Episode #33: The POWer of the Workspace

While Jenni only cleans her desk when she gets told off by her cleaner, and Marc settles into his brand new tailor-made studio workspace, we talk about the impact that your workspace has on your productivity and creativity.

Listen to us on

> iTunes

> Stitcher

> Spotify

> Acast

or right here...

Looking after and improving your environment is an extension of self-care, and will help you not only avoid procrastination but also being called Mr Treebus (if you don’t know who Mr Treebus is, all is explained in the episode). It makes an impact on your state of mind and when you feel good about where you are, you’re bound to create some amazing things.

We chat about dream workspaces – and they are pretty fantastical, lovely smells, what you can do to make your workspace better, routines and much more. And then we start talking about the Muppets and the new Harry Potter game.

Also this episode:

• Marc makes a stand about excess packaging
• Jenni’s candle recommendations – Emporio Green Army
• Christmas Day viewing and essential Christmas Eve/Day movies

Thanks to our sponsor, BadFish - use offer code POW for 10% off
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @POWpodcastUK
Email us at: powpodcastuk@gmail.com
Find all our episodes: Pow Podcast UK Episodes

Music credit: "Clap Your Hands" by Scott Holmes

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.

Episode #26: How Do You Plot Your Book?

We have hit a wall in our book writing process, so we’ve decided to work on our plots.

Join us this episode to discuss techniques to structure plots and writing advice to plot your novel.

Listen to us on
> iTunes
> Stitcher
> Spotify
> Acast

or right here...


Doing some research for once and looking at techniques from Jericho Writers, amongst others, Jenni and Marc break down some plots from famous novels and try and apply them to their own book. We also look at classic plot structures from Well-Storied.com, using Freytag’s Pyramid, the Fichtean Curve and the Hero’s Journey.

Is our problem that we have so many main characters? Do we need to keep structuring our plot? Is our timeline enough? We try and work out how to finish off our novel, and Jenni then tries to completely change the book by just having one main character. And Marc shuts her down. Quite rightly.

Also in this episode
· Writing down the Status Quo
· Who is the main character in Lord of the Rings?
· Is Harry Potter the main character in the Harry Potter books? (yes, yes he is)
· Our main plot line appears to be ‘he’s being a naughty boy and shagging about a bit’
· Jenni’s kids book plots – The Dog Stuck in the Fence and The Trip to the Post Office
· An update of the effect of the lovely Dr Rangan Chatterjee’s book on Jen and reducing phone time
· Our amazing idea of a pub, where your loyalty card gets you story updates! Plus red wine and steak night!


****


Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @POWpodcastUK

Email us at: powpodcastuk@gmail.com

Find all our episodes: Pow Podcast UK Episodes

Check out Jen's 2018 booklist

Music credit: "Clap Your Hands" by Scott Holmes

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.

Episode #25: What’s The Right Writing Challenge for You?

This episode we talk about writing challenges as we try to get ourselves writing on our book again.

What sort of writing challenges are there? What would suit or motivate you?





Listen to us on
> iTunes
> Stitcher
> Spotify
> Acast

or right here...



POW Podcast UK has come of age – we can drive, drink, vote and not get ID’d in shops for alcohol – well done us!

We’re discussing writing challenges this time – the whys and hows of setting specific goals for your writing. If you want to stimulate your creativity and set some priorities for your writing, a challenge is the way to go.

Writing challenges give you some space to try something different – looking at perspectives, forms, narration and themes that you might not have tried before. Whether it’s something based the style of prose, or something more practical like scheduling in your writing into your day, there’s a writing challenge for you.

After discussing some types of challenges and the theories behind them, we find a challenge that works for us and we’re excited to see how this works for our book!

Also in this episode:

• A lengthy discussion of whether to edit a spoiler out of the podcast – which ended up being left in, as all references to things being edited out always are!
• Our free writing makes an appearance again as we plan to send it to Cheryl Cole
• Our obsession with the dreamy Dr Rangan Chatterjee and his podcast Feel Better Live More
• “Writing is my rockclimbing”
• A Savage Garden singalong
• A Reading Challenge update, with a new entrant, Jen’s husband, reading his first book this year
• More Harry Potter talk, this time the script (The Cursed Child) vs book debate

****

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 #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 #17: Writing Retreats

We're back and better than ever in Episode #17! We talk you through our first mini writing retreat, as well as our experiences at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

on iTunes
on Stitcher
on Spotify
on Acast

or on Libsyn, right here...



Marc and Jenni meet up in deepest Leicestershire to go through our first few chapters. We pod directly from the beautiful retreat, and a pub near the M1, while we edit, rewrite and work through the beginning of Too Much (...apologies for the sound quality in our on-the-road-podding).

Are writing retreats useful? How do you approach them? What’s it like re-reading your first chapters, especially when a lot of them were written about 10 years ago? We cover all these points and more when we do our own mini writing retreat. As well as some plot holes, we discuss the differences in perspective and narrative in the first few chapters and how effective we thought it was.

We also talk about:

• How our book is shaping up 
• Just how BEAUTIFUL our place to meet up was (The Grange Tea Rooms in
• Markfield) 
• We mention cakes far too often 
• Is procrastination something you’re born with? The link to article Jenni mentions is here, from The Stylist 
• Turning our novel into an adult activity book 
• The productive effects of carbs 
• The shows we saw in Edinburgh, including the fantastic Royal Conservatoire of Scotland's Dirty Rotten Scoundrels musical, and the comedy magic show Two Ruby Knockers and One Jaded Dick, and Marc's favourite show of the Fringe, Joe Sutherland's Toxic. 
• The magical mystery tour of Edinburgh 
• Jenni's low point in Edinburgh (walking home in the rain in a Primark pac-a-mac) 
• Chris Addison's blog post about insecurity and unhappiness in the creative process

That's about it. Our next episode will be hitting your devices very soon, so keep an eye out.

Follow us on twitter: @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