My Favorite Writing Podcasts

Several of the podcast I listen to (and I listen to a LOT) have said that if their listeners (like me) want to offer support they should blog about them. While I have also donated financially in the past to some of my favorite podcasts too, it isn't something I can do regularly, and certainly not as much as I know these people deserve. So, bogging it is then!

I'm going to break my favorite podcasts into categories. Today is writing podcasts. After about a year and a half of podcast listening, these are the ones that have continued to earn their spot in my over-filled ipod. These are mainly fiction writing podcasts, by the way.

I Should Be Writing - Mur Lafferty talks about her own writing journey, interviews professional authors, and answers listener questions. She is very frank, open, but still encouraging. I like that she doen't attempt to be perfect, but will talk about trying to write while sick, or discouraged, and other parts of the process that may suck. But her message is always: you get through it, and you keep writing.

Writing Excuses - By Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler. These are all professional writers who discuss an aspect of the craft of writing each episode. Sometimes they have guests, but often it's just the three of them. The topics they cover are very focused, and often something I didn't even know I didn't know. If you know what I mean. They are also nice short podcasts, usually under 20 min each.

Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing - Pretty much what the title says, although they talk to a lot of fantasy authors too. They have some really terrific interviews, and news of what's going on in publishing.

The Writing Show - I just learned that this podcast is scaling way back on what they are putting out, but the back episodes are still really worth listening to. They cover all kinds of writing topics, and the guests are so enthusiastic, I even enjoyed episodes that were on topics I didn't think I had any interest in, like memoir, comics, and screenwriting.

Pen On Fire - Another author interview podcast. Some talk about the craft of writing, some talk more about their books, but all are fun to listen too. My complaint about this one is that it makes me want to read every book they talk about, and I already have more to read than I have time for!

Dead Robot Society - A group of aspiring writers discuss the craft and business of writing and trying to break in. They are also mainly Sci-Fi/Fantasy writers. I occasionally disagree with some of their advice, but they often disagree with one another as well. They can have some interesting discussions and it's a nice reminder that different writers will have different ways of approaching their writing. They can wander off topic, and get a little silly, but that's fun to listen to too.

Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing - Again, this one is what it says. These are super short, usually about 5 to 7 min long. Some strange grammar rules are explained very clearly.

If you have a favorite writing podcast that I didn't mention, leave it in the comments section. If it isn't one I've already heard, I'll add it to my feed!

The Twelve Days of Crochet

With a little less than 2 weeks until Christmas, I got it into my head to make some Amigurumi dolls for my kids. By some, I mean 4. I don't know why I thought this was a good idea, or that I'd be able to do it in the time I had available (which was late at night so they didn't see me working). But I did. Maybe it was to fight some of the icky feeling I get when I spend too much time in malls and superstores. Maybe it was left over NaNoWriMo, I-can-do-anything feelings, Maybe it was just getting home from the hospital with my kiddo that had her appendix out and feeling all maternal and protective. Making cute things from yarn helps with those types of feeling, you know.

So, anyway, I didn't finish in time. In fact, I'm still not finished, but the last one is almost done. For my oldest, I made a Pokemon with a poke ball. For the younger kiddo, I wanted a Scooby Doo, but could only find a knitting pattern, so I went with Little Red Riding Hood and wolf instead.

For the Mew Pokemon and poke ball amigurumi, I found both patterns at the WolfDreamer: Off the Hook blog. She has a ton of free Pokemon amigurumi patterns as well as some Mario Brothers ones and other cute characters. She also has a WolfDreamer Zibbet shop.

The wolf I found at the Lion Yarn website. They have some free patterns too, but you have to sign up for a free account to get access to them. Yes, I know he doesn't look exactly like a wolf. Something went wrong with the ears I think. So far, most people think he's an aardvark or a mouse. Some see him as a sort of generic quadruped and one could argue convincingly that he is any number of little creatures. Even so, I still think he's cute, darn it! And I believe when he is standing next to a Little red Riding Hood doll, it will be clear he is a wolf. It's all about the context.

I broke down a bought a pattern for Little Red Riding Hood, since the free ones I found weren't quite what I was looking for. That's the one I don't have finished yet, although she is coming along nicely and I'll post my finished doll here when I get done. (Which, if my wrist holds out will be very soon.) To see what she will hopefully look like, the pattern is here.

Hope everyone had a great holiday, and is ready for 2011 to get here.

Go make something!

I Did It At Last!

*play 'Chariots of Fire' here*

After 3 years of NaNoWriMo failure, this year I hit the 50,000 word mark.

*applause*

Thank you, thank you.

My novel isn't quite done, but it's getting close to a climax I think. It is also really awful, but that's okay. I had no plan when I began except for a general idea of a very unstructured plot. I didn't have any characters ahead of time. The first 20k or so words are mostly me learning who my characters are. It isn't riveting reading. They spend a lot of time wandering around the space ship thinking stuff. But that's what it took for me to know enough about them to stat making stuff happen. Now that exciting stuff is happening, NaNoWriMo is over. I'm not stopping though. I probably won't keep up the pace I have been, because - well- it's really hard, and I'm really sleepy, but I'm going to do my best to keep working on it every day until it's done.

I've really written so much more this month than I thought I was capable of. I started on Nov 1st planing to lose again this year. I don't know where my attitude shifted, but I'm so happy it did. I think some credit should go to my friend Amanda. She signed up for NaNoWriMo this year too, and her encouragement and the cometition of having someone to keep up with was a very helpful motivational boost, especially in the beginning when I still thought it was going to be impossible.

So to all the other NaNoWriMo winners out there - a big high five to you! And to any who didn't hit 50k this year, a high five to you too for trying, and for writing whatever you did. It's still more than most people do. Yea for us!

I'm A guest with LK Hunsaker Thoughts and Sketches

LK Hunsaker invited me to write a guest post for her blog Thoughts and Sketches. She's doing a series of guest posts on the subject of NaNoWriMo. At first I didn't think I had anything worthwhile to add to a discussion of NaNo. I've failed every year I tried it after all. But as I thought about those failing years, and the fact that, even so, here I was, back at it again, I began to see that I actually did have an opinion or two on the subject.

So a big "Thank You" to LK for the push to do some deep thinking about my NaNo journey. Also, she's a terrific author. I've enjoyed every book I've read from her, and am reading Off the Moon right now. I highly encourage you to poke around her website and pick up one of her published novels if you get the chance.

Kara's NaNoWRiMo guest blog post.

NaNoWriMo Widget

Just wanted an excuse to use one of the widgets. Plus, I just love the word 'widget'.




P.S. to my writer friends: they have word war widgets too if you're game.

Learning to Ride: No pedals required

Image: graur codrin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I guess this isn't a new idea, but I'd never heard about it before. Learning to ride a bike without any pedals on it. Frankly, it sounded like a stupid idea to me when I first heard about it, but now I'm a believer.

My brother in law thought this would be a great way to teach my oldest daughter to ride a bike. I'd had no luck getting her to try learning at all, she was pretty fearful about the whole thing, so I said, "Why not?" Now in an amazingly short amount of time, she is riding all over the place, with pedals now - no training wheels ever.

The concept is that learning to ride a bike with no pedals separates the steering and balancing part of the learning process from the peddling part. Training wheels do that too, but they teach balancing last, whereas a bike with no wheels teaches peddling last. I learned to ride with training wheels, and I remember how terrified I was at the idea of those trainers coming off. I think that peddling is nothing compared to the difficulty of learning to balance. After watching my daughter learn to ride this way, I wonder why anyone tries to learn to peddle before they can balance.

An important key I should mention is that when her bike had no pedals, her seat was low, so she could easily stop herself by putting her feet down, and she had good brakes. So she'd scoot around on this thing, looking kinda silly, but when she came to a little downhill area, she'd coast, and keep her feet up. Just a second at first, but gradually longer and longer (actually not all that gradually, she extended her coasting time with feet up quite a bit in a matter of days) until she could turn, and stay balanced the whole time.

So when her uncle put the pedals back on, now she didn't need a downhill to ride anymore. She had power to go uphill too if she wanted. And that's all there was to it. She was riding. What I noticed was that when she came to an uphill that forced her to go slowly, and she began to wobble - this is the part where I distinctly remember panicking as a child learning to ride, and I'd stop to put my feet down from fear of falling over - but she didn't. She wasn't concerned at all. She knew how to stay up just fine. She even knew, on her own from her coasting practice, that all she needed was to get up a little more speed to make the balancing even easier. It was so cool to watch.

This kid is quite a little creature of habit, and I'm so thankful that we will never have to break her from relying on training wheels. I fought tooth and nail to keep mine when I was learning, and I'm thrilled not to have to live that again from the other side.

I was looking for a link about this concept to include (I decided it wasn't necessary - just google for info if you want to know more), and was surprised to find a bunch of places selling special bikes with no pedals on them for this purpose. So in case anyone doesn't know it - you can take the pedals off a regular bike. No need to buy a special 'balance training' bike or anything like that. But I highly recommend this method!

Health Check In

So I promised to check in with a little accountability on my quest for better health.

Our scale broke during our move, so I can't comment about any weight loss (but if I had to put money on it, I'd say there isn't any loss to comment on anyway). I confess my eating habits have been pretty awful. I'm still juggling too many activities, especially too many that happen around dinner time, so I'm frequently not home to cook real food. That should be changing in the coming weeks, but I know if could put more effort into being more prepared too. It's just exhausting. That's my only excuse.

On the exercising front, things are in better shape (pun intended.) My oldest daughter and I have begun the couch to 5 k program. We just ran day 4 today. This is the second time into the program for me, and I'm excited to be doing it again. I have never been an athletic person, so running 3 miles straight was such a huge accomplishment for me. I am SO looking forward to that feeling again. We may go slower in the program than I did before. My kiddo is still little, and I want this to be fun for her, and I don't want to push too fast. My youngest even ran the first day with us, but I knew she couldn't keep going beyond that. As tough as she is, that's a ton of work for those tiny little legs. But thanks to the wonders of Craigslist, I got a used running stroller for super cheap. It was only partly for her. Mainly it was a way to keep me from having excuse to skip a running day. No need wait around until someone else is free to stay home with her.

So the goals for the coming month are to keep on schedule with our runs, and to fit in more home cooking. Wish me luck!

Syzygy the Novel

Syzygy (pronounced sizz-uh-gee) the novel by the charming Amanda Borenstadt is published and available for download at Smashwords, or for the Kindle at Amazon. It would probably fall in the category now called, 'urban fantasy' but it has strong romance elements too.

From Amanda: It's the story of Finn Wilde, a super strong mobster who can leap tall buildings as well as hack computer networks, falls in love with Bea Jones, the girl he's sent to kidnap. She's immune to the virus that infects Finn's race, therefore her blood holds the key to the antiserum which can cure him of the bloodthirsty madness that overtakes him for twelve hours each month.

The story is told by a patient at a mental hospital. His narration is sometimes dark and sometimes humorous. Little by little we learn clues about his identity as he grows closer to the widow he befriends in the hospital.

Amanda was kind enough to do a little blog interview for me to tell us a little about her book and her writing in general. She also has created some other fun projects online that go along with the Syzygy novel.

I highly recommend checking out this novel. A mere $1.99 will get you many hours of entertainment that you will not regret one bit. Amanda also has a short story up at Smashwords for free if you've never tried an e-book before and want to see how the whole process works first. I'm fairly new to the e-book experience myself, so it was great to download and read these. Now I feel like a pro.

Now, onto the interview!

How long have you been writing? Both in general, and how long did you
work on Syzygy?

Well, I wrote my first story when I was in sixth grade and decided to be a writer. Then, in seventh grade I realized I would never be as good as Ray Bradbury and gave up the dream.

Cut to a giga-billion years later- An artist friend of mine read our kids a book by Peter Reynolds called *Ish* which basically gave the message that things you draw don't have to look exactly like they really are. It's tree-ish. Car-ish. Etc. So, I grew the courage to start drawing.

I drew little comics of my teenage daughter going on adventures with Sirius Black and Doctor Who and other little cartoons. My stories got more complicated than I could draw, so I started writing full-blown fan fiction. My husband challenged me to write something I could legitimately publish for money. So, I started searching for my novel. I found it on a BART train on the way to San Francisco in 2007.

I saw this scruffy guy standing by the train door looking all moody and slouchy. I thought, "He sure is trying to look tough." Then I thought, "What if he really is tough and has good reason to be moody? What if he has a fantastic back-story?" So, Finn was born.

Did you have the story planned out ahead of time, or did it evolve as you wrote?

For sure it evolved as I wrote. The narration completely changed. Ugh! I don't want to give away any spoilers, but just know that the whole mental hospital part was not in the original plan. And I didn't even know how it was going to end until I was well into the project.

When I learned the end of the story, I went back and changed how I narrated and added the mental hospital scenes. Then the patient had to go through the whole novel with me and infuse his voice into the narration. It's there, very subtly at first and grows as time goes on.

I definably saw little bits of your personality in the book, like your fun, quirky sense of humor, but not focused in one character. Do you identify with any one character more? Or does one feel more similar to your own personality?

Thanks. I love quirky! No, I don't think I identify with any particular character personality-wise. I can identify with Lucas because he's trying so hard to protect and guide the young people. But our personalities are very different. He's wiser, has more patience, and is a lot braver than I am. He's also perhaps the least quirky of the bunch. Some of his phrases came from my husband's mouth. Like when he answers "Yes," to Bea's question, which wasn't a "yes" or "no" question. My husband can be maddening like that.

Did you intentionally avoid creating a character that shared too much of your personality?

No, I didn't intentionally avoid creating a character with my personality. What a fascinating question. I guess I felt I was behind the camera while writing rather than in front of it. I incorporated bits of people I know and situations I saw. Even the characters who began loosely based on a person didn't stay that way. They grew their own uniqueness.

Do you have plans for a sequel, or for any other stories featuring the same characters? (Hint, hint - I think Uncle Lucas has some fun stories to tell.)

Yes, he sure would. And Collin too! I have a vision of a sequel in that I know what happens to every character, but I don't know if I'll write it. We'll see if the world demands a Syzygy Two. Then, maybe a Syzygy III in 3D.

I've written a handful of short stories set before the time of the novel. You can see one on my blog. Those characters just won't leave me be. Hey, if it gets popular maybe people will write Syzygy fan fiction.

Can you tell us about any other writing projects you're working on now?

Besides the occasional short story, I'm working on a zombie-apocalypse novel, because, as you know, the world is short of those. It's a romance called, *The Last Guy on Earth Who's Not a Zombie*. And my niece, Jasmine, and I may collaborate on a graphic novel called *Twelve Keys*, set in a California transformed by mysterious forces that bring modern day, the gold-mining era, and the magical realm together. This is the same niece who created the cover and promotional artwork for Syzygy. We'll see how it goes. We've never published anything like this before. I downloaded the guidelines from Dark Horse Comics, so I figure we're experts, right?

I've heard all kinds of opinions about traditional publishing vs. e-publishing, and it seems like something that will continue to change for awhile. How has the process of publishing an e-book been for you? Now that you've gone through it, would you do it the same way if you had it to do over?

No, I would run the other direction and slam headlong into the nearest wall. I'm kidding. Smashwords- well, Mark Coker at Smashwords, made it as painless as possible. I ran into snags because of technical stuff, but really, it's not very difficult and I'm a technical idiot. There is a lot of waiting involved- waiting for files to upload and be distributed, but I guess that's the case in regular publishing too.

I'm just grateful that Smashwords and Amazon make it so easy to epublish. Some go a more tech-savvy route and create actual apps for Apple and all of that, but I am happy with the shortcut way.

I love your YouTube channel for Finn. The search especially is so well tied into the Syzygy novel. It may be more fun for those who have already read the book than a promotional tool though. Can you tell us a little about how you came to make these fun videos?

Oh, the Search Stories? Yeah, they are fun. I stumbled on one somebody had done for Ron Weasley preparing for going off to Hogwarts and it was hecka funny. I saw at the end that YouTube had a program where you can simply plug in your search and pick music. It creates the video for you.

My character, Finn, does in fact conduct on-line searches to find Bea, so naturally I had to make a Search Story for him. The one I did for Sam was just a whim. I included some details from the novel as well as some things I knew about him that never made it into the book.

Aside from Sygyzy, where can folks read more of your work?

I have a cute werewolf story at "Lightning Flash Magazine," a vampire story at "Shadowcast Audio Anthology," and there's a freebie urban fantasy on my Smashwords page. For the full list of my stories with links you can go to the sidebar of my blog http://afortnightofmustard.blogspot.com/

Thanks so much for giving us this great interview!

Thank you. This has been so much fun! Interview me any time. :)