Lately I’ve become a podcast maniac. I’ve totally destroyed all the Rocking Self-Publishing Podcasts, and moved on to new ones to fill in the time between Thursdays (when Simon Whistler puts up a new one).
I highly, absolutely, positively, megamaximally, recommend “The Hardcore History Podcast“, by Dan Carlin. If you wanna be on the same page as me, start with the series called “The wrath of the Khans”. It’s all about Gengis Khan. You don’t know anything about Gengis Khan until you’ve listened to this. This guy really knows his stuff.
I told my wife about it when I got home last week, talking it up like I’m talking it up now, and she wasn’t all that interested. Then we went to a friend’s house, too many miles away, and I put it on–and she was hooked. We also listened to it on the way home. We listened to it the next day, and the next when we went out to eat somewhere. I ended up listening to the whole thing twice, just so she could listen to it too, but I didn’t mind.
Check it out…
John L. Monk 
Since irrelevance is my default mode, this is almost wholly irrelevant to your blog post, but in my effort to call up the podcast about Gengis Khan (hope Carlin doesn’t pronounce the name in John Kerry fashion) I inadvertently hit the link to the Rocking Self-Publishing interview with Harry Dewulf and found it interesting but oddly depressing. Why do so many writers these days need what Dewulf calls “high level” editing, which seems to involve everything from making the sentences halfway readable to making sure the characters remain consistent from page to page? All of us can benefit from proofreaders/copy editors to help us chase down nasty little typos, which have a talent for remaining invisible after we’ve read out own copy too many times, but should we even attempt to be writers if we need to hire an editor to explain why our sentences are cliché-ridden crap or remind us that Sue is a redheaded slut on page seven but a blonde virgin on page seventy-seven? If we don’t have a deep-rooted love of language, a good working knowledge of grammar and sentence structure, and a keen understanding of our own characters, I think we should find a different occupation.
And yep, just to prove that copy editors are useful, I’ve already found a nasty little typo in my post (out for our). I’ve never had the money to hire one myself, but it sure would be handy to have one on call.
Heh Harvey, you have a way of bringing down to Earth 🙂 I think Dewulf has to be prepared to deal with “customers”, and his customers will be both great writers and emerging writers. I do see your point, and there’s a part of me that agrees with you, but I also know editors will starve if they can’t starve a large enough group of people.
Will have a listen. Thanks John!
Sweet 🙂
Awesome. Or, actually, not awesome, because now I’m addicted to yet another great podcast. Just listened to the first Khan episode. Fascinating stuff!
I’m happy you listened. This guy really knows how to deliver the story.
Listening now to the first Khan podcast. It’s terrific–I’ll have to pass this on. Thanks for the alert!
That’s cool 🙂 I’m about to start Episode IV.