Ellen Kushner joins us for the last episode of Season 10. Per the title, folks, it’s time to be done.
What does “done” mean? How do you go about declaring a project “finished” when you know there are still things wrong with it? How do you clear your head, your work space, and your life for the next thing you need to do?
Out of Excuses: Per Brandon’s plug in the episode, registration is open for the 2016 Out of Excuses WritingWorkshop and Retreat!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:50 — 15.0MB)
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Try something new. Brainstorm something new, something different from what you’ve written before.
The Cloud Roads, by Martha Wells, narrated by Christopher Kipiniak
The Writing Excuses Master Class turns, and seasons come and pass. What was, what will be, and what you may still write, may yet fall under the excuses. Still…
Take a look at the transcript, in the archives or over here
http://wetranscripts.livejournal.com/110734.html
And then you’ll be out of excuses. So go write!
Great show to end the year.
I tend to think the advice that when you find that a revision changes less than 10% of the story, you’re getting pretty close to needing to accept you’re finished. I tend to push this to the point that I’ll be doing drafts where I’m really just rearranging commas before I can accept that I might be done… although, there is one little aphorism that has tended to help me accept that stories have to be put aside: No story is ever finished, they’re simply abandoned.
I think there’s a lot of truth to that. All stories could be polished endlessly, but eventually you just have to look at the work, and say, right, okay, I think this is as done as it needs to be. Time to send it out into the world. Time to move on.
Chris