Many writers—newbies, early wannabees, flash-ins before they flash out—many of these writers never reach the mature writer’s self-analysis stage. These writers don’t learn to seek new methods when the story won’t flow.They don’t seek solutions to plot conundrums and character rebellions.They don’t analyze their writing blocks and seek ways around or over or under or through that writer’s block. Some mature writers don’t do this, either. They stop and wait. For what? Inspiration? The spark of the start of the way out? They should be scaling the problem or dodging it with another project or tunneling to discover a deeper issue with the story or blasting through the Block with fire and passion for writing. We don’t want to confront Writer’s Block. We shrink away, frightened by its lingering. The great unmentioned unmentionable seeks to rule us—will we let it? Not if we have sense. Not if we have a juggernaut of ideas barreling into us, desperate to be released into stories. Newbie or Mature writer, we do stumble into problems. And then we seek advice from other storytellers. Let’s look at advice from another Storyteller who is also a Story Teacher. TIMINGS 00:00 Welcome00:40 Introduction02:10 Wilhelm’s Background03:04 Disruptions08:00 Imposter Syndrome14:22 Slump vs. Block18:20 Silent Partner23:03 Last Words / Closing Total Run Time :: 25:09   SOURCE Wilhelm, Kate. Storyteller. Northampton, MA: Small Beer Press, 2005. info@smallbeerpress.com   Blog https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2024/04/defeat-writers-block-kate-wilhelm.html   Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away. Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers. Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand. For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  . Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com. If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

A funny thing happened on the way through entertainment this past weekend. I read Mary Stewart’s The Stormy Petrel. That’s not the funny thing. Mary Stewart is my all-time favorite author. Wonderful character development, intriguing plots, lovely lyrical writing. She’s a guaranteed satisfying entertainment. My favorite novel of hers is My Brother Michael with The Moonspinners as a close second. (If you’ve seen the film, you haven’t met Stewart’s story.) I read The Stormy Petrel years ago. The story didn’t stick then: IDK the reason. I usually reach for something else when I want a delicious read. This past weekend was different. And now we’re to the funny thing, for the protagonist Rose is a writer. Stewart included several revealing passages about the writer’s life including—get this—writer’s block. Let’s examine what Stewart has to say. TIMINGS 00:00 Welcome00:40 Introduction02:25 Spark the Start05:12 Revive the Memory of Story07:40 Deep into Flow10:20 Finish that Bit; Don’t just Stop11:17 Unfolding Inspiration13:40 Many Projects18:00 Last Words / Closing Total Run Time:: 20:07   SOURCE Stewart, Mary. The Stormy Petrel. New York: Ballantine Books, 1991. https://www.amazon.com/Stormy-Petrel-Mary-Stewart-ebook/dp/B00GVFUEGS   Blog https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2024/04/defeat-writers-block-m-stewart-on.html Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away. Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers. Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand. For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  . Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com. If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

When we’re browsing for information to help our own particular problems, we reach for the weighty titles, the ones that analyze to the nth degree and provide six or seven or thirteen examples. That kind of information scan would miss Judy Delton’s surprisingly valuable little guidebook The 29 Most Common Writing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them. My own bookshelf, physical and electronic, is scant on information about Writer’s Block. That doesn’t mean I haven’t suffered from it, the way many writers have. Most of my earlier years when I plunged into Writer’s Block, I denied that I had it. It was the great “unmentioned unmentionable” such as Erle Stanley Gardner must have faced. … I, too, have looked for processes to spin out a plot or delve into characters. I haven’t gone as far as to create a 15-page outline or 7 Plot Wheels. Nor have I looked for a variety of information on Writer’s Block and how to overcome it. I’ve simply prayed for the opportunities when my writing flows out so easily and hoped, after a stoppage, that I can return to that flowing. I have learned that writing every day prevents Writer’s Block. If we don’t admit to Writer’s Block, can we overcome it? Most of us think we can, simply by ignoring it, keeping it unmentioned and unacknowledged … at least, that’s what we think. The real, actual, only thing that we can do to Defeat Writer’s Block is act upon our Will to Write. I’m not certain that Judy Delton’s little guidebook can be found. It’s not from a major publisher although Writer’s Digest Books is certainly well-known. An internet search turns up cached pages offering the book at used book dealers like Thrift Books and ebay, but the first two that I clicked only catalogued the book; it wasn’t in stock. Anyway, on to part 2 of “Avoid These Mistakes” when attempting to find the impetus to Defeat Writer’s Block. TIMINGS 00:00 Welcome00:40 Introduction03:05 Delton’s 5th Mistake to Avoid07:25 Her 21st Mistake to Avoid11:07 Bridge thru Guidebook / More Advice than on Writer’s Block17:05 Last Words / Closing Total Run Time :: 19:23   LINKS Delton, Judy. The 29 Most Common Writing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them. Writer’s Digest Books, 1985. Blog https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2024/04/defeat-writers-block-avoid-these.html   Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away. Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers. Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand. For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  . Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com. If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Writers read. In reading we are voracious consumers of anything that catches our eye. We may also be hoarders, little dragons perched on a Keep-Forever Book Stack, surrounded by a myriad of smaller To-Be-Read stacks: This Stack First, This Stack Second, This Later, Helpful Stuff, I Wanna But Not Now, Maybe Later, I Dunno, and more. When we climb down from our hoard, we may stop and investigate those TBR stacks and do a little re-organizing. And thus I found an unexpected gem which has a lot to say about Defeating Writer’s Block. The book is Judy Delton’s The 29 Most Common Writing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them. TIMINGS 00:00 Welcome00:40 Introduction04:28 Avoid Mistake #111:40 Avoid Mistake #218:25 Wilhelm’s Law of Ideas21:00 Avoid Mistake #324:46 Last Words / Closing Total Run Time :: 26:52   LINKS Delton, Judy. The 29 Most Common Writing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them. Writer’s Digest Books, 1985. Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away. Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers. Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand. For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  . Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com. If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Here we are with More Techniques from Erle Stanley Gardner. We’re tackling Gardner’s solutions for Writer’s Block. Look to the Show Notes for information about the nonfiction book that is the source for this information. TIMINGS 00:00 Welcome00:40 Introduction01:11 Unmentioned Unmentionable01:54 Notes & Rules on Work07:30 Plotting Machines12:20 Gardner, THE Plotting Machine15:16 Flying Buttresses against Writer’s Block17:10 Last Words / Closing Total Run Time :: 19:17   LINKS Secrets of the World’s Best-Selling Writer: the Storytelling Techniques of Erle Stanley Gardner. Francis L. and Roberta B. Fugate. Graymalki Media, 1975.    Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away. Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers. Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand. For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  . Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com. If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

66,000 words per week140 titles published ~ novels and short stories. Of that number, 100 of them sold over one million copies EACH. Translated into dozens of languagesUsed pen names because he was so prolific he had to disguise his output from editors Who is this great Defeater of Writer’s Block? Let’s try one more clue. 271 TV episodes produced with his trademark character Perry Mason. Have you guessed the writer? Erle Stanley Gardner. To write 66,000 words each week and to publish 140 titles, Gardner had to have methods and techniques to Defeat Writer’s Block. In his early days, before he became best-selling, Gardner had to learn story-telling techniques, all the craft skills of character, plot, conflict, and resolution (endings). He discovered practical methods and adapted them, and those served him well over his long career as a professional writer. Let’s analyze the ones we can adapt to super-charge our own Write Focus. TIMINGS 00:00 Welcome00:40 Introduction03:08 Writing Life Work Habits04:38 Gardner’s 1st Technique07:48 His 2nd Technique09:05 His 3rd Technique (& the most important)10:30 Two Touchstones for Stories13:40 These Touchstones Defeat Writer’s Block15:03 Five Guides for any Story20:05 Last Words / Closing Total Run Time :: 22:48   LINKS Secrets of the World’s Best-Selling Writer: the Storytelling Techniques of Erle Stanley Gardner. Francis L. and Roberta B. Fugate. Graymalki Media, 1975. Lester Dent’s Plot Formula (1st episode) Audio https://eden5695.podbean.com/e/322-short-narratives-part-1-mixed-miscellany-summer-series/?token=787f587776d16329864e1540c7138c9e Video on YouTube https://youtu.be/jA6xHr44XMw Lester Dent’s Plot Formula / printable pdf / https://mgherron.com/2015/01/lester-dents-pulp-paper-master-fiction-plot-formula/ Plot 7 (1st episode) Audio https://eden5695.podbean.com/e/504-plot-7-part-a-discovering-plot/ Archetypal Story Pattern / Greatest Plot Structure in the World (1st episode) Audio https://eden5695.podbean.com/e/stages-1-2-greatest-plot-structure-discplot-447/?token=1f886de066cbc760395ba4fc6edb7519   Link to Blog https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2024/03/defeat-writers-block-how-one-pro-won.html   Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away. Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers. Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand. For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  . Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com. If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

We’re back with more advice from Pro Writers on Defeating Writer’s Block. Let’s launch straight into business. TIMINGS 00:00 Welcome00:40 Introduction00:48 Barbara Kingsolver03:00 William Stafford (poet)03:51 Scott McCormick09:16 Philip Pullman12:06 Charlaine Harris14:34 Last Words / Closing Total Run Time:: 16:40   Links None. Quotations came from a variety of internet sites.   Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away. Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers. Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand. For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  . Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com. If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

In the first part of this series, The Write Focus shared everything we had to say about Writer’s Block and how to defeat that three-headed monster. When we research the topic, we find articles that claim 5 types or 10 types of Writer’s Block. Shudder. I don’t want even to contemplate 10 types. Yet I read the article—so you don’t have to. Guess what? Those 10 types are actually just an expansion of the 3 types we covered in our series—as were the 5 types. And the solutions were exactly what we listed: breaks and escapes, switching projects, overcoming fears and learning new writing skills, pursuing a healthy lifestyle, regaining curiosity, and practicing creativity. We can do this. We can DEFEAT WRITER’S BLOCK. (Shout it!) In this segment, we’ll explore advice from other writers, pro writers who have to meet deadlines and are too professional to churn out boring words. Let’s explore what they say. TIMINGS 00:00 Welcome00:40 Introduction01:53 Neil Gaiman04:16 Ernest Hemingway07:35 Hilary Mantel08:53 Norman Mailer10:00 Mark Twain11:15 Neil Gaiman again15:00 Last Words / Closing Total Run Time = 17:08   Links Quotations came from a variety of internet sites Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away. Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, with all NEW information based on host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers. Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand. For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  . Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com. If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Writer’s Block looms like a sharp-clawed monster over every writer. A daily discipline—No Day without Lines—is extremely helpful, no matter how many you schedule for a particular day. Nulla Dies Sine Linea is our mantra, right? We can overcome a simple refusal to write by maintaining discipline and side projects and our escapes when we’re overwhelmed. We can defeat Procrastination by overcoming the Twin Fears of Failure and of Judgment. If our worries are failure and judgment, those problems are not with our writing but are inside ourselves. Root them out. Our writing is for us. Improve whatever weaknesses we see. When people point out weaknesses, consider these learning opportunities and keep improving. We’ve reached the slimy cave of that real Horrible, Terrible Monster than can destroy everything, not just our writing but our hopes and joys. Type 3 Writer’s Block is Inertia, and Writer’s Inertia kills words and contentment, plans and dreams, grace and well-being. Yet we can and must defeat Inertia. Here’s how. TIMINGS 00:00 Welcome00:40 Introduction02:13 Writer’s Inertia02:40 Healthy Habits Defeat Inertia09:07 Avoid Stagnating Slime13:36 Wrap-Up14:20 Last Words / Closing Total Run Time = 16:25   Links to Think like a Pro, original source with other info added: https://www.amazon.com/Think-like-Pro-Advent-Writers/dp/ Books2Read https://books2read.com/u/4AxWAd   Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away. Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers. Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand. For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  . Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com. If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Defeating Writer’s Block is easy to say, not so easy to do. We writers have to discover the problem we’re having with those pesky little words. 1st, we have to find them—and they do like to hide. 2nd, we have to write them down—whether in a notebook or straight to the keyboard. That’s a whole problem on its own. We can’t count the Block as a simple disruption, a wholesale explosion of our writing time. It’s the Desire and the Initiative to write that’s the problem. In our diagnostic quiz, at the end of the Introduction segment, the weakness of our desire, the weakness of our initiative are driving factors that keep us out of our chair. Type 1 of Writer’s Block is Writer’s Refusal, and I consider it the easiest of the Blocks to diagnose, admit, and defeat. Type 2 is a harder Block to defeat. What is the Type 2 Block? Writer’s Procrastination. TIMINGS 00:00 Welcome00:40 Introduction01:48 Writer’s Procrastination07:05 Fear #109:35 Fear #211:47 Trolls14:06 Last Words / Closing Total Run Time = 16:14   Links to Think like a Pro, original source with other info added: https://www.amazon.com/Think-like-Pro-Advent-Writers/dp/ Books2Read https://books2read.com/u/4AxWAd   Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away. Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers. Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand. For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  . Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com. If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Hey! Our claim is that Writer’s Block doesn’t exist? And you say, “I don’t believe it. I’m blocked. I’m suffering with Writer’s Block.” Believe it or not, the truth is that Writer’s Block does NOT exist. Not. No way. Nope. We can write, but something keeps us from writing what we very well need to write. At the end of our last episode, the introduction to this series on Defeating Writer’s Block, we classified 3 types. Knowing the type that’s affecting us, that’s part of the solution to any Writer’s Block . . . for we can make claims, we can repeat a mantra–but something’s blocking us. The other part of the solution to Writer’s Block is our WILL–even if we don’t want to write, we MUST. We NEED to. We gotta! The only problem with saying “MUST and NEED and GOTTA” is that I’m afflicted with bloody-mindedness. As soon as someone commands must / need / have to / gotta–my bloody-mindedness kicks in. “Oh yeah? I think NOT.” That’s where WILL comes in—and that’s our focus this week. Overcoming Type I of Writer’s Block, classified as Writer’s Refusal. [Did I shout enough?] TIMINGS 00:00 Welcome00:40 Introduction01:53 Writer’s Refusal03:25 Overcome with Escape05:45 Escape Exercise to Try11:25 Overcome the Over-Schedule17:15 When Numbers Help Words22:45 Last Words / Closing Total Run Time = 22:51   Links to Think like a Pro, original source with other info added: https://www.amazon.com/Think-like-Pro-Advent-Writers/dp/ Books2Read https://books2read.com/u/4AxWAd   Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away. Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers. Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.  For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  . Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com. If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Can you name a phrase that every writer fears? Try “Writer’s Block”. We writers all have a deep-seated fear when we hear those two words side by side. Writer’s Block—those should be forbidden to speak together. We have quite a number of pro writers who claim there’s no such things as Writer’s Block, and I’m one of them—but I will admit that I find myself refusing to write or avoiding my desk or just stuck on a story. Distractions and disruptions occur, and before we know it, weeks—not days, weeks—have passed. With few words written, our writing plans are blown. Guilt descends—and the clouds of guilt and disappointment and dismay and more disrupters descend and . . . gosh, we don’t even want to think about it. That’s the purpose of this series: we want to Defeat that Writer’s Block. To do that, we have to look more closely at Writer’s Block than we want to. In this February month of love, let’s look at what prevents us from pursuing our love of writing. TIMINGS 00:00 Welcome00:40 Intro01:46 Writer’s Block Doesn’t Exist08:30 The Truth about Writer’s Block13:55 Diagnostic Quiz16:00 Last Words / Closing Total Run Time = 17:00   Links Links to Think like a Pro, original source with other info added: https://www.amazon.com/Think-like-Pro-Advent-Writers/dp/ Books2Read https://books2read.com/u/4AxWAd Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away. Our current focus is Defeat Writer’s Block, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook Think like a Pro: a New Advent for Writers. Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand. For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  . Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com. If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

In the last episode, we began our look at a process method I call Plot 7. This week we finish the Plot 7 and our series on Discovering Plot. Coming up for February are four episodes on Overcoming Writer’s Block. The Plot 7 is wonderful for sparking ideas for a new novel or novella. It’s too deep for a short story. In the Plot 7 are the 7 most important scenes for the novel. We covered the Beginning, the Very End, and the Roughest Moment / the Ordeal. This episode covers the last 4 … and these are the hardest four. By the time writers finish these 7 scenes, we have a great start on the story. The between-scenes and sequels will remain for us to write—but we’ll know our direction and the whole process of drafting the novel will flow easily. TIMINGS 00:00 Welcome00:40 Introduction03:25 Plot 404:54 Plot 507:57 Plot 610:33 Plot 712:35 Bringing It Together14:50 Last Words / Closing Total Run Time = 16:32   Link to Lester Dent’s Plot Formula for Short Stories Episode 1 / Short Narratives / Mixed Miscellany https://eden5695.podbean.com/e/322-short-narratives-part-1-mixed-miscellany-summer-series/ Links to Think like a Pro, source for the Plot 7, other info added: https://www.amazon.com/Think-like-Pro-Advent-Writers/dp/ Books2Read https://books2read.com/u/4AxWAd Links to the Ebook Discovering Plot https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0838PTN49 https://books2read.com/u/bOJK6K Link to a paperback 8 x 10 bundle for plot / characters / branding / sentence craft, called Discovering Your Writing https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08691892S Trailer https://youtu.be/hTVQn92kNBk   Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away. Our current focus is Discovering Your Plot, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook of the same name. Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand. For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  . Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com. If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

We’re winding up the Discovering Plot series with the Plot 7, a quick way to launch into story and to reach that story’s heart … and discover if it will fly—or crash like my feeble attempts at paper airplanes. Plot 7 comes from the writer’s guidebook Think like a Pro, by M.A. Lee, designed to turn a hobby writer into a pro writer with the necessary mindset changes. We’ll break the Plot 7 into 2 episodes. TIMINGS 00:00 Welcome00:40 Introduction01:17 Plot 7 Raison d’Etre04:18 Plot 105:40 Plot 206:50 Plot 311:58 Last Words / Closing TOTAL RUN TIME = 13:42   Links to Think like a Pro https://www.amazon.com/Think-like-Pro-Advent-Writers/dp/ Books2Read https://books2read.com/u/4AxWAd   Links to the Ebook Discovering Plot https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0838PTN49 https://books2read.com/u/bOJK6K Link to a paperback 8 x 10 bundle for plot / characters / branding / sentence craft, called Discovering Your Writing https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08691892S Trailer https://youtu.be/hTVQn92kNBk   Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away. Our current focus is Discovering Your Plot, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook of the same name. Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand. For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  . Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com. If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Welcome to our 200th episode of The Write Focus. Yippee! We made it farther than I ever anticipated, 200 episodes and into Season 5, and we still have more episodes ahead. AND it’s all thanks to our listeners, who motivate us to keep offering more and more. Over our 200 episodes, we’ve covered craft with plot and characters, process with sentence craft, productivity with challenges, and tools for writers. This episode is an update to an old post, a Blast from the Past, with new insights to make it up-to-date. For those of us raised on western story-telling and conflict and characters, this method will seem an about-face. It works best for shorter tales—stories and novellas rather than novels and epics. As we analyze it, you’ll see the reason I say that. The next two weeks will have another look back at a plotting method from the early days of The Write Focus. The Plot 7 is not a plot structure. Instead, it’s a method for writers to develop quickly the skeleton of a novel or novella. Let’s call it a Process. After a season on craft, it’s time we looked at process. Oh, and it’s a strong way to supercharge your productivity after a season of disruptions and distractions, totally suitable after the holiday season. So, without more rattling on, let’s look at our Blast from the Past, Kishotenketsu. TIMINGS 00:00 Welcome00:40 Introduction02:33 Kishotenketsu06:15 Example 1 from Sanyo Rai09:15 Example 2 from Nils Odlund12:50 Analysis16:30 Last Words / Closing Total Run Time :: 18:15   LINKS Sanyo Rai story = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kish%C5%8Dtenketsu Nils Odlund story = https://mythicscribes.com/plot/kishotenketsu/ Ebook https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0838PTN49 https://books2read.com/u/bOJK6K Link to a paperback 8 x 10 bundle for plot / characters / branding / sentence craft, called Discovering Your Writing https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08691892S Trailer https://youtu.be/hTVQn92kNBk   Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away. Our current focus is Discovering Your Plot, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook of the same name. Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand. For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  . Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com. If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

It’s the last official episode for Discovering Plot and the final 2 stages of the greatest plot structure for writers, the Archetypal Story Pattern. While many of us have our favorite plot structure, all the ones that I’ve analyzed and taught cannot match the adaptability and flexibility of the ASP. Hopefully, with the variety of discussed plots, many writers will see the value of the ASP. In this episode, we have Stages 11 and 12. Stage 11 is the Resurrection of the Evil (and of our Protagonist). This is the culminating battle between the protagonist and the antagonist, and we writers have four tasks in this stage to give our readers a satisfactory ending. For readers, endings lead to the next story—which is our writing goal. Yes, even in romantic comedies or literary fiction, we have battles. We’re writers; think metaphorically! Stage 12 is called Return with the Elixir. This is our triumphant protagonists drinking with the gods to celebrate victory. We’ll have three more episodes before we call this Discovering Plot series complete, done and dusted. For now, it’s on with the episode. TIMINGS 00:00 Welcome00:39 Introduction02:05 Stage 11: Dual Enemies of Evil and Self02:58 Three Examples with Three Lessons09:55 Four Points of the Resurrection16:35 Stage 12: Drinking with the Gods17:20 The Return / The Elixir21:52 Final Points22:50 Last Words / Closing Total Run Time: 24:31   LINKS to the Ebook https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0838PTN49 https://books2read.com/u/bOJK6K Link to a paperback 8 x 10 bundle for plot / characters / branding / sentence craft, called Discovering Your Writing https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08691892S Trailer https://youtu.be/hTVQn92kNBk   Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away. Our current focus is Discovering Your Plot, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook of the same name. Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand. For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  . Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com. If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Welcome to the 5th season of The Write Focus, the podcast for writers of all types, newbies and veterans and everyone in-between. Our FOCUS is productivity, process, craft, and tools. We are justifiably proud of achieving this 5th season. We started in 2020, that dreadful year, so good things do come from bad ones. Apart from our yearly hiatus in the hectic Decembers, we haven’t missed a weekly episode. This week, we officially open this season with Episode 198. How is that for meeting deadlines? OOO, OOO, OOO We start our 5th season with the first of the last episodes on the greatest plot structure in the world, taken from our host M.A. Lee’s craft guide Discovering Plot. In this episode, we delve into Stages 9 and 10 of the 12-Stage Archetypal Story Pattern, Greatest Plot Structure in the World. Stage 9 is the protagonist’s Reward for surviving the trials and the dark ordeal. Our main characters still have a difficult journey ahead, yet Stage 9 gives a respite. Then we descend to Stage 10, the Road Back, seemingly straightforward but still tricksy, still twisty, still dangerous. This wave-like up-and-down pattern of events all through the Archetypal Story Pattern creates pacing and tension. The writers offers rewards to keep the readers from tumbling off the journey. The troubles continue to offer angst and suspense for reader engagement. Don’t make the mistake of cheap thrills and unthinking, uncaring sacrifices now that you’ve brought the reader this far. Love has an emotional reward. Danger and death have consequences. Justice cannot be totally blind. Not for the reader. AND Not for us, the satisfied writer who wants to keep writing, not burn out and burn up our love of story-telling. TIMINGS 00:00 Welcome00:39 Introduction03:03 Stage 9 / Joy after Darkness07:44 Ordeal vs. Reward09:20 The Difficult Reward11:53 Stage 10 / Driving to Destiny13:04 Driving with the Old Desired Dear19:28 How to Find the Right Road Back25:20 Last Words / ClosingTOTAL TIME = 27:00 Examples from Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter series), Jane Austen’s Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice, 13th Warrior by Michael Crichton, The Crown, Castaway film with Tom Hanks, and Tolkein’s Return of the King. LINKS Invocation of Blood, from 13th Warrior :: https://youtu.be/qQekqWha7fg Links to the Ebook https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0838PTN49 https://books2read.com/u/bOJK6K Link to a paperback 8 x 10 bundle for plot / characters / branding / sentence craft, called Discovering Your Writing https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08691892S Trailer https://youtu.be/hTVQn92kNBk   Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away. Our current focus is Discovering Your Plot, from host M.A. Lee’s guidebook of the same name. Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand. For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  . Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com. If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

“Amber Dreams”, chapter 5   Sailing with Mystery is available as an audiobook from M.A. Lee and Writers Ink Books. Visit M.A. Lee (maleebooks.blogspot.com) for more information.

“Amber Dreams”, chapter 4

“Amber Dreams”, chapter 3