In cold Halifax, we meet writer donalee Moulton, who talks all aspects of technology. It’s everything tech: from the tech that we take for granted to knowing how detailed our tech descriptions have to be, and from the depths and limits we have on understanding tech to the practicalities of tech that’s helpful in our daily writing lives.

donalee Moulton’s first mystery book Hung out to Die was published in 2023. A historical mystery, Conflagration!, was published in 2024. It won the 2024 Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense (Historical Fiction).

A short story “Swan Song” was one of 21 selected for publication in Cold Canadian Crime. It was shortlisted for an Award of Excellence. Other short stories have been published in numerous magazines, journals, and anthologies. donalee’s short story “Troubled Water” was shortlisted for a 2024 Derringer Award and a 2024 Award of Excellence from the Crime Writers of Canada.

donalee is an award-winning freelance journalist. She has written articles for print and online publications across North America including The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, Lawyer’s Daily, National Post, and Canadian Business.

As well, donalee is the author of The Thong Principle: Saying What You Mean and Meaning What You Say and co-authored the book, Celebrity Court Cases: Trials of the Rich and Famous.

LINKS

Website: donaleemoulton.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/donaleemoultonauthor

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donaleemoulton/

X: @donaleeMoulton

Instagram: donaleemoulton

TIMINGS

00:40 Welcome / Distractions and Disruptions

04:35 Tech Tools

08:22 Tech that we take for granted

13:36 How deeply we need to understand tech in our novels

20:00 Helpful Tech

26:27 donalee’s Writing journey

33:00 A Psychopath for a Protagonist

36:00 Closing

Total Run Time = 37:29

#writing #writingtools #plotting #coverdesign #revision #AI

Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2025/02/607-writers-on-writing-donalee-moulton.html

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Writers on Writing, a series of interviews with active writers on technology, social media, process and productivity, and much more. Here’s a link to the YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7Kctg7OayipF1tU2xl6TKjy

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

A Couple of Bees came for an interview, and we laughed all the way through. Elise Brown is a young writer who has reached the pinnacle that some never achieve: a book on the verge of publishing and another book in revision, an agent who loves her work and a publisher eager to get the books out.

Elise Burke Brown comes from a family of detectives, including a grandfather who filled her childhood with true crime stories she learned not to repeat at daycare. She is the award-winning author of the New Orleans-based Chase Harlem series. She teaches composition at the University of Alabama and runs the popular book blog A Couple of Bees Read, https://coupleofbeesread.com/. You can connect with her on Instagram as @EliseBurkeBrown_Author on on X as @couple_of_bees.

Becky Brown has had several careers in her lifetime: retail management, stay at home mom, a charity organizer, a teacher, and a principal. She loves taking care of her granddaughters, quilting, photography, and reading. She’s new to writing and just started her memoir, Wings of Eagles: My Journey of Faith. Becky currently is president of her local quilters guild and is active in her church. She enjoys working with her daughter-in-law on our blog A Couple of Bees Read as well as serving as her beta reader and acting as her amateur publicist.

TIMINGS

00:40 Welcome / their Podcast A Couple of Bees Read

04:50 Weekly Wine

9:00 Tech and more

14:57 Reading Out Loud

17:48 An agent who supports the work

23:55 A Two-Book Deal

27:00 Elise’s Process

Total Run Time = 30:52

#writing #writingtools #plotting #coverdesign #revision #AI

Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2025/02/606-writers-on-writing-couple-of-bees.html

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Writers on Writing, a series of interviews with active writers on technology, social media, process and productivity, and much more. Here’s a link to the YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7Kctg7OayipF1tU2xl6TKjy

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Travel and Death. We don’t normally put these two topics together unless we’re talking tragic accidents, but Dawn Barclay has found a way to create entertaining mysteries and relate true crime stories.

After talking about Tech and tools, the writing process and productivity, she shares with us the two publications she will have this winter. In January she’ll release her newest domestic thriller, Deadly When Disturbed. February sees the multi-volume nonfiction Vacations Can Be Murder: The True Crime Lovers’ Travel Guide to New England. She will return with more true crime in a Mid-Atlantic edition followed by the Southeast before she explores bloody murder in the Mid-West.

D.M. Barr is the pseudonym for Dawn M. Barclay, an award-winning author who writes psychological and romantic suspense under this pen name and non-fiction under her own. Her published novels include Expired Listings, Murder Worth the Weight, Saving Grace: A Psychological Thriller, The Queen of Second Chances, and Simple Tryst of Fate.

TIMINGS

• 00:40 Welcome / Introduction / Tech Tools
• 5:09 Finding True Crimes of the Past
• 7:53 Trying AI for Translations
• 10:50 Problems with Tech and AI
• 19:30 Tech used in Active Writing
• 23:54 Dawn’s Process
• 25:00 True Crime, RomComs, and Domestic Thrillers

Total Run Time = 31:10

#writing #writingtools #plotting #coverdesign #booknarration #AI

Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2025/02/605-writers-on-writing-dawn-barclay-and.html

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Writers on Writing, a series of interviews with active writers on technology, social media, process and productivity, and much more. Here’s a link to the YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7Kctg7OayipF1tU2xl6TKjy

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Coming in this episode is a wealth of technology resources which only someone with a tech background can provide. Sarah Smith presents a powerpoint packed with resources.

From assists in idea generation and organization, to plot and structure, formatting manuscripts and crafting covers, book descriptions, and audiobook development (so necessary in today’s marketplace), Sarah explains the riches available.

We end with Sarah’s offer to consult with 25 writers through Zoom interviews about all things related to audiobooks.

Check the Show Notes and the website for her powerpoint and special offer.

TIMINGS

00:00 Welcome / Introduction

02:22 Four Requirements of Tech

11:10 Powerpoint Tools begins / Planning and Plotting

18:30 Unusual Helps: Beeftext and Reverso

21:20 Editing / Formatting / Covers / Publishing

29:00 Audiobooks / AI Narration

35:14 Consultation Offer / https://app.simplymeet.me/soundwrights

37:33 Closing

Total Run Time = 38:33

#writing #writingtools #plotting #coverdesign #booknarration #AI

Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2025/01/604-writers-on-writing-sarah-smith.html

Special Offer https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/p/sarah-smiths-special-offer.html

Powerpoint Access to Tools as an mp4 https://youtu.be/S1qe1AFg1EM

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Writers on Writing, a series of interviews with active writers on technology, social media, process and productivity, and much more. Here’s a link to the YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7Kctg7OayipF1tU2xl6TKjy

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Two fountain pens and specific paper to encourage creativity. Computer systems like Linux as best tools. In a wide-ranging interview with everything from fonts to covers, John Connor with the UK press Murderous Ink shares it all.

A connectivity glitch smack in the middle of the interview didn’t derail Connor. We continued on, with manuscript format and the concerns of publishers about document file types. The interview could easily have lasted all afternoon, but alas, Zoom called for an end.

John ‘Jay’ Andrew Connor has been writing and publishing under a menagerie of names and genres since the late 1970s—sometimes even professionally. He’s worked at a variety of jobs, in various locations, and has also published small press, and semi-pro magazines in the past. Sadly, even though he is now on full time medication, he’s at it again.

Memindip and the Persian Poet is the second in the Memindip Quartet—The Death and Life of an Unwilling Investigator series, set in an ‘alternative’ North African city, in 1969. The first of the four, Memindip Solves a Problem, appears in Crimeucopia — We’ll Be Right Back — After This!

www.murderousinkpress.co.uk

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome and Introduction
• 5:40 “Write what you want to write.”
• 11:50 Tech and Critical Failures
• 15:30 Word Processing / MS Format & into Fonts
• 25:00 International Connection Glitching !*#@(%&)
• 27:00 Finding Software that Works
• 36:00 Print “Reads” Differently in Audio Form
• 39:00 Closing

Total Run Time = 39:30

Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2025/01/603-john-connor-on-writing-publishing.html

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Writers on Writing, a series of interviews with active writers on technology, social media, process and productivity, and much more. Here’s a link to the YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7Kctg7OayipF1tU2xl6TKjy

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

In this episode we have All Things Narration ~ clearly, concisely, professionally ~ explained by the award-winning narrator / producer Scott Ellis of Scott Ellis Reads.

From the various unseen and unheard jobs of the narrator before beginning, through major job of recording sessions and re-recording and the pick-ups after, to making the many files easily available for the writer’s use, the role of a great narrator is to help the writer’s story become more accessible to a wider audience.

And Scott Ellis knows all of these jobs.

He’s narrated over 100 audiobooks and coached several authors through the production or narration of their first audiobook. Being a retired teacher, Scott is all about performing and teaching. Scott Ellis Reads, his audiobook production company, started in 2019 and has a team of over 20 people that work in narrating, editing, marketing, and managing the business.

Awards

Audiobook Producer of Magda, Standing - IBPA 2024 Gold Medal Winner Young Adult Fiction Audiobook of the Year

Narrator of Puck and Minnie: All That Is - named 2021 Young Adult Fiction Audiobook of the Year by Audiobook Reviewer.

LINKS

Visit his website:www.scottellisreads.com

Visit his Classroom www.serclassroom.com

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:40 Introduction / Narration as a Business
• 03:15 Technology and Narration
• 07:55 How a Narrator Works
• 11:50 Launching into a Narration
• 16:57 Funny Story about Accents
• 20:05 Taking a Chance on the Narration Biz
• 26:00 A Team of Narrators
• 33:55 No-No's
• 36:33 Closing

TOTAL RUN TIME = 37:29

#narrationforwriters #narrationbusiness #pickinganarrator #voicesforbooks

Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2025/01/602-writers-scott-ellis-talks-narration.html

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Writers on Writing, a series of interviews with active writers on technology, social media, process and productivity, and much more. The previous series was Fall into Poetry, at this link ~ https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7K1x02UAlihWKKom_5keJrg&si=Te8Jo1vLeu3rVkS4

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Welcome to Writers on Writing, interviews with active writers to inspire us all for our great start to 2025.

In this week’s episode, our focus is Marie Still, an award-winning thriller and horror author. She’s a marketer turned writer in the coronacoaster year. She took the giant step upon the urging of a friend.

Marie Still torments her characters from Tampa Bay. She also writes women's fiction under Kristen Seeley. Her novels include My Darlings (currently in development as a television series with Amazon MGM Studios), Bad Things Happened in This Room, We're All Lying (named by Buzzfeed as one of the most anticipated mystery/thrillers of 2023), and Beverly Bonnefinche is Dead (a Silver Falchion Award finalist).

Off the page, Marie can be found attempting to corral her five mostly friendly cats for a cuddle, surviving the affection from her very cuddly 150 lb Rottweiler, or keeping up with her four children. She's also known to surprise her incredibly supportive husband with a new cat, to which he doesn't complain (too much).

TIMINGS

00:00 Welcome

00:41 Introduction / Marie’s technology use

06:18 How Marie Writes

10:00 Roller Coaster Writing

13:00 Deciding to be a Writer

17:33 Marketing a Book vs. a Product

23:13 My Darlings’ Release / Hurricane Interference

27:08 Closing

LINKS

MarieStill.com

Instagram: instagram.com/mariestillwrites

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mariestillwrites

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Writers on Writing, a series of interviews with active writers on technology, social media, process and productivity, and much more. The previous series was Fall into Poetry, at this link ~ https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7K1x02UAlihWKKom_5keJrg&si=Te8Jo1vLeu3rVkS4

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Start 2025 with information about tech tools, productivity, and process as well as a few snippets on craft, all from active writers ... and narrators and publishers. Zoom interviews give us this opportunity.

Write on!