Podcasts about step exercises

Summary:In this conversation, Lisa Davis discusses the health benefits of step workouts. She shares her personal experiences with step aerobics and how it was initially difficult for her due to knee issues. Lisa also talks about the origins of step workouts and the benefits they offer, such as strengthening bones, improving cognitive health, enhancing functional ability, boosting heart health, and increasing longevity. She provides examples of step exercises and safety considerations for beginners.Keywords: step workouts, step aerobics, health benefits, bone health, cognitive health, functional ability, heart health, longevity, step exercises, safety considerationsTakeawaysStep workouts are low impact and weight-bearing activities that strengthen and build bones, making them ideal for bone health.Performing choreographed moves in step workouts can improve cognitive function and processing speed.Step workouts improve functional ability, making it easier to perform everyday activities.Regular aerobic exercises like step workouts can reduce the risk of heart disease and boost heart health.Step workouts can increase longevity, lower blood pressure, and improve balance.Beginners can start with basic step exercises and should consider safety considerations like platform height and knee bending.Sound Bites"Health Benefits of Step Workouts""Step workouts are low impact, weight-bearing activities, ideal for bone health.""Performing specific choreographed moves can improve executive function and processing speed."Chapters00:00Introduction and Announcement03:24Strengthening Bones and Improving Bone Health04:47Improving Functional Ability through Step Workouts05:41Boosting Heart Health with Step Workouts05:57Increasing Longevity and Lowering Blood Pressure06:24Getting Started with Step Exercises and Safety ConsiderationsLink to the full article: https://www.health.com/step-workout-benefits-8664601

The HAPPE Method of Journaling with Lara Zielin In this episode we get curious about: [00:02:53] Laura's journaling journey. [00:04:29] Make yourself the character of your own story and a difficult situation to a positive one. [00:06:05] Manifestation on paper. [00:06:45] The Science of Manifestation. [00:06:58] The Way out of the Problem [00:07:51] The Cognitive Distance [00:08:53] HAPPE Method [00:09:51] Writing your dreams or desire [00:13:27] Getting the barriers out of the way [00:13:49] Revealing excavating [00:15:07] The Upper Limit Problem To learn more about our guest: Website: https://www.lara-zielin.com/ (Lara Zielin (lara-zielin.com)) IG: @Lara_Zielin Other: https://www.amazon.com/Author-Your-Workbook-Step-Step-ebook/dp/B07R9THD9Y?crid=ZZ1OR4TWW2HT&keywords=author+your+life+lara+zielin&qid=1651535554&sprefix=author+your+life,aps,68&sr=8-2&linkCode=sl1&tag=laurwittauth-20&linkId=a5fa8ce38e19772bed373ef0b0115666&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl (Author Your Life Workbook: Step-by-Step Exercises for Writing Your Story - Kindle edition by Zielin, Lara. Self-Help Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.) Book mentioned: Chatter by Ethan Kross https://amzn.to/3LH6u2k Book mentioned: The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks https://amzn.to/3kB8VHQ To learn more about Laurin Wittig and her work: https://heartlightjoy.com/ (https://HeartLightJoy.com) Copyright 2022 Laurin Wittig https://www.heartlightjoy.com/post/interview-episode-with-lara-zielin (Read transcript here)

Have you ever had someone ask you what you did and lose all interest when you say you write fantasy? What is with that? A strange prejudice lingers around fantasy writing and writers. In this episode, Autumn and Jesper discuss why there is a perception fantasy writers aren't "real" writers, some facts and stats on fantasy stories and writers, why the perception might be changing, and what to do if you encounter it! As we mention in the show, TODAY is release day for our three new books on developing story ideas, and plotting. Pick them up at: Plot Development: A Method for Outlining Fiction - https://books2read.com/Plot-Development  Plot Development Step by Step: Exercises for Planning Your Book - https://books2read.com/PlottingWorkbook Story Idea: A Method to Develop a Book Idea - https://books2read.com/StoryIdeas 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 onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt, and Jesper Schmidt. Jesper (30s): Hello, I am Jesper Autumn (31s): and I'm Autumn. Jesper (34s): This is episode 84 of the am writing fantasy podcast. And today's episode was actually inspired by something that you came across on the internet. Autumn. It was, this was another debate that I hear a lot. And actually just, just last week, ended up with this kind of impression from somebody. And it's like, Oh, you're a writer. What are your right? Oh, you write fantasy. Autumn (1m 1s): It is, you know, that condescending tone. And, and I've been dealing with it my whole life, because I've always, since I was like three, I wanted to be an artist. Since I found out that there was such a thing as people who draw for a living, that's what I wanted to do. And in, I don't know about the rest of the world, but there's a term in the U S that people, especially in the eighties, just to go like, Oh, artsy, fartsy, like it's less, it's a less of a career. Like somehow Leonardo DaVinci was a hack. Autumn (1m 34s): I told him no Rembrandt shouldn't have been born. I don't know it's and I've had it my whole life. And it's gotten under my skin. I will admit it. This is one of my pet peeves. And so I'm so excited about this episode, because if someone has ever said this to you and whether, you know, Oh, you're a fantasy writer. And then of course my favorite comeback, I have relatives and friends who have said, well, if you want to write a really good story, I've got a great one for you. If anyone has ever said that to you, dear listener, this episode has the answers for you. Jesper (2m 11s): Yeah. And I actually wrote down what the, you know, you sent me a screenshot of what this stuff do from Randy's actually wrote it down just to remember it. So I can just quote it here, what it was. So it was this college professor who had sat at a writing class quote, welcome to creative writing. And by the way, you will not write fantasy ghost stories, paranormal or science fiction in this class as this is a creative writing class and quote. Autumn (2m 41s): So I don't know what in the world this professor has to do, but in today's episode, we'll explore why some looked down upon defense is stronger. And maybe we can talk a bit about why instead you should be proud about writing. In fact, in the fantasy show. Absolutely. I cannot wait, but before we get there, it's been a week. So how have you been? And I do want to give everyone a quick warning. We are finally getting rain in Vermont. It is wonderful. And of course it's coming in the form of thunderstorms. So any extra auditory effects are not intended, but just enjoy the ambience please. Jesper (3m 19s): Yeah. Well, at least right now, I can't hear anything of that sort. Let's see. Okay. Maybe we'll get a loud thunder. All of them Autumn (3m 28s): We'll switch to a horror genre or a thriller or something. But anyway, Jesper (3m 32s): Yeah. So that's a certain mood. Autumn (3m 35s): It does. So how are things in Denmark? Jesper (3m 38s): No, it's good. It's good. Actually, my wife is not even here. She's in Finland these days because she had to, she had to go and deal with some builders who are currently renovating an apartment that we own up there. So she, she left a couple of days ago and she's gonna come back on Wednesday, but it's, it's really not healthy when she's not around in this house. You know, the boys that I we've already had pizza, ice cream cookies, popcorn and candy. Jesper (4m 11s): You should think that she's been away for a week, but it's just like three days. Autumn (4m 16s): What kind of example are you setting? This is horrible, but it's so funny. It's so typical. Come on. Jesper (4m 23s): Yeah. I don't know where it is. It's like they miss their mom. Right. And then it's like, okay, what can we do to make the time feel a bit better? And they will. They will. Because normally as well, when I do my grocery shopping, normally they of course home with my wife. I usually do the grocery shopping in our family. But because she was traveling, I had to bring them, you know, the, Oh, they're not young kids as such, but they're not old enough to stay home by themselves. The oldest can, but he's not, he's not old enough to take care of he's younger. Jesper (4m 54s): So I had to bring at least a younger, younger boy to the grocery shop, but then they both came. And then when we were there, of course they are looking at, into all the different things. And they were like, Hey, there's a vegan pizza here. We've never really, I've never noticed that there was one in the shop. And I was like, really? And they were like, yeah, yeah, we want to taste this stuff. And then, okay, well then we bought that. And then we, all of a sudden we had pizza, but then we also have to have some yeah. To search. So we've got ice cream and before you know, it, we come home with all kinds of unhealthy stuff. Jesper (5m 26s): So I think it's good that she's returning the day after tomorrow because this is not going to sustain. Autumn (5m 34s): It sounded, I always wanted to do like a college level study that if the reason women live longer than, than men is partially because what meant eat before they end up getting married, that span when they're in college and on their own. And they're drinking beer for breakfast and stale pizza for lunch. That is my theory of why, you know, most men have a shorter life span. So you're not this idea. Jesper (5m 60s): No, I'm not doing a very good job on behalf of all men in the world. I'm also teaching the kids how to do when the wife is not there. That's okay. Autumn (6m 9s): Either. Probably not. But you know, it's going to be fantastic memories. And you know, maybe you'll have some day when maybe they have kids you'll with regeneration, PE male only pizza party or something. And I think it's, Jesper (6m 25s): At least they are saying in the evenings like, Oh, this has been a really nice day. So at least that's good because especially, especially the older one, he tends to miss his mom a lot. So at least it's good that he, you know, some of the candy keeps his mind preoccupied elsewhere. Autumn (6m 43s): Yes. It's working like a charm Jesper (6m 48s): Dude. But how about you? Autumn (6m 50s): Oh, it's been a good busy week. I had some it's so funny. Cause we're going to be time traveling so much today. I've been doing some formatting for the books that we're releasing today. And that made no sense. No, isn't it. It's so strange. But we're recording this almost. We're almost at the car on the cusp of July. So we're almost a month ahead because summer vacations, these things happen. And so yes, it was a good achievement week of getting a whole bunch of long prep. Autumn (7m 23s): All those, all these months, we have said, Hey, we're writing this book, we're putting this together. We're going to release this. We actually have them. I mean, they're on preorder. The formats are done where they're out to the typo Slayer team. We're getting feedback. It's so close. And it's just a weird juxtaposition that we're so close. We're almost releasing it. And in all honesty with your listening on this, the day it's released, no books are out there available. This is so exciting. So I, it is, yeah. Jesper (7m 56s): Is the wonders of a prerecording, a lot of episodes because we want to have some time off during vacation. But, but yeah, if you go to Amazon or any online store where you normally buy your books, then you should be able to find them the, both the plotting book, the workbook associated to the plotting book and the how to do get story ideas and how to build a story premises. So if you just searched for either my name or Autumn's name on those stores, you should pretty much be able to find them quite easily. Jesper (8m 29s): I guess the one thing that we don't know yet is some of the online stores are really weird when it comes to the fact that you are mentioning, for example, Amazon in the back of the book or something. If you write that anywhere, then some stores are really weird about it. For example, Apple is don't like that. So, well, because we're prerecording here. I can't say for sure if some of the stores will end up rejecting the book, but I have, I have a principle that I do not change the content of a book just because Apple don't like it. Jesper (9m 3s): So if they don't like it, it will not be on Apple. You'll have to go somewhere else to find it. But for sure, Amazon it'll be on Amazon for sure. Kobo, it'll be there as well. Google books, it will be there. And then for the rest, I guess we'll have to wait and see how many of them, except the book files at least two or three places. Autumn (9m 24s): Yes. At the very least, if you don't see it in a store, go to am writing fantasy and look for it in the workbooks there because we will be selling it off of our website and you can get it in whatever format you need. So if it's not on iTunes because Apple books as being a bugger, just come and get it from us and we will make sure you have it for whatever reader you choose. Narrator (9m 47s): Oh, a week on the internet with the am writing fantasy podcast. Jesper (9m 52s): So actually thought it was just worth mentioning how the am writing fences. Facebook group just keeps getting better and better Autumn (9m 60s): Rowing and froing. It's been, it's like every time I turn around, there's another six people knocking at the door. Yeah. But I mean, this, this past week I had like in the morning I let in eight people and then in the afternoon it was like, Jesper (10m 12s): What? Now there's a list of six more. I mean, it's crazy. But there was actually at some point in the past where we were speculating to move the group away from Facebook and try something else because the engagement was just very limited at that point in time. But Oh my God, I'm glad we didn't do that. Autumn (10m 30s): No, it's been fantastic. And that's with them, you know, there's a lot of advertisers currently. Okay. We could look at word more recording this. So who knows what August will be, but there's been a lot of advertisers and things pulling from Facebook because of the politics and advertising policies. And it doesn't matter. The group is just outstanding. Jesper (10m 50s): Yeah. And I have to say as well that I really like, and because this doesn't happen in all groups, but I think at this group, people are actually very good at following the rules of not self promoting stuff over the past week. I think I had to delete two posts where people were self promoting, but it does not have happened very often compared to how much that actually gets posted in the group. So I think that's very good. Autumn (11m 16s): Yes. No, I agree. I mean, it's, you're on there more than I am and goodness, our moderator, Luke, a huge shoe shout out to him and you guys handle a lot of the heavy lifting, which I very much appreciate, but it is just, I mean, they're good. If something comes up, people are very good at not overreacting, not going crazy. They'll just, you know, the, let one of us know, say, you know, they'll, you can submit the post saying, Hey, I think there's something wrong with this. And it's been fine, but in general, everyone's so well behaved and so supportive and wonderful feedback. Autumn (11m 51s): And the, the of questions and topics is just amazing. I mean, it's everything from people getting advice to people, pushing bits of stories. It's really got it all. Jesper (12m 5s): Yeah. It's, it's in general, it's a very helpful group with a very positive tone. So if you're the listener have not joined us over there yet, then simply search for am writing fantasy in the group section of Facebook and you will find us and just apply to be let in Autumn (12m 20s): And we'll get to you as soon as we can. Jesper (12m 23s): It might take a bit, but sometimes it takes a couple of days, but we will. Autumn (12m 27s): Don't worry. Yeah. It's not usually that long, but, and I want to give a big shout out. I already mentioned once that the type of Slayer team has been helping us out with our edits and the last reviews for the books. And they have been getting back to us already. I think we just gave it to them. But three, four days ago, people are booking it through some of these books and have great suggestions. So big shout out to everyone who has joined us on the typo Slayer team you guys are doing awesome. Jesper (12m 55s): Yeah, absolutely. I think the ones that we got feedback for so far was the book idea book, which is a very short one. So that's probably why they are so fast, but I will bet you that it'll take awhile before we get feedback on the plodding book, because that's, that's a beast. Autumn (13m 11s): Yeah. We'll have to see if anyone actually goes through the workbook doing the work, then it might take them a while to, Jesper (13m 23s): So we started out with that quote from that crazy college professor before he must be slightly insane. Autumn (13m 31s): What does fantasy not? Or what does create, you know, not creative writing. This is just, it boggles my mind. How is this not creative? I think it's the most creative pursuit out there. Jesper (13m 41s): Yeah. But as well, I have to say he, he's not the only one who has like, I don't know, should we call it certain opinion about the fantasy? Autumn (13m 51s): I think people have a certain opinion about the physical fantasy genre. Yeah. Jesper (13m 56s): Because I feel like in, in writing fantasy, this is something that we are faced with. And also because of that, we have to sort of deal with that problem. If we can call it a problem or whatever, Autumn (14m 8s): At least a perception that it's just, it's pervasive in some ways that, Oh, you're a fantasy Rother. You're not legit. And I have to admit when you look at some of the awards, like for speculative fiction, the Hugo is one of the only awards that are out there. So, you know, there's all these other wonderful awards that other writers can get. But if you want to get to the top, top, top of the food chain and speculative fiction, that's basically the Hugo, you got one spot. Jesper (14m 36s): Yeah, indeed. It's like, usually at least I feel like if I tell people who maybe don't know me or only know me a little, you know, if they sort of ask her, so what do you do if I say that I'm, I'm an author, then they usually get very interested and they want to learn more. That's almost always the reaction I get, you know, people like to hear about what you're writing and what you're doing. And if you then tell them that you write fantasy, then the demeanor sort of changes a bit. Jesper (15m 6s): And all of a sudden you feel like now I have to justify myself for, I mean, it's almost like, Oh, okay. And I don't know why that is, but it just, it happens more often than, yeah. Autumn (15m 18s): I don't think, I don't think there's any fantasy author out there who probably has not experienced that where people are like, Oh wow, you're a writer. That is fantastic. Oh, you're right. Fantasy. I thought you were a real writer. I was like, wow. Really? So it's not real writing. That's I've heard that saying, but yes, I just, I am shocked. I'm really shocked that it's still in all of the movements and progressiveness that we haven't come to. The conclusion that fantasy is still real writing and I'm hoping we can blow that out of the water today. Autumn (15m 54s): At least we will try. Jesper (15m 56s): I don't know. I mean, there is, of course also the, the stigma around fantasy that it's something for nerds and geeks and stuff like that, you know, at least that has been, so when, at least when I was growing up, you know, it was a lot like that over the last 15, 20 years, it was a very much like a nerd and geek environment. Yeah. That's the whole fantasy stuff. I think it's starting slowly though, to become more mainstream. I mean, nowadays we have a stuff like game of Thrones and also the Lord of the rings movies that took to the screen some years back, you know, more like the general population they are becoming increasingly familiar with with, well, basically what the rest of us has known for ages. Jesper (16m 42s): And that is that fantasy is awesome. Yes, Autumn (16m 44s): Absolutely. I do think it came up with almost a whole generation of kids with thanks to Harry Potter books, that it was there. It opened up reading to them in a way that, I mean, reading was dwindling and Harry Potter came out and suddenly there's a surge of reading and it's all in fantasy. And those kids have grown up to their twenties now and they are, you know, some of them have kids and they're bringing them up with all of these stories and fantasy is doing really, really well. Autumn (17m 15s): So I think that is exciting. So I think the perception is changing in the younger generation. I think if I told someone in their twenties that, Hey, I'm a fantasy author and I have met, you know, you know, you've met, you know, social parties and I tend to hang out with the younger kids. I think I've mentally think I'm only in my twenties and maybe it's because I write fantasy and they find out I'm a fancy fantasy author and we have the best conversations and we get so excited. And then you talk to the parents and they're like, Oh, what are you talking about? Oh, you're an author. Oh, you write fantasy. Autumn (17m 45s): It's just like, you know, you hit the brick wall and very ashamed that that perception is still there. But I do think the younger, younger ish generation is going to get rid of that. And it's not going to be such a strange thing. They'll be excited about it. Jesper (18m 4s): Yeah. And maybe it was because in the younger generation or the, the ones who are younger now, at least compared to, I mean, young is relative, but at least compared to us, maybe the younger generation compared to us, they, as you say, grew up with Harry Potter, but to us, the generation we are in, I mean, when I grew up, it was mostly like it was spontaneous and drag and stuff. It was just too Orden. It was well, there was a few fantasy books, like while I read dragon lands back then as well, but there wasn't a lot of it. Jesper (18m 38s): No, really. I mean, it was different. And then over time then of course, well, we get those kind of mainstream trains that just pulled us through everything like, like a Harry Potter or a lot of the rings. And well, a lot of rings was back there as well. Of course, when I grew up obviously, but what was it I said before, like game of Thrones, I think game of Thrones is very oldest. Well, to be honest, I think he wrote it quite a long while back. Jesper (19m 9s): But, but again, I mean a lot of this stuff, if you look at it from a sort of mainstream perspective, it didn't really catch on until maybe within the last say five, six, seven years, Autumn (19m 23s): Maybe 10 years. Maybe I would agree at the outset of 10 years, I would agree that it's, that's where it's become culturally, especially the book part has become culturally accepted and popular where you can go up to somebody on the street and they probably heard of game of Thrones. So, you know, you can talk something fantasy where before it was like, maybe everyone, maybe half the kids in your high school, might've heard of dragon lands. And you know, a small percentage might have read some books of Shannara or the last unicorn or something like that. Autumn (19m 54s): But there were, so it was like a little club and it was much more intimate and quiet where now it is like, literally you go to Starbucks and you can talk to somebody about, Oh, did you know the new Lord? All the drinks series is coming out. You know, people are excited about it and you hear it as a type of conversation. And I do think that is interesting. Jesper (20m 15s): Yeah. I think so too big because basically, yeah, it would be a very small niece of people in your high school back when we grew up, that would actually read the paper. Autumn (20m 26s): It's like the nut club that you really want to read defenses, you books, Jesper (20m 31s): The rings back then it was like the nightclub reading that stuff. Autumn (20m 34s): Yes. But I do think, and I think part of that perception is, I mean, even as a kid, I used to call it brain candy. Cause you know, I was, you know, top of my class and all that other crap doing well in grades. And you know, they had high hopes for me that I became a fantasy author. They're so disappointed. I would call it brain candy. You know, this was, you know, something I read to relax my brain, but I think that's part of the misperception is that there's nothing important and there's nothing true or gritty or real and fantasy. Autumn (21m 9s): And I'm hoping maybe with games of Thrones. So with some of these bigger genres, I mean, they're looking at it as we're going to, I'm going to bring up some stuff today that looking at it from a moneymaking aspect, if people do not take this seriously for that reason alone they're fools. But I think there's a lot more to fantasy. I mean, it taught me a lot of perceptions and things about life and other people that I hadn't yet met and how to hold myself and be openminded because of the fantasy books I read because I was opened up to whole different worlds in different cultures and different ways of meeting people and stuff that you can't pack into this world. Autumn (21m 47s): You can't talk about the Israeli Palestinian conflict without bringing up some kind of grudges and history lessons. But you take that and you put it in a fantasy world and you can unpack it and you can question things and you come out of it changed in a way you can't do when we're stuck and entrenched in our own cultural values. And I don't think there's any other genre really, that can do that as well as fantasy. And for me, I feel bad now that I spent so much time jokingly calling it brain candy because, Oh my goodness, you can teach people. Autumn (22m 18s): You can open up their minds to so much stuff through fantasy that I don't think other cultures or John Rose can really enable you to do. Jesper (22m 27s): Yeah. I don't know if this is true, but I also feel like now that if we sort of go with the premise here that that fantasy has become a bit more mainstream nowadays, I feel like those who still looked down upon the fantasy genre isn't as much anymore, your average reader. I think instead nowadays it's very often those who are closely associated with writing programs and stuff like that. Do you think I'm right in that? Jesper (22m 57s): Or Autumn (22m 58s): I think in many ways you're right. Like the incident I had just last week was more like, Oh, well, you know, my friend who's in publishing this advice and I was just like, wow, you know what? I've been in publishing since 2012. So good luck to your friend who told you this statement. That is completely not true. I just put it, you didn't take me seriously. And it was either my gender or it was because it was a fantasy author. I'm not sure why, but I didn't unpack it because I really didn't. Autumn (23m 29s): That was my Instagram personality type of, I really don't give a crap. I'm busy, so I don't need his approval. But I do think that there are definitely some writers, but there are also so many conferences and there are a lot of things set up now targeting fantasy. But again, is it because that they truly support the genre or because they see this group that grew up on fantasy that are now in their twenties, in their thirties and they're making money and they love fantasy and they want to write it. So therefore they're going to go ahead and target an audience that is there and willing to pay money to do it. Autumn (24m 3s): I don't know. It's hard. You would have to. I think it's different every case. Jesper (24m 9s): Yeah. But I also think that, you know, those kind of closely at those people closely associated with weed riding probate, it could be the professor from before. Right. But I think a part of it is basically that they compare fantasy genre fiction with literary fiction would stay sort of feel like that's proper writing literary. Right. But, but I don't, I don't understand why we, the whole premise of trying to prove that fantasy have some sort of literary value why we even have to accept that entire premise there, you know, because when somebody frowns upon it and we go into this sort of defense situation, now I need to defend why I'm writing fantasy. Jesper (24m 57s): And I have to explain it. I have to convince them, you know, it's sort of a bit like we insisting on grading fantasy on that same scale. Right. And I don't know, my question is more like, why do we even have to grade it at all? Why do we even have to try to defend the fact that we write fantasy? Why can't we just write fantasy? Because Autumn (25m 19s): We write fantasy. Exactly. I do agree. I don't know why they have, it's a pedestal, you know, there's certain types and certainly certain genres that are considered the true writing. You know, this is the Jane Austin of writing and the Charles Dickens of writing. But I think in the second part of the quote, you know, that, that was from that post I had found, it was just like, you know, these were people who were writing like Charles Dickens was paid per word. These were not high end writers at the time. Autumn (25m 53s): They just have come to us through the classics that now we consider it. But even to Shakespeare was, you know, people, some people hate it and they're throwing tomatoes at him. He was not revered in his time. And now, you know, even token, I think got a lot of flack when he first came out. But now it's just like, Oh my goodness, token, you know, I've met somebody who met him and you're like, Oh, you've touched a toll kid. It gives you chills. You're like, Oh my God, that's so cool. Your real life when he was 11, that was, would have been so awesome. So total fan girl, that is why, again, I agree with you. Autumn (26m 28s): We don't have to compare ourselves to these other genres. These are our own pillars and this is an amazing Gianna. And we create amazing works that they don't know. They're not the same as other things as, as you know, Shakespeare's plays, which I happen to love. And he has some very fantasy ish plays. I did get to see a Midsummer's night dream, which is definitely on the fantasy scale as well as the Tempus. So yeah, those are fantastic plays and this has fantastic writing, but it doesn't have to be, you know, no one else has to write like that anymore. Autumn (27m 3s): It's fine. You can write, you can write piers, Anthony. It's good. Yeah. True. And I actually, I have, I have a question for you and I don't even know what my answer is. Oh. So you're going to throw it on me. So I'm just going to throw it at you and see what you say, because I don't know yet. Oh, alright. I'm ready. Let's go. Okay. Okay. But do you think that fantasy Isha showing right that you either love it or you hate it? Autumn (27m 34s): Yes. 3 (27m 37s): Okay. Thank you. Autumn (27m 41s): Doesn't yes or no? No. I would say yes. And the first thing that popped to mind is my mom who has read my first, my debut novel. And she said, it wasn't bad for fantasy. So listen, Beth, she loves me anyway. But, and I definitely, I mean, even in my own family, I have struggled with the perception that I am doing well, and this is what I'm doing because I like it. I like I've mentioned, I've had cousins or aunts who have said, Oh, well, if you want a real story, if you want to write a real story, I've got the best idea. Autumn (28m 13s): And you know, I would be a little bit catty going, Oh, you should write it. Good luck. You know, there's a lot more to writing than just saying, I have a good idea because believe me, if everyone who had a good idea was writing, wow. I mean, there are a lot of books, but there'll be a lot more books. But I do think that fantasy is definitely, there's very little gray. It's you either love it. And you tend to love it passionately. Even if it's just a subsection, like you've loved vampires or you love zombies or you love just something about it. Autumn (28m 43s): It really gets it. It's like in your blood. And if it's not there, it's just kinda like whole-home lackluster. I mean, I, I like scifi, but I don't love scifi. If there's no fantasy element, there's no magic. And you know, star Wars is good, but I like it because it's a forest. So, you know, there's something else there I cowboy, you know, count, you know, there's a few genres that are okay. But I think when it comes to books, it's sorta like art. You either get it or you don't get it. Autumn (29m 14s): And I do think there's a large perception who just don't get fantasy, but there's a large group that is now just ground swelling that does get fantasy and does love it. And they want something magical in this world. So they're looking for this and it's giving them something else because it's either this or post-apocalyptic dystopian tales. Do you want to read? Yeah. I quite like science fiction as well. Jesper (29m 42s): I prefer fantasy over science fiction, but I do quite like science fiction because I also think that like fantasy science fiction offers a lot of escapism. You know, it's just those kinds of when, when you're in a different world in a completely different setting, that that's the sort of things that I, that I really like and science fiction can do that as well. But most of the times certain fictions don't have dragons. Autumn (30m 5s): That's a download. I know it's a total shame and I've even written a few short shines fiction-y tails. But I just, I don't know. I come back to the magic and the characters and the world. And I just there's something there that I adore though. It is funny. Cause you how you mentioned escapism. I mean, some of the most poignant readers who have gotten back to me in the stories I remember from readers are the ones who said, you know, I've been recovering from this or I've been in the hospital and I found your book. And I just, there was one woman who has read everything except like one of the most recent stories. Autumn (30m 39s): And she was apologizing for like, not giving a review, but she had just gotten diagnosed with breast cancer. I mean, I just sent her a free book. I'm just like, here you go. Really? It's not just, she's like, I'm going through chemo. It's been really rough. I mean, these are the stories that just stay with me. And it is people who are literally stuck in bad situations. Their body's failing them. They're in pain and they want to book. They want to go to a different world. And that's one reason, not all fantasy is happy, you know, happy escapism. There's definitely ones where, I mean, I look at game of Thrones and so many people die. Autumn (31m 12s): I feel like I could read it. I could finish reading it now because I know which characters I could follow, but I can't finish reading it. Yeah. Yeah. Because George RR Martin isn't done. But as soon as he finishes, I'll consider it again. Instead of finishing it, I can read it in five years time or something like that when I'm, when I have more time on my hands, but Jesper (31m 31s): I am. And when he was done reading it, writing it again in five years from now, Autumn (31m 35s): It might be. But yeah, I mean, I think that's why I'm drawn to Nobel bright, which has a new, it's a new term for the fantasy where the heroes, you know, somehow get through, despite all the odds. And I definitely, that's why I like it is because it is an escapism where good things happen rather than grim dark, where just bad shit happens after, after bad crap. And so it's a tough one to get through. I've read a couple of grim darks and they were fantastic writing, but I know I was walking with the character through the swamp and I'm just like, if this was me in my life, I would just lay here and die because I could not go. Autumn (32m 13s): It was too tough. So that's the light type of fantasy. Jesper (32m 18s): But now, now did you set out all of that? I had a bit of time to think about my answers because, well, actually I started thinking that maybe it is every Shong row is either you hate it or you love it because you know, growing up, my, my mother always told me when I was child, that you need to something, at least once before you turn it down, because otherwise you don't understand what you're turning down. Very true. And, and then I was thinking, could I apply the same thing to reading? Jesper (32m 50s): Meaning for example, I have a notion thinking that I don't like romance books. I don't want to read romance, but I've actually never read a romance novel. So you don't know. So I guess the premise could then be, well then I don't know if I don't like it, then I should try to at least read one novel to check it out. And I could then say the same thing to those who say that they don't like fantasy. Then I could say, well, at least read one novel before you judge it. Autumn (33m 20s): But that's a really good one. That's true. Jesper (33m 22s): Yeah. But that, yeah, because then I'm thinking, okay, if I'm supposed to read one to judge, whether I like to show him around at how do I know that the one that I read is actually strongly representative enough? And how do I know if it's good? I mean, if you go by the bestseller list, I read the way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, which you must say is a huge, huge bestseller. And Brenda Sanderson is probably one of the biggest fantasy authors. One of them, at least that we have right now, but I did not like way of Kings. Jesper (33m 53s): Wow. I really was not my taste. And I love reading fantasy. So if I gave that to somebody else, somebody else will love. I mean, a lot of people, a lot of people love those books. So that is perfectly fair. My point is more to say, how can you know that if I, for example, picked up a romance book right now and said, okay, I'll give it a try. How can I know that the one that I picked up is just because I didn't quite like that particular one, but maybe I would have liked another one. But then again, when I say all of that, I also feel like, but I don't really, really feel like even yeah. Autumn (34m 29s): You know, it's true. So Jesper (34m 31s): That's why I'm thinking, is it just every show on where, so that either you love it or you hate it, but you don't really feel like trying the other ones, even though you don't really know for sure whether you like it or not Autumn (34m 42s): Follow my logic. I do. And I totally get it because I mean, I, yeah, like I said, there's a lot of genres that are kind of I've maybe I've read them, but you know, they didn't stick. I mean, I read some Nancy drew my best friend growing up, just love Nancy drew. So I tried a couple and that mystery is just not for me. I mean, I really like, I guess a Christie and as I joked, I, I wanna, I want an Agatha Christie book, a hardback, so I can use it as a knife holder in my kitchen. I just think that'd be so much fun, but I even Stephen King, I like some of his books, but his favorite ones are his fantasy ones. Autumn (35m 18s): His horror ones don't do much for me. And I think that's fair. And there's a lot of fantasy. I love Lord of the rings, but I skimmed through the battle scenes because I just went on forever. They were not fast enough for it. Right. So everyone, as the more you read them, the more discernment you're going to have, like icing. If I went back and read DRA dragon LANSA I think I would have a totally different perception now as an adult reading it, then when I was, you know, I read the, Jesper (35m 45s): I read the first book in the drag land series, a what is it like four or five months ago with my sons, because I wanted to read it to them. So I actually read it out loud to them. And I was a bit concerned about what it would feel like to read it as an adult, because I have so far memories of that series because I read it when I was like 12, maybe. So I was really concerned that now I'm going to ruin it for myself. And all my fond memories are going to get destroyed. That it's not that good anyway, but it was actually okay, good. Jesper (36m 17s): But it is not written quite like you write novels today. So, but it was also written in, in a different time. Autumn (36m 28s): I look, I look at that like the Shannara book. So when they turned that into a series, I was ripping my hair out because of, they didn't update some of the tropes and this is just not what people put up with anymore. So I much prefer modern fantasy because it is just varied and has depth. And the character building is so much more in the plotting is so much more, I don't want to go backwards, but I agree. Yeah. It's, it's changed. So I'm glad to know that though it held up. Autumn (36m 58s): Cause I did recently, my first fantasy book was on Pern Anne McCaffrey. And I recently re-read the first dragon flight and I cannot finish a review on good reads because I just, I have such fond memories of the book and the stories. And I read the book and I'm like, I'm glad I don't have a daughter. Cause I would not let her read this because of a man treated her the way that is okay. In this book, I would be like, you're going to jail. So it was so sexist. Autumn (37m 30s): It was horrible, but it was written in what the seventies. So I understand it from that. But looking back, I'm like, wow, this shaped my formative years. Seriously. That's horrible. I prefer stick to modern day fantasy. It's much better, much, much better. Jesper (37m 47s): Yeah. I guess we could say that. But at the same time, I also feel like, I feel like there there's a logic to this fact that we just love some stuff and we hate other stuff. And we're not really that willing to cross that bridge and try something else. But I can see the logic in that argument, but at the same time saddens me slightly because it's like, so none of us, and I'm looking at myself here because I'm not taking my own medicine that, you know, none of us is willing to try some other stuff out that we just keep reading the same moment. Jesper (38m 19s): But this is also why we keep talking about, and there's going to be a lot about this by the way in the self publishing course, once we release that later this year, but this is also why when you're creating your covers and all that stuff that you go with, the stuff that people expect, you don't try to be fancy. You don't to show them something new that they've never seen before on the cover or whatever. You just give them what they want because that's what they want to buy. But, and I understand all of that. I understand the marketing mechanisms of it. I understand why we have to do it. But at some level in my creative heart somewhere, it, it hurts me a bit as well as it's like, it's a shame. Autumn (38m 56s): It is a shame. But I do think with the TV shows and things like that, that are out there, more people are going to be introduced to fantasy. Even if it's through a show and they're going to maybe go on to find authors and try it out. So they're going to be exposed to it. Where before, before we got the CGI effects and some of the amazing things they can do with film these days that, you know, they were never even exposed to it. I remember, I don't know what it was like in Denmark, but for dragon lands in the United States, if you were in the Bible belt, which is where I grew up, it was a ton of, I mean, I had to hide these books from my parents. Autumn (39m 35s): I like got them from a friend of a friend just in the library. Oh, you're so lucky. No. If, if I hadn't had a friend who moved in from out of town who gave him to us, I would not have been able to touch them. You thought my fingers were going to ignite. They were very bad. And then you read them and you're like, seriously, you think this is bad. You should have you ever read Lolita? I mean, this is bad. So this, this was shocking, but yeah, this is a horrible perception. So back then, you know, it was a very strict mindset. Autumn (40m 7s): And nowadays, you know, my parents have heard of game of Thrones at least. So they're much more exposed to it. And not just because of me as her daughter. So I think that there's at least a more, there's more gateways. It's a little there's gateway. Drugs of game of Thrones. Jesper (40m 26s): Yeah. That is actually true. And it, what you just said reminded me as well, that when game of Thrones were sort of at its highest, when, when the whole series was going, I was in the office at the day job one day and I share office with a guy who's probably like 10, 15 years older than me. And he was like, so what are you watching these days? Usually, actually, we, we like to share what we're watching. Jesper (40m 56s): So I said, well, we're watching game of Thrones. And he said that stuff with the dragons and stuff, isn't it. I said, yes. And I told him it's the best. And he said, really? I said, yeah, you should try it. And then he said, well, I don't, I don't like all the drag and stuff. He's older. Right. He's a bit different than, than that point of view. And I said, well, no, no, but there's so much more, there's so much depth in this stuff. There's a lot of politics as well. There's Wars going on, you just try it out, try and watch it. And then I think a couple of weeks later when I came back to the office and he was like, Hey, I actually tried out that game of Thrones series. Jesper (41m 31s): And he said, my wife doesn't want watch it, but I love Autumn (41m 34s): It. That's fantastic. And we converted one and that's actually, that's what I want to get to too, because, so, you know, maybe people don't like, and they don't want to try it. And so there's no way of getting rid of that attitude and you can let it roll off your back and just be the better person. Or you can come back with some stats and I like stats, so, Oh, I've got a question for you. So in the top 50 movies, and we're talking about grossing movies, so the top 50 grossing movies of all time, as of even counting since COVID, so this is shutting down in may when COVID hit and they stopped counting this stuff. Autumn (42m 14s): How many do you think of the top 50 are fantasy related and I will give you a caveat. Do you count Jurassic park as fantasy or as not fantasy? Not okay. I wasn't sure. I mean the whole, I mean, it's there and it's not there. I think dragons, dinosaurs it's very close, but okay. So that changes it slightly. So how many books, Jesper (42m 33s): How many of the top 50 are you can make me look really stupid here. Autumn (42m 40s): Hey, you asked me a yes, no question. You had no answer for us. So this is come back. Well, we'll at least Jesper (42m 47s): My question was sort of an opinion question. This is like, Autumn (42m 51s): Okay. Okay. Well go for higher, low that if you want to be easy. Right? Jesper (42m 56s): Okay. So in the top 50 movies of all time, you mean in the city Autumn (43m 2s): Up until May 19th or something that shut down the cinemas in the United States, that's when they really stopped catching counting. And this was straight off Wikipedia. So this is like, you know, pretty current. Jesper (43m 14s): Okay. But I can only go with my gut feeling and I can be completely off here because actually I have no idea, but my gut feeling is that it's probably not as many as one might think. So I will say 10 or less. Autumn (43m 34s): You are completely abroad. Absolutely. The opposite out of the top 56 movies are not fantasy there's Titanic, like furious seven of a few other, like I mentioned, the Jurassic park is in there, but almost everything else ever Ginger's end game avatar, star Wars. Okay. I'm counting star Wars just because OSI fantasy science fiction. Yeah. I'm counting that. Autumn (44m 4s): But I mean, if you go by that and then there's a lot of the Disney ones I see where Disney puts out movies, but I mean, Avengers end game was two point seven billion million, 2.7 million. Jesper (44m 15s): But are we a bit lenient with how we classify fantasy right now? Or Autumn (44m 20s): I'm being lenient in the scifi fantasy, but just to give people, if I went through again, that's when you get into the Disney, are you going to count Disney as fantasy? Like kind of Disney movies Jesper (44m 32s): Are frozen. Are we talking? Autumn (44m 35s): I mean, I think frozen is total. She just got, yeah. I would say that's fine. Yeah. So, I mean, I'd have to go through if you wanted to count out some of the other ones, but I counted most of them. Like you would consider kids ones incredible. Give me like three, four examples there. Okay. Incredibles, which is definitely, I mean, a lot of these are based on superhero, almost every superhero and captain American Lord of the rings, Spiderman, Avengers, black Panther. Okay. We skipped Jurassic park, so we have to skip that one, but that's really like, there's a lion King too. Autumn (45m 9s): I don't know where that one would fit talking lions. Hmm. Jesper (45m 14s): Yeah. It's not really fantasy aside. At least not as the way I think of fantasy. Autumn (45m 18s): Yes. But, but it's still, if someone wants to argue, I mean, it's still a way over top of them. Yeah. I was gonna say, yeah. Jesper (45m 26s): Even if we say it's yeah, indeed. I mean, even if we say it's just 30 out of 50, that's still a lot. It's a lot. I did not think that. Autumn (45m 35s): Yeah. It's a lot more than I really, I was expecting a list of movies that were, you know, not even close that you could at least say how to shade a fantasy. These all do a lot of them do. So that was really surprising to me. And so that's one of the first one. And then I also looked up the top 20 books of all time, bestselling books of all time. And I looked at three different lists from Wikipedia book, cave, other web, you know, one that likes to keep things. Autumn (46m 8s): And they're all very similar. And out of the top 20, I won't put you on the spot again, but out of the top 20 books, only nine of them. So nine of them are not fantasy. So again, over 50% are fantasy. So we have almost every Harry Potter, Harry Potter just hit the Jesper (46m 28s): Right. That's the tough spots all over. Autumn (46m 31s): Surprisingly, not Don OT is the number one bestselling book of all time. Of course they took out. They, they say the Bible is actually the top one. We won't say if that's fantasy or not. So we'll skip that. But, and then there's actually a Chinese dictionary, which I don't think that's fair to put in there, but that Lord of the rings is number four, little Prince is number five. It's one of the best selling books of all time. And then we get into Harry Potter. There's one Agatha Christie, which is mystery. The rest of them. You know, DaVinci code is also up there, but again, not, not quite fantasy, but at least goes into the mystery side of it. Autumn (47m 6s): Yeah. But yeah, all the Harry Potter is Lord of the rings, the line, the, which, the wardrobe, the Hobbit, those are all in the top 20 best selling books of all time. So again, amazing. Look, this is over 50%. So everything else is a, you know, a dash of this and a dose of that, but solid 50% on true hardcore fantasy. So that's again amazing. And then I had to look up one, we'll close out with two more stats. So I wanted to look up a J K Rowling's just to see what was said about her and what her net worth. Autumn (47m 39s): So they consider her net worth right now at a billion dollars. She denies that she has that much. But what I thought was really interesting was this sentence, and that is JK. Rollings is one of the wealthiest private citizens in the United Kingdom and the first author in the world to achieve a net worth of $1 billion. That is not by genre. That is the first author in the world in any genre to be achieved. Autumn (48m 10s): 1 billion was a fantasy author, not a woman. So I thought that was fantastic. And I mean, alone, they said the last two, Harry Botter ha her last two Harry Potter books, Harry Potter and the half blood Prince and Harry Potter and the deathly Hallows. So nine and 11 million copies within 24 hours of their release, nine and 11 million copies. So yes, when someone says, Oh, you write fantasy, you go, yeah. Are you kidding? Autumn (48m 41s): But I also want to touch on because we've mentioned game of Thrones. So George RR Martin, I looked him up very quickly too. And so he is obviously made a bundle and of course, everyone loves that. He he's still living. Like I say, a very frugal lifestyle. So he earns because from his books, from his writing, he has an estimated net worth of $65 million and earns about $15 million per year. Autumn (49m 11s): He's not the number one highest paid author though. James Patterson is considered that he is at 95 million, but he is really, really up there. So yeah, I, you know, could you handle making $15 million a year because you're a fantasy author. Jesper (49m 28s): I can do one that's okay. Autumn (49m 30s): Yeah. You know what? I can take a million a year too. So I think that'd be fine. But once you, to me, it's like, once you look at the stats, when you look at the best performing movies, I didn't even get to the best performing T sheet TV shows. I got sidetracked. But when you look at what is being made, what is making money, why they're making money because people are going out there and watching it. So yeah, the next time someone asks me like, Oh, you're a fantasy author play. Cool. Hell yeah. This is where of it is people. This is a fantastic genre and you don't need an excuse. Autumn (50m 2s): You should be proud of it. This is a one that is popular and makes money. People are craving. Well, of course, why wouldn't I write in it? I don't need to, I don't need a better reason than that. Yeah. Jesper (50m 14s): I think for me, the main takeaway out of all of this is really that we should just leave other people to their opinions. You know, we should just stop feeling like we have to justify why we write what we love at all. And it's very true. We're not hurting anyone if they don't like it, go and read something else. I really feel like we could defend it. We could say, well, do you know how much money a J K Rowling owns? Jesper (50m 45s): Do you know how great the song res and yes, it, I think those are all good and valid arguments, valuable arguments. And it's good to be aware of those steps that you mentioned. I think that it, I think it's very interesting if nothing else, but I almost as well want to say, maybe we should just stop defending it and just like, yeah, that's what I write because I love it. That's it? I think that'd be a very good place to be in, but until then, I would do not mind telling people. Jesper (51m 18s): I like it because it makes money too. Fair enough. Alright. So next Monday, we are going to revisit the topic of Permafree books because autumn took her book free off Permafree. So we're going to analyze how that, Narrator (51m 37s): 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 Ottoman Yesper on patrion.com/and writing fantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the M writing fantasy podcast going, stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

What really is a "writer?" Jesper and Autumn run the gamut in this episode to break down the myth, history, and perception of what being a writer really means. Throw in some great quotes from famous authors, and you have a fun mix that will get you pondering what you call yourself ... and why it is - or isn't - a big deal in the first place! It's true! Pre-orders are LIVE for Story Idea, Plot Development, and Plot Development Step by Step! You can secure your copy for release day of August 3rd through the links below! Story Idea: A Method to Develop a Book Idea at https://books2read.com/StoryIdeas Plot Development: An Outlining Method for Fiction at https://books2read.com/Plot-Development  Plot Development Step by Step: Exercises for Planning Your Book at https://books2read.com/PlottingWorkbook  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 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 am Jesper Autumn (31s): and I'm Autumn Jesper (34s): Episode 78 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast. And today we are going to talk with him about what it means to be a writer. And I know that's going to require a bit of elaboration, but I will get back to that a bit later. Yes. I'm still looking forward to it and believe it or not, this will impress you. I did research for this one. Autumn (57s): Did you? I did writing work. Why? Because I didn't want to go outside. No. Aye. Because I wanted it. I like facts. I love history. I like, you know, things or things. You said the repeat themselves and we don't usually appreciate it. Cause we don't realize that if you don't know you're history, you realize that's repeating. So we did some digging on this one. I can't wait to share it. I usually just with all these episodes, maybe we shouldn't tell people that it's all right. I don't mind being notorious for, you know, showing up and doing a presentation with no preparation. Autumn (1m 32s): I just I'm waiting for the day that someone calls me, sees me in the audience and calls me up and asked me to do a whole hour on something. I'm like, Oh geez. I should never have said I do this all the time. Right? Jesper (1m 43s): Yeah. And actually I will say it depends on if it was me. It would depend on what they would want me to speak about. But I do think that certain topics I could probably work in an hour. The, it depends on what it is though. Autumn (1m 53s): Yesper talk about maps one hour ago. You would be all site, but yes. So how are things on your side or the Atlantic this week? No, it's good. Jesper (2m 6s): It's a good, eh, we are trying to get ready for some of occasion, obviously. So a sort of, a lot of things going, I mean, it's still like more than a month away, but were just trying, I'm trying to get everything wrapped up also for our stuff. So it's been actually just the few days ago where, Oh, well, yeah, that's a point of this recording. Of course not. When this episode released this, because that's the wonders of the podcast. And today we always have to be careful with the timing of when we mentioned things because we are prerecording some stuff here. Jesper (2m 40s): Yes. But at least at the point of recording this just a few days ago, I sent out an email to our Am Writing Fantasy lists recruiting what we call typos layers four, not one but three. Yes. You have that right. Three different non fiction books for authors though. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, it is crazy. Oh, come on. You're Autumn (3m 0s): Sending out the emails. I sent you the file's to put it up the pre-orders today. So it feels like this is really half a day. Jesper (3m 8s): Yeah. I am so excited that it is happening. So there are three of them. So just to mention, there is the first one is Plot Development And Outlining Method four Fiction and Plot Development Step by Step So that there was one that is the actual plodding book that we talked about so much. And then the other step by step one is the associated what books. And then we also have Story Idea Book and Method to develop a book Idea so it's basically like creating a whole premise, which we'll talk about later on in a, in a future episode or more on a, more about in a future episode, I meant to say, but that is three books that we are trying to launch right. Jesper (3m 47s): Leading up to summer holiday. So I don't know if we're a bit crazy here, but a lot Autumn (3m 52s): Considering everything we have going on. I know we're crazy, but it feels so good to be getting these things. So finally, after talking about them for so long, finally bringing them out. So Jesper (4m 4s): Yeah. And honestly, I can't, I can't wait to release these. Yes. So they, they are for the listener here. They are going to be out on the 13th of August. Ah, but you can actually, if I do all my time traveling, correct here with podcasting, you should be able to preorder them already now and we'll place the Link's in the show notes so that you can actually go and preorder them if you are interested in these books, which of course you're home. We hope you are. Jesper (4m 34s): But other than that, I just also wanted to mention a Autumn that I finally found a time to go back and listen to episode 75 when you have Kirsten Oliphant on. Yeah. That was a great episode. Yeah. Autumn (4m 45s): Yeah. She was a wonderful, wonderful guest. I really appreciate her time and her tips on pen names. And when you really need to launch a different author platform for what you're writing, writing in multiple genres. Yeah. And I can't believe she, she honestly said that she reads a book a day. She did say that I want to go back going really. I just really let that sink in. I don't understand. I mean, Hello, she has a lot of kids at the house with as well. Yeah. I mean, I don't know, maybe there, I don't want to assume that their kids' books, but she did say maybe she was saying she, maybe she went to say she reads a book. Autumn (5m 24s): She reads every day. Not she is. So she would make sure she reads everyday. Not a whole book. Jesper (5m 30s): All right. I know. Okay. But yeah, I think she said she ran a whole book at day, but yeah, that's a pretty damn amazing. Oh, well done it. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Autumn (5m 40s): Very good speed reader. That would be amazing. I could read that fast. I would probably read a little bit more because I task oriented. I get so wrapped up in things that I have a hard time switching to something else. So once I get to a good book and you're getting into like that new and getting really close to the climax. So that's back two thirds basically of the novel. That's it I'm hooked. That's all I'm doing. I'm not making dinner. I'm not Writing I'm not working on our courses. Nothing. I'm just reading. So I'm on a reading diet until we get some of this stuff done. Autumn (6m 13s): Alright. Yeah. I have to the opposite problem. It takes to me so long to read the book. Like sometimes I have to remind myself when I go back. What happened last time? I can't see. I'm so bad at it. Usually, you know, I read when I go to bed in the evening and when I go to bed, I'm so tired. I really don't have the energy to read. So I'd just fall asleep. I'm really good at falling asleep. You know, I can fall asleep within a minute or so. Yeah. So yeah, I don't get much reading done. And that was going to say with, and they're a task into, to do list with a vacation coming up. Autumn (6m 46s): I mean, I've already got to be keeping you up late tonight, the record, this podcast. So we can relax when we'd go on vacation, then I hope so. Ah, you better? Yeah. So will you also keeping busy? So how are you on your end or a very good, well, at the time we are recording this things are crazy. I'm in the United States' and I wish I could time travel to see if things are going to get any better when this is really you. So I'm just hoping they do, but it is kind of crazy over here and a little scary at the moment. Autumn (7m 18s): And yeah, I mean, I'm just trying to keep my head down and stay busy, but you know, at least in personal things, I've got a little bit of writing done. I've been doing some cover design, which is always fun. I'm getting our formatting books done. So things are progressing very well. My garden is growing. My husband has been working on 105 year old canvas frame, Cedar canoe, and he just put the canvass in the top coat on it today. And now it gets to cure for four weeks before. Autumn (7m 49s): Are you going painted? So its kinda cool to watch him and restore a hundred, five year old canoe is really something special. And why, where did you find that use? We actually paid a little bit too much for it. Cause we thought it was him. We bought it. It, we thought it was in better shape and its become a project that he's enjoying immensely, but it's Oh my God, this is not something you do because you have some, you know, your, your saving and skimping money. It's not a cheap enterprise, but, and he's doing very well and he's not usually the woodworker in the family. Autumn (8m 22s): I am. So I'm very impressed. We go on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast Oh, so we have a lot, lot, lot, lots, lots of interesting potent right in Fantasy Facebook. Hey, we were just going crazy over there. It is. Which I love its been so busy and I have actually managed again in a couple of times this week, so that's good. But yeah, it's such a vibrant, exciting group. Autumn (8m 54s): Yeah. I noticed how it, Chris was very Jesper (8m 56s): Helpful and he pointed out how publishing too Apple books. It no longer requires a Mack. So you just need an iCloud on iTunes connect account and then you can publish directly to Apple books. That's a pretty nice. That is cool. Autumn (9m 11s): Yeah. Pretty cool. That's a very, that doesn't surprise me about Apple. I mean, come on a, use a Mac and I can open any file you send me, but I have the files I want to send you I've come to translate so you can open them on your PC. Yeah, Jesper (9m 25s): Yeah. That's a bit annoying, but yeah, but Chris also mentioned by the way that the Google books appears to be open to anyone. That's what he said. And I have heard this as, as well in other places. So I think its absolutely correct. Yeah, it think so. But of course you and I are and we got in a long time ago, so I'm not sure if it works on it, but I guess for those listening, who haven't yet published their books on Google, you can go and check it out now and you should be able to create an account I think. Jesper (9m 55s): And then afterwards, you know, hit Autumn and I up on Twitter or leave a comment on this episode and let us know if it works. Yeah. I'm really curious. Yeah, that should have a book. Autumn (10m 4s): I was, are they still have so far to go in the dashboard? So I will warn folks if your going over there, it is not the same as Amazon's managed for us or anything else, but it does work and it is nice. You know, I want to change the price on a book. You have to go in and go in to this file and there's just like, you can't just see what the price is on. The main screen kind of would be Jesper (10m 26s): To be useful. But anyway, yeah, that's not the best. I mean by that and you have to download a sales report in Excel, you cannot manipulate it on the screen and stuff, but it's not that bad, but it's just a bit, maybe a bit more old fashioned than they would speak. Yeah. Autumn (10m 43s): Yeah. It's all right. Yeah, it works. So yeah. Let us know if it is working an open to everyone, that's kind of a huge step for Google and I guess if enough people do it, maybe they'll, you know, tweak it a little bit more. So that'd be excellent. I once gave them the feedback that they should have bought pronoun when that, when that site closed down. So probably which they had. Yeah, I can see. Jesper (11m 6s): Yeah. But Jason also mentioned by the way that he has written 40,000 words in the last 10 days, so that's awesome. Congratulations, Jason. Yeah, that is fantastic. Congratulations. That's always exciting to see the authors writing and doing well or a thousand words in 10 days. That's pretty good. That's a good milestone. That is awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So I really liked how lively and helpful to the Facebook group is. So if you haven't joined it yet and you are listening here, then what are you waiting for? Join us in over to the group section of Facebook and simply search for Am Writing Fantasy and you will find us and we will let you in. Jesper (11m 43s): Yes. Autumn (11m 44s): Yeah. And it's fun because it's, it's everything from supportive to asking a fun questions like Hector who had written, you know, what spells would you give your antagonist that isn't to overpowered? So it's everything from pulling apart tropes to question's to support, to celebrating things. So I love it over there. So you actually initially came up with this topic Autumn so perhaps you can set the scene a bit. Autumn (12m 15s): What are we talking about here? We're talking about that idea that all a real Writer and real in quotation marks are a real Writer does, is write. And so this kind of comes up from, you know, lots of beams and things, online threads that you'll see where someone goes up to a famous author and says how much you know, Story I do you have to imagine this, how much do you see time? Do you spend writing every day to become such an amazing famous author? Autumn (12m 47s): And they go, Oh, well I write from nine to noon in the morning. And then from one til five 30, I marketing and the person that's a good question goes, Oh, Oh, you are not a real Writer and walks away. So that sort of where this comes from, it's this idea that a real, Writer a real writer write it's a real writer has a publisher. It's a real writer. Is this, this certain rigid thing that spends only time WRITING, it's a, it's a very, I feel like it's a very outdated way of viewing things to be honest. Autumn (13m 23s): But I, it surprises me because I think, I mean, at least every month I still hear people say that I have to admit, I think it used to be every week that I would hear people say, Oh, you know, Writing is blah, blah, blah. But there are still people who feel that if you're not Writing, you know, if you're not only writing, if your still marketing, then your not a real writer. Right? Yeah. I mean, of course there is some personal belief in this. I mean, everybody probably have their own understanding of what it means to be a writer. Autumn (13m 55s): And what does a writer do on doing well, eight hours of work and or whatever you wanna call it. Right. Write, I mean, we are probably, everybody probably has their own opinion about , but yeah, that's what we are gonna try to dig a bit deeper in here and try to at least share some of the, how have you seen and the, I don't know, maybe challenge you're thinking of it. I am not sure. Let's see. Oh yes. I definitely, I believe me. I think the world needs a lot more time listening to each other and sort of making assumptions and talking to dead air. So I think its just as a dun in an idea of to challenge a challenge, what you think a real writer is. Autumn (14m 30s): And maybe even if you hate marketing and maybe challenge or assumptions, that marketing is a part of Writing. So I tried, I, like I said, I did some digging in history of files to bring up some ideas for today. Okay. Let's hear it. Alright. Well I wanted to go, as I said, I think history itself, a lot of people don't realize that history repeats itself because we think now is like everything we forgotten, like I've was joking with my husband today. Autumn (15m 2s): I looked back at February when the room, my built in my cabin was snow in some debris and I look at it down, it's a room and I'm like, really? That was only a few months ago. So it's so easy to forget, but I looked up the history of self publishing. And what do you think is the earliest example of self publishing? I would say it's Jesper (15m 28s): Well I, I would say it's probably, I don't, I don't know any names of the authors or whatever, but I think it would be half to do something to do with somebody in a way we all times by buying a, a PR you know, getting his own book printed on a press and paying for it himself. Yes. That would be good. Autumn (15m 51s): We have a definition that would say that the definition of self publishing and so yes. So when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, that was 1440. And so yeah, some people say that it's the history of self publishing, but honestly the Chinese were using movable type way before that. So technically it's older even then that, and I mean, technically you, you can go back to it when people are writing scrolls, that would be self publishing. And the earliest evidence of that is 3,100 BC. Autumn (16m 22s): So a technically it depends on how much you want to go into it. So we're not gonna do a history lesson But yeah. So how did they do Amazon? App's in 1300 BC. Oh, I don't think it was him as well as he could have been. It was in the Amazon, right? Yeah. Jesper (16m 42s): But he would be somebody that says sitting out in the treats shop or shouting about it. Okay. The book is out. Yeah, Autumn (16m 48s): Yeah. That's right. Dunn. Yeah. You read it now. Hot off the lift. But so what are some, it was a time period and it was pretty big. So in the 18 hundreds, self publishing was actually very typical and they call it a vanity publishing. So where do you think vanity? Why do they use the term vanity for publishing? Jesper (17m 11s): Aye. I could be wrong on this, but I think that it has to do with is because the, well, the author has a bit of a hit, you know, that they want their own works published and no, at least the connotation it has today is that self publishing some times is called a bandage publishing because it's a bit like it's not, isn't it a really good publishing. It is just like somebody who wanted to put this out into the world. They probably tried to get in a, a, a traditional publishing house to publish it, which they wouldn't because it wasn't good enough. Jesper (17m 44s): So they went ahead and published it on their own. That's a bit of the stigma it has today, at least that Autumn (17m 50s): I don't know if that's way originated from as well. I need a little child little thing. Yes. Gold star for you. That is correct because it's considered vanity publishing because the author was vain and we want it to be published even though they've had been rejected, but that is a stigma. Even back then, that isn't necessarily true. Some people maybe they couldn't get published, but the thing about women writers, they were, they just couldn't even own property. They couldn't even talk to publishers unless they had a male relative. And this was even in England. Autumn (18m 21s): So some of them were paying to have books published and using a pen names or anonymous was very famous, basically meant AU is written by a woman. And so there is a lot of authors who were vanity publishing because they had no other means, but they're books were good because come on, you've got a guest, at least a couple people who, or a self published, just like, Oh, you could pick an author, the author and the author of a historic, you can choose a modern one Plato Oh, you know, I didn't go back that far. Autumn (19m 7s): It's not fair. I self published something. I bet he did too. I'm sure the Greeks were really into self publishing and we just don't appreciate it. But some of my favorites, I couldn't believe this. John Locke was self published, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Martin Luther, Marcel Proust, some of the, what are some of the works that they published it that way. I see, Oh, I'm not even going to go into him. But how about some really good ones? What Whitman, the leaves of grass, in fact, well, Whitman is considered the first one who discovered Author branding. Autumn (19m 44s): He sold the leaves of grass based on his rather notorious lifestyle and who he was. So yeah, I didn't actually realize that he was so scandalous. That was kind of fun to read. It's a very salicious. I now have a new appreciation for the leaves of grass and you have to read it again. But two, the paragons that I could not believe are self published where Emily Dickinson and Jane Rustin, Jean Oxton, I mean, she is considered, she is second to Shakespeare in sales and notoriety and she self published in her lifetime. Autumn (20m 25s): So that kind of says something about what self publishing is. So it's self publishing has been around a long time. So that's only part of this question though. The question is, you know, what does it mean to be a writer? So these authors were self published. What I could not uncover and unbury unfortunately is how much time these Author spent. You know, it was shaking the Busch and telling people about their works, how they went about selling them. Autumn (20m 54s): However Jane Austin. It really was her brother, Henry and her sister Kassandra, who were shouting about our work here. She was very lucky that way to have very strong family support. And she tried very hard to not let people know. First. She tried to have to let people know it was written by a woman and then that kind of leaked out and she just signed her books. They were titled by a lady, but she did get to meet with the Prince Regent, who was a huge fan. So she did do some meetings and things like that. I think later in life, there was a few book signings, but other people, like I mentioned, well, what he was, he was of the brand and he was out all the time selling these books. Autumn (21m 34s): In fact, he basically published the leaves of grass in 18 different versions. He just kept adding on it and putting stuff together. That was his book. It was only, it was his only book, you know? And you just went on selling it and he sold it based on who he was. And people just wanted it because he was like, Oh, you wrote this. Oh my goodness. I want you to read us. So I just found, it's so fascinating to read through some of this history of some of these paragons, you know, people, we never would be like reading, I'm reading this and finding out, but you know, Emerson, you know, actually Benjamin Franklin, I self published. Autumn (22m 12s): A lot of these people published and they would do adverts in the local paper. They would do book signings. They would go to the societal dinner's and bring their book and be like, well, you know, I wrote this so you can do a little reading and the polite society rooms and try to get people to spread the word. I mean, this is, this was the earliest social media of going to these dinners and spreading the word about there books. And these are people that we just think, Oh, it's Dean Austin. Of course, of course she did well, but Nope, she, she had to shake the Busch. Autumn (22m 45s): So I'll think of this stuff up from somewhere. Yeah. You all start from somewhere until you get to be known. So I did really find this fascinating that there is a huge history of being not only self published, but Writer is having to do a lot more and a lot of heavy lifting than just writing. Yeah, absolutely. But I'll also even, even in the modern day, for example, you know, a JK Rowling, self-publishers her eBooks versions of Harry Potter, but I actually didn't know that's the, I didn't bring up to modern. Autumn (23m 18s): That's exciting. Yeah. So, so, so she didn't want to sign a waiver to REITs for the iBooks because it owns so much money. So, so she holds help hold onto those rights herself for her. And she's self publish is the Harry Potter books and books. And then she sign the contract a For, you know, paperback in hot back and whatnot ride. So that's an excellent, she owns the rights herself. So I'm self published. That is fantastic. And I wonder if she owns the IP assume there's audio Jesper (23m 46s): Books, there has to be audio works. So here we have hotter. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Are, there is a, I think that's with a publishing house, but I'm not an a 100% share on that, but I think it is considering, I am sure she would have had the money to hire somebody, but considering how difficult and time consuming of a process, they can do whatever she wants. Yeah. I think she is one of the richest woman in the world. So I think she was doing fine in those days. Yeah. Yeah, indeed. Okay. Well actually I also find found the quote that I was thinking about four for this podcast episode here. Jesper (24m 18s): So I was thinking too, maybe just shared and then follow on with a bit of my thoughts, because if it goes into this entire topic here, excellent. So this is a quote from Ray Bradbury. So it goes like this quote, if you simply define a rider as someone who is WRITING clarity says In, you are truly a rider when you are writing. And if you don't write regularly, don't pretend to give yourself that title start writing more for me, they key is. Jesper (24m 53s): Yeah. And then yeah. End of the quote, write. And then what I want you to say is that for me, the key is in that word regularly because I can agree to that pot. I mean, if you want to, if you want to be an author, that also means that you have to put your butt in the seat and ride at the end of the day, we only authors if we write stuff. So I would say, you know, only writing his writing marketing is not Writing social media is not writing. Jesper (25m 25s): Only writing is writing. However, that does not mean that none of those other activities isn't a part of being an author is. And I think for me, that's where the distinction lies because you also have to do marketing. You also have to do social media and all those other things. So as you set in the beginning of the episode would have been the beginning of the section Autumn when somebody was asking, so how much do you write? And then if the answer was well, our right in the morning and I do marketing in the afternoon, and then people would say, well, then you're not a writer. Jesper (26m 0s): I think it comes from stuff like this. You know, that there was this kind of thinking that well, writers only write. And if you do anything else, then you not a proper right. Or maybe there's a bit of thinking as well that, well, if your a proper righty, your publisher will do all those other things for you. But nowadays in 2020 property says actually expect the authors to due to marketing as well. They do not, if your a Stephen King or something, then he will get whatever he wants. But for everybody else, even those who are those who have traditional publishing contracts, the puppet is that they will not really allocate any funding or attention to watch marketing. Jesper (26m 39s): They actually expect the author to do it. So that's why I also set up at the top that Autumn (26m 45s): I think it's a bit of an old fashioned outdated view on things this whole, this whole conversation, you know, it's, I don't know. I find it a bit weird that unless you ride eight hours a day and do nothing else, then you're not a right. I don't, I can't quite follow the logic day. And I probably can't, if we go 10 or 20 years back than maybe I understand now in 2020 now I don't get it. I agree. And I think that's a really good distinction is like Yeah writers writing is Writing and you're a writer if you're actively writing or at least trying to write every day, or are you have a scheduled in your reading, but an author, it incorporates a lot more. Autumn (27m 26s): And that's even book signings. I mean, we know someone who, you know, their publisher sends them off to some of these book fairs and stuff. That's not Writing, that's being front and center. Even if the publisher is paying your entrance fee, which is always nice instead of having to do it out of your Author business. But it, again, sometimes you go what you do, these book signings, your handing out cards and stuff. As you go and share, you've got a grocery store until when to ask what you do. And you say, you're a writer and you told them about your books and they're you go? Autumn (27m 57s): It doesn't matter if you have a publisher not, but I agree a lot of publishers these days do expect you to have done it. And a lot of publishers like to pick up authors and writers who have been doing it. So that's why there's a lot of hybrid authors that use days where they Be, they started out as a self publishing and they are doing such a good job at getting themselves known in an in demand that publisher thinks, Oh, you are a safe bet. So I'm going to skip, are you up? And you are going to keep doing what you're doing, but now we're going to handle the book sales and maybe some of that advertising or are paying for the expenses for you to go to these big, big book, fair is and booking you out two signings and things. Autumn (28m 36s): Now, I mean, this is just good business, right? Yeah. I mean, if, if you are running a business and you are the head of publishing at a big publishing house, who do you want to sign? And you want to take a chance on an Author. You never heard about And who has no media, a social media following on anything, or do you wanna pick the one where you can see that they have a lot of following a lot of people, you know, talking about them and probably buying the books, which of course is as a publisher, you want know what at that point in time, but you have a pretty strong indication if you see what they're doing on the internet, right. Or whether or not it looks like they have a lot of following. Autumn (29m 9s): And so who do you go with? Of course, you'd pick the one with the following, right. Because you know, well this guy, he or her, yes, they can, they can publish their way. They can promote their own book. I'm going to say, and, and they can make a cell. And that's what do you want? Yeah, that's a publishing house. I mean, right. And there are some benefits. I mean, some the publishing house is they have some great NS with libraries, like the bookstore, as you see it airport's and things like that as well. That's actually kind of hard to get into as an Indy published author. Yeah. I think that's probably the only thing to be honest. Autumn (29m 41s): Autumn Jesper (29m 43s): I say, I, I, going through, at this point in time, I'm recording the, a free course are that we are going to put up later in the year. And actually I was just going through with the other day, one of the modules, when I talk about self publishing and stuff like that. And one of the things I actually set there is that the only thing that traditional publisher can do that we can not do with self publishers, I am getting into bookstores and libraries in effective manner. That's the only thing that they can do, but there is nothing else that they can do at, we can not do as well. Jesper (30m 14s): And probably if we want to better, I agree. I, I, I think, yeah, yeah. And editing might be some slight different that that's probably something where I would say that they can do it well, and it's not that we couldn't do exactly the same thing. I think that the thing is just at when the traditional publishing houses do their editing, they go through like 10 rounds of editing or something. It's very rare that you find a traditional published book with a single type of way that it can happen, but its very rare and it is because it's a, they've gone over, over and over and over and over again. Jesper (30m 47s): And then of course, as self published authors, we could also, we could do the same thing. I mean we could hire 10 different proof reading editor's and then go through one by one by one by one. And hopefully by the end you will, you we'll have gotten rid of any tables. So if you want two, you could go through that labral in the process a as well. But at least that part, I think that they usually do better in the traditional publishing houses that we do. But when it comes to marketing, getting professional covers, at least if we know who to contact and get them to decide for us and even, even editing as well, you know, all, all those things we can do just as well as they can. Jesper (31m 25s): Yeah. I do you think they have the advantage of many different eyes on one thing? Yes. Yes they do. But I definitely, I definitely think there's a split there though, because sometimes you're dealing with lots of people who might give contrary advice and then you have someone who might be really pushing hard for Writing to market. And I have heard stories of authors being really conflicted with getting an offer, have a wonderful, it sounds like a really good deal. You'll be able to a real publisher, but you, no, they want to switch this character and they want to do this and probably still very good book, but that's really hard if you're coming from a creative, I love being in charge of all my creative input. Jesper (32m 5s): So yeah that's yeah. As our one guest Hollie had mentioned about her in her writing partner, Angelina in Delina, they are, they were creating the world together, but they were both writing their own stories because they both a little to controlling what else to share the same book in the same character. It was thought that was kind of a durable it's very honest. Hi. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Well that's not always a, you know, you need to find some, but if your, what writing something together with somebody else, you need to find somebody who you, you aware of writing a new way of thinking and your way of working matches well with right? Jesper (32m 44s): So otherwise you kind of get sort of conflicts about things. So it's a, well, we actually talked about that in the past episode about finding a, somebody to write with. So go and search for that if your interested, but you said something earlier on that, a trigger something in me because I'm, there's also this whole debate about the, what is the difference between a writer and an author. And I did find, I did find some definitions. This is not me making it up. Jesper (33m 14s): This is some stuff I found on that. Autumn (33m 16s): The internet, which is always this. Yeah, exactly. Then Janette is always telling this truth, no matter what do you know? It Autumn that it's the way it is. All right. Never lies and everything you read is true. And you know what? I believe everything can say Jesper (33m 29s): Yes, but I found this ah, this way of wording it. Ah, and I thought it was just shared because then I want, you want us to talk a bit about what we think about it afterwards? So it goes like this, that some say that a writer is someone who writes a book, an article or whatever. Why not? An author is one who originates the idea of the Plot all the content of that it's been what is being written and both of those can of course be at the same person. Jesper (34m 2s): And then there are others who say that right, is our people who write Y all those authors who are those who have published their work and are earning money from it. So that sort of two different ways of Autumn (34m 15s): Distinguishing between being a rider and being an Author. Okay. I hadn't heard that first one before and it doesn't really resonate well with me, but the second one to me is, is more true. I Writer is someone who is REITs is writing. I mean, you could be a writer if your doing blogs and other things, a you're a journalist, you're a writer, but an author is definitely someone who has, you have given birth and produced a novel. And suddenly C's, you know, they've done the editing, they've done the covers. Autumn (34m 47s): Now they see, they had to do ads. They were doing the social media is more of a business idea. Even if they have a publisher, whether or not they have a publisher, they are an author B. It was like becoming a parent. Your not a mom until you give birth. So with the child. But do you know what my view on this? Is that, is that Yeah. Why do we care? It's a good one. Why does it matter? What is a Writer versus what, I mean, if you tie start typing it in, in Google law, in, in a, in your web browser, it'll automatically populate. Autumn (35m 23s): What is the difference between a writer and an author? Just like we can ask, why have we are debating what the differences are? It makes absolutely zero difference. It's very true. I think it's human nature to want categorize things and be able to define things as part of our little curiosity about, you know, understanding the world by putting labels in words, on things. But it does that make a difference at the end of the day, really? Jesper (35m 53s): Alan is like, I really feel like we need to break free of this line of thinking because I really don't think it matters at all. And the other part is that Autumn (36m 3s): Yeah, Jesper (36m 4s): A fair bit that some people might be checking out these definitions because maybe they feel a bit too insecure. So then they want, they don't want to end up saying, well, I, you know, if somebody asked, why do, what do you do to, I say, I'm a Writer or do I say Author? What is the difference between the two? And I definitely shouldn't say I'm an author if I haven't published books. So maybe I need to say I'm a writer. And so you blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And on and on and on there's self goes. It's just like, I don't like it. Jesper (36m 35s): You know, get rid of that stuff. It doesn't matter if you want to say you're right. If you want to say an author or whatever, say whatever you feel comfortable with, but I just don't think in it, if it matters at all, I don't think it as well that it matters what people, other people they're the people or the person who received that answer. How did you receive that answer? It doesn't matter either. Now. Maybe they feel like, well, Writer, Author maybe those data, we didn't even think about it. Some people we'll be thinking about it and they will be the ones we talked about at, at the top, where, well, are you writing it hours a day? Jesper (37m 12s): And if the answer is no Autumn (37m 16s): Not good enough for those standard. No, I think no, an honest answer of, Hey, what are you doing? I'm writing a book that kind of, you know, call me whatever you want. Why do you feel comfortable with, yeah, it that's fine. I agree. I think the ideas, like you said, put your butt in the chair. If your, if you want to do this, but your in the chair and actually REIT, and don't worry at what people call you or define you because some people are going to call you are a writer, so I'm gonna call you Author so we will call you a HACC, but its just do it and you know, do it cause you love it or because it's a drive within you and that's really the important part. Autumn (37m 53s): And yeah, you might, if you go on to publish a book, you're going to find out that there's a lot more to Writing. Whether you are publishing through a publisher or self publishing, you're going to find out there's quite a lot more to it than just, you know, hitting done. And it's suddenly magically out their and selling. There's a lot more shaking. I always think of a word, little worker bees doing their working bee dance to saying I am getting my work done. So yeah, you're gonna, you're going to find that as part of your life too. Jesper (38m 24s): Yeah, that's true. I mean, for me it's like, if you need permission from anybody as a listener, you have my permission permission from now on you can call yourself a writer, an author, the muster of the universe of whatever you want. I don't care. I don't care if I mean, it doesn't matter if you've published anything or if you have that pup, is there anything, if you want to call yourself a writer or an author? I do. So I think that the only thing that matters, as I said earlier on is that you right on a regular basis, whether you are published on it or not, it doesn't really matter if you're right on a regular basis and you, if you're committed to death in my view, then you are a writer. Jesper (39m 2s): I like it. I, I agree with it. And I think that's where we should definitely end on that note that, yes, it's good to call yourself a writer, call yourself an author. Don't don't deny yourself that if that is what you're doing and that is what's in your heart. Yeah. I have a, I actually find just one more quick, which I think we can finish off with that. Both did our homework for this one. I'm so proud. It's amazing. Isn't it? When you put in the effort, something happens. Jesper (39m 33s): He's amazing. But this one, it's a firm Ursula, Kayla Quint and I, I quite like it to so are you ready? All right. Yes, absolutely. From Ursula. Okay. You may have gathered from all of this that I am not encouraging people to try to be writers. Well, I can't, you hate to see a nice young person run up to the edge of the cliff and jump off on the other hand. It is awfully nice to know that some other people are just as knotty and just as determined to jump off the cliffs as you are, you just hope they realize what they are in for at the quote. Jesper (40m 15s): Oh, I love it. I that's why I love isn't that amazing? That does amazing. And that is perfect. So yes, I am so glad. I'm glad for the internet some days, because I've met so many people just as crazy, if not a little bit crazier, which is hard to do than me. So yeah. Yeah. And I like the, I liked the core message in In at least a way I read or hear that quote. It's also that if you wanna be a writer, there is a million things that you could do that will earn you an income at a thousand times faster in a thousand times easier. Jesper (40m 52s): So if you really want to be a writer and you have to be a bit naughty, you really want to go through with this. So, you know, as she says, she just hope that they realized what they're in for For and I think that is such a good message. You know, that tried to go in and if your listening to podcast like this one, you are going in, open-minded all ready. So that is great. You are already enlightened. As you enter on this journey, by listening to podcasts are reading block post or whatever, or you may be doing a learning about WRITING. Jesper (41m 24s): But I like the core message of that, that you can tell people that this should be right. As you know, if they wanna be writers, they want to be right as, and then hopefully they just know Autumn (41m 34s): What's gonna hit them. It was a very good message. And I agree, you know, any bunch of people who, it doesn't mind having characters, talking in their head and the spouses and significant others of all of those people who talked to the partners about the people who are talking in their heads and don't end up in the lunatic asylum. It's good. It's all right. So next Monday and if all goes well, Autumn will take a break and I will have a great interview line up for you about self editing. Narrator (42m 9s): 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.

In this Unabridged Podcast episode, the Unabridged team had an amazing opportunity to interview author and podcaster of The Brit Lit Podcast Claire Handscombe about her book Unscripted. Claire describes her debut novel as a "smart beach read."​Sara, Jen, and Ashley all read Unscripted and were delighted to have an opportunity to discuss the work, her love of The West Wing, and writing in general, with Claire.  discussion Spoiler-free section: 0:00 - 29:22 Spoiler section: 29:22 - 44:26 mentions  *Libby Page's The Lido *A. J. Pierce's Dear Mrs. Bird *Adelle Waldman's The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P *Martha Alderson's The Plot Whisperer: Secrets of Story Structure Any Writer Can Master *Martha Alderson's Plot Whisperer Workbook: Step-by-Step Exercises to Help You Create Compelling Stories *The West Wing Weekly Podcast *The Brit Lit Podcast *The West Wing TV series *Notting Hill film ​Check out what's coming up next.   want to support unabridged?   Become a patron on Patreon.​ Follow us @unabridgedpod on Instagram. Like and follow our Facebook Page. Follow us @unabridgedpod on Twitter. Subscribe to our podcast and rate us on iTunes or on Stitcher. Check us out on Podbean.

Episode # 8 Step Exercises & The Extended Pause Hi, this is episode eight of Better Breathing Means Better Health, entitled “Step Exercises and The Extended Pause”. As part of your breath retraining wouldn't it be good if you could speed up your breath training while out for a walk or while walking to work each day? Well this is exactly what the step exercise allows you to do. Remember what we are trying to achieve is a change in your breathing through a re-setting of your carbon dioxide receptors in your body that control your rate of breathing. For everyone who is over-breathing habitually their receptors are trying to maintain a lower level of carbon dioxide than is normal and healthy. The Buteyko exercises you have been doing have been gradually accustoming these receptors to accept a higher level of carbon dioxide through relaxation and perhaps reduced breathing with the accompanying slight “air hunger”. If we could apply more pressure on your receptors to get used to a higher level of carbon dioxide, that would speed up your recovery of normal breathing and reduce all your symptoms. Step Exercises do just that. Very simply, next time you are out walking, firstly remember to only breathe through your nose and pace yourself so that you can, even when going uphill. When you are ready, just hold your breath on an out-breath and see how many steps you can do before you feel the need to breathe in, counting in your head, then breathe in through your nose and continue on your way until you feel your breathing is comfortable again, then you can repeat this step counting with another breath hold after exhaling. Try to steadily increase your count each time, each time returning to normal nose breathing as you walk. This is a very powerful exercise that will speed up your progress. You may find the next time you do your Buteyko exercise after such a walk your Control Pause will have increased notably. This, in fact, is the main exercise that children are taught when leaning the Buteyko Method, there is a rough conversion rate of steps compared with the Control Pause, divide the number of steps you can achieve with a breath hold after exhaling by two should equal your control pause, many children achieve up to 100 or more steps by the time their breathing is back to normal which would be the equivalent to a Control Pause of over 50 seconds. The second subject in this episode is the Extended Pause. This is of particular importance for asthmatics trying to reduce the use of their reliever medication but can be used by others in certain circumstances. If you are asthmatic, the next time you feel you need to reach out for your reliever puffer, because you feel wheezy or tight chested, try to first relax, breathe in gently then out and hold your breath a little longer than you would for a control pause, until you feel the need to breathe in, quite strongly, then breathe in gently through your nose followed by a minute of relaxed breathing. Then breathe in and out gently and hold your breath again for an extended pause as before, if after another minute of relaxed breathing you still feel you need to use your inhaler, take one puff followed by two minutes of reduced breathing. Most asthmatics find that more times than not, this simple exercise is effective and they can avoid using their reliever. This is a great achievement, to become less reliant on always having to use the puffer. Initially you may still need the reliever but with time you will find the extended pause followed by a short period of gentle reduced breathing will replace your puffer except in extreme situations. When you do use your reliever remember to follow with a few minutes of reduced breathing as the reliever medication does open up the airways but also increases your breathing rate. The effect of the Extended Pause is to rapidly increase the carbon dioxide levels in your body. If you find this exercise in any way distressing do not use it. Try both these new exercises out over the coming days until the next episode when I will introduce you to three exercises you may use when you feel your breathing has begun to get worse for whatever reason, these exercises are the three Anti-Hyperventilation Exercises. Remember you can revise on most of the information taught in these episodes in the accompanying book “The Buteyko Guide to Better Breathing and Better Health” you may have already, if not click HERE to read about it or to buy it.

Episode # 7. Food and Your BreathingHi, welcome to episode seven that is all about food and your breathing.Professor Buteyko included advice on diet for people learning to improve their breathing. He found that a number of common foods tended to increase the patient’s breathing rate; they included dairy food such as cottage cheese, yogurt, ice cream and milk; stimulants such as strong tea, coke, coffee, alcohol and cocoa; other foods such as chocolate, honey, raspberries, strawberries, fish, chicken, nuts and beef, chicken or fish stock. However, when this research was conducted in Russia, the diet of most people was much simpler than today’s Western diet. In the West today our consumption of meat, dairy and processed foods is far greater and the link between our food and our breathing has become much more important.My research over the past two years has led me to believe there is a strong relationship between our diet and our breathing.Chronic hidden hyperventilation is related to stress, diet and bad breathing habits, but diet appears to be a major factor, perhaps because a stressful lifestyle usually leads to bad eating habits, as well as directly affecting breathing due to the fight/flight responses to stressors.I believe this is so important that I have advised all Buteyko Educators to screen their patients for diet before teaching them to improve their breathing.I use a simple screening method that is well established and used by many doctors in the USA called the “4LeafSurvey”. It is based on just twelve questions about your normal eating habits and will give you a good estimate of the percentage calories you are getting from whole plant foods as opposed to meat, dairy and other foods.I would strongly advise you to check your diet this way. You can do this online at www.4LeafSurvey.com. [HERE ](http://www.4leafsurvey.com)I have included in the notes that go with this episode a table that shows the range of Control Pause associated with the 4LeafSurvey Score:4LeafSurvey Score..........Range of Control Pause-40 to -30 ......................... 10 to 22-30 to -20......................... 12 to 25-20 to -10 ......................... .15 to 27-10 to 0 ......................... ..17 to 300 to 10 ......................... 20 to 3310 to 20 ......................... 23 to 3520 to 30 ......................... 25 to 3830 to 40 ....................... 28 to 40Note: Asthmatics will usually have a lower control pause than indicated in the table above simply because of their condition.The good news is that as you improve your breathing you will also begin to improve your diet. The reverse is also true and anyone wanting to improve their diet to help improve their breathing should check out my website TotalHealthMatters HEREInitially the key foods that seem to worsen our breathing are all dairy foods, excessive amounts of animal based foods and refined processed foods as well as sugary drinks or any drinks containing caffein.You can test whether any food has an adverse effect on your breathing and health using the Control Pause as a measuring tool.You can test for an allergic reaction or food intolerance reaction by taking your control pause, eating a small amount of the food to be tested, then after waiting a few minutes re-check your control pause and twenty minutes later again check your control pause. If the control pause stays unchanged then this food is unlikely to be a problem for you, if your control pause falls by over five seconds after just a few minutes this food may be giving you an allergic reaction but if there is no change until twenty minutes have passed and then your control pause has dropped by over five seconds, you may have a food intolerance to this food. You can also use your pulse to confirm these findings when a significantly raised pulse after just minutes would confirm a allergic reaction and no change until after twenty minutes would confirm a food intolerance.It is of interest to note that the early discoveries about food allergy by a Dr. Richard Mackarness was based on the pulse test; the control pause offers an even more sensitive testing system.The next episode will be about Step Exercises and the Extended Pause.

Asthma Episode # 8 Step Exercises & The Extended Pause Hi, this is episode eight of Escape from Asthma entitled Step Exercises and The Extended Pause. As part of your breath retraining wouldn't it be good if you could speed up your breath training while out for a walk or while walking to work each day? Well this is exactly what the step exercise allows you to do. Remember what we are trying to achieve is a change in your breathing through a re-setting of your carbon dioxide receptors in your body that control your rate of breathing. Every asthmatic is over-breathing and their receptors are trying to maintain a lower level of carbon dioxide than is normal and healthy. The Buteyko exercises you have been doing have been gradually accustoming the receptors to accept a higher level of carbon dioxide through relaxation and perhaps reduced breathing with the accompanying slight “air hunger”. If we could apply more pressure on your receptors to get used to a higher level of carbon dioxide, that would speed up your recovery of normal breathing and reduce all your asthma symptoms. Step exercises do just that. Very simply next time you are out walking, firstly remember to only breathe through your nose and pace yourself so that you can even when going uphill. When you are ready just hold your breath on an out-breath and see how many steps you can do before you feel the need to breathe in, counting in your head, then breathe in through your nose and continue on your way until you feel your breathing is comfortable again, when you can repeat this step counting with another breath hold after exhaling. Try to steadily increase your count each time, each time returning to normal nose breathing as you walk. This is a very powerful exercise that will speed up your progress. You may find the next time you do your Buteyko exercise after such a walk your Control Pause will have increased notably. This is the main exercise that children are taught when leaning the Buteyko Method, there is a rough conversion rate of steps compared with the Control Pause, divide the number of steps you can achieve with a breath hold after exhaling by two should equal your control pause, many children achieve up to 100 or more steps by the time their breathing is back to normal which would be the equivalent to a Control Pause of over 50 seconds. The second subject in this episode is how to replace the use of your reliever medication with an Extended Pause. The next time you feel you need to reach out for your reliever puffer, because you feel wheezy or tight chested, try to first relax, breathe in gently then out and hold your breath a little longer than you would for a control pause, until you feel the need to breathe in quite strongly, then breathe in gently through your nose followed by a minute of relaxed breathing. Then breathe in and out gently and hold your breath again for an extended pause as before, if after another minute of relaxed breathing you still feel you need to use your inhaler, take one puff followed by two minutes of reduced breathing. Most asthmatics find that more times than not, this simple exercise is effective and they can avoid using their reliever. This is a great achievement, to become less reliant on always having to use the puffer. Initially you may still need the reliever but with time you will find the extended pause followed by a short period of gentle reduced breathing will replace your puffer except in extreme situations. When you do use your reliever remember to follow with a few minutes of reduced breathing as the reliever medication does open up the airways but also increases your breathing rate. Try both these new exercises out over the coming days until the next episode when I will introduce you to three exercises you may use when you feel your breathing has begun to get worse for whatever reason, these exercises are the three Anti-Hyperventilation Exercises. Remember you can revise on most of the information taught in these episodes in the accompanying ebook “The Buteyko Guide to Better Breathing and Better Asthma Management” you may have already bought from Lulu.com, if not click HERE You might still want to purchase my new book entitled "Better Breathing Means Better Health" to record your exercises now and in the future, and to be a reference book HERE