The Murverse Mothership

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 58:25 — 38.6MB)

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• Mur and Matt come to you live from the Shelter-in-Place Shelter That’s Right Next To The Quarantine Room In Our Manor (there’s a sign that says this above the door) in the plague times!
• Mur has been amusing herself with Animal Crossing, and Matt explains what he thinks Animal Crossing is solely based on the screen shots he’s seen people post on Twitter.
• Mur was planning to fly to New Zealand for WorldCon this year, and now she is no longer doing that, nor is WorldCon happening in New Zealand as it is going virtual this year!
• Matt encourages everyone having to cancel non-refundable travel to complain to the airlines until they at least give you a credit.
• The Ditch Diggers discuss how the pandemic lockdown has revealed a lot about the arbitrary unwillingness of institutions, businesses, and people in general to make workplaces and events more accessible to those with accessibility issues.
• Virtual/online models for conventions should be integrated into the culture after the lockdown ends.
• What we do lose with conventions not consisting of congregating in person in a specific place with other people.
• How virtual conventions might replicate the physical con-going experience from “barcon” to other random meet-ups.
• The benefits of online cons, such as more easily archiving and making available convention content digitally after the event, and making the con more accessible to a wider range of people and guests.
• The challenges of virtual cons, such as timezone differences and international attendees possibly having to wake up at 3:00 a.m. to attend their panels.
• The possibility of virtual cons opening up the field for ancillary online events that occur around the same time, and Matt and Mur talk about hosting a live Ditch Diggers and possibly an online freelance business seminar.
• Send us more of your Ditch Diggers business of writing/writing as a business questions! We want to hear from you!
• Mur talks about the Patreon, and both how the Ditch Diggers fully understand people having to walk back their pledges and how the Ditch Diggers Discord has been opened up to more folks!
• Matt still has a book coming out, and it just got a starred review in Library Journal! Please preorder SAVAGE LEGION, hopefully from your local bookstore, coming July 21st!
• Matt and Mur end the episode with obscure references to The Office, like pros.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 48:05 — 35.6MB)

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• Matt and Mur come to you live from the snack tent outside the construction site where the new Ditch Diggers mansion will one day be.
• Everybody loves snacks, and it’s a fun word to say.
• Mur and Matt don’t know if construction workers call it a “snack tent,” but they want their construction worker aspiring writer listeners to popularize it for them.
• Personal lives! They happen, and they must take precedent, and for Matt and Mur personal lives have been an issue recently.
• Tiger Balm is the greatest name for anything ever created.
• It is going to be one of the Ditch Diggers’ infamous, patented, ever popular Q&A/feedback episodes!
  A question concerning the need to be “marketable” to agents, and when/if to broach topics like your ability to continue regularly producing books.
• A listener reacting to Matt’s previous rant on publisher’s marketing ability asks about the necessity/value of traditional publishing, and the Ditch Diggers discuss the advantages and disadvantages of both trad and self-publishing.
• The definition of “debut” author and when and how it’s appropriate to use the label is discussed.
• Children age, and it is hard on those observing it.
• Matt is steadily becoming anti-list, and he apologizes for mispronouncing a listener’s name repeatedly.
• With the questions answered, the Ditch Diggers commit the traditional end of episode shilling.

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