Episode #21: 10 Useful Ways to Approach NaNoWriMo

It’s episode 21 of POW Podcast UK and with NaNoWriMo 2018 just round the corner, Marc and Jen look at 10 useful ways to approach National Novel Writing Month. 

Are you planning to write 50,000 words in November to create a novel? Do you need some help with how to plan your month and stay motivated? If so, this is the episode for you!

Listen to us on

• on iTunes
• on Stitcher
• on Spotify
• on Acast

or right here...

We used NaNoWriMo in 2017 with the aim of writing 5,000 words each, and we’re planning to do the same this year. We give you some ideas to help you along the way from our experience and other great tips we found about organizing your writing. We don’t want you to feel like it’s a chore, so follow our advice to really enjoy NaNoWriMo and the community it creates this year.

We talk about pacing yourself, freewriting, using practical support and much more. We also manage to digress into our tsundokus, some terrible singing, even worse inventions and the importance of making sure your dinner choices take exactly 25 minutes to cook so you can write a book while you wait.

Let us know if you’re doing NaNoWriMo at @powpodcastuk during November!

What else can you find in this episode?

• The motivational effect of Disney songs, apart from when Rapunzel makes you feel bad about not doing enough stuff
• The welcome return of Granny Flymo
• Do what you like! Do. What. You Like. (No need to ask me).
• Jen’s Dragon's Den invention to help artists with bad backs
• There’s no place for ego in NaNoWriMo
• The writing guide we refer to is Ready Set Novel and the ISBN is 1452101728

Follow us on twitter and Instagram: @POWpodcastUK

Email us at: powpodcastuk@gmail.com

Find all our episodes: Pow Podcast UK Episodes

If you're reading this far, maybe you have time to like and leave a review on our podcast...also, don't forget to subscribe to our mailing list, to keep up to date with all our latest news.

Music credit: "Clap Your Hands" by Scott Holmes

Episode #10: The Best of POW podcast UK

That's right! It's our best bits! To celebrate our tenth episode...it's our bestest bits!

You can listen to our 10th episode right here...

or at iTunes

or Soundcloud

or now at Acast

or right here...




Thanks for joining us on our journey so far, it’s been lovely having you with us. Since we’ve been podcasting, we have over 40,000 words in our book!

Not only is this episode cram packed with our (and yours, thanks to those that sent us suggestions) favourite bits, we also review how our Jan-Wri-Cha challenge went. Or is it Wri-Jan-Mo, Na-Wri-Ja-Mo…? Who cares…but yay for the great word count… it’s looking good, guys. It’s looking good!

Since we started podcasting, some wonderful things have happened. We improved our sound quality, we got lovely tweets from fellow authors and we wrote a blurb:

 

Four lives intertwine into a tangled web of lust, deceit and betrayal

...Nice!

Also did you know Sophie Kinsella has a new book out? It’s true…!


Follow us on twitter: @POWpodcastUK and tweet us!
Email us at: powpodcastuk@gmail.com
Find all our episodes: Pow Podcast UK Episodes
Join our mailing list

Music: "Clap Your Hands" by Scott Holmes

Please like and rate our podcast. The both of us really appreciate all your lovely support.
...also, don't forget to subscribe to our mailing list, to keep up to date with all our latest news.

Episode #5: The POWer of the Opening Line

Welcome! Let us introduce ourselves…we are Jenni and Marc, we have been friends for years and we’re writing a book…and we have a survey for you!

You can listen to our 5th eppysoda right here...

or at iTunes,

or Soundcloud.

We like to give you many options...


 
This episode includes:
- All the latest goings in the beautiful lives of the would-be-writers
- We chat about Katherine Ryan (and The Last Leg)!
- We talk BOOKS! Specifically, The Humans (Matt Haig), The State We’re in (Adele Parks). The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Rebecca Skloot)
- We mention a few Podcasts too… the Penguin Podcast, MuggleCast, Disney Brit, Richard Herring, Adam Buxton, Nothing But Static, What’s The Tee, The Comedian’s Comedian.
- We talk about our free writing - have you tired free writing? Send us your free writing! …do you free write with tomato sauce?
- We talk about Strictly - we’re supporting Joe McFadden all the way, obviously!
- We discuss our favourite first lines from some books we love: Specifically…The Crow Road (Iain Banks), The Confusion of Karen Carpenter (Jonathan Harvey), How I Live Now (Meg Rosoff), The Five People You Meet in Heaven (Mitch Albom), Confessions of a Shopaholic series: Shopaholic Ties the Knot and Shopholic Abroad (Sophie Kinsella), Holding (Graham Norton), Harry Potter and the Philoshopher’s Stone (JKRowling).
- We share a few tips from other fellow writers.
- Please take a moment to join our survey, about YOUR tips to stop procrastinating. What helps you get on with that task that you might otherwise think you don’t have time for.

Things we’ve learnt from recording episode 5 of POW podcast UK:
- Jenni has a business blog. Check out her article about her writing!
- Have you read our blurb yet?
- Pandoro is a real actual Italian cake of deliciousness
- Here is the place to go, if you want to check today's Amazon Daily Deals
- We now have a Google+ profile, so go and find us there too

Today’s management meeting is supported by drinks that are disguised as other things - mwah ha haa

Find us:
Follow us on twitter: @POWpodcastUK and tweet us some drink suggestions
Email us at: powpodcastuk@gmail.com
Support our podcast by “buying us a beer”

Music:
"Clap Your Hands" by Scott Holmes


Please like and rate our podcast. The both of us really appreciate all your lovely support.

Episode #4: Interview with Mandy Clark

We are Jenni and Marc. We have been friends for years. We’re writing a book…

Welcome to the latest episode of "Procrastinate of Write" (POW...gettit?) with updates on our writing adventure.

You can listen to Episode4 on iTunes, Soundcloud...or right here:

Episode 4 includes:

- An interview with a wonderful friend of the podcast, Mandy Clark who self-published her very own book Mud and Marriage. She talks about her writing process, her obsession with writing and all the other elements that one might not think go into publishing your own book!

- Our first listener question!

- A progress report on how our book in progressing, we’re a third of the way through!

- We have advice from How to be Writer by Sally O’Reilly

- Do books needs lots of themes?

- Free writing! Check out Jenni and Marc’s efforts!

- A heated dispute about the need or lack of, for alternative words for “said”.

- What reality shows would our characters choose to go on? Is it Bake Off?

- …and Jenni finally reveals her favourite word

Things we’ve learnt:

- You don’t have to be going back to school to buy a new pencil case

- Always have something on you, that you can write with!

- The book Marc was talking about, that was written in a free writing style (known as a stream of consciousness) is actually On The Road by Jack Kerouac, not The Road by Cormac McCarthy. If this tickles yer pickle and you want to find out about more popular books written this way, check out this article from Goodreads.com (you’re welcome) 

- Jenni is a walking thesaurus

- When Marc thinks of Ben, he imagines Neil Stuke (or a randomer from The Apprentice) 

- Creative writing courses. Check out what amazon.co.uk have to offer

Thanks and that…

- Shout out to friends of the podcast, Chris Billingham and his awesome podcast, Nothing But Static

- Also thanks to Nina West for our shout out, in their podcast, Dragcast.

- don’t forget to check out Jenni’s blog post about overcoming a fear by writing

Don't forget, here is where you can find Mandy’s book, Mud and Marriage...get it sent to your kindle, immediately! Or visit her website www.mudandmarriage.co.uk to find out more!

Today’s management meeting is supported by ciiiiider.

Follow us on twitter: @POWpodcastUK

Email us at: powpodcastuk@gmail.com

Support our podcast by “buying us a beer”

Music:

"Clap Your Hands" by Scott Holmes

http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Holmes/

Please like and rate our podcast. The both of us really appreciate all your lovely support.

Free Writing, Take Two

It's Jenni's turn to do some free writing!

My first attempt at free writing last week went a bit wonky when, out of nowhere, I wrote a really silly poem about a unicorn and then thought 'yup, can't do any better that that today' and got on with some other stuff.

However, today I sat down, set up a timing and wrote for five minute. It was a weird thing, as it always is. You don't think there's anything there to write, then suddenly a whole situation comes out of your imagination. I really like the concept of what I got down today, and I might explore it a little more in the future. And, yeah, it is vaguely connected to unicorns.

Who would you be if you couldn’t be you? Anya asked herself as soared through the clouds. It wasn’t something a person with wings usually asked themselves, but she had been thinking some tough philosophical questions lately, in between flying through waterfalls and chasing eagles.

 Her long blonde hair rippled in the wind as she dived deep into a ravine. She was always on the edges of society careful that no one would see her. Or at least, that no one would see her flying. She usually kept her wings hidden under huge heavy capes or ponchos. He mother had always pressed on her that she needed to keep her special ability hidden. She was petrified that Anya would be taken away.

 But since she had died Anya had been lost, searching for someone else she could trust with her secret, feeling further and further away from humanity. She gracefully brought her body down to land in a hidden hillside, far from her town, and walked over to the rock where she usually hid her outer clothes. With a sigh she tucked her large feathered wings behind her, as much as she could, and shrugged over her thick brown poncho.

I've checked my spellings, but that's it on this one. I wanted to write that she got her poncho from M&S, but my timer buzzed. Ha!

So, have you started to do a bit of free writing? Do it help motivate you or just confuse your writing plans? Let us know!

Oh, and here's that unicorn poem in full

As always, if you like what we do like and subscribe to our podcast, say hello on Twitter or Facebook or send us a few pounds for our gin fund. Sorry, podcast costs fund. 

Jen xx

Free Writing

Eee up! Marc here, oop north in York!

Jenni and I recorded our latest podcast episode this week, and in it we talk about free writing. Personally, I don't know much about it, but Jenni talks about how she used the technique in a creative writing course from a few years back. 

According to Google, the definition goes like this...

"Free writing is a prewriting technique in which a person writes continuously for a set period of time without regard to spelling, grammar, or topic. It produces raw, often unusable material, but helps writers overcome blocks of apathy and self-criticism. It is used mainly by prose writers and writing teachers."

...and there was me thinking it was just another way to write a story. Well, I guess in some ways it is.

I set the timer on my phone for five minutes and just wrote, so here is my first ever go at free writing...

It was strange. He was my Dad, but it didn't look like him. He asked me where we were going. I didn't know. We just drove. I looked out of the passenger window at what looked like an industrial estate. We drove in, and through a barrier towards a car park. The winding ramp up towards the top floor left my head feeling giddy. Dad asked me if he looked different. I told him he did, but I didn't mind. He parked the car at the edge of the car park. The sunset glowed pink and orange, like a fruit salad sweet. We have to go. Dad started the car. This was confusing, we had only just arrived in the car park, I was about ready to get out of the car to see the sunset without the barrier of the window, but instead the car was put into reverse and off we went, back down the ramp. What's going on, I asked. You just needed to see that, he pointed to the sunset. The view's better up there, and I needed you to see it. Sometimes it's important to see things. We were up there for such a small amount of time thought. It doesn't matter, it's not the amount of time you spend somewhere doing something, it's the fact that you now have another memory to draw on, another sight to behold, another image for you mind to think about. Remember it. We often take for granted the little things. Never forget the little things. They shape us.

I think I may have cheated slightly as before I found the definition of "what is free writing", I kinda edited it with a few commas and changed some spellings. As soon as started writing, I recalled a dream I had a few nights back, so just wrote that without really thinking about it.

Hmm...well, there you have it. Have you ever used free writing as a technique to get yourself writing? 

Keep your eyes peeled for our next episode coming soon...and don't forget, you can:

Find us on iTunes (...don't forget to subscribe)
Follow us on Twitter
Listen to us on Soundcloud

Believe it or not, it's a little bit pricey to run a podcast, so if you like what we're doing, or just fancy supporting us, you can make a small contribution by buying us a drink at "our pub"

See ya next time,
Marc x