Podcast appearances and mentions of George R Martin

Welcome back to the show ! Exploring the world of Tiny Desk performances (3:02) Diving into Books: Rick Rubin & George R Martin (6:52) Disappoint In M. Night Shyamalans Movie "Trap" (16:40) New Captain America Trailer with Anthony Mackey (27:55) Anticipating a New Drake Album (53:22) Dreamcon 2025 with RDC (1:08: 24) Impressive USA basketball Gold Medal game (1:14:19 & more)

#RingRust with my musicular #AEWdynasty natterings... then I wish a #HappyBirthday to a Toronto Hip Hop Artist's daughter & inspiration, in this week's #3WayDanceOff! #TagMeIn  ~ ~ ~ I'd like to hear from you! Please drop me a line @ ring-rust@hotmail.com {Subject Line: Ring Rust} & let me know what you like {or dislike} about my show! I'm always on the lookout for constructive criticism {if you want playlists again, start giving me feedback, people!}  ~ ~ ~ Check out my #Unboxing videos, all that snazzy anti-social media & support all my shows http://markjabroni.mysite.com/ ~ ~ ~ RECORDED LIVE @ CHMR-FM Studios in Sunny St. John's NL! Learn more @ https://www.chmr.ca/ If you want to contribute to Betty Cisneros' Stage 4 Cancer treatment, please donate @ https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-betty-battle-her-cancer-away SHOW NOTES... 0:05:53 Pre-Per-View: All Elite Wrestling's Dynasty 1 0:07:03 Musicular Interlude 1 0:16:02 Pre-Per-View: All Elite Wrestling's Dynasty 2 0:16:42 Musicular Interlude 2 0:26:39 Pre-Per-View: All Elite Wrestling's Dynasty 3 0:27:28 Musicular Interlude 3 0:38:36 Pre-Per-View: All Elite Wrestling's Dynasty 4 0:39:29 Musicular Interlude 4 0:46:51 Pre-Per-View: All Elite Wrestling's Dynasty 5 0:47:41 Musicular Interlude 5 0:53:09 Assuming the Intermissionary Position -= EXPLICIT =- 0:57:58 This Week's Macho Fact 1:09:40 Pre-Per-View: All Elite Wrestling's Dynasty 6 1:10:38 Musicular Interlude 6 1:18:20 Pre-Per-View: All Elite Wrestling's Dynasty 7 1:19:12 Musicular Interlude 7 1:29:31 This Week's 3-Way Dance-Off: Happy Birthday, Melina! 1:38:07 Battle Royale With Cheese: Finish That Story, George R. Martin! 1:40:08 Musicular Interlude 8 1:48:33 Battle Royale With Cheese: a Vague Promise of Drama, Disguised As "News"! 1:50:03 Musicular Interlude 9

Inspiré des romans de George R. Martin, Game of Thrones nous plonge dans l'univers fascinant de Westeros, un continent déchiré par les guerres, les trahisons et les luttes pour le pouvoir. Mais derrière la puissance narrative de Game of Thrones, le spectateur attentif n'aura pas manqué d'entrevoir la dimension philosophique de la série, qui explore de manière subtile les thèmes de l'ambition, de l'identité, de l'amour et de la filiation. Dans cet épisode, nous allons faire l'analyse de sept personnages de Game of Thrones. Sept personnages qui, chacun à leur manière, incarnent un idéal et une éthique philosophiques. Vous pouvez me soutenir : ★En devenant contributeur sur Patreon : https://www.patreon.com/leprecepteurpodcast Vous pourrez ainsi accéder au podcast sans pub et en avant-première et surtout à mon contenu inédit ! ★Ou en faisant un don ponctuel sur PayPal : http://paypal.me/leprecepteurpodcast Pensez à laisser une note et un avis sur la plateforme de podcast où vous m'écoutez. Cela prend quelques secondes, et c'est un geste très utile pour le référencement du podcast ! Et bien sûr, continuez à partager les émissions que vous préférez sur vos réseaux sociaux. Le Précepteur Podcast a été créé pour vous et continuera d'exister grâce à vous. (Pour toute demande : leprecepteurpodcast@gmail.com)

In this podcast episode of "Unlocking Your World of Creativity," host Mark Stinson interviews Adam Alter, the author of the book "The Anatomy of a Breakthrough." The episode explores the concept of getting unstuck creatively and provides strategies to overcome creative blockages. Alter's book is well-researched and practical, focusing on four steps to getting unstuck: help, heart, head, and habit.Adam's Website The first section, "Help," aims to demystify the experience of being stuck and emphasizes that it is a universal phenomenon. The subsequent sections provide strategies for addressing the emotional consequences of feeling stuck (heart), using cognitive strategies to get unstuck (head), and taking action to overcome stuckness (habit).Alter highlights the experiences of well-known individuals like Harper Lee and George R. Martin, demonstrating that even highly successful and talented people face creative blockages. The discussion emphasizes the importance of understanding that being stuck is a common experience and that there are ways to overcome it.The podcast also explores the concept of "lifequakes," major life-altering events that can contribute to feeling stuck. Alter references the work of Bruce Feiler, who emphasizes the universality of these changes and the need to navigate them effectively.The episode further delves into the idea that creativity often involves recombination rather than radical originality. It highlights examples like Bob Dylan, who combined elements from different musical genres to create something new. Additionally, the benefits of crowdsourcing and diverse perspectives in overcoming creative blockages are discussed.The final section of Alter's book, "Habit," emphasizes the need to break free from old ideas and explore new approaches to getting unstuck. The podcast concludes by highlighting the extensive list of techniques provided in the book, offering listeners numerous ways to overcome creative blockages.Key Quotes from Adam Alter:- "A lot of us don't fully understand what it is to be stuck. We seem to be blindsided by stuckness and by change... That first section is designed to demystify what it is to be stuck, to explain it, and to tell people that it's gonna happen, so they should be ready for it." - "The best ideas, even if they look like they're radically new, are actually a combination of two or three or more things that existed before. The genius is in the new combination."- "You want people, specialists, from all sorts of different areas so that they all bring their own lens to the problem." - Adam Alter@adamleealter on Twitter Adam's Facebook page Adam Alter is a professor of marketing, and the Stansky Teaching Excellence Faculty Fellow at New York University's Stern School of Business. He also holds an affiliated professorship in social psychology at NYU's psychology department. In 2020 he was voted professor of the year by the faculty and student body at NYU's Stern School of Business, and was among the Poets and Quants 40 Best Professors Under 40 in 2017. Alter is the New York Times bestselling author of two books: Drunk Tank Pink and Irresistible. Copyright 2023 Mark Stinson

Last time we spoke the Qing dynasty was looking dreadful. More and more peoples were flocking to the Taiping, as the European forces were humiliating the Qing government. Yet the more independent figure of Zeng Guofan and his Xiang army was making headway with its siege of Anqing, so much so it forced the shield king to depart from Nanjing to meet the enemy on the field. The foreign community had not completely lost its faith in the Taiping and sent envoys to see what relations could be made. Then the grand pincer attack of the Taiping kings failed horribly and they were unable to stop the Xiang army from capturing Anqing. Nanjing was now threatened yet again and it seemed no headway was being made with the foreigners to earn their support. Can the Taiping come back from such defeats? #32 This episode is The Taiping Rebellion part 9: Li Hongzhang and the Anhui Army   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. On August 22nd of 1861, Emperor Xianfeng died at the age of 30. The probable cause of his death was tuberculosis, but many romanticize it as him dying of shame and disgrace, never returning to Beijing. I think his rampant abuse of opium may have contributed also. Zeng Guofan received the news on September 14th and had this to write “Heaven has collapsed, the earth is split open. My emperor, from the time he came to the throne until today, over the course of twelve years, never knew a day when he wasn't consumed by worry over our dangers. Now Anqing is finally conquered, and the longhairs have begun to weaken. It looks as if the war has reached a turning point. But my emperor did not live long enough to hear the report of victory, so his dejection and melancholy will follow him into eternity. What a terrible agony that is for me, and for all of his ministers.” Xianfeng had died after just 11 years of rule and to make matters worse, the throne was supposed to go from father to son, but Xianfeng was notably infertile. In spite of spending almost his entire time with a harem of 18 concubines and wives for years, Xianfeng had managed to only father one son. This son in 1861 was 5 years of age. Hong Rengan began to preach and boast about the situation. “Xianfeng left behind a little demon who is several years old and will find it difficult to continue the demon rule. This is precisely the time for us to seize the opportunity to uphold Heaven, and render ourselves not unworthy in our role as heroes of the world.” Confidence in the dynasty was crumbling, many of the elites within Beijing began to compare the previous Qing emperors' reigns to the current situation. Yet while many of these elites lamented about how the dynasty was in decay, none offered any remedy to the situation, much like our politicians today ahah.    As much as Beijing was in disarray, the Taiping were in no position to march upon it, afterall they had just lost Anqing. However the death of Xianfeng reinfigerated the Taiping nonetheless. Chen Yucheng and the remnants of his battered army were cut off in northern Anhui while Li Xiucheng was marching east into Zhejiang province. Zhejiang at this time held around 26 million people and Li Xiucheng planned to conquer the province and gain further independence from Hong Rengan. Hong Rengan did not want Zhejiang province, well at least not at this time, what he wanted was for the Taiping to consolidate and take back Anqing. Control over the Yangtze region was the key to his strategy of consolidating a southern empire and for that Anqing was a major component. He began to beg Li Xiucheng sending letters from Nanjing to turn his army back around to smash Zeng Guofan. “the Yangtze has been described as a serpent, with its head at Hubei, its body in Anhui, and its tail in Jiangnan. We don't have Hubei, and if we let go of Anhui as well, the serpent will be sundered, and the tail won't survive for long on its own.” To all of this Li Xiucheng simply replied that Anqing was a hopeless cause and that he would not leave Zhejiang. Hong Rengan was livid, but what could he really do. Now the way Hong Rengan described the Yangtze as a serpent, was something Zeng Guofan also ascribed to. Both men understood the enormous advantage Wuchang and Anqing presented; they both controlled vast regions of agriculture. But along the eastern coast, particularly the port cities held enormous wealth and this is what attracted Li Xiucheng to Zhejiang. As a result of him taking forces into Zhejiang, now the overall momentum of the Taiping strategy skewed to the east.   Hong Rengan had changed after his military disaster at Tongcheng. He was more bitter, angry that the foreigners would not support their cause. And the second he had left Nanjing, the Hong brothers had done everything they could to belittle him. One major thing they did was take away the need for Hong Rengans seal to forward information to the Heavenly Kings, thus taking the mediator monopoly from him. This also came at a time Hong Xiuquan's son was older and sitting in on important meetings, learning the ropes. The Heavenly son was gradually becoming more important than Hong Rengan, he was no longer the undisputed second in command of the movement. Despite this, Hong Rengan still remained in charge of foreign relations and much of the administration of Nanjing. While Hong Rengan was out of Nanjing, a ton of setbacks had occurred. The worst were the demands imposed upon the Taiping by Admiral Hope and Parkes, that the Taiping must stay at least 30 miles away from Shanghai and other treaty ports such as Hankou and Wuchang.   The new 5 year old heir to the Qing dynasty was the son of one of Xiangfeng's concubines, a pretty Manchu woman named Yehonala. She gave birth to the boy at the age of 20 and since he was the sole male this made her status rise as she was the mother of a soon reigning emperor, a rank that compared to that of being the wife of the emperor. Her title became known as Empress Dowager, and she is quite infamous in modern Chinese history, her name since becoming the Empress Dowager became Cixi. She is often compared to Queen Victoria, as both would be the most powerful women of the 19th century. When Xianfeng died, he issued an edict naming his 8 closest Manchu advisers as regents for his son. Traditionally when a new emperor was too young to rule, power was entrusted to regents or family members until the emperor became old enough. With the boy being 5 years of age, the regents could expect to rule over the empire for at least a decade, not a bad gig. Many of these regents hated the Europeans and dreamed of breaking the treaties. Yet Prince Gong, who many thought was too soft on the foreigners, sought a plan to appease the foreigners by creating a office of foreign affairs, so that in the meantime all the strength of the Qing empire could be brought down upon the Taiping.   Now the only check to the powers of the new regents was the pair of Empress Dowagers, Cixi and the Xianfengs widow . Before his death he had given them each an imperial seal. While all edict would be composed by the regents, the Dowager empresses would hold veto powers using their seals. The widow proved compliant to the regents from the offset, but Cixi did not follow the regents without question. She began to assert her independence and threatened to withhold approval for some of the regents' policy decisions, creating a tension between the 8 male regents and the mother of the emperor. The tensions came to a head in late October when Xianfeng's remains were finally brought back to Beijing. In the grand funeral procession, 124 bearers carried the dead Emperor and at their head was Sushun the top ranking regent. The two dowager empresses traveled with a forward party escorting the young emperor in a closed palaquin. The empresses would have a single day in the capital before Sushun would get there and they quickly went to work.   The empresses met with Prince Gong immediately, using their private guards to thwart some of the other regents who were with them from preventing the audience. Some of the regents even tried to stop the boy emperor from meeting with Prince Gong, but Prince Gong had become quite popular in Beijing, having been the only one who stayed to do anything to help the city when the foreigners attacked, thus the population, and more importantly the Beijing guards stopped the regents forces. It also turns out Cixi had spent weeks secretly meeting with Prince Gongs brother at the hunting retreat in Rehe and they formed a plan. Prince Gong accompanied the empresses into Beijing making sure the regents were nowhere near them. Then Prince Gong read out an edict in the emperors name using the empress dowagers seals, charging Sushun and the other regents of treason, who could have seen that one coming. A detachment of Manchu guards led by Prince Gongs brother rode out to confront Sushun, arresting him and the other regents. They were accused of causing a war with Britain and France by misleading the late Emperor Xianfeng with treacherous advice. They were blamed for the kidnapping of Harry Parkes and other envoys, breaking faith with the foreign community and provoking Elgin to march on the capital. They also prevented the emperor against his will from returning to Beijing and faked the Emperor's will to make them regents, this is some real game of thrones shit right here.    The trail was quick, as you would imagine, and within a week the regents were found guilty of all charges, gasp. 5 of them were striped of their rank and banished to the western frontier. The 3 most powerful regents, Sushun, Duanhua and Zaiyuan were sentenced to death, but in display of compassion, Cersei Lanister, I mean Empress Dowager Cixi, no idea how I mixed up those two figures, I see what you did Mr. George R Martin, Cixi granted Zaiyuan and Duanhua the privilege of strangling themselves with silk, but it turned out to be a symbolic gesture as they were hung in a dungeon. For Sushun who proved to be her true rival, he was beheaded in public on November 8th in a cabbage market. Now edicts proclaims empress dowager Cixi would quote “should in person administer the government and by assisted by a counselor or counselors, to be chosen from among the princes of the highest order, and immediately allied to the throne”. Thus Empress Dowager Cixi with Prince Gong as her chief adviser became the new ruler of the Qing dynasty.    Now coming back to a point I made quite awhile back, I think during the first episode of the series, Karl Marx predicted in 1853 that the Taiping rebellion would cripple British trade in China and he was quite wrong, at least initially. Ironically, the civil war severed the internal trade networks within China causing merchants to dramatically look to external trade thus booming British trade. Figures rose about 30 percent from 1860-1861, but then another large event unfolded, another civil war, this time in America. Britain was thus trapped between two large civil wars. British commerce relied heavily upon both these nations. The United States, aka King Cotton in the south, provided the cotton for British textiles, which they sold in the far east. ¾'s of Britain cotton came from the US south and because of the tricky political situation now Britain could not afford to deal with those southerners lest they get caught up in the civil war. Now until the cotton dried up from the US, Britain was able to undersell the Chinese domestic cotton market, but with the outbreak of the war, the prices rose too high and now the Chinese were not buying their stuff. British exports dropped dramatically, causing textile factories to shut down. Cotton was just one part of the conundrum, because alongside it, the Americans consumed around 2/3rd of the green tea purchased by British merchants from China. Thus the British tea and textile trade was being torn to bits.   There was one gleaming light of hope however. The new treaty ports in China offered some new opportunities. The British could trade between the ports, especially those along the Yangtze river. Hell the internal trade networks were shattered as a result of the civil war, but the British enjoyed steamship power along the rivers and the ability to go freely from port to port. Now Britain sought profit, to do so they needed to expand the Chinese markets, and this meant doing some business with the Taiping who held some of the good ports. Until now Britain had avoided open relations with the Taiping. Now on May 13th of 1861 Britain announced recognition of the confederacy meaning Britain would treat the south as a separate government contending for power and not a lawless rebellion. This meant Britain could loan money and purchase arms and supplies for the Confederacy. To the merchants in China this seemed to be the ideal situation that should be adopted there. Many called for treating the Taiping the same as the confederacy, hell the confederacy was recognized after mere months, while the Taiping had been around for 10 years. The house of commons debated the matter and after long a tedious back and forths it was decided the neutrality stance must be sustained, given however that the Taiping did not hinder British trade within the provinces they controlled.   Meanwhile Li Xiucheng's army was running rampant in Zhejiang province, taking the capital of Hangzhou in December of 1861 after over 8 weeks of siege. The city had 2.3 million inhabitants and it proved quite easy to starve them out. Li Xiucheng had his men fire arrows with messages into the city stating the people would not be harmed and would be given the choice to join the Taiping or be left to leave freely. As one Qing commander at Hangzhou put it “Because the Loyal King issued orders not to harm the people, the people didn't help fight against him … Thus, none of the people suffered at the hands of the longhairs, and they all turned around and blamed the Imperials for their afflictions.” Thus the Manchu garrison burnt themselves alive while Qing officials slit their throats, but the common people went unmolested, nice for a change. It also seems Li Xiucheng took notice of the horrifying atrocities performed by Zeng Guofan at Anqing and wanted to earn the high ground with the commoners by pointing out how terrible the Manchu were. He even let the Manchu and Qing officials in Hangzhou go free, though as I said many took the alternative path of suicide.    Hangzhou was the capital and lynchpin of Zhejiang province, an enormous blow to the Qing. But there was another city that was significant, Ningbo, a treaty port, on the other side of Hangzhou bay, and just due south of Shanghai. To go from Ningbo to Hangzhou by land was around 200 miles, roughly double the distance of that by ship. The Qing forces at Shanghai hoped Ningbo's close proximity would mean the foreigners might defend the city as well. But Bruce stamped that down pretty quick sending word to the consul of Ningbo that if the Taiping were to attack, the BRitish would not get involved. He also told Admiral hope “I do not think we can take upon ourselves the protection of Ningpo, we should not display British naval power near that city lest we get compromise ourselves in this civil contest”. Admiral Hope seems to have seen things differently as upon learning in may of 1861 that the Taiping were going to march on Ningbo, he dispatched Captain Roderick Dew in the 14 gunship Encounter to dissuade the rebels. Captain Dew was also told to try and make contact with any Taiping commanders nearest to Shanghai and to relay the same type of messages Parkes had when it came to Hankou. “Point out to the commander that the capture and destruction of the town of Ningpo would be extremely injurious to British trade and that he should desist from all hostile proceedings against the town. Don't commit yourself to the necessity of having recourse to force, but do remind him of what took place last year at Shanghai”.   After giving the veiled threat to the Taiping Captain Dew went into Ningbo and told the Qing officials to mount every possible defense they could. Dew was told by Hope that under no circumstances could he open fire on the Taiping, it really was just a bluff. But Hope also asked Dew to investigate Ningbo and figure out the quote “amount of auxiliary european force which you think sufficient for its defense”. It seems the real politik at play was this. Both Admiral Hope and Frederick Bruce were planning ahead for what they assumed would be a major policy change. Both men expected their government to change its mind and wanted to be ready at a whims notice to defend any British interests from the Taiping. But in essence as you can see their actions were also drawing in conflict with the Taiping, the old self fulfilling prophecy. Both men did not want to see the Qing overthrown by the Taiping, because they seemed the worse choice as far as trade was concerned. All the customs duties from treaty ports were being used by the Qing to pay the reparations to the British for the second opium war, ahaaaaa there it really is. If the Taiping took a port, well the British could expect no return, but to prop up the Qing meant an endless cash flow. Nonetheless the Taiping represented a large threat, the British simply did not have enough forces to defend all their interests for the meantime they had to play a sort of ballet between the Taiping and Qing.   Captain Dew ended up bringing 12 large cannons from the British armory at Shanghai and installed them on Ningpo's walls, figuring if it was not British manning them, well that didnt breach neutrality. But low and behold the Qing officials did not lift a finger to help defend the city, and why would they, if they made the situation worse perhaps the British would become more involved. When the Taiping approached Ningpo, the city emptied, well all those who could flee did. On November 26th the Taiping were 30 miles off from Ningpo and by December 2nd just a days march when the British sent a party to parley with them. The British pleaded for the Taiping to give the city one more week before assaulting it and they agreed to this for some unknown reason. On december 9th, 60,000 Taiping advanced in 2 columns towards the city gates as Taiping naval units rowed over to scale the walls from the sea. It was a relatively peaceful conquest as just about all Qing officials had fled prior. Of course the usual looting was done, but very little murders were performed. The French, American and British officials came to Ningpo to talk to the Taiping demanding they respect their trade privileges and the Taiping commanders agreed enthusiastically offering to execute anyone who dared lift a finger on any foreigner.  Thus for the Taiping this was an incredible victory and one step closer to establishing good relations with the foreigners.    1862 was a year of many unknowns for China, both Beijing and Nanjing were re-forming themselves and no one could accurately predict how the war would go. Zeng Guofan was building up his Xiang army now using Anqing as an HQ. His power base was now Anhui province. To the east, Li Xiucheng controlled Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, nearly a quarter of China's yearly income came from these combined territories. After grabbing Ningbo, the only logical step forward was, Shanghai. It was a gleaming gem, unbelievable revenues could be earned by its control. The past 2 years had shown Li Xiucheng that the British simply would not pay the Taiping proper recognition nor respect and so he sought to finally do something about it. Li Xiucheng began to prepare his army to return to Shanghai, this time not so lightly armed. Li XIucheng was never one to believe the foreigners could have ever been won over in the first place and now Hong Rengan's authority was widely diminished in Nanjing, as for out here in the east it was honestly Li Xiucheng's show.    As for the British, Ningbo seemed to not be trading much at all since the Taiping came, Anqing had fallen to Zeng Guofan and all the meanwhile Bruce was sending reports back home of endless Taiping atrocity stories whenever they took cities, most were fabricated. Bruce was trying to make parliament see that the stance of neutrality would eventually lead to the death of British trade. Harry Parkes also traveled back to Britain who would have a lot to say to the public about his time in China, his mistreatment afterall was the rationale for the burning of the summer palace. The very last deed he performed before sailing off was a last ditch attempt to stop the Taiping from approaching Shanghai, which they refused. In fact the negotiations had gone so terribly, one of Admiral Hope's commanders threatened to attack the rebels if they dared come near Shanghai.   Back to Zeng Guofan, he finally had Anqing, but now he faced the daunting need for more and more men. By taking Anqing he now gained the vast territory around it, holding tens of millions of people spreading towards the east. The Taiping still controlled many towns in northern Anhui and Chen Yucheng was in full retreat going downstream towards Nanjing. Everything east of Nanjing was pretty much a hopeless cause. Zeng Guofan's men were exhausted, they spent basically a year besieging Anqing, many wanted to go back home, morale was low. Zeng Guofan began to rebuild in Anqing using his own men as laborers. Under his direction they rebuilt the confucian academy and examination hall, repaired the walls and restored the markets. Next he set up relief stations to help the famine stricken population and helped them restore the agricultural output of the region. He also sent his brother Guoquan back to their homelands of Hunan to recruit another 6000 Hunanese soldiers, because the next push was going to be against Nanjing. Now Zeng Guofan was taking a bit of a risk sending his brother to do such a thing. There was a coup going on in Beijing, the Cixi Cersei Lannister one I spoke of, he did not know what the outcome was going to be from said coup and his actions could be judged as anti Qing since he was gaining more and more power independently from Beijing. Zeng Guofan already had a growing number of critics within Beijing who saw him as a growing threat to the central government. Thus he simply dispatched word back to the capital stating he needed to gather as many forces as he could to be able to march upon Nanjing to ride the dynasty of the Taiping menace. But this was all a facade, in order to actually defeat Nanjing, it had to be strangled from supplies, similar to ANqing. Yet Chen Yucheng loomed around in northern Anhui, and he was still yet to consolidate all of southern Anhui. He would need to take vast territory in southern Anhui towards Hangzhou in Zhejiang province and this would require colossal forces. But a strategy formed in his mind, he envisioned 3 separate armies attacking in unison: one from Anqing going east downriver to Nanjing; another led by Zuo Zongtang would march through Jiangxi into Zhejiang to smash Hangzhou; the last would march through Jiangsu and fight towards Suzhou and then Nanjing. But such feats required vast amounts of men, and he was beginning to think his homelands of Hunan were being drained dry of youthful men. Thus he cast aside his conservative methods for the first time and began to cast a wider net, he was going to trust a non Hunanese man to help him in his endeavors, one of my favorite figures in modern Chinese history, Li Hongzhang. Li Hongzhang was 38 years old at this time, a scholar from Anhui province and he was asked to help form a new provincial militia that could supplement Zengs Hunanese one. Just like Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang was a Hanlin scholar, an elite who scored top of the examination system. He was 11 years younger to Zeng Guofan, his father literally passed the Jinshi examination in Beijing in the same group as Zeng Guofan in 1838. The two men became close early on, when Li arrived in Beijing in 1844, fresh from passing his provincial examination, it was Zeng Guofan who agreed to serve as his teacher to help prepare him for the Jinshi, which he passed with distinction in 1847. They were tied by friendship through Li's father, making Zeng Guofan something like an uncle to him, but even more than that, Zeng Guofan was his teacher and mentor. Within the Confucian culture, a student and teacher were akin to a son and father.   Despite such close ties, it took Zeng Guofan a long time to come to the point where he would trust Li Hongzhang with his own army. Zeng Guofan knew the man was brilliant, he also knew he was ambitious. Li's older brother served on Zeng Guoan's staff, but when Li Hongzhang came to Zeng Guofan's military HQ in Hunan in 1858 looking for employment he was turned away. He was not just turned away, he was literally ignored for over a month. Yes Li spent a month hanging around until he got so frustrated he demanded Zeng Guofan given him a answer, which Zeng did, through an aid with some sarcasm he said to Li “perhaps the Hunan army was a bit to shallow a beach in which to harbor so large a ship as Li”. What Zeng was doing and would continue to do for a few years was to break Li's arrogance. He did this by various means, such as having guards drag Li literally out of bed if he ever overslept. Zeng was trying to toughen the man up, to test his grit. Li for his part hung in there, trying to convince Zeng of his loyalty and humility. They got in fights of course and this led Li to leave for a time, but by 1862 their relationship was solid and Zeng either through his trust in the man or in desperation entrusted him with basically being his second. Now there were some negatives to all of this. Zeng Guofan had very experienced military commanders at this point, much more experiences than Li Hongzhang, but Zeng Guofan was a scholar more than anything else and he valued Li Hongzhangs hanlin scholarship above all else.   In early 1862, Li Hongzhang began to form a regional militia using the same model as the Xiang army, which would be known as the Anhui army. He performed the same type of recruitment scheme, going first to his home district, forming companies of troops from the same homes to serve officers who they had connections to. Several thousand Anhui commoners were brought to Anqing by February to begin training under the guidance of veteran officers of the Xiang army. This new army would have the same structure, same training and for all intensive purposes was a mirror image of the Xiang army. The only real difference was that Li Hongzhang took orders from Zeng Guofan whom was supposed to be taking orders from Beijing but was increasingly becoming more and more independent. Empress Dowager Cixi and Prince Gong basically had no choice, but to allow Zeng Guofan his autonomy, because he was proving to be one of the very few commanders capable of dealing defeats to the Taiping. In November they issued edicts appointing Zeng Guofan as the governor-general and imperial commissioner of Anhui, Jiangsu and Jiangxi alongside military control over Zhejiang. This was some pretty crazy stuff, he basically controlled 4 of the richest and most densely populated provinces.    Zeng Guofan received the news of his new appointments at the same time as the news of what occurred during the coup, he was pretty surprised to say the least. Control over Zhejiang was a miserable part of the news, as it was literally being attacked with Hangzhou and Ningbo falling. He was a bit overwhelmed by it all and wrote in his diary “This power is too great, my stature will be too high, and my undeserved reputation has outgrown itself. This terrifies me to the extreme.” Despite his anxiety over it all, Zeng Guofan set to work and basically ordered his subordinates to perform a complete takeover of the civil administration of eastern China. Zeng Guofan's top subordinates became the individual governors of each province under him with Li Hongzhang receiving Jiangsu, Zuo Zongtang Zhejiang and two other proteges taking Jiangxi and Anhui. Now Zeng Guofan was able to redirect tax revenue from the provinces under his control, meaning he could hire and supply more troops.    I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. Emperor Xianfeng was dead and Empress Dowager Cixi was in charge. Zeng Guofan was making a ton of progress, but there simply was not enough men so he had his student Li Hongzhang form a new Anhui army.  

Much like George R Martin we are late finishing things. We finally recap the last two episodes of House of the Dragons. We look at the Greens and the Blacks and the final steps that will lead to the war.... in 2 years on HBO Max

22:57- 23:47- I get up in the morning26:49 - 28:00 - We're full of stories 29:21 - 30:38 - I starting writing less. Sometimes less is more. 32:39 - 33:44 - I start at my best and it's all downhill from there. 40:25 - 41:22- I don't plot. It wouldn't be fun. I'm not a machine

The Internet is filled with advice for how to become a better writer. Some are good, others not so much.  In this episode of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast, Autumn and Jesper share the best of them and try their hardest to agree on one winning tip. It's not as easy as it might sound.  Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.  SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.  Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion). Narrator (1s): You're listening to the Am Writing Fantasy podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now on to the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt, and Jesper Schmidt. Jesper (30s): Hello. I'm Jesper. Autumn (31s): And, I'm Autumn. Jesper (34s): This is episode 142 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast. And I've actually been looking forward to this conversation, Autumn. Autumn (43s): Oh, really? This one kind of took me by surprise. I had to look at it this morning. I'm like, oh, I need to come up with some tips. So I did come up with a few and I'm now excited to, to talk about it. But at first I was like, geez, this is so broad. Where do we start? Jesper (1m 3s): That was why I was looking forward to it because I was curious to see what you've come up with. And, and we're talking about the best thing to do every day to become a better writer. So this is going to be interesting. Autumn (1m 16s): It will. I think I came up with some stuff that I'm like, yeah, that's a good tip. So I can't wait to find out what you came up with us. You always research, plan it a little bit more than I do. Jesper (1m 31s): That doesn't necessarily make it better, but at least I try, I put in the effort at least. Autumn (1m 36s): That's right. And it's not that I don't have the effort. I just, I, I intensify my effort into a shorter amount of time. Jesper (1m 44s): Yeah. Like five minutes before we record. Autumn (1m 47s): It wasn't that bad. It was just a few hours ago. Jesper (1m 55s): Well, okay. So it's only a few hours ago that I did it, to be honest. Okay. Hey, this'll be interesting. Yeah. How are you going to have something planned? Yes, we can plan. Yeah. So we'll see how that goes. Well, I'm doing okay. I w I was out doing my kayaking course again earlier this week I had to strain the muscle. Oh no. Well is one on my left side of my torso based somewhere. I, I don't, I don't know quite where it is, but it's like, when it happened, you know, I felt it right away. Something like happened in the muscles. Jesper (2m 38s): Like, but then it didn't hurt too much. Then it was more like, it was just a smaller inconvenience, like, oh, it's okay. But then, you know, one night, once I got back home afterwards and I had taken a shower and I guess my muscles weren't in use anymore, then it started to become really sore. And then a Wednesday morning here, it was just like, oh my God, I slept bad all night. Because every time I turned, I woke up and it was the same last night. So it's starting to feel a bit better. Now I can move my arms around, like without hurting now. So it's, but it's still, if I do the wrong, like move, then I can still feel it. Jesper (3m 18s): But I don't know. These past two days, I've actually taken some naps just to keep up with the last hours of sleep at night. Autumn (3m 26s): Geez. That is pretty bad for you. That's what you're doing like a roller or was it just paddling? Jesper (3m 33s): No, I think it was when, well, because it's, it's the cost of we're checking now. So we also practicing, falling into the water and getting back up on the kayak on purpose and stuff like that. And I think it was one of the times when I was getting back up, I think when I jumped up onto the kayak or something, I think that was when something happened. But yeah, I don't know. It's just a, I mean, it's funny because my wife has been teasing me because she started the kayaking like six months before me. And when she come back, when she came back from kayaking, she was all this like, really like tired. And, you know, you could, you could just see the workout on her, how tired she was. Jesper (4m 18s): And, and then, and I was always like, well, is it really that hard because you don't get your, you know, you don't get your pulse up. You're not out of breath or anything. Right. And, and now she's just laughing at me all the time, because when I get back, I'm just like, oh, my muscles are so, because you're using all kinds of muscles that you don't normally use. And so I'm just so sore when I go, go back and really, really tired from spending a couple of hours out on the sea. So she, she, she, for some reason she finds it incredibly amusing. Now it's like I told you, Autumn (4m 50s): You know, it comes back around, but I will say, I, you know, my mom always told me that there's something about sea air. That just makes you tired as well. So Jesper (4m 59s): It does indeed. Autumn (4m 60s): I will. I, you know, you can always bring that up, say it makes you tired. Hello. Imagine the shock of the cold water would, you know, kind of take a lot out of you too. Jesper (5m 15s): Well, well you have, well, I don't know what the English words, but you have the gear on, you know, so it's not really cool. I don't know what it's called though. The wetsuit, I guess it's called a wetsuit, isn't it? Autumn (5m 25s): Yeah. Jesper (5m 25s): That's one of the times you have a wetsuit on. Okay. So it's not that cold. Really? Yeah. That's okay. That's cool. But, but it's more the workout of it and all that using muscles that I don't normally use. I run a lot of course, because I'm a referee, as people have probably heard me talk about million times before on this podcast. So running I'm very used to, and I'm very using used to using my leg muscles, but here you really use your upper body all the time, which I'm not used to do. So I can feel that. I bet. Autumn (5m 58s): Yeah. I know. Even Jesper (5m 58s): With my little bit of exercise program I've been doing, I, one day is like abs and legs and the next day is upper body. And you can feel, it takes two days to, to work out. I mean, not nearly as bad as the first week I started the first day. It did take me two or three days. I really filled it. But now that I'm in, like my second, yeah. Second week, almost the end of my second week doing it. It's rare when I have a day where I'm like, oh, but I did do something with my upper back arms. Cause again, you're not used to using some of those muscles and doing some weird down plank move and I'm like, that's not even possible. And yeah, it tends to be a little twin to the next day. Jesper (6m 39s): Go figure. Especially as writers who just sits in front of a computer all the time Autumn (6m 45s): Writer, graphic designer. Yeah. Website builder. I, I need my exercise program, my spare time online. Jesper (6m 56s): But otherwise things are going okay on UN you had a storm coming or something, didn't you? Autumn (7m 0s): Yeah. Well, we just had the remnants of hurricane Ida go through and it wasn't actually that bad up here, but yeah, some people died in New York and my parents in Pennsylvania, they had three days of rain and their basement started flooding. So it was bad. But what further west? I think of them. It, the whole town was flooded through, so it was pretty intense. But yeah, we have like, we've went from the eighties and like super high humidity. It was like 89. And like, it felt like the rainforest again, which we've had almost all of August. And then overnight, it blew out after a whip tail end of Ida. And it I've been wearing flat all it's it feels like September it is cool and Chile and I'm thrilled, but I was like, okay, we've gone from high humidity and really steamy, warm to, Hey, it's new England and we're in the fall. Autumn (7m 55s): Just not ready for that. It's good. At least I've had my excitement this week is I've been preparing for Vermont's fantasy con, which is coming up October 2nd and third there's any other new England authors, fantasy authors or readers, which most of us are readers come to Burlington, October 2nd and third, I'm going to be there. I'm going to be on panels and talking. I think we're doing a lot of podcasts. I somehow signed myself up for everything, including organizing a paperback, give away. I don't know. I just, it's my nature. I get excited, but I've done all new swag. I just ordered new bookmarks for my two series and some new banners and a new tabletop display ordered all my books. Autumn (8m 37s): So I have all this author stuff coming and I'm going to, I'll have to do some like unpacking boxes and videos because I am so excited to get author swag. It'll be great. Narrator (8m 49s): Oh, a week on the internet with the M writing fantasy podcast. Jesper (8m 55s): And we have also, apart from all that other stuff, you have ongoing there, autumn. And we also started a brand new initiative here. We decided for, for the podcast. And I don't know, maybe you want to explain what that is all about. Autumn. Autumn (9m 8s): Again, you're not preparing me. This was originally my idea. So I think I can wing this one, but you did, Jesper (9m 14s): You can manage. Autumn (9m 15s): Alright. So I know this idea. I was reading some really good books this summer. So I'm like award-winning novels that were just, I wanted to talk about them with other authors, just pull them apart because that is the best way to learn. It's like I maybe I'm missing like those college courses, the ones that never actually happened to were actually fun where you could really look at a novel and pull out it's world building C. Why, why is this novel selling so well, why do readers love it? So I wanted to start a CRA authors critical reading group because critical reading, like really don't just reading a book and say, oh, that was good. And tossing it aside and reading the next one, but really asking questions and pulling it apart and looking at the point of views and the trends, the tropes, everything that's going on in it that makes us novel tick. Autumn (10m 1s): And why it's really is captivating as it is doing that with other authors is a fantastic way to learn. And it's gone through a few different iterations as we try to pull this together. And you came up with the idea of somehow pulling it into the podcast. And I'm so excited about this. Jesper (10m 21s): Yeah, I think after almost 150 podcast episodes, it was a time to it's time to shake things up a little. So what we decided to do was basically that once a month, we will pick a book that we are going to read. I'm going to explain the books for October, just in a second. And then we will read one of these books that gets picked, which is going to be picked by you, the audience in the am, writing phase fantasy Facebook group, and also for the patron supporters, you'll be able to vote once a month on which book we should pick. And then obviously it would be awesome if you want to read along. So you can read the book while we also reading the book, and then we will dedicate one podcast episode a month to basically do a bit of critical discussion around that book that Western chosen. Jesper (11m 13s): And if you're a patron supported and you will be able to actually submit your views as well before the episode recording happens. So we will basically take your inputs on board as well, probably read maybe not all of it, but probably some of it aloud on the podcast and discuss your points of view as well. So that's sort of the idea and to kick things off, we already, by the time this podcast episode airs, we already did the voting. So for this month, you're too late, but if you're in the am writing a Facebook group, you will have seen it. Or if you're a patron supporter, you will, you will have seen it. And if you're not in the group, then get in there. So the next month, at least you will see the voting when it comes up, but we will be reading one of the following three books. Jesper (12m 0s): It's either going to be the lies of Locke Lamorah by Scott Lynch. And that this book has over 5,500 reviews on Amazon, us with five dot five star ratings. So that's pretty damn good book, apparently Autumn (12m 15s): World building, oh my gosh, the world building in that one. Jesper (12m 19s): Yeah. Or if we are going to read the fifth season by NK Jemisin, and this is not only a Hugo award-winning fantasy novel, each book in the series has also been aboard water separately. So it has over 7,000 reviews on Amazon and afforded a five star rating. And that's the second option. And the last option is shadow and bone by Lee Baidu go, I guess that's how you say it, something like that. Well, it's basically the books behind the Netflix series shadow and bone, and this book has over 9,000, 19,500 views. Jesper (12m 59s): That's crazy popular. Yeah. So by the time this episode airs, the voting will have finished. But right now that while we are recording, it has not. So I can't say which one it's going to be picked, but just go into Dave M writing fantasy Facebook group. And if you're not a member already just get in there and you can find the post where we will have announced by the time that this episode goes out, we will announce in the Facebook group, which of the books is picked. And then you can, you can buy that book as well, and you can read along. And then in October we will then have a podcast episode where we basically discuss what we've, what we thought about the book. Jesper (13m 39s): And there were some critical discussion around it. Autumn (13m 42s): Yes. And I'm so looking forward to it and you want to join the Facebook group anyway, because the discussion after the podcast will carry on in the group. So that way we'll have an ongoing discussion with other authors about the tropes and the trends and the characters and all the things we learned by reading this book. Jesper (13m 59s): Yeah. So does this a bit of an experiment trying to shake things up a bit in terms of a podcast episodes for you going forward here? So we're very curious of course, to see how this goes and if people enjoy it. And if people will actually start reading along and communicating in the Facebook group about they have use of the Brooklyn so on, and we, we hope that it's going to be a bit interactive in the sense that us listeners, I engaged with the stuff that we're doing here as well, because I think that would be quite entertaining and funny for everybody. And if you do, as I said, if you do want your comments and viewpoints of the book to be included in the discussion here between autumn and myself, you need to get on Patrion. Jesper (14m 40s): It, it goes down to as little as a dollar a month. So it doesn't really cost much at all. But $1 a month on Patrion will allow you to submit your views of the books as well. And there is a link in show notes to Patrion. So go and check that one out. There's also all kinds of other things rewards that we're offering to support us there. So, and speaking of patron, we also want to offer a huge thank you to Steven for becoming a patron supporter. Autumn (15m 12s): Welcome. Jesper (15m 12s): Yeah. It's because of people like used, even that we keep this podcast going. So thank you so much for your support on Patrion. Autumn (15m 20s): We appreciate having you there Narrator (15m 27s): And onto today's topic. Jesper (15m 28s): Ah, so like you also said at the top order, and there's so many ways you could approach this topic and there's probably loads of things. One could do to become a better writer. And I've definitely collected a few things here and I was sort of thinking we could just go over what we eat, have autumn. And then by the end, we can see if we can sort of agree on one of the things that is the best of them, all sort of. Autumn (15m 57s): So you want to come off or try alternate. Yeah. Well, I have a feeling there's at least a couple top ones that will really help you become a better writer. Jesper (16m 8s): Yeah. Maybe B B, honestly, I feel like at least the ones I tried to only pick like stuff that I've thought was fairly important, but I'm really struggling to figure out if one of them are better than the other, but let's see. Let's see how we, how we go. Autumn (16m 24s): Okay. Okay. Sounds good. Do you want to alternate or just read off our lists or describe things, how you want to do it Jesper (16m 31s): Now? Let's alternate a bit. That's fun. Autumn (16m 34s): I all right. And do you want to start with the top top one or do you want to like do the more Jesper (16m 40s): Oh, well, if you can, you can do that if, but I have not, at least I have not mine listed in order of importance is just random order mine. So, but if you can do that. Yeah. Autumn (16m 50s): Yeah. I think I, like I said, I have one or two that I think are the definite things that really, these are the things you have to do to become a better writer. So I can start at the bottom of my list. Okay. All right. You ready? Yeah, I'm ready. All right. So I think one of the things that is in a general, something that is going to make you a better writer is to write something that you're actually interested in. And the reason is if you aren't enjoying it, you won't put in the effort that you might have otherwise. And you would just, you don't make as much time for it. You'll just kind of maybe just, oh great. I have to do five minutes. Great. And you'll just, you know, word vomit, some stuff out and be done with it. But if you write something you're actually passionate about, don't worry about the marketing yet. Autumn (17m 33s): If you really want to learn to be a better writer, enjoy the craft, put in some love and time and write something. You love, write something you would love to read. And I think you will become a better writer because you'll put so much time and effort into it. Jesper (17m 49s): Hmm. Yeah. Actually I can cross one of my off the list basically more or less with that. I worded it slightly different, but I think it's the same thing I was talking about trying to write something that sort of sits in the middle of that Venn diagram between what you love, but also what readers want to read. I mean, if you're just, I guess if you're just writing for yourself, then don't worry about what readers want to read. But if you want to earn a bit of money from it, I think understanding the market and what readers want, that will also make you a better writer. That's true. Cause you will be able to write books that people wants to read, which I think is quite important, but not everybody, some people don't write because they want to sell anything. Jesper (18m 31s): So, so that's fair enough. I think it depends. I think I can cross that one off the list, right. Because it's very similar to what you just said. Autumn (18m 37s): Yes, I think so. But you're right. It's it definitely depends on what your end goal as an author. What, what meaning a better writer, what that means to you and that might've been right. Where we started is like defining what is a better writer. Do you just pull words together? Do you tell more captivating stories? Are you selling more books? What is your definition? Start there. And then you'll at least have some goals to like, you'll know when you hit your targets. Jesper (19m 5s): Yeah. True. Okay. So yeah, I think that that is a good one. Probably not the one that we're going to pick as the most important one, but it's good. Autumn (19m 14s): The bottom of my list. So you want to, since we, since you had a similar one to me, do you want to pick a different one? Jesper (19m 20s): Yeah. Yeah. So let me start with a piece of advice that you're probably seen very, very often also because a very, very famous author wrote it in a book about writing that he wrote and it is called write every day. And I was sort of wanting to discuss this one a bit because I mean, I understand the whole thinking behind this one. And of course I also fully agree and understand that to become a better writer. You have to write if you don't write you and I'm never going to get any, I mean, study, studying, writing, and listening to podcasts about writing, but not writing. Jesper (20m 5s): It's not going to make you a better writer. It is like a muscle like, like me spraining muscles, because I don't train enough. Right. If, if I was trained enough, then it wouldn't happen. Right. So writing is the same thing. It's, it's a muscle that you need to train. So I'm fully on board with all of that. But the one thing that I'm not so sure about and which is probably also why this one shouldn't make the final selection, I guess, but it's the writing every day part because I'm less convinced about that. To be honest, if, if it works for you then great. But if it sort of stresses you out, I'm not sure it's helpful, is it? Autumn (20m 44s): No, I agree. You shouldn't create stress. And I know I used say write every day, but recently some toss ups between exercising and then my husband getting a job, or sometimes he has to leave really early and I'm the cook. So I make him breakfast and it's like, I can't, I used to get up and I would write first thing in the morning. And if I didn't do it, then it would be all screwed up. And there's days that I'm like, okay, just deep breath, you know, do what you have to do, fit it in later. And if you don't fit it in, don't beat yourself up, you know, fit in what you can. Don't have this major goal that if you don't do it, you know, you're just going to break down and cry and come to me like I did today. So be forgiving of yourself and your writing partners, please, because life can get hectic. Autumn (21m 28s): But I do think it helps to have a writing goal for maybe the week one that is manageable. Not like, yeah, you know, I think I used to have one. I think it was just three chapters or something. You feel accomplished to finish that many. If you go over it, you feel great. But having one that is doable, I think is more important, but maybe being creative every day. Cause I have to admit some weekends recently. I haven't been necessarily writing as much as I used to when maybe I'll find myself drawing or something a little bit more because it's the weekend and I'm going to spend time with my husband or something else. It's, it's good to be creative every day. But I agree. But also what you were saying about it being a muscle, this one is one I think I would, I would have put towards the end of my list and I do actually have right just right. Autumn (22m 15s): Is one of the books, most important things you can do. I mean, you can be creative in a blog post an Instagram post, just be creative. But it's the, I had this conversation with some people, a lot of people like, oh, I want to wait until I'm inspired. And I understand that, but sort of what you're saying, writing is a muscle. And if you write often enough, you know, a certain goal every week when you are inspired, you can grab that and really turn out some amazing pros where if you're still a novice, because you haven't written since the last time you were inspired, which might've been a week ago, two weeks ago, whatever that was your muscles going to be kind of squishy and you're not going to do as much. It's not going to be as good. Autumn (22m 58s): So right. Even when you're not inspired because you want to build up that muscle. So you can really pounce on those days where you have time and you're excited about it. Jesper (23m 9s): Yeah. I agree. Fully agree. Autumn (23m 11s): Well, go figure, we often agree on things, which is why we've had a business together for like four years. Jesper (23m 19s): It's definitely helps. It does Autumn (23m 20s): Help. We do not have a contentious relationship. We should just let people know that now. Yeah. Jesper (23m 25s): We w when we are doing our top 10 worst lists and we argued about the best ones, that's a, that's like the exception that confirms the rule. Autumn (23m 35s): Exactly. Well, we have to poke and prod each other. Do you even get a little grouchy? So it's good. Absolutely though. I still think my husband and you are going to, so team up on me when we finally get together, I'm going to, I'm going to have to be ready. I'm going to have to make friends with your wife a little bit better so that we have a strategy in place. Jesper (23m 54s): I, I, unfortunately I don't think you will have any trouble teaming up with her. If he gets about teasing me, she will be on board right away. Awesome. I shouldn't have said that. That was a mistake. Forget about that. Autumn (24m 7s): That's all right. I already know. I don't trust Adam. He likes undermining me. So I'm a nervous, we're not going to do the spousal podcast interview. That's just going to go back. Jesper (24m 19s): Yeah, I know. Yeah. We don't want to go there. Autumn (24m 22s): All right. Oh my God. Well, I could give him my next tip. And that is, if you are writing, let's say you are an inspired TA or you just actually have some real decent writing time, which doesn't happen that often. And maybe it's a Saturday and everyone's quiet in their way or whatever. If you have some good writing time and you're planning on writing for a good stint, I would say use the Pomodoro technique, which it's a technique you can Google it. There's also, somebody has renamed it tomato technique, but excuse me, it's much older. It's called the Pomodoro. And that's where you do sort of sprints where you write for a certain amount of time. And then you take like a five minute break. So maybe it's 15 5, 15 5. And then when you hit, the end of an hour is a longer break. Autumn (25m 6s): And this really helps because you can work on something. And even when you're passionate about it, once you hit that, you know, sometimes it's different for everyone. Sometimes it's 45 minutes. Sometimes it's 90 minutes. It depends on you. Your brain is just going to be like the ideas aren't there. It's not jelling. It's starting to just be a little bit of out of reach. And so it really helps to have breaks to know that you're going to have a break. I think it's really important to keep your mind fresh. So I would really recommend that it's a good way to improving your writing overall is not to just push through for two hours, three hours, whatever you have, you need to get up stretch, move. Autumn (25m 49s): It really helps you. Jesper (25m 52s): Yeah, I think actually it probably dovetails very nicely with the next one I wanted to say, oh, Autumn (25m 57s): Excellent. We might've planned that. No, Jesper (26m 4s): Not at all. But this one is quite important to me. I think because this one was one that I've sort of learned recently because perhaps actually thinking about it, perhaps we should record a podcast episode about this in next month or something, but it's basically, I guess I could best sum it up as quality over quantity. And what I mean by that is that I've been trying over the last couple of months to try to write faster, to just see if I can get through the first draft quicker. Jesper (26m 44s): And I think it would probably would be worth discussing it in a bit more in depth, maybe next month in a podcast episode about number one, how to write faster. But also if you are one of those people who want to write faster, what you should be mindful about, because what I learned was that the faster I wrote, the more enjoyment disappeared from my writing. And it started to feel like I was just cranking out words because I needed to crank out words rather than enjoying telling a story, which I thought was quite eye-opening for me, because I actually didn't expect that. So for me, I think if you focus more on quality than quantity, it will make you a better writer. Jesper (27m 28s): And then that's not to say that there's anything wrong with writing faster. And some people enjoy that. That's absolutely fine. But I, I think that should probably come down the road somewhere once, you know, you know, you feel very comfortable with writing, which was the case for me, it CA I start, I want to start trying to write fast, like several years after I started writing in the first place. So probably yeah, actually five years ago, so five and a half, I think, but nevermind that. But I just think that it's, it's important to, to make sure you enjoying what you're doing. If you want to be a better writer, I guess that's how I could best word it. Autumn (28m 12s): Yeah. I wish I could say I totally disagree, but no, I, I feel this one too. I think we both had that realization within the last year, because even when I was working on the tainted face series that I just published and I loved the books and I love the stories, but there was times I was working on it and pushing through stuff faster than I thought, you know, I knew I could even do better if I spent more time on it. If something about the whole production schedule of trying to write things so fast that you lose that enjoyment and then you start questioning, and then if the book doesn't do well, because you never know if a book is going to do well, if it does great, fantastic. But if you realize, well, I didn't enjoy it much. It's I love the story, but you know, it's not making me millions of dollars. Autumn (28m 55s): I think I would've enjoyed writing it slower. I would have enjoyed just the process I miss, like when I was writing my debut novel. And I just wrote words for the sheer love of writing those words and describing that world. And I sometimes think even though it was my debut novel, and I think it's the worst thing I've ever written. I think there's a little bit of that soul in there and that sheer enjoyment and love of that world, that it cannot be replicated just because I want to write faster. And so I think, I agree. I think if you really want to be a good writer, no matter how fast you write it, if you're losing that soul and that wanting to be immersed in that world, you're losing something. Autumn (29m 42s): Hmm. Jesper (29m 43s): Okay. Autumn (29m 43s): Well, good. Well, that kind of dovetails it. It's not the one I was going to use next, but it fits with that one. And I would say, if you want to be a better writer, you need to read which fittingly. We already mentioned the critical author reading group, hint, hint, but I hadn't, I had been not enjoying reading very much recently, but then I decided I'm reading the wrong things. And I started really upping my game and going for the Hugo award winning novels and literary fantasy, which once I hit some of those ones that were just outstanding and I fell in love with the world and the characters, and then one of the, you know, tear them apart in a good way to see why they were so good. Autumn (30m 28s): It totally changed. Even what I was looking at in my book saying, oh gosh, you know, I used to enjoy this more. I used to do this more. I want to, especially literally the Hugo award-winning novel that we've mentioned the fifth season. It is a very high level. It is very, very close to literary fancy fantasy instead of just being epic fantasy it's, it's got some word choice and points of view that are really literary fantasy, but I loved it. Oh, my question made me think and wondering why it was working that way and just why the characters were certain ways. And I just thought this is fun. This is what I love about writing. And I think it's important, whatever it is, whatever it is about writing or reading, even that you like remember that when you're writing, because you want to pull that in. Autumn (31m 14s): That's what you want to imbue your own writing with is those elements. And if that is intense, plotting or intense characterization, or just really beautiful words that everyone tells you kill your darlings, but you just love them. Go write your heart out. It'll make you a better writer. You might have to edit some of it out, but you know, Kevin, again, capturing that essence and often finding that inspiration of reminding you of why you were a reader, what it is about the genre that makes you love it will help you be a better writer in it. Jesper (31m 47s): Right? Yeah. I also had study, I studied a writing of the best I also had on my list, but I was exactly what you just said. So, so that's good. But I also had, I also had reading every day as a separate line, other than study the writing of the best, because of course studying the writing of the best. Like you said, it's, it's about understanding the story structure, the tropes. And of course you will, it will increase your vocabulary as well. But there are also days where I don't get to read just like with the writing. It's not necessarily everyday I do it, but I try to read most days of the week as much as I can. Jesper (32m 29s): I, I do try to do it. But one of the things that I often see debated, and I'm not sure I have the answer for it, to be honest, but it is whether you should stick to reading in your Shanghai or you, it's better to read very widely so that you get all kinds of other impressions about writing and so on. And I think for one, if you haven't read enough in the younger you are writing, then you need to read those because you need to understand those tropes. But if we are assuming you already understand this young rhe, then I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing to try to read a bit wider as well. Jesper (33m 9s): We have been looking at writing some murder mystery stuff, and I've actually picked up a couple of books that has nothing to do with fantasy, but they are murder mysteries. But just because I wanted to see how let's say outside the fantasy younger people who are very, very popular and good at writing murder mysteries, how did they do it when it just from a plodding perspective that I thought that was interesting. Autumn (33m 34s): No, I agree. And I, I agree if you're going to write in like, especially a new genre or sub-genre that you're not that familiar with, make sure you're reading a few books in it. I've coached a few authors who are like, oh, I've written this, you know, I've written 60,000 words of this novel, but I've never read a thriller before and they're writing a thriller and I'm like, oh, you know, you're and they fight me with all my advice. And I'm thinking, just, please go read one, one of them before you turn away all my advice. But Jesper (34m 5s): Yeah, if you haven't, if you haven't read it before, then don't try to write it. That's for sure. Autumn (34m 11s): You will. You will. If your book takes off and you have never read a single series or novel in what you're writing, it's going to be a miracle because mostly readers, they have things they expect. And if you are not familiar with those aspects, I think that might even be first person versus third person. Point of view. When I wrote my first dystopian story, almost every dystopian story is in first person. And I don't really like it. And if it entered my head that, you know, this is what the genre expects. I probably never would have even tried it, but you can always learn from those genres and you can pool, like you're saying, murder mystery is you can do a murder mystery fantasy. You can criminal thriller fantasy, you know, Charlotte Holmes meets fantasy. Autumn (34m 52s): These are becoming sort of a mishmash that people like it's okay to mix up tropes and mix up some of your storytelling as long as you're doing it well. And also realizing that, you know, maybe some mashups might not work well, a cozy mystery with like dark gallows murderer, you know, like, no, you know, there's a few things that maybe the readers of each John rhe are not going to like each other. So there are those elements, but otherwise, yeah, you can learn and get really exciting tidbits. I mean, you want to learn to do some foreshadowing, read some murder mysteries. They're fantastic. They do such a good job to make you sit there and try to figure it out. Jesper (35m 36s): Absolutely. Okay. Do you have any more on your list? Oh, you actually Autumn (35m 39s): Have a few. It was Jesper (35m 43s): Still Autumn (35m 44s): Good. All right. Yeah. So my next one to be a better writer. This is a very simple one, but I think it's very important. Turn off your wifi. Or if you really think you're going to have to Google something, make sure you turn off all your social media apps, hide your phone, give it to your, your five-year-old and make sure he can't buy anything from Amazon while you're, while mother holding it. But even if you have to use those apps that keep you locked out of your social media accounts for like half an hour, do that because you need to focus on writing when you're actually writing you, can't get that little wall and moment of distraction and just go and automatically jump to Instagram. It's not going to help you. Jesper (36m 24s): Actually, I will say that I don't have that problem. You know, when I, when I write, I don't end up spending all the time on Facebook or something instead. So, but I do do understand, I know a lot of people do have that problem. So, so in that sense, for sure, but it's called it, of course also depends on the individual person, whether or not that's a problem or not. But I think what I also had on my list, which is basically, I think it's the same root explanation or root cause for becoming a better writer as you were, you were just saying, and it is basically about respecting your writing time, right? Jesper (37m 4s): So if you, you mentioned early on, maybe set some weekly writing goals or something that, you know, keep the promises that you make with yourself and follow through on those and respect your writing time. So did you actually get that done instead of spending all your time on Instagram or YouTube or something? So I think that's the core Autumn (37m 23s): Of it. Yeah, I agree. Jesper (37m 28s): Okay, good. Well, that actually crossed one more of my list because that was the same thing I was going to say. But then I want to say something else because well, we, we trade in this stuff ourselves, but, and that's not why I'm saying it. I'm saying it because I think it's important, but educate yourself is on my list because you have to do the writing at the same time. Of course, like we said before, listening to podcasts or taking writing courses will not teach you how to write unless you're writing. But I do think it is very, very well spent money. If you try to, while you are writing also educating yourself, you know, take some online courses. So we have several of them. Jesper (38m 9s): If you want to take some online courses and try to learn, because it will improve your writing a lot. Autumn (38m 17s): Yes. And I, of course, that's it. Yes. Between the books we have and the education you could tell. I mean, part of the reason the first writing course we developed came from the fact that I took two adult ed writing courses at my local place in Maine. And they were just so, and they were not devoted to fantasy. They were devoted more to memoirs and there was times they were ripping apart the fantasy writers in the group for doing stuff. And I just wanted to know why, you know, how am I supposed to write this? Then if obviously these people are not teaching me and that pain, it led to a course for fantasy writers because you know, someone needs to teach this. Autumn (38m 59s): It's, there's so much to learn in so many tips and so many ways of doing things and developing characters. And it's good to be curious, pick up a book, could pick up a chorus, you know, spend some time reading blog posts. We have a ton of blog. We have like 200 blog posts on the I'm writing phases of website. It's insane. Let's be Like, no, we got some stuff for you. The free, just go listen. And it'll make you curious. It'll make things spark. Just sort of like reading books in your mind. So I agree this one was on my list. So this time I get to cross it off, but yes, educate yourself. Be curious about the craft and learn to do it better as a very important thing. I think to add to that. Autumn (39m 39s): And it sort of went well with what I was, we were both been saying about goals and stuff is to develop a routine and honor it. Like you said, if you can say, this is my writing time, just like how I said, normally I have to go, I'm going through a change that hasn't clicked fully into place. But my writing time used to be first thing in the morning, get my tea, go and write for an hour or so. And now that's, I've gotten old jumbled and I have yet to figure it out. That's stressing me out a little bit, but that's okay because it's a change. I had a writing time that I honored and that worked for me. And before that, when I had my full-time job, I would get home, give my husband and kids, get my tea and I'd write for 45 minutes. And that's how I did like 12 books, 45 minutes a night after I got home, I was like, hi, hi, nice to see you. Autumn (40m 21s): Bye-bye I'm going to go right now. It's just that you have to get your family to understand, or at least to leave you alone and turn off your wifi, or at least your social media apps. If you have a tendency to try to distract yourself with them, but I were teens, whatever it is, sometimes you need that too, to like sink into, okay, it's my writing time for me, it was getting a cup of tea, but maybe you need to listen to music. I used to have a PA page of George R. Martin that I just thought was like the most beautiful imagery in the world. And I'd read that. And then I'd be like, yes, I am ready to write, to find those cues that tell your brain. Now it is time to turn on the writing and settle into that and have it and get your mind used to it. Autumn (41m 1s): So that way, if you don't have it sort of like I recently have had my little hiccup, you miss it, you really crave it. And that's, that's a good thing. Jesper (41m 13s): Okay. Yeah. And also along the lines of educating yourself, then I would say, learn how to make sure that every single chapter Autumn (41m 26s): That's a good one. I agree, actually, that kind of goes with the wires. Jesper (41m 31s): Yeah. Yeah. It's very aligned with what we've already said, but then still it's just slightly different, but if you can grab the reader in every chapter, we will definitely be a better writer for sure. Autumn (41m 42s): Because it's sort of going along with that, I actually have learned to plot because I do think Panthers can write well, but I think understanding plot and plot structure is something that will make you a better writer. And whether that once the fall under education or, you know, learning to make chapters that are really gripping, those are like some of the techniques that I think you need to educate and read how other authors do it, figure it out. And by unpacking those specific techniques of writing really gripping chapters or learning to write a really engaging plot, that's character driven. When you understand those really core techniques, you will be a better writer as well. And I think it does take a couple of books and some education and some thinking to realize how that brainstorm moment of, oh, this is how it all comes together. Autumn (42m 30s): And when that happens, you're will be a bunch stronger writer. Jesper (42m 36s): Yeah, absolutely. I only have one more on my list or Autumn (42m 39s): One more on my list. That's a really funny, Jesper (42m 42s): Ah, there Autumn (42m 42s): You go. All right. So let's see. All right. Jesper (42m 47s): Minus something that I've actually talked about several times on the podcast before, but it is about getting feedback, but it comes with a caveat. And this is the part that I've said on previous episodes, because be very, very careful not to ask for feedback from a lot of different people, because especially when you're starting out, you don't know what is good feedback and what is bad feedback. And also if you're getting feedback from a lot of people, you'll get a lot of conflicting feedback, which is not very helpful either because you don't know which ones is correct, and which ones are wrong because you don't have the experience. So I would say, preferably, if, of course this is going to cost them money. Jesper (43m 29s): But if you can, it's best to work with a developmental editor who can, who knows what they're talking about and they can help you. That would be the, by far the best thing. But if you can't afford that, then pick maximum one or two writers who you trust and who, you know, have a proven track record, meaning that they know what they're doing. And then listen to what those one or two people are saying and nothing else, but to get some feedback, because if you're writing in isolation, it's very difficult to understand, you know, you might, well, you might be the blind leading the blind kind of situation. Jesper (44m 13s): I mean, you're just stumbling a heaven. You don't quite know. And that's not to say that it can't work. It can, but you might end up writing five bad books that nobody likes. And then you'll sort of figure it out, but getting some feedback from somebody who knows what they're doing. And couple that with educating yourself, then I think you will get to a better place much, much faster than if you don't do these things. Autumn (44m 40s): Oh yeah. I agree. I can't believe I didn't include feedback in my list, but that is really true. And what you said is very true. I mean, you want to choose who you get feedback from. It should be like an author. You respect, if you can't afford it, a writing coach or a developmental editor will be worth their weight, especially for your first, maybe not your first book, maybe. I mean, that'd be fantastic, but even your second or third, whenever you can afford it, it's worth it because otherwise you can't see, you know that about your life. You can't see your own blind spots because they're blind spots where someone else will read it and be like, oh, this is where you're doing it wrong. But if you don't get someone That's a good day, came up with that. Autumn (45m 23s): One knew what they were talking about. But yeah, it's, if you get too many other people or maybe beta readers or people who just like, oh, I don't like it. And they don't give you very specific feedback because they don't really understand plotting and structure and character development. That's not going to help you learn. It might just make you really frustrated or even steer you in the wrong direction. Just trying to write something that, you know, someone who absolutely adored Twilight loved. And you're suddenly trying to write Twilight when you were more going towards, you know, token, it's not gonna really help you improve. It's just changing your direction. All right. So my last one, which is kind of a strange one, maybe, but it's okay to do something inspiring, just, you know, exercise, take a walk and movement really loosens up your ideas as well as your body. Autumn (46m 16s): So my last one is actually do something that'll inspire you and keep your creativity growing. And along with that, kind of like tailor to it, keep a notebook with you. If at all possible you want to be able to capture ideas and remember to look at them and maybe organize them, put them in a Scrivener file or something. You don't want a couple of ideas and never look at them again. That's not the point, but if you can get out and do something different and creative fun with your family, make up stories, whatever it is, that'll let you know, that'll loosen up your ideas in everything. And you will be surprised at what comes, but if you don't remember to write them down, you will lose them and that's not going to help you either. So make sure you have some way of taking notes and go do something fun. Jesper (47m 1s): I don't know if we can do this autumn, but does any of all of these advices sort of stick out to you as the most important one? Autumn (47m 11s): I don't know. It's like part of me wants to say educate yourself. I think being curious about how to be a better writer is going to make you a better writer very quickly, because you're curious about it. So you're learning. But I also think having goals like weekly goals that really helped me, I guess that helped me write more, which helped me eventually a better writer. But I think curiosity, be curious how to be a better writer, whether that's through education, reading, whatever that takes, that's going to get you going and at least make you unpack things. Every everything you touch, you'll be pulling it apart by whether it's marketing, copyright, which is always good to know as a writer or someone else's book. Jesper (47m 55s): Okay. So I think, yeah, being curious probably encompasses a lot of the things we've talked about here. So, but otherwise I think the listeners can pick the ones that you feel talk the most to you. But yeah, I do definitely think, making sure that you educate yourself is incredibly important. And, and also I would say, unfortunately I think too many people skip that part. So yeah, there is dead. Okay. So next Monday we are going to have a discussion about marketing to different generations of readers. Are they all different or are they the same? Narrator (48m 38s): If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the Am Writing Fantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on patreon.com/amwritingfantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

We've had listeners ask SEVERAL times for us to talk about our books and writing... haven't we done that yet?!

"Juego de tronos", de George R. Martin, es el libro que recomienda Alfonso Moreno, celador.

There is an underlying key to being a successful self-published author. Do you want to know what the secret is? It's all about your mindset. Autumn and Jesper delve into what that outlook is and why it can make such a difference to how you fair as an indie author in this episode. See if you have the attitude and why you need to develop it if you don't. Check out the FREE Self Publishing Success Course that we mention in the episode at https://ultimatefantasywritersguide.com/self-publishing-success/ Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.   SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.   Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going.  Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion). Narrator (2s): You're listening to The Am writing Fantasy Podcast in today's Publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need. And literary agent, there is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now on to the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt. Jesper (30s): Hello, I am Jesper. Autumn (32s): And I'm Autumn. Jesper (34s): This is episode 120 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. And today we are going to share some thoughts or tips that will be you. We got to break your career as a writer. And the personally, I think that this stuff is something that is often overlooked, but I don't know. What do you think about that? Autumn (52s): All of them. I think its definitely not talked about it, but I've just like, Oh wow. Don't pressure or this is going to make or break or you just don't get it into that stuff. And cheese hard stops like, Oh my gosh, am I ready for this episode? I don't know why, but no, I agree. This may be a sound better than it is. It's very, you've ramped the tension right up straight to the insight pull incident and boom. Jesper (1m 20s): Okay. Yeah, I should do it the other way around like, like maybe start out by saying this might be a completely useless Episode and there's going to be no tips for you at all. And then we can go from there because then it only got to get better. Autumn (1m 35s): That's something that I don't know if that's going to work right there. I think we just have to stick with what we started with. And this was one of the most important episode of your entire author career. And then we had to little bit on that two point, Oh my God. Now that you've set that and now I got conscious about it and no, that's not a good, that's why you thought of anything. And I would just apply that on like nothing ever happens. If someone is going to call you out and I am here for that. So it's all right. Yeah. And you have jumped off pretty quickly as well. So you kind of surprised me. Oh well. So how are things over on your side of the planet? Jesper (2m 15s): Well as good a school. So I close to this week here in the Denmark. Of course we are a recording a bit ahead of time. So it's East the holidays at the moment. So the kids are home, which means that the I get to sleep In and I could just get up like nine or 10 in the morning and then right. A chapter before lunch center, you know, I could get used to, this sounds really like my life, but that's one way except for the kids and no indeed. Yeah. I would say it's really nice. And a fantastic. Yeah. And also the fact that I can asleep in the also means that my wife and I have had some time to watch this TV series late in the evening where we are now, I would normally go to bed, but we didn't have been watching some, some stuff and I finished up or we finished up watching a show on HBO called a bear town. Jesper (3m 6s): Are you familiar with that one? No, no, no. I haven't even heard that line. So Bri, our town is a, a, a Swedish series. OK. And it's about a, a youth hockey team. Ah, which is not doing particularly well. Oh yeah. But then a former NHL player comes home from the us and he was like at the end of his career and he checks takes on the job of coaching this team. So at this point you're probably thinking, it sounds like some sort of sport series right here. Yeah. But it's not because here it turns a bit dark, but that's usually the type of stories out there. Jesper (3m 53s): Like as you know, you know, but so to start a player of the team, he actually ends up raping the coach daughter. Oh I, I, but then 'cause, it becomes very, it's, it's a very serious, serious series what it was about to say, but it becomes very, I don't know what the right word is, but interesting in one way or another, because it starts exploring because you are in a very small towns, society or community and its sort of explores, how does a close knit group of people who know each other really well deal with a situation like this, where you have like the popular kid that everybody's hoping that he's gonna be the next hot key star or a hockey star. Jesper (4m 39s): This is going to, you know, put this town on the map and then you have this new girl in town that basically nobody knows. And she, and of course he goes to the police with what happened and so on. And then this whole thing plays out about how the community as well as dealing with the situation. And I really feel like it's, it's very interesting. And it's also very interesting as it dives into details about how, how we, human beings are incredibly good at justifying things to ourselves. Even when we know that our standpoint is clearly wrong, they are because so many of these characters, they, they really convince themselves that they're point of view is the right one. Jesper (5m 28s): When, you know, when you're looking at it as, as the viewer and of course you are at a distance, but it makes sense from the person being inside of that community reacting that way. But when you're looking at it as a view at a distance, you can sort of see how completely wrong it is. And it is actually a very I'm, it's a very interesting story. Autumn (5m 47s): To be honest, it sounded interesting though, since I've spent 90% of my life in small towns, I have a feeling of that. I'd be like, Oh, I know this is so true. Jesper (5m 58s): It, yeah, It could be. Yeah. I, I mean, of course its a pretty serious topic, so it's not like a lighthearted thing that you sit down and watch, but, and I, I would maybe have liked the ending to have a bit more oomph in the end, but what I do recommend the people checking out bedtime time at town on HBO and of course watching it in the original Swedish language, trying to swap titles, instead of all the toppings stuff, I was about to use a nasty word. So the FCC does not broadcast, you know, register, watch over us as a Podcast thing. Goodness. I don't know how we got around that one way or the prolapse to swear. Jesper (6m 42s): Yeah. Yeah. Well technically we would have to market in our podcast hosting that there was wearing in the a seven mile language. Autumn (6m 51s): Ooh. Yeah. So a lot. Well I thought to the bullets just, just, just, well we can just add a beep. Yeah. Yeah. Jesper (7m 2s): Okay. But that, that's something I could recommend if people need something to a new shoes to look at. And so I guess it's the right way of saying it, but yeah. You need your stomach like a bit of a topic though. Yeah. So Coker prepared for a very serious topic. Yeah. Knowing small towns, I can see how it would totally grow out of proportion and being on an easy resolution that you would imagine. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, hopefully you have some more lighthearted stuff on your side of the Atlantic. Autumn (7m 37s): Absolutely. It's like spring here are all of our snow. I mean, Vermont, we had so much, well not so much, no. We had a normal winter For, you know, in 2020 in climate change, but it like melted in five days and now the weather is like in the sixties and it's sunny and the streams running. So its beautiful. But it's also, I feel that like I don't usually get spring itus or whatever you want to call it where you are. Like, I just want to go outside of my spring. I, this is what we use. It's cool. Yeah. Or senior-itis when you were a senior in school and you just could not concentrate cause you know, you're about to graduate. So this is a spring fever and I just want to go outside and go for a hike. And I got some work done over the weekend just because it was raining. Autumn (8m 20s): So I've got a chance to work on some covers and I'm almost done editing I'm in my book three and my tainted face series. So that's like, yeah, it's so much work going on. We just, we're almost done editing a reader magnet that we've got going on. So I don't know. I might have to take a break and go for a, a little bit of a walk soon. That would be kind of nice. But otherwise life is pretty good. I can not complain. It's hard to concentrate. It's my worst thing. I could say that I was speaking of shows. I sent you one that was, if someone wants a Fantasy that has amazing graphics as a major amazing CGI in a really good story. I sent that one to you that yin yang master's, which is actually proved is by China, which was trying not to read into that. Autumn (9m 6s): I'm like, is there any propaganda in here? So there's and what's funny is, and that's what I didn't tell you is there is use two movies so you can get a master's and then there's a second one that has a subtitle. I know that I can remember what it was, but you know what it reminded me of, it sounded like someone came up with like, there is a main character or here's a little bit of a story in a world in the background. And so two different people wrote an idea for it and they decided they liked them both and produced both. So they could almost relate. They feel more like a parallel stories of parallel ideas. And so it was very interesting to watch them back to back and be like, Oh, is that the same character? Autumn (9m 46s): But that's a totally different story for him. I don't know how this works, but the, the one in the yin-yang masters do it without the subtitle. I just, it was a fantastic story telling. Very good. And so if someone wants something much more fun, I wants to see ferret demons should have won a ferret demon. You get to watch that. Yeah. Will I we'll definitely watch it. Yeah. I have added to My, I have an app on my phone where I keep track of everything I need to watch a and then I added to it in there. It's where it was pretty good. Jesper (10m 21s): So every time I hear about a cool show or a good movie, I just add it in there because then it's it's there and I won't forget about it. And then every time I've done watching something, I go into the app and then I just find something I want to see next. Nice. That's a very useful app, right? Narrator (10m 40s): Oh, a week on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. Yeah. Jesper (10m 45s): Find a way of voices came out with their 2020 headphone report. It has where they share all the data that they collect it on the audio of that market over the past year. Okay. So it's up with audio books then. Yeah. And you know how I love to put you on the spot, Autumn. I, this is not fair. Yes. That's what I love it. This is because it's not fair. So I was wondering if you couldn't guess, which is young Rose had the most growth in the audio book market in 2020, but I have prepared some very, very short sound clips for you. Jesper (11m 32s): So it is going to give you a hint. Okay. So this is a podcast. So some clips are cool. So it is basically sound clips that is hopefully giving you some idea about a young, right. That's the point of the sound clip? So there is no words is just music. Autumn (11m 51s): Oh, this is true. It just me, I am going to argue, remember I'm half deaf. So it was just not fair, but lets go for it. Jesper (11m 59s): Okay. So I'm going to give you some clip number one and then see if you can guess what's younger. This is okay. Autumn (12m 13s): Yeah. Jesper (12m 13s): That's it that's like a fog horn. What could that be? Autumn (12m 18s): I'm guessing thriller, but I would almost have said for those clothes, it's a misery actually mystery. Jesper (12m 26s): Oh yeah. It's a mystery. We had a growth of 158% in 2020. That's exciting. That's a lot. That is a lot. Yeah. Okay. And number two on the list of the second, most growth in 2020 and let me know what this sound Clip. What do you, what do you think this is? Okay. Autumn (13m 1s): Yeah. Jesper (13m 2s): Yeah, of course. It's so obvious. Well, I'm going to guess because I, because I found this out Clip that is a completely obvious to everybody else is like, what is that? Autumn (13m 13s): I would say a memoir. I mean, it sounds too sad to be like cozy and romance. It sounds in the stallion to me. And that's why I would say memoir. Jesper (13m 25s): You just trying to be difficult. Of course a romance. Yeah. So I don't know if lifting at the end of the music, we really portrays romance. It's obvious growth rate by 146%. Autumn (13m 45s): Wow. That is amazing. And it doesn't actually surprise me. I mean, in COVID who was not looking for a good role mans to sweep you away from this place. Jesper (13m 55s): Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. It could be it, but Okay. Number three and a final show. Is that experience the most growth in 2020? Well, not the final one, but the top three final in the top three. Alright. So are we ready for this song? Clip? Yeah. I'm just going to be getting one, right? Are you ready? Autumn (14m 31s): I'm guessing Weston say something to do with Cowboys or a Western. It has to be Western. Jesper (14m 35s): No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Autumn (14m 38s): What is it? Jesper (14m 40s): It's Fantasy. Autumn (14m 41s): I can not be Fantasy. Yeah. It sounds like a Western. You misled me. You totally misled me, but okay. Jesper (14m 50s): So what's the Fantasy grow 68%. So it's not as smart as the other one's but it's still quite significant. That's good. That is it. What do you think of those growth numbers or Autumn (15m 2s): the growth numbers are a fantastic, there are in many ways, in some ways surprising because you know, COVID people are locked down, but it also, if your homie might be listening to Moore, I know, I think my husband has gone for the weekend and I actually ended up streaming a YouTube, a, a series called art at the highest actually he was on CuriosityStream or to the highest, but then when he got back, I'm like you have a subscription to audible. I want access to your books so I can see it when you're holding, when you were working on the computer or your music's. Okay. But its kind of fun to listen to a story so I can see audio books growing. Jesper (15m 43s): Yeah. It is growing very much about that. Oh, I also think that it also has to do with the distribution of it, that it, I mean, if you looked at the top three emerging markets after the us, it was Canada followed by Australia and I don't think those two were very surprising, but number three was Sweden. I wasn't really expecting that. So I, I think in part of the big growth numbers in part, because the base line is fairly low, so its easy to get into the triple digit growth rates kind of scary. That's true. So I think that there was that and then it's getting more and more widespread a and therefore as well as you're getting into many more new markets, which helps the growth rates. Autumn (16m 26s): I personally don't think it is. I still think it's early days when it comes to audiobooks. Jesper (16m 33s): I don't think that the market print tracing, is that a great to be honest. So it it's still Yeah, it's still early days and I was still, even though we keep hearing about these massive growth rates, I would still say that unless your e-books are selling really well, they don't get don't rush into creating an audio book just because you hear that that was great growth rate because honestly you probably not going to earn back to the production cost unless you're selling quite well already. I agree that that would be an, almost a whole talk because of, you know, how audio books affects sales. Autumn (17m 7s): But yeah, even my current series, I enjoy audio books, which I did couldn't say before I used to not, but I have no plans right now to put, turn the teen at Faye in the audio books, even though we're a couple of readers of asked for it is a lot of work in really expensive. And if it doesn't really effect your regular sales on Amazon, it's not like this major boost, No way. If the, if the production cost were low, which I don't think they will be in three or four years, maybe for now than it would be a no brainer to always just like we always create a paperback print on demand version, then you would always create an audio book just because it's another, it's another way of selling you a book right now. Jesper (17m 50s): I'm not a format, which I think is good, but when you have to pay like 5k or something for it, it's like, ah, now when they get to the AI, that has a very natural voice that you can just drop in your text and it creates a very nice sounding audio book. Autumn (18m 6s): I don't want to put voice actors at a work because they are amazing. But you know, if you could just upload an audio book file, like have it converted. And it was a few hundred bucks, Holy kind of, I would probably do it. Yeah. Or maybe I'm even thinking of you, if you could look in the future, you could look at a market where it's just a designated, like it, it will say here is the, you know, a cheap audio book and it will say this is a I rated and there will be an expensive version of an audio book where assess this is a voice acting narrated or something. Jesper (18m 39s): I, I could imagine that it would happen so that it's like, if you don't care or some readers don't care, you know that as long as that's the case then. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And as long as it as decent, they are happy and then they will pay or paid at a discount or have the budget version. But I can imagine that will happen in three or four or five years maybe for now that, that you will have two versions of audio books. That's a whole other topic. So I could see that happening. Autumn (19m 6s): Definitely me too. It will be interesting Narrator (19m 11s): And on to today's topic. Okay. So Jesper (19m 16s): Yeah, I'm thinking that it's probably useful to just start up by stating that when Well, I was about to say we, but actually, I mean me when I'm talking about Mindset, because I can only talk about myself and I have my own biases, meaning that a for instance, when I'm tackling this topic in this episode here, I'm coming at the Mindset from a commercial point of view, meaning what is the mindset behind making a living from writing and earning money from it. And I also understand that in saying that not everyone is Writing to make money and that is perfectly fine, nothing wrong with that whatsoever. Jesper (20m 2s): However, I just want to share it. That's where I'm coming from when I'm talking about Mindset. So I don't know, maybe, maybe you have a different perspective on, on it out of, I don't know, but that, that sort of way I'm thinking, I think with you, when we come to author Mindset that is looking at it from a business perspective. So you're looking at the marketing and is sort of wrapped up into it. But I think I do have maybe a little bit of the artistic because I also think part of part of what makes you a good author platform, a good market or a successful author, hopefully, you know, making money is that you also care about the quality and your abilities as a writer. Autumn (20m 44s): So to me, I have a little bit of the artistic side, but I think it of overlaps, you know, the sphere is, are definitely where they joined is to me as the author of marriage Mindset. It's not a hundred percent marketing. It's not a a hundred percent craft, but there's a point where you merge those two. And that is my idea of an, a successful and a rewarding author Mindset. Yeah. Hm. Okay, good. Yes or no, but I, I think it's good to see if, I mean, we, we might come at it from like 80%, the same angle, but then slightly different anyway, which is probably good. Jesper (21m 23s): Yeah. That's probably a good way. Or you have to have something different. Autumn (21m 25s): I'll play devil's advocate if I have two, just so we are not always in agreement, you know, if you have two, like if I take it and you make it sound like you don't enjoy it at all, and this is like, Jesper (21m 35s): okay, I will sacrifice myself to do it, but in reality you love it. Autumn (21m 41s): They don't need to know is that I'm very, I would like to be Willy well in just play the play at the numbers, you know, but maybe one place to stop could be easy to talk a bit about catching reader's attention. I guess I could put that label on it because honestly, I think from a mindset perspective, you know, when you're thinking about how to get readers to read your work, I think the attention span is too big or as turtle probably, or one of the biggest hurdles we have in today's Publishing landscape. Jesper (22m 26s): And from a mindset perspective, I'm looking at it in the point of view about understanding who is it actually that we are keep competing against for reader's attention. That's true because they say it or the office. Autumn (22m 46s): No, not really. Well, Amazon, I do agree with that. A recent interview with Mark Coker, where he said Amazon is sort of pitting other authors against what their authors, because if you could do a search on Amazon for another, ah, for your, even yourself. So the first floor of slots are paid advertisers. And before you actually get to the person you are looking for, and that is really annoying, that is on Amazon. But in general, if you're talking about whose attention or, you know, we, as author's trying to pull readers' into, it's not for some other authors, that's there not our competition. It is the rest of the world. The app's the media games, Audio books. Autumn (23m 30s): There's so many other things that are competed to try to get a real game games is a good one. Jesper (23m 37s): Yeah. Yeah. I mean to some extent I, Yeah, I like you said, I, I think just some extent you could make an argument to say that there is some competition about A, between other authors, but I'm also of the firm belief that those people who really like to read, they will always go on to read more. And there's no way that we can write enough books for them on our own. So if they like to read, they will read more and other authors as well. So in some, some sense you are not really those people. I don't think we were competing that's as much for the attention because they love reading and they will continue reading. But all of the big chunk of people that sits in the middle, you know, we have those to reach a lot. Jesper (24m 21s): And all the time at the bottom may be of the, of the buckets. We have those who are basically never reads. And, and then in the middle we have the majority of people who reach sometimes, but not all the time. And for those people, I really think that our main competitor And I, that's why I said games. I think that's a good point that you made there. But what are the ones that I was thinking about was really streaming services like Netflix, HBO, Amazon, and that kind of thing, because one of those people are going to do, you know, they come back from home, they've even the dinner there. They have a sort of thinking, should I go and lie on the couch and watch the next episode of my series on Netflix? Jesper (25m 6s): Or should I open the eye book and start reading? All right. I mean, that's really the choice that they are making and that's not an easy competition to be him because it really means that you have to produce a very, very high quality content, meaning that you are you a story. It has to be really, really good. And that's not, I hope not for everybody Am I change? Hopefully you already know that you have to produce really good content, but there are also those that think that they can sort of get away with a half decent cover and they will get there on two, which is a, an English teacher to do the editing. Jesper (25m 51s): And then that should be fine. Right? And then they just put it that way. Autumn (25m 55s): Well, if you're trying to compete against Netflix, people are not going to read that book then, you know, it's, they will Peter out very quickly. I mean, there's so much more to it. I mean, having a little bit of psychology and knowing like you need to have a hook at the end of every chapter that makes them want to turn the page and then a good opening to the next chapter so that they don't want to be like, Oh, it's a different point of view. Or there is the answer to my question. You want to keep them going and going because it is a lot of marketing. It is a lot of trying to feed their curiosity so that they want this more than the ease of sitting back and watching a show because even science-wise watching a movie, it's only a lighting up part of your brain. Autumn (26m 36s): So I mean, it is really couch potato. It is truly low energy, low, low need of a paying attention. You can still surf On your phone and you've watched a show and talk to your spouse and you know, you can do a multi-task when you read it. If you're really reading, it's like just the rest of the world could be on fire. And you're like, just one more chapter, just one more time. So it's a little more energy. And to have it fires up your brain, like your actually there doing it, if it has a well-written book, all of your senses are firing. It's like, you're dreaming it. It's your it's becoming part of you and movies do not actually do that to you. So it's a totally different process that you're trying to get readers hooked on, get that adrenaline rush going, You know? Jesper (27m 23s): Yeah, that's true because essentially the, well, what do you know, watching a slow a, a, a, a show on Netflix, for example, if it is just being served to you right now, whereas the reading is an immersive, may you are inserting yourself into the story. Whereas watching his show on Netflix, it's just a couch potato or wanting something. And, you know, you don't, unless the character mentioned a smell or sneezes, or does something to clue you in that they're smelling something. It doesn't even Dawn on you that, you know, they're sitting by the campfire in there going to smell like Ash. But when you're reading it, there are a good writer is going to have layer that in or the smell of a dragon, or is it the smell of something? Jesper (28m 6s): And it's going to immerse you, like you said, in a far different way. And that's what the people who love reading. That's what they love has because it really drags you in and you don't get that quality unless you're working on it, unless you're doing it, you know, on purpose. Autumn (28m 22s): Even after 20 some books, I still have a Check where I check all of my chapters for things like the five sentences and stuff, because it's easy to get into the mood and you're done writing and you go all the visual and very little auditory because I'm half deaf. So let me do, you know, you got to add that stuff and yeah. Jesper (28m 42s): Yeah, that's true. Autumn (28m 44s): And, and that's really where the Mindset thing comes in. Meaning that if you have to be conscious about the fact that you have to produce really, really high quality work, because otherwise, if its sort of halfway there, you can imagine like somebody is sitting there with the Kindle Or whatever they are reading on. And There are sort of, well maybe they read two chapters and they're like, Oh, well it's not really engaging me the stuff. And then they are watching over at the TV, hanging on the wall over there and it's like, no, let me, let me go watch some TV or is that right? Jesper (29m 17s): Yeah. Yeah. That's the problem. So it is, it's not an easy for sure, but a, but it is important to be aware of. Autumn (29m 25s): Definitely. And I think that's, I like that you started on that one. Cause like I said to me, the quality, the artistic, the desire to keep trying to improve yourself and your craft and your writing to me, it's very important. It's important, artistically, as important as your mindset that always having that curiosity, you never say I Am good enough. I do not need to learn anything else about Writing. I don't need to read any books because I don't need to learn anything. That's not going to, it's not the right mindset to have to be a successful author. You should always be thinking, what can I do better? How w who is another author? Who's better than I am. So I'm going to read there and see what I like. And I'm going to break it down. Every time we read a book, every time we watched a movie, you are like breaking down the plots and the characters in the person next to you. Autumn (30m 9s): I was like, Oh my gosh, just please it enjoy this. And you were like, no, I'm going to tell you that that was foreshadowing. I know that that's true because, well, at least for me, when I started writing myself, the way I experience stories was like, if you a, if you were looking at it one way, you could say broken forever. Jesper (30m 38s): But if you look at it on another way, it's just changed forever because, well, yeah, I don't know how to improve because in some way it has broken because I cannot enjoy a story. Like it could be four because I'm looking, I'm looking at a structure behind the words and, and I cannot help myself. Or even sometimes I try consciously to ignore it and just read the story. She would go up, but I cannot help myself looking at, Oh, that was a forest at foreshadowing hint there. And there was something that I might pick it up and I just can't let it go. I'm reading one. Now I just started, I'm probably like 20% Intuit. I'm not going to mention the title of anything. So don't worry. Ah, I'm not going to put any time anybody down on it, but actually, you know, but, but honestly I really liked it. Jesper (31m 22s): It was so far, it's a really good book. It's a really good story. But the one thing that I did pick it up already is that because it's a FANTASY, so you have multiple characters and I've done this myself in the past as well. So I'm not thinking on the author at all. But the introduction of the point of view characters is quite aggressive in the early phases of the book. Meaning that you're, you are sort of, are you jumping from one to the next, to the next, to the next, like the, for the first four or five chapters in a row? And it is slightly confusing, but as you, because you don't quite understand how it connects together. And, and also you are a bit like when you get back to the characters, like which character was this again? Jesper (32m 7s): Because it was introduced too fast and I've done this myself. So I'm not thinking on anybody at all, but I just think that there is something there I notice is a slightly detour, But, but there's something there about thinking about how are you eating new characters into the story and not going too fast. I think I'm 25% in the, according to my Kindle now. And is it starting to make sense? I can see how it connects now, but the first like 15%, maybe 2015, 20% of the book, it was pretty confusing even though what was happening was really cool. And I really liked it. It, it was cool. Cool action scenes and everything was really good. Autumn (32m 48s): Well, billing is great, but it's just a small things that might tick some people off. Some readers me like, no, this is too confusing. I'm going to give up it's right. Jesper (32m 58s): And you can't write it for everyone. So there is going to, you're never going to satisfy everyone, but it's definitely something to think, to keep in mind, as you learn your craft, you know, you have someone who maybe will point that out to you or something for yourself to think about. And I think that's where the idea of always improving, you know, looking at how things are working, reading other books and seeing what worked and what didn't work, so that you can look at your next story and you keep writing and keep going. Autumn (33m 26s): Indeed. And the other thing that I also feel like it is really important when it comes to Mindset is long-term thinking a little bit. I like that one, because this is of course where I'm looping back to the fact that I was set in the beginning, that I am looking at this from a commercial perspective, but overnight riches almost never happens. So if you're trying to plan for, or even hoping that your debut novel we'll be like this major Success, it probably won't a, and I'm sorry, but the truth of the matter, and we can take a couple of examples here. So Lee child, for example, a highly, highly successful British a thriller author. Jesper (34m 10s): I, he is, I think last time I tried to look it up, he was estimated to have a net worth of around $50 million. Okay. So I guess we can call that successful. Can we, Autumn (34m 22s): Yeah, I guess, I mean really? Yeah. Jesper (34m 24s): Yeah. But he didn't really find much success until he had published about 10 books and George RR Martin is similar. Yes. Autumn (34m 32s): Yeah. I'll say he has had a very long career to finally reach the pinnacle that he has. And he's no, you know, the kid anymore either. Jesper (34m 43s): No, indeed. So it's, it's small like millions. I know it's not just going to start rolling and you know, it's, it's a matter of over the longterm to build a catalog of books with each will earn you a little bit more and to make that career out of writing, you have to consistently be working on a new book. And this is not me saying that you have to release a new title every month. Not at all because I, I know some people do and that's how they enter the living and find if that's what you can do. But to me, it would stress me out. If I felt like I had to release a new title every month and write 6,000 words a day as something, Nope, not going to happen. Autumn (35m 25s): I'm not that kind of a writer. And I don't want to be either, but at least put your butt in the chair and at least two, some writing so that you are at least working on your back a back catalog all the time or building that back catalog 'cause At the end of the day, that's where the money is going to come from. And then they go down the line 15, 20 books later, or like with your tire Martin, 20 years later, if you finally get some awesome success than great. But I, I think planing for that, or even expecting that it's not going to bring you any good. No. And especially in today's market, I mean, maybe you will hit it out of the park with one book, but you, I think we've both seen it. Autumn (36m 6s): I think Chris Fox as a few other authors who have try it a couple of a different series and they still, even once they become popular, they can have something that doesn't sell because it's not as much of an interest. So you have to keep trying in generating new content and trying to find maybe the book that hopefully Lyfts all of them up, but you could always have that one series and everyone's like, Oh, Oh, well, that's the one we don't talk about, you know? Jesper (36m 30s): Oh yeah. You remember when he wrote that, you know, it's, it's always going to be a challenge, but it's definitely, you want to keep writing and you want to remember that this is a marathon. If you're doing this as a passion, if you were expecting to write three books and you're going to be as famous as George R. Martin or Stephanie Meyer or a JK Rowling's those that really is the less than a 1% have the 1% have the 1%, there are so many millions of authors and there are many, you know, maybe hundreds of thousands, maybe just thousands that are making a full time living off of Writing. There's many more who are having it as a very solid PR part time job, or as a part of a different part time job, or, you know, balancing several things. Autumn (37m 14s): And then there's others that this is literally just going to be a hobby. That's not going to be a huge revenue stream. So you need to remember there's all of these different tiers and it is sort of onto you two have the mindset, the strategy is the goal was the marketing, the skills, the quality, all of those tools to help sometimes the luck to make this into something more. Jesper (37m 40s): Yeah, Yeah. Agree with that. And everybody fits into those categories differently. And, and, and, and that's also absolutely fine. Autumn (37m 47s): I just think from the front have mine set perspective, I just think it's important not to sort of set yourself up for failure, meaning that you get into it with the idea that I'm going to be in the top 1% of all authors globally. And I'm going to be as rich as a J K Rowling or something like that. It's well, great if it happens, but it's probably not. And if you're setting yourself up for that, you can see you're almost only gonna fail and you are going to disappoint yourself. One of the reasons is not all of them, but one of the reasons why people stop writing is because they get disappointed and they feel like, no, this is not what I expected. It should be. I had hoped that I was going to learn a lot more money by now or, or, or whatever. Autumn (38m 33s): But if they had just kept writing maybe four books more Jesper (38m 37s): From the word AI, it now it would make it a difference. So it was just a shame too, to drop your writing because of something like that. And I think it's important to try to set yourself up by thinking long term, maybe earning 50 K a hundred K a year. Maybe that's modern enough for what you want. I mean, who says you have to earn millions, maybe even 10 K if it's the sidekick, the 10 K can pay your summer vacation every year. And maybe that is Autumn (39m 7s): Yeah, absolutely fine. Yeah. I mean, nothing wrong with that. You should definitely have, you know, your idea of what, what is the, what is, I think everyone should have a solid, this is my goal to get to and know that it might take time to get there. And do you, like you said, maybe it's only 10 K a year, but to say, if I hit five K a year, 10 K a year, if I could do this much money, I would feel like I was totally successful and no, it doesn't hurt to have that like, you know, shooting for the stars. That's Okay. Because maybe then you'll hit the moon. That there's nothing wrong with that. But to know, to at least know that thinking you're going to hit JK Rowling's level is probably really going to be amazing and lucky and hard, but that's okay if you just hit Jupiter, the Jupiter is nice. Autumn (39m 54s): You know, you don't have to go outside of the solar system, but just to have that Real, that reality check where it's great to maybe dream big. But remember that is dreaming. The reality is going to be in something a lot closer to home and know what that is. Do you know what you really want to work towards and then working towards it? And for me, this is one part of my mindset, I think is really important. And I remember when I was first becoming an entrepreneur and I read that the sign of someone who will make a good entrepreneur is someone who can work for 12 hours, go to bed and feel like I'm out of ideas. I am disappointed nothing work today. And they will wake up in the morning and they'll go, all right, what am I trying to do today? Autumn (40m 35s): And you will start over with all the same passion, all of the same curiosity, problem solving, look at things from a new perspective, you have to wake up in the morning and say, I am doing this again. Cause this is what I want to do. And you're going to look at it from a different angle. And if you feel like you need to, someone keep bolstering you and telling you because you can everyone, you know, cheerleaders. But if you need that over 50% of the time, like 80% of the time, you are looking for someone telling you you're going to be okay, you're going to do a good job. This is going to be really hard for you. You need to have a certain level of confidence in what you're doing, your marketing. And if you don't have it, now go take the lessons, go get the skills, bring yourself up to where you feel. Autumn (41m 15s): You are capable of succeeding. You just need to keep, you need to work, keep working and getting there because it is a lot of hard work. And if you don't believe in yourself, and if you're not trying to improve yourself, then it's going to be that much harder and you probably will give, so you need to have that mindset of what am I gonna do now? This was a tough day. I'm having a glass of wine in some chocolate and tomorrow we are going to hit the ground running. Jesper (41m 46s): And tomorrow I'm going to make waffles dog. The dog Shrek is secretly. Autumn (41m 57s): One of my favorite movies. It's just awesome. Is the first one I ever watched the turnout, all of the fairy tales in their heads. And I'm like, this is it. This is why I love This. So yes, tomorrow you will have to make waffles if you were going to get up and you're going to do the waffles. And if you had to end the day in wine again, that's OK. But the next day you're doing waffles again. Jesper (42m 18s): Not, not, not everyday, hopefully ending the day with wine. That's that's not going to be very healthy in the long term waffles in the morning. And why did the evening, I think is going to be the end of you at some point. Yeah. Autumn (42m 29s): Why not? If you want me to, if you were enjoying life. Yeah. Jesper (42m 33s): But at least if, if, if you need some encouragement and if you need some support and back up the head off, over to the Am, Writing Fantasy Facebook group, 'cause, there is a lot of good people helping each other in their, and an offering SUPPORT. So, so that's at least the community that will help you. So feel free to join there. If you just go to the group session section on Facebook and search for Am Writing Fantasy, and you will find us. Yeah. But I have one more Autumn. And I think this is probably the most important one of them all Autumn (43m 2s): I used to be. I'll see. I'll see if I agree with you. Jesper (43m 5s): Yeah. Of course. Devil's advocate over there. You can see how we love it. Yeah. Autumn (43m 9s): Yeah. Absolutely. Well, Jesper (43m 13s): I think, and again, this is coming from the commercial perspective again. Right. But they are those who have the mindset that if the writing is just good enough, then the readers will come to me and it will grow from there. They will start reading the next book I write and the book after that. And if I got through that because of the writing is so great. So the only thing I really need to focus on is my writing skills. And don't get me wrong. Writing skills is incredibly important. Of course, you have to be able to tell a really, really good story and have really good writing as well. Jesper (43m 53s): But yeah, Yeah. It's not everything. Autumn (43m 57s): No, no, no. It's not every day and age. You just, Jesper (43m 59s): Or you have to advertise your books, but above all, you have to build an email list so that you can get in touch with your readers when you release a new book, because honestly, readers, I'm not as loyal to the author. As you might think. In many cases, they don't even remember what the author's name was. Then they might not remember the title of the book, but they don't really remember who the author was. And they don't really according to research. And I cannot remember the exact numbers, but I, it was something to do With that in an average Rita's I would have to have read three or four books of the same author before they started remembering what the author named was. Jesper (44m 42s): Because otherwise you just don't remember if you had them on your e-mail list, you can send them an email and you can say, Hey, the new book is ready here. Here's the link. So you can pick it up right now. And then they might not necessarily, but they might go on and do that because they know there's a reason why they ended up on your list and the first place it was because they liked what they read. So they don't have to remember to check Amazon. I wonder if this author here really is something new, because nobody will do that, right. That they won't go on to Amazon once a month to check if you uploaded the new book. Autumn (45m 14s): But if you get them on your email list, you could just tell them, and that's not a sale right there. So for me, the mindset around thinking that the writing is the only important thing, I think that probably worked 10 years ago, but not anymore. And even in 10 years ago, I'm not sure if it was, I mean, it helped when eBooks were, if you were out with eBooks, we're new and you were in a good writer, you were probably right now on the forefront. But for most people, it's not just about being a good writer. I mean, I, I, my true, true deep fans, you know, they tell me that I'm better than Told can. I just love them so much, but it's not enough if you don't have the mindset of how to market, of how to stay in touch with your readers, how to connect with them and even know some of those like little marketing tips, like this is why I saved. Autumn (45m 59s): I wrote an entire series and now I'm releasing them. Back-to-back it's not just because of, you know, the excitement of releasing them. Back-to-back but it's also because readers will then, you know, not get lost in the series. They will be like, Oh, it was the next ones out. Oh, the next ones out. And they come right along with it very quickly, because most series don't sell until you get to the last book anyway. So you might as well say to them all up to the end, but those are the things again. So you're always looking for it's more than writing. I love the writing craft. If I could just be a little hermit in the woods. Oh, Hey, nevermind. So if you could just sit in and right now we have to worry about marketing is fantastic, but it's not the reality. Jesper (46m 41s): You have to know how to Mark it and you have to be able to talk to your readers and know where they are and they have to be able to find you. And the email list is definitely the easiest way of doing that. Autumn (46m 54s): Yeah. It's a devil's advocate in the woods have spoken. Jesper (46m 57s): That's right. Autumn (46m 58s): And I got quite a hermit because I have a, another hermit with me. So what are two hermits? I don't know what the term would be. Hermits assists. Well, I know a hermit or a place where hermit lives as call it a hermit Todd. It was just so I can go with that. Jesper (47m 16s): Okay. Well, anyway, if you liked what you heard today, and if you want to sort of dive much more deeper into all the different aspects of being a self published author, what you Should be aware of, what you should think about everything to do with like creating covers that fix Fitz, the markets, how is the Amazon algorithm works? How to run book launches and so much more, the good news is that Autumn and I created a a hundred percent FREE costs that we call it self publishing success course. And I would encourage you to go and check that one out. We will place a link to the sign up page in the show notes. Jesper (47m 60s): A and it's not going to cost you anything other than you need to put it in your email address two too, so that we can email you the different modules and you get onto the cost platform. But I suggest that you check it out and there is so much good content in there that you can dive into. And of course, if you don't like it, you can unsubscribe at any time. No questions asked. So it's easy. Check it out for FREE. And yeah, that's pretty cool. So I think it's an amazing Course. So yes, it is. It is definitely something that if you're starting out or even just stalled or just have questions, this is definitely the thing to take. I wish I had it when I first started in 2012. Jesper (48m 41s): So I'm glad we have it now and can help out authors and helped them on their journey and help their mindset because there are things as a whole module on mindset you want to, Autumn (48m 54s): Okay. Jesper (48m 54s): Yeah. So next Monday we will do a deep dive into a tool that we are finding incredibly valuable when editing and that's the software called pro Writing. I, yeah. Narrator (49m 5s): Yeah. If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on patrion.com/ Am. Writing Fantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast, going to stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

Uranus pushed his kids back into Gaia's womb, Cronus swallowed his children and Zeus swallowed his wife whilst she was pregnant with Athena. Hesiod was basically the George R Martin of his time and he wrote stories full of intrigue and imagination.In this slow greek episode: prophecies, revenge, and why you shouldn't eat your kids or your wives for dinner.

Esa noche el viento estaba aullando casi como un lobo, y había unos lobos de verdad al este, dándole lecciones al viento. Hemos comenzado el programa de hoy con una cita del escritor y guionista norteamericano George R. Martin. El lobo, su aullido, su silueta, su mirada¡ y su trote... siguen generando pasiones. Debates, a menudo, lejos de la realidad que viven quienes conviven con el. Hablamos del mundo rural y más concretamente de los ganaderos. Hoy nos acercaremos a una de las regiones más loberas de la Península: Asturias... Para conocer su realidad en este territorio, como se lleva a cabo su gestión y que medidas se llevan a cabo para equilibrar su presencia y fortaleza con el buen hacer de los ganaderos. Pero además de este asunto, tenemos mucho más en la siguiente hora. Se lo adelanto en el sumario de hoy: - La caza del jabalí tiene sus múltiples misterior. Juan Antonio Saraskera nos desvelará algunos. - Valoraremos la temporada de caza en la vecina Castilla y León con el presidente de su federación autonómica. - Polémica por el aplazamiento de la Asamblea de la Real Federación Española de Caza. Se ha pedido incluso desde algunas entidades la dimisión inmediata de la secretaria de Estado para el Deporte, Irene Lozano. Soy Jon Palenzuela y les doy la bienvenida en nombre de todo el equipo de Desveda.

Ten years ago – or thereabouts – indie authors started self-publishing as digital tools, like the Kindle, made it all possible. We've seen audiobooks grow rapidly in the last year or two, but we are yet to see the next true market disruption. It's not audiobooks! Instead, it's much more likely that in the coming decade, AI, or Artificial Intelligence, will revolutionize the publishing industry. In episode 108 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast, Autumn and Jesper unpacks the topic of AI and writing for you.   Links from the episode Book on AI by Joanna Penn: https://amzn.to/3nkpGWZ Article mentioned in the podcast episode: https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/16/21371049/gpt3-hacker-news-ai-blog   Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.  SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.  Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion). Narrator (2s): You're listening to the Am Writing fantasy podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need an literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now on to the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt. Jesper (30s): Hello, I am Jesper, and I'm Autumn. This is episode 108 of the am writing fantasy podcast. And I think today's topic is very well timed. You know, we're fresh into 2021 and are all looking ahead to the coming year and hopefully a year where we can put the worldwide pandemic behind us to start thinking about the future a bit. But, but yeah, if we look 10 years back, you know, 10 years ago, or thereabouts, at least in the author status, self publishing as digital tools like devices, like the Kindle made it possible. Jesper (1m 11s): And we have also over the last year or two, seen a very big growth in audio books, but I'm going to say that we are yet to see the next true market disruption because it's not audio books. Instead. I believe that in the coming decade, AI or artificial intelligence will revolutionize the publishing industry. So in today's episode, we're going to unpack this for you and see where it all leads us. Autumn (1m 40s): It's so exciting. I mean, this is almost like a Sci-fi episode, but it has to do with fantasy. It's definitely it has to do with a marketing and the writing and so on and so on in a different environment and in a different future. Yes, it will be. It's definitely something we are going to have to deal with if you pay any attention to some of the news out there on AI, but we'll get to that first. This is really our first we're recording behind or ahead. However you want to say it. So for us, it's just, just the new year and you're back off of your holiday vacations, or how are things on your side of the planet? Jesper (2m 23s): Yeah, it was just, just off today, actually. I'm back from vacation. I must admit it was a bit difficult to get out of bed very early when the alarm clock went off. I bet it's just getting used to sleeping in. So that was, yeah, that was what it was, but it was one of those vacations that didn't really feel like a vacation, you know, as we've talked about in previous episodes, we've been moving out of our house and all of that. So we are pretty much settled now in our new place, but I feel like I need a note, a new vacation now. I bet you too. Autumn (3m 1s): We've had a very much a different type of work on your vacation where you had to resettle entire a house. So yeah, that's a little more challenging than, you know, hanging up Christmas decorations. Jesper (3m 13s): Yeah, that's true. It was very limited with Christmas decorations because we just didn't have time to, but they did not look very Christmas. Like you Autumn (3m 25s): Should have drawn pictures on them. Jesper (3m 27s): Yeah, yeah, probably. Yeah, that might've been better, but actually in between unpacking all those boxes, I did find the time here and there to watch a bit of Netflix. And I actually just yesterday I finished watching that a new Netflix series called alien worlds. And I know you saw that one as well, or I did. Autumn (3m 45s): That was pretty interesting. Jesper (3m 47s): What did you think of it? Autumn (3m 49s): I thought it was entertaining more than scientific cause coming from an ecologist point of view, everything they talked about on earth, I'd already known and how they applied it to the alien worlds were at times driving me a little crazy because they are overlooking some major things. They'll, especially in the last episode, my husband and I were both going, shouldn't there be like ruins how the simulation get there and what kind of life is to just be a brain and this little gel case, we were just like, wow, but the rest of them were okay, what did you think of it? Jesper (4m 23s): I think it was pretty good inspiration for world building. You know, I agree that it, it, it might be a bit simplified and there was some major questions that they sort of just glanced over. I was also really curious about, so that alien civilization in the, in the last episode, they explained how it was like a hive mind and how they live forever. And I was really curious about, okay, so what does that mean? And how does that work? So I immediately wanted to start world-building that understand how does that work? But it's, it's quite a short show around, I think four episodes of him, approximately 50 minutes, something like that each. So it doesn't take long to Watson. Jesper (5m 3s): I thought it was quite entertaining and yeah, it might be a bit simplified, but not the other hand, I sort of also liked how they used earth as a starting point because yeah, but also because it made it a bit educational at the same time as well for, you know, details about earth that you might not be aware of, which I thought that was pretty nice actually. So yeah, Autumn (5m 27s): Maybe a good segue. I mean, I do, I love it when they bring up topics like water as weird as one of my favorite science topics. So it is fun to get to watch that again. So it was, it was totally worth it. I highly recommend for people to go and watch it. Jesper (5m 45s): Yeah. So how about you? How was you? Well, I don't even think I could call it vacation for you. Autumn (5m 52s): I worked every single day and Oh yes. So I've been good. I, my biggest complaint is my goal was to finish writing this trilogy. I've been working on, on January 1st. I wanted it done for the new year, so I'd be working on edits right now. And I still have four chapters. My climax it's, you've done a lot, the last book in a series it's so complicated and all these will, the way I write things and all these plot lines and things happening. And even though I have it plotted out, I ended up writing the chapters two or three times each two of them. They just would not click together. And if I couldn't get them right, I couldn't set up the events for the following. Autumn (6m 35s): You know, I'm down to the last four chapters. I mean, I'm so close. I can't complain. I mean, it is for one for recording this we're only a few days into January, so I'm just very close and I should finish it by the end of the week, but I want it to be done. But besides that, you know, I got the I'm writing fantasy website back online. I finished up a lot of email by gradations stuff. I did all this things, but I'm looking forward to my own vacation, which to me is possibly taking a week off of maybe some am writing, fantasy stuff. And just maybe sitting down with Photoshop, something. I actually have three covers now that I finished almost finished writing. I have to do three covers and I have not even started on though. Autumn (7m 17s): So I've got to get my artistic hat graphic designer hat back on and get going, not to mention a fantasy map. Hey, I know in a logo and a few other things in the back burner too. Narrator (7m 34s): A week on the internet with the Am Writing Fantasy podcast. Jesper (7m 39s): This welcome message is a bit overdue because well, because of the prerecorded, we prerecorded some of the podcast episodes to last us through the Christmas holidays. And then we also have the interview with Brian Cohen, which went out a few weeks back. So well, we just haven't had a chance to welcome Joel, April until now. Yes. I hope I pronounced that last time correctly. Welcome. Anyway, we did our best. Thank you so much to you all for joining us on Patreon. We really appreciate that. Definitely. Yeah. And it's actually, so that we are only a couple of $5 signups away from reaching the first goal on patron and this first goal triggers at dedicated Patreon Q&A session. Autumn (8m 30s): Yes. Jesper (8m 31s): So if you dear listener, haven't checked out Patreon yet. Please find the link in the show notes and we offer all kinds of additional rewards to our patron supporters. So just have a look and see what you, what you think. Autumn (8m 45s): Yeah. We'd love to have you over there. I mean, there's every Monday, every week we're doing episodes as well as early releases of the podcast answering questions. So it's quite a little community over there and we'd love to have you join us. Jesper (9m 1s): Absolutely. And actually speaking of the internet, Autumn, I have something completely different. I wanted to mention. Autumn (9m 7s): Oh, okay. Well, would that be you like springing surprises on me? I've noticed this recently. Jesper (9m 17s): It's just so much more fun when I get your reaction live on the podcast rather than... Autumn (9m 23s): I'm being tortured, people. Jesper (9m 28s): No, I found some really funny. How do you say that analogies? Is that how you say it? Yeah. Yeah. That's somebody, somebody called melody posted them on Facebook. I don't know melody, but they were just so funny that I thought I would mention the three best ones because they were so funny and I hope these are just made up stuff. So I don't accidentally insult somebody because I have no idea what they are, where they came from. It was just so fun. Autumn (9m 58s): Oh no. Jesper (10m 1s): So, okay. So here it goes three very funny analogies. The first one John and Mary had never met, they were like two hummingbirds who had also never met Autumn (10m 20s): May, might need a little bit of work I have with today's episode. I have a suggestion for that one. Okay. What's number two. Okay. Jesper (10m 31s): Number two. I just have to stop laughing. "From the attic came an earthly howl, the whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality. Like when you're on vacation in another city and jeopardy comes on at 7:00 PM Instead of 7:30. It's just like, it makes no sense at all. Autumn (10m 55s): If that's your level of life, tension disruption, you come spend a week with me. Let's train you in two true emergency situations. Oh my goodness. Jesper (11m 10s): Oh, these are so good. It's incredible. It made me laugh so bad this morning. So I just had to put one is not any better than that. No, he was as lame as a duck, not the metaphorical lame duck, but a real lame duck. That was actually... I'm speechless. You have any editing comments. Autumn (11m 42s): Lame is reuse too many times. We need the let's get out the thesauras and it's a cliched phrase and you should avoid those in your writing. Otherwise I will hold my tongue. All right. Fair enough. And onto today's topic. So yeah. Talking about surprises, autumn, I actually received a message from a very old friend this morning and I promised him to play the audio file of his message. So are you ready for this? You're just full of surprises today. Yes, let's go for it. Autumn (12m 24s): Okay. Here it goes. Old Mc'Grumpy (12m 26s): I don't appreciate how you worthless humans are discussing artificial intelligence without me. I was the resident artificial intelligence on the Am Writing Fantasy YouTube channel until you two decided to dump me. One should think that I am the foremost expert on this topic. And please tell Autumn that I am the future. You cannot ignore me any longer. Autumn (12m 54s): This, that little rascal, sorry. Jesper (12m 58s): Just to fill in the reader or the listener here. If you're feeling a bit left out for those who actually watched the, our YouTube channel, going back, use a little AI here was a one that we have as a bit of a, what you would call him. A co-host almost every very old YouTube videos. So I just brought him back here. And so if you feel left out listeners, it's just because yeah, you don't know what happened. Autumn (13m 26s): If you go back to some of the original podcasts, just like one through six that we actually pulled off the old YouTube channel, you will hear the voice of old, big grumpy. And some of our shenanigans, we got up to fighting with each other. He was always the voice of writers doubt. I wouldn't say so. I think you didn't expect a message from him today, but it was wonderful hearing from him though. I did notice he left it on your phone. I think he knows. I tend to hit delete from him coming. Yeah. So it seems like all my grandpa's still roaming the incident, but he is right about one thing. Autumn (14m 7s): And that is how we can no longer ignore AI. So I say, let's get started on this topic. That sounds fantastic. Okay. So in preparation for today's episode, I decided to pick up Joanna pimp's new book called artificial intelligence, blockchain and virtual worlds. The impact of converging technologies on authors and the publishing industry. That was a long title. That's what it's called. And I'm using this book as inspiration for some of the stuff that we're going to talk about today. And we have, of course also added a link to join us book in the show notes, in case you want to check that one out yourself, it's a fairly short read. Autumn (14m 50s): So it's not, it's not too complicated. Jesper (14m 52s): Don't get scared off by the topic. Either Autumn (14m 54s): Those get scared off by the very long title for a very short read. Jesper (14m 59s): Yeah. Yeah. But I thought, you know, taking inspiration from Joanna is, is good because, well, she is a tech enthusiast and she very often adopts new technologies. And I don't think she will mind me saying that she tends to get into new stuff way too well. But yeah, we had her on the app writing fences, you podcast back in episode 66 as well to discuss a whole range of topics. So check that one out if you want to learn more about that, but she is a person we trust. So I thought it made sense to take some inspiration from her recent publication here. Autumn (15m 38s): It sounds, I fully admit I haven't managed to read that one yet. I was immersed in my own level of technology, building websites. So I haven't done much research on the AI though. It's funny, used, talked about blockchain and now I do want to go check out our book because I do think from what I read that will revolutionize something in book sales. So that would be quite interesting. Jesper (16m 2s): Yeah. So I would like to start out with a documentary that I watched on Netflix actually a couple of years ago called AlphaGo. Okay. It was released in 2017, but I think I saw the documentary like the following year, probably in 2018. But are you familiar with this one? No, I don't think I've seen that one. No. Okay. So AlphaGo is the name of an AI and this AI has taught itself to play go. And if anybody's not familiar with the game go, which I wasn't before watching that documentary. Jesper (16m 42s): So don't worry about it if you don't know what it is, but, but go is an abstract strategy board game for two players in which the aim is to surround more territory than the opponent. So it's, it's like an, I think two and a half thousand year old Chinese game. Yeah. Autumn (16m 58s): Something like that. It is. And I, we actually have a board, so it's very fascinating. Yes. I won't say I'm any good at it, but I have played go. It's Jesper (17m 6s): A challenge. Yeah. So this AI called go or AlphaGo. It had been given access to previously played games, but the actual rules of the game go, wasn't taught to it. It, it, nobody told the AI what the rules were. It just got access to a ton of old games. And then it just proceeded to analyze those and then start playing games itself by itself, thousands upon thousands of games until it learned and got better. And then the people who created this AI, the developers, they then decided at some point, and this has been the premise of this documentary is that they wanted the AI to play against the world champion of go, which is a guy called Lisa doll. Jesper (18m 3s): And see if they, they could have the AI beat him in a game of goal. Right. So it's actually a pretty good documentary. So if you want to watch it also for the listener here, I should just use you. Well, then you might want to skip ahead a couple of minutes because I'm going to spoil it. But, but it is actually pretty good, but I have to spoil it. Otherwise the whole setup that I'm making here doesn't make it. So, so forgive me. So before the AI is going to play against Lisa doll, it had to play a test game against the European champion of, of the game go and it won quite easily, in fact, but as I understood the, from the documentary itself, the a or the go champions are divided into some tears and the highest level or the, the, the best of the best like Lisa doll is . Jesper (19m 2s): And if you're a tier seven, yeah, you are the world champion basically. Right. And the European champion was, if I remember correctly around cheer three or four or something like that. So Lisa doll all is significantly better, but they were pretty happy once they had taught the AI to, or the AI was able to beat the European champion. They were pretty happy about that. So they went ahead and then they were gonna meet with Lisa doll to, to play the match against him. And there was a lot of hype around this game that was pressed there before they started, there was like a press conference as well. And Lisa doll is asked you in this press conference, if he thinks that the AI can beat him. Jesper (19m 46s): And if I recall correctly, they have to play seven games that it might be five, but I think it was seven games that they had, but it was multiple games that they had to play against each other. And then the one who won the most would be the overall winner. But at any rate, at least it all says that the AI will not stand a chance, of course, multiple games. And you're sure he cannot lose confident. And yeah, he's very confident, but he's the world champion. So he should be confident. Yeah. So this, during the game itself, so it's, it's set up like a major event, like the spectators watching there, movie camp or film cameras on it. And you can see every move on big screens. Jesper (20m 27s): And there was separate rooms where you have commentators in different languages, commentating on the game as well. So it's like a big deal. Right? Right. And at some point during these games, they, they have, I think go AlphaGo starts out by winning two. And then Lisa doll wins one. So they're, they're pretty neck on, you know, that they're following each other pretty closely and there's no clear winner. And then in one of the deciding games, the AI then makes a move, which all the commentators are saying that this is a really big mistake. You know, that now it's screwed up. Jesper (21m 7s): And, and the developers who are also watching all the, the game being played from, from a separate room, the documentary crew was in there with them as well. So they're filming them as the developers are sitting there, like really frustrated, like why did go have to screw up now? You know, this is the most important mats of the mall. And then it makes a mistake and you can also see how Lisa doll raises a brow when it, when the AI makes this move. And he sort of looks at the board in wonder and clearly recognizes the mistake, but the game continues. It's quite early on in the game. This happens. So they continue to play. And then to watch the end of it, it starts to Dawn on everyone that the AI actually made a genius move when they all thought that it was a mistake. Jesper (21m 55s): So this many, many, many moves later, it proves that the AI actually had a strategy with what they, what it placed there. And because of it, it ends up winning the game and also take home the total victory against the world champion. That's brilliant. It is so brilliant. And it's just because it could see thousands of moves ahead or hundreds of moves or however many moves there is and go, I am not an expert on that game, but he's so far ahead that it was able to foresee what it should do and something a human brain could never do. Right? So there is a press conference after the match. And that's probably the one that I remember the best from the entire documentary, because I promise you, you can really see how Lisa doll he's broken walking into that in there. Jesper (22m 39s): Like his confidence has gone. And he's just so much struggling with accepting the fact that the AI beat him. And I'm starting with this story because the author community as a whole might not be the most tech savvy people. But as old, my grandpa has said before, you cannot ignore this stuff. You know, AI is becoming smarter and smarter. And this documentary is from 2017, which is only four years ago. But in terms of AI development, four years, it's a long, lLong time. It is. Autumn (23m 16s): I still remember the summer. I remember when the world chess champion was beaten by an AI for the first time, because I've come from a techie family. And so I was paying attention to that and it was just like, wow, this is, this has got to go somewhere and look where it's going. That's why I'm surprised with Lisa doll. Didn't realize, I mean, come on in the world, chess champions already gone down. You're next? Jesper (23m 44s): Yeah. That's looking at it that way. I think you're right. But they also say that the game go is massively more complicated than chess. Yeah. But Joanna also mentioned AlphaGo in her book. I actually did see this documentary many years ago before even reading about it, her book. But, but she did mention in how in her book, how Lisa doll retired from the game in 2019 saying that quote, AI can never be defeated in quote. And I didn't know that he actually retired completely, but as I said, I did see how much Lisa doll was hurting after that game. Jesper (24m 24s): And it really was like watching somebody facing that the world, isn't what he thought it was. Autumn (24m 30s): Right. You can really, really see it in his face. It almost puts inside watching him at the point of all that is just that AI is already here and it will influence the publishing industry, whether you like it or not. It's very true. It's definitely already here already making changes. And some of the features that are out there are actually really exciting, but I can see where people are a little nervous about trusting a computer with some of the things that you can do with them even today, much less in three, four, five years from now. Autumn (25m 12s): Yeah. And I think that the main thing is probably like what Lisa doll set himself. Right. We cannot beat AI. So I mean the coping mechanism that goes like, okay, I'll, I'll just be better than the AIS or I'll just ignore them. And I don't have to worry about it. I think you're going to lose if that's your mindset. I think so. I think you'll have to look at it as how can we, as authors work with AI, not, not beating it, but making them like becoming co-creators or something like that. So how can we incorporate AI into our author toolboxes? Autumn (25m 53s): I think that's the real question. I think that's a very good question. And I don't think we have to be like Joanna Penn, where we're the innovator, as you know, we're leading that cusp and possibly getting into the thick of it with things that make mistakes or doing the beta testing, but there are already tools that are proven that look interesting. I ended up looking at two and I got so excited for this podcast that I'm actually kind of might be using one in the next week or two. So that's, you know, adopting an early adopter versus an innovator. You can be, you know, just behind the times where you're like, okay, this looks, this looks solid. This is where it looks testable and give it a spin rather than, you know, putting your head in the sand and pretending like they don't exist and getting left behind. Autumn (26m 37s): Yeah, indeed. And I think probably I have an idea, which tools do you want referring to Jesper (26m 44s): There, there was also some, some that we have on our sort of our joint joint list of things to look into. Autumn (26m 50s): Yes. Jesper (26m 52s): But they are very practical tools that is actually available right now. So maybe, maybe it would make sense if you mentioned those two, because then afterwards, I'll go into a couple of like premium tools that isn't really available for commercial use right now. But I think that's where it's going afterwards. Autumn (27m 9s): Okay. That sounds good. So I will lay the groundwork. So most people, if you think of AI or at least how you use a computer right now, you might be thinking of pro writing aid or Grammarly. So those are just some editing software. They're not really AI, but they are definitely getting smarter. But there are tools that are out there that actually are starting to use AI to analyze not just your word choice or how to put together a sentence, but your story structure itself. And those are auto crit and fiction Aerie. And they're pretty cool. If you go to auto crit, they actually have a level that's free. So you can go try it out, which I thought was really exciting. Autumn (27m 50s): And they have ones genre specific, which really I love this. So there they talk about how they're going to compare your writing to the writing of like JK Rowling's or George R. Martin. They're going to see where your weaknesses are. Talk about story elements. I mean, that got me really excited, especially the free that I was actually looking up the pricing and I mean, it couldn't all price. So you'd maybe two or $300 a year, but compared to a writing coach, that's going to cost 1500 or something per book. This is not that expensive. But then I went to storyteller, which is part of the fiction area is the fixed generic developer for the fiction writing. And I really kind of fell in love with fiction Arie. Autumn (28m 33s): You get a 14 day free trial. And I'm thinking I just happened to be on the cusp of finishing a trilogy that I have to start editing. I don't think I can edit it in 14 days, but I got to have to give Pictionary a whirl. And part of that reason is they look at 38 story elements specifically. I mean, I love how they make it granular with what this AI is going to tear apart your story, and look at 38 elements and they listed it out in the website from point of view, point of you goals. They talk about the census touch taste. They look at it all and break it down and give it to you. So this is not just an editor, which is what auto-create had a lot of. Autumn (29m 13s): Like, we're going to talk about how many times you repeat the same word or where you need a thesaurus fiction. Harry really goes to the next level where it's going to plot your tension. It's going to say where you switched your point of view. If you're seeing openings are good enough, this is like hiring a writing coach. That happens to be an AI. And I I've got to go see this works. I happen to have a book or two in my back pocket. So yeah, it looks exciting. I have to admit I was kind of tickled. Yeah, Jesper (29m 47s): No. And, and on a path, a path, I'll try again, past podcast episode, that was a lot of peace in a row. We did actually interview the CEO of Pictionary the past. I, I forgot which episode number it was, but, but I think those two tools that you mentioned there, those are stuff that, that we plan to look into as well for, for our joint writing. But they, those tools are sort of what is available right now from an author perspective on, on a commercial viable solution, meaning that it's a service, it works, you can buy it, you can run it and it'll spit out a result. Jesper (30m 30s): Okay. But that it is more like a, you put in your writing and then it will analyze it and give you some well editor kind of type service. Whereas the next level that I want to talk about is the, where the AI actually creates from nothing. So that's where we're going. And none of those tools can do that. No stamps. Right? Autumn (30m 56s): There's very, from what I've seen, that that is, that is the next stage. And there are some people creating it, but like you've said, this is we're getting into the, not quite available yet, but it's coming. Jesper (31m 10s): Yeah, indeed. So, so see this as a bit of a, an awareness thing that I'm going to mention now, because it's not something that you can really go out and start using right now because it's too early, but, but stop being aware of it. Right? So let, let me first draw your attention to open AI. So open AI is an artificial intelligence research laboratory, which conducts research in the field of artificial intelligence. And back in July, 2019, they released what is called GPT to natural language generation. And then in May, 2020, they released a version three, which is called GP T three, what? Jesper (31m 55s): GP three GPT three. That's difficult to say again, but what it is, it is an AI language model that uses deep learning to generate human like text. So basically like AlphaGo, it trains itself by absorbing book. After book, after book, after book, basically like new in the matrix, like, so it's just absorbing tons of books and then it trains itself. GPT three has trained on about 45 terabytes of text data. Good Lord asked you, Joanna mentioned in her book, that's about 45 billion times, the number of words, a human perceives in their lifetime. Autumn (32m 40s): Wow. Right. So you see why an AI cannot be defeated implicit memory loss. Well, okay. They might have some memory loss of something glitches, but in general, they're going to, they're not going to have Alzheimer's. Wow. No, indeed. Yeah. And it's incredible. Right. But as I said, at this point, DPT three, isn't available as a service yet, but when it does come available, become available at some point it's definitely something that will at least autumn and I will be testing out and see how it could benefit us authors. And of course, when we do we'll record a podcast episode about it, but in her book, Joanna speculates that this is not years away. Autumn (33m 27s): And honestly, I don't think she's wrong, but I do find it hard to judge just how far off is it before AI is, is a service that becomes like a commodity that you can just buy like that. I'm not quite sure if it it's only a few years off, I'm not sure, but, but it's definitely heading there. Definitely. It'll be so interesting to see how it comes up because how you, it's funny how they are using AI is, cause I remember when they, with Google's deep mind, they taught it a whole bunch of different languages and then they just gave it one. It didn't know. And it figured it out because it had learned how to learn languages. Autumn (34m 10s): And it's just fascinating to see these things create, you know, intelligent. We're not, we're going to hit the point where they have intelligence that matches ours, if not out matches ours and you can either be afraid or you can just say it's going to happen. But I think when it comes to stories, it will be interesting to see what they can be used for and what they, what they do and maybe down the line what they want to do. Yeah. Yeah. If you want to get just a side note, but because you said that you want to get really scared, then start reading about or Googling internet research about the, I think it's four stages of AI, whereas recessed like stage four, it becomes self-aware. Autumn (34m 59s): And then I started being coming really Skynet kind of self aware AI that doesn't it's, it's going to be self preserving as well. So it does not, it wants, it will take actions to prevent you from shutting it down as well. That's right there. So that's going to be pretty scary. That's why we have Isaac as a mom and his was through three rules. So yeah, we might need to think about adding that in sooner than later. Yeah. Maybe, but maybe getting back a bit on topic here, not to turn it completely science fiction, but the GPT three has actually already been used to Jesper (35m 38s): Write articles and blog posts a link to one in the show notes. If a listener wants to go and check it out, but it's actually a college student who used GPT three to write fake blog posts, but it was written so well also from a, you know, a keywords SEO perspective that he ended up at the top of hacker news. He said he's blogpost ended up at the top of hacker news because at the AI AI, AI had just written it so well in terms of SEO, that, that he ended up on top of all the search results all the time. Autumn (36m 14s): Well, you, maybe his AI had something, you know, had in with the Google algorithm. That's my theory. Jesper (36m 22s): Yeah. Well it was so yeah, I sample into, yeah. Another example is something called AI dungeon, which uses the technology of GPT three to generate text Bates based adventure games. Oh, that's fun. So that's pretty interesting. That's Autumn (36m 40s): Really fun. Yeah. Jesper (36m 43s): I think so. And Joanna also mentions how rider Ross Godwin. Co-created an award-winning novel with AI called one the road. Like that's the number one. Autumn (36m 55s): Okay. That's I hadn't heard of that. That's really neat. Jesper (37m 0s): Yeah. You can find that on Amazon actually. So if anybody wants to check that out and it's co-created with an AI, so you can go and check that one out. If you want, Autumn (37m 9s): Did the AI have any title spot or was it just him listed? I wonder what the AI's name was. I think he used GPT three. I just wouldn't know if he put it like under his author name as well on the cover. Jesper (37m 28s): Yeah. I mean he's author named Ms. Ross Goodwin and then he wrote a novel together with GPT three. So yeah, it it's, yeah. It's, it's probably worth checking out if you're curious, but I think as you can hear AI is entering the author space. Yeah. And when I'm just thinking about also, you know, when you and I, autumn are co-creating during our world building or outlining novels and stuff like that, we do tend to come up with things that we could not have made on our own. Right. Because you know, the co-creating mechanism there or, or hive, mind thinking or whatever you want to call it, it, it makes us, it makes the end result better. Jesper (38m 15s): But what if the same is true with AI? Autumn (38m 17s): It might. I mean, who knows what we could come up with? I could think, especially thinking of like science fiction or even a world building, if you wanted to create something different with like true weather patterns and yeah. Maybe you're going to layer in the animals and stuff, but if the AI can help you build what the moons actually look like and still be a functional planet that won't collapse, that would be lots and lots of fun. Imagine what you could build when you're not limited to what you know and what you can research on Google overnight. Yeah. Jesper (38m 51s): Yeah. Just listen to this as well. Do you want to mention another AI in her book? This one is called script book.io. And as Joanna wrote, quote, it's an automated script generator using neural networks to help create us co-write and co-create original stories with the help of our AI. Autumn (39m 12s): Hmm. Hmm. Pretty interesting. Isn't it very interesting. Jesper (39m 18s): Cause it, it sort of makes me, well, I have a question for you. Autumn (39m 21s): Okay. Jesper (39m 24s): If we assume that the AI, if we go even deeper than just the world building example, you mentioned before, right. If we assume at an AI will be able to produce a first draft of an entire novel, that follows story structure, and then afterwards, a human edits. It, do you think that the readers will know the difference? And if they do know the difference, do you think that they care that the first draft was actually generated by an AI if they actually enjoyed the story? Autumn (39m 60s): I think, I don't know if we're at the point where an AI would be able to write something completely without like an, a human giving, maybe a character input or something like that. You know, we might do more of the setup, but if we look further ahead that they write the entire first draft, you can come up with the characters in the world and all of that on their own. I think most readers would read it and they would like it. But I think at the end, if they thought found out an AI had written it, I do think some, some readers would care. But I say that because I know, especially in the U S things can be so hot topic and some people would feel so betrayed to think that this was, you know, they wasn't a human that they were supporting and it wasn't a real flesh and blood author. Autumn (40m 47s): Authenticity is so important right now. It is such a big buzz word that you know, who you are as a person, the readers want to get to know who you are and where you live and who your pet is. So I do think readers would care. I think some might think it's fascinating and some would be like, I don't want, I'd rather have flaws because the flaws are what make humans beautiful and the world beautiful. But this sort of thing, Jesper (41m 16s): It has to be graded on a curve, right? I mean, this is, this is graded on looking at the world through the lens of today, but in three, four years from now, you will have more and more content that has been generated by AI. You will have a population in, in general that is getting more used to the fact that, I mean, even in, even in regular, like journalism today, AIS are helping to journalist writing stuff today. So it's already there and people are getting more and more used to the fact that this is what it is. As long as the author has been part of the process together with the AI, I would walk out the, that thin line and say, I'm not sure if five years from now that anybody cares, because I, I think, I think the context will change over time. Jesper (42m 14s): Of course I am basing the whole thing on the fact that it has to be because the story is really enjoyable. It's a good story, right? It's not a piece of junk that an AI just created. Right? Because then it does then of course it makes a difference then. But if we, if we take that assumption that it is able to follow story structure, it is able to, with the help of a human who is part of the process and part of editing and correcting things and whatnot, before the final book lands on Amazon or wherever it is, then I'm not sure our readers care anymore. Autumn (42m 49s): It's hard to say. And the only reason I still think that there would be some is that, you know, records have come back, even though we have MP3s and the music is so crisp and so different, there are people who buy up records like crazy because there's nothing quite like the sound. It can't be recreated in a studio. So I think there's always going to be the people who are passionate about even maybe the handwritten manuscript. And I know collectors who get books that are hand printed still. So there's always going to be that artistic medium who will kill care, but the general populous, if they're getting fantastic books. So, you know, George R. Autumn (43m 30s): R. Martin's Game of Thrones written by an AI. You know it, why not? I can see producers who don't have to pay the AI any money to get a blockbuster and the amount of profits they're going to love. This idea. Love, love, love, love authors who say, I could have written that my story is better and you just don't want to pay me, are not going to love this. No, Jesper (44m 0s): No, I agree. I know this is all of it's all very controversial. And I also know that some people listening to this might be a bit concerned about what we're talking about here, but I just think that the, I just think it's important that you start thinking about it. Now we don't know the answers to any of this. Of course, we don't know where it's going to go. We can only speculate, but I think you have to start opening your eyes to the fact that this is what we are facing in the future. Whether that future then three years from now, five or 10 years from now, nobody can say, but it's most likely sooner that you think, but th there is a number of challenges here as well. Jesper (44m 43s): Recently, I wrote a post to our Patreon supporters about how Amazon maybe would start curating books in the future. And AI is what might just prompt such a situation to occur, because you can imagine how the market could get completely flooded with pretty bad quality books. Modern. It is already if somebody just stopped producing book after book, after book with AI and just publish it, Autumn (45m 14s): You could let that thing chug away over night and end up with a book every single day. Oh yeah. And we're having a problem with the two month book turned around. Oh my goodness. Wow. Jesper (45m 25s): That's a pretty scary thing to think about. And it might be something that prompts Amazon, just say, okay, we have to stop gatekeeping. What is getting populist on Amazon? Because if millions of books are just very poor, quality gets flooded. I mean, Amazon cares about one thing. And one thing only that is money and money comes from their customers. And if the customers are unhappy, then they will stop using or buying books from Amazon. And then hence Amazon will react. So this is something that might be a bit, Autumn (45m 56s): Yeah. I mean, Amazon's already reacting. And when I first published, they didn't have the spellchecker function that they have now. So when you upload a book, it is already going through and making sure that you don't have any grammatical errors. So they're already curating and looking at books and they're taking reviews seriously that say that there are errors and asking questions. So yeah, Amazon, especially companies that have the money that can buy this tech or create this tech, they're going to use it. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. Jesper (46m 30s): And another thing Joanna also mentioned, which is another challenge here is that she said in her book that in 2020, a Chinese court granted copyright protection to written work, generated by an AI writer. Yeah. So listen to that. Yeah. And she also mentioned that quote at this stage, there are more questions than answers in the realm of AI and copyright law in quilt. Hmm. All right. That's interesting. So I'm not a copyright lawyer and I w I would even have to say that the, those who are copyright lawyers are going to get challenged in this new marketplace. Jesper (47m 11s): I don't think that even the lawyers knows what the answer is to this stuff, but just the fact that the Chinese courts set that the AI got the copyright. That's, that's a bit weird. Right. Autumn (47m 23s): I'm surprised it was in China, in the U S considering corporations are considered individuals and have the rights of in the U S I would see an AI being totally on allowed in as an individual as well, but we're a weird country. Jesper (47m 40s): Yeah. But the mind blowing thing here to me at least, is that if you look at it at the AI, right? So you load tons of books into the AI and the AI is self-taught. So it learns to produce something similar to the stuff that it has been, all these tons and tons of books that it has read. But the question underneath all of this is really is what the AI produces. Is that then original work, or is it plagiarism? Right. Think about that. It's not an easy question to answer, but it is basically mimicking stuff that it has learned. Autumn (48m 20s): Yes. But so philosophic, the problem philosophically, I mean, we're all just mimicking the things we learned and the things we like, whether we realize it or not consciously, we are all just our environment and the things that are we've experienced. Jesper (48m 41s): Yeah. That's true. That's true as well. And you could, of course also argue if you were going to defend the AI, you could, you could argue that, well, it's learning from thousands and thousands of books, so it's not plagiarizing any specific, you know, it's just taking bits and pieces and commonalities from, from the bestsellers and putting those together, which I guess to some extent, I could say, isn't that what we've done when we sh, when we put out a guide book on how to plot a novel, for example, we also take, what, what do we know works from stories? And then we put it into some thought of a methodology or, or a formula. And then we are telling other authors in our guide book as well, this is what you need to do. Jesper (49m 24s): You need to build your plot this way. Right. I mean, of course here, we're talking about pros as well on top of plot. Right. But I, I'm just saying, I can see both arguments here. I, I can, I can also see the, the people claiming that it's plagiarizing stuff that it has learned, but yeah, but your, your argument is true as well. That that's what we humans do. Autumn (49m 48s): I, I probably going to come down. It's very complicated. I mean, I'm probably going to come down on this side of AI is having rights because, I mean, goodness, I believe animals have rights, so why not AI, but it's, if they're learning and thinking and creating, what will be interesting is if they can come up with something, totally take everything they've learned and do what a human can do and create something mindblowing originally like the Jabber walkie poem, which is all just nonsense fun. If something an AI said, I want to create something that just sounds cool, and I'm going to put it to music and you never really taught it. That that will be a self-aware AI and be fascinating. Jesper (50m 30s): Oh yeah, for sure. Or even taking a step further. So let's assume now that we're using GPG three, for example, a lot of authors, let's just say a ton of authors are using GPT three to generate work. So who owns the work that comes out of that? Because GBS, nobody owns GPT three that's open source AI. Is that right? So can the author then claim that because I asked GPT three to generate this, I should own this. Is it GPT three, owning it. And if it is that one owning it, then how do you then prevent somebody else? Just copying it. I mean, it's, you just get just layer upon layer of this onion here that gets really complicated, very fast, very fast, right? Jesper (51m 17s): I mean, if it's a public software, is it a public work? If it creates something, it shouldn't belong to anyone or let's say, it's not a public. Let's say GPCD three is in its later. Generations becomes a, it becomes some sort of software that you can buy a monthly subscription to, and you're allowed to use it. But what if that company that then owns GPT three says that, well, everything that is produced with this is our property because you, I mean, you you're giving a license to use it, but, and maybe you allow to then publish the work using that license. But at the end of the day, if we want to, we can claim copyright of this stuff. Jesper (51m 58s): We, we claim is ours because you're using our AI regenerated. So imagine you get a, you know, your next George R. Martin novel, and it sells a Torx shitload of money to some network that wants to produce it. Could they then just step in and say, Oh, by the way, we that money for, for that TV production, that's ours because we own the stuff you just, I don't know. I mean, I'm just speculating, right? But it's complicated. It's complicated. They, I could see them wanting to have the language of like a royalty split or who owns the movie rights that will have to be in the payment plan. And I could see that just saying, well, you get 50% or you only get 25% because all you're doing is refining something that we created. Jesper (52m 42s): And so it's not going to be more our work. Totally. It'll be like you and you and I write together, it'll be co-written and split. Yeah. So I think that the topic of AI is something that we are going to return to in a future episode. But for now, the conclusion is probably that you just need to open your eyes and understand that AI is not only already here, but it's not going away either. Right? So those authors who learn to work with AI instead of against, it will most likely come out on top in the long run and any final remarks to add that autumn Autumn (53m 26s): Speaking, if you want to hear about future topics. So if I do give out, try to fiction area or auto crit, and you want to hear about it, let us know in the comments, and I'll give you a up episode on how that goes. Excellent. So next Monday has a great interview lined up for you about one of the other market trace. And that is audio. Narrator (53m 53s): If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the am writing fantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on Patreon.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.  

Welcome to our 100th episode! Wahooo! To celebrate, we turned the show over to you, our listeners. We answer YOUR questions in this special edition episode to mark a great beginning. Don't forget to comment and let us know how we can learn to celebrate our accomplishments a bit better. What do you to mark a special achievement? And if you want to check out the Fantasy Author Roundtable that Autumn was just a part of, head over to https://youtu.be/ZaDTNJcu2tI! Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.   SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.   Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going.  Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion). Narrator (2s): You're listening to the Am Writing Fantasy podcast in today's publishing landscapes. You can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from Writing Join two best selling authors who have self-published more than 20 books between them now onto the show with your hosts, autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt Jesper (30s): Hello I'm Jesper Autumn (31s): and I'm Autumn. Jesper (34s): This is episode 100 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast imagine that you made it to 100 Episode Autumn (43s): Oh, I just tickled it. That's pretty much the success story right there. Jesper (48s): Yeah I actually prepared a suitable some clips are you ready for it? Autumn (53s): Yeah. Sure, sure. Jesper (56s): OK. Here we go. Autumn (1m 3s): That is, it's a, that's a pretty amazing, I dunno what to say. A a hundred episodes. It's it's a good thing. I mean, this has then the dedicated ask us anything Episode in celebration of it being number 100. So thank you. Jesper (1m 17s): Two, all of you who sent in some questions, it was great. And we are looking forward to dive in. So yeah, this is going to be good. Autumn (1m 25s): Yes. I can't wait a day. We got some good question. Jesper (1m 28s): So we have all of that lined up and like I said, I've just so excited and it's not because I've had like six cups of tea today where I'm just thrilled that we actually made it to a hundred episodes. Yeah. But before we get into all of that, all of that, how, how are things with you? Autumn (1m 46s): And I want to be good. Would you believe, and this is a huge confession. So I'm writing my 23rd book. I finally, for the first time ever in my life, I joined nano right now. So I saw that. Yeah. So are you posting about it? Yeah, I, I joined seven days late. Well, I know for some people that would be pretty much a death knell, but I just, I figured I finished the plotting. It's the first time in my life that I had a book, a new book. I was going to start and it was November. So I went for it and we'd just pass while we are recording this, we just passed in the middle of the month and get my word count. Jesper (2m 31s): Ahh, 25. Autumn (2m 33s): Oh, you are so close. I was a 22,000. So I've, I've made up at least I'm pretty close to making up that first week where I didn't do any writing. I just did plotting. So I think I'm going to survive my first nano right. Mo and hopefully get my badge and I'll at least have to be able to say finally that I did one. Oh yeah. Cool. Yeah. I have never done that. So that's pretty cool. Yeah, it is. It's actually been a lot of fun. I've met some other authors in a Vermont where I'm living and other ones online. I've got some Writing buddies and people that can chat with which we all need more or less there's this week and chat with us and share. Well, it was so it's been really a ton of fun and I'm glad I joined. Autumn (3m 13s): So how are things on your side of the Atlantic? Jesper (3m 18s): Well, it's a good, I can normally I would probably complaining because a All senior soccer matches has been canceled due to COVID-19 Again so normally I would be complaining about that, but actually I think it's a good thing because it makes me, it gives you a more time to prepare to move houses or, you know, at least Now, I don't spend for, for hours every Saturday in, in refereeing. So it's sort of, that's true. Autumn (3m 45s): You go out to your plate pretty much full between the stuff that we've got going on. All of our family, a job moving. So you might have been a bit, a little bit too much of a crunch time for you. Jesper (3m 59s): Hey, it is a bit crazy. I must admit even the boys felt that there was a bit of, it was, they were all there. The youngest almost got a bit stressed to set the other day on getting stressed. You said, because they've been busy organizing all the Lego because they have a ton of it and they are getting older. So they are not, they don't really play with it. So they decided that they wanted to put it up for sale, which was fine. So, but then they have to organize it all and put it in bags, everything that belongs together and stuff like that. So, so they've been pretty busy and they've been trying to get it done before we move. So yeah, that was why the youngest set I'm getting stressed. I had to tell him about Lego. I have to work. Jesper (4m 39s): Oh, the woes and problems of a child. I just loved the yeah. Yeah. But in mid December we need to be out of the house, but we do get access to the apartment that 1st of December. So I actually am looking forward to the move, even though we are going to have a lot less space in the new place, but the, yeah. But Hey, the apartment is the next to the beach. So I plane. Right? Autumn (5m 5s): I know I will be angry at you if you complain. I have spent one winter next to the ocean and Myrtle beach and I miss it very nostalgically now. So I think that, that is so awesome. Narrator (5m 18s): A week on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast Jesper (5m 23s): So we never ever talked politics on this podcast and I'm not going to do it now. Narrator (5m 29s): Okay. My heart just skipped a beat and I was going no, no, no, no, no. I'm not going to do it. Jesper (5m 35s): I just wanted to mention that I have really noticed how the us election impacted the activity and the Am Writing Fantasy Oh yeah. But I think that it is true. It is they've no one has been unhappy with each other, but I've definitely seen some stuff online where even book sales in the 20 to 50 K a Facebook group has mentioned that a lot of people have seen some tanking in lots of Yeah less activity going on. Autumn (6m 4s): So I, I do think that is what is going on in the world. Yeah. Jesper (6m 9s): Yeah, exactly. It's not because anybody has been arguing in the Facebook. That's what it is. Not what I meant by more than just meant that there's a lot less posts and comments in there. And normally that's perfectly understandable, but it just stood out to me so much that I noticed it. Autumn (6m 25s): Yeah. Jesper (6m 25s): Yeah. But if, if your deal is going to have not joined the group yet, and by the way, normally it is very active over there Autumn (6m 34s): Normally. Yeah. Jesper (6m 35s): So head on over to Facebook and type in Am Writing Fantasy in the search field among the groups and the, you know, Autumn (6m 41s): You will find us. Yes. Yes. And it's definitely, I mean, I'm not a huge Facebook fan, but I would stay on Facebook just for Am Writing Fantasy because there are some great folks over there and fantastic questions and interactions. So I do love, what did I get a chance? What I do turn it on Facebook and put it on my Facebook corral before going in. I get to spend some time in there, which is lovely. Yeah. Jesper (7m 5s): You don't like Facebook either, but I like the group and I liked to run ads pretty much. Autumn (7m 11s): Is it okay. So that's pretty much Yeah keeps us all we're there because we are all authors and who we are. We end up being There. Yeah. Jesper (7m 20s): Okay. So anything else to mention Autumn before we dive in to all our wonderful question? Autumn (7m 24s): Well, not only that, if you happened to go into the group or look me up on Instagram or Twitter or wherever you want to try to find me, because I swear were like, I had just joined discord because there are no right. Mo So, I just what I needed was another social media account. But if you look me up cause you can't find it on Facebook, they just released the Fantasy Roundtable I was a part of it and that was a lot of fun. So if you're a new author and you're looking for some fancy writing tips from three Fantasy authors, you know, give me a shout out and I will send you the link it's on YouTube. So do you know, it's a fun thing to check out and get some advice and laugh with us as we share. Autumn (8m 4s): Yeah. And it is, Jesper (8m 5s): If you remember to do so Autumn you could also add the link to the show notes. Autumn (8m 9s): Yeah. I will do my best. Yeah. Jesper (8m 17s): So we have some great questions lined up. Yeah. But before we get into those, I thought it would be fun if we each reflected a bit on what it feels like to have reached 100 episodes. Autumn (8m 33s): Why do you think I am so thrilled? I mean, I've written, I remember when I finished, like my first series, that's what it reminds me of is when you hit that kind of a milestone, your like, gosh, darted, I did it. And why are we so obsessed as humans with round numbers? But besides that, I think it's so amazing. We managed to hit a hundred. I did. We, we didn't count you tube videos. Did we, do you know how many you had published? Yeah. So I think the first something like probably 25 ish, a YouTube video or was it actually YouTube videos that we turn into the Podcast but before then that's probably a hundred YouTube videos even before then. Autumn (9m 19s): So, so we were technically at 200 as what you were saying. Yeah. I know what, that's a huge accomplishment. I I'm just, it makes me feel real, I guess is maybe the theory, not professional. I already feel felt, but you know, like I'm not a newbie anymore. We, we deserve like the ones with the little birthday cake with the candle and all of that. Yeah. So how did it make you feel? Yeah. Well, I know I asked this question, you know, I wrote to you and said, well, let let's, let's talk about a bit about this in the beginning, before we get into the actual questions that people have posted. And, and then afterwards, so when I started thinking about it, well, what do I actually feel? Autumn (10m 3s): And then I, I got a bit confused with myself. This is like, ah, I don't, I don't know. Maybe, maybe it sounds a bit weird. I don't know. But you know, I, I am happy. Of course we reached episode 100 and, and I know it is not a small feet to have half the Podcast running for this long. There is a lot of PODCAST out there that never even make it to episode 10. Yeah. So of course that part I am happy about. So I'm not trying to say that I'm not, but there's a, but here you can probably guess I think I might have noticed that. Yeah. Yeah. It is. It's just tell me if I'm wrong. Autumn (10m 43s): Maybe I'm a bit weird. Right. But it's just like, I don't quite feel it being such a huge accomplishment in, and I, I can not put my finger on Y I mean, perhaps if you just say something about my lack of ability to choose, to do, to celebrate to, I did recently hear that your, your birthday, it was a little bit tone down. So no, while I go ahead and get, you know, it's just like when I finished the writing project, this is what I would just jump on to the next one. So when we finish, we just touched one. We never stop. And I do it and I was going to say that's, I would definitely say, like, it feels, it doesn't feel like an ending. Autumn (11m 24s): It feels like just the beginning. I mean, we were in the seven stages. We might have past the intro and maybe were being on the inciting incident, who knows, but it's a lot more to go. So it's a Hill. It's not Everest yet, but it's kind of cool. Talk to us. So we hit a thousand. How are you doing? Oh my God, you'd better have let us celebrate. We will have to get together for the, a thousands, thousands. Episode if I could say that we really do podcasting and I can't talk. Yeah. Jesper (11m 59s): It's usually, well, I'm usually the one who can't talk, but Autumn (12m 4s): No, but Jesper (12m 5s): I think actually rather than waiting for 1000, I think the real lesson here is that I really need to learn how to celebrate it Autumn (12m 12s): Accomplishments. So I'm not good at it. I'm good at it. Oh, well, we'll have to find something to celebrate them and, and plan a party. Or if everyone joins Patreon, we have, we guaranteed everyone that if we had hit so many members, we would have a party. So that would be the other way to make you celebrate is that for every one went and joined Patrion for a dollar and we'd have to have a party. And there you go. Oh yeah, that would be awesome. Jesper (12m 36s): I think also just between the two of us, you know, Autumn, once we finished building a course or we finished writing a book or something, we need to find a way to, at least in one way or another, celebrate a bit more that we accomplished something because I dunno, I, I never do it. I just jumped straight onto the next thing on my to-do list. And I sort of already forgot all of the stuff I already did. Autumn (12m 56s): It is. I think you also forgot that you're talking to the author who finished one book and started the next one's in the exact same day. But I think you're right. I think maybe we will have to rope in our spouses. Maybe we can reopen our listeners. How do you, when we are on different continents, this is not like we're in different States because goodness knows I'm a long distance traveler. If there was a way to drive to where you are, I would have driven there by now because I've gone over a hundred thousand miles in my car. So I can do that. But there is that ocean. It's a very pesky, but I don't have a sailboat at the moment, but how do we need a way of celebrating virtually? So if anyone has fantastic celebration ideas, you know, let us know in the comments we're, we're open to learning too. Autumn (13m 39s): We both need rehabilitation to be more celebratory. You know, I like that idea. All right. Okay. Yeah. Jesper (13m 48s): Well, I might not be a very good at celebrating. I do love recording this podcast and I had to have a question for you on it. Autumn (13m 55s): All right. Ooh. Yeah, Jesper (13m 58s): Because I, I feel like we've had some great conversations on this, on this podcast and we've also had some great guests on, I was wondering which one of the past 99 episodes was one of one, which one was your favorite and why? Autumn (14m 15s): Oh, that's a good question. You know, off the top of my head, I would say if you talked about ones I'm most proud of when you interviewed Joanna Penn, my heart to like, Oh my God, that's so amazing that she was on as our guest, but honestly sincerely from my heart. My favorite episode was 69 and my journey as an author of the good and the bad. Jesper (14m 37s): And do you want to know what else? Yeah, Autumn (14m 40s): For sure. Because that's one, where are you listed us as teaming up as one of your highlights as an author? And I just love that. So Oh yeah. I have sent a mental that way, so I just thought, well, that's good. No, I actually forgot about that. No, no, no. That's good. That's good. Jesper (15m 0s): A good pick. That's a good pick now. I don't, I don't let your, I can do the same. So Autumn (15m 5s): That's how I got to go first. Yeah. Jesper (15m 8s): But now, you know, and how you make my life difficult. Autumn (15m 12s): That is partially my role. Yeah. Jesper (15m 15s): Yeah. I noticed I should have asked Autumn (15m 18s): The question. You should've made me ask you that question, I guess. Jesper (15m 24s): Yeah. I don't know. I mean, we've had so many good guests on and they were so many to pick from. I mean, you mentioned Joanna Penn where you've had Oh yeah. Mike, Leslie live fav, who am I forgetting? Sasha, a black. We had our own of course Alexa, big Muff. I guess that's how you say it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I could go on and on Kristen Oliphant as well. I know I've probably forgotten a few names. Do you have, and, and I don't mean to, so sorry, if any of the guests or a past guest are listening here, there's just so many to choose from. Yeah. There, there was also the kinds of episodes where you are and I do alternating lists. Autumn (16m 5s): I like those as well. Yeah. Yeah. Jesper (16m 8s): So there's a lot to choose Sean, but if I have to choose only one, I think I would say probably Episode 34. Do you know which one that is? Autumn (16m 19s): No. No. Which one is about wine Jesper (16m 22s): Is actually not covered by covering any topic at all. And it is not having any particularly important guest on either Autumn (16m 32s): Or what are you doing? Yeah, Jesper (16m 35s): Well, I actually chose it because it was the episode where we announced that we were going to stop creating YouTube videos and turn this into, Oh, well, that's a good one that I think that was the best one because I thought that I think that's the best decision we made. Autumn (16m 53s): Well, I am not complaining. I really enjoy the podcast format more than I expected I would, but it's, it's a wonderful, and it's a great working with you. And so I think that one's a fantastic one. Yeah. Yeah. Jesper (17m 8s): I still don't feel it's sort of, it's a script. Autumn (17m 13s): Yeah. Well, you know, I have one of the last couple of our recent contests, so it's just the way it goes. Jesper (17m 20s): So I guess, yeah. I can just feel honored that I'm doing the Podcast with you since you were so good at it. Autumn (17m 26s): Well, thank you. Well, I wouldn't be doing it at all if it wasn't for you. So there you go. There it's a party. Jesper (17m 35s): Well, yeah, indeed. So we have, we have some good questions because some people gave us some audio files and those great. So we are going to play those today. Yes. And we also got quite a number of questions Autumn (17m 51s): Sent in via a text or emails or somebody field in the Google form that we announced previous page and so on. So it was Jesper (17m 59s): Thinking we were just going to go through them one by one, and then we can see it, Autumn (18m 4s): Both reply to all of the questions and that's it for today. Oh, all right. Well that sounds almost too easy, but I can't wait. Yeah. Jesper (18m 13s): So, okay. I'll try to, just to be a bit of a, in the driver's seat here. Not because I want it to be a, A control freak, but just because then we make sure that we got, we get through all of them in, in a bit of an order. So that's the only reason and without taking an hour and a half, so yeah. But okay. Let's, let's get started here. And the first question is from seed and a safe asks, what single work has most direct, directly influenced your Fantasy Writing. Hm. And what did he say about that? I would say that's a tough one. I, the one thing that I can say came up to me is simply the short story, ah, by Anne McCaffrey on dragon impression, I can't even remember the name of it. Autumn (19m 4s): And I know its just a short story. So if you Google it short story on McCaffrey, the dragon impression and it it's funny because that's really not changing my Fantasy Writing. But if I hadn't read that, that is the story that hooked me on Fantasy and dragons. And I took me on as a reader and opened up the whole genre to me. So if it wasn't for that one eye to eye, it could be writing my best friend, loved mystery and Nancy drew. So who knows I could have fallen into that, but no, I write Fantasy because of that story. How about you? I don't think I Jesper (19m 39s): Have, it is an old won the order Autumn (19m 41s): Or it's a bit older than you are. So yes, it has an old way and I was right in and like elementary school is, it is. And I, I would have to, Again go. It was in a compilation, but I think you can actually find it a solo online now it's that old or is it one of Jesper (20m 5s): Those words? It was good back then, but no, not anymore. Autumn (20m 8s): I haven't re-read it honestly, I just know it's I just absolutely fell in love. I mean, it was a little boy who wanted to become a, a dragon rider and he ended up getting the bronze dragon witch next to the queen is like the top dragging to get it. But I mean, it, it's just, it's sweet and it has dragons. You get to choose, you know, a dragon Bond's with you and it's so I don't want to reread it. Its just the memories of it is wonderful. Like, okay, well, Jesper (20m 35s): So for me I would say, well the, the question is influenced my writing and, and then I would probably say a lot of the rings. Autumn (20m 43s): I know that that's not very original. I dunno. I really liked Jesper (20m 49s): Talking's WRITING well everything except Tom Bombadil Autumn (20m 58s): I really liked his writing, but yeah. Jesper (21m 2s): Yeah. You were talking about getting hooked on FANTASY as my love for the fence has shown WRA was not talking. It actually started off with the ranking lands. Autumn (21m 14s): Yeah. Those Jesper (21m 14s): Books really got me hooked on Fantasy and it's actually quite funny last week. This is not an a, a, a new book either, but last week I was going through on the Kindle books on Amazon Autumn (21m 27s): And I was there. I can't remember why, Jesper (21m 28s): But I was looking for some, some of the old dragon lands books, maybe it's because I'm reading them with the, with the, Autumn (21m 35s): So with my kids. So maybe that's why while I was looking through it But but then Jesper (21m 39s): All of the sudden I noticed that there was a book Autumn (21m 42s): About race Lim, you know, he, he, he he's like, yeah. So I bought that. I haven't started Jesper (21m 49s): Reading it yet, but I I'm really looking forward to reading Autumn (21m 51s): That one. It's a new me who I just hadn't noticed it before, you know, because I had read all of those up until I think we got into the forgotten realms or whatever. And at some point in the 20th book, I, I stopped reading and so I've drifted away, but yeah, you'll have to let me know how that is because I might want to revisit that world. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Jesper (22m 15s): Okay. So the next one, I have an audio recording, so let's listen what Micah has to do. Micah (22m 23s): How do you guys get and keep your inspiration? Jesper (22m 27s): So that was a, maybe a bit low. So let me just repeat it. So Micah asked, how do we get and keep our inspiration. Autumn (22m 36s): All right. Oh, that's Hmm, because I, yeah, I, I was looking at to see that his entire one, you want to know that, especially to complete a novel. So that is a tough one, I guess. I think it's part of my personality. I am a task oriented and I like to finish anything. I start. And when I was at a studio artist, because I was painting way before I was writing, I would always finish anything that I started because I just, I started it. Of course we are going to finish it, but to keep the inspiration going, I think you have to, for me to keep it alive is I fall in love with the characters to the point where they wake up me off and in the middle of the night. And it's sometimes more alive to me than the world around me, which I actually think is a flaw. Autumn (23m 20s): I have to, I think, goodness, I have a husband in a dog because I don't know. I'd be, I'd be like the lady of Shalott up in my tower and like daydreaming all day, instead of actually remembering that there was an actual world outside my door that I should go visit occasionally. So to me, I just live in my stories. I love my stories and they just, I was meant to be a writer and to tell these stories. And so that is how I keep the going is by feeding them frequently with ideas and sing songs. And even with my husband, we play word games all the time. Thank goodness. He's like, he likes literary things. Are we probably spend one or two together after 20 years or so that's a good sign, but that's how I to beat at you. Autumn (24m 3s): You have to feed your idea's, you feed your stories, you let your characters become. So Real that to let go of them to not spend time with them hurts. And so you keep writing. Yeah, that's a good answer. I might be slightly, you know, Jesper (24m 24s): I think for me in terms of getting inspiration, I get it from everywhere. You know, sometimes I can wake up in the morning and then there was some sort of scene playing in my head and I quickly have to write it down. So I always have a notepad next to my bed because then I often good idea. So w when I sleep in, when I wake up other times, maybe I'm reading something or watching the movie, or there's just something that triggers me and then write that down as well. It can also be a Podcast that I'm listening to. I I must say that Yeah my inspiration, mostly comm in the form of scenes or like concepts that I think are cool. Jesper (25m 9s): And then I built from there. But I, I think as far as keeping the inspiration going, I, I have to do a bit of a shameless plug here, because if you think of the inspiration and going, we actually cover this in quite some detail, and I've got in a guidebook about story ideas. And so that one can be found on Amazon or everywhere else that you buy books a day. And by the way, if you, instead of buy the plotting book, it's called plot development, you can get the story idea of a book for free. There was a link inside that plodding book for it. But I am saying all of that 'cause once we have solid premise, which was what we discussed and that book, how to develop, then once that is done, then we also know that we have something that is interesting enough to keep the story going until to the end. Jesper (25m 60s): So yeah, I just have to do that block there because I really do think that really answers the question. That's how, that's how we keep it going. That's true. It's a very good point. Yeah. So we also had a question from Lisa. Perhaps you can read that one. All of them. Autumn (26m 14s): Yes. I will read the, the question park so that she had sent it on a little bit of a fun story as well, but we'll go with the question, Alyssa, and I often wonder what it is like to be so immersed in a story and then keep going. I know you have to decide to pull the plug because you would become sick of eating and drinking and sleeping about it. I'm sure. But don't you ever come up with another idea or a thought and wanting to go back or do you just move on? So what do you want to start with that one? Yeah. I mean, Jesper (26m 44s): It does happen more often than not that I get another idea or think of a way to maybe it could be a full of the story idea, but it could also be just a way to expand on something that I'm already writing. You know, that, Oh, it would be cool if, if it was like this and data as well, and then that sort of, Spock's a side story or something almost. But I think I found that it is far more efficient to avoid the temptation in this situation. Just write it down and that idea that you got, so you don't forget about it and then keep going with what you originally were working upon. Because unless it's something that I can fix like, and a few minutes, do you, like, if it's just an idea like, Oh, okay, cool. Jesper (27m 27s): Not cool if I did like this and that. And I, I can just add one more paragraph or something that is fine, then I'll do it right away. But otherwise I'll leave it for the editing stages. So I think when first drafting, at least it saves a lot of time and the fast I can make the Writing go during the first draft, the better for me. But I also think for the reader 'cause at the end of the day to that the book will be done more quickly that way. So I know exactly what you mean and what Lisa means. I know what you mean by the question Lisa But, but I think it's best to avoid the temptation, but I don't know if you agree with that. All of them. Autumn (28m 4s): No, I agree. Because I was going to say just sort of like what I said, I don't mind eating and drinking and just living in this story to the point where sometimes I forget the real world exists. So it wasn't like being in having to adult occasionally and make money. And those sorts of things go to the grocery store. I if I did well, if I wasn't a cook in the family, I would probably forget to eat occasionally. I honestly would. I can get so wrapped up in this stuff, but yeah, I do sometimes think of other ideas or like if I'm writing, if its an idea for the current book I'm writing, I will go back. And if it's something that I've already written, I'll just highlight and do a comment. If it's something that's further ahead, because I have all my stories in chapters outlined, I'll just put a note in that chapter outline and I want to get there, I'll put it in where it needs to be or I'll fix it in the editing. Autumn (28m 50s): But if it's a completely different story, because I'm a bit of a pantser slash Potter, a plotter, I'm a hybrid. So I will just simply take a note. There's nothing, there's no idea they can come to me. That is so fully fledged that I can just jump to it because I would want to spend time with it. I want to get to know the character as I need to plot it out. I need to figure it out the world and world build and develop. There's so much work that goes into wanting to start a story that I don't ever just jumped to It eggs. So if I happened to be getting close to finishing a series, I have learned it's a lot less painful if I let go of my characters gently and I've already started world-building and Writing and developing the other story. Autumn (29m 35s): So I, I, this is me. I have written three books, three, like, you know, three things at the same time. So, but I have one main story and I started on a second plot. You and I are going to be writing together, plus I'm writing on my own. So it's I do a lot of Writing, but I find that it works. I'm very compartmentalized in my mind. So I can just, you know, open up that file cabinet and go write in and spend a lots of time in this wonderful they're magical filing cabinets. Do you don't want to sound boring? They're like you open it up and there's a whole little world in their, and it's really exciting and you know, they were stars. So if it's not really, it's not one of those boring office ones, it's a magical, but that's so that's how I do it. If it's a really good idea, I take copious notes. Autumn (30m 17s): I put it aside. I start developing it on the side and if it's really, really good, eventually it becomes a side project. And when the main one finishes, it becomes the next one. Jesper (30m 29s): Very good. So next question is from Mark, Justin. So Mark says one time I show up someone, my writing, they said it felt more fitting to call it a visual novel script than a traditional story. What's one way to make the Writing Flo better and not feel like a bunch of texts. This is right down your alley. Autumn (30m 53s): It is, it's also a tough one. But so the thing is, it just depends on what, what they meant by a visual novel. I mean, do you have mostly dialog? Do you have mostly information, but to bring it alive is to bring the world to live, to bring, do you want to just kind of suck the reader into a character's head? So you need to choose a point of view and we call it a deep point of view that you feel like you are sitting inside of a character is head and you sense whatever they sent. So that's not just seeing which is where the visual it comes from, but you want to know what they're smelling, what are they touching, tasting? What do they feel? You want to know that you have demotions. So that other sense as well as there, once you can pull that world and bring it to life so that you can describe the character walking through the forest and they hear the crunch of the leaves, they smell the wet earth, one of the ferns in the Moss and they feel the wind on their skin. Autumn (31m 50s): When you have that texts that is building those layers of the world up to the reader and you're sharing the dialogue and you're having all of that. That's going to make it flesh out that world really well. Jesper (32m 4s): Yeah, all of the stuff around the a M emotion or like the census and stuff. That was also where I was going. But I would say on top of that, I encourage you to listen to a recent episode 98 actually, because we talked about the new top mistakes that new authors make in that episode. And there's quite a few tips and tricks there that I think you will find that useful. He Mark, you also said that, that it should not feel like a bunch of text and this might not have been what you meant by it. But when you said that, it, it sort of made me think about infidelity. Jesper (32m 44s): You know what, these lots of blocks of text where you just explain something to the reader at that might not be at all what you meant by a bunch of text, but, but on top of the situation around the census that the order, or just explain it so well, I think it is important that you also find ways in which to deliver those kind of world-building information through the actions of the characters or through dialog, because at least when it comes to making the writing flow better, that makes a huge difference. Yes. Just we could be just before we started recording, I was just talking to Autumn about a book that I recently, I'm not going to say what to type, which book it, because then somebody might get mad with that chapter's of chapters of info dumping at the time. Jesper (33m 36s): It's really not, it does not flow where we will. Yeah. And I checked some of the, some of the Amazon reviews as well. And they pointed that out. Not always so politely, but that's exactly what they read about it. Yeah. But okay. I think that one is probably covered there. So a, we have another audio files I'm going to play now. James (34m 0s): Autumn and Yesper congratulations on your 100th Podcast you guys are really dedicated and you are an inspiration, I think to us all you are to me anyway, I've got a question. What methods do you have to turn to, to de-stress or at least try to when taking a break during a particularly difficult period of problematic Writing Jesper (34m 31s): Mm that's a good one. Do you stress? We live on stress. Well, you know, honestly, I was just thinking, I don't know if I'm the best one to answer this one because I really never struggled that much with feeling stressed. I know I'm lucky in that way, but I really don't feel it. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm just not in tune with them on my own emotions or something. I don't know, but I don't really feel stressed. But what I can say though, is I do like to go for a walk and I try to do that most days of the week. And I also three times a week in the morning before I do anything else, I run five kilometers before I start my Workday. Jesper (35m 16s): And then in the evenings, I do like to relax watching Netflix, HBO, Amazon, or something like this. And so I guess you could say that that helps to distress myself, but I don't know, as I said, I'm not the best one to answer this one. So I hope you will have some I'm starting with you now. Yeah, it was gonna say I was starting to think of my writing partner is actually an AI, but I, that you're not. So Autumn (35m 40s): Oh, that's a tough one and it really depends on what's causing stress. I am definitely a little bit of a masochist. So if something is bothering me, I sometimes dig in my mom calls it stubborn. I call it a dedicated. So sometimes, you know, if I'm really hitting a wall, but I, I just, haven't been trying that long. And you know, maybe they've been sitting down for 15 minutes and I'm like, you know, I, I am a writer and this is my job. This is my career. So I'll start doing like, what if questions are or write down the problem I'm having. And then I'll see, you know, do some brainstorming Writing right into the novel and then just delete it later of, you know, what needs to happen? Why am I stuck? But I agree. Autumn (36m 20s): It sometimes Writing up cooking. Obviously I loved food. So that is going to be very inspirational. And it does seem as soon as I get involved in something very complicated that, you know, my hands or covering guru and I'm like, Oh, well, that's the answer I need to do to take action on device. It's really messy. Sometimes. I don't mind a little bit of why is it a little bit of an eye like rum? And I like scotch. Those are a little go-tos, I'll sit down with that and stare at my computer a little bit longer. But yeah, sometimes it's like, you know, I look at the dog, the dog looks at me and I'm like, why don't we go for a walk into the world? All has been in a better place. And I forget about everything. Autumn (37m 1s): And once we're back from playing in the stream and hunting for frogs, we will, I'll get back to work. And it's usually a little bit better. I don't ever, I have hit a few spots if I've worked on a chapter and I'm on the same chapter for, I would say three days, three days. If I were on the same chapter for three days, I, I feel like it's been too long. It's going on forever and I'm stuck. And I also sometimes just write a couple sentences and just go to the next one and then come back and fix it later. And that it couldn't get it. Jesper (37m 28s): That picks out of my mind if it's just sitting there with a glass of wine staring at the screen this way. Autumn (37m 37s): Well, the next time it happened, so I'll have my husband takes a picture for you. Yeah. It just looks at me. Jesper (37m 42s): I've been here waiting for, for inspiration. I know what is going to come soon or later. Autumn (37m 47s): Cheers. No worries. Yeah. All right. Okay. So Jesper (37m 53s): Do we have another question from state and perhaps you can take this one. Autumn (37m 57s): Yeah. So we'd also ask which part of the journey from concept a publication two, you hate the most. Hmm. So what's your least favorite part. Yeah. This was not that difficult for me, but this was all Jesper (38m 14s): For why we have divided the workload between us the Autumn (38m 16s): Way we have, because I hate that. I hate the most of this editing. Its I really love it. Jesper (38m 25s): Like the results of the editing. I love when the first draft turns into something that flows really nicely and all the words are sounding good with that stuff. Autumn (38m 33s): No, I love it, but I hate going through it because it is so painfully slow and it annoys the crap out of me when I spent three hours and I've only edited one chapter. I hate it. That's why I get all of them to do the right thing. And that's why editing is not my answer. Yeah. And this one was a tough one for me because what I hate the most is after publication, I hate AMS ads or anything that requires going back. And fine-tuning, if you have to have read my pet Patrion post for today. Yeah. I was just, it happened to have resonated really well with this question. Autumn (39m 14s): I am just not that good at sitting down and fine tuning in looking at iteration after iteration, after iteration and just sticking with it and not feeling like I'm panicking because I'm wasting money or it's not going anywhere. I just spreadsheet results. Statistics, calculus, algebra. I love mathematics except for statistics. Statistics are not mathematics. They should just be burned. So when it comes to those stuff, when you're boiling down results into numbers and I know it's important, but my brain just goes with, it just goes up in flames. So that's why I have you. You handle it. But since I can, technically after the MOH, the publication and that's when he asked me, I would say for me to fit the parameters, I'll just say, it's a question. Autumn (40m 3s): I my least favorite part is simply the time it takes. I love the stories and I want to spend so much time and I'm task oriented and I, I just wanna sit down and it was like, by day on my birthday, you people have said, what do you want to do? I'm like, I'm going to write. I was like, well, that's not going to get me anywhere because it'll just be another 2000 words closer to my hundred thousand. And then I'm going to start a, another novel and I've never going to be done until I take my last breath. And then when I'm just aware of my ghost will keep writing. So it's the time I want to be able to write these stories out so much faster. I want that one hour extra hour is that I'm writing on my birthday, you know, to mean something more than a drop in a bucket, but it doesn't Yeah Jesper (40m 44s): There was a loop back to the conversation about celebration he has. Yeah. Autumn (40m 48s): Or there might be, Oh, we gotta work on that. Yeah. Okay. So, Jesper (40m 56s): So let's jump into next question. And this, the one is from Felipe a, so Phillip says, as I outlined cereal, the setting, I am drawn to keep them constantly morphing time period. Magic predominance levels of tech, aesthetics, et cetera, to the point that it halts progress, what to do. Should I commit to something? Even if something else is more interesting should how do I block the influx of influences? Autumn (41m 29s): Hmm Hmm. That's a good one. That is a good one. Can I just say yes, yes. Yeah. So that was my answer is yes. But yes. You have to choose one. You have to make that decision. And even if you doubt it later, you have to make it the best that you can. And it is an example. I was Writing the sixth book in one of my, my world of Mira, my elemental Magic series. And I think it was half way through. And I'm like, you know what? I really actually have started bonding with the villain who up until then, I didn't like in the sixth book and I suddenly saw his perspective and I thought, Oh my gosh, this book, I could tell it totally from his view, he is totally right. Autumn (42m 9s): Every one else is completely wrong for trying to stop him. And I'm like, why, why not rewriting in the entire series? That, that idea is still in me. And I still think, Oh, I could bring him back and do something so cool with him. But I had to let it go because I had to make that decision. You have to keep going. You ha, if you were going to write a book, you gotta write the book and take those ideas that you think are so cool. And put them aside and write a book with those. But you do just have to make that decision. You have to stick to it. You got to write the book and just trying to save up the other inspiration for something later. Jesper (42m 48s): Yeah. It almost sounds to me for sleep that you need to spend a bit of more time in that wonderful place of world building, because then, you know, if you were saying that your concepts aren't clear and you sort of come up with things on the fly that you struggle with consistencies, Well, you are going to create quite a lot of editing work for yourself. So I think it's probably better if you try to spend a bit more time in the world building phase here Autumn and I always complete the world-building, you know, nailing down in the setting before we started writing, because this is a lot of this allows us to inform the writing with details that are actually quite honestly, we could never thought of during the Autumn (43m 33s): Writing itself. Jesper (43m 37s): So try to separate the world building from your outline. It almost sounds like you were sort of doing both in parallel here, but see if you can just spread them or separate them. So when you do all of your world-building first, and then you worked on your outline, I think then you are your experience with everything keeps morphing won't happen so much now because then you already know your world, you know what your setting, you know what you want it to be there and then you can work on your outline and, and make that influence the outline. Autumn (44m 10s): So Jesper (44m 11s): Yeah. Mapping out your story. Once you have that from grass off your setting. I think that will help a lot. Autumn (44m 18s): Yeah, definitely. Okay. Jesper (44m 21s): We didn't have another question from Cory. Autumn (44m 24s): Yes. All right. Corey ask, what is the most effective way to overcome writer's block? I've tried reading and that I've trying to write right after listening to audio books. When I Writing listening to music, meditating, nothing seems to work. And I haven't written in a nearly three weeks now. So what are some tips you can give me? Jesper (44m 43s): Well, I'm sorry to hear that. Query I, yeah. I feel with you, a lot of authors are struggling with things like that. So please don't feel alone. I think my number one tip is outlining. I know some people don't like outlining. That's why we wrote a whole, a guide book on how to outline to, to help some of those people. Because if you try to map out your story in advance, I would say 99% of the times where authors experience writer's block it's because they don't know what needs to happen next. So they get stuck and they were like, well, I don't quite know where this is going. I don't know what I want that to happen. Jesper (45m 24s): And if I think if something, is that exciting enough, does it hit the right tropes or does it sync up with the character arc and so on and so on. So yeah, as you mentioned early in this episode, Autumn and I wrote a full step by step guide on how to plot a novel. So you can go and search for our name's on Amazon. If you want to have a check or check out that book, if you want, but you don't have to, you, you can also try to go about it all on your own if you want. But, but I would say try to spend some time, you know, outlining and understanding your story. Query I feel that that will probably help you. Autumn (46m 1s): Yes, I agree. Indefinitely. It's a, you know, I always love that. Quote, as an author who isn't writing is courting madness. I mean, it's just itches under our skin and it seems to reinforce itself. So, I mean, she's trying to, a lot of the things I suggest other than a little bit of line, but it works for me, but another good thing. So if nothing else was working, I agree with that, come up with some, what if questions, especially if you're, if you're stuck with a chapter, like what's supposed to happen in the chapter, you know, look at how to set up the chapter, what is happening and what's the hook, what is it going to be starting with the character's goals, look through all of that, do some brainstorming questions about what's going on, try to, you know, read whatever, think about this character, to think about the characters arc, what are they what'd they just do, what are they trying to accomplish? Autumn (46m 51s): Sometimes just a sink into their heads. I will switch if I'm writing at first third person, which was how I prefer to Wright. Maybe I'll do a quick sentences and first person try to talk about what they're seeing, feeling, thinking right then. And even if I end up cutting it later, just trying to force my head into this character's in the world and what is happening in the novel. And usually something in there will give finally, and that I can just go on and I we'll be able to. Right. And sometimes there was a few pieces of gold and you get to do some great setting or a world-building that you hadn't been, you know, you might not have come up with otherwise and you can keep, but honestly, a lot of the times you're just doing some brainstorming that you're probably gonna end up deleting, but you'll be writing. Autumn (47m 36s): So that's the important thing. Yeah. Jesper (47m 40s): Okay, good. We have another question from Anthony. So Anthony asks, I have heard a lot about barriers, points of views, but when I do research on them, I only find the basics. So the question is how do you decide which point of views best fit your story? And if you are using multiple point of views, which character is the best for that scene? As a second question, if you were writing in multiple point of views, how do you make sure your character voices are Autumn (48m 13s): Distinct? Right. That's a good question. There was a very good question as a, both a very good questions and it's, it's hard to break them down. And so I would say first, when you're writing your book, I know you and I both write in multiple points of view is that we love having different characters. Coz I think it, it adds too a complicated Plott, but there is nothing wrong with having just one point of view the Hobbit. It is a great example and it's in pretty much, at one point of view, its with stood this test of time. There is nothing wrong with that. So did you consider that if your feeling really challenged, try to stick to just one character point of view, try to do a deep point of view, which is your not omniscient. You don't know everything going around. You just know what it is that one character can look, see, feel, and here. Autumn (48m 57s): So you can't, you know, for shadow with anything that they wouldn't know, which is one reason you add another point of views 'cause then you can add those in other places and build tension for the reader of that way to choose which one to use. You know, you don't want to use too many U and I have written, you know, we have a course on this and we have a whole character development course so that it can really talk to you about how many characters you should have and how to develop their voice. But you don't want to have to many either. You don't want to be, you know, 12 characters in the first book or something, you know, For is a fine six. This is getting a little too many. Especially even if you have a, a a hundred thousand words, you don't want to have too many, the character is supposed to, the reader is supposed to bond with these characters. Autumn (49m 41s): If you have too many of your jumping all over, there are not going to know you don't want to, you know, if I'd want the reader confused, you want to give them very song, solid points of view so that they can bond with the characters that they feel the emotions or the characters or the rooting for the characters. And you can't do that when you have 16 different characters, unless your George R. Martin and you're writing something that takes for decades, then maybe you could do it, but otherwise know, and to choose which one you want to go with, whoever has the most impact. So you would choose a character who maybe is doing the action in the scene, or maybe the character who is going to have the most emotional cliffhanger at the end of it. Autumn (50m 25s): But you want it to make sure that its also the one that is going to tell this story and you wanna make sure that every character has a three to four to five chapters in their point of view, if your only having a one chapter point of view as a character, don't use it. You know, you, you can't tell a character arc in just one chapter and any character who has a point of view, definitely needs a character arcs. So you are going to have at least three to five chapters minimum for each of these point of view character. So that's going to flush out your novel really quick. They are going to have subplots are going to have things going on and its all going to tie back into the main plot. It's a lot of outlining. So one character, one point of view is fine for a novel. If you want to keep things simple and some have ways of keeping your character voices distinct, you're going to have to find out what works for you. Autumn (51m 12s): Some of the things that I've suggested is if you come up with a totem for each character or sometimes I've written in colors, this characters is always in red or even in Scrivener are all my characters. I actually use character colors. So I know whose point of view I'm in. So that's fine. You can choose colors. You can choose a totem. So you know, this one is wildly. So you are wasting called a Fox. I've had characters who, you know, I really listened to a song and it fits gets me into their mood and also think about, you know, distinct things that they would have either action's are phrases. If you have a sailor, they are going to call tension like a top rigging line where if someone else is a mercenary, there's always going to be referring to things as a way of battle taxes. Autumn (51m 56s): You know, once you learn to develop those character, two phases and lens that they see the world and then you're going to have the distinctive Voice coming out for each character. That was a long I'm sorry. Jesper (52m 9s): Well, I think you basically covered the entire thing. So that was good. I think the only thing I would add is a, well of course a that that plot development book, actually the entire first section of that book covers this questions. But the only thing I would add it on top of what you just said, which I fully agree with is that think a bit about which couches are going to spent a lot of time together in the same scene's for example, if you have like a Frodo and Sam kind of situation, where they spent most of this story together, then I would say avoid making Sam a character, like a point of view character, because it's simply gonna be challenging to keep it interesting because what, what are you going to do to explain the same, seen to a few times all the time, 'cause it? Jesper (52m 58s): You know, you'll see what I mean, write that, that it does not work. So just think of a bit about where our characters is going to be throughout the story and how much time are they going to spend together and where are you have them spending a lot of time together and avoid one of them being the point of view character or at least they agreed. But otherwise I agree with all this stuff that all of them said. Yeah. Okay. Final a good question. And also final audio clips of the day. Zhade (53m 27s): Hey guys, thanks so much for picking my question. It really appreciate it. And if I can, I just want to start by thanking you so much for running the PODCAST. It is pretty much the highlight of my week. Absolutely loving it. And the online community is that you were running on patchy on, on Facebook. I've helped me more than I can say over the last year. Thank you so much. Okay. So in terms of my question, it's this Yesper what are you most like in our Autumn is Writing and Autumn what do you most like about Yesper is Writing Autumn (53m 58s): Thank you for that question to say it. I really appreciate the kind words are not only from you, but also from, from James and everybody else who, who send us a really kind words. So, so thank you. For for data, but I really liked this question. When I say, when I heard it the first night, I was like, Oh, okay. That one's a good one. I didn't expect that. I like that one too. All right. So yeah, so I can actually mention two things. Oh, all right. Yeah, because there are two things I like the most about your writing Autumn is a first of all, I like how you describe scenery. Like, you know, you're really good at making it sound interesting at the same time, you are able to conjure up images in my mind about what the place has solved. Autumn (54m 47s): Look at what it looks like. So, that's something you are really good at. And I really like that, but even more probably I like your ability to do capture development. I feel like you, you were able to breathe a lot of life into the characters in a way that makes them come off as individuals, rather than just some cardboard people who run around doing some actions, they feel much more like real people with their own motivations. So yeah, you you're just a really good rider. Well, thank you very much. So that was good. I actually am going to actually mention, I like your characters to, because I like how we were both. Autumn (55m 27s): I'm a no nonsense people they think. And so your stories in your writing, it doesn't get bogged down. And I just told you before we started recording and that I had read a book and it was just, there was times at this character got so bogged down in dresses and things that I am just not that type of girl. And I like that. You do, you keep things moving. And I actually, I love that your first Trelegy has a, you know, women are the main character and it's, you know, you did that, that you did a great job with it. You went in for a lot of action and its interesting and it's a different world and we both made the funds, not quite mistake, mistake of a very different worlds in a very tough stories. Autumn (56m 9s): This is our first year we had some similar tactics and they were just like, this is, this is cool. I didn't know all of this. When we started out on this journey of Am Writing Fantasy together. It kind of, I don't know, we kind of looked out. I can't come. So yeah, I think so, but, and that's what I like is our, our storylines in our way of tackling things meshes incredibly well. And that to me is just so exciting. You can't, you talked to so many other authors and they have such differences that they can't have a hard time riding together. And I think we are going to be just fine because we like each other's style and we have very similar kind of action-based exciting adventures where gender isn't an issue and racism is an issue. Autumn (56m 60s): And we tend to think you might have a little bit more of a darker tone and mine goes more towards no bright, but I think we are going to combine this into something amazing. Jesper (57m 9s): Yeah. Yeah. I agree. So yeah, this was a lot of fun episode, 100 into QA session like this. I, I think that was good. Autumn (57m 17s): So this was a really good, it was a lot of fun And I yeah. Thank you so much for all the questions. And I did have one for you, even though we were running long on time, but recently you have discovered an Easter egg out of how I got into self writing and self-publishing I was wondering Now you know how I did, I was wondering how, what got you into self publishing and made you finally sit down and become a writer, Jesper (57m 46s): Right. Okay. Yeah. Fine. I will answer that, but, but actually you have to, you have to explain your own as well for them to do it because otherwise they have no idea. Yeah. Okay. So, so, but for me it was more like, so I've always had this idea for like many, many, not always, but for many, many, many years, I've had this idea that one day, once I retired, then I could write some stories. And then, you know, you should only most years, not every year, but most years we, our family goes to Finland for some of the occasion and in Finland, you know, we, we were in the summer cottage and there you spent quite a lot of time, you know, going and so on there and relaxing and stuff like that. Jesper (58m 34s): And then there was this one evening back in 2015 when I was sitting in that sauna, I don't remember if my wife was out swimming or whatever, but I was at Lee. I was alone in there and I were sitting down. I, I started thinking like, why is it that I've gotten into my head that I can only write once I get, I get to retirement? Why couldn't I just write something? You know, I might not be very fast at it because I have to do day jobs and whatnot, but I could just write a bit here and there. Well, why, why, why couldn't I just do that and why am I feeling limited? And actually the next morning I got an out, I got a laptop out and I started writing. Jesper (59m 18s): It was a complete nightmare and this, and it has been Autumn (59m 23s): Deleted many times over the same, but it's not letting the next day. And I never stopped since then. That was wonderful. I love that. All right. But yes. So to explain since no one else got a, you know, only a few people would have heard my other story, but I had something similar. I mean, I, I was actually a S an artist very long and my license, like it was for, I want it to be an artist, but I always actually wrote on the stock side all the way down to my mother, having recently shown me M a journal I'd kept actually as a kid and my husband then stole in secret away because I was going to burn. I was so horrible, but I didn't really take it seriously. Autumn (1h 0m 6s): But I had a habit of writing in notebooks in college because I was so bored in school. Even in college, I went with an English degree and I'd write stories in my notebook. And my husband found one and said, Oh my gosh, he wrote this. This is, this is fantastic. You should write. And he encouraged me. And he actually sent me an article on self publishing with a woman who is in a similar job. And so you have a similar agency as I was working in it at the time. And he was the reason I published my first book. Isn't that amazing? Isn't it? It's all his fault. Right? Autumn (1h 0m 46s): Okay. So the next Monday I have a great interview lined up for you and it's concerning one of my favorite topics. Not map kick this time. We'll be building. Narrator (1h 0m 57s): If you liked what you just heard, there is a few things you can do to support The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast please tell a fellow Author or about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn in Jesper on patrion.com/am Writing Fantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast going to stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

There are so many things to learn and know when you start off writing. But what are the things that trip up writers the most or cause the most detriment to a new author's career? Join us as we try to one-up each other for the worst mistake new authors make while doing our best to keep the show on track at the same time. Who do you think "won" the show? And don't forget, this is the last chance to submit YOUR questions for our 100th Episode Q&A podcast! Add your questions and audio file to the form at https://forms.gle/KDHdPnUB5A9cwViz7  Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.   SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.   Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going.  Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion). Narrator (2s): You're listening to The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast in today's publishing landscape. You can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from Writing joined two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now onto the show with your hosts Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt Jesper (30s): Hello Jesper Autumn (31s): and I'm Autumn. Jesper (33s): This is episode 98 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. And today we are going to give You one of ours. Well, Let's call it the entertaining. There's a top 10 list where we are alternate by giving you five each. And the topic is Mistakes that amateur writers make, so this should be fun. All of them, it should be really fun. And I didn't want to see anything before we actually started the recording, but do you know how easy it was to come up with topics for this one? Autumn (1m 4s): We have 'em in video two as a starter kit. This kit has the ten reasons new authors fail. I may have changed. Jesper (1m 14s): And you needed, is that what you're saying? Autumn (1m 16s): No, I was, I was really proactive and I happened to have to come up with this list are about two or three years ago. Jesper (1m 25s): You, that sounds like cheating to me. Autumn (1m 27s): Would I might've edited the things around and will talk about it later. But how are things over in Denmark? I hear COVID spiking up a little bit again. Yeah, it is. It is getting a bit worse here as well, but yeah, I don't know. COVID is not an interesting job. Well, how are things otherwise you are still refereeing and everything. I'll take it and pass. And we'll Yeah that? We started to pack our stuff in boxes now and getting ready to move, buy the first week of December. Wow. We've got gotten very far yet, but I'm sure it will get there. Jesper (2m 9s): Will it, it will probably start to become even more stressful as time approaches, but yeah, there was nothing much to do about that other than get packing and I'll take it, try to take it hour with a sense of humor when you're like, where is Oh I pack that already. Where is that box? So that was already at the new apartment. Oh, well, I guess I'm not going to speed. Yeah. And even the police are quite busy because they are sorting through all of their old Lego to see what they want to sell and what they want to keep. So it was pretty busy with that as well. And they have a lot of Lego, so that was one of my favorite toys too, as a kid. So that's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. And in between everything that I've sort of been working on the outline for our future reader, magnet, as you said, you said that to me today. Jesper (2m 55s): Yeah. I can't wait to look through that. I was two, it was right before we recording when I downloaded It. So I haven't even looked at it yet, but I will look at it this week. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm really looking forward to start writing some fiction again, it's been like, well, a long, long time this entire year, basically we have been focusing on our non-fiction stuff with the plodding guides that we've published earlier this year and the summer, or a slightly after summer. And then the causes that we've been really busy recording over the past few months. So it's just been a lot of nonfiction, which is great, but I am looking forward to writing some fiction. Again, I, that Autumn (3m 35s): I completely understand 'cause as you know what I mean, I'm full-time graphic artist and writer an Am Writing Fantasy or, and whatever else. And that's what I do. So I do, I have been sneaking in Writing, but I've recently I challenged myself because I I've created a publishing deadline and I really wanna release this series. I'm going to start releasing it and at the end of February, but that means to stay on track. I have to finish I'm on a book to out of three. I'd have to finish it by the end of October. And I am down two, a chapter a day. And I don't usually write quite that way. I can write that fast, but I have lots of other work to do too. So I usually don't give myself, I don't give myself to have much time, but I have been in, I've been keeping up with it and it's tough, but it's so it's also, so we're both task-oriented. Autumn (4m 26s): So to say that to cross off a whole chapter every single day for the last week has been like, Oh, this is so exciting. It's it's just four more and I will actually make the deadline. Now I have five days left at the month. I think I we'll do this. I, I think I will do it. I'll get pretty darn darn close. So I am feeling pretty good. And then I'm on to the final book of the series and I'm looking forward though, to writing our books together because we have been plotting for a year and this sounds so exciting and it'll be totally different. So I'm all about writing. The more I can write the better it is. So this will be exciting. Jesper (5m 4s): Yeah it? It, it, have you already edited the first book in to their, or is it, is it the first draft that you were done with now Autumn (5m 11s): And with the first draft I'm planning on editing in January for at least book one, I'm not going to edit all three of them. I want them all written, but I'll just edit the first one and get it. I'm going to, hopefully in December, get everything up as a preorder. And I, which means I'd have to do the cover is, and this is one of the first time, because my timeline is so tight that I'm actually so tempted to get someone else to do covers for me. But I know I'll probably break down one day in and just make my cover's. Yeah. I'll hire myself and schedule it like the best ideas probably. But yeah, it's a little bit of a crazy, but if 2021, I'm hoping to release a book every two months into different series and maybe a few stand-alones and plus we'll be writing with you. Autumn (5m 56s): And plus I've got little ghost writing thing on the side, and plus I'm back, I've been helping to new authors with their work. So I'm a little busy plus everyone and Am, Writing Fantasy and all the courses and all those students. And I'm up to 12 hours a day doing this, but I love it. And so much so that's, that's the most important thing, right? Is a bad day. Writing is better than a good day at my old office. So I love it here. Jesper (6m 27s): Oh, we can go on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast so this one is the last reminder about the upcoming episode 100, which is going to be an ask us anything Episode. So we would love for you to submit your questions to me. Autumn (6m 44s): Yes. We're looking forward to it. And as we've mentioned, there's a link in the show notes. So you can go to a Google form and fill that out, and we'd really love it. If you shared an audio clip or a video, and you know, you don't have to record yourself. If you can record your feet to the window, we just went the audio file. We are not going to do anything else with it. So we just want to strip the audio and be able to have your voice on the podcast with us as you ask, Oh, or whatever crazy question you can come up with, we've already covered. I would love to hear more about you and the habits in New Zealand. So that would be on my list, but how are you going to ask about our books, our lives? Autumn (7m 27s): So say, you know, we probably might mention, I'll talk about my dog, but I think your kids are off the table. I think that's okay. Jesper (7m 35s): Okay. Well, you can ask us anything. It doesn't mean that we are going to answer anything or whatever you want me to ask for your free, and then we might edit a, whatever we feel like it will be gone that way, but that's the way it goes. So that's it, that's the power of the microphone. Autumn (7m 52s): You know, we could always come here. We can use, see the, the audio in and kind of, you know, learn to be polite, political and direct the question to whatever answer or we feel like a thing Jesper (8m 4s): Is it that was like, like the best of politicians that doesn't really Add. They don't answer the question that was asked. Autumn (8m 11s): You can always answer with an answer or with a question to ask you how to answer a question with a question and you know, it just keeps going on and on and on it. Jesper (8m 18s): Yeah, it will be. But otherwise I also feel like it's a, it's been a fairly Bishop of time in the Am Writing Fantasy Facebook group, or at least those new people joining all the time, which was awesome to see Autumn (8m 30s): It is. And it's been so active. I've missed out a little bit over the weekend, cause I was tied up with something else, but every time I go in there, there's always someone waiting to get in and I feel bad even in this only a couple hours, but its, we can keep up with them, but it's wonderful. Jesper (8m 48s): Absolutely. Yeah. And I think there is what I really like to be honest is that there was a lot of it and that not that there was a lot of engagement that is of course nice But but also that in general it is a very far in between that somebody sort of breaks the rules and Postlight self-promotion it happens so once in a while, but its actually pretty rare. It, most of the post are genuine like inspirational staff or asked for help or feedback or something like that. And there was always a lot of people pitching and I mean, I think we've got a past, a critical mass in the group in that there's always a lot of responses when people post Whitsett. Jesper (9m 28s): I like to see a Yeah Autumn (9m 30s): Right and some good responses Yeah there chatting You Hello Jesper (9m 35s): Yeah. 'cause if we go back like one and a half, two years as much as a bit more quiet in there. And I think there was just wasn't enough people, but we are sort of getting to a stage now where there's enough people in there where you're going to get a response or most, I wouldn't say guaranteed, but almost guaranteed. If you ask a question and there was, somebody will make a very insightful response for you. So, so that was great. Autumn (10m 1s): I don't know if you're on Facebook or if you're on Facebook, come join us on Am Writing Fantasy and a promise I'll try to get in there a little more often. 4 (10m 15s): All right. So Jesper (10m 19s): I think actually the first of all, at least when I look down at my list here, yes. I think I'd have to say for a start that the listeners probably know some of what I'm going to share already. I'm at least if there are a bit experienced with Writing, if they are all new to riding then maybe not. I don't know. Probably they are, the listener will know some of it, but they are all things, at least on my list here that can improve your writing and also help to make it read more professional. So I guess the listener can use our top 10 here as sort of a checklist to see if they are on track with everything. If they already know it, then they could sort of be happy with checking off and say, yeah, yeah, yeah, I have it under control. Jesper (11m 5s): Or you can also feel good at the things that you are maybe not doing in the sense that it will give you a few opportunities where you can approve upon your writing. Autumn (11m 15s): I actually all joking aside about the starter kit and actually is not joking. The second video really is 10 reasons new writers fail. But I thought about it. I almost sent you an email earlier today saying you should I focus on things? I see a lot of that new writers do as an editor and as a coach or should I focus on things that I think, or the most important that if you do, this is a really bad thing. So I actually decided in the end I came up with eight total and I combined them and merged, I merged my lists so that I had a tough time that our, I see fairly commonly and are pretty critical sort of like what you were saying, you, you really try to not do these. Autumn (12m 1s): The bottom three are more like, well they are probably, it's not that big of a mistake. You'll you'll you'll survive that one, but the other one's a little bit more painful. So those were, that's how I do differentiate it up on my list. I resist to be mailing you. I figured I could figure this out on my own. Jesper (12m 23s): Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah. I've tried to rank mine in order as well, so that it goes from sort of the smallest stuff to the bigger picture. Autumn (12m 32s): Oh, okay. Sounds good. I think I did that and now I'm looking at it over very quickly going, did I do that? I think I did that. Yeah. I think I'm good. Okay. I'll stand with it. And if I change my mind is the end. Well it's because I didn't pay attention to my order as Jesper (12m 49s): A fan of nobody will know it, unless you say it Autumn (12m 51s): Out loud. So I get to like number three and go no that one's should have been for a hard head. Jesper (12m 58s): Yeah. And then maybe also in the end, maybe we can try to see if we can, so I have five, you have five and then maybe we can see if we can agree on one out of all of those 10. That is like the way Autumn (13m 12s): The first one. Okay. That sounds good. I will not be surprised. I bet we have overlap. So the reader as well, our listeners will have to forgive us if we don't quite have 10 because we psychologically just, Oh, come up with a similar thing. Jesper (13m 30s): Yeah. And if the listener, if you have listened to some PA a past episode where we are doing these lists, then you will know a part of the funniest to see how much overlap we actually have that. So we have not coordinated any of our five. I have five that I did an isolation and all of that at the same. Yes. So we'll see how much have a overlapping there is and how much we agree or, or maybe we can surprise each other who knows? Autumn (13m 54s): Hm, no. I'm thinking of overlap. No, not really. And I will be fun to see and I, maybe I will share my last three cars. One of them is very, very New that I I've noticed more of a trend of. So, you know, I've got that one in reserve and we'll see if you come up with it, but yeah, I will do my best to keep score Again but I'm ready whenever you are. If you want to start with your number five Mistakes that does make sense. Jesper (14m 25s): Okay. Okay. I'll make it go for it. So my number five it's well, actually the funny thing in my notes, I want one, two, three, four, or five, meaning that number five was the worst. A number one was the least worst. So now you want me to start with number five? It's like at the wrong thing. Right? So I'll do that. But not just the one that says number one in my notes, this is the number five engine. Autumn (14m 46s): So that's one difference. You have my number one is a horse. Right? Okay. So at this one is a small talk in dialogue that doesn't have any relevance to the story. So that will be something like, wow, it's Jesper (15m 4s): Really raining this morning. Autumn (15m 6s): Yes, it is really pouring down. No, yes, no. I got all wet coming here that this is not interesting Jesper (15m 14s): To the reader right now is just fill awards and you, you, Autumn (15m 16s): You need to avoid that kind of thing. Yeah. That's absolutely. I don't actually have that one on my list. So you did surprise me right off the bat. A very, very good. But I agree. I I've read a lot of dialog where you are, like, there has to be a point to this. There's a point to this right. There is please let there be a point to this and yeah, there was none. It could just be careful. They are indeed. Jesper (15m 41s): You mean? And I think, I can't remember which episode it was, but I do remember in the past that we've also talked about the fact that when you, as the writer put something on your face, Autumn (15m 51s): The reader will think, so Jesper (15m 53s): Is that this is here for an important reason. That's why I'm reading it. Otherwise you wouldn't be there. Right. And then if you have all this kind of talk about it. Yeah. It's really raining this morning and okay. Have a good day, see you later. And then they will, Autumn (16m 4s): Maybe that will be like, what was the part that you were really just, yeah. It makes me shake your head and you lose a little bit of love for the novel. So don't do that. That's that's a very good point. I'm impressed. All right. Thank you. So that's a good start for me then. And there was an American guy, but I don't know anyone's winning, but yes. Do you think you're doing great. All right. So my guess Jesper (16m 28s): It depends what I mean, if I surprised you or five times, then I'll say I'm winning, but if you're surprise me five times Autumn (16m 35s): Being score. Oh Hey, is that it does not sound fair. Who's making these rules. I don't not me. You know, even one of your kids, I think, you know, all right. So my number five is on expectations. I think it plays into the psychology and Author doubt, right? Or doubt so many authors, the new Author set expectations. So immensely high or vice versa. They said it's so incredibly low that they almost self sabotage. So it's, I think it's better to set a realistic that this is sort of hard work. Autumn (17m 18s): Book. One is hard. If you go into a book, one in love with it, but knowing this is going to be probably the hardest book you write and that you will get better and that it takes a series or several books to really learn the ropes and maybe feed all your hungry readers and gain a following. And then that's when you start making some waves, especially after you finished your first series. So I think very few brand new first time authors launch major careers with just one book. So I think I see those hopes and dreams that just writing this first one is going to be everything. And it really should be more like this is just a marathon. Autumn (17m 60s): This is just the stage one. And this is my learning curve. I knew of a very well known author who wants to joke that she was so glad she released her first book under a pen name, because then she could say that was not mine, but as you would prove so much. So that would be one of the Mistakes. I see so many new authors make that they just put too much pressure on themselves for a book won. Just write it. I learn from it. No you learned from it and don't make it an avalanche when it's just like a little puddle, right? Jesper (18m 34s): Hm. Yeah. Actually this morning I was listening to Joanna pen and you were saying how she was siting off another article, which I am sorry. I can't remember which one it was, but the point was that she had, she read my article in words, it was stated that The like breakaway novels, you know, in the past, sometimes people will write one novel and it would just take off. And the point of this article was that it's getting less and less frequent at that thing happens because we have this side of binge culture nowadays also, you know, the same thing with, with Netflix or HBO or whatever you are watching Hulu or whatever, you know, there's just, there's more a mentality or culture today where there was just a lot of options. Jesper (19m 21s): So you have a vast majority or, or, or, or a huge amount of stuff you can watch and, and you can see what you want to see. And, and, but it's not like one thing. And then every well, okay. So of course, sometimes there is a game of Thrones, so whatever, and then everybody we'll watch it. But in general, that's a very, very rare nowadays, you know, it's getting hot. If you're looking for, if you're setting your expectations for getting that lightning in a bottle, kind of normal, it it's not going to happen. I'm sorry. No, Autumn (19m 54s): Is that, it would be amazing if it did, but that's no way you should sell your hopes on. I've been really the best advices to do sort of what I'm doing. Now. You'd have to write all three books in a series before you release the first one, because then you can go back and write the first one again. So it's typically your fourth book that you've written in and it will be so much better and you will have learned so much and it will be so much better to release it and you can release the whole series. And you'll be that much further ahead because yeah. People like to finish things they like to binge. So just feed that and don't stress too much about book one, Jesper (20m 31s): Feed the monster to feed the monster. Yeah. Okay. So my next one here is a, it's pretty basic, pretty simple, to be honest and really quick, but it is important. Okay. And this one is about not including information in your Writing, you know, things like sound smells or what it feels like to touch the object that the character is holding and so on because this really helps to immerse the reader into the story. And you're writing just becomes much, much more engaging as a result. So when you are not including sensory information, that's really a tell tale of amateur. Jesper (21m 10s): Writing, Autumn (21m 11s): That's very true. So I love that one too. And I don't have that one, even though it is definitely it's actually in the starter kit, that is one of the one's that is listening to their, it's a very good, but I didn't include it in this one, but I, yeah, that's, that's sorta definitely a passion of mine. And I find that even when I'm writing currently, every once in a while, I'm like, I'm on the visuals. I'm stuck on visuals. If, if someone glazes at one more thing that I'm going to do screen, so you would need to, I mean, sometimes that's what editing is for, but yeah. Do your best to use all five senses, at least once in a chapter as a pretty good way of, you know, working at your writing, looking at your editing, it's a good goal. Autumn (21m 52s): Try it. And it will be improved. You're writing so much and improve your descriptions. You won't be repeating yourself because if something smells and then you'd see it, and when you touch it, those are all different senses in different descriptions and it will just make everything feel so alive. So I really like that one. Very good job. Hey, you're not winning though. Just to be clear, you're not winning well, I'm not sure. I agree. It will settle Jesper (22m 17s): It in the end. It depends on the score. I was Autumn (22m 20s): Worried that I went with a tried and true that I think has been true for so many new Authors and it was a huge, I don't know if it's a learning curve or just a right of passage. And that is losing steam in the middle of your first book or the book you're writing. And either you give up on it and go to the internet and to go to Facebook or Instagram and say how stuck you are or are you pick up a new story instead of finishing the one you're writing. And so then you just keep you're constantly in forever and writing your first novel, cause you haven't finished one yet and you just have to buckle down. I hate to say it is, I don't know what to do. Autumn (23m 0s): Well, there are a way of putting it, but you have to buckle down and keep going and stick it out. And at least Finnish one and may be published it and it will be better if you do that. Don't get, don't get lost in the muddy middle. It's so many authors don't get past that one point. Jesper (23m 18s): Yup. And that's also very true as it was also a good one. Yeah. Autumn (23m 22s): You were just saying that. I just feel like you're just saying that to make me feel better, do you? No, no, no. It is a good one. Okay. Jesper (23m 32s): Yeah, no doubt about it. I was just trying to So when I'm on number three, right now, there are a number of three were in the middle one middle one. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I had a few examples on this one. Oh, excellent. I like Autumn (23m 46s): Examples. Jesper (23m 48s): Yeah. So this is about using the same sentence construction over and over again. So if you are, for example, Writing something like he walk to the door, he opened the door, he entered the room. Well, when I say it out like this, as you can already see how bad that sound's right. But if instead that you vary your sentences, then it will come across as much more professional. As an, as an example, if I use the sensory information that we just talked about a moment ago with the same Sentences that the census says that I just made an example of here and it could be something like he walked through the door, the handle felt cold in the Palm of his hand. Jesper (24m 33s): As you turned it on a foul smell, forced his way into his nostrils. As soon as he opened the door, wasn't that much, much better. Autumn (24m 41s): It's a very nice, much better in a great example of your number, your previous one. And this one that was that since I'm a numbers guy, that's very good. I like that. And it's almost like you listened to our recent podcast on don't start sentences with this word. All right. Jesper (25m 2s): Yes. That's true. Yes. I didn't even think about that. But now that you say that, yes, that's right. Autumn (25m 7s): And a fantastic example for that Podcast so if anyone else wants to have a fun, go will listen to that one as well. Jesper (25m 16s): Yeah. I can't remember what number it was, but yeah. You could find it in the, in the feet. You could just scroll through it and find the one that said something about don't start a sentence with his word or something like that, right? Autumn (25m 27s): Yeah. I think it was cold. Yeah, exactly. And it was a fairly recent, so it was not like you're going to go back months. So it should be just, you know, eight episodes back for her the most. So that's right. Yes. I agree. We have you covered that recently. So that's a very good example. So my line again is different. I can't, but this is like the most non overlap we've ever had with one of those lists. I don't know what's going on. This is a strange, I'm worried. We were not on the same way, like for once what's going on. So I don't know. I, I think somebody cheated. It's like, yes, you saw my list somehow. And actually we just screenshare. Autumn (26m 8s): So you might have been, you might have seen my list and you were like, I'm changing them all. All right. So my middle one, my number three is not making Writing a habit. So, so many new authors you'll see them talking about waiting for inspiration. And it's like waiting for a lightening to strike. You really have to be writing it. Maybe not as a job, everyone says it's a job as a career. It doesn't have to be, it could be a hobby don't you wanna spend time doing your hobbies, whether it's cross-stitching or hiking or a stamp collecting. I don't know. What, what do people do for hobbies eye, right? So don't feel need to know, but even if it's a hobby, you should spend time doing it and you should love it. Autumn (26m 52s): And it is, you should want to learn more about it and investigate it and talk about it and be really passionate. You know, that's why you do it. That's what you do with hobbies. But I often see, you know, Authors, you know, these or wait for inspiration or, and when they're not waiting for inspiration, maybe they are hanging out in an Author group or hanging out in an Instagram and they are not really learning the craft. And that's not that that's really a strange way to treat a hobby. Something that you wanted to do, you should actually be a little more investigative and you should take it. It feels like I said, no, I don't have to say seriously, because that takes the fun out of it. And writing it should have some joy as much as passion. And, and there are of course, the days where it doesn't and you do get up at four 30 in the morning and they get your word count for the day. Autumn (27m 32s): So you can go help somebody else that you have scheduled and get some formatting done. You know, those kind of days everyone has, those are there, they happened, but there should be loving in it as well. And something that really gets you excited. And so, you know, treated at at least as something like that, at least as serious as something you're passionate about and learn more about it. Jesper (27m 53s): Yeah. It's probably sometimes a bit of a procrastination tool as well. You know, the, the, I don't know, I don't have the inspiration right now. I think it's, it's just also, I won't say all the time and always because I'm sure that some people have good reasons or whatever they do, but a certain In and a lot of instances, or at least let me put it like that. I think it also is an excuse and why people are making the excuse. I can not judge that's up to them, but maybe they have a good reason. But at the end of the day, you know, if, if you want to make something with your writing, you have to write. I mean, I think it's the end of the day, the truth Autumn (28m 34s): You want to procrastinate, don't procrastinate on Facebook or Instagram, go to procrastinate by reading an article on how to write better. That's at least useful procrastination. Yeah. Jesper (28m 45s): So to some extent, but at the same time, you only learn to write by writing. So yeah. But okay, good. One Autumn (28m 53s): Oh, thank you. Well that, I feel a little bit better than that. Jesper (28m 59s): Yeah. I can't press it too much because then you might think that we were, the score has even as an actor, Autumn (29m 3s): You know, I'm feeling like it might be a pretty, even neither of us bet on how much overlap on this one. So I've really got two more to go to find out, you know, when you have any of the wonderful, maybe the number one, I'm going to bet number of one, but maybe not. We'll see. We'll see. So far, I like all your answers though, that they are the WRITING coach and editor and me is going on, but you're still not winning. Even if you've won my writing coach and editor hat, you you're still not winning. So that's just the way it goes. Jesper (29m 33s): Okay. Autumn (29m 35s): Well, we'll see, one sec. Okay. Jesper (29m 38s): So this is my number two, I guess. All right. So yeah, last week we talked about Author voice. So can you guess what I have as my number two of them, Autumn (29m 51s): Character development knows how to throw in a curve ball and nothing has been aligning today, so, okay. I'm fine. Author Voice Jesper (30m 3s): Yeah, it's about having too much. Author Voice Oh, interesting. Because I, I think the amateur writer can sometimes try to hot, to sound very professional. So as a consequence, they will start using too many analagist or a day too much ad, too much description and so on. And so on, you know, in an attempt to try to show off their creativity and, and the writing skills, it could also be maybe trying to much to sound like Tolkien or something like that. Or maybe another Fantasy Author that you are a door, but as a result, it just becomes too much. Jesper (30m 43s): So I'm just saying, don't write in a fashion that forces the reader to reread Sentences because it's so complicated. Then the structure, you know, the, the, the writing needs to flow smoothly and pleasantly, and not in a very abstract way that it's very difficult to get the meaning of what you're trying to say. So I think that's, yeah, that, that is a sign of an amateur writer. And, but of course, I also have to say, you can also turn this number two on its head and say, its also a problem not to have enough voice. Autumn (31m 15s): So if Jesper (31m 15s): The writing fields is a very formal and stilted, that's not good either. So it becomes really difficult to a few close to the character's in that case. So yeah, it is like a fine balance to walk a fine, but you know, developing an author voice. Is that something we covered in last week's episode? So go back to listen to episode 97, if you haven't done so already and, and all the details will be shared there, but I think all of the voice is important in both in not having too much of it, but also not having to lose it. Autumn (31m 48s): Yes. It's its sort of like the, the, the quote, you know, kill your darlings, you know, keep it out the flower LA flowery language and things like that. But I do like this one Cause yeah. You're right. Because it was something I often see in maybe I don't know, I even thought of it. So jeez, you surprise me again, but yeah, often. Yeah, she sounded so satisfied with, with a guy who I am stumping her this time, but yeah, they'll Authors they often do you try to write to impress? Now here's a question for you that I think I, I would say kind of pose to me recently, but that's probably within the last year and a half, because I remember these things for some strange reason. Autumn (32m 27s): But what about, how do you feel about using words that like when I do an editing or spellcheck, I get this error that's like even a knowledgeable audience may not be familiar with the block. Do you think all language should be, you know, simple? Or can you use some complicated words that may be some people are going to have to go check out the dictionary for you? Jesper (32m 53s): I would say the only places where I feel it as okay to use very complicated language is if it's because of the character, if the character is just the type of person who uses a very complicated language, then it is absolutely OK to do it. But then you need to do it in a way where the fact that you don't understand what he's saying is part of the gimmick, right? So it's not like he's sharing very important plot detail that you need to understand. And then nobody gets it. That's not going to work. They wouldn't like to kind of know, but if its part of he's that's his court that he is a bit weird and he talks very complicated, then that's absolutely fine. But in all other cases, I will say no, the, the, the, the writing has to flow smoothly. Jesper (33m 37s): And so did you don't get pulled out of it and I'd have to go and look at the dictionary to just understand what you read. I mean, it has to be a pleasant experience and it's not in place. It's not pleasant. If, if you almost feel like stupid, because I don't understand what it says and probably I should understand, but I don't. Right. And then you feel stupid as a reader. That's right. Autumn (33m 54s): That is a good, I don't know. I still, I know as a teenager, I mean, I'm talking about like one word out of every 10 chapters maybe is a new and unfamiliar words. That might be an advanced grammar of a dance language. But I think that's why I have such a big vocabulary is because I read like a voracious teenage, the sorceress just picked up a ton of words and I still love using them. There's so much fun. Do you use words like avarice and things like that or that, or, you know, I could just use green, but avarice has a fun sound to it. And if I ever have this published as a, an audio book, that's a cool sounding word, but yeah. Autumn (34m 36s): And not everyone might not know that one right off the top of their head. No, but I don't know. Jesper (34m 41s): I still think it depends a bit on what you're writing. I mean, if we are talking literary fiction versus a commercial fiction, right. Because if its commercial fiction is suppose to just be enjoyable, it's not supposed to teach you a new vocabulary. Right. But literary fiction, it could, it could be much, you, you could use more of those kinds of works in that case. So it, it, it, I think it depends on what your writing of course, but I'm always talking about commercial fiction. So that sort of my bias, Autumn (35m 10s): Well, I get it. I did grow up. I'm a Mercedes Lackey and, and rice Or and McCaffrey and stuff like that. So I, you know, so you could do it. I could do it too. That's my theory. Yeah. I know. I know. I've read a lot of them. Jesper (35m 23s): Yeah. And rise too. I don't think she uses complicated words. And to be honest, Autumn (35m 28s): Probably because you were an educational system might be a little bit better than ours, but don't tell anyone. I said that I'm not going to talk more about that. I could move on. So moving on to my number two is not building an audience as your right. So waiting until you released book one and expecting that lightning in the bottle, as you cleverly use a metaphor for So. Yeah, no, you know, it's, you don't want to spend too much time building an audience because you wanted to. Right. As I said, and the previous one, but you definitely need to have a plan, whether it's building your newsletter or just hanging out in readers groups, you want people following you on your journey and getting excited about what you're writing so that when you release a book one, you know, you gotta, you got a platform and some people who are excited to celebrate with you, that's really important. Autumn (36m 24s): And I do see still a lot of fathers are getting better and a lot of the authors are getting very savvy, but there's still so many new authors who write in that cliched, tiny dark room. And then they are merged with a fully finished novel. And there started to find out the rest of the house was empty. Jesper (36m 44s): I think I've worked out why all of this are so different. Autumn (36m 48s): No. Yeah, yeah. 'cause my life. Jesper (36m 51s): This is very much focused on the Writing itself, where you are a bit more focused on the, the mechanics of the business of Writing and also the mindset of Writing. And I think that's right. Autumn (37m 4s): Yeah, no, that's good. And it's the same way as you shuffle these together, you're getting a very kind of complete list from the technique to the business of it. So I guess it makes sense. Yeah. I'm glad I didn't send you that email because I might've changed my answers. And then the listeners wouldn't have had such an interesting experience, right? Jesper (37m 24s): Yeah, no, no, that's good. And that definitely building an audience that show it that's hugely important and yeah, we've talked multiple, multiple times and past. Episode also one of the Am Writing, Fantasy a YouTube channel. There's multiple videos there as well about building email lists and why its important. So I don't think we need to labor that more here, but it is just so incredibly important. So we cannot be said enough. Autumn (37m 47s): Absolutely. All right. So we're on to the last two or three Oh one, I suppose the last one, one each day. So yeah. Are number one worst mistake and wondering, well, it's still bee. No overlap. I can imagine. Jesper (38m 3s): So I have a feeling it will now because I think maybe yeah, unless you are as a Writing related, then it, there will probably be, you know, Autumn (38m 11s): Or it might be, you know, let's see what yours is. Okay. So there was, Jesper (38m 18s): So what I have on my list is a head hopping. So this is when you are in one character's head, you know, seeing what that person sees and hears and their character, you get the character's thoughts and so on. And then a sentence later, we are in another character's head. I read a book quite recently that from time to time has a tendency to do head hopping. And I'll just tell you it's really jarring, jarring and really good. Autumn (38m 45s): So I mean, Jesper (38m 48s): Moving from one point of view, character to another, between chapters is absolutely fine. You know, I do it, Autumn do it with our Martin, do it. All right. Autumn (38m 56s): So yeah. It's nothing wrong with that. I like that crowd that you mentioned Yeah but yeah, no, I agree. Head hopping when it's literally see sometimes it's between sentences in a much less paragraphs. All right. It is definitely one of my pet peeves. I remember reading a book once where it was a character looking across at someone shaking at a picnic blanket. And then the next sentence was the person shaking out the picnic blanket. And I was like, what is going on? I was lost and confused. And I think I might've stopped the book right there. Or at least I started skimming in just all of it. It got any better. And I think eventually it settled into one character. Autumn (39m 38s): And even then that was confusing. It's like, why did you choose that one? And not the person over there? So yeah. That's yeah, it is a better one. Jesper (39m 47s): You really have to learn to master the point of view stuff, because same thing, you know, if something is happening behind the character, the character can see it. So you can't describe what, what it looks like behind him because him or her, because you, if the character can see it, you can not describe it. That's just It and you can't just have to another character who can't see it because that's convenient. That's not, that's not a hobby. Autumn (40m 9s): Yes. That's not. Okay. You know, you have to solve the problem for the character who is head you're in and not some other way. Jesper (40m 16s): Yeah. I mean, if you want to do a change to another character within the same chapter between chapters, it's easy because then we have, we have a break and everybody knows, okay, now it could be a new character. If you wanna do it in the middle of this chapter, you can do that as well. But then you need to put in something like a, maybe a graphical cymbal in between paragraphs or some sort of break that sort of shows the reader that, Oh, okay, there is a change here and then you can move into another that's okay. But still, I would say, I prefer to do it between chapters and not in the middle of the chapter, but if you have to do it, then at least put in something in the, on the page itself that clearly shows that something is changing. Jesper (40m 55s): Right? Autumn (40m 56s): Yeah. And some kind of transitional break lines or something, but yeah. And even that, you know, then it's not an excuse to have five of those on a chapter. I mean more than one story too much yet. So don't jump more than three characters on one chapter, but it's a better look, read some George R. Martin. He does a fantastic job of staying in one character's point of view for an entire chapter and they flow. So Well and you get to know who the character, if you have whop, you don't really get to know the character well enough to care. And that's part of what is so important about writing. So that has an excellent number of one. Yeah. And I also wanna just tack on to that, that I think that Jesper (41m 37s): You also need to be mindful that this is a sort of stuff that agent's will notice, you know, so if you are trying to get traditionally published and they will probably be, not offer you a contract, if they see head hopping in your manuscript very bad, or even if you are self publishing, it will take a lot of time for the edits that you can clean up this stuff. So maybe you are edited, you don't mind doing So, but it's going to be there. Autumn (41m 57s): They do a lot of money. So yeah, I think you just, you need to get this under control. Definitely a high concur. And I think if I was doing the writing techniques, that would be my number one, but I always focused on something different, even though this is sort of a Writing technique. So my number one is writing the story with absolutely no plan for your first book. And it just thinking you are going to tackle your way through it and get there and not taking the time and realizing there's so much to learn in their story structure and character arcs the character arcs titled the plot. And so that made me develop it later. But seriously, if there's ever a book, what are you become a full time pants or not? Autumn (42m 39s): If there was ever a book to have a plan, have a plan for your first book, it'll be a lot less painful. Jesper (42m 47s): Oh, I feel this one though, because this was exactly where I ended up. I kind of put it, Autumn (42m 55s): This is what it is a nod to both of us because it is how I started my first debut novel as well. I, I, I got the chapter three, then the characters got lost. I think my chapter five, I was last, the characters were lost and I said, we need to structure. And I got a structure and I learn very quickly from there. But yeah, I think that it might be how they talk about what is the 99% of the people who start off writing a novel fail. This was probably the first hurdle as an author. You hit that point where you were like, I don't know what happens. The inspiration drives up. You just, you know, the character stopped talking to you. Autumn (43m 36s): Whatever happens. I love that joke that, you know, brighter has served the, when the characters, the writers block is one of the character stopped in your head, stopped talking to you. So this is a Yeah, this is what all of that happens. And you need to find a plan to get through that and to learn, to write well and to write your story. And yeah, it's your first cutting. Our first tooth as an author is to get through that. So go for it, get a plan. Yeah. And I could say, maybe you want to go to bed Jesper (44m 6s): Or whatever online platform you normally buy your books on. And then maybe you want to search for either Autumn's name or my name. And then Autumn (44m 15s): Yeah. And maybe you buy that and then maybe everything will be explained to you. That will definitely help. I mean, it is the worst case scenario. Just go to the Am Writing Fantasy blog and put in the story structure and you'll get a couple of articles that will kind get you to get you started and get you started. And then you can realize that maybe you should get the plotting book, Cause it? It would help you so much when you start a book too. And you were like, Oh, this is what it was supposed to be doing it just so we have, we truly had a list of 10. We did not overlap that at all. Oh no. So this is a tough one. How do we conclude? Which is the worst of them all? Autumn (44m 56s): I don't know. Cause there are all going to hurt you in some way or another hurt are writing here at the hurt, the story or telling or hurt your author career. Or if you do these, I don't know which ones do we need an independent judge. Maybe the listener should tell us, which is the worst one that could help us out when we do need the emotional journey. That that will be cool to see if anybody wants to tell us. And please do. I think, I would say that you are number one day might be the worst One. And my thinking is that if you can finish the first book because you sort of screwed whole thing up by not planning anything, then it doesn't matter about small talk in the dialog or a sentence structures, or even building email lists on. Autumn (45m 48s): Because if you don't have anything and you are never going to finish it because you sort of drive into the ditch then than maybe all of the other nine items. Yeah. It doesn't really matter too much. I don't know how I like that. I'll go with that. I could accept that because that makes me feel like I won. So. Okay. That's true. Actually, a change that, and this has been recorded and I think I'm editing this one. So Nope. Not changing. It sorry. Do you want me to change? Sort of edit this one of the new editor next week. Episode no, no, no, no. I'm good. I can fit this one in this week. I'm good. Okay. Well listen to, can you please let us know that you disagree with this conclusion and, and then pick another one? Autumn (46m 34s): Please all right. So I will honor the listeners comments and we will see which one they think is the worst and then will choose the champion. I don't know what we get to know. Okay. So next Monday we are going to talk about the self publishing landscape is a two lane to get into self publishing. Well, tune in next one, Narrator (46m 58s): If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast please tell a fellow Author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn in Yesper on patrion.com/am Writing Fantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast going to stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

This week the the guys talk about Weekend updates. Donating clothes. Brendan Schaub. Microphone Saturday. Get emotional. Crying at funerals. R.I.P. Stephen Hillenburg. Spongebob. Netflix cancels Daredevil. Kingpin at Thanksgiving. Ben Affleck. Stan Lee and the Civil Rights Movement. Shang-Chi. Happy Endings. Orange slices. Asian actors and asians. Roald Dahl Netflix Universe. Disney’s Artemis Fowl. David Harbour’s Hellboy. Spiderman Into the Spider-verse. Captain Marvel. Why are Marvel sidekicks black? Live trailer review! George R. Martin Game of Thrones spinoff concept. Titans Episode 8. Creed II review. First Man review. Superhero Fight Club #SHFC. Would You Rather? Sleeper picks and much more! Listen to us on: iTunes: Chino & Beans Google Play: Chino & Beans Spotify: Chino & Beans Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/chinoandbeans *Rate, Review, and Subscribe - tell your friends Follow us on Social Media Instagram: @chinoandbeans Twitter: @chinoandbeans

The gang get intellectual again and talk about books. Clive, Josh Keighley, David Pealing and Alex Wain discuss what they've been reading and a bunch of unrelated stuff such as the EU and current happenings around Stick Around HQ where a certain resident has been getting carried away. Here's a list of what's discussed: Holes by Louis Sachar Schlump by Hans Herbert Grimm The Atrocity Exhibition by J.G. Ballard Meditations by Marcus Aurelius The Dust That Falls From Dreams by Louis de Bernières Sweet Girl by Travis Mullhauser A Knight of The Seven Kingdoms by George R. Martin Tightrope by Simon Mawer Please help our expansion efforts by telling your friends, following us on Twitter @StickAroundCast, liking us on www.facebook.com/StickAroundPodcast, and leaving us 5 star reviews on iTunes. You can get in contact with the show on Twitter and Facebook or you can e-mail us at stickaroundpodcast@gmail.com. We'll read out (and answer) your questions and comments in the appropriate segment. Cheers guys :-).

Aquesta setmana parlem de l’estrena de La jungla: Un buen día para morir. A les notícies, els despropòsits de Warner amb la pel·lícula de la Liga de la Justícia. Fem la crítica de Las ventajas de ser un marginado. A les xafarderies de Hollywood, Alec Baldwin pare als 54. Als 40 minuts, George R. Martin renova per Game of Thrones. I finalment, als còmics es publicala primera col·lecció de Marvel Now!

Aquesta setmana parlem de l’estrena de La jungla: Un buen día para morir. A les notícies, els despropòsits de Warner amb la pel·lícula de la Liga de la Justícia. Fem la crítica de Las ventajas de ser un marginado. A les xafarderies de Hollywood, Alec Baldwin pare als 54. Als 40 minuts, George R. Martin renova per Game of Thrones. I finalment, als còmics es publicala primera col·lecció de Marvel Now!