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Ditch Diggers #88: End of Year Thoughts

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:39 — 35.9MB)

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Savage Legion coverMur and a more than slightly congested Matt come to you live from the reflection pond beside the lonely road of loneliness for the final Ditch Diggers of 2019, and their holiday gift to their listeners is revealing the amazing cover to Matt’s new book, SAVAGE LEGION!

  • A brief discourse on the nature and purpose of reflection ponds.
  • A brief discourse on the nature and purpose of montages (sweaty or not sweaty).
  • Mur is very good at naming superheroes and coming up with powers.
  • 2019 was a rebuilding year for Mur, professionally, and Matt misses Armand Assante, who is very much still alive.
  • The Ditch Diggers’ year-end review and just kind of spiral into a lament on what success means and what counts as “eventful” within a yearly period, and the events we hold up as benchmarks.
  • Matt didn’t have any books come out in 2019, and that’s okay, unless you’re an author (no, it’s still okay).
  • Failure is inevitable no matter how successful you are, and that is also okay, though it is hard to accept.
  • Matt realizes he’s stopped reviewing 2019 and jumped ahead to reviewing 2020, which hasn’t happened yet (also, Chuck Wendig misses us).
  • Good things did happen this year, and the Ditch Diggers mention some of those.
  • The Ditch Diggers discuss professional plans and dare they say goals for 2020.
  • The difference between how authors writing novels view work vs. how freelance writers writing dozens of smaller projects a year view and approach work.
  • Mur wants to write more non-contracted works and needs the discipline to do it.
  • We want to win another Hugo, who needs to be wined and dined and taken to a show (Mur explains Hades Town to Matt).
  • Matt is doubling down on his goals as a screenwriter in 2020 (because he did okay with 2019 goals).
  • Mur talks about making your goals manageable right after Matt said the phrase “doubling down” like, nine hundred times.
  • Matt talks about the release of the first novel in his new epic fantasy trilogy, SAVAGE LEGION, dropping next year and revealing the cover to Ditch Diggers listeners!
  • Please preorder SAVAGE LEGION by Matt Wallace.
  • No, seriously, please preorder the book. It is very important.
  • Also, tell many friends and family about the book.
  • Seriously, that is also very important.
  • Happy New Year, everybody!
Podcasts, Projects

Ditch Diggers #87: Dealing with Dark Days

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:07:22 — 41.7MB)

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Matt and Mur come to you live from a Christmas tree farm just off the winding lonely road of loneliness for the penultimate Ditch Diggers episode of 2019!

  • Mur laments the final dark days of the year while Matt questions establishing a Christmas tree farm along the lonely road of loneliness.
  • Matt explains why he is over the holidays and not in usual festive mode.
  • Mur has come to the it’s-good-to-breathe-in-and-out realization that the holidays take a lot of time, yet regular life doesn’t stop during the season, and you have to force yourself to stop.
  • Matt and Mur update their listeners on what’s going on in their professional lives, which includes anxiety-inducing publisher-issued questionnaires, Mur being a local girl, and how they don’t let you stop writing during the holidays.
  • The Ditch Diggers segue into talking about persistence, the false perception of it, and how it’s not only okay to fail, it is often necessary in maintaining that persistence.
  • A writing career is Jeremy Bearimy.
  • Matt and Mur take a tangent into how no one can actually tell you what to do or how to do it when it comes to advancing your writing career.
  • Mur’s Bond villain catchphrase is revealed (spoiler: it’s “Uh-huh”).
  • Matt segues (poorly) back into the main topic, which shifts to how there are times when you CAN’T quit and have to do the writing.
  • Mur and Matt talk about having to do creative work when you’re creatively burnt out, and how to do it/get through it.
  • Mur is the Hugh Grant of local girls.
  • The Ditch Diggers rant about Lupita Nyong’o not getting a Golden Globe nomination, despite it having nothing to do with anything else being discussed.
  • Matt talks about writing as chair building vs. sculpting.
  • Listener Q&A! Topics include tax write-offs for freelance writers, the joy of big gay wizards, and developing your online presence.
  • Finally: Mur is the wellspring, a.k.a. “Local Girl Becomes Wellspring.”
  • The customarily disjointed end-of-episode shilling occurs.

Preorder SAVAGE LEGION!

Podcasts, Projects

Ditch Diggers #86: NaNoWriMo Time

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 52:07 — 31.0MB)

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Matt and Mur come to you live from the lonely open road of loneliness (don’t worry, they’ll explain).

  • How the Ditch Diggers have ruined all those “fluffy” writing podcasts for our listeners, and why we’re proud of it.
  • Matt talks (as much as he can, which isn’t much) about his publisher Saga Press eliminating Hugo-winning senior editor Navah Wolfe’s position, and the future of his trilogy, the first book of which is still scheduled to come out next summer.
  • The actual topic of the episode reveals itself as the Ditch Diggers do their first NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) episode!
  • A brief rundown of what NaNoWriMo is, and Mur’s and Matt’s collective and separate histories with the yearly event (Matt is no longer anti-NaNoWriMo. Mur has been a NaNoWriMo powerhouse for a decade).
  • It doesn’t really matter whether or not you finish your novel by the end of the month.
  • NaNoWriMo is a great thing artistically and creatively, but the Ditch Diggers are going to focus on the professional/business aspects of the month for writers of all levels.
  • Mur is the Hugh Grant of podcasting.
  • Mur talks about how NaNoWriMo presents an opportunity and prompt for all writers, including professionals, to try new things and explore different genres and styles of stories they otherwise wouldn’t, some of which they can even sell, opening new career avenues.
  • The ways in which NaNoWriMo provides career opportunities for aspiring professional writers (read: writers who are paid money to write or for things they have written).
  • In the course of the above, Matt does a really half-assed John Mulaney impression and explains John Mulaney as Thoreau in Dickinson gifs to Mur, as well as the Ghostwriter remake and the original.
  • Mur talks about one of the problems professional writers can encounter during NaNoWriMo, and her creative workaround.
  • How NaNoWriMo presents an opportunity for writers to peer network and community build, and the right and wrong ways (and reasons) to do both.
  • Mur has once more backed away from Twitter, and she talks about why (spoiler warning: stress and self-care is involved).
  • BTW: It’s okay not to participate in NaNoWriMo. Matt has never participated in NaNoWriMo. Don’t give in to the FOMO.
  • Matt invents ShiFiDraMo (Shitty First Draft Month).
  • The Ditch Digger Discord Discord is a hotbed of NaNoWriMo games and prompts, so join the Ditch Diggers by supporting the Patreon at the $5 level or higher.
  • Matt and Mur will continue down the long lonely road of loneliness until they find a new home, and you should come along for that journey.

Hire Navah Wolfe to edit your book!
NaNoWriMo Forums

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