The Bestseller Experiment

The Bestseller Experiment is a podcast by Mark Stay and Mark Desvaux as they try to write, publish and market a bestseller in a year. Each week, they interview someone in 'the business' - from authors to agents to editors to publishers and get their advice on what makes a Bestseller.

I discovered it because they interviewed Joe Abercrombie and he tweeted a link. Since then I've become hooked on it. Its entertaining, educational and inspiring. I love Abercrombie's quote about making it:

It's so true. There have been dark days on this writing journey and plenty of days when I've wanted to give it up but I knew, if I did give in, then I'd never be published but, if I continued, I had a chance.

The other big thing to come out of the podcast was they talked about a book called Into The Woods by John Yorke.

It's a super-fascinating book about the structure of stories and why they work. It's really opened my eyes to a lot of things and made me think a lot about HE WHO FIGHTS and how I could have made that better. I also rejigged WE ARE THE DEAD because of it and its already made it so much better.

Progress on the book is happening, a bit slower than I'd like as we're super busy at the day job — but it's getting there.

I want to hit 40,000 words tonight - a third done and under my belt.

I'm still drawing too. I got a new moleskine sketchbook for Christmas and I've been doodling away.