To close out this three-part series on Realistic Creatives, authors Joy E. Rancatore and Mea Smith recap what they’ve learned and shared so far in order to answer one final practical question: “How can we alter our mindset to be a Realistic Creative … without wrecking our Dreamer status?” Listen in to a previous episode mentioned in this show: Season 1, Episode 35, Goal Planning with 2020 Vision, Part 1 If you want to stay in the know and help influence future episodes, subscribe to the monthly QWERTY Writing Life newsletter: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/z9f1z5 Intro music created and performed by Brent Smith. Continue this week’s chat via email at qwertywritinglife [at] gmail [dot] com. For more information about us, the show and our writing craft book series, head over to https://qwertywritinglife.com. Subscribe in your favorite podcast portal. Or, if you’d rather see our grinning faces, ring the bell on our YouTube channel. Please share our podcast with your friends, too! For more about Mea and her writing, visit storyswell.net. Joy and her details can be found at joyerancatore.com.

QWERTY Writing Life Podcast

Realistic Creatives: How to be One

Authors Joy E. Rancatore and Mea Smith continue a three-part series on Realistic Creatives. In this second episode, they identify a few characteristics of who Realistic Creatives are not. Check out the links we mentioned in the show: Writing with Maggie Stiefvater Course Season 2, Episode 4: Getting the Most from Creative Instruction, Part 1 If you want to stay in the know and help influence future episodes, subscribe to the monthly QWERTY Writing Life newsletter: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/z9f1z5 Intro music created and performed by Brent Smith. Continue this week’s chat via email at qwertywritinglife [at] gmail [dot] com. For more information about us, the show and our writing craft book series, head over to https://qwertywritinglife.com. Subscribe in your favorite podcast portal. Or, if you’d rather see our grinning faces, ring the bell on our YouTube channel. Please share our podcast with your friends, too! For more about Mea and her writing, visit storyswell.net. Joy and her details can be found at joyerancatore.com.

Realistic Creatives: Who They Aren’t

Authors Joy E. Rancatore and Mea Smith begin a three-part series on Realistic Creatives. In this episode, they set a foundation for the topic and identify a few characteristics of who Realistic Creatives are. Check out these previous episodes that inspired the Realistic Creatives series: Season 2, Episode 38: Creative Entrepreneurship: Little Steps Every Day Season 3, Episode 2: Productivity & Efficiency for Creatives If you want to stay in the know and help influence future episodes, subscribe to the monthly QWERTY Writing Life newsletter: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/z9f1z5 Intro music created and performed by Brent Smith. Continue this week’s chat via email to qwertywritinglife [at] gmail [dot] com. For more information about us, the show and our writing craft book series, head over to https://qwertywritinglife.com. Subscribe in your favorite podcast portal. Or, if you’d rather see our grinning faces, ring the bell on our YouTube channel. Please share our podcast with your friends, too! For more about Mea and her writing, visit storyswell.net. Joy and her details can be found at joyerancatore.com.

Realistic Creatives: Who They Are

Creatives talk a lot about platform and branding. We create things, but we do that for others. If we don’t have a public presence, how will those “others” find our work?   Platform and branding takes time, though, so—you guessed it—authors Joy E. Rancatore and Mea Smith are hacking this too! Listen in on a few Creative Hacks to improve efficiency for platform and branding in this final in a five-part series.   If you want to stay in the know and help influence future episodes, subscribe to the monthly QWERTY Writing Life newsletter: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/z9f1z5   Intro music created and performed by Brent Smith.   Continue this week’s chat via email at qwertywritinglife [at] gmail [dot] com. For more information about us, the show and our writing craft book series, head over to https://qwertywritinglife.com. Subscribe in your favorite podcast portal. Or, if you’d rather see our grinning faces, ring the bell on our YouTube channel. Please share our podcast with your friends, too! For more about Mea and her writing, visit storyswell.net. Joy and her details can be found at joyerancatore.com.

Creative Hacks: Efficiency for Platform

Creative business owners have a unique challenge to use both right and left sides of the brain to create and then to get the product out into the world. Authors Joy E. Rancatore and Mea Smith share a few Creative Hacks to improve efficiency for business. When you find ways to streamline tasks or utilize templates, you might find yourself with a little more time and/or mental capacity for the creative side we all prefer. If you want to stay in the know and help influence future episodes, subscribe to the monthly QWERTY Writing Life newsletter: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/z9f1z5 Intro music created and performed by Brent Smith. Continue this week’s chat via email at qwertywritinglife [at] gmail [dot] com. For more information about us, the show and our writing craft book series, head over to https://qwertywritinglife.com. Subscribe in your favorite podcast portal. Or, if you’d rather see our grinning faces, ring the bell on our YouTube channel. Please share our podcast with your friends, too! For more about Mea and her writing, visit storyswell.net. Joy and her details can be found at joyerancatore.com.

Creative Hacks: Efficiency for Business

When it comes to their craft, authors Joy E. Rancatore and Mea Smith love to learn. They may not be able to be students in the traditional sense, but they can wrangle a few creative hacks in order to keep learning while improving their efficiency for craft. In this episode of QWERTY Writing Life, Joy and Mea share some hacks to deepen craft knowledge in an efficient manner. While their examples are specific to their own writing craft lives, these tips can be easily applied to other artistic mediums. Want to check out our podcast series on Creative Critique Partners? This episode will get you started: https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/creative-critique-partners-defining-critique-partnerships/ If you want to stay in the know and help influence future episodes, subscribe to the monthly QWERTY Writing Life newsletter: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/z9f1z5 Intro music created and performed by Brent Smith. Continue this week’s chat via email at qwertywritinglife [at] gmail [dot] com. For more information about us, the show and our writing craft book series, head over to https://qwertywritinglife.com. Subscribe in your favorite podcast portal. Or, if you’d rather see our grinning faces, ring the bell on our YouTube channel. Please share our podcast with your friends, too! For more about Mea and her writing, visit storyswell.net. Joy and her details can be found at joyerancatore.com.

Creative Hacks: Efficiency for Craft

Authors Joy E. Rancatore and Mea Smith take a bite out of time with another installment in their Creative Hacks series. Hear a few tips on finding Efficiency for Time. Joy and Mea share hacks that have worked for them and tips they’ve seen work for others. Check out the links mentioned in the episode: Tutorials that helped Mea cut her hair:  https://youtu.be/pkGCgg_kzcE https://youtu.be/BPS3Ts_bZVI Learn-Do-Become: https://learndobecome.com If you want to stay in the know and help influence future episodes, subscribe to the monthly QWERTY Writing Life newsletter: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/z9f1z5 Intro music created and performed by Brent Smith. Continue this week’s chat via email at qwertywritinglife [at] gmail [dot] com. For more information about us, the show and our writing craft book series, head over to https://qwertywritinglife.com. Subscribe in your favorite podcast portal. Or, if you’d rather see our grinning faces, ring the bell on our YouTube channel. Please share our podcast with your friends, too! For more about Mea and her writing, visit storyswell.net. Joy and her details can be found at joyerancatore.com.

Creative Hacks: Efficiency for Time

Authors Joy E. Rancatore and Mea Smith took a deep look at what productivity and efficiency really are in the last episode. That led them to discuss Outlying Factors—those ever-changing, often evolving or unpredictable forces that somehow affect efficiency and therefore productivity. In this first in a series on Creative Hacks, Joy and Mea tackle ways to improve efficiency where Outlying Factors are concerned. Listen in for a few overall tips, as well as some specific examples from the co-hosts’ creative lives. Check out the links mentioned in the episode: https://youtu.be/Q8ApZXWgJq4 https://5secondjournal.com https://88cupsoftea.com/maggie-stiefvater/ If you want to stay in the know and help influence future episodes, subscribe to the monthly QWERTY Writing Life newsletter: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/z9f1z5 Intro music created and performed by Brent Smith. Continue this week’s chat via email at qwertywritinglife [at] gmail [dot] com. For more information about us, the show and our writing craft book series, head over to https://qwertywritinglife.com. Subscribe in your favorite podcast portal. Or, if you’d rather see our grinning faces, ring the bell on our YouTube channel. Please share our podcast with your friends, too! For more about Mea and her writing, visit storyswell.net. Joy and her details can be found at joyerancatore.com.

Creative Hacks: Efficiency for Outlying Factors

Authors Joy E. Rancatore and Mea Smith set out on a mission to understand productivity and efficiency and how to better harness each for their creative endeavors. What they discovered was that they disagreed with the common use of productivity vs. efficiency and found the conjunction “and” to be a much nicer—and more accurate—joiner. In true QWERTY style, Joy and Mea set up some QWERTY definitions for each of these words and took it a step further to identify a third category that greatly affects efficiency—and therefore, productivity. They call these “outlying factors” and examine what they are and how they can alter output for creatives. This episode sets up the foundation for a following series on Efficiency Hacks for Creatives, which will begin with an episode full of hacks specific to these outlying factors. Check out the links that either influenced or were mentioned in the episode: Ben Mulholland, “Productivity vs. Efficiency”: https://www.process.st/productivity-vs-efficiency/ James Clear, “The Productivity Guide”: https://jamesclear.com/productivity Tony Robbins’ Team, “What Is Productivity?”: https://www.tonyrobbins.com/productivity-performance/what-is-productivity-really/ Jeff Goins, “5 Productivity Hacks for Creative Writers”: https://thewritepractice.com/productivity-hacks/ Joanna Penn, “Productivity for Writers”: https://www.thecreativepenn.com/productivewriter/ QWERTY Writing Life Podcast, Season 3, Episode 1, “Maximizing Creative Time”: https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/maximizing-creative-time/ QWERTY Writing Life Podcast, Season 2, Episode 18, “Caring for Your Creative Trinity”: https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/caring-for-your-creative-trinity/ If you want to stay in the know and help influence future episodes, subscribe to the monthly QWERTY Writing Life newsletter: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/z9f1z5 Intro music created and performed by Brent Smith. Continue this week’s chat via email at qwertywritinglife [at] gmail [dot] com. For more information about us, the show and our writing craft book series, head over to https://qwertywritinglife.com. Subscribe in your favorite podcast portal. Or, if you’d rather see our grinning faces, ring the bell on our YouTube channel. Please share our podcast with your friends, too! For more about Mea and her writing, visit storyswell.net. Joy and her details can be found at joyerancatore.com.

Productivity and Efficiency for Creatives

Welcome to Season Three of QWERTY Writing Life! Authors Joy E. Rancatore and Mea Smith are pumped to be back for a new season, and they’ve made several changes and additions to the QWERTY name. Listen in for the scoop, plus they’ve got some tips for you to Maximize Your Creative Time! They have found a way to do more in the same amount of time by simply reallocating and maximizing the time they already had. Hear their tips and share your own via any of the new QWERTY links below! Our new email address: qwertywritinglife@gmail.com Our new Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/qwertywritinglife/ Our new website: https://qwertywritinglife.com If you want to stay in the know and help influence future episodes, subscribe to the monthly QWERTY Writing Life newsletter: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/z9f1z5 Intro music created and performed by Brent Smith. Continue this week’s chat via email at qwertywritinglife [at] gmail [dot] com. For more information about us, the show and our writing craft book series, head over to https://qwertywritinglife.com. Subscribe in your favorite podcast portal. Or, if you’d rather see our grinning faces, ring the bell on our YouTube channel. Please share our podcast with your friends, too! For more about Mea and her writing, visit storyswell.net. Joy and her details can be found at joyerancatore.com.

Maximizing Creative Time

Join authors Joy E. Rancatore and Mea Smith for the final episode of Season Two of QWERTY Writing Life. They revisit your Top Ten favorite episodes and share their favorites as well. They let you know the highlights of their year—personally and QWERTY-ly—and close out with a tease for Season Three—yes, it’s coming! If you want to stay in the know and help influence future episodes, subscribe to the monthly QWERTY Writing Life newsletter: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/z9f1z5 Did you hear about an episode you missed or want to revisit? Find the links to listen below: Episode 1: Kickstarting Personal Creativity https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/kickstarting-personal-creativity/ Episodes 4-6: Getting the Most from Creative Instruction, Parts 1-3 https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/getting-the-most-from-creative-instruction-part-1/ https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/getting-the-most-from-creative-instruction-part-2/ https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/getting-the-most-from-creative-instruction-part-iii/ Episode 7: Interview with Two Creatives’ Spouses: Tony Rancatore and Brent Smith https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/interview-with-two-creatives-spouses-tony-rancatore-and-brent-smith/ Episode 8: Take a Creative Page from Kids https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/take-a-creative-page-from-kids/ Episode 9: Learning from Creative Ideals https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/learning-from-creative-ideals/ Episode 13: Just Because: Lessons from Serenity https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/just-because-lessons-from-serenity/ Episode 14: If We Owned a Bookshop … https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/if-we-owned-a-bookshop-%e2%80%a6/ Episode 15: PREP for Success, Part 1 https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/prep-for-success-part-1/ Episode 18: Caring for Your Creative Trinity https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/caring-for-your-creative-trinity/ Episode 20: Interview with a Creative: Alexa Bigwarfe on Creating When Bad Things Happen https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/interview-with-a-creative-alexa-bigwarfe-on-creating-when-bad-things-happen/ Episodes 21-23: Creative Critique Partners Defining Critique Partnerships: https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/creative-critique-partners-defining-critique-partnerships/ Evaluating Yourself: https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/creative-critique-partners-evaluating-yourself/ Choosing a Critique Partner: https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/creative-critique-partners-choosing-a-critique-partner/ Episode 27: Gratitude Amplifies Creativity https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/gratitude-amplifies-creativity/ Episode 34: Facing Creative Insecurity https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/facing-creative-insecurity/ Episode 36: Interview with a Creative: Chloe Rouse on Finding the Story in Creative Projects https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/interview-with-a-creative-chloe-rouse-on-finding-the-story-in-creative-projects/ Episode 46: Interview with a Creative: Camille Myrick on Capturing NOW Through Poetry and Process https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/interview-with-a-creative-camille-myrick-on-capturing-now-through-poetry-and-process/ Enjoy these other writer resources mentioned in this episode: Women in Publishing Summit: https://womeninpublishingsummit.com Alexa Bigwarfe’s Writing Through Grief Challenge: http://sunshineafterstorm.us/free-challenge-writing-grief/ Maggie Stiefvater’s Writing Course: https://www.etsy.com/listing/806360184/writing-with-maggie-stiefvater-2020 Intro music created and performed by Brent Smith. Please share our podcast with your friends! We’d love for them to be our new friends, too! Questions? Comments? You know what to do! Continue this week’s chat with us via email at editorial [at] logosandmythospress [dot] com. For more information about us, the show and our writing craft book series, head over to www.logosandmythospress.com/qwerty-writing-life. Subscribe in your favorite podcast portal. Or, if you’d rather see our grinning faces, ring the bell on our YouTube channel. Can’t get enough of Mea? Head over to her online home at www.measmith.com. Want to know more about Joy? Check out her site, www.joyerancatore.com.

Season Two: A QWERTY Review

Culinary Manager Tony Rancatore joins his wife, author Joy E. Rancatore, to discuss Culinary Creativity and how anyone can find ways to bring creativity to the kitchen. Listen in as he shares how the kitchen allows him a creative outlet and get some tips for how it could do the same for you. Watch two of our favorite cooking shows: Beat Bobby Flay, https://www.foodnetwork.com/shows/beat-bobby-flay Cajun Aces, https://www.foodnetwork.com/shows/cajun-aces Stay in the know about episodes, our speaking engagements and what goes on behind the microphones with our monthly QWERTY Writing Life Newsletter. You’ll also get the chance to influence our show’s content and be the first to know about big events! Here’s the link: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/z9f1z5 Intro music created and performed by Brent Smith. Please share our podcast with your friends! We’d love for them to be our new friends, too! Questions? Comments? You know what to do! Continue this week’s chat with us via email at editorial [at] logosandmythospress [dot] com. For more information about us, the show and our writing craft book series, head over to www.logosandmythospress.com/qwerty-writing-life. Subscribe in your favorite podcast portal. Or, if you’d rather see our grinning faces, ring the bell on our YouTube channel. Can’t get enough of Mea? Head over to her online home at www.measmith.com. Want to know more about Joy? Check out her site, www.joyerancatore.com.

Culinary Creativity

Author Joy E. Rancatore reflects on some ways others’ creative legacies have impacted her life and expounds on how she actively seeks to promote creative legacy in her own life. She shares some ways legacy has played a role in her fiction and closes out the episode with a two-part challenge for reflection and action in regards to creative legacy. Check out these important links mentioned in the episode: Mea’s website where you can subscribe to her newsletter and be the first to know when her poetry book will be available: https://storyswell.net and her Instagram where you can watch her amazing progress on her book’s illustrations: https://www.instagram.com/storyswelljelly/ Subscribe to Joy’s semimonthly newsletter: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/s3k1w3 Read more about Joy’s Press and her grandparents whose creative legacy was a driving force in her entrepreneurship: https://www.logosandmythospress.com/about For more information on Carolina’s Legacy Collection: https://www.logosandmythospress.com/carolinas-legacy-collection Stay in the know about episodes, our speaking engagements and what goes on behind the microphones with our monthly QWERTY Writing Life Newsletter. You’ll also get the chance to influence our show’s content and be the first to know about big events! Here’s the link: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/z9f1z5 Intro music created and performed by Brent Smith. Please share our podcast with your friends! We’d love for them to be our new friends, too! Questions? Comments? You know what to do! Continue this week’s chat with us via email at editorial [at] logosandmythospress [dot] com. For more information about us, the show and our writing craft book series, head over to www.logosandmythospress.com/qwerty-writing-life. Subscribe in your favorite podcast portal. Or, if you’d rather see our grinning faces, ring the bell on our YouTube channel. Can’t get enough of Mea? Head over to her online home at www.measmith.com. Want to know more about Joy? Check out her site, www.joyerancatore.com.

Creative Legacy

Authors Kelsey Atkins and Rachael Ritchey join Joy E. Rancatore to discuss a special topic: Creativity and Motherhood. With Mother’s Day approaching in the U.S., they examine how creativity and motherhood complement one another and how children can inspire creativity in adults while adults do the same for children. Stick around for three QWERTY Challenges to send you off on a mission. Get to know Rachael better: https://www.rachaelritchey.com https://www.instagram.com/RachaelRitchey https://www.twitter.com/RachaelRitchey https://www.facebook.com/RachaelRitcheyAuthor https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13513799.Rachael_Ritchey Get to know Kelsey better: http://kelseyatkins.com https://twitter.com/AtkinsAuthor Check out Rachael’s book design business: https://rrbookdesign.com Check out Kelsey’s new editing job on Critique Match: https://critiquematch.com Looking for inspiration? Visit the Blog Battle site: https://bbprompt.com Stay in the know about episodes, our speaking engagements and what goes on behind the microphones with our monthly QWERTY Writing Life Newsletter. You’ll also get the chance to influence our show’s content and be the first to know about big events! Here’s the link: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/z9f1z5 Intro music created and performed by Brent Smith. Please share our podcast with your friends! We’d love for them to be our new friends, too! Questions? Comments? You know what to do! Continue this week’s chat with us via email at editorial [at] logosandmythospress [dot] com. For more information about us, the show and our writing craft book series, head over to www.logosandmythospress.com/qwerty-writing-life. Subscribe in your favorite podcast portal. Or, if you’d rather see our grinning faces, ring the bell on our YouTube channel. Can’t get enough of Mea? Head over to her online home at www.measmith.com. Want to know more about Joy? Check out her site, www.joyerancatore.com.

Creativity and Motherhood

As National Poetry Month rolls to a close, author Joy E. Rancatore considers Poetry’s Creative Effects on her life and the lives of others. She dives into some of her earliest memories that made her fall in love with the medium and analyzes some ways poetry has influenced her author life. To round out the month’s poetic emphasis, Joy reads a few of her poems. If you haven’t watched a QWERTY episode on YouTube, this would be a great one for a switch. Joy will be sharing graphics with her poetry. While you’re there, subscribe to the QWERTY Writing Life channel and never miss an episode! Check out these important links mentioned in the episode: National Poetry Month: https://poets.org/national-poetry-month Mea’s website where you can subscribe to her newsletter and be the first to know when her poetry book, Grief Like a River, will be available: https://storyswell.net Last episode about Mea’s poetry book: https://qwertywritinglife.podbean.com/e/a-poetic-arc-the-birth-of-a-poetry-book/ Poetry 101: Masterclass article about 15 types of poetry: https://www.masterclass.com/articles/poetry-101-learn-about-poetry-different-types-of-poems-and-poetic-devices-with-examples Poem in Your Pocket Day: https://poets.org/national-poetry-month/poem-your-pocket-day Find information about Joy’s speaking and teaching topics for kids, teens and adults or to book her for your co-op, school, library or other group or event: https://joyerancatore.com/speaking/ Stay in the know about episodes, our speaking engagements and what goes on behind the microphones with our monthly QWERTY Writing Life Newsletter. You’ll also get the chance to influence our show’s content and be the first to know about big events! Here’s the link: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/z9f1z5 Intro music created and performed by Brent Smith. Please share our podcast with your friends! We’d love for them to be our new friends, too! Questions? Comments? You know what to do! Continue this week’s chat with us via email at editorial [at] logosandmythospress [dot] com. For more information about us, the show and our writing craft book series, head over to www.logosandmythospress.com/qwerty-writing-life. Subscribe in your favorite podcast portal. Or, if you’d rather see our grinning faces, ring the bell on our YouTube channel. Can’t get enough of Mea? Head over to her online home at www.measmith.com. Want to know more about Joy? Check out her site, www.joyerancatore.com.