Writing Excuses

Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, C.L. Polk, Fran Wilde, and Howard Tayler This is the "talking about how to talk about" talk. We begin by reviewing the difference between the medical model and the social model of disability. Liner Notes: This TikTok provides a nice explanation of the medical and social models of disability. There's also this essay, "The Linguistics of Disability" over at Fireside Fiction. Credits: This episode was recorded by Daniel Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, C.L. Polk, Fran Wilde, and Howard Tayler Okay, before we start, you have homework: Please take a few minutes to read this essay by Fran Wilde entitled "You Wake Up Monstrous." That will give you context for our discussion, which is about how body horror and other monstrous-ness is a tool we should be employing with great care. Credits: This episode was recorded by Daniel Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, C.L. Polk, Fran Wilde, and Howard Tayler Let's talk about technological body-modification! It's a common element in science fiction, but it's also an increasingly important part of the world we're living in right now. Liner Notes: In this episode we referenced "Happenstance," and Amy Purdy's quickstep from Dancing With The Stars. Credits: This episode was recorded by Daniel Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Fran Wilde, C.L. Polk, and Howard Tayler Let's talk for a bit about writing while disabled. This can mean anything from scheduling your craft around doctor's appointments, to learning to operate on a limited budget as defined by your body. You might be asking "I'm not disabled, so how does this pertain to me?" Well... you're not disabled currently. Eventually, as we age, we all experience disability. Liner Notes: Howard tweeted about his experience at the hand clinic. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Your Hosts: Mary Robinette and Howard Tayler, with special guests Fran Wilde, C.L. Polk, and William Alexander Whether or not you're writing from your own experience, depicting disability in fiction is fraught. In this episode we'll talk about some of the dos and don'ts in order to provide you with guidelines for disability depiction. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson 

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Your Hosts: Mary Robinette and Howard Tayler, with special guests Fran Wilde, C.L. Polk, and William Alexander For the next eight episodes we'll be talking about bodies, and how they don't all work the same way, and how this can be applied to our writing. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, Brandon Sanderson, and Howard Tayler, with special guest Seth Fishman Seth Fishman, author of seven picture books (as well as lots of longer-form stuff), joins us to talk about writing picture books, including some of the business and publication aspects. No-Context Pull Quote: "Your art is so bad we're going to hire someone to draw badly for you." Credits: This episode was recorded live by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, Brandon Sanderson, and Howard Tayler, with special guest Peng Shepherd Peng Shepherd joined us aboard Liberty of the Seas for WXR 2022, and returned with us to the topic of story structures. In this episode we answer questions from our live audience. The questions include: How do you make sure you've got the right number of plot threads? How do you spread the structure of a given plot line across multiple books? How do you avoiding having subplots distract readers from the main plot? What are some strategies you can use to better align character goals with the overall problem of the story? Are there clear dos and don'ts with regard to story structure? How do you prepare or color-code bits for running a role-playing game? More broadly: what organizational tools do you use for story structure? For the answers, you'll have to give the episode a listen... Credits: This episode was recorded live by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, Dongwon Song, Piper J. Drake, & Howard Tayler, with special guest K. M. Szpara CONTENT WARNING: this episode is about adult acts and adult bodies, and we won't be using euphemisms. K.M. Szpara joined us at WXR 2022 for this discussion of writing bodies and intimacy, with a particular focus on which kinds of words to use for things. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr. before a live audience aboard Liberty of the Seas. It was mastered by Alex Jackson. 

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Your Hosts: Howard Tayler, C.L. Polk, Marshall Carr, Jr., and Mary Robinette Kowal Oh no! You've put the project down for long enough that you've lost your place in it! Whatever will you do? For starters, you can listen to this episode. We've been there, and one of us is there right now. We talk about the different problems you're likely facing, and how to overcome them in order to find the thread and get moving again. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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