At the start of the year I produced a podcast for my MA module, Creative Web and Interactive Narrative. The twelve week course was a stretch from the usual creative writing options, offered to students from a range of disciplines.
Today, I want to follow on from my career post by offering you a ‘how to’ guide to podcasting. I figured there’s no point in telling you to try new things without giving you a few hints.
Podcasting, for those in the dark, is recording audio and delivering your work to an internet audience. Podcasts are episodic, usually centered around a theme or issue. Podcasts can perform many roles for writers: they can take the place of a blog, chronicle the genesis of a project or just broadcast your zany ponderings.
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Happy midweek to y’all there,
You’re finding lukeym.com in a state of readiness today. Readiness for greatness.
I mentioned in my last post that I’m transforming the site into an online resource for creative writers. Last week I uploaded my first resource, a course guide aimed at getting writers involved with their careers more. I’ll be adding a unique resource every fortnight from here on out, all free and all aimed at getting you lot writing.
In between times I’m going to start blogging regularly about what I do day to day. Many people wonder what it is I do when I’m not in bed or waiting for Dr Who to start. My blog will answer your questions.
Good day to y’all out there in the creative world and hello to uncreative types also.
This week I’ve decided to crack on with developing a set of resources for people interested in creative writing. My aim is to create the kind of site that I wish I had found before starting my masters last year. I want to share the insights that have helped me improve my work and flag up the dangers that come along the way.
For the MA I wrote on essay on how to get writers to focus on their careers. I developed a course that will allow writers to achieve sustainable lives based on creative writing.
What follows in an adapted version of that essay, tweaked for you: my loving audience and wordfans. You can’t take the course until I set up my own university, but I hope you can learn a thing or two along the way.
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Morning Luke fans and welcome to the first guest post on lukeym.com!
The post is from a good, if distant, friend of mine: Toni Witkofski, the well known American.
Toni is a student who’s course and modules make no sense to me (intersession class anyone?). Since taking part in Project Fifty, Toni has found an ever improving voice as a writer of poetry and short prose. Her latest is a typically personal reflection.
read more…
Ha! What a delightfully misleading title this post has. I’ve not been shooting anyone, least of all social media outlets.
The more aware of you will have noticed that Bullet Reviews had a major re-vamp this week. We’ve added video game and music reviews to our repertoire. Don’t worry film fans, I’ll still be providing you with movie opinions more often than not. Anyone that’s seen my music collection will be aware that you can hold it in one hand and four fingers will be touching Westlife CDs.
The games section has already expanded my mind by introducing me to Portal. First off, the whole game is free until the 24th May so download it right now…don’t even finish this sentence…do it now.
Right so you’ve downloaded Portal by now. Luckily for you, that was a wise decision. Portal comes from the makers of Half Life but couldn’t be further away in terms of content. There are no weapons, just a device that allows you to move between Portals that you create. It’s a first person puzzler, the first of it’s kind. If you still need to know more then go for a gander at Jonathan’s review.
Problem is that I spent the last two days playing Portal and not re-writing my novel submission. Thankfully, I’ve finished and can now continue apace. Then again, I’ve just seen that Steam are offering Half Life Anthology for less than a tenner…can I have my cake and eat it?
Luke xx
Friday blows around, like an insistent wind ruining an otherwise good day.
Still, it’s not all Friday gloom for me. I had my novel tutorial yesterday and came away with some good feedback. My tutor, Andrew Crumey, likes the changes I’ve made since the workshop and thinks my main idea is strong. Always nice to hear the kudos.
It’s not all sunshine and buckles though; he is worried about the uneven tone I’ve produced and I have to agree. I’ve been writing the novel in quite bitty manner and this shows from scene to scene. What I’ve done is write scenes set in the past in a slightly different voice, forgetting that the character narrating is remembering them from the present (if you follow). Picture the difference between the opening voice-over in Quantum Leap and the actual episode itself and I’m sure you’ll understand.
That said, I’m working on a plan of improvements and am thoroughly enjoying the process of writing my first full length novel. As always, I’ll update you as things are, well, updated.
On the way out of my tutorial I noticed a striking poster on the wall of the English building. What struck me most was my name in the middle. Several minutes later I clicked that it was part of the Simply Cracking Good Stories project I’ve been involved in. As you’re no doubt aware, this involved writing a story suitable for adult English learners. The linguists I worked with had to produce a poster as part of the module and the result was what caught my beedy eye.
The poster details the process that turned my story into a suitable piece for the project. You can have a gander at a PDF of the poster in question here: The Building of ‘The Angel’. The project will next select a number of stories to be illustrated and published so fingers crossed. Regardless of the result, the project has been hugely enjoyable and very rewarding (thanks in no small part to the A-Team of linguists who did the hard work).
Luke xx
Good Wednesday to you all, I hope you’re in the kind of spirits that won’t destroy your liver or mental health.
Not much to report life-wise at the moment. As the more aware of you will know, I’m still ploughing ahead with Bullet Reviews and reviewed Oldboy yesterday. At uni, the terrible Life of Writing course finished last night and I have 3,000 words of my novel being looked at by my tutor.
I’ll update you with some feedback on such things next time.
Anyways, it’s an interesting week we’ve having here in the UK. Turns out that I might have voted right after all, what with Nick (who I agree with) being in the cabinet. I’m taking it as a win anyway. Is it a win for the country though?
Well that was something of a bust. After all the promise and debates and bigots, the result is pretty much what was expected four weeks ago. And I’m disappointed with you lot. All of you that thought Clegg was the new boy, said you were tired of old party politics, where did you go?
With a few results to go the bbc are reporting a 1% increase in votes for the lib dems. That’s the best you could do? Too many people didn’t believe enough to make a new decision. Maybe it’s Clegg’s fault that he couldn’t reassure the voters enough to turn his polls into votes. For me, too many people go in with labels already glued to their foreheads. Too many haven’t a clue what their votes mean despite the debates. What makes it worse is that the less these people know, the more partizan they seem to become. Slagging off Cameron because they come from a labour area or vice versa. Frustrating stuff. Remember the feeling when we woke up to Obama in the Whitehouse? Well because of you we wake up today with absolutely no change.
In other annoying news, what’s with those small parties? I watched a lot of the election last night and every time they went to a live result, I was bored out of my skull. Why does every seat have about one million candidates? They line up across the stage even though we all know it’s a two horse race in most areas. It makes everything so much slower.
And the votes are read out: “Martin Bumpton, The Douche Party 149 votes”. If 149 people want to waste their vote then do us a favour and stay at home. All these douches keep wasting my time.
Speaking of time, what’s with the people who didn’t get to vote? I heard one woman say she saw the queue at 6, went back at seven, then at 8, then joined at 9:15. And you’re surprised you didn’t get in? Do you even know what a queue is? If you’d have joined it at 6 then you would have voted. But clearly voting wasn’t imperative in the early evening, it was better to let the queue expand and start at the end over three hours later. Another set of morons who shouldn’t even turn up.
Luke xx
Sorry it’s been a while since my last post (again). I’ve had some computer issues that resulted in anger, sadness, money loss and the need to buy an external hard-drive just in case.
Thing is, I’ve been sitting on some huge news since the ‘puter went down. I got my first writing credit last month! I was shortlisted for the Meridian Writing Spring Short Story Competition and I came in third. As well as the sweet £25 I got in my bank account (annoyingly, the same amount that the broken computer cost to fix) I got a massive feeling of success.
Sure it’s not a win, but it’s money for my words. It’s recognition. And most importantly it’s belief that I am a writer after all. There are many theories I’ve heard on what makes you a “writer” and I think a few are designed to keep us too comfortable.
So what’s up peeps? People still use peeps right? I think it’s the bomb.
Time for an update on life again, so much has been happing lately. The other day I went to Plessey Woods and got lost, not long after that I did something else.
In writing news, I got my short story Gathering Senses short-listed for the Meridian Writing Spring Competition. It’s my first ever bit of official recognition for my creative writing. A real confidence boost, especially after the bad news about PhD funding. The winners are announced next week so fingers crossed! I’ve never believed people who say that short-listing is enough but it actually is. It’s the first step on what I assume will be a huge career and I couldn’t be happier about it. Well I could be £100 happier I guess.
