Podcasts, Projects

Ditch Diggers #70: Parvus Press and Indie Publishing

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Affiliate links to our books!

Podcasts, Projects

ISBW #402: Foundations

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I get into Save the Cat Writes a Novel, the new book covering the famous screenwriting beat sheet method and applies it to novels.

Also, check out the Patreon to get the daily NaNoWriMo show and access to the Discord where you can hang with other listeners!

ALSO- I will be appearing at Books With A Past this Saturday, November 17, at 3pm! I’ll talk writing, NaNoWriMo, and more! If you’re in the Baltimore area, I’d love to see you.

Did you know you could have heard an expanded edition of this show earlier if you supported the Patreon?

Affiliate links below:

And my other hat:

Podcasts, Projects

Patreon-only daily podcast!

To celebrate NaNoWriMo and help support my patreons, I’m doing a daily I Should Be Writing podcast with a bunch of “atta-boys-girls-folks.” Just to totally give you a hit so you will get addicted and then give me money for the drug of my wonderful voice in your ears every day this month, I’m making the first three days open to the public. You can get the rest for only $1 a month.

(If you support at $5 or more, you can get access to our Discord!)

Podcasts, Projects

Ditch Diggers #69: Con Accessibility with Elsa Sjunneson-Henry

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  • Matt and Mur come to you live from Jeff Goldblum’s Seattle-based CPAP Emporium with special returning guest, Hugo-nominated writer, editor, and disability activist, Elsa Sjunneson-Henry
  • The Ditch Diggers explain the incredibly inside-baseball location of today’s episode.
  • Elsa answers a listener’s question about networking as an author with a disability, particularly at conventions, and con accessibility.
  • Self-rejecting as an author (or other creative) with a disability, and how to deal with writing disability-forward fiction in the current marketplace.
  • Elsa explains ME BEFORE YOU to Matt, who was unfamiliar with both the book and the movie, and her issues with it.
  • Elsa and the Ditch Diggers discuss sensitivity editing.
  • Matt is still upset Mur looked better in the hats given to winners at this year’s Hugo Losers Party (plus George’s Chicken Hats. You’ll find out.)
  • Listener Q&A! Topics include tie-in novelization writing and including LGBTQ characters in your fiction.
Mentioned in this episode…
Podcasts, Projects

Ditch Diggers #68: Worldcon debrief, post-win turmoil, and Q&A

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  • Mur and Matt come to you live from Jodie Foster’s Hurricane Florence Relief Center.
  • It’s been a little while since the Ditch Diggers hit you with a newly recorded episode, and they explain why.
  • Matt and Mur talk about their WorldCon 76 experiences, including (winning at) the Hugo Awards, the Hugo Losers Party, and staging Ditch Diggers Live!
  • Matt talks about losing his marketing writing job after the agency unexpectedly closed its doors, and what’s happened since.
  • Mur talks about post-WorldCon turmoil. Family vacation, finishing another unannounced secret project, the release of SOLO, her Star Wars movie novelization, and a freaking hurricane.
  • Mur talks about depression and imposter syndrome and sudden realization and working on your internal life.
  • The Ditch Diggers discuss how your goals change after you’ve achieved many of the big professional freelance writer benchmarks, and what goals mean when you’re an author.
  • Matt and Mur catch up on some listener Q&A! Topics include signing with agents, the differences between writing fiction and non-fiction, and starting new projects.
  • Mentioned in this episode: Matt’s WorldCon vlog, including the Ditch Diggers’ Hugo acceptance speech: https://youtu.be/YLFRKUPb40Y
Podcasts, Projects, Travel

Ditch Diggers #67: Live from WorldCon

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  • The Ditch Diggers come to you from San Jose, California for their 4th Annual Ditch Diggers Live! from WorldCon 76 with special guests, authors KM Szpara and Margaret Dunlap!
  • Matt and Mur put Kellan and Margaret through the first ever Ditch Diggers’ Choose Your Own Publishing Career, forcing them to assume the roles of an aspiring fiction writing team building their publishing career from the ground up (with the audience’s help in determining their fate at each decision point).
  • Live Q&A with the WorldCon 76 audience, including a special guest appearance by Mur’s agent (and podcaster herself), Jennifer Udden of Barry Goldblatt Literary!

(Spoiler, we won the Hugo.)

Podcasts, Projects

Ditch Diggers #66: Feedback

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  • Mur in September apologizes for Mur and Matt back in July when this episode was recorded. There are reasons, and lots more new episodes are coming soon!
  • Matt and Mur come to you live from Jeff Goldblum’s Thirst Fountain.
  • Matt explains Jeff Goldblum thirst tweets to Mur.
  • Before segueing masterfully into the topic of the show, Matt and Mur catch up.
  • Mur’s stressful day, deadlines, daughters, dogs, and teaching at the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing where Mur once earned her own MFA.
  • Matt talks about being a professional tagline writer (or, as he puts it, “one of those assholes”), coming full circle, balancing a full-time marketing job with fiction writing, and all-day dogs.
  • The topic of the show emerges! People ask us questions! Often! And thus do we dedicate the rest of the episode to answering those questions!
  • If you befoul Jeff Goldblum’s thirst fountain with lies it runs with blood.
  • Matt and Mur answer Twitter questions (thanks to everyone who uses the #DitchDiggers hashtag). Topics include whether to continue revising a work or move on and examples of resources and advantages of working with a traditional publisher over self-publishing.
  • Matt and Mur have the same birthday (it’s July 25th. Send belated presents) and what they’re doing for it this year.
  • Email questions! Topics include whether it’s easier to sell novels or novellas, publishers and sensitivity editors, whether getting a copy of an author’s book from the library helps the author, and money.
  • Mur wrote the SOLO movie novelization and in July it was coming out in September which means it’s out now!
  • The customary end-of-episode shilling.
Books, News, Projects

Solo is out today!

[Note, I am notoriously bad about keeping up with blogging, and it’s a terrible time for me do that, what with travel and Hugo and all, but I came home from WorldCon and had to jump headfirst into a deadline which is eating everything else. I will be blogging the Worldcon recap later this week, promise.]

Solo cover
That’s my name right there!

It’s release day for Solo: A Star Wars Story!

Did you see the movie and go, “I wonder what went wrong for Han before the opening of the movie?” or “Where DID [REDACTED] take the [REDACTED] at the end of the movie?” or “What happened to Han during the four years after Corellia? What happened to Qi’ra, for that matter?”

The book will answer those questions.

Amazon | Indiebound | B&N

I was allowed to take the script of Solo and turn it into a book, adding scenes to lengthen it, looking at familiar scenes from an unexpected PoV, and giving some of my favorite characters more time to shine.

I’ll be doing a podcast soon, when I dust the mic off again, about the process of writing the novel, and the challenges I came across. Some were unexpected: like me disagreeing with the movie about which lines were meant to be humorous. I expected other challenges, like knowing the train scene took hours to write and still being frustrated when it was mere minutes on the screen. (I got new respect for movie people – especially special FX people – right then, since I know the scenes took even longer for them.)

I’d like to hint at other questions the book answers, but I don’t want to spoil anything. Regardless, reviews are coming in praising the book for giving more time to characters people wanted to know more about.

L3-37
Hint.

And it was a lot of fun to write.

And holy crap I wrote a Star Wars novelization.