Discovered Wordsmiths
Discovered Wordsmiths
S.A. Schneider
Episodes
About
Reviews
Promote
Episode 103B – Eward Wittleton – Podcasting
30 minutes Posted Apr 19, 2022 at 10:11 am.
] Stephen: Let’s move on to some authors. And we’re going to talk about podcasting, which I think is great because obviously we both do it. But before we do that, you’ve been [00:01:00] writing for quite a while. What can you think of that you did at one time when you started that you’re doing different now that you’ve changed or learned from
] Edward: not that much has changed from very beginning of the way I wrote, I’ve always done a full first.
] really.
] Stephen: You don’t, if you have a good process, it doesn’t mean you have to do the newest, greatest thing that’s going on or change what you’re doing. If
] Edward: one of the great things about my podcast is asking basically that same question to all these other authors and you find out that everybody does it differently and there is no one way to write.
] Stephen: Yeah, I’ve heard that a lot. Also the most people use word, what do you use? What do you use the right with software services?
] Edward: I downloaded Scrivener cause I’d heard good things about it. And I have yet to use it. I don’t want to learn how to do all that stuff. I just want to type, and of course, word itself has its own foibles and things, but that’s what I use.
] didn’t have, it was just, it just kept typing it. We get to the end and then you’d get returned to make a new paragraph.
] Stephen: used a speed script, which was a type in from compute. But you actually had that, enter it by hand.
] Edward: tell you that. I do quite a bit of that actually with the same magazine, with my Commodore 64 typing in programs, and you make a typo and you had to go back and find out what it was. Yeah.
] Stephen: That was good training as a programmer. [00:04:00] You had to. That was really rough.
] Edward: I, I also, I learned basic back in those days and I, with the Commodore 64, it had that music. I wrote a complete music entry program in basic of where you could, I think it was like a four, four digit code, which told you the pitch and the duration, and however it worked and you could do it by reading the music and then putting in this code for each note, just a melody line.
] Stephen: That’s interesting. Cause I did similar things, little programming. I program a game from the common are called cosmic arch. I re recreated it on the Commodore and I went the opposite direction. I went, that was a lot of fun. Let me do it [00:05:00] again. So
] Edward: it was fun. I just wasn’t satisfied with results.
] Stephen: gosh. Yeah. And I’ll say you like word, I like Scribner and Scrivener just clicked with me and made sense. And I think it is the same type of. People who would enjoy programming, seem to enjoy that type of thinking, enjoy Scrivener and the people that would not enjoy being a programmer, uh, seem to like word a lot more, which is a lot of creative writing types.
] Edward: observation. I think it has to do with the writing process as [00:06:00] well. There are people who do like. Post-it notes and they track scenes and beats and all that stuff.
] Stephen: a great thing. If you write fantasy and sci-fi is you don’t have to do quite as much research into what’s actually real.
] Edward: It depends on the story there. And like the first world shaper book was written, it’s set in a world very much like ours. So actually I had to do lots of research on stuff like apple growing in the Northwest sailboats.
] Stephen: Yeah, exactly. As long as you’re consistent.
] let’s talk a little bit about podcasting. You do this. So, first of all, what made you want to do a podcast? You’ve been writing for years? Why do a podcast? I’ve also
] Edward: done a lot of television and radio broadcasting. I was, I had my own TV show, which was a phone-in show about computers, by the way, it was called net talk.
] interviews where John Scalzi, Robert J. Sawyer and Tanya Hough, all of whom I knew, uh, Scalzi and I were, as he will say, I was the first person he met in science fiction in person outside of his.
] grew from there
] Stephen: thinking, because I did the same thing. It’s well, I could do a podcast.
] inspirational. Hey, there’s a mother that wrote this book at four in the morning before work and taking her kids to school and look what she did. And she, it was that type of thinking. So it was a win-win all around from my viewpoint.
] Edward: just, and I’ve also when I have gone to conventions and stuff, what I’m really interested in is far less. Whatever else they’ve got on the programming. I like the science programming. That’s always something, I’m a fan of what I really like is talking about writing.
] Stephen: And so have you had any guests that come out that came on their new, then they’re in your inbox and that it really helped their careers, that they feel it was a.
] Edward: I haven’t asked, but I know certainly newer authors who are very excited about being in an anthology that has these [00:11:00] really big established authors too, because that’s less likely to happen with the usual submission process probably. And of course they didn’t have to submit. I just asked them, which is always nice.
] Stephen: It is what it is now with all the years experience you’ve had and all the writing. Why did you choose to do a podcast and spend extra time on that instead of making a writing class or a book? [00:12:00] Because there isn’t a whole lot of direct financial reward doing the podcast and it takes time.
] Edward: It’s just something I wanted to do.
] I want to put it out every two weeks. So it’s not a, it’s not a huge honors thing for awhile. I did full transcripts, I using an automated transcript, but that took so much editing and so much time that it was becoming problematic.
] Stephen: It’s content and it feeds and builds. And I’ve done that when I talk to an author or I listened to another podcast and hearing author that I’m like, oh, I need to check that author out.
] type in their name and hit episodes from various other podcasts. And occasionally I’ll say, oh, I really liked. Uh, post and I like the questions. So then I’ll check out the other and I liked this other author. So now I’m reading there, but which is why I have such a huge pile of books to read from listening to all these podcasts,
] Edward: completely.
] Stephen: I agree.
] author, I wouldn’t have time to do my own.
] Edward: So many hours in the day right now, and I’m sure that’s eating up tons of time doing publishing stuff. And I do some audio book narration. There’s an audio book I wanted to get onto. And one of mine that I published and there just aren’t enough hours in the day.
] Stephen: me. Yeah. I’ll tell ya. Our dogs just in this weather and it’s 20 something out there. They don’t like the, our one dog doesn’t like to go out in this weather. Our other dog short-haired boxer wants to go out and run around the snow all the time.
] Zencaster. I discovered it from, I think Joanna Penn, um, and I like how it does and they’ve added video and now they have transcriptions.
] Edward: transcriptions work, but they take, if you’re, if you care about accuracy, you’ll spend four hours on an. Definitely.
] Stephen: Yeah, it’s all. Yeah, it might be 95%, but now I have to go back and find that 5%. That’s not correct.
] Edward: You’ll be familiar with the term in writing of cancers, like plotters and pants.
] Stephen: what do you use for your podcasts that when you record and what’s the other tools and software you use to get it all together and get it out?
] Edward: I use something called a, just went out of my head, clean feed. That’s what it’s called. It’s just audio. I don’t worry about video. So that doesn’t, it doesn’t matter to me. [00:17:00] And it’s very straightforward. They get an email link, they click on over connected and that’s all there is to it. My backup is Skype, which since they added recording is actually does a really good job.
] Stephen: And I will say it has [00:18:00] saved my S my butt several times. And like I said, in San caster, we’ll record each of our files locally and then upload them at the end. So if we do get a drop somewhere, it’s not affecting both people or the audio, and they do have a post-production is just a simple click of a button.
] Edward: I was just gonna say, what’s the cost.
] Stephen: Oh, it’s really not bad. Eh, I’m not really sure when I first started, it was right at the beginning of the pandemic and they were like 20 bucks a month for X amount of hours. But then they said, well, because of the pandemic, we’re going to offer everybody unlimited hours [00:19:00] for the $20 a month.
] Edward: it sounds better than the Greenfield. One thing I cleaned is. You have to manually click a button periodically to download what you’ve done so far. And I have on one occasion at least failed to do the final download and lost like the last five minutes and had the, shamefacedly asked the author, could you come back so we can just do that class?
] Stephen: either. No. And that actually has saved me. And you still have the separate files because there are times with various problems [00:20:00] where you do the post production. They don’t line up. So it sounds like we’re talking over each other and asking weird questions for the answers.
] Edward: actually looking at our audio files down here, it looks to me like our levels are not balanced much softer than you.
] Stephen: That’s on your end. On this end, they look a little different. I’ve discovered that also other authors have made the same.
] Edward: good. Yeah. I have audible set up now, so that once I’m done, I run it through a match volume thing and it just puts out exactly what I need with, you know, the recommended,
] Stephen: the newest thing.
] descript again. I think I got this from either Joanna Penn or J thorn in the script. You pull the audio file in and it will do a transcript. So you got that. I there’s so many ways to get transcripts nowadays. It says not a problem, but what I really like about it is it’ll identify all the, and, and that, and you can just click a button to remove.
] Edward: I usually don’t worry about the ums. The things I’ve taken out occasionally you’re like your phone rings and somebody has a conversation and [00:22:00] sometimes it’s just this part of the ambiance cats meowing in the background.
] Stephen: whole yes. One of the reasons I do that is because a lot of the authors are new and I’ve, I think I hold the award for interviewing new authors, their first interview, the most first interviews of any author.
] So yeah,
] Edward: most I’m mostly talking to more established writers. So I don’t think I’ve ever run into anybody. That was that,
] Stephen: you know what that’s also, like you said, part of the ambiance, these are new writers, this is their first interview.
] Edward: I used to run into that as a newspaper reporter often would be a young person.
] tri-state I’ve always called them.
] Stephen: So when you talk to your guests, I have, I’ve worked it up over time. A list of questions that I generally ask. A lot of times we go off topic and start asking, talking some other things. Do you have general questions that are the same, or do you go different with the author with whatever the topic is?
] Edward: It’s the same framework. And I tell them this upfront because it is a process focused interview. It’s an hour long. So it’s a good solid hour. Versus caught [00:25:00] card went over two hours cause he talks so much. Um, Sarah too, I just talked to you in an hour and a half and there’s been a few like that. I don’t care.
] should put reverb on that.
] Stephen: I laugh when you mentioned that, because I actually have been doing the same thing, compiling a book a year of podcast advice or from new author advice and things.
] it. I’m telling you, you can do the four. That’s what I just did. I don’t. You could.
] Edward: Yeah, I don’t, I I’ve been thinking about that for a long time.
] Stephen: yeah, same way as well. Just keep up with it and compile it and then like, oh, I’m like maybe I’ll do the first year and then maybe a second year is some.
] Edward: Yeah. That’s and that’s the same thing with the anthology. I had to cut it off somewhere, so I thought I’ve got enough authors in one year. If a sizeable number of them say they will be part of this, I’ll have a book and sure enough, that’s the way it’s worked out. Nice.
] Stephen: All right, Edward, it’s been great talking to you about all of this before we go.
] Edward: for [00:28:00] being on a podcast, all you have to do is reach out. A lot of, of podcast hosts are looking for guests. I’m a little different.
] interesting and what to do when there’s dead space and nobody’s talking and how to jump right back in with something.
] Stephen: And you mentioned blueberry. And I was going to say earlier, I use that also because it has a great plugin for your WordPress site. So I can easily type up show notes and just put a link to the episode file. And when I hit submit it automatically submits to blueberry and goes out to all the great podcast aggregators out there.
] Edward: And it should say it’s B, L U B R Y E. And the,
] Stephen: yeah, very much. Great. Alright Edward, thank you for all the talk and advice today. That’s appreciated.
] Edward: Thank you so much for having me on
0:00
30:14
Download MP3
Show notes
Overview
Edward has been editor for a series of sci-fi novels that include short stories from popular authors. He decided it made sense to do a podcast to talk with these authors.
YouTube
Transcript
[
[
And then gone back and revised, I guess what’s changed. The most of course is the use of computers. When I started, I was composing my first one, because it was done as a school thing is, is handwritten. But I quickly stopped doing that cause I had terrible handwriting. Uh, as soon as I started typing everything and I’ve always done a full first draft, I go back to the beginning.
I revise it once, twice. And then I send it off and I, that has not changed in all these years. The only difference now is that I write it on the computer, go back and revise it on the computer two or three times. And then I send it off. I don’t use beta readers. I’ve never had anybody. I show it to the first person who sees it after me as an editor.
And yeah, that’s nothing has changed [
[
[
[
[
And it mainly because it’s a standard for submitting manuscripts and stuff is word. So when I first started on computers, it was Commodore 60 fours. There was a word processor called paperclip. And it was very good, except it just wrapped. It [
And it was limited to 499 lines of text per file. And as a result that turned out to be about nine to 10 pages in actual manuscript format and all the books I wrote on paperclip have chapter. How about nine or 10 pages? I started trading myself to write chapters that were the same length as the files I could fit onto a paperclip.
And that may have carried over. That still seems to be, oh, I feel like I’m about at the end of a chapter. If I look it’s typically, oh, that’s about 10 pages. So I think I’ve got it in my head back in counter 64 days, I
[
That’s totally foreign to the kids nowadays. Let me
[
[
[
There was no harmony going on and it worked and it took a long time. And when I finished, I looked at it thought, okay, that was. But I could have bought one for 20 bucks that did it way better. And that’s what I said, you know what? I’m going to leave it to the programmers. And I don’t think that’s the direction I’m going to go, but I really enjoy playing.
At that time.
[
[
And rather than in writing, I decided, well, I’ll just write something better. And programming, I just said. I’m going to leave it to other people who could do it better. So I’ve made a different choice there. My, my roommate in college was a theater program for two. So I was very familiar with people who were going into that.
He was all cobalt, COBOL and all that stuff at the time portrait. Oh
[
And it just seems like the more analytical and logical your brain that straightforward black and white type thinking, the more Scribner makes sense to you. But that’s just my
[
And they’ll have flow charts and things, their novels. And I just write out some ideas and start typing. So again, it’s a different process and Scribner was really useful for keeping all these side notes and things, and I just don’t work. And I don’t think at this point in my life, I’m likely to change.
That’s
[
[
And everything. So things keep popping up. We think, I don’t actually know enough about this to make it believable. I got research it, but you know, if you’re writing something in an entirely made up world, it’s a little easier to just say, yeah, it works this way.
[
Yeah. So [
[
People would call it. I’ve got this problem with my computer. And I’d say, that’s a very interesting question, Bob, because he was the techie. I was host, but I wasn’t answering a lot of the questions and that went on for years and I’ve had a radio program. I hosted about local arts called uh, culture jam.
It was called. And of course I was a former journalist, so I’d interviewed lots of people. So it was always in the back of my head. I could do a pod. And the trigger was when world shapers, the series started, the first book was called world shaper. You’ll notice it has the same name as the podcast, the world chambers.
I thought here’s my opportunity. Also, I’d been in the field a long time. I knew a lot of authors, so I was able to call up my first three [
When he came to the Toronto Worldcon he was late to his first panel. I was on that panel. So he came rushing up and sat down next to me. And now his career has gone at a slightly different angle than mine has, but still I was able to call him up and have him on the show. And after that it was, I knew Orson Scott card.
Cause I wrote a biography of him. So I was able to get him on I’d met Joe Haldeman. So these people were people I knew personally that I could ask to be on the podcast. So once I decided to do it and had clients. Learning curve to learn how to make a podcast and distributed and all of that. And it was just a matter of getting in touch with authors.
And once I’d done, a few people would tell me, oh, you did a really good job. And so if they had any doubts, they might talk to somebody who had talked to me and they would know that I wasn’t going to be an awful person to talk to. So it just [
[
That gets my name out there a bit. And I could do books based on that, which then connect to my other books. But I’m also getting these authors on to talk about their books and stuff to include in the anthology. So they have a voice out there and possibly people discover them. And it’s a, win-win on both sides, which I love because part of the reason I started this podcast was because.
In some of the groups, whether they’re talking about, oh, I made a hundred thousand dollars last year and I’m like, I can barely get my first book finished and I couldn’t relate. And I knew there were other authors out there that couldn’t relate and probably felt discouraged because it’s not inspirational when you’re struggling to keep a day job, feed the kids and write a little bit to hear this guy.
Oh yeah. I went on the beach and finished my last novel. You can’t run. So I thought it’d be much more [
And I love that. That’s the same thinking process you had to. Yeah,
[
That’s why I started going to conventions, was to talk to people about writing and podcasts. I get to talk to people about writing, so it works out great.
[
[
It’s always nice to be invited to be in an anthology as opposed to submitting with going into the slush pile. So I don’t know that it’s made any huge difference. My podcast gets. My most popular downloads are like a couple of thousand down downloads for my two most popular authors who found on there.
But more typically it’s a few hundred downloads in place. So does that make a difference in book sales or anything like that? I don’t know, but I do think they enjoy the opportunity to talk about the writing. And I think that the, it can’t hurt whether it’s helped or not. Nobody has said to me, I hope it has.
[
[
Yeah. When I wa and I often, when I do things like this, I think about when I started out writing as a young writer, there was no, there were no podcasts. There were, I rarely got a chance to talk to a writer of any sort. And here I re I was subscribed to writer’s digest. That was about the writer magazine.
Those are my two insights into writing and. I think when I was a beginning writer, that if I’d had the opportunity to listen to something like the podcast I’m running now hosting, now that it would have been something I would’ve really have loved and it would have been helpful to me. So in a way, this is the good old, I think Robert Heinlein popularized it, but the pay it forward idea where you’re, you’re always helping out the people who are coming behind you.
And it’s, it’s just, I think that’s what a lot of it is. I enjoy the biggest thing is. I have fun doing it. [
So for the last few episodes, I’m not doing that anymore. Also my site stats indicated that people weren’t really reading those. They weren’t going to those pages. It didn’t look like much. So. So I stopped doing that and that’s made it a lot easier. So now it’s just a matter of, I talk to somebody for an hour.
It takes me maybe an hour to Polish it up and post it, and I’ve done something that’s fun and hopefully helpful to other people and has promoted somebody’s work. And it makes me feel good. And then I get an apology out of it later on.
[
I’ll just go on my podcast app [
[
Every book by every author I was going to interview before I interviewed them. But I quickly realized, especially every two weeks, I just couldn’t do that. I couldn’t read. And also it meant that I read nothing else. The only thing I was ever reading. Somebody whose book was coming up and I probably wouldn’t get it done.
And so then I had all these half read books and then I had to go onto the next one. So now if I read some, I try to get a feel for it. Unfortunately, I can’t read all the books of every author that I’ve talked to, that there have been some that I went on and finished because I love them so much. Yeah.
[
If I did a podcast episode and read a book from that [
[
Although the publishing company shadow, pop press is named after our cat. He’s no help at all.
Oh, yeah. I keep telling him Lassie would have done this. He just looks at
[
I’m like, you’re going to die. You’re going to freeze. So I don’t know if a dog really would help when we started. Yeah. Yeah, you do. When we started, before we got onto the actual podcast, we were talking about what we use to record. So I use [
So there’s something to keep in mind. I haven’t tried those yet
[
[
[
People who write by the seat of their pants, the transcription software, and variably turned that into Panzer. Like the German tank. I’m a Panzer, you’re a lot, you’re a German tank. So
[
[
Actually. I don’t know why I don’t use it more because pain feed, as I mentioned, when we were talking before we started, I seem to have trouble getting the levels quite right. So sometimes I’ll be well author. Tell me about your book and the author goes. That takes a lot of fixing afterwards and it’s never quite good because it also amplifies hisses and stuff.
When you amplify one voice. Anyway, I use audible for the cleanup and assembly of the opening music and my introduction and outro and all that and splice that all together. And then it goes into an MP3. And then I use blueberry is my host, took a lot of research to decide what to do though. And the one thing I’ve been looking at Zencaster and I might try.
Because I like the fact you get two separate audio files, which solves that problem of yes.
[
And I was hesitant to use that. At first, I was using both audio files, getting them in audacity and changing, normalizing the levels. And I said, you know what, I’m going to try their post-production. I click it one button, one file. And it’s balanced and it sounds good. And I’m like, oh, that’s all I’m doing.
And the other thing, oh, sorry, you were going to say something.
[
[
They haven’t changed it in a year and a half since then. So I’m not sure where it may end up, but honestly, I’ve got all my files that backs him up on Google. The individual separated files for me, it works and zoom. The other thing I noticed is with zoom. If my dog walks through and the toenails on the floor, zoom picks it up.
Whereas Zencaster seems to block out a lot of background. So
[
And that sounds like it was in Castro. That wouldn’t be a problem
[
So you can download the separate files and manually align them. So you get the best of both
[
[
Okay. Once it’s done, if you don’t even notice and it balances out well, and I, I still run things through audacity, put some compressor on it, things. So it seems to be sounding
[
[
Using, and it’s not perfect is a [
You can say, don’t do this, but you can look through the list and don’t do this one. Don’t do this one or whatever. So it gets rid of some of the I’ve had it removed like two and a half minutes worth of ums from certain podcasts. So it’s some editing that I was either taking a really long time or I wasn’t doing.
And I’ve listened to it and sometimes it’s not quite right. And it sounds like jerky in certain places, but mostly it sounds good. And I’m like, that’s probably good enough.
[
Talk to somebody, actually it was Peter V Brett, and he was in Manhattan. And there was a sledge hammer, not a sledgehammer, a jackhammer going on the street outside. So that’s in the background. Did he do the
[
But that’s also the difference too, because I get deer in the headlights quite often. And I got people where I’m going, tell us a little bit about you and where you live. I live in the Southwest and really wanted to write my book. And it’s about this. I’m like, hold on. I’m asking about you, not your book yet back up that you know that.
So I get, that would be like either. I went to my friends and because they’re nervous. [
[
[
So it’s probably better to come on my podcast and feel a little nervous and maybe not do the best interview. Get that practice, get it under your belt, get it out of the way. So when you do something bigger that thousands of people are listening to you’re, you’re coming across in a much better way.
[
I was interviewing says, oh, you’re just at the provincial record in the ShotPut. So what was that like for you? Good. And what way was it? Good. I liked it. And then you sit down, you’re supposed to get us 500 word story out of this. And it was like pulling teeth sometimes. Actually one of the worst ones I talked to was a young computer guy, Peter, that this was just, he was programming on a trash TRSA [
Try Shadys. And all he was so focused on. He wanted to talk in great detail about coding. This. Wasn’t going to fly with the people who are reading the weekly newspaper out in our rural agricultural area. So I was trying to draw stuff out. Those would’ve looked awful if they’d been podcasts as well, at least one thing with a written interview you can add and stretch and massage and make it flow.
Um, but yeah, I have run into that.
[
[
Cause I’m who cares. I’m the host, but it’s always the same format. We talk about the biographical information. How’d you get interested in writing how’d you get started writing, training, all that kind of stuff. Breaking in. Uh, I always tell them to pick one book or series that they want to focus on as an example of their creative process.
And then we just go through that. So I’ll start with idea generation, then the planning and outlining, which goes all the way from, I just start writing to, I write 150 page outlines and everything in between the writing process. Do you write on word? Do you write in coffee shops? Do you write in parchment with this quilt pen under retreat?
Nobody said that yet. If you write longhand, but not. Then the revision process publishing, especially if they’re self publishing or indie publishing, or if they’re a mixture like me, we can sometimes talk about that. Then at the end I asked the big philosophical question. I always say, I [
Why do you think anybody writes as a human species? Why do we tell stories? Why do we write and why write science fiction fantasy specifically? Now I get some great answers. I may I, in fact, I intend to do a non-fiction book. Just drawing on quotes from all these authors and like one, maybe my first hundred interviews, 100 authors, 100 science fiction, fantasy authors, talk about the creative process.
And it would just be quotes, maybe something short, maybe just an ebook. I don’t know. I’m sure I could get something out of it. So yeah. That’s and they all follow the same format and I tell them that upfront so they know what. And off we go, wherever tangents, take us along.
[
Right. And putting them together when they’re similar topics. So it was all, I’ll tell you what, when I get mine. I’ll send it over to you and you can do the foreword for [
[
And first it was going to be like my first 50 guests and I’m up to a hundred and I still haven’t. I need to find the time for that. Cause I think it was copies, so
[
Yeah.
[
[
Do you have any advice for other authors out there either they’re looking to get on podcasts, advice on being on a podcast, or do you have advice if they’re thinking about starting a podcast
[
I mostly invite people to be on. But people have contacted me out of the blue. And if I thought they were interesting and if I had an opening, because again, I’m only doing it every two weeks. They quickly piles out into the far future, hold back. So, you know, and there’s contact information on most podcasts websites for how you can reach out.
Sometimes it’s a form to fill out or whatever, as far as starting one. And you just have to do some research. It’s not a, there’s no great expense involved, a good microphone, a little bit of software, depending on what, how you decide to do it. Zen cat. It’s a monthly subscription, clean feed, I think is a monthly subscription that I’ve been using blueberry, which is the host.
You have to find a host that’s another bit, but there’s not a huge amount of money. And then you should probably have some idea of how to talk to people that would be, and how to ask questions and how to follow up on questions. How to keep it [
And so that’s, you’re not the one with the deer in the headlights. Look.
[
I recommend that for people.
[
[
[
This podcast uses Blubrry for stats, and dynamic audio. Learn more on this podcast's About tab. Dynamic Audio may cause this episode's timestamps to be slightly off.
← See all 100 episodes of Discovered Wordsmiths
Podbay © 2026 Fancy Soups
About