Writing Excuses

This week, we turn our attention to one of the most stubborn traps writers fall into: assuming someone else’s process should work for you. Building on last episode’s conversation about intentions, the hosts shift the focus from what you should do to how you can figure out what actually works, starting with observation, pattern-spotting, and a little self-compassion. The discussion moves through pr...

Season 21 kicks off with a new theme, a fresh tagline, and a renewed focus on what Writing Excuses has always been about: tools, not rules. The hosts unpack why prescriptive writing advice so often falls short, and how understanding why tools gives you the freedom to adapt—or discard—them.  And so for Season 21, we’re going to focus on deconstructing structure in order to better understand the too...

As our 20th season comes to a close, we reflect on the end of 2025 and a major transition for the show, as Dan Wells steps away from Writing Excuses as a full-time core host. Dan shares the thoughtful, hard-won reasoning behind his decision, while the rest of the team reflects on what his presence has meant to this podcast and our community.  We recorded the first half of this episode in June and...

A workflow that made daily writing (and comics) possible—Howard Tayler takes us through two decades of the delightfully eccentric process behind Schlock Mercenary : text boxes in landscape Word, laser-printed pages he inked by hand, and a system that kept comics coming even through long COVID and chronic fatigue.  The conversation shows how craft can stay constant even as ability, tools, and energ...

2 quick reminders: Scholarship applications for our 2026 cruise are open now until December 31st, 2025. You can learn more and apply here . AND early bird pricing for this cruise (going to Alaska in September 2026) ends on February 15th! Get your tickets here ! This week, Dan Wells opens up about how depression reshaped his writing process—and what rebuilding that process has looked like in the ye...

This week, Mary Robinette pulls back the curtain on some of fiction’s sneakiest power tools: tone and mood. Drawing from a recent craft class she taught for her Patreon, Mary Robinette breaks down how these elements shape a reader’s emotional experience—and why they deserve as much attention as plot or structure. DongWon, Erin, and Howard jump in to poke at the definitions, debate where tone and m...

In this episode, DongWon digs into one of the business topics of our upcoming craft book: pitching. How do you talk about your work so other people immediately understand its category, vibe, and why it matters? They break pitching into two parts—content (what you say) and presentation (how you say it)—and share concrete tools like comp titles, short taglines, and simple back-cover formulas to shar...

Dan shares his experience of rebuilding and reinventing his writing career from his section of our forthcoming book Now Go Write. Our hosts walk through practical ways that writers can diversify their work— from writing for RPGs and video games to writing in a new genre like middle grade or nonfiction — and why having multiple, truly separate revenue streams matters. They also dig into the psychol...

In this episode, Erin returns with the final two “rules” from her section of our forthcoming book Now Go Write —and why it might be worth breaking them. With DongWon and Mary Robinette, Erin explores the classic advice to “show, don’t tell,” and the debate over whether magic needs a system. We unpack when these conventions can strengthen a story—and when they can get in your way. Homework: Choose...

In this episode, Erin shares a sneak peek from her section of our forthcoming book, Now Go Write . (To learn more about our book, sign up for our newsletter !) Erin explores four classic writing “rules,” when it’s worth breaking them, and what that can reveal about your own craft. Today, our hosts dive into two of these rules—examining how they can both help and hinder your storytelling. Tune in n...

We have an exciting announcement! Writing Excuses is publishing a book, Now Go Write , which will feature writing from all of our hosts! Sign up for our newsletter to learn when our book is coming out!  So, for our next few episodes, we’ll have each host share one of the topics that they have written a chapter about for the book. Today, we’re starting with Mary Robinette, who will be covering the...

Erin and Howard sat down with paleontologist Dr. Tara Lepore for a fascinating dive into the science—and storytelling potential—of deep time. Dr. Lepore explains why paleontology is about far more than dinosaurs and how mammal teeth can reveal “birth certificates” millions of years old. We hope you come away with new ways to think about science as story—and how to weave the vastness of deep time i...

Erin describes her own writing process as, “a bunch of random practices thrown into a bag and shaken up." Nevertheless, for today’s episode, Erin managed to organize her processes into four categories: getting work, getting in, getting done, getting right. Listen as Erin gives us tips and tricks for freelancing, deadlines, and saying no. Homework: Write down all the tips and tricks you’ve lear...

We’re continuing our episodes focusing on our hosts’ personal writing practices. Like Mary Robinette’s. DongWon’s involves a bit of… chaos.  DongWon’s day job as a literary agent is demanding and unpredictable, so they often have to fit in their writing process into their free time. They are also often collaborating with other authors and friends (often writing for games)—so how does all of this i...

A lot of people ask published authors what their writing process is like, as if it is a key to being able to write. The only important process is the one that works for you.  So, we’re going to let each of our hosts spend an episode explaining their own personal process. Our idea is that the best writing process is the one that works for you. Also, this is going to change over the course of your l...

Today our hosts tell you why you don’t need to listen to all of our episodes—or even most of them. Each of our five hosts weighs in on how you can combine the topics, subtopics, and lenses that each episode features in order to create a structured path forward for your own writing journey.  We start with a broad overview of this season’s structure. Why did we use the simple categories that most of...

We had the absolute joy of sitting down with Charlie Jane Anders , the author of the book we’ve focused on for our last four episodes (All the Birds in the Sky). We talked with Anders about POV, tone, and how she played around with humor —partly by occasionally using an omniscient POV! Anders also explained how to incorporate humor and whimsy, and what it feels like to take risks as an author in t...

This is our final episode before we have Charlie Jane Anders on the podcast to talk about her writing process next week! Today we’re talking about intention by analyzing thematics, the author’s intent, and the way Anders uses tone and tradition to express the core ideas of the book. We also dive into the friction created in the two opposing viewpoints of the world that Anders presents. On one side...

If you still want to read All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders, you can purchase it here! We are looking today at the lens of when . But we’re not going to look at time periods—instead, we’re going to examine flashbacks and foreshadowing. “All the Birds in the Sky” takes place in four distinct times. For instance, one of the characters foreshadows a grim future for the children we’ve ju...

If you still want to read All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders, you can purchase it here! Today we’re talking about places and place-moments. We’re looking at how Anders uses context, details, and relationships to create a deep, familiar, and authentic reading experience for us, even if we’ve never been to the locations in the story. In this episode we’re  also analyzing how Anders crea...

Last season we took different works to represent different concepts. But this season, we’re looking at a single work— All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders . So, for the next five episodes, we’re going to look at how Anders’ novel is deploying all of the lenses we’ve talked about this season—who, where, why, and when. And for our fifth episode, we’ll have Anders on the podcast to talk ab...

Throughout this season, we have been doing a series of episodes that feature different metaphors for writing. Today, we’re talking about raising children and what it can teach us about our own writing practice. It’s common knowledge that parents want their children to grow up to be happy and successful. But the real joy in raising children, Dan and Howard tell us, is watching them express their in...

Téa Obreht is a short story writer and novelist. Her debut novel, The Tiger’s Wife , won the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction, and was a 2011 National Book Award finalist and an international bestseller.  In our conversation, we focused on revision and character consciousness. Téa talked to us about the difficulty of the idea-generation stage of writing, how to cultivate layered characters, and how s...

This year, we’ve been looking at writing through various different lenses. In two weeks, on August 24th, we’ll begin a 5-part deep dive into these lenses through a specific book: All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders . There will be many spoilers in these episodes, so please read the book if you haven’t already!  Now, we’re talking about choosing what your lens is focused on. How do you...

Tone is one of those words people use in many different ways when talking about fiction. On today’s episode, our hosts break down what it means, how we use it, and how it can be a tool in the writer’s toolbox. We dive into the myriad emotional shades of tone, and how you can use this to deepen your story’s themes.  Homework: Write a vignette in which one of your characters is pouring tea for a bel...