{"podcast":{"title":"Don't You Dare To Think Out Loud!","slug":"don-t-you-dare-to-think-out-loud-6458124","podcast_index_feed_id":6458124,"rss_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/1750192.rss","website_url":"https://javiertruben.substack.com/podcast","image_url":"https://substackcdn.com/feed/podcast/1750192/4aec56d502b2e413b3f779d2c6fc9e94.jpg","author":"Javier Truben","episode_count":47,"summary":"A transnational author and voice crafter. Wrote a few novels and a medieval trilogy. And works hard to upload them on ACX before the inevitable vocal folds atrophy.","last_synced_at":null,"page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/don-t-you-dare-to-think-out-loud-6458124"},"episode":{"title":"Froth on the Daydream","slug":"froth-on-the-daydream","published_at":"2025-11-13T16:12:43+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/don-t-you-dare-to-think-out-loud-6458124/froth-on-the-daydream","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/don-t-you-dare-to-think-out-loud-6458124","url":"https://javiertruben.substack.com/p/froth-on-the-daydream","audio_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/178802997/64ca6c1066a582d35d1abebf610e26d3.mp3","summary":"I suppose it’s because I had a good night’s sleep that I feel better than yesterday. I thought I couldn’t write a single word because of the alarming lack of relevance. Writing fiction requires a massive focus on a story that sometimes makes no sense, and sometimes it truly does. Navigating between these two extremes is quite intense and certainly not for the faint of heart. I had the bad luck of growing up in a time when the plot seemed useless. In fact, I could say the novels I loved were a kind of chaotic mess. When did I begin to appreciate a plot? That’s easy! Writing my first manuscript, I ran a free-fall plot, which brought about a large number of characters. So, at the time of ending such an orgy of creativity, the protagonist looked like a bit player. Of course, that little crack went unnoticed until I began to receive the feedback of my first agent, who in a moment of candor, said: “You could have written seven novels if you had had a plot.” Needless to say, Mrs. Kerrigan was right. She had a business to run, books to pitch for big publishers, not a lab of crazy ideas, but a literary agency. A friend of mine was way more graphic: “Next time, cut the bologna in thin slices.” That was bound to happen. So, with the first lesson learned, my second novel was a tour de force. But I missed out on Cervantes’ trick of giving voice to 600 characters. On the contrary, I ran a mix of triangle affair and coming-of-age novel. And yet, I did not run the distance, the 120,000 words that make a good brick of waste paper a beautiful printed ephemera to fill the windows of a bookstore. On the contrary, I fell short because I had no idea what a canonical novel was. A behemoth of five hundred pages. Otherwise, your literary dreams will go to the pile. A younger version of me thou…","meta_description":"I suppose it’s because I had a good night’s sleep that I feel better than yesterday. I thought I couldn’t write a single word because of the alarming lack…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":610,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/don-t-you-dare-to-think-out-loud-6458124/episodes/froth-on-the-daydream/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/don-t-you-dare-to-think-out-loud-6458124/froth-on-the-daydream.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}