Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, Amal, and Howard For the last seven episodes we've explored language, meaning, and their overlap with that thing we mean when we use language to say "poetry." In this episode we step back to some origins, including, at a meta-level, the origins of this podcast as a writer-focused exploration of genre fiction—the speculative, the horrific, the science-y, and the fantastic. Because there is an overlap between language and meaning, and there are myriad overlaps amon...
May 02, 2021•25 min•Season 16Ep. 18
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, Amal, and Howard Rhyming is powerful. It can signal a form, or telegraph whimsy. It can be predictable, surprising, and sometimes both. It may also be seen as childish. When, then, is it time to rhyme? Will rhyming "internally" fit? As opposed to a line-ending bit. For answers, just listen. But rhymes will be missin' Especially where they'd deliver a predictably naughty word at the end of, say, a limerick, because in this context, that would definitely be seen as...
Apr 25, 2021•24 min•Season 16Ep. 17
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, Amal, and Howard How does a poem happen? Absent an external structure, what makes a thing a poem? The key word in that question may be "external," because ultimately the poem on the page will be the implicit definition of its own structure—even if it borrows a "non-poetic" structure from another form. Structure is as structure does. "Unstructured" is just a way to say "I am unfamiliar with this structure," or maybe "I don't believe that this structure is fit for ...
Apr 18, 2021•28 min•Season 16Ep. 16
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, Amal, and Howard Rigorous structure in poetic form is commonly pointed at when we declare Poems have meters and rhymes, as the norm. Yet words without patterns can roar like a storm So why pay attention, why study with care Rigorous structure in poetic form? Just set it aside, surrender the gorm (means "alertness", a quite-handy rhyme I put there) Poems have meters and rhymes as the norm. Let some of it go, perhaps. Let it transform beyond all the rhyming. Deny, ...
Apr 11, 2021•18 min•Season 16Ep. 15
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, Amal, and Howard We might begin with description. Or we might begin by deconstructing the act of describing. Wait. No, not there. Let's jump in AFTER the deconstruction. Let's leap beyond a statement of topic, let's hurdle clear of mundane declarations of the audio file's length, and together plunge headlong into metaphor, the icy water perhaps calling to mind Archimedes, as we describe our episode (or any other thing) not in terms of its intrinsic attributes, bu...
Apr 04, 2021•21 min•Season 16Ep. 14
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, Amal, and Howard Patterns in the way we're speaking may betray which 'brain' we're using; often bound by what's familiar, sometimes loosed for free-er choosing. Writing like the day-brain's thinking Singing while the night-brain's winking All the cadence going funky (golden-mantled howler monkey) Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, and mastered by Alex Jackson. XKCD #1412, by Randall Munroe, was referenced during this episode. As was the Greater ...
Mar 28, 2021•20 min•Season 16Ep. 13
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, Amal, and Howard Can you hear your writing sing, being intoned instead of read? With the dialogs as tunes whose tags say "sung" instead of "said?" When the rhythm of your prose echoes the rhythm of a song you'll see perhaps you've been a poet all along. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, and mastered by Alex Jackson. Les Miserables was written by Victor Hugo, set to music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, and ruined here by Howard Tayler. Our Sponsors...
Mar 21, 2021•19 min•Season 16Ep. 12
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, Amal, and Howard This is how we begin our master class on poetry, with Amal El-Mohtar: With not one question, but two. What is poetry? What is prose? Yes, both questions are a trap. Or maybe two traps. But definitely a beginning. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out HomeServe: https://www.homeserve.com * Check out MasterClass: https://masterclass.com/EXCUSES * Check out Talkiatry: https://Talk...
Mar 14, 2021•19 min•Season 16Ep. 11
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, Amal, and Howard, with special guest Kevin J. Anderson Kevin J. Anderson joins us to talk about how others have helped us in our careers, and how we might continue that tradition and help others. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out HomeServe: https://www.homeserve.com * Check out MasterClass: https://masterclass.com/EXCUSES * Check out Talkiatry: https://Talkiatry.com/WX * If you’re strugglin...
Mar 07, 2021•28 min•Season 16Ep. 10
Your Hosts: Dan, Erin, Brandon, and Howard How many different ways can our writing earn money for us? What additional work, besides "just" writing, do we need to do in order to get that money? In this episode we discuss finding and managing multiple revenue streams, whether that means writing for new audiences, or monetizing existing writing in new ways. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, and mastered by Alex Jackson. Our Sponsors: * Check out HomeServe: https://www.homeserve.c...
Feb 28, 2021•22 min•Season 16Ep. 9
Your Hosts: Dan, Erin, Brandon, and Howard Let's talk about how promote yourself and your work, and how to do it well. The tools we use for this continue to evolve, and in this discussion we'll cover things that have worked, things that have stopped working, things we use now, and strategies we apply to not sink beneath the churning disruptions endemic to promoting books (or, really, anything else.) Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, and mastered by Alex Jackson Liner Notes: He...
Feb 21, 2021•24 min•Season 16Ep. 8
Your Hosts: Dan, Erin, Brandon, Howard Let's look a the business considerations of whether that thing you're writing is a standalone story, or part of a series. The factors are complex, and a single factor (like, say distribution channel) isn't likely to make the decision clear cut. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out HomeServe: https://www.homeserve.com * Check out MasterClass: https://masterclass.com/EXCUSES * Check out Ta...
Feb 14, 2021•19 min•Season 16Ep. 7
Your Hosts: Dan, Erin, Brandon, and Howard Branding, in marketing terms for writers, is the process of establishing a recognizable identity—a brand— for you and your works in the marketplace of readers, and people who buy things for readers. In this episode we talk about what our brands need to be doing for us, and how we go about getting them to do that. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out HomeServe: https://www.homeserve.c...
Feb 07, 2021•18 min•Season 16Ep. 6
Your Hosts: Dan, Mary Robinette, Brandon, and Erin Here's our deep dive into the subject of contracts in the publishing business. We can only go so deep during a fifteen-minute episode, so we ran about twice as long as usual. We discuss some of the things you should look for, things you should watch out for, and resources that can help you out. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out HomeServe: https://www.homeserve.com * Check ...
Jan 31, 2021•32 min•Season 16Ep. 5
Your Hosts: Dan, Mary Robinette, Erin, Brandon, and Howard Networking is an invaluable part of any business, and the business of writing is no exception. In this episode we'll talk about how to do it effectively, genuinely, and in ways that benefit the entire community. Credits: This episode was recorded my Marshall Carr, and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out HomeServe: https://www.homeserve.com * Check out MasterClass: https://masterclass.com/EXCUSES * Check out Talkiatry: http...
Jan 24, 2021•26 min•Season 16Ep. 4
Your Hosts: Dan, Erin, Howard, and Brandon Erin Roberts joins us for our third installment in Brandon's business-of-writing series. In this episode we're covering pitfalls and common problems—including some predatory practices—for you to be on the lookout for while you develop your career as a writer. Credits: This episode was recorded my Marshall Carr, and mastered by Alex Jackson Liner Notes: "Accountabilibuddy," which is written here so Howard can remember it. Our Sponsors: * Check out HomeSe...
Jan 17, 2021•20 min•Season 16Ep. 3
Your Hosts: Dan, Mary Robinette, Howard, and Brandon It sounds like a mean thing to say, but it's not a wrong thing to say. A publisher is a corporation, and a corporation doesn't have friends. It has contractual relationships. We can make friends with people who work for publishers, but those are not the same thing. Liner Notes: here is an archived copy of Dave Brady's essay about "company loyalty" Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: *...
Jan 10, 2021•19 min•Season 16Ep. 2
Your Hosts: Dan, Mary Robinette, Howard, and Brandon Welcome to 2021, and Season 16 of Writing Excuses. This year we're dividing the year into "master classes" or "intensive courses." We're kicking it off with Brandon's episodes, which are all about the business of writing, and the first of those is this one! So... your career is your business. In this episode we'll talk about how that mindset—this is a business—informs our other activities, and how valuable it can be to get our heads in the rig...
Jan 03, 2021•22 min•Season 16Ep. 1
Your Hosts: Howard, Mary Robinette, and Dan, with special guest Patrick Rothfuss Did we have too much fun applying ironic humor to the title of this episode? Possibly! Patrick Rothfuss joins us to talk about economy of phrase, and the ways in which big ideas can be expressed with a few of the exactly-right words. Credits: This episode was recorded by Bert Grimm, and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out HomeServe: https://www.homeserve.com * Check out MasterClass: https://masterclas...
Dec 27, 2020•23 min•Season 15Ep. 52
Your Hosts: Dan, Howard, Mahtab, and Brandon We're often taught that the best critique group feedback is reactions to the writing, rather than advice for fixing it. But prescriptive feedback—critiques that include suggestions for you how to might rewrite something—is an important part of the process. In this episode we discuss how we curate our critique groups and filter their feedback to improve our writing, and our experiences with these groups. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall C...
Dec 20, 2020•21 min•Season 15Ep. 51
Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard Our listeners have asked about how we handle managing a large cast of characters. This is something we've all struggled with, and sometimes we've failed at it pretty spectacularly. In this episode we talk about how we turned our failures into learning, and what we do today to keep our ensembles in line and our stories on track. Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out HomeServe: https...
Dec 13, 2020•19 min•Season 15Ep. 50
Your Hosts: Dan, Howard, Mahtab, and Brandon This episode comes from a question we're often asked: "how do you stay excited about a story you're working on?" We talk about how we maintain our passion for the stories we're working on, and how that's not the same as being super excited to write every time we sit down at the keyboard Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out HomeServe: https://www.homeserve.com * Check out MasterClas...
Dec 06, 2020•18 min•Season 15Ep. 49
Your Hosts: Dan, Mahtab, Howard, and Brandon We've talked about deliberately making our readers uncomfortable. In this episode we discuss writing things that make us uncomfortable. Maybe it's writing strong language, or sex scenes. Perhaps it's a personal narrative that is painful to relive. Whatever it might be, as writers we need to prepare ourselves to embrace that pain, soak up that discomfort, and put the words on the page. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, and mastered b...
Nov 29, 2020•23 min•Season 15Ep. 48
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Piper, and Howard, with Cory Doctorow Worldbuilding is something you do to some degree in everything you write. Cory Doctorow writes (among many other things) near-future SF, and he joins us for a discussion of extrapolative worldbuilding. Credits: This episode was recorded by Bert Grimm, and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out HomeServe: https://www.homeserve.com * Check out MasterClass: https://masterclass.com/EXCUSES * Check out Talkiatry: https://Ta...
Nov 22, 2020•22 min•Season 15Ep. 47
Your Hosts: Dan, Piper, and Tempest, with special guest Yang Yang Wang Yang Yang Wang, an author, actor, and director (among many other things) joins us for a discussion of language, food, and a whole raft of other cultural elements critical to crafting Chinese-American characters. Credits: this episode was recorded by Ross Smith and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out HomeServe: https://www.homeserve.com * Check out MasterClass: https://masterclass.com/EXCUSES * Check out Talkiat...
Nov 15, 2020•18 min•Season 15Ep. 46
Your Hosts: Dan, Mary Robinette, and Howard, with Patrick Rothfuss Pat joins us for a discussion of worldbuilding, in which we field a couple of challenging questions from readers. Here are the questions! How do you create timeless urban fantasy? How do you create a compelling secondary world fantasy without leaning on a complex magic system? We ran a bit long with this one, but we have no regrets. Because compelling. And maybe timeless. Credits: This episode was recorded by Bert Grimm, and mast...
Nov 08, 2020•31 min•Season 15Ep. 45
Your Hosts: Dan, DongWon, Mary Robinette, and Howard What do you do when some of the key foundations of your authorial (or otherwise creative) livelihood are kicked away? How do you go about repairing, rebuilding, or rebooting your career? Credits: This episode was recorded by Bert Grimm, and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out HomeServe: https://www.homeserve.com * Check out MasterClass: https://masterclass.com/EXCUSES * Check out Talkiatry: https://Talkiatry.com/WX * If you’re s...
Nov 01, 2020•24 min•Season 15Ep. 44
Your Hosts: Brandon, Dan, Mary Robinette, and Howard, with special guest Bruce D Richardson Bruce D Richardson, who is often credited as BDR, or BD Richardson, is a voice-over actor and audiobook narrator. He joins us for a discussion of reading out loud for an audience, including some mic techniques and best practices for recording. Liner Notes: https://www.accenthelp.com/ "I never said she stole my money." Our Sponsors: * Check out HomeServe: https://www.homeserve.com * Check out MasterClass: ...
Oct 25, 2020•19 min•Season 15Ep. 43
Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard How do you decide what sort of event ends your story? How do you set the scale and the stakes for that event? And once you've made these decisions, how do you set about writing the best possible ending? Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out HomeServe: https://www.homeserve.com * Check out MasterClass: https://masterclass.com/EXCUSES * Check out Talkiatry: https://Talkiatry.com/WX *...
Oct 18, 2020•18 min•Season 15Ep. 42
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Piper, and Howard, with special guest Cory Doctorow In journalism, that three-character string in our episode title means "Fact Check." Those three characters are a great way to drop a note to yourself, reminding you to get some answers later. In this episode Cory joins us to discuss when we drop FCK into our works, and how we go about removing it later. Credits: This episode was recorded at sea by Bert Grimm, and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out Hom...
Oct 11, 2020•19 min•Season 15Ep. 41
