Curious what this is? You can listen to a free sample episode here.
The One-Drink Book Club is an informal, (almost) weekly series in which fellow author Emma Lee Jayne joins me and our other creative friends to talk about the life, business, and art of writing and making books … for the duration of one Friday-afternoon drink.
If you’re NOT a paid member and would like to get the One-Drink Book Club, extra episodes of the Art of Noticing podcast, extra companion blog posts, and all sorts of behind-the-scenes bonuses while supporting me for only a few bucks a month, click here to upgrade your membership.
Here’s what we talked about in this episode:
Bill kicked things off by asking about prequels that conveniently answer all questions in the span of a convenient period of time.
I countered by comparing and contrasting prequels with what we call “lower decks” stories — stories that happen at some point in the timeline, but fill in gaps more than set things up. (I said that I prefer to “evoke curiosity” rather than “set things up.”)
I announced that after some time being around the TV industry, I’ve decided I don’t want to be part of it like I used to think I did, then explained why.
Mike asked a question that basically centered on writer’s block. This led Emma into a story about how wiping her mother’s butt isn’t sexy. (Don’t ask. You’ll just have to listen.)
We talked about what I think of as “cheap shot” writing: tragedies that had no reason to occur, but the writer shoved them in anyway. (I also spoiled Cujo, so there you go.)
If you’d like to hear more of the One Drink Book Club, you should absolutely become a member of this substack. You’ll get new ODBC episodes [almost] every week in addition to the other subscriber benefits and will also be endorsing the arts like a champ and supporting the folks who make the things you enjoy, like me. Membership only costs a few bucks a month and is more soul-fulfilling and karmically rad than buying one more Starbucks quad-shot instead.
