Tag Archives: Time Management

Career and Lifestyle, Live Audience, Season 17

17.51: Feel The Burn

December 18, 2022 Howard Tayler 6 Comments

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.

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

Subscribe: RSS

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

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

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

15.37: Writing Under Deadlines

September 13, 2020 Howard Tayler 8 Comments

Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard

What’s it like to write under a deadline which has been set for your project by someone else? What strategies might help you bring the writing in under the deadline? Can you train yourself to be ready for this?

Those are all good questions. Hopefully we won’t run out of time to come up with answers…

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:30 — 14.2MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Experiment with a “stay on target” time management tool, like the Forest focus app, or something similar.

Overly Sarcastic Productions (YouTube channel)

Archive Seasons 11-15, Career and Lifestyle, Live Audience, Season 15, Theory and Technique

15.08: Q&A on a Ship

February 23, 2020 Howard Tayler 4 Comments

Your Hosts: Dan, Mary Robinette, DongWon, and Howard

At WXR 19 we recorded live, and took audience questions aboard the ship. Here they are! (You’ll have to listen to the episode for the answers.)

What have you learned in the past year that has improved your craft?
When you’re having trouble, how do you know if it’s “I don’t feel like writing” or “there’s a problem with the manuscript?”
How far ahead do you plan your careers?
How do you tell when a fight/battle/showdown is going on for too long?
How do you continue to learn and improve on your craft?
How do you manage and prioritize your time when you’re working on multiple projects?
How do you feel about multiple first-person POVs in a single book?
What are the most important elements to include on the last page of your book?
What are some things we can do to strengthen our voice when writing in third person?
How do you decide who to have as alpha and beta readers?
In secondary world stories, how do you decide whether to call a horse a horse?
How much leeway will an editor or agent give a story when it’s not ready, but it shows promise?

Liner Notes: “Sometimes Writer’s Block is Really Depression”
Credits: This episode was recorded by Bert Grimm, and mastered by Alex Jackson

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:37 — 19.1MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Write three different first lines for your project.

Jade War, by Fonda Lee

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

Writing Excuses 9.54: Capstone to Season 9

December 29, 2014 Writing Excuses 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.

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, Guest, Q&A, Season 08, Theory and Technique, Uncategorized

Writing Excuses 8.50: Q&A with Mercedes Lackey

December 15, 2013 Writing Excuses 18 Comments

Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes the stars align and serendipity is made manifest. And sometimes Mercedes Lackey happens to be hanging around at the same convention you’re recording podcasts at, and sits herself down to answer questions with you. Or rather with us.

Here are the questions. You’ll need to listen to the podcast for the answers:

(For Mercedes) How do you stay relevant through the numerous changes in the industry?
How do you go about creating a title for a project?
Is blending 1st-person and 3rd-person viewpoints cheating?
(For Howard) Should marketing research be done before launching an online story?
When, where, and how do you end chapters?
How can you tell if you’re overusing narrative language?
How should a young writer balance their writing time against other activities?
What are the parts of being an author that you hate (specifically the non-writing parts)?
(For Mercedes) What advice do you have for finding alpha & beta readers?
Is it distracting to write out a character’s accent?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:47 — 14.3MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Eavesdrop on a conversation at the coffee shop, then go home and write the end of that conversation.

Bastion: Collegium Chronicles Book 5, by Mercedes Lackey, narrated by Nick Podehl.

Archive Seasons 1-6, Season 05, Theory and Technique

Writing Excuses 5.12: Time Travel!

December 12, 2010 Writing Excuses 36 Comments

Well, we’re back, and we’ve rescued our time travel episode. Unfortunately, almost all mentions of Lincoln have been redacted, and his gold is conspicuously absent. Instead, Brandon, Dan, and Howard all travel in time (sort of) to offer advice to our past selves.

What do we have to say to our earlier incarnations?

Stop playing video games.
What you’re doing is actually working. Keep doing it.
Stop waiting on your collaborator.
Don’t try to write to the market.
Try outlining all the way to the end.
Try new things.
Stop worrying.
You can make a living as an artist.

So… there’s the advice. Now listen to the ‘cast and get all of it in context.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Wee Free Men, by Terry Pratchett

Special Plug: Superstars Writing Seminar — Brandon will be presenting this January with Dave Wolverton, Kevin J. Anderson, Rebecca Moesta, Eric Flint, and Sherrilyn Kenyon.

Writing Prompt: Go forward in time and get next week’s writing prompt.

This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible.
Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*.
*Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please!

Audible® Free Trial Details
Get your first 14 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one audiobook credit. After your 14 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $14.95 per month so you can continue to receive one audiobook credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. A very small number of titles are more than one credit. Cancel your membership before your free trial period is up and you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. Any unused audiobook credits will be lost at cancellation.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (12.6MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Archive Seasons 1-6, Career and Lifestyle, Season 05

Writing Excuses 5.8: The Excuses You’re Out Of

October 24, 2010 Writing Excuses 73 Comments

We’re off to a great start, with a dangling preposition right there in the title.

We end each podcast with the tagline “you’re out of excuses, now go write,” but many people still come up with plenty of excuses. How does the professional writer deal with these sorts of things? We talk about the absence of the muse, the wrong space, the absence of ideas, discouragement, lack of time, distractions, and pants.

Howard’s pants, of course.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Hyperion, by Dan Simmons.

Writing Prompt: You need to change your shoes, or something awful is going to happen.

Full Circle: Pants at the beginning and the end. Oh, good. That means we wore them the whole time.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (13.1MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Archive Seasons 1-6, Career and Lifestyle, Q&A, Season 04

Writing Excuses 4.34: Q&A at Dragons & Fairy Tales

August 29, 2010 Writing Excuses 21 Comments

The last of our three recorded-live episodes is also the last episode of Writing Excuses Season 4. We took questions from the audience, and answered them with ABSOLUTE APLOMB.

Questions asked include:

How did we, as beginning writers, manage to write while holding down day-jobs and/or going to school?
What is the process for getting published?
How do you portray the various dynamics of an ensemble cast?
How do you keep tension up when death isn’t a problem for your characters?
How do you make the transition from writing fan-fiction to writing original fiction?
How important is it for an author to stay in touch with the fans online and at events?
What do you do when your cast of characters has grown too large for you to manage it?
What was the biggest stumbling-block for our creativity, and how did we overcome it?

You want the answers? Have a listen!

Writing Prompt: You walk out of a bookstore into torrential rain, and Howard attacks you with the POWER OF THUNDER.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (14.8MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Fifteen minutes long, because you're in a hurry, and we're not that smart.