The Write Focus

6:13 / Writers on Writing / Randy Overbeck

Fellow Podcaster (and fellow former English teacher) talks technology, writing, and his Haunted Shores mysteries. We delve into ways to avoid anachronisms when writing historical fiction before venturing into his writing process, linear rather than a mix-match puzzle process.

Overbeck’s novel Cruel Lessons was categorized as “one of the best mysteries of 2023” and “ene of the best thrillers I’ve ever read!” Of his Haunted Shores mysteries, critics have called Overbeck a “master storyteller” who provides a “rollicking good” read.

TIMINGS

00:40 Introduction / Welcome

3:42 From Paper to Electronic

8:40 Authenticity with Historical Writing

13:30 Linear Story Writing

19:25 Podcast Creation

26:10 Echoes of Life in his 1^st Novel

30:50 Haunted Shores mysteries

36:15 Closing

Total Run Time = 37:15

 

LINKS

Randy Overbeck’s site https://www.authorrandyoverbeck.com/books

Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2025/04/613-writers-on-writing-randy-overbeck.html

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Writers on Writing, a series of interviews with active writers on technology, social media, process and productivity, and much more. Here’s a link to the YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7Kctg7OayipF1tU2xl6TKjy

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

6:12 / Writers on Writing / Denise Forsythe

Business by day, fiction by night, writer Denise Forsythe is constantly looking for new ways to bring her writing into the world. She’s pursuing her longtime dream of writing fiction around the corners of her world and finding the vast differences between fiction and nonfiction, writing short vs. writing long, pantstering vs. outlining. Creativity comes with all of it.

Denise Forsythe is an awarded and recognized writer of mystery, horror, and science fiction short stories under the pen name Denise Johnson. Her domestic suspense debut novel, MISCONCEPTION, is now available for purchase. A member of Sisters in Crime, Inc. and multiple Sisters in Crime chapters, she is a Charter Member of the Sisters in Crime Grand Canyon Writers chapter. Find out more about upcoming projects at deniseforsythe.com

TIMINGS

• 00:40 Introduction
• 1:20 Constant Writing Tools
• 3:27 Scrivener vs. Word
• 5:40 Search Engines: an Indie Writer’s Friend
• 7:50 Marketing / Distributing
• 8:50 Catchy Ways to Attract Readers
• 15:33 Writing Dream / Writing Short vs. Long
• 18:40 Pantstering vs. Outlining
• 25:45 Closing

Total Run Time = 26:46

 

LINKS

https://deniseforsythe.com/

Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2025/03/612-writers-on-writing-denise-forsythe.html

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Writers on Writing, a series of interviews with active writers on technology, social media, process and productivity, and much more. Here’s a link to the YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7Kctg7OayipF1tU2xl6TKjy

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

6:11 / Writers on Writing / Paul O'Connor

Jam-packed with goodness is this interview with Paul O’Connor, a writer of short stories and novels.

You’re going to take tons of notes and bookmark this episode; the guidance is that fantastic. (No, that’s not hyperbole; that’s reality.)

Paul O’Connor came into writing after he left the data-driven gaming industry. Gaming’s focus on productivity, Agile Planning, Return on Investment, and more to determine a product’s profitability are ideas that he converted to his own writing. He shares the simple yet important ways he uses data in this interview and in a slide show.

Look for the Slide Show on Paul O’Connor’s page on the TWF website. Click the shareable link to copy, load into the URL of your browser, “go” and voila: the slide show.

Paul Ryan O’Connor is a frequent contributor to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, where his debut short story, “Teddy’s Favorite Thing,” was voted a 2023 Readers Award. He has also been published by Mystery Magazine and Shotgun Honey. Paul is an active member of the Mystery Writers of America, and lives in Carlsbad, California, with his family and a borrowed dog.

TIMINGS

00:40 Welcome / Opening Info

02:50 Tech’s Job = Speed our Process and Increase Publication

09:25 Slide Show Begins / Writing Process

13:50 Word Count vs. Writing Log

22:00 Marketing Trackers and Platforms for Submissions & Agents

30:00 Progress / Idea Tracking / Productivity

33:40 Closing

Total Run Time = 34:40

 

#writing #writingtools #plotting #marketing #submissions #agents #progresstracker #revision #AI

Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2025/03/611-writers-on-writing-paul-oconnor.html

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Writers on Writing, a series of interviews with active writers on technology, social media, process and productivity, and much more. Here’s a link to the YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7Kctg7OayipF1tU2xl6TKjy

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

6:10 / Writers on Writing / Deede Blake

First-time author Deede Blake shares the story of her first novel, The Russian Orphan. This epic thriller was a ten-year journey, required tons of research, and tells a story that demanded to be told. And we’re all over the world of writing in this interview.

Deede is new to publishing although she’s been working on writing projects for years.

While her training is in science, her greatest passion is reading, writing, traveling, history, and learning in general. Indeed, Deede has traveled to places on the globe that no American has ever been. She dabbled in writing poetry, essays op-eds and newsletters while practicing pharmacy until in her mid 30’s.

She is currently working on a sequel to The Russian Orphan, entitled We Were Lost. This novel will deal directly with the issue of human trafficking.

TIMIINGS / None

Total Run Time = 38:08

Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2025/03/610-writers-on-writing-deede-blake.html

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Writers on Writing, a series of interviews with active writers on technology, social media, process and productivity, and much more. Here’s a link to the YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7Kctg7OayipF1tU2xl6TKjy

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

6:09 / Writers on Writing / Kathleen Kalb

The mystery writer and seasoned audio broadcast pro Kathleen Kalb joins TWF for this episode. We have a wide-ranging conversation, touching on tech, the writing community and social media, her process, and changes in software. We end with her next release featuring Grace the Hit Mom, a consecrated assassin. That I have to read.

Kathleen Marple Kalb describes herself as an Author/Anchor/Mom…not in that order. An award-winning weekend anchor at New York’s 1010 WINS Radio, she writes short stories and novels including the The Stuff of Murder, and the upcoming Ella Shane mystery, A Fatal Reception, both from Level Best Books. The Stuff of Murder will publish this March.

As Nikki Knight, she writes the Grace the Hit Mom and Vermont Radio mysteries. Her most recent publication is Hound of the Bonnevilles, also coming out in March.

Her stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Weekly, and others, and been short-listed for Derringer and Black Orchid Novella Awards. She’s served as Vice President of the Short Mystery Fiction Society and is a co-VP of the New York/Tri-State Chapter of Sisters in Crime. She, her husband, and son live in a Connecticut house owned by their cat.

 

TIMINGS

00:40 Intro / Clock-watching and More

04:17 Tech for Writing / the Writing Community

09:55 Instagram vs. TikTok / Writing Bibles in Tech / Tracking Changes

15:10 Outlining / Ideas File / Timelines

17:46 Avoiding Strict Strucure / Maintaining Character Voice

22:47 From Typewriter to Word

26:10 Grace the Hit Mom

32:00 Closing

Total Run Time = 33:05

 

#writing #writingtools #plotting #coverdesign #booknarration #AI

LINKS

Website: https://kathleenmarplekalb.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Kathleen-Marple-Kalb-1082949845220373/

Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2025/03/609-writers-on-writing-kathleen-kalb.html

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Writers on Writing, a series of interviews with active writers on technology, social media, process and productivity, and much more. Here’s a link to the YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7Kctg7OayipF1tU2xl6TKjy

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

6:08 / Writers on Writing / Rebecca Olmstead

The whimsy on a coffee cup is Rebecca Olmstead’s motto for her writing life.

In an interview about that technology that started with a tech failure—a laptop crash—Rebecca Olmstead begins by discussing her bravery in moving from Word to Scrivener to Atticus to bring the best experience to readers of her fiction and nonfiction.

Rebecca Olmstead is the award-winning author of the Gabrielle Dorian Mystery Series as well as several nonfiction books and multiple short stories.

Her stories and articles have appeared in Malice, Matrimony, & Murder anthology, The Cellar Door: Dark Highways #3, The Upper Room, Focus on the Family’s Clubhouse, Jr., Live, Now What?, and Houseboat Magazine. Her story “A Deadly Conundrum” appeared in MURDER NEWYORK STYLE: NEWYORK STATE OF CRIME this year.

She lives with her husband and the youngest of their five children in southeastern Washington with Sophie, their dorky black lab, Agatha, a black cat, and host of Jersey Wooly show bunnies.

TIMINGS

• 00:40 Intro / Tech Failures
• 02:25 Pacemaker and Tech Successes
• 6:03 Tech as a Distraction
• 11:10 Problems with Writing a Series
• 13:33 Beginning her Writing Career
• 18:45 Writing (like Crochet) Opens the Unconscious
• 21:37 the Gabrielle Doran series / Newest Release
• 24:42 Venturing into another Series and Nonfiction
• 28:18 Writers Thrive on Reviews
• 29:18 Closing

Total Run Time = 30:20

LINKS

www.rebeccaolmstead.com

www.watchgodwork.com

Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2025/02/608-writers-on-writing-rebecca-olmstead.html

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Writers on Writing, a series of interviews with active writers on technology, social media, process and productivity, and much more. Here’s a link to the YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7Kctg7OayipF1tU2xl6TKjy

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

6:07 / Writers on Writing / donalee Moulton

In cold Halifax, we meet writer donalee Moulton, who talks all aspects of technology. It’s everything tech: from the tech that we take for granted to knowing how detailed our tech descriptions have to be, and from the depths and limits we have on understanding tech to the practicalities of tech that’s helpful in our daily writing lives.

donalee Moulton’s first mystery book Hung out to Die was published in 2023. A historical mystery, Conflagration!, was published in 2024. It won the 2024 Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense (Historical Fiction).

A short story “Swan Song” was one of 21 selected for publication in Cold Canadian Crime. It was shortlisted for an Award of Excellence. Other short stories have been published in numerous magazines, journals, and anthologies. donalee’s short story “Troubled Water” was shortlisted for a 2024 Derringer Award and a 2024 Award of Excellence from the Crime Writers of Canada.

donalee is an award-winning freelance journalist. She has written articles for print and online publications across North America including The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, Lawyer’s Daily, National Post, and Canadian Business.

As well, donalee is the author of The Thong Principle: Saying What You Mean and Meaning What You Say and co-authored the book, Celebrity Court Cases: Trials of the Rich and Famous.

LINKS

Website: donaleemoulton.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/donaleemoultonauthor

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donaleemoulton/

X: @donaleeMoulton

Instagram: donaleemoulton

 

TIMINGS

00:40 Welcome / Distractions and Disruptions

04:35 Tech Tools

08:22 Tech that we take for granted

13:36 How deeply we need to understand tech in our novels

20:00 Helpful Tech

26:27 donalee’s Writing journey

33:00 A Psychopath for a Protagonist

36:00 Closing

Total Run Time = 37:29

#writing #writingtools #plotting #coverdesign #revision #AI

Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2025/02/607-writers-on-writing-donalee-moulton.html

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Writers on Writing, a series of interviews with active writers on technology, social media, process and productivity, and much more. Here’s a link to the YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7Kctg7OayipF1tU2xl6TKjy

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

6:06 / Writers on Writing / Two Writing B's

A Couple of Bees came for an interview, and we laughed all the way through. Elise Brown is a young writer who has reached the pinnacle that some never achieve: a book on the verge of publishing and another book in revision, an agent who loves her work and a publisher eager to get the books out.

Elise Burke Brown comes from a family of detectives, including a grandfather who filled her childhood with true crime stories she learned not to repeat at daycare. She is the award-winning author of the New Orleans-based Chase Harlem series. She teaches composition at the University of Alabama and runs the popular book blog A Couple of Bees Read, https://coupleofbeesread.com/. You can connect with her on Instagram as @EliseBurkeBrown_Author on on X as @couple_of_bees.

Becky Brown has had several careers in her lifetime: retail management, stay at home mom, a charity organizer, a teacher, and a principal. She loves taking care of her granddaughters, quilting, photography, and reading. She’s new to writing and just started her memoir, Wings of Eagles: My Journey of Faith. Becky currently is president of her local quilters guild and is active in her church. She enjoys working with her daughter-in-law on our blog A Couple of Bees Read as well as serving as her beta reader and acting as her amateur publicist.

TIMINGS

00:40 Welcome / their Podcast A Couple of Bees Read

04:50 Weekly Wine

9:00 Tech and more

14:57 Reading Out Loud

17:48 An agent who supports the work

23:55 A Two-Book Deal

27:00 Elise’s Process

Total Run Time = 30:52

 

#writing #writingtools #plotting #coverdesign #revision #AI

Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2025/02/606-writers-on-writing-couple-of-bees.html

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Writers on Writing, a series of interviews with active writers on technology, social media, process and productivity, and much more. Here’s a link to the YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7Kctg7OayipF1tU2xl6TKjy

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

6:05 / Writers on Writing / Dawn Barclay and Bloody Murders

Travel and Death. We don’t normally put these two topics together unless we’re talking tragic accidents, but Dawn Barclay has found a way to create entertaining mysteries and relate true crime stories.

After talking about Tech and tools, the writing process and productivity, she shares with us the two publications she will have this winter. In January she’ll release her newest domestic thriller, Deadly When Disturbed. February sees the multi-volume nonfiction Vacations Can Be Murder: The True Crime Lovers’ Travel Guide to New England. She will return with more true crime in a Mid-Atlantic edition followed by the Southeast before she explores bloody murder in the Mid-West.

D.M. Barr is the pseudonym for Dawn M. Barclay, an award-winning author who writes psychological and romantic suspense under this pen name and non-fiction under her own. Her published novels include Expired Listings, Murder Worth the Weight, Saving Grace: A Psychological Thriller, The Queen of Second Chances, and Simple Tryst of Fate.

TIMINGS

• 00:40 Welcome / Introduction / Tech Tools
• 5:09 Finding True Crimes of the Past
• 7:53 Trying AI for Translations
• 10:50 Problems with Tech and AI
• 19:30 Tech used in Active Writing
• 23:54 Dawn’s Process
• 25:00 True Crime, RomComs, and Domestic Thrillers

Total Run Time = 31:10

#writing #writingtools #plotting #coverdesign #booknarration #AI

Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2025/02/605-writers-on-writing-dawn-barclay-and.html

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Writers on Writing, a series of interviews with active writers on technology, social media, process and productivity, and much more. Here’s a link to the YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7Kctg7OayipF1tU2xl6TKjy

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

6:04 / Writers on Writing / Sarah Smith talks Tech Tools

Coming in this episode is a wealth of technology resources which only someone with a tech background can provide. Sarah Smith presents a powerpoint packed with resources.

From assists in idea generation and organization, to plot and structure, formatting manuscripts and crafting covers, book descriptions, and audiobook development (so necessary in today’s marketplace), Sarah explains the riches available.

We end with Sarah’s offer to consult with 25 writers through Zoom interviews about all things related to audiobooks.

Check the Show Notes and the website for her powerpoint and special offer.

 

TIMINGS

00:00 Welcome / Introduction

02:22 Four Requirements of Tech

11:10 Powerpoint Tools begins / Planning and Plotting

18:30 Unusual Helps: Beeftext and Reverso

21:20 Editing / Formatting / Covers / Publishing

29:00 Audiobooks / AI Narration

35:14 Consultation Offer / https://app.simplymeet.me/soundwrights

37:33 Closing

Total Run Time = 38:33

 

#writing #writingtools #plotting #coverdesign #booknarration #AI

Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2025/01/604-writers-on-writing-sarah-smith.html

Special Offer https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/p/sarah-smiths-special-offer.html

Powerpoint Access to Tools as an mp4 https://youtu.be/S1qe1AFg1EM

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Writers on Writing, a series of interviews with active writers on technology, social media, process and productivity, and much more. Here’s a link to the YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7Kctg7OayipF1tU2xl6TKjy

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)