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This episode features a live webinar panel discussion that Mark moderated with authors:
- M Jane Colette
- Tracy Cooper-Posey
- Andrea Pearson
- Talena Winters
…who have all mastered productivity in different ways.
As Mark attempts to learn more about how to be a productive author, he asks questions and solicits tips from these experts.
This episode is sponsored by Findaway Voices.
You can learn more about how you can get your work distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.
Prior to the panel discussion on productivity, Mark shares a recent comment as well as a brief personal update.
In the discussion, the following questions and more get discussed:
- Why is productivity important?
- Is it important for someone to be productive?
- How do you measure productivity?
- How do you figure out the best time of day that works for you to be productive?
- What tools are effective in helping with your productivity?
- How do you find time to write when you have conflicting priorities, such as a day job or a busy/demanding family life?
After the conversation, Mark asks listeners to share their own reflections on what they learned, or perhaps their own unique tip on productivity.
All listeners who comment on the episode show notes for this episode will be entered into a chance to win either a hardcover or paperback (their choice) copy of Joanna Penn’s Productivity for Authors. All Patrons of the show will also automatically be entered for a chance to win a second copy of that book. (Entries will be accepted up to the end of day on Jan 31, 2020).
Links of Interest:
- YouTube video of the panel discussion
- Becca Syme’s The QuitCast EP 1.06 – Question the Premise: Procrastination is Bad
- M Jane Colette
- Tracy Cooper-Posey
- Andrea Pearson
- Talena Winters
- Findaway Voices
- Patreon for Stark Reflections
M Jane Colette writes tragedy for people who like to laugh, comedy for the melancholy, and erotica for men and women who like their fantasies real. She believes rules and hearts were made to be broken; ditto the constraints of genres. The result? “A whole new sub-genre of her own… social realist erotica that’s frenetic and complex and funny and very well observed.”
Tracy Cooper-Posey is a #1 Best Selling Author. She writes romantic suspense, historical, paranormal and science fiction romance. She has published over 100 novels since 1999, been nominated for five CAPAs including Favourite Author, and won the Emma Darcy Award.
Andrea Pearson – Andrea is the author of many full-length novels (the Kilenya Chronicles, Mosaic Chronicles, and Koven Chronicles), and several novellas. Writing is the chocolate of her life – it is, in fact, the only thing she ever craves. Being with her husband and kids, family, and close friends is where she’s happiest, and she loves thunderstorms, the ocean, hiking, public speaking, painting, and traveling.
Talena Winters writes page-turning fiction for teens and adults in multiple genres including young adult, urban fantasy, romantic suspense, and women’s fiction. She loves travel, music, whole food, sewing, knitting, reading, and chocolate. She is addicted to tea and silver linings. She would love to be a mermaid when she grows up.
such a nice podcast. Love the variety of answers given one some excellent questions.
forgot to add that my favorite productivity tool is the Kanban board. I started to use it last quarter and it was nice to see all the “finished” at the end of the 3 months~
Cool. Thanks for sharing, Amy! 🙂
Great and very useful podcast, as always!
Like some of the guests said, writing down my to-do lists (daily/weekly/monthly/annual) with physical pen and paper seems to be more effective in helping me be more productive. I’m guilty of “moving” my self-assigned tasks on my electronic calendar all the time.
When I write my daily tasks down on a tiny post-it, I tend to get a LOT more done. The trick for me was to reduce the size of my piece of paper so I wouldn’t be tempted to list too many things, which ended up discouraging me every night as I never got them all done.
Keep up the fantastic work and let’s all have a productive 2020!
Funny, Kevin MacLeod does my podcast music, too.
Thanks Mark for your podcasts. I enjoyed the panel discussion you had for this podcast. It helped me to think about my productivity. I try to keep productive by tracking the amount of time I spend either creating, editing, or filing away the rejection notices. I know some writers keep track of words per day or something similar. My time track at least keeps me motivated.
Always like the shout out from previous comments.
So there was a lot of good data in this one mainly cause these ladies are very productive. I knew it would be a good show.
I liked the idea of “4 books a year to stay engaged”. I am working on 2 books a year at this point but could see my using the tips from this episode to get to 4.
“more productive you are the more productive you are”
This makes sense because you have all your book in your mind’s eye if you are constantly working on it. Plus just like weight lifting as you hold more of the book in your head it gets easier the more times you do it.
The last two points coincide:
–make sure you have a rest day involved.
–friday to sunday night off – like a normal job
Since I am still working I feel like the weekend is usually time for me to get work done on my novels and side business, but break time is good too. No sense in causing burnout and not touching the keyboard to recover.
Thanks Mark. I look forward to hearing about your productivity in 2020. Keep up the awesome podcast.
Thanks, as always, for the thoughtful and informative comments. The winner from these comments has been drawn via random number generation (Congrats, Chad!) and will be shared in Episode 118, which is slated for release on Friday Feb 7, 2020.
The additional winner, drawn from the patrons of the show, has also been drawn, and will be announced in that same episode.