Getting Your Novel Right — Scene Setting and Reworking
We’re covering two different topics from Ann Lamott’s book Bird by Bird. First off is scene setting, both its importance for your characters and how to get all the...
Zen in the Art of Writing
Character Driven Plot, plus Dialogue!
We’ve gotten to some hearty chapters in Ann Lamott’s book Bird by Bird. First up is plot, which “grows out of characters.” We discuss what this means and if...
Tilling Your Characters’ Emotional Acres
So you’ve committed to Anne Lamott’s daily writing practice (as discussed in our previous podcast), good for you. Now let’s find out how to turn those embarrassing word scribbles...
Shitty First Drafts and Beyond!
How does one write an entire novel? It’s a bit like the advice for eating an elephant, one bite at a time. In this episode we cover Anne Lamott’s...
And now for something completely different … Bird by Bird
It’s time for a new season and it’s time for a new book! We’re starting Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. This is the writing process book that everyone has...
ChatGPT, Write me my Novel
Think ChatGPT can finish your creative writing exercises? Let’s find out! In this episode we’re testing the cutting-edge artificial intelligence on some old school writing prompts. We dug out...
Bend It Like Bickham (the scene, that is)
We’re on our penultimate episode for our reading of Jack Bickham’s Scene & Structure. So, what does the bullet point Meister have to squeeze into an end of a...
What to do when your Novel is a Beautiful Mess
Even published authors have problems getting the magical stories in their heads into finished manuscript. But Anne Lamott’s account of how, over the course of three years, she completely...