Hide and Create

This week on Hide and Create, Jordan Ellinger, Diana Rowland, Moses Siregar and Joshua Essoe talk about giving feedback. Human beings in general, and writers in specific, don’t especially enjoy being criticized. Thus, as you can imagine, giving feedback can become a touchy process. It becomes an art. In giving feedback, your job isn’t telling the subject of your critique how bad their story is, or to “beat the truth into them,” your job is to make the story as good as it can be. The flip side of the coin is how to receive that feedback, which can be just as difficult a process. Here’s our take on it.

This week on Hide and Create,  Moses Siregar, Joshua Essoe, Jordan Ellinger and Diana Rowland talk rejection! If you’re in this business, if you’re in any creative business, you’re going to get rejected. It’s just going to happen, so you’ve gotta set your stiff upper lip, put on your big boy or your big girl pants and pull those suckers up because it is a bumpy ride. But you know what? It doesn’t matter. Those rejections are marks in your ledger, and each mark in there brings you closer and closer to your success. If you don’t have any rejections you’re not trying hard enough. So get out there and get rejected! (Lamest battle cry, ever. You’re welcome.)

This week on Hide and Create, Diana Rowland, Jordan Ellinger, Moses Siregar and Joshua Essoe talk about making money as a traditionally published author, a tie-in author, an indie writer, and a freelance editor. You’ll hear about our expenses and our revenue streams–we left nothing on the table in this episode!

This week on Hide and Create, Joshua Essoe, Moses Siregar, Jordan Ellinger and Diana Rowland talk about the lies writers tell themselves. We all do it. We are our own worst enemies sometimes. And sometimes our own worst advocates! The point is, don’t feel alone. We’re with you, and so is every other writer that ever was.

This week on Hide and Create, Moses Siregar, Jordan Ellinger, Diana Rowland, and Joshua Essoe continue the show about short story markets with Electric Velocipede editor, John Klima. We finish our discussion of with John and pick his brain about cover letters, hooks, what will turn John off of a submission, common mistakes, and where in the world that name came from. You know of what I speak. Bonus! As requested, William Shunn’s guidelines for short story MS formatting!

This week on Hide and Create, Jordan Ellinger, Diana Rowland, Joshua Essoe and Moses Siregar talk to John Klima, editor and creator of Hugo award winning short fiction magazine, Electric Velocipede, about short fiction markets. Every so often we will invite a prestigious guest to the show to get a fresh perspective and to pick their brain. John Klima created the speculative short fiction magazine, Electric Velocipede, back in 2001, and has edited several anthologies. We go behind the scenes with John on what he likes, how to submit, going digital, hints and tips, and good short fiction markets to which you should submit your work. So do you want to know the secret handshake? Do you want to know what an Electric Velocipede is? Of course you do. Let John Klima tell you.

This week on Hide and Create, Joshua Essoe, Jordan Ellinger, Moses Siregar and Diana Rowland discuss the all-important, and absolutely necessary topic of self-editing. Knowing how to edit your work is just as important as knowing how to write your work; especially as an indie writer author. Even if you plan to turn your manuscript over to a professional freelance editor, you’ve got to do the best job possible on your own before turning it over to your editor. Do your homework: learn your grammar and punctuation, and structure, and fix everything you can. Even be willing to kill your darlings if you need to. Use beta readers. The better the copy your editor receives, the better the quality and more useful the edits you will receive back, and often, the less money you’ll have to shell out.

This week on Hide and Create Joshua Essoe, Moses Siregar, Jordan Ellinger and Diana Rowland discuss writing first drafts. Here is a shocking admission: after I complete an outline, I edit as I write. It works for me, helps me get in the zone to start a writing session by editing what I last wrote. The trick has been to tame that beast of an inclination and keep my forward progression. Because this tactic is so filled with pitfalls, I find myself never suggesting it to other writers. It is far too easy to get caught up in the eternal opening; tweaking things, rewriting and working it to death to make it as shiny as possible. I’ve been caught there, I have the MSs to prove it. It does not smell like napalm in the morning. Or maybe it does, depending on what side of that napalm you’re on. From inspiration to fin, we’ve all got our own processes. Sharpies, dictation, polishing turds, muscle drafts, butcher paper, discoverers versus outliners — on the battlefield that is the first draft, where do you fall?

Today on Hide and Create Jordan Ellinger, Moses Siregar, Diana Rowland and Joshua Essoe talk about inspiration. Can you write while you’re not inspired? Some say writing is a job and you don’t have to be inspired to do it. You just do it. Because you have to. Some things in this writing life don’t need inspiration — if you can’t find your voice or can’t get the words flowing, you can edit, you can promote, you can work on a blog piece. There is always something to do. But where does inspiration come from when you need it? Where can you find that spark to light the fire of your creativity? All over. Do me a favor. Next time you go out, keep your eyes open. Cast out your idea-net and go trawling. I guarantee that if you pay attention you’ll see or hear or taste things that will inspire plots, characters and wonderful, specific details.      

This week on Hide and Create, Diana Rowland, Moses Siregar, Joshua Essoe and Jordan Ellinger discuss Mary Sues and Marty Stus. Who are these super awesome people? Why, they’re you! They’re the best. We all love them. A little too much. They can do everything! In fact it kind of bugs me how perfect they are. It probably bugs you too. Here are some tips to tone those characters down, and how to use this technique for the forces of good instead of evil.

This week on Hide and Create Joshua Essoe, Moses Siregar, Jordan Ellinger, and Diana Rowland debate resonance. Resonance isn’t discussed much, in fact, the only author and instructor I’ve really heard discuss resonance as a writing technique is David Farland. And it can be a powerful tool. Not to be confused with plagiarism, it is catering to your audience by giving them things they’re familiar with in order to ease them into the impossibilities in your own stories. It may sound a little hard to grasp, even a little wackadoodle, but listen on and all will become clear.

This week on Hide and Create, Moses Siregar, Jordan Ellinger, Diana Rowland and Joshua Essoe talk about making your villain a protagonist. If you’re like me you love a good bad guy. But why do you love them? What makes them characters you can connect with, enjoy reading about, and actually like? How can you have the bad guy do something terrible without losing the hearts of your readers? Listen on, intrepid subscribers, and we shall reveal all. Well . . . twenty minutes of all, anyway.

This week on Hide and Create, Diana Rowland, Jordan Ellinger, Moses Siregar and Joshua Essoe talk about the Writers of the Future short story competition. Entering the competition can be a nerve-wracking experience, but those crazy days of repeatedly checking for results can lead to some very strong affirmation. The third story I entered got an Honorable Mention, and after I got over the moment of disappointment that I didn’t win the Gold Award that year, I was thrilled. I was on the right track. I was in the top ten percentile. And I knew that with a few tweaks, my story could be publishable. So this week you can learn some hints and tips for placing, how you can win without even entering the quarter, and what the workshop for the winners is like. We also touch on the sticky issues of scientology and why you shouldn’t hate Diana for winning with her first entry (it’s hard, but try).

This week on Hide and Create Jordan Ellinger, Joshua Essoe, Diana Rowland, and Moses Siregar discuss writing a character of the opposite sex. Jordan talks about the “man with boobs” cliché, while Diana discusses how her background in law enforcement prepared her for writing male characters. Moses shares his thoughts on how he developed the female protagonist of his novel The Black God’s War. Finally, Joshua offers pointers on how to avoid mistakes he sometimes spots in his clients’ work.

This week on Hide and Create Joshua Essoe, Diana Rowland, Jordan Ellinger and Moses Siregar give you a roadmap for how to navigate the confusing world of writing conventions. Discussion ranges from how to act on a panel to whether or not you should cosplay, as well as how to avoid a few common pitfalls. In addition to covering etiquette, “bar con” and the green room, we share a few convention horror stories. Have a question that wasn’t covered in the podcast? Leave it in the comments and it could be answered on a future show!