Like too precious with it at times, which speaks to like my trepidation with and just lack of writing and working on book two, a fractal.

And then that just stops things from ever being a thing.

Even if it's a first draft that I know it's going to get polished and worked on.

It's like that ero with draft, as she calls it.

I'm like working it out in my head and not getting past that point to get it on paper, which it needs to be to be able to move forward and to start molding and, you know, get momentum going.

But I like that she has this approach, and she's a prolific writer, of just writing a ero with draft, a raw draft that obviously nobody sees except her.

And it's full of errors and mistakes and brackets and thoughts, ideas.

And that's definitely, definitely helpful takeaway.

To see someone at her level that does that kind of takes a bit of the mysticism out of it.

What up?

What up folks?

What's going on?

Welcome to the Sponsor Day podcast, the only podcast that is anchored in writing, unlimited in scope.

I'm your host, Tony Ortiz, and I appreciate you listening.

This is episode 287 of the Sponsor Day podcast and it is a free writing session.

I've missed you guys.

It's been minutes since I wrote a free writing session episode or put together a free writing session episode rather.

And in this style of episode, what I normally do for the uninitiated is share my writing stats, which I track, meaning how many days I've written versus days that I did not work on writing.

I share a writing tip that I picked up on for my fellow writers and creatives out there.

I tell you about what I've been reading, share some notes and takeaways of that specific book.

In this episode, I'm also going to share my notes on a master class that I took from NK Jemisin.

And last but certainly not least, I wrap up with a free writing piece of my own.

So stick around for all that good stuff.

It's definitely a how the sausage is made type of episode while also being a way for myself to keep myself or get myself back on track to striving for and achieving the writing goals that I set for myself.

So definitely stick around for all that good stuff.

But first, I wanted to tell you all about a quick way that you can help support this show.

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Your support is invaluable, helps keep the proverbial lights on here at Spuntery Studios and is very much appreciated.

Spuntery.com support and then after this we'll jump right into the episode.

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So it's been a minute since I've done one of these free writing session episodes as I mentioned in the intro.

So I have a bunch of writing stats to share with you folks.

I have my stats for February 2025, March, April, May and I would have also had June and July had my writing track record for the past few months not been absolute dogshit.

So for June July I didn't even track my writing stats.

But in retrospect they were very similar to what I did for like April and May, which you'll see in a bit.

So let's get into in February 2025 I wrote only nine out of the 28 days of the month for a writing percentage of 32.14%.

For March, I stepped up my game a bit.

I wrote 14 out of the 31 days of the month or writing percentage of 45.16% for April, my birthday month.

Shout out to my fellow areas out there.

I remember telling myself that I was going to give myself the gift of having written for my birthday and I wrote 1 out of the 30 days of the month for a writing percentage of 3.33%.

In May of 2025 I wrote 8 out of the 31 days of the month for a writing Percentage of 25.8% and as I mentioned June and July, I did not even track my writing stats.

So March was decent.

I always want to try to get that number consistently above 50% and 45% is the closest that I've been in a while.

But every other month is inexcusable, atrocious, and if I'm looking at this realistically, it's a direct directly translates into my writing goals for the year either being on track or being achieved or not.

Which they're not, right?

So a definitely a big takeaway for myself objectively is I set these goals to for example, translate Make Way for you in Spanish into Spanish, which I'm going to tell you guys in a bit.

That's actually a lot of what I was working on in March, which is why I was more productive that month.

But also complete and submit the first draft of the continuation of my time travel Novel Fractale Book 2 by the end of the year and I forget what my other goal was right from a writing perspective.

But I've dabbled with fractal.

I continue to do so, but I'm not close on that one.

I've definitely made progress on the translation of Make Way for you, which for those who don't know is a I call it the Poor Man's War of Art.

It's modeled after that book.

It was the first book that ever published.

It's a non fiction.

It's kind of like a motivational inspirational work for creatives.

It's a collection of tips for getting out of your own way.

So if you're interested, definitely check that out.

Sponsored.com/forward/books but again, if I'm looking at these writing stats objectively, this is almost half a year's worth of writing stats and all most if not all have been under 50% of days that I've written verse days that I did not write or did not work on writing.

And that's a direct There's a direct correlation between that and okay, this is why you're not achieving your goals.

Which is why I want to track the stats, which is why I want to have something tangible, something practical that I can look back on and say, okay, this is what I have to work on.

If I increase these writing percentages, I should start seeing more results.

I should start seeing myself achieve more of the goals that I set for myself in the beginning of the year.

And I share it with you fine folks as a way to keep myself honest.

But also, it's kind of like a Little how the sausage is made behind the scenes type of thing.

And also maybe something that you would want to emulate in your own work, but obviously with higher percentages, but definitely tracking the what it is that you're doing, what it is that you're working on and how often you do.

So I think is.

Is definitely something worth emulating.

And those are my writing stats to date.

Oh, but before I switch to the writing tip, as far as the translation for make way for your tips for getting out of your own way en Espanol, I translated a good portion of that book when I had the idea to.

To do the translation.

Shout out to Joanna Penn.

She's like my, my writing muse many years ago.

And I started.

I speak Spanish, I'm fluent in Spanish, I'm first generation Dominican.

But for those that are similar to me, we got like C pluses and B minuses in Spanish class in high school.

Because first generation Dominican Spanish doesn't necessarily translate into the most proper form of the language.

So I translated, I would say 25 to 30% of the book myself just how I believe it should be written in Spanish.

I leveraged Google Translate for like the spelling of certain Spanish words that I didn't know offhand.

So that first 25 to 30% was like slow going.

And it was something that I would just, you know, translate one to go back one piece because it's broken up into individual pieces.

The book, I think it's like 75, 77 or like 80 different entries.

And then I would put it down, I would go back to it, you know, a few days or weeks later and then just started working on other, other things really for a couple years probably when I started working on fractal then melted cold.

And I got the.

The idea, I believe was also from Joanna Pen, you know, to leverage AI for translation purposes.

And I've been doing so and it gives you a phenomenal base to work with.

And what's cool about the one I'm using for this task specifically, which is Anthropic's clawed AI, is that I feed it the what I originally wrote in English and I asked it to translate it into Spanish but with a more Dominican tone or bend, and it translates the piece instantly and then gives you a breakdown of like, this would be the traditional way to say this phrase, for example, but if you wanted to say it in a more Dominican way, you can use this phrase.

And then that's where I, you know, first of all, like read the original text that I wrote, read the translation version, see if it makes sense to to me, just to my knowledge of Spanish.

But I know the spelling is on point and then I make the decision on which pieces to change myself for something that I think would sound better said differently in Spanish, even if it's not quote unquote correct Spanish.

But ultimately it's how I want to express myself, or if I want to take the suggestions of the colloquial Dominican bend that it offers for certain phrases.

So it's pretty dope.

And that has gotten me to in a very short period of time, which is a lot of what I was working on in March, which is why the writing sets are a lot higher that month.

But leveraging that tool for the translation has gotten me probably past 50, 60% of the book translated.

So just as a check in for that overall goal writing goal of mine here, now that it's a bit past mid year, I think that's definitely one that should be achievable if I continue with this pace.

And definitely something that I think might be worth considering for fiction as well, although that seems a lot more of a daunting and longer task, but much more manageable with the use of some AI writing tools and ideas like that.

Moving on to the writing tip that I want to share with you folks.

This is from a Substack email that I received on May 16, 2025.

I will link to the actual post in the episode Notes for folks to check out.

The piece is by Naomi Kanakia and it's called the Future of Fiction, and she wrote.

Traditionally, fiction writers practice their craft by getting critiques from their peers and workshops, but Substack offers an experience more akin to an open mic night at a stand up comedy club.

You can feel in real time whether your fiction is working, whether it's landing with the audience that you've built.

And that purpose allows writers to adjust their stories accordingly until they've found a style that's both true to their voice and genuinely compelling for the reader.

I know this may sound strange to traditional fiction writers.

I've been one myself for 20 years, with four traditionally published novels and dozens of short stories to many.

But it was only when I started sharing my fiction on substack that my voice really sharpened.

Only by testing and discarding the conventions of the traditional short story was I finally able to figure out which parts of my stories were essential and which parts I was only including because I thought editors wanted to see them.

The result is fiction that feels alive, playful, genre defying, and accessible.

If you're a reader looking for something new, something surprising.

This is where to find it.

And I thought that was a really interesting, fresh new take that I hadn't heard or considered before.

And I like the comparison of fiction writing compared to Stan Comedy because I'm a big st comedy fan.

But just in the approach to honing your craft, similar to how comedians do on stage, open open mics, writing jokes, trying out jokes, seeing what works, seeing what doesn't, and over a matter of a year or two or more, sharpening those jokes, trying them out for different audiences across the country, across the world to hone them in to a final work after doing them over and over and over hundreds, thousands of times, their final polished versions in the form of a stand up comedy special.

From a writing perspective.

And Naomi's right in this the traditional way is to have like beta readers.

You know, you, you have a.

You write your story, you use the tools that you can to polish it up.

For example ProWritingAid, which is a great like pre editing software that I've spoken about in the past.

If you guys want to go check out the episodes on for example how I published Melted Cold, there's a specific episode for that, my breakdown, like where each story comes from and just like how the sausage gets made from that.

You know how I use pro writing aid and other tools to shape it up.

And then from there you move on to professional editing.

Some folks also use beta readers before those stages where they take their feedback and then they adjust their story accordingly.

As Naomi mentioned in this piece, but I never considered this like direct building your own audience on substack approach, which is interesting.

I have not done it myself, but again, just find it really interesting.

And I do.

I'm on substack.

I don't write on Substack, but.

But I follow writers on Sub Stack.

Most recently actually I found the Juno Diaz on there and he seems to be doing something similar to this.

Aside from giving writing advice, which is great, mainly what I'm there for.

But I know he also puts fiction pieces there, like chapters of stories in there.

And Juno Diaz, for those who don't know, is a Dominican American writer.

But a couple of great books that I really liked, like this is how youw Lose her the Brief Run, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wilde, which I actually went to go see the Off Broadway play for, which was dope.

His short story collection, Drown, so on and so forth.

But he's on Substack.

A bunch of writers are on Sub Stack.

A bunch of political writers are on substack as well.

But I just thought this was a cool, interesting way to look at working on the writing craft.

So I want to share with you fun folks.

Definitely let me know your thoughts on that and if you've either considered that in your own writing or if you follow any writers that are doing that, writers that you enjoy and give them feedback on their writing, hit me up in the comments section of the episode and or on Twitter Fun today and let me know what I've been reading.

I've been reading Ta Nehisi Coates's between the World and Me, which was a beautiful love letter of sorts to his son.

It was essentially him telling him about life, his life growing up as a black man in America and giving his son life advice, while also recognizing that his son's version of growing up black in America is going to be very different from what his version was, as well as reflecting on how different Ta Nehisi Coates's version was from his father's version of growing up black in America and how things change and how certain things stay the same.

And reading this reinforced an idea myself that I had with writing certain things down as a father of two boys, writing certain things down for them for the future of aside from just like thoughts and you know, what my take was on something or how I felt about something at a certain specific point in time, which I think my podcast in general, I mean my writing wouldn't form those answers, but just like general life advice for things that I went through that they may go through, thoughts that I've had or wrestled with, things that I foresee that might be challenging for them or that they may want to lean into like strengths that I think they have for, you know, for what it's worth, you know, just being my opinion and not necessarily to publish, but just like as a thing for them.

Like reading this book kind of like reinforced that that thought and it's a powerful read, definitely one that I know I will revisit in the future and that you folks should definitely check out and I will link to it in the episode notes for you guys to do just that.

And Ta Nehisi Kotai over the years very much enjoyed his perspective, his take usually political ones on many different podcasts or interview shows that I've seen him on and always wanted to read this book.

It's always spoken highly of but never happened until recently and I'm definitely glad I did.

So I just wanted to share a few takeaways that I took away from the Book, just parts of it that resonated with me that I wanted to share for different reasons, whether it's the actual prose on the page and how we put a concept or idea together, or just, like, the lesson or takeaway.

I have about six or seven different ones.

And starting off with this first one, which was a story that he told that just, like, brought me to that point in time.

Like, I felt I was there.

And it's just the way that he wrote it was just dope.

And also somewhat reminiscent of, you know, my childhood, but a less extreme version.

But let me just jump right into it.

It's a story about him getting robbed when he was younger and having to process it alone and then sharing it with his friends in a way that he, like, laughed it off or, like, they laughed it off.

But he really, like, internalized, like, that pain and that fear from the experience.

And that's the piece that definitely resonated with me.

He just breaks it down, like, so eloquently.

And they wrote it almost verbatim.

Wrote it down rather verbatim.

Wanted to share with you guys.

And he says, quote, in

sixth grade, just before 3:00pm I recall it in the slowest motion, as though in a dream.

There the boy stood with the gun brandished, which he slowly tucked, untucked and tucked once more.

And in his small eyes I saw a surging rage that could, in an instant, erase my body.

That was 1986.

That year I felt myself to be drowning in the news reports of murder.

I was aware that these murders very often did not land on the intended targets, but fell up on great aunts, PTA mothers, overtime uncles and joyful children fell upon them random and relentless like gray sheets of rain.

I knew this in theory, but could not understand it as fact until the boy with the small eyes stood across from me, holding my entire body in his small hands.

The boy did not shoot.

His friends pulled him back.

He did not need to shoot.

He had affirmed my place in the order of things.

He had let it be known how easily I could be selected.

I took the subway home that day, processing the episode all alone.

I did not tell my parents.

I did not tell my teachers.

And if I told my friends, I would have done so with all the excitement needed to obscure the fear that came over me in that moment.

I remember being amazed that death could so easily rise up from the nothing of a boyish afternoon, billow up like fog.

End quote.

That piece was intense, and I just love the way he worded it, especially this line.

Fell upon them, random and relentless like gray sheets of rain.

And so many more in there.

This was definitely a good takeaway.

And again, definitely rang true.

He says growing up, he learned a different language, a language of the streets, and described it as knowing slash, learning the names and which crew ran which hood in which city.

And they can tell you the name of all the captains and all their cousins and offer an anthology of all their exploits.

This was necessary to survive in certain neighborhoods and to protect their.

Their bodies.

And he says, I learned that yo, shorty, can I see your bike?

Was never a sincere question, which is so fucking true.

I remember I was, like, telling my son a story the other day that I remember from when I was a kid.

I had this, like, banana seat bike, and it was in the yard.

I was, like, riding around inside the.

The yard, and I left it in the yard, and I saw out the window that somebody came into the yard and was like, buy the bike.

Another kid, like around my age, maybe a couple years older.

I was, from memory, I was like 7, 8 or 9.

I could be off on the age, but around that.

That age bracket.

And I ran out to the yard, and the kid sees me, gets, like, startled.

And I was like, that's my bike.

Like, I don't know, like, what to say.

I said something, something to that effect, and it was like, oh, I didn't know.

And he just, like, left the yard.

And I was like, what the hell?

I remember thinking, like, this, dude, you're trying to take my bike.

And then I don't remember if it was a few days later or a few weeks later somebody did steal that bike.

Probably that same kid.

But yeah, it's like little nuances of like, he.

He's speaking to you folks that literally grew up on the street, you know, like, about that life, which I was definitely not, but you're close to it enough to understand that takeaway of.

I learned that, yo, shorty, can I see your bike?

Was never a sincere question.

And that's so true.

And then this next one was, he says, and yo, you was messing with my cousin was neither an earnest accusation nor a misunderstanding of the facts.

That was just a way for somebody to start fucking with you, basically.

And the next one I wrote down was, algebra, biology and English were not subjects so much as opportunities to better discipline the body, to practice writing between the lines, copying the directions, legible, memorizing theorems extracted from the world.

They were created to represent that.

That was an interesting take.

Then he wrote to my son, quote, my work is to give you what I know of my own particular path while allowing you to walk your own.

You can no more be black like I am black like I can be black like your grandfather was.

That's such an important takeaway right there.

I want to give you what I know of my own particular path while allowing you to walk your own.

That's something I definitely want to emulate for for my own kids.

And I thought this was just an interesting part of his life story when he's telling his his son about his wife and them meeting and just about the early parts of their relationship.

He says that his wife secured a job in New York after college and he followed her to New York even though he wasn't financially necessarily able to like she was the main breadwinner.

He said that what little he did make from his writing, which was from like reviewing an album or a book, it was enough to cover approximately two electric bills the entire year.

And Taboo.

They arrived to New York two months before 911 and then two more that I want to share with you folks from again ta Nehisi Coates's between the World and Me.

He says, here's how I take measure of my progress in life.

I imagine myself as I was back there in West Baltimore, fearful of the schools and the streets.

And I imagine showing that lost boy a portrait of my current life and asking him what he makes of it.

That definitely resonated with me and in, in a couple ways in a way that it it's definitely a great touch point for yourself to reflect on.

Think about yourself as a kid, the hopes and dreams and desires that you had at some point in your life and what you think your childhood self would think of where you are now.

It's a good way to recalibrate.

And I know I often wonder if I've done enough, if I strive enough, if I try enough, if I am enough, you know, like a lot of us I'm sure do.

And in retrospect, I've definitely achieved a lot of goals that I know would have made my childhood self happy.

You know, the childhood version of myself fast would be happy that I'm married, I have children, we have our own place, finish college, have a good career.

I work hard at emulating my parents practices of putting family first and you know, raising a good family.

I have passions that I work towards like writing, podcasting, so on and so forth.

Like things like that I know the childhood version of myself would be happy with and look forward to.

But it also helps to look at things from that vantage point and how that child would tell me now, hey, what's taking so long to write that second book or third book and then allow to reprioritize things accordingly?

So definitely a dope takeaway.

And last but not least, what I jotted down, which definitely rings true when I'm rereading it now, although I don't recall why exactly resonated, but it was that quote, the things that get you are so small, the things that keep you up at night are so particular to you that when you try to explain, the only reward anyone can give to you is a dumb polite nod.

And that, folks, are the takeaways and specific moments that resonated with me from Ta Nehisi Coates's between the World and Me, which again I will link to in the episode notes for you fine folks to check out.

So one of the ways that I enjoy working on writing and learning more about the craft is by taking master classes of other writers.

It doesn't necessarily have to be within genres that I'm interested in writing in.

Just writers that I've read and some.

That I never even heard of just to get different perspectives on how they approach writing.

The latest masterclass that I took was from an author named N.K.

jemisin who is a fantasy and science fiction writer.

And I'm just going to read through.

Like when I take the master classes, I take notes in the notebook that I have specific for that.

And I noticed in this one I actually did a few like doodles like drawings to like get down like either a certain visual that she presented during her master class or just like an idea.

So I'm actually going to add some of these notes, at least to the web page for this specific episode.

So if you want to check those out, Definitely go to sponsor.com forward/podcast forward/287 this is episode 287 and check those out.

But for now I'm just going to read off of some of the notes that I took down that resonated from taking this master class.

From lesson two, I wrote down elements of world building in Sci fi and fantasy.

World building is essential, and one of the pieces that set them apart from other genre fiction is that you have two general types of settings.

If your story is set on Earth, which is known as a first world, or if it's one removed from Earth, which is known as a secondary world, and you want your world to feel real and lived in, when you do that, it'll melt away and your readers will focus on the characters and plot, which is what you want as the world builder.

You need to understand that world as if you live in it.

The reader doesn't have to, but the writer does because you want it to.

You want to make sure that you don't take the reader out of it and just jotted down a random quote which was go forth and create something new.

Then she breaks down world building further.

In lesson three, she says built the world, the macro world building.

And then lesson four, she focuses on micro world building.

But let's start with the macro I wrote down.

Write a story about people in this location, factor in the weather, isolation, etc.

Is it a desert land or mountainous?

When researching, consider similar areas and weather from our own world and use elements from it.

And I thought that was an important takeaway when, when thinking about your setting and not for nothing thinking about your setting that deeply you know.

This story taking place in New York, what month is it?

Is it going to be cold?

It's going to be hot?

Is it taking a place in some like fictional place?

And if so, what am I basing that place off of?

Is it a desert place?

Is it a mountainous place?

Is it cold?

Is it hot?

Is it raining?

Is it snowing?

The way seas exist in this world, you know, so on and so forth.

Like, think about that level of granular detail so that the reader doesn't have to and it informs your writing.

And she gives an example of Element X is the thing about your story which makes it drastically different than our world.

And it affects everything from there on out in your story once you introduce it.

So that's definitely something you have to keep in mind.

Lesson four, she focuses more on the micro world building.

She says, develop your species, whether it's humans or otherwise.

Decide if the people in your world ascribe value to the minor differences amongst them.

That made me think of, for example in my novel Fractal, which is a science fiction time travel tale.

Check it out@spontane.com books fractal.

It made me think of skippability.

How some characters have the ability to skip through time, through their dreams and effects, how things change and translate in the future.

So it's definitely big to know and to understand when you're world building.

Do your characters care about that type of stuff?

What are the values that they ascribe to differences amongst them?

The next one is that changing just one element of your society's culture, for example military, religion, financial system, environment, it will affect everything within your world.

So it's Definitely good to keep in mind and to keep track of.

However, you can like the ripple effects of changes like that that you make.

Just writes, consider power dynamics and ask yourself who is powerful in this world?

Who is powerless?

People who want to assert that power, they have.

People who want to assert that have more power will take up more space, for example.

And people who have less power tend to take up less space.

They scrunch up or huddle.

And these are ways to demonstrate that power dynamic.

Then skipping on to Section 7, I wrote down consider research.

Oh, this is.

This was this was.

This takeaway was more for.

From the financial, I guess, like, business lens of writing.

And she says consider research part of the cost of doing business as a writer, which it absolutely is.

Right.

But she takes it a step further in saying that if your story is based on a real world place, try to visit that place and you can write it off on your taxes.

You can write off on your taxes, for example, part of a family vacation that was used to do research, for example.

So if you're writing a story about, you know, or an element of your story takes place on the beach and you take a family vacation somewhere on the beach, you, you know, obviously I'm not an accountant.

She's not an accountant.

Work with your accountant on this type of thing.

But that is definitely something that I know writers do.

Joanna Pen has spoken to this as well.

And it literally takes trips to certain places.

You know, she.

She writes like Stephen King esque type of fiction and very like gothic.

And I know she's into like churches and cemeteries and things like that and goes to visit them around the world and writes off those trips as part of the research for her writings.

So just a dope takeaway.

And this one I like double highlighted, which I thought was.

It kind of like gave me the license to write and get out of my own way, as it had been with this second fractal book.

And she says she calls the draft before the first draft the raw draft or the 0th draft, the own, the one nobody sees but her and is full of misspellings and brackets.

And it always reminds me, or I'm always reminded rather of Ernest Heming Hemingway's quote, which is the first draft of Everything is Shit.

But she even added like another layer to that, like concept or idea.

Because we as writers, me especially, like, I'm like, very much so in my own head, even before writing like a first draft of something, if I'm not just doing free writing, which I think is a way just for me to like blah, just like vomit on the page.

And I know it's that, so I'm not as precious with it.

But when I'm writing like a short story, if I don't start it off in that free writing type of way, which I definitely have to get back to just to get the juices flowing, I'm like too precious with it at times, which speaks to like my trepidation with and just lack of writing and working on book two, a fractal.

And then that just stops things from ever being a thing.

Even if it's a first draft and I know it's gonna get polished and worked on.

It's like that ero with draft, as she calls it.

I'm like working it out in my head and not getting past that point to get it on paper, which it needs to be to be able to move forward and to start molding and, you know, get momentum going.

But I like that she has this approach and she's a prolific writer of just writing a ero with draft, a raw draft that obviously nobody sees except her.

And it's full of errors and mistakes and brackets and thoughts, ideas.

And that's definitely, definitely helpful takeaway.

To see someone at her level that does that kind of takes a bit of the mysticism out of it.

In this next section, which is definitely one that I'm going to post to the website because it has a couple drawings in it, she breaks down Maslow's hierarchy of needs and then compares that to her character model.

So Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

It starts picture.

If you're just listening to this, and Again, go to sponsor.com podcast287 if you want to see the visual of this, which I'll add to the website, picture a pyramid or a triangle.

The base of the triangle is physiological needs.

So like housing, food, clothing.

Then above that is safety needs you to feel safe.

Above that it's a love and belonging.

Then after that is esteem.

And at the tippity top is self actualization.

And the idea is from Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

If you remember learning about that in like school and psychology, that would be as you rise up the hierarchy and secure your needs, you're able to be more creative and have loftier goals.

So folks that are worried about physiological needs like food and shelter are not as focused on safety.

Once they have those covered, those physiological needs covered, then they can focus more on safety and moving to a better neighborhood, for example, or getting away from violence.

And then once that's secured, they focus More on love and belonging and family time, so on and so so forth.

Because their time and attention is not pulled or consumed rather by the safety needs and psychological needs and the attention that that's required to achieve those.

So on and so forth.

So Ms.

Jemison has a character model that follows this same hierarchy of needs approach.

And she has the base of it as demographics, which is your character's age and race and gender, etc.

Things that you know at a glance just from looking at them.

Then above that, their outer life, which is based on how someone presents what they do, their behaviors.

Then their inner life, which is more so based on things that you only know by knowing them, what are their goals, what are their fears, etc.

Then you have an external driven arc above that and an internal driven arc above that, which is the tippity top of that triangle.

And she writes, and I highlighted that you're able to create arcs.

So internal arcs and external arcs for your character based on the below three, based on their inner life, their outer life and their demographics.

So be intentional when you're creating your character.

And their inner life should tie directly to their internally driven arcs and their outer life could tie it to their externally driven arcs.

And I thought that was definitely an interesting approach to character creation.

And I also wrote how to convey outer life.

Another takeaway is there are techniques out there which won't make it feel as info dumpy.

And an example that she gives is like a basic description by them or another character which could happen in like conversation.

So a few more here.

The basic plot arc I always like rereading and reminding myself, you know, like the beginning, the middle and the end.

And I wrote a little diagram here that she shared in the master class.

And that again I'll add to the website for this episode for you guys to just check out.

And it's broken down into three parts.

Beginning, middle and end.

The beginning bucket has the exposition and the conflict.

Then the middle has the rising action and the climax.

And then the end has the falling action and the resolution.

And that's your basic plot arc.

Just gives some more examples of externally driven character arcs.

Three Specifically the first one is Steady State, which is the character is going about their day, day to day life.

And to establish that this character is worth following when the next stage comes in, make it makes the audience empathize and care about that specific character.

That's a way to start writing a steady state externally driven arc.

Then an inciting incident, she breaks down as being the event that occurs that changes their world.

And three, the ending state, which is like the resolution and how that character settles back into their new reality, their new world, after going through the conflict that they go through.

In the story that you write, I like this takeaway as well, which is the last one that I jotted down, which is show more and create more marginalized characters as the hero or protagonist of your story.

Write people from different backgrounds because that's what we see in real life and that's what a lot of us are right.

And that, my fine folks, my fellow writers and creatives out there, are the takeaways that I got from N.K.

jemisin's masterclass.

You can go to my webpage for this specific episode sponsored.com forward/podcast forward/287 and I'll take a picture of some of the images of my notebook here where I jotted these things down for you fine folks to take a look at.

Just some of those like doodles and drawings that I think help inform some of the takeaways that I shared there.

And last but certainly not least, I'm gonna share with you a piece of my own free writing, which I like to do.

I like to dig into the crates if you will, and I grab one of my notebooks, I flip through it, find a post that I've not shared in the past, usually this being one of them, and I'll add this to the website so you guys can check out and read if you want to.

I have a section in my in my website for a bunch of my free writing, which again, I do a lot of free association writing.

I do it in notebooks, pen to paper, but I transcribed some of them and put them on the website for you guys to check out at sponsor.com forward/freewriting and here's one from 2017 and I wrote I've squandered opportunities in the past.

I think we all have, but I feel as if I've only come to reconcile this today.

If you can't think of any squander opportunities, try shifting your perspective a bit.

Should be able to find something, whether it be as minute as a chance to go work out at your local gym this week, or as impactive as pursuing or taking advantage of a career opportunity for fear of engaging in the conversation that would create the circumstance to ask for what you want.

In the spirit of learning from past mistakes and not making them again, phase one of two is done and that being realizing the issue and the patterns in the past behavior, Phase two should be adjusting said behavior or behaviors and being open enough for continuous tweaking so that future opportunities are not squandered.

And I wrote that on Sunday, March 12, 2017 shout out to my brother David.

That's his birthday at

1:54pm and it's pretty apropos that I chose and read that one just now as I look out the window contemplating if I should go on a bike ride or not.

Because it's a beautiful day out and I definitely want to and this kind of pushed me over the edge to get up off my ass and go do so.

So let's not make that a squandered opportunity that I look back on later today and regret.

But yeah, if you want to check out that free writing piece and more, go to spontaneity.com forward/freewriting and that folks, was episode 287 of the Spun Today podcast.

Thank each and every one of you for taking the time to listen.

It is much, much appreciated.

Please do me a favor and go to spun today.com support so you can look at a bunch of different ways that you can help support this show if you so choose.

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Peace.

What's up folks?

Tony here.

I hope you're enjoying the Spun Today podcast as much as I enjoy producing it for you.

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Thanks for listening.

I love you Aiden.

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