Prep-Tember // Podcasts for Writers

MazieSeptember 28, 2017Leave a comment

I think I have mentioned before that I have been on a bit of a podcast rampage lately. Now that I’m working from home, I’m here a lot more, and as much as I talk to my cats, they never really respond so while my partner is at work, background noise is definitely needed. Sometimes it’s old episodes of The OC, sometimes its Spotify, but most of the time it’s a podcast. Though not all of my podcasts are great for writing too, some of my favourite ones are gaming or RPG podcasts, a lot of the ones I subscribe to are specifically for writers. So in this post I’ll be talking about my favourite podcasts to listen to while I’m writing, or if I need to get inspired to write.

Writing Excuses:
“a fast-paced, educational podcast for writers, by writers. It airs weekly, with new episodes appearing each Sunday evening at around 6pm Eastern Time. Episodes vary in length from fifteen to twenty-five minutes, but are usually less than twenty minutes long. The tagline, “Fifteen minutes long, because you’re in a hurry, and we’re not that smart” isn’t super accurate, time-wise, but it’s a haiku so we’re keeping it.”

Welcome to Nightvale:
Now this isn’t a writer’s podcast but it’s a super interesting concept and I find the episodes really inspiring.

“WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE is a twice-monthly podcast in the style of community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, featuring local weather, news, announcements from the Sheriff’s Secret Police, mysterious lights in the night sky, dark hooded figures with unknowable powers, and cultural events. Turn on your radio and hide.”

The Smarter Artist:
” Author entrepreneurs Sean Platt, David Wright, and Johnny B. Truant answer questions, offer quick tips, and deliver keen insight to help creative people who want to make a good living off of their hard work. In just a few minutes a day, we promise to help you get smarter faster.”

The Self-Publishing Podcast:
” Want to publish and sell more books? Want to get your writing into the world without contending with agents, publishers, or the other gatekeepers in traditional publishing? There’s never been a better time to make money as a writer — to take your books directly to readers and be in charge of your own business rather than jumping through hoops to please the Powers that Be. Full time authors Johnny B. Truant, David Wright, and Sean Platt (owners of the 2M+ words-per-year indie publishing company Sterling & Stone) explore everything related to getting your writing published… and making money doing it… in today’s new DIY digital publishing frontier. This isn’t artsy talk — it’s “authorpreneurial” business strategy that turns self-publishing from sideline into a rewarding career.”

Authorpreneur’s Almanac:
” Authors and innovators Sean Platt & Johnny B. Truant reveal the inner workings of indie publishing company Sterling & Stone, in a real time look at what works, what doesn’t, and what they learn along the way.”

Writership:
“We help fiction writers master self-editing skills, and we offer editing services to turn good stories into great ones that are well told and polished.
Our adventures are fueled by a passion to make authors proud of their writing and the legacy they’re building.”

Grammar Girl:
“Your friendly guide to the world of grammar, punctuation, usage, and fun developments in the English language.”

Sell More Books Show:
“The Sell More Books Show is a weekly podcast focusing on helping new and experienced authors stay up-to-date with the latest self-publishing and indie news, tools and book selling/marketing strategies.”

The Worried Writer:
” Most writers I know create their work despite being worried, anxious or distracted. You are amongst friends!

The podcast is stuffed with advice to help you overcome self doubt, fear and procrastination. We all struggle with these things, but there are tools and techniques that can transform your writing life.”

Magic Lessons with Elizabeth Gilbert:
” Bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert returns for the second season of her hit podcast MAGIC LESSONS, ready to help another batch of aspiring artists overcome their fears and create more joyfully. This year’s guest experts include Neil Gaiman, Gary Shteyngart, Amy Purdy, Michael Ian Black, Brandon Stanton, Martha Beck, and Glennon Doyle Melton.”

Hopefully, this post helps you find a few podcasts that will help you get inspired. Are there any awesome podcasts that I didn’t list here that I should check out! Leave your favourites in the comments below.

Prep-Tember// Why I Use Scrivener

MazieSeptember 27, 2017Leave a comment

Today I want to talk about the application/word processor that has changed my writing career: Scrivener. I have been using Scrivener for over 4 years now and I am a huge advocate. In all of my writing ventures, be it creative or freelance, this is the processor of choice. If I mention my writer’s notebook, I’m usually referring to my ongoing creative binder in Scrivener, which is kind of top secret but maybe someday I’ll clean it up and do a post on it!

So here are some of my favourite features and some of the main reasons I use it so religiously.

Name Generate:
I love this feature so much! I didn’t mention it in the Character Names post I made yesterday because I wanted to save it for this one, but the Name Generator is definitely an awesome tool that helps broaden the horizon beyond all the way you can find names that I shared yesterday.

The Organization Tools:
I adore the fact that you can go to bulletin board mode and see all of your cue cards laid out. If any of you have followed me over from my old blog, you will know that I was an avid user of the cue card method of brainstorming and organizing, and having this feature helps me save a lot of paper. I also love the folder systems, and that there is an option to change icons on folders and files for better organization.

Statistics:
When it comes to writing for work or during NaNoWriMo, I am very goal driven. I have a bit of an obsession with constantly tracking my progress and setting new goals, and that is just how I get some of my best work done. Having these statistic tools and daily targets is a huge reason that I love this program so much. It’s like every day can be a NaNoWriMo day.

Editing Tools:
All of the tools in this drop bar have proven to be so helpful to me when it comes to writing. in the Writing Tools tab, it lets you check online dictionaries and thesauruses, which I frequently find myself searching for. There are also dictation tools, which are super useful, and special characters in case you find yourself creating a new secret language.

All in all, I think that the program speaks for itself. I personally can’t live without it and think it is seriously life changing for writers of all sorts so it’s definitely worth trying the free trial to see if it works for you. There are so many other features to explore that I haven’t shared in this article, that you might find life-changing. Check out this link (not sponsored) to get your free trial today!

What word processor do you use and why? Is it your ride or die or are you looking for something new? How do you organize with it? Thanks for reading!

Prep-Tember // Character Names

MazieSeptember 26, 2017Leave a comment

Character names can be one of the most daunting parts of writing novels, at least in my opinion. Committing to a character name is kind of like naming a child or a pet. It’s a name that you are going to have to hear and write and say a whole lot so it really has to work, and it has to fit the character. So in this post, I’m going to be talking about some of the ways that I find names for my characters!

Surnames:
I find its always easy to start with a surname so that I can make sure that the first names sound better with it. Though surnames aren’t the most used name, it’s still important to have that name picked to add depth to your characters and to allow possible growth with family trees and what not. The first step I take to find a surname is I grab a phone book and start flipping through the pages. Whenever a last name pops out at me I flag the page or add it to my ongoing collection of names in my writer’s notebook.

Read Everything:
Remember that every name is a possibility, and therefore, everything you read that contains names, holds possibilities for character names. Read the newspaper, read old books or comics, read an atlas, or an encyclopedia or maybe even branch out and look for unlikely names. For example, if you’re writing a fantasy book, look up old names, or take a basic name and spell it differently. For example, Mazie could be spelt Maezy.

RPG Character Creation Generators:
I have a background in Dungeons and Dragons and other tabletop RPGs and I love using those generators to create character names, especially for short stories or fantasy pieces.

The most important thing to remember is that you need to make sure the name fits your story and your character. If it doesn’t fit you’ll start to notice sooner while you’re writing that the name is just not working. I personally start to realize it when I get to the second chapter and I start cringing or rolling my eyes every time I have to write it down.

I hope that this post kind of gives you a bit of insight or at least a couple ideas on how you can find the right names for your characters! If this post helped you at all please put some of your favourite names in the comments below! I’d love to hear some of your best character names, or even what genre you enjoy writing the most!

Prep-tember // Word Sprinting

MazieSeptember 11, 2017Leave a comment

Today I want to talk to you about a little thing that could save your novel’s life, it has certainly saved some of my writing projects. In my first year of NaNoWriMo, maybe 5 or 6 years ago I discovered the pure magic that is THE WORD SPRINT!

Word sprints originated in the Wrimo Community on Twitter and have been helping people reach their word counts ever since. A word sprint is when you sprint and write as much as you can in a set time! For example some people warm up in short intervals like 5 or 10 minute sprints. Personally I find my best word counts in 20 minute or 30 minute intervals. It’s not only invigorating to get so much work done in such a short period of time but it also just tells you a lot about yourself as a writer! I had no idea I could write 1000 words in 20 minutes until I sat down and sprinted it.

So right about now, you might be wondering, “How do I find a sprint?”
EASY! There are all kinds of hashtags put in place all year round but also mainly centred around NaNoWriMo and Camp NaNo that make public sprints super easy to find. Some of the best ones I’ve found are the following:

#getwordies
#wordsprint
#1k1h
#writingsprint
#nanosprint
#nanowrimo
#writeclub

I hope this helps you out with catching your word counts. Since I discovered how well word sprints worked for me, I’ve been using them for everything. I sprint my blog posts, I sprint my freelance work, I basically sprint everything. Something that has really helped with perfecting my sprint is keeping track of my sprint times/words written average. Having these numbers recorded can help me know how long I need to sprint for to get a project done. For example, if I know I have to write 500 words for a client, and my average is 500 words over 30 minutes or 250 over 10 minutes, I know that I should break up my sprints into two 10 minute intervals to get my project done.

That could just be me over complicating something so simple and easy, but it’s what works best for me.

Do you work well under pressure? Have you tried a word sprint before or do you plan on trying it now? If you have any favourite sprinters or favourite hashtags for word sprints, share them in the comments below!

Fall Bucket List

MazieSeptember 11, 201720 Comments

I think I mentioned earlier in this blog that for the past couple years I have been doing seasonal bucket lists with my best friend Andrea. It’s by no means a strict list but more so just a guide line for what we want to get done during the season. Since Fall is both of our favourite seasons, we definitely are hype for this years list.

On one of our thrifting excursions, we found a copy of The Year of Cozy by Adrianna Adarme and we were super excited to incorporate some of those seasonal things into this list! The titles of the tasks might be a bit vague, but I’ll update them once each one is complete!

Homemade Chicken Wings
Wine & Paint Night
Go on a hike* * or a short horizontal jaunt
Go apple picking
~~BAKE SOMETHING!~~ I baked Pumpkin Snickerdoodles, and Banana Bread and a Smores Pie!
Make Butternut Squash Soup!

Leaf Collecting
Carve Pumpkin
Roast Pumpkin Seeds
Howell’s Pumpkin Farm
Ghost Walk in NOTL
~~Balls Falls Festival~~
Fall Photo Shoot
~~Thanksgiving Dinner~~

Red Lobster
Crochet scarves and things! (ongoing)
Fall (HOME) Spa Day
Christmas planning
Halloween movies (Hallmark ones more specifically)

I’m going to try to plan some corresponding blog posts for every time we cross an item off the list. My prediction is that we are going to be trying to get at least a couple done each time we see each other since she recently moved a bit further away and we might not get to see each other as often as usual. Once I have the corresponding post for each task up, I will link it here so that it’s easier to find!

If you have any other cute suggestions for our Fall Bucket List, please leave them in the comments below!

Be Fearlessly Authentic

MazieSeptember 7, 20171 Comment

Today I want to talk about something I’ve been thinking and reflecting on a lot lately. I, unfortunately, can’t remember the exact situation that got me thinking about it but I want to talk about authenticity. Not in any specific capacity, like in regards to social media, or online personas, though I do think those things are important and I will touch on that, but more so just being your authentic self and focusing on what makes you feel the most you.

Being authentic boils down to knowing who you are, knowing what makes you unique, and not ditching those things just because they might make you different.

I’ve been challenging myself to stay mindful about being authentic on all fronts. For me authenticity means:

being up front with myself and with others about what I like and don’t like.
asking myself “is that something I really want to do?”
not modifying myself to be loved or accepted by others.
not editing my life in a way to make myself seem perfect.
saying no whenever I god damn feel like it. (+5 points for feeling this sassy!)

I have been listening to all kinds of podcasts and e-books about well being and personal development lately, and one thing that they all have in common is that they all say you need to embrace your true self in order to be truly happy. The number of people I’ve heard talk about how much time they wasted trying to be something they weren’t was so insane, and it kind of shocked me into obsessing about being authentic and whether or not I was wasting my time trying to be someone I’m not.

When it comes to social media or just my online persona, I find that I constantly struggle with this internal conflict or belief that people deserve to know what I’m doing all the time, even when I really don’t feel like sharing something. That can easily be taken in a very conceited way, but I assure you that’s not what I mean. I don’t mean that people want to know what I’m up to, just that I feel like I owe everyone something…for some reason. Maybe that’s just my personality type? Maybe I should look up what my personality type is? (< true revelation just happened right there, actually though, I wrote it down in my BUJO! It’s a thing now!)

So I’ve got a little bit of a plan aside from the list of things above, that is hopefully going to help me be more authentic, help me give less of a fox (see what I did there!? Am I allowed to swear here?), and hopefully help me kick these expectations of perfection when it comes to how I appear to other people.

A while back when that Sarahahahaha.com site was a thing, someone left this comment on my page and it kind of just made me laugh because I really don’t feel that way at all. It may look perfect online because I don’t post the bad parts but my life is most definitely not perfect. Maybe this is what sparked this post topic…. I don’t know. Anyways, I hope that this post wasn’t too rambly or weird. But then again, I’m trying not to care too much about that!

Let me know if you struggle with these kinds of things or feel like you could be a little more authentic too, so I know I’m not alone!

Thanks for reading,

Prep-tember//Asking Why

MazieSeptember 6, 2017Leave a comment

I’m super excited about this post, as its the first post to kick off my Preptember Writers Series! This topic has been one that I’ve been pondering for a while now and it all kind of started on our car ride home from vacation. For a while now, my partner and I have been kind of jokingly pulling together this plot of a book that neither of us planned on writing. I want to say that this ongoing joke started in the beginning of our relationship and it’s just been growing and getting more and more ridiculous the more we brought it up. But when we embarked on our 7 hour drive home from Magnetawan we eventually ran out of road trip games to play and we slowly transitioned into talking about our plot idea but in a more serious manner.

The longer we drove, the more real the story seemed; it became something kind of possible, and kind of awesome. So we have kind of decided to collaborate this idea. He isn’t a writer, so I’ll be doing all of that, but his skill with plotting and storyline is kind of remarkable. It really is a gift. Which is kind of what inspired me to write this post about asking yourself or your characters “Why?”

As we went on developing our story, I kept asking him different questions, but most of them were starting with “Why?” Why are they fighting? Why do they need to get there? Why are they running? Why is she alone? Why a giraffe?

Whenever I asked why I was worried that he would get defensive of his story, I was worried that asking why would seem like I was challenging the ideas, but that wasn’t the case. Whenever we asked why we opened up the floor for some of the best reasoning and discussions. The other questions worked but none of them produced conversation like our “Why” questions. I think that asking why is a question that challenges a plot, and as long as it’s yourself or your beta-readers challenging your plot, I think it’s fine. you should be able to defend your plot, but more importantly, you shouldn’t have to.

So as a way to avoid having to answer questions later, answer questions now, while you’re writing, or before you even open that new idea.

What I wish we did was record that discussion, because we would have had 2 hours of the purest plot details and background information that we could possibly get and we might not ever have those true and blatant answers ever again, which is fine, we’ll get there eventually, but it was such an amazing conversation.

Another thing that I learned about myself as a writer while discussing this plot with Drew, was that having a partner or friend to sound board off of, or having someone to ask or answers questions with is SO helpful. If you have a friend that you can confide in and trust your ideas with, I would definitely recommend having a little Q&A!

What is your favourite question to ask yourself or your characters? Do you find asking questions helps you develop your plots, or does it take the fun out of it for you?

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for more Prep-tember posts in the future,

September: Small Goals

MazieSeptember 2, 20172 Comments

In my last post, I kind of spoke about some of the things that I plan on doing in September but I felt that it might be a bit more beneficial if I post my goals publically, for all that accountability and what not! So Here are the goals I had written down for August and my progress with them!

(Disclaimer: This post will contain affiliate links, which means that I may earn a few cents if you click on a link or make a purchase through a link posted here, with no additional cost to you! I appreciate the support!)

August Goals:

~~Finish Unpacking:~~ In July, my partner moved into my apartment, and since then there has been a constant stream of plans, events or just road blocks keeping us from unpacking all of his stuff. So I set a goal to find time to finish getting him all settled in! There is at least one more Ikea trip to go before we’re completely organized but at least everything is out of boxes!

~~Cozy bones Instagram:~~ I made a goal to post more on Instagram, and a goal to get to 200 followers! I got to 215! A fair jump from 80 followers in July! My next goal is 35o, but I’m not making that a monthly goal.

~~Label my part of the office:~~ I got a bunch of craft cubes for our shared office, the ones you can see in my workspace tour. Up until that tour, they were labeled with sticky notes, so I needed to upgrade it a bit! It’s been on my task list for at least 3 months.

~~Complete the zine:~~ I’ve had my zine planned for about a month now, and I finally sat down and wrote it out! I’m excited to share more about it in the next couple of weeks!

Start Couponing again: Now this is kind of a half and half win for me. I didn’t start hardcore couponing again, like the whole clipping and price matching dealy that I used to back in the day. But I did log back into my PC Plus account, but more importantly, I signed back into my Checkout 51 for the first time in a couple of years! I completely forgot how fun it was to use this app! I’ve already got $15 on the app, and a little bit more processing after my grocery shop from today! I’m a bit too excited about it, to be honest, I keep asking Drew if we can go grocery shopping again. If you haven’t checked out the app yet, you definitely should! It truly is remarkable the savings you can find!

~~No Spend:~~ At the beginning of the month I wrote down a list of things that I wasn’t going to allow myself to buy. The list consisted of books, makeup, bullet journal supplies, yarn, and purses. I’m proud to say I spent money on none of these things last month!

September Goals:

Portfolio: I need to set up my portfolio page, it’s currently just sad and empty and it’s something that is super important for my career. Time to put the big girl panties on and just get to work on that.

Prep-tember: I want to write at least one or two Prep-tember posts each week. I also need to get set up for Prep-tober. Let me know if there are any posts you’d like to see from me.

Outline my NaNo Novel: Now that I have an idea for a novel, I need to sit down and write a detailed outline for it, other wise it will never get written. I’ve tried the unplanned route, it just doesn’t work for me.

Print My Zine: Now that my zine is written, I need to lay it out, and print it. That’s really the last step before it gets out into the world. I’m pretty excited about making a couple extra dollars from something written and made by me.

Blog Every Week Day: Writing every week day is a definite goal for this month! I really want to see if I can do it! I know there are a lot of awesome bloggers that write every day so week days are super doable I think!

No Spend: This month I’m cutting back on my rules a little bit! This month it’s just no books, not purses and no stationery. I’m sorry, but all the fall colours just came out in the yarn department and I have n0 will power! I’d just be setting myself up to fail!

That’s it for today’s post! Share your goals, I’d love to hear what you have planned for this month!

As always, thanks for reading,

This post was proofread by Grammarly

Prep-tember Writing Series

MazieAugust 30, 2017Leave a comment

First off I’d like to thank everyone for their patience! I went away on vacation without scheduling anything so it’s been a couple seconds since my last post here. I’m going to be talking about that vacation a bit more extensively in another post in the future but during the 6 hour drive home I came to the realization that NaNoWriMo is only 2 months away and had a little bit of an existential crisis.

After sound boarding some ideas I think I have finally picked the project that I’m going to focus on for NaNo this year so it’s time to plan and prep for November. If you aren’t sure what NaNoWriMo is, the coles notes are as follows: National Novel Writing Month is a world wide event where writers and creatives set a goal of writing 50,000 words in the 30 days of November! There is a huge community online, as well as regional groups! I’m actually a Municipal Liaison for my region, which is why I’m planning this early on. It quickly becomes a pretty high-stress event about half way through if you start coming up short on your word count goals, or if you hit a road block with your ideas, which is why I always take the precautions of planning ahead, with extensive outlines and other borderline crazy safety measures.

I’ll share more NaNoWriMo specific information in October, or should I say Prep-tober, but for now we’re going to keep it simple. I have pulled together a list of post topics for a new Writers Series. I did one of these one my old blog, and I think that it would be really interesting to bring something similar to this one. So I hereby declare next month to be Prep-tember, a writing (in general) series.

Some topics you can expect are:

Questions to ask yourself when brainstorming a plot
Programs I use for novel building
Programs or apps I use for productivity
Best writer podcasts
Different efficiency methods for writers

The more I sit down and plan for this series, the more excited I get to start publishing these posts. Which leads me to my next exciting piece of news.

I plan on posting every weekday in September. Since November is approaching quickly, I need to get myself into the habit of writing more, and if possible every day, so I’m hoping that this can act as a little warm up for me. Not all of the posts are going to be a part of this prep-tember series as I have a few other series ideas in the works. I’m super excited to see if I can do it!

If you have any ideas for Prep-tember topics or any other blog posts you’d like to see from me, please feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments below!

As always, thanks for reading,