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 Mary Adkins, author of Palm Beach
Mary Adkins is the author of the novels When You Read This (Indie Next Pick, “Best Book of 2019” by Good Housekeeping and Real Simple), Privilege (Today.com “Best Summer Read”), and Palm Beach (New York Post “Best Book of 2021”). Her books have been published in 13 countries, and her essays and reporting have appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Slate, and more. A graduate of Yale Law School and Duke University, she teaches storytelling for The Moth worldwide and supports aspiring authors as an online writing coach through her program, The Book Incubator.
Among other things, Mary and Carter discuss Mary’s transition from corporate law to becoming an author, their experiences both being a student in and teaching writing classes, and about how time is not the problem when deciding to start writing. At the end of their conversation, they make up an engrossing story using a line from Emilly Littlejohn’s Lost Lake.