The Write Focus

Holy Wednesday is often called Spy Wednesday.

Spy Wednesday sounds like a cool name with more going on than simply Holy Wednesday.

Holy Wednesday is given the name Spy to remind us of the horrible conspiracy that began on this day: Judas Iscariot and the high priests negotiated a deal in which Judas would betray Christ Jesus, who would then be brought before the Sanhedrin Court, an assembly of rabbis.

That means SPY Wednesday is not cool.

In our writing segment, our focus is seeking the other arts to Refresh our Creativity.

TIMINGS

00:00 Welcome

00:40 Introduction

00:50 Spy Wednesday

08:06 Refresh # 4

13:00 Closing

Total Run Time = 13:59

 

 

LINKS

Who Can Be Called Rabbi? - Torah Musings https://www.torahmusings.com/2012/05/who-can-be-called-rabbi/

Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2026/01/more-easter-spy-wednesday-704.html 

 

Licensed Music with the Easter segment is entitled “Soft Beautiful Hope Piano” from the creator Nehliudoff on Audio Jungle while that with the Writing segment, with the same title, is from the creator Little Victory, also on Audio Jungle. Music for the opening and closing segments are in the narration.

In this episode for Holy Tuesday, The Write Focus looks at the More we need to do for God.

I think most of us live a minimalist lifestyle with God. He’s in a neat little corner, tucked away, with a bit of brightness, brought out only when we need him. There He is, over there. See Him?  He’s for Sunday.

No. No, no, no. He’s for every day.

For writers, Refresh 3 offers a way to sink into Flow while drowning out unnatural noises.

TIMINGS

00:00 Welcome

00:44 Holy Tuesday

04:48 Refresh 3

09:42 Closing

Total Run Time = 10:41

 

LINK

Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2026/01/more-easter-holy-tuesday-703.html

 

Licensed Music with the Easter segment is entitled “Soft Beautiful Hope Piano” from the creator Nehliudoff on Audio Jungle while that with the Writing segment, with the same title, is from the creator Little Victory, also on Audio Jungle. Music for the opening and closing segments are in the narration.

All short videos with the video are from Pexels.com, a site that offers free short videos, some with sound.

On Holy Monday, many churches observe the anointing of Christ with oil at Bethany. The scourging of the money-lenders from the churches may also have occurred on this date.

Most modern paintings and captions on old artwork say “cleansing” rather than “scourging”, which requires anger. Christ became angry at the people who turned the church into a money-making scheme. People could not reach God unless they passed the money-lenders.

Here’s the question for this episode: What often stands between us and Christ?

For writers, Refresh 2 offers a whole-body experience to spark the mind.

TIMINGS

00:00 Welcome

00:42 Holy Monday

05:50 Refresh 2

10:14 Closing

Total Run Time = 11:13

 

LINK

Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2026/01/more-easter-holy-monday.html

 

Licensed Music with the Easter segment is entitled “Soft Beautiful Hope Piano” from the creator Nehliudoff on Audio Jungle while that with the Writing segment, with the same title, is from the creator Little Victory, also on Audio Jungle. Music for the opening and closing segments are in the narration.

All short videos with the video are from Pexels.com, a site that offers free short videos, some with sound.

Changing churches will change your life, especially if you are Wanting More.

I grew up in one of those stripped-down Protestant churches that barely, barely noticed the church year. We had Easter—which was usually a competition to see who brought the most family members. (Yes, I know. I thought that promotion inappropriate, too.)  I wanted More.

Join The Write Focus throughout the 15 days of the Easter season, called Holy and Bright Weeks, when I share my journey and findings as a Christian.

Each episode concludes with an appropriate writing focus for Spring, Refresh that Creativity. Our first writing focus offers 3 solutions to that tricky problem of starting a new project from total blankness.

TIMINGS

00:00 Welcome

00:42 Intro and Palm Sunday

07:50 Refresh 1

14:32 Closing

Total Run Time = 15:32

 

LINKS

Hosanna (Praise is Rising) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMBDWG9tseU

Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2026/01/more-easter-palm-sunday.html

 

Licensed Music with the Easter segment is entitled “Soft Beautiful Hope Piano” from the creator Nehliudoff on Audio Jungle while that with the Writing segment, with the same title, is from the creator Little Victory, also on Audio Jungle. Music with opening and closing is provided in the audio.

All short videos with the video are from Pexels.com, a site that offers free short videos, some with sound.

Well, this has never happened. Changes disrupt ~ but do bring progress. Listen to learn while The Write Focus is on hiatus.

Nancy Brewka-Clark is our guest poet for this episode of The Write Focus. With clever one-liners, Nancy shares how poetry affects writing and life.

Her collection Beautiful Corpus published just as Covid struck, and the intended splash of a new publication became lost in the lock-down world and had lost all shiny newness when society re-opened its doors. Yet Nancy continued, for—as with any true writer—we are happiest when we are creating.

BIO: Winner of the 2019 Amy Lowell Poetry Prize and the 2024 Maria Faust Sonnet Laureate Prize, Nancy Brewka-Clark is the author of the 2020 poetry collection Beautiful Corpus. Her short mysteries have been anthologized in the U.S. by Malice Domestic and Crime Spell Books, in the U.K. by Flame Tree and Midnight Street Press, in Australia by Black Hare Press and in South Africa by Sentinel Creatives. She's a member of the Short Mystery Fiction Society and lives in Beverly, MA.

 TIMINGS

• 00:40 Welcome and Introduction
• 1:19 Interview with Nancy Brewka-Clark
• 34:54 Last Words and Closing

Total Run Time = 36:33

LINKS

Website  https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2025/10/642-fall-into-poetry-with-poets-nancy.html

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools.

Our current focus is Fall into Poetry, 12 episodes of writers sharing how poetry improves their fiction. These 12 episodes will broadcast this autumn, September to December. Here is a link to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7K1x02UAlihWKKom_5keJrg Select the most recent episode through the URL after the TIMINGS.

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.)

Returning to The Write Focus podcast, this time to talk poetry and fiction, is Canadian writer donalee Moulton. We talk free verse vs. pure verse, twilight creativity, the benefits of poetry to our writing and to our souls, and many more topics.

We also consider the dilemma facing many writers. It’s the question Am I spreading myself too thin by pursuing many different types of writing, or does pursuing poetry and fiction and different genres keep me fresh? Is there an easy answer to this?

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). Her newest release is Melt.

 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.

TIMINGS

00:40 Welcome and Introduction

1:21 Interview with donalee Moulton

28:15 Last Words and Closing

Total Run Time = 29:43

 

LINKS

Website: donaleemoulton.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/donaleemoultonauthor
LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/donaleemoulton/
X: @donaleeMoulton
Instagram: donaleemoulton

Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2025/10/641-fall-into-poetry-with-poet-donalee.html  

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools.

Our current focus is Fall into Poetry, 12 episodes of writers sharing how poetry improves their fiction. These 12 episodes will broadcast this autumn, September to December. Here is a link to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7K1x02UAlihWKKom_5keJrg Select the most recent episode through the URL after the TIMINGS.

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.)

Welcome Back to Fall into Poetry with a Poet, from The Write Focus. Our poet for this episode is crime fiction writer Janet Innis. While we suffer through storms and glitches, we do still manage to have a great conversation about poetry, fiction, and writing in general.

Poet before she began writing crime, Janet Innes has always told stories, writing narrative poetry as well as flash fiction, short stories, longer poems, and novels. Whether poetry or prose, her focus is the exploration of personality, with the motivators and drive toward boundary-breaking action.

Janet Innes is a crime fiction writer whose work can be found in Mystery Tribune, Guilty Flash, Lucent Dreaming, Savage Cheese, and the anthology Futures That Never Were. Based in Rhode Island, she's a member of the Short Mystery Fiction Society and Sisters in Crime.

When she’s not writing, she’s logging the insect life in her native plant garden.

Find her at janetinnes.net or on Bluesky @janetinnes.bsky.social

TIMINGS

00:40 Welcome and Introduction

1:30 Interview with Janet Innis

33:57 Last Words and Closing

Total Run Time = 35:15

 

LINKS

Website  https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2025/10/640-fall-into-poetry-janet-innes.html 

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools.

Our current focus is Fall into Poetry, 12 episodes of writers sharing how poetry improves their fiction. These 12 episodes will broadcast this autumn, September to December. Here is a link to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7K1x02UAlihWKKom_5keJrg Select the most recent episode through the URL after the TIMINGS.

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.)

Welcome to the official start of autumn. We’re two episodes into our Fall into Poetry series—this is the third—with a focus this season on poets who also write fiction.

Our primary question is How Writing Poetry Made our Guest a Better Fiction Writer, but I guarantee we will delve into a lot of other corners of writing as well.

Today’s guest is Michael Cody, a songwriter-poet who has added fiction to his repertoire, with short stories and novels. He finds poetry does more than enrich his words, deepening the work in a wealth of ways.

Here’s the Interview.

Bio: Michael Amos Cody is author of the novel Gabriel’s Songbook (Pisgah Press, 2017) and the story collection A Twilight Reel (Pisgah Press, 2021), winner of the Short Story category in the Feathered Quill Book Awards 2022.

His literary suspense novel Streets of Nashville appeared in April 2025 from Madville Publishing. He lives in Jonesborough, TN, with his wife Leesa and teaches in the Department of Literature and Language at East Tennessee State University.

TIMINGS

• 00:40 Welcome and Introduction
• 01:35 Interview with Michael Cody
• 30:15 Last Words and Closing

Total Run Time = 31:36

 

LINKS
michaelamoscody@gmail.com

https://michaelamoscody.com/ 

https://michaelamoscody.com/michael-amos-cody/macblog/

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Michael-Cody/author/B001KHHWW6

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17352683.Michael_Amos_Cody

https://soundcloud.com/michael-cody-9

 

The Write Focus website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2025/10/639-fall-into-poetry-michael-cody.html 

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools.

Our current focus is Fall into Poetry, 12 episodes of writers sharing how poetry improves their fiction. These 12 episodes will broadcast this autumn, September to December. Here is a link to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7K1x02UAlihWKKom_5keJrg Select the most recent episode through the URL after the TIMINGS.

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.)

Welcome to our second episode for Fall into Poetry with a Poet.

Our poet this time is Pam Ebel, and this makes her third appearance on the podcast. Pam is a pure writer, which in my opinion means she writes many different styles and she shares her knowledge freely with us, with other writers at local seminars, and with other writers at national conferences. This year she’s one of the keynote speakers at the Killer Nashville awards banquet.

In our wide-ranging conversation, Pam talks specifically about poetry as performance and immediate audience interconnection which guides writers as they place words on the page. While some poems are not suitable for performance, other poems lend themselves naturally to that combination art form, poetry performance. Pam covers many topics in our scant time. Here’s the interview.

Bio: Ebel has been published in Shotgun Honey, YELLOW MAMA EZINE, Kings River Life Magazine, The BOULD AWARDS 2020 and 2021 Anthology, Tomorrow and Tomorrow 2021 Anthology, and other venues. Her poetry has appeared in the Delta Poetry Review. A native of California, she now concentrates on tales from her original home state and tales from the highways of the South. She also knows, like the Ancient Greeks and the Irish, that as a Southern writer you can’t outrun your blood. 

She has turned to writing full time as of 2020, obviously either perfect or bizarre timing, and this will be her fifth career. She lives in Metairie, Louisiana, with her husband and two cats. 

 

TIMINGS

00:40 Welcome and Introduction

2:00 Interview with Pam Ebel

Topics: Killer Nashville, Bouchercon in NOLA, sharing with writers, poetry as performance, audience reaction, influence of “Howl” by A. Ginsberg, Aristotle, poems not suitable for performance, One Rule when performing, how poems live on after the presentation, poems inserted into fiction

34:00 Last Words and Closing

Total Run Time = 35:29

 

LINKS

Pamela Ebel https://pamebel.com/

Website  https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2025/09/638-fall-into-poetry-with-poets-pam-ebel.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 Fall into Poetry, 12 episodes of writers sharing how poetry improves their fiction. These 12 episodes will broadcast this autumn, September to December. Here is a link to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7K1x02UAlihWKKom_5keJrg Select the most recent episode through the URL after the TIMINGS.

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.)