May 8, 2020
Mark interviews Sacha Black about her role and brand as a Rebel
Author, about her writing, her podcast, and about her books for
writers on crafting heroes, villains, and prose.
Prior to the interview, Mark shares a personal update, talking
about recent birthday activities, a recent Star Wars parody video
he created, and what that type of creation means to him as a
writer.
He then shares some comments from recent episodes and a word
from this podcast's sponsor, Findaway Voices.
You can learn more about how
you can get your work distributed to retailers and library systems
around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.
In their conversation, Sacha and Mark talk about:
- Where Sacha's "Rebel Author" brand came from, and how she has
always been a bit of a rebel
- How, the best way to get Sacha to do something is to ask her
not to do it
- The way that being an indie author is a bit rebellious in and
of itself
- The thrill of being a little bit naughty
- How people are able to connect when you are being more
authentic
- Being on the border of introvert/extrovert and the connection
with others that Sacha values from running her podcast
- The appearance of confidence from the outside, and how the
indie author community has allowed Sacha to regain some
confidence
- Being very intentional about wanting to leave her full time job
to become a full time writer, and the planning and staging she
worked on to get there
- Sacha's life of being passionate about reading and writing
- How a character Sacha originally wrote when she was 9 years old
became the protagonist in her first novel
- The randomness in the way that characters Sacha creates come to
her
- The combination of terrible memory and super geek that is part
of Sacha's process as a writer
- How she never intended to write non-fiction, but completely
fell in love with it
- The way that an overnight 100K of hits on a series of blog
posts she wrote about villains led to filling a hole in the market
and a path of loving writing non-fiction
- How Sacha's new non-fiction title, The Anatomy of Prose,
started off as a labor of love
- The purposeful branding on the covers of these three
non-fiction books for writers and how they incorporate three core
values
- The process of recording the audiobooks herself
- How Sacha and her wife have negotiated the landscape of raising
a six year old and each of them getting their work done
- Katie Forest's book called Time Management for Writers and what
she has to say about times of crisis
- How the hardest thing for Sacha in terms of her work-life
balance is letting go of the parental guilt
- The challenge of finding books for a young reader whose
comprehension for words has surpassed most content meant for people
their age
- The fact that if Sacha is terrified of something she is
compelled to jump right in
- Using made-up swear words
After the interview, Marks a few reflections about things the
chat with Sacha made him think about.
He also shares how listeners can win a signed copy of Sacha's
latest book by commenting on this episode. (Opportunity to win ends
May 29, 2020 when a random drawing of commenters will take
place).
He also thanks Patrons of the show and shares that Patrons will
be automatically entered in a chance to win a set of Sacha's three
books for writers, just by being patrons. The random draw for that
will take place at the same time.
Links of Interest:
Sacha Black is an author, rebel podcaster,
speaker and developmental editor.
She has five obsessions; words, expensive shoes, conspiracy
theories, self-improvement, and breaking the rules.
Sacha writes books about people with magical powers and other
books about the art of writing.
When she’s not writing, she can be found laughing
inappropriately loud, sniffing musty old books, fangirling film and
TV soundtracks, or thinking up new ways to break the rules.
She lives in Hertfordshire, England, with her wife and genius,
giant of a son.
The introductory, end, and bumper music
for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by
Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and
is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0