Author of the podcast novel Billybub Baddings and the case of the singing sword that you can download and listen to on your iPod or iPhone or whatever mp3 player. I listened to the story and thoroughly enjoyed it. Tee mixes the fantasy genre with the private eye, Sam Spade type novel based in Al Capone era, Chicago USA. I like the hats off to Bilbo Baggins in the name used for the title character and the humour doesn’t stop there. Billybub gets up to things you wouldn’t expect from a four foot one dwarf from another realm. Chicago doesn’t know what hit it.

“Chicago, 1929. There are a thousand stories in the naked city; and when you’re a dwarf at four-foot-one, they all look that much taller.”

It is The Era of Prohibition, where crime runs rampant in the streets and a city divided into territories serves as the ultimate prize.

Somewhere in this Underworld of Chicago, an enchanted weapon holds the key to ending The Gangland Wars. In the wake of The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, only one is man enough to stand up against Al Capone…

…a four-foot-one dwarf named Billibub Baddings.

Get ready for The Lord of the Rings written by Mickey Spillane! Poking fun at the hard-boiled detective novel, Fantasy mainstays, and even the legend of Chicago’s 1920 underworld, MOREVI’s Tee Morris returns to the podiobook arena…and this time, he’s bringing a few friends along for the ride!

The art of writing

In the interview we chat about ways of writing, getting the ideas and the stories out there for the public to enjoy. Talking about getting an agent and a publisher and the effect of those things on your writing career. Of course seeing a Billybub is a character in the podcast novel we talk a little about podcasting and how it can be a way to build an audience and a following. J.C. Hutchins (Seventh Son) and Scott Sigler (Ancestor) both get a mention during the interview.

Tee is a Mac user and although we don’t speak much about hardware, Mac usage does get more than a mention. We both are so impressed with the excellent Scrivener writers software and highly recommend it to anyone that writes, either for a living or for pleasure. Keith the author of Scrivener will be impressed with what we have to say about the software.

Contact me if you have questions about Scrivener or if you would like to say which is the favourite book you have downloaded from podiobooks and listened to.

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Kurt has been podcasting since 2008 and his topic of interest and expertise is Web Comics
He has interviewed people like David Reddick who created the Legend of Bill and Star Trek comics
Phil Foglio and many other comic artists.

This version of the podcast is the short version concentrating on the video end of things. There is another podcast that is quite a bit longer in which Kurt talks more about the worlrd of comics.

The reason that Kurt is being featured on the Video20Q podcast is because he told me some of hos plans to extend his podcast with video and is going to do the lone gun video interviews at a comic convention taking place in Chicago. Well not quite lone gun as he will have a friend helping him out with the video. He has an inexpensive JVC camera and will be interviewing artists at the show.

Kurt likes the manga and anime influence on comics is a manga fan, comics such as Dragon Ball but grew up with the Marvel style also

We also talk a bit about comic influenced movies such as, Sin City – Frank Miller
Watchmen – which I have not seen yet but Kurt reckons is too long, dry and painful to watch.
Kick ass Movie – story based on comics

Moving from tape to a hard drive camera bought a JVC for 600 dollar with a 80 gb HD
He is working with a friend called mike to record the interviews at the comic conventions
Carrie Fisher of Star Wars fame will be at the event also.
Kurt is an Audacity user for the editing of audio, he tells me that he loves the Mac and may think of getting one for when he needs to do the video editing. Kurt has been known to make really long podcasts – up to 3 or 4 hours, he was using Talkshoe for the podcsasting but the quality was bad – still uses it for the hosting of the audio podcasts.

He was or is a World of Warcraft player and that got him into podcasting since 2008 has done 97 episodes, starting with WebComicPlanet.com

Here are a few links for those amongst you interested in the world of comics.
The Drunken Fools – created by Antoine Gagnon, this is the comic that I’m helping co-write based on my character submission Stubby the guardian angel skunk.

Web Comic Planet run by Byron Wilkins it’s a combination collective site run by fellow webcomic creators and links through a database over 2200 webcomic sites. This site also has a batch of tutorials and processes for up and coming webcomic authors and artists from veterans in their fields.

1977 The Comic – is Byron Wilkins actual webcomic site. About 1977 in Chicago loosely based on his life.

Danielle Corsetto, wonderful person and very active in the community

Penny Arcade These two are pretty much the godfathers of Webcomics. They didn’t start the community but they have been the most consistent and successful at it.

Eldon Cowgur created this and I’ll let you decide what you think about Astray 3.

Devils Panties – Jeannie Breeden consistently updates every single day without fail for many many years.

Johnny Saturn created by Scott Story This comic could easily rival DC and Marvel

Following the week with no electric there was, certainly as far as I was concerned, too much time in the garden trying to sort out the devastation the storm left behind. Our garden is full of mostly cork trees and a few pines. Five of the pine trees fell down and all  of the cork trees lost branches, such was the weight of the snow. I still hate gardening, even if I get to use a chainsaw.

I did have interviews arranged during the month and the people were unable to keep the appointment. One of them seems to be very busy and the other had a bad cold. These have been re scheduled but has left us without the interview content. That is the problem with the fact that the shows rely on content coming in from external sources.

I did do something different last month also with the production of the Mac20Q ramble as a video. I enjoyed that experience because I did it with green screen in Final Cut Express. Of course it does take longer to arrange such a production, but I thought it came out well enough that I will do more of those. Good to have the video posted out in varoius places too all pointing back to the show notes for the audio podcast. I have bought a set of LED lights to illuminate the green screen and I will post a picture of the set in the studio shortly.

The lack of podcasts was overall for the Answer20Q network and I think I will have to do some catching up. Also though I will have to get a schedule. I plan to chose a day of the week for publishing a Mac20Q podcast and do that once a week. The Video 20Q can be a every other week and the others I will aim for one a month and I’ll see if I can ramp it up when the summer is over.

During the summer I work in a camp site, a bit of cash is nice,  I improve my Spanish and get to practice my German speaking too. It does mean though that the podcasting lessens during the summer also.  I have started work for this year already but until the end of May it will probably only be weekends. That works out quite nicely and I am not looking forward to the working 10 hours each day in a reception that has no air conditioning. The owners are too tight to look after the staff at this place. At least maybe I can write a script or two in the quiet moments. It is a shame though that it will have to be as today written using a Windows computer and a Spanish keyboard which has a few extra characters and a few in different places.

Funny thing about camp sites is that you get used to seeing people walking to the showers in the dressing gown and a toilet roll in the hand. Maybe I should think about a story involving a camp site as a location. I have seen one or two other funny things here.

I have started work on a story /  comedy sketch that I want to make as a short movie. Writing it first in Scrivener as a narrative as the first draft and for the second draft I will make it into a screenplay- script. I will perhaps keep doing that in Scrivener but I might try using Celtx which is dedicated script writing software. Planning to send the script to my son who is a professional cameraman because I can envisage him helping me both with the camera part of the filming and with the acting side of it. I need 3 actors for the job and I could see two of my sons and a friend filling the roles nicely.

I have not  written a screenplay before so I am also in the process of learning how to do that, luckily I found a web site that shows the correct way of doing it as per the industry standard and gives good practice type of tips too. After I have the short film made I will publish the script also on Video20Q.

At least if I get the power back and I can use my computers again I will be able to make some more screencasts showing how to do some things with various software. I have to finish one I started already about using MarsEdit. This will be a bit of a comparison with using Blogo for which I made 2 screencasts last week. I am using Blogo to make this post by the way. Also coming, when I am able to is the interview with Ben from DrinkBrainJuice, the developers of Blogo. He has told me that he will give Mac20Q a copy of Blogo to be won by the listeners.

I have a mind to make some more screencasts about Scrivener the writers software. I only scratched the surface with what it can do in the previous screencasts. I was using Scrivener the other day with a project I am writing at the moment. It is a comedy story which I will first make as a story and when I have finished I will turn it into a screen play. Right from the off I see it as a short movie and I have actors in mind to play the parts. Can’t say more about it right now except that ladies underwear is involved.

When I do the screenwriting part of the job I may give Celtx a bit of a run. Celtx is specialist screenwriting software which gives FinalDraft a run for its money. It read the FinalDraft format and the only downside that there is is that sometimes the output does do such a good job of representing the time in a script. Maybe I should see if I can get a test copy of the software to do a proper comparison. There is another screencast possible out of that.

Thanks to Paul Shadwell for telling me about the Sony AX2000 video camera which looks very good. It is 500 dollars cheaper than the similar Pro version NX5 and has the same lens and many other of the same specs. I think I could live without the GPS and the time code and the ability to add a memory pack to be able to record for up to 11 hours. Mind you with only 500 dollars being the difference it may be worth saving the pennies for a while longer.

I was also interested in looking at the Canon 7D or 5D for video. There are some advantages and some drawbacks to using a DSLR rather than a video camera, but quite a few videographers are very impressed with the video shooting DSLR cameras. With a video camera you will get better, smoother zooming features and much better audio. Getting around the audio is possible though with recording it separately

Clive has an interesting approach to writing, particularly with his choice of tools to do the job. He told me he use Excel to start with to outline the characters, moving on to using scrivener and then on to Final Draft, which is the industry standard for presenting the movie when makng the film. Final Draft gives the timings for the movie apparently.

The Filmutopia company website, where people can see clips from Clives’ movies and there is also a Filmutopia blog, The blog is published with a new post every Sunday morning – European time, which I then discuss with readers on twitter.

Here’s a little bit of blurb about about Filmutopia :

Clive Davies-Frayne is a screenwriter and producer, whose company Filmutopia Ltd develops and produces feature films for cinema. So far, Clive has written and directed half a dozen short films, including one which won a UK Royal Television Society award.. and also two feature films. The first “Punx,” never completed due to funding issues… the second “No Place” was made in HD with a $750,000 budget was completed in 2005, but has spent the last four years mired in distribution issues…

Filmutopia was founded after “No Place” was completed, when Clive decided to walk away from his previous production company and a nine year business partnership, in order to change dramatically the way his movies were made, in particular the business strategies adopted. Clive admits “Everything I ever learned about how to make movies, I learned by first getting it completely wrong”

Filmutopia’s latest movie project, “Smoke” is a comedy and is currently in the development phase… the projected budget, €6M.

“After making movies the indie way for years and seeing little in return for my efforts, I decided to look at different way to make, finance, market and distribute movies. My passions are movies and the movie business… I don’t see the two as contradictions. All I want to do is entertain people and make a profit in the process.”

Please Leave a comment on this post about the Podcast

You really must have a look at her paintings at her web site. She is conveying a dream world as art and with them being in black and white it reminds me of the work by Giger the artist that created the creature in the movie Alien. Karen is having an exhibition this month of her art work and if you live near enough you are invited to go and have a look.

Karen also writes screen plays for movies and has a script for a romantic comedy, where does she find the time to do all these things?

The podcast is supported by sponsors GoToMeeting

Have a look at the free 30 day trial

Highly Toxic

Gallery Godo
6749 San Fernando Rd.#C  Glendale, CA 91201
Opening Night: September 25, 2009
7 pm to midnight - Please join us! http://gallerygodo.net/

In this series Alan Ayckbourn talks about the economy of play writing. Jane Rogers talks about her work as a novelist. Poet and presenter Ian MacMillan has a light hearted look at the use of repetition in his poems.

There are eighteen episodes to listen to and they cover a variety of topics.

All in all a set of podcasts well worth listening to. You can get them here.

Chris Graue has a novel on Twitter and has a film production web site called 51 productions.  Chris likes to write collaboratively and has made some TV and film scripts.

He tells me that he though it would be a silly thing to do, to put up a novel on Twitter but says that it has improved his writing due to the constraints of getting it into 140 characters. The other thing is that it is hard to find the start of the novel, and harder the longer it gets, because Twitter puts up the last tweet at the top of the pile and you have to read from the oldest page to the newest and also from top to bottom.

Comedy is an area that Chris like working with and wants to work towards making TV and film scripts that get produced for public consumption, perhaps with him acting and directing the final work too.

Chris must be a bit shy because this is the picture he gave me of himself. I wonder why he is wearing crown, or is that just a funny punk hairstyle?

The Sponsor of the show is GoDaddy who I use for my domains and web hosting. It is a good place to get your own space online and the only thing that bugs me is the number of steps you have to take to get to the check out. Easy enough though to ignore all the extras and just get what you have on your order, a domain name and or some web hosting.

I have numerous domains bought at GoDaddy and all hosted on my hosting account which I have been using for at least 3 years. If you put in the code POD146 when you get to the checkout you will get a 10% discount on your order.

Chris also has a MySpace page called Naronicdisress

I had a great chat with Matthew and we discussed the writing as well as the audio podcast end of things. Matthew highly recommends the giving away of the book as a free podcast in order to build an audience and a brand.

he has been able to get a publishing deal through this type of promoting because the publishing company will see that part of their work is done if an author already has a following that will probably buy his or her books.

I recommend that you support Matthew by having a look at Cloudy Days and Hazy Nights web site. You can become a member and get additional material to what we will find in the free podcast copy of the story. The free podcast will also be about a month behind the members only version. So if you are patient ??

I persuaded her to get a blog set up to start building her brand and get known as a writer. Abbies’ Blog.

I found it refreshing talking to a young person that has creativity in mind and a desire to produce something for public consumption.  I think that a writer has to develop a thick skin though because there will be lots of rejection notices from publishing house before it finally get taken and a book gets published. But if you stick in there and keep working at it then it will work out eventually.

In the interview I talk about the audiobook route that people like Matthew Wayne Selznick, Scott Sigler and JC Hutchins have taken. Seems to work well for them, as on the back of their podcasted books given for free they have developed a following and have got sales of printed materials and book deals. I am tempted to go that route myself, though I am not sure what sort of story would suit my Brummie accent.

Enjoy the podcast with the interview of Abbie Clarke.

Here is the video of the draw.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The developer of Scrivener

I got talking to Keith Blount the developer of Scrivener, the excellent writers software for the Mac.

He tells me that he is a wanna be writer and a coder but not necessarily in that order. Used to be a teacher in primary school and gave up the high life to be a code monkey.

Talking about Scrivener

The idea behind Scrivener is that you write the long novel in chunks and you can use Scrivener to organise the whole thing. there are loads of ways of looking at the work. You can just concentrate on the small bit you are working on. You can see all of the small bits in an outline mode or you can see them on a corkboard view. Lots more information from Keith about Scrivener in the podcast.

He changed to Mac and was looking for a decent laptop and was blown away by the iBook and the retail store experience helped him to make the decision to buy. I have a number of questions for Keith in the interview about how he uses his Mac and you can listen to the podcast to get more.

Win a copy of Scrivener

The question to answer is Is there something spooky in the Text Menu

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I have one interview completed with the developer of the writers software Scrivener, Keith Blount. I heard about this software originally from Andy Inhatko who is a tech writer for the Chicago Sun Times and he writes blogs, articles for magazines and web sites. He was pleased to be using Scrivener because he could focus on the writing and then export it out for whichever publication, knowing that it would in the right format for that destination.

So I bought Scrivener after trying it out on my Mac for a couple of weeks. I really like using it. You can go full screen and block out all the distractions. There a number of super features in the software all designed to help you organise your writing, outlining tools, a corkboard area to keep the writing and the research.

One neat trick is that after you have bought it you can have it on more than one machine you own. I have the iMac and the MacBook, I can’t use both at the same time  so it makes sense to be able to have on both of my machines and not have to buy 2 licences. It is what I call sensible licencing.

Abbie Clarke

I have interviewed Abbie about her writing and it is a breath of fresh air to talk to a young enthusiastic writer who is just getting started with her creative writing. I just have to edit the interview and get it ready to turn into a podcast. Abbie has now got a new Blog and has started to publish her writing on it. Check it out.

Matthew Wayne Selznick

Matthew is the writer of an audio book entitled Brave Men Run. I listened to it during the last week. I found it to be enjoyable and I contacted Matthew to see if he would come on this show. Totally delighted to announce that I will be interviewing him next Tuesday. I will be asking questions about going the audio book route and how it might be leading to sales of eBook versions and print versions. I will also ask about what sort of help he needed to be able to get good production values on the podcasted audio book. I will be asking about he latest work which is called Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights and I want to find out what he is planning next.

Click to listen to the podcast

This is the first of the Writers 20 Questions Podcasts with a set of questions more suited to asking writers. It follows on from the first podcast posted in here though which was the one where I am talking with Mike Smith, as Yi Shun Lai is a friend of his.

Yi Shun Lai has worked as a writer / editor for 15 years and now is working for herself as in freelance and having the time to spend on a novel of her own. Seems that writers have to do the work and save money so that they can then have the opportunity to write for themselves.

I learned a few things during our chat and she was lovely to chat with. I do like friendly people, life is to short to have to deal with grumpy devils.

Yi Shun has worked on a book called 100 Days Of Monsters (with DVD) sounds like fun. Started off as a web project but has moved on to print. Isn’t always good to have the paper in your hands to read.

At The Examiner Yi Shun writes about out door activities and recreation. I don’t think it is possible to kayak in Central Park but check out the site to find out what Yi Shun says you can do there.

We talked about writers critique groups and getting past writers block. Of course there was some discussion about the craft of writing but more about editors and agents.

What questions have I missed? How could I improve the list. Use the form below to send me your suggestions.

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Click on the picture to Listen

Mike has a MacBookPro as his main computer and has a Mac Mini connected to the TV. Mike is a writer and had taken the brave step of giving up a job in order to make his way in the world into being a writer. Has been using the mac for about 3 years before the writing he was a coder.
Connected to the computer he goes for wired mighty mouse the nipple scroll button is mentioned regards getting it cleaned. He rubbed the nipple on paper where I have blown into the gap around the edge of the button the get the gunk out, and has a brother HL5240 printer.

I guessed at Mike using Scrivener and was 100% right. Well he is a writer and it seems that it was coded by a writer that could get what he needed from the word processor route. Mike says it is a cracking bit of software. likes the chaptering and versioning – templates for various things – make it easy to collate it and output the final work, and the price was good too. For script writing you might look at Celtx a free app and free is always good.

Mike has an extensive collection of iPods and it may have had a slight effect on the buying of an Apple computer. Mike is a Firefox person and once in a while will use Safari, he likes the plug ins with Firefox, like the debug tools and sage plugin

Adium is mentioned by Mike because it connects to so many social networks, lately getting more integration added to it. Mike has recently changed to Tweetie for his twittering.

Mike as had a play with iLife ’09 apps but is not a big user because of doing movies in Final Cut Pro 3.0. Found that the faces feature in iPhoto just takes time from him and his writing.

One of his writing projects is ‘Out of Office’ a web drama and has other things in the pipeline. We talk about how level the playing field is for aspiring writers to be able to get work out in front of an audience online. There is content coming out from the top down, as in the BBC’s and other institutions and also from the grass roots level of people like the young woman in the North east of England who has put out videos on YouTube showing people how to put on make up. Good content will always find an audience.

Mike acknowledges the steepness of the learning curve with Final Cut Pro 3.0 and says he learns something new each time he has some editing to do.

Mike like features in Quicksilver and come in there as a favourite application especially when operating with iTunes. Fav for the iPhone is iExpenseit as a way to control what he spends, seeing as he needs to build an income with the writing.

The film Minority Reportwhere Tom Cruise is moving stuff around on a huge screen is something that would be in a wish list of computing equipment. Minority Report (Widescreen Edition)
Sceptics Guide to the Universe podcast. gets a mentions and I tell him about JC Hutchins podcasted novel called 7th Son.

Go now to watch the web drama that is ‘Out of Office’ and have a look at Mike’s personal web site.
Screenwipe a TV program about writers

ScreenFlow an application that I love using to make screencasts. Edits video as well