All posts by jdsawyer

After a childhood in academia, J. Daniel Sawyer declared his independence by dropping out of high school and setting off on a series of adventures in the bowels of the film industry, the venture capital culture of silicon valley, surfing safaris, bohemians, burners, historians, theologians, adventurers, climbers, drug dealers, gangbangers, and inventors before his past finally caught up to him. Trapped in a world bookended by one wall falling in Berlin and other walls going up around suburbia and along national borders throughout the world, he rediscovered his deep love of history and, with it, and obsession with predicting the future as it grew aggressively out of the past. To date, this obsession has yielded over thirty books and innumerable short stories, the occasional short film, nearly a dozen podcasts stretching over a decade and a half, and a career creating novels and audiobooks exploring the world through the lens of his own peculiar madness, in the depths of his own private forest in a rural exile, where he uses the quiet to write, walk on the beach, and manage a production company that brings innovative stories to the ears of audiences across the world. For news and free stories, sign up for his occasional newsletter. Or find his contact info, podcasts, and more on his home page at http://www.jdsawyer.net

Dark Justice Audio!

The Dark Justice storybundle (which you can find by clicking on the link, or the banner at the top of this page, or the image at the bottom of this post) is entering the home stretch, and we’re still trying to spread the word. If you have a podcast, a blog, a facebook page, a tumblr account, a twitter account, or any other sort of obsession that might touch fans of nail-biting dark mysteries, now’s the time to spread the word.

Bring them the images. Bring them the audio.
Bring them Dark Justice!

Ep 06: Scheduling and Structure

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This week on The Next Ten Thousand Hours, we have a conversation on the beach. Because: beach!

Within you will find:

  1. A conversation about schedules and structure. On the beach.
  2. Reading: A brand new, complete story: Last Words
  3. Kitty’s Corner: Beach vs. City

And remember, you now have a little more than 24hrs left to pick up your Write Stuff bundle from Storybundle.com — don’t miss out!

That’s it for us this week. We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it!

Ep 05: Taking The Leap

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This week on The Next Ten Thousand Hours, we have a conversation on the beach. Because: beach!

Within you will find:

  1. A conversation about giving up the day job and making it work. On the beach.
  2. Reading: A selection from The Resurrection Junket
  3. Kitty’s Corner: Knit Hats – Sportsball Edition

We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it!

Ep 04: Expansion, Chicken, and TV

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This week on The Next Ten Thousand Hours, we have an update on the Crudrat crowdfunding campaign, and talk about how to manage rapid expansion when projects get too big to keep in your head. Documentation, wikis, war boards, how they work in a collaborative environment–and how not having them can kill you.

Within you will find:

  1. A conversation on documentation and collaboration.
  2. Reading: A selection from Chicken Noodle Gravity
  3. Kitty’s Corner: I Don’t Watch Television, Really…

We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it!

Ep 03: Pumpkins and Post-Project Let-Down

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This week on The Next Ten Thousand Hours, we have an update on the Crudrat crowdfunding campaign, and the unexpected consequences of having all your hard work pay off exactly as you hoped–and how to survive them.

Within you will find:

  1. A conversation on dealing with post-project letdown.
  2. Reading: A selection from Ideas, Inc.
  3. Kitty’s Corner: Pumpkins, Pumpkins Everywhere…

We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it!

Ep 02: Crudrat, Science, and Giraffes!

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This week on The Next Ten Thousand Hours, we lift the veil on the goings-on at AWP in the run-up to the Crudrat crowdfunding campaign. We talk about what it took to put the video feature together, how we survived it, and the methods we resorted to in order to preserve the last wisps of our sanity.

Oh, who do I think I’m kidding?

This week on The Next Ten Thousand Hours:

  1. Behind the scenes on the Crudrat video.
  2. Reading: A selection from Sunday Morning Giraffe, episode 3 of The Lombard Alchemist Tales
  3. Kitty’s Corner: Caffeine, Coffee, and SCIENCE!

We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it!

Ep 01: What Happens Once You’re An Expert?

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This week on the podcast, we unveil The Next Ten Thousand Hours.

Popular memetics would have you believe that it takes ten thousand hours to get really good at something–fortunately, there are all sorts of podcasts and video channels and books to help you through that difficult apprenticeship.

But what about once you get to the vaunted ten-thousand hour mark? What then?

In this show, Kitty NicIaian and I team up to explore (or, to be honest, mock and laugh through) this next phase as it unfolds. Every episode will feature segments where we talk about craft and business issues, a section where I share readings of new stories, and a section where Kitty (who, among other things, is a humorist) shares observations on the absurdities of our local version of the universe.

This week on The Next Ten Thousand Hours:

  1. Introduction to the show and the workings behind-the-scenes at AWP
  2. Reading: A selection from He Ain’t Heavy, the nearly-released book 5 of The Clarke Lantham Mysteries
  3. Kitty’s Corner: BART Encounters

We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it!