ISBW #221: Chuck Wendig Interview

By Mur Lafferty On October 14, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Interview, Podcast

Now, this contains an interview with Chuck Wendig, creator of the Terrible Minds blog, and the author of the upcoming Blackbird from Angry Robot. This is the clean, edited interview. Fabulists will get the unedited interview, and it is much longer, as Chuck and I got foul, silly, and brainstormed comics for DC. (I’m sorry, Paul Cornell.)

Chuck and his blog are not safe for work (language-wise, I mean. The photos are fine,) but this interview is mostly clean. I may have let an “ass” slip here and there.

ISBW #221

00:43 State of the Mur: focusing on getting more freelancing jobs, more Playing For Keeps, new schedule.
02:19 Sponsor: ISBW is brought to you by Hover! Visit http://www.hover.com/isbw for 10% off your domain name registrations.
03:12 Writing groups. How to get one (or make one) and rules for workshopping.
Recommended links: Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror, MeetUp.com, and Mur’s Workbook
– $.99

Additional advice from the show notes writer: Writers should submit their work to their writing groups in double-spaced format. Yes, we all want to save paper (either for environmental reasons or just printing costs) but you should be courteous and leave room ON THE PAGE for your readers to make their notes right next to the word/sentence/paragraph that entranced/aggravated/confused them. Also, please do basic spell- and grammar-check. To use Mur’s metaphor, your bookshelf is allowed to have splinters, but asking people to critique a piece that hasn’t been subjected to basic proofreading is like telling friends they can only help you sand down those bookcase splinters after they dig the furniture out from under a gigantic pile of trash. It’s just rude.
15:47 Promo: Serving Worlds by John Mierau

16:19 Interview: Chuck Wendig
Terrible Minds blog, Confessions of a Freelance Penmonkey & 250 Things You Should Know About Writing
Questions for @ChuckWendig from Twitter: time management, sources of energy & passion, whether enough practice will lead to being a good writer, what makes a good story, breakthroughs & moving from unpublishable to publishable work
Outlining
Upcoming novel Blackbirds (published by Angry Robot)
Dealing with editors
Current projects
Online marketing
Upcoming novel Double Dead (a vampire in zombieland)