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 … Continue reading 16.01: Your Career is Your Business →

• Agents, 
• Business, 
• Publishing, 
• Writing Career

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 … Continue reading 16.02: Publishers Are Not Your Friends →

• Agents, 
• Contracts, 
• Publishing, 
• Writing Career

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 … Continue reading 16.3: Publishing Pitfalls →

• Agents, 
• Business, 
• Critique Groups, 
• Editors, 
• Self-Publishing, 
• Writing Career

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 … Continue reading 16.5: Pros and Contracts →

• Agents, 
• commercial publishing, 
• Contracts, 
• Publishers

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 … Continue reading 16.6: Building Your Brand →

• Branding, 
• Conventions, 
• John Cleaver, 
• Marketing, 
• Middle Grade, 
• Panels, 
• Pitching, 
• YA

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, … Continue reading 16.7: To Series, or Not to Series →

• Cosmere, 
• John Cleaver, 
• Schlock Mercenary, 
• Series, 
• Trilogy

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 … Continue reading 16.8: Smart Promotion →

• Branding, 
• Marketing, 
• Social Media

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 … Continue reading 16.9: Crossing The Revenue Streams →

• GoFundMe, 
• IndieGoGo, 
• Kickstarter, 
• Merchandising, 
• Writing Career

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  

• Mentoring, 
• Pay It Forward, 
• Superstars Writing Seminars, 
• WXR

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 … Continue reading 16.11: What is Poetry? →

• Poetry, 
• Prose

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 … Continue reading 16.12 : Singing Versus Speaking →

• Master Class, 
• Poetry

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 … Continue reading 16.13: Day Brain vs. Night Brain →

• Master Class, 
• Poetry, 
• reading aloud

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 … Continue reading 16.14: Poetic Language →

• Master Class, 
• Poetry, 
• Purple Prose

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 … Continue reading 16.15: Poetic Structure, Part I →

• Haiku, 
• Master Class, 
• Poetry, 
• structure

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 … Continue reading 16.16: Poetic Structure: Part II →

• Master Class, 
• Poem, 
• Poetry, 
• structure

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 … Continue reading 16.17: The Time To Rhyme →

• Poetry, 
• Rhyming

Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, James L. Sutter, Dan Wells, Cassandra Khaw, and Howard Tayler For the next eight episodes we’ll be talking about roleplaying games, and how that medium relates to writers, writing, career opportunities, and more. We’re led by James L. Sutter and Cassandra Khaw on this particular quest. In this episode we … Continue reading 16.19: Intro to Roleplaying Games →

• Master Class, 
• RPGs

Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, James L. Sutter, Dan Wells, Cassandra Khaw, and Howard Tayler How do you give players meaningful choices while still keeping the story within a reasonable set of boundaries? In this episode James and Cassandra lead us in a discussion of branching narratives, and the ways in which we as writers … Continue reading 16.20: Branching Narratives →

• Choose Your Own Adventure, 
• Game Design, 
• Planet Mercenary, 
• RPGs, 
• Schlock Mercenary

Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, James L. Sutter, Dan Wells, Cassandra Khaw, and Howard Tayler So, you’re the hero of your own story, and the hero gets choices, and in many ways directs the story. In our discussion of interactive fiction and writing for games, the subject of “player characters” is essential. From the array … Continue reading 16.21: Player Characters →

• Characters, 
• Choose Your Own Adventure, 
• RPGs

NOTE: Some of these details have CHANGED as of June 9th, thanks to a very cool upgrade Royal Caribbean made to our sailing. The new information is marked in bold italics, and full details are available at the registration link. Join fellow writers for an in-depth masterclass at sea on board the Royal Caribbean’s Liberty … Continue reading WXR 2021: The Writing Excuses Cruise Masterclass →

Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, Cassandra Khaw, Dan Well, James L. Sutter, and Howard Tayler Let’s have a discussion about scenes and set pieces, and let’s lead with this: prose writers often create longer pieces using scenes as building blocks, and in this thing writing for game design is very, very similar. Scenes and set … Continue reading 16.22: Scenes and Set Pieces →

• Game Design, 
• Master Class, 
• Scene and Sequel, 
• Set Pieces

Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, Cassandra Khaw, Dan Well, James L. Sutter, and Howard Tayler Let’s talk about how players interact with the mechanics of the game, and what kinds of requirements those might put on the writers. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

• Game Design, 
• Master Class, 
• RPGs

Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dongwon, and Dan What’s this bonus episode thing? Well, for starters IT’S URGENT, because as of this writing you have just ten more days to get the promised pricing for WXR at sea in 2021. What ELSE is it? Well, this bonus episode describes the difference between workshops, retreats, and master … Continue reading BONUS EPISODE! 2021 WXR Early-Bird Announcement →

• Master Class, 
• WXR