Confessions of a Working Writer

How exactly do you make a fully realized character without writing a thousand pages?

The secret is prewriting. A process I strongly rebelled against when I was starting out, but have come to love as I…

Now that we're ready to get started, it's time to break things down a little more.

This week we're kicking off the section on Characters! You know, those wonderful creatures that stick in our memory a…

You know what you want to write and you know why. Now all you have to do is start and you'll be on your way.

Go ahead.

Seriously.

You know that feeling you might be experiencing now? The one where your …

So you've decided you want to write. Or maybe you've only thought about playing around with it.

How do you get started?

Getting started is usually the most difficult part of anything. In this week's le…

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I hear a lot of people talk about not reading fiction. There is usually the caveat that they will read fiction if it "has a point." In our current world, w…

There is nothing new in telling people to do the work for their success. It's an age-old trope, but it seems to constantly be reinvented with new spins by every new wave in society. 

Doing your work i…

We talk about being passionate about what you do, about finding your calling and living it. I've been getting back to basics lately and thinking about the difference between being passionate about wh…

What's the value of language? 

I've been getting back to basics lately, to the core beliefs that make a writer. Language has to have meaning and value for a writer. It's our medium. But does it really…

I've been thinking a lot about limits lately.

When I was a young writer, just really starting to learn my craft, I thought limits were garbage. I was better than forms, better than rules, I knew every…

Have you ever wondered why I do this podcast? Is it for the money? Some form of marketing for my business? Is it a companion to a book or program I have for sale?

No.

When I was a kid I used to look ou…

"Are there people anymore? Or are we all just brands now?"

I got an email from a listener. I got an email from a kid just trying to make something, trying to create and chase a dream, who got a harsh …

It's true.

Somebody beat you. Pick the metric and someone has done the thing bigger, faster, better, or sooner than you. Some 20 year-old tech mogul is living a bigger life. Someone has already had a …

I've had a real problem with titles my entire life. Whether it was entrepreneur, veteran, playwright, poet, storyteller, coach, leader, student, or anything else, I found myself, at 39 years old, wei…

I don't believe in writer's block. It's crap. A made-up condition to cover for the fact that you're afraid of the Blank Page staring you in the face. But here's the thing, you're not afraid of that p…

We all spend time diagnosing our problems, crafting convenient explanations for our struggles rather than have them. I'm one of the worst offenders for this. It's easy to find those symptoms of Resis…

Today it was hard to open my eyes, to get out of bed. The space in my head became blurry, gray, lukewarm, and smothering. I'm used to this feeling, far too used to it. We all lose out way from time t…

A number of people have consoled me on my departure from entrepreneurship, telling me that it'll pass and I'll be back in the game soon. 

But leaving the game was the best thing that has happened to m…

I almost didn't get an episode this week. Depression is something I have lived with most of my life, something I've spent a lot of time studying and working on. It's like low tide for me as a human b…

Matt talks about his recent study of stoicism, battles with his ego, getting the work done, and why we let other people hijack our emotions. All in the context of another week as a working writer.

Sup…

Matt talks about the need to stay stupid when aiming for seemingly impossible dreams, returning to the paths we strayed from, and the reminders that come from saying goodbye.

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