Carter Wilson's Making It Up
Making It Up is an unscripted conversation series about the messy reality of being a writer.
Each episode is a deep, unplanned conversation with writers at every stage of the journey. New York Times bestselling authors. Award winners. Debut novelists just getting started. No prepared questions. No talking points. Just two people following the conversation wherever it leads.
We talk about where stories really come from. Childhood influences. Fear. Luck. Loss. Discipline. Doubt. The highs, the lows, and the long stretches in between that rarely get talked about.
At the end of every episode, we put the philosophy into practice. We choose a random sentence from a random book and use it to create an impromptu short story. No prep. No outline. Just making something out of nothing.
Because that is the job.
And that is the point.
Visit Carter at www.carterwilson.com.
Carter Wilson's Making It Up
Making It Up with Jeff Hoffmann, author of Like It Never Happened
Jeff quit his job at the age of 47 to return to college for his MFA, and his first novel, Other People’s Children, emerged from that decision. His second novel, Like It Never Happened, was just released in March 2024. In addition to his two novels, Jeff’s writing has been published in The Sun, Booth, Harpur Palate, and Publishers Weekly. He was the winner of the Madison Review’s Chris O’Malley Prize in Fiction and a finalist for the Missouri Review’s Jeffrey E. Smith Editor’s Prize.
Among other things, Jeff and Carter discuss shifting trends in the publishing industry, separating yourself from a business/academic mindset when writing, and the positive side of reading reviews. At the end of their conversation, they make up a chilling story using a line from The Fireballer by Mark Stevens.