Discovered Wordsmiths
Discovered Wordsmiths
S.A. Schneider
Episodes
About
Reviews
Promote
Episode 105B – Guy Windsor – I want to be a writer or I want to write
37 minutes Posted May 3, 2022 at 1:13 pm.
] Stephen: let’s talk a little author stuff, actual writing and that for the authors.
] now than you did when you first started?
] Guy: Ah, okay. My first book took me four years and it was really hard because I was starting from scratch and there wasn’t I started it in about 1999, 2000.
] into the way of how do you express these things on the page.
] up enormously.
] Stephen: track there. Yeah. That’s one of the things I was going to mention to you too. Cause I’ve heard you on other podcasts and I’ve looked through your website and that, and I like. The writer, author of you is part of your life, but it’s part of the whole, you’ve got multiple things in your life that you do for a living, for a job, but also your interest and passion.
] was you, you wrote these books, you became a writer. The instinct. I think a lot of times people do is to now I’m going to offer a service to help other writers, how to write grammar, how to write a fiction book templates they offer. I’m a writer.
] Guy: Yeah. And it’s a very teaching writing is a very well served market. There are lots of good books on house. Uh, lots of good resources on how to publish when you have it. Yeah. [00:05:00] And honestly, I’m not that interested in how to write, I’m interested in how to swim. And so I I’ve learned how to write books because it was necessary in the same way that I learned how to do lunges in the style that Kappa Farrah assay found, learning the lunges more interesting than that.
] English literature, professors, I had even invest in the idea is that things super helpful because I don’t offer right services as described them, but quite a few of my students and colleagues have written books and I have helped them with a lot of them because I have more writing experience than most of them.
] absolutely clear in your head what you actually mean.
] Stephen: I like that you’ve helped other writers, but you don’t want to be that you don’t want to write a book on how to write a book on writing on swordplay.
] Guy: If you want a for nonfiction, I think the absolute [00:08:00] best how to write. So the craft of writing book is by Williams and I’m blanking on the title.
] Stephen: will. Yeah. I’ve got that one. How to write well for something like that on writing. Well, yeah,
] Guy: that’s it. Yeah, absolutely brilliant. And it’s basically all about the absolutely care and getting out of your own way.
] Stephen: Yeah. And I think that’s what holds a lot of authors back.
] Guy: All right. Well, let me give you an example from my own life. When I [00:09:00] graduated in 1996, I saw, I want to be. Right. So a high-end furniture maker and an antiques restorer, someone who is artistically restoring these beautiful old wooden furniture. And so I went and did that and you only have one life to live in.
] eventually I switched to 2000. I had the inspiration to start my school.
] professional services at all those about that, but you can call yourself whatever you want. I could call myself a Lord or a Knight or anything if I wanted to. And it might be true in my head, but it wouldn’t be true anywhere else, but I like flying planes is amazingly cool.
] makes no difference to me.
] not a, it’s an aspirational title. It’s not about it’s
] Stephen: part of your identity.
] Guy: It’s just one thing. And we have this horrible notion in our culture. Um, what do you want to be when you grow up? I’m
] Stephen: still trying to figure that out.
] Guy: Yeah. My, my solution to it is not the grow up, but it’s a wrong question because what you want to do when you grow up, it’s a much better question. If you want to study really hard and get good at surgery, so you can do surgery when you need to become a doctor and then a surgeon just wanting to be a doctor.
] want to be a writer. What do I have to do to be a writer? And it’s because you don’t actually like writing, you probably should change the way you’re thinking.
] myself a sword?
] parents of. I read it. I might watch your path as am I academy maker. I I’m, all of these things view that from a particular perspective. And I don’t actually care about that. Cause that’s all external looking at on the insight to me or connect or basically the same thing.
] off the ground. It’s you know, so it has that relationship to it’s also, there are absolutely fundamental physical laws in play for which no exceptions will be granted.
] Stephen: I like what you’re saying, because I had the same thing. So you could have, like you said, very easily said I’m a writer. I write about swords. I write about how. It’s all, I’m a swordsman. I, as a swordsman, I write books and I also teach and I also have online classes and whatever.[00:18:00]
] Guy: you mentioned games, I’ve produced a card game, which is people, how. Long short material is together and works and the names of the gods and the players, how they all fit together.
] have juiced the game, that’s just another way to teach to people. And I don’t even think of myself as a soldier by any reasonable definition. I said, I don’t think of myself. If I have to be one thing, I would probably say. Yeah.
] Stephen: And I think you’re right there. I think people get hung up on that sometimes.
] have come to that understand that is, oh, I I’m, I’m busy. They do much better,
] Guy: but here’s, here’s a thought for you. In my words, the method book in one of the chapters about basically the principles of year, one of the fundamental principles is adopt useful beliefs.
] not a question of don’t do that. There’s a question of, if you have this belief, is it serving your goals or is it not? And if it isn’t, you should maybe change it. And if it is, then you should maybe keep it, nothing works for everyone, but most things work for someone
] Stephen: and doing that.
] Guy: And also, cause it, it takes away fear of failure. And I produce a book.
] that they could lie.
] Stephen: Yeah. If for me, like I said, I don’t purveyor a fantasy.
] Guy: yeah, absolutely. Again, it varies from person to person. Some people really need that external pressure, but personally I’m extremely physically lazy.
] chocolate, watching TV, because I just would. All right. But I have these students and my students depend on me, get this stuff done, and I’m going to be teaching your class. I call it, show up to class with my six months on the side.
] could have summoned up a whole load of self-discipline from somewhere, maybe kinda sorta, but that I just started a train along thing three mornings a week at a time that suited.
] No, it’s just horrible.
] um, is Ari workbook, financial debt.
] schedule, because that external constraint of my students are expecting of me is super effective for me. It doesn’t work for everyone.
] Stephen: And I think something we were talking about before this all started is finding that passion you have with something in life, when you enjoy what you’re doing, it’s not just a job cause you have to, or the work that you have to do, you know, if you’re loving what you do, it’s easy.
] Guy: But then yeah, but anything worth building as stages in it, brutally horrible forever.
] the tricky bit, because I shoot for literally anything like okay. For my flying thing. My next theory exam is Allo. So I have to study air law and pass that exam, or I’m not allowed to go to the next stage. So that’s just going to have to get done. It’s not the fun, but it is actually getting the plaintiff.
] draft
] Stephen: You get those parts at a heart and that kind of makes it harder in a way. Yeah. Yeah.
] Guy: Whereas this is just, this is just another hurdle I have to get over to get this thing to the people who need it.
] Stephen: It’s a push. If you enjoy publishing, you enjoy getting your books out. It does make it easier to do the editing, uh, because that’s part of it, the process that you have to get [00:30:00] done. Uh, but if the only thing you like is writing a first draft. Everything else becomes super difficult
] Guy: and it’s true in every domain with parenting, but the fun bit is like playing with your case and pushing them on the swings.
] Stephen: All right guys, we’ve been talking quite a [00:31:00] while. It’s been a great talk here. Wonderful to chat with. I can see why you doing your own podcast. Speaking of why don’t you tell everybody we talked about your online school website. Is there, do you have a personal website and tell us about your podcast before we go?
] Guy: sure. I have a, a personal website is being rebuilt at the moment. That’s guy, windsor.net, or.com or dot. So school.com is probably the best place to go to find all the things. Cause there are links from soulcycle.com, everything else, including my podcast, which we have about episode 93 is coming out soon and we were recorded up to 102.
] talk to people who you wouldn’t feel comfortable.
] expectation is male, right?
] do is I’ll start a podcast, interview people, people, and historians, but at least half of my guests will be willing. And I’ll also try and make sure the demographic and geographical net is spread as wide as possible.
] Stephen: yeah. If everybody helped a little bit in some way.
] I’ve had a 74 year old. That was one of my favorites. He lives in Ireland. He was 74 retired. Uh, lawyer that wrote a book about tit TBA, the slave from the which Salem witch trials here in the states, that is the oddest combination, a 74 year old retired lawyer that lives in Ireland that wrote about the black slave from the American witch trial there that tells you I get a little of everything.
] Guy: And it’s something that we can do as the board white. How did it sort of natural advantage? What, what could we do? We have a platform we can invite people who are not definitely like this onto it.
] Stephen: Yeah. And again, I never really even thought about that until someone said they like the diversity I have.
] country around the world. I get accents, uh, from all over and I’m like, oh, great, cool. Yeah. I didn’t think about it that way, but I’m glad it’s happening.
] Guy: Yeah. Representation matters.
] Stephen: Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well guys, close us off before we go. What would you say is your big advice for new authors that are.
] Guy: If you like writing, carry on doing it.
] you don’t have to.
] Stephen: Nobody’s making. Yeah,
] Guy: exactly. It should be challenging and frustrating and fun and challenging and frustrating and fun. And about those sort of proportions, like anything. Exactly. So, yeah, I’ve, it’s not that hard even I can do it. Just get good editing that good feedback.
] Stephen: Alright, great guys. Thank you for taking the time to chat with me. My pleasure. Appreciate it.
0:00
37:57
Download MP3
Show notes
Overview
Guy’s main focus is swords – which includes translating and evaluating old texts and teaching the information in there. Yes, he’s written multiple books – but does that mean he’s a writer?
We have a good discussion on what can make the difference to say you’re a writer or that you want to write. This can be a different answer for different people for different reasons, but it’s a good distinction.
YouTube
https://youtu.be/abDuTxgVm5w
Transcript
[
So what are some things. You said 14 books out. What are some things for your writing that you’re doing different [
[
And it was published in 2004. Yeah, it was brutally difficult, partly because I was, I just didn’t know how to write a nonfiction book and a friend of mine who is a technical writer doing technical writing stuff. The documents come with a device, tell you how to work it, instruction, language, things like that.
And he’s basically sent me a, like a template or, okay, this is the thing, this is the name of the job. Number, the drill out like this. And he, he gave you this template. I was like, oh my God, that is. As a friend of mine, Martin page, he’s also now enough. And that really helped. And again, [
But the really critical thing was eventually I figured out that you should just talk, right? So if somebody sends me an email saying guy, I’ve got a long sword and when somebody tries to hit me like this, what am I supposed to. So I’ll write back saying you start like this, and then you swing the sword like that.
And then you hit that. So I’d like to ask, and then you hit them like that. And top of the bat, and that is the tone that actually works in the book. I basically, I got out of my own way. So the first book to of four years, the second book took two years. Then my kids came along. So that was a bit of a hiatus in the whole thing.
And then for me, it’s never been my main. Gig. I don’t, it’s always been that. I teach historical martial arts. I people need these books so they can learn to start the martial arts. And it will actually save me a lot of time if they’ve read my books before they even come to class, that would speed things [
So I’m producing these books as part of the broader project of getting historical martial arts out to the people then. Okay. Likewise, in my online course, I started those in 2016 and. It was basically, oh, okay. Here’s a skill we learned. I like to pretend I have a student there or something like that. I actually do have a student that, and I just teach them this stuff when we video it and we stick it up online and it works.
It doesn’t have to be that hard. So if I have to ask you a question, so I went off
[
And the one thing that stuck out to me when I first heard you before, [
So I offer writer services, but you’re a sort guy. You study storage, you research, you have texts, you, your books, your classes, your lessons, it’s all with the sword. So I thought that was. For me an important distinction to point out for other writers. That just because you’re a writer, if you’re writing a book on car repair, you might be better off finding other avenues, other income related to the car repair rather than trying to teach people how to write a book.
[
Right. But. Probably the most single most useful thing in my writing career, as in terms of developing my skills as a writer was way back in the early nineties, I did a degree in this situation where I had to had to write essays, which would then critique by a professor. Okay. Which meant I was poor. How to express myself clearly insistent.
And in a logically supportable way. So how to create an argument on the page, how to present your opinion on the page. I was taught that by [
I’m sorry, there’s a guy I’ve written this book. I often single biggest thing I have to tell them is, look, you’re making this way too complicated. You’re trying to make every sentence completely Bulletproof against any kind of criticism that it goes on for 27 pages and has 18 million subclauses. Is that what you really mean is I was born here and this means that, or all the solid like this and swinging it like that or whatever.
So just say that you don’t need. So the protective, what was that like? I’m the flaws? What they’re trying to say, protective criticism. Whereas I think it’s better just to be completely pray about what mean, which means of course you have to think it through first, you have to be [
And that’s not as actually occurs in the writing process by write a book, find out things rather than because I’ve already found out stuff by my second book of the Julius companion. I wrote it because I knew I needed. The have a fully thought-out interpretation of Kappa Pharaoh’s rapier system. And so I saw best way to do that is to write a book.
And so I wrote a book as I was doing the research. I was writing the book and that clarified my thinking and they organized everything and it just made it all fit together, much more cleanly than it would have done. If I just let it, let the interpretation develop just Willy nilly.
[
Yeah.
[
Can you find it and stick it in the show notes? Yeah, I
[
[
[
They get nervous. Am I, do I sound smart enough to my. But who, who cares if the other writers like you, it’s your audience for your book too? Yeah, you have to write for, so you mentioned a, a good topic for us to discuss a little bit, basically. Do you want to write, or do you want to be a writer? And that, that intrigued me?
W what exactly were you thinking with that?
[
So I thought this is what I want to do. I’m going to go and do that. It wasn’t actually what I wanted to. I found working 40 odd hours a week doing it was a frustrating. This didn’t work out was I acquired skills and some parts of it were quite enjoyable, but it was not that I think we wanted to actually make the furniture I wanted to have made.
I wanted to be standing there next to this beautiful table I just made. And have you go, Ooh, that’s a beautiful table. I got a, yes, I know. I just made it. Isn’t it lovely. And so it was all about outcome and not about process. Okay. And [
And so in 2001, I definitively switched from, they would work for a living, teaching, lots for living. And that went much better because I wasn’t so much, I wasn’t hired to this. I want to be a sword master, whatever that is. It was, I won’t pass. I won’t have students in front of me. Teaching them how to swing the soldiers around and I want to see them getting better.
Okay. It’s not a question of identity. It’s a question of process. I’m learning to fly planes and sure enough, I am on the course that leads to a private pilot’s license because that’s how they teach you to fly planes. I don’t care about the license and I don’t care. At what point in my flying career, I get to call myself.
I could call myself a buyer without ever having a fighter plane that I wanted to, to Oregon state. I can’t advertise my [
It is just awesome. In and of itself. There’s no way to justify. Or explain it or rationalize it. I could probably come up with rationalizations and I wanted to, but I don’t actually. Yeah. I just really doing that, sending that feeling when the plane, just the guy on the runway and it just picks up enough SP that you just start coming off the bat.
And it turns from being this kind of waddling, clumsy fish out of water, duck, waddling on the ground, and then it takes off and it suddenly becomes in its proper element and it is graceful. Smooth and ah, it’s just glorious. I don’t care about, I might apply that. Hey, we probably do one or not [
I don’t call myself a pilot because when I have, if I get to the point where I actually have a pilot’s license and somebody says, oh, are you a pilot? I’ll say yes, because it will be technically true, but there’s no part of what I’m actually trying to do. I’m the same way writing books. I don’t, haven’t got this vision in my head of, I am.
And so I am in my study by coffee, by cigar and I am crossing these beautiful there’s in blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because I have this right. That, that, that does not exist in my head. I just put it in everybody else’s head, but that didn’t exist because I is, I don’t have, if anybody says, and I’d actually, I had five books out at the moment.
I needed a quick shorthand for what I do for a living. And because I didn’t want to have a conversation about it. I said, oh yeah, I’m a writer. And it was technically true because I had five books published, but it wasn’t the thing. It’s not a, it’s [
[
[
[
[
Rather than to actually practice medicine, it’s it doesn’t work. And yeah, I see it a lot with I’m a member of various writing groups and what have you and people who have decided that what they are is I am a writer. I [
And again, it really, it boils down to prioritizing process over outcome with the right processes, the outcome will occur, but if you focus on the outcome, lose the process and everything goes horribly wrong. So if you like writing by all means, right. And at some point you may well think, well, actually, if I have to say what one thing I am, I’m probably writing.
That’s why I tend to do more. Oh, that’s where most of my income comes from, or that’s where most of my social connections and status in my community. And what have you comes from? It doesn’t have to be tied to money, but I do find that one student of mine many years ago actually asked me the question. At what point can I call [
And I said, does it matter? And then I thought about it there, because it’s one of the great things about having students is they ask you these questions and make you think about things in a way that you hadn’t before. As I thought about it, I was like, I guess it makes sense to call yourself a sword when you’re swordsmanship practice is your primary lens through which you view the world.
And it is for me, like I go about solving any problem from a social perspective when I’m terrified in the airplane, because my instructor has just done. Horrible aerobatics something. And I think we’re going to die. I get my heart rate back down and pay attention to what I’m supposed to be doing through the disciplines of handling stress, through breathing, breathing, and focusing back on.
If I don’t spend any real time thinking, what am I a soldier I write? Um, I have [
Writing books is part of teaching children, making furniture is part of how do you structure things in the physical. Yeah, which is part of relationship, like how do you break somebody’s arm? It’s the same way as you break open the choice. If it’s joint in a, in a bad light, it’s in the wrong place, or is it going to somebody up it’s it’s just physical manipulation of weld around you.
I don’t really identify as being fundamentally different flying planes is fundamentally the same thing. It’s about facing fear. Cause I’m scared of. So it’s actually quite frightening for me to be in a plane when it’s [
This is a fantastically pure environment. The plane is only ever going to obey the laws of physics and no exceptions, which is the same. You know, testing your interpretation against a resistance opponent. They are not going to not teach because they don’t want you to have a bad day. They’re going to do that best to clock you in the head.
And if your interpretation doesn’t work, you’re going to get clocked in the head. It’s all part of the same.
[
I had the same revelation of myself, when I first started, I wanted to write books to help kids inspire them, to read or make interesting books. So kids would read more, especially boys. That was like my goal. And over time, right. I discovered that yes, I like writing the books, but that’s only part of what I like to do.
I also like doing games and now teaching story for video games. So all of these things go together as a, I, as I say, a purveyor of fantasy and different avenues. And writing’s just one part of that. So
[
I’m not a game designer and I’m not a game industry professional. Although I [
If I wasn’t, if I wasn’t teaching social media, I’ll be teaching something else. I teach you for what comes before the sword. But again, why do we need a label for it? Why do I, why does go to expect us to define ourselves in terms of what we do?
[
So there’s probably people listening, probably people. I talked to that, well, I gotta be a writer. I’ve got to sit down every day. I’ve got to write so many words. I’ve got to get books out of it. And I get stressed about that. And maybe that’s a sign that maybe writing’s only part of what you do. That’s not your main thing.
Maybe there’s something else. And I think when people. The people that [
[
Okay. So believe things that help you accomplish your goals. But some people, I bet, some people thinking I am a writer and therefore I need to. My next book written. So I’m going to show up to work. Okay. And I’m going to get the next chapter done and I’m going to edit the previous chapter and I’m going to make a start on the next chapter after that.
That’s what I’m going to do today because I have a writer. I can be a really useful, but if I am a writer means there’s all this pressure. I’m trying to be this thing and it’s not working and I’m not really good at it. And oh my God, the words aren’t coming and borough raw, then perhaps getting rid of that.
Would help the words, like [
[
The funny thing is you probably have written more and gotten words down quicker, easier because you’re not stressed about being a. Um, and so you’ve actually accomplished more of being a writer by not labeling it and stressing yourself out about it.
[
Yeah. Obviously, if you sell enough books, eventually you get some negative reviews and they are horrible. I absolutely hate, but there would be infinitely worse if they were attacking my fundamental sense of self. So they’re not criticizing me and my soul. They’re criticizing the book [
That’s really useful because if you are, if have this belief, I am a writer and that is it. It also means that you will take all criticism more personally, because it’s not just criticizing. What you have just produced is criticizing you yourself. And that’s hard that puts a strain on it.
[
I get fantasy stories. I get fantasy ideas, imagination, thoughts in multiple ways. So no one way is the defining method avenue or whatever. And that takes a lot of pressure off doing any of it. And it helps actually produce more. I found,
[
So given my druthers, I would spend most of every day lying on the sofa, eating [
With massive chocolate ingestion body. I have to show up able to run a decent warmup and do all the techniques and throw people on the ground and all that kind of stuff. And yeah, I found during the pandemic, like a name, my is my basic cause I wasn’t traveling to teach. So you used to do a lot, my motivation to get fit and stay strong and healthy.
And what have you was just gone? And literally one morning I got up and I did two squats and one pushup. And I thought by that is not a complete training regime right now. If you’re not calling yourself a professional sources, your instructor is not, how am I going to do about this? And I [
That my students know, so they can come and join the army. So I know when I get up Monday, Wednesday, Friday, that I will have students showing up, expecting me to lead them through a whole bunch of physical. And that takes all the self discipline out a bit. And so even if in a week where maybe I don’t get any other training done, because I’m fundamentally lazy or I’m busy flying planes or fixing watches or making furniture or whatever else, I’ve at least on those recession.
That is a whole long, no sessions. And again, it’s about creating these external constraints that work for you. Yeah. I find all this gamification of stuff doesn’t work for me at all. And when someone wants me wants to give me a gold staff, uh, having read a book or having a grown-up. [
I think, well, it doesn’t work. It works for some people. It doesn’t work for me. It’s just a noise. That’s it, this is actually a real example. I have one of those habit tracking apps and it was like, okay, if I drink too much, then I have to do this thing on this app and blah, blah, blah. This is just making me want to drink more.
I’m not going to be like dictated to by some stupid bit of Silicon and some flashing lights. I know that was completely counterproductive. Okay. It’s just annoyed me to the point where I wanted to go and do the things. The whole point of the game was to stop doing so it doesn’t work for you, but it does work for other people.
What the external constraints that work for me are primarily having students who need me to do the thing, because my students need me to do it. Or if my children need me to do it, or if my wife needs me to do it, whatever it just gets done. Right? No excuses, no exceptions. It just happens. Here’s a good example that, [
The subtle, my hard drive, 90% finished for over a year. That’s what, this is ridiculous. I need to get this done dusted and out the door, but it’s useful to people and I’m holding it away. So I said, I have a newsletter, which goes out every week and I sent out an email to these two, the one section of the newsletter, I just said, Donna’s already work, but I will have.
Sent off to the graphic designer for layout by the end of February, or I owe you all 50 pushups, right? Which is, this is like firstly, 50 pushups for a professional martial arts instructor should be fairly trivial. That’s not even a very big thing, but now my students are expected and you know what happened?
You guys finished the week later and I’ve got a third of the video clips that go with it already edited. And it is way on course for being off to the graphic design. Two weeks ahead of my, my [
[
[
So for instance, some people love writing first drafts sound editing, right? I’d like draft, Hey, editing my own stuff. Hate it. Having written it. I need to get it out the door. So it needs to be edited and it needs to get loud and have all that stuff done to it. Because I have students expecting it. I tell them that it’s coming.
That gives me the necessary emphasis to get past [
Getting it back down again, safety is kind of fun because it’s terrifying. The same is true for that I’m making furniture or whatever. There’s going to be bits of that process, which are unpleasant. I hate sanding, for example, is messy and horrible and noisy and nasty and got a good product. Sometimes you have to do sounding instead of sounding it’s done.
And last year, you know, if you are a writer or free jacket with your.
Having beautifully created this beautiful first draft and then maybe edited it by hand that maybe usual your first draft with a Quill pen, like this one, because this is how we use our first draft. Now I produce my first [
and you can do all of that, but eventually it has to be put into a computer reverted into. You to text and sent off to editors and sent off to wherever else. And then you have to come back and you have to do the corrections and adjustments, whatever. And there’s going to be a nasty bit somewhere in the process for you.
And again, this is one of those things where if you have in your head, oh, I on the right and being a writer, sitting there with a pen, right. It doesn’t mean actually producing books, then it’s going to call it.
[
[
[
[
And you find your own climbing frames and doing Jedi lightsaber fights on the safer and all that kind of stuff. So that’s the fun bit, but there are all sorts of other bits, like having no sleep rages of pinky with little babies night feeds and nappy changes. Yeah. They get in trouble at school for something.
And so you have to go and sit in the principal’s office. Again, my kids, my kids have never, ever required me to go sit in the office, but I had to do it myself when I was at school. But without all the hard, without the difficult parts, I don’t know. I don’t think the whole process would be so meaningful.
Satisfying. Yeah.
[
Oh,
[
So it’s, it’s been going out every week. Again, it was a classic pandemic project. It’s basically me interviewing. Saw people and stored Jason. Well, not everyone who comes on the show has ever even passed the thought necessarily, but I have a plausible for yourself. The best thing about having a podcast is you have a plausible excuse, [
Just chatting with me for an app. I think you might be in. Right. That’d be weird when you guys chat with me for now. Cause I think it might be things for my podcast words, make it somehow culturally acceptable and normal and people say yes, most of the time say that, Hey, I’ve had writers on that. Like Steven Pressfield or Sebastian to cast doubt on a pen also, but I’ve also historians and living history people.
And there’s a huge range of people because the point of the podcast it’s called the stored. Yeah, my name is guy and I liked the guy, but the point of it, it actually grew out of book, invisible women by accounting and creative Perez, who she’s a data scientist. And she produced this book, which basically illustrates all these ways in which women are disadvantaged in modern society, because the default [
Classic example. And if you got a call that has a five star safety rating on impact, if you put a female shaped size dummy in for the crash test, it might only three stars out of five instead of five, just because they don’t test them on test cars are women and the outcome is different and women die because it’s so true in swords too, because we have the most.
It was founded by people like me in the nineties who are now middle-aged white men. So naturally because representation matters an awful lot of people who do they are white men because people like them are in senior positions in the field. And so what can I do about it? What can I do? I’m not even running.
I don’t run a school and I haven’t had, we’ve got locked down. So all the schools are shutting down. Right? Ah, the representation matters. So what I’ll [
So the goal is that eventually pretty much anybody on the planet and finds somebody like Ben, who is also mad about swords or interested in. Represented on my shape. Nice. Yeah. What could a middle-aged white dude do to help this sort of thing? That seemed like something that might actually,
[
Yeah. For, I haven’t had Joanna on, but I have had her mother and I never really planned. I was just thinking new authors. So I never planned. What type of diversity, but I’ve had everybody, I’ve had a ten-year-old [
Yeah, sure.
[
[
And I’m like, well, what do you mean? And they’re like, well, you’ve had men, you’ve had women. You’ve had people from just about every [
[
And it’s not a, it’s not a lot to do running a podcast. Not that much work if you do it the way I do it, but it actually keeps the house. So that it’s fun. And I get to talk to all these interesting people who are. Yeah, it is coming at it from completely different cultures, completely different backgrounds, different life experience or whatever.
And sometimes I say things stop all me. Like actually I just had no idea that would even be a thing. Wow. Okay. Wow. So, you know, it opens my eyes, which is always a good thing.
[
[
If you don’t stop, [
[
[
Yeah, that’d be discouraged by the hard days. We all haven’t.
[
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