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Episode 114: T.G.I.O

Hey Christian Indies,

November is over, and that means National Novel Writing Month 2020 is officially in the books. It’s been a crazy thirty days for us on the podcast, and from what we are seeing in the chat, the same is true for all of you out there! In spite of it all, we have endured! Our word count goals? Not so much. Just kidding! We even have a couple of projected NaNo winners on the show as I compose this newsletter!
Tune in this week for our post-NaNo, 2020 report. You’ll Find out answers to questions such as:
Did Jen Finish her contemporary? 
Did Tina finish the first draft of her sequel to LOST? 
What was it like for Jen to host LIVE sprints (hint, she was able to connect us with some AWESOME new listeners)!
Did Tina survive hosting a BOOKLAUNCH during NaNoWriMo?

…and more! 

We also will be checking in with you, our awesome listeners/viewers! Whether you absolutely CRUSHED your word count goal or are just a few words ahead of where you started out on November 1st, we want to kno how National Novel Writing Month went for you! We’ve been cheering you on all month long and it will be so great to celebrate your success.

Looking forward to seeing you there,

Jamie

Episode 104: Improve Your Writing with Framing

“I’ve been framed,” she said, casting her hand across her brow.

“What do you mean?” he asked, “do you mean someone put a rectangle of wood around you and hung you on the wall?”

“Of course not,” she snapped.

“Do you mean someone has nailed yo to two-by-fours and other wood in order to make the foundation of their future domicile?”

“Don’t be silly!”

Hey Christian Indies,

You’ll likely agree with me that this is a ridiculous premise. Still, when the topic of “framing your story” came up, all of us Co-hosts were not sure exactly what we should include in the episode. We all sort of scratched our heads and asked, “what do you mean?”

Well, Indies, we’ve since wrapped our minds a bit more around the concept, and we’ve determined that what each writer could use, on occasion, is a bit of a “refresher” on what actually makes a story stand as, well, a story.


So tune in and learn more about what it means to frame a story.

See you there,

Jamie

Episode 98: Indescribable: Improving Physical Descriptions in your writing

Hey Christian Indies!

Have you ever stared into a swimming pool? Or a pool of rainwater, collected on the sidewalk? What about the pool of condensation on the corner of your coffee table?

You haven’t?

I haven’t, either.

But, I’ve noticed my protagonists love staring into pools – big brown ones, icy blue ones, deep amber ones – they seem to delight in lovingly gazing into them all.

Of course, I’m talking about human eyes, so often described in literature as “pools.” 

The other hosts and I were talking about this oddity, and it seemed the situation was chronic – their characters, too, spent an inordinate amount of time staring into pools. Eventually, we discovered the problem was not with our characters, but with us, the writers. We’d gotten into an eyeball description rut: we’d run into a staring scene, and, well, the word, “pools” was just convenient. It was also familiar, “tried and true,” if you will, guaranteed not to raise brows.

The more we  examined this issue, the more we realized that  eyes were not the only physical feature we had difficulty describing with any sort of originality whatsoever.

Thus, episode #98 was born. In it, we hope to broaden your (and our own!) horizons, so to speak, when it comes to providing physical descriptions of characters in (y)our novels.

See you on the podcast,

Jamie

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