Now that there’s a show up, I’ve submitted the feed to iTunes, Yahoo! Podcasts, and Podcast Alley.
iTunes and Yahoo! Are still chewing on my submission, but WFP is up on Podcast Alley:
My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-8f68a3d11b9ee2925ea0f12da442b63d}
As various directories list the podcast, you’ll start to see the sidebar fill up with buttons. So many buttons will we have!
Add comment July 29th, 2007
WFP comes out of the gate strong with guest Jaq Greenspon, an old friend and a versatile freelance writer.
Jaq’s Web site: www.jaqgreenspon.com
Jaq’s published books:
Music by Morgansorange
Add comment July 29th, 2007
Wade interviews freelance writer Jaq Greenspon. Recently Jaq’s been writing for the tabloids, working the red carpets of Las Vegas and getting snubbed by famous actresses. Glamorous!
Show notes at http://writingforpay.org
1 comment July 29th, 2007
I wonder how many times the issuance of a tersely-worded correction about a statement related to UNIX has gotten someone laid.Given the ubiquity, it must be a total chick magnet for someone.
Add comment July 27th, 2007
secret
Originally uploaded by mybloodyself
In the category of “writing gigs that are tough to explain at parties”, Michael Bracken has an essay about writing for “true confession” magazines at the Science Fiction Writers of America site.
A true confession is a short story that’s based on an actual event: writers must sign a release attesting to the veracity of their story. The author writes as the person making the “confession”. (The stories aren’t necessarily as spicy as the name suggests. Their contents remind me of print versions of shows on the Lifetime channel.)
I’d thought that these types of magazines were long gone, but searching for the titles that Bracken mentions on Magazines of America turns up quite a few.
Thanks, Jaq!
Add comment July 25th, 2007
On his Micro Persuasion blog:
Almost every white-collar job today requires good communication skills. There’s nothing new to report there. However, what is new is that much of the way we communicate today in business is in writing through email. So even if you’re not a scribe by trade, you’re a still a writer by default.
I would say something insightful about this - provide a value add, if you will - but I have a wedding to go to and I’m still in my pajamas.
(Via Hugh MacLeod)
Add comment July 21st, 2007
This morning the Slate Political Gabfest discussed Elizabeth Edwards’ claim that her husband John would be a better presidential candidate for women that Hillary Clinton. Slate’s chief political correspondent John Dickerson called this statement “counterfactual.”
In this context, “counterfactual” strikes me as a wonderfully diplomatic word. Ms. Edwards’ statement isn’t “wrong” or “a lie” or even “mistaken” - much more emotionally charged descriptors. It simply runs counter to the facts. But in my mind at least, “counterfactual” pushed all of those other possibilities right to the front of my thoughts without Dickerson needing to say them a out loud. Nicely done!
A little Google searching (as little as possible) turns up a number of different uses for the term “counterfactual”. Counterfactual thinking is the sort of “what if?” speculation that we all engage in when we look back on the events of our lives. (”I should have gone away to college instead of staying at home.”) A counterfactual conditional is an if-then statement indicating what would be the case if the first part of the statement were true. (”If Oswald had not shot Kennedy, then someone else would have.”) Counterfactual history applies this to the study of history. (”What would have happened if Oswald had not shot Kennedy?”)
Add comment July 20th, 2007
Game designer Wolfgang Baur talks about the “muddle in the middle” of large projects in his essay Why Writers Get Paid (which he describes as “a bit of a rant.”)
The early stages of a project are always sunshine and unicorn giggles, laughter and frolic, all the tasty outer frosting of the writing cake. I love the early stages. I don’t have to make any hard choices yet. I don’t have to yank entire sequences, or worse, rewrite them to fit new continuity. No, there’s just the Good Parts of writing: making stuff up, setting NPCs in motion, doing up the fun stat blocks and the clever bits of readaloud.
Unfortunately, at some stage the Good Parts dry up. Every writing cake, as it turns out, has a railroad spike hidden in it, and you have to [eat] the whole thing. Once the frosting is gone, there are dull dry bits of iron left, and even those don’t fit together.
My interview with Wolfgang will appear soon in an upcoming episode. Maybe two episodes. We talked a lot.
Add comment July 18th, 2007
You’ve happened upon the official blog for the Writing For Pay podcast, you lucky so-and-so!
Right now I’m recording and editing the first three episodes of the podcast. I’m also setting up various behind the scenes mechanisms and making important decisions. The main one that I face is, how often will new shows come out? This series is going to be driven by interviews, and it’s hard to imagine that I’ll be doing an interview a week at this point. So, maybe every couple of weeks.
But having set up this site after much labor, I can’t just let it sit here doing nothing while I work on the podcast. When the opportunity presents itself I’ll post a little something about the world of writing for pay. Something that doesn’t require me to think much. Ideally, someone else will say something insightful and then I’ll wave and point at it. Yeah.
Add comment July 18th, 2007
“The only right way of telling a story is to begin at the beginning–at the beginning of the world. Therefore all books have to be begun in the wrong way for the sake of brevity.”
- G.K. Chesterton
Add comment July 17th, 2007
