20.01: Welcome to 2025!

20.01: Welcome to 2025!

Author: Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler January 5, 2025 Duration: 23:18

For our 20th season, we are focusing on your toolbox. We’re going to be thinking about tools in terms of the lenses that we use to approach a story. We’re going to focus on the four lenses of: who, where, when, and why (don’t worry– what and how will be looked at in a later season, since they’re more about execution and less about lenses.) Our hosts talk about the lenses they’re adopting as they look towards 2025. 


At the end of this season, we’re going to take all these lenses and apply them to one work: All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders


A note: we will now only have “thing of the week” occasionally, and not regularly! 


Homework: Make a list of the tools you already have in your toolbox. Now, as an intention, think of an area that you want a tool for. Over the course of this year, we’re going to try to help you find that tool. 


Sign up for our newsletter

Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, and Howard Tayler. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.

Join Our Writing Community! 

Patreon

Instagram

Threads

Bluesky

TikTok

YouTube



Our Sponsors:
* Check out MasterClass: https://masterclass.com/excuses
* Check out Quince: https://quince.com/wx
* Check out Talkiatry: https://talkiatry.com/wx
* If you’re struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NOCD can help. Book a free 15 minute call to get started: https://learn.nocd.com/wx


Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/writing-excuses2130/donations

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It’s a common piece of advice: if you want to be a writer, you should write. But what happens when you’re staring at the blank page, or when the business side of publishing feels like a maze? That’s where Writing Excuses comes in. Each week, hosts Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler gather not just to talk about writing, but to dissect it. They move quickly, respecting your time while packing episodes with actionable discussions on technique, from character voice to plot structure. But this podcast understands that a writing life isn’t just about craft-it’s also a career. So conversations naturally pivot to the practicalities of the business, navigating careers, and sustaining creativity in a demanding field. You’ll hear five distinct professional perspectives blending into a single, focused conversation designed to get you past excuses and back to your work. It’s like a regular, invigorating workshop session delivered directly to you, meant to equip you with tools for both your manuscript and your professional path.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 100

Writing Excuses
Podcast Episodes
19.50: All Systems Go [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:56
As the end of Season 19 approaches, we want to help you integrate what you’ve learned over the year. For December, we’ll be releasing episodes designed to help you make measurable progress on a writing project. So dust o…
19.49: Getting to Know You [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 22:14
As we wrap up our Close Reading Series, we’re shifting our focus towards helping you integrate what you’ve learned. For December, we’ll be releasing episodes designed to help you make measurable progress on a writing pro…
19.48: Beginning With A Thrill [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:56
As we wrap up our Close Reading Series, we’re shifting our focus towards helping you integrate what you’ve learned. For December, we’ll be releasing episodes designed to help you make measurable progress on a writing pro…
19.47: Final Thoughts on Our Close Reading Series [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 25:37
We reminisce on when we were on a writing retreat on a cruise in 2023, planning this close reading series. We have loved how this series grounded our conversations, allowing us to dive into works that were complex in spe…
19.46: An Interview on Structure with N.K. Jemisin [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:00
We had the pleasure of sitting down with N.K. Jemisin to talk about the structures and processes that helped create The Fifth Season. We talk about outlines, multiple plotlines, and planets as characters. Jemisin lets us…
19.45: A Close Reading on Structure: Tying It All Together [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 22:21
We’ve loved doing our close reading series throughout 2024, and The Fifth Season has been no different. Today, we’re reflecting on what we learned in our episodes focusing on N.K. Jemisin’s incredible work. We reflect on…
19.44: A Close Reading on Structure: Tradition and Innovation [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:12
Today we’re zooming out to see where N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season fits into the canon of fantasy literature. How does Jemisin interact with magic, words, and the expectations of the genre? And what expectations do the…
19.43: A Close Reading on Structure: Parallelism and Inversion [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 23:27
The structure of The Fifth Season features both mirroring and inversion. How do these structural shifts interact with the three POVs? On today’s episode, we talk about the parallelism of the perspectives and the linguist…
19.42: A Close Reading on Structure: Whose Perspective is it Anyways? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 21:56
Structure and POV (point of view) are often intertwined. In N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season, we see this in the myriad perspective shifts. In this episode, we talk about the importance of these shifts on the structure of…