This week, we turn our attention to one of the most stubborn traps writers fall into: assuming someone else’s process should work for you. Building on last episode’s conversation about intentions, ...
Season 21 kicks off with a new theme, a fresh tagline, and a renewed focus on what Writing Excuses has always been about: tools, not rules. The hosts unpack why prescriptive writing advice so often...
As our 20th season comes to a close, we reflect on the end of 2025 and a major transition for the show, as Dan Wells steps away from Writing Excuses as a full-time core host. Dan shares the thought...
A workflow that made daily writing (and comics) possible—Howard Tayler takes us through two decades of the delightfully eccentric process behind Schlock Mercenary: text boxes in landscape Word, las...
2 quick reminders: Scholarship applications for our 2026 cruise are open now until December 31st, 2025. You can learn more and apply here. AND early bird pricing for this cruise (going to Alaska in...
This week, Mary Robinette pulls back the curtain on some of fiction’s sneakiest power tools: tone and mood. Drawing from a recent craft class she taught for her Patreon, Mary Robinette breaks down ...
In this episode, DongWon digs into one of the business topics of our upcoming craft book: pitching. How do you talk about your work so other people immediately understand its category, vibe, and wh...
Dan shares his experience of rebuilding and reinventing his writing career from his section of our forthcoming book Now Go Write. Our hosts walk through practical ways that writers can diversify th...
In this episode, Erin returns with the final two “rules” from her section of our forthcoming book Now Go Write—and why it might be worth breaking them. With DongWon and Mary Robinette, Erin explore...
In this episode, Erin shares a sneak peek from her section of our forthcoming book, Now Go Write. (To learn more about our book, sign up for our newsletter!) Erin explores four classic writing “rul...
We have an exciting announcement! Writing Excuses is publishing a book, Now Go Write, which will feature writing from all of our hosts! Sign up for our newsletter to learn when our book is coming o...
Erin and Howard sat down with paleontologist Dr. Tara Lepore for a fascinating dive into the science—and storytelling potential—of deep time. Dr. Lepore explains why paleontology is about far more ...
Erin describes her own writing process as, “a bunch of random practices thrown into a bag and shaken up." Nevertheless, for today’s episode, Erin managed to organize her processes into four categor...
We’re continuing our episodes focusing on our hosts’ personal writing practices. Like Mary Robinette’s. DongWon’s involves a bit of… chaos. DongWon’s day job as a literary agent is demanding a...
A lot of people ask published authors what their writing process is like, as if it is a key to being able to write. The only important process is the one that works for you. So, we’re going to...
Today our hosts tell you why you don’t need to listen to all of our episodes—or even most of them. Each of our five hosts weighs in on how you can combine the topics, subtopics, and lenses that eac...
We had the absolute joy of sitting down with Charlie Jane Anders, the author of the book we’ve focused on for our last four episodes (All the Birds in the Sky). We talked with Anders about POV, ton...
This is our final episode before we have Charlie Jane Anders on the podcast to talk about her writing process next week! Today we’re talking about intention by analyzing thematics, the author’s int...
If you still want to read All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders, you can purchase it here!We are looking today at the lens of when. But we’re not going to look at time periods—instead, we...
If you still want to read All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders, you can purchase it here!Today we’re talking about places and place-moments. We’re looking at how Anders uses context, det...
