Mark Leslie on the Writing Show

For a long time, the 'Getting Published with...' section had not appeared at the Writing Show (feed). In this section, host Paula B speaks with aspiring writers and follows up on their current project. How is the writing progressing? And when the writing is done, how is the search for an agent or a publisher going? The idea is to show the entire process from conception to publishing.

Although I find this the most fascinating feature of the Writing Show, it has also a disheartening quality to it. It shows how hard the writers struggle with their work and ultimately how tremendously difficult it is to get published. It has been two years since we last met Mark Leslie on Getting Published and as he just reappeared, we learn he has, still, yet to finish the novel he was working on. A Canadian Werewolf in New York has mostly been lying around and needed to give way to other projects.

Leslie is full of confidence. He reminds us of what has been said by many writers, it is always good to let a finished (or nearly finished) novel lie for a while. When you return to it, not only will you view it with fresh spirit, you are likely to have grown as a writer and as a person and will be able to improve on the work so far. This is how Mark feels and with this new zeal he will finish the book and tell us about it in his next appearance on the Writing Show.

More The Writing Show:
Short Story Beginnings,
Getting Published with Jean Tennant,
Getting Published with Janice Ballenger,
Getting Published with Mark Leslie,
Psychological Aspects of Writing.

Short Story Beginnings - The Writing Show podcast review

The latest episode of the Writing Show pays attention to that universal question of how to start a story. The title suggests it is only about short stories and that is indeed the main subject, but as a couple of side notes the ideas are applied to novels as well. The pointers are the same, but for a short story the beginning is more critical, for want of a context and a longer tolerance span of the reader.

Short stories are seldom introduced, are not delivered with a cover and a 'blurb', such as novels, but rather appear in newspapers and magazines. The reader is much less prepared to get hooked and therefore, the challenge to give a good opening for a short story is bigger. In two sentences or so, the trigger for the story must be settled. The reader must be drawn into the perspective and into the conflict or whatever tension plays a part.

Host Paula B. interviews writers Melissa Palladino and Randall Brown and they refer to couple of lists in other sources, out of which they rapidly mention some tips, not all. Of all these, some are elaborated upon, most are not. So, this podcast is indicative, but can only serve to make a beginning to your search, if you are looking for new ways to being your stories, short or not. As a tip of the iceberg, it is very nicely done.

More Writing Show on this blog:
More Jean Tennant,
Getting Published with Janice Ballenger,
Getting Published with Mark Leslie,
Psychological Aspects of Writing,
Getting published with Jean Tennant.

The Writing Show podcast review

In the Getting Published series of The Writing Show Podcast we have returned for the eighth time to writer Jean Tennant. Her novel Karaoke Nights at the Twilight Lounge is still waiting to be picked up by a publisher, or even an agent. It has been so long since Jean started, she is beginning to give up on her hopes of getting published the old-fashioned way. In spite of her misgivings about self-publishing, she is beginning to consider it.

Apart from the fact that self-publishing becomes easier, more widely accepted and respected, she also takes into consideration the regional character of her novel. Should she have to take up the publicizing on her own, she still has the advantage of living close to her market. Host Paula B. adds that regional sells well these days, as far as she has been told.

One self-publishing experience Tennant has acquired with the children book she has put out. It was a tough learning experience, but the result is there. Olivia's Birthday Puppy.

More Writing Show on this blog:
Getting Published with Janice Ballenger,
Getting Published with Mark Leslie,
Psychological Aspects of Writing,
Getting published with Jean Tennant,
Self-publishing.

Getting Published

"The more I write, the more I write," Mark Leslie reveals on The Writing Show. The fact he appears on the podcast and the audience is challenging him to keep up his production, he has achieved major advancement with getting his horror novel A Canadian Werewolf in New York ready. It does have some bad effect on his health. Show Host Paula jokes: this must remain Getting Published with Mark Leslie, and not become Getting a Pneumonia. (part 8, part 7)

So the writing show brings the struggles of writers really up close, especially in the Getting Published series. Recently this series has received yet another new author. Janice Ballenger, who is working as a coroner in Pennsylvania and had decided always she was going to write her memoirs about this exclusive job. So she had some journals, but wasn't turning this into a book, as long as she was still on active duty. This changed however with the Amish School Shooting to which she was called.

Now she had to write the book, simply had to. And these feelings become very tangible in the emotional interview Paula has with her on the show. Despite the effects of the shooting and its aftermath still lingering, she has set out to write the book. Writing it was relatively easy, but getting all the technical additional stuff right, less so. This podcast is an absolute must listen for every aspiring writer.

More Writing Show on this blog:
Getting Published with Mark Leslie,
Psychological Aspects of Writing,
Getting published with Jean Tennant,
Self-publishing,
The art of coherence.

Getting Published with Mark Leslie

The Writing Show is a wonderful podcast which covers issues of writing, creative, fictional, non-fictional, from the quest for ideas to the end product including publicizing and making money from the pen. I cannot keep up with all of the issues and in addition there is this fabulous backlog, but I want to keep posting from time to time about this great podcast. One of the most exciting rubrics is the 'reality show'; every now and then host Paula Berinstein speaks with writers Jean Tennant and Mark Leslie about their slippery and meandering road into getting published.

Last week, February 7th, Mark Leslie was on again. Mark is in the process of writing his novel A Canadian werewolf in New York, which once started out as a short story, but is now developed to a full novel taking the narrative further and deeper where the short story left off. Just as the other reality show writer Jean Tennant, Mark has been distracted by other projects in the past months. He has received a rejection regarding another product of his and on the podcast he analyzes the wording of the rejection, trying the various interpretations. Is the included praise a token phrase or a genuine encouragement?

Mark works in a book store and as a result has a more than average understanding of the publishing industry. In this interview he explains the concept of remaindering. (Dutch: ramsj) The bottom-line is, this is a scheme which makes money for book stores, cleans up storage room for publishers and if the writer doesn't make money, at least he may win more following. Apart from these side steps, there is a lot of attention to the comments Mark received on A Canadian werewolf in New York from a listener to the podcast.

More Writing Show on this blog:
Psychological Aspects of Writing,
Getting published with Jean Tennant,
Self-publishing,
The art of coherence,
Book design.

Psychological Aspects of Writing

The Writing Show invited writing coach Jurgen Wolff to speak of the psychology of the writer and the anxieties and confrontations a writer goes through, per chance how to deal with that.

In his opinion, the hardest is to get started and he is convinced almost all writers struggle with that. The next thing is nearly as difficult: keep going. One gets easily distracted. Paula B as an interviewer poses the questions she knows all to well her listeners struggle with. Jurgen gives very confident answers. Eventually, writing is broken down into elements of any other job in a person's life. Great projects and souring careers are divided in small steps, realistic goals, lots of tedious routine tasks and so on. If writing is what you want, what you do best and what you envision to do, here is what must be done.

Practical advice and some publicizing of Wolff's book Your Writing Coach.

The writing show getting published with Jean Tennant

The Writing Show continued with a long forgotten rubric 'getting published with ...' The so-called reality show in which aspiring writers are interviewed following up on their progress writing and getting published. One the two writers currently in the spotlight (though issues of the rubric have been scarce of late) is Jean Tennant. Jean has published a series of novels under the name Jean Simon in the late eighties, early nineties, but after a long period of no fictional writing activity she is trying to return with a newly finished novel: Karaoke Nights at the Twilight Lounge. Getting published with this novel, in spite of her experience in the past, proves so difficult, Jean has taken up new projects on the side.

As to the publishing the novel, she still hasn't managed to find an agent, let alone get a publisher interested. In the early reality shows she explained why she felt she needed an agent: publishers tend to ignore unsolicited work and will mostly attend to the material brought to them via agents. Hence, she chose to look for an agent in stead. Now, after a year, no agent has accepted representing her work. Few of them even did not take the time to make a clear rejection.

In the mean time Jean has rewritten the beginning of the book. Writing show listeners who can read the first chapters on the writing show pages, were a bit taken aback, in the previous shows, but in the latest show, the new version wins acclaim. There is still one agent who has not yet rejected the material. The agent's office has requested to see the full novel and has let Tennant know, she must be ready to wait up to a year before receiving an answer. Tennant by then fears, to want to completely rewrite the work. You know, after having not looked at it for such a long time and gained new perspectives.

Writing Show about self-publishing (again)

On the Writing Show we are beginning to see the subject of self-publishing becoming a genuine thread. There were comments, monologues, a panel discussion and now an interview with the CEO of one of the leading self-publishing companies. Paula B spoke with Susan Driscoll of iUniverse. What sticks with me as a bottom-line is: publishing makes no author rich. He may make a living at best, but neither traditional nor new age style publishing is gonna bring in the big bucks. The J.K. Rowlings and Dan Browns are the exceptions that prove the case.

Go and listen to Susan and to the rest of the thread, if you like, but I haven't heard much new stuff. I can see the positions taken and I am neither drawn to nor repelled by any way of publishing. And my blog, I write it because I like.

What is much more gratifying is that Paula read my comment at the end of the show. It was a reaction to the show about Tolkien and Caroll and the issue of telling versus showing. I have written my thoughts also in my blog and also mailed to Paula. Now she picked that up and broadcasted them. In the next show there is going to be another comment of mine...

The art of coherence

Paula B of the Writing Show, invited author Daniel Arenson to speak about writing fantasy. Arenson has written and published in several media and has recently brought out his first fantasy novel Firefly Island. It is the story of a land ruled by a king turned to stone and his nemesis, the minor girl, who just happens to posess the magic to challenge him. Arenson has adeptly taken on the genre and in the words of Paula, shown a very deep understanding of writing.

Arenson shows also a deep understanding of interview and under this shower of compliments and the ensuing large questions of writing, composition and publishing, he remains cool, calm and collected. What strikes me most is how he is very focussed and never during the interview strays even a millimeter from what he has to say. At times you even feel he might be in charge and he directs the transitions rather than Paula.

On his website, the first chapter of the novel can be read and here he shows a similar quality. He is very true and loyal to the fantasy genre, the tone of voice that fits to it and the choice of setting, character and use of language that naturally entails the field. Yes, indeed, this is sheer talent we see. If it is not entirely to my taste, it is maybe because I feel not enough challenged and feel that maybe Arenson hasn't challenged himself enough. Surely that should not bother him. He very coherently sticks to his tune and that is a craftsmanship that forms the major part of artistry. What frivolous, avant-garde, provocative side of artistry he is capable of, we must find out by closer inspection.

Book design

I have developed a taste for writing in the Arial font. In the past I used to like Times and around me I can see Tahoma and a couple of others that I find readable, but less befitting my own stuff. In short, I have given font some consideration, but I never imagined the consideration could be much of a point in profession, especially today. I mean, once upon a time, before word processing, fonts were a craft maybe.

The writing show features an interview with a book designer called Stephen Tiano. He explains to Paula B of the Writing show how important designing books is and spends hardly any time on covers (what I expected), but rather on choosing the right font. I liked it.

Lay out is important.

Introducing the unknown - a Writing Show sampler

I know from my own experience how tough it is to start a story in a fantasy setting; totally unknown to the public, exclusively known to me - to the extent I have developed it, that is to say. Before you know it, you are showering your readers with bulky fact packages and that is not as elegant as it should be.

Paula Berinstein has dedicated the September 9th issue of the Writing Show to this problem and she takes tow classic examples to help us out. Who are better than Lewis Carrol and J.R.R. Tolkien to show us the way? Indeed, who are. I think the examples are very helpful

There is a funny thing that happens though. It so turns out both Carrol and Tolkien 'sin' in the way of telling in stead of showing. Paula, apologizes and hastily moves on with the description and analysis. But how bad is this after all? Don't we see here when telling is in order, before showing? When the narrator is working on his relationship with the reader rather than delivering the story? Isn't that a legitimate layer in fiction as well?

Plotastic after the votes are counted

As reported before, writer Mark Putnam had a problem getting going with his novel. He came up with the idea of having the readers vote on key elements in the plot. He called it plotastic. Now that the votes are counted, he has made a return visit at The Writing Show to tell about the progress.

"I have written more than a 1000 words a day," he reported. A few days before the voting deadline, when some of the calls were already clear, he had had a brilliant idea. It has boosted his morale and jump started the novel. Now, he is up each day at 5:30 AM, sneaks to the garage, trying not to wake up the house and throws in a good sixty to ninety minutes of writing. He bangs away on an old fashioned type writer, gazing a the voting results, stapled to the garage wall.

So if anybody is out for an idea to get going: see how Mark's approach can inspire you. Personally, I am not sure whether I could deal with the voting system, but the garage and the typewriter connect with me. In any case, I am an early riser when there is serious work to be done. And when in the past I was locked in a distraction free space with nothing more than writing material, I have had the best production ever. (Though in my case it was not a garage, but rather a medieval home on one of Amsterdam's canals, with a 1980's PC in it, that could nothing other than WordPerfect, if it didn't crash. Oh and did I mention the wine cellar? I'd better hush that up...)

The Writing Show - Off the Structure

Anthony Williams wrote the novel Scales about a man who wakes up with scales all over his body and his consequent adventures. My immediate association was with Kafka's Die Verwandlung, but this is a SciFi novel about a man who discovers his own supernatural abilities and finds he needs to save the world from super potent threat. But that is not what the interview Paula B has with him on The Writing Show is all about.

The show is about structure and although Williams seems very apt at writing structurally, the odd thing about Scales is that the story developed out of a dream he had had and that had him freely associating and laboring on the story without any structure until it was nearly half finished. That is why this episode is called organic writing.

Nevertheless, the show maintains structure and structure is more central in the conversation. I was struck by this beginning nevertheless. I wondered whether maybe Williams succeeded so well by working without a structure, because he is so used to it otherwise. He must have internalized structures so that he could leave them as a back burner. If so, then this method may not work at all for intuitive persons like myself.

For me in turn, trusting the intuition, ti would be a good alternative to try working in a very structured way for a change. Food for investigation. Good show. Thank you Paula. And thank you Anthony.

Points of view in fiction

Paula B of the Writing Show did some research on perspectives and narrators in fiction. The next thing is: she lectured about it in the Writing Show.

The best thing about this show is that it made a great impression upon me. Usually I get the fits from these analysis. It has an artificial smack when literature is dissected to the nerves; as if it ruins the magic. But somehow Paula pulled it off and even had me inspired.

Other than that, the podcast was a wee bit long and counts for the vulnerable one. The kind of the monologue. They are good for whatever you need, but tend to lull you when they are long and/or not on your major subject of interest. In other words. This is a valuable edition of the Writing Show for those who are into writing and need some tutoring on the perspectives, but probably less so, for those who are into the entertainment and check in for curiosity on the Writing Show podcast.

Writing for the web

The writing show had a long issue about writing for the web. The major part of it being an interview with Karen Anderson. She wrote for Apple once, and now she is an independent web writer.

It is a great interview and I recommend everybody to listen. At the end there is also a monologue by Jeff Derego - a guest of the Writing Show that has stirred much interest and is soon to be partaking in a panel discussion. If not being there in person, his idea about publishing will be discussed.

But now back to Anderson. Among so many things she mentions is that writing for the web is not a job that'll make you rich. If at all you can charge reasonable fees, you will certainly be helped by a CV that shows you have been employed by a corporate name of note before. In her case it is Apple, but it sure resounded with my experience in the field of careers. Having been employed by one of the major software players, has certainly allowed my standing as it is today. Sound advice reaching even farther than writing work as such.

Getting published with Mark Leslie

The latest edition of the reality aspect in The Writing Show, getting published with Mark Leslie, made for an very interesting different impact on me. So far I have reported the writing show, somehow, mainly succeeded in discouraging me. The show reveals so many of the tough reality of writing, I was left truly disheartened.

The latest interview with Mark Leslie had the opposite effect though. Not because he had some good news to report. Just as Jean Tennant, he has sufficient trouble in getting published. But the conversation with Paula B, the show host, revolved mainly around the more exciting parts of writing. Much of what was discussed, revolved around the creative process and the various ways in which Mark could improve his novel.

he takes all the criticism he is confronted with very lightly and happily dives into the various options for improvement. I was sucked with the examples and much stimulated to think along and contemplate the options and desperately wanted to sit down and write my own version of the story elements. I was doing the weekly grocery shopping for my family though. So it had to wait, until I reached my blog. I can only say now: everybody, go and listen to the Mark Leslie interviews. Not just this one; all of them. Great stuff. Both entertaining as well as inspiring.

What the Writing Show does for us

Man writes because he wants to be read -- female company not excepted. Hence, writing is one thing, getting published is the necessary next. I write because I want to and, I guess, I also want to be read. Do I?

In any case, I listen to the Writing Show in order to get all the advice I need about writing and of course, publishing, but mostly I listen in order to be encouraged. Between you and me: I need all the encouragement I can get. The problem with me and the Writing Show is, that no matter how lovely the show is and it is, cross my heart, its effect on me is mostly discouragement.

From what I hear, maybe for writing I have the right make up, but for publishing? No way! The latest show was yet another lethal blow to my belief, hope and will to publish. Paula B interviews writer Jeff DeRego who debunks the myth of publish on demand (POD), reiterates how hard it is to get accepted with agents and major publishers and then, when summarizing what self-publishing means, comes up with nothing better looking.

You know? I think I write, because I want to. If you like to read what I write, please ask me about it. Other then that, I do not want to wager my precious serenity to hunting editors, agents, publishers and last but not least the public. I do not think I need that. I love creating my gems - if they are gems - and I grow to happily leave it at that. Let the gem be a gem for the discoverer.

Help Mark Putnam finish his novel - Writing Show

The writing show had Mark Putnam, a writer who claims to have too many ideas and as a result of always jumping from one new idea to another never finished a novel. He is 29 years old and can't stand the idea not to have finished at least one project by the age of 30 -- so what to do?

He has his own blog at Plotastic, where we, the readers, can influence his writing. First of all, until July first, by voting on the most important elements of the story. For example, do you want the main character to be the priest and not the physics professor? Go vote! And quickly, because the physics professor is in the lead.

On July first, Mark will start writing with the elements that the voters decided upon. I like this. I wouldn't do it his way, but with my own writing in the PBeM, I see how much more enjoyable writing is when you have a direct and in real time connection with your audience.

Do you want to know more. Look at the blog and listen also to the latest edition of the Writing Show.

Karaoke nights at the Twilight Lounge - Writing Show podcast

Jean Tennant (photo right) wrote a novel (Karaoke nights at the Twilight Lounge) and is now trying to get her work published. How to go about that task? Send the manuscript to publishers? Get an agent? And another thing, while waiting for answers and receiving initial critiques: Should she rewrite some of the novel upon reconsidering?

Jean Tennant arrives as a regular guest on the podcast The Writing Show to report the progress or lack thereof with getting Karaoke nights at the Twilight Lounge published. She is supported by the show's audience, with good critiques and acclaim. Show host Paula B (photo left) interviews her very emphatically and together they discuss Jean's options. Paula calls this the reality show, as opposed to other editions of the podcast where she interviews writers about their end-products.

For an aspiring, forever aspiring, writer such as myself, The Writing Show is both an inspiration as well as a cold shower. The intricacies of writing and moreover of getting published and what more, that is involved in the writing process makes me discouraged. The example of Jean as a particularly discouraging case in point. I mean sofar, I couldn't push myself to finish an entire novel and she has. But then she mostly gets ignored and if at all rejected it is after more than half a year. In the mean time she has begun rewriting the novel and is still alive and kicking. I'd have come to a grinding halt with a broken heart.

The show is lovely though. Paula Berinstein is an absolute dear and I recommend this podcast warmly, especially for writers.