Ep 12: 5/24/18 Progress Report

Ep 12: 5/24/18 Progress Report

[TheChamp-Sharing]

Subscribe: Android | RSS  

 

This week's episode is sponsored by Be a Writing Machine!

My groundbreaking and tell-all nonfiction book is now available on Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and more!

Write faster and smarter, beat writer's block, and be prolific. Grab your copy today.

SHOW NOTES

 

Quick overview of this week's show:

  • Why I paused my current urban fantasy series to revive my YouTube channel
  • Where to find my new nonfiction book
  • Which new audiobook of mine just entered production
  • Questions from a listener about my childhood
Sound/Music Credits for this week's episode

Intro/Outro Music: “Kick. Push” by Ryan Little.

Sound Effects/Miscellaneous Credits:

 

TRANSCRIPT

Hello, and welcome to episode 12 of the podcast.

Writing News

 

I’ve paused my Sound Mage Sonata series for a little while because I’ve decided to bring back my YouTube channel, Author Level Up. I’ll talk more about that in next month’s writing life episode, but I decided to bring the channel back because it was very successful for me with a large amount of subscribers continuously asking me for content.

So at the moment I’ve written about 50,000 words in video scripts, and I’ve upgraded my video gear with a new DSLR camera, lights, and programs to help me take the channel to the next level. I plan to create a business around it. More on that in the coming weeks.

So while I haven’t written much fiction, I have been writing quite a bit.

Also, the audiobook for Old Evil, Book 2 of my Last Dragon Lord series, is underway!

And finally, my newest writing book, Be a Writing Machine, is now available wide, so you can buy it at Barnes & Noble, Apple, or wherever you buy your books. You can find it at www.michaellaronn.com/beawritingmachine.

 

 

 

Marketing News

 

It’s been a quiet marketing month for me. But April was pretty busy. I’ve been focusing mainly on behind-the-scenes changes.

For example, I just wrapped up a complete rebrand of all my books, concluding with my Android X series. You can view the new covers at www.michaellaronn.com/androidx.

All my covers now have my name at the top in big letters. It’s a branding play for me.

Now, every book I write will have consistent branding. It will teach my readers to expect a certain look for my books. That’s really powerful and exciting for me, because I can now start to do some different marketing things that I haven’t in the past.

Listener Questions

Let’s move on to some listener questions.

My biggest fan, Oswald, is back this week with some new questions!

[CUE ROBOTIC MUSIC]

 

One time, another robot dared me to remove all my bolts to see how long I could last. What’s the craziest dare you ever took?
Oswald McChipperson

Robot

Oswald McChipperson asks:

“One time, another robot dared me to remove all my bolts to see how long I could last. What’s the craziest dare you ever took?”

I love this question, because actually, I took dares a lot as a kid.

Most kids did cool dares. Mine were dorky.

There are a couple that stand out for me. The first dare was in second grade, when a friend dared me to eat a pickle sandwich. I took one of those giant dill pickles that come in jars, and slapped it between two slices of white bread. It was awful. I didn’t even get halfway through. Yuck.

Time for the next question.

 

As a robot incapable of emotion, I often wonder what love feels like. Especially puppy love. What’s the story of your first crush?
Oswald McChipperson

Robot

 

Geez, Oswald, I think you’re being too hard on yourself. You strike me as a nice guy. I wouldn’t call you completely emotionless.

To answer your question, I had a lot of crushes when I was elementary school. None of them ended well for me.

The one I remember most was a girl in my first grade class.

She paid zero attention to me, so I tried to do things to get her to notice me.

I became a boy scout. I thought a uniform might help. Nope.

I went to a boy scout camp, and at the camp, there was a sandbox where they taught us how people mined for gold during the gold rush. There were lumps of pyrite hidden in the sand. I’ll never forget their sparkle, and how coarse they were in my hand. I came home from camp with a bucket of pyrite.

 

 

I remember sticking some pyrite rocks in my pocket and walking three blocks over to the townhouse where she lived. I was so nervous. It was a quiet, windy day, and as I walked through the tree-filled corridor that led to her street, balancing myself on railroad ties, my heart was beating really fast.

I was going to give her the pyrite and declare my love for this girl. I was only in first grade, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I knocked on the door.

She wasn’t home.

Turns out she moved away, and I never saw her again.

Yeah. Like I said, didn’t work out so well for me.

While we’re on embarrassing stories, let me tell you another one. In high school, there was a girl that I really liked—she was beautiful, and again, paid zero attention to me. I honestly don’t know if she knew I existed. She sat two seats ahead of me on the bus every day for two years.

One day, I mustered up the courage to write her a Christmas card. I thought if I did that, then it would open the door to talk to her. Then maybe we could get to know each other and I could ask her to prom down the road.

 

 

So on the final day of school before winter vacation, I get on the bus and I’ve got the card. I’m in a puffy winter coat with a stocking cap, and I’m sweating through them.

As we get off the bus, I hand her the card.

I had planned to say “Merry Christmas.”

But instead, I hand her the card and run away.

Get this: the next day, she’s sitting in front of me, talking to one of her girlfriends. And she’s holding the card.

She says in a snotty tone, “If someone was going to give me a Christmas card, it would be nice if I actually knew who they were. A real man would have stopped and talked to me.”

Then she slipped the card in her purse and never looked at me again for the rest of the time we rode the bus together.

Yikes.

I was kind of glad I didn’t get to know her. I guess in my infatuation of her, I failed to judge her character.

Oh well. You live and you learn.

Anyway, thanks for your questions again, Oswald. It’s always a pleasure.

[OSWALD SAYS “You're welcome.”]

 

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

 

“Love yourself. It is important to stay positive because beauty comes from the inside out. – Jenn Proske.”

Show's over, but it doesn't have to stop here.

If you liked this episode, you and me are probably kindred spirits.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS WEEK'S EPISODE?

 Let me know!

Ep 11: Top 10 Moments that Shaped Me as a Writer, Part 1

Ep 11: Top 10 Moments that Shaped Me as a Writer, Part 1

[TheChamp-Sharing]
<iframe style="border: none" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/6494599/height/90/theme/custom/autoplay/no/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/backward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/87A93A/" height="90" width="100%" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe>

Subscribe: Android | RSS  

This week's episode is sponsored by Michael's Fantasy Guild & Sci-Fi Alliance Fan Clubs!

Did you know that you can subscribe to Michael's fan clubs to get updates when he releases new novels + special launch pricing? AND you get 3 free novels just for signing up!

If you're an avid reader of Michael's work, these clubs pay for themselves on day 1. 

Join today at www.michaellaronn.com/fanclub 

SHOW NOTES

 

Quick overview of this week's show:

  • Top 10 Moments that shaped me as a writer and made me who I am today.
  • Some incredible books that transformed the way I think.
Sound/Music Credits for this week's episode

TRANSCRIPT

In this week’s episode, I’m rewinding through my life and counting down the top 10 most important moments that shaped me as a writer. I’m starting with the present and moving backward.

#10? The experience with my biological father. It confirmed why I’m a writer in the first place. Stay tuned to find out the rest.

Hello, and welcome to episode 11. This week, I thought I’d spend some time talking about critical events in my life that made me the artist I am today.

I already mentioned in the intro that #10 was the search for my biological father. I talked about that in episode 5 – Searching for My Biological Father, so if you haven’t heard that one, be sure to give it a listen.

#9: Taking Courses with Dean Wesley Smith

 

Moving on to #9, that would be taking courses with Dean Wesley Smith at WMG Publishing.

If you’ve never heard of Dean, he’s a USA Today bestselling author and the guy who wrote all the Star Trek books I read when I was growing up.

He’s a prolific writer and his courses are jam-packed with amazing advice that have taken my craft to the next level. Dean Wesley Smith's courses expanded my mind and helped me understand writing on a deeper level.

#8: Reading the Works of Swami Vivekananda

 

Moving on: #8 is reading the works of Swami Vivekananda. Swami Vivekananda was a Hindu monk who lived in the 1800s and early 1900s, and he was responsible for introducing the western world to Hindu spirituality and philosophy.

Sometime in 2011 I stumbled upon his complete works, and I was completely blown away at how he saw the world.

Some of the things he preaches are mantras that I live by daily. In fact, if you delved into the philosophical undercurrents of my stories, you would find that they center on many of Vivekananda’s key assumptions about spirituality.

I talk more about Swami Vivekananda in my book, Be a Writing Machine, so be sure to check out the book if you want to know more about how he developed me as a writer.

 

 

#7: Discovering Ray Bradbury

#7 is discovering the works of Ray Bradbury. I picked up Fahrenheit 451 in 2010 on a whim, and my life was never the same. The way Bradbury wrote, it was like music, like pure intoxication. I told myself if I could ever be half the writer he was, then I would be somebody.

Bradbury's prose was beautiful, so imaginative and evocative, while still having a fast-moving story. I strove to find that balance in my own work.

I was also blown away by Bradbury’s prolific nature—I too wanted to be an author with hundreds of works on the shelf.

Something about Bradbury’s personality just clicked with me—it told me it was okay to write a lot of stuff, and to write a lot of different stuff, too.

A great book that outlines many of Bradbury’s philosophies about the world is Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews. It’s essential reading for any Bradbury fan.

#6: Learning Spanish

Spanish, you ask?

Yes, I am bilingual.

I started speaking Spanish in the seventh grade. I wanted to take a shop class for my elective, but it was full, so my guidance counselor forced me to take Spanish, and I went into that classroom kicking and screaming. It ended up being one of the top ten moments of my life.

I majored in Spanish in college, and studied abroad to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Panama.

My first job out of college was as a bilingual claims adjuster for a Fortune 100 insurance company. I was way in over my head, but I took the leap of faith. I became fluent on the job, and there were many days where all I spoke was Spanish. I did this for nearly five years.

Honestly, my love of Spanish could be a podcast episode in and of itself.

Why did this impact me as a writer? Because I learned the nuances of another culture, and how easy it is for things to get lost in translation.

Writers are translators. We translate the language of the mind into something that readers can see, feel, and experience.

In order to keep people reading, we have to translate what’s in our head and hearts and color it so that it means something to the person on the other side of the page. Often, writers think they are doing that, but they are actually falling short.

Learning to speak Spanish on a practical level helped me see weaknesses in my storytelling in a different way. And it taught me how to shore up those weaknesses so that I could start speaking to people on their level.

That’s it for this week’s episode. In next month’s Behind the Scenes episode, I’ll go over the top 5 moments that shaped me as a writer. And these events are even more life-changing.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

 

“This world is but a canvas to our imagination.”

Henry David Thoreau

Show's over, but it doesn't have to stop here.

If you liked this episode, you and me are probably kindred spirits.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS WEEK'S EPISODE?

 Let me know!

Ep 10: Music Written by Michael La Ronn

Ep 10: Music Written by Michael La Ronn

[TheChamp-Sharing]
<iframe style="border: none" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/6493584/height/90/theme/custom/autoplay/no/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/backward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/87A93A/" height="90" width="100%" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe>

Subscribe: Android | RSS  

This week's episode is sponsored by my Patreon page!

Did you know that you can support a working author? For just $1/month, you can help keep the books comin', and get access to special bonuses that can't be found anywhere else.

Support this show today at www.patreon.com/michaellaronn 

SHOW NOTES

 

Quick overview of this week's show:

  • Snippets of songs that I wrote around 2005-2010.
Sound/Music Credits for this week's episode

Intro/Outro Music: “Kick. Push” by Ryan Little.

Songs by Michael La Ronn in order of appearance:

“Watercolor Sunrise”

“Stardust”

“The Gaza Strip”

“Alien in the White House”

“Saffron Sky”

“Sewers (Going Nowhere)”

“Fight, Desi, Fight!”

“Beijing Industrial Complex”

“Prayer”

All songs featured in this episode (except for the intro/outro music) are copyright 2005-2010 by Michael La Ronn. All rights reserved.

TRANSCRIPT

You just heard a song called “Watercolor Sunrise.” And guess what? It was written by yours truly!

This episode features music written by me. Because in order to understand where I’m going, you’ve got to understand where I’ve been.

Before I Was a Writer, I Was a Musician

Hello, and welcome to episode 10. The podcast is now 10 episodes old, and that’s worth celebrating!

Before I was a writer, I was a musician. I wanted to be a video game music composer. I grew up listening to Japanese video game music composers religiously, and I didn’t see any black faces in the video game industry, so I wanted to make my mark there.

My songs were a mix between video game music and jazz, and they were a lot of fun to write. From the time I was 15 until 22, I wrote over 120 songs, and I had to get creative because I didn’t have state of the art equipment.

The music you’re going to hear in this week’s episode is nearly 10 years old, but I think you’ll be able to hear my creativity, a unique sound that doesn’t sound like anything else. It’s me trying to find myself.

I’m glad I ended up on the writing route. But it’s fun to look back every now and again.

Enjoy the music in this episode.

 

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

I enjoy being happy every day, and hopefully you can hear my happiness in my music. Life is beautiful.” –Christina Milian

Show's over, but it doesn't have to stop here.

If you liked this episode, you and me are probably kindred spirits.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS WEEK'S EPISODE?

 Let me know!

Ep 9: Lessons from My Creative Mentor, Ivan Lins

Ep 9: Lessons from My Creative Mentor, Ivan Lins

[TheChamp-Sharing]
<iframe style="border: none" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/6493501/height/90/theme/custom/autoplay/no/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/backward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/87A93A/" height="90" width="100%" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe>

Subscribe: Android | RSS  

This week's episode is sponsored by Rogue Colony, Book 6 of my Galaxy Mavericks series. Don't worry—you can read this as a standalone if you haven't read Book 1. The heroine of this book, Michiko Lins, is named after my creative mentor, Ivan Lins. 

Michiko Lins is a Galaxy Corps volunteer, a disaster response team assembled to help after emergencies. She joined to take her mind off dropping out of nursing school, and to avoid her parents' wrath. 

When a moon in the galaxy mysteriously disappears after an alien attack, she signs up to help the survivors. She makes some good friends along the way. 

But it turns out that moons aren't the only things disappearing. 

Buy Rogue Colony today: www.michaellaronn.com/roguecolony  

SHOW NOTES

 

Quick overview of this week's show:

  • How my love affair with Brazilian jazz began
  • Why I celebrate the music of Ivan Lins
  • Important lessons I learned from studying Ivan Lins' music that I carried over to my writing
Sound/Music Credits for this week's episode

Intro/Outro Music: “Kick. Push” by Ryan Little.

Sound Effects/Miscellaneous Credits:

Intro/Outro Music: “Kick. Push” by Ryan Little: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ryan_Little/~/kick_push

YouTube interview with Ivan Lins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0J6yeODzZ0&list=RDI0J6yeODzZ0&t=178 [Thanks to vpro vrije geluiden for the video]

Yawn by kgatto: https://freesound.org/people/kgatto/sounds/240271/

Bossa nova parts by justinrobert: https://freesound.org/people/justinrobert/packs/4791/

Sound effects courtesy of Freesound.org.

TRANSCRIPT

 

 

“At the time, I was mixing modern Brazilian music—bossa nova, Milton Nascimento, [Tom] Jobim—with American soul music. All the time, as a songwriter, I was trying to show the people how my song could sound [with] American black singers. I tried to imitate them, and I could not. So the sound that was appearing for the listeners was totally different, and it was a unique thing.”

Ivan Lins

Brazilian musician, singer, and composer

Those are words of wisdom from a man who I have considered to be my creative mentor for the last fifteen years. If it were not for him and his music, I would not be a writer.

Few people in my life have had such an impact on me, and I want to spend some time talking about it because if you understand this, then you understand me and my work on a deeper level.

This man’s name, by the way, is Ivan Lins, and he's a Brazilian singer, composer, and musician.

My Creative Mentor

Hello, and welcome to episode 9.

I wanted to spend this episode talking about an incredible influence on my creative career.

I debated even doing this episode because I will guess that most people listening to this podcast have never heard of Ivan Lins.

So to keep this interesting, I'm going to tell this story in a way you might not expect.

The year was 2003, and I was a freshman in high school.

I was studying music, and around this time, writing wasn't even on my radar.

I wanted to know about every style of music. I wanted to listen to everything, deconstruct it, and learn how to write it.

I found a list of musical genres on the Internet and I made it a personal goal to spend two or three days in the land of each genre.

I started with Ambient…

[CUE YAWN]

And then I made my way down to samba and bossa nova.

[CUE BRAZILIAN SAMBA]

It was my gateway drug into Brazilian music.

Brazilian jazz just has this unique way about it. It's confident, different, and not afraid to go places sonically that are unusual to the ear.

Anyway, I spent hours listening to Brazilian music, so much that my goal of getting all the way through the list of genres went out the window when I happened upon the music of Ivan Lins.

What I noticed first about Ivan was his jazz sensibility, which was unlike anything I had ever heard, and his chord changes. One of the tests for me when I listen to a new musician is whether they sound like anything I’ve heard before. I had never heard anything like this.

When I listen to music, I care more about the emotions and the chords than I do the melody or lyrics. I don't know too many people who listen to music in this way, but I would argue that Lins’s music has the greatest chord progressions of any musician who has ever lived.

But I won't talk about his music because I can't share it on this podcast.

Instead I want to talk about his style and approach to creativity, because his approach is the same I've taken with my writing.

Lessons Learned from Ivan Lins

 

I opened the episode with a clip from an interview with Lins in 2011. He talks about starting off imitating black singers and trying to mix modern samba with it. What resulted was something entirely different and unique.

I’ve listened to every single one of his albums over and over again, and while I confess that I could never quite learn to play his music well, I learned some important creative lessons.

First, with every new project, I try to imitate something that I’ve seen and mix it with my own storytelling sensibility.

Lins also does something else important that I’ve learned to live by. He takes substantial risks with every new album. In fact, I would say that he reinvents himself with every new album. No two Ivan Lins albums sound anything alike. Yet, his voice ties them all together.

I’m drawn to artists who produce diverse portfolios. I don’t know why; maybe it’s because I don’t like being tied to anything. I like having the freedom to reinvent myself. I like that mind-expanding feeling that I get whenever I’m venturing into new territory where I’ve never been before. It makes me a better artist. It gives me staying power.

And lastly, Lins is himself. Honestly, if you listen to his songs, it’s amazing that someone with his style is as famous as he is. Most artists like him would have hit dead-ends in their careers. But he persists because his music is relevant. His sound is unique. There’s no one else like him, and he continues to redefine what music means to him.

There’s something to be said about being yourself in today’s world. There’s so much pressure for authors to fit themselves into a box. If you don’t fit into the urban fantasy box, or the LitRPG box, or the paranormal romance box, your books won’t sell. And so authors listen to that advice, and they compromise their work in order to make money.

But the money never lasts.

An artist like Ivan Lins proves that you can be yourself and still find an audience. An artist like Ivan Lins writes music that will stand the test of time, that jazz listeners will be talking about a hundred years from now.

That’s a creative lifestyle to live by.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

 

“Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.” –Ludwig van Beethoven

More About Ivan Lins

Official Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ivanlinsoficial/

Wikipedia Page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Lins

Full Interview featured in this week's episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0J6yeODzZ0&list=RDI0J6yeODzZ0&t=178 

My Top 10 Ivan Lins Songs (in no particular order)

Song Title – Album

1. Abre Alas -Modo Livre (1974)

2. Beijo Infinito – Ivan Lins (1986)

3. Amar Assim – Amar Assim (1989)

4. Anjo de Mim – Anjo de Mim (1996)

5. Clareou – Awa Yio (1991)

6. Corpos – Chama Acesa (1975)

7. Depois dos temporais – Depois Dos Temporais (1983)

8. Even You and I – Love Dance (1988)

9. Love Dance – Love Dance (1988)

10. Vieste – Maos (1987)

Show's over, but it doesn't have to stop here.

If you liked this episode, you and me are probably kindred spirits.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS WEEK'S EPISODE?

 Let me know!

Ep 8: 4/26/18 Progress Report

Ep 8: 4/26/18 Progress Report

[TheChamp-Sharing]
<iframe style="border: none" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/6492603/height/90/theme/custom/autoplay/no/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/backward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/87A93A/" height="90" width="100%" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe>

Subscribe: Android | RSS  

This week's episode is sponsored by Indie Poet Formatting! National Poetry Month concludes with an essential book for poets who want to take their career into their own hands. 

The poet's guide to formatting poetry for ebooks and paperbacks. A step-by-step manual on creating beautiful digital poetry collections.

Buy it today: http://www.michaellaronn.com/indiepoetformatting

SHOW NOTES

 

Quick overview of this week's show:

  • Update on progress for my Sound Mage Sonata urban fantasy series
  • Two new podcast interviews, a new patron, and listener questions
  • Special surprise!
Sound/Music Credits for this week's episode

TRANSCRIPT

Hello, and welcome to episode 8 of the podcast.

Writing News

I’m still making progress on The Sound Mage Sonata series, so no major updates to report right now, other than that it’s coming along nicely and I’ll have some material to share with you very soon. For some more background on the research I’m doing on the series, be sure to check out episode 3 at www.michaellaronn.com/episode3.

Also, my dark fantasy series The Last Dragon Lord will be coming to audio.
I signed a deal with narrator Miles Meili. We just wrapped production on Book 1 and Book 2 will go into production around the middle of May. I can't wait to share it with you guys.

Marketing News

I recently appeared on the Anchor Coming Soon Podcast. Anchor is a social media platform for podcasting that is doing some really cool stuff things in the audio space. I sat down with Brendon Bigley at Anchor and we chatted about The Writer’s Journey Podcast. I'll drop a link in the show notes. I was featured on the front page of the app and I got some incredible exposure for the show.

How I did it: Anchor put out a request for people to create Coming Soon podcast trailers and they invited people to email them with their show ideas. I did exactly what they asked: made a quick pitch trailer, and I got their attention! It really was that simple. Shout out to Brendon, John, and Bryan at Anchor for providing me with this great opportunity.

I also did an interview with Russell Anderson-Williams of the Creative Action Takers podcast. That was a fun interview, too. We don’t talk just about writing—we talk about the overall act of creativity.

 

New Patrons on Patreon!

 

That’s it for news this week. I want to give a shout out to my new patron: Cariad Eccleston. Cariad has been following me for a while since back in my YouTube days, and I appreciate her support. She’s a fellow author working on her first novel and she’s got a really cool blog, so I’ll drop a link to her website in the show notes. Thank you, Cariad!

 

Listener Questions

 

And as luck would have it, our new patron also happened to ask two questions!

 

What outlining method do you use?

Cariad Eccleston

Great question, Cariad! I’ve used every outlining method you can think of: Hero’s Journey, Plot Point Theory, Snowflake Method, etc. These days I use the Writing into the Dark method by Dean Wesley Smith.

Essentially, you write without an outline and make up the story as you go. Not something I’d recommend for someone on their first book or two, but it’s an advanced storytelling method authors can aspire to.

<iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=miclaron-20&marketplace=amazon®ion=US&placement=B00XIPANX8&asins=B00XIPANX8&linkId=ae9002f37950a86bd1f77e6de37d604b&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true"></iframe>

On my YouTube channel, Author Level Up, I did a video called “How to Outline a Novel in 10 Different Ways.” I recorded this back in 2015, but it’s a good resource. In the video, I go through every major method of outlining and talk about the pros and cons of each. I’ll drop a link in the show notes.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BhjRZ18JwpY" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

How long do you outline for before starting a draft? (I’m working on my first novel, and been outlining/plotting for *months*. Oh boy, I have to believe it gets faster than this.)

Cariad Eccleston

I don’t outline anymore, but when I did, I was outlining in about 2-3 days prior to writing my novel. My very first novel took me four to five months to outline. It gets faster. Eventually, you don’t even need to outline. When you write your next novel, apply the lessons you learned from outlining the first time around and you’ll be surprised how much less time it takes. It should get exponentially faster with every novel you write. Great question!

 

The Podcast Now Has a Sponsor

 

And I have one final thing to talk to you guys about.

I also got…drum roll, please, a first sponsor for the show!

I’m only 8 episodes in, and I’m already making it rain.

That Anchor interview I did really opened some doors for me. A listener of the show reached out to me via email, and he offered to pay me two thousand dollars if I would advertise his business. I couldn’t turn this away. I have bills to pay!

Plus, this guy owns a really ritzy restaurant. I think it’s in Colorado or Wyoming or somewhere. I don’t even think two thousand dollars would buy me a napkin at this place. Seriously, it’s that lavish.

He sent me the script this morning and I haven’t had a chance to read it, but I know it’s going to be good, so I’m going to wing it. Here we go.

[CUE COUNTRY MUSIC]

This week’s episode is sponsored by Chesapeake of the West.

Say it with us: decadence. Decadence. After a hard day at work, you deserve the finer things in life. Stop by Chesapeake of the West, where we offer the finest selection of the best oysters the Rocky Mountains have to offer. These spring water oysters are raised under the big sky, and they’re GMO and gluten free!

Gulf of Mexico? Step aside.

The REAL Chesapeake Bay? Get outta here!

Don’t let the naysayers fool you—our pearls are the finest bull testicles money can buy…?

[Needle skip] [End commercial]

Rocky mountain oysters? Let me Google these [CUE KEYBOARD SOUNDS]…what the [expletive]? [Expletive], [Expletive], [Expletive]!!!!

 

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

 

“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.” Pele

 

LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS WEEK'S SHOW

 

New Patrons: Cariad Eccleston – thank you so much!

Visit me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/michaellaronn

Anchor Coming Soon Interview: https://anchor.fm/comingsoon/episodes/The-Writers-Journey-e19duj

Creative Action Takers Interview: https://anchor.fm/creativeactiontakers/episodes/EP5-Michael-La-Ronn-and-the-cracks-in-life-e1b16n/a-a31ulv

Writing into the Dark by Dean Wesley Smith [AFFILIATE LINK]: https://amzn.to/2EVbVHP 

How to Outline a Novel in 10 Different Ways [VIDEO]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhjRZ18JwpY

 

Show's over, but it doesn't have to stop here.

If you liked this episode, you and me are probably kindred spirits.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS WEEK'S EPISODE?

 Let me know!