Posts Tagged ‘ditchdig’

Podcasts, Projects

Ditch Diggers #51: End of the Year Spectacular, guest starring Hurley and Wendig!

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  • The Ditch Diggers come to you live from Morgan Freeman’s Nicer-Than-Chuck-Wendig’s-Writing-Shed with special year-end episode spectacular guest co-hosts, Kameron Hurley and Chuck Wendig!
  • We briefly clarify who the guests are and who the hosts are, and talk about the momentous completion of the Hurley/Wendig Trilogy on Ditch Diggers (Matt insists there will be a “third act twist” which leads to an argument about what constitutes the third act in this scenario).
  • Everyone recaps their 2017 as writers. Hurley talks about throwing out two-thirds of a new book. Chuck talks about only focusing on a single book for a change (as he usually writes approximately 7,574 books per year). Mur talks about the sale and release of Six Wakes. Matt laments many personal hurdles that added height to professional hurdles.
  • Einstein had sex with everything, including James Joyce, which segues into Hemingway/Fitzgerald slash fic (briefly, but notably).
  • A digression into grandmothers, Nazi boots, radio turkeys, hills and valleys and the difference between the two (Matt is the only one confused by the old idiom, apparently).
  • The foursome discuss Hollywood, and the differences between the film/TV industry and the publishing industry.
  • Everyone looks ahead to 2018 and discusses their plans, hopes, and fears (spoiler: those are all basically the same thing).
  • The recent Patreon debacle, what happened, what it means, and what it signals for authors, and all freelance creators, in the future.
  • Everyone performs their final shilling of the year, and we wish everyone a much better 2018!
  • Chuck Wendig: terribleminds.com
  • Kameron Hurley: kameronhurley.com
  • Hurley’s Patreon: patreon.com/kameronhurley
  • Hurley’s Tip Jar: paypal.me/KameronHurley
  • Hurley’s newsletter: bit.ly/hurleysheroes
  • The Stars Are Legion: http://a.co/1NpquVn
  • Invasive: http://a.co/2JVKIw0
Podcasts, Projects

Ditch Diggers #50: Your Value

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:18:13 — 77.0MB)

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  • Matt and Mur come to you live from Morgan Freeman’s Decommissioned Disney Vault for this, their 50th episode!
  • Mur doesn’t get Matt’s cultural references, but she does bring the audience up-to-date on what she’s been working on while in the dreaded “waiting” zone of being a freelance writer.
  • Matt is choosing professional optimism and creating a shiny cocoon of success around which the whole world can burn for all he cares.
  • A bizarre and hilarious digression involving Top Gun slash fic, Patreon, and Beyonce.
  • The Ditch Diggers finally arrive at the topic of the episode, which is knowing your value as a writer.
  • Matt and Mur discuss the mass firings and sale of LA Weekly, how the new owners are despicably attempting to replace professional journalist with unpaid amateur contributors, and what writers and readers can do about it.
  • Working remotely in the publishing industry, the need to structure more entry level roles that can be performed without living in NYC, and how all of that affects writers.
  • Suggested by James Sutter, Matt and Mur discuss when and why to leave a project, partnership, or genre in which you’re heavily invested (Mur lyrically explains the “sunken cost fallacy”).
  • Twitter and email Q&A! Topics include when/how to utilize Patreon, pitching standalone books vs. pitching series, and licensing and incorporating as a freelance writer.
  • The customary shilling, including info on how to party live in person with Matt on December 9th!
  • James L. Sutter’s website
Podcasts, Projects

Ditch Diggers #49: Happiness in darkness

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:09:31 — 49.3MB)

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  • Mur and Matt come to you live from Morgan Freeman’s iPhone 7 BlueTooth Headphone store.
  • Matt didn’t know before he bought one that the iPhone 7 has no headphone jack and he is unhappy about it. Loudly.
  • Mur cites a study she read comparing apps that make people happy to apps that don’t and how much time we spend using both, and the results led her down a path of several writing career related epiphanies.
  • Matt recaps the week in professional writers getting screwed, particularly the wake of DNAinfo and Gothamist being shuttered by billionaire Joe Ricketts after both writing staffs voted to unionize.
  • The Ditch Diggers discuss what about the current online market and publishing models need to be changed and how writers have to react to begin bringing about that change.
  • Twitter Q&A! Topics include agents requesting marketing plans from querying authors, how much editing/rewriting is too much, and consuming drugs and alcohol while writing.
  • The apps and happiness study cited by Mur in this episode: http://www.timewellspent.io/app-ratings/
Podcasts, Projects

Ditch Diggers #46: Post Hugo report // Writer Expectations

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:12:57 — 54.0MB)

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  • Hugo losers Matt and Mur come to you live from Morgan Freeman’s Tobias Funke Memorial Sobbing Shower.
  • Matt and Mur discuss how it feels to lose a Hugo Award, what it means to be a Hugo loser, and Mur recaps the events of the post-Hugo ceremony Loser’s Party (which Matt did not attend because he wasn’t at WorldCon).
  • Matt recaps the events of his not being at WorldCon, which dove-tails into Mur praising Mary Robinette Kowal (and rightly so).
  • Third Annual Ditch Diggers Live recap.
  • Mur talks about the unexpected problems that arose on the launch day of her new I SHOULD BE WRITING book, how she as a professional author dealt with them, and the status of the book now (with bonus discussion and explanation of meta data!).
  • Matt talks about professional expectations (e.g. winning a Hugo Award right before your agent takes your new book to market) and how to manage disappointment and adjust to changing events as a freelance creator.
  • Twitter Q&A! Including several topics on which the Ditch Diggers vow to do extended episodes, including what to include on your author/freelance creator website, managing multiple drafts and story notes, and sensitivity readers.
  • If the Ditch Diggers Patreon reaches $3k a month, Matt and Mur will take the show weekly! So, give us more money!
  • A final “thank you” to everyone who supported us for the Hugo Award and got us so far this year, and everyone who continues to listen to and support the show!

Affiliate links to our books!

Podcasts, Projects

Ditch Diggers #44: Gavia Baker-Whitelaw and Freelance Ditches

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:09:51 — 64.1MB)

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How to dig freelance ditches

And what are freelance ditches anyway?
Digging Freelance Ditches: Sniper with doberman

  • Mur and Matt come to you live from Morgan Freeman’s Pop Culture Popcorn Boutique, and Mur actually lets Matt do the intros.
  • The Ditch Diggers welcome special guest co-host, staff writer for The Daily Dot and pop culture analyst extraordinaire, Gavia Baker-Whitelaw!
  • Everyone immediately agrees that Gavia’s mom would make the best agent ever, and that would also be her pro-wrestling gimmick.
  • Gavia talks about being a full-time writer for The Daily Dot and her areas of expertise.
  • Matt asks Gavia what makes a good cultural criticism writer, and Gavia does her best to answer such a broad question.
  • Gavia talks about how livejournal fanfiction led to her current career, how she selects topics to cover, and the life of a piece at The Daily Dot.
  • Gavia talks about her side project The Rec Center and being steeped in fandom as a writer.
  • The validity of liquids in sandwiches, and the validity of fanfiction as a writing medium.
  • Twitter Q&A, including how a book, movie, etc. gets the attention of a market like The Daily Dot.

Links of interest:

Note: Mur will be appearing at WorldCon in Helsinki in a few weeks and doing a LIVE Ditch Diggers with writer and publisher Alasdair Stuart standing in for Matt (with Matt’s approval, naturally. We’re not staging a coup to replace Matt even though Al does have a better accent.) See my program here!

Affiliate links to our books!

Podcasts, Projects

Ditch Diggers #43: Care and Feeding of your Author

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We are together again talking about care and feeding of the author inside you! Sadly, with technical difficulties.

Care and Feeding Show Notes

  • Fuck hemingway. And a pierMatt and Mur come to you live, actually in-person (well, the two of them are, anyway) from Morgan Freeman’s Outside OBGYN Clinic.
  • Matt’s fictional uterus and a brief history of why we’re talking about it on this episode.
  • Actually, Matt and Mur are at their yearly retreat in the backwoods of Ohio with friends and family, several of whom are in the audience during the recording of this episode.
  • Matt and Mur introduce the topic of this episode, “the care and feeding of your author” (a topic suggested by Matt’s fiancée, Nikki).
  • How writers and the writing industry/community emphasize doing the work over taking care of yourself, physically.
  • Mur talks about how we romanticize the Hemingway-esque and Poe-esque stereotypes of the alcohol-soaked, depressed author and why that is obviously wrong and harmful.
  • Self-care, how alcohol and writing don’t mix, and Matt’s unabashed love for Mott’s for Tots apple juice and how it can replace the former habit.
  • Mur and Matt talk about smoking and drug abuse, citing writers like Joe Ezsterhaus and Stephen King as examples of how both invariably go disastrously wrong when you mix them with your career.
  • The episode is cut abruptly short, and Mur explains why (and offers apologies, although we did the best we could).

Affiliate links to our books!

Podcasts, Projects

Ditch Diggers #42: The Freelancer’s Rebuttal Guide

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:59 — 41.4MB)

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Foxes fight, quote from show, rebuttal guideIt’s time for some role playing and rebuttal action as Matt and Mur bring you some FINE acting shit.

Rebuttal Guide Show Notes

  • Matt and Mur come to you live from Morgan Freeman’s Debate Club practice room, and Mur remembers to say the show’s tagline for once.
  • The Ditch Diggers try to decide whether this episode takes place two weeks or five minutes after the last episode.
  • Matt asks Mur what she’s been up to, and the answer somehow involves John Without Garfield (edit- it’s actually Garfield Minus Garfield.)
  • Mur talks about being in the oft recurring “proposal period” of a writer’s career, sending pitches out for multiple projects including novels and interactive media, hating outlining, and learning new skills.
  • Matt talks about finally finishing his first (anti) epic fantasy novel, working on the final Sin du Jour novella, reaching the end of his current book contract, and what comes next (including a middle grade novel).
  • Mur unintentionally segues into the topic of today’s show, which is The Freelance Writer’s Rebuttal Guide, a Matt Wallace Technology (Mur makes fun of Matt for this last part, and rightfully so).
  • Matt and Mur role-play The Freelance Writer’s Rebuttal Guide, with Mur’s snarky and insightful annotations throughout.
  • Matt encourages freelancers to submit new scenarios to the Guide, which is different from emailing Ditch Diggers questions (Mur explains).
  • Email questions! Topics include freelance writers and social media, publishing rights, and how to best keep track of pending submissions.

Other links of note:

Garfield Minus Garfield, October 2016
Garfield Minus Garfield, a particularly creepy one.

As always, Matt and Mur shill their books, GREEDY PIGS and RENCOR and SIX WAKES respectively, and remind Hugo voting listeners Ditch Diggers is up for best fancast, so vote for us!

Affiliate links to our books!

Podcasts, Projects

Ditch Diggers #41: HOT BUTTON TOPICS

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:24:34 — 58.4MB)

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What Are People Mad About Today?
Ditch Diggers 41: Hot Button Topics

  • Matt and Mur come to you live from Morgan Freeman’s 24-hour news network control room where we are discussing the latest hot button topics on the news! (Mur has a new applause machine, but it’s not working right now, so you’ll have to infer the applause.)
  • Sound f/x as the new vernacular, and addiction to sound f/x machines.
  • Mur and Matt are tackling ISSUES on this HOT BUTTON EPISODE of Ditch Diggers. AKA heatedly discussed topics recently on writer social media.
  • Matt explains (poorly and too meta, according to Mur) what hot button issues are and how they come into being.
  • Mur explains (far more eloquently) the nature of click-bait and how it drives/poisons discourse on the internet.
  • Hot Button #1: The infamous “if you don’t write every day you’re not a real writer” article and the larger “real writer” myth.
  • Hot Button #2: The “don’t you dare smack talk your copy editor on social media” debate, and the larger issue of how important discourse gets derailed by pretense and false premises. We also discuss the difference between discussing issues and discussing individuals, and authors criticizing other authors.
  • Hot Button #3: “Literary” magazines publishing genre fiction, and also not paying authors.
  • Matt and Mur go on a tangent about the detriment of labeling fiction and how the market has shrunk.
  • Returning to the hot button, Matt and Mur talk about the difference between the business of “literary” and SFF magazines.
  • Twitter Q&A! Questions include outlining book series, “bonehead” things aspiring writers do again and again, and knives.

Matt and Mur shill their books, GREEDY PIGS and RENCOR and SIX WAKES respectively, and remind Hugo voting listeners Ditch Diggers is up for best fancast, so vote for us!

Affiliate links to our books!

Podcasts, Projects

Ditch Diggers #40: Ditches for Writers and Parents

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:13:00 — 47.3MB)

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Show Notes for the Parents

(Note, we are having some problems with the official Ditch Diggers site, so please be patient with us.)

  • Mur and Matt welcome parents: author Adam Rakunas and author, games, transmedia, and screenwriter Andrea Phillips as guest co-hosts!
    Andrea Phillips: Writers and Parents
    Andrea Phillips [Ditches for Writers and Parents]
  • Adam and Andrea are both full-time freelance writers and full-time primary caregivers to their (what seems to Matt to be, anyway) many children.
  • Recording this episode was delayed because Adam’s daughter vomited on literally everything in the world, which sets a perfect tone for the topic of the show.
  • Andrea and Adam share their backgrounds as writers, how and when they started, and where they are now.
  • Full-time caregiving while full-time writing, and how each affects the other.
  • Matt asks if having kids changes your professional goals as a writer (e.g. lights a larger fire under your ass to succeed).
  • Andrea talks how being a mother unduly influences others’ perception of her and her writing, the struggles of that, and about crowdfunding her Lucy Smokeheart series of fiction.
  • Mur asks about scheduling conflicts and other insightful things as the sole Ditch Digging parent among the regular hosts.
  • Our guest co-hosts tackle Q&A from Twitter!

Links

Adam Rakunas: Writers and Parents
Adam Rakunas [Ditches for Writers and Parents]
Podcasts, Projects

Ditch Diggers #39: Lexi Alexander and Punching Hollywood. Metaphorically.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:34:07 — 63.4MB)

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Lexi Alexander is Punching Hollywood
Lexi Alexander
  • Mur and Matt come to you live from Morgan Freeman’s Dojo (where we’re punching Hollywood) with special guest co-host writer, director, and martial artist Lexi Alexander!
  • Lexi is excited to talk about the writing side of her career as a director of films like Green Street Hooligans, Punisher: War Zone, the Oscar-nominated Johnny Flynton, and pretty much ALL of the TV series.
  • How we needlessly shake the confidence of English-as-a-second-language writers in America. How a chance encounter with Quentin Tarantino cured Lexi of that self-confidence issue.
  • Lexi recounts how she began her career as a writer and filmmaker. (It involves Chuck Norris. No, seriously).
  • It’s easier to be accepted as a woman in a martial arts/competitive combat sports environment than it is to be accepted as a female filmmaker in Hollywood.
  • Lexi talks about the many challenges women writers and directors face in the entertainment industry. She includes her own experiences.
  • Lexi tells the Ditch Diggers about her recently sold pilot script, the process of writing it, and what inspired/motivated both.
  • Lexi talks about what stopped her from writing for a long time, how she almost left the business to become a war correspondent, and what brought her back.
  • Mur asks about the difference between working on your own film projects and writing/adapting the work and ideas of others, and how you survive doing both.
  • Lexi takes questions from Twitter!
  • Mur and Matt attempt unsuccessfully to end the show several times, but Lexi is just too damn enthusiastic and complimentary about everyone. (New goal: Get both Cory Doctorow and Lexi on the show together.)

Lexi on Twitter: @Lexialex
Lexi’s website
Lexi on IMDb

Ditch Diggers theme music provided by Devo Spice

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