The Creative Writer's Toolbelt

Hello and welcome to one of my occasional episodes of the Creative Writers Toolbelt, this is episode 181, and I want to ask you a question - Do you know your dead salmon from your downpipe? If you know what these phrases mean, well done! But whether you do or don't, please do keep listening. In any event, I hope you found that title amusing, and that would be entirely appropriate as the subject of this episode is comedic writing, the subtle art of writing something funny. And to join me to explore this is my good friend the blogger, speak and author Ruth Leigh. Ruth is the author of the Issy Smugge series, the third installment of which is titled “The Continued Times of Isabella M Smugge.” Has just been released as of September 2022. If you’ve ever thought about comedic writing , or you’ve discovered just how difficult it is to do well, then this episode is for you – enjoy!    

This episode is a conversation with Written Word Media's Senior Marketing Manager, Clayton Noblit. In this episode we talk about what basics an author needs to focus on, using our own email lists, Facebook pages, and social media, and web pages, we also talk about how Written Word Media can take away some of the pain that authors at every level of success will feel.

Erik Harper Klass is the founder of Submitit, a company that directly addresses the stress and uncertainty of the submissions treadmill. Submitting your work, again and again, can be time-consuming and exhaustive, especially if you get more than enough rejection slips to cover the walls of your bathroom.  Submitit is a company that takes on the job of reviewing the journals to which writers might submit their work and decides on the best places to make a submission. Submitit will select the journals to submit to, craft the submission, and even make some of the editorial improvements that might be required. Submitit takes the bad dating app reality of trying to find a journal for your work and replaces it with the wise and kindly matchmaker, finding the best match for your work, and approaching the right journals. if you are writing literary fiction or narrative non-fiction this kind of service might be helpful for you. Find out more at www.submititnow.com     

My guest for this episode is the non-fiction and science fiction writer Jessie Kwak.  In this episode, we talk about the different writing processes that people use, how to choose the right one, and why some writers have found the pandemic such a difficult time. We discuss the importance of finding a writing process that brings us joy, how essential it is for us to know ourselves as writers, and when and how to hire the right professionals to help you with your writing. I had a great time talking to Jessie I hope you find the conversation useful to listen to, here it is.  

Nick Narbutovskih grew up knowing that he wanted to be a pilot in the military, now Assistant Operations Officer Narbutovskih with Air Force Special Operations Command, and he now trains others who are going to be pilots in the US Air Force. On the day of our conversation, Nick was supposed to be able to talk to me from the comfort of his own home but the military being what it is he was required at the base that day so we conducted the conversation with Nick stepping out for a few minutes to his car, so I’m afraid the sound quality is a little off what I would normally hope to bring you. But this is a fascinating conversation, with some great insights for writers into the minds and characters of those in the military, there are some real gems here for anyone who wants to know how a military context would actually work, and how groups of soldiers, sailors, and airforce personnel think and behave with each other, both outside of and in combat situations.  In this conversation, we talk about how the habits and disciplines of the military have helped Nick with his writing, the character traits and behaviors of people in the military, both in and out of combat situations, and why the reason people stay in the military might be different from the reason they joined. I hope you find this conversation helpful, here it is.

In this episode, my guest is the Digital Marketing expert Jason Smith. In this conversation, we talk about the essentials of setting up a web and managing social media accounts for your brand as a writer. We talk about the best platform to use to design a first website, the importance of design aesthetics, and what the author needs to use their website for. We also talk about social media, how to make it not scary, what the functions of social media engagement are, how to choose the right platforms, and what kind of content to put on it. This was a fascinating conversation, full of the kind of smart insights you need to get to grips with a website and social media as an author, I hope you enjoy it, here it is. If you are listening to this before September 2022 and you are a Christian author please join us for the British Christian Writers Conference, where you can hear Jason speaking and talk to him about your digital needs. We will be at Ridley Hall in Cambridge on Saturday 3rd September, join us for marketing tips, craft insights, and encouragement for you and your writing, just search for The British Christian Writing Conference online, or go to: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/storycraftpress/636912  

My guest for this episode is someone who has spent nearly 50 years in publishing. Tony Collins has worked for a number of publishing houses, owned three magazines, published an astonishing 1,400 books, and is now a literary agent. In this conversation, we talk about the lessons he’s learned in his career. We talk about the most common error that writers make when with their work, how the author must remember they are a guest at the reader's table, and there are many other things for readers to do. We talk about the essential power of narrative, why we can’t write in the way Dickens did, the place for anecdote in non-fiction, finding the right publisher, engaging well with them, and why it's essential for your book to get the title and your hook right. Tony speaks with decades of experience and there are some wonderful, fundamental insights here, I hope you find the conversation useful, here it is.  

Welcome to Ep 174, my guest for this episode is the writer and writing coach Lynn Hightower. Lynn writers thriller with a darkly paranormal twist.   In this conversation, we discuss why we do need to tell as well as show, especially in terms of plot, why we need to hear the character’s voice in our head rather than try to pick and mix their traits and characteristics. We also talk about why clarity in your prose is so important, what do you do to keep the reader hooked, and why every writer needs to try to limit the number of desks they own! I had a wide-ranging conversation with Lynn,  full of humour, insight, and craft advice – I hope you enjoy listening to it.

Suppose you discovered that nearly all of the great stories written conform to a particular structure, a structure that would help to guide you in your writing and that, subconsciously at least, your readers are expecting to see in your work. This is the contention of my guest today, the writer and creative writing tutor, Jessica Brody. Jessica took the classic screenwriting text “Save the cat” and applied it to the process of writing a novel, producing the appropriately titled “Save the cat writes a novel”. In our conversation, Jessica and I explored the key beats in the 15 beat structure, why pacing is so important, how you create a problem, a want, and a need for your protagonist, and why it’s important to make your reader feel smart.  This was a fun and informative conversation I hope you enjoy listening to it, here it is.

I have always believed that there are important lessons for prose writers to learn from poetry, and I also think we can always gain something from the joy and discipline of listening to good poetry. To test and prove this belief, in this episode, I am talking to the teacher, poet, and translator Aaron Poochigian.  Aaron has a Ph.D. in Classics from the University of Minnesota and an MFA in Poetry from Columbia University.  In this episode, we talk about the rise of the prose form over poetry, why anyone might write poetry, why poetry is like music and should be heard as music, how we can push out into the world with our work. We talk about good and bad ambiguity, what novelists can learn from poetry, including the use of rhythm, compression or the economy of language, and using the full range of senses in description and setting. This is an episode of those who love poetry or at least see its potential to teach us something for our craft, I hope you enjoy it, here it is.