Writing Excuses » Other Podcasts

Writing Excuses 6.22: Continuing Education for Writers

Writing Excuses — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 01:00:00 +0000

Mur Lafferty, the Grand Dame of SF podcasting, joins Howard, Mary, and Dan to talk about ways in which writers can continue their educations. We’ve said time and again that nothing improves your writing skills like doing more writing, but there are some other things you can do so that your writing practice pays off faster.

We talk about writing workshops like Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp, Clarion and Clarion West, Writing Superstars, Odyssey, Taos Toolbox, and Launchpad. We also talk about podcasts like Writing Excuses (you might have heard of that one) and Mur Lafferty’s I Should Be Writing.

We also talk about information sources online like Turkey City Lexicon, Magical Words, and Bookview Cafe, and of course we can’t let the episode end without touching on actual books writers can read, like Steven King’s On Writing, Ken Rand’s The 10% Solution, and Orson Scott Card’s Character and Viewpoint.

We wrap up with a reminder: learning a new thing will make writing more difficult before it makes it easier. Don’t panic. Don’t think you’ve broken your brain. It’s all part of the writing process. You’ll get your mojo back as soon as your brain finishes assimilating all this stuff you’ve just learned.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Rosemary and Rue: An October Daye Novel, Book 1 by Seanan McGuire, narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal

Writing Prompt: Someone wants to go to a writing workshop but gets held up by chicken and waffles.

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Writing Excuses 5.31: Writing Romance

Writing Excuses — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 04:59:54 +0000

Sarah Eden and Robison Wells join Dan and Howard at LTUE to talk about writing romance. Sarah writes in the romance genre, but we’re not focusing on the genre — we’re talking about writing romance within the context of whatever else we might happen to be putting on the page.

We lead with how to do it wrong, because nothing is as much fun to talk about as bad romance. It’s also educational.

More importantly (and more usefully) we talk about formulas for doing romance correctly. One of the most practical is to pair characters up by finding emotional needs that these characters can meet for each other. We look at examples from each of our work: Sarah’s The Kiss of a Stranger, Dan’s I Don’t Want To Kill You, Howard’s The Sharp End of the Stick, and Rob’s Variant.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: I Don’t Want To Kill You, by Dan Wells, narrated by Kirby Heyborne. It’s true, this book has some great romance in it. Also, murder.

Writing Prompt: Create a character, and then create a complementary character who both meets a need and provides unwelcome challenge.

Everybody’s Lisp: Brought to you by the noise reduction software we used. Sorry about that. It won’t happen again.

The Bonus Game: Bad Romance! Enjoy!

Parsec Acceptance Speech 2010

Writing Excuses — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 16:43:26 +0000

Ladies and gentlemen, geeks, nerds, and enablers, and of course our listeners: THANK YOU!

Writing Excuses was named “Best Content Creation Podcast” by the Parsec Committee at the 2010 Parsec Awards at Dragon*Con. This is our second year in a row winning this particular award, and we’re both honored and humbled.

Not very much of that came out during this recording, in which we see why it’s probably a GOOD thing that we weren’t present to give an acceptance speech. Nevertheless, we’re very sorry to have missed the awards, and we have a plan for next year that does NOT include letting our respective publishers, agents, and handlers drag us off-site during something we really should be attending.

And speaking of attending… we will definitely be at WorldCon in Reno next August, and hope to also put in an appearance at Dragon*Con. By way of public service to our many Con-attending listeners, note that this Thursday, September 30th is the last day you can get your WorldCon membership for just $160. It goes up to $180 on October 1st.

Writing Excuses Season 2 Episode 7: Using Writing Formulas with Bob Defendi

Writing Excuses — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 03:44:18 +0000

Howard, Dan, and guest Bob Defendi open this episode with some high literary humor. Bob fills in for Brandon as we discuss formulas writers use in crafting stories. But how do we prevent those stories from feeling formulaic? Can the formulas themselves help? We discuss (at a high level) the three-act format, the hero’s journey, the romance, the two-act format, try-fail cycles, and others.

This week’s episode is brought to you by the podcast audiobook Death by Cliché, by Robert J. Defendi. We didn’t plug it very hard in the episode itself, but oh, MAN you need to listen to it. Howard hasn’t laughed that hard in a long time.

Howard on the Geek Dad Podcast

Writing Excuses — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 01:12:54 +0000

Are you a fan of Howard (who isn’t)? Or have you recently been introduced to him via Writing Excuses and want to know more about him and how he became a comic writer? Well you’re in luck because Howard was recently interviewed on Wired’s Geek Dad podcast. So take a listen and enjoy.