How do you give your readers everything they're looking for?

And your agent? You have to feed the beast don't you? (Is calling agents 'The Beast' too offensive?)

It's your job as a writer to offer up precisely what your readership is looking for. Anything else and you risk losing your commercial edge.

And we can't have that can we?

Oh we can?

Oh... OK.

We met up with the wonderful Doug Johnstone, to hear how he refuses to be pigeoned-holed, writes what he likes, and just so happens to say what he like too - and yes, by that, I mean he swears quite a lot.

Some great advice in this chat about the importance of loving what you write and worrying about it later. Plus lots of other entertaining advice too. Get it into your ear'oles now!

And a big THANKS to Scrivener for sponsoring this season of the podcast!

THANK YOU SCRIVENER!

If you haven't tried Scrivener, you can sample their lovely wares for free for 30 days.

OR you could just blummin well take our advice and buy a copy! and using our special code you can get 20% off!

I know. Mental.

You're welcome.

Just go to https://www.literatureandlatte.com/ and use the code failing.

Right. That's the Christmas presents sorted. Have a great festive celebration, happy new year and see you on the other side for Season 6!

Buy Doug's books

https://orendabooks.co.uk/authors/doug-johnstone

More Doug:

https://dougjohnstone.com/

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The second stop on our literary whistle stop tour of Edinburgh is The Writers Museum in Makars Court.

Focussing on the three writers generally considered to be the great Titans of Scottish Literature: Robbie Burns, Sir Walter Scott & Robert Louis Stevenson.

We have a wander round, read some poetry and look into why these fellas are so revered.

We also go on a literary pub tour and have a chat with actor Mike Daviot, who just so happened to be an absolute font of knowledge about poetry and the Scots language.

Turns out literary pub tours are one of our favourite kinds of tour! Now who could have guessed that?!

So hop on board the Failing Writers Tour Bus and join us for a fascinating, if admittedly wholly inadequate look at three of the greatest writers, not just of Scotland, but the world.

The Writer's Museum:

https://cultureedinburgh.com/our-venues/writers-museum

The Literary Pub Tour we enjoyed:

https://www.edinburghliterarypubtour.co.uk/

Tam o' Shanter:

http://www.robertburns.org.uk/Assets/Poems_Songs/tamoshanter.htm

Hopefully that's inspired you to take a closer look at the poems and novels of these absolute titans. More than that, maybe it's encouraged you to have a go yourself.

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Ahoy there, you weary word-wanderer. You found us. Finally! Thank goodness.

Welcome to the Failing Writers Podcast. Think of us as your writing harbour.

Your safe haven.

Your Lighthouse.

Come and moor here for a while and have your brain de-barnacled by the glorious mind of poet Michael Pederson.

Writer, linguaphile, Edinburgh Makar and all-round inspirational wordsmitherizer.

And once you’ve been inspired… time to get involved and write something wonderful yourself.

But hang on… before you do… you might want to consider the fantastic writing software Scrivener? An app that makes writing novels, plays, screenplays, poetry and all the other stuff soooo much easier.

Plus we’ve got a special code you can use at https://www.literatureandlatte.com/store/scrivener to get yourself a majestic 20% off. Our little gift to you for being awesome.

FAILING

(That’s the code btw, I’m not just shouting FAILING! at you. That would be mean)

And now you’ve listened to Michael, I’ll bet you want all his essential info?...

Yep. Thought so.

Insta: @michaelpedersonoyster

Go see Michael live:

https://www.michaelpedersen.co.uk/events

Buy Muckle Flugga:

https://linktr.ee/muckleflugga

Buy Boy Friends:

https://linktr.ee/boyfriendsbook

Other stuff:

https://www.michaelpedersen.co.uk

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.