Category Archives: Career and Lifestyle

These episodes talk, at least in part, about how to manage your career as a writer, and how to keep writing.

Career and Lifestyle, Season 18, Theory and Technique

18.06: An Interview With Howard Tayler

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Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler

In this episode we interview Howard Tayler, one of the founding members of the podcast, and the creator of Schlock Mercenary. The first question: how did this twenty-year ride change you? And a later question: what comes next?

Liner Notes: We’ll eventually do a deep dive on the final three books of the Schlock Mercenary saga. You can read for free starting here.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:01 — 14.7MB)

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Take an index card for each key beat in a scene you’ve written. Illustrate each beat with stick figures and smiley/frowny/angry faces.

Schlock Mercenary: Mandatory Failure, Function of Firepower, and Sergeant in Motion (the three final books available online), by Howard Tayler, colored by Travis Walton

Career and Lifestyle, Season 18, Theory and Technique

18.05: An Interview with Mary Robinette Kowal

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Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler

In this episode Howard Tayler conducts our interview with Mary Robinette Kowal, leading with a wide-open question: “Where did you even?” Mary Robinette talks to us about how she came to the world of writing, and some of the amazing things she picked up along the way.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:43 — 15.9MB)

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Think about the skills your non-writing life has given you. What are those lenses, what is the toolset, and how might it apply to your writing.

The Monsters We Defy, by Leslye Penelope

Career and Lifestyle, Season 18, Theory and Technique

18.04: An Interview With Dan Wells

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Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler

In this episode Erin Roberts very enthusiastically launches our interview with “OG” Dan Wells with a delightfully difficult question, paraphrased thusly: “is there advice you gave back in the early days that you still stand by today?”

There are lots of other questions, including one about bacon!

Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:46 — 15.9MB)

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Take a scene from a piece you’re working on and strip out all narration and description. Then adjust the dialogue so that the scene still makes sense.

Moonbreaker, a game from Unknown Worlds, with audio scripts by Dan Wells

Career and Lifestyle, Season 17, Season 18, Theory and Technique

18.03: An Interview With Erin Roberts

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Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler

As we announced in the first episode of the year (and in this press release),  DongWon Song and Erin Roberts are joining us as permanent cast members. Today we’re conducting an interview with Erin Roberts. She is newer to career writing than any of the rest of us, but her contributions to Writing Excuses have already been invaluable.  In this episode we’ll learn a bit more about why, and about what Erin will bring to the program going forward.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:51 — 13.2MB)

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Think about what has brought you to where you are right now. Write down three things that you carry with you, and that you bring to the pages you create.

Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel (D&D Adventure Book)

Career and Lifestyle, Season 17, Season 18, Theory and Technique

18.02: An Interview with DongWon Song

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Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler

As we announced in last week’s episode (and in this press release),  DongWon Song and Erin Roberts are joining us as permanent cast members. In this episode we conduct an interview with DongWon Song, plumbing a few depths, and learning a bit more about what they can teach all of us.

Liner Notes: DongWon Song’s newsletter, Publishing is Hard, can be found at publishingishard.com. It’s free, but paid subscriptions are available.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:35 — 17.1MB)

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Make a list of 5 literary agents.

The Daughters of Izdihar, by Hadeer Elsbai

Career and Lifestyle, Live Audience, Season 17

17.51: Feel The Burn

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Your Hosts: Dongwon Song, Piper J. Drake, Peng Shepherd, Marshall Carr, Jr., and Erin Roberts

Let’s talk about burnout. It’s been a long few years (with some of those years feeling like decades) so this may seem timely, but burnout can happen during otherwise ordinary times. Ignoring it or simply trying to “burn smarter, not harder” can have serious repercussions.

In this episode we talk about why we burn out, how we recognize it, how we deal with it, and how we (eventually) recover from it.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Matthew Drake, and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:07 — 14.0MB)

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Write a kind, delightful, helpful letter to your burnt-out future self.

Wings Once Cursed & Bound, by Piper J. Drake (coming in April, 2023)

Career and Lifestyle, Season 17, Theory and Technique

17.50: Consistency, Inconsistency, and the Crushing Weight of Expectations

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Your Hosts: Howard Tayler, Dongwon Song, and Dan Wells

Thanks to some last-minute schedule changes, we almost didn’t have an episode for today. Only three cast members were able to make it to the session, and none of those three had the syllabus. But we forged ahead anyway, and recorded an episode about why we felt it was important to record an episode.

That may sound like one too many layers of meta, but just wait until we add the layers in which this actually applies to writing!

Liner Notes: Dongwon’s newsletter is called “Publishing is Hard.” Dan’s newsletter doesn’t have a name, but can be signed up for here.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:06 — 16.1MB)

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Make a list of all of your regular commitments. Consider your bandwidth for adding to that list. Make a rough schedule of content updates for the next month.

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Career and Lifestyle, Theory and Technique

17.49: Bodies Are Magical

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Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, C.L. Polk, Fran Wilde, and Howard Tayler 

Let’s put a stake in the ground here: disabilities do not grant magical powers. And yet that exact trope can be found in multiple genres, across multiple mediums. In this episode we talk about why this happens, and how we might better portray the magical awesomeness found in our bodies.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Daniel Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:11 — 14.8MB)

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Everyone is going to be disabled. Look at your cast and decide which disabilities they have (visible, invisible, known, unknown). Make sure none of those are plot points.

Killjoys (on SyFy)