One-Drink Book Club

The One-Drink Book Club is an informal, (almost) weekly series in which fellow author Emma Lee Jayne joins me and our other creative friends to talk about the life, business, and art of writing and making books … for the duration of one Friday-afternoon drink.
Here’s what we talked about in this episode:
* Emma and I are finally back in the groove of writing after a long time away … and what the transition back into flow feels like.
* Working with editors and soliciting feedback … and ultimately, who are you writing for?
* Revising a completed draft and rearranging/adding scenes after the fact … and why the idea of ever doing that gives me (Johnny) chills.
* Plotting intuitively vs. overtly
* Writing and publishing as you go … sort of like what Sean and I did with Fiction Unboxed back in 2014 (on Kickstarter, before author Kickstarters were cool).


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit johnnybtruant.substack.com

The One-Drink Book Club is an informal, (almost) weekly series in which fellow author Emma Lee Jayne joins me and our other creative friends to talk about the life, business, and art of writing and making books … for the duration of one Friday-afternoon drink.
Here’s what we talked about in this episode:
* WE RETURN! AGAIN! Remember how on the last episode, we said, “WE RETURN!” and apologized for being gone for two months and then I said, “We’d promise not to do it again, but we absolutely will?” Well, turns out I know us well. So we started the episode by giving updates and talking about how the end of last year was weird. THIS TIME WE’RE ACTUALLY BACK. Maybe.
* Bill’s been writing and talked about the elusive “writer’s high,” which Emma and I both said we were working hard to get back, then talked about how hard it is to find that flow state again. Damn you, Bill.
* I’m impatient with worldbuilding. I didn’t realize until Emma talked about how long it takes to build worlds.
* Why live events are the best kind of book research and business work you can do as an author … kind of like less-shitty focus groups.
* We closed with the idea of being stubborn and writing what you want, as opposed to scoping the market and deciding in advance to write something that will sell. It’s all artists up in this motherfucker, so guess which way we leaned on that one?


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit johnnybtruant.substack.com

The One-Drink Book Club is an informal, (almost) weekly series in which fellow author Emma Lee Jayne joins me and our other creative friends to talk about the life, business, and art of writing and making books … for the duration of one Friday-afternoon drink.
Here’s what we talked about in this episode:
* WE RETURN! Sorry it’s been like 2 months since we recorded last. Life got in the way. We’d promise not to do it again but we absolutely will.
* Big creative leaps across the board since our last recording! Mike published his “memoir in verse,” Second Half. Bill’s still writing the story that’s been in his head forever. Emma was absent this week, but … yeah, I’m sure she did stuff, too.
* After hearing the all-over-the-place way Bill’s been writing, I couldn’t help but compare it to the COMPLETELY OPPOSITE way that I work, and am currently working with Sean Platt’s and my forthcoming Unicorn Heathens. I have to go from A to Z. Nothing changes orders. Ever. We talked a bit about process linearity, but then dove into …
* I’ve gotten into songwriting, in addition to book-writing. The story of why and how is here. But it’s interesting how the two are similar, and how I’m finding myself completely comfortable with writing song lyrics at the same time as I’m brand new and uncomfortable. It’s interesting.
* The clip of Bob Schneider talking about the song camp and how awesome I am is on this episode of his podcast with Clint Wells. The interesting part begins at time index 18:15.


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit johnnybtruant.substack.com

The One-Drink Book Club is an informal, (almost) weekly series in which fellow author Emma Lee Jayne joins me and our other creative friends to talk about the life, business, and art of writing and making books … for the duration of one Friday-afternoon drink.
Here’s what we talked about in this episode:
* I’m currently recording the audiobook of The Artisan Author (check it out here before it ends, if you’re a writer) — stories of recording foibles abound.
* Mike and I talked about the nebulous ideas of “the need to express oneself” and “refilling the creative well.” Both sound pretentious … and both are very real.
* I shared a “keeping track of the story” metaphor I haven’t talked much about before … that of “raking everything constantly back to the center.” (Stephen King doesn’t rake. He sets off bombs.
* And finally, I buried the lede with Mike by casually mentioning my return to the Unicorn Western story world — something I thought he knew, but that was instead an underwhelming announcement.


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit johnnybtruant.substack.com

This week’s episode isn’t actually an episode of the ODBC! I thought I’d share it here, though, because I think faithful One Drink Book Club listeners would enjoy it.
Back in the long-long ago, I used to be on one of the first major self-publishing podcasts … early enough, in fact, that we simply called ourselves “The Self Publishing Podcast.” It was me and two fun, irreverent partners: Sean Platt and David Wright.
And guys, we had SO MUCH FUN on that show. It wasn’t just us, either; it was the audience that made it fun as well. We had a great community … and doing the Kickstarter for The Artisan Author (which is still going for just a bit longer, by the way) got me thinking about that old show and community. So I pitched Sean and Dave on doing a single “reunion episode of SPP” … and this is it.
OH! And if you’d prefer the video version of this show, it’s here.


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit johnnybtruant.substack.com