This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. You can find all my work at MJMunoz.com.
Welcome to Story Over Everything, episode 36.
It has been too long, uh, dear listener, it has been too long, and I have been too busy, and I am currently too tired.
But, please God, I will continue to do what I can do when I can do it.
That's all I can promise you, is that I will try to do what I can do when I can do it.
So, this is gonna be a funny episode. Next week I'll do a, uh, Skimming Leaves for whichever Harry Potter book is next in the series.
I've read them all, it's been about a month since I finished, and I did a very, maybe, you know, disappointingly short, um, a little discussion of, uh, book seven, which is called whatever it's called.
Definitely Hallows. And, uh, yeah, so eventually you'll hear the rest of those. I'm not gonna release them too fast if you can, uh, read or listen to audio.
Well, it depends on your time, you know, you listen to them on your own pace. So I think I will issue those as their own separate little episodes.
And, uh, yeah, I'll do whatever I do with them, and you'll get to hear it, or not, it's your choice. You're free to listen to whatever you want to, or whatever you don't want to.
So, anyway, I am, uh, gonna be talking right now about the state of, uh, myself and my writing and everything, and, uh, then you're going to get to hear in this episode some of the actual writing that I actually managed to do this week, because I chose to.
I took time. So, here's my issue.
I don't have a lot of time. I don't have a lot of money. I don't have a lot of time or a lot of money. So, uh, I'm actually working to change that right now. I have a super secret job.
Actually, I have, well, I have a super secret job that I have right now that, uh, should eventually pay well. It's a commission job.
I have another super secret job that I do not have yet, but I'm very deep into the application process with an author to do work for, uh, the production catalog that they have, and I should also be able to make good commission money off of that, too.
Uh, well, let me put it this way. The rate is good. The volume, of course, depends on me actually moving books.
Uh, but I'm going to have to learn to sell more books, uh, with, uh, sorry, that's a stupid joke. I'm so sorry. Um, I'm going to have to learn to sell more books in order to, uh, make money, which I'm planning on having, uh, me go through this learning process and, uh, overseeing campaigns and all this stuff.
I'm planning on having that be a great learning experience and like a great, you know, real live testing experience for me to deal with, uh, this author's catalog and I'll glean from that experience and I don't know, acumen a hunch, the ability to really know what's going on with these things for when I'm working on my own writing.
So that's pretty exciting. I'm, um, I'm glad that I have that opportunity and I'm planning on pursuing it. Uh, if things fall through with that, no big deal. Uh, I have other things. I have other things I can do. I have other things I'm doing now.
And, you know, please God, I'll, uh, you know, get money rolling in. Cause for me, I think right now the biggest problem is my lack of time. And I mentioned, I don't know how long ago, ML, oh, I can't remember the author's name.
Anyway, he wrote a book on productivity on writing books faster and he talked about just write on your phone. It was one of the things. It was one of the tips and it was a good tip. Right on your phone, whenever you can.
Well, I found myself, uh, in a position, uh, to use that sage advice, which I will get to shortly and which will lead us to the writer's log for this episode.
But before that, uh, I just want to say, yeah, I'm basically in a position right now where, you know, I'm not making any money off of writing. I'm not making money off of podcasting. I'm not making money, you know, secondarily off of any of the video platform stuff that I have my, my things on, but I'm very passionate about writing, analyzing and, uh, excuse me.
And drawing. Um, my son is back in the mood where he's asking me to draw stuff for him. And it's getting the point. It's getting ridiculous. Like he had me draw for some reason. He wanted tiny, like one by one or two by two inch characters.
And so I drew those for him and I didn't really understand why he wanted them so small, but I made them and I, uh, I went a little lazy, honestly, uh, because he wanted like five or six characters made. So I drew them as quickly as I could. And he said, make it this animal and give it this kind of weapon or make it this animal and, you know, do something with it.
And I knew, or I think I knew he wanted them to be unique because he asked specifically for a worm guy with drill hands, which is a super cool design because worms dig in the dirt and like this kid, he's putting it together, man. Anyway, so that's exciting for me.
Like when I draw characters, when I design characters, I think about what they are, like what the motif is for them and also like what they're going to be doing, where they're going to be doing these things. And I think, okay, well, this would make sense for that design.
And I don't know if it's cause he wanted a worm. I don't know if he wanted a worm guy cause he wanted somebody who can dig through the earth. If worms are cool and gross. Uh, and then he figured, well, worms dig through the earth. How do you dig? You dig with the drill. Of course. I want this guy to have drill hands or what, but, uh, it was sweet and fun because it reminded me of my creative process. So that was really cool. It was a, uh, a proud Papa moment, I guess you could say. So anyway, but yeah, he was like, make an owl, make a wolf, make a coyote, make a bunny.
Um, and I made them as common writers, which if you know, uh, what common writer is, then you're either a fan of it on your own or, you know, because of me. And if you don't, it doesn't really matter. It's just a, it's a kid's sci-fi, uh, you know, adventure hero thing, uh, from Japan. Uh, it inspired actually power rangers, which are super Sentai, which eventually inspired power rangers.
And, uh, yeah, people will see it and say, oh, that's like a Japanese Power Rangers knockoff with a bug guy, guy with bug eyes. Yeah. It's basically what it is. If you want to believe that. Um, so yeah, that's, uh, that's a thing I'm into.
And that's the thing I want to write about, um, in my own way, my own unique way. I want to take the core idea, the, some of the motifs, some of the aesthetics of, of common writer in tokusatsu and, uh, make them my own.
But regardless, I am passionate about drawing and that's the larger point I was getting to. Um, but like I need to do these things. I want to do these things. They make me happy. It makes me happy when I get to, you know, express myself creatively with a drawing or whatever.
So with drawing or writing and also analyzing stuff, but, um, I'm basically the point where I just need to do it in a certain way.
And I've been really bad about disciplining myself to, I, at one point I said, I'm going to stop doing so many podcasts. And in fact, I'm going to go to doing, go down to doing one podcast a week.
And I thought, well, I want to start this writing podcast. It makes sense for me to, to help me track my productivity and things like that, which is true. And I think it's a valid choice.
And then I said, all right, well, I'll just do two podcasts a week. And then at one point I was doing like three or four and then, uh, you may have noticed there was a crash and those things did not continue to happen.
So, um, I'm not making any decisive. The only decisive move I'm making now is I think I'm just going to limit myself to doing 10 minute long podcasts, aside from story over everything, which would be however long it needs to be for me to cover the content I have at that time.
And, uh, I'm also going to try to do batch podcasts. Um, and we'll see exactly how I can do that. The most important thing to do though, is the writing podcast.
So I will stick to the writing podcast story of everything. I will give it a great priority. And, uh, in order to write the things that I want to write as quickly as I can, I need to get back on schedule to doing a basically a writing or a daily writing habit of whatever.
And that's my, my thing I do. Ideally I'll be doing 10 minutes of writing, 10 minutes of drawing and 10 minutes of podcasting on something every day. That's 30 minutes. Plus I got to produce it and whatever. So that's a little bit more time, which I'm really, I'm really not really clever.
I'm really quick. I have like a good system down. So, uh, I think I can do it. I think I can do it. I want to build back towards it. I want to build back towards that. And, uh, yeah, I've done since I determined to start doing it.
I think like Wednesday, I did it Thursday. I did it maybe Tuesday, Tuesday, Thursday. I did 10 minutes of writing and I recorded it in an interesting way that I think will be good for me to have that, that file in that format.
And then, um, I read the recording of what I had and I think I'm going to reuse that basically. I, um, I'm going to reuse that in the story of everything episodes. I'll get them together in my videos, editing software and you'll get to hear that later.
Um, but I don't know. It just, it seems like a smart idea. I think I'm doing the right thing and like I'm basically using, and I've talked about this before. I'm using my content production schedule slash time.
I'm capturing that and I'm using it as content. Um, and I'm not going to be negative or like hard on myself if I don't do it every day, but I do still want to build up the habit. Yeah. I build up the habit and ingrain myself.
Yeah. I'm going to make this content and I'm going to record my content production process as part of the content that I put out because it's like behind the scenes type stuff. And it's at minimum low effort content that I can put out there, but it also might be beneficial, insightful to people for me to show them the process of it.
Um, and I think that'll be my writing and my drawing. I'll show them both because I can capture the content, the process of both. And then I can have, you know, a final product to present as well from that. So again, it motivates me to do the work and doing the work gives me double benefit because I get to show content from it.
And then I actually make, I get to show production content and then I get to actually have the finished content of making the thing that I want to make, which is great. So yeah, that's, that's something I'm going to do.
Um, and, uh, yeah, I think I just need to like, try to pace myself and do things more slowly and more methodically and get myself back up to that pace and that cadence and that rhythm.
Uh, you know, what am I going to do about having not a lot of time? Cause I don't have a lot of money and therefore I'm working lots of extra hours, uh, in multiple jobs. I'm going to have to find a way to balance that out.
And I don't know. I just like, I just did it. Um, I just wrote, uh, for more than 10 minutes, the last three days in a row and didn't have a problem doing it.
I thought I was going to do it today, but I was very busy and I couldn't find any time to squeeze it in, but I'm very well, only have that time later.
And in fact, I'm looking forward to, well, part of the reason I'm on a drive right now to the second job.
And I thought I was listening to something and I thought, you know what? I shouldn't be listening to something. I should be creating something. So that's what I'm doing now.
This is great because it gives me an opportunity to, to, well, as this is the Chronicles of a author, I get to put my thoughts out there.
And if you're interested in hearing that, here it is. And it also helps me process things because I'm getting to talk them out out loud.
So it's a win-win as long as you're interested in the content and if you're not, then you're not here and you're not here again. So it doesn't really matter. Right?
So anyway, uh, but yeah, I definitely want to do that. Um, well, no, those are my plans.
So, um, I don't know how long, like it's very possible that story of everything episodes will just consist of the author's log, which I think is fine.
I don't think I need to put a topic or anything out there. I'm considering doing an interview. I have, I wouldn't say he's a friend yet.
I don't know if he'd say we're friends. I wouldn't think so. I think it's like it's not enough time has elapsed on enough contact is elapsed, but he's somebody I know from within the Tokusatsu fandom.
And he actually just published a book today, October 6th, as I record this, it's called Schools Out For Never.
And it's book one in the Terror Valley. Well, I may as well just say it's well Charleston is his name.
It's book one in the Terror Valley series and it's a short book. It's less than three hours. I think it's like about a two and a half hour read.
That's what Kindle, the Kindle app tells me anyway. So I'm very much thinking about checking that out. I think you should check it out.
Squall's a pretty good guy and from everything I know, I don't know personally, so who knows, but he seems like a great guy.
And I've enjoyed pretty much all my interactions with him. But I definitely, I'm considering like interrupting my flow to like read the book and interview him about it.
And we'll see if he's open to that. If he shouldn't, you know, doing that with me. But yeah, again, we'll see.
If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, doesn't, no hard feelings either way. I mean, you got to do what you got to do. Take care of yourself and your family first and foremost.
So I understand. But yeah, I think like, you know, why not interview authors and maybe just maybe only interview authors who like I have a personal connection with or who are in a place where like it would make sense to interview them for me because I'm interested.
I'm interested in opening. I'm interested in getting into that type of market, which is like a chapter book, I guess. I don't know what the age range is. It's like horror, but it's horror for kids, right?
So I don't necessarily see anything wrong with that. It was funny. My daughter and I were talking about horror, writing horror, and we were reading through the 10 plagues of Egypt.
And we both turned to my wife and like, this is horror. Like the Bible contains horror and there's nothing like nothing wrong with that. Technically, you know, if you're getting talking about, you know, saw that a little different.
I mean, there are grisly things in the Bible, though, but they're like awful. And like when they're reading the synagogue, they're ready, you know, with a hush tone and quickly and moved over a gloss door.
Like it's because of like you don't want to. It doesn't matter why, but just I know that I know that from my studies. I'll just put it that way. So anyway, I find that really interesting.
And, you know, I want you may not know my books. I would like to write books for kids, kids and teens that are superhero books where it's like superheroes meet the Bible.
But it's you know, that might sound funny, but it's almost like Lord of the Rings or Chronicles of Narnia meets the MCU or the classic Marvel comics.
Yeah, it's like classic 60s Marvel comics meets Tolkien or Lewis. And it's going to be interesting.
Maybe Lord of the Rings is the better one. I don't know. It's not like it's all fantasy superhero stuff, but like just the lore and the world building and all that kind of stuff.
So, you know, squalls in a he's working in a market that I'm interested in. I'm interested not necessarily the horror genre, but I do have a kind of horror or scary themed superhero guy that I think could definitely work in that context.
So, yeah, maybe talk to him. And again, if it doesn't come to fruition, that's OK. I'm going to ask. And if he says yes, great. And if no, then that's fine. We'll move on.
I don't really want to become like an interview show type of guy because that feels like it takes a long, long time. And I'm more focused on like my journey and giving listeners an insight into my creative process and what I'm doing.
But I also think it's smart to like have friends who are writers so that you guys can collaborate so you can collaborate with them, work together and, you know, commiserate over the, you know, over writing a little bit.
So anyway, yeah, we'll we'll see what happens with that. But I mostly want to keep it topical and focused on like what I'm making now.
And I kind of want to get to the point. I love this idea of like having a big, huge bank of staggered content that I can put out later.
What you'll see, maybe I'll have to do well, besides my mining leaves episodes, maybe. Yeah, maybe I can make maybe I can push off story over everything.
I can. Maybe what I should do is produce my mining leaves or my skimming leaves episodes and have them be in the feed and have them take the place of a regular weekly state story over everything.
But I will still produce. I'll still track my content.
That's kind of a funny thing.
I don't know. I'll just plan things out better. Maybe I'll pepper in my skimming leaves every other week.
Yeah, because I keep reading stuff. That's part of my problem. I keep reading stuff.
Yeah, obviously, obviously exactly what to do, because I don't want I don't want skimming leaves to be in the feed and then slow down my write or like give me an excuse basically not to write.
But maybe if I have it not be an excuse or not give maybe if I have it situated so that it's not giving me an excuse, but it gives me something to release if I'm short on content or I'm having trouble.
Like, let's say, God forbid, I were injured and I was like out for a month and I couldn't like I couldn't find the time to write.
God forbid.
Then I would have, you know, that content to release or maybe I just pause. I don't know. I'll have to consider that. But yeah, I don't know. I'll think about it.
I'll think about it more for sure.
But anyway, maybe it just necessitates a little bit of foresight on my part or maybe I just use dates to track the writing instead because I was doing this thing in my notes where I have this is for the week of story over everything 36 and I had that in my notes for like a month because I
was producing the content right.
So maybe I'll just have it logged as this is you know chapter 10 of this. This is chapter whatever this book written on this date. That's when I did the actual work and then I'll just collect it and say this is for the week of such and such, or I don't even have to say that I'm limiting myself by like adding too many restrictions to the way I design it, basically.
I don't need to chill out on that anyway. I want to wrap up because I'll be at my destination soon and I want to have the wherewithal to do a little more content making before I'm at my next appointment basically.
So yeah, there's lots to think about. But part of being a indie author is figuring all this stuff out. And frankly, I don't have the time to just think about.
Sometimes I started thinking about my writing career, when I should be doing other work, or being with family, and that's not good. I need to dedicate the time and right now, I'm picking up or using what would otherwise be wasted time by recording like this and thinking these things out.
That's definitely a good thing. That's something I would advise kind of like ML. I can't remember his name. He suggests picking up what would otherwise be wasted time by finding time to write on your phone and get in 50 words, 100 words, 200 words, 300 words, whatever you can, when you can, filling whatever amount of time you have.
Again, that's great. That's great advice and it's something I'm trying to do more. And I don't know, sometimes it just takes like the resolve or the gumption to say, yeah, I need to do this. I want to do this. I'm just going to do it. I don't care that it's going to complicate things or make things a little different.
Or like someone's going to look at me funny because I'm doing this. I don't care. I got to get this done. It's my life, my destiny that I'm worrying about. You can worry about your own. If you're wasting your time and energy, you know, worrying about me or judging me or whatever, then like that's too bad for you, buddy, because I'm going to do what I got to do to be who I need to be.
So yeah, with that, I don't think I have anything else to say except for listen to this, this week's, I'll just say for the week of a story of everything 36, the content that I have for you from the dates mentioned.
Again, this is a mostly grow bucktails chapter 10, but you don't need to know that right now because I'm going to say that later in the recordings that I'm going to cut into this episode. So anyway, until next time, folks take care, be well, and look forward to the next thing I have coming down the pipe.
You can check it out in the show notes of this episode, which is found on the blog, the website, MJMunos.com.
This is my 10 minute writing session, more or less from October 3rd, 2023. This is from chapter 10 of grow bucktails.
Something some cadets in crisis shapes shifted silently in the mist, Tutt peered into the swirling mist to decipher the meaning of the shapes and movements he beheld.
The hollow was so filled with mist that the night had turned into a white field as dangerous and unknowable as the deepest darkness. Tutt wondered at the danger presented by both the isolation of darkest night and this new thing, this bright void.
The moments passed with such stillness that Tutt considered the others. He touched each of them with his mind, sending assurance to them and blessing them with strength to endure the nothingness.
Then something happened and Tutt was almost too late to notice.
10 minute writing for October 4th, 2023. This is from grow bugtails chapter 10.
A form swept out of the narrow field of vision. Tut burst forward in pursuit. Shining arms shot forth to ensnare the fleeing form with a screech.
The mock wing wheeled around and soared toward Tutt, its eyes blazed with cold fury and it flapped its wings of mist. Tutt pulled in the luminous tendrils as quickly as he could. The bird spun in a corkscrew pattern that wrenched Tutt off course.
That took me 13 minutes in actuality and it was 71 words long.
10 minute writing burst from October 5th, 2023. Chapter 10 of Grow Bug Tales, Cadets in Crisis.
Tutt strained for control as he was pulled by his own light arms. Beak and talons shrieked as it closed around him. A moment later twin cords of light sagged and dimmed until they blinked out in the mist.
Tutt rolled out of the way and shot out another light arm, this time in the form of a wide beam. The mock wing crashed into the barrier and banked along its curved surface.
That took about 12 minutes and it was 71 words.
I hope you enjoyed that. Go to MJMunoz.com to leave any questions, comments, or other feedback you might have. There you can find all of my analysis, art, and fiction. I cover books, tokusatsu, comic books, anime, and more.
Look around, you're sure to find something else that you'll enjoy as well. This has been a Story Over Everything production.