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Podcasts, Projects
Ditch Diggers #68: Worldcon debrief, post-win turmoil, and Q&A
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:11:17 — 51.6MB)
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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
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 48:36 — 62.9MB)
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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
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:02:00 — 45.7MB)
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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.
Podcasts, Projects
ISBW #400!
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.]
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.
And it was a lot of fun to write.
And holy crap I wrote a Star Wars novelization.
Podcasts, Projects
ISBW #399: Priorities and Empty Calories
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:06 — 18.7MB)
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I turned in SOLO edits, and working on next projects. I had an epiphany about the concept of my need to do little things like cleaning and email before I start writing for the day, and why that is bad.
Podcasts, Projects
Ditch Diggers #65: Your Worth, Pt. 2
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:09:32 — 51.1MB)
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- Mur and Matt come to you live after abandoning Morgan Freeman’s elaborate and fictitious estate (because, once again, the Ditch Diggers believe women) and tunneling from the interstate (for reasons Mur explains) to Jeff Goldblum’s modest empire. Or possibly Jodie Foster’s underground lair. It’s all very complicated, but we’re working on it.
- After a typically masterful Ditch Diggers segue, Matt and Mur turn their attention to the hot button topic of the week on Twitter (a recurring and always relevant hot button topic): unpaid internships, particularly in freelance writing fields.
- Mur and Matt talk about the classist wall that are unpaid internships, and how they exist as a barrier between anyone who isn’t financially independent from entering the industry.
- How the concept of unpaid internships are normalized to the point people actually defend them and how the general public still thinks creative work should be done for free.
- The hard wiring of people to accept “the way it’s always been” as the way it should be.
- Matt reminds you that JoBlo.com is a low-rent stalker porn website posing as a movie news website that exploits its writers and editors.
- The idea that those who suffered before you did it so you wouldn’t have to. Also, capitalism!
- Matt and Mur discuss how to actually abolish the unpaid internship model and change the system for the better.
- Matt tells a story that segues into the next topic, which is related to the previous topic, which is film/TV representation for authors.
- Matt and Mur talk about dealing with the entertainment agent, manager, or entity your literary agency might partner with.
- Twitter Q&A! When should you start looking for an agent? Are business cards for writers?
Did you know you could have gotten this last week if you supported our Patreon?
Affiliate links to our books!
Podcasts, Projects
ISBW #398: I’m back, updates, and SOLO!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:00 — 6.5MB)
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I’m back, talking about brains shutting down and dealing with it on a creator level. I sound a little down in this one but I assure you, I’m doing great.
Did you know you could have heard this last week if you supported the Patreon?
Podcasts, Projects
Ditch Diggers #64: 20 Minute Ditch on Grudges
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:30 — 14.7MB)
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Welcome to the second edition of the 20-Minute Ditch! Because you’re making money moves (that’s from Matt’s introduction, which he will probably not be allowed to make anymore). On this episode the Ditch Diggers talk about professional grudges. Can they be healthy? Can a certain level of forgiveness be unhealthy? It’s complicated stuff, but somehow Matt and Mur completely explain and solve it in twenty minutes. They’re just that good.
Did you know you could have heard this last week if you supported our Patreon?
Affiliate links to our books!