#252 – 2023 Spun Today Wrap-Up Show

In this episode I recap and reflect on the top 5 Spun Today episodes of 2023.  I also share some of my writing and podcasting goals for 2024.

 

The Spun Today Podcast is a Podcast that is anchored in Writing, but unlimited in scope.  Give it a whirl. 

 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/spuntoday

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spuntoday/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@spuntoday   

Website: http://www.spuntoday.com/home

Newsletter: http://www.spuntoday.com/subscribe

 

Links referenced in this episode:

 

Episode 233 Links: https://www.spuntoday.com/podcast/233

Episode 232 Links: https://www.spuntoday.com/podcast/232

Episode 231 Links: https://www.spuntoday.com/podcast/231

Episode 229 Links: https://www.spuntoday.com/podcast/229

Episode 227 Links: https://www.spuntoday.com/podcast/227

 

Get your Podcast Started Today! https://signup.libsyn.com/?promo_code=SPUN

(Use Promo code SPUN and get up to 2-months of free service!)

 

Check out all the Spun Today Merch, and other ways to help support this show! https://www.spuntoday.com/support

 

Check out my Books

Make Way for You – Tips for getting out of your own way

FRACTAL – A Time Travel Tale

Melted Cold – A Collection of Short Stories

http://www.spuntoday.com/books/ (e-Book, Paperback & Hardcover are now available).

 

Fill out my Spun Today Questionnaire if you’re passionate about your craft.  I’ll share your insight and motivation on the Podcast: http://www.spuntoday.com/questionnaire/ 

 

Shop on Amazon using this link, to support the Podcast: http://www.amazon.com//ref=as_sl_pc_tf_lc?&tag=sputod0c-20&camp=216797&creative=446321&linkCode=ur1&adid=104DDN7SG8A2HXW52TFB&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spuntoday.com%2Fcontact%2F

 

Shop on iTunes using this link, to support the Podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewTop?genreId=38&id=27820&popId=42&uo=10

 

Shop at the Spun Today store for Mugs, T-Shirts and more: https://viralstyle.com/store/spuntoday/tonyortiz

 

Background Music: Autumn 2011 - Loxbeats & Melody - Roa

 

Outro Background Music: https://www.bensound.com

 

Spun Today Logo byhttps://www.naveendhanalak.com/

 

Sound effects are credited to: http://www.freesfx.co.uk

 

Listen oniTunes | SpotifyStitcherPocket CastsGoogle Podcasts | YouTube | Website

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] What's up, what's up folks, what's going on and welcome to the Spun Today podcast. The only podcast that is anchored in writing, but unlimited in scope. I'm your host Tony Ortiz and I appreciate you listening. This is episode 252 of the Spun Today podcast. First officially recorded episode of 2024.

Second episode of the year as I re released an episode

last time about marathon running. It's a great interview sit down that I had with a long time friend of mine, Christy Medina. So definitely go back and check that out. Thought it would be fitting for, you know, New Year's resolution, trying to get fit, trying to get in shape, trying to pick up a new hobby.

It was a fitting episode to re release for those purposes. Also,

life as it does, through my family and I, a unexpected curveball. Towards the end and beginning of the year, [00:01:00] health wise,

and that obviously becomes number one priority. So, this episode, which is the 2023 Spun Today wrap up show, I was intending to release last time,

but because of that issue, I didn't, and you're getting it a couple weeks later.

And also because the situation is ongoing.

There may be weeks here and there where I'm not able to produce a new episode

on my regularly scheduled

bi weekly timeline. But when and if that occurs, I'll definitely do my best to repurpose, remix, and remaster

some previously released content. Maybe repackage it differently.

Which is something that just generally I want to do a better job of.

the board, not just for promotional, social media and stuff like that, which is where I see the bulk of that happening with other podcasters and counterparts and creatives and just like entrepreneurs and [00:02:00] business folks, they not necessarily have to have a brand new piece of content to produce every single day or, you know, whatever their schedule is.

Although obviously that's ideal, but you can have evergreen content. Which is something that I'm applying more so from the writing space. If you write a book, it's not like you write it for sale for one day and then, you know, two years later, folks can't read it for whatever reason. You know what I mean?

It's evergreen. It's supposed to be forever.

You can do marketing and repackaging and remastering and re putting out of the contents of fiction more so than non fiction, but, well, certain specific types of non fiction. But you definitely do that within the writing space. And I think I've, I've done that a bit within the podcasting space. So let me tell the podcasters, especially around holidays and stuff like that when listenership goes down.

But I just want to get more creative with it, more, more purposeful, instead of [00:03:00] just regurgitating an older episode where feasible, I want to try to create new content from pieces of older content, if that makes sense. But.

I digress on that point. Just wanted to be transparent as far as that's concerned. This is definitely, as you all know, a medium for me to express myself, get my thoughts out there. It's cathartic and definitely good for my mental health in terms of things going on in my life, just generally.

So I definitely will do my best to maintain that schedule, but like I said, What's going on is a higher priority for sure,

but that said, let's get into this episode

in this episode. I'm going to recap and reflect on the top five spun today. Episodes of 2023

in this episode, I recap and reflect on the top five spun today, podcast episodes of 2023. I also share some of my writing and [00:04:00] podcasting goals for 2024 as well as reflect on.

The goals I had set for myself for 2023 stick around for all that good stuff.

But first I want to tell you guys about a really great way that you can help support this show. If you so choose, then we'll jump right into the episode.

All right, folks, the top five most listened to episodes of 2023 of the Spun Today podcast. Let's get into it. Starting off with the fifth most listened to episode of the Spun Today podcast is

episode number 233 tips from creatives for creatives part two

big shout out to that episode and that episode is actually a good example of what I was speaking to earlier in terms of repurposing older content in more creative ways so one thing that I have Which hopefully more [00:05:00] folks listening will partake in this year is a Spun Today questionnaire. It's a five questions aimed at writers and or creatives.

You definitely don't have to be a writer, just someone who's into anything creative. It could be painting, it could be cycling, you know, whatever it is that you're into that you like. I personally feel that creativity translates over a lot, if not most of the times. You know, I can take

a tip from someone who's a painter and apply that A writing version of that to my own writing or podcasting, for example,

whether it be from a discipline perspective or

some sort of ritual or practice or just a mindset thing that I can borrow from a different type of creative outlet and apply it to my own thing. So the questionnaire, which spuntoday. com forward slash questionnaire is something I put out there. Anybody can fill it out. You can remain to you can choose to remain to be anonymous [00:06:00] or not.

And if not, it's just absolutely free promotion here on this podcast on the free writing session episodes that I put out, which is more my more writing focused episodes.

Writing related where I share tips and advice from other writers and share some of my own writing, etc. I also share. The responses of these questionnaires. And if you're a writer out there, you know, I say who you are, plug your Twitter or your website or your latest book, and I just read your responses to the five questions that I have there on my website, which are all related to your craft and what it is that you do and how you find enjoyment in it, how you find the discipline to actually do it when you don't have time to questions like that, so on and so forth.

Five very easy, straightforward. Open ended questions for you to speak to however you see fit. So again, SpunToday. com [00:07:00] forward slash questionnaire. And in some of those older episodes, you know, I would have one or two responses to this questionnaire. So what I did for this episode, which was again, the fifth most listened to episode in 2023 of the Spun Today podcast.

Episode 233. What I did was, instead of just re releasing those episodes individually and separately, I cut out the chunk that was just the questionnaire responses from a few different episodes, and I mashed them together, and I put out this new episode from that repurposed content. And it did fairly well.

5th most listened to episode in 2023. Shoutout again to Episode 233. 233, let me just share with you all really quickly

the description from that episode, which was in this episode, I share a throwback montage of four spontaneous questionnaires that have been submitted in the past. Why not have a single episode that [00:08:00] centralizes all the tips, motivation, tools, and tricks Adopted by fellow writers and creatives. If you like to partake in filling out your own, check it out at spuntoday.

com forward slash questionnaire. Thanks again to Amy Marcello, a person who chose to remain anonymous. Joshua Robertson and Elaine Almonte, which were four different folks whose questionnaire responses I reshared within this episode. So thanks again to those folks. And for anyone interested, definitely go back and check out that episode.

The fourth most listened to episode of the spun today podcast in 2023 was episode number 232. Titled The Fableman's SpaceX Starship Launch. Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon axed from Fox and CNN.

And based on that

very creative title. And I say that sarcastically. In case that's not coming through. Sure you can tell [00:09:00] the topics discussed during that episode.

But here I'll share the description from that episode. Which is interesting because for this episode, I tried out a program, this new podcasting, not new, but new for me, a podcasting program called

Cast Magic. Now there's a few different ones like this.

Descript is one that I've been using more so lately. There was at least one other that I tried out.

Descript is one that I've stuck with but something that Descript is lacking, which Cast Magic had,

and I really liked and might revisit and consider using Cast Magic. But,

there's all these different types of tools, right, that assist with editing your podcast. So, removing the ums and, , dead space. Which would honestly take me hours [00:10:00] to do for every single episode I've ever done. Even today, you still have to do some, even after using some of these, these AI tools,

but just for context, like one episode of, I'm sorry, one hours worth of recorded content for me would take me a minimum of two hours worth of editing afterwards.

So it takes a very, very, very long time. Using a tool, the script for example, which again I am currently mostly using, you take the audio unedited, drop it into the script, and it does a couple things for you. It cuts out, not perfectly though, so that's why I still have to go through it and re edit certain sections.

But it's definitely, definitely a time saver, but it cuts out large gaps of silence so you can cut out anything. For example, you can tell it anything that's over two, you know, two or [00:11:00] three seconds worth of silence. Cut it down to half a second. You can remove all the ums and the and stuff like that throughout the entire ness of the audio.

It'll also transcribe. The episode for you, which is great for podcasts in terms of search engine visibility and things of that nature.

You can create your own audiograms, which are little clips within the script. You can do so with the other tools as well. It'll suggest, you know, 10 to 15 different clips for you, which are from those, , similar, for example, to Headliner, which I use for that purpose. But within 10 clips, I might take , you know, two or three that I actually like that are fitting or that make sense.

And then I make, create my own on top of that. But anyway, one thing that Cast Magic had as well was that it would create multiple versions of a [00:12:00] description for you. You would write your own description but it would also just based on the content that you recorded, create a description for you.

Also create a title for you and give you multiple different options. So I would take, look at those different options and, you know, create my own description based off that description. And it was really, really good for that purpose.

And this is the description of four episodes, 232, which was again at the fourth most listened to episode of 2023.

Welcome to the latest episode of the sponsor day podcast. In this episode, I dive deep into the highly anticipated semi autobiographical film, The Fablemans, which provides a unique insight into the life of legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg. Next, I explore the historic SpaceX Starship launch, which, spoiler alert, ended in a fiery explosion.

I share why it is still considered a successful mission and its implications for the future of space travel, [00:13:00] making for a fascinating discussion that you won't want to miss. And lastly, I also discuss the recent upheavals in the corporate media industry. With both Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon being outstated from their respective networks, Fox and CNN.

So it's definitely a doper, I would say, for lack of a better word,

description.

Cast magic also, for example, gave better timestamp gives you timestamps and tells you, you know, at this time, this is when you started talking about, you know, space X at this time stamp, this is when you started talking about the fable men's at this timestamp, you mentioned X, Y, and Z, you know, it's, it's, you know, system generated AI

driven outputs. So it's not perfect, you know, I might listen to it and be ,

it's incorrect or just not fitting for.

The purposes of creating its own timestamp, for example,

and then you just make [00:14:00] obviously your executive decision from there and include it and not include it to a different version of so on and so forth. But

all these new tools that are coming are definitely great to, to try to use, implement and,

you know, treat them as what they are. They're tools to enhance the content that you're putting out. Definitely leverage them to save time, which is my main goal. Instead of now spending two hours on editing, I'll spend an hour or maybe 45 minutes even sometimes. And I'm sure as these tools get even better, that'll cut down that much more.

But shout out again to the number four most listened to episode of 2023, which is episode 232.

The number three most listened to episode of the Spun Today podcast in 2023 was. [00:15:00] Episode number 231, a night out audio book, re release.

Now for the audiobooks, that's a

type of episode that I re release that I do not do much to. I might re record an intro and re update the outro. If it's especially one of my older short stories that I made an audiobook for.

But if there are updates within

one of the audiobook episodes. That's the extent of it. The actual content of the audio book itself remains exactly the same.

And A Night Out is the most recent short story that I wrote.

It is actually the very first short story in my short story collection that I published this [00:16:00] past year. Titled Melted Cold. And this episode is

a re release of the audio book. In it's original Format, which was prior to being professionally edited. So there are some slight differences. If you listen to this version of the audio book versus reading the published version of the story in my short story collection, but

definitely still, and clearly worth a listen. Here is the official description,

which by the way, is going to be a stark juxtaposed description in comparison to The previous cast magic AI enhanced description, but this one is, this is the audio book version of the short story, a night out by Tony Ortiz,

not very captivating and eyeopening, but shout out again to the number three most [00:17:00] listened to episode of 2023. Episode number two hundred and thirty one, a night out audio book.

The number two most listened to episode of twenty twenty three was episode number two hundred and twenty nine. Chris Rock's comedy special Selective Outrage and Marlon Wayans comedy special God Loves Me.

Definitely shout out to both of those hilarious specials.

The much anticipated first time Chris was going to speak about the slap heard around the world at least within his medium of expression which is stand up comedy. So that was definitely highly anticipated.

And then Marlon Wayans special which was essentially an entire hour [00:18:00] about

and around that same content which was a slap heard around the world. Which just a quick refresher was when Will Smith at the Grammys got up and slapped Chris Rock on live television for saying a very innocuous joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett.

But Marlon structured very creatively, I thought, and showed a huge leap forward in his stand up comedy, in my opinion, from his previous specials.

But very creatively put together an hour. That was super funny and restricted to this content of the slap, but also of anecdotal stories of him being in the unique position of knowing all three of the people involved from Will Smith to Chris Rock and Jada Pinkett and growing up with them essentially,

both professionally and just in life in general, knowing them.

And here is the official [00:19:00] description. In this episode, I speak about watching two stand up comedy specials, Chris Rock's Selective Outrage and Marlon Wayans God Loves Me. My reaction plus some of my favorite bits.

And that was the number two most listened to episode of the Spun Today podcast in all of 2023. Episode number 229, Chris Rock's comedy special, Selective Outrage, and Marlon Wayans comedy special, God Loves Me.

And now for the moment that I'm sure each and every one of you have been sitting at the edge of your seats for

probably not, but it

makes me happy to think that

there may be a universe out there where that visual is actually true, but the number one most listened to episode of the Spun a podcast and all of 2023 was a

Episode number 227, Growing Up Dominican.[00:20:00]

That was definitely a good one.

It was a ton of fun making it. It was different from, for me in that it was the first time I ever recorded an episode with

more than one guest at the same time. I've done, for example, multiple guests. On an episode, but I've recorded each of their segments or chunks separately. Like for example my 9 11 episode Which I re release yearly all 9 11, which is a collection of

Just reliving and recapping With some of the closest people in my life from my father to my brother to my wife My in laws my best friend

And just recapping with folks where they were on 9 11,

what they went through, what their families went through,

their thoughts reflecting on it so many years later, so on and so forth.

But each of those folks, again, I record all those [00:21:00] separately and edit them together later on. But this was the first episode where I ever

had more than one guest at the same time.

It was four guests, so five of us in total.

So it was a little tougher to manage in terms of

just from an audio perspective, you know, different voices speaking at the same time, sounds absolute shit

on the receiving end as a listener. So you have to really

monitor that carefully and give everybody their space to speak, but also not step on folks too much when they're, you know, debating something or going off on a tangent or a rant. You don't want to cut off stuff like that.

Making sure that you know, tuned into what each and every guest

had to say and ask follow up questions and I engaged them

pulling other guests in that aren't speaking as much getting my points across. So there's a bunch going on, but it was definitely a fun episode to record a great learning experience for me.

And [00:22:00] clearly one that was enjoyed by folks because it was the number one listened to episode of 2023.

And here is that official description. In this episode, I sit down and chop it up with four of my oldest friends. We share stories about growing up Dominican. Join us for discussions on having immigrant parents, mental health, raising children, gender roles within our culture, favorite Dominican foods, traditions.

And much more. Shout out to Steven, Abi, Leonel, and Vini.

All of which made it

a great episode with

an array of varied interests and

takes on things and specific topics.

And just had an overall great time.

Definitely looking forward to recording another one of those types of episodes. Maybe even a Growing Up Dominican Part 2. With some of the same folks, if not all, and some folks that hit me up after listening to that episode and told me [00:23:00] that they wanted to jump in at a bunch of points during that episode and, you know, give their two cents of things that they remembered growing up so on and so forth.

So maybe definitely something to stay tuned for in 2024, but shout out again to the number one most listened to episode of 2023. Number 227, growing up Dominican.

So now let's speak about goals that I set in 2023 versus goals that I'm setting for myself in 2024. And of course, reflecting on if certain goals from 2023 were achieved or not.

Let's start off specifically with podcasting. I set a goal in 2023 to increase my [00:24:00] listenership or I set the goal rather in late 2022 when I did the recap for that year. But the goal I set for 2023 was to increase the listenership of my podcast by 50%, 5 0.

And to make it even more difficult,

it was based on the IAB stats. Versus the unique stats, which I broke down last year was something that it seemed that the podcasting industry industry was moving towards,

but now it's still, it's still up in the air. Still fractured. You have certain outlets that do track the IAB stats, which is meant to be this industry standard across the board. Cause you know, if you look up stats in YouTube or Apple or Spotify or your podcasting host on and so forth. They're all different.

They all do it in their own way. So this IAB was meant to be something to standardize it all.[00:25:00] But a lot of folks don't use it. The folks that do still also report their unique downloads.

But that said, no matter how much way you slice it, that goal of increasing listenership by 50%, which was I'll admit a very ambitious goal.

The goal of me to try to strive for such a number. And also

how it low key underscores the fact that it must have a, you know, half a dozen folks listening to this thing. If I'm talking about 50 percent increases,

but that goal was not achieved.

Now I had been consistently gaming at least 20 to 25 percent listenership year over year. So an increase of about 20 percent year over year

This year for the first time ever in the nine year history of producing the Spun Today podcast listenership dropped[00:26:00]

and it did so by 26 percent

That is definitely an L right there

now a bit of a not even a saving grace because

I'm not including these numbers in just because I'm not 100 percent certain if they're being counted into if my host is counting them into my total stats, which is what I'm using to compare you over a year, you know, apples to apples to make sure I'm always, you know, comparing the right set of numbers to the right set of to the same set of numbers year over year.

But if I included

my YouTube stats, which are tracked separately.

Which my host Lipsyn is not counting according to [00:27:00] my stats breakdown that I downloaded.

And I count all my videos, which again is a little,

would be a little disingenuous to lump together. If I did, which I did not. My videos and my shorts, because those are not all full episodes of the pod. Some of them are. You know, like every episode is released on YouTube as well. But the vast majority are clips of those episodes, you know, like one episode might have five six ten clips to it Both in like longer segments and you know, so shorts that I release on youtube and all that gets aggregated separately.

So It wouldn't be fair to include all those numbers into the total but If a portion of them were

My stats would obviously be higher if everything was accounted for and I compared it to my previous year's total in terms of downloads and listenership,

I would have [00:28:00] almost doubled my listenership. But again, it's not completely accurate, , mathematically to do that, so I'm not going to. What I am going to do, though, moving forward is continue to track how I have always done year over year.

Which again, this year had a 26 percent drop in listenership. Let me hit myself again with that. But I'm going to also track my YouTube videos separately, my YouTube shorts separately, and then the grand total of all downloads via my host, which is Lipsyn, which accounts for, you know, somebody listens on Apple, Spotify,

on a web browser, you know, wherever it is that folks listen to, to an episode.

And I'm going to aggregate all those together for a grand total, but I'm going to track them separately. So three separate columns plus a grand total column. So that next year when I do this again, it's going to have a pretty fair comparison year over year for all those separate categories.

Another goal I set for myself podcast [00:29:00] related was to continue to be creative and active in terms of

adding posts and clips of different episodes. On all social media platforms,

I did continue to do that.

So I would mark that goal as achieved. And I would add it to it for 2024 to not only continue doing that, but to also add TikTok for 2024.

There's a lot of the Reels content, the shorts, stories, etc. They're used on IG, YouTube. So forth that I can repurpose on the platform to talk and see how it fares there. See if that drives traffic to the episode as a whole or not. Definitely worth a shot. So that is a goal that I would add for 2024.

That is definitely within that lane of creating posts and clips for social media.

I [00:30:00] did have a goal in 2023 of customizing clips for each individual site. , for example, creating motivational content for LinkedIn. And I would say I failed on that and that I didn't do it. I don't even really think that's a good idea to customize. Maybe I'm wrong to customize the content per website.

As opposed to just creating the subcontent, you know, like the clips and stuff like that. And just promoting it on all the websites to drive traffic towards your show.

Because I think it could be a little bit misleading, right? If you, if I do only motivational type content and post it on LinkedIn, then folks will go to the show expecting just motivational content if they're interested in that. And they'll wind up with a show that will definitely give you that motivational content, but also nuances and tips and tricks related to the craft of writing.

Breakdowns of movies, of books, [00:31:00] current events, et cetera, which might not be what they're looking for. So

I the idea for 2024 to continue to try to expand in those other platforms like a TikTok or LinkedIn, but definitely not customizing them per site. And speaking of Cast Magic, which I mentioned earlier on, I did begin a LinkedIn.

In 2023 for spun today, but

I only posted a handful of episodes on there. It's definitely something I have to revisit, but cast magic, for example, made that very easy. It created LinkedIn specific posts of your episode. So it's the same content, but just the sales copy, if you will, for it was formatted in a way that is more fitting to LinkedIn.

That was definitely another plus of Cast Magic.

So yeah, goal for 2024, I'd say, again, [00:32:00] just to tie this out, to continue doing what I'm doing in terms of repurposing content, but also expand it to TikTok and LinkedIn much more frequently.

I had a possible goal, tentative goal, of increasing the output of episodes to weekly instead of bi weekly. That's definitely still not feasible for me at this stage,

but it's always a down the line thing that I do want to do someday. Right.

And the last goal that I had for the podcast in 2023 was to have five or more episodes this year that were interview episodes. Like when I sit down and have a guest on.

I would say that I failed that goal. Although. In the number one, listen to episode depends on how you want to break this down. I did have four guests technically. So if you want to [00:33:00] be technical, you could say that I am one person shy of meeting that goal because you did get four different people for different perspectives,

but on a singular episode versus my intent. I guess when. Writing this goal for myself, which was to interview, have five separate episodes with five separate people

in 2023. Cause as you know, the majority of my shows are solo shows this one, for example,

but either way, whichever way you want to look at that, it still didn't meet that goal. I am going to revise the goal for 2024 and I'm going to specify at least three interview episodes. All of which are separate, just so we're not splitting hairs at the end of 2024

and those folks are my podcasting goals that I set for myself in 2023,

as well [00:34:00] as the goals that I'm setting for myself and for this podcast for 2024.

And let's wrap up the show with my writing goals for 2023. Let you know how I fared with those and what my goals will be for 2024. So in prior years I would set a shitload of goals for myself with the kind of

mentality of, you know, these are all the things that I want to do. Not necessarily within a year, just stuff that I want to do and get done. But I'm going to put them out there to see if I could force myself to get them all done within one year, which was definitely not sustainable or doable.

So for my goals in 2023, I got a bit more realistic, a little more under promise over deliver mindset. And I get myself two main goals

and we split the difference on those.

The first goal was to submit. My [00:35:00] final draft for editing of My second novel, The Continuation to Fractal, and on that goal, I fell flat on my face. Did not achieve.

For the second goal that I had for 2023, it was to publish my first short story collection, which I am happy and proud to say. Absolutely achieved and knocked it out of the fucking park[00:36:00]

melted cold. Available now, definitely check it out

and learn more about it at SpunToday. com a forward slash books.

Now for 2024 in terms of writing goals, going to set two for myself. Once again,

the first one, which will just be a carryover of submitting

my second novel for editing.

Of which, spoiler alert, I still have a long ways to go. I have at least begun to re dig into it.

And what I'm doing now, for example, is I know the type of story I want to tell. I know the topic that I want to dominate the majority of the story.

And I know one of the

storytelling devices that I want to use within this story. If that makes sense. I kind of don't want to give too much of that away. So I'm not going to get too detailed into that.

Which is a big improvement from where I was even a year, two years ago,

which is not knowing the direction that I wanted to go with this kind of having an [00:37:00] idea, but not having, you know, just having zero momentum towards that idea. But now I have all that in place as well as rereading

my own book fractal which is the part one, which is a weird thing. Cause I'm reading it now as a finished product, right? It's a, it's a published book that's out there

that I do plan by the way on

getting it professionally edited before putting out the continuation. So it's going to kind of be a

re release of Fractal, but a second edition version. And then the continuation of, of the story with the, the second novel in that series.

But anyway, it's kind of weird and wild to read your own finished product kind of just as a straight consumer and there's certain things that I like about it.

Definitely a lot more things that I don't about it, which I guess is a good healthy thing to try to, you know, make myself want to improve. If I was sitting there just thinking, Oh, this fucking guy's a genius, [00:38:00] then there would definitely be something wrong with me. But.

I'm halfway or more through reading the book just to remind myself about everything and

combing through things that I want to update for the second edition, but also scenes and places that I want to revisit from book two into book one, which ties into my whole a storytelling device that I want to use within creating the second book. So definitely much more momentum already. From previous years, and that is again the number one goal that I'm going to set for myself in 2024, which is complete and submit that second novel for editing

and my second and last goal, which I'm going to set for myself, my writing goal for 2024 is going to be to record and put out the audio book

version of 2024. My short story collection melted [00:39:00] cold, which is different from the individual audio book, short story episodes that I've put out. For example, I'm going to do an official audio book for melted cold that folks are going to be able to purchase and download from Amazon audible, for example.

And those are my goals, my writing goals specifically for 2024.

And I hope by this time next year, we are speaking about how I met and or exceeded those goals.

And with that, folks, it is a wrap. That was episode 252 of the Spun Today podcast, the 2023 Spun Today wrap up show.

I think it's important to have these types of episodes at least once a year. These reflective episodes where, you know, you look back at all the momentum. That has gotten you to

where you wind [00:40:00] up creatively at the end of the year and just stop, take a look around, you know, really take inventory of what you accomplished, what you didn't accomplish, recalibrate and

proceed with that clear mindset

for the upcoming year. In my case, 2024,

thank you very much to each and every one of you who do take the time to listen.

Hopefully you got something from this episode.

You can apply it to your own creative endeavors,

or at the very least, I hope you got some enjoyment out of listening

with that. I will check you guys out next time. Peace.