Tag: podcasting

Don’t Write Like the Undead

Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
Don't Write Like the Undead
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Sometimes you’ll read a book and you’ll think—um, did a vampire write this?

That’s not because it’s sexy and sparkling like the Twilight vampires or sexy and bloody with a rocking 1980s soundtrack like the Lost Boys vampires or sexy and in New Orleans like the Anne Rice vampires, but because the language in the story is so flowerly, so overwrought, so full of clauses that you think, “Only someone over two-hundred years old could have written this.”

Yes, you could argue that M.T. Anderson successfully did this with Octavian Nothing, which won a butt-ton of rewards, but you are not Tobin Anderson.

And that’s part of the point. A lot of us authors look to the classics, to the past and think, “Yo, Charles Dickens, man. Peeps are still talking about him. I should copy his style.”

No.

Also, don’t try to sound hip when you aren’t hip like we just did up there.

If you’re writing historical fiction and like Tobin or Paul Kingsnorth or Dorothy Dunnett, and you think you have a really good handle on the syntax and speech patterns of the time, go for it.

But if you’re writing a contemporary novel about a woman in Maine living with a tall man and two dogs and three cats and one kid and figuring out if writing is worth it? No.

Honestly, even most historical fiction is written in modern language and style.

Why?

Well, that’s because the novel is a communication. It’s you writing for the reader. It’s not just you writing. And you usually want the reader to feel comfortable in that novel, all snuggled in for a cool journey into the character’s world aka your book.

Write like you’re communicating with an audience that’s living right now if you want most readers to enjoy it and keep turning the page.

Here’s an example or what we’re talking about.

While, she stood, one foot upon the ancient sleeping device, and then seemed askance at what stance she had partaken, inhaled a breath so great that it moved her bosom in a terrifying rapturous way, pivoting and climactically inhaling without any scant emotion.

Rather than:

She stood with her foot on the bed. Her face flushed and some sort of scandalous thought crossed her mind. She turned away, sighing so deeply her whole body moved with it.

Okay. Neither are awesome. But one’s a lot easier to understand, right? That’s because it is in the style that’s today’s speaking/writing style, not the style of undead cats and vampires.

Writing Tip of the Pod

Remember that writing is communication. Make it understandable for the people who are alive now.

Dog Tip for Life

Be obvious about your wants. If you want to hang out with the undead, let them know.

SHOUT OUT!

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. 

Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.

WE HAVE EXTRA CONTENT ALL ABOUT LIVING HAPPY OVER HERE! It’s pretty awesome.

AND we have a writing tips podcast called WRITE BETTER NOW! It’s taking a bit of a hiatus, but there are a ton of tips over there.

We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here.

Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That’s a lot!

LINKS FROM RANDOM THOUGHTS

Being Swallowed by a Whale is So Bad Ass – Fear Setting and the Big Lie in Your Novel and Your Life

Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
Being Swallowed by a Whale is So Bad Ass - Fear Setting and the Big Lie in Your Novel and Your Life
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A lot of writers get blocks. Sometimes those blocks have to do with story ideas, with the fear that their idea sucks, that they don’t have the writing chops to pull off a novel.

Sometimes those blocks have to do with worry that trolls will ridicule their story, nobody will read it, everyone will hate it.

Sometimes those blocks have to do with the fear of typos, of not being perfect.

But they all have to do with fear.

As a writing coach, I have to talk to a lot of writers about their blocks and their fears. And recently, I realized that adopting Tim Ferriss’s ‘fear setting’ approach could help a ton of the writers-students that I love so much.

Goals are brilliant, Ferris says. Resolutions? Fantastic.

But nothing happens with those goals and resolutions if you are too afraid to make the steps.

So he delves into those fears and explores them and determines the potential and the risk.

That’s what you need to do with your writing (and your life).

Ferris’s process is quite refined and quite simple. We have links in the podcast notes on carriejonesbooks.blog so that you can find them in Ferris’s own extended version. He also has a TedTalk about them.

But it begins like this:“Define your nightmare, the absolute worst that could happen if you did what you are considering. What doubt, fears, and “what-ifs” pop up as you consider the big changes you can—or need—to make? Envision them in painstaking detail. Would it be the end of your life? What would be the permanent impact, if any, on a scale of 1–10? Are these things really permanent? How likely do you think it is that they would actually happen?

Next, think about what you could do to fix it if that worst-case scenario happens. Write it down. Was it not quite as hard as your fear made you think it would be?

Next what are the benefits, the potential, the outcomes in forever ways and transient ways of all those scenarios and possibilities? Would you be more confident? Happier? Would you have more money? Make a scale of 1-10 and rate those outcomes.

He asks,

What are you putting off out of fear? Usually, what we most fear doing is what we most need to do. That phone call, that conversation, whatever the action might be—it is fear of unknown outcomes that prevents us from doing what we need to do. Define the worst case, accept it, and do it. I’ll repeat something you might consider tattooing on your forehead: What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do. As I have heard said, a person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have. Resolve to do one thing every day that you fear. I got into this habit by attempting to contact celebrities and famous business people for advice.

And how is this hurting you? By not doing something because of your fear how are you hurting yourself? Inaction also has a cost. It’s just a cost that seems easier because it doesn’t seem to rely on as much choice.

Ferris has some fantastic slides from his TedTalk that relate to this, too.

A lot of us who write novels, talk about the big lie that dominates our main character’s life, the wrong belief that dictates and holds the character back.

Fear is our big lie in the story of our lives.

All of us have our own big lie or lies. We worry so much about what might go wrong that we are afraid to embrace what might go right. We live so much in our heads that we fail to live in our world. We allow the fear, the lie, to hold us down. Our fear is also a symptom of our lie.

It’s good to see how that’s holding you back. Just like we want the characters in our novels to have transition arcs and evolve, so should we, right?

Dog Tip for Life

Don’t let your fear control your life.

Writing Tip of the Pod

Use the big lie and your characters’ fears to show their transition throughout the story.

SHOUT OUT!

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. 

Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.

WE HAVE EXTRA CONTENT ALL ABOUT LIVING HAPPY OVER HERE! It’s pretty awesome.

AND we have a writing tips podcast called WRITE BETTER NOW! It’s taking a bit of a hiatus, but there are a ton of tips over there.

We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here.

Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That’s a lot!

RESOURCES AND LINKS NOT LINKED ABOVE.

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Mysterious-black-substance-on-Wells-Beach-is-many-16235442.php

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Dog-ejected-from-vehicle-in-Idaho-crash-found-16237347.php

https://www.capecodtimes.com/story/news/2021/06/11/humpback-whale-catches-michael-packard-lobster-driver-mouth-proviencetown-cape-cod/7653838002/

The strange, weird, dumb things people do for love

Loving the Strange
Loving the Strange
The strange, weird, dumb things people do for love
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Hey! Welcome to episode 12 of LOVING THE STRANGE where we talk about the strange, weird things people do in love and why.

In very sad news, we are in day ten of KETO and Carrie the Carbosaurus is getting cranky.

So let’s start with one of my favorites.

It comes from a Reddit thread.

Ready?

“In 4th grade, I wrote the names of my two girl crushes on my dick…rode my bike to the rail tracks, stared at my dick, whispered their names and said I love you.”

Hear more by clicking on the YouTube link or listening to the podcast.

Thank you all so much for listening! The extra shout-outs go to our high level patrons who also read Carrie’s books in progress and get some art in the mail sometimes.

Autumn Gin

Claire De Brey

Jenn Duffield

Pam Leffler

Joan Stradling

Nancy Stone

Sam Spellacy

Toni Floback

Shay Altair

Rachael Azbill

Resources for this week’s podcast!

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/contemporary-psychoanalysis-in-action/201604/why-love-can-make-you-crazy
What’s the weirdest thing you’ve done for love? from AskReddit
What’s the craziest thing you’ve done for love? from AskReddit
https://www.businessinsider.com/what-love-does-to-your-body-and-mind-2016-13
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/55065/11-strange-things-done-name-love
https://www.scoopwhoop.com/craziest-things-people-have-done-for-love/

LOVING THE STRANGE Shaun Takes Over the Blog

In fact, anything can seem strange at times, but aren’t these sometimes the most incredible moments of life? Does strange have to equal bad or even be a negative? Heck no!

What is strange?

Well, the answer to that question is probably as huge and varied as any other non-fact based question.

In my opinion, strange is everything and everything is strange!

The reason I believe this to be true is because everyone is going to have different answers to what is strange and what is not strange. If you polled a substantial population I think the answers, if grouped and sorted, would be a giant Venn diagram of “normalcy” and “strangeness.” Of course there are so many factors that influence any person’s ideas of normal and strange; psychology, sociology, geography, religion, etc. that I would likely be writing for days trying to cover all of the different influences and I would be doing it with barely more than a layman’s knowledge of most of the subjects, so I am not attempting that.

When I posed the question as my opening sentence, I was simply trying to get your brain to think about the question within the parameters of what you know, think and believe.

For instance, I find it strange that some people profess true love and affection for inanimate objects. But then again, I also find it strange how mainstream love is commonly defined and all of the different variables of this love that satisfy different people.

For instance, Carrie professes to love me and sometimes I can’t understand why she would. I mean, I am the most awesome husband ever, but I do lack so many attributes that others would seemingly look for in a partner. I am not outwardly beautiful. I am not wealthy. I tend to emote my emotions (mostly the negative ones I am told) so powerfully that they are noticeable to even the most casual observer and I can be so attentive to certain that I think I can make people feel badly about themselves simply by trying to put things in order in “my world.”

Of course, these are just a few examples of what is probably a very long list of human defects, defects that while we may not have a lot of them in common, every human being possesses.

How do we overcome these imperfections? Well, around here we have adopted a mantra of love your way through it.

Simply put, it means what it says, love your way through it, but there is another side to that, which is, to be thankful for what you have.

If you have life and you have love, you have everything you need to live another day and to make that day the best day it can be, no matter the circumstances. Okay, I know what you’re thinking, and yes, there are many caveats to this and sometimes love cannot conquer all things, but this is supposed to be a more positive blog post so I am foregoing those topics today. The point is that if it works, sometimes it simply works, no matter how strange it may seem!

Alright, I’ve gotten off track and want to remind you that I was talking about what is strange and not love. Love was just an example of what can seem strange sometimes.

In fact, anything can seem strange at times, but aren’t these sometimes the most incredible moments of life? Does strange have to equal bad or even be a negative? Heck no! Strange can be awesome and amazing and as long as it’s not a strange that causes intentionally inflicted personal pain ,we should embrace it as an opportunity to enrich and fulfill our lives.

In this effort, Carrie and I are starting a new podcast called, Loving the Strange. This will be a live podcast during which we will attempt to delve into the strange, any kind of strange, and dissect it a bit and discuss the potential that it may have to enrich lives.

Of course, not all strangeness is going to be life enriching, some will just be dorky like us, but we believe that if you can teach yourself to approach the new, the different, the strange with an open mind that you might see a new side of this incredible journey we call life.

Our first live podcast will be tomorrow, Friday, February 12th at 7 p.m. eastern standard time. If you would like to join us as we explore this strange that we call life, you can find it on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. All the links to Carrie’s channels are at the bottom of the post. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook.

You can also watch it at your leisure if you can’t make it Friday at 7 on those sites, or just listen to the audio on a whole bunch of platforms starting this Saturday.

So go out there, get your strange on.

As always, thank you so very much for taking the time to read my ramblings and have an awesomely strange day!

Shaun

best podcast ever
loving the strange the podcast about embracing the weird

LET’S HANG OUT!

HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?

MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?

Email us at carriejonesbooks@gmail.com

HELP US AND DO AN AWESOME GOOD DEED

Thanks to all of you who keep listening to our weirdness on the DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE podcast and our new LOVING THE STRANGE podcast.

We’re sorry we laugh so much… sort of. 

Please share it and subscribe if you can. Please rate and like us if you are feeling kind, because it matters somehow. There’s a new episode every Tuesday!

Thanks so much for being one of the 263,000 downloads if you’ve given us a listen!

One of our newest LOVING THE STRANGE podcasts is about the strange and adorably weird things people say?

And one of our newest DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE episode is about fear setting and how being swallowed by a whale is bad ass.

And Carrie has new books out! Yay!

You can order now! It’s an adult mystery/thriller that takes place in Bar Harbor, Maine. Read an excerpt here!

best thrillers The People Who Kill
The people who kill

It’s my book! It came out June 1! Boo-yah! Another one comes out July 1.

And that one is called  THOSE WHO SURVIVED, which is the first book in the the DUDE GOODFEATHER series.  I hope you’ll read it, like it, and buy it!

The Dude Goodfeather Series - YA mystery by NYT bestseller Carrie Jones
The Dude Goodfeather Series – YA mystery by NYT bestseller Carrie Jones

TO TELL US YOUR BRAVE STORY JUST EMAIL BELOW.

Why You Gotta Hate Like That Bad Guys In Writing and Life

Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
Why You Gotta Hate Like That Bad Guys In Writing and Life
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This week we’re revisiting the idea of bad guys in our lives and in our writing because lots of us actually have bad people in our writing and our lives. These antagonists run the gamut from people who make us scream at their Facebook posts of Fakeness to actually physically hurting us and our community. Politics is full of making the other party the bad guy. People at work tend to make other employees or bosses the bad guys. We make bad guys everywhere.

Sometimes we make entire groups of people the bad guy like this week on Facebook a guy who manages an inn had a post that said,

The Facebook Post That Started It All

I have a couple staying with us, celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. The woman came to tell me how she loves the Inn, but has been treated horribly by so many locals. Being told “go home” and have had obscenities shouted at her and her husband. I’ve seen posts in this group and others from people discouraging tourism. My question is.. .Do we want our town to be known as openly hostile towards visitors? Is this how the level of discourse is supposed to be?

Facebook person

And the responses were all over the locals. People saying locals were the bad guys. People accepting and expecting that those tourists’ side of the story was right and the locals were the bad guys. This might be true. It might not.

It’s like everyone just took one story, without verifying it, accepted it as truth and then jumped on the bad guy wagon.

The question is why? Why do we do this?

I’m sure the original poster believes that woman and that woman may absolutely telling the truth or at least her version of it, but why do we all jump in and take it as reality when it’s hearsay and just that woman’s side of the story. I mean, she obviously doesn’t want to think, “Hey, all these people are swearing at me. Maybe I’m actually doing something wrong.” Instead, she cast herself as the victim and the others as being the bad guys. Which could be entirely accurate.

We don’t know.

And that’s just it. In real life, a lot of the time, we don’t know. Things aren’t always as simple as good and evil; absolute right and absolute wrong.

Although, sometimes it really is. There are certain things that are just evil.

One of the biggest questions a lot of new writers have is this:

Do I need a bad guy?

Yes.

But your bad guy can be yourself or your main character.

Like in our random thoughts, Carrie is often showing that she is her own worst enemy. Watching tv gives her anxiety, but she almost always watches tv at night for a couple of hours.

When it comes to life or writing stories, this can help you figure out what the antagonist is.

Here are the steps:

  1. Figure out what your goal or your main character’s goal is.
  2. The bad person is whatever stands in the way of your character (or you) achieving your goal.

So, in life Carrie is her own antagonist because her goal is to not feel anxious at night, yet she still watches television for an hour or two. That’s an example of an inner-antagonist or bad guy.

Also in life, when Carrie doesn’t let Shaun watch American Pickers and makes him watch Pen15 or Teenage Bounty Hunters? She’s Shaun’s external bad guy, keeping him from his goal to chill with those picker guys.

WRITING TIP OF THE POD

Every story needs conflict. Sometimes that conflict and opposing force (what’s keeping your character from their goal) comes from the character themself.

DOG TIP FOR LIFE

There are enough bad guys in the world. You don’t have to make them up.

Sparty Dog
Sparty Dog, our rescue who saw way too many bad people out there.



SHOUT OUT!

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.

Carrie Jones Books is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com

Continue reading “Why You Gotta Hate Like That Bad Guys In Writing and Life”

Five Writing Quotes To Make You Feel Better About Things

Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
Five Writing Quotes To Make You Feel Better About Things
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Carrie is a bit burnt out this week so we decided to take a fast look at the advice and quotes that writers give to each other.

Quote #1

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”
—Stephen King

Mr. King has strong feelings about adverbs. He has strong feelings about a lot of things. Just because a successful man has strong feelings about things doesn’t mean he’s correct.

Quote #2

“Know your literary tradition, savor it, steal from it, but when you sit down to write, forget about worshiping greatness and fetishizing masterpieces.”
—Allegra Goodman

This is just here because it has the word ‘fetish’ in it, but the truth of it is pretty obvious. Don’t write because you want to be John Steinbeck or God or Toni Morrison. Write because you want to be you.

Quote #3

“There are no laws for the novel. There never have been, nor can there ever be.”
—Doris Lessing

Many agents, editors, readers and critics would disagree with Doris.

Quote #4 A and B

“The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.”

“I don’t know about lying for novelists. I look at some of the great novelists, and I think the reason they are great is that they’re telling the truth. The fact is they’re using made-up names, made-up people, made-up places, and made-up times, but they’re telling the truth about the human being—what we are capable of, what makes us lose, laugh, weep, fall down, and gnash our teeth and wring our hands and kill each other and love each other.” – Maya Angelou

These are my favorite quotes about writing ever. Writing is about being understood and communicating truths that go straight inside of the reader and helps them see their truths, too, truths and connections.

Quote 5

“Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.”

― Lisa See

Like any craft, when you read other people’s stories, it helps you see how to construct your own.

WRITING TIP OF THE POD

Advice can be take it or leave it, but try to remember to be yourself.

DOG TIP FOR LIFE

You can learn a lot about your craft by seeing other dogs’ techniques. Don’t be afraid to be learned.

SHOUT OUT

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.

COME WRITE WITH ME! 

I coach, have a class, and edit things. Find out more here. 

WHERE TO FIND OUR PODCAST, DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE.

The podcast link if you don’t see it above. Plus, it’s everywhere like Apple Music, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, and more. Just google, “DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE” then like and subscribe.

Join the 252,000 people who have downloaded episodes and marveled at our raw weirdness. You can subscribe pretty much anywhere.

Last week’s episode about poop, dentists, surgery, flavored alcohol and Jung. 

This week’s episode about generalizations and what men want. 

Last week’s bonus podcast with Jessica Burkhart! 

A link to our podcast about fatal errors, scenes, and ghost reaper sauce

GROWING UP WITH GRIT A BONUS PODCAST INTERVIEW WITH CHANTAL WATTS

Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
GROWING UP WITH GRIT A BONUS PODCAST INTERVIEW WITH CHANTAL WATTS
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Award-winning news producer, blogger, podcaster, human, Chantal Watts is a bit of a force and she joins us on the podcast today and talks about her growing up, which reminds me so much of Jared Leto, and also how to be gritty and strong.

She’s amazing and I hope you’ll check it out.

Chantal’s Links of Awesome.

Chantal’s Instagram

Full Frontal Nerdity!

WHERE TO FIND OUR PODCAST, DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE.

The podcast link if you don’t see it above. Plus, it’s everywhere like Apple Music, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, and more. Just google, “DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE” then like and subscribe.

Join the 251,000 people who have downloaded episodes and marveled at our raw weirdness. You can subscribe pretty much anywhere.

This week’s episode about poop, dentists, surgery, flavored alcohol and Jung.

LAST WEEK’S EPISODE about slug bait, sages and archetypes. 

Last week’s bonus podcast with Jessica Burkhart! 

A link to our podcast about fatal errors, scenes, and ghost reaper sauce

SHOUT OUT

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.

COME WRITE WITH ME! 

I coach, have a class, and edit things. Find out more here. 

NEW BOOK OF AWESOME- THE PLACES WE HIDE

I have a new book out!!!!!! It’s an adult mystery set in the town where we live, which is Bar Harbor, Maine. You can order it here. And you totally should. 

And if you click through to this link, you can read the first chapter! 

And click here to learn about the book’s inspiration and what I learned about myself when I was writing it.

Being Extra

Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
Being Extra
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So, sometimes Carrie is a little extra.

Carrie: I was looking at people who liked me in college – all the ones that I didn’t like back – and they were all so stable and mellow even in college when it was all about putting dissected sharks on the floor and jello shots. Now they are all grown up and they are stable and mellow and have these beautiful upscale lives. They’re doctors, lawyers, engineers.

Shaun: But you have me.

Carrie: Exactly! And I love you. I love that you are unexpected and funny and occasionally dangerous.

What does this have to do with writing?

Carrie has a new book coming out. It’s called IN THE WOODS. She’s being a little extra about it. She is a little extra about everything.

What exactly is extra? Performingfartist says, “Doing the absolute damn most. For no reason.”

Writing is supposed to be extra. It’s supposed to be big and important even for the quiet books, even for the books nobody notices. It’s all about pouring your heart into it. It’s all about this damn quote right here:

Life is very short and what we have to do must be done in the now.

Audre Lorde

Also, we should add that “extra” like a lot of great words and terms originated in AAVE.

When people call you extra, it’s mocking a bit, but it’s also loving a bit. You’re living large. Extra was a super popular term in 2015 and inspired a lot of memes, but it hasn’t gone away yet.

Salt Bae is a perfect example of the beauty of being extra.

I hope the term never goes away. Because being extra means you’re all in. You aren’t mellow. You aren’t boring. You take risks. You embrace your loves and who you are and what you do.

Writing Tip of the Pod:

Be extra! Shouldn’t you want to be as big as possible, as enthusiastic as possible, as all-in as possible when you create.

Dog Tip for Life :

Go all in. Be authentic. Being extra might involve a fake limp to get some love? Whatever. Be authentic in your need if not your limp.


SHOUT OUT

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.


WRITING NEWS

IN THE WOODS – READ AN EXCERPT, PREORDER NOW!

My next book, IN THE WOODS, appears in July with Steve Wedel. It’s scary. It’s a bit paranormal. It’s a bit romantic. And it’s one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019.

There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed! 

You can preorder this bad boy, which might make it have a sequel. The sequel would be amazing. Believe me, I know. It features caves and monsters and love. Because doesn’t every story?

In the Woods
In the Woods


ART NEWS

You can buy limited-edition prints and learn more about my art here on my site.

Carrie Jones Art for Sale

PATREON OF AWESOME

Paragraph

You can get exclusive content, early podcasts, videos, art and listen (or read) never-to-be-officially published writings of Carrie on her Patreon. Levels go from $1 to $100 (That one includes writing coaching and editing for you wealthy peeps).

Check it out here.

WHAT IS PATREON? 

A lot of you might be new to Patreon and not get how it works. That’s totally cool. New things can be scary, but there’s a cool primer HERE that explains how it works. The short of it is this: You give Patreon your paypal or credit card # and they charge you whatever you level you choose at the end of each month. That money supports me sharing my writing and art and podcasts and weirdness with you. 




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