The Creating Pros Podcast

JD Estrada is a poet and fiction author, but is also a professional translator of marketing materials into Spanish. We take a deep dive into the power of language, and how you go about translating into a different language, working with regional context, idioms, and dialects, and crossing the barriers of storytelling across languages. How do you change a language, but keep the message and the experience?

Happy New Year! In Creating Pros 10, I reflect on a few college football bowl games, and the lessons creatives can take from them. This one is especially if you're not a sports fan!What inspired this episode was something I heard from a player right after the stroke of midnight on NYE, and I end this with eleven takeaways for anyone trying to build or grow a following.

For the last creating pro's of the year, I'm going to touch on some of what I learned from 2022, and the last few years, but also dive into setting goals and intentions for 2023. Often we look at New Years Day as that great chance to do a big reset, and commit to huge changes, ones that fall away within weeks, or even days. 
In this episode, I touch especially on the interviews with Alex Simmons and Joelle  Reizes. In both of these shows, we talked about the importance of creativity, and and facilitating it in our lives. As you go forth into 2023, it's not about picking one day and hanging all of your life changes on it. Make every day a day of change.
See you next year (you know I had to get the bad joke in).

Joelle M. Reizes writes as herself and as J.D. Blackrose. After setting aside her love of creating writing in lieu of family and corporate career, she returned to it in her 40's with a blog, urban fantasy, romance, horror, and children's books. We talk about her passion for creating, how she started, and how she restarted her life and creative passions!
We build on a lot of the topics discussed with Alex Simmons on the importance of creativity, and that it's never too late to chase your passions.

Alex Simmons has written for numerous publishers, including Disney Books, Penguin Press, Simon and Schuster, Marvel, DC Comics, and Archie Comics, and is the creator of the Blackjack comics series. He has also written for animation, stage plays, film, educational documentaries, and has led master classes internationally. Today we talk about the importance of creativity through life, and his work with educational youth programs.We cover a lot in this one.

Fan Fiction has proliferated with the internet, and consumption of it exploded when the pandemic began.
 
Many writers got their start in fan fiction, both to build up their craft and even an audience while also exploring a favored fandom.
 
This week we'll explore the risks and rewards of fan fiction, both for it's creators, and for those who own the inspiration. We'll also look at how to manage your IP safely, and determine how fan fiction creators can be permitted to play in your sandbox, or not!

This week's show came about because of questions I'm getting from friends and clients. We're seeing a proliferation of new Artificial Intelligence systems analyzing and producing creative content. AI created Digital Art engines are available to everyone on desktops and smart devices everywhere, and the product is winning competitions. Beyond that, we see AI's writing, creating music, and with robotics, creating physical mediums.
What does this mean for the future of creativity, and for artists to make a living? What are the legal implications? Copyright infringement?

In this episode, we take a look at Indie publishing. In the industry, self-publishing and indie publishing mean the same thing, but do they really? We also explore seven things any creative business needs to consider, especially writers.
Happy NaNoWriMo!

This week, I'm joined by Oriana Leckert, Director of Publishing & Comics Outreach for Kickstarter!
(Kickstarter.com) (Oriana-Leckert.com) She takes us through how to build your campaign, tips and tricks for funding your project, and best practices for working with Kickstarter. Then we dive deeper into the process!

In Episode 2 of Creating Pros, it's a mini workshop where we walk through the question: Do you have a hobby or a business? Why does it matter?
It's important for 2 primary reasons, it's about what you want and your goals, and the IRS (and other taxing entities). We will talk about the differences between a hobby and a business, how the IRS makes a determination, and how you can make that decision for yourself.