Tag Archives: Productivity

Archive Seasons 11-15, Career and Lifestyle, Season 15

15.20: Mental Wellness and Writing

5 Comments

Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard

In this episode we’ll be talking about the things we do to stay creative, productive, healthy, and happy. For the purposes of this discussion, “mental wellness” is not about coping with mental illness, it’s about self-care.

Liner Notes: Here’s the gridded lifestyle tracker for the homework, lifted directly from Victoria’s Twitter feed.

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

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:37 — 17.0MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Get some paper and some colored pencils, and create a lifestyle tracker.

Lab Girl, by Hope Jahren

Archive Seasons 11-15, Career and Lifestyle, Guest, Season 15

15.18: Finding a Community, with Shauna Hoffman

10 Comments

Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, and Lari¹, with special guest Shauna Hoffman

Many Writing Excuses listeners (especially WXR alumni) already know Shauna Hoffman. She joins us to talk about how to deal with the fact that we, as authors, often feel isolated.

The listener question that sparked this episode: “How do you keep the pressure off when you feel alone?”

How indeed? If this feels timely, well, some of that is coincidence. And some, of course, is not².

Credits: This episode was recorded remotely³, using a variety of VOIP tools, and was mastered by Alex Jackson. 

¹ Larissa Helena is joining us as a guest host. She has worked as a literary agent, a translator, and a rights manager, and we look forward to hearing more from her this season.
² Yes, the irony of this being the first of our recorded-during-sparkling-isolation episodes is something we’re leaning into.
³ This is the first airing of a Writing Excuses episode in which the participants not physically present in the same room. We suspect it won’t be the last, and that we’ll get better at it. 

 

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:23 — 14.1MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Make a list of people you can reach out to this week—people who might inspire you, help you feel like part of a community.

Guy Free Working on Me, by Shauna Hoffman

Archive Seasons 7-10, Career and Lifestyle, Season 09

Writing Excuses 9.54: Capstone to Season 9

10 Comments

As 2014 draws to a close we say goodbye to Season 9, and talk a bit about what we’ve each learned this year.

  • Howard explained the surprising changes that came with a change in his work space
  • Mary told us how she reached a new understanding of pacing
  • Brandon talked about how recent time pressures have informed his writing process
  • Dan learned why he is writing

Hopefully our discussions of how we’ve changed as writers this year will offer you some insight into how your own writing has developed, and how you might take steps to develop it in the future.

We also talk about how Season 10 is coming, and is going to be a bit different than seasons past.

Thing We Failed To Do: get a picture of the possum. It turns out that those things are sneaky, and none of us a very good photographers.

Can of Already Open Worms: Writing for fun. “Didn’t you guys just talk about that?” Yes, we did, in an episode that was recorded 3 months later, but which aired just last week.

 

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:54 — 20.5MB)

Subscribe: RSS

What did you learn or accomplish this last year, and what are you hoping to learn in the coming year? Write this down, and then at the end of NEXT year, review what you wrote, and compare the reality of 2015 with your hopes for it here at the end of 2014.

Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat, by Bee Wilson, narrated by Alison Larkin

Archive Seasons 7-10, Career and Lifestyle, Guest, Season 08

Writing Excuses 8.52: You Think You Don’t Have Time to Write, with Mette Ivie Harrison

18 Comments

Mette Ivie Harrison joins us again, this time for a cast about productivity. She’s written an eBook, 21 Reasons You Think You Don’t Have Time To Write, which is currently free on the Kindle store. Here is the full list of 21 things, since we could spend an entire cast on just the first one.

The point here is to help you, the writer, to recognize the mental states and attitudes that are coming between you and your writing. It’s our hope that you’ll end up more productive, and we can’t think of a better thought upon which to end Writing Excuses Season 8.

Here is to a 2014 in which you write more, write better, and are happier doing it.

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:31 — 12.7MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Come up with a reason why the writer in your story absolutely cannot write, then have your writer manage to write anyway.

Metatropolis: Green Space, in which Mary has a story. Lots of writers, lots of narrators. Go have a look!