I Should've Been Writing S1 Ep5 It's September, 2005, and I have breaking news- rewriting is still difficult for me. I'm at a point where I guess I have to just accept some things and move on. It will always be difficult. Transcript Mur Lafferty 8:00: When I have bad days with my novel, I just tell myself, the first draft is allowed to suck. First drafts are always allowed to suck, because the first draft is not what you're going to be sending the editor. Music: Dana Countryman I Should've Been Writing is copyright Mur Lafferty, 2005-2023. BY-NC-ND.

S1 Ep4 Episode four, and my very first interview! I meet with Mike at Dragoncon and use my tiny digital recorder to get the audio, which I've tried to clean up.  Transcript Mike Stackpole: this is one of the big things that everybody who reads and contemplates writing usually runs into and I still run into this with reading really, really good writers, is you read this stuff and you go, Oh, my God, I could never do that. And what most writers don't realize was that that book that you've gotten your hands went through at least five different editions, you know, think about a magician who gets to make the card disappear five times, and only has to be right on one of those, you know, in the last time, if you can't get it right after five shots at it, then then you really shouldn't be doing it. But we get to revise stuff. Music: Dana Countryman Michael A. Stackpole's books

Episode three and we have my very first "oops, didn't get this up on time." But in the olden days, I still attended DragonCon and I was still writing on many projects I've forgotten about. Then, submission guidelines!   Transcript Music: Dana Countryman RIV Ralan.com

I Should've Been Writing S1 Ep2 (from the transcript) Mur Lafferty  08:43 ...you read Neil Gaiman's blog and you hear "Yes, I went up to the cabin for the week to finish Anansi Boys...' and, well, that's great for him, but he's a best selling author with best selling comic books and just best selling all over the place. Everybody else you see on the shelves, they likely have day jobs, they likely have children, they find time to write, they make time to write because it's one of their priorities. Have you ever picked up a book and thought, 'wow, this is crap, I can write better than this?' Well, maybe that's true. But one thing that that writer has that you may not have, is persistence. You may have noticed in your life in other places than writing that the people who are not the most talented are the ones that succeed. And I'm starting to sound like a business self improvement tape right now. Get the full transcript. Get the annotated transcript when you support via Patreon or Substack! I'm going to hang a lampshade on the elephant in the room and mix my metaphors and say that yeah, I need to get my audio problems fixed. The reasons they are bad are frankly uninteresting and I need to deal with it. The next episode should be better.  So! We pretend it's August, 2005, and Mur is still messing about on Online Writer's Workshops. Let's talk about it. Follow/subscribe/review! Music: Dana Countryman Sonar Online Writer's Workshop Critters is still around too! Playing for Keeps murverse.com

Here it is, I Should Be Writing Episode 1 from 2005, seen from the lens of 2023. I've decided to go back in time and look at my earlier episodes and release them with commentary. (Because I don't have enough on my plate, you know...)  The shows will also be released with transcriptions for free, but Patreon supporters will get the episodes first, and annotated transcripts too! I Should've Been Writing S1 Ep1: Where It All Began Transcribed Thu, Jun 01, 2023 Download .docx * Music: Dana Countryman  The Secrets  Sonar  Playing for Keeps  June 1, 2023 | Season 1 Ep 1 | murverse.com "Where It All Began" by Mur Lafferty is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0