Ever wished for a podcast that focuses whole episodes on improving your writing?
Or episodes devoted to poetry as well as fiction and nonfiction?
Tired of podcasts that talk incessantly about marketing and promotions and conferences when you’re struggling with the basic process?
The Write Focus podcast is designed to meet these needs. Debuting in 2020, TWF offers information on the writing craft, productivity, process, and tools.
The podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.
This year TWF featured two craft series and two productivity series.
The year began with Defeat Writer’s Block. The first four episodes in the series analyzed the three most common types of writer’s block, categorizes into which all types of blocks can belong. Then TWF explained advice and strategies from well-known and prolific writers such as Erle Stanley Gardner and Phyllis A. Whitney, and many more.
Ending the year is the series Fall into Poetry, examinations of poems along with writing insights and ideas for all writers. September surveyed four popular story-songs from Gordon Lightfoot, Stephen Sondheim, Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac, and the writing duo of Matraca Berg and Gary Harrison from the country genre. October and November analyze poems by past greats: William Butler Yeats, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Christina Rossetti, Helen Hunt Jackson, and more.
Centering the year were the two productivity challenges.
The Summer Writing Challenge had a total focus on the various jobs needed for a successful writing business. Writing book descriptions, creating descriptive templates for cover designers, writing newsletters, developing reader magnets, and more are all part of the indie writer’s life.
The Word Count Challenge set a daily drive solely on generating words and gave inspiration to achieve those words as well as discussed all the things that interfere and intrude on a writer’s time. Disruptions and distractions are the bane of every writer’s existence.
Other recent series from the past four seasons include the following—
Discovering Plot: The series offered everything writers want and need to know about plot, without resorting to broad novel-blocking or page-based formulas built on percentages. TWF delved into the necessities of genre expectations and the tools for pacing, tension, and sequencing events before a close examination of the Archetypal Story Pattern, which works with every type of story development, from genre-based to literary-based.
Discovering Characters: TWF explored the many ways to reveal characters to prevent cookie-cutter stereotypes. The Relationships section discussed couples, teams and allies, the various types of leaders and the roles of team members, enemies with their minions and independent villains, mentors, and more. Common and uncommon character development includes such dynamic points as progressions, transgressions, and transitions.
Enhancements: This series on sentence craft broke down the literary and rhetorical devices common to every writer, whether fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. Everything from simple comparisons like metaphors and personification, allusions and imagery, symbols and allegories fill the figurative language episodes. Rhetorical devices were categorized as inversions, repetition, oppositions and sequencing, and explanations of the most common types also provided clear examples.
Short Narratives: In four episodes, TWF examined Lester Dent’s famous plot formula for short stories. We analyzed each section of the formula as well as the essentials necessary to develop a great story.
Enter the Writing Business: The best way to succeed as a writer is consider yourself as a small business owner. This series opened with the basic questions that any writer needs to answer when launching into the writing business before delving into productivity and product development. A couple of episodes even talked such divergent topics as creativity and tax tips. The series ended with the SMART business plan: goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timed.
Occasionally, TWF features interviews with writers. Next year will begin with such topics as artificial intelligence and audiobooks as well as active writers talking about productivity, tools, and directions in their writing. Previous interviews offered newbie and veteran writers opportunities to discuss their writing lives and to promote their latest endeavors.
Currently in its fifth season, TWF produces an episode every Wednesday. A hiatus occurs during the hectic month of December.
Emily Dunn split her writing personality into three. M.A. Lee hosts The Write Focus podcast and writes historical mysteries and writing guides. Edie Roones pens historical fantasy while Remi Black crafts noblebright fantasy.
That’s too many eggs in one basket, but she’s having fun. She’s published over sixty titles of fiction and nonfiction, from novels to novellas and short stories.
TWF is available on a variety of media outlets, including YouTube, Podbean, Spotify, Apple, Amazon/Audible, Samsung, iHeart, Tune-In, and many others. No subscription is needed to access current and previous episodes.
For resources: https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com
Base media outlet, Podbean: https://eden5695.podbean.com
YouTube video channel with a recent episode: https://www.youtube.com/@writersinkbooks
