline person. I don't know what the word
discipline is. I know what obsession is.

(01:15:22):
I know that like I like tacos and pizza.
I don't like to exercise. If it were up to me, I'd write
poetry all day or write my novels all day.
I would have never made a dollarin my life.
The hell with dollars. I'm not a Marxist or whatever,
but I don't if you knew how I was raised, you'd understand why
I'm not. I'm not money first.

(01:15:44):
I'm just not like I want money so that I can write more, so
that I can do less of what I don't want to do, which is work.
So make it discipline. If if you're like what, what?
What Shadowfox said, stick to your guns.
Like, like go with your process,honor your process.
I'm not telling anybody what to do.

(01:16:05):
But it can never be work for me.It'll never be work.
Because if it is, I won't want to do it.
And that's, that's not what writing is.
It's paradoxical. It's, it's, it's about honesty,
you know, but, but if it is discipline for you, good.
Let it be disciplined. For me, it's obsession because
discipline and I, I don't even know what Discipline looks like.

(01:16:27):
If discipline rang my doorbell on a snowy 2:30 in the morning,
I wouldn't let discipline in thehouse.
I have no idea what that is. So teach their own, you know
what I mean? Ricky, I'll tell you, it's like
Patience is. Yeah, I didn't stand in line for
patience. So I hear you on that.
I really do. Yep.

(01:16:50):
Challenges. George mentioned perfectionism
earlier. He's not here.
I would have prompted him about this if he were, you know, what
is that saying perfect is the enemy of done or something like

(01:17:10):
that? I don't know.
I might be misquoting it. Yeah, I'm not a perfectionist.
I don't understand. Perfectionism is like the
inverse of procrastination to me.
I think the the quote is perfectas the enemy of the good.
That. Well, yeah, that's yeah that.

(01:17:32):
Sounds familiar? Yeah, that, that one works as
well. There's I, I feel like the one
you're talking about is the classic saying and the one I'm
done. Yours works better for us.
Well, it's not mine either, that's the thing.
I think it was maybe something Iread from an interview or

(01:17:56):
reflections with or by Mark Zuckerberg, in fact.
So like, that was an early, early commentary on the, you
know, maybe the beginning days of Facebook, which goes hand in
hand with the other phrase, which is move fast and break

(01:18:18):
things so you can't procrastinate.
You can't necessarily be perfect.
Other stuff in the notes too, that Heidi and Ricky have also,
you know, research paralysis. I'm guilty of that one.
That's like a challenge for me. I will sit and dig through

(01:18:42):
obscure texts and stuff like that, wandering around the web
particularly like academic stuff, trying to find little
nooks and crannies of PDFs and publications articles and stuff
like that and and how to use websites.

(01:19:04):
Sometimes these university project sites, they'll be in
other languages and I've had to kind of go between like
translating stuff that's a mess,but you know, it is what it is.
Do you have to do that? No.
Do I want to do that? I guess I do.
I guess I did. I have, though the other side of

(01:19:29):
that is like the information overload.
I don't ever feel like I'm overloaded with information.
I'm happy to do the research. I'm not necessarily paralyzed by
it. But at the same time, eventually
you have to just say, like, I have to actually start doing
this stuff and get it out the door, you know, work on these
things so that there's some tangible progress.

(01:19:53):
And again, for me, because I'm trying to balance some juggling
a handful of projects and I knowthat I want them to be released
by a certain point in time that I don't want there to be, you
know? Massive overlap between that

(01:20:16):
stuff, so I try to balance it out as best as I can.
We lost Heidi, she said. She had to go.
All my connection issues I guess.
I don't know, she's probably busy.
I know that, like, her son's there and the, you know, just

(01:20:39):
having all that stuff going on, it's a lot to juggle.
But it is that way, you know, it'll be all right.
Maybe she'll come back when she's done.
Yeah, that'd be great. Challenges, yeah, I mean.
Yeah, well, when I, when I do research and stuff, I mean, it's
mostly YouTube. If I'm really getting into like
a big project, I'll get a couplebooks on the subject.

(01:21:00):
Like I'll, I'll watch podcasts that are sort of like attending
to what I'm aiming at. And a lot of times there's
office shit being displayed on on those podcasts.
So they'll, they'll throw you a couple books.
It's like, well, you want to know about shamanism, you want
to know about mycology, you wantto know about medieval warfare,
You know, well, just keep reading till you take enough

(01:21:23):
notes to fill your outline. My outlines are fairly
extraneous, I guess, in the views of some people.
But once those things are full, then, you know, if I have to go
back, I go back. But I don't ever get like an
information paralysis as I writeit all in outlines.
And when the muse leaves those outlines, then they go, she goes

(01:21:45):
to another outline and then it'sa question of, well, they're all
outlined. So when I get back to that one
day, then it'll be there. If I have to add more, I will.
If I don't, then I can just start writing.
It's probably hunky Dory, you know.
Yeah, that's the same for me really.
Like I try to keep good notes sothat I can jump into the stuff

(01:22:10):
whenever, wherever, wherever I might be.
And to basically like I've talked about this before, but
like I keep everything in eitherDropbox or in notes so that
regardless of what device I'm onor if I'm out in the world, I

(01:22:31):
can basically like get right back into it.
Or if an idea strikes, you can document it right there.
Obviously, if you are more of a physical writer, if you actually
want to do pen and paper or the,you know, a typewriter or

(01:22:53):
something, I suppose then that'sa little bit tougher.
I think that like you're basically you're locked to those
objects and we, we all usually have our phones on us.
I suppose. So like that just works for me
and that side of things. I, I guess like for me, I'm, I'm

(01:23:16):
very, I'm very conservative on word count.
So like, I'm always trying to build it up more than trying to
remove stuff. I don't typically have like too
many words in general, which is,again, I think part of the issue

(01:23:39):
for me about like getting to novel, you know, doing a novel
in that sense is just like, man,it seems daunting because of the
word counts, but it also becauseof like the story and having
enough threads and in subplots and tying it all together and
everything. I admire everybody that's doing

(01:24:04):
it because it's like out of reach for me presently.
May I ask how fast you type? I type really fast actually.
I just don't say. I don't say a lot comparatively.
Yeah, Well, I, I don't know, man, I'm sure you got it.

(01:24:26):
You know, I'm like, I'm sure youcould do it.
I have based on what I've heard of your writing and what what
you do, I wouldn't be surprised if you could type fast.
It's just about getting to the point of where you have that
conversion rate between what it is that you're writing versus I

(01:24:46):
mean, I don't know, I understandwhere you're, where you're
coming from because it's intimidating.
It's it's like 100,000 words. It's like, when is that going to
get done? I wrote a 57 K book this year
already and I started Dragon 2 and I've, I'm at 70 Ki just, I
just do it. You know, it's just, it's, it's

(01:25:08):
continuous. And that's the thing.
You're very hard working. You're dedicated.
I don't know if you're disciplined, but you're devoted,
dedicated. So I don't know why you couldn't
do it, Michael. I really don't like I, I don't
know. I, I really think you can like I
have. I have very little doubt, you
know. Johnny, go ahead.

(01:25:30):
You got your hand raised. Oh, I was.
Just thinking about the novel versus short form and I thought,
isn't it a little bit like you have two painters and one does
like, you know, a portrait of a flower and the other does a
great landscape. You know, they're both filling
the canvas, you know, and he wouldn't really feel like you

(01:25:52):
had to give way in on an argument about where the
landscapes were better or worse than portraits.
You know, it seems to me that ideas come to us in different
shapes. I, I wish mine were shorter.
You know, mine, even my short stories are super long because
the way my mind solves the problems requires a certain

(01:26:13):
amount of putting things out before you resolve it.
But I don't think that makes it better or worse.
You know, I mean, I, I think if an idea for a novel came to you
that, you know, then you probably could do it.
But I'd also don't think any author ever has to feel that
they should write a novel or that they should have to write
something short. I think it's more a matter of,

(01:26:35):
you know, we, we can be gratefulfor what comes to us.
Yeah, I'm with that. I see.
That's the thing too, like getting getting to 1000 words,
you know, I feel, I feel that milestone getting to 10,000
words. I feel that milestone getting to

(01:26:56):
50,000 words. That's something, you know,
really lofty to me getting to 100,000 words just a million
years in the future. It just seems like Oh my God,
huge. Were you?
Yeah, I remember I was having this discussion.
I don't know if it was on another show or in a Discord,

(01:27:20):
but I told you, as far as I'm concerned, I'm not saying and
who am I, I'm just Ricky. But once you write a 10,000 word
story, to me that's a novel. Doesn't matter.
You're just writing 1010 of those stories.
It just happens to be continuous.
There's all kinds of things thatcan come up that can be

(01:27:44):
distractions because of how theymake us, how they daunt us.
But there's no real, in my opinion, there's no real reason
to focus on that stuff. It's different If you're busy
like Michael, you're busy as hell this year.
I'm not saying you're not. This is not the year for you to
be writing a novel. You got too much on your plate.

(01:28:04):
As it stands, there's no there'sno room.
But then that's how you got to look at a novel.
You got to have enough time. Like, you know, three to six
months is how I do it. Like a season, 2 seasons,
something like that. That's how I think of it.
But I have a unique situation. So maybe that's why I don't

(01:28:28):
speak in absolutes for that reason.
Everybody's life is different, Everybody's creativity flows
differently. So I get it.
But I think you can do it, Michael.
I'm a big believer, you know. Hey, thanks.
You know, maybe at some point I,I feel like it's like any other
project if you just kind of map it out and chip away at it a

(01:28:51):
little bit at a time. I guess I haven't personally, I
haven't arrived on any narrativethat I feel is complex enough to
warrant the format. And that's not to say that I
won't, but fiction is kind of newer for me.
So it's like basically, I like what I'm doing now with like

(01:29:18):
short form stuff, whether that's, you know, 500 words to
6000 words or doing a series of stories that all kind of tie
together. Maybe once I reach the end of
these experiments, then I'll have a more, a more prepared

(01:29:41):
view of how to approach doing a novel to where I can actually
set it up and accomplish it within a reasonable amount of
time to, you know what I mean? Because like 1000 words a day,
Like, I don't know, that just seems unless I'm doing like

(01:30:07):
copywriting 1000 creative words a day is massive to me.
Like you guys, when you say I'm doing 1000 words a day or 2000
words a day, it's just like, Oh my God.
Or like a chapter a day, whatever the the length of that

(01:30:27):
might be is just beyond my scope, presently at least.
Yeah, I get it. I've heard that before.
Yeah, but you help people to actually develop this stuff.

(01:30:49):
Yes. And in the spirit of that, if
you ever, if you ever want to doa show or a workshop or
whatever, I could walk you through what I do and maybe
it'll help, maybe it'll annoy you.
I don't really know my, my advice.
I'm beginning to suspect that the advice I would give is not
always well received by people. I don't think that, I mean,

(01:31:13):
people keep showing up to your spaces to listen to that advice.
So I, I don't agree with that. And obviously, I appreciate the
opportunity. And when, when I'm when I'm
there, you know, we'll consider it for sure, I guess for at
least for today, because I don'twant to sit and speculate on a

(01:31:34):
novel I'm not even ready for yet.
But for the folks hanging out onstage, you know, other ideas
about starting new writing projects, you know, tell us
about what you are looking forward to.
Anything along those lines? Well, if we're talking about

(01:31:57):
looking forward to projects, I'mlooking forward to Dragon Three.
I'm looking forward to the potential of doing a novella,
collaborative novella with someone I know.
Looking forward to Wargate 2. All those projects I've been
working on, I'm stoked. I'm just stoked to get to if I

(01:32:22):
keep going, I'll eventually get there.
I'm not I don't like editing. I don't know if I mentioned
this, I'm not Mr. Editor. Like I'll write it to a zero
draft and I call it a zero draftbecause it's, you know, it's
somewhat flawed. There's no way anybody's going
to write Pulitzer material on the first draft like that.
I don't believe there's all you know, I'm not saying it's not

(01:32:43):
possible. There are geniuses, prodigies,
etcetera. But you know, it's like I, I, I
don't like editing because of certain perceptual impairments I
have. I have neural divergencies that
make editing somewhat challenging because I have to

(01:33:06):
almost read what I'm reading on the screen.
I have to read it out loud in order to keep it focused.
That has no application to composition whatsoever.
None whatsoever. But editing, it's kind of like a
mind game, like I don't like to do it.
Editing feels like work. It's it completes the voice

(01:33:27):
because it's technically the second draft is my edit pass.
When I go through correcting, filling in missing stuff, you
know, most of those notes happenlike while I'm listening to it
on the PDF reader, I'll hear something and I'll go, well,
that sentence would be better this way, or that's clunky and
I'll pass through it. But there's no, there's no joy.

(01:33:49):
There's much less joy, I'll put it to you that way, than writing
a, a fresh chapter, something new, you know?
I'm with you on that too. I kind of do writing and editing
simultaneously in the sense thatI do very non linear writing.

(01:34:11):
You know, maybe I'm at the end, maybe I'm at the middle, maybe
I'm at the beginning, maybe I'm filling in little bits and
pieces. Maybe a new idea came up and I
toss it in into the text wherever I feel like it belongs
at the time. Same thing with like non fiction
stuff where it's like I gather everything up into a document
and then I'll do an editing passon that in print and I'll work

(01:34:36):
through all the text there. And then I'll say like this
really needs to go there. That can be removed, that needs
built out, you know, whatever the note might be.
And then I'll take that and I'llpull it into the digital version
so that I can kind of see and assess things in the new format
that it is because like I'm, youknow, I'm doing that on it.

(01:34:59):
I've been doing that this week on an essay thing that I was
talking about earlier. So it's basically all over the
place to start with and it needed, it needed just a massive
round of editing on those notes so that they were more related

(01:35:21):
to each other in order. And then also there's kind of
like an arc to what's occurring because they were again, just
all over the place. I think that's very much the
same sort of line of thinking oflike outlining for fiction,
which to me is massively helpfulbecause I'm not somebody who

(01:35:43):
sits down and writes from the beginning to the end, which I
think that you probably need to be more that way if you're doing
a novel. I I think that it would be very
difficult to work in the non linear way that I do for a
novel. I'm only speculating because I

(01:36:06):
haven't done it, but that is my sense of that.
Yeah, I write linearly, more or less, but I admire greatly those
who can write non linearly the way you do.
You seek to start the end at thebeginning.
There's certain genres, as I've stated before, the benefit from

(01:36:29):
that method tremendously and as a consequence, I don't think I'm
as confident in those genres. There's always something to
teach, man. There's always something to
learn. You know, that's the thing.
I don't pretend like I invented fire or whatever.
Like I'm always learning. I'm always seeking, you know.

(01:36:51):
Well, hey, I feel like we've hitall the notes.
I mean, do you guys have other thoughts or things you want to
touch on today? You know, this is your time too.
This is this is your space as much as you know, we curated or
cultivated. Thomas, what's up?
Yeah, sorry you've talked a bit since my point, but I just

(01:37:15):
wanted to mention not not undervalue in basically having
multiple projects started together.
Basically, you know, I, I've started 2 separate projects now
and it just means that I got multiple areas to fill my
creativity. So sometimes it can be

(01:37:36):
beneficial to just start something fresh and then go back
to a later, especially if it's up, you know, there are projects
that should probably just die inthe conceptual stage.
But what what I'm trying to say is, you know, if if the idea is
worth pursuing, be a finding that your creative energy is

(01:37:57):
drained and that Ave. there's nothing wrong with pursuing
something new and allowing that new project to flow basically
and Mull over in your brain. Yeah.
I'm into it, Robin. Oh, yeah, I just, I also just

(01:38:17):
wanted to mention something I'm going to be, I have a, a guest
spot on a podcast that's going to drop in a couple of days.
I think some of you know her. It's it's Stephanie Mcnutt's
podcast Paper Cut and Plot Twists, and the episode is about

(01:38:39):
sci-fi and space opera writers. So I'm happy to be a guest there
and I'll post the link. I'll drop the link here on X
when you know when it's available.
Yeah, cool. Very cool.
Yeah. I feel like, you know, obviously
I'm doing podcasts too. I feel like it's it's a great

(01:39:04):
vehicle for going deep in terms of interview or conversation.
Obviously here, this is like more Socratic.
We're all kind of kicking ideas around on a topic.
But like, yeah, happy for you. I'm glad that.
I'm glad that. I'm glad she's bringing you on.

(01:39:25):
Yeah, thanks. It was, it was really fun.
Thanks. It's a recorded, you know, it's
like, yeah, yeah. You guys already recorded it
then? It's, well, it's, I guess you
would call it asynchronous. I recorded it.
I send it to her, the MP. And then you know, what she's
going to say is OK, now let's listen to Robin, who's going to
talk about her influence. You know, what influences her to

(01:39:49):
write? Who are the, the authors that
influence her to write? And then I just, you know, I
followed my 5 minute script. OK, that's kind of a nuts way to
put together a podcast. So she's got like a group of
writers on the episode. You know, I don't know, I've
listened to a few of them, few where I think she has one or two

(01:40:10):
guests. I don't know if I'm the only
guest on this one. And she, you know, she usually
talks the first, you know, 15 minutes and then just say, OK,
let's listen to such and such's opinion on this.
It's actually, you know, I the, it's, it's an interesting, it's
an interesting way to do it and it keeps my interest anyway, so

(01:40:31):
I find it interesting, Yeah. That's yeah, that's kind of
wild. So it's, you know, it's not like
a real time conversation. It's very much Q&A.
That's all right. Right, right.
It works, no complaints there. You know, promotions, promotion.
If people are willing to make the effort and do it, that's
good. Well hey, any closing thoughts?

(01:40:56):
Sentiments. Yeah, obsess.
There's no such thing as perfection.
Obsess. Follow your bliss.
Adaptive matters before creative.
To attain episodic satisfaction,adaptive is I got to do the

(01:41:22):
laundry, I got to go to the store.
I got to take the kids to soccer.
I got to bury a body in the backyard.
You got to take care of that stuff before you start riding,
folks. Otherwise you're going to be
distracted. You won't get episodic
satisfaction. That's every day when I write, I
feel that completion. I could earn money all day.

(01:41:44):
I could do all kinds of cool stuff.
I could read, listen to music. When I write that chapter,
that's when the dopamine hits. That's when I feel as if I'm
actually alive. Otherwise, maybe.
And maybe when I'm eating tacos,you know?
But like, otherwise, there's nota lot going on.
So yeah, don't take it so seriously.

(01:42:06):
Have fun, have a blast. That's probably my closing
statements. And reasonable?
How about for the other folks hanging out?
Any last things to add in that maybe didn't find a home
elsewhere in the conversation? No.

(01:42:29):
All right. Well, hey, hopefully the
discussion on starting a new project has been useful.
And you know, I like the workshops because I feel like I
get to hear everything you guys are doing, not just the thematic

(01:42:50):
material, but actually catch up on the progress.
That, to me, is important. Thank you so much.
Hey, no problem. Well, you know, enjoy the rest
of your day and we will talk again before too long.