Dogs Are Smarter Than People via Anchor
313 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 1 year ago - ★★★★★ - 3 ratingsWelcome to Dogs are Smarter Than People with NYT and internationally bestselling quirky human author Carrie Jones, her slightly more normal husband, Shaun, and their dogs. Life tips. Writing tips. Dog noises. It's all here.
Bonus episodes of BE BRAVE FRIDAYS (telling people's stories of bravery) and LOVING THE STRANGE (all about celebrating the weird) and author-to-author interviews. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/carriejonesbooks/support
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
Am I the Butt Face? How to Make and Be a Likable Character
October 22, 2019 13:00 - 27 minutes - 37.2 MBWhy Do People Suck So Much? One of the biggest things you hear in the world of writing is to make your character likeable, which is great and all but gives you two questions: How. How do you make your characters likable? How do you make your characters likable when in real life people suck so much? There’s an entire Reddit threadcalled “Am I the A-Hole?” We talk about the second question in our RANDOM THOUGHT in the podcast, so the writer-helpful stuff is here, now. Ready? What Do the B...
IF UFOS ARE REAL WHAT ELSE IS TOO? HOW TO DEAL WITH THE UNBELIEVABLE
October 15, 2019 14:00 - 25 minutes - 34.4 MBSo, if you check out the link to this article on the Huffington Post by Leslie Kean, you'll have some good background on what we're talking about. But Kean writes about the To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science, which is meant to "advance research into unexplained phenomena and develop related technology." One of the players in that is Luis Eiizondo who worked for the United States' Department of Defense. Leslie KeanIn short, less that two weeks after leaving the Pentagon, Luis Elizondo...
Let's Write a Bestseller, Plus Bear Cubs and Border Agents
October 08, 2019 14:00 - 27 minutes - 37.9 MBThere are a lot of different ways to write a best seller, but the three of the most common features are these: THREE MAIN HINTS TO MAKE A BEST SELLER You have to engage the reader. You have to keep them hooked. Make them loyal. Easier said than done, right? Maybe not. Think of what your story is about. Can you pitch the idea in less than fifty words? Less than twenty-five? Can you gel its essence down into a quick pitch? That's the high concept. High Concept is a Really a big Questio...
Don’t Dabble Writers, Commit. We Know What a Hyphen Is and That’s Sexy.
October 01, 2019 13:00 - 21 minutes - 30.1 MBJared Leto is a somewhat polarizing guy for who-knows-what reason. He’s model-pretty, a vegan, an award-winning actor and a musician. And there’s this quote I (Carrie) read that struck a chord. “When you commit to something that’s seemingly impossible,” he says, referring to ascents both metaphorical and literal, “and you’re pushing through things that are seemingly hostile, and then you’re like, ‘Oh, wow, we did that,’ that’s a great feeling. And a little bit of pain isn’t a bad thing.” J...
Shaun Reveals Why People Divorce It Does not Look Good for Us
September 24, 2019 13:00 - 23 minutes - 32.9 MBThis week's podcast is not our normal format. We drove 27 hours or so this week. Our brains became a bit unglued - Okay. Even more unglued. But we talk about: Writing Divorce Why People Get Divorced How By Using Those Metrics We Will Probably Get Divorced Paying Attention to Other People's Stories Rotarians The Common Ground Fair SHOUT OUT The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to th...
How to Write Back Story also Running is Evil
September 10, 2019 13:00 - 26 minutes - 36.1 MBHey baby, what’s your back story? It should be a pick-up line at a bar, yet it somehow is not a pick-up line at any bar that I know of except maybe in a New Yorkercartoon or a bar in a town where there’s one of those MFA programs in writing literature for literary people doing literary things. Anyway, it’s a term writers throw around all the time and it is basically just how we imagine our characters’ lives went before they are in the actual story that we’re writing. I know! How can you i...
Passive Aggressive Much? And How to Become More Awesome in Just 30 Minutes a Day
September 03, 2019 18:00 - 24 minutes - 33.1 MBOver on the random thought part of the podcast, we hear about Carrie being passive-aggressive at the campground bathroom, Shaun sing, and random people at Smokey's Barbecue and Lobster. But here is the more intellectual stuff. Um. Slightly more intellectual stuff? This guy Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book Outliersand in it he outlines his belief that if you practice something for 10,000 hours and do that in a deliberate way, then you’ll become a top performer. Who are the outliers? They are ...
Old Rockers Rocking, Trust Issues, and Carrie Still Gets Hit On Somehow
August 27, 2019 13:00 - 21 minutes - 30.1 MBAs you heard in our random thought, this week we went to see some early 1990s bands in concert. They were – well, they were old. The concert hall wasn’t even half full. That sounds depressing, right? It wasn’t. One of the lead singers has had cancer three times. His wife has had it once. They were both on the stage giving it everything they had. And the lead singer? He was smiling the entire damn time. The Alarm at Portland's Aura Here’s the thing. In life and in story, we have to face...
Carrie Had an Accident and When Good Dogs Go Bad
August 20, 2019 16:00 - 22 minutes - 30.9 MBSo, a long time ago Carrie had a dog named Scotty, and she used to fill in at the police department as a dispatcher. For those of you who don’t know, she dispatched part-time because even though she made enough money writing (right then) she got worried that: Carrie's Worries 1. I will suddenly make no money at all 2. I need to build up social security benefits 3. I will forget how to interact with other humans if I’m always at home. ONE DAY HER GOOD DOGS WENT BAD So, she worked from ...
HOW NOT TO WRITE YOUR DAMN NOVEL
August 13, 2019 13:00 - 25 minutes - 35.4 MBIt's a lot like life honestly. Here's the number one hint. Wait forever to start writing. Don't wait to start. Don't expect lightening to strike or a muse to come down from the heavens. Just write. Call it practice if 'writing a novel' seems too big a task. Trick your mind into being chill about it. If you want to do something, you have to do it. Don't wait for permission. Just do it. As long as it's legal and doesn't hurt other people. Obviously that sentence up there about not waitin...
Dead Butt Syndrome
August 06, 2019 13:00 - 22 minutes - 31.3 MBPeople, you have got to get your butts out of the chair, or the bed, or whatever. Seriously. Your butt is breaking! Sorry Dying. Your butt is dying! According to a Huffington Post articleby Nicole Pajer, "Americans are sitting so long that their butts are literally falling asleep. “Dead butt syndrome,” or gluteal amnesia, is a condition that occurs when your gluteus medius gets inflamed and forgets to function normally." Pajer's article, 'Dead Butt Syndrome' Is A Real Thing. Here's How T...
How to Deal with Big Writer Feelings and Dropping Your Child in the Woods
July 30, 2019 14:00 - 21 minutes - 30.1 MBSometimes us writer people feel broken. We maybe got rejected one too many times. We maybe got a horrifying review. We maybe are stuck on Chapter 7560 in our epic fantasy WHEN THE BUNNY OF DOOM FELL IN LOVE WITH THE HAMSTER OF GLORIOUS GLORY. This is normal. Creative people have a lot of big feelings. People who aren’t super creative also have a lot of big feelings. People feel. All of us. And sometimes? Well, sometimes those feelings aren’t always positive. So what do you do? DO NOT MAK...
Taco Bell Leaks, Rainbow Unicorn Golf Carts and How to Spend Your Book Release Day
July 23, 2019 13:00 - 21 minutes - 30.1 MBWhat to do when your book launches. I don’t know. Seriously. Some writers get tattoos, a piece of jewelry, a new charm for a charm bracelet. Some hold book release parties. Some go out to dinner. As you'll hear, Carrie did none of those things. Instead, she ran, made a whiny video from the campground shower stall, had a Taco Bell incident, bought Shaun a new outfit, tried to raise money for ShelterBox and finally got a copy of her own book. Plus, rainbow-unicorn golf carts. The point ...
Poop Texting Fail
July 16, 2019 13:00 - 25 minutes - 34.4 MBSo, two weeks ago the podcast featured poop texting and writing, but somehow only our random thought was uploaded and not the full broadcast. Carrie feels this may have been her mother refusing to allow such things be out in the open. She raised Carrie better than this, honestly. No decent woman from New Hampshire talks openly about poop. Shaun feels Carrie just messed up. WE’VE BEEN MARRIED TOO LONG AND POOP TEXTS Sometimes you get married and you’ve been married for a long time and yo...
THE TRUTH ABOUT BEING EXTRA
July 09, 2019 16:00 - 24 minutes - 34.1 MBSo, sometimes Carrie is a little extra. Carrie:I was looking at people who liked me in college - all the ones that I didn't like back - and they were all so stable and mellow even in college when it was all about putting dissected sharks on the floor and jello shots. Now they are all grown up and they are stable and mellow and have these beautiful upscale lives. They're doctors, lawyers, engineers. Shaun:But you have me. Carrie: Exactly! And I love you. I love that you are unexpected a...
Poop Texts and We’ve Been Married Too Long
July 02, 2019 12:00 - 6 minutes - 9.19 MBSometimes you get married and you’ve been married for a long time and you remember that the beginning of your marriage is like a poem and there’s white space and new discovery in every line. Sometimes you’ve been married a long time and it’s a routine, a science experiment that can be replicated. There can be beautiful comfort in a rut or a routine. Some people want life to be poems. Or not. Some people want life to be expirments. Or not. Some people like patterns to their lives an...
Aw, Ahh, Aah, Awe, or Ah is that Underwear?
June 25, 2019 19:00 - 28 minutes - 39.1 MBNone of us are perfect with the grammar, especially not us native-English speakers. We’ve got all these words that mean totally different things but sound EXACTLY THE SAME! And today, we here on Dogs are Smarter Than People are going to do things. Prove that dogs are smarter than people because they don’t have to spell. Help you all out about a five-some of evil. Yes, I’m talking about Aah, ah, ahh, aw, and awe. I know you’ve all seen it on Facebook. Someone you love writes, “Awe (a-w-...
Some Men Aren’t Meant to Wear Scarves, So Be Your Own Style and Don’t Pretend to Be Tom Cruise Or Bieber
June 11, 2019 13:00 - 31 minutes - 43.1 MBNormally we talk about writing somehow, right? Because we’re a writing podcast. But we aren’t this week. This week, we’re talking about fashion advice for men because Carrie saw a post on The Art of Manliness that was “101 Style Tips for Men.” First off, let’s just give a shout out that there’s a website called The Art of Manliness. That is a brilliant name. Carrie’s favorite tip was this one: 27. Always dress like you might decide to drop by a restaurant or nightclub with a dress c...
Writing Is Not Terrible Rant, Men Disrobing in the Meat Department
June 04, 2019 13:00 - 28 minutes - 39.1 MBCarrie's having a bit of a rant this episode. Let's blame it on her going to a Lynryd Skynrd concert last night. Here's the rant: There’s a lovely funny author who recently gave a speech saying that writing is terrible and that it is 100 % okay to complain about it incessantly and completely professional to do so. Everyone is all, “Yes! And preach it!” Except me. I don’t care what’s professional or not. Obviously, I never have. And I know this will not be a popular podcast. But what I...
Let's Talk About Wedgies, Writers
May 28, 2019 13:39 - 20 minutes - 28.6 MBThe wedgie. It's the ultimate tv trope. Give someone a wedgie and there are only two possibilities: You're a bully You're getting revenge on a bully. In the U.S. culture wedgies are instantly recognizable and understandable. There are even three wedgie variations: The Melvin, in which the undies are yanked up from the front. The Atomic Wedgie, in which the undies are pulled over the head. The Hanging Wedgie, in which the victim is suspended from an object by their underwear. TV TRO...
Flirt Your Eyelashes Off Writers
May 21, 2019 14:15 - 20 minutes - 27.7 MBA quick web search for the words 'flirting' and 'dangerous' gets a lot of hits. To be fair, so does a quick web search for the words 'flirting' and 'fun.' But we're not here to tell you about the perils and delights of flirting. We're here to talk about writing, life, and dogs. Actually, flirting is part of most people's lives. But we're FOCUSING on the writing aspect. Flirting is showing someone that you are attracted to them.Hall, Carter, Cody, and Albright, (2010). If you've listen...
Own Your Stupid
May 14, 2019 12:20 - 13 minutes - 18.7 MBThere's a BuzzFeed article about 23 Dogs Who are Too Adorably Stupid for Their Own Good. Which is amazing. But it made us think about why dogs get to be stupid and called adorable, but when humans are stupid, we're called stupid and it's derisive, you know? There's this constant pressure to be perfect, intelligent. You misspell too as two and 180 Twitter people are on your case. We all put so much pressure on each other to be free of mistakes, perfect princesses and princes. But dogs? T...
The Worst Writing Advice That Brings Down Even the Greatest of Writers
May 07, 2019 16:00 - 20 minutes - 28.1 MBCarrie got really confused this week because she went on YouTube and looked up "Writing Advice" and there was a really popular vlogger who gives a ton of writing advice, but she's not published things. She is, however, really definite on her views on how to be a good writer, which is lovely. It's lovely to be so confident. But it made us think about what the worst writing advice ever is. It's not: Write every day. It's not even: Write what you know. It's not: Write for you and if y...
Do you have to write every day? Stephen King Twitter Torches versus the Anti-Burnout Crew
April 30, 2019 13:00 - 20 minutes - 28.2 MBSo, one of the big debates in the world of writing advice is the Write Every Day Debate. I know! I know. Sexy name. High stakes. But, honestly, it gets people so riled up. There are the Write Every Day Camp. They carry lit Twitter Torches and follow Stephen King who famously said: "Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft And then there are the Anti Burn Out Crew who say that you can't possibly w...
How to Survive Bad Writing Advice
April 23, 2019 13:46 - 23 minutes - 32.2 MBI (Carrie) apologize for sounding so sick in this podcast. It's because I am super sick. This week I got an Instagram message from a man selling his copyediting services and there were five incredibly obvious typos in his pitch. I'm talking about two words combined, misspelled words. Double punctuation at the end of a sentence. It was sad. So, there's another guy on the internet who makes a ton of money helping other people be writers and I'm sure he's lovely, but I find him incredibly...
Roombas, Shaun Talks About Robbing Houses, and Random Mashed Potatoes in Jackson, Mississippi
April 16, 2019 18:00 - 21 minutes - 29.2 MBThe city of Jackson, Mississippi is having a weird situation. To be fair, Jackson has had weird situations before. People left Christmas trees in potholes. They decorate road signs in ways road signs aren't supposed to be decorated. But now what's happening in Jackson is about something sacred. It's about the mashed potato. People are leaving bowls of mashed potatoes in all sorts of random places. According to a Huffington Post piece, a resident is quoted as saying, “So we don’t know i...
Vegetable Lambs Growing on Trees, Man
April 09, 2019 20:40 - 19 minutes - 26.2 MBScience isn’t always right. I know! Shocker. Once, some scientists had this theory about the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary. They truly believed that the lamb grew on a tree. To be fair, it was the Middle Ages in Europe and things were kind of like America right now. People had no clue about stuff, but they pretended to. Anyway, according to Ripley’s Believe it Or Not, There were believed to be two distinct varieties of Vegetable Lamb: a bizarre plant that produced tiny lambs inside pod...
Dogs Know How to Be Famous, Do You? How to handle being popular
April 02, 2019 13:00 - 19 minutes - 26.2 MBSo this dog caught a ball in his mouth and the video of it became viral. His name is Stanley the Collie and he has his own Instagram account. Of course he does. But then an Australian newsman interviewed Stanley and Stanley promptly took the microphone cover and ran off with it. Of course he did. Stanley wasn’t media savvy. Or was he? Either way. He wasn’t going to change his essential Stanley-ness for fame. Writers shouldn’t either. Popularity comes and goes and it’s a hard guess whethe...
Dutch Oven Your Hero
March 26, 2019 20:27 - 15 minutes - 20.8 MBSo, last month Carrie was on an airplane, where she was trapped on a Philadelphia runway for awhile. Okay, hours. And someone kept expelling gas out the rectum. In Shaun language that means fart. Anyways, they were all trapped there, smelling this smell, and it was bad. Not bad enough for them to cancel the flight, which has allegedly happened in the past, but it was bad. It was a giant multi-person dutch oven. We're not talking about the nice kind of dutch ovens from Le Creuset where yo...
Destroy the Evil with Oliver the Cow and Cannabis-Themed Weddings
March 26, 2019 12:45 - 16 minutes - 22.8 MBWhen Carrie first started writing, she wrote contemporary teen fiction and she heard a lot of comments about being quirky. She’d hear comments like “Could that really happen?” And a lot of times, she’d answer, “Um. It already has.” One time, I had a story with a wedding expo that featured cannabis. Everyone said, “You need to cut that. That would never happen.” Last week in Canada? It did. It was called the Canadian Canabis Wedding Expo. In this world, things you don’t expect to happe...
Risk Everything Like a Boss Dog
March 19, 2019 12:30 - 17 minutes - 16.7 MBIn our random thought we talk about a Twitter thread by writer John Paul Brammer (@jpbrammer), which details how a cat and two dogs showed up at his apartment door and how they wanted inside. He couldn't figure out what the animals were doing there and what to do with them. His tiny story had everything - confusion, an objective (to keep the animals safe), a mystery (where did the animals belong) and a conclusion when the owners came back home. There was risk involved - a massive amount o...
Making Bad Guys
March 05, 2019 13:28 - 17 minutes - 24.6 MBLots of us have bad people in our writing and our lives. These antagonists run the gamut from people who make us scream at their Facebook posts of Fakeness to actually physically hurting us and our community. But one of the biggest questions a lot of new writers have is this: DO I NEED A BAD GUY? Yes. But your bad guy can be yourself? Like in our random thoughts, Carrie is often showing that she is her own worst enemy. Watching tv gives her anxiety, but she almost always watches tv at...
Zombie Deer are Coming and Emotions are Contagious
February 26, 2019 13:36 - 23 minutes - 32.1 MBWhen you're in a business or nonprofit or just in your house, you'll often notice that emotions are kind of like the flu. They can be easy to catch. When your friend is angry because someone is being a punk on Facebook, you often get angry, too. When your kid is sad, you can get sad. Emotions from others often seep into us, especially in a workplace. Let's say everyone is super excited at a writing conference. Are you going to get super excited, too? Probably. It's all about mirror neuro...
Weird Things About Us - Secret Cat Person in the House
February 19, 2019 13:13 - 23 minutes - 32.9 MBThis week we're pretty low-key chill with an off-format podcast about the weird things about us Basically, we answer some of our listener's questions. We forgot the hardest one, which is: How does Carrie get everything done? That one took too much time, so we'll share it next week. We love you all and thank you so much for your awesome questions. Why do you choose to live this way, humans? Shout Out! The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made availab...
Public Humiliation and Us
February 12, 2019 12:48 - 26 minutes - 36 MBTo be a writer and a human you often have to be courageous. Writers put their books out there for other people to see. Humans put their selves out there (sometimes in places like Tinder) for people to see. And that's scary AF, honestly. With us writer people we're putting our inner thoughts on a page, we're exposing our insides and that can be so hard and when we do that? It hurts when we get rejected or judged or told that our insides suck? And sometimes when we want to protect ourselves...
Be My Troll Baby or How To Avoid the Trolls? You decide.
February 05, 2019 13:47 - 20 minutes - 27.8 MBWhat is A troll? A troll is someone who is a poop. No! No. Sorry, let’s try to be a bit more academic here. WHY DO THEY TROLL? All trolls are different and everything is a generalization but usually because they are bored and want some attention. Don’t Feed Them It’s incredibly hard not to feed the trolls, especially if they’re attacking your friends or fans. But even if you aren’t a massively well published author with a fan base of 5 million trillion (cough) you can still attract ...
How are We Still Married and Happy Anniversary
February 04, 2019 14:03 - 16 minutes - 23.1 MBSomeone just told me (Carrie) that we weren't really having a wedding anniversary because: We are celebrating it a few days late. We both forgot about it until the Thursday before the Sunday of the anniversary. Apparently, we didn't talk about it on Facebook. Gasp! Who knew those were the criteria to keep your anniversary legit? Here's our bonus podcast about it. Spoiler Alert: This is not a poignant bonus podcast. For more info on us and/or Carrie's books, check out her blog at carr...
Emotional Support Alligators, Brooklyn 99 and You
January 29, 2019 13:05 - 21 minutes - 29.5 MBThere's a 65-year-old man, Henry, who lives near Philadelphia who has depression. He didn't want to take medicine but he noticed he was happier when he was near his alligator, Wally. Yes, a guy in Philadelphia has an alligator named Wally. If you can get past that, you can be okay with the rest of this. The doctor agreed to register Wally as an emotional support animal and the man now walks Wally around the neighborhood, hopefully not during winter and stuff. He hugs. He likes to eat a lo...
Boxers or Briefs or Commando How to Live a Literary Life
January 22, 2019 13:16 - 21 minutes - 29.5 MBCarrie has been working on the Write Submit Support Class that she's doing with the Writing Barn and the whole class is about creating a writing community and supporting each other, right? And one of the first classes talks about "Living the Literary Life," which is a phrase that she's honestly not super into because she spends a lot of her time just trying to convince people to live their own life let alone a life with a qualifier in it like 'literary.' Some people think living the liter...
Beer Fest is Not the Question. Beer Fest is the Answer. BONUS EPISODE!
January 20, 2019 15:15 - 27 minutes - 38.3 MBSo, Shaun and I made a bonus podcast at yesterday's Fourth Annual Bar Harbor Winter Beer Fest. Yes, you heard that right. We basically battled ridiculously cold temperatures the day before a giant storm in order to hang out with a bunch of Maine beer drinkers and we made new friends, talked to men in kilts, brewers, and a really cool guy making a film about kids doing really cool things. Yes, we make less sense as we go on. Yes, part of the podcast was created in a port-a-potty. You sho...
How to Be Happier Writers, Dogs, and People and A Little Talk about Cat Butts
January 15, 2019 12:45 - 20 minutes - 28.3 MBHow can we make our organizations and ourselves happy? We talk about this ALL THE TIME in our house. To be fair we also talk about expelling gas out the rectum and cookie recipes, but happiness gets mentioned a lot. We like to think of this, which Will Durant wrote, “We are what we repeatedly do.” Humans are pattern seekers, but sometimes those patterns aren’t helpful ones. We fall into our default patterns; they become like well-used highways, constantly-used routes to our thinking. O...
Golden Globes, Black-Eyed-Peas with Cauliflower And How Writers Make No Money and That Sucks
January 08, 2019 13:08 - 21 minutes - 29.5 MBA recent study by the Authors Guild basically says that if you want to be a writer, prepare to be poor. In 2017, full-time writers made a median salary of around $20k. That’s full-time writers. In the last ten years, writers’ earnings have decreased by 42 percent. The article talks about causes and how this impacts authors’ writings and our society. But it doesn’t talk a lot about mental health, about how a lack of pay impacts creativity. The study’s press release quotes T.J. Stiles as ...
Avoiding the New Year's Suck - Dogs Are Smarter Than People Podcast
December 31, 2018 16:27 - 19 minutes - 26.8 MBOkay. Okay. I know we always try to be positive because we are positive people. Cough. But New Years? It's a little frustrating. That's because it's all about goals and new starts. And you know, every day should be about that, right? And then you're like, "Crap, I failed in my goals. Crap, I need new goals. Crap, why is this party boring? Crap, should my new goal to be to never attend a party?" And so on. But that pressure? To be Instagram-worthy, to be super achiever goal person, to be e...
It's Christmas OMFG - Dogs are Smarter Than People PODCAST
December 25, 2018 04:25 - 20 minutes - 28.7 MBSo, because Christmas is on the same day as the podcast release and we weren't - cough - super organized, we're sharing with you our day before Christmas. What? Are there writing tips? Nah. Not really. It's just us. Randomly taking voice memos as we go about our days and then splicing that stuff together so you can see what it's like for us on Christmas Eve Day. Be a Part of the Podcast! Hey! If you download the Anchor application, you can call into the podcast, record a question, or j...
Stake the Stakeholders and Be Your Own Voice in Determing Your Successes
December 18, 2018 15:05 - 22 minutes - 31 MBYesterday on her blog, Carrie talked about how feeling successful in your career or life is really tied to having your personal values resonate in your occupation, and being guided by those same core values instead of society’s outside metrics about what makes someone a success. The blog is here. (carriejonesbooks.blog) But on the podcast, we’re going to touch on something we’ve talked about before – stakeholders. Stakeholders are all around you. They’re in your past and your present. Th...
A Story Is About More than Mechanics and Grammar And Carrie Gets Tipsy By Accident
December 11, 2018 21:41 - 17 minutes - 23.6 MBToo often we really focus only on the mechanics of story. Writers and student-writers are told to make perfect sentences, understand the use of the semi-colon, and to spell words correctly. “Do not turn in a manuscript to an agent or editor unless it’s perfect,” is a pretty big industry standard. Be perfect. Write perfectly. Have perfect grammar. Have a perfect plot. Spell everything perfectly. Here’s the thing: Your story won’t ever be perfect especially if you’re working on it all by yo...
Our First Tip To How to Make Your Life and Writing Life Better
December 04, 2018 18:32 - 15 minutes - 21.7 MBShaun: So, Carrie's not the best in the mornings and too much noise, clutter, extra to-do items pretty much throws her completely off her game. Carrie: One of the reasons that the dogs and I do daily motivating thoughts on my Facebook and Twitter accounts is because it helps ground me and make me feel less cranky and stressed.... Usually. Shaun, however, is a morning person who craves noise and tropical music while I'm a Pachibel's Cannon morning person. Shaun: True. Carrie: So, this week'...
Cow Hugging, Writing, Okay Cupid and Rural Legends
November 26, 2018 21:41 - 22 minutes - 30.7 MBSo, honestly, this podcast is weird. We sound like we're on illegal drugs, but we aren't sure why. Our brains just weren't working. Sadly, Carrie's mouth wasn't either. Who else would call a 'podcast' a 'codcast?' Anyway, we asked people for topics for our podcast. And people on Carrie’s Facebook were completely helpful. Jon Hill wanted to know why there weren’t more palomino unicorns. It’s an important question. And some other people wanted us to talk about cow hugging. Matt Baya suggest...
Tips on Not Being a Sucky Friend and How to Write Good Friendships
November 20, 2018 14:31 - 23 minutes - 32.5 MBIn this latest episode of "Dogs are Smarter Than People," we talk about how to be a good friend and to write good friendships in your books and stories. Friendship and children's books are a pretty natural combination. Carrie's own books are big on friends even when they are full of romance. Friends matter. And there are so many beautiful examples of friendships in children's books, but let's go with this Maine classic from E.B. White's Charlotte's Web. Wilbur blushed. “But I’m not terrific...
Bonus Episode- Do You Share Your Toothbrush and the Towel of Poo
November 18, 2018 00:44 - 8 minutes - 8.27 MBCarrie and Shaun are still driving through the South and getting a little punchy. Thinking up book ideas like the Towel of Poo and ruminating about whether toothbrush sharing is gross or not. Check out Carrie’s blog at carriejonesbooks.blog and please like and subscribe to the podcast! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/carriejonesbooks/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/carriejonesbooks/support