We’re celebrating our 40th episode with a little look at ways to boost your creativity. There are many ways to help your creativity, but hopefully you’ll get some new ideas and info from our comprehensive-ish research.
Also this episode -
Find our full show notes on our website.
Thanks to our sponsor, BadFish - use offer code POW for 10% off
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @POWpodcastUK
Email us at: powpodcastuk@gmail.com
Music credit: "Clap Your Hands" by Scott Holmes
Marc happened upon this lovely clip of writers talking to Women's Hour about their writing tips and advice. Writers such as Prue Leith, Angie Thomas, Ruby Wax, Allison Pearson and Nina Stibbe talk about how to write and how they write, and how to write that book! Jenni and Marc pull out their highlights, what resonated with them, and also how Prue Leith manages to get her laptop into the toilets at cocktail parties (what if she needs a plug? Does she carry a rucksack? Does everyone else think she's just doing a massive poo? SO MANY QUESTIONS!).
A special bonus episode featuring Jen's meanderings as she attempted NaNoWriMo 2019.
Jen challenged herself to write a brand new novel over the course of November. That means 50,000 words. It was, as she finds out, a challenge. That is why they call it a challenge. Join her in an audio diary to find out exactly how many words she managed to write each day and her struggles with procrastination and plot lines.
We chat about Jen's NaNoWriMo achievement, what else we've done over the end of 2019 and what books and other sources of inspiration we've found lately. And then we talk a lot about puddings.
Find our full show notes at our website
Can we get a drumroll please?
...Has Jenni done it? Is the end in sight? Has Jenni completed NanoWrimo2019?
The Nanowrimo extravaganza continues...will Jenni keep up with her word count, or is the Crown just too distracting?
How is Jenni getting on with her NaNoWriMo month? There's only way to find out...
We're back! Well, sort of...in a twist to the POW podcast proceedings, Jenni is going it alone for a quick moment to take us on her NaNoWriMo 2019 journey.
Are you in the midst of all things National Novel Writing Month? Join Jenni as she talks progress, procrastination and all things writing.
While Jenni only cleans her desk when she gets told off by her cleaner, and Marc settles into his brand new tailor-made studio workspace, we talk about the impact that your workspace has on your productivity and creativity.
Looking after and improving your environment is an extension of self-care, and will help you not only avoid procrastination but also being called Mr Treebus (if you don’t know who Mr Treebus is, all is explained in the episode). It makes an impact on your state of mind and when you feel good about where you are, you’re bound to create some amazing things.
Find full show notes here
Thanks to our sponsor, BadFish - use offer code POW for 10% off
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @POWpodcastUK
Email us at: powpodcastuk@gmail.com
Find all our episodes: Pow Podcast UK Episodes
Music credit: "Clap Your Hands" by Scott Holmes
If you're reading this far, maybe you have time to like and leave a review on our podcast...also, don't forget to subscribe to our mailing list, to keep up to date with all our latest news.
In this episode, we discuss motivation and how to find inspiration! What are your quick go-to points of inspiration? What are the tools you always have on hand to fire up your brain and fuel your creativity?
Thanks to our sponsor, BadFish - use offer code POW for 10% off
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @POWpodcastUK
Email us at: powpodcastuk@gmail.com
Find all our episodes: Pow Podcast UK Episodes
Focusing on procrastination and taking on a new angle for this episode, we look at new directions, career paths and how we (well, Jen) could be avoiding big decisions by generally just faffing about.
What would you do if you could do it all again? Would you make different choices? Jen is interested in career changes and how people turn their lives in different directions. As someone who’s been in the same sort of job since uni, she’s fascinated about the reasoning and decision making that goes into changing your life completely.
We delve deep into the reasons why Marc has changed from his childhood dreams to be an animator, to his new print making and design business – MarcoLooks. Marc also tries to pin down the theorectical ‘Jennifer’ (not based on Jen in any way) on what she wants to do next!
Thanks to our sponsor, BadFish - use offer code POW for 10% off
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @POWpodcastUK
Email us at: powpodcastuk@gmail.com
Find all our episodes: Pow Podcast UK Episodes
Music credit: "Clap Your Hands" by Scott Holmes
If you're reading this far, maybe you have time to like and leave a review on our podcast...also, don't forget to subscribe to our mailing list, to keep up to date with all our latest news.
Marc and Jenni look at games and tips to help your character development. Just like Mary Poppins (Disney version, not the PL Travers version) we are going to sprinkle some fun into the ways you can develop your characters.
You want to make characters that people believe in and care for, so how can you create depth for the personalities that make up your novel or creative writing piece? Jenni and Marc look at the different games and situations that you can use with your characters to make them well rounded, interesting people that your readers want to get excited about.
Whether it’s moral dilemmas, practical spreadsheets, jumping off points, interesting questions or suggestions to push your characters forward, we cover it all. We had two years pretending to be trees in Theatre Studies A Level so we know characterization. Come and join us on our journey!
Visit our website for our full show notes.
Join Marc and Jen as they talk about getting back to creative work after a break. If life has got in the way of your writing, how can you get back in the swing of things?
We discuss 'Percolating', the new phrase the lovely Chris Billingham (from the last episode) started using to brew ideas and mull over stories in his head, and how this has impacted on Jenni’s work positively. The dwell factor and reflection is an important process, reducing writer’s block and giving you time to really deepen your plot, plus it sounds like you're just about to make a lovely coffee!
For more information about today's episode, check out our full show notes.
Thanks again to our sponsor, BadFish - don't forget, use offer code POW for 10% off your order.
In this episode Jenni talks to Chris Billingham, one of our favourite people and a writer of many things.
Chris has written three plays, a web series, two short films and won at least two awards. This means he is an 'award winning writer', although he doesn't like us saying that at all. He's a fantastically proficient writer, as well as having a proper job and having two/three podcasts with podcast partner Dan Doolan.
We talk about how it's different writing with a partner, increasing the diversity in our work, procrastination, deadlines, expectations and even term a band new writing phrase - 'percolation'.
For links to Chris's work, check out our full show notes.
Thanks to our sponsor, BadFish - use offer code POW for 10% off
Join us for a little catch up episode where we check in on each other and how we’re doing, motivation-wise.
We’ve come up against a strange sort of writer’s block when it comes down to finishing our book, so we talk through how writing letters from their characters has given us a push to get into the next phase of novel writing.
Will we achieve our Italian-sauce based goals? Will Jenni’s family get bored with constant pasta dinners?
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @POWpodcastUK
Email us at: powpodcastuk@gmail.com
Find all our episodes: POW Podcast UK Episodes
Check out Jen's 2018 booklist
Music credit: "Clap Your Hands" by Scott Holmes
If you're reading this far, maybe you have time to like and leave a review on our podcast...also, don't forget to subscribe to our mailing list, to keep up to date with all our latest news.
You lucky listener, you...not one, but TWO bonus episodes before our latest proper episode reaches you! We couldn't keep this bonus edition buried away for much longer. Jen and Marc finally get chance to catch up on our thoughts about RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 4 (has Latrice had more chances than Shangela? Did Naomi make the right choice? Who's the real winner?) and we also chat all things season 11 (which has just started on Netflix/VH1), particularly which queens are standing out to us and who are early predictions might be.
Our next episode is nearly ready for your ears, so keep an eye out for that too x
#TeamNina
Yes! We're approaching Eurovision season already! Whilst you're waiting for our next regular episode to emerge from the editting studio, Marc thought he would put together a tiny, bonus episode talking about one of the things he loves the most...no, not Kylie...Eurovision!
Just over half of the competing countries have announced which song will represent them this year, in Tel Aviv, so Marc takes us through some of his favourites so far, and also has a look at who the bookmakers are predicting to come out on top.
Our next episode will be winging its way to your podcast devices in the next few days, so keep an eye out x
We have hit a wall in our book writing process, so we’ve decided to work on our plots.
Jenni and Marc break down some plots from famous novels and try and apply them to their own book. We also look at classic plot structures from Well-Storied.com, using Freytag’s Pyramid, the Fichtean Curve and the Hero’s Journey.
Also in this episode:
· Writing down the Status Quo
· Who is the main character in Lord of the Rings?
· Is Harry Potter the main character in the Harry Potter books? (yes, yes he is)
· Our main plot line appears to be ‘he’s being a naughty boy and shagging about a bit’
· Jenni’s kids book plots – 'The Dog Stuck in the Fence' and 'The Trip to the Post Office'
· An update of the effect of the lovely Dr Rangan Chatterjee’s book on Jen and reducing phone time
· Our amazing idea of a pub, where your loyalty card gets you story updates! Plus red wine and steak night!
***
We’re discussing writing challenges this time – the whys and hows of setting specific goals for your writing. If you want to stimulate your creativity and set some priorities for your writing, a challenge is the way to go.
Writing challenges give you some space to try something different – looking at perspectives, forms, narration and themes that you might not have tried before. Whether it’s something based the style of prose, or something more practical like scheduling in your writing into your day, there’s a writing challenge for you.
After discussing some types of challenges and the theories behind them, we find a challenge that works for us and we’re excited to see how this works for our book!
Find all our show notes on our website.
We’re talking about reading for pleasure versus reading as a task. Following on from Jenni’s 2018 reading challenge against friend-of-the-show-Gemma’s husband Scott, Marc and Jenni discuss how the challenge went, how it affected Jenni’s love of reading and, crucially, WHO WON!
If you’re reading with one eye on the total, it really makes a difference about what and how you read. We discuss the choices that you make, as well as the books Jenni really enjoyed this year, which ones she read really quickly, and which ones she abandoned because they were just taking too long.
We also discuss the perfect environment for competitive reading, which may or may not involve a spa break paid for by Marc, and whether listening to an audio book counts as reading an actual book.