Internationally Bestselling Quirky Children's Books; Adventurous Heroes Doing Good
In this quick bonus podcast, Carrie interviews Shaun and learns some sad, sad truths about what it’s like being married to a writer like her.
In Episode Six of our podcast, we get a closer look at the differences in speech patterns and get to hear Shaun impersonate his grandmother and totally not understand the use of adjectives in dialogue tags. This sounds vaguely boring, but I promise. It’s probably our funniest cast yet.
Dog Tip For Life:
We communicate with our bodies, not just our words. Communicating effectively gets you more treats.
Writer Tip of the Cast:
To improve your dialogue try to do the following four things. . .
In Episode Five of our podcast, we get a closer look at the interpersonal dynamics of Carrie and Shaun and also insight into the ingredients of a White Russian, which is now called the Caucasian.
The subtitle for this podcast is Sometimes Even Those Who Lack Confidence Must Insist They Are Right
Sidenote: It’s hard to feel confident when people tell you that you lack something – confidence. If you are worried about being someone’s confidence, give them a hug instead of a lecture. Always
However, Carrie turns that thought back around and claims that her lack of some confidence occasionally actually allows her to strive to be better, to keep learning. And her openness about her lack of confidence actually makes her authentic.
She is confident about being authentic, basically.
Dog Tip of the Cast: Be you. Be alpha dog. Don’t be alpha dog. Do what makes you happy and don’t worry too much about negative labels humans might give you.
Writer Tip For Life: Self doubt can help you sharpen your skills. Don’t pretend to be the person you aren’t. Strive for better but don’t deride yourself for the who you are right now.
This episode, Shaun ruins Carrie’s donkey farm dreams by mentioning that there is no money in donkey farming.
This sounds sad, right?
It’s not. Because we also talk about the three awesome elements of conflicted character. See Carrie’s blog post for a more in-depth discussion.
Writing Tip of the Cast:
Conflicted Characters need objectives, motivations, and obstacles.
Dog Life Tip from Sparty:
Do not buy a donkey farm. There is no money in donkey poop.
4. When the nice cashier lady asks you if you found everything okay and how your day is going do NOT get hysterical and tell her about the mean lady saga and then compare it to being invisible and unloved and unworthy and how maybe you should just have an all-dessert lunch to make up for it, so you can be sugar high and guilty feeling as well as depressed over your new invisible status because then the nice cashier lady might call the police who might take you in for disturbing the peace, especially if you stand on the check-out line and try to choreograph a dance in a mad attempt to prove that you are human and you are visible.
5. Just calmly walk out. Smile. Get in car. Do not run red light. Do not bash into mean lady’s car when she decides to stop at a GREEN LIGHT! Yes! Yes! I swear she did.
6. Just go home, crawl into bed. Vow to never go to grocery store again. Feel guilty for being so angry. Wonder if perhaps you need therapy. Wonder if you’ll see mean lady there.
I’ll be hanging out at the launch of THINGS WE HAVEN’T SAID on March 15th and having a panel discussion with editor Erin Moulton, Aaluk Edwardson and Ella Andrews at Water Street Bookstore in Exeter, NH. 7pm! http://bit.ly/2BjZEi2
“How to describe the feeling of not being believed? It is the feeling of disappearing.” -Stephanie Oakes
Moe Berg
My nonfiction picture book about Moe Berg, the pro ball player who became a spy, is still coming out March 1 and I’m super psyched about it. You can preorder it.
In my big writing news, the podcast, DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE, is live!
LIVE!
Please go leave a comment, or a review, and pretend to listen, because I’ve been freaking out about this so hard. It’s on iTunes and Stitcher and Castos at the moment and the RSS feed is also here. The feed has bonus material and free things. It’ll be on GooglePlay if I can ever get the screen to validate to not be just a big webpage of blankness.
Blocking happens in life when we are afraid.
Writer Vasubandhu believes there are five main fears that all humans have:
I don’t have some of those fears, but I know that the fears I do have keep me from reaching out, stepping beyond my comfort zone. Like this podcast is hard for me because I had a teacher who told me I would never be successful or get married or get into college because my voice was so ridiculous.
I proved him wrong, but it still… Sometimes it makes me pause when I have to do something where people will hear me – my actual voice. I think it’s one of the main reasons I became a writer. Writing is quiet. Nobody hears you slur your s’s.
So, those fears? They block us. Don’t let your fear keep you from living your life, telling your story, being who you want to be.
Writing Tip: Think about what you’re afraid of. Think about why. Think about if that fear is holding you back from writing the story you want to write.
Dog Tip: Dogs don’t care about money or passing out or speaking in front of people. Channel your inner dog and do things that give you joy.
Carrie is sadly solo in this podcast where she discusses how one of the weirdest book ideas ever came from Maine’s Common Ground Fair and a man who had a tail.
He also smelled like dead mice, but who is judging?
The book series made the New York Times bestseller’s list and was a best seller abroad, so weird ideas? Those are good ideas.
So, um… the title sort of says it all, doesn’t it?
This solo podcast talks about how I did, indeed, mess up my entire submission, but still (unagented) got out of the slush pile and had a book deal.
A much longer written version of this story is on my website here.
This podcast is all about trying to live a happy, better life and being happier, better people and how you can use those skills in writing and vice versa. But we’re not perfect, just like our podcast. We’re cool with that.
Life doesn’t go the way we want to a lot of the time. Your kid gets a speeding ticket. You can lose your job, your mom, your friend. Life is improvisation and yeah – the whole seize the day thing is a cliché because it’s important.
Life doesn’t go the way we want to a lot of the time. Your kid gets a speeding ticket. You can lose your job, your mom, your friend. Life is improvisation and yeah – the whole seize the day thing is a cliché because it’s important.
So to enjoy life you’ve got to be a good improviser. What does it take to be a good improviser?
Writing Tip – Say yes to experiences and to writing about them. When you look at the page, don’t see emptiness, see possibility.
Dog Tip – Say yes to every new experience! And don’t just say yes, SAY YES!!! Live your life with exclamation marks and joy.
Hey! There’s some bonus content over on my website with links to free things. FREE THINGS!
Carrie talks about how just saying yes allowed her to take a really weird idea for a book and turn it into the internationally bestselling NEED series
So, in this solo bonus podcast, Carrie talks about how she said yes to a really weird idea and how that yes turned into the internationally bestselling NEED series.
Hey! There’s some bonus content over on my website with links to free things. FREE THINGS!
