Welcome back to our Not-a-Podcast, where Bree & Donna chat about the writing & self-publishing life and answer questions that make us spin wildly off-topic. (Previous episodes!) This week comes with bonus chickens! Scroll down to the bottom of this post to see all about Donna’s chickens and her new chicken coop.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:12:07 — 66.2MB)

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This week’s episode is a little bit laser-focused. And also long. It includes:

• Us sorting all of the O’Kanes into Harry Potter houses.
• No really, all of them.
• Sometimes we don’t agree about it, too.
• This is like an hour of Sorting Hat hijinks, guys.
• Okay, it also starts with talk about our characterization process.
• How we use AUs and viginttes to develop characters.
• How that process secretly started the O’Kanes.
• Our Virtual Signing is starting!

Relevant links:

• The Instigating Tweet
• The sorting matrix post.
• The tumblr post that is totally Nessa.
• The Virtual Signing!
• Bree’s twitter: @mostlybree
• Donna’s twitter: @totallydonna
• Our website: kitrocha.com

Welcome back to our Not-a-Podcast, where Bree & Donna chat about the writing & self-publishing life and answer questions that make us spin wildly off-topic. (Previous episodes!) This week comes with bonus chickens! Scroll down to the bottom of this post to see all about Donna’s chickens and her new chicken coop.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 46:49 — 43.0MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Email | RSS

This week’s episode contains chatter about, but not limited to:

• Baby Chickens (Legal Purchase Requirements)
• Burnout. (Oh noooo)
• Refilling the Well
• The pressure we put on ourselves.
• Please don’t get your tattoo lasered off. Sob.
• Tired Brains & TV Shows We Binged
• The Law of Diminishing Returns
• Why it’s okay to not write every day.
• Why sometimes you have to write anyway.
• Brutal honesty about how you get work done.
• How we learn to tell stories.

Relevant links:

• Travelers
• Into the Badlands
• Selfie
• Stephen King’s On Writing
• Bree’s twitter: @mostlybree
• Donna’s twitter: @totallydonna
• Our website: kitrocha.com

Donna’s Chickens!

Welcome back to our Not-a-Podcast, where Bree & Donna chat about the writing & self-publishing life and answer questions that make us spin wildly off-topic. (Previous episodes!)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:56 — 42.2MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Email | RSS

This week’s episode contains chatter about, but not limited to:

• Bree Loves Spreadsheets. Donna Hates Spreadsheets.
• Plotting vs Pantsing vs Bothing
• Why Co-Writing means being constantly surprised!
• Some people write multiple drafts. We don’t. It’s okay!
• Where do you get your ideas?
• The Year We Went Crazy (2011)
• The Most Marketable Book Of Your Heart
• The Best Place to Market Your (Kissing) Book
• Story vs Plot
• The Revisions That Almost Killed Us

Relevant links:

• I’ll Never Write This – Donna’s spotify playlist.
• Romancing the Beat by Gwen Hayes
• Bree’s twitter: @mostlybree
• Donna’s twitter: @totallydonna
• Our website: kitrocha.com

Welcome back to our Not-a-Podcast, where Bree & Donna chat about the writing & self-publishing life and answer questions that make us spin wildly off-topic. (Previous episodes!)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:40 — 41.9MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Email | RSS

This week’s episode contains chatter about, but not limited to:

• Developing characters across a long series.
• Why we ended our long-running (still successful) series.
• Writing sex scenes. Donna makes a really dirty metaphor about a vase & we discuss rule #1: always deal with the boots first. Also, chicken jailbreaks.
• How we split up characters and the unique challenges of co-writing romances with more than two protagonists.
• Character development as a conscious vs unconscious process. (Case studies: Grace & Nessa!)

Reader/listener questions answered:

• Are any of your characters based on anyone?
• Does a character change throughout the story?
• What type of research have you had to do?
• Is Eden the only city left?
• Where IS Eden anyway?
• When does Gideon get a book?

Relevant links:

• How to ADHD — a great youtube channel even if you don’t have ADHD. (Check out the Bullet Journal tutorial!)
• The Solar Storm of 1859
• Soap Queen: Bree’s One-Stop-Shop for Soap research obsession

Welcome back to our Not a Podcast, your weekly-ish peek behind the curtain into the chaotic book-creating magic that is Kit Rocha. Bree & Donna will be answering questions, discussing our process, being really real and honest about the joys and hardships of self-publishing, and mostly admitting the truth: nobody knows what’s going on. Especially not us. Expect this to be barely edited, full of tangents and sometimes inadvisably authentic.

This is Bree & Donna, unfiltered. Click play below to listen in your browser, or scroll down for our iTunes link. (More links coming as we grapple with the reality that this actually just happened.)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:36 — 40.0MB)

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This week’s episode includes, but is not limited to:

• Chatter about two-party consent phone recording.
• Texting Alisha Rai about alien spore.
• Diego Luna in Star Wars.
• Our Origin Story: how Wolverine and drama over first person POV fanfic brought us together.
• Bree unplugs her microphone. And doesn’t edit it out.

Listener/reader questions tackled this week:

• Do you live near each other?
• How do you split up publication tasks?
• How Donna creates polished manuscripts.
• Bree’s basic self-pub production workflow.
• Advice for new authors seeking to self-publish.
• Why we chose solar flares as our apocalypse.

Relevant Links:

• The Solar Superstorm of 2012
• Rogue One actually comes out March 24th, Bree’s gonna have to wait 9 days.

So. This is not a podcast. I mean, it is in that it’s shaped like a podcast and we’re deploying it (kind of?) like a podcast, but podcast sounds Official and Formal and very intimidating to two strung-out cowriters who are just trying to make it through the current dystopia so they can write books about their future apocalypse. So we’re not calling it a podcast.

We are calling it…a chat. A conversation. Your very own peek behind the curtain into the chaotic book-creating magic that is Kit Rocha. Bree & Donna will be answering questions, discussing our process, being really real and honest about the joys and hardships of self-publishing, and mostly admitting the truth: nobody knows what’s going on. Especially not us. Expect this to be barely edited, full of tangents and sometimes inadvisably authentic.

This is Bree & Donna, unfiltered. Click play below to listen in your browser, or scroll down for our iTunes link. (More links coming as we grapple with the reality that this actually just happened.)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:32 — 38.2MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Email | RSS

In this first not-episode, we figure out how skype recording works. Then we discuss exciting topics such as:

• Terrible and wonderful snack foods.
• Donna’s trip to Selma for the 52nd Bridge Crossing Jubilee.
• Post-apocalyptic grooming. (Who in Sector Four cuts their own hair?)
• The basics of how we split up our writing.
• Reader question: Who is the hardest character you’ve ever written?

Relevant links:

• The Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee: http://www.selma50.com/
• Highly Dubious Twizzlers: http://amzn.to/2mYLMUc
• Horizon Zero Dawn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon_Zero_Dawn

Special thanks to Sarah Wendell at Smart Bitches Trashy Books who was a huge cheerleader and walked Bree through all the software required. If this is enjoyable for you, thank her! If you feel tormented, blame us. We’re the ones who can’t stop talking about twizzlers.