I’m not really a “podcast guy”. I don’t always have an earbud in listening to Roe Jogan or some guy doing a three-hour monologue on how we don’t know how eels reproduce (True thing, apparently. Who knew?)
I have ended up listening to podcasts on the way to and from work quite a bit. Mostly writing podcasts, weird stories like The Haunted Cosmos and The Dusty Tome, things like that.
Yesterday I gave “The Confident Fiction Author” by Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer a try. I first heard her on the Novel Marketing podcast, talking about story dictation techniques, and thought I’d give her a go. I didn’t have anything other new shows on the docket yesterday, so I queued up her latest episode:
Rating? Two thumbs up. Which takes them off the keyboard; but hey, I need to practice my dictation, so I guess that’s okay. Definitely a good enough first (well, second) experience with her that I’m going to add Saywer into my usual podcast rotation.
In fact—I’m going to recommend you check this episode out, whether you’re a writer or not. The whole thing is short; at less than 30 minutes, it’s perfect for your morning commute or (bleah) workout. If you’re a reader, not a listener, she also has the complete transcript up on her Substack. So, you know, +1 Internet Quatloo for showing us GenX types some love.
What’s in the episode that makes it so useful? Sawyer talks about how we often complain about not having time to get things done, when the reality is that we often don’t have the energy to get things done.
It’s an interesting concept. While time and energy are interrelated, the two are obviously not interchangeable. Her point was that you need to manage both to get things done. While people seem to get the idea of managing their time—hence the complaints about not having enough—they often miss the idea that they need to manage their energy just as much as their time.
As soon as she started giving examples, I recognized some of my own patterns of behavior. How my energy ebbs and flows through the day, and through the week. Some of the example she gave on how to deal with low-energy situations were useful. In one of those fits of synchronicity, Kacey Ezell was chatting with Rob Howell about that same sort of thing last night (“hacking your brain”, is what I think she called it).
So there you have it. Two podcasts to listen to from the “not a podcast” guy. I swear, I can quit any time I want. Now, while you’re waiting for those to load so you can listen to them later, why don’t you enjoy some memes?
So amused by the meme insert day title.
If we're talking recommendations, while I need to listen to them more, when I do, I enjoy "The Great Tales."
https://www.youtube.com/@thegreattales
You might as well. Though if you're into more story analysis or engineering stuff like that....